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# A Decisive Evening
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/reshitelnyi-vecher/
- Published: 2023-07-18T20:06:11.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T09:23:40.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Books, People, Saint Petersburg, Humour

This evening I shall see you,  
This evening my lot will be decided,  
This evening I shall receive what I desire,  
Or an abschied into retirement!

And tomorrow, the devil take it, I shall get tight as a tick,  
I shall fly like an arrow in a dashing troika;  
‎Having slept it off as far as Tver, in Tver I shall drink again,  
And drunk I shall gallop to Saint Petersburg for more drinking!

But if happiness is appointed by fate  
For one who has been a stranger to happiness his whole life,  
Then... oh, even then I shall drink myself as drunk as a swine,  
And in my joy drink away the travel money along with the purse!

*Literal translation*

*Denis Davydov on his plans for the evening, 1818*