Observe, Pushkin the real does not appear before the reader with a solemn affirmation, Yes, or No, nor that he remembers it _well_. He tells the story in such a way that the reader knows without being told that he does indeed remember it well! Nor does he weaken the effect by saying that he remembers the _meeting_, which is too extended, but the _moment_, which is concentrated. And Pushkin's imagination was moreover too pure to let a _fleeting_ phantom _dawn_ upon his sight. To have tried for a rendering which necessitated from its very limitations _such_ falsities, would have been not only to libel poor Pushkin, but also to give the reader poor poetry besides. [Footnote 1: Blackwood's Magazine, lviii. 35, July, 1845.] 6. The translation being literal, I have been able to retain even the punctuation of Pushkin, and especially his dots, of which he makes such frequent use. They are part of his art; they express by what they withhold. I call especial attention to these, as Pushkin is as powerful in what he indicates as in what he shows, in what he suggests as in what he actually says. The finest example of the highest poetry of his _silence_ (indicated by his dots) is the poem I have entitled "Jealousy," to which the reader is particularly requested to turn with this commentary of mine (p. 114). The poet is melted with tenderness at the thought of his beloved all alone, far-off, weeping. The fiendish doubt suddenly overpowers him, that after all, perhaps his beloved is at that moment not alone, weeping for him, but in the arms of another:-- Alone ... to lips of none she is yielding Her shoulders, nor moist lips, nor snow-white fingers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . None is worthy of her heavenly love. Is it not so? Thou art alone.... Thou weepest.... And I at peace? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . But if . . . . . . . One must be all vibration in order to appreciate the matchless power of the dots here. The poem here ends. I know not the like of this in all literature. 7. Wherever I could ascertain the date of a poem, I have placed it at the end. The reader will thus at a glance find at least one of the proper relations of the poems to the poet's soul. For this purpose these two dates should be borne constantly in mind: Pushkin was born in 1799; he died in 1837.