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trying to bridge the gap between Russian and English,
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but always finding that English is only a kind of second best.
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And in fact it's more than that:
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he translated Lolita back in to russian later on,
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and he added a second afterword
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where he said this: That wondrous Russian tongue that,
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it seemed to me, was waiting for me somewhere,
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was flowering like a faithful springtime behind a tightly locked gate
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whose key I had held in safekeeping for so many years,
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proved to be nonexistent.
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And there is nothing behind the gate
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but charred stumps and a hopeless autumnal distance,