Love

by Alexander Pushkin

Bitterly groaning, jealous maid the youth was scolding;
He, on her shoulder leaning, suddenly was in slumber lost.
Silent forthwith is the maid; his light sleep now fondles she
Now she smiles upon him, and is shedding gentle tears.

Translators notes:
This poem is Pushkin all over. In four lines he has given a whole drama with a world of pathos and tenderness in it. These four lines give more instruction in the art of story-telling than volumes on the Art of Fiction. A magazine writer. who of the same incidents would have woven out some twenty pages (of which no fewer than nineteen and three-quarters would have been writ for the approval of check-book critic, rather than of the art critic), would have really told less than Pushkin has here told, -- so true is the preacher's criticism on his own sermon: Madame, if it had been shorter by half, it would have been twice as long!