'From Themes and Variations, Variation 3, in B. Pasternak, Poeziya: Izbrannoe, Frankfurt, Posev, 1960, pp. 103-104. 2The present translation is based on the revised text of Sestra moya zhizn published in B. Pasternak, Stikhotvoreniya i poemy, Moscow, 1961, pp. 46-47. In this posthumous Soviet edition of Pasternak's selected poetry the third and fourth stanzas of "My Sister Life" are given in-and here translated from-a previously unpublished variant, although the editors offer no explanation for the appearance of this or of several other variants of early Pasternak poems. The original version of this poem may be found in Poeziya . . ., p. 76.