Nabokov's Contradiction

It is interesting to me to look at the contradiction to one of previous articles we've read, that Nabokov makes. This being the degradation of the idea of "free translation." Which I've taken to mean: A translation that keeps more the meaning than the text in mind. This brings back the question of being able to call a free translation anything other than an adaption. "The clumsiest literal translation is a thousand times more useful than the prettiest paraphrase." Then, at the end of the essay, he asks for the "skyscrapers" of footnotes that someone else that I don't remember the name of wanted to forego, for instead a looser, more "free translation," in order to convey the feeling and meaning more than the strict literal translation. The last sentence seems to indicate that Nabokov will never finish translating Onegin because it is impossible to translate, and to do it imperfectly would ultimately serve no one ever again. And over and over and over, amen. I am unclear whether Nabokov decides it is impossible to translate all poetry, or if he just means Russian to English/French poetry, or what...