Calling all experts on Bulgakov and Cheka fashion

[William Ryan]

Diagonal' is a kind of cloth with diagonal weave. I think perhaps the 
trousers were made of this cloth DOWN to (not UP to) the knees, and that 
the lower part was flared, i.e. he was in bell-bottomed trousers. 
Sailors' tops were called fufaiki - so perhaps this bronze-chested 
apparition was a sailor?

Will

On 26/01/2011 11:53, Muireann Maguire wrote:
> Dear SEELANGERs,
>
> A belated thank you to everyone who responded to my enquiry about previous
> translations of Bulgakov's 1922 short stories, 'Spiriticheskii seans' and
> 'Krasnaia korona'. I'm writing now with a fresh query.
>
> Halfway through 'Spiriticheskii seans', a police agent overhears gossip that
> leads him to report the unsuspecting Spiritualists for conspiracy. Bulgakov
> has a lot of fun describing this police agent. My translation is fairly
> literal here, and I'm particularly confused by the agent's clothing, which
> almost might have been designed by Aleksandra Ekster for an extra in
> 'Aelita'. Additionally, I'm not sure whether the agent is meant to be
> understood to be wearing a uniform (hence his extraordinary trousers), or
> simply rather unusual clothes. If he is in uniform, would anybody be able to
> tell me to which branch of the Cheka, or indeed any other police force of
> 1922, he might belong?
>
> Here's Bulgakov's original (transliterated, as my Cyrillic text always gets
> turned to gobbledygook when I post):
>
> "Dver' v kvartire No. 3 khlopnula, i po lestnitse dvinulsia vniz bravyi v
> neobyknovennykh stanakh [...] Stany do kolen byli kak shtany, iz khoroshei
> diagonali, no ot kolen rasshirialis', rasshirialis' i stanovilis' kak
> kolokola. [...] Kvadratnaia bronzovaia grud' raspirala fufaiku, a na bedre
> tusklo i mrachno gliadelo iz kozhanoi shtuki vostronosoe dulo"
>
> And my translation (if 'bravyi' should be 'bravo' rather than 'gallant',
> please advise):
> "The door of Apartment No. 3 banged, and down the stairs came a gallant in
> unusual trousers... Up to the knees, the trousers were quite ordinary, cut
> at normal angles, but from the knees up, they widened out until they looked
> like bells.
> A jersey strained across his square, bronze-coloured chest, and on his hip
> the narrow muzzle of a gun peeped dully and gloomily out of a leather holster."
>
> All advice gratefully accepted! Please reply off-list to
> muireann.maguire at googlemail.com.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Muireann Maguire
> Wadham College, Oxford
>
>
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