Gogol sentence

[Robert Chandler]

Dear Russell,

I don't know a technical term for this - but isn't it the kind of repetition one uses after a long digression, when one wants to gather everything together again and get on with the main part of the sentence?

Something like: "Wherever you are, whether in A or B or C or D or E -- wherever you are, you are certain to encounter...

I think we use much the same construction in English as in Russian.  But we would repeat the verb ("you are" in my example) and, nowadays at least, we would probably use a dash.

All the best,

Robert

On 26 May 2012, at 05:09, Valentino, Russell wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>  
> I’m having trouble parsing this sentence from Dead Souls, Part I, Chapter V.
>  
> “Vezde, gde by ni bylo v zhizni, sredi li cherstvykh, sherokhovato-bednykh i neopriatno-plesneiushchikh nizmennykh riadov ee, ili sredi odnoobrazno-khladnykh i skuchno-opriatnykh soslovii vyshhikh, vezde khot’ raz vstretitsia na puti cheloveku iavlen’e, ne pokhozhee na vse to, chto sluchalos’ emu videt’ dotole, kotoroe khot’ raz probudit v nem chuvstvo, ne pokhozhee na te, kotorye suzhdeno emu chuvstvovat’ vsiu zhin’.”
>  
> The first “vezde” seems to go with the whole phrase “vezde, gde by ni bylo,” meaning “wherever.” But the second “vezde” seems fragmented and incomplete. It suggests something more like “somewhere” rather than “everywhere,” such that the phrase would mean, “somewhere, at least once, a man is fated to meet…”
>  
> Or have I missed something?
>  
> Thanks in advance.
>  
> Russell Valentino
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Robert Chandler, 42 Milson Road, London, W14 OLD

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