Teffi - "Rasputin"

[Robert Chandler]

Dear Mr Cleminson, 

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply to Anne Marie's questions.  But there are moments when you seem to forget that a translator has to understand not only individual words but also how they fit together.  So looking up фонарь in Dal' is a good start, but it doesn't really get one very far unless one can also make sense of зеркальное.  (Thank you, Steve Marder, for helpfully pointing out that зеркальное окно" = plate-glass window.)  Nevertheless, I think this still remains difficult.  Surely plate glass is for large shop windows, glass doors, not for small oriel windows?  Perhaps here it simply means that it is good quality glass, and that you can see very clearly through it?

Аnd the image of the sunset is still more complex.  A 'tsvetnoi karandash', surely, can be a coloured pencil or crayon.  
Небо, еще без солнца, чуть-чуть розовело на востоке, и легкая, свинцовая дымка, точно растушеванный карандашный мазок на алой пропускной бумаге, обозначала место, откуда прорвутся лучи. 
I had imagined, because this is the place where the sun's rays will burst through, that there would be some colour here. свинцовая, however, indicates the opposite.  So it seemed likely that there was something here that Anne Marie and I were failing to understand and I encouraged her to ask Seelangers about this passage.  One wouldn't normally, by the way, see "smudged pencil shading" on blotting paper.  Anne Marie, by the way, is translating this story - and I am helping a litle.

All the best,

Robert

On 20 Jul 2013, at 12:16, "R. M. Cleminson" <rmcleminson at POST.SK> wrote:

> What Jan Zieliński has provided a link to is an oriel window; that this is indeed the meaning of окно-фонарь could easily have been ascertained by looking up фонарь in Dal's dictionary.  I confess I do not really understand the meaning of зеркальное in this context, unless it simply means that one could see one's reflection in it.
> 
> As for "растушеванный карандашный мазок", this is rather "smudged pencil shading"; as Seelangers will recall from an earlier exchange, карандаш is graphite, which, in English at least, is pencil, not crayon.
> 
> ----- Pôvodná správa -----
> Od: "Anne Marie Jackson" <annemarie.jackson at ROCKETMAIL.COM>
> Komu: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> Odoslané: sobota, 20. júl 2013 10:50:54
> Predmet: [SEELANGS] Teffi - "Rasputin"
> 
> Dear everyone
> 
> I wonder if anyone can make sense of the 'зеркальное окно-фонарь' referred to in the text below, taken from the beginning of Teffi's account of meeting Rasputin.
> 
> 
> 
>   Петербургская оттепель. Неврастения.
> 
>   Утро не начинает нового дня, а продолжает вчерашний, серый, тягучий вечер.
> 
>   Через большое зеркальное окно-фонарь видно, как на улице унтер- офицер учит новобранцев тыкать штыком а соломенное чучело. У новобранцев сизые, иззябшие сыростью лица. Баба с кульком, унылая, уставилась и смотрит.
> 
> 
> Might this be a skylight?  But if it is, then how is it that Teffi is able to see down onto the street?  Are the sides mirrored, and the soldiers on the street reflected in the mirror(s)?  Or is there a less complicated explanation?  Might the зеркальное окно-фонарь be a bay window?  
> 
> Whatever it is, what exactly is mirrored?  
> 
> Thank you for any ideas!!
> 
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Robert Chandler, 42 Milson Road, London, W14 OLD

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