Зеркальное окно-фонарь =?utf-8?Q?=3A_?=[SEELANGS] Teffi - "Rasputin"

[Robert Chandler]

Dear all,

I thought I should share this very helpful suggestion I received off line:

I have a thought about the "zerkal'noe okno" -- it IS mirrored, but only
on one side.  If one searches Google Images for the phrase, one sees, for
the most part, precisely these mirrored windows, which are clear from the
inside, but do not allow outsiders to peer in:

This is Teffi's position: she's observing, unobserved.  And the fact that
it is an oriel window allows her to lean in and get a panoramic view of
the city, while the junior officer and the recruits -- who are practicing
their bayonet techniques on a dummy strung up on a kiosk or lamppost --
are none the wiser.

All the best,

Robert

> As an alumnus of Oriel College Oxford who once compiled an English-Russian dictionary, and wrestled with this word, I can confirm that окно-фонарь can indeed be an oriel window, i.e. a multi (usually three) facetted window projecting out from a wall, but is more usually a "lantern window" i.e. a kind of skylight. Dal's dictionary description (Фонарь, фонарик, выступ в здании на весу, башенка с окнами, привешенная к стене) is not entirely clear, and he does not list the more specific word for an oriel window "эркер", which is what I settled for in my dictionary. 
> I suggest that that the "mirror" bit is perhaps because the scene in the street is being seen as a kind of reflected panorama in a multi-sided window opposite the viewer, although the preposition через might argue against that.
> 
> Will Ryan
> On 20/07/2013 12:16, R. M. Cleminson 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.
>> 
>> 
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Robert Chandler, 42 Milson Road, London, W14 OLD

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