a few Teffi questions - and some wonderful answers!

[Robert Chandler]

Dear all,

Many people have come up with very helpful answers, on- and off-list.  My thanks to all of them.

I very much liked Alina Israeli's "Are the angels visiting you?" for  "Святые ангелы у вас, батюшка?" I pasted it in at once.  Now, though, I have received from Olga Meerson a suggestion I like even more: "Are your saints all angels, Father?"  Olga doesn't, of course, present this as definite. She writes, "I have reasons to believe that the confusion is deliberate: all the meanings hint at one another, just as with puns"

And the other really difficult sentence was
"Лики, милая, лики!.."  
I had settled, after reading all your suggestions, on "They're holy, my dear, holy!
Olga, however, suggests, "Hosts of them, dearest, hosts and hosts!"
This, of course, suggests angels.  And its being something of a non-sequitur is good.

Yet another confirmation of how wonderful it is to have a forum where one can ask this kind of question.  Few things are harder to translate than fragmentary and imperfectly articulated speech.

And, just in case, anyone is in London tomorrow, we have a Teffi evening at Pushkin House, Bloomsbury!
http://pushkinpress.com/talk-teffi-at-pushkin-house-17-june/

All the best, and thanks again to everyone!

Robert

> 
> Teffi is in Odessa in early 1919.  Odessa has been occupied by French troops, but these are now being evacuated.  Nearly everyone in Teffi's circle has already left, but Teffi has not yet managed to arrange for her own departure.  Feeling anxious, she drifts off into a reverie, remembering her visit to Solovki several years earlier.
> 
> Старенький монашек у глухой церковки далеко в глуби леса. На стенах церковки все архангелы: Михаил с мечом, Рафаил с кадилом, Варахиил, вертоградарь  райский, с розами в руках, и Гавриил, ангел благовещения, с веткой лилий, и Иегудиил — карающий, с бичами, и Силахиил, ангел молитвы, со сложенными руками, и Уриил, скорбный ангел смерти со свечой, перевернутой пламенем вниз.
> —   Святые ангелы у вас, батюшка?
> Старичок моргает, не понимает, не слышит:
> —  Куды? Куды?
> Улыбнулся мелкими лучиками сухих морщин.
> — Лики, милая, лики!..
> 
> My questions:
> 1. "Варахиил, вертоградарь  райский" - gardener or guardian?  Both seem possible, according to dictionaries.
> 
> 2. "Святые ангелы у вас, батюшка?" I don't understand this at all.  "Are your angels holy"? Or is it more along the lines of  "Do you have holy angels living with you?"?
> 
> 3. "Лики, милая, лики!.."  This seems still more difficult.  Perhaps just, "They're holy, my dear, holy!)
> 
> 4. And lastly, on the page after the memory of Solovki, some minor public figure calls on Teffi and laments how a friend has let him down, making false promises about how the French would look after him and his family:
> "Он клялся, что французы заберут нас всех. Назначил прийти за пропусками сегодня к одиннадцати… Мы сидели, как дураки, перед запертыми дверями до трех, и вдруг входит секретарь и выражает полное удивление нашим присущствием."
> The word that confuses me here is "входит".  Is it being used as a synonym for "prikhodit"?
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Robert
> 
> Robert Chandler, 42 Milson Road, London, W14 OLD
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 




Robert Chandler, 42 Milson Road, London, W14 OLD

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