[Ads-l] Request help with French: Quote: An empty carriage drove up to the stage door and Sarah Bernhardt alighted

[Chris Waigl]

Well, the first sentence has the deictic "y" ("there" most of the time)
, whose referent is unclear, and the verb "monter" ("ascend", "rise"),
which can mean a lot of things in context. The snippet at the link has a
sentence fragment quoting "dans les nuages" ("in the clouds"), which
relates to both the "ascend" sense and the idea of lightness... but I
can give it a stab...

===

Yes, she really ascended there, definitely, in the presence of a
sizeable audience of onlookers, of which I was a part. I was there when
an empty carriage[2] came out onto the *Carrousel* [1] and stopped in
front of the dense crowd. Mademoiselle Sarah Bernhardt stepped down from
it. Her veiled and submerged eyes were already swimming in an azure
bath; a light wind already seemed to lift her languidly; her airy curls
were buoyant; she only held on to the ground by the train of her dress.

===

[1] I'm which location this is, likely a square in Paris -- could be the
Carrousel du Louvre, but that one is in behind the museum, just off by
about 50 m compared to the location that I would expect it to be, at the
corner of the Palais Royal, where the Comédie Française is located.
(S.B. seems to have acted in the C. F. mostly throughout the 1870s.)
Maybe there was a different Carrousel (roundabout) there at the time, or
there might have been a reason for famous actors to get off a carriage
at the Carrousel du Louvre.

[2] I imagine in 1878 that "carriage" is the right translation, not "car".


On 4/29/17 11:51 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
> Date: December 14, 1878
> Periodical: La Revue Politique et Littéraire
> Series 2, Year 8, Number 24
> Article: Causerie Littéraire
> Start Page 568, Quote Page 569
> Publisher: Librairie Germer Baillière, Paris
> Database: Google Books Full View
>
> https://books.google.com/books?id=unlQAQAAMAAJ&q=%22voiture+vide%22#v=snippet&
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> Oui, elle y est bien montée, en effet, en présence d'un bon public de
> badauds dont je faisais partie. J'étais là quand déboucha sur le
> Carrousel et s'arrêta devant la foule compacte une voiture vide. Mlle
> Sarah Bernhardt en descendit. Ses yeux voilés et noyés nageaient déjà
> dans un bain d'azur; une brise légère semblait déjà la soulever
> mollement; ses boucles aériennes flottaient; par sa traîne seule elle
> tenait à la terre.
> [End excerpt]
>
>
> Garson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org