Da tishe ty, domovoy!

[Robert Chandler]

Dear all,

These words are spoken by a peasant in Platonov’s Kotlovan.  He is
addressing a bear who is working, zealously but incompetently, in the
blacksmith’s forge.  The bear has already been addressed as ‘chort’.

In a few lines time another peasant will say to the bear:
‘Vyidi ostyn’, dyavol!  Umoris’, ‘idol sherstyanoy!’

Any suggestions for translations of ‘domovoy’ and ‘idol sherstyanoy?’

        – Ты, Мишь, бей с отжошкой, тогда шина хрустка не будет и не лопнет.
А ты лупишь по железу, как по стерве, а оно ведь тоже добро! Так – не дело!
        Но медведь открыл на Елисея рот и Елисей отошел прочь, тоскуя о
железе. Однако и другие мужики тоже не могли более терпеть порчи:
        – Слабже бей, чорт! – загудели они. – Не гадь всеобщего: теперь
имущество что сирота, пожалеть некому... Да тише ты, домовой!
        – Что ты так сóдишь по железу?! Что оно – единоличное что-ль?
        – Выйди остынь, дьявол! Уморись, идол шерстяной!

At present we have, for the last four of these lines:

‘Don’t beat so hard, you old devil!’ they wailed. ‘Don’t damage what’s
shared by us all!  Property’s like an orphan now – there’s no one to pity
it...  Take it easy, you demon!’

‘Why bash the iron like that?  It doesn’t belong to some privateer of a
kulak, is it?’ 

‘Go and cool off outside, you devil!  Pack it in, you fur-covered fiend!’

Ever hopefully,

Robert



[1] <#_ftnref1>  The French Slavist Annie Epelboin has written with regard
to this scene, ‘The bear symbolizes a prehistoric future.  (…)  He casts
doubt on the validity of the creation myth itself.  As an “unknown
proletarian”, representing the people as a whole, and as a blacksmith, the
bear is reminiscent of the “hammerer-bear” of Siberian myth who, by
inventing the forge, inaugurates cosmic and social order, presiding over the
creation of the world. Platonov’s bear, however, does not so much create the
world as annihilate it.  He is, at least potentially, the agent of ultimate
destruction.  Wanting to force open the doors of the future, he threatens to
return the world to primordial chaos. Wanting to force the pace, to
accelerate time, he shows us that time is reversible. [Annie Epelboin,
‘Metaphorical Animals and the Proletariat’ in Essays in Poetics, Autumn
2002, vol. 27 (Keele: Keele University), p. 181.


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