A possibly confused sentence of Teffi

[Svetlana Grenier]

Не знаю, как могу смотреть на тебя и не кричать по-звериному, без слов,
-- не от страха, а от ужаса за тебя, за человека -- "глину в руках
горшечника", слепившего судьбу твою.
<<Глина в руках (в руке) горшечника>> is a reference to man/Israel in God's
hands, so I don't think it would be referring to the woman herself as
making choices that have brought her to this point.  The speaker feels
"horror for you, for a human being/person -- "clay in the potter's hands",
hands that had molded your fate in a terrible hour of ..."
*Cf. Слово Господне ко мне:не могу ли Я поступить с вами.дом
Израилев,подобно горшечнику сему?Говорит Господь.Вот что глина в руке
горшечника,то вы -в Моей руке,дом Израилев.Иеремия18:3-6*



On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 8:00 PM, Ksenia Adamovitch <adamovitchk at gmail.com>wrote:

> Grammatically speaking, she fears for the woman, not for someone who had
> shaped her life. Consider the sentence structure here:
>
> Не знаю, как могу смотреть на тебя и не кричать по-звериному, без слов,
> -- не от страха, а от ужаса за тебя, за человека -- "глину в руках
> горшечника", слепившего судьбу твою
>
> Taking out all the metaphors, poetry, etc, the bare-bones sentence reads:
>
> Как могу смотреть на тебя и не кричать от ужаса ЗА человека, слепившего
> судьбу твою.
>
> "Ужас за" means "terror for", not "terror of" - so, she is in terror for
> the person who molded this woman's fate, a fate she (Teffi) disapproves of?
> In context, that seems unlikely.
>
> My reading would be that she considering the woman herself the molder of
> her own fate, and is in horror at how this woman chose to mold her own
> life. I would say that she divides the woman into her current self, the one
> living this particular life, and the person n the past who made the
> decisions that led the woman to this life. However, I do believe that this
> is rather a poetic description of the woman as two people, than an actual
> description of two people, molder and "moldee".
>
> Best,
> Ksenia
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 7:34 PM, melanie moore <madeofwords at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hello, Robert,
>>
>> This is my understanding too, that Teffi is terrified for the other woman
>> who is no more than clay in the potter's hands and, presumably, therefore
>> more acted upon than acting despite her revolutionary fervour.
>>
>> Hope that helps.
>> Melanie
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 8:47 PM, Paul B. Gallagher <
>> paulbg at pbg-translations.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Robert Chandler wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear all,
>>>>
>>>> After a long and vivid description of a young woman, a brutal, austerely
>>>> idealistic revolutionary in a position of considerable power, Teffi (in
>>>> her imagination!) says this to her:
>>>> Не знаю, как могу смотреть на тебя и не кричать по-звериному, без слов,
>>>> -- не от страха, а от ужаса за тебя, за человека -- "глину в руках
>>>> горшечника", слепившего судьбу твою в непознаваемый рассудком час гнева
>>>> и отвращения...>>
>>>>
>>>> This is the same in several editions of /Vospominaniya/, including the
>>>>
>>>> first, but to me it doesn't quite make sense.  Something seems to go
>>>> wrong in the sentence at this point: а от ужаса *за тебя, за человека*
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The important question is this:
>>>> Am I right in thinking that Teffi is saying that she is horrified not by
>>>> the woman herself, but by whoever it is who is responsible for shaping
>>>> this woman's fate?
>>>>
>>>
>>> It seems to me as a nonnative that the part you flag is fine, but I read
>>> it differently:
>>>
>>> I don't know how I can look at you and keep from screaming like an
>>> animal, wordlessly -- not out of fear, but out of horror for you [as] a
>>> person...
>>>
>>> So to me the contrast is between fear and horror, not between the
>>> various reasons for horror.
>>>
>>> --
>>> War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
>>> --
>>> Paul B. Gallagher
>>> pbg translations, inc.
>>> "Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
>>> http://pbg-translations.com
>>>
>>>
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