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Message   Anton Shepelev    All   An exercise in transation   July 4, 2019
 2:00 AM *  

Since  it  is  much easier to indicate motes in others' eyes
than to notice beams  in  one's  own,  I  will  now  try  to
translate  a piece of artistic prose.  Prepare your brushes,
for motes are going to come aplenty.   Besides  the  general
clumsiness  of  my  rendition,  I am lost in tenses, weak in
vocabulary, and often have a hard time linking a  couple  of
words  into  a  phrase,  let  alone  composing  a  sentence.
Translating an accomplished writer is  more  difficult  than
expressing  one's  own simple thoughts.  I will be greateful
if  you  indicate,  and  help  me  correct,  my  errors  and
stylistic blunders and screamers:

Lying  on  wet snow in wait of a near death, Bianca suddenly
remembered the smell of her mother woven from  weak,  barely
recalled  odours:  of  her  warm thick milk, of dry hay with
patches  of  withered  bluebottles,  of  smokily  smoldering
folliage that people burned at their summer houses that very
first autumn of her commencing life.

The odour of smoldering leaves was one of  the  very  first,
and  therefore  special: pungent, thick, comprising all that
the brief earthly life of any leaf can have imbided: from  a
sticky  button shooting towards warmth unto a doomed descent
to the cold body of the earth.  Late  September  was  pining
away,  and  the  trees were shedding leaves all around.  The
mapple covered the still green grass with a  lush  mandarine
blanket.   Lazily yet somehow in concert, the poplars shaked
off their last ashen fluff.  The old willow, whose bole only
three  men  could embrace, littered the ground with its tiny
leaves inelegantly and widely (? -- too wide around?).   But
in  sunny  places  rowan  trees  were still posing daintily,
clothed in dim purple, the heavy bunches  of  their  berries
slightly  touched  by nightly colds, whereas a light yolkish
yellow entwined the tremulous aspens.

The short train of lucid  days  would  pass  all  too  soon,
cloudy  mirk  for  long  would  cover  the azure of the sky,
frequent rains would soak the trees to their very cores  and
the  gusty  northern wind would tear off the last leaves and
carry them off into the dirt, the puddles, the decay.   Then
winter would come.  Endless.  Cold.

But  Binca  had  not  known winter, nor had she seen summer.
Having come into the world in the  beginning  of  September,
she  perceived  autumn  as  the  eternal  state of the world
around her.

The sun caressed her shut eyes with its warm beams,  filling
with  pink  light  the  thin films of the (or her?) eyelids.
She felt the kindness of that light, and her commencing life
promised  her -- a  small  God's  creature -- love great and
interminable.

Her mother she did not know either.   By  touch  and  strong
smell  she found her rough nipples and fell to them, sucking
the milk greedily, choking,  and  without  an  idea  of  its
source.  She felt constant hunger and hurried to satiate it.

In  the  first  days,  she  slept  a  lot biside her mother,
partaking in her warmth.   Whenever  her  mother  left,  she
wouild  call  for her in weak, barely audible squeals.  Then
her  brothers  and  sisters  would  follow  suit  and  whine
plaintively.   And the mother would return.  Carefully, lest
she should harm the puppies, she would  lay  herself  beside
them.

---
 * Origin: nntps://fidonews.mine.nu - Lake Ylo - Finland (2:221/6.0)
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