Читать книгу Revenge of the Translator - Brice Matthieussent - Страница 16

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* The bar, the lid under which I marinate in my gravy, this lifeless slab, reminds me sometimes of the fish sleeping at the bottom of the turbotiere, hermetically sealed before being cooked, cut, and savored. Meanwhile the other man strutting on the floors above plays the charlatan, the street peddler, luring customers in with his stentorian voice and turnstile arms, gathering visitors onto whom he offloads his glass beads and multicolored strings, to swindle them and convince them on top of it all that they have taken part in a grand affair … I’m thrilled to shut him up.

But I am no longer within the confines of my role, I overstep my duties, I forget my place, as they say. Frankly, what’s the point of losing my temper? Am I jealous? Claustrophobic? Probably a bit of both. I must bring myself back to task, curb my delirium, rediscover the lucid, the serious, rigor and sobriety, precision and concision, discreet and efficient erudition, etc., etc., etc. For I am—as we all know—a humble artisan, the man behind the scenes, the coal miner digging in the darkness of his tunnel, his dictionaries serving as his only light, his wisdom his only tool, fidelity and drudgery his only objectives, even though infidelity and laziness are the two mammary glands of the novel!

The mole digs his underground tunnels, the other above parades and struts before his audience of admirers and flatterers.

Enough. (Delirium’s Mainspring)