Читать книгу Revenge of the Translator - Brice Matthieussent - Страница 32

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* The character Doris, the “servant with a big heart” and personal secretary to Abel Prote, seems insufficiently developed to me. Therefore, I will take the liberty of fleshing her out (without, of course, asking the permission of the author, who, decidedly lacking in common sense, remains a bit curt and uptight). After all, the ancillary functions merit our interest, don’t they … For example, in New York, when she proposes her professional services to David Grey, who accepts them gladly, I envisioned that she would soon offer him much more. What the young Grey doesn’t know is that Doris is already in a relationship with Abel Prote, the Parisian writer whose novel, curiously titled (N.d.T.), Grey is translating into English.

Hence Doris’s back-and-forths between Paris and New York, between Prote and Grey, bearing witness as much to her “big heart” as to the liberty of her morals. She is a well-read courtesan. In my version of the novel, Doris acts as a double agent, more of a corrupt muse than a faithful employee. (Temptress’s Dark Side)