Читать книгу Revenge of the Translator - Brice Matthieussent - Страница 45

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* Three weeks before Easter, Abel Prote and David Grey decide to exchange their apartments for two weeks. It’s an entente cordiale, at least in appearance. After the storm, a lull rife with suspicion and ulterior motives. In Manhattan, Prote will live temporarily in the two-room apartment in SoHo where Grey normally lives: a light-filled living room with white walls, a large bedroom stripped of anything superfluous, where Grey does his translation work looking out onto a calm interior courtyard. As for David, he will reside during that time in Abel Prote’s Parisian apartment, a vast and somber residence situated on the ground floor of a former eighteenth-century mansion, in the middle of the Latin Quarter. Before leaving for New York, Prote gives him a tour of the place in order to supply Grey with all the indispensable practical instructions for his Parisian stay. Despite the blue spring sky, the lamps need to be turned on in the middle of the day. In the office and the living room-dining room, high windows with small panes look out onto a courtyard with uneven cobblestones where two large hundred-year-old chestnut trees hang over the multicolored flowers of the few flowerbeds carefully maintained by the building concierge.

In the middle of the bathrooms is a deep bathtub of enameled steel, standing on four clawed feet, each one clasping a shiny brass ball; the bulbous faucets provide a parsimonious stream that leaves traces of concentric rust at the bottom of the basin. Throughout the apartment, the paint, discolored and flaking in places, has clearly not been redone in many years. There are drab tapestries—depicting Diana’s bath, a hunting scene, the passing of a comet above a bucolic landscape where rural peasants seated on the threshold of their cottages raise their astonished eyes toward the black sky streaked with a thin pale stripe—all these images darkened with time suck even more light out of the rooms and accentuate the feeling of a permanent dusk. A great heavy armoire of dark wood, half embedded in the wall of the corridor, almost blocks the passageway entirely; its two doors don’t close properly. The apartment has belonged to the Prote family since the Second Empire. An only child, Abel inherited it after the death of his father, the publisher Maurice-Edgar Prote, killed in a plane accident at the end of the 50s, on his way back from New York, where he had gone to see publisher or writer friends and had met a few newcomers to the American literary scene. September 6, 1959, issue 4608 of the newspaper Le Figaro announced the catastrophe on the first page, next to a column consecrated to “the latest incident in the Far East”:

Not Long After Takeoff …

A SUPER CONSTELLATION FALLS AND SINKS INTO THE RIVER SHANNON

Of the fifty-six passengers and crew members, twenty-eight died, including the famous Parisian publisher M.-E. Prote.

Abel Prote intends to study the New York setting of (N.d.T.) himself and thus to contribute to what will, by mutual agreement, not be a simple English translation of his novel, but a new version, another book, written by three or four hands, shared between author and translator in a ratio that has yet to be determined. And let’s not forget the lovely little hands of the beautiful Doris, who perhaps will slide herself among this hairy bunch of male fingers to participate in their work, but also sometimes to divert their studious energy toward less austere activities.

In fact, Doris will arrive from New York at the end of the night and meet David at Prote’s apartment. Oddly enough, she will be crossing paths with Prote in the middle of the sky.

Alone in the lugubrious Parisian apartment since the owner’s departure around five in the evening (“Au revoir, bon voyage!” “Merci, bon séjour à vous”), David Grey wanders around for a moment from room to room, enters the living room, follows the obstacle course of old-fashioned furniture, sits in a deep madder red armchair with frayed armrests, and distractedly rereads a few passages of (N.d.T.). He spends two hours like this before undertaking an in-depth visit of the apartment. My author is on his plane, he thinks with sudden determination. Let’s go.

He leaves the dark and humid living room and decides to begin with the writer’s office, at the end of the hallway. It’s a large room, somber and silent, with a creaky parquet floor covered with old rugs. The two high windows are covered with heavy burgundy wall hangings. Several shelves filled with books, some faded, climb to the ceiling. David turns on the light.

A large painting, wider than it is long, soberly surrounded and illuminated by a brass wall light, is hung opposite the windows. David approaches, stops in front of it. A black vertical bar divides the canvas into two equal parts. On the left half, David notices a series of black horizontal lines on a white background, some long, some short, that run between two white margins. The right half of the painting repeats the same pattern: they appear to be pages of an open book painted on the two halves of the painting, especially because the vertical median line strongly resembles that shadow line where the left page and the right page of a book normally meet the central binding. But unlike a typical book, in which every odd page differs in its appearance and contents from the facing even page, it’s as if the painter wanted to duplicate the appearance and contents of the left page on the right. The painting depicts the same page twice, excessively enlarged. David draws even closer and notices with surprise that, seen from up close, all the words are illegible: the painter has depicted only phantoms of words. Not the words themselves, but in a way their mass, their symbol, the image of these words, if one can say that words have an image. Comparing the two halves of the painting, the translator notices that the copy on the right is not completely consistent: the small drips, the width of the margins, the length of the black lines, the spaces between the lines, and even the thickness of the blacks differ from their counterparts on the left. In fact, which half of this painting is the original, and which is the copy? And what is the name of this artist, who obviously cannot sign his canvas on the bottom right as he usually does without disturbing the fragile symmetry? And why did Prote choose to hang this painting in his office?

Leaving these questions unanswered, David pivots toward the large dark wooden desk and the comfortable stuffed armchair with its back to the windows. A gray computer sits next to a small printer and a few volumes with broken spines, piled there with care. Suddenly intrigued, David examines the books one after another.

At the top of the pile, he finds a worn copy of Nabokov’s Despair. A note written by Prote is on the flyleaf: “The narrator drives a blue Icarus.” That’s all. Disappointed, David puts the slim novel back on the desk.

Beneath it, he discovers a recent edition of Extraordinary Tales by Edgar Allan Poe. David leafs through the volume and quickly sees that the entire story entitled “The Pit and the Pendulum” is copiously annotated in the margins, in that thin chicken scratch handwriting that he recognizes immediately. David deciphers a few of Prote’s notes: “The threat comes from below, then from above, then once again from below.” A bit farther on: “The jail of the Inquisition is hermetically sealed, with neither entrance nor exit, with no visible secret passage, but equipped with sophisticated mechanisms.”

Intrigued, David then picks up a worn copy of Joyce’s Ulysses. On the cover, he notices a small violet speck, a bloody fragment of crushed insect nearly encrusted in the laminated cardstock, like a tiny star.

Next, a biography of the science fiction writer E.T. A. Hoffmann, from which falls a yellowed press clipping whose jumbled typeface evokes the French newspapers of the interwar period. It’s an article from an issue of Paris-Soir dated June 22, 1937:

Is Ubiquity Possible After All?

Science confirms for us that at a given moment an individual or object can occupy only a single position in space. Only Christ, whom certain witnesses of the time swear to have seen simultaneously in various places, possessed the miraculous gift of ubiquity. Only Christ? That might be about to change …

For on the night of June 21, the summer solstice, the celebrated Parisian publisher Maurice-Edgar Prote held a large reception in his mansion in the Latin Quarter. He was celebrating his fifteen years as a discoverer of young literary talent. Numerous important people, whose good faith cannot be doubted, confirm that M.-E. Prote did not leave his mansion for the entire reception, meaning between 6:30 pm and 11:50 pm. However, it turns out that at the same time, witnesses who are just as credible claim to have met Maurice-Edgar Prote in the Odéon theater, where the sublime American actress Dolores Haze, a very close friend of the celebrated publisher according to reliable sources, was celebrating the hundredth performance of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, the play that introduced her to the Parisian public.

How the editor could be in his mansion and at the Odéon theater at the same time is a mystery that today we have asked him to explain over the telephone. “I am like everyone else,” Prote answered humorously. “I cannot be in two places at once. Ubiquity exceeds my modest talents. Nevertheless, in my fifteen years of publishing, I have learned one thing: it is important to be at the right place at the right time.” Asked about this sibylline statement, M.-E. Prote then gave us this enigmatic response: “I am often where people don’t see me coming. But I never make people wait when I promise to come see them.”

The reader will surely appreciate his response …

Why did Abel Prote, the son of Maurice-Edgar, slide this press clipping into a biography of E.T. A. Hoffmann? David Grey wonders. A vague memory comes back to him: didn’t the German writer and composer live in a strange apartment with a door that opened directly onto an opera balcony box? Like the eardrum in the cranium, that thin wooden partition separated his private universe from the great baroque hall echoing with singers’ voices, orchestral music, the audience’s applause. But, reflects David, Prote’s mansion is more than one hundred yards from the Odéon theater. So it wouldn’t be a secret door in this case, but an underground tunnel, a long secret passage.

Continuing with his indiscreet investigations, David takes the next book from the pile on the desk: New Impressions of Africa by Raymond Roussel. The red back cover displays a sort of sun or white star casting its rays toward the four corners of the book. David opens the slim volume in which all the pages on the left are entirely blank and, that’s luck for you, falls immediately on page 25, marked with an envelope bearing the name Abel Prote. After a moment of hesitation, curiosity overtakes him. With a nervous hand, David opens the envelope, takes out the letter, and reads:

Bravo, my dear David, and shame on you.

You have arrived at the last volume in my pile of books, not on my bedside, but on my desk. (For the first time, David blushes.)

I hope that this passage by Raymond Roussel will help you to translate my Rousselien Note at the beginning of (N.d.T.) without too many hiccups. (Indeed, I had a hell of a time with those rubbish lines.)

I am a mediocre chess player, nevertheless I know to anticipate a few basic moves of my opponent. You’re almost done with this room, my office.

Simply look up.

See you soon.

Faithfully yours,

Abel Prote

P. S. Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria, king of England and Ireland between 1901 and 1910, “was especially interested in foreign policy and initiated the Entente Cordiale with France,” we learn from the Petit Larousse (100th edition, 2005). What the prude dictionary does not say is that at the beginning of the last century, the English king often came to Paris incognito. He would arrive at Gare du Nord by private train. Once he had disembarked from his car, he would take an aboveground walkway personally reserved for him that allowed the gallivanting king not only to escape from potential attacks, but most importantly to discreetly arrive at a luxury brothel where he was probably the only client during his very private visits. No doubt wearing a disguise, he would thus fortify certain carnal aspects of the famous “Entente Cordiale” by joining in himself, if I may say so.

Why, David, am I sharing this historical anecdote with you? Because of the trip, the anonymity, the disguise, the implicit eroticism. Because as a translator, you are interested, like Edward VII, in “foreign policy,” you are striving for your own entente cordiale … Because traveling, the unknown, disguises—and perhaps even implicit eroticism—fit you like a glove, all you translators.

And then also because, if the king of England formerly had the run of his private aboveground walkway, the subordinates like you, me, and so many others instead have the tendency to creep beneath the earth to quench our desire. You will understand soon enough.

The tour continues, follow the guide …

Agitated, under the disagreeable impression of having been hoodwinked and taken for a ride ever since the owner’s departure from his home, of having been led to the chessboard by a stronger player, David nevertheless obeys Prote’s instruction and looks up. The corkboard above the writer’s desk, between two windows, displays a mass of photos, postcards, press clippings, invitation cards, reminders—“call Doris,” “write to Doris,” “gift for D.”, “don’t back down on anything with Gris”—and, in the middle of this clutter, the neon green rectangle of a Post-it on which David, drawing closer, reads this quotation, copied down by Prote’s meticulous hand: “The translator will have to put it into one of those footnotes that are the rogue’s galleries of words.” Nabokov, Pale Fire. The murderous quotation is followed by this venomous commentary by the French writer: “Translator’s Night. I see from here my valiant D.G. add to the bottom of the page a fastidious ‘Untranslatable play on words’ before getting tangled up in one of his depressing explanations.” David then understands that the apparent disorder of the corkboard, that shelf of various scraps of paper, seemingly through pure accident, is the result of a meticulous staging. What was that earlier about an entente cordiale?

Furious, vexed, he turns his back to the desk, to the corkboard and its multicolored patchwork, then takes off in big strides toward the hallway plunged into darkness. The entire apartment suddenly feels like a trap, filled with snares, as if Prote, the great chess player, had anticipated the every move of his American tenant. David briefly considers leaving to take refuge in a nearby hotel, but despite his mounting unease, the temptation to stay and continue his exploration is too strong, no matter the cost to his pride.

For example, that large armoire, which seems to be installed purposefully in the middle of the hallway to keep people from moving. Hideous opulent-looking piece of furniture, also in dark wood, covered in overly ornate spirals and slightly ajar as if purposefully to provoke curiosity. But before taking a closer look, David goes back to the bar in the living room, opens the glass doors, takes out a bottle of port, and serves himself a large glass. He then notices the label depicts a man wearing a large cape and a big black hat that plunges his face into shadow, like Aristide Bruant. The brand is Sandeman, like “l’homme au sable.” The translator drains his glass in one go and turns back to the armoire obstructing the hallway. He pushes opens the heavy doors, then examines what’s inside by the dim light of the only weak light bulb illuminating the hallway.

For just a moment, David raises his eyes towards the glimmering filament and, fascinated, discovers something he did not notice during his recent tour of the apartment, under Prote’s guidance: opposite the sinister armoire, the entire wall is covered in a fresco painted in a trompe l’oeil style, divided in two equal parts by a horizontal line at eye level. Beneath the horizon, the green, immobile waves of a marine landscape unfurl toward the ground; above and up to the ceiling stretches a stormy sky where a single bird is flying, perhaps a seagull or an albatross, which seems to be moving away as fast as it can. And in the middle of the hallway, just opposite him, right next to a tower covered in foliage, a dislocated puppet with a black braid protruding diagonally toward the lower left corner of the fresco seems to be flying toward the clouds or falling toward the sea. Suddenly dizzy, David turns back toward the gaping doors of the armoire.

In the shadows of the nearly empty shelves, he thinks he hears Prote’s voice:

“Easter is quickly approaching. I rather like that primarily Anglo-Saxon tradition of hiding painted eggs in the corners of an apartment or of a garden to excite the curiosity of children. I know you’re there. Now keep searching. There are still several eggs for you to discover.”

David takes a step forward, then opens the wooden panels. Their interior is entirely covered in smooth purple velvet. An altarpiece, he thinks, it looks like an altarpiece. Ties striped with somber colors and patterns are lined up on the left panel, bowties are hanging from a horizontal string pinned up on the right side. These two parentheses, striped on the left, sprinkled with multicolored polka dots to the right, encase a few dark wooden shelves, which at first glance are nearly empty.

A model Super Constellation sits in the middle of the top shelf. David picks up the thin fuselage carefully, squeezing the plastic tube interspersed with windows, just as at low tide one might catch a crab between the rocks: you have to close your thumb and index finger in a horseshoe shape just behind the pinchers to evade the crustacean’s hostility. The wings of the model come a bit unstuck, David handles it with caution. Like a connoisseur, he admires the silhouette of the machine, then, from front to back, the oval shape of the nose, the contours of the cabin, the roundness of the windows, the curve of the fragile wings, the ovular twin tail. Easter eggs. Hiding places. When he points the Super Constellation to the ground, a small hard object clinks around inside the long slender tube. Then David points the plane’s nose toward the ceiling, as if to make it take off at a twenty-degree angle, and the same invisible object rolls inside again, this time toward the tailplane. A hidden treasure? A chocolate egg several decades old? A clue of more things to discover? No. To chase away the thought, he blows on the model, which is immediately surrounded by a halo of thick dust, as if the 50s long-haul plane had crossed a thick layer of clouds above the Atlantic and was about to be swallowed up by those of the opposite wall. While sneezing, he thinks of Doris, who, at this hour, must be somewhere between New York and Paris, aboard a much less enticing plane.

David sets the plane back on its tiny wooden runway, then next to the model he notices a worn but lavish hat, at the bottom of which he reads the initials M.-E. P., stitched on the midnight blue silk lining.

He decides to explore the other shelves. At the very bottom of the armoire, pairs of shoes shine softly, arranged as though at a starting line. David imagines them dashing into the hallway and running through the apartment, moved by a hundred invisible men desperately searching for the exit or for their bandages. Incidentally, on the shelf immediately above the shoes, the presence of several Velpeau bandages lends itself to that fantasy.

Higher up, on the next shelf, David finds a large painted egg, which sends a shiver down his spine, constricts his stomach. The egg is covered in a continuous pattern, an uneven border strip on a violet background tracing a labyrinth of black and crimson curls. The egg seems to be made for his palm and as, astonished, he separates the two strictly identical halves, David is surprised to find on the inside another egg identical to the first, apart from its size. Separating this one into two halves that are also interchangeable, he notices at the bottom of a half-shell a shiny silver key, which he pockets without hesitating, his heart racing.

On the second to last shelf, just below the dusty Super Constellation, David discovers a small crown of violets that has been withering for a long time and, attached to the shriveled and brittle stems by a thin metallic thread twisted around them several times, a note written in faded violet ink: “To my beloved Dolores, with all the love from the lover of words. For your hundredth. Maurice.”

David places this token of affection back on the shelf, then goes to the living room to serve himself another glass of port. He feels like he’s jumped seventy years into the past, to the strange summer solstice evoked by that love letter and by the article he just read from Paris-Soir. Ubiquity. Like father, like son. Same tricks. Same fondness for manipulation. Back in front of the armoire with the open panels covered in things he never wears—ties and bow ties—in the middle of that sparse display case, next to the crown of violets that’s been withering for several decades, David notices a book with the title Fragments épars. Since these two words mean nothing to him, he sets the book back down right away and then notices a musty odor, a cave-like humidity. He moves closer to the armoire, almost steps inside, feeling vaguely ridiculous; he examines the bottom, riddled with large dark cracks, where these deleterious emanations seem to be coming from.

He has an idea. Taking off his jacket, he tries to jiggle the shelves on their brackets. First he puts the objects on the ground, then he takes down the shelves one after another and leans them against the wall. Excited, he finds himself in front of a large white perforated panel that resists his pressure. In the shadow of the armoire, a gleaming keyhole catches his eye. David thinks immediately of the silver key that he recently pocketed. He takes it, slides it into the small opening, watches it go in without much effort. Then, like a door, the panel at the bottom of the armoire pivots on its hinges and opens onto a dark space. He needs a candle, a lamp, a lighter … David goes into the kitchen, opens cupboards and drawers, finally finds a flashlight that seems to be working. Just in case, he also grabs a few candles and matches, which he finds above the old-fashioned stove.

He goes back into the hallway, walks along the seaside fresco with the dislocated puppet, then turns to face the rigged armoire. The bottom is now wide open. Stepping over the impeccably arranged shoes (it is indeed a starting line, but David crosses it in the wrong direction, as if at the last minute he renounced the competition, preferring invisibility, solitude, and anonymity to the gregarious glory of sports competitions), he takes a step into the forbidden zone, nevertheless with the confused and disgruntled feeling that someone has whispered the path to him, that he’s following in the footsteps of another.

He turns on the flashlight; the meek beam illuminates a staircase descending into darkness. The cold air smells like the humidity of caves, must, decomposition. Placing a hand on the oozing mossy wall, David cautiously begins the descent down the stairs that he imagines are slippery. He turns around and suddenly freezes, discovering, perfectly framed in the rectangle of the still-open doorway, illuminated by the bare bulb, the dislocated puppet who seems to levitate above the horizon and the green waves. David feels then that he is wading beneath the sea, a reluctant pearl fisherman, or else a criminal thrown into the water with his feet ballasted in a basin of cement, or else a puppet launched toward the ocean by a capricious child or a tired puppeteer.