Posted 8:15 PM by laura r.

Ronai on Zweig on Balzac

Posted 8:13 PM by laura r.
THE COMÉDIE HUMAINE N BRAZIL, continued
Having fled the persecutions of the Nazis in Europe, I had been in Brazil for two years when chance led Maur?cio Rosenblatt, representative in the then-capital of the country of Editora Globo of Porto Alegre, to stay in the same hotel as I in Rio. It did not take us long to become friends. The courageous publishing house, directed by Henrique Bertaso, was on its way up, and its emissary told me their plans for the future, the most fearless of which was a complete edition of the Comédie Humaine. Without a doubt, there already existed Brazilian or Portuguese translations – some good, others bad – of many of the novels and stories of that vast assemblage, but Globo expected to commission new translations of all of them by its corps of competent professionals. Since, because of the war, new publications from the European market were not reaching Brazil, the publisher had decided to occupy its translators with transplanting the classics of the novel, especially those of Balzac, the greatest of all. Various of his novels were already underway.
I listened to this plan with interest, since I was not only a teacher of French, but also a Balzac scholar. In 1930, after research in the library of the Institut de France in Chantilly, I had defended a thesis on the “The youthful works of Honoré de Balzac”, and since then had been reading and rereading the novelist’s works. My knowledge of French life and civilization stemmed in great part from this reading, and thus could avaliar the intellectual enrichment of Brazilian readers, so distant in time and space from the Paris of the first half of the nineteenth century.
As a born publisher Rosenblatt realized that he could take advantage of the presence of a Balzacist in Brazil, and asked, pending approval by the publisher, if I wouldn’t want to write a preface for the Comédie Humaine in Portuguese. I willingly agreed, but with the condition that I look over the first translations, as soon as they were completed.
This was not an unnecessary precaution, as it turned out. Not that the versions by the translators from Porto Alegre were of poor quality. They were, on the contrary, of a high level in general. All of the translators – Casemiro Fernandes, Vidal de Oliveira, Ernesto Pelanda, M?rio Quintana, M?rio d. Ferreira Santos, Dorval Serrano – were part of a generation of literary men who had been trained in France and who moved with ease in the Balzacian universe. But they had begun the work without guidelines. Thus it happened that the same character from various novels in the Comédie would appear with either a French or a Portuguese name. The same Parisian street had different appellations. There were crucial differences in orthography (we were in a period of instability as far as spelling was concerned). The translators were using the sources which could be had in Porto Alegre. Now experts knw that Balzac never stopped rewriting his books, even changing their titles; they know that after his death his widow had various of his fragments completed by a subliterate and that these completions were sometimes more extensive than what had been left by the writer. It would be necessary to use sources published after critical editions came into vogue. The lack of initial guidelines led to the possibility of incongruencies in the edition. Standardization was necessary. And besides it was impossible that in a work of this scope some lapses would not creep in despite the competence of the translators. For all these reasons, I proposed a detailed checking of the Portuguese texts against reliable originals.
My arguments were convincing, and the checking was approved. But as I continued my reading I realized that the Brazilian reader would need assistance to understand the thousands of allusions to events and individuals contemporaneous with the writer, whose confessed intent was to be a “historian of social customs” and a “competitor with the Civil Register”. The author’s innovation in mixing real persons with his imaginary creations increased the difficulty, an innovation which must have appealed to the taste for gossip among the Parisians of the day, but could lead to confusion among cariocas and paulistas. Bearing this in mind, footnotes were deemed necessary.
But in the meantime I had perceived that the structural complexity of the Comédie, the numerous overlaps and connections between his various novels and stories risked passing unperceived by the hurried contemporary reader, unless warned, and that the infinity of studies dedicated to Balzac since his death, as well as the parts which had been published of his enormous correspondence, could contribute to a better understanding of his fiction; I then suggested the prefacing of an introduction to each of the 89 parts of the cycle.
And thus, after long consultation, the letter of agreement in which the publisher defined the duties of the organizer was born on March 3, 1944.

“…in accord with his own suggestion, each one of the works included in the Comédie Humaine (conforming to the edition of the Bibliothèque Pléiade, in ten volumes, under the direction of Marcel Bouteron) should be preceded by a note that will have as its aim the following objectives:
1. to “situate” the work within the Comédie Humaine
2. to separate out the real and fictional elements
3. to note the autobiographical events
4. to trace the trajectory, as far as possible, of each work, pointing out its influences and importance
5. to clarify the historical, topographical allusions, etc. that may make comprehension difficult
6. to fix the double chronology of the works: when they were written and to which era they refer
According to the agreement which we here confirm, you will take charge of editing the notas em apreco, which, though without philological pretensions and details which would only be of interest to specialists, will always be according to the then-current state of Balzac studies and will be written in an accessible style with the intention of constituting an instructive and pleasing entry into the work.

In addition to the notes you will supply a bio-bibliographical introduction to the first volume; you will select, from among the best that has been written on Balzac, in France and elsewhere, a sufficient number of essays and articles for introductory studies to the other volumes; you will provide a complete documentation of the iconography (portraits, caricatures, facsimiles – and among these, two unpublished manuscripts of Balzac) sufficient to provide two or more illustrations to accompany each volume; you will quickly review the various translations, principally in respect to the fidelity of the same; you will assist the translators whenever this shall be necessary; you will provide, then, all possible assistance so that the edition of the Comédie Humaine in the Portuguese language shall be the best, or at least among the best that exist, including those in France.”

In spite of its detail, the comprehensive contract did not foresee all the work which the editing would impose on me; nor was I even able to appraise it. Thus, for example, it fell to me to select more translators, since the overburdened translators of Editora Globo, would not enough to manage the job. (We thought, in fact, thecomplete edition would be in the bookstores by 1950, the year of the centenary of Balzac’s death. It was only ready in 1955, and looking back, I think that even that was a miracle). And so various translators recruited in Rio came to be part of the team, among some them some nationally prominent names: Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Brito Broca, Valdemar Cavalcanti, Lia Correa Dutra, Jo?o Henrique Chaves Lopes, Wilson Lousada, Elza Lima Ribeiro, Joaquim Teixeira Novais. In addition the introductory essays by various scholars discussed in the contract (among them two contributions by my former teachers, Marcel Bouteron and Fernand Bandensperger) would require the work of a third group of translators: Milton Ara?jo, Nora Q.N. da Cunha, Bernardo Gersen, Berenice Xavier, Maur?cio Rosbenblatt, and even myself.
My proposal for the re-establishing of the division into chapters and of the chapter titles which publishers (even the Pléiade) habitually suppressed was accepted; from my point of view this noticeably enlivened the reading of the works. Once the work was ready, I realized the necessity for various special indexes: a “correspondence” between the French and Portuguese titles, a list of translators with the work of each one noted, an index of the introductory essays, another for the illustrations…with volume 17 in hand I was suddenly struck with the magnitude of the task which had been accomplished. And to think that Balzac had created a masterwork of such proportions without a secretary, without collaborators, without card files, without even a typewriter (which had not yet been invented!) In reality, even the labors foreseen in the contract had been inflated beyond what had been imagined: the bio-bibliographical introduction took a volume in itself, and the 17 volumes would total no less than 12000 octavo (15x23 cm) pages with more than 10000 notes. But the publisher gallantly bore this unexpected inflation and produced a work worthy of the highest praise.
I had evidence direct and indirect of the reception of the work and its influence. The bio-bibliographical introduction inspired a comedy drawn from the life of Balzac, and set in Recife, from the writer José Carlos Cavalcanti. As the volumes were published over ten years they kept the name of the novelist before the public and created an atmosphere in which the terms Balzacian, to denote a mature woman, still interested in love, and which gave rise to the popular Carnaval song A Balzquiana by Nassara and W. Baptista. At least three game-show contestants on television quiz shows were quizzed on Balzac. After his death, even in France, Balzac was never so alive.
A novel said to have been dictated by the late Balzac through a medium, Christ awaits you, achieved a surprising popularity. And perhaps I may be permitted to include among the byproducts of this Balzacian renaissance two more books of my authorship: Balzac e a Comédia Humana (Porto Alegre: Editora Globo, 1947, 2d. ed, 1957) and Um romance de Balzac: A Pele de Onagro (Rio de Janeiro: Editora A Noite, 1957).

Translator’s Note: Though the Balzac edition had not been republished as of the time that
R?nai wrote the above, it has since been republished in its entirety by Editora Globo, and is available as of this writing.

Posted 8:09 PM by laura r.
TRAITORS
It is clear that, as with any reproduction, the work, especially the literary work, loses something in being brought into a language different from that in which it was conceived; in pure poetry, almost everything is lost; and if not, the translator creates his own poetry on top of the original, which continues to be a loss. This is a limitation of the art, and not of the artisan. There is no denying, however, that, just as in any field of endeavor, there are good and bad professionals, and that in Brazil the latter predominate. But there are serious reasons for this.

Our publishing industry, especially in the literary field, is almost exclusively devoted to licensing foreign authors; it has no need for the Brazilian writer, and would happily dispense with him, if it could. Like all the rest of Brazilian commerce and industry, it exists for short-term gain, which never created great work, nor famous names. Within this framework, however, one would hope that the translator would be the absolute master of the situation, since the publishers make their living from the sweat of the translator’s brow.

A sad misconception. Here, more than in any other part of the civilized world, the translator is the poor relation of literature. The translator receives wretched fees, and must definitively alienate the fruit of his labor – the translation is sold, irrevocably, with abusive contracts which dispossess children, grandchildren, and all other descendents. He can scarcely be a professional, and live from his vocation. Hence there is a proliferation of those who translate in their spare time: journalists, lawyers, diplomats, and whoever has spent some time in a foreign country; hence, also, the poor quality of the translations.

It is not only the publisher, however, who is treading the professional translator underfoot. In Brazil, absurdly enough, the press has set itself up in judgement in the matter of the language and literary taste, as if the writer or translator should adhere to the newspapers’ style manuals. If the translation seems good to the gentlemen of the press, who rarely are qualified to judge, nothing is said about it; the justification for this is that the translator has done nothing more than his duty, as if translating a literary work were like working on an assembly line. If it doesn’t seem good, the simple newspaper reporters, who are barely able to do copy editing, roll on the floor when they discover, or think they have discovered (generally the latter) a slip in an otherwise good piece of work.

In reality, it would be ideal if the translator were a writer as well, at least in the case of literary works, but how many would be ready to live as a professional with such meager returns? This does not mean that non-writers – that is, authors of their own works, fiction, poetry, essays – are not good translators. One of the best translators working today, Donaldson Garschagen, has never published, to my knowledge, a volume or piece of any sort. Others, equally good, are at the most original writers on rare occasions, or simply have whims in that direction. Be this as it may, at least in this case the ideal is fulfilled, since the good translators are writers.

The first requirement for being a translator is not, as it may seem at first glance, the mastery of the language from which one is translating, but of one’s own. One who does not know how to express his own thoughts in writing will have difficulty in confronting the much more difficult task of expressing those of others. One could push this statement even further with an example. Until today, one of the best, perhaps the best, of Goethe’s Faust into Portuguese is that of Antônio Feliciano de Castilho. Well then, it is said that the good Visconde de Castilho simply did not know German. How did he do it? He asked a German living in Portugal to translate the words, preferably adapting the syntax, and only then set to work on the sprawl that the man had created .

In most of our poor translations, this is precisely the problem: not infidelity to the original, but the badly edited Portuguese. For this reason excrescences such as “ele levou sua m?o à sua cabeça e alisou seus cabelos” (a typically English construction – Portuguese would not require the possessive) abound; the unnecessary repetition of the name of the character or of “he” or “she” innumerable times in the same paragraph (the Portuguese verb not requiring the use of the pronoun); or “a mulher Americana, o homem velho, o homem branco”, holdovers from an original where the adjective cannot stand alone as it does in Portuguese. After a hundred years of the cinema, many translators – including or especially those working in films – have still not figured out that Attention!
in the military does not mean “Atenç?o!” (pay attention!) but “Sentido!” (stand at attention!)


It is errors of this sort, and not those which are really serious, which attract attention, since the supposed critic in the newspaper is unlikely to have the possibility (either from an intellectual or material point of view) to be able to compare the translation with the original. And here we have the really important question: what is a bad translation? Is it one which is poorly written, with little irritating errors, or one which is actually poorly done? Because the translator really can be a traitor, and many are, presenting impeccable texts, which nonetheless are serious betrayals of the original texts.

What one wants is for the translator to be working with the writer, concealing his errors and vices – in short, to be co-author, which would be, indeed, the supreme act of treason. Great literature today is ever more restricted to the university ghetto, which its own, rather specific language, full of neologisms. Current “thinkers”, especially the French, have become veritable factories of new words, in the absence of anything new to say. The poor translator, in rendering the linguistic juggling of these texts, is slammed for the reason that the words he uses “are not in the dictionary”. There are even cases in which the reviewer sets himself to correcting non-existent mistakes for this reason. Someone who knows the language will soon see who is at fault; but for the majority of readers, however – and the publishers – the translator is the illiterate.

Another serious problem is the author with a difficult, elevated style, Henry James, for example. It is said that this American snob (naturalized English) could not even express himself directly while speaking, and one of his critics asserts, in his favor, that while in the works of other authors the reader seeks to learn about the character or characters, in James the objective is to discover what he intended to say. It is not surprising that he idolized by the pretentious around the world, the majority of which, self-styled authorities on the master, never manage to discover what he is saying, and draw on all sorts of exotic interpretations for lack of anything better to do. The worst of it is that they cannot even make it out in translation, and put the blame on the translator, who ought to have transformed James into Maugham, in order for them to finally be able to read and understand.

And so it is a tremendous battle, but what can be done? Translation, even if not on the grand scale in which it takes place in Brazil, is indispensable, and many people who only know how to write need to earn a living, even if only a precarious one. And so, as with everything here in Brazil, we must grin and bear it, and pray for better days to come, even those who are not believers. For now, that is what there is for the plundered of the earth, who are always the ones to blame: the traitors.

Posted 8:03 PM by laura r.

The Limits of Poetic Translation

Posted 7:34 PM by laura r.
SETTLING, continued....
In order to make these episodes a little easier to follow, I will say that, looking back from this point in time, my life can be divided into two more-or-less equal parts, the first of them spent in Europe, and the second in Brazil.
The land of my birth, Hungary, is one of those in which the influence of the Latin language lasted the longest. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the language spoken in the Magyar parliament was Latin. For centuries it had been the language of men, especially the men of the ruling class. Latin poetry had a great influence on Hungarian poetry; at the end of the eighteenth century there arose a school of poetry which called itself Latin, and taking advantage of the clear existence of short and long vowels in Hungarian, adopted and developed classical versification. During my day in secondary school the student still had six classes a week of Latin over a period of eight years.
In the beginning the grammar was frightening; even afterwards, later, when they were making us read Caesar, Sallust, Livy and Cicero, I still shared the jaundiced glance cast on Latin by most of my classmates.
The light went on when I managed to scan a hexameter of Virgil by myself. I began to take an almost sensual pleasure in those verses, which, though apparently similar, in reality had an extreme variety in their music; I memorized them, savored them, recited them to myself. Translating Latin poetry was in fact something with a long tradition in Hungary. When, to mark two thousand years of Virgil, a magazine in Budapest commissioned me to write an article on the Aeneid, a quick look in the National Library of Hungary revealed no less than a dozen translations of the poem. If I managed to escape the temptation to add another one to this number, it is because I was captivated by Horace, whose old Sapphic strophes, asclepiads and alcaics paradoxically rejuvenated, in my opinion, the eternal clichés of poetry: the brevity of life, the fear of death, the search for happiness, the complications of love. At first it was for my own pleasure that I tried to translate one of the odes. When I saw it in print, I had to give in to temptation.
From Horace I moved on to the love poets: Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius; then to the Ovid of the Metamorphoses and the Tristes, to the Virgil of the Bucolics, to the Martial of the Epigrams. I let myself be captivated by the decadent lyrics of Pentadius, Tiberianus, Dracontius, without worrying about questions of authenticity. I dreamed for nights on end of the Pervigilium Veneris, despairing before the inimitable laconicism of its short verses, the untranslatable musical of its trochees, the strange sonority of its alliterations, until I managed to catch a glimpse of the translation for the refrain. Among the poets of the hymnarium I got to Prudentius, and among those of the Renaissance Johannes Secundus and some others, who had never been mentioned in class and who were dearer to me precisely because I had discovered them by myself. I stopped at Giovanni Pascoli, our contemporary, that later lover of Latin rhythm.
I used to translate them with an excitement that today I can no longer recapture. Each poem translated was a challenge met. Fifteen years later, saying a forced farewell to Europe, I left a little anthology of my translations of two thousand years of Latin poetry with a publisher. I was already in Rio de Janeiro when the volume came out in Budapest in a bilingual edition.
Now, fifty years later, if I try to reconstruct the process that I adopted in transplanting Latin lyrics into my own tongue, I see how much there was that was unconscious about it. In doing so much reading, I had learned dozens of poems without realizing it, one of which would grab hold of me and not let go. I would recall it before going to sleep, I would murmur it, hear it recited by an imaginary voice. This would go on for weeks sometimes until suddenly the first strophe (or in the cases of Ovid, Tibullus, or Propertius, the first distich) of the translation would come to me, ready and perfect. I had not counted nor measured syllables, nor tried to fill out a sketched-out metrical scheme. With the first verses ready, I could sit down at the table, and in a short time, just a few hours, the complete poem was on the paper, in the first attempt.
I imagine that during that intimate assimilation and transformation of the initial strophe I was not translating words. The manner of speech of the Latin sentence had been diluted, and then condensed in a sort of visible image in which some essential spots could be made out: these were what were reappearing later in that first mental version. Thus in the first ode which I translated:

Vides ut alta set nive candidum
Soracte nec iam sustineant onus
Silvae laborantes geluque
Flumina constiterint acuto

the notions of winter, ice, whiteness, trees scarcely bearing their load of snow were recorded; and as an essential auditory note the magic name of Soracte (translator’s note: an isolated mountain in Latium).

My experience in Paris, some time later, where I was lucky enough to spend two years on a fellowship, was quite different. At the suggestion of a colleague from the Department, I tried to translate a few Hungarian poems and stories into French and I noted the intrinsic differences that mean that translating into and out of your native language are two operations which are so different that they have almost nothing in common. When we are translating from a foreign language into our own, the central problem is that of complete comprehension. We seek to penetrate the text in all its details, understand its intentions, situate it within the cultural context of the civilization where it was produced. The Latin poems which I translated had already been analyzed, commented on, translated, quoted by generations on generations of teachers and students; there was nothing opaque about them any longer: it was simply a matter of recreating them in a language which I believed was under my command and would do my will. The matter was nothing but a problem of the inspiration of the moment, of felicitous intuition.
But in translating into French, the problem shifted. This was when I discovered the non-existence of perfect equivalents between this language and my own. The terse French vocabulary, smoothed and pared down by centuries of cultivated use, did not correspond to my Hungarian words, some rustic with a tang of the earth, others very new, newly-fashioned to satisfy urgent necessities. The whole system of derivation was radically different, families of words were made up of different elements, and bore different connotations. For the great majority of words the bilingual dictionaries of the time, tiny and poor, were useless; one needed to look for correspondences in other sources, by means of long investigation. But a more serious difficulty began after the problem of equivalents had been solved. In working with a language that is not our own, no matter how well we may know it, even if we have learned what can be said in it, we lack an intuition for what cannot be said. When we write in our mother tongue, we are constantly forming sentences never forged before with familiar words, but a mysterious instinct eliminates those which are contrary to the unwritten laws of the language. This instinct is what is lacking in our relation to an alien tongue. I immediately was aware of this missing intuition, and from my first translation onwards I relied on the aid of my French friends, Maurice Piha and Jean François-Primo.
When I returned to Budapest, I began to work with a French-language magazine whose purpose was to make Hungary better-known abroad, and over almost ten years I would come to choose and translate a story each month, as well as various articles, and even, now and again, a few poems. This turned out to be a very fruitful activity, since it led me to develop a method for four-hands translating. Each time I felt that the solution adopted was inadequate, I would add one or more other solutions, so that my collaborator could choose between them. When no other solution came to mind, but sensed that what I had attempted was imperfect, I would put a question mark in the margin, or even some commentary. And even thus I needed to be present when my friend and collaborator (François Gachot or Henri Ancel) would read my translation. Thanks to this exercise I, moving from my strangely eastern Finno-Ugric structures, became used to reordering what I was saying according to western patterns.
To give you an idea of this shift I will tell you that in the majority of cultivated languages the affirmation “I have a book” is formulated in a manner similar to that of English: Habeo librum, j’ai un livre, tenho um livro, Ich habe ein Buch, and so forth. One who begins to study Russian will be surprised to learn that in this language the idea is expressed without a verb corresponding to “to have”: U menia kniga (“with me a book”). Well, in Hungarian, the noun goes from being a direct object to being a subject; and what is more, it takes on different endings, similar to verbal conjugation, according to the person who is possessing it, while, for its part, the verb remains unvaried: “Van k?nyvem”, “Van k?nyved”, “Van k?nyve”, “Van k?nyvünk”. One would say that the noun has been conjugated, as if we had said: “There bookam, there bookart, there bookis, there bookare…” This example is perhaps not formulated in exact linguistic language, but will give a sense of the byways of a system of expression which issues a challenge to all the categories of discourse which seem the only ones possible to speakers of Germanic or Romance languages.
more to come

Posted 10:15 AM by laura r.
Literature translated for the Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie

Desiré Kosztolanyi, Aventure Bulgare, NRH, XXV (I), 12, (Dec. 1932) pp. 468-475, Traduit du hongrois par P. Rónai

Jean Kodolanyi, Mort de Pauvres, NRH, XXVI (II), 1, (Jan 1933), pp. 73-79, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Gyula Torok, Une bonne blague, vraiment!, NRH, XXVI (II), 2, (Feb 1933), pp. 162-169, Traduit du hongrois par Maxime Piha et Paul Rónai


Cecile Tormay, La mort de Jean-Hubert, extrait du roman: La Vieille Maison, NRH, XXVI (II), 3, (March 1933), pp. 276-284, Traduit du hongrois par Francois Gachot et Paul Rónai


Joseph Babay, Mon père sourit..., NRH, XXVI (II), 3, (March 1933), pp. 285-288, Traduit du hongrois par Paul Rónai

Victor Cholnoky, L' Île des zeros, NRH, XXVI (II), 4, (April 1933), pp. 392-397, Traduit du hongrois par Francois Gachot et Paul Rónai


Kalman Mikszath, Le forgeron et la cataracte, NRH, XXVI (II), 5, (May 1933), pp. 509-513, Traduit du hongrois par Henri Ancel et Paul Rónai


Deux jeunes poètes (Laurent Szabo, Joseph Erdelyi), NRH, XXVI (II), 7, (July 1933), pp. 727-731, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Joseph Nyiro, Le retour, NRH, XXVI (II), 8, (October 1933), pp. 827-835, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Jean Bokay, Zizette, NRH, XXVI (II), 9, (November 1933), pp. 935-942, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Zoltan Szitnyai, Les sept mineurs de Selmec, NRH, XXVI (II), 10, (December 1933), pp. 1039-1043, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Andre Gelleri, Un sou, NRH, XXVI (II), 10, (December 1933), pp. 1044-1047, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Aaron Tamasi, Comment Abel apprit la mort de sa mère, NRH, XXVII (III), 1, (January 1934), pp. 66-71, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Irene Gulacsy, L'insecte, NRH, XXVII (III), 2, (February 1934), pp. 166-172, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Francois Mora, La boulangère du bon Dieu, NRH, XXVII (III), 3, (March 1934), pp. 289-295, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Desiré Kosztolanyi, L'avocat celeste, NRH, XXVII (III), 4, (April 1934), pp. 385-395, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Eugene Heltai, Le diable a Budapest, NRH, XXVII (III), 5, (May 1934), pp. 498-502, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Coloman Mikszath, Un homme bon, NRH, XXVII (III), 6, (June 1934), pp. 85-98, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Alexandre Makkai, Pourquoi? , NRH, XXVII (III), 7, (July 1934), pp. 167-170, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Louis Bibo, Pas de mots, NRH, XXVII (III), 7, (July 1934), pp. 171-173, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Louis Bibo, Pas de mots, NRH, XXVII (III), 7, (July 1934), pp. 173-176, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Michel Tamas, La rencontre du village, NRH, XXVII (III), 8, (October 1934), pp. 301-304, Traduit du hongrois par Paul Rónai


Marguerite Kaffka, Tante Polixene, NRH, XXVII (III), 9, (November 1934), pp. 408-417, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Maurice Jokai, Aventure de brigands (Les bavardages d'un vieux baron), NRH, XXVII (III), 10, (December 1934), pp. 505-514, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Akos Molnar, La prediction, NRH, XXVIII (IV), 1, (January 1935), pp. 77-84, Traduit du hongrois par Henri Ancel et Paul Rónai


Louis Zilahy, La délegation hongroise traite la paix a Belgrade (Extrait du roman Le deserteur), NRH, XXVIII (IV), 2, (February 1935), pp. 166-172, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Andre Gelleri, Anéantissement, NRH, XXVIII (IV), 3, (March 1935), pp. 275-280, Traduit du hongrois par Paul Rónai


Desiré Kosztolanyi, Du berceau jusqu'au cercueil (l'avant-propos, et trois chapitres), NRH, XXVIII (IV), 4, (April 1935), pp. 396-403, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai



Sigismond Moricz, La confession de Gabriel Bethlen (extrait du roman, Le grand prince, seconde partie de la trilogie, Transylvanie), NRH, XXVIII (IV), 6, (June 1935), pp. 71-81, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Alexandre Marai, Atherstone Terrace, NRH, XXVIII (IV), 7, (July 1935), pp. 206-210, Traduit du hongrois par Paul Rónai


Alexandre Hunyady, L'épouvantail, NRH, XXVIII (IV), 8, (October 1935), pp. 324-327, Traduit du hongrois par Paul Rónai


Louis Biro, Médecins, NRH, XXVIII (IV), 9, (November 1935), pp. 456-460, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Zsolt Harsany, Le premier concert du "petit Liszt" a Paris, NRH, XXVIII (IV), 10, (December 1935), pp. 549-552, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Zoltan Ambrus, Mourants, NRH, XXIX (V), 1, (January 1936), pp. 68-75, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Joseph Nyiro, Le Pater perdu et retrouvé (extrait du Mon Peuple), NRH, XXIX (V), 2, (February 1936), pp. 154-160, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Frederic Karinthy, Scarlatine: souvenir d'enfance, NRH, XXIX (V), 3, (March 1936), pp. 257-262, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Ernest Szep, Le sauvage, NRH, XXIX (V), 4, (April 1936), pp. 354-358, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Nicolas Kisban, Le dix cors a couronne (Un roman chez les cerfs), NRH, XXIX (V), 5, (May 1936), pp. 443-450, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


Nicolas Surany, Le comte Etienne Szechenyi chez Metternich (extrait de Nous voilà seuls), NRH, XXIX (V), 6, (June 1936), pp. 541-545, Traduit du hongrois par Robert Boudet et Paul Rónai


Alexandre Torok, Tutoiement (Confidences), NRH, XXIX (V), 7, (July 1936), pp. 61-64, Traduit du hongrois par Robert Boudet et Paul Rónai


Frederic Karinthy, Qui t'a demandé ton avis?, NRH, XXIX (V), 7, (July 1936), pp. 65-66, Traduit du hongrois par Robert Boudet et Paul Rónai


Aaron Tamasi, Tobie le droit, NRH, XXIX (V), 8, (August 1936), pp. 157-166, Traduit du hongrois par François Gachot et Paul Rónai


From this issue on there continues to be a story in each issue, but the translations are no longer credited. Paulo Rónai appears for the last time (as far as I can tell) in the January 1940 issue, where there is a Rencontre avec Jehan Rictus, un maitre d'Andre Ady (pp. 75-78), followed by Deux contes parisiens par Andre Ady, pp. 79-85.

Posted 12:09 PM by laura r.
Continued from MOSTLY MUSIC
ABT VOGLER
(after he has been extemporizing
upon the musical instrument of his invention)

by Robert Browning


And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was,
Ay, another and yet another, one crowded but with many a crest,
Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass,
Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest:
For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire,
When a great illumination surprises a festal night ---
Outlined round and round Rome's dome from space to spire)
Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.

In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth,
Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I;
And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth,
As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky:
Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine,
Not a point but found and fixed its wandering star;
Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine,
For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.

Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow,
Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast,
Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,
Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last;
Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone,
But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new:
What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon;
And what is,--- shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too.

All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,
All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,
All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole,
Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth:
Had I written the same, made verse---still, effect proceeds from cause,
Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told;
It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,
Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled:---

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,
Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are!
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,
That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.
Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is nought;
It is everywhere in the world---loud, soft, and all is said:
Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought:
And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared;
Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow;
For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared,
That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go.
Never to be again! But many more of the kind
As good, nay, better perchance: is this your comfort to me?
To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind
To the same, same self, same God; ay, what was, shall be.

Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name?
Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands!
What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the same?
Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power expands?
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by-and-by.

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence
For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence?
Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized?
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,
Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe:
But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear;
The rest may reason and welcome, 'tis we musicians know.

Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign:
I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.
Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,
Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,---yes,
And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,
Surveying a while the heights I rolled from into the deep;
Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found,
The C major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.

Posted 12:06 PM by laura r.
Second Matrimony of my Father - Fanaticism for sacred music for the organ and for
religion (cont.)
I answered my father that at that moment I had not the least desire to take a wife, and if I had shown some inclination for the ladies that had been only a passing fancy.In fact my passion for music was growing daily, and I was encouraged by the progress which I was making on my new instruments and by the approbation which I received because of it, so that I thought no longer about anything else. Moreover I had taken a liking for church music, and the masses, antiphons etc. which I heard there by Seifert, Seidelmann, Abt Vogler, and above all those of Father Arauss, which moved me greatly. There was there a superb organ, and a certain Father Giuseppe played it divinely. He would take a subject from the beginning, the middle or the end of a piece of music which had been performed a moment earlier, and as if he were preluding extempore he would draw from it a delightful fughetta, and so well modulated and put together that it was ravishing.

Posted 12:05 PM by laura r.
Chapter VI. Continuation of Mariaberg - Meals - Hunting. (continued)



At seven in the evening we supped, and supper was, with the exception of the ragu, a repetition of lunch. On thin days we were served even better: a soup of pot-herbs, of barley or oats with butter and fresh scrambled eggs; Canedlen or Klösse, kinds of ravioli; Nudlen, a kind of cooked macheroni with butter, eggs and spices, pastries of every kind, a variety of fresh-water fishes, among which a kind resembling mackerel called Engedeiner Fish, whose flesh is red, salty by nature, and very delicious.
On vacation days or feast days they would give us one, two, or three extra dishes, where were devoured one after the other, as if it was nothing; but the serene air, the crystalline water of that spot, the scrambling and leaping which we did on those rocks would have given an appetite to the listless, and made one able to digest steel.

Posted 12:29 PM by laura r.
Ferrari, Chapter VI
Continuation of Mariaberg - Meals - Hunting.


The responsiblity of Father Mariano was that of instructing his students in German and Latin, and in arithmetic. He presided three times a day at our table, and we were served as follows.
Each day, at seven in the morning, breakfast; on fat days bread soup with gravy broth made with meat of chamois or hart; at midday lunch with the same sort of soup, boiled with the same sort of meat, ragus of coney, rabbit, and of many types of birds, as well as of marmot and joints of bear, which with bittersweet sauce makes the eating more delicate and exquisite. Roasts of every sort of game which were hunted there, ranging from partridge to hart. Poultry was only consumed on great feast-days; likewise vegetables and fruits which were brought from a distance, and at a high price. At seven in the evening we supped, and supper was, with the exception of the ragu, a repetition of lunch. On thin days we were served even better: a soup of pot-herbs, of barley or oats with butter and fresh scrambled eggs; Canedlen or Klösse, kinds of ravioli; Nudlen, a kind of cooked macheroni with butter, eggs and spices, pastries of every kind, a variety of fresh-water fishes, among which a kind resembling mackerel called Engedeiner Fish, whose flesh is red, salty by nature, and very delicious.
On vacation days or feast days they would give us one, two, or three extra dishes, where were devoured one after the other, as if it was nothing; but the serene air, the crystalline water of that spot, the scrambling and leaping which we did on those rocks would have given an appetite to the listless, and made one able to digest steel.
It will perhaps seem strange that they were able to maintain such a school so well, and at such a low price; but the venerable monks were not thinking about money, but only of spending the admission fees and teaching the young people. They were also charitable in the highest degree; they used to travel miles to help someone whom they had learned was in need; they visited the sick, sought to console them, and administered the sacraments to them when it was necessary. At the monastery they never failed to attend to their daily and nightly prayers. Having done their duties they were always friendly and jocular; they would entertain themselves now by making music, now by going walking or hunting, now by playing billiards or keels, and always ending with a healthy lunch or supper, which providence had sent them and which they shared with their friends. In short they were truly religious, neither Trappists or holier-than-thou. They had four expert and robust hunters who hunted primarily the chamois and harts which abounded there, and they hunted in the village in the following way.
The hunters would go out two by two, alternately, each with a pennant in his pocket, and armed with a double-barreled shotgun, with bread, cheese, brandy, and a canteen full of fresh water; and with such provisions they sometimes would stay out in those woods, rocks and mountains, and in the middle of the snow up to three and four days, nor did they ever return without their prey. As soon as they saw from afar a group of harts or chamois they unfurled their pennant in order to know which direction the wind was blowing from, for if it was blowing towards the animals, they smelling the mens' odor would immediately flee to a great distance, and as a consequence the hunters would have to make great circuits to surprise them.
The mountain-men would sleep beneath a tree, or a rock, or in a cave, and when one pair returned the other two would go out, and so on. In the winter they also went hunting for the black bears which were to be found in the higher and more frigid mountains. (It is generally believed that that breed of bear is not carnivorous nor sanguinary, and that they are (except for the females) sustained for three or four months of the winters by their fat, neither moving nor breathing. The hunters, however, used to say that they had seen them several times killing animals, sucking their blood, and that their dens and caverns were full of wild fruit, greens, roots, etc, but so well kept and safe from the bad weather that they seemed to have been put there by the hand of man. -Author's Note) They then go out all four together each supplied with a pair of heavy boots, with iron on the soles for the ice, with the usual shotgun, but with a bayonet, and with a pocket knife whose point is sharply curved, and as keen as a razor. They know already pretty much were the bears are staying, and go there. As soon as they have discovered a den, three of them hide, and the fourth gives his shotgun to his companions, and goes forward with his knife, which he carries in a sheath, in the side-pocket of his trousers. The bear smelling the man, the bear comes out very quietly from the den, and advances with a friendly appearance; but when he is close he rises up on his feet, and embraces him, not to rend him, but only to drink his blood; the hunter lets himself be embraced, but before the bear has bared his claws, or opened his mouth, he is already wounded morally by the fatal knife with which the hunter opens and furtively lacerates his belly; the poor beasts faints and falls backwards; the hidden companions immediately come forth and finish him off before he can notice it or suffer any spasm. Sometimes the timid, or inquiet female bear comes out of cavern, and seeing the father of her children slain, and fearing for her children, she launches a furious assault, but is always the victim of bayonet-strokes or shotgun blasts. Then the hunters go into the den, tie the little bears with ropes, and lead or drag them to the monastery. Once they arrived they start shouting and jumping like maniacs, throwing their green caps in the air, and as happy and content as if they had found a treasure. The steward receives them with rejoicing, and treats them to a meal alla Mariaberg, with excellent wines which they much prefer to brandy.

Posted 2:48 PM by laura r.
FERRARI, Chapter V
Being always intent on stimulating my interest in business, my father took advantage of the occasion of accompanying me as far as Bolzano to give my a taste for attending the fairs which they used to hold there four times a year. He chose the fair of S. Bartolomeo, since it was the most brilliant and pleasing of them all. We left therefore, going by stages from Roveredo to Trent, then San Michele, Egna, Bronzuolo and finally Bolzano. This is a quite considerable and rich city, as much for its fairs, as for its geographical position, which allows it to do business without great difficulty with Switzerland, Alsace, Bavaria, Carinthia, Carniola and the with northern part of Italy.
The surroundings of Bolzano are picturesque; the soil is fruitful, and even at fifty miles north of Roveredo we must give them the advantage in the production of grains, fruits, vegetables etc. etc.
Their silks and tobaccos are not worth much, but the wines which the Bolzanesi make are exquisite, and they drink them copiously with merriment. They have a proverb which they repeat and put into practice daily:
Qui bene bibit bene dormit
Qui bene dormit non peccat;
Et qui non peccat in Paradisum volat.

I stayed there about eight days, and as I was not able to be of any use to my father I asked permission to go to my destiny; he granted this, and I left with horse, seat and guide, commended to the Reverend Father the Prior and the Prelate and Most Reverend Father Abbot of the Benedictines of Mariaberg. This monastery is found in the Val Venosta, just a hundred miles from Bolzano. We were three days journeying to get there, and it wasn't much, considering that the roads are rocky, badly kept, and almost always climbing upwardsi. Eighty of those miles offer a perpetual monotony; one passes through the lugubrious and dispopulated city of Merano, which would give Pulcinella hypochondria; after which one enters and exits valley after valley, seeing nothing but the same sort of trees, greenery and boulders; sometimes one can go ten to fifteen miles without seeing a house or living ruin; a kind of little river runs continually, slow and mute, which makes you cold, or rather chills you.
But at Val Venosta however there is a complete change of scenery. Slaunders is the first village which is found on the right, built on a great rock; from there the little city of Glurentz can be seen not far off, built as a square, girded with a wall and four gates on the sides which are always open and without any sentinels; it was under the orders of a captain who had no other soldiers to command but his wife and children. Beyond Glurentz is seen the entrance to the Valle Enghedina, which leads in a few hours to Choira, the capital of the Grigioni. Straight ahead, and three miles from Slaunders, the Church and Monastery of Mariaberg faces you in an elegant and pompous perspective, situated a vertical mile above the plain of the valley. At the foot of that mountain is seen the village of Purgaitz which contains few houses but a beautiful little Church and a little fort where a judge resides with two invalid soldiers, who have nothing to do but eat, drink and sleep, since it has never happened that these heros have been called out for a brawl, a theft or a homicide. The good inhabitants of these valleys being so good, religious, and honest, there is no need for force to keep them at peace. They are moreover so devoted to their Sovereign as the beggars of Naples to San Gennaro; and if they find themselves sick or in misfortune they pray God that he may beseech the Emperor to allow them the grace of which they have need. If you offer them alms of a single penny, they load you, almost molest you with thanks and blessings; and say in their peasant tongue, and from the bottom of their heart: Vergelt's God in Himmel ham; vergelt's God, truila, truila, tansend male - God give you thanks in heaven, God give you thanks, three time, three times, a thousand times! To see them on Sunday at Mass, the devotion with which they genuflect, bow at the consecration, elevation and communion, kissing the earth, even, and giving tremendous blows of contrition on their chests, as if they had committed horrible sins, is a thing to edify you and make you laugh at the same time! O blessed mountaineers, how I admire you and envy you!

Posted 6:04 AM by laura r.
Chapter V

Departure from Roveredo - Brief Description of Bolzano and the Valleys which
lead to Mariaberg - Part of my Stay in this Monastery - School and Music


Being always intent on stimulating my interest in business, my father took advantage of the occasion of accompanying me as far as Bolzano to give my a taste for attending the fairs which they used to hold there four times a year. He chose the fair of S. Bartolomeo, since it was the most brilliant and pleasing of them all. We left therefore, going by stages from Roveredo to Tret, then San Michele, Egna, Bronzuolo and finally Bolzano. This is a quite considerable and rich city, as much for its fairs, as for its geographical position, which allows it to do business without great difficulty with Switzerland, Alsace, Bavaria, Carinthia, Carniola and the with northern part of Italy.
The surroundings of Bolzano are picturesque; the soil is fruitful, and even at fifty miles north of Roveredo we must give them the advantage in the production of grains, fruits, vegetables etc. etc.
Their silks and tobaccos are not worth much, but the wines which the Bolzanesi make are exquisite, and they drink them copiously with merriment. They have a proverb which they repeat and put into practice daily:
Qui bene bibit bene dormit
Qui bene dormit non peccat;
Et qui non peccat in Paradisum volat.

I stayed there about eight days, and as I was not able to be of any use to my father I asked permission to go to my destiny; he granted this, and I left with horse, seat and guide, commended to the Reverend Father the Prior and the Prelate and Most Reverend Father Abbot of the Benedictines of Mariaberg. This monastery is found in the Val Venosta, just a hundred miles from Bolzano. We were three days journeying to get there, and it wasn't much, considering that the roads are rocky, badly kept, and almost always climbing upwardsi. Eighty of those miles offer a perpetual monotony; one passes through the lugubrious and dispopulated city of Merano, which would give Pulcinella hypochondria; after which one enters and exits valley after valley, seeing nothing but the same sort of trees, greenery and boulders; sometimes one can go ten to fifteen miles without seeing a house or living ruin; a kind of little river runs continually, slow and mute, which makes you cold, or rather chills you.
But at Val Venosta however there is a complete change of scenery. Slaunders is the first village which is found on the right, built on a great rock; from there the little city of Glurentz can be seen not far off, built as a square, girded with a wall and four gates on the sides which are always open and without any sentinels; it was under the orders of a captain who had no other soldiers to command but his wife and children. Beyond Glurentz is seen the entrance to the Valle Enghedina, which leads in a few hours to Choira, the capital of the Grigioni. Straight ahead, and three miles from Slaunders, the Church and Monastery of Mariaberg faces you in an elegant and pompous perspective, situated a vertical mile above the plain of the valley. At the foot of that mountain is seen the village of Purgaitz which contains few houses but a beautiful little Church and a little fort where a judge resides with two invalid soldiers, who have nothing to do but eat, drink and sleep, since it has never happened that these heros have been called out for a brawl, a theft or a homicide. The good inhabitants of these valleys being so good, religious, and honest, there is no need for force to keep them at peace. They are moreover so devoted to their Sovereign as the beggars of Naples to San Gennaro; and if they find themselves sick or in misfortune they pray God that he may beseech the Emperor to allow them the grace of which they have need. If you offer them alms of a single penny, they load you, almost molest you with thanks and blessings; and say in their peasant tongue, and from the bottom of their heart: Vergelt's God in Himmel ham; vergelt's God, truila, truila, tansend male - God give you thanks in heaven, God give you thanks, three time, three times, a thousand times! To see them on Sunday at Mass, the devotion with which they genuflect, bow at the consecration, elevation and communion, kissing the earth, even, and giving tremendous blows of contrition on their chests, as if they had committed horrible sins, is a thing to edify you and make you laugh at the same time! O blessed mountaineers, how I admire you and envy you! How appropriate seem these two strophes:
Happy age of gold,
fair ancient innocence,
when virtue was no enemy
to pleasure!

By pomp and decorum
we find ourselves oppressed
and make ourselves
our own servitude.
Metastasio, Demetrio.

I left my guide and rig at Purgaitz, and went up by foot to Mariaberg, the road being too steep and stony to go up in a carriage. Having entered the Monastery, I sent my references to the appropriate persons and was received with the greatest affability. The Father Prior presented me to his Reverence the Prelate, before whom, according to custom, I bent my right knee, kissing the gleaming and blessed ring which he was wearing. I was then introduced to the school master, Father Mariano Stecker, a young man of twenty-five years, of peasant origins, but with the best manners. He had an aquiline nose, grey eyes, red hair, but all together a sweet and pleasing physiognomy. He did not know Italian and I did not know German at all; so that at the beginning we communicated with the little Latin which I had learned. But not many weeks passed before I was making myself understood, marvelously well, in the elegant German-Tirolian dialect. (Author's Note: Stecker was already at that time a great musician, and by studying Fux and other masters of theory he later became a great composer, especially for organ fugues.) I guessed my father's intention in sending me there, so that I might be safe from the fair sex, since there were no other women in that place but three ugly old peasant women to milk the cows, make cream and butter, to wash the laundry and to do other typically feminine tasks; but he had gravely erred in believing that he would distance me from music. The rule at this establishment was to not admit any brother or cleric if he did not know how to sing, or play some instrument extempore; the laymen were admitted there as doormen, cooks or servants, and without knowing music; but there were always twenty or more musical fathers and brothers who took as boarders thirty-two scholars, provided with everything, except for wine, and without tips or gifts, for only ninety florins a year per head, being obliged, beyond their maintenance, to instruct them in the German and Latin tongues, in arithmetic and in whatever branch of music was practiced by these monks.
A day did not pass in which there was not some service with music in the church of this Madonna. I immediately took lessons on violin and viola, and a little violone and French horn. During the free hours from school Father Stecker was good enough to give me now and then some harpsichord leassons, or permitted me to practice on his instrument. This was a spinet or clavichord of three and a half octaves, with hammers of tin. In spite of the poverty of the instrument I delighted in hearing the sonatas of Schobert, of Metzger etc., the fugues of Handel, of Bach, etc., and with what precision and spirit that brother played them! He had a precious collection of music which he had nabbed and copied, and permitted me to copy everything which pleased me as well. It wasn't long before I became the confident and accomplice in Stecker's musical thefts.
Among the monks in that monastery there was a certain Father Bonifazio, the fattest man I had ever seen. His body resembled a barrel, his chin rolled halfway down his chest, his hands looked like two feather pillows, and his fingers like so many Verona sausages. He played the violin and harpsichord like a bagpiper, and sang like a barn owl. But he had his own wealth, and spent considerable money to have sent from Leipzig, Frankfurt, and Mannheim the newly published music which he desired. He even had sent from Augsburg a grand piano of four and a half octaves, a phenomenon which had never yet been seen in the Tirol.
Father Mariano was an intimate friend of the Father Prior; he, according to the rule of that institution possessed a skeleton-key with the right to open at will all the bed chambers of the Monastery. He lent this key to my maestro from time to time, who not obliged by the night duties of these monks, used to choose the moment to open Bonifazio's chamber when they were at first matins; he took and carried into the school the music which he desired; at second matins, he brought it back in the above-mentioned room, without its owner noticing. What is more, Father Mariano would sometimes visit Father Bonifazio and play on his pianoforte the works he had copied. The disappointed Bonifazio went into a rage, not knowing how someone else could have the music which he believed he was the sole possessor of.
As soon as I was informed of this scam I offered my assistance, which was accepted with pleasure. Stecker often came to wake me at midnight, and I would get up, ready as a puppy and content and happy to honestly steal the music of someone who was not able to make good use of it.
I had great difficulty in the beginning, but then I accustomed my eye and ear to how to abbreviate, and wrote as fast as my preceptor; and copying in that way three sonatas for harpsichord or pianoforte in one hour was no big deal for us. It's true that that music was not so long, or so filled with notes and accidentals as is that of the present day.
I had moreover the pleasure of taking breakfast every Sunday with my preceptor; he treated me to fresh eggs, toast and butter; I served him the coffee which I had brought along with me from Roveredo, and I made it not with water but with cream, which produces an exquisite beverage, and which I recommend to all gluttons. (Author's note: The cream at Mariaberg was skimmed from pure cow's or goat's milk, and not from the corrupt and adulterated milk which is sold with impunity in all the streets and dairies of London!)
After breakfast we put ourselves to filling out the abbreviations; then to church to make music; then again to writing, lunching, writing again; back to church again; and thus passed the Sundays, with holy religion, good meals and divine music. Copying, filling out the sketches, and seeing and hearing the copied music performed was of unutterable advantage to me in reading at sight.
But with such occasions and temptations what could I become! Goodbye, office, goodbye, silk-rooms, goodbye, deluded hopes of my father. Viva la musica!

Posted 7:32 AM by laura r.
Chapter IV.

Promise of Matrimony - Return to Roveredo - Death of my Mother - Scabrous Situation of my Father.

A few months before leaving Verona I was invited to the nuptials of two brothers of Don Pandolfi who with him made up a family in the same house, and seeing that they were so contented and happy, the notion of taking a wife popped into my head as well. I confided my plan to my friend Gujerotti, and he suggested to me his sister Giuditta, who was boarding in a convent of nuns. I told him that first I wanted to get to know her and let her get to know me. Thus I wrote her, and she with a little bribe seduced the sister doorkeeper to let me, along with her brother, into the parlor. The young virgin was already present; she came to the grate, I bowed to her, she did the same: "your servant! - your servant!" She pleased me, I pleased her, and with a mutual smile and no further conversation we agreed to be betrothed. She was eleven, I was thirteen and a half. In leaving the parlor we came face to face with the wolf: the prioress was at a window. She saw us, became suspicious, and informed the family of my friend, and from that moment on I never saw my dear betrothed again. It bothered me terribly, because she was truly very beautiful, and as long as I was at Verona I did not cease to yearn for her. What became of her hasty love I do not know; only that mine must have vanished on my trip, since having arrived at Roveredo I thought of Giuditta no more.
It is easy to imagine the consolation and delight which I felt in seeing my fatherland once more and in embracing my parents and relatives, but the anxiety of providing evidence of my progress in music and further of showing off my silvery and very high voice topped everything. I was hoping to induce my father to allow me to devote myself entirely to music, instead of commerce; but it was all for naught.
My mother, as anxious as I was to hear me and have me heard, had put together for my arrival a little recital, inviting some freinds among whom was Pulli, my first teacher.
When I began to sing I felt hoarse. I tried and tried again, but in vain, or rather I could not begin a note. Pulli came up to me, and having as an old master already discovered from my speaking voice that the change of voice was upon me, exhorted me not to force it, since I might lose it. I wept like a baby, and could do nothing further that evening. To console me my dear father permitted me to take flute lessons from Signor Francesco Untersteiner, a miserable player! Yet after only one month I played the things from those days passably well with a one-key flute.
My mother then tried to recommence her jokes between the Salesian father and mother Teresa, without noticing that having lived for two consecutive years in a large city had opened my eyes and my mind a bit, and that my ideas were beginning to develop. I took pity on her however, once only, and went with her to confess with the Salesian, then in the evening she left me alone in the parlor with Teresa. She, as she had done before, told me my sins; I thanked her ironically, and then looking at her keenly I winked at her. She became as red as a lobster, and ran off immediately to tell my mother of my words and gestures. I then became suspicious, and returning home declared to my mother that I wanted to change my confessor and that I was too old to be paying attention to the chatter of a Theatine. That was enough that I never heard any further talk of the Salesian, or of Teresa.
Up until that point my father's business had had the wind in its sails; he had saved money, bought a nice field, and a filatojo or silk mill, where he employed at that time up to twenty-five or more people. He had also set up two brothers at Verona, one a broker the other a silk merchant, which had cost him a pretty penny. But his first disgrace was to take into his house and as a partner his brother Giambattista, and to change the firm from Francesco and Co. to Ferrari Brothers.
Giambattista had a wife, two daughters and a son, the last of which became the bane of my father and of my brothers and myself. Sometime thereafter my uncle died, and my father had the weakness of taking for a partner my uncle's son, to agree to give him five hundred florins a year in salary, a share of the profits, free housing etc. etc. He also arranged a marriage with Signora Teresa Fuiten of Trent, heiress of thirty thousand florins, which sum was given to my cousin under the responsibility of my father.
At that time there were four of us brothers still living, and four sisters, two of whom were twins who then died in infancy. There were two others mouths to feed at the stove; the uncle who was a priest, and a marriageable aunt, who, both favored by nature with a happy appetite and a very refined taste, employed them marvelously well, choosing the best foods and the best wines, especially since it cost them nothing.
The worst then that could happen to my father was to lose his consort; she finished her life at the premature age of thirty-seven years, leaving her husband in the greatest desolation and all the affairs of his numerous family in turmoil. My mother was grieved not only by her relations but by everyone who knew her; for even if she was overly devout, as I said above, she nevertheless had a generous heart and looked after everything that pertained to her family as the most active and economical house wife possible. My father's situation then became one to cause pity. My uncle the priest occupied himself with nothing but making good wine; he went walking, hunting, to the confessional, and every evening to play trumps or tressette, in the house of Vigagnoni, with his penitents. My aunt was always with her rosary, with the office of the Madonna in her hand, or with her fingers in the holy water as soon as she saw a font. My two remaining sisters were sickly and pious to the nth degree. (Author's note: I will never forget my sister Barbara, when I took her to Saco to hear an opera buffa there, performed marvelously bu the noble dilettants of that little spot; she came along only for my sake, but it was observed by those who were next to her that she never raised her eyes to the stage, nor moved them from the catechism which she had brought along, and which she read and reread until the curtain fell!) My cousin, humbug and hypocrite, was looking forward to when he might undo his uncle and benefactor.
Of four brothers I was the oldest, but still too young to give assistance to my father; and beside I hated business and adored music, and instead of frequenting the office and the silk rooms I was almost always at the harpsichord or with the flute at my lips. My voice had changed and I exercised it as much as possible; Pulli counseled me wisely not to force it on the high notes, but to seek little by little to unite the chest voice with the head voice, the falsetto, in order to acquire, he said, the violoncello of human voices, the Tenor. But still other nuisances were disturbing my poor father not a little. Since there was no longer a mistress of the house the affairs of the family remained in the care of my unhappy sisters and my emaciated aunt, the three of them not making up one between them. I, in addition to music's distraction, had also taken up the custom of going, now and then, to visit the silk working women, and their conversation interested me more than the account books and the organzas of the business. Among these young women there was a certain Orsolina Vitadèo, daughter of a wig-maker who lived two doors down from my father's house. She was polite and striking, and she struck my eye and pierced my heart a little more than Giuditta of Verona. The sly girl noticed this; it didn't bother her, nor was it unwelcome. Not being able to visit such a family openly, I visited with her when she came to work the silk.
One evening as it was getting dark I came out of a granary and clambered like a cat up the neighboring house, then launching and dragging myself with my legs apart up on the roof, I arrived at the window of my beauty’s granary. I jumped in, but in jumping bumped into the heads for the wigs and into other obstacles, making a great clatter. Vitadèo heard, and believing that it was thieves he armed himself with a large club to assault them, but tender Orsolina, knowing what was going on, and concerned for my bones, confessed everything to her father. He came up into the granary, and even if he was a little angry, he couldn't keep himself from laughing at seeing me so frightened, agitated and confused by my imprudence. He shouted at me more for having exposed myself to the danger of falling to the street than for having tried to make love with his daughter. She wept with compassion for me; he embraced her, pardoned her, then accompanied me from his house to mine and made me promise that that I would no longer get up to such tricks.
Informed of this, and of what I related a little earlier, and seeing that he couldn't make of me what he had desired, my father proposed to me that I should go for two years to the monastery of the Benedictine Fathers at Mariaberg, to learn the German language; but his aim was to remove me from the tempations of music, of Orsolina, and of the fair sex in general. And as I was seduced by a great desire to travel, by curiosity about living in a monastery and learning the German language there, without thinking about anything else I immediately accepted the offer, and my departure was fixed for the fifteenth of September.

Posted 6:03 AM by laura r.
Chapter III.
My Father's Vow - Sanctuary on Montebaldo - My Education at Verona - Pasquinades



My brother Lodovico caught a mild case of smallpox, and of the two pox which he had one injured his right eye, which caused him to lose his sight. My unhappy father, due to this misfortune, made a vow to the Madonna della Corona to visit that sanctuary with his wife and two elder daughters if Lodovico was healed. He spared neither means nor gold; but there was no remedy. In spite of this he believed that he owed an offering to the Virgin and resolved to leave, since my mother had decided to send me to Verona. I thus went with them.
We left Roveredo in the morning, and stayed in Ala for a few hours, a prosperous and pleasing city. At night we slept at Peri, a little village, but well- situated; it is about a quarter mile from the Adige, beyond which is the Rivalta gate, that is two barks covered with tables for transporting passagers and merchandise back and forth across the river. Facing Peri one sees the very tall Montebaldo, which protects Lago Garda; halfway up the hill the canonry and the church or the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Corona appear.
We stayed at the post house, kept by a certain Signor Ventura, a placid and hospitable man; he gave us an exquisite meal, at a good price, and what is more some excellent vin santo, made in the house. Two silk makers of that place, correspondents of my father, dined with us, and chatting after the meal they were asked if they could give us any correct information on the history of the Madonna della Corona. One answered that the Sanctuary appeared unexpectedly one day to the unutterable surprise of the vicinity and of the wayfarers; and that the great miracles done by that Virgin were innumerable.
The other added without cerimony that the story was false, but that a hermit and his friends having gone up Montebaldo and having brought up the machinery with ropes had built the canonry and the church in secret in the forest. Then, having cut down the trees that was covering it one night, the above-mentioned Sanctuary appeared in full view the next day; that he had heard tell of the quantity of miracles done by that Virgin, but that he had not seen a single one. (Author's note: However what is not
false is that after the battle of Rivoli Napoleon miraculously brought his army over Montebaldo, and with the large artillery tirata su a contrappeto, and with a cannon of immense calibre, whose roar brought panic to the entire valley).
This did not discourage my parents in the least. They left at the next dawn with my sisters and with the postmaster, who courteously accompanied them beyond the Adige, to the Riva Alta gate, where they found the asses already in order and ready to slowly ascend that very steep mountain. At a mile from the Sanctuary they were obliged to leave the asses in a kind of shelter, only being able to ascend there on foot. Having arrived at the church and made their devotions they returned to Peri and from there to Roveredo, with the hope of finding Lodovico cured by a miracle; but they found him as unhappy as they had left him.
In the meantime I had gone with the carriage passing through Volargne, the end of the Tirolian Alps, where the rich plain of Venetian Lombardy majestically presents itself. Having arrived at Verona, I had myself brought immediately to my fated preceptor, the justly venerated Don Antonio Pandolfi. He instructed me a little better in Italian and Latin, gave me an idea of mathematics, of geography, of Muratori's moral philosophy, and of the works of Metastasio, which interested me more than anything. But the enthusiasm and the prevailing taste which I had for music detracted not a little from the instructions of Don Pandolfi.
Cubri was given to me as my master for solfege, a dull and knavish priest, good only for bringing a beginner along; still he gave me lessons in accompaniment, and after a year I knew my solfege, accompanied tolerably at sight, took lessons every weekday and holiday, and paid a Bavarian dollar for every sixteen lessons.
My precepter and his friends seeing that Cubri could do no more for me, I was given as my singing master, Marcolla, an excellent professor, and Borsaro, much better at the keyboard than Cubri; I paid them the same price for every twelve lessons, but my father's money was better spent, since in the following year while I remained at Verona I made rapid and visible progress.
At this time something happened which has always weighed on my heart, and confessing which give me some consolation.
Shortly before I went to Verona my mother wrote there to the archpriest of Santa Maria Antica, to ask him to be my confessor while I was in that city. He agreed to her request with pleasure, and I went often to him immediately after my arrival, but rarely thereafter; as much because he seemed to me a sort of Salesian father, as through a circumstance which I am about to tell, and which proved to me that his principles were not liberal.
He and other fanatics or religious bigots encouraged me to despise, rather to hate the Jews, calling them the greatest enemies of we Christians. It didn't take much to persuade me, and when I went walking through Verona with my companions and we met a Jew, we would mock him with impunity, with words, with gestures, now caricaturing the songs of his Synagogue, now the shouts that those poor folk make in their ghetto or in the streets.
One day, while I was playing ball with some boys in the courtyard of the Palazzo Zenobio, a Jew passed by there with a sack on his shoulders, shouting as usual "old clothes!" We left our game and began to torment that poor man; he angered and upset, took his burden from his shoulders to throw it at me, who was closest to him; but I, younger and more agile than him, ran out of the palazzo; he followed me, but when I was at a certain distance, I took a stone from the street, and threw it at his head. Stunned by the blow and the wound he stopped, and I escaped to Don Antonio's house, passing through the pharmacy which his two brothers kept.
It was not long until the mistreated merchant of old clothes presented himself in the same shop, complaining justly and bitterly of me. My precepter came down, and hearing my misdeed obliged me to ask pardon of him, and give that little money which I had in my wallet. The Israelite was satisfied, and after being treated by Pandolfi he went back to the Ghetto.
Don Antonio then brought me in his chamber, and chastised me severely, making me understand that I ought not to mingle with any but those of my own religion, nor to have scorn for any other, and above all for that of the Jews, since we Christians as well believe in the the old Testament. And further that I should note that our Savior himself was born of a Jewish Virgin.
That was enough to emancipate me from the prejudices of my Archpriest and his like; when I later got to know some of those persecuted people I considered them always as my friends.
In that spring an opera seria was presented at the Teatro Filarmonica. Danzi, in her first youth, a singer of surprising agility, was there, David, father of the present David, in his flower, as well as Paccherotti, the model for singers of that time; in spite of all that the opera was a failure.
Since I have spoken of the Theatre, I will tell here two rather biting pasquinades.
When maestro Mortellari left England, he left London with Cavalier Pisani, a noble Venetian and his patron. Having arrived at Padua the good Cavalier saw that his protege was engaged to write an opera and a ballet there. The company was certainly poor, but Mortellari was one of those stubborn old men who won't adapt themselves to the good taste of the day, and what's more his music was weak and bare of harmony. He made a fiasco, a grand fiasco, and was served with this compliment:
Singers without voice,
Dancers without legs,
Music by Mortellari!

The last appearance that the celebrated Mombelli, known as the tenor dei terzetti, made, was Pergola in Florence; he was over seventy years old, and still wanted to sing; the little voice that he still had was trembling, and falling in a disgusting way, etc. etc. Since he had been for twenty years the idol of the Florentines he was respected, but when he went to the theatre the second evening to get in costume he found on the door of his dressing room, written in red pencil:
At seventy, one doesn't sing or dance!

Now, changing the tone, but not the subject, I ask permission to tell another which I find brilliant.
The Republic of Venice had been on the brink of its precipice for more than a century; various senators with good sense and great politicians had died or retired; some dandies with little intellect and ignoramuses and taken their place, and in consequence the affairs of the Republic were going to the dogs. One daythe initials reproduced below could be seen affixed to a door of the Palace of the Doge:
PPP
III
RRR
G.

These produced great suspicion and fear on the part of the new senators. There were spies at the balls; secret denunciations one after the other; arrests everywhere.
Finally they offered a great sum of money and pardon to whomever might be able to explain the meaning of the above-mentioned letters. Their author had no need of money and neither did he trust the promised pardon. In consequence, some time later, he caused the letters to be filled out as follows:

Patres Patriae Perierunt.
Iuvenes Ignari Imperant.
Respublica Recens Ruit
Gratis.