Thursday, January 26, 2006

Relations with the Divinity

"Aujourd'hui quand on me parle de Lui, je dis avec l'amusement sans regret d'un vieux beau qui rencontre une ancienne belle: 'Il y a cinquante ans, sans ce malentendu, sans cette meprise, sans l'accident qui nous separa, il aurait pu avoir quelque chose entre nous.'"

Sartre, Les Mots
[update: Html error corrected to, ahem, restore what the vieux beau said.]

(Clumsy translation across the fold.)

"When someone speaks of Him today, I say with the bemusement of an old lover who crosses an old love: 'Fifty years ago, had it not been for that misunderstanding, that disagreement, that incident that separated us, there could have been something between us."

2 Comments:

Blogger rilkefan:

You get an awful lot out of "<>".

Also, maybe "resigned smile"?

1/27/2006 04:43:00 PM  
Blogger Marilee Scott:

Whoops! That's what I get for not previewing, I guess.

I like "resigned smile," although I was defiantly proud of my non-exact "bemusement." I'm torn. Your version gives a more visual rendition than I think Sartre's did; my version renders the abstract and Latinate style without as much of the vehicle that Sartre provided. Well, putting it that way, I think yours wins.

Rilkefan 2; Jackmormon .5 (for effort).

1/29/2006 09:30:00 PM  

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