frightened, or that you have a dimple on your thigh. Or how lovely your pale face looks when you are on the verge of suffocating and want to ask for my help. I am the only one who knows everything about you. I pore over my secrets there on the boat, and savor their various pleasures.
How long will this heat continue? It’s the worst hot spell I have seen since moving to the island, and I am longing for winter. I imagine how nice it will be to walk through the cold, deserted town with you, once the summer has ended and the tourists have gone. Though one thing does bother me: the last boat of the day leaves an hour earlier in winter. I hope you don’t find me ridiculous for worrying about such things.
It happens every year that demand for my translation services drops off sharply in the summer. I haven’t had anything like a real job for some time now. But then translating from Russian has never been a profitable line of work. I suppose the number of people in this world who find themselves inconvenienced because they don’t understand Russian is really rather small.
Two or three years ago, I decided to try teaching Russian. I took some money from my savings, and I placed an advertisement in the newspaper. “Study Russian! Conversation, translation. Beginners welcome.” After the advertisement appeared, I waited every day for some response. But not one person answered the ad. Around the time the boat was due in, I would go out and stand on the porch. I listened for footsteps on the road down by the cove, but it was pointless. No one ever came climbing up the shell stairs. I had wasted my money.
But since I met you I have learned the real meaning of waiting. I have experienced the indescribable joy of waiting for you, there in front of the flower clock in the plaza, and I am inordinately happy, even before you appear to me.
I watch the people coming up from the shore road, staring at every girl with even the slightest resemblance to you, and then turning away when I realize my mistake. I perform this ritual over and over, never growing tired. I would gladly repeat my error a thousand times, two thousand times, if it means finding you, you who are wholly unique. Finally, I am at a loss to distinguish between the desire to see you as soon as possible and the pleasant prospect of waiting forever.
On the day we went to the circus, I had the great joy of waiting for three hours and twenty minutes. And still today, I find myselfdreaming of you as you came running up to me that day, perspiring profusely, with the setting sun shining at your back.
When the longing to see you becomes more than I can bear, I find solace in Marie. I translate line after line, writing them out in my notebook, and it calms me a bit to turn the pages and watch them fill up with her story.
Marie’s parents are opposed to her affair with the riding master and they shut her up in a lakeside villa and force her to marry a barrister. The riding master is conscripted into the military and sent far away. One day, Marie realizes that she is pregnant. When her husband finds out, he strips her naked, plunges her into the frigid lake, and then forces her to take a medicine to induce miscarriage.
It’s a splendid scene. When Marie has been stripped in the forest at the edge of the lake, her corset and garters and brassiere hang from the branches of the birch trees like exotic white flowers. She resists, but he seizes her by the hair and throws her into the lake. Her golden locks spread out on the surface, and the green water dyes her translucent skin. She does not know how to swim, so her arms and legs thrash uselessly and her mouth opens and closes in wild convulsions. The barrister forces the medicine down her throat, and when Marie gulps for air, she swallows the potion. …
I can picture every detail of Marie’s suffering, from the way the seaweed wraps about her ankles to the echoes of her cries among the birches. And then, in my mind, you, Mari,
How long will this heat continue? It’s the worst hot spell I have seen since moving to the island, and I am longing for winter. I imagine how nice it will be to walk through the cold, deserted town with you, once the summer has ended and the tourists have gone. Though one thing does bother me: the last boat of the day leaves an hour earlier in winter. I hope you don’t find me ridiculous for worrying about such things.
It happens every year that demand for my translation services drops off sharply in the summer. I haven’t had anything like a real job for some time now. But then translating from Russian has never been a profitable line of work. I suppose the number of people in this world who find themselves inconvenienced because they don’t understand Russian is really rather small.
Two or three years ago, I decided to try teaching Russian. I took some money from my savings, and I placed an advertisement in the newspaper. “Study Russian! Conversation, translation. Beginners welcome.” After the advertisement appeared, I waited every day for some response. But not one person answered the ad. Around the time the boat was due in, I would go out and stand on the porch. I listened for footsteps on the road down by the cove, but it was pointless. No one ever came climbing up the shell stairs. I had wasted my money.
But since I met you I have learned the real meaning of waiting. I have experienced the indescribable joy of waiting for you, there in front of the flower clock in the plaza, and I am inordinately happy, even before you appear to me.
I watch the people coming up from the shore road, staring at every girl with even the slightest resemblance to you, and then turning away when I realize my mistake. I perform this ritual over and over, never growing tired. I would gladly repeat my error a thousand times, two thousand times, if it means finding you, you who are wholly unique. Finally, I am at a loss to distinguish between the desire to see you as soon as possible and the pleasant prospect of waiting forever.
On the day we went to the circus, I had the great joy of waiting for three hours and twenty minutes. And still today, I find myselfdreaming of you as you came running up to me that day, perspiring profusely, with the setting sun shining at your back.
When the longing to see you becomes more than I can bear, I find solace in Marie. I translate line after line, writing them out in my notebook, and it calms me a bit to turn the pages and watch them fill up with her story.
Marie’s parents are opposed to her affair with the riding master and they shut her up in a lakeside villa and force her to marry a barrister. The riding master is conscripted into the military and sent far away. One day, Marie realizes that she is pregnant. When her husband finds out, he strips her naked, plunges her into the frigid lake, and then forces her to take a medicine to induce miscarriage.
It’s a splendid scene. When Marie has been stripped in the forest at the edge of the lake, her corset and garters and brassiere hang from the branches of the birch trees like exotic white flowers. She resists, but he seizes her by the hair and throws her into the lake. Her golden locks spread out on the surface, and the green water dyes her translucent skin. She does not know how to swim, so her arms and legs thrash uselessly and her mouth opens and closes in wild convulsions. The barrister forces the medicine down her throat, and when Marie gulps for air, she swallows the potion. …
I can picture every detail of Marie’s suffering, from the way the seaweed wraps about her ankles to the echoes of her cries among the birches. And then, in my mind, you, Mari,
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