AMSTERDAM Ejemplosdetraduccion

8/10/2019 AMSTERDAM Ejemplosdetraduccion

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Ian Mc Ewan AMSTERDAM

Two former lovers of Molly Lane stood waiting outside the crematorium chapel with their backs to the February chill. It

had all been said before, but they said it again.

She never knew what hit her.

When she did it was too late.

Rapid onset.

Poor Molly.

Mmm.

Poor Molly. It began with a tingling in her arm as she raised it outside the Dorchester Grill to

stop a cab -a sensation that never went away. Within weeks she was fumbling for the names of

things. Parliament, chemistry propeller she could forgive herself, but less so bed, cream, mirror. It

was after the temporary disappearance of acanthus and bresaiola that she sought medical advice,

expecting reassurance. Instead, she was sent for tests and, in a sense, never returned. How quickly

feisty Molly became the sickroom prisoner of her morose, possessive husband, George. Molly,

restaurant critic, gorgeous wit, and photographer, the daring gardener, who had been loved by the

foreign secretary and could still turn a perfect cartwheel at the age of forty-six. The speed of her

descent into madness and pain became a matter of common gossip: the loss of control of bodily function and with it all

sense of humor, and then the tailing off into vagueness interspersed with episodes of ineffectual violence and muffled

shrieking.

Dos antiguos amantes de Molly Lane esperaban fuera de la capilla del

crematorio con las espaldas de caras al fro de febrero. Se haba dicho antes,

sin embargo ellos lo volvan a repetir.

Nunca supo lo que le golpeo. Lo que le vino encima

Cuando lo supo ya era demasiado tarde.

Empez tan de repente.

- Pobre Molly


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It was the sight now of George emerging from the chapel that caused Molly s lovers tomove off farther up the weedy gravel path. They wandered into an arrangement of ovalrose beds marked by a sign, THE GARDEN OF REMEMBRANCE. Each plant had beensavagely cut back to within a few inches of the frozen ground, a practice Molly used todeplore. The patch of lawn was strewn with flattened cigarette butts, for this was a placewhere people came to stand about and wait for the funeral party ahead of theirs to clear the

building. As they strolled up and down, the two old friends resumed the conversation theyhad had in various forms a half-dozen times before but that gave them rather morecomfort than singing Pilgrim.

Clive Linley had known Molly first, back when they were students in 68 and lived

together in a chaotic, shifting household in the Vale of Health.

A terrible way to go.

Era la visin de George emergiendo de la capilla que causaba que los amantes de Molly

dieran un paso atrs haca el camino de la tumba con hierbajo.

Ahora, la visin de George saliendo de la capilla hizo que los amantes de Molly se alejaranan ms por el sendero de grava plagado de malas hierbas.

Se paseaban por el

Se adentraron en una zona de ovales parterres de rosas, presididos por un letrero

que rezaba: El Jardn de la Remembranza. Cada una de las plantas haba sido salvajemente

podada hasta escasos centmetros de la tierra helada, una prctica que Molly sola deplorar. El

retazo de csped estaba lleno de colillas aplastadas, pues se trataba de un lugar donde la gente

sola demorarse a la espera de que deudos y amigos del difunto salieran del edificio principal.

Mientras iban y venan por el sendero, los dos viejos amigos reanudaron la conversacin que,

de formas diversas, haban mantenido en el pasado media docena de veces y que les

procuraba harto ms consuelo que entonar el himno de la nostalgia.

Clive Linley haba sido el primero de los dos en conocer a Molly. Su amistad se

remontaba al 68, cuando siendo estudiantes haban convivido con un catico y cambiante

grupo juvenil en el Valle de la Salud. Una forma horrible de morir.

He watched his own vaporized breath float off into the gray air. The temperature

in central London was said to be twelve degrees today. Twelve. There was something

seriously wrong with the world for which neither God nor His absence could be

blamed. Man s first disobedience, the Fall, a falling figure, an oboe, nine notes, ten

notes. Clive had the gift of perfect pitch and heard

them descending from the G. There was no need to write them down.

Mir como su propio aliento se vaporizaba en el aire gris. Hoy se deca que la temperatura de la Londres central era

de doce grados. Doce. Haba algo que estaba seriosamente mal con el mundo por lo que ni Dios ni su ausencia poda

culparla. La primera desobediencia del hombre, la cada, una figura cada, un obo, nueve notas, diez notas. Clive

tena odo para la msica y escuchaba las notas decendientes desde el Sol. No era necesario escribirlas.


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He continued, "I mean, to die that way, with no awareness, like an animal.To be reduced, humiliated, before she could make arrangements, or even saygoodbye. It crept up on her, and then..." He shrugged. They came to the end of thetrampled lawn, turned, and walked back."She would have killed herself rather than end up like that," Vernon Halliday

said. He had lived with her for a year in Paris in '74, when he had his first job withReuters and Molly did something or other for Vogue. "Brain-dead and in George's

clutches," Clive said.

Prosigui:- Quiero decir, morir de esa forma, sin dares cuenta, como un animal. Que te hayanhumillado, antes de que pudiera arreglar cualquier cosa, ni tiempo para despedirse.Se apoder de ella, y despus - Se encogi de hombros. Salieron de del csped ya

pisoteado, giraron y volvieron.- tendra que haberse sucidado en vez de acabar de esta manera- dijo Vernon

Halliday. En 1974 vivi con ella durante un ao en Pars, cuando tena el primertrabajo con Reuters y Molly haca o a o b para Vogue.- Muerta mentalmente y en las garras de George- Dijo Clive

George, the sad, rich publisher who doted on her and whom, to everyone's surprise,she had not left, though she always treated him badly. They looked now towhere he stood outside the door, receiving commiseration from a group ofmourners. Her death had raised him from general contempt. He appeared tohave grown an inch or two, his back had straightened, his voice had deepened, anew dignity had narrowed his pleading, greedy eyes. Refusing to consign her toa home, he had cared for her with his own hands. More to the point, in the earlydays, when people still wanted to see her, he vetted her visitors. Clive and Vernon

were strictly rationed because they were considered to make her excitable and,afterward, depressed about her condition. Another key male, the foreign secretary,was also unwelcome. People began to mutter; there were muted references in acouple of gossip columns. And then it no longer mattered, because the word was shewas horribly not herself; people didn't want to go and see her and were glad thatGeorge was thereto prevent them. Clive and Vernon, however, continued to enjoy loathing him.

George, el editor rico y triste que la dot y del cual, por sorpresa de todo el mundo, ella no le haba dejado aunque la

tratase mal. Ahora lo miraban, estaba cerca de la puerta, reciba el psame del grupo de plaideras. Su muerte lo

haba hecho despreciable. Pareca haber crecido un o dos centmetros, la espalda se le haba enderezado, la voz era

ms ronca, una nueva dignidad haba nacido en sus ojos suplicantes y codiciosos. Se haba negado a enviarla a

cualquier casa, l mismo se ocupaba de ella. Y aun es ms, durante los primeros das, cuando la gente an quera

verla, prohiba las visitas. Clive y Vernon se les racion porqu estaban entusiasmados/ ilusionados con su condicin,

pero despus desanimados. Otro hombre clave, el Ministro de Asuntos Exteriores, tambin le era prohibido. La gente

empez a hablar; haba referencias mudas en un par de columnas de la prensa rosa. Al final, ya no importaba,

porque no era ella ya; la gente no la quera ir a visitar y estaban felices que George les privara de entrar. Clive y

Vernon, sin embargo, continuaron________________


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bra and panties, a cue rest for a snake and a red ball for an apple. The story handed

down, however, the one that had appeared in an obituary and was remembered that

way even by some who were present, was that Molly "danced naked on Christmas

Eve on a snooker table in a Scottish castle."

"A lovely girl,*' Clive repeated. She had looked right at him when she pretended to bitethe apple, and smiled raunchily through her chomping, with one hand on a jutting hip,

like a music hall parody of a tart. He thought it was a signal, the way she held his gaze,

and sure enough, they were back together that April. She moved into the studio in

South Kensington and stayed through the summer. This was about the time her

restaurant column was taking off, when she went on television to denounce the

Michelin guide as the "kitsch of cuisine." It was also the time of his own

first break, the Orchestral Variations at the Festival Hall, Second time round. She

probably hadn't changed, but he had. Ten years on, he'd learned enough to let her teachhim something. He'd always been of the hammer-and-tongs school. She taught him

sexual stealth, the occasional necessity of stillness. Lie still, like this, look at me, really

look at me. We're a time bomb. He was almost thirty, by today's standards a late

developer. When she found a place of her own and packed her bags, he asked her to

marry him. She kissed him, and quoted in his ear, He married a woman to stop her

getting away/Now she's there all day. She was right, for when she went he was happier

than ever to be alone and wrote the Three Autumn Songs in less than a month. "Did

you ever learn anything from her?" Clive asked suddenly.In the mid-eighties Vernon too had had a second bite, on holiday on an estate in

Umbria. Then he was Rome correspondent for the paper he now edited, and a married

man. "I can never remember sex," he said after a pause.

"I'm sure it was brilliant. But I do remember her teaching me all about porcini, picking

them, cooking them." Clive assumed this was an evasion and decided against any

confidences of his own. He looked toward the chapel entrance. They would have to go

across. He surprised himself by saying rather savagely, "You know, I should have

married her. When she started to go under, I would have killed her with a pillow or

something and saved her from everyone's pity."

Vernon was laughing as he steered his friend away from the Garden ofRemembrance. "Easily said. I can just see you writing exercise yard anthems for thecons, like what's-her-name, the suffragette." "Ethel Smyth. Fd do a damn better jobthan she did/The friends of Molly who made up the funeral gathering would have

preferred not to be at a crematorium, but George had made it clear there w a s to beno memorial service. He didn't want to hear these three former lovers publiclycomparing notes from the pulpits of St. Martin's or St. James's, or exchangingglances while he made his own speech. As Clive and Vernon approached theyheard the familiar gabble of a cocktail party. No champagne trays, no restaurantwalls to throw back the sound, but otherwise one might have bee n at one more


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gallery opening, one more media launch. So many faces Clive had never seen by daylight, and looking terrible, like cadavers jerked upright to welcome the newlydead. Invigorated by this jolt of misanthropy, he moved sleekly through the din,ignored his name when it was called, withdrew his elbow when it was plucked, andkept on going toward where George stood talking to two women and a shriveled old

fellow with a fedora and cane."It's too cold, we have to go," Clive heard a voice cry out, but for the moment no

one could escape the centripetal power of a social event. He had already lost

Vernon, who had been pulled away by the owner of a television channel. At last

Clive was gripping George's hand in a reasonable display of sincerity. "It was a

wonderful service."

"It was very kind of you to come." Her death had ennobled him. The quiet gravity

really wasn't his style at all, which had always been both needy and dour;

anxious to be liked, but incapable of taking friendliness for granted. A burden of

the hugely rich."And do excuse me," he added, "these are the Finch sisters, Vera and Mini, who

knew Molly from her Boston days. Clive Linley." They shook hands.

"You're the composer?" Vera or Mini asked. "That's right." "It's a great honor,

Mr. Linley. My eleven-year-old granddaughter studied your sonatina for her final

exam in violin and really loved it." "That's very nice to know." The thought of

children playing his music made him feel faintly depressed.

"And this," George said, "also from the States, is Hart Pullman." "Hart Pullman.

At last. Do you remember I set your Rage poems for jazz orchestra?" Pullman wasthe Beat poet, the last survivorof the Kerouac generation. He was a withered little lizard of a man who was havingtrouble twistinghis neck to look up at Clive. "These days I don't remember a thing, not a fucking

thing," he said pleasantly in a high-pitched, chirpy voice. "But if you said you did it,

you did it."

"You remember Molly, though," Clive said. "Who?" Pullman kept a straight face

for two seconds, then cackled and clutched at Clive's forearm with slender white

ringers. "Oh sure," he said in his Bugs Bunny voice. "Molly and me go way backto '65 in the East Village. I remember Molly. Oh boy!"

Clive concealed his disquiet as he did the sums. She would have turned sixteen in

the June of that year. Why had she never mentioned it? He probed neutrally.

"She came out for the summer, I suppose." "Uh-uh. She came to my Twelfth

Night party. What a girl, eh, George?" Statutory rape, then. Three years before him.

She never told him about Hart Pullman. And didn't she come to the premier of

Rage? Didn't she come to the restaurant afterward? He couldn't remember. Not

a fucking thing.


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This little book, although extremely fundamental in approach and intent. is all the

more remarkable by virtue of the fact that no such work has ever been compiled forthe learning of Dutch. Numerous such vocabularies exist for French, German. Italian


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and Spanish, but Dutch seems always to have been the Cinderella of the

languoges of Western Europe. I hope hereby to rectify thot situation in some small

way.

Este librito, aunque sea extremadamente fundamental en perspectiva e intencin es uno de

los ms remarcables

This book is intended for the English-speaking students of Dutch wherever they

reside in the world and whatever course being followed; i.e. whether at a

secondary or tertiary educational institution, ottending a private course, or home

study. It is designed to supplement the limited vocabulary that all grammars are

forced by necessity to use. In my opinion it is imper at ive that formal explanation of

the grammar should be accompanied by some form of systematic vocabulary

learning where a choice has been made by an experienced teacher of Dutchbetween basic everyday vocabulary that should be learnt immediately, and that

which can be left to the student to pick up later from his own interactions with

native speakers and from reading . I have made such a choice here, grouping

common vocabulary items under general topics .

By systematically working his way through this book,andat the same time following

a course in the language bosed on any of the existing grammars or language laboratory

methods, the student should build up o good working vocobulory which is free of the

esoteric. ond often difficult i tems which make dictionaries so complicated to use torpeople storting out in a new language. This is no substituta for a dictionary of course,but a

dictionary is nota substituta for a book such as this e i ther.

The words hove been put into groups of ten on average - sometimes there are as few ase ight and sometimes os mony os twelve ; to hove stuck r ig id ly to ten wou ld hove torce d me ot

times to leove out usefu l words or include some not so useful ones . Such g r ouping of the

item s should assist leorn ing ; for instonce one can set oneself the tosk of learnng one or two or

more units o day and thus ge t a fee ling of progress . By having grouped the words fur the r under

brood generaltapies, it should be proctical for examp le tor teochers to set essays on those

topics in which the student con attempt to use as many of the given words os possib l e . A

further advantage of group i ng the words under general tap ies is the avoldonce of

ambiguity of meaning . Many words hove a variety of meanings depending on context,

but usually the mean i ng of o particular word i s clear in this instance beca use of the

other words in its vicinity . On occasions i t wos necessary. for the soke of clarity. to footnote

ind ividual vocabulary items.but this has been kept toa mnimu m .

The choice of words to be incorporated into or left out of o book such as this is somewhot

orbitrory and subjec tive. Even computar compilad frequency lists are subjectiv e because


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they are based on arbi tra rily chosen newspapers,mogazines, novels etc. Lists compilad in

that way often grossly dis tor t realit y . To take a hypothetical example. one could well find

thot i f a frequency lst for Dutch were

bosed on ony of the well-known dailies of Holland. one wou ld probably find that

By systematically working his way through this book,andat the same time following a course in the language bosed on any of the existing grammars or language laboratory

methods, the student should build up o good working vocobulory which is free of the

esoteric. ond often difficult i tems which make dictionaries so complicated to use tor

people storting out in a new language. This is no substituta for a dictionary of course,but a

dictionary is nota substituta for a book such as this e i ther.

The words hove been put into groups of ten on average - sometimes there are as few ase ight and sometimes os mony os twelve ; to hove stuck r ig id ly to ten wou ld hove torce d me ot

times to leove out usefu l words or include some not so useful ones . Such g r ouping of the

item s should assist leorn ing ; for instonce one can set oneself the tosk of learnng one or two or

more units o day and thus ge t a fee ling of progress . By having grouped the words fur the r under

brood generaltapies, it should be proctical for examp le tor teochers to set essays on those

topics in which the student con attempt to use as many of the given words os possib l e . A

further advantage of group i ng the words under general tap ies is the avoldonce of

ambiguity of meaning . Many words hove a variety of meanings depending on context,

but usually the mean i ng of o particular word i s clear in this instance beca use of the

other words in its vicinity . On occasionsit wos necessary. for the soke of clarity. to footnote

ind ividual vocabulary items.but this has been kept toa mnimum .

The choice of words to be incorporated into or left out of o book such as this is somewhot

orbitrory and subjec tive. Even computar compilad frequency lists are subjectiv e because

they are based on arbi tra rily chosen newspapers,mogazines, novels etc. Lists compilad in

that way often grossly dis tor t realit y . To take a hypothetical example. one could well find

thot i f a frequency lst for Dutch were

bosed on ony of the well-known dailies of Holland. one wou ld probably find that

Deciding which Dutch words to include was actually only half the problem;now they shouldbe translated turned out to be no mean task. As this book will be marketed throughout the English-speaking world. it was often difficult. even impossible.

to decide which English translat ion would be universally acceptable . Zwembroek. tor

example ,would be trans lated differently even from state to state within the Commonwealth of

Australia. so it was imposs ible forme to know exactly what one says in Britain and America.and

even had 1 known this, space would not hove permitted all alternativas. 1 thus opted for a

neutral descriptiva translation. swimming trunks,although 1 would not personally ever use that

expression.ln such instances the reader will simply hove to substituta the word most

commonly used


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where he or she is living. 1 hove certainly always done my best to avoid peculiarly Australian

expressions where 1 was aware that our use of English differs from overseas e.g.

snoepje- sweet. piece of candy. whereas in Australia one would soy 'lolly'. 1 am

reasonably conffdent that my translations will be generally acceptable to Britishers. but

mv limiteci knowledge of American English has undoubtedly led to some expressions

sounaing unfamiliar to inhabitants of that continent. 1 hove. however. kept American

usage in mind wherever possible e.g. kraan- tap, faucet.

On occasions 1 also had great difficulty in deciding whether an English compound noun

should be written as one word . two words or hyphenated. a problem that does not often

arise in Dutch. In my defence. should anyone disagree with my decisions .1 quot e Fowler.

generally regarded as the authority among speakers of British English : ' ... its (l.e . use of

hyphens) inffnite variety deffes description. No two dictionaries and no two sets of style rules

would be found to give consistently the

same advlce '.2 In cases where it is not immediately obv ious where the stress f a lls on a word, the syllable to be stressed is printed in bold type.l hove not for instance indicatedstress in a word

llke begrijpen, but 1 hove in hengelen, gt aa r and p a spoort, because, although thosewords do not hove an irregular stress like stodh ul s and burgem ee ster, they are nevertheless words which the non-nativa-speaker may be inclinad to stress incor rectl y. The stress in verbs such as ultdrukken is always given, thereby

indicating that they are separable .

The symbol indlcates a strong or irregular verb. lt would hove been unwieldy to glve the

principal parts of all irregular verbs and to ind icate whether they take hebben, zijn or both

in the perfect tense. Such information can usually be quite easily gleaned from dictionaries

and grammars.

Where more than one translation of a Dutch word is given. a comma is used to separata

synonyms. Wherever a semi-colon ls used, however , what follows is an alternativa meaning

of that Dutch word e .g. p a priko-pepper, capsicum; paprika .

In conclus ion, a wo r d about the illustrations . They are intended first and foremost simply to

livenup the pages of this book . Suc h a book caneasily become tedious to learn from - afte r all,vocabulary learning is hard work.but the s ig ht of an amusing sketch with a relevant sub-title

is psychologically relieving and atth e some t ime the expressions being illustrated are all the

more likely to stay in the student's mind . All the captions which accompany the illust rations

attempt to illustrate an important point of grammar or particular i diom in addi tion to

using in context sorne of the words given on the page. Translations of the Dutch captions

are given on

page 6.

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