Travelling Companions
As with all good adventures, Liza’s journey seems to have diverged from the route that was originally planned. Having completed the first draft of my translation of ‘Poor Liza’, I happened upon some other stories by Karamzin, and Liza has now been joined on her journey by a motley crew of travelling companions, such as the supremely innocent if not angelic Julia, a singing Dane with a tragic story to tell, and an unlikely knight. The more I read by and about Karamzin, the more fascinated I became by the development in Karamzin’s writing, which is apparent in the stories, and which led to him becoming one of the founding fathers of Russian literature as we know it today.
‘Eugene and Julia is a sweet yet tragic love story, not unlike ‘Poor Liza’, but much simpler and more idyllic in style, having been written some three years earlier in 1789. ‘Bornholm Island’ was published the year after “Poor Liza”, and although it can still be described as a tragic love story, there are also plenty of Gothic overtones, as the author begins to experiment with new techniques. The later ‘A Knight of Our Time’, published in instalments in a journal in 1802 and 1803, is different again, its tone slightly tongue-in-cheek, as the now older Karamzin injects his writing with a certain amount of sarcasm and wit.
So, while I am gathering, reviewing and wondering about a home for my now numerous translations, here is a snippet from the first draft of my current favourite, ‘Bornholm Island’:
The scarlet hue of sunset had not yet faded in the bright sky, its rosy glow falling on the white granite rocks and, in the distance, beyond a large hill, it lit up the pointed towers of an ancient castle. The boy could not tell me to whom the castle belonged. “We do not go there,” he said. “And God only knows what goes on inside!” I redoubled my steps and soon neared the huge gothic building surrounded by a deep moat and a high wall. Silence reigned all around, the sea could be heard far away, and the last ray of evening light was dying away over the bronze spires on top of the towers.
I walked around the castle – the gates were closed and the drawbridge raised. My guide, although he himself did not know why, begged me to go back to the huts, but how could a curious person agree to such a request?
In the same story, a mysterious stranger with a guitar sings a song, hinting at the rest of the plot. The narrator kindly translates it from the Danish for us:
O Bornholm, dear Bornholm!
My soul for you doth yearn
Never resting, where’er I may roam,
and yet I weep in vain.
Here I languish and lament,
now banished from your shores
by the oath of a scrupulous parent,
to sigh forever more.
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