I clearly recall the day I first became truly aware of myself, I mean of myself as something that everything else was not. As a boy I liked best those dead intervals of the year when one season had ended and the next had not yet begun, and all was grey and hushed and still, and out of the stillness and the hush something would seem to approach me, some small, soft, tentative thing, and offer itself to my attention. This day of which I speak I was walking along the main street of the town. It was November, or March, not cold, but neutral. From a lowering sky fine rain was falling, so fine as to be hardly felt. It was morning, and the housewives were out, with their shopping bags and headscarves. A questing dog trotted busily past me looking neither to right nor left, following a straight line drawn invisibly on the pavement. There was a smell of smoke and butcher’s meat, and a brackish smell of the sea, and, as always in the town in those days, the faint sweet stench of pig-swill. The open doorway of a hardware shop breathed brownly at me as I went past. Taking in all this, I experienced something to which the only name I could give was happiness, although it was not happiness, it was more and less than happiness. What had occurred? What in that commonplace scene before me, the ordinary sights and sounds and smells of the town, had made this unexpected thing, whatever it was, burgeon suddenly inside me like the possibility of an answer to all the nameless yearnings of my life? Everything was the same now as it had been before, the housewives, that busy dog, the same, and yet in some way transfigured. Along with the happiness went a feeling of anxiety. It was as if I were carrying some frail vessel that it was my task to protect, like the boy in the story told to us in religious class who carried the Host through the licentious streets of ancient Rome hidden inside his tunic; in my case, however, it seemed I was myself the precious vessel. Yes, that was it, it was I that was happening here. I did not know exactly what this meant, but surely, I told myself, surely it must mean something. And so I went on, in happy puzzlement, under the small rain, bearing the mystery of myself in my heart.
Was it that same phial of precious ichor, still inside me, that spilled in the cinema that afternoon, and that I carry in me yet, and that yet will overflow at the slightest movement, the slightest misbeat of my heart?
Tisztán emlékszem a napra, amikor először ébredtem igazán öntudatra – mármint abban az értelemben, hogy olyasvalami vagyok, ami minden más nem. Kisfiúként az évnek azon részeit kedveltem leginkább, amikor egy évszak már véget ért, de a következő még nem kezdődött el, minden szürke, csendes és mozdulatlan, a csendből és mozdulatlanságból pedig mintha valami felém közeledett volna – valami kicsi, puha, bizonytalan, ami azt szerette volna, hogy észrevegyem. A szóban forgó napon a város főutcáján sétáltam. November vagy március volt, az idő nem hideg, inkább olyan semmilyen. A szürke égből finoman szemerkélt az eső – olyan apró szemű, hogy szinte nem is éreztem. Reggel volt, a fejkendős asszonyok már útra keltek bevásárlókosaraikkal. Szimatoló kutya ügetett el mellettem céltudatosan, nem nézve se jobbra, se balra - mintha egy járdára festett láthatatlan és nyílegyenes vonalat követett volna. Füst és hentesáru szaga terjengett a levegőben, vegyülve a tenger kissé sós illatával, és persze, ahogy a városban akkoriban megszokott volt, az alig érzékelhető, édes moslékbűzzel. Ahogy elsétáltam egy vaskereskedés előtt, meglegyintett nyitott kapualjának fűrészporos, sötétbarna lehelete. Mindezt megtapasztalva egyszerre elkapott egy érzés, amelynek egyedül a boldogság nevet tudtam adni, pedig nem az volt – egyszerre volt több és kevesebb annál. Mi történt? Vajon mit láthattam abban a közhelyes jelenetben, a város teljesen hétköznapi látványában, hangjaiban és szagaiban, ami miatt ez a váratlan dolog, bármi legyen is, hirtelen növekedésnek indult bennem, mint eddigi életem minden egyes névtelen vágyakozására adott válasz? Minden ugyanolyannak tűnt most is, mint azelőtt: a asszonyok, a céltudatos kutya – ugyanolyan, mégis átlényegült. A boldogsággal együtt járt a szorongás érzése is. Olyan volt, mintha valami törékeny edényt hordoznék, amelynek a megóvása az én feladatom; mint a hittanórán mesélt történetben a kisfiú, aki a tunikájába rejtve vitte magával az oltáriszentséget végig az ókori Róma züllött utcáin; az én esetemben azonban úgy tűnt, hogy én magam vagyok az az értékes edény. Igen, erről volt szó: én voltam az, ami akkor történt. Nem tudtam pontosan, hogy ez mit is jelent, de – győzködtem magam -, valamit biztosan. Így mentem hát tovább, boldog értetlenségben, a lágyan szemerkélő esőben, a szívemben hordozva önmagam misztériumát.
Vajon ugyanaz a még bennem lévő, ezzel az értékes isteni nedűvel teli fiola borult ki aznap délután a moziban? Vajon ugyanezt a fiolát hordozom még mindig, amely még ma is, a legkisebb mozdulatra is túlcsordul, vagy ha kihagy a szívem?
I have yet to encounter John Banville before my professor called my attention to the EFACIS translation project – sadly, since he is a pleasure to read, and a challenge to translate. His images are really something else, and whilst translating I had to concentrate on not losing the pervasive feeling that he creates with said images.
In the Eclipse excerpt, the most challenging task might have been the preserving the complete image and its pervasive feeling of the epiphany suddenly appearing in the grey and stimulus-lacking picture – Banville does an excellent job building up the feeling of a gloomy day, it would have been a shame to ruin it by mistranslating the text.
The synaesthesia of the hardware shop door breathing brownly was a little difficult, since I am certain that the brown in this regard is not only the colour and a part of the synaesthesia, but also a reference for the smell of wood and sawdust – since you can purchase wood in most of the hardware stores. Therefore, I kept the brown colour as not only the part of a menacing entrance howling emptily but as the smell of that air that comes out when I translated the text.
During the translation of the Dr Copernicus excerpt maybe the most challenging task was keeping the balance between the perspective of a child and the vocabulary of an adult, talented writer. Banville masterfully dances on the edge, the first-person perspective of the child enhanced by his style.
Another tough question was the name of Copernicus – since he has a Hungarian equivalent, a sort of translation of his name, Nikolausz Kopernikusz. I had to decide whether I should keep the English version, or stick to the Hungarian one – I chose the latter.
The little prayers came as a nice refreshment, since I do not usually translate rhyming texts – but I believe I managed to capture the manner, the meaning and the style (including the naivety and the rhythm) of the original poems in their Hungarian translation.
This second text was somewhat less challenging than the Eclipse excerpt – however, both of them were a pleasure to read and enjoyable to translate.
John Banville