Все те же сны

2009-08-27T13:23:05Z

А ведь знакомо до боли...

- For my part, I took to translating for the booksellers.

- From what language?

- Oh, all languages, sir. If it was oriental or classical, there was sure to be a Frenchman there before us; and as for Italian or Spanish, I could generally puzzle it out in the end. High Dutch, too: I was quite a proficient in the High Dutch by the time I had run through Fleischhacker's "Elegant Diversions" and Strumpff's "Nearest Way to Heaven". I did tolerably well, sir, upon the whole, rarely going hungry or without a lodging, for I was neat, sober, punctual, and as I have said, industrious: I always kept my promised day, the printers could read my hand, and I corrected my proofs as soon as they came. But then a bookseller by the name of - but hush, I must name no names - Mr G sent for me and proposed Boursicot's "South Seas". I was very happy to accept, for the market was slow, and I had had to live for a month on "The Case of the Druids impartially considered", a little piece in the "Ladies' Repository", and the druids did not run to more than bread and milk. We agreed for half a guinea a sheet; I dared not hold out for more, although it was printed very small, with all the notes set in pearl.

- What might that mean in terms of weekly income?

- Why, sir, taking the hard places with the smooth, and working twelve hours a day, it might have amounted to as much as five and twenty shillings! I was a cock-a-hoop, for next to the Abbe Prevost, Boursicot is the longest collection of voyages in French I know of, the longest work I had ever engaged in; and I thought I had my living for a great while ahead. My credit was good, so I moved downstairs to the two-pair front, a handsome room, for the sake of the light; I bought some furniture and several books that I should need - some very expensive dictionaries among them.

- Did you require a dictionary for French, sir?

- No, sir: I had one. These were Blanckley's "Naval Expositor" and Du Hamel, Aubin, and Saverien, to understand the hard words in the shipwrecks and manoeuvres, and to know what the travellers were about. I find it quite a help in translation to understand the text, sir; I always prefer it. So I worked away in my handsome room, refusing two or three offers from other booksellers and eating in a chop-house twice a week, until the day Mr G sent me this young man to say he had thought better of my project of translating Boursicot - that his associates felt the cost of the plate would be too high - and that in the present state of the trade there was no demand for such an article.

- Did you have a contract?

- No, sir. It was what the booksellers call a gentleman's agreement.

- No hope, then?

- None whatsoever, sir. I tried, of course, and was turned out of doors for my pains...

Apathetic

Все те же сны