Translation French Love Quotes

lover, n. Oh, how I hated this word. So pretentious, like it was always being translated from the French. The tint and taint of illicit, illegitimate affections. Dictionary meaning: a person having a love affair. Impermanent. Unfamilial. Inextricably linked to sex. I have never wanted a lover. In order to have a lover, I must go back to the root of the word. For I have never wanted a lover, but I have always wanted lover, and to be loved. There is no word for the recipient of the love. There is only a word for the giver. There is the assumption that lovers come in pairs. When I say, Be my lover, I don't mean, Let's have an affair. I don't mean Sleep with me. I don't mean, Be my secret. I want us to go back to that root. I want you to be the one who loves me. I want to be the one who loves you.

She sang, of course, "M'ama!" and not "he loves me," since an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.

Be quiet, pain and sorrow! Let me find a remedy. I have to live, as once dead there is no memory. And I want to see my love and be with her. And I want to remember our being together.

The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say, God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according to which nation. French has no word for home, and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people in northern India is dying out because their ancient tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would finally explain why the couples on their tombs are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated, they seemed to be business records. But what if they are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light. O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper, as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor. Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script is not language but a map. What we feel most has no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.

Haleine contre haleine, échauffe-moi la vie, Mille et mille baisers donne-moi je te prie, Amour veut tout sans nombre, amour n’a point de loi Translated: Breath against breath warms my life. A thousand kisses give me I pray thee. Love says it all without number, love knows no law.

We listen to the inexhaustible chant of the sea within us, as it rises and falls in our heads, like the approach and retreat of the strange desire we have for heaven, for love, and all that we cannot touch with our hands.

I think everyone is aware how disgusting snails are, and that’s why they are served in a bowl of wine and butter and called “escargots,” which is a French word loosely translated as “denial.

que ferais-je sans ce monde que ferais-je sans ce monde sans visage sans questions où être ne dure qu'un instant où chaque instant verse dans le vide dans l'oubli d'avoir été sans cette onde où à la fin corps et ombre ensemble s'engloutissent que ferais-je sans ce silence gouffre des murmures haletant furieux vers le secours vers l'amour sans ce ciel qui s'élève sur la poussieère de ses lests que ferais-je je ferais comme hier comme aujourd'hui regardant par mon hublot si je ne suis pas seul à errer et à virer loin de toute vie dans un espace pantin sans voix parmi les voix enfermées avec moi Translation... what would I do without this world what would I do without this world faceless incurious where to be lasts but an instant where every instant spills in the void the ignorance of having been without this wave where in the end body and shadow together are engulfed what would I do without this silence where the murmurs die the pantings the frenzies towards succour towards love without this sky that soars above its ballast dust what would I do what I did yesterday and the day before peering out of my deadlight looking for another wandering like me eddying far from all the living in a convulsive space among the voices voiceless that throng my hiddenness

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," translated Florent. "By Jules Verne. This book I have not read in many years." "We're reading it in French class," Joseph said. "It's hard to understand, but I found a line that Uncle Albert would love." Florent opened to a dog-eared page where Joseph had underlined a sentence and written the translation in the margin. Florent read it out loud. "'Let me tell you, Professor, that you will not regret the time spent on board. You are going to travel in a a land of marvels.

What bizarre things does not one find in a great city when one knows how to walk about and how to look! Life swarms with innocent monsters. Oh Lord my God, Thou Creator, Thou Master, Thou who hast made law and liberty, Thou the Sovereign who dost allow, Thou the Judge who dost pardon, Thou who art full of Motives and of Causes, Thou who hast (it may be) placed within my soul the love of horror in order to turn my hear to Thee, like the cure which follows the knife; Oh Lord, have pity, have pity upon the mad men and women that we are! Oh Creator, is it possible that monsters should exist in the eyes of Him alone who knoweth why they exist, how they have made themselves, and how they would have made themselves, and could not?

Maman had been a gifted writer. Pari has read every word Maman had written in French and every poem she had translated from Farsi as well. The power and beauty of her writing was undeniable. But if the account Maman had given of her life in the interview was a lie, then where did the images of her work come from? Where was the wellspring for words that were honest and lovely and brutal and sad? Was she merely a gifted trickster? A magician, with a pen for a wand, able to move an audience by conjuring emotions she had never known herself? Was that even possible? Pari does not know—she does not know. And that, perhaps, may have been Maman’s true intent, to shift the ground beneath Pari’s feet. To intentionally unsteady and upend her, to turn her into a stranger to herself, to heave the weight of doubt on her mind, on all Pari thought she knew of her life, to make her feel as lost as if she were wandering through a desert at night, surrounded by darkness and the unknown, the truth elusive, like a single tiny glint of light in the distance flickering on and off, forever moving, receding.

I look down, and I'm surprised to find myself standing in the middle of a small stone circle. In the center, directly between my feet, is a coppery-bronze octagon with a star. Words are engraved in the stone around it: POINT ZÉRO DES ROUTES DE FRANCE. "Mademoiselle Oliphant. It translates to 'Point zero of the roads of France.' In other words, it's the point from which all other distances in France are measured." St. Clair clears his throat. "It's the beginning of everything." I look back up. He's smiling. "Welcome to Paris, Anna. I'm glad you've come.

dabble in French and Italian, but my first love is German.

All languages that derive fromLatin form the word 'compassion' by combining the prefix meaning 'with' (com-) and the root meaning 'suffering' (Late Latin, passio). In other languages- Czech, Polish, German, and Swedish, for instance- this word is translated by a noun formed of an equivalent prefixcombined with the word that means 'feeling' (Czech, sou-cit; Polish, wsspół-czucie; German, Mit-gefühl; Swedish, medkänsla). In languages that derive from Latin, 'compassion' means: we cannot look on coolly as others suffer; or, we sympathize with those who suffer. Another word with approximately the same meaning, 'pity' (French, pitié; Italian, pietà; etc.), connotes a certain condescension towards the sufferer. 'To take pity on a woman' means that we are better off than she, that we stoop to her level, lower ourselves. That is why the word 'compassion' generally inspires suspicion; it designates what is considered an inferior, second-rate sentiment that has little to do with love. To love someone out of compassion means not really to love. In languages that form the word 'compassion' not from the root 'suffering' but from the root 'feeling', the word is used in approximately the same way, but to contend that it designates a bad or inferior sentiment is difficult. The secret strength of its etymology floods the word with another light and gives it a broader meaning: to have compassion (co-feeling) means not only to be able to live with the other's misfortune but also to feel with him any emotion- joy, anxiety, happiness, pain. This kind of compassion (in the sense of soucit, współczucie, Mitgefühl, medkänsla) therefore signifies the maximal capacity of affective imagination, the art of emotional telepathy. In the hierarchy of sentiments, then, it is supreme. By revealing to Tomas her dream about jabbing needles under her fingernails, Tereza unwittingly revealed that she had gone through his desk. If Tereza had been any other woman, Tomas would never have spoken to her again. Aware of that, Tereza said to him, 'Throw me out!' But instead of throwing her out, he seized her and kissed the tips of her fingers, because at that moment he himself felt the pain under her fingernails as surely as if the nerves of her fingers led straight to his own brain. Anyone who has failed to benefit from the the Devil's gift of compassion (co-feeling) will condemn Tereza coldly for her deed, because privacy is sacred and drawers containing intimate correspondence are not to be opened. But because compassion was Tomas's fate (or curse), he felt that he himself had knelt before the open desk drawer, unable to tear his eyes from Sabina's letter. He understood Tereza, and not only was he incapable of being angry with her, he loved her all the more.

The French are much more comfortable with the idea that their affair partner is just that—an affair partner,” writes Pamela Druckerman in her cross-cultural look at infidelity, Lust in Translation. Understanding that love and sex are different things, Druckerman says the French feel less need to “complain about their marriage to legitimize the affair in the first place.” But she found that Americans and British couples seemed to be reading from an entirely different script. “An affair, even a one-night stand, means a marriage is over,” Druckerman observed. “I spoke to women who, on discovering that their husbands had cheated, immediately packed a bag and left, because ‘that’s what you do.’ Not because that’s what they wanted to do—they just thought that was the rule. They didn’t even seem to realize there were other options…. I mean, really, like they’re reading from a script!

It’s a bit ironic, you know,” Henry says, gazing up at it. “Me, the cursed gay heir, standing here in Victoria’s museum, considering how much she loved those sodomy laws.” He smirks. “Actually … you remember how I told you about the gay king, James I?” “The one with the dumb jock boyfriend?” “Yes, that one. Well, his most beloved favorite was a man named George Villiers. ‘The handsomest-bodied man in all of England,’ they called him. James was completely besotted. Everyone knew. This French poet, de Viau, wrote a poem about it.” He clears his throat and starts to recite: “‘One man fucks Monsieur le Grand, another fucks the Comte de Tonnerre, and it is well known that the King of England, fucks the Duke of Buckingham.’” Alex must be staring, because he adds, “Well, it rhymes in French. Anyway. Did you know the reason the King James translation of the Bible exists is because the Church of England was so displeased with James for flaunting his relationship with Villiers that he had the translation commissioned to appease them?” “You’re kidding.” “He stood in front of the Privy Council and said, ‘Christ had John, and I have George.’” “Jesus.” “Precisely.” Henry’s still looking up at the statue, but Alex can’t stop looking at him and the sly smile on his face, lost in his own thoughts. “And James’s son, Charles I, is the reason we have dear Samson. It’s the only Giambologna that ever left Florence. He was a gift to Charles from the King of Spain, and Charles gave it, this massive, absolutely priceless masterpiece of a sculpture, to Villiers. And a few centuries later, here he is. One of the most beautiful pieces we own, and we didn’t even steal it. We only needed Villiers and his trolloping ways with the queer monarchs. To me, if there were a registry of national gay landmarks in Britain, Samson would be on it.

Art according to art! Love according to love! This is taking the salt away from Heaven. Do you think Our Savior tries to make Himself talked about? He does not ask to be recopied. God cannot be deified without ridicule. He likes to be lived. Dead languages are dead. One must translate Him into all the living languages, and help Him to hide Himself to do good just as the Devil hides himself to do evil.

Bienvenu,” the king said. “Je suis Boreas le Roi. Et vous?” Khione the snow goddess was about to speak, but Piper stepped forward and curtsied. “Votre Majesté,” she said, “ je suis Piper McLean. Et c’est Jason, fils de Zeus.” The king smiled with pleasant surprise. “Vous parlez français? Très bien!” “Piper, you speak French?” Jason asked. Piper frowned. “No. Why?” “You just spoke French.” Piper blinked. “I did?” The king said something else, and Piper nodded. “Oui, Votre Majesté.” The king laughed and clapped his hands, obviously delighted. He said a few more sentences then swept his hand toward his daughter as if shooing her away. Khione looked miffed. “The king says—” “He says I’m a daughter of Aphrodite,” Piper interrupted, “so naturally I can speak French, which is the language of love. I had no idea. His Majesty says Khione won’t have to translate now.

In 2003, Meryl Streep won a career achievement César Award, the French equivalent of an Oscar. Streep’s words (my translation) acknowledged the enduring interest of French audiences in women’s lives and women’s stories: "I have always wanted to present stories of women who are rather difficult. Difficult to love, difficult to understand, difficult to look at sometimes. I am very cognizant that the French public is receptive to these complex and contradictory women. As an actress I have understood for a long time that lies are simple, seductive and often easy to pass off. But the truth—the truth is always very very very complicated, often unpleasant, nuanced or difficult to accept." In France, an actress can work steadily from her teens through old age—she can start out in stories of youthful rebellion and end up, fifty years later, a screen matriarch. And in the process, her career will end up telling the story of a life—her own life, in a sense, with the films serving, as Valeria Bruni Tedeschi puts it, as a “journal intime,” or diary, of one woman’s emotions and growth. No wonder so many French actresses are beautiful. They’re radiant with living in a cinematic culture that values them, and values them as women. And they are radiant with living in a culture—albeit one with flaws of its own—in which women are half of who decides what gets valued in the first place. Their films transcend national and language barriers and are the best vehicles for conveying the depth and range of women’s experience in our era. The gift they give us, so absent in our own movies, is a vision of life that values emotional truth, personal freedom and dignity above all and that favors complexity over simplicity, the human over the machine, maturity over callowness, true mysteries over false explanations and an awareness of mortality over a life lived in denial. In the luminous humanity of their faces and in the illuminated humanity of their characters, we discover in these actresses something much more inspiring than the blank perfection and perfect blankness of the Hollywood starlet. We discover the beauty of the real.

I look down, and I'm surprised to find myself standing in the middle of a small stone circle. In the center, directly between my feet, is a coppery-bronze octagon with a star. Words are engraved in the stone around it: POINT ZÉRO DES ROUTES DE FRANCE. 'Mademoiselle Oliphant. It translates to "Point zero of the roads of France." In other words, it's the point from which all other distances in France are measured.' St. Clair clears his throat. 'It's the beginning of everything.' I look back up. He's smiling. 'Welcome to Paris, Anna. I'm glad you've come.

A tap of your finger on the drum releases all sounds and initiates the new harmony.       A step of yours is the conscription of the new men and their marching orders.      You look away: the new love!      You look back,—the new love!      “Change our fates, shoot down the plagues, beginning with time,” the children sing to you. “Build wherever you can the substance of our fortunes and our wishes,” they beg you.      Arriving from always, you’ll go away everywhere. — Arthur Rimbaud, “To a Reason,” Poetry (April 2011) Translated from the French by John Ashbery.

Sonnet of Languages Turkish is the language of love, Spanish is the language of revolution. Swedish is the language of resilience, English is the language of translation. Portuguese is the language of adventure, German is the language of discipline. French is the language of passion, Italian is the language of cuisine. With over 7000 languages in the world, Handful of tongues fall short in a sonnet. But you can rest assured of one thing, Every language does something the very best. Each language is profoundly unique in its own way. When they come together, they light the human way.

Outside the study hall the next fall, the fall of our senior year, the Nabisco plant baked sweet white bread twice a week. If I sharpened a pencil at the back of the room I could smell the baking bread and the cedar shavings from the pencil.... Pretty soon all twenty of us - our class - would be leaving. A core of my classmates had been together since kindergarten. I'd been there eight years. We twenty knew by bored heart the very weave of each other's socks.... The poems I loved were in French, or translated from the Chinese, Portuguese, Arabic, Sanskrit, Greek. I murmured their heartbreaking sylllables. I knew almost nothing of the diverse and energetic city I lived in. The poems whispered in my ear the password phrase, and I memorized it behind enemy lines: There is a world. There is another world. I knew already that I would go to Hollins College in Virginia; our headmistress sent all her problems there, to her alma mater. "For the English department," she told me.... But, "To smooth off her rough edges," she had told my parents. They repeated the phrase to me, vividly. I had hopes for my rough edges. I wanted to use them as a can opener, to cut myself a hole in the world's surface, and exit through it. Would I be ground, instead, to a nub? Would they send me home, an ornament to my breed, in a jewelry bag?

Adele took her place in front of the audience and began to sing. "Miss Eyre, perhaps you can tell me what he's saying?" Mrs. Fairfax said. "The only other person in the house who speaks French is the master, and he hates to translate anymore." Jane glanced at Mr. Rochester, but he stared straight ahead. Jane listened to the song. "The first few lines are about a famous dancer ... in a club ... She wore flowers in her hair and a dress that ... oh." Adele sang in detail about how much the dress covered. Or didn't cover. Jane blushed and glanced at Mr. Rochester, searching for a reaction to the scandalous lyrics. But he just listened. Not scandalized. "So, yes, the dancer wore a dress," Jane continued, with slightly less detail. "And she was in love with a ... dealer. Of cards. And at night, they ... oh my." Adele sang of a very special hug. Jane's cheeks flamed. "Perhaps Mr. Rochester should translate." She turned to Mr. Rochester, who coughed. He waved his hand. "Please continue, Miss Eyre. You're doing such a fine job." Now Adele sang of the woman's roving eye, and another man visiting while her lover was away. "They continued to love each other," Jane said quickly, maybe a bit desperately. In the last verse, the boyfriend found out about her infidelity, and stabbed the dancer and her other lover. "That escalated quickly," said Helen. She also spoke French, but no one had asked her to translate. "And they both lived happily ever after," Jane blurted. She was going to have to teach Adele some new songs.

In fact, Hinduism�s pervading influence seems to go much earlier than Christianity. American mathematician, A. Seindenberg, has for example shown that the Sulbasutras, the ancient Vedic science of mathematics, constitute the source of mathematics in the Antic world, from Babylon to Greece : � the arithmetic equations of the Sulbasutras he writes, were used in the observation of the triangle by the Babylonians, as well as in the edification of Egyptian pyramids, in particular the funeral altar in form of pyramid known in the vedic world as smasana-cit (Seindenberg 1978: 329). In astronomy too, the "Indus" (from the valley of the Indus) have left a universal legacy, determining for instance the dates of solstices, as noted by 18th century French astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly : � the movement of stars which was calculated by Hindus 4500 years ago, does not differ even by a minute from the tables which we are using today". And he concludes: "the Hindu systems of astronomy are much more ancient than those of the Egyptians - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge �. There is also no doubt that the Greeks heavily borrowed from the "Indus". Danielou notes that the Greek cult of Dionysos, which later became Bacchus with the Romans, is a branch of Shivaism : � Greeks spoke of India as the sacred territory of Dionysos and even historians of Alexander the Great identified the Indian Shiva with Dionysos and mention the dates and legends of the Puranas �. French philosopher and Le Monde journalist Jean-Paul Droit, recently wrote in his book "The Forgetfulness of India" that � the Greeks loved so much Indian philosophy, that Demetrios Galianos had even translated the Bhagavad Gita �.

I’m a Russian and all I know of Russia is what I’ve read. I yearn for the broad fields of golden corn and the forests of silver beech that I’ve read of in books and though I try and try, I can’t see them with my mind’s eye. I know Moscow from what I’ve seen of it at the cinema. I sometimes rack my brain to picture to myself a Russian village, the straggling village of log houses with their thatched roofs that you read about in Chekov, and it’s no good, I know that what I see isn’t that at all. I’m a Russian and I speak my native language worse than I speak English and French. When I read Tolstoi and Dostoievsky it is easier for me to read them in a translation. I’m just as much a foreigner to my own people as I am to the English and French. You who’ve got a home and a country, people who love you, people whose ways are your ways, whom you understand without knowing them—how can you tell what it is to belong nowhere?

You will tell me that there always exists a chasm between the world depicted in novels and films and the world that people actually live in. It is the chasm between the world mediated by art and the world unmediated by art, formless and drab. You are absolutely right. The gap that my mother felt was not necessarily any deeper than the gap felt by a European girl who loved books and films. Yet there is one critical difference. For in my mother's case, the chasm between the world of art and real life also symbolized something more: the asymmetrical relationship I mentioned earlier—the asymmetrical relationship between those who live only in a universal temporality and those who live in both a universal and a particular one. To make this discussion a little more concrete, let me introduce a character named Francoise. Francoise is a young Parisienne living before World War II. Like my mother, she loves reading books and watching films. Also like my mother, she lives in a small apartment with her mother, who is old, shabby looking, and illiterate. One day Francoise, full of artistic aspirations, writes an autobiographical novel. It is the tale of her life torn between the world of art and the world of reality. (Not an original tale, I must say.) The novel is well received in France. Several hundred Japanese living in Japan read this novel in French, and one of them decides to translate it into Japanese. My mother reads the novel. She identifies with the heroine and says to herself, "This girl is just like me!" Moved, my mother, also full of artistic aspirations, writes her own autobiography. That novel is well received in Japan but is not translated into French—or any other European language, for that matter. The number of Europeans who read Japanese is just too small. Therefore, only Japanese readers can share the plight of my mother's life. For other readers in the world, it's as if her novel never existed. It's as if she herself never existed. Even if my mother had written her novel first, Francoise would never have read it and been moved by it.

I soon found my feet, and was much less homesick than I was at prep school. Thank God. I learned that with plenty of free time on our hands, and being encouraged to fill the time with “interests,” I could come up with some great adventures. A couple of my best friends and I started climbing the huge old oak trees around the grounds, finding monkey routes through the branches that allowed us to travel between the trees, high up above the ground. It was brilliant. We soon had built a real-life Robin Hood den, with full-on branch swings, pulleys, and balancing bars high up in the treetops. We crossed the Thames on the high girders above a railway bridge, we built rafts out of old Styrofoam and even made a boat out of an old bathtub to go down the river in. (Sadly this sank, as the water came in through the overflow hole, which was a fundamental flaw. Note to self: Test rafts before committing to big rivers in them.) We spied on the beautiful French girls who worked in the kitchens, and even made camps on the rooftops overlooking the walkway they used on their way back from work. We would vainly attempt to try and chat them up as they passed. In between many of these antics we had to work hard academically, as well as dress in ridiculous clothes, consisting of long tailcoats and waistcoats. This developed in me the art of making smart clothes look ragged, and ever since, I have maintained a lifelong love of wearing good-quality clothes in a messy way. It even earned me the nickname of “Scug,” from the deputy-headmaster. In Eton slang this roughly translates as: “A person of no account, and of dirty appearance.

1595, Richard Field, fellow-alumnus of the King Edward grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, printed The lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes, compared together by that grave learned philosopher and historiographer, Plutarke of Chaeronea: translated out of Greeke into French by James Amiot, abbot of Bellozane, Bishop of Auxerre, one of the Kings privie counsell, and great Amner of France, and out of French into English, by Thomas North. This was the book that got Shakespeare thinking seriously about politics: monarchy versus republicanism versus empire; the choices we make and their tragic consequences; the conflict between public duty and private desire. He absorbed classical thought, but was not enslaved to it. Shakespeare was a thinker who always made it new, adapted his source materials, and put his own spin on them. In the case of Plutarch, he feminized the very masculine Roman world. Brutus and Caesar are seen through the prism of their wives, Portia and Calpurnia; Coriolanus through his mother, Volumnia; Mark Antony through his lover, Cleopatra. Roman women were traditionally silent, confined to the domestic sphere. Cleopatra is the very antithesis of such a woman, while Volumnia is given the full force of that supreme Ciceronian skill, a persuasive rhetorical voice.40 Timon of Athens is alone and unhappy precisely because his obsession with money has cut him off from the love of, and for, women (the only females in Timon’s strange play are two prostitutes). Paradoxically, the very masculinity of Plutarch’s version of ancient history stimulated Shakespeare into demonstrating that women are more than the equal of men. Where most thinkers among his contemporaries took the traditional view of female inferiority, he again and again wrote comedies in which the girls are smarter than the boys—Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, Rosalind in As You Like It, Portia in The Merchant of Venice—and tragedies in which women exercise forceful authority for good or ill (Tamora, Cleopatra, Volumnia, and Cymbeline’s Queen in his imagined antiquity, but also Queen Margaret in his rendition of the Wars of the Roses).41

Montreal October 1704 Temperature 55 degrees Eben was looking at Sarah in the way every girl prays some boy will one day look at her. “I will marry you, Sarah,” said Eben. “I will be a good husband. A Puritan husband. Who will one day take us both back home.” Wind shifted the lace of Sarah’s gown and the auburn of one loose curl. “I love you, Sarah,” said Eben. “I’ve always loved you.” Tears came to Sarah’s eyes: she who had not wept over her own family. She stood as if it had not occurred to her that she could be loved; that an English boy could adore her. “Oh, Eben!” she whispered. “Oh, yes, oh, thank you, I will marry you. But will they let us, Eben? We will need permission.” “I’ll ask my father,” said Eben. “I’ll ask Father Meriel.” They were not touching. They were yearning to touch, they were leaning forward, but they were holding back. Because it is wrong? wondered Mercy. Or because they know they will never get permission? “My French family will put up a terrible fuss,” said Sarah anxiously. “Pierre might even summon his fellow officers and do something violent.” Eben grinned. “Not if I have Huron warriors behind me.” The Indians rather enjoyed being French allies one day and difficult neighbors the next. Lorette Indians might find this a fine way to stab a French soldier in the back without drawing blood. They would need Father Meriel. He could arrange anything if he chose; he had power among all the peoples. But he might say no, and so might Eben’s Indian family. Mercy translated what was going on for Nistenha and Snow Walker. “They want to get married,” she told them. “Isn’t it wonderful?” She couldn’t help laughing from the joy and the terror of it. Ransom would no longer be the first word in Sarah’s heart. Eben would be. Mercy said, “Eben asked her right here in the street, Snow Walker. He wants to save her from marriage to a French soldier she doesn’t want. He’s loved Sarah since the march.” The two Indians had no reaction. For a moment Mercy thought she must have spoken to them in English. Nistenha turned to walk away and Snow Walker turned with her. If Nistenha was not interested in Sarah and Eben’s plight, no Indian would be. Mercy called on her memory of every speech in every ceremony, every dignified phrase and powerful word. “Honored mother,” she said softly. “Honored sister. We are in need and we beg you to hear our petition.” Nistenha stopped walking, turned back and stared at her in amazement. Sarah and Eben and Snow Walker stared at her in amazement. Sam can build canoes, thought Mercy. I can make a speech. “This woman my sister and this man my brother wish to spend their lives together. My brother will need the generous permission of his Indian father. Already we know that my sister will be refused the permission of her French owners. We will need an ally to support us in our request. We will need your strength and your wisdom. We beseech you, Mother, that you stand by us and help us.” The city of Montreal swirled around them. Eben, property of an Indian father in Lorette; Sarah, property of a French family in Montreal; and Mercy, property of Tannhahorens, awaited her answer. “Your words fill me with pride, Munnunock,” said Nistenha softly. She reached into her shopping bundle. Slowly she drew out a fine French china cup, undoubtedly meant for the feast of Flying Legs. She held it for a moment, and then her stern face softened and she gave it to Eben. Indians sealed a promise with a gift. She would help them. From her bundle, Snow Walker took dangling silver earrings she must have bought for Mercy and handed them to Sarah. Because she knew that Sarah’s Mohawk was not good enough and that Eben was too stirred to speak, Mercy gave the flowery thanks required after such gifts. “God bless us,” she said to Sarah and Eben, and Eben said, “He has.

ANNALS OF LANGUAGE WORD MAGIC How much really gets lost in translation? BY ADAM GOPNIK Once, in a restaurant in Italy with my family, I occasioned enormous merriment, as a nineteenth-century humorist would have put it, by confusing two Italian words. I thought I had, very suavely, ordered for dessert fragoline—those lovely little wild strawberries. Instead, I seem to have asked for fagiolini—green beans. The waiter ceremoniously brought me a plate of green beans with my coffee, along with the flan and the gelato for the kids. The significant insight the mistake provided—arriving mere microseconds after the laughter of those kids, who for some reason still bring up the occasion, often—was about the arbitrary nature of language: the single “r” rolled right makes one a master of the trattoria, an “r” unrolled the family fool. Although speaking feels as natural as breathing, the truth is that the words we use are strange, abstract symbols, at least as remote from their objects as Egyptian hieroglyphs are from theirs, and as quietly treacherous as Egyptian tombs. Although berries and beans may be separated by a subtle sound within a language, the larger space between like words in different languages is just as hazardous. Two words that seem to indicate the same state may mean the opposite. In English, the spiritual guy is pious, while the one called spirituel in French is witty; a liberal in France is on the right, in America to the left. And what of cultural inflections that seem to separate meanings otherwise identical? When we have savoir-faire in French, don’t we actually have something different from “know-how” in English, even though the two compounds combine pretty much the same elements? These questions, about the hidden traps of words and phrases, are the subject of what may be the weirdest book the twenty-first century has so far produced: “Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon,” a thirteen-hundred-page volume, originally edited in French by the French philologist Barbara Cassin but now published, by Princeton University Press, in a much altered English edition, overseen by the comp-lit luminaries Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra, and Michael Wood. How weird is it? Let us count the ways. It is in part an anti-English protest, taking arms against the imperializing spread of our era’s, well, lingua franca—which has now been offered in English, so that everyone can understand it. The book’s presupposition is that there are significant, namable, untranslatable differences between tongues, so that, say, “history” in English, histoire in French, and Geschichte in German have very different boundaries that we need to grasp if we are to understand the texts in which the words occur. The editors, propelled by this belief, also believe it to be wrong. In each entry of the Dictionary, the differences are tracked, explained, and made perfectly clear in English, which rather undermines the premise that these terms are untranslatable, except in the dim sense that it sometimes takes a few words in one language to indicate a concept that is more succinctly embodied in one word in another. Histoire in French means both “history” and “story,” in a way that “history” in English doesn’t quite, so that the relation between history and story may be more elegantly available in French. But no one has trouble in English with the notion that histories are narratives we make up as much as chronicles we discern. Indeed, in the preface, the editors cheerfully announce that any strong form of the belief to which their book may seem to be a monument is certainly false: “Some pretty good equivalencies are always available. . . . If there were a perfect equivalence from language to language, the result would not be translation; it would be a replica. . . . The constant recourse to the metaphor of loss in translation is finally too easy.” So their Dictionary is a self-exploding book,

Buchanan tried to whip the devil out of me. “Find your tongue, lad!” Forgive this regression, but the man hated English. He may have hated everything by then, including me, but he was uncommon prickly when it came to English. You could tell by the way he bullied it. “The bastarde English,” the old man roared. “The verie whoore of a tongue.” We did our best to mimic him note for note, gesture for gesture. He hated that, too. The verie whoore. Old Greek before Breakfast Latin by Noon himself. The point is, what English I had was beaten or twisted into me. We were orphaned and crowned before we could speak or take our first step. No father. No mother. Too many uncles. Hounds for baying. Buchanan was the most religious of my keepers, and the unkindest of spirits among them. We have been told the young queen of Scots was once his student, and that he loved her. Just before giving her over to wreckage, methinks. Pious frauds. Their wicked Jesus. Then occasion smil’d. We were thirteen. The affection of Esme Stuart was one thing, lavished, as it was, so liberally upon us, but the music of his voice was another. We empowered our cousin, gave him name, station, a new sense of gravity, height, and reach, all the toys of privilege. We were told he spoke our mother’s French, the way it flutters about your neck like a small bird. But it was his English that moved us. For the first time, there was kindness in it, charity, heat and light. We didn’t know language could do such things, that could charm with such violence, make such a disturbance in us. Our cousin was our excess, our vice, our great transgression according to some, treason according to others. They came one night and stole him from us, that is, from me. They tore me out of his arms, called me wanton. Better that bairns should weepe, they said. Barking curs. We never saw our cousin again and were never the same after. But the charm was wound up. If we say we can taste words, we are not trying to be clever. And we are an insatiable king. Try now, if you can, to understand the nature of our thoughts touching the translation, its want of a poet. We will consult with Sir Francis. He is closer to the man, some say, than a brother. English is mistress between them. There, Bacon says, is empire. There, a great Britain. Where it is dull, where the glow . . . gleam . . . where the gleam of Majestie is absent or mute . . . When occasion smiles again, we will send for the man, Shakespere. Majestie has left its print on his art. After that hideous Scottish play, his best, darkest, and most complicated characters are . . . us. Lear. Antony. Othello. Fools all. All. The English language must be the best that is in us . . . We are but names, titles, antiquities, forgotten speeches, an accident of blood and historical memory. Aye . . . but this marvelously unexceptional little man. No more of this. By the unfortunate title of this history we must, it seems, prepare ourselves for a tragedy. Some will escape. Some will not. For bully Ben can never suffer a true rival. He killed an actor once for botching his lines. Actors. Southampton waits in our chambers. We will let him. First, to our thoughts. Only then to our Lord of Southampton.

We passed an array of stalls selling Belgian chocolates, German sweets, and then French pastries. "The yogashi are the Western-style confections like cakes and pastries. Some of the biggest names from all over the world have stalls here, like Ladurée from France and Wittamer from Belgium. I love going to the depachika for treats. It can be like a cheat weekend trip to Paris or Brussels." "What do the Ex-Brats have when they eat here?" "Hard to say because the Ex-Brats rotation changes all the time. I'm the only girl in our class who has been at ICS-Tokyo for more than five years. People are always moving away. Of the current crew, I never take Ntombi or Jhanvi here. They're always on a diet. So lame. When Arabella was here, we'd come to eat in the Din Tai Fung restaurant one level down. They make these dumplings with purple yams or sweet red bean paste that are just sick they're so delicious." Yams sounded great. I found a food stall I liked and picked out a grilled yam and some fried tempura for lunch. I didn't need Imogen to help me translate. I just pointed at the items I wanted, the counter worker smiled and packaged everything, then showed me a calculator with the amount I owed. I placed my Amex card on the tray the worker handed me, relieved to have had my morning 7-Eleven experience so I was able to observe the proper paying etiquette in front of Imogen. She bought an egg salad sandwich, which was packaged so beautifully you'd think it was jewelry from Tiffany's. It was in a cardboard box that had a flower print on its sides and was wrapped in tight, clear plastic at the top so you could see the sandwich inside. The sandwich had the crusts removed and was cut into two square pieces standing upright in the box, with pieces of perfectly cut fruit arrayed on the side.

The critic George Steiner defined intimacy as “confident, quasi-immediate translation,” a state of increasingly one-to-one correspondence in which “the external vulgate and the private mass of language grow more and more concordant.” Translation, he explained, occurs both across and inside languages. You are performing a feat of interpretation anytime you attempt to communicate with someone who is not like you.

Pleasure blossomed beyond the physical, giving Milly leave to consume the man she’d plastered herself against. He tasted of bergamot, which blended wonderfully with the sandalwood and spice scent of him, with the lace and silk of his attire. Milly got an arm around his waist and cupped his cheek against her palm while St. Clair returned her explorations. “You taste of lavender. Of course, you taste of lavender.” He lapsed into French, telling her he’d like to lay her down in lavender fields and make endless love to her. For eternal summer nights under a soft full moon he wanted to— Milly’s French was not quite up to the literal translation, not when St. Clair’s hand had traced down from her throat to her décolletage

The relationship between women and fiction extends also to the role of women as consumers of fiction. During the 1830s and 1840s, Russians who had any pretense of revering European culture formed a veritable cult in appreciation of the fiction of George Sand, originally Aurore Dupin Dudevant. So pervasively did Sand's work (and personal life) influence tsarist Russia that a special term was coined to describe the literary phenomenon. The term Zhorzhzandism was applied to the many Russian novels written in the 1830s and 1840s that dealt with themes similar to those of Sand's early novels. The international opera star Pauline Viardot attested to Sand's enormous popularity in Russia. She wrote to Sand that her works were immediately translated there from the time they first appeared, that everyone read them from the top rungs of the social ladder to the bottom, that the men adored her, the women idolized her—that, in short, she reigned over the Russian people more sovereignly than the tsar." Talk about Sand took the Russian literary salons by storm. Pushkin wrote in a letter to his wife, "If her [Evgenia Tur's] translation is as faithful as she herself is a faithful copy of Madame Sand, then her success is undoubtable." His letter reflected the fashionable attitude toward Sand in Russian high society. Diaries, memoirs and letters testify to her immense popularity among the Russian people and to the fact that young Russians seized each Sand novel as quickly as it arrived in their motherland, and devoured her prose. Almost all educated Russians in the nineteenth century read French fluently, but nonetheless many of her works were translated into Russian almost as quickly as they appeared in the original.

My mom hates to cook," Rosie said. "But every time she's had to go to a potluck, she brings one thing. A trifle she makes, with brownies and pudding and candy and whipped cream." Rosie had plated her dessert into two glasses- she was pretty sure they were champagne coupes- and the two chefs poised their spoons at the rim of the glasses. "This is my version of my mom's trifle. Made with moelleux au chocolat, chocolate mousse, vanilla whipped cream, and chocolate feuilletine between each layer." Rosie loved moelleux au chocolat. The internet seemed to translate it as molten chocolate cake, but every moelleux au chocolat Rosie had had in Paris wasn't like a molten chocolate cake at all, but like the richest, fudgiest brownie on the planet. Which made it the perfect base for her trifle. And then the feuilletine, Rosie thought, would give the same crunch as a Kit Kat.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER THE Royal Physician’s Visit PER OLOV ENQUIST Translated from the Swedish by Tiina Nunnally Set in Denmark in the 1760s, The Royal Physician’s Visit magnificently recasts the dramatic era of Danish history when Johann Friedrich Struensee, a German doctor from Altona, student of Enlightenment philosophers Diderot and Voltaire, and court physician to mad young King Christian, stepped through the aperture history had opened for him and became for two years the holder of absolute power in Denmark. Dr. Struensee, tall, handsome, and charismatic, introduced hundreds of reforms, many of which would become hallmarks of the French Revolution twenty years later, including freedom of the press and improvement of the treatment of the peasantry. He also took young Queen Caroline Mathilde—unsatisfied by her unstable, childlike husband—as his mistress. He was a brilliant intellectual and brash reformer, yet Struensee lacked the cunning and subtlety of a skilled politician and, most tragically, lacked the talent to choose the right enemies at court, a flaw which would lead to his torture and execution. An international sensation sold in twenty countries, The Royal Physician’s Visit is a view from the seat of absolute power, a gripping tale, vividly and entertainingly told. Enquist’s talent is in full force as he brilliantly explores the connections that will always run between political theory and practice, power, sex, love, and the life of the mind. “A great book, a powerful book—it effortlessly and self-confidently surmounts the standard works of fiction.” —Die Zeit “Incomparably exciting in its uncompromising lucidity and at the same time unsettling.” —Suddeutsche Zeitung “Time and time again the story takes to the air on the wings of fantasy … a magnificent adventure.” —Upsala Nya Tidning “The erotic scenes are among the most beautiful I have read in modern literature.” —Kvällsposten

Métamorphoses la nuit je veux l'enrouler autour de moi comme un drap chaud elle avec ses étoiles blanches, avec sa malédiction grise avec ses bouts ondoyants, qui traquent les coqs des jours, je pends dans les charpentes aussi raide qu'une chauve-souris, je me laisse tomber dans l'air et je pars en chasse. Homme, j'ai rêvé de ton sang, je te mords jusqu'à la blessure, je me love dans tes cheveux et j'aspire ta bouche. Au-dessus des tours émondées les cimes du ciel sont noires. De leurs troncs dénudés suinte de la résine vitreuse vers des coupes invisibles de porto. Dans mes yeux marron demeure le reflet, Avec mes yeux marron doré je pars chercher ma proie, je capture poisson dans les tombes, celles qui se tiennent entre les maisons je capture poisson dans la mer : et la mer est une place plus loin avec des mats brisés, des amours noyés. Les lourdes cloches du navire sonnent venant de la forêt des algues. Sous la forme du navire se fige une forme d'enfant, dans ses mains du limon, au front une lumière. Entre nous les eaux voyagent, je ne te garde pas. Derrière des vitres gelées luisent des lampes bariolées et blanches, des cuillères livides coulent dans le bol, glace multicolore ; je vous appâte avec des fruits rouges, faits avec mes lèvres je suis un petit en-cas dans le gobelet de la nuit.

The Abduction refers to an autobiographical event in Al-Masri’s life. When, as a young Arab woman living in France, she decides to separate from her husband with whom she has a child, the father kidnaps the baby and returns to Syria. The Abduction is the story of a woman who is denied the basic right to raise her child. Al-Masri won’t see her son for thirteen years. These are haunting poems of love, despair, and hope in a delicate, profound and powerful book on intimacy, a mother’s rights, war, exile, and freedom.

THE PEOPLE OF ICE PLANET BARBARIANS As of the end of BARBARIAN’S TOUCH (suggested pronunciations in parenthesis) AT THE MAIN TRIBAL CAVE CAVE 1 Vektal (Vehk-tall) - The chief of the sa-khui. Mated to Georgie. Georgie – Human woman (and unofficial leader of the human females). Has taken on a dual-leadership role with her mate. Talie (Tah-lee) – Their baby daughter. CAVE 2 Maylak (May-lack) – Tribe Healer. Mated to Kashrem and currently pregnant with child. Kashrem (Cash-rehm) - Her mate, also a leather-worker. Esha (Esh-uh) – Their young daughter. CAVE 3 Sevvah (Sev-uh) – Tribe elder, mother to Aehako, Rokan, and Sessah Oshen (Aw-shen) – Tribe elder, her mate Sessah (Ses-uh) - Their youngest son CAVE 4 Warrek (War-ehk) – Tribal hunter. Eklan (Ehk-lan) – His father. Elder. CAVE 5 Ereven (Air-uh-ven) Hunter, mated to Claire Claire – mated to Ereven, currently pregnant CAVE 6 Liz – Raahosh’s mate and huntress. Currently pregnant for a second time. Raahosh (Rah-hosh) – Her mate. A hunter and brother to Rukh. Raashel (Rah-shel) – Their daughter. CAVE 7 Stacy – Mated to Pashov. Mother to Pacy, a baby boy. Pashov (Pah-showv) – son of Kemli and Borran, brother to Farli and Salukh. Mate of Stacy, father to Pacy. Pacy – Their infant son. CAVE 8 Nora – Mate to Dagesh, mother to twins Anna and Elsa. Dagesh (Dah-zzhesh) (the g sound is swallowed) – Her mate. A hunter. Anna & Elsa – Their infant twin daughters. CAVE 9 Harlow – Mate to Rukh. ‘Mechanic’ to the Elders’ Cave. Spends 75% of her time there with her family. Rukh (Rookh) – Former exile and loner. Original name Maarukh. (Mah-rookh). Brother to Raahosh. Mate to Harlow. Rukhar (Roo-car) – Their infant son. CAVE 10 Megan – Mate to Cashol. Mother to newborn Holvek. Cashol – (Cash-awl) – Mate to Megan. Hunter. Father to newborn Holvek. Holvek – (Haul-vehk) – Wee blue baby boy! CAVE 11 Marlene (Mar-lenn) – Human mate to Zennek. Has unnamed child. French. Zennek – (Zehn-eck) – Mate to Marlene. Has unnamed child. CAVE 12 Ariana – Human female. Mate to Zolaya. Mother to Analay. Zolaya (Zoh-lay-uh) – Hunter and mate to Ariana. Father to Analay. Analay – (Ah-nuh-lay) – Their infant son. CAVE 13 Tiffany – Human female. Mated to Salukh and newly pregnant. Salukh - Salukh (Sah-luke) – Hunter. Son of Kemli and Borran, brother to Farli and Pashov. CAVE 14 Aehako – (Eye-ha-koh) – Acting leader of the South cave. Mate to Kira, father to Kae. Son of Sevvah and Oshen, brother to Rokan and Sessah. Kira – Human woman, mate to Aehako, mother of Kae. Was the first to be abducted by aliens and wore an ear-translator for a long time. Kae (Ki –rhymes with ‘fly’) – Their newborn daughter. CAVE 15 Kemli – (Kemm-lee) Female elder, mother to Salukh, Pashov and Farli Borran – (Bore-awn) Her mate, elder Farli – (Far-lee) Their teenage daughter. Her brothers are Salukh and Pashov. She has a pet dvisti named Chahm-pee (Chompy). CAVE 16 Drayan (Dry-ann) – Elder. Drenol (Dree-nowl) – Elder. CAVE 17 Vadren (Vaw-dren) – Elder. Vaza (Vaw-zhuh) – Widower and elder. Loves to creep on the ladies. CAVE 18 Asha (Ah-shuh) – Separated from Hemalo. No living child. Maddie – Lila’s sister. Found in second crash. CAVE 19 Bek – (BEHK) – Hunter. Hassen (Hass-en) – Hunter. Harrec (Hair-ek) – Hunter. Taushen (Tow –rhymes with cow- shen) – Hunter. Hemalo (Hee-mah-lo) – Separated from Asha. CAVE 20 Josie – Human woman. Mated to Haeden and newly pregnant. Haeden (Hi-den) – Hunter. Previously resonated to Zalah but she died (along with his khui) in the khui-sickness before resonance could be completed. Now mated to Josie. CAVE 21 (formerly a storage cave) Rokan (Row-can) – Oldest son to Sevvah and Oshen. Brother to Aehako and Sessah. Adult male hunter. Now mated to Lila. Has ‘sixth’ sense. Lila – Maddie’s sister. Hearing impaired. Resonated to Rokan.

There's no messing with perfection. (Okay, a little messing, just for fun.) A few crystals of coarse sea salt, a drizzle of local olive oil, and a sprig or two of purple basil. Sliced and layered in a white ceramic dish, the tomatoes often match the hues of the local sunsets--- reds and golds, yellows and pinks. If there were such a thing in our house as "too pretty to eat," this would be it. Thankfully, there's not. If I'm not exactly cooking, I have done some impromptu matchmaking: baby tomatoes with smoked mozzarella, red onions, fennel, and balsamic vinegar. A giant yellow tomato with a local sheep's milk cheese and green basil. Last night I got a little fancy and layered slices of beefsteak tomato with pale green artichoke puree and slivers of Parmesan. I constructed the whole thing to look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I love to think of the utterly pretentious name this would be given in a trendy Parisian bistro: Millefeuille de tomate provençale, tapenade d'artichaut et coppa de parmesan d'Italie (AOC) sur son lit de salade, sauce aigre douce aux abricots. And of course, since this is a snooty Parisian bistro and half their clientele are Russian businessmen, the English translation would be printed just below: Tomato napoleon of artichoke tapenade and aged Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese on a bed of mixed greens with sweet-and-sour apricot vinaigrette. The sauce abricot was a happy accident. While making the dressing for the green salad, I mistook a bottle of peach/apricot syrup for the olive oil. Since I didn't realize my mistake until it was at the bottom of the bowl, I decided to try my luck. Mixed with Dijon mustard and some olive oil, it was very nice--- much sweeter than a French vinaigrette, more like an American-style honey Dijon. I decided to add it to my pretentious Parisian bistro dish because, believe it or not, Parisian bistros love imitating American food. Anyone who has been in Paris in the past five years will note the rise of le Tchizzberger. (That's bistro for "cheeseburger.") I'm moderate in my use of social media, but I can't stop taking pictures of the tomatoes. Close up, I've taken to snapping endless photos of the voluptuously rounded globes. I rejoice in the mingling of olive oil and purply-red flesh. Basil leaves rest like the strategically placed tassels of high-end strippers. Crystals of sea salt catch the afternoon sun like rhinestones under the glaring lights of the Folies Bergère. I may have invented a whole new type of food photography: tomato porn.

All languages that derive from Latin form the word “compassion” by combining the prefix meaning “with” (com-) and the root meaning “suffering” (Late Latin, passio). In other languages—Czech, Polish, German, and Swedish, for instance—this word is translated by a noun formed of an equivalent prefix combined with the word that means “feeling” (Czech, sou-cit; Polish, współ-czucie; German, Mit-gefühl; Swedish, med-känsla). In languages that derive from Latin, “compassion” means: we cannot look on coolly as others suffer; or, we sympathize with those who suffer. Another word with approximately the same meaning, “pity” (French, pitié; Italian, pietà; etc.), connotes a certain condescension towards the sufferer. “To take pity on a woman” means that we are better off than she, that we stoop to her level, lower ourselves. That is why the word “compassion” generally inspires suspicion; it designates what is considered an inferior, second-rate sentiment that has little to do with love. To love someone out of compassion means not really to love. In languages that form the word “compassion” not from the root “suffering” but from the root “feeling,” the word is used in approximately the same way, but to contend that it designates a bad or inferior sentiment is difficult. The secret strength of its etymology floods the word with another light and gives it a broader meaning: to have compassion (co-feeling) means not only to be able to live with the other’s misfortune but also to feel with him any emotion—joy, anxiety, happiness, pain. This kind of compassion (in the sense of soucit, współczucie, Mitgefühl, medkänsla) therefore signifies the maximal capacity of affective imagination, the art of emotional telepathy. In the hierarchy of sentiments, then, it is supreme.

The People of Ice Planet Barbarians As of the end of Barbarian’s Mate (suggested pronunciations in parenthesis) AT THE MAIN TRIBAL CAVE CAVE 1 VEKTAL (Vehk-tall) - The chief of the sa-khui. Mated to Georgie. GEORGIE – Human woman (and unofficial leader of the human females). Has taken on a dual-leadership role with her mate. TALIE (Tah-lee) – Their baby daughter. CAVE 2 Maylak (May-lack) – Tribe Healer. Mated to Kashrem and currently pregnant with child. Kashrem (Cash-rehm) - Her mate, also a leather-worker. Esha (Esh-uh) – Their young daughter. CAVE 3 Sevvah (Sev-uh) – Tribe elder, mother to Aehako, Rokan, and Sessah Oshen (Aw-shen) – Tribe elder, her mate Sessah – (Ses-uh) - Their youngest son Rokan – (Row-can) – Their oldest son. Adult male hunter. CAVE 4 Warrek (War-ehk) – Tribal hunter. Eklan (Ehk-lan) – His father. Elder. CAVE 5 Ereven (Air-uh-ven) Hunter, mated to Claire Claire – mated to Ereven, currently pregnant CAVE 6 Liz – Raahosh’s mate and huntress. Raahosh (Rah-hosh) – Her mate. A hunter and brother to Rukh. Raashel (Rah-shel) – Their daughter. CAVE 7 Stacy – Mated to Pashov. Has an unnamed child. Pashov (Pah-showv) – son of Kemli and Borran, brother to Farli and Salukh. Mate of Stacy, and has an unnamed child. CAVE 8 Nora – Mate to Dagesh, mother to twins Anna and Elsa. Dagesh (Dah-zzhesh) (the g sound is swallowed) – Her mate. A hunter. Anna & Elsa – Their infant twin daughters. CAVE 9 Harlow – Mate to Rukh. ‘Mechanic’ to the Elders’ Cave. Spends 75% of her time there with her family. Rukh (Rookh) – Former exile and loner. Original name Maarukh. (Mah-rookh). Brother to Raahosh. Mate to Harlow. Rukhar (Roo-car) – Their infant son. CAVE 10 Megan – Mate to Cashol. Extremely pregnant. Cashol – (Cash-awl) – Mate to Megan. Hunter. CAVE 11 Marlene (Mar-lenn) – Human mate to Zennek. Has unnamed child. French. Zennek – (Zehn-eck) – Mate to Marlene. Has unnamed child. CAVE 12 Ariana – Human female. Mate to Zolaya. Unnamed child. Zolaya (Zoh-lay-uh) – Hunter and mate to Ariana. Unnamed child. CAVE 13 Tiffany – Human female. Mated to Salukh and newly pregnant. Salukh - Salukh (Sah-luke) – Hunter. Son of Kemli and Borran, brother to Farli, Pashov and Dagesh. CAVE 14 Aehako – (Eye-ha-koh) – Acting leader of the South cave. Mate to Kira, father to Kae. Son of Sevvah and Oshen, brother to Rokan and Sessah. Kira – Human woman, mate to Aehako, mother of Kae. Was the first to be abducted by aliens and wore an ear-translator for a long time. Kae (Ki –rhymes with ‘fly’) – Their newborn daughter. CAVE 15 Kemli – (Kemm-lee) Female elder, mother to Salukh, Pashov and Farli Borran – (Bore-awn) Her mate, elder Farli – (Far-lee) Their teenage daughter. Her brothers are Salukh and Pashov. She has a pet dvisti named Chahm-pee (Chompy). CAVE 16 Drayan (Dry-ann) – Elder. Drenol (Dree-nowl) – Elder. CAVE 17 Vadren (Vaw-dren) – Elder. Vaza (Vaw-zhuh) – Widower and elder. Loves to creep on the ladies. CAVE 18 Asha (Ah-shuh) – Mated to Hemalo. No living child. Hemalo (Hee-mah-lo) – Mated to Asha. CAVE 19 Bek – (BEHK) – Hunter. Hassen (Hass-en) – Hunter. Harrec (Hair-ek) – Hunter. Taushen (Tow –rhymes with cow- shen) – Hunter. CAVE 20 Josie – Human woman and last one to resonate. Haeden (Hi-den) – Hunter. Previously resonated to Zalah but she died (along with his khui) in the khui-sickness before resonance could be completed. Now mated to Josie

While I was there, I learned about this unique French word called “dépaysement.” It literally translates to “decountrification” or “change of scenery,” but it’s used to describe this great feeling of living as a stranger somewhere far away from your memory; a sort of disorientation, lost and searching, but doing it with real curiosity and wonder. That was me in Paris.

There is a book to be written, for instance, on small errors in subtitles. In the Fred Astaire musical Royal Wedding, for instance, the English girl he falls for, played by Sarah Churchill (daughter of Sir Winston), is engaged to an American, whom we never see but who’s called Hal—like Falstaff’s prince, like a good high Englishman. That English H, though, was completely inaudible to the French translator who did the subtitles, and so throughout the film the absent lover is referred to in the subtitles as Al—Al like a stagehand, Al like my grandfather. If you have the habit of print addiction, so that you are listening and reading at the same time, this guy Al keeps forcing his way into the movie. “But what shall I say to Hal—that I have never loved him?” Patricia says to Fred. Down below it says, “Et Al—qu’est-ce que je vais lui dire?

Laid out before him were dishes detailed in gold inscription: Tourte de Faisan aux Truffes, Blanquette de Veau, Barbue aux Huîtres, Tripes à la mode de Caen. Simon explained the preparation of each dish so lovingly that it would have suited Zod to not eat at all and simply listen to this man as he translated the truffled pheasant in pastry, the creamy veal stew with pearl onions and mushrooms, the poached brill with oysters in brown butter, the baked tripe with calvados, and the wine they must order to accompany it,