BOOKS.

BALZAC TRAVESTIED.* " THE condition of French translation, in this country, is per- fectly scandalous." So says Thomas De Quineey in the last volume of his collected works, now in course of publication, and so say we. The magnitude of the evil demands the promptest reme- dies, and justifies the sharpest ; for incalculable is the mis- chief incessantly and increasingly wrought by bungling transla- tors. They propagate false information in books and newspapers, deprave the taste of the public, contaminate our literature, and debase our mother tongue. It is astonishing with how small a stook in trade a person, who could hardly earn his salt in any other line, will drive a good trade as a translator. The simple public imagine, no doubt, that every translator who finds a sale for his work must be master of two languages at least;

but this is a great mistake. It is not indispensable that he should be master even of one. Are there not dictionaries ? And if a man blunder in the use of them, what are the odds that one reader in a hundred will ever find him out? One who ven- tures into deep water without extraneous support must know how to swim, or down-he gees to the bottom ; but with corks to buoy him up, he may splash and flounder about as long as he pleases without risk of drowning. So it is with translators. They may be unable to construct one passable sentence in their native tongue, but there is the dictionary to supply them with words, and the foreign text to show how to place and connect them. The work put together in this 'prentice fashion will of course be mis- shapen, ugly, and unsound, but it will satisfy the low ambition of the workman.

A translation of one of de Balzae's masterpieces, " Balthazar Claes, ou la Recherhe de l'Absolu," now lies before us. It is neither better nor worse than scores of attempts in the same kind which have preceded it ; but it is the most recent example known to us, and a flagrant one, of the abuse we denounce, and therefore it is the fittest to illustrate our thesis. The perpetrator of this libel on a work of genius tells us in his preface that the original is a "very interesting and elaborately wrought metaphysical tale." Truly if that be so, it is something perfectly unique. What. is a metaphysical tale ? Was there ever, or can there ever be, such a thing ? And if so, where on earth is the reader who would find it "very interesting" ? We are not aware that de Balzac was much addicted to metaphysics, but he is generally thought to have been rather a dab at psychology. However, metaphysics or psychology, psychology or metaphysics, it is all one to Mr. Robson. He goes on to say, " The involved language of a story, in which metaphysical reflections are mixed up with the warmest human affections," [what a jingle!] "made the translation diffi- cult." The language is not involved, and it presents no extra- ordinary difficulties to a qualified translator. "But," continues Mr. Robson, " when I once became acquainted with the spirit of the work, it was a labour of love ; and, though I cannot flatter myself with having caught all its elegance of style," [but some of it ? Well, we shall see] " I trust I have not unworthily intro- duced a great body of readers to a very instructive and interesting tale." That seems very like putting the cart before the horse. It would be more exact to say, that the tale has been introduced to the readers, not the readers to the tale, and that the ceremony has been performed in a manner very unworthy of the occasion. The plain truth, palpable on the face of this execrable translation, is, that its author does not understand French, and cannot write English. Both facts are apparent in his first page, the contents of which we extract. We find in it ten or eleven mistranslations within the compass of thirty-two lines, and mark them with italics or thus § . As for the style, it is needless to demonstrate its uncouthness and deformity. iirhat right has any one to talk of "elegance of style" who is capable of reading with compla- cency, much more of writing and publishing, such a sentence as that which we have enclosed between brackets ?

"There exists at Douai, in the Rue de Paris, a house, whose outward appearance and interior arrangements and details have, more than those of any neighbouring dwelling, preserved the character of the old Flemish buildings, so plainly appropriate with the patriarchal manners of that good country. [But before describing it, it perhaps would be better to establish, for the sake of writers, the necessity for those didactic preparations, against which certain ignorant and voracious persons, who would have emotions without submitting to the generating principle of them, strongly object, the flower without seed, the child without gestation.] Thuld not art then be held to be stronger than nature? The events of human life, whether public or private, are so intimately connected with architecture, that most obser- vers are able to reconstruct nations or individuals, in all the truth of their habits and customs, from the remains of their public monu- ments, or by an examination of their domestic relics. Archeology_ is to social nature what comparative anatomy is to organized nature. A piece of mosaic work reveals the state of a society as completely as the skeleton of an ictithyosaurus implies a whole creation. In both cases, everything is deduced, everything is connected. Cause enables us to divine effect, as every effect permits us to return to a cause. § The savant resuscitates, so to say, even the very wants of past ages. Thence, doubt- less, arises the prodigious interest inspired by an architectural description, when the fancy of the writer does not falsify the elements of it. Is not every one able to associate himself with the past by close deductions ? and, for man, the past bears a singular resemblance to the future ; when relating to him that which has been, do we not almost always tell him what will be ? In fact, it is seldom that by depicting places where life has passed away, every one does not recall to his mind disappointed wishes or blossoming hopes."

• Balthazar; or, Science and Love. By H. De Balzac. Translated by William Robson. Published by Routledge and Co. Nobody but a bad translator would ever think of saying "there exists a house" when "there is a house" would fully ex- press what was meant. "Il existe . . . . une maison" is good _French; " there exists a house " is detestable English ; and so is "appropriate with." The next passage in italics—" Would not art then be held to be stronger than nature ? "—totally misre- presents the sense of the original, and makes nonsense. In the French sentence—"L'art litteraire serait-il done tenu d'être plus fort que ne l'est la nature ? "—the word " tenu " does not mean " held or esteemed"; it means " bound or required," and the question asked is substantially this : "Is it to be required of literary art that it shall be more potent than nature ? " "Re- veals the state of a society " should be " reveals a whole social system" (une mosaIque revale toute une societe). " A society " is not always equivalent to "une societe," just as "the family" does not always correspond to " la famille." " To return to a cause " (remonter a une cause) should have been " to ascend to a cause " or " to go back to a cause "; for there is sometimes a dif- ference between returning and going back, though Mr. Robson may not be aware of it. Instead of a full stop after "cause" there should have been a semicolon, followed by the words " and thus," which are improperly omitted, " so to say " being interpo- lated by way of compensation as we conjecture ; whilst " wants" takes the place of "warts" (et le savant ressuseite ainsi jus- qu'aux verrues des vieux ages). " Is not every one able to associate himself, &e. ?" A ten-year-old schoolgirl would deservedly come to grief were she to give such a rendering of the phrase, " Chacun ne peut-il pas la rattacher au passé ? " The " la " refers to " une description architecturale," and the question is, " Cannot every one connect it with the past ? " The last sentence of the extract is in the original, " Enfin, it est rare que la peinture des lieux oil la vie s'ecoule, ne rappelle a chacun sea vceux trahis ou ses espe- rances en fleur." Here it is asserted that the portraiture of places where flows the stream of life produces certain effects on every beholder ; the translator's lame statement implies only that the effects in question are wrought upon the mind of the painter himself. At page 2 we read " Great calculators alone think that the mark should never be exceeded, and they have no respect but for the virtuality impressed upon a perfect accomplishment, which places in full play that profound calm the charm of which so strongly affects superior men."

It is not easy to conceive how a calm could be " placed" in full play without its ceasing to be a calm ; but we need not perplex ourselves with this problem. It is for Mr. Robson to solve it, as he alone has propounded it. What de Balzac speaks of is "that perfect accomplishment which puts into every work (en toute oeuvre) that profound calm," &o. " Avoir les coudees (ranches I table" does not mean "having the elbows comfortably on the table " (p. 4), but " having elbowroom at table." " Dens consoles clerks, a dessns de marbre blane " does not mean "two gilded consoles over white marble " (p. 9), but the same articles with white marble tops. Let us set some more of Mr. Robson's varia- tions face to face with their originals.

" The fabrication of lace, the patient " La fabrication de la dentelle, muvre

operations of agriculture, and of still de patiente agriculture et de plus patiente more:patient industry, that of their linen, industrie, cello de sa toile, Font hi,r6di- are as hereditary as their patrimonial taires comma ses fortunes patrimoniales." fortunes." (p. 4.)

Our version is, "The manufacture of lace, a work of patient agriculture and more patient industry, and their linen manu-

facture, are hereditary," &c. The manufacture of lace involves the growing and gathering of the flax, spinning it into thread, &o.

" Of the immense fortune amassed by " Dc Pimmense fortune amass6e par his ancestors, which gave impulse to a ses ancatres qui faisaient mouvoir no thousand trades, there remained," &c. millier de metiers."

(P. 5.)

Here we have two blunders, one of them grammatical. It was not the fortune but the ancestors " who kept a thousand looms going." " Un métier " means a trade in general, but it also means specifically a loom. " The walls, built of brick, cemented with white mortar" (p. 7), should be " pointed with white mortar" (rej ointoyees).

In spite of the deep stains caused by . . . " Et sanf lee teintes foneks

the age itself of the brickwork, it was as causdes par la v6tust8 memo de In brique, well preserved as an old picture, or the it etait aussi hien conserve qua peuvent cherished book of an mnateur, which Titre un vieux tableau, un vicux livre would always remain new if they did not chtiis par un amateur, at qui scraieut undergo, beneath the blistering of our toujours neufs, s'ils ne subissaient, sous atmosphere, the influence of the gas, la cloche de notre atmosphere, l'influence whose malignity threatens even our- des gat dont nous sommes nous-mimes selves." (p. 7.) la prole."

Into this plain sentence the translator has contrived to pack four errors, one of them highly ingenious in its extravagance. For " in spite of" we should read " excepting " ; and he has again set grammar at nought in applying the epithet "cherished" exclusively to " book." Its plural form in the original shows that it belongs both to picture and book. The last clause of the sentence should run thus : " if they did not undergo, beneath the cope of our atmosphere, the influence of the gases to which we ourselves are a prey." Mr. Robson's phrase, " the blistering. of our atmosphere,' is delicious for its far-fetched absurdity. The word " cloche " primarily means a bell, and secondarily anything bellshaped, as for instance a bellglass, to which Balzac compares the atmospheric hemisphere that overhangs us. A blister on the skin or on a painted surface is also called " une cloche," because it often presents a sort of semi-globular appearance. But "la cloche de notre atmosphere" can by no latitude of interpretation be made to signify " the blistering of our atmosphere" in any active sense ; the most we could make of would be to picture to our- selves the atmosphere as a blistered patient, and not as a blister- ing agent. As for "the gas, whose malignity threatens our-

selves," does Mr. Robson imagine, peradventure, that Balzac was thinking of the system of lighting by gas which was new in Paris about the time he wrote Balthazar ?

Bad translators invariably delude themselves with the belief that words which are spelled alike or nearly so in French and English must have the same meaning in both languages. At page 14 we read of the "distraction" of which Balthazar's appearance and behaviour gave evidence,—instead of his abstraction or ab- sence of mind. The. following horrible nonsense is from the same page.

Too frequently vice and genius pro- "Rico ne ressemble plus an vice que le duce the same effects ; and this deceives genie; n'est-ce pas un constant °aces qui the vulgar. Is not genius a constant ex- dtvore is temps, l'argent, is corps, qui cess which devours time, money, and the mime plus rapidement qui les mauvaises body, and which leads to the hospital passions a l'h6pital ; parmi lee vices, it more rapidly than evil passions'? Men est le seul auquel les hommes refusent de even appear to have more respect for vices faire credit, et dont ils ne pardonnent than for genius, for they refuse to do jamais le malheur ; les benefices en etant credit to it. It appears that the benefits toujours trop eloignts pcur que Petat so- of the secret labours of the savant should cial puisse faire son compte avec Mom= be so postponed that the social estate de genie vivant." fears to reckon with him during his life- time, and prefers acquitting itself by neither pardoning his wants nor his mis- fortunes."

Less adventurous than Mr. Robson, we will translate this pas- sage literally, without attempting to improve upon our original. "Nothing more resembles vice than does genius. Is it not a con- stant excess which devours time, money, and the body ; and which leads more rapidly than evil passions to the poorhouse ? Among the vices, it is the only one for which men refuse to make allowances, and the misfortunes of which they never pardon ; the profits resulting from it being too remote to enable society to make its market with the man of genius while he lives." We have seen what Mr. Robson understands by men refusing to " faire credit an genie." Further on (p. 19), interpreting the same phrase differently applied, he says of a handsome woman, that "the world always gives her credit for a folly or a blunder," that is, imputes it to her, whereas Balzac and experience tell us that it acquits her of everything of the kind.

We have not gone far in this teeming garden, or plucked a tenth part of the flowers within our reach, and already have we overloaded ourselves. Yet one or two posies more we must gather before we bid it adieu. A lady whose sweet soul was lodged in a misshapen body was wooed by a true lover, and was touched by his attentions, but durst not allow him to perceive what pleasure they gave her, so incredulous was she of her power of inspiring love. " Elle etait amoureuse a la derobee," says Balzac ; " she was in love in private !" says Mr. Robson. Balthazar's daughter was an heiress, and her fortune was in some jeopardy. Her cousin, a money-grubbing notary, who had a mind to secure her hand and her wealth for himself, is giving her professional advice, and sacs, according to Mr. Robson, who mutilates a phrase of piquant humour from sheer incapacity to translate it, " You may trust to the voice of the heart when it speaks, my dear Marguerite." The original is : " Vous pouvez vous tier a la voix du eceur, quand elle parle interet, ma chare Marguerite." " You may trust the voice of the heart, when it talks business, my dear Marguerite."