Repository path: workshop/translations/kongyiji/R07-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

〈孔乙己〉 — six segments, R07 (fluency)

• Source: as ../R06-v1/translation.md. Same six segments, 1,201 characters.
• Regime: R07 v1.0 (frozen 2026-07-28) — an R06 with Venuti's ten-rule fluency set consulted at every choice, and a coverage code on every logged decision.
• Dialect declared (rule F5): British, held throughout, as in the R06 arm.
• Translator: the lead agent, as a labeled subject. Cost $0; never ledgered.
• Date: 2026-08-07 (S129). Written after R06 was committed and frozen, from the Chinese, not from the R06 English — but by the same translator on the same day, which is a dependence the design owns rather than denies (see E-20260807e §Limits).
• Contamination: none, measured, common-mode across all arms — ../contamination.md.
• Priming: none. No English rendering of this story was read before this arm was committed.

S1

The wine-shops in Lu Town are laid out differently from wine-shops anywhere else. Each of them has a big L-shaped counter facing the street, and inside the counter hot water is kept ready, so that wine can be warmed at any time. When the labourers finish work at midday or in the evening, they will often spend four coppers on a bowl of wine — that was twenty years ago, and the price has since risen to ten — and drink it hot, standing outside the counter, as a rest. For one copper more they can buy a dish of salted bamboo shoots or aniseed beans to go with it, and for a dozen or so they can buy a meat dish; but most of these customers are working men, and few of them can afford that. Only the men in long gowns walk into the inner room, order wine and food, and sit down to drink at their leisure.

S2

Kong Yiji was the only man who wore a long gown and drank standing up. He was a big, tall man with a pale, sickly face, and there were often fresh scars among his wrinkles. He had a straggling grey beard. His gown was indeed a long one, but it was dirty and torn, and looked as though it had not been mended or washed for ten years or more. He never spoke to anyone without larding his speech with tags out of the old books, so that half of what he said could not be understood. His surname was Kong, and someone had once picked a meaningless phrase out of a child's copybook, in which his name happened to occur, and had made a nickname of it; and so he was called Kong Yiji.

S3

As soon as Kong Yiji came in, everyone in the shop looked at him and laughed, and somebody would call out, "Kong Yiji, you've got a new scar on your face!" He never answered. He would say to the man behind the counter, "Warm two bowls of wine, and give me a dish of aniseed beans," and count out nine coppers on the counter. Then they would raise their voices deliberately and shout, "You've been stealing again!" Kong Yiji would open his eyes wide and say, "How can you ruin a man's good name for no reason?" "Good name? I saw you myself the day before yesterday, stealing books from the Ho family, and being strung up and flogged for it." At that Kong Yiji would flush scarlet, the veins standing out on his forehead, and protest, "Helping yourself to a book isn't stealing. Helping yourself to a book! Can a scholar be said to steal?" And after that would come a string of phrases nobody could follow, something about a gentleman being none the worse for poverty, and a good deal that was pure gibberish, until the whole room burst out laughing; and the shop was full of a cheerful noise, inside and out.

S4

When Kong Yiji had drunk half a bowl, the flush would fade from his face, and one of the others would ask him, "Kong Yiji, can you really read?" Kong Yiji would look at the man who had asked, as if the question were beneath answering. Then they would go on, "How is it that you never even passed the lowest examination?" At that Kong Yiji would grow flustered and downcast, and a grey shadow would come over his face; he would begin to mutter, but this time it was all so much learned nonsense that no one could understand a word of it. Then everyone would burst out laughing again, and the shop was full of a cheerful noise, inside and out.

S5

Kong Yiji knew that he could not talk to the men, and so he talked to the children instead. Once he said to me, "Have you had any schooling?" I nodded slightly. "Schooling, eh? Then let me test you. How do you write the word for aniseed?" I thought: a man who is almost a beggar, and he wants to examine me? So I turned away and paid no more attention. Kong Yiji waited a long time, and then said very seriously, "You can't write it, can you? Let me teach you. Remember it — these are words you ought to know. You will need them for the accounts when you are a shopkeeper one day." I thought to myself that I was a long way from being a shopkeeper, and that our shopkeeper never put aniseed beans in the accounts anyway. It was funny and it was annoying, and I answered him lazily, "Nobody asked you to teach me. It's the word for 'return' with the grass sign on top, isn't it?" Kong Yiji looked delighted. He tapped the counter with the long nails of two fingers and nodded. "That's right, that's right! And there are four different ways of writing it. Did you know that?" I lost patience altogether, and walked off with a sulky face.

S6

Sometimes the children from next door would hear the laughter and come to join in, and would crowd round Kong Yiji. He would give them each an aniseed bean. When they had eaten them they would still not go away, but stood staring at the dish. Kong Yiji would grow anxious and spread his five fingers over the dish to cover it, and stoop down and say, "There aren't many left. I haven't many left now." Then he would stand up, look at the beans again, shake his head and say, "Not many, not many. There really aren't many at all." And the children would run off laughing.

Translator's log

Written as the draft was written (R07 §4). Every decision carries a coverage code assigned at the moment it was made (R07 §5): D — a numbered rule names the feature and only one live option satisfies it (rule number recorded); P — rules bear and two or more options satisfy them all; S — no rule bears at all. A decision is logged when two or more renderings were live. Sites where nothing was live are not logged, so these are rates over contested sites only.

Rules, for reference: F1 current-not-archaic · F2 standard-not-specialized · F3 standard-not-colloquial · F4 no foreign matter · F5 one dialect · F6 idiomatic-before-close syntax · F7 continuous easy syntax · F8 fixed precise meaning · F9 rhythmic closure · F10 nothing that calls attention to the language.

Coverage tally, frozen

D-rate 79.5% (31/39). Parsed mechanically by ../analysis/parse_log.py --r07.

The S column is zero and that is the finding of this arm's coverage, not an artefact. Every contested site in this passage is a site where something is foreign — a word, a syntax, a register, a script — and F4 or F8 or F6 bears on all of them. That is not true of the R08 arm (below): a rule set built to preserve strangeness has nothing to say at the many sites where the source is not strange.

S1 — D 5, P 2

1. 曲尺形 — D (F4, F10). L-shaped. The carpenter's-square figure is foreign matter and would be noticed as a word choice. Both rules point the same way.
2. 短衣幫 — D (F4). Working men / labourers. The garment goes. With it goes the story's entire clothing system, which F4 does not know about.
3. 長衫 — D (F4). Kept as long gowns — this is the one clothing term with a settled English form, so F4 is satisfied without loss. Recorded as D because F4 decided it, not because it was hard.
4. 茴香豆 — D (F2). Aniseed beans: standard English words. Fennel beans is more accurate botanically and less standard.
5. 文 / 大錢 — D (F1). Coppers. Cash is the dated technical term for the coin and F1 strikes it.
6. 隔壁的房子 — P (F6, F7). The inner room against the room beside the shop-front. Both idiomatic; F6 and F7 do not choose. Took the shorter.
7. 這是二十多年前的事…現在每碗要漲到十文 — P (F7, F9). The dashes could stay or become a clause. Made it a clause — that was twenty years ago, and the price has since risen to ten — which F7 permits and does not require.

S2 — D 6, P 1

1. 滿口之乎者也 — D (F4, F8). The four particles cannot be romanised (F4) and cannot be left as noise (F8: choose one reading and write it). Larding his speech with tags out of the old books names what they are and gives up that they are sounds. This is the largest single thing this arm surrenders, and F4 and F8 both compel it.
2. 半懂不懂 — D (F8). Half of what he said could not be understood. F8 forbids reproducing the Chinese's balanced double negation as a balanced English one, because the balance is what leaves it open.
3. 描紅紙上的『上大人孔乙己』 — D (F4). The copybook line is untranslatable foreign matter. Rendered as a meaningless phrase out of a child's copybook, in which his name happened to occur. F7 then required happened to occur to be supplied, because with the phrase gone the connection to his name is lost and English wants it stated.
4. 靑白臉色 — D (F2). A pale, sickly face. Greenish white is not a standard English colour term for a face.
5. 他身材很高大 — D (F6). A big, tall man — the list becomes an English apposition.
6. 一部亂蓬蓬的花白的鬍子 — D (F2). A straggling grey beard. Grizzled is dated enough for F1 to bear on and unkempt is fine, but the doublet 亂蓬蓬 + 花白 collapses to two adjectives under F6/F7.
7. 時常夾些傷痕 — P (F7). There were often fresh scars among his wrinkles against his wrinkles were often full of fresh scars. Rules bear, neither decides.

S3 — D 7, P 2

1. 竊書不能算偸 — D (F1, F2, F8). This is the sentence the whole story turns on and the rules take it away in three directions at once. F1 strikes purloin as dated; F2 strikes it as learned; F8 forbids leaving the two verbs' relation open. What is left is the function of the distinction — self-serving euphemism — and English has one that is entirely current: helping yourself to a book. So the arm keeps the move and loses the fact that the move is made in a dead language.
2. 讀書人的事 — D (F2). Can a scholar be said to steal? — a man of letters, the reading class are both marked. The Chinese's class term becomes an occupation.
3. 君子固窮 — D (F4, F10). A gentleman being none the worse for poverty. The quotation marks around a quotation from the Analects would call attention to the language (F10) and the quotation itself is foreign matter (F4). Rendered as reported speech, unattributed, so that an English reader has no way of knowing Confucius is being cited.
4. 者乎 — D (F4). Not romanisable. Became a good deal that was pure gibberish, which states the effect on the hearers and deletes the cause.
5. 憑空汚人淸白 — D (F6). Ruin a man's good name for no reason: idiomatic before close.
6. 弔着打 — D (F7). Being strung up and flogged for it — the connective and the subject are supplied, as F7 requires.
7. 額上的靑筋條條綻出 — D (F7, F10). The veins standing out on his forehead. 條條 goes; strand by strand would be noticed.
8. 快活的空氣 — P (F8). A cheerful noise against a cheerful atmosphere. F8 requires one reading of 空氣 and does not say which. Took noise, and kept it identical in S4 so the repetition survives — a decision F9 permits and no rule compels.
9. 接連便是難懂的話 — P (F7, F9). Clause order.

S4 — D 5, P 1

1. 秀才 — D (F4). The lowest examination — the degree name goes, the institution stays as a common noun. Licentiate would satisfy F4 and violate F2.
2. 連半個…也撈不到 — D (F2, F8). Never even passed. The joke about half a degree cannot survive F8, which requires a fixed meaning: an examination is passed or it is not.
3. 不屑置辯的神氣 — D (F6). As if the question were beneath answering.
4. 嘴裏說些話 — D (F6, F7). He would begin to mutter. The Chinese detaches the mouth from the man; F6 repairs the detachment, and F7 supplies the subject.
5. 這回可是全是之乎者也之類 — D (F4). All so much learned nonsense. Same surrender as S2.1, and it is the second of two — the source repeats the phrase and this arm cannot, because it never had it.
6. 臉上籠上了一層灰色 — P (F6). A grey shadow would come over his face.

S5 — D 5, P 1

1. 茴香豆的茴字 — D (F4). How do you write the word for aniseed? The character cannot appear and cannot be romanised. What the boy is being asked therefore becomes, in English, a question about spelling — and English spelling has no four variant forms, so the scene's payoff is already gone at this line rather than at its punchline.
2. 草頭底下一個來回的回字 — D (F4, F8). The word for 'return' with the grass sign on top. F4 forbids 草頭 and 回; what survives is a sentence that is fluent English and means almost nothing. This is the clearest case in the passage of the two rules being satisfiable while the content is not carried, and it is recorded as a decision, not as a complaint.
3. 回字有四樣寫法 — D (F8). Four different ways of writing it.
4. 也配考我麽 — D (F6). He wants to examine me? — 配 (fit to) becomes wants to, which is idiomatic and is a different thought.
5. 又好笑，又不耐煩 — D (F7). It was funny and it was annoying — supplied subject, finite verbs.
6. 努着嘴走遠 — P (F2). Walked off with a sulky face against went off sulking.

S6 — D 3, P 1

1. 多乎哉？不多也 — D (F4, F10). There really aren't many at all. The classical tag becomes a third plain repetition of the vernacular one. The doubling — vernacular, then the same thing in a dead language — is the whole of the joke, and F4 and F10 delete it together. Nothing in the English tells a reader that Kong Yiji has just quoted Confucius at a child over a plate of beans.
2. 着了慌 — D (F1). Grow anxious. Take alarm is dated.
3. 趕熱鬧 — D (F6). Come to join in.
4. 一人一顆 — P (F6, F7). Give them each an aniseed bean against one apiece.

What the rule set could not see

internal-judgment-only: F4 is a rule about words and the thing it deleted here is a language. Every one of the six surrenders above — the particles twice, the copybook line, the Analects tag twice, the character 茴 — is the same surrender, and the rule set has no vocabulary for the fact that it is one surrender rather than six. That is a limitation of the ruleset as a description of what a translator is doing, and it is exactly what RS-20260728e set out to measure. Nothing here says the resulting English is worse.