Repository path: workshop/translations/tolstyi-i-tonkii/R06-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

T-tolstyi-i-tonkii-R06-v1 — Chekhov, «Толстый и тонкий» (1883), whole, source-only draft

Source. А. П. Чехов, «Толстый и тонкий», first published Осколки 1883 № 40; copy-text the ПСС 1975 text as transcribed at Russian Wikisource, stored whole at workshop/experiments/E-20260808b-discordant-marking/materials/src-tolstyi-i-tonkii.txt (540 Russian words, 17 paragraphs). Read in Russian, whole, before anything was written.

Regime. R06 — single pass, source only, no revision. Frozen as its own artifact before the R04 self-revision begins (R04 §2a). Cost $0 (charter §3, A4).

Contamination: suspected, with one specific exposure declared and measured after freezing. Constance Garnett's Fat and Thin (The Tales of Chekhov vol. 13, Love and Other Stories, Chatto & Windus 1922) is famous and public-domain and plausibly sits in the lead's training data. A specific priming exposure occurred and is declared rather than glossed: while locating the Gutenberg file the lead saw Garnett's first four sentences of narration on screen — the station, the greasy lips, the sherry and fleur d'orange, the portmanteaus. No line of Garnett's dialogue was seen, and every site this translation was made to supply is a dialogue utterance. The rest of Garnett's story was extracted to a sealed file by script and not opened until this draft and the R04 revision were both committed. The n-gram measurement against Garnett is on T-tolstyi-i-tonkii-R04-v1.

The translation

At the Nikolaevsky railway station two friends met: one fat, one thin. The fat one had just dined at the station, and his lips, glazed with butter, shone like ripe cherries. He smelt of sherry and orange-blossom. The thin one had only just got out of the carriage and was loaded down with trunks, bundles and hatboxes. He smelt of ham and coffee grounds. From behind his back there peered a thin little woman with a long chin — his wife — and a tall schoolboy with one eye screwed up — his son.

— Porfiry! — cried the fat one, catching sight of the thin one. — Is it you? My dear fellow! How many winters, how many years!

— Saints above! — the thin one gasped. — Misha! Friend of my childhood! Where have you sprung from?

The friends kissed each other three times and turned upon each other eyes full of tears. Both were pleasantly stunned.

— My dear man! — began the thin one after the kissing. — Well, I never expected it! What a surprise! Now then, have a good look at me! Just as handsome as you always were! Just as much a dear soul and a dandy! Ah, good Lord! Well, and what about you? Rich? Married? I am married already, as you see… This here is my wife, Luisa, née Wanzenbach… a Lutheran… And this is my son, Nafanail, third form. This, Nafanya, is the friend of my childhood! We were at school together!

Nafanail thought a little and took off his cap.

— We were at school together! — the thin one went on. — Do you remember what they used to call you? They called you Herostratus, because you burnt a government book with a cigarette, and me they called Ephialtes, because I liked telling tales. Ho-ho… Children we were! Don't be shy, Nafanya! Go closer to him… And this is my wife, née Wanzenbach… a Lutheran.

Nafanail thought a little and hid behind his father's back.

— Well, how's life, my friend? — asked the fat one, gazing at his friend in delight. — In the service somewhere? Risen far?

— In the service, my dear man! Collegiate assessor these two years, and I have my Stanislas. The pay is poor… but never mind! My wife gives music lessons, and I make cigar-cases privately, out of wood. Splendid cigar-cases! A rouble apiece I sell them for. If anyone takes ten or more, then there's a reduction, you understand. We rub along somehow. I was in the department, you know, and now I have been transferred here as head clerk in the same line… I'll be serving here. Well, and you? A state councillor by now, I don't doubt? Eh?

— No, my dear man, pitch it higher than that, — said the fat one. — I have risen to privy councillor already… I have two stars.

The thin one turned suddenly pale, went rigid, but soon his face twisted away in every direction in the broadest of smiles; it seemed that sparks were showering from his face and his eyes. He himself shrank, stooped, narrowed… His trunks and bundles and hatboxes shrank and puckered… His wife's long chin grew longer still; Nafanail drew himself up to attention and fastened every button of his uniform…

— I, your Excellency… Delighted, sir! A friend, one might say, of childhood, and here you have come out such a grandee, sir! Hee-hee, sir.

— Come, that will do! — the fat one winced. — What is this tone for? You and I are friends from childhood — and what call is there here for rank-worship!

— Mercy on us… What are you, sir… — the thin one tittered, shrinking further still. — The gracious attention of your Excellency… is like a draught of living water, as it were… This here, your Excellency, is my son Nafanail… my wife Luisa, a Lutheran, in a manner of speaking…

The fat one was about to object to something, but on the thin one's face there was written such reverence, such sweetness, such deferential acid, that the privy councillor felt sick. He turned away from the thin one and gave him his hand in parting.

The thin one pressed three fingers, bowed with his whole trunk, and tittered like a Chinaman: "hee-hee-hee." His wife smiled. Nafanail scraped with his foot and dropped his cap. All three were pleasantly stunned.

Translator's log

Written as the draft was written. Decisions and alternatives, not quality claims.

L1 — the story is a grammar joke and English has none of the grammar. Chekhov's whole engine is a switch: through the first eleven paragraphs both men use ты and the vocabulary of childhood; the moment «до тайного дослужился» lands, the thin man switches to вы, to «ваше превосходительство», and to the словоерс — the clitic -с appended to word after word («приятно-с», «вельможи-с», «Хи-хи-с», «Что вы-с»). English has no T/V distinction and no clitic of deference at all. Every one of these is a site where the source marks the relation by a grammatical form the target lacks.

L2 — what I did with the словоерс, and it is a category change. I rendered -с as an appended sir: «Очень приятно-с!» → Delighted, sir!, «вельможи-с» → such a grandee, sir, «Хи-хи-с» → Hee-hee, sir, «Что вы-с» → What are you, sir. The Russian is a particle attached inside the clause; the English is an address noun appended to it. That is not the same category, and the difference is not decorative: a particle can attach to a laugh («Хи-хи-с») without addressing anybody, and sir cannot help addressing. Alternatives considered and not taken: leaving it out (which deletes the joke); marking it with if you please (which adds a propositional request the Russian does not make); your honour (an address noun again, and one with a wrong rank attached).

L3 — ты/вы had to go unmarked and I recorded rather than repaired it. The fat man's «Мы с тобой друзья детства» keeps ты where the thin man has already gone to вы; the asymmetry is the point of the exchange and English you flattens it to nothing. I did not compensate. Nothing in the draft marks the direction of the pronoun switch.

L4 — «Помилуйте… Что вы-с…». «Помилуйте» is a courtesy formula, literally have mercy, used as a deprecating oh, come now. Mercy on us keeps the shape of the formula and loses its pragmatic force, which is closer to not at all or how can you say such a thing. Chosen because the register is what is being measured here and not at all is register-flat.

L5 — «почтительной кислоты». Literally respectful sourness. Rendered deferential acid. Alternatives: deferential sourness, respectful acidity. Kept deferential because the whole paragraph is about deference and the word does the story's work.

L6 — ranks left in the Russian system. Collegiate assessor, state councillor, privy councillor, the order of St Stanislas, «столоначальник» → head clerk. Not glossed. The story assumes the Table of Ranks and a reader who does not know it loses the size of the gap; I judged a gloss worse than the loss.

L7 — «Батюшки!» rendered Saints above! The Russian is a plural vocative of father used as an exclamation. Good gracious was the alternative; it is flatter and less orthodox-Russian.

L8 — one thing I could not keep at all. «Хи-хи-с» is a laugh with a deference particle glued to it. Hee-hee, sir is a laugh followed by an address. The Russian has no comma and no addressee; the English cannot avoid both.