Repository path: workshop/translations/zloumyshlennik/R25-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

«Злоумышленник» under R25 — ennoblement, the upper pole

• Source: as R06-v1. Anton Chekhov, «Злоумышленник» (1885), 1,074 Russian words.
• Regime: R25 v1.0 (ennoblement), rules E1–E8, cited by number below.
• Translated by: the lead agent, as a labeled subject. Cost $0; not ledgered.
• Order of composition: written third, after R06 and R26.
• Role in the design: this arm exists as the calibration control of E-20260815-register-room. It is the manipulation the seats must be able to see if their failure to see a smaller one is to mean anything. It is not a recommendation and nobody should translate Chekhov this way.
• Contamination: suspected against published hands; measured in workshop/experiments/E-20260815-register-room/dependence.json. No published rendering was read.
• Evaluation: workshop/experiments/E-20260815-register-room/design.md. The lead never judges its own translation.

Translation

Before the examining magistrate there stands a diminutive and exceedingly spare figure of a peasant, attired in a shirt of coarse homespun and in breeches much patched. His countenance, overgrown with hair and eaten into by the smallpox, together with his eyes, which are scarcely to be discerned beneath thick and overhanging brows, wears an expression of sullen severity; and upon his head there sits an entire thatch of tangled hair, long innocent of the comb, which lends to him a severity greater still, and not unlike a spider's. He is without shoes.

"Denis Grigoryev!" the magistrate begins. "Be so good as to approach, and to answer the questions I shall put to you. Upon the seventh day of the present month of July, the railway watchman Ivan Semyonov Akinfov, proceeding of a morning along the line at the hundred and forty-first verst, discovered you in the act of unscrewing a nut, being one of those by which the rails are made fast to the sleepers. Here is the nut in question!.. And it was with this same nut upon you that he took you into custody. Is that, or is it not, how the matter stood?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Was the whole of it as Akinfov relates?"

"It was so, assuredly."

"Very well; and now, for what purpose were you unscrewing the nut?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You will oblige me by abandoning that 'I beg your pardon' of yours, and by answering the question I have asked. For what purpose were you unscrewing the nut?"

"Had there been no need of it, I should not have unscrewed it," Denis replies hoarsely, casting his eyes aside towards the ceiling.

"And for what purpose, then, did you stand in need of this nut?"

"The nut, is it? Why, it is out of nuts that we fashion our sinkers…"

"And who, pray, are 'we'?"

"We, the common people… the peasantry of Klimovo, that is to say."

"Attend to me, my good fellow, and do not seek to pass yourself off upon me for an imbecile, but speak to the purpose. There is no occasion whatever to invent tales about sinkers!"

"Never in the whole of my days have I uttered a falsehood, and now, it seems, I am uttering one…" Denis murmurs, his eyes blinking. "But is a man to do without a sinker, your honour? If you should set a live bait or a crawling worm upon the hook, will it descend to the bottom without a sinker? Uttering falsehoods…" and Denis permits himself a smile. "And what earthly good is there in your live bait, if it is to swim upon the surface! The perch, the pike and the burbot go always along the bed of the river; and as for a bait that swims upon the surface, there is none but the asp that will take it, and even he but seldom… In our river the asp is not to be met with… That fish is a lover of open water."

"And for what reason are you recounting to me the habits of the asp?"

"I beg your pardon? Why, it is your honour that asks me! Among us even the gentry take their fish in that fashion. The very meanest urchin would not go angling for you without his sinker. There is, to be sure, the man who has no understanding of the matter, and he will go angling without one. For a fool no law has ever been written…"

"You maintain, then, that you unscrewed this nut in order that you might make a sinker of it?"

"And what else should it be for? It was not that I might play at knucklebones with it!"

"But for a sinker you might have taken lead, or a bullet… or a nail of some description…"

"Lead is not to be found lying upon the highroad; it must be purchased; and a nail will not serve. Than a nut there is nothing better to be had… It is heavy, and it has its hole."

"What an imbecile the fellow makes of himself! One would suppose him born but yesterday, or dropped out of the very heavens. Do you not comprehend, you dull-witted creature, to what this unscrewing leads? Had the watchman not kept his eyes about him, the train might well have gone off the rails, and human beings would have perished! You would have killed your fellow men!"

"God preserve us from it, your honour! Wherefore should we kill? Are we heathens unbaptised, or malefactors of some description? God be praised, my kind sir, we have lived out our allotted span, and not merely have we never killed, but such thoughts as those have never so much as entered our heads… Save us and have mercy upon us, O Queen of Heaven… What is it your honour can be saying!"

"And from what, in your opinion, do the wrecking of trains proceed? Unscrew two or three nuts, and there is your disaster ready made!"

Denis permits himself a smile, and screws up his eyes at the magistrate with an air of incredulity.

"Come! These many years past the whole village together has been unscrewing nuts, and the Lord has preserved us; and now, if you please, a disaster… human beings killed… Had I carried off a rail, or had I laid, let us suppose, a baulk of timber athwart her road, why then, it may be, the train would have been overturned; but this… faugh! a nut!"

"But do, I beg you, comprehend that it is by nuts that the rail is made fast to the sleepers!"

"That much we do comprehend… It is not as though we unscrewed them all… we leave a sufficiency… We do not go about it without our wits… we comprehend…"

Denis yawns, and crosses himself over the mouth.

"In the past year a train went off the rails at this very place," says the magistrate. "It is now apparent to me why…"

"What is your honour's pleasure?"

"It is now apparent, I say, why in the past year the train went off the rails… I comprehend it perfectly!"

"It is for that, to be sure, that your honours are given your education, that you may comprehend, you who are our benefactors… The Lord knew well to whom He should give understanding… Your honour has reasoned out the whole of it, the how and the wherefore; whereas the watchman is a peasant like any other, wholly without understanding, and he seizes a man by the collar and drags him away… Reason first, say I, and drag afterwards! It is a true saying — a peasant, and a peasant's wit… Be pleased also to set down, your honour, that he struck me twice upon the teeth and upon the breast."

"When your dwelling was searched, a further nut was discovered… In what place did you unscrew that one, and upon what occasion?"

"Is it the one your honour means that was lying beneath the little red chest?"

"I do not know where it may have been lying; I know only that it was found. When did you unscrew it?"

"That one I did not unscrew at all; it was Ignashka, the son of one-eyed Semyon, who made me a present of it. That is the one beneath the chest; whereas the one out in the yard, in the sledge, that one Mitrofan and I took out between us."

"And which Mitrofan may that be?"

"Mitrofan Petrov… Has your honour never heard of him? He fashions seine-nets among us, and disposes of them to the gentry. He has need of a great quantity of these same nuts. To every net, one may reckon, a matter of ten…"

"Attend to me… Article one thousand and eighty-one of the Code of Penalties lays down that for any damage to a railway committed with intent, when such damage may expose to danger the traffic proceeding upon that railway, and when the guilty party was aware that the consequence thereof must be a calamity… you comprehend? was aware! And you could not but have been aware to what this unscrewing leads… such a party is sentenced to exile and to penal servitude."

"Doubtless your honour knows the better… We are people of darkness… what understanding should we have?"

"You understand everything perfectly well! You are lying to me, and making a pretence of it!"

"And for what should I lie? Enquire in the village, if you will not credit me… It is the bleak alone that are taken without a sinker; and what is there of less account than a gudgeon, yet even he will not come to you without one."

"Favour me with something further upon the asp!" says the magistrate, smiling.

"The asp does not frequent our waters… We let out the line without a sinker, upon the face of the water, with a fly upon it, and the chub will come; and even he but seldom."

"Now hold your peace…"

A silence descends. Denis shifts his weight from one foot to the other; he gazes upon the table with its green baize, and blinks with great vigour, as though it were not baize that stood before him but the very sun itself. The magistrate writes rapidly.

"Am I to take my leave?" Denis enquires, after some interval of silence.

"You are not. It is my duty to place you under arrest and to despatch you to the gaol."

Denis ceases to blink and, raising his thick brows, gazes questioningly upon the official.

"That is to say — how am I to go to gaol? Your honour! I have not the time; I am obliged to attend the fair; there are three roubles owing to me from Yegor upon the account of the lard…"

"Hold your peace, and do not hinder me."

"To gaol… Were there anything to go for, I should go readily enough; but as it is… for no cause whatsoever… Upon what grounds? I have not stolen, so far as I am aware, nor have I been in any brawl… And if it should be the arrears that your honour entertains doubts upon, then do not put your faith in the village elder… Let your honour enquire of the gentleman, the permanent member… There is no cross upon that man, upon the elder…"

"Hold your peace!"

"I am holding my peace, indeed I am…" Denis murmurs. "But that the elder rendered a false account, I would take my oath upon it… There are three of us brothers: Kuzma Grigoryev, then; Yegor Grigoryev; and myself, Denis Grigoryev…"

"You are hindering me… Here, Semyon!" the magistrate calls out. "Take him away!"

"There are three of us brothers," Denis murmurs, as two stout soldiers take hold of him and conduct him from the chamber. "No brother is answerable for his brother… Kuzma does not pay, and it is you, Denis, who must answer for it… Judges, forsooth! The old master, the general, is dead and gone, God rest his soul, or he would have shown you judges what is what… A man must judge with knowledge, and not at hazard… Flog me, if you will, but let it be for a cause, and according to conscience…"

Translator's log

Frozen with the draft. Coverage codes per R25 §5b, as in the sibling arm.

What E1's second clause does here that N1's deletion of it does not. R26 left the narration and the magistrate untouched, because N1 says the neutral stays neutral. E1 says the neutral is raised, and that single difference is why this arm is a different object rather than a stronger dose of the same one: R25 acts on all three voices and R26 acts on one. Everything below follows from that.

1. The narration, raised throughout. P, E1/E3. «Он бос» (two words) → He is without shoes; «изъеденное рябинами» → eaten into by the smallpox; «лицо» → countenance; the four short sentences of the opening become two periodic ones. E3 is doing as much as E1 here.
2. The magistrate's summons. P, E1/E3/E5. «Подойди поближе и отвечай на мои вопросы» → Be so good as to approach, and to answer the questions I shall put to you. The Russian is a bare imperative to an inferior; the English is a request. L, and it is a real one: E1 raises the magistrate out of the power relation the imperative encodes. Recorded here because it is the clearest instance in the arm of ennoblement destroying something a reader needs.
3. «коей» / «с каковою гайкой» — the magistrate's chancery archaisms. P, E5: being one of those by which and with this same nut upon you. In R06 and R26 these are ordinary relative clauses. This is the one place where R25 is arguably closer to the source than the other two arms, since the Russian is genuinely archaic here; recorded as INT.
4. «Чаво?» → I beg your pardon? P, E6. Three occurrences, and the magistrate's quotation follows it as in R26. L: Denis is now more polite than the man interrogating him, which inverts the scene.
5. «Знамо, было» → It was so, assuredly. P, E1.
6. «хрипит» → replies hoarsely. P, E1/E3 — the verb rasps is below the decorous ceiling and is replaced by a verb of speech with an adverb, which is also E3's allongement exactly.
7. «усмехается» → permits himself a smile. P, E1/E3. Both occurrences. Four words for one.
8. «Чёрт ли в нём» → what earthly good is there in your live bait. P, E6 — no profanity. L, as in R26, and worse: earthly is a decorous intensifier and the devil is not merely gone but replaced by his opposite.
9. «Не в бабки ж играть!» → It was not that I might play at knucklebones with it! P, E6/E3/E4 — formed, expanded, and the referent it supplied where the Russian has none.
10. «Дураку закон не писан» → For a fool no law has ever been written. P, E5, with the inversion doing the dignifying. R26 and R06 have the same words in ordinary order.
11. «тьфу! гайка!» → faugh! a nut! P, E6. Where R26 deviated and kept R06's pah, this arm takes the literary spelling. It is the smallest visible difference in the arm and I record it because it is the kind of thing E6 exists to produce.
12. «Мне идтить?» → Am I to take my leave? P, E1/E5.
13. «В тюрьму» → to gaol. P, E2 — the more decorous and more period English name for the building. Six occurrences.
14. «Ну, молчи» / «Молчи!» → Now hold your peace / Hold your peace! P, E5. Three occurrences.
15. «набрехал в учёте» → rendered a false account. P, E5. Furthest of the three arms from the dog in «брехать»; L, and the loss is E5's by design.
16. «Судьи!» → Judges, forsooth! D — E6 formed the exclamation, but forsooth is the single place in this arm where I came nearest to E8's line. Kept after the §5d check because the Russian «Судьи!» is bitterly ironic and a bare Judges! in English is not; recorded as a deviation because the word is archaic beyond "a Victorian man of letters doing his conscientious best".
17. «Хоть и высеки… по совести» → Flog me, if you will, but let it be for a cause, and according to conscience. P, E1/E3. Note that R26 reached Flog me, if you will by a different rule and the two arms are identical for six words at the story's last sentence — a fact about how little room there is at the bottom of a plea, and one the dependence table will show as a shared run.

The numbers the rules require

• E3 (expand), checked numerically and computed by counts.py: 1,074 Russian words → 1,886 English, ratio 1.756, against R06's 1.300 and R26's 1.331. E3 holds and is the arm's largest single effect: Denis's 26 turns run to 1,088 words here against 833 in R06.
• E7 (content complete), checked clause by clause: no fact, participant, event or causal relation differs from the source. Two places were checked twice and passed: decision 9, where the supplied referent could have been read as adding an object (it is the nut, and the nut is in the previous turn), and upon the account of the lard, where E4's supplied preposition could have been read as changing what the three roubles are for (it does not; «за сало» is unambiguous).
• E8 (short of the parodic), checked: the passages nearest burlesque are decision 16 (forsooth), the magistrate's Is that, or is it not, how the matter stood?, and Denis's There is none but the asp that will take it. All three kept; two of them are cases where the Russian is itself formal. The passage I rejected for crossing the line was an earlier Wherefore, I pray you, should we kill? at decision on «Зачем убивать?», reduced to Wherefore should we kill?

One observation, made while translating (internal-judgment-only): the arm is easiest to write where the source is lowest. Denis's speech offers unlimited room upward and every sentence has a decorous form waiting for it. The narration was much harder, because Chekhov's neutral Russian is already good writing and raising it means making it worse in a specific direction rather than simply choosing a higher word.