"Край границата" и в Шабла

Репортаж (линк)
Събитието в Добрич и Балчик в снимки: ТУК
Плакат: ТУК

С д-р Стоева председател на Общинския съвет в Шабла

Романът "Адела" на румънеца Гарабет Ибрайляну

ЗА АВТОРА

                                                                                                 

Гарабет Ибрайляну e роден през 1871 г. в Търгу Фрумос, Румъния – умира на 12 март 1936 г. в Букурещ. Литературен критик, теоретик, редактор, преводач от френски език, романист и знакова фигура за румънската литература от началото на XX век. Професор по История на румънската литература в Университета в Яш. От 1906 г. до 1930 г. Ибрайляну е главен редактор на списанието „Вяца ромъняска”. Под псевдонима Чезар Вража, който използва с прекъсвания през целия си живот, авторът дебютира на страниците на списанието „Шкоала ноуа” със статии, публикува и стихове, поезия в проза, мисли, преводи и др. Под същия псевдоним през 1896 г. превежда на румънски език „Бел Ами” на Мопасан.

За широкия читател, авторът е известен с романа си „Адела”, написан през 1933 г., с който печели национална награда за литература за същата година.

ЗА РОМАНА

„Адела” е типично румънска книга, особено ако я погледнем през призмата на 30-те години на миналия век. Книга, която гимназистите в близка Румъния изучават днес и пишат за нея на своя зрелостен изпит. „Адела” е философско четиво на тема: „какво е любов”.

Този роман ни насочва към мислите на един четиридесетгодишен мъж (Кодреску) – равносметките и спомените му, желанията и онова, което не се случва между Адела и него. За патриархалните нрави двадесет години разлика са повече от допустимото (той е на 40-ет, тя на 20-ет). Тази баналност е вплетена в поетичен език и впечатляващи описания на областта Молдова. 

Внимание заслужава структурата на романа, както и изграждането на героя, който се вглежда в света, себе си и природата, а не само в своя обект на обожание и възхищение. Адела е видяна през миналото и настоящето – тя е евентуално бъдеще, с което романът оставя отворен краят.

Книгата е за онова, което пропускаме. И все пак – липсва особена външна драма или мелодраматизъм, защото те присъстват вътрешно в безкрайните въпроси, размишления и терзания на разказвача Кодреску... Читателят остава с впечатление, че случващото се е само в неговите мисли.

...

Романът е откъси от дневника му. Може би по-важни откъси, защото вероятно другата част от дневника е загубена...

Гледната точка на жената не присъства. Всъщност съществува ли Адела?

...

Преводът е изключително гладък и вдъхновяващ. Книгата е полирана. Ако някой очаква да види класическа любовна история – ще остане разочарован. Изисква се някакъв читателски опит за тази книга, търсене и малко желание човек да излезе извън баналното, очакваното... Извън клишетата. С този румънски автор това е възможно. 

(Темата за Лолита не е централна, Лолита е съблазнителка на 12-13 години, а Адела на тази възраст е далеч от тези уклони)

интервю с преводача

"Адела" - в Хеликон

Гарабет Ибрайляну. Адела. ИК Персей. С., 2014
превод от румънски Христо Боев

I Want to Remember You like That by Dimcho Debelyanov

Translated by Hristo Boev

I want to remember you like that:
Homeless, hopeless and sad,
In my hand intertwined a flaming hand
To my chest a grieving face reclined.
Far away the city winces smoggy marred,
Beside us ahill the forests shudder clear.
And our love is as if more dear
Because we have to part.

I leave with the dawn, you come with it
And bring me your farewell gaze alit
So I can remember it faithful and in rue
On the hour she will me subdue!
Oh weary petal broken by the storm,
Pray not, believe in our spring
An undreamed dream will hardly lag
And to me you will come back!

Ever darker falls the night upon us,
Bats are drawing their nets in the dark,
Helpless you await your last resort
In my faith I’m not much of a believer thus.
And so you let go your flaming hand
As you go, your gaze riveted in the dark
Too weak to even shed a tear
I want to remember you like that…

Аз искам да те помня все така

The Price of Trust by Stanka Pencheva

Translated in English by Hristo Boev

Thus I am created
that I prefer
to smile instead of to frown
to caress - instead of to hit
to believe - when our eyes meet.
I have trusted and been deceived.
Even the dearest, the closest ones
Have trampled on my love
With dirty feet
With words they have lured me into sin -
and again they were looking in the eyes.
They may lie to me a hundred times.
Let them!
But let me not fail to see
The truth in the eyes for once
Not lying to me.

Цената на доверието - Станка Пенчева

Inventory by Stanka Pencheva

Translated in English by Hristo Boev

If, God forbid, my hour strikes me
Amidst an icy square, or on a heated street -
Somebody will pick up the bag with bread and books
And the official will itemize my things.
A pen. Not golden.
Effaced with use.
It read "Sweetheart"
And: "I object. I don't agree."
A purse. We found that the money...
The money? We knew each other:
I knew the value and I knew how to squander it.
A key. And from a mailbox.
My home. With the flowers, with the little flies in the chandelier
With the short days and the long nights,
With a girl to make everything seem right,
With a picture of a man on the chest of drawers.
And in one drawer - half her life is
locked...
We found old tickets -
for the train, for the cinema...
How many roads in your life you have traveled!
When leaving I was all trembling with expectation
And I was glowing with happiness - that I was back.
Till the next setting off.
...and little things: a comb,
perfume, a mirror...
I was not pretty. But loved I was. Till the end.
To the last unfinished thought.
Here the inventory ends. Seal.
And the man does not know
that he has inventoried my whole life.

Опис на вещи - Станка Пенчева

Don't Stand at My Grave and Weep - Не стой на гроба ми и не плачи

Превел от английски
Христо Боев

анонимно

Не стой на гроба ми и не плачи.
Аз не съм там. Аз не спя.
Аз съм хилядите ветрове във бурен впряг.
Аз съм нежните искрици в блещукащ сняг.
Аз съм слънчевият лъч огрял узрялото зърно.
Аз съм есенният дъжд намокрил сухото сено.
Когато се събудиш в утринната тишина,
aз съм тази забързана припряност
на тихи птици издигащи се в кръгов полет.
Аз съм топлите звезди греещи в нощта.
Не стой на гроба ми и не плачи със тях;
aз не съм там, аз не умрях.

Dead Men's Love - Rupert Brooke/ Любовта на мъртвите - Рупърт Брук

Превел от английски
Христо Боев

Имаше някога един страшно преуспял поет.
Имаше и една жена като слънце.
Те бяха мъртви. Само че не го знаеха.
Не знаеха, че времето бе свършило за тях.
Не знаеха, че неговите песни
бяха тишина, а нейните крака и ръце,
които бяха служили на любовта толкова добре,
прах и мъртво море.

И така един ден, както някога
с ръце протегнати, те се втурнаха
огнено да се докоснат и целунат и прегърнат.
И в очите на другия да видят
всеки своето малко лице.
И в тази дълга прегръдка
да почувстват как устни и гръд се затоплят
до гръд и устни и ръце.

И така, те се втурнаха отново.
И се затичаха със смях, както разбирам
през улиците на Ада...
и после
Внезапно почувстваха как вятърът повява студ.
И усетиха, толкова силно притиснати
студения въздух върху устни и гръд
и с лудо слисване
как очите липсваха.

A Banana Dress Colored in Tan

By Diyana Boeva
Translated by Hristo Boev

Dresses remind me of colors, women and the movies. The banana dress, however, belongs to one dark-complexioned woman.
There she was, walking briskly materializing like a gauzy curtain into the street. She was like a child carrying the sea and the sand in her eyes in an impish and somewhat touchy way. Feminine and stunning, she made things definite with her exquisite body. Beautiful and abstracted she savored the evening breeze. Perhaps it was in the state of dizziness and finesse that someone had zipped up her dress, banana yellow in color. It was something in between orange and pink with this banana shade. She reminded one of a female daffodil but with her there, the world was more spirited reflected in her bright brown eyes. If she looked in a certain direction, she gave a special meaning to what she’d seen, shaped it and somehow turned it into ovals. Oval was her dominating form. Slender and quick-witted she struck one as a woman who understood the small and simple things in life, and was completely unaware of the ones belonging in the realm of the unearthly and celestial. Standing still by the beach, she seemed to float over the fairy tales with the known beauties and lovingly fall for monsters, which she then transformed into people. The low altitude of the place made her dizzy. The short banana dress she wore made her look unpretentious, lonely and fragrant.
Short, too short it was bordering on the indecent, but not quite. She seemed to skate along the quay as if winking at the speechless seamen there. It was impossible that you could accost this lonely ambler and offer her a cheap motel. Impossible. The shoulder-strips to the banana dress were a shade darker than the dress itself. Some bizarre short-cut seam ran across her breasts, too in a line that was three times still darker. Her stays bodily colored popped just slightly above her well-corseted bust. One could see the lace as well; if one strained the eyes, and there came it came, almost imperceptible, orgasmic. The lace strips melted into her flesh – a couple of shades whiter but creamy tanned by the sun. She walked. Few women are capable of this – wild, earthly, inspiring, loving, and somehow defying all laws of the sky and the earth. She exuded reason and passion. The impossible combination. The color she had on the dress really suited her. The peaked cap she had on her head, made her looks sporty barely concealing her short hair-style. She had beige sandals on her legs. She stopped and suddenly seemed to look at some point again. Then she made a sharp gesture fixing the position of her handbag on her and again the landscape was fascinating. No doubt it would be wild and desolate if robbed of her presence. The bums, fishermen and the seamen were used to her. I was still in the process of getting adjusted.
I came to look forward to her walks and couldn’t imagine this to be some routine. The beautiful dark-complexioned woman couldn’t be a habit or some part of it. Her walks were never enough for me although I could see her there every day at sunset, every summer in August.
Her eye seemed to lose color as she watched the sea. August was her month. It was the time when she parted from the people and the horror of the big city. She looked around. Everything she saw, she had known for years. Her radiant smile waved at the fisherman and then she smiled at someone on the quay, too. She gave a deep sigh. She loved the feeling of being along in this place. She loved the feel of the harbor and the wildness of the sea. She felt calm and somehow safe from the hubbub of the passing season here like a recluse and heretic daring to do something otherwise.
She was not looking for love at this time of the year. She knew that passion and love are elusive and come only once. The sea loved her and so did I. There was life and loneliness, tenderness and sympathy in her. As she walked, the girl, for indeed she was a girl, lifted her hands up in the air. This gesture of hers gave her away – it gave her an air not of a voluptuous flirt, but rather of a woman who knew where her strength was and who used it sparingly. She didn’t seem to be on the look-out for something particular. She was just taking a walk in her own way. I followed her and saw something curious. Banana-like and sunny she ran, dashing towards someone or something so suddenly.
The fisherman held out his hand and helped the girl in the banana dress into the boat. This somehow brought back the memory of her mother – of some years past. She wasn’t like her. There was something the summer was doing to her short brown hair. The locks of her hair appeared to take on a slightly reddish hue.
Her mother, by contrast, had a fiery red mane, not something garish, but rather subdued and billowy in waves reaching her waist.
“The little one is too smart not to see me through – I have to find a way to distract her one way or another,” thought the fisherman.
She smiled a banana smile at him and fixed him with her eyes. She had an insight; one had to grant her that. She could advance or retreat at will. There was something in her bearing resemblance to the liveliness of her mother, but she was also different in so many ways - more discreet as far as feelings go and more conquering. She was also somewhat unyielding and adamant when need be, but there was more to be discerned – there was some softness to her. He felt amused and kissed the girl on the forehead. She’d been coming here for years, first with his parents and then in big and rowdy parties. Then in several summers in a row, with different boys. For the last two years she had come here alone. There was some ritual in what she was doing. Her mother was different. She did not possess this straightforwardness her daughter had and lacked completely that playful look. The dainty girl seemed to be in fine possession of her feminine faculties – she would turn her head and look the other way when need called. Could anyone in the world ever break this girl? She knew that there were circumstances that could make her stoop for a moment but in the end she might as well prove that she’d only stooped to conquer. I watched the thoughts of the fisherman and the conduct of the girl at a distance in that peculiar play of inexplicable symbiosis that seemed to bond them. There was something that kept them together and at the same time pulled them apart. I felt I did not belong. Once again at sunset I liked this woman.
“Her smile is vaguely reminiscent of her mother’s, just ever so slightly, by the two dimples she had on the cheeks.
The red-haired one… I haven’t forgotten her yet,” the fisherman noticed as he thought back in time.
“I felt fine in the boat. I put on my cape – well padded on the inside so that it wouldn’t let in moisture. I knew I was in for a most beautiful evening far out into the sea. Then I felt there was someone else watching me. Those were a stranger’s eyes, not the eyes of my friends from the harbor or of the mariners chatting up to me. Who was looking so hard at me? I can always tell when someone’s doing just that. That look, it’s like the other moon, like the pain in the ribs, like a gesture exchanged between two people at the table, the little smile of the ones in love.
Someone had been looking at me like that for about an hour and seemed to be stalking me. I didn’t dare turn around. This is a rare thing with me, indeed for I can look wherever and whenever I like. This time around I felt absolutely helpless before the unseen power of that stare. I knew that if I’d turned around I would have seen something and then I’d need time to fall asleep. Not that I was running away from someone on the quay. There are so many boats in the area. Perhaps mine is somewhere out at sea and is not waiting for me moored to the pier. My friend, the fisherman, pushed the boat out, smoothly and neatly.”
And then the girl in the banana dress told the fisherman that some day she wanted to have a daughter.
“I watched the sea. The sun had already gone down. It was the moon that was shining now and the stars were twinkling clumsily. I blinked at the fisherman and smiled at him. I knew he liked that. One day I came from somewhere and cried before him. He treated me harshly then. Time had to pass before I knew why. If he’d shown sympathy he would have cried himself and shown weakness. I’ve been careful ever since for I intend to bring my unborn daughter here someday. Would she cry before him like I did, I wonder. Once I had the feeling that he’d be here after I’m gone. Only the fishermen are eternal. They are nameless, ageless. These boys seem to live someplace between the waves, the sun, the sky and the stars. Living on the edge, the very thought of it! Strong are his hands, but he has a steady and good heart,” thus thought the girl and breathed in deeply the vapors of the splashing waves.
They were silent and looked on the vast expanse of water. The sky was clear. There was no sign of an approaching storm. It was only proper for the girl to have the cape on her back for it was chilly in the evening.
“The sea is sometimes like a desert,” the fisherman thought. He looked ahead and swallowed his tears and then smiled at the girl in the banana dress who had huddled in the warmth of the cape, which he kept in the boat for her only.
The man was doing lengths in the swimming pool, every now and then asking her to jump in. A bunch of devils seemed to be chasing one another in her. She had never felt like that. It had to be blamed on the sea. Her life rolled like a film on a reel before her. The sea had whispered its secrets to her in August. She had learned a lot about herself, too. She’d realized certain things about herself. Others she had spoken. There were still others she was in no mood of talking about.
Her banana dress was ruined after last night’s sea trip. Nothing bad had happened during the trip but in the following hours in the café someone had spilled coffee on it and it would be no good until well washed. In the jeans she wore now she looked like a chimneysweep without a chimney. There was nothing else left for her to do but enjoy the sunrise. She remembered leaving the walnuts on the sidewalk. The hard brown shells looked like tiny scraps of life. Or could it be said that they were more like tortoise shells? Someone had broken them all.
She felt him stalking her again, the same man from the quay, the one with the eyes of a stranger. It was the man from the swimming pool. He took her by the hips and then the legs and lifted her high up. Sure she knew him then and she knew what he was after. There was no resisting him. She felt in his arms light as a feather and then he threw her into the swimming pool. As she entered the water she felt holding in her hand a tiny bit of a walnut shell or was it the shell of a tortoise. Perhaps at least some bit of it could be saved for she knew as he jumped into the water, too that the next summer she would have a new life contained in the hardness of the tortoise shell, the taste of a walnut and the eyes of the stranger from the swimming pool.

Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon

by Diyana Ivanova Boeva
Translated by Hristo Boev

In Memoriam of Granny

My head is like a prickly artificial flower – one of those that gather all the dust in a room. My grandmother studied at a Romanian school until the 7th grade. She was born in a village near Dobrich. I bristle up and shake off all the dust. I am a teacher of Bulgarian language and literature and unlike my good old shrewd granny I think I know what all those things about the 7th grade boil down to… . Granny can make a jam of green tomatoes and cook an excellent pepper stew. The pepper stew, actually, has more than pepper in it. It is a dish made with potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, okra pods, pepper, parsley… I love Granny’s pepper stew. What if somebody made my children go all through the 7th grade’s ordeal to… I’m really going to fling all these things out of my head… I don’t need them right now. There should be dust – at least on the streets. Otherwise the world would be unnatural, sterile, unreal, smelly, drab, not free, ugly… like a dog world… (can’t think of other comparisons). If it were spic and span the streets would not be washed, and I love so much to walk on a freshly washed pavement…
Tolerance – Bam! My head gets stuck in between thoughts like a die on its edge. I walk about the backyard and pop up another niggling question: “Granny, who taught you to write in Bulgarian…?” Her dear child seems inordinately excited today. Something is crackling in my head dashing against the back of it. The tomato seeds get stuck in my throat choking me. Granny gives me a perplexed look. She puts her hand on my smooth knee and this time around fails to remark that I go about inappropriately dressed for a teacher in threadbare denim pants and white sneakers. Sometimes I don’t feel I belong to the Dobrudjan people although I was born in Dobrich. I am not patient enough, I am blunt, always knowing what I want… Granny smells something wrong – she senses it vaguely. She pours to me some of the pepper stew, strokes me over the head. What a cunning conspiratorial move! – That’s what they all do when they come across a fledgling like me. The vine in the backyard under which we are seated has a telling smell. Sensual, fresh and ready for the imminent harvesting. There are two dice here – I, however, am no gambler.
Granny says something that makes my insides run cold and the steam of the hot pepper stew hits me in the face. Four to three.
“The Romanians, dear child, were no tyrants or oppressors, they were our friends. Let me tell you about the fair-haired Nikoleta…” I don’t want to know anything about some Nikoleta with grey or green eyes, beautiful smile and good soul. The same can be said of Barbies nowadays. A sharp look on part of my granny and the bump on the surface turns into an oval – Stuck again – the die is stranded between two angles. Resistance is part of my character. There is a cure for every bump, though. Nikoleta was my granny’s classmate in the 7th grade and she cried a lot for herself and her family when the Romanians left Dobrudja. She had left Bulgaria together with her parents. She was Queen of all evening gatherings… fair-haired and her eyes in fact were blue… I can make nothing of this.
Sharp edges I have… I can, however, cook pepper stew. Granny taught me how to make a jam of green tomatoes, raspberries, pears… I lean back in the chair, take off my white sneakers and fold my legs. The ripe peaches in the backyard opposite to ours are truly tempting. The Serbian Ivo Obretenovich is not around. I wonder where Elisaveta, the Colonel’s wife is hiding. I smile to myself. Although there are plenty of fruits in our backyard I covet the neighbors’. Granny is still telling the tale of her love for Nikoleta. I have come to see her and it is about time she did some work on my character. The Romanians are our friends…, “but the teachers at school spanked us a lot”… It is now that I shudder and my eyes turn to steel. Granny regards me calmly, “but in spite of all that we had happy lives”. I clench my teeth and fold my legs again, this time changing the position of the legs. I was as near as I could to falling off the chair. The water melons will be ripe soon. I prefer melons – they have a flavor. Nikoleta was a good student.
What fruits there are in our backyard! When I was little and came to my village during the vacations it sometimes happened that my grandpa would scold me for something I’d done and then I would see how upset he was and how he regretted doing it… Everyone was watchful of what they said and how they spoke to me and at the same time no one imposed any restrictions on what I should or should not do. That was how one learned to think… and to make mistakes… If only there weren’t these bumpy edges in me and these Romanians whirling in my head… I really don’t know what is coming over me.
I clang all over. It is wet in the backyard – just like after a rainfall. Grandpa is watering the garden. He is not from these lands. His parents left all their property in today’s Romania when half of Dobrudja was returned to Bulgaria. They settled in a village near Dobrich. I have never seen him cross, agitated or insulting someone. Granny rambles on: “Ask your grandpa about the Romanians”. They were good and you could reason with them. That’s what had been passed on to my grandparents by their parents. Bulgarians and Romanians twice elected my great-grandfather (my granny’s father) mayor of the village. He was a grave man, prone to silence, a man of character and good stock…
I must be some weird chip off the old block. I lack essentials, leisurely thoughts evade me. I am a crossbreed of plum and damson. I clutch at ideas, my mind creaks madly. I’m chased by owls. I find fields maddening. I touch unseen realities. I am vaguely aware of something. Nikoleta. All my grandpa’s property is in today’s Romania. This is free land. Dust and dice. Stuck again. Cracks in the windows. Wind. I wonder if Nikoleta is still alive. I am being blunt again. Granny lowers her head. She’s not looking at me. She enters the house and starts roasting the chicken for dinner. My legs feel cramped on the chair. I can see the little squares formed on my ankles. The figures on the rest of my body have resulted from the patterned cushion placed on the chair. The woman in the backyard opposite to ours is standing by the fence – she has divined my thoughts and is giving me peaches. The handsome Serbian from the film The Thief of Peaches should be hiding somewhere round here.
I don’t make any protests as I take the fruit. The sides of my calves in contact with the Dobrudjan embroidered cushion are all in little triangles and rhombs. Granny calls from inside: “And don’t wear those underpants at school. You should be ashamed.” I stretch my legs – it has been almost two hours since I folded them – the Turkish way. I feel my whole body numb. I bring it back to life as I walk about the yard. It would be hypocritical and untrue, to say the least, to even think of all around me as dear, close to my heart or some suchlike. Here the people are reserved. Who do I look like in moments like these in which I look around me, feel at home but am reluctant to share it with anyone! “And break that Turkish seat, you’re bound to get bandy legs,” granny runs on… .