WHAT'S NOT
TULIO HERRERA & BUSTOS DOMECQ
Xavier S. // CrashTest
What's Not ****** Shortening Nabokov ******
BY Tulio Herrera and Bustos Domecq
"What's Missing Hurts Not" Bustos Domecq
7.
“Einen rauchen?” - I remember
19.
was rounded, hairless*,
49.
on the dragonfly tail of his submerging Antoinette
52.
picked up her glossy sac de voyage
53.
and the glossy sac de voyage in her lap
53.
an ample handkerchief from her sac de voyage
63.
and he persists: ‘zhay voo zasyur’
63.
at Pier Two you’ll find our Jean-Bart
65.
T’es Polonais, alors? inquired the woman
93.
the Veneziana has been hung
101.
his name even yielded a new adjective, luinesco
118.
Maestro she said allow me to present
124.
go up to him and say Wie geht’s dir, Bachmann
139.
in the café dansants here
164.
how does that strike you, amico?
165.
touching Erwin’s shoulder. “Au revoir”
168.
starting the whole business, n’est-ce pas? Confess
168.
“I vant to be happee”
169.
and this chance word (“offenbar”) was the “evident” sign
179.
tack a “nicht” onto the first sentence
179.
an interrogative “was?” onto the next
179.
then “nicht” again
191.
Skol’ko raz ya tebe govorila
193.
out in the whole building - eto oozhas, it’s appaling
194.
Let’s sit down somewhere. Comment vas-tu?
195.
Tu escamotas my birthday
195.
“Trop tard, trop tard!” she raised her voice again
207.
strange to be saying “ty”
211.
and “moutain”, in German is Berg
216.
beating out the rhythm Abattoir... abattoir... abattoir...
218.
Dobrry den’, came a gentle voice
223.
a respectable edition of Das Kapital
229.
with a castrato-like silvery voice
249.
repeated that guttural “Ruhe!” several times
250.
who fed mainly on Erbswurst
252.
a certain rare moth Agrotis pilgrami
255.
Ja, ja, ja, he would mutter
255.
Ach, was!”
255.
Good God – uralensis and that ejaculation
257.
Also los
260
Absolut Marasmus in business
262
Galanterie, Gnädigste
262.
Pfui! she uttered
263.
and affairs with them is so kameradschaftlich
263.
neither round nor square, but Phantasie-shaped
266.
Pfui! she uttered
269.
boys were playing gorodki _ pitching
270.
a pony drawn sharabanchik
271.
he wore a kosovorotka
272.
depending on its distance from la grenouille
272.
the imeninnik, handsome, charming, merry
272.
now demanded that they play stukalochka
274.
priate-qui? Priate-qui?, she uttered with a farcical accent
275.
toute n’est caroche, she continued
275.
sichasse pocajou caroche messt
275.
votte, said the old lady
275.
and then a an automatic skazhite pozhaluysta!
276.
here comes the poseur
284.
the ending of a sign “inka sapog”
291.
our oil-mad kollektiv
291.
now any verbal adverb ending in ‘iv’
191.
long live our sacred kapitál! Ta-ta-ta (anything in ‘ations’)
191.
our bourgeois Internatsionál
292.
offered him some valerianka
295.
Was dort für Skandale?
295.
well, your health, staraya morda
295.
Graf abstractly read it: “SOGLASEN PRODLENIE”
297.
TERRA INCOGNITA
297.
brewing their von-gho
297.
from the inflorescences of Valliera mirifica
307.
“Prussak kaput,” said Serafim
308.
in an old issue of Die Natur
313.
his wife’s illness and death, the Inflationszeit
314.
“Terra firma meant, I dare say
314.
“Mimo, chichatel’, mimo!” answered Ilya
315.
an attack on the frequently occuring adjective molodaya
315.
replacing it here and there by “youthful”, yunaya
315.
as if it were pronounced yunnaya
319.
which the wits denoted by the term “apropos”
320.
they did so with the utmost sans-gêne
320.
an excellent person but also a schrifsteller
323.
“doucement, doucement”. Don’t proclaim our editorial secrets
326.
a muzhik-looking man, with an impediment in his speech
327.
banged the Zhivoe Slovo (a school anthology)
327.
why bedoy, when it’s lebedoy, orache – a clingy weed?
327.
uvular cries, rompez, battez
328.
shapska with earflaps
329.
huge bound volumes of the Zhivopisnoe obozrenie
330.
to duel with some dim Enigmanski
330.
liked to tell her about the rencontre
338.
picking his way through a dense “zhengel”
340.
a blotchy complexion, a feu du rasoir rash
341.
over their private parts: pudor agrestis
344.
“ach nein,” wailed David
345.
“ach, quatsch,” responded David dejectedly
345.
in Russian you ought –to say ‘erundà’
346.
but don’t go beyond a sazhen
348.
these clues to fill in the rest of me. Bonjour, Madame
348.
an iambic tetrameter, admiraaltéyskaya iglà
348.
cuddled up frileusement in Mother’s shawl
349.
with his hair parted à l’anglaise
349.
generous spurts of Velzhetal lotion
350.
with its chatoyant lights seemed to augur
350.
the echoes of modish tziganshchina
352.
the bright-crimson “Victoria” (sadovaya zemlyanika)
352.
and the Russian hautbois (klubnika)
353.
souvenir, Souvenir, que me veux-u? L’automne _ even though
353.
a game of Gorodki (townlets)
354.
from different directions to the rond-point
355.
the artificial grasseyement that would appear in her speech when
371.
“t’foo!” (the only expletive by the way
371.
see also the German “Teufel”)
372.
he knew how to make botviniya
372.
view of the Neva from the Columna Rostrata side
373.
Die Ökonomische Welt, from which he would copy
375.
le maître d’école chez nous au village, in flowing black tie
376.
described under the specific name of “godunovi”
378.
limiting himself to mumbles and “hms”
383.
brought over from Russia, as le maître d’école chez nous au village
384.
to notice his very shapely hands: “Regarde ses mains”
384.
in other words, our first stengazeta
385.
the cover of a Bibliothèque Rose volume
386.
pronouncing les gens
386.
as if rhyming with agence and splitting août in two syllables
386.
naively translated the Russian grabezhi (robberies) as les grabuges
386.
in a hoarse, choking voice: “Mes-sieurs les officiers...”
392.
to get the same little pink gaufrettes
392.
and had sent her by okaziya
392.
jumped at her with a crash: “Freitag... Freitag_”
393.
was uttering akhs and tsks
394.
arranged the gaufrettes in one little glass
394.
completely defenseless words. “Nu, chto ya mogu!”
397.
and the inevitable Inconnue de la Seine
400.
modern bereg reverting to breg, a farther shore,
400.
holod to hlad, a more classic chill,
400.
veter to vetr, a better Boreas
408.
for the first time he sat on my Kautsch
409.
“Khoroshaya shtooka”, he said
409.
crammed back the shtooka
417.
au fond, I wanted a comb
421.
his passage à niveau was being acclaimed
421.
ghoulish fun from the pitiful spécialité de la maison
429.
tu es très hippique ce matin, remarked the latter
431.
for instance , patzlui_ and, recalling philanderings
454.
for the sake of poetry, arista, aristifer, and even to aristize
460.
un fantôme sans os, will be content if the fruit
461.
called L’Abîme
462.
j’étais trop jeune pour prendre part à la ...
462.
comment dit-on... velika voïna
462.
grande, grande guerre... In all fairnes to the author
462.
and one modest dosvidania
467.
a friend, c’est beaucoup dire
470.
méfie-toi. Well, well _ so here is my Lavrusha
478.
je vous prie d’excuser, Madame, cette invasion nocturne
481.
rendered as “giddy-eh”
482.
with awe and gusto, as “la steppe”
482.
soon to be termed “le château”
484.
the bonne promenade she had promised
487.
she sighed comme on s’aimait
487.
in the depths of the forest ah la fessée que je vous ai flanquée
487.
votre tante, la Princesse, whom you struck
487.
had signed her picture Mater Dolorosa
488.
cutting the pages of La Revue des Deux Mondes
490.
as fat as she (“je suis une sylphide à côté d’elle”
490.
with the remark: “Excusez-moi, je souriais à mes pensées.”
490.
off the rockets of a sprightly causerie
491.
with a slashing “Pardon, Monsieur”
491.
and recoil again with a “Merci!”
492.
Il pleut toujours en Suisse was one of those
494.
certain intricacies of the carte d’identité system
495.
for example, teatr-gladiator, mustang-tank, Madonnabelladona
496.
the not quite idiomatic v soldatskih mundirak
496.
here mundir should rather be forma
498.
I entered this chambre garnie
499.
le sieur Chichkoff had long since allowed his karta
500.
he is a half-wit or a kvak
503.
il y a pauvre Ilya, turning on povar
505.
to stop by at my pension
508.
these tableaux vivants grew so fashionable
510.
pleased with my first blanc et noir sample
511.
moved to an apartment next to my pension
513.
let us proceed ab ovo
518.
in the wrong way, cher monsieur
519.
bon said Falter as is the habit
521.
un bon mouvement, Falter tell me
523.
mondammer wagh and erldag wagh. The former, unduly punctual
525.
that decrepit, asthmatic konwacher
526.
once, it seems, inhabited by the Husmuder
527.
“see and rule” (sassed ud halsem)
527.
“armchair and filbert brandy” (sasse uf hazel)
527.
where the Peplerhus faintly shone
527.
at the same time as unwashed as papugh
528.
as much at his studies as vanhol
528.
mightier than the king and the Peplerhus
528.
faithful to half-forgotten covenants, of that ‘île triste et lointaine’
529.
indecently young-looking charmeur, defying
529
the hoariest antiquity and the rule of the mossmons
529.
sol ud digh vor je sage vel, ud jem gotelm quolm osje musikel
529.
la magie innée et naturelle of our
530
populace as ildehams
531.
I’m not rich. (‘Il ment,’
532.
with scorn ‘ce machin ridicule’ and contended
532.
“Et mon bonhomme de père, tu sais, a une vraie passion pour les objets trouvés”
532.
in the dreary bickering of Peplerhus members
533.
à moins que tu ne confondes la galanterie avec la Galatée
533.
lads qui se tiennent toujours sur leurs gardes
537.
to the king’s kabinet, depicted frankly those
537
six months to a suyphellhus
540.
generated in the womb of prokuratura
540.
luring her to his secret garçonnière, a den of
541.
punchinello whose varnished pate gets
542.
“courtierist” members of the peplerhus
542.
“why didn’t that polisson invite me to his parties?
542.
que de plaisirs perdus!
542.
“hélas!” answered the prince
544.
several frad members of the Pelerhus
545.
en trompe-l’oeil and could not be turned
546.
not even Cavalleria Rusticana, not anything like
547.
dapper and daring djighit Golubkov
548.
the Ur-Hitlerism of those ludicrous
548.
Paris called ‘Esh-Bubliki’
548.
or to the little Kneipe in Berlin that had no special
549.
variations of émigré poilitics
550.
or English prune-flavored “Kapstens”
550.
whenever the Slavska ‘received’ which she would
552.
“du bist im Schnee begraben, mein Russland”
553.
singing in a certain appartement, rue George Sand
554.
while reading Paris-Soir, and then
555.
vsevo dvoe i est; smert’ da sovest’
556.
in a café 45 rue Descartes, I am to meet
557.
the impression that the Sûreté knew more about
557.
“l’affaire Slavska” did not make good headlines
558.
“pour un arbre abattu”
558.
a Parisian clochard, one of those
559.
poor perdu? The mirrors of possibility
560.
in quest of the petit café du coin which none of us three will ever
560.
die: ig-rhyme, umi-rhyme. And the sonorous souls of Russians verbs
561.
made such gruesome fun of in the Literaturnïe Zapiski
562.
safety in the Gard, and the Aude, and the Drôme, and the Var, and the Basses-Pyrénées
563.
a fat commissaire with liquid brown eyes
564.
“Ya lgunia. I stayed for several nights
565.
by the clammy hands of consuls and commissaires
566.
with a couple of plump visas de sortie
566.
what French rhymesters call une cheville
567.
I did not give a hoot for her cocu de père
568
“Vzdor”, retorted the old man
572.
‘sibirskikh pikht oogrewmyi shorokh s podzemnoy snositsa roodoy’
574.
cries of ‘Shame, shame!’ and ‘Astavte starika!’
574.
the ‘starik’managed to retain
574.
a kind of beau ténor in terms of the drama
575.
cries of ‘Gromche, gromche’
587.
who signed himself ‘Sinepuzov’
589.
but the hard ‘djair’ in his pronunciation
589.
sounded like ‘wan’
590.
intelligent and brilliant causeur
605.
played a card game called durachki
605.
‘Ne budet-li, tï ved’ ustal?’
606.
to disgorge his portion of omelette aux confitures de fraises
606.
the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-lits et des Grands Express Européens
607.
a little brass Tour Eiffel
607.
and weedy terrains à vendre
607.
along the back line of the plage
608.
dashing across the palpitating plage
608.
hawking cacahuètes, sugared violets
608.
such a baigneurwould place
608.
the baigneur , glistening like a seal
608.
misericoletea –or at least it sounded so
608.
the closest approach is micheletea
609.
and wetter part of the plage
609.
on the same plage I had been attached to
609.
des bourgeois de Paris as I heard
610.
above Pau?, ‘Là-bas, là-bas, dans la montagne’,
611.
in an autumnal, Parisian, tenue-de-ville-pour-fillettes way
615.
having us match wits at checkers or muzla
622.
and added ‘cette examain est finie ainsi que ma vie’
622.
Adieu, jeunes filles! Please, Monsieur le Professeur contact ma soeur and tell her
627.
what appeared in my jottings as ‘plagiatisme’
637.
the twelfth-century roman de la charrette
637.
leading to the Otherworld (‘dont nus estranges ne retorne’)
638.
the séracs and the schrundss, the avalanche and its thud;
638.
moist surpths, as if taking
640.
the ancient curieux
642.
in a narrative voice: ‘je vais dire ça en français. Nous venions d’arriver’
------------------------------------------------------------------Thanks to Vladimir Nabokov who provided the words for this poem