Posts filed under 'neglect'

Translation Tuesday: “The Death of the Doll” by Viktor Dyk

July 28, 2020  |  in Translations  |  by Frances Jackson

. . . she asked the doll whether she loved her and the doll very clearly said yes

This week’s Translation Tuesday brings you a modern moral fable from the nationalist Czech writer and politician Viktor Dyk. In “The Death of the Doll,” a child copes with loneliness and perpetual familial strife by finding kinship and love in a cherished doll; in the child’s imagination, the doll even becomes a voiced character. Dyk’s prose is deceptively sparse, mimicking the naïve and heartbreaking simplicity of the child’s worldview, which is brilliantly contrasted with the vitriolic dialogue of the parents. Translator Frances Jackson writes: “In another writer’s hands this could have all too easily descended into melodrama, but instead there is something satisfyingly understated about the text.”

The doll was very beautiful, all slender and white in a little pink dress. Her name was Edda and she could move both her head and her eyes. She could be seen in the window from the street and often made passing children envious because of her great size and beauty. Otilka sat with her by the window for that very reason; it pleased her to know that, in spite of everything, someone could be envious of something of that belonged to her.

If it were not for the doll, Otilka would have been sad most of the time. The room was dim and gloomy; she did not like to be in here. The sun did not shine this way: there was a tall building directly opposite. And the street outside was straight and inhospitable. Really, Edda was all that she had.

Twice a day, of course, she had to take the dismal stairs to get to school. And it was always torture to Otilka. People frightened her and so did school. There was nobody there to play with, nobody who might comfort her; the other children did play games, but she didn’t like it when they did. The games were unpleasant and rough, and the children unpleasant and spiteful. It gave them pleasure to hurt her; Otilka often found herself crying. It was probably all down to the malice of a bad wizard who had cast her among bad people.

And lately, in particular, it was no different with her mother. She used to play with her sometimes, tell her fairy tales and would even laugh every now and again, but now it was as if she did not have any time or just a smile for Otilka. And yet it was just the three of them there. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “Grandpa’s Little Glove” by Ilka Papp-Zakor

April 2, 2019  |  in Translations  |  by Timea Balogh

So I waited there under the tree, and Grandpa was slowly absorbed by the fog, which drizzled and grew ever thicker.

During a routine mushroom-picking expedition in the forest, a wheelchair-bound child gets separated from her grandfather and is left to face the forces of nature on her own. In today’s Translation Tuesday, Ilka Papp-Zakor takes us on a fairy-tale adventure that comes to a surreal and haunting conclusion.

Grandpa’s beard was made of cotton, and his face of crinkled crepe paper. His hands shook, so he almost always spilled his tea, but his eyes were beautiful. I liked to watch him read his old books in the evenings, squinting by the light of the oil lamp—we didn’t have electricity in our shack—rocking back and forth in his rocking chair, the corners of his eyes smiling delicately from time to time, which is how I could tell where he was in his book. I knew all his books by heart. That’s how our evenings would pass. He’d rock in his chair, I’d stare at him, and sometimes, when I’d grow bored of staring, I’d roll around in my wheelchair. Grandpa didn’t like that, because the wheels made an ugly sound on the uneven plank floors. But he loved me anyway.

He said I’d be a beautiful girl if it weren’t for my distorted features, my underdeveloped legs and mangled hands, but I was happy there was something about me that he liked. I had long, curly, golden hair, a little reddish. Grandpa said the bridge of my nose was freckled, though I’d never seen it myself, because our shack didn’t have a mirror either, and I couldn’t lean so far out of my wheelchair over puddles to catch my reflection clearly. In any case, Grandpa said these features were my sex appeal, and that when I’d have kids, I should strive to pass onto them only these two features, because they wouldn’t get very far with the rest. At the time, it was difficult to imagine that I’d someday have a family, and kids of my own, because I didn’t know anyone else besides Grandpa.

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