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First ProZ.com Translation Contest 2007: "First ProZ.com Translation Contest 2007" » English to Portuguese (EU) » Entry by Katarina Peters

Source text in English

Translation by Katarina Peters (#234)

When she moved into his tiny house in Stroud, and took charge of his four small children, Mother was thirty and still quite handsome. She had not, I suppose, met anyone like him before. This rather priggish young man, with his devout gentility, his airs and manners, his music and ambitions, his charm, bright talk, and undeniable good looks, overwhelmed her as soon as she saw him. So she fell in love with him immediately, and remained in love for ever. And herself being comely, sensitive, and adoring, she attracted my father also. And so he married her. And so later he left her - with his children and some more of her own.

When he'd gone, she brought us to the village and waited. She waited for thirty years. I don't think she ever knew what had made him desert her, though the reasons seemed clear enough. She was too honest, too natural for this frightened man; too remote from his tidy laws. She was, after all, a country girl; disordered, hysterical, loving. She was muddled and mischievous as a chimney-jackdaw, she made her nest of rags and jewels, was happy in the sunlight, squawked loudly at danger, pried and was insatiably curious, forgot when to eat or ate all day, and sang when sunsets were red. She lived by the easy laws of the hedgerow, loved the world, and made no plans, had a quick holy eye for natural wonders and couldn't have kept a neat house for her life. What my father wished for was something quite different, something she could never give him - the protective order of an unimpeachable suburbia, which was what he got in the end.

The three or four years Mother spent with my father she fed on for the rest of her life. Her happiness at that time was something she guarded as though it must ensure his eventual return. She would talk about it almost in awe, not that it had ceased but that it had happened at all.

Quando ela se mudou para a minúscula casa dele em Stroud, passando a tomar conta dos seus quatro filhos pequenos, Mamãe tinha trinta anos e ainda era bastante atraente. Acho que ela nunca tinha encontrado ninguém como ele. Este jovem pedante, com uma gentileza devotada, com suas maneiras afetadas, sua musica e suas ambições, seu charme e sua conversa inteligente e sua inegável boa aparência,
subjugou-a à primeira vista. Então ela se apaixonou imediatamente por ele, e permaneceu apaixonada para sempre. Ela mesma sendo graciosa, sensível, e devota, também tinha atraído meu pai, que acabou se casando com ela. E depois a abandonou, deixando-a não só com os seus próprios filhos, mas também os filhos dela.

Depois da partida dele, ela nos trouxe para a aldeia e ficou à espera. Ela esperou por trinta anos. Acho que ela nunca soube porque ele a tinha abandonado, embora as razões pareciam bastante claras. Ela era honesta demais, natural demais para este homem amedrontado; afastada demais das suas leis organizadas. Afinal de contas, ela era uma moça rural; desordenada, histérica, devota. Ela era confusa e travessa como uma gralha de chaminé, fazia o seu ninho com trapos e jóias, ficava contente com a luz do sol, gritava alto ao sentir perigo, era inquisitiva e insaciavelmente curiosa, esquecia de comer ou comia o dia todo, e cantava ao pôr-do-sol vermelho. Ela vivia pelas leis fáceis de cerca-vivas, adorava o mundo, e não tinha nenhum plano, tinha um olho vivo para as maravilhas da natureza, mas por nada no mundo podia manter a casa limpa. O que meu pai esperava dela era algo bastante diferente, algo que ela jamais conseguia dar-lhe - a ordem protetora de um subúrbio impecável, o que, no fim, foi o que ele encontrou.

Os três ou quatro anos que Mamãe passou com meu pai, foram o alimento que a sustentou para o resto da vida. A felicidade dela naquele tempo era algo que ela escondia como se isto assegurasse o retorno dele um dia. Ela contava quase com reverencia, não que tinha terminado, mas que realmente tinha acontecido.
[Subject edited by staff or moderator 2007-02-12 16:20]