Famous stories from foreign countries — A Closer Reading

Shifting Voices: From Rococo Banter to Biblical Gravity

The opening story, "The Little Blanchefleure," employs a chatty, almost conspiratorial narrator who addresses the reader directly: "You do not know anything about the little Marquise Blanchefleure, do you?" This voice is intimate and ironic, dwelling on the absurdity of the Jacobins' lack of taste. In contrast, Jaroslav Vrchlický's "Abisag" adopts a solemn, biblical register. The prose becomes measured and ritualistic, with dialogue that echoes scripture: "Is this your daughter, Lamek?" asked Sadok. "Yes; but she is handsomer than I—or her dead mother." The language is spare, focused on gesture and symbol—the chest of gold, the lions' skins, the gold dust in Abisag's hair. Underwood's translation captures this shift from the rococo's ornamental surface to the Old Testament's weighty silence, demonstrating her range as a translator.

Pace and Compression: The Economy of Aharonean's Prison Tale

Awetis Aharonean's "In Prison" (the excerpt is not provided in full, but the title and author's other story "Chai" suggest a focus on confinement and endurance) likely contrasts sharply with the expansive, digressive style of Bartsch. Where Bartsch meanders through the narrator's feelings about a painting, Aharonean's prose is compressed, driven by the urgency of its setting. The collection as a whole moves between these poles: Multatuli's "Saidjah" and Petőfi's "The Elopement" may offer swift, almost folkloric pacing, while Koloman Mikszáth's "The King's Clothes" (a title that echoes Andersen) probably uses a more deliberate, ironic rhythm. Underwood's translations preserve these differences in tempo, making the reader acutely aware of how narrative speed shapes meaning.

Recurring Details: The Gaze and the Object

Across the excerpts, a recurring motif is the act of looking—at portraits, at bodies, at treasure. In "The Little Blanchefleure," the narrator buys a picture and fills his heart with longing; the story is framed by the gaze at an image. In "Abisag," the old men watch the maiden, and Solomon sees her from the doorway: "He had seen the beauty of the Sunnamite maiden. This young man was Solomon. From that moment peace vanished from the heart of Solomon." The gaze triggers desire and consequence. Similarly, Lamek's eyes "greedily took in the contents of the chest" of gold. Underwood's translation emphasizes these visual moments—the arched eyebrows "as if drawn by the brush of Watteau," the gold dust "like stars in a dark night." These details create a texture of observation that unifies the diverse stories.

Readers may find it useful to attend to the introductory notes Underwood provides for each author, as they offer contemporary critical context—such as Dr. Carl Busse's praise of Bartsch as a creator "by the grace of God." These paratexts frame the stories within early 20th-century literary reception. The collection rewards attention to how each story establishes its world in its first paragraphs, whether through a narrator's confession, a biblical invocation, or a sudden present-tense plunge.