Daniel Hajji Husayn

Confessions of Saint Augustine, ??? ????? ???? ?? ?????? ???????? , Philip K. Dick, Suetonius, Karl Marx,

Forwarded message: To: jarubick From: Kathy Date: 26 Jan 93 21:23:15 PST Subject: (Forwarded) Daniel's translation of the SAD GER From: Jeido Rubikku Date: 26 Jan 93 21:20:16 PST Subject: Daniel's translation of the SAD GERANIUM Translated from the original German, by Daniel, our friend who is on his way to Czechoslovakia! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Sad Geranium by Wolfgang Borchert When they meet it was dark. She had invited him then and now he was there. She had showed him her apartment and the table-cloths and the bed linnen and also the plates and the forks, that she had. But when they sat face to face for the first time in bright daylight, he saw her nose. The nose looked as if it were sewn on, he thought. And it did not look at all like other noses. More like a garden fruit. For heaven's sake! he thought, and the nostrils! They are arranged completely unsymetricly. They are really without any harmony with one another. The first is tight and oval. But the other downright yawns like an abyss. Dark and round and bottomless. He reached for his handkerchief and dabbed his forehead. "It's really warm, isn't it?" she began. "Oh yes", he said and looked at her nose. It must be sewed on, he thought again. It looks so foreign for her face. And it has a totally different coloring than the rest of the skin. Really intense. And the nostrils are really without harmony. Or a really novel harmony comes to mind, like something by Picasso. "Yes" he began again, "do you think Picasso is going in the right direction?" "Who?" she asked, Pi-ca-?" "Well, forget it" he sighed and suddenly said without any transition: "Were you in a accident once?" "Why do you ask?" she asked. "Well", he thought hopelessly. "Oh, because of the nose?" "Yes, because of it." "No, it was this way from the beginning." She said that very patiently: "It was always like that." Good heavens! he had almost said. But he only said "Oh, really?" "And yet I am an decidedly harmonious person", she whispered. "And how I do love the symetry! See my two geraniums on the window-sill. Left stands one and right stands one. Very symetrical. No, believe me, inside I am very different. Very different." With that she laid he hand on his knee and he felt her terribly intense glowing eyes to the back of his head. "I am still for the marriage, for living together", she thought softly and some what bashfully. "Because of the symetry?" escaped him. "Harmony", she corrected him kindly, "because of the Harmony." He stood up. "Oh, are you going?" "Yes, I - yes." She brought him to the door. "I am really very different inside", she began again. Nonsense, he thought, your nose is imposition. A sewed on imposition. And he said out loud: "Inside you are like the geraniums, you would like to say. Very symetrical, right?" Then he went down the stairs without looking back. She stood at the window and watched after him. There she saw him stop and dab his forehead with a hankerchief. Once, twice. And another time. But she didn't see that he had a relieved grin. She did not see that that because her eyes were filled with water. And the geraniums were just as sad. At any rate they smelled so. _ jade rubick Have a nice day!!!!!