Station of Fog

A new literary quiz each week or so, usually with a theme. This week: My two ventures into the exciting field of computer translation last week led inevitably to the following feast of foolishness. Ten passages (by writers all-too-familiar to experienced Quizzees) were computered into Spanish, and then back into English (of a kind), with the results presented exactly as Google delivered them. Extracts 5, 6, and 8 are poetic gems, by the way. These abominations gave me a sadistic pleasure - but also increased my respect for their authors: if a style is powerful enough to be recognizable even when it has been through a crushing-machine .... Enjoy, chest-friends!

The appointments in these aids reflect my own taste - the white men deads, for most (Jane Austen, by all means, counts like honorary DWM). There will never be any dark willful thing. If you are the person class who says with scorn in naïveté of the reviewers in the TLS and the revision of book New York, you will recognize them immediately. I give the welcome to suggestions and to insults. You will find a label of the email around lying somewhere. To please put the AID in the subject line.

1)

    He read, checking itself, the first column and, rendering but being against, he began reserved the second. Located halfway, its last resistance that rendered, he allowed that their internal were still facilitated reserved as he read, reading patiently, that slight constipation of gone yesterday absolutely. Hope is not too great brings again in batteries. No, as soon as the right. So. Ampere hour! Costive a sagrada tablet of of cracked. The life could be so. It did not move it nor it touched but that was something fast and tidy. Impression any thing now. Idiot station. He read ignition, calm seated on his own scent of rise. Cleaned up certainly. Matcham often thinks about masterstroke by which he gained witch who laughed that now. It begins and it finishes moral. In common agreement. Elegant. It threw a look behind with which he had read and, whereas he felt his reserved current, he amiably envied Mr. Beaufoy that had written it and received the payment of three pounds thirteen and seises.


Answer

2)

    It followed irresoluto for a small distance, half of a passage behind her. They did not speak again. She really did not try to sacudarir it dull, but walked hardly at such speed as far as preventing his that maintains to the current of her. He had composed his mind that he would accompany it until the station by tube, but suddenly this process to crawl advanced in the insustancial and unbearable similar cold. A desire not as much crushed it to obtain far from Julia as far as again obtains to the tree Coffee of the chestnut, that never was as attractive similarity as at this moment. It had a nostalgic vision of his table of the corner, with the newspaper and the chessboard and the gin everflowing. Coverall, would be hot inside there. The next moment, not altogether by accident, he allowed himself that he separated of her by a small knot of people. He made an attempt without enthusiasm take for above, later delayed, given return, and done extinguished in the opposite direction. When it had gone fifty meters he watched behind. The street was not tightened, but that he could not distinguish it already. Of the hurry figures a dozen could have been hers. Perhaps it thickened, stiffened body was not more reconocible of behind.


Answer

3)

    Perhaps the very atmospheric conditions that had kept far the fleets mercantile from last ages induced to the O.S.N. Company that violates the sanctuary of La Paz that shelters the calm existence of Sulaco. The variable ventilates to amuse itself slightly with the extensive water semicircle within the head of Azuera could not dazzle the steam energy of its excellent fleet. Year after the year the black helmets of their ships had gone above and under the coast, inside and towards outside, beyond Azuera, the Isabels, - of Bad End without paying attention to everything but of the tyranny of the time. Their names, the names of all mythology, became the words of house of a coast that never had been governed by the Gods of Olympus. The Juno was well-known only for its comfortable cabins in center, Saturn for the cordiality of its captain and the painted luxury and of the young bristle of its hall, whereas the Ganymede was fitted towards outside mainly for the transport of cattles, and to be avoided by throughout the coast the passengers. The humblest Indian of the darkest village in the coast was to the current of the Cerberus, a small black blower without the enchantment or the alive comfort to speak of, that mission was to crawl towards the border throughout beaches enselvadas near powerful ugly rocks, stopping complaciente before each cluster of huts to gather the product, down to three packages of the pound of - of limit of indiarubber in an envelope of the dry grass.


Answer

4)

    The prince had had taste always of his London, when he had come to him; it was one of the modern Romans that finds by the Thames one more a more convincing image of the truth of the old state that nobodies that has left by the Tiber. Brought for above in the legend from the city to which the world paid tribute, he recognized much more in the present London that in contemporary Rome the true dimensions of such case. If it were a question of a Imperium, he said, and if one wished, like Roman, to recover a little the sense of that, to the place to do so he was in the bridge of London, or still, in a behind schedule fine one in May, the corner of Hyde Park. He was not in fact to either of those places that these arguments of his predilection, after all the sufficiently vague one, had, at the moment which we talked about him, directed his steps; it had itself simply lost, enough, in the street in connection, where its imagination, working in comparativily shortrange, now caused it and then to stop before a window in which the massive objects and lumpish, in silver and gold, the forms to which the precious stones contribute, or in leather, the steel, brass, it was applied to hundreds applications and the abuses, were according to the fallen thing together as if, in insolence of the empire, they had been the booty of - distant of victories. The movements of the young man, nevertheless, did not betray any consistency of - of the attention does not uniform, for that matter, when one of its haltings had come from possibilities in the shaded faces, whereas they passed in the pavement, by enormous beribboned the hats, or still dyed more delicate underneath the tense silk of the parasol sharps to the angles of perver itself in victories that hoped. And the thought without signs of the prince was not a little symptomatic, since, although the return had come from the station and descolora the flesh color of the begun streets, the possibilities of faces, in afternoon of August, continued being one of notes of the scene. It was - too anxious that was - of the fact for any concentration, and the last idea that right now it would have happened to him in any connection was the idea of the search.


Answer

5)

    The sailed Saturday of Bremen outer Limit of - of - American, colono and the sailors of the taking, say to men with the women, Two hundred souls in round - Or generates, not underneath pens thy nor always as conjecturing the goal was a sank bank, of a quarter the condemnation that will suffocate; Thy made the side dark of the bay of the blessing yet Not to jump they, the million of round ones of the mercy thy not to even work them inside? In the snow she sweep Send the asylum behind, The Deutschland, the Sunday; and so the subsistences of the sky, For the infinite air are unkind, and the grudge of - of the pedernal of the sea, - black moved backwards in the regular blowing, seating Eastnortheast, in cursed quarter, the wind; - Wiry and target ardent and snow of swivellèd of - of the eddy Returned to - of the widow who does deeps unfathering unchilding. She lead in the darkness to the leeward, She pressed - not Filo'n or a rock But the combs of a suppression of the sand: the night drew Deads to the blows of Kentish; And it down beat the bank with her arcs and the stroll of her keel; The crushing machines rolled in their beam with ruinous shock; And canvas and compass, whorl and the wheel To idle for always to waft your or coiling it with, these that it held.


Answer

6)

    The memory sends upon dry stop and of a crowd of twisted things; A branch twisted on the eaten Smooth beach, and polished As if the world gave above for the secret of its skeleton, Hard and target. Means broken in one yard of the factory, To turn rusty that one clings in the form that the force has gone away Hardly and stirred up and to list to fit itself to pressure. Half there of two, the street lamp said, “To comment the cat that flattens itself in the channel, Slips its tongue-piece and devours a mouthful of mantequilla makes rancid. “So the hand of a boy, automatic Slipped and pocketed a toy that worked along the wharf. It could not see nothing behind the eye of that boy. I have seen eyes in the street Trying watch with fixedness through the ignited stoppers, and a crab behind schedule in a swimming pool, an old crab with barnacles in his behind, Took hold the end of a small stick that I maintained it.


Answer

7)

    My godmother for above I was engaged in, of my remembrance more early - like some of the princess in histories of fairies, it did not only enchant -. At least, it only knew you like so. She was good, good woman! It went to church three by every Sunday, and to the prayers in the morning Wednesday and Friday, and to the conferences whenever there were conferences; and never lacked. It was beautiful; and if she had always smiled, she would have been (she thought) as an angel - but she never smiled. It was always serious and final. It was so very good she herself, I thought, to that the badness of people made its frown all its life. She felt to me so different from her, even considering each the differences between a boy and a woman; She felt to me so poor, so trifling, and until now of that never she could be free with her - no, she could never even love it like wished me. To me she did grieved very to consider how it is good was and how she is I infuriate of her was, and I ardent used to hope that she can be that she has a heart better; and I above spoke it quite often with considered the old wrist, but never I loved my godmother as ought to have I loved it and as it felt to me that I must have I loved it if a girl had been better.


Answer

8)

    Station of fog and the smooth productivity! near Chest-friend of the mature sun; Conspiracy with him how to load and to bless with the fruit the grapevines that around the operation of straw-eaves; To bend with apples mossed cabin-trees, and full all the fruit of maturity to the base; In order to swell the pumpkin, and plump the rinds of the hazelnut with a sweet nucleus; to still fix more, and the blossoming more, last flowers for the bees, until they never think hot days leave, because summer on-brimmed its humid cells.


Answer

9)

    Lady is not alarmed, when receiving this letter, by the apprehension of his to contain any repetition of those feelings or the renovation of offers them that they were yesterday at night that so displeased you. I write without no intention of dolerte, or humiliating itself, dwelling in desires that, for the happiness of both, cannot too much soon be forgotten; and the effort that the formation and the kind reading of this letter must cause, is due to have saved, it did not have my character required it to be written and to read. You must, therefore, pardon the freedom with which I demand your attention; your sensations, I know it, I will grant arranged little, but I demand it of your justice.


Answer

10)

    Or the good was very deep, or it fell very slowly, because it had a pile of time as she down went to watch on her, and to ask itself what was going to happen later. First, she tried to watch down and to do towards outside what she came, but was too dark to see any thing: then she watched the sides of the good, and noticed that they were filled of the closets and the shelves of - of the book: here and there it saw the maps and the pictures hung on pins. It down took a jar from the one from the shelves whereas it happened: “ORANGE JAM” was labeled, but to his great deception he was empty: it did not have taste to underneath fall the jar for the fear of the slaughter anybody, handled so to put it in one of the closets whereas it fell beyond him.


Answer

1)
Ulysses, J. Joyce. Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding but resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still patiently, that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it's not too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive one tablet of cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or touch him but it was something quick and neat. Print anything now. Silly season. He read on, seated calm above his own rising smell. Neat certainly. Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke by which he won the laughing witch who now. Begins and ends morally. Hand in hand. Smart. He glanced back through what he had read and, while feeling his water flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who had written it and received payment of three pounds thirteen and six.


Back to Question 1

2)
Nineteen Eighty-Four, G. Orwell. He followed irresolutely for a little distance, half a pace behind her. They did not speak again. She did not actually try to shake him off, but walked at just such a speed as to prevent his keeping abreast of her. He had made up his mind that he would accompany her as far as the Tube station, but suddenly this process of trailing along in the cold seemed pointless and unbearable. He was overwhelmed by a desire not so much to get away from Julia as to get back to the Chestnut Tree Café, which had never seemed so attractive as at this moment. He had a nostalgic vision of his corner table, with the newspaper and the chessboard and the everflowing gin. Above all, it would be warm in there. The next moment, not altogether by accident, he allowed himself to become separated from her by a small knot of people. He made a halfhearted attempt to catch up, then slowed down, turned, and made off in the opposite direction. When he had gone fifty metres he looked back. The street was not crowded, but already he could not distinguish her. Any one of a dozen hurrying figures might have been hers. Perhaps her thickened, stiffened body was no longer recognizable from behind.


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3)
Nostromo, J. Conrad. Perhaps the very atmospheric conditions which had kept away the merchant fleets of bygone ages induced the O.S.N. Company to violate the sanctuary of peace sheltering the calm existence of Sulaco. The variable airs sporting lightly with the vast semicircle of waters within the head of Azuera could not baffle the steam power of their excellent fleet. Year after year the black hulls of their ships had gone up and down the coast, in and out, past Azuera, past the Isabels, past Punta Mala - disregarding everything but the tyranny of time. Their names, the names of all mythology, became the household words of a coast that had never been ruled by the gods of Olympus. The Juno was known only for her comfortable cabins amidships, the Saturn for the geniality of her captain and the painted and gilt luxuriousness of her saloon, whereas the Ganymede was fitted out mainly for cattle transport, and to be avoided by coastwise passengers. The humblest Indian in the obscurest village on the coast was familiar with the Cerberus, a little black puffer without charm or living accommodation to speak of, whose mission was to creep inshore along the wooded beaches close to mighty ugly rocks, stopping obligingly before every cluster of huts to collect produce, down to three-pound parcels of indiarubber bound in a wrapper of dry grass.


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4)
The Golden Bowl, H. James. The Prince had always liked his London, when it had come to him; he was one of the modern Romans who find by the Thames a more convincing image of the truth of the ancient state than any they have left by the Tiber. Brought up on the legend of the City to which the world paid tribute, he recognized in the present London much more than in contemporary Rome the real dimensions of such a case. If it was a question of an Imperium, he said to himself, and if one wished, as a Roman, to recover a little of the sense of that, the place to do so was on London Bridge, or even, on a fine afternoon in May, at Hyde Park Corner. It was not indeed to either of those places that these grounds of his predilection, after all sufficiently vague, had, at the moment we are concerned with him, guided his steps; he had strayed, simply enough, into Bond Street, where his imagination, working at comparatively short range, caused him now and then to stop before a window in which objects massive and lumpish, in silver and gold, in the forms to which precious stones contribute, or in leather, steel, brass, applied to a hundred uses and abuses, were as tumbled together as if, in the insolence of the Empire, they had been the loot of far-off victories. The young man's movements, however, betrayed no consistency of attention - not even, for that matter, when one of his arrests had proceeded from possibilities in faces shaded, as they passed him on the pavement, by huge beribboned hats, or more delicately tinted still under the tense silk of parasols held at perverse angles in waiting victorias. And the Prince's undirected thought was not a little symptomatic, since, though the turn of the season had come and the flush of the streets begun to fade, the possibilities of faces, on the August afternoon, were still one of the notes of the scene. He was too restless - that was the fact - for any concentration, and the last idea that would just now have occurred to him in any connexion was the idea of pursuit.


Back to Question 4

5)
The Wreck of the Deutschland, G. Hopkins.

6)
Rhapsody on a Windy Night, T. Eliot.

    The memory throws up high and dry
    A crowd of twisted things;
    A twisted branch upon the beach
    Eaten smooth, and polished
    As if the world gave up
    The secret of its skeleton,
    Stiff and white.
    A broken spring in a factory yard,
    Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
    Hard and curled and ready to snap.

    Half-past two,
    The street-lamp said,
    “Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
    Slips out its tongue
    And devours a morsel of rancid butter.”
    So the hand of the child, automatic,
    Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
    I could see nothing behind that child's eye.
    I have seen eyes in the street
    Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
    And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
    An old crab with barnacles on his back,
    Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.




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7)
Bleak House, C. Dickens. I was brought up, from my earliest remembrance - like some of the princesses in the fairy stories, only I was not charming - by my godmother. At least, I only knew her as such. She was a good, good woman! She went to church three times every Sunday, and to morning prayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to lectures whenever there were lectures; and never missed. She was handsome; and if she had ever smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an angel - but she never smiled. She was always grave and strict. She was so very good herself, I thought, that the badness of other people made her frown all her life. I felt so different from her, even making every allowance for the differences between a child and a woman; I felt so poor, so trifling, and so far off that I never could be unrestrained with her - no, could never even love her as I wished. It made me very sorry to consider how good she was and how unworthy of her I was, and I used ardently to hope that I might have a better heart; and I talked it over very often with the dear old doll, but I never loved my godmother as I ought to have loved her and as I felt I must have loved her if I had been a better girl.


Back to Question 7

8)
To Autumn, J. Keats.

    Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
      Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
      With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
    To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
      And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
        To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
      With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
    And still more, later flowers for the bees,
    Until they think warm days will never cease,
      For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.



Back to Question 8

9)
Pride and Prejudice, J. Austen. Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments or renewal of those offers which were last night so disgusting to you. I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten; and the effort which the formation and the perusal of this letter must occasion, should have been spared, had not my character required it to be written and read. You must, therefore, pardon the freedom with which I demand your attention; your feelings, I know, will bestow it unwillingly, but I demand it of your justice.


Back to Question 9

10)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, L. Carroll. Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything: then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves: here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed: it was labelled “ORANGE MARMALADE”, but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.


Back to Question 10

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Last Updated: 1 December 2006