Symbols and SignsBY VLADIMIR NABOKO

Symbols and Signs
BY VLADIMIR NABOKOV

For the fourth time in as many years, they were confronted with the problem of what birthday present to take to a young man who was incurably deranged in his mind. Desires he had none. Man-made objects were to him either hives of evil, vibrant with a malignant activity that he alone could perceive, or gross comforts for which no use could be found in his abstract world. After eliminating a number of articles that might offend him or frighten him (anything in the gadget line, for instance, was taboo), his parents chose a dainty and innocent trifle—a basket with ten different fruit jellies in ten little jars.

At the time of his birth, they had already been married for a long time; a score of years had elapsed, and now they were quite old. Her drab gray hair was pinned up carelessly. She wore cheap black dresses. Unlike other women of her age (such as Mrs. Sol, their next-door neighbor, whose face was all pink and mauve with paint and whose hat was a cluster of brookside flowers), she presented a naked white countenance to the faultfinding light of spring. Her husband, who in the old country had been a fairly successful businessman, was now, in New York, wholly dependent on his brother Isaac, a real American of almost forty years’ standing. They seldom saw Isaac and had nicknamed him the Prince.


That Friday, their son’s birthday, everything went wrong. The subway train lost its life current between two stations and for a quarter of an hour they could hear nothing but the dutiful beating of their hearts and the rustling of newspapers. The bus they had to take next was late and kept them waiting a long time on a street corner, and when it did come, it was crammed with garrulous high-school children. It began to rain as they walked up the brown path leading to the sanitarium. There they waited again, and instead of their boy, shuffling into the room, as he usually did (his poor face sullen, confused, ill-shaven, and blotched with acne), a nurse they knew and did not care for appeared at last and brightly explained that he had again attempted to take his life. He was all right, she said, but a visit from his parents might disturb him. The place was so miserably understaffed, and things got mislaid or mixed up so easily, that they decided not to leave their present in the office but to bring it to him next time they came.

Outside the building, she waited for her husband to open his umbrella and then took his arm. He kept clearing his throat, as he always did when he was upset. They reached the bus-stop shelter on the other side of the street and he closed his umbrella. A few feet away, under a swaying and dripping tree, a tiny unfledged bird was helplessly twitching in a puddle.

During the long ride to the subway station, she and her husband did not exchange a word, and every time she glanced at his old hands, clasped and twitching upon the handle of his umbrella, and saw their swollen veins and brown-spotted skin, she felt the mounting pressure of tears. As she looked around, trying to hook her mind onto something, it gave her a kind of soft shock, a mixture of compassion and wonder, to notice that one of the passengers—a girl with dark hair and grubby red toenails—was weeping on the shoulder of an older woman. Whom did that woman resemble? She resembled Rebecca Borisovna, whose daughter had married one of the Soloveichiks—in Minsk, years ago.

The last time the boy had tried to do it, his method had been, in the doctor’s words, a masterpiece of inventiveness; he would have succeeded had not an envious fellow-patient thought he was learning to fly and stopped him just in time. What he had really wanted to do was to tear a hole in his world and escape.

The system of his delusions had been the subject of an elaborate paper in a scientific monthly, which the doctor at the sanitarium had given to them to read. But long before that, she and her husband had puzzled it out for themselves. “Referential mania,” the article had called it. In these very rare cases, the patient imagines that everything happening around him is a veiled reference to his personality and existence. He excludes real people from the conspiracy, because he considers himself to be so much more intelligent than other men. Phenomenal nature shadows him wherever he goes. Clouds in the staring sky transmit to each other, by means of slow signs, incredibly detailed information regarding him. His in- most thoughts are discussed at nightfall, in manual alphabet, by darkly gesticulating trees. Pebbles or stains or sun flecks form patterns representing, in some awful way, messages that he must intercept. Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme. All around him, there are spies. Some of them are detached observers, like glass surfaces and still pools; others, such as coats in store windows, are prejudiced witnesses, lynchers at heart; others, again (running water, storms), are hysterical to the point of insanity, have a distorted opinion of him, and grotesquely misinterpret his actions. He must be always on his guard and devote every minute and module of life to the decoding of the undulation of things. The very air he exhales is indexed and filed away. If only the interest he provokes were limited to his immediate surroundings, but, alas, it is not! With distance, the torrents of wild scandal increase in volume and volubility. The silhouettes of his blood corpuscles, magnified a million times, flit over vast plains; and still farther away, great mountains of unbearable solidity and height sum up, in terms of granite and groaning firs, the ultimate truth of his being.

Kết quả (Việt) 1:

Ký hiệu và dấu hiệuBỞI VLADIMIR NABOKOVTrong thời gian thứ tư như nhiều năm, họ đã phải đối mặt với vấn đề của những gì sinh nhật hiện nay để có một người đàn ông trẻ, những người incurably hư hỏng trong tâm trí của mình. Mong muốn ông đã không có. Các đối tượng con người tạo ra là với anh ta hoặc phát ban của cái ác, sôi động với một hoạt động ác tính mà ông một mình có thể nhận thức, hoặc tổng Tiện nghi mà không sử dụng có thể được tìm thấy trong thế giới trừu tượng của mình. Sau khi loại bỏ một số điều mà có thể xúc phạm đến anh ta hoặc cảm giác lo sợ anh ta (bất cứ điều gì trong dòng Tiện ích, ví dụ, là điều cấm kỵ), cha mẹ của ông đã chọn một chơi giởn thanh nhã và vô tội-một giỏ với mười trái cây khác nhau thạch trong mười lọ nhỏ.Tại thời điểm khai sinh của mình, họ đã được kết hôn với một thời gian dài; một số điểm của năm đã trôi qua, và bây giờ họ đã khá cũ. Tóc màu xám đi điếm của cô đã được pinned lên carelessly. Cô mặc trang phục màu đen giá rẻ. Không giống như phụ nữ khác của tuổi của mình (chẳng hạn như bà Sol, hàng xóm của họ cửa sau, mặt mà là tất cả các màu hồng và mauve sơn và mũ mà là một cụm brookside Hoa), cô trình bày một countenance vẻ trắng nude với ánh sáng faultfinding của mùa xuân. Chồng, những người trong nước cũ đã là một nhà kinh doanh khá thành công, là bây giờ, tại New York, hoàn toàn phụ thuộc vào anh trai của ông Isaac, một người Mỹ thực sự đứng gần bốn mươi năm. Họ hiếm khi thấy Isaac và đã đặt tên là ông hoàng tử.Thứ sáu rằng, sinh nhật con trai của họ, tất cả mọi thứ đã đi sai. Tàu ngầm mất cuộc sống của nó hiện tại giữa hai trạm và cho một phần tư của một giờ, họ có thể nghe thấy gì, nhưng hiếu thảo nhịp đập của trái tim của họ và rustling Nhật báo. Xe buýt họ đã phải mất tiếp theo đã muộn và giữ chúng chờ đợi một thời gian dài trên một góc đường phố, và khi nó đã đến, nó đã được crammed với garrulous học trẻ em. Nó bắt đầu mưa khi họ đi lên nâu đường dẫn đến bệnh xá. Có họ chờ một lần nữa, và thay vì cậu bé của họ, shuffling vào phòng, như ông đã làm thường (mặt nghèo bã, lẫn lộn, bị bệnh-shaven, và nhọt với mụn trứng cá), một y tá họ biết và đã không chăm sóc cho xuất hiện ở cuối và rực rỡ giải thích rằng ông đã một lần nữa đã cố gắng để có cuộc sống của mình. Ông là được rồi, cô nói, nhưng một chuyến thăm từ cha mẹ của ông có thể làm phiền ông. Nơi này vì vậy miserably mật, và những thứ có mislaid hoặc hỗn hợp lên một cách dễ dàng, rằng họ đã quyết định không để lại hiện tại của họ trong văn phòng, nhưng để mang lại cho nó để anh ta thời gian tới họ đến.Bên ngoài tòa nhà, bà chờ cho chồng để mở chiếc ô của mình và sau đó lấy cánh tay của mình. Ông giữ xoá cổ họng của ông, như ông luôn luôn đã làm khi ông đã buồn bã. Họ đạt đến trạm xe buýt nơi trú ẩn bên kia của đường phố và ông đã đóng chiếc ô của mình. Một vài feet, dưới một cây lắc lư và nhỏ giọt, một con chim nhỏ unfledged helplessly giật ở một vũng nước.During the long ride to the subway station, she and her husband did not exchange a word, and every time she glanced at his old hands, clasped and twitching upon the handle of his umbrella, and saw their swollen veins and brown-spotted skin, she felt the mounting pressure of tears. As she looked around, trying to hook her mind onto something, it gave her a kind of soft shock, a mixture of compassion and wonder, to notice that one of the passengers—a girl with dark hair and grubby red toenails—was weeping on the shoulder of an older woman. Whom did that woman resemble? She resembled Rebecca Borisovna, whose daughter had married one of the Soloveichiks—in Minsk, years ago.The last time the boy had tried to do it, his method had been, in the doctor’s words, a masterpiece of inventiveness; he would have succeeded had not an envious fellow-patient thought he was learning to fly and stopped him just in time. What he had really wanted to do was to tear a hole in his world and escape.The system of his delusions had been the subject of an elaborate paper in a scientific monthly, which the doctor at the sanitarium had given to them to read. But long before that, she and her husband had puzzled it out for themselves. “Referential mania,” the article had called it. In these very rare cases, the patient imagines that everything happening around him is a veiled reference to his personality and existence. He excludes real people from the conspiracy, because he considers himself to be so much more intelligent than other men. Phenomenal nature shadows him wherever he goes. Clouds in the staring sky transmit to each other, by means of slow signs, incredibly detailed information regarding him. His in- most thoughts are discussed at nightfall, in manual alphabet, by darkly gesticulating trees. Pebbles or stains or sun flecks form patterns representing, in some awful way, messages that he must intercept. Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme. All around him, there are spies. Some of them are detached observers, like glass surfaces and still pools; others, such as coats in store windows, are prejudiced witnesses, lynchers at heart; others, again (running water, storms), are hysterical to the point of insanity, have a distorted opinion of him, and grotesquely misinterpret his actions. He must be always on his guard and devote every minute and module of life to the decoding of the undulation of things. The very air he exhales is indexed and filed away. If only the interest he provokes were limited to his immediate surroundings, but, alas, it is not! With distance, the torrents of wild scandal increase in volume and volubility. The silhouettes of his blood corpuscles, magnified a million times, flit over vast plains; and still farther away, great mountains of unbearable solidity and height sum up, in terms of granite and groaning firs, the ultimate truth of his being.