This site uses cookies.
Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site,
while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used.
For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
This person has a SecurePRO™ card. Because this person is not a ProZ.com Plus subscriber, to view his or her SecurePRO™ card you must be a ProZ.com Business member or Plus subscriber.
Affiliations
This person is not affiliated with any business or Blue Board record at ProZ.com.
English to Portuguese: THE EIGHT STROKES OF THE CLOCK General field: Art/Literary Detailed field: Poetry & Literature
Source text - English The mystery surrounding the whole adventure excited her curiosity so keenly that she could think of nothing but accompanying Rénine and assisting him in his investigations. They went upstairs accordingly, and, on the second floor, came to a landing where they found the spiral staircase leading to the belvedere.
At the top of this was a platform in the open air, but surrounded by a parapet over six feet high.
"There must have been battlements which have been filled in since," observed Prince Rénine. "Look here, there were loop-holes at one time. They may have been blocked." "In any case," she said, "the telescope was of no use up here either and we may as well go down again."
"I don't agree," he said. "Logic tells us that there must have been some gap through which the country could be seen and this was the spot where the telescope was used." He hoisted himself by his wrists to the top of the parapet and then saw that this point of vantage commanded the whole of the valley, including the park, with its tall trees marking the horizon; and, beyond, a depression in a wood surmounting a hill, at a distance of some seven or eight hundred yards, stood another tower, squat and in ruins, covered with ivy from top to bottom.
Rénine resumed his inspection. He seemed to consider that the key to the problem lay in the use to which the telescope was put and that the problem would be solved if only
they could discover this use.
He studied the loop-holes one after the other. One of them, or rather the place which it had occupied, attracted his attention above the rest. In the middle of the layer of plaster, which had served to block it, there was a hollow filled with earth in which plants had
grown. He pulled out the plants and removed the earth, thus clearing the mouth of a hole some five inches in diameter, which completely penetrated the wall. On bending
forward, Rénine perceived that this deep and narrow opening inevitably carried the eye, above the dense tops of the trees and through the depression in the hill, to the ivy-clad tower.
At the bottom of this channel, in a sort of groove which ran through it like a gutter, the telescope fitted so exactly that it was quite impossible to shift it, however little, either to the right or to the left.
Rénine, after wiping the outside of the lenses, while taking care not to disturb the lie of the instrument by a hair's breadth, put his eye to the small end.
He remained for thirty or forty seconds, gazing attentively and silently. Then he drew himself up and said, in a husky voice:
"It's terrible ... it's really terrible." "What is?" she asked, anxiously.
"Look."
She bent down but the image was not clear to her and the telescope had to be focussed to suit her sight. The next moment she shuddered and said:
"It's two scarecrows, isn't it, both stuck up on the top? But why?"
"Look again," he said. "Look more carefully under the hats ... the faces. "
"Oh!" she cried, turning faint with horror, "how awful!"
The field of the telescope, like the circular picture shown by a magic lantern, presented this spectacle: the platform of a broken tower, the walls of which were higher in the more distant part and formed as it were a back-drop, over which surged waves of ivy. In front, amid a cluster of bushes, were two human beings, a man and a woman, leaning back against a heap of fallen stones.
But the words man and woman could hardly be applied to these two forms, these two sinister puppets, which, it is true, wore clothes and hats--or rather shreds of clothes and remnants of hats--but had lost their eyes, their cheeks, their chins, every particle of
flesh, until they were actually and positively nothing more than two skeletons.
"Two skeletons," stammered Hortense. "Two skeletons with clothes on. Who carried them up there?"
"Nobody."
Translation - Portuguese O mistério cercando toda a aventura excitava sua curiosidade tão intensamente que ela não conseguia pensar em nada além de acompanhar Rénine e ajudá-lo em suas investigações. Eles subiram as escadas portanto, e, no segundo piso, pousaram onde era possível encontrar a escada em espiral que levava ao mirante.
Acima disso fica uma plataforma a céu aberto, mas cercada por um parapeito de quase dois metros de altura.
— Deveria haver ameias aqui, que foram preenchidas — observou Prince Rénine.
— Olhe aqui, havia lacunas aqui no passado. Elas devem ter sido bloqueadas.
— De qualquer forma — disse ela — o telescópio seria inútil aqui em cima também e nós deveríamos descer de volta.
— Eu não concordo — ele disse.
— A lógica nos diz que deve haver alguma abertura aí, por onde pode-se observar a região, e este foi o ponto onde o telescópio foi usado.
Ele se içou até a cintura para o topo do parapeito e então viu que desse ponto podia-se controlar todo o vale, incluindo o parque, com suas altas árvores marcando o horizonte; e, ainda mais além, uma depressão na floresta atravessando a colina, a uma distância de umas seis ou sete centenas de metros, erguia-se outra torre, atarracada e em ruínas, coberta de era do topo até a base.
Rénine retomou sua inspeção. Ele parecia considerar que a chave para o problema jazia no uso dado ao telescópio, então o problema só seria resolvido se eles pudessem descobrir esse uso.
Ele estudou as lacunas uma depois da outra. Uma delas, ou melhor, o lugar que ela havia ocupado, atraiu sua atenção acima do resto. No meio da camada de gesso, que servia para bloqueá-la, havia um vazio preenchido de terra onde plantas tinham
crescido. Ele arrancou as plantas e removeu a terra, revelando a abertura de um buraco com doze centímetros de diâmetro, que atravessava a parede por completo. Ao inclinar-se para frente, Rénine percebeu que essa abertura profunda e estreita inevitavelmente direcionava o olho, acima da densa copa das árvores e atravessava a depressão na colina, na direção da torre vestida de era.
Na base desse canal, em um tipo de sulco que corria por ele como uma calha, o telescópio encaixava-se tão perfeitamente que seria quase impossível movê-lo, mesmo que um pouco, nem para a direita nem para a esquerda.
Rénine, depois de limpar a parte externa das lentes, enquanto tomava cuidado para não perturbar o alinhamento do instrumento mesmo que por um fio de cabelo, pôs seu olho na pequena extremidade.
Ele permaneceu por trinta ou quarenta segundos, olhando atentamente e silenciosamente. Então ele se endireitou e falou, em uma voz rouca:
— É terrível... é realmente terrível.
— O que é? — ela perguntou, ansiosa.
— Veja.
Ela curvou-se, mas a imagem não estava clara para ela e o telescópio teve que ser focado para se encaixar na sua visão. No momento seguinte ela estremeceu e disse:
— São dois espantalhos, ambos presos lá no topo, não são? Mas por quê?
— Olhe novamente — ele disse — Olhe mais atentamente debaixo dos chapéus... os rostos.
— Oh! — ela gritou, fraquejando com horror — que horrível!
O campo de visão do telescópio, como uma pintura circular revelada por uma lanterna mágica, apresentava um espetáculo: a plataforma de uma torre quebrada, as paredes que eram maiores na parte mais distante formando um pano de fundo, sobre o qual erguiam-se ondas de era. Na frente, entre um aglomerado de arbustos, havia dois seres humanos, um homem e uma mulher, inclinados para trás contra um amontoado de pedras caídas.
Mas as palavras homem e mulher dificilmente poderiam ser aplicadas a essas duas formas, esses dois bonecos sinistros, os quais, isso é verdade, usavam roupas e chapéus — ou melhor dizendo, trapos de roupas e restos de chapéu — tinham perdido seus olhos, suas bochechas, seus queixos, cada partícula de carne, até virarem literalmente e nitidamente nada mais que dois esqueletos.
— Dois esqueletos — gaguejou Hortense — Dois esqueletos vestidos. Quem os carregou até lá em cima?
— Ninguém.
Help or teach others with what I have learned over the years
Screen new clients (risk management)
Network with other language professionals
Find trusted individuals to outsource work to
Get help with terminology and resources
Get help on technical issues / improve my technical skills
Meet new end/direct clients
Learn more about translation / improve my skills
Learn more about the business side of freelancing
Stay up to date on what is happening in the language industry
Improve my productivity
Bio
Professional translator that works with English to Brazilian Portuguese language peers. Specialized in editorial translation and, in addition, work with medical, scientific, biological and aerospace technical translation.
I am a native translator from English to Brazilian Portuguese, majoring in biological sciences, air traffic controller, residing in Teresina, Brazil, and would like to offer my services.
I am someone who works hard and cooperatively. Always focusing on meeting deadlines and the quality of the final work.
Expertise