(Traduction/Translation – questions) Un prêtre en 1839

[mken...@aol.com]

Bonjour les connaisseurs,

Hello connoisseurs,

Répondez en français si vous préférez.

Answer in French if you prefer.

Les contributions des locuteurs natifs français sont bien sûr les bienvenues. Merci d’avance.

Contributions from native speakers of French are, of course, very welcome.

 

I have some questions about the following sentence. It’s at the end of p. 10 in the 1992 Cherche midi edition:

La charpente, après avoir supporté les quelques toitures qui remplaçaient les voûtes, allait perdre ses détails infinis, ces myriades de compartiments et d’engrenages dans les sombres profondeurs, dans les cavités fêlées, vermoulues et aiguës du vieux clocher, qui, jeté dans le premier endroit venu, montait son triste assemblage de vieilles ardoises dans l’atmosphère enfumée qui le noircissait tous les jours.

 

I’m translating to German, but I’ll paste an English paraphrase of the sentence. Never mind the exact English wording, I’m just interested in the meaning of the sentence:

At the transition from the area where the timberwork supported the roofing that had replaced the vaults to the dark interior of the old bell tower with its cracked, worm-eaten and narrowing cavities, the countless small details described above came to an end, and there were no longer myriads of subdivisions and interlocking parts. The tower had been placed in the first available spot, where it now raised its dreary structure of old slate tiles into the sooty atmosphere that made it blacker every day.

 

Do you think I have correctly grasped the meaning?

 

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Matthias

[mken...@aol.com]

Hm, it seems there are only a few native speakers of French active in this forum. I have now tried one of the Wordreference forums. (It’s called the Language Lab. Unfortunately, it’s not visible for non-members.) I got an answer from a native speaker. It seems I’ve more or less grasped the meaning of the sentence, but maybe the details mentioned in the sentence are not absent in the belltower but just fewer or hidden. So it seems the "allait perdre… dans" is not very easy to interpret.

I can add some notes that may be interesting for other translators. P. 9, about the dilapidated walls: found "gangrène de la pierre" in the Sachs-Villatte, a massive French-German dictionary from the 19th century. It means "efflorescence" or something similar. "murs pantelants": googled this; it’s mostly said of the walls of ruins, and I don’t think the "gasping for breath" in the English translation is correct. See here for example: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89glise_Saint-Martin_de_Provin#Au_lendemain_de_la_Premi%C3%A8re_Guerre_mondiale

The paragraph above that one is also interesting… by coincidence: cloche fondue en 1828… cloche fêlée… refonte de la cloche en 1839…

Cheers,

Matthias

[Jean-Louis Trudel]

Greetings,

Yes, I did wonder about "allait perdre". I'd say Verne's description
here is more evocative than precise. And it's partly obscure because
it's a church turning into a ruin, so that we can't even rely on the
usual architectural features of church naves.

If I had to translate this:

"La charpente, après avoir supporté les quelques toitures qui
remplaçaient les voûtes, allait perdre ses détails infinis, ces
myriades de compartiments et d’engrenages dans les sombres
profondeurs, dans les cavités fêlées, vermoulues et aiguës du vieux
clocher, qui, jeté dans le premier endroit venu, montait son triste
assemblage de vieilles ardoises dans l’atmosphère enfumée qui le
noircissait tous les jours.

I might adapt your translation as follows:
"The timberwork used to support the roofing that replaced the former
vaults extended into the dark recesses of the old tower, its countless
details, gaps, and joins lost to sight as they vanished inside the
cracked, worm-eaten, and narrowing cavities of the belltower, still
standing in its random location, where it raised its tattered covering
of old slate tiles into the sooty airs that made it blacker every
day."

Jean-Louis Trudel

Le jeu. 6 nov. 2025, à 13 h 03, 'mken...@aol.com' via Jules Verne
Forum <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com> a écrit :

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[mken...@aol.com]

Great, thanks a lot! It’s always very useful to hear the opinion of a native speaker, and judging from your name, you are native in French. I also got an answer on Wordreference (as I mentioned), from the member with the nickname Yendred (from Paris), with a similar interpretation of the "allait perdre". So I will change my translation accordingly.

" I think the key point lies in understanding what is meant by this "allait perdre ses détails".
I don't think it means "the details were going to be lost", since there's a complement to the verb: "La charpente (...) allait perdre ses détails infinis (...) dans les cavités fêlées, vermoulues et aiguës du vieux clocher".

This syntax leads me to believe that the meaning of "perdre" here is not "to lose/disappear/come to an end" (with the replacement by a new bell-tower), but something like "the timberwork was hiding all its details in the cracked, worm-eaten, and narrowing cavities of the old bell tower".

Cheers,

Matthias

[Garmt de Vries-Uiterweerd]

Yes, “perdre” here is akin to “à perte de vue”.

I like how you rearranged the components of this long sentence, Jean-Louis. In the original, Verne first lists the details that are lost, and then all the nooks and crannies where they are lost, emphasizing the pervasiveness of the effect. In your translation, there is more repetition of the act of disappearing: extended into, lost to sight, vanished inside, giving more of a feeling of actually seeing it happen.

These paragraph-long and convoluted sentences that Verne sometimes produces are quite tricky to translate, and you shouldn’t be afraid of shaking up their structure.

Cheers,

Garmt 

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[William Butcher]

Bonjour,

I liked your translation, but... But when the original is complex or ambiguous, I prefer to translate relatively literally. "engrenages" is tricky, as it seems to imply moving parts.

Of course it may "all come out in the wash" in the German version, where I'm not qualified to comment.

Bill

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From: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jean-Louis Trudel <trud...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, November 7, 2025 2:35 AM
To: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [JVF] Re: (Traduction/Translation – questions) Un prêtre en 1839

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[William Butcher]

You could try "cogs and wheels". (One trick is to put ideas in, then read it back and see how it sounds.)

Bill

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From: William Butcher <wbutch...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, November 7, 2025 7:48 AM

[mken...@aol.com]

Thanks! I think it’s used in a more general sense here – engrener: "Disposer deux choses l'une dans (ou avec) l'autre de façon à établir une articulation entre elles." That’s the definition in the TLFi https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/engrener

Good night,

Matthias

[Jean-Louis Trudel]

Greetings,

Yes, I doubt Verne is being literal here. A church might have
gearwork if, for some reason, the clock's mechanism was spread out and
visible, but surely not throughout the timberwork. (And there is no
mention of a clock.) Some old-fashioned lifting mechanisms and other
devices might have been left in the timberwork, and Verne would be
signalling attempts to repair or stem the church's decrepitude, but
that possibility also fails to win me over.

So, if "engrenage" is a metaphor for the joinery (or a
near-description), the translator has a choice between translating the
metaphor as is or translating what the metaphor stands for.

Jean-Louis Trudel

Le ven. 7 nov. 2025, à 19 h 49, 'mken...@aol.com' via Jules Verne

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[mken...@aol.com]

Thanks to all for your comments!

My next question: What are those ›cavités aiguës‹? If it’s not clear, I’ll simply do what Bill suggested above: «when the original is complex or ambiguous, I prefer to translate relatively literally.»

As an aside:

If you are interested in special meanings and special dictionaries:

The Sachs-Villatte is not perfect, but it has lots of special meanings that are sometimes not listed in the great monolingual dictionaries like the Littré and the TLFi. The second meaning that’s listed in the S-V is an architectural meaning. I entered «"engrenage" terme de construction architecture pierres» into Google and got:

"Le terme "engrenage" dans le contexte de la construction et de l'architecture fait référence à l'encastrement précis des pierres, similaire au fonctionnement mécanique des roues dentées, pour assurer la stabilité d'une structure, comme un mur ou un arc

. Ce principe, appelé engrènement de pierres, permet de transmettre et de répartir les charges de manière efficace. Les pierres sont taillées de façon à s'emboîter parfaitement, formant une assise solide qui résiste aux pressions."

(There is also an explanation of the term ›engrenée‹ in an architectural dictionary that is available at archive.org: https://dn790003.ca.archive.org/0/items/dictionnairegn00ram/dictionnairegn00ram.pdf )

The S-V also lists a maritime meaning – and you don’t need a special dictionary for that one because that meaning is included in the Littré: «Terme de marine. Arrimage d'une barrique, d'un boucaud, etc. dans un vide de la cale. Disposition de barriques analogue à celle des piles de boulets.» https://www.littre.org/definition/engrenage

So if something does not seem to make much sense – try different dictionaries, the Littré in addition to the TLFi for example – try an internet search – try to find special dictionaries (online). There are at least three different meanings for ›engrenage‹.

(The S-V also has a general term that works in German: ›Verzahnung‹.)

[Ariel Pérez Rodríguez]

Cavité is a hole. 

Aiguë placed in an angle, sharp.

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[mken...@aol.com]

Thanks! Yes, that is a possibility, that is a literal translation – but I was wondering what they may look like; besides, it’s not ›trou‹, but ›cavité‹, so there could be a difference, I think.

[Ariel Pérez Rodríguez]

There's no need to look for expression at every corner of the text. Here we're talking about a hole (in architecture) inside a solid body. Aiguë, in an angle. It can also be view also I think as "deep". 

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[Jean-Louis Trudel]

Greetings,

I do believe we shouldn't overthink this. Jules Verne was perhaps not
even 20 when he wrote this, and I'm not aware that he had any
specialized education in architecture. He was studying law. Sure,
this was a time when Romanticism pushed men of culture to learn more
about Gothic architecture and old churches, but Viollet-le-Duc was
barely getting warmed up.

Did Verne have time to look up specialized dictionary for professional
terminology? Maybe, maybe not.

WIth respect to his "cavités aiguës", I think he's either referring to
the recesses created in the nave by the pointed arches of Gothic
architecture. Or he might have been thinking about the hollow cone or
pyramid that would be found at the top of a churchtower, when looking
up from the inside.

Jean-Louis Trudel

Le sam. 8 nov. 2025, à 11 h 55, 'mken...@aol.com' via Jules Verne

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[mken...@aol.com]

Thank you, Ariel and Jean-Louis! Sorry, what I wrote about ›engrenage‹ was obviously confusing, but at least, for an excuse, I can say that I marked it as "An aside". I will use the general term in my translation. The term from masonry would not fit. I think Verne’s vocabulary was remarkable for a 19-year-old, for example ›murs pantelants‹, ›architrave‹, ›chantourner‹ and some others, and he knew what ›gangrène de la pierre‹ was… and then there are the «cavités fêlées, vermoulues et aiguës du vieux clocher». I thought that maybe ›aiguës‹ was some kind of continuation of ›fêlées‹ and ›vermoulues‹, that is, maybe a somewhat similar term that denotes dilapidation or some kind of damage.

Cheers,

Matthias

[mken...@aol.com]

Could it be ›aigre(s)‹ instead of ›aiguë(s)‹? ›Terre aigre‹ = terre sèche? https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/aigre

S-V has "spröde" = brittle

Look at the manuscript, please:

[Jean-Louis Trudel]

Greetings,

While I agree one *could* read "aigre(s)", reading "aiguës" is just as likely, and "aigre(s)" makes even less sense than "aiguës", because both have to relate to "cavité" (cavity, hollow, recess).  And a pointy or narrow-angled cavity makes a tad more sense than a sour one.

Jean-Louis Trudel

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[Stephen PERIN]

Hello,

I think “aigre” might also refer to the typical odour coming from decomposing wood within those cavities, caused by fungi thriving in damp conditions within decaying timberwork under a crumbling roof (thus allowing rainwater to soak the wood) — possibly mixed with some saltpetre efflorescence. (I've seen similar phenomena, and smelled, that kind of odour, in e.g. timberwork in very old and crumbling mines soaked with groundwater).

Looking at the manuscript, the letter really looks like an “r”, and much less like a “u”. Moreover, the two dots on top of the “e” are missing.

So “aigre”, while a bit unexpected here, might indeed make sense to evoke a "decaying" ambiance.

Regards,
Stephen

[Stephen PERIN]

P.S. By the way, as a native French speaker, I don’t associate “aiguë” with “cavity.” In French, aiguë is usually more used as an “all-things-pointy” adjective. Of course a cavity opening might have "pointy" angles, but a cavity being intrinsically concave rather than convex, the idea of a “pointy cavity” sound quite strange, no?

An author such as Lovecraft could have used such a paradoxical expression in, say, The Call of Cthulhu, to evoke the non-Euclidean geometry of monolithic architecture in R’lyeh, but in this realistic context, it does feel rather odd to me.

Regards,

[Jean-Louis Trudel]

Greetings,

I'm also a native French-speaker and the problem here is that neither "aigre" nor "aigu" can easily be associated with a "cavité".  At least, a "cavité" has spatial properties that can justify the "aigu" (in the sense of pointy), but "aigre" is usually applied to things that have either taste or smell:  milk, wine, body odour, or, arguably, a temperature ("vent aigre") or a sound ("voix aigre"), and even texture or resilience ("fer aigre").  However, "aigre" is practically never applied to a spatial entity or spatial characteristics.  That is why I wrote that "aigu" makes a bit more sense, but not that much, I agree.  If Verne meant to use "aigre" as a sort of synecdoche suggesting the presence of a smell, well, I'll circle back to my initial suggestion:  Verne was a very young writer, and might either have been experimenting or committing a solecism.

Jean-Louis Trudel

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[Stephen PERIN]

Sure, I fully agree, Jean-Louis, and on second thought I must say that indeed "aigre" is also more frequently used for a taste than for a smell, in my experience.

(by the way, I've just checked my feeling with Google: "goût aigre" (taste) returns 116,000 results, whereas "odeur aigre" (smell) returns only 39,000 results, i.e. ~ 3 times less frequent...)

So your conclusion regarding the experimentation, solecism (or unfortunate ellipsis?) sounds like a probable explanation to me.

Stephen

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[Marie-Hélène Huet]

Hi,

I read " cavités... aiguës", meaning with sharp angles, (produced by the deterioriation of age, or again resulting from a play of light and shadows.

 

Marie-Hélène 

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From: jules-ve...@googlegroups.com <jules-ve...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jean-Louis Trudel <trud...@gmail.com>

Sent: Monday, 10 November 2025 06:08

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[volker.dehs]

en me référant à l'écriture seule, je lis sans aucun doute "aigre" - veuillez bien comparer le "r" avec les autres occurences dans le manuscrit. Et je crois me rappeler (il est vrai, sans pouvoir le prouver pour le moment) qu'à cette époque JV sutilisait encore les accencts, le tréma compris.

[mken...@aol.com]

Thanks to all! Yes, one can look at the ›u‹ and the ›r‹ in ›vermoulues‹ for comparison, just two words before the ›aigres‹. And there’s another ›aigre‹ on the same manuscript page, 5th line from the bottom.

One more note: Link to the manuscript: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b105586101/f7.item.zoom

You can go up four more lines and look at ›felée et‹. The ›l‹ is open, the horizontal stroke of the ›t‹ is at the bottom. (The circonflex on the first ›e‹ in ›felée‹ is missing.) Last word in the 6th line from the bottom is ›osait‹. The ›t‹ in that word is missing the horizontal stroke. And now look at the last word in the 2nd line from the bottom. It was transcribed as ›fêlées‹, but that does not make any sense in that context. The written word does not have an (open) ›l‹, but a ›t‹ without a horizontal stroke. The word is ›fêtées‹.

[William Butcher]

Dear all,

I'm delighted to say that Journey to the Moon is finally available in the United States. If you want to "try before you buy", I've put extracts on https://www.ibiblio.org/julesverne/books/moon.htm

Best 

bill

[quentin skrabec]

Just got my copy of journey to the Moon today from Amazon Quent

[Marie-Hélène Huet]

Congratulations, Bill!

Marie-Hélène 

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Sent: Tuesday, 11 November 2025 18:38
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Subject: [JVF] Re: Journey to the Moon

 

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