Un breve ma indimenticabile capolavoro, questo racconto di Conrad. Una storia triste, difficile da dimenticare, arricchita da grandiose pennellate - per descrivere il paesaggio, la natura - a rendere ancora più interessante questa short story. Esistono delle ottime traduzioni in italiano; ma perché non cercare di portare avanti un utile - credo - esercizio, cioè quello di gustare il testo originale e poi, magari, tentare una traduzione personale? Domani, forse domani - per imitare un altro grandioso racconto di Conrad - farò seguire il risultato del mio modesto tentativo di traduzione, ma, credetemi, l'originale è insuperabile.
The sun was shining violently upon the undulating surface of the land. The rises were topped by clumps of meagre trees, with their branches showing high on the sky as if they had been perched upon stilts. The small fields, cut up by hedges and stone walls that zig-zagged over the slopes, lay in rectangular patches of vivid greens and yellows, resembling the unskilful daubs of a naive picture. And the landscape was divided in two by the white streak of a road stretching in long loops far away, like a river of dust crawling out of the hills on its way to the sea.
Autumn came. The clouded sky descended low upon the black contours of the hills; and the dead leaves danced in spiral whirls under naked trees, till the wind, sighing profoundly, laid them to rest in the hollows of bare valleys. And from morning till night one could see all over the land black denuded boughs, the boughs gnarled and twisted, as if contorted with pain, swaying sadly between the wet clouds and the soaked earth. The clear and gentle streams of summer days rushed discoloured and raging at the stones that barred the way to the sea, with the fury of madness bent upon suicide. From horizon to horizon the great road to the sands lay between the hills in a dull glitter of empty curves, resembling an unnavigable river of mud.
The darkness came from the hills, flowed over the coast, put out the red fires of sunset, and went on to seaward pursuing the retiring tide. The wind dropped with the sun, leaving a maddened sea and a devastated sky. The heavens above the house seemed to be draped in black rags, held up here and there by pins of fire.
Commenti
Posta un commento