German Translation Exercise: The Mystery of the Chinese Carnation by Louis Weinert-Wilton
An excerpt of a classic German Krimi-novel, translated into English.
So, according to Wikipedia, the author of this novel was famous enough to have a handful of adaptations made for the silver screen, both in Germany and in Italy, but never here overseas. I’ve found one copy of this on Dailymotion (starring Klaus Kinski), but cursory searches for the others have had diminishing returns. This is a generally short book, and I’m definitely considering it as a longer project because so far it has me hooked. Really I’m split between this and the Ludwig Ganghofer novel I did a while back, and I’ve got a feeling that the fact that I physically own copies of both those books is not a coincidence. I might do a poll on the blog’s anniversary to see how much interest there is in a full German novel being translated, so keep this in mind until then.
Die chinesische Nelke
On the 23rd of December, between 10 and 11 o’clock in the morning, the fate of the beautiful-but-tragically-flawed Maude Hogarth and a few other lesser-known personalities in her field met together in secret to decide whether they needed to overhaul their entire plan.
This all started when a very good-looking, youthful gentleman by the name of Donald Ramsay woke up full of despair early one wintry London morning. The world outside the window of his inconspicuous apartment near the Westminster bridge in Lambeth was coated in a thick, dirty, yellow haze. His thoughts, which had to penetrate through this murky darkness, did not sway him to do anything in particular with his morning.
The young man put his feet up against the warm chimney and picked up his copy of the Times. On one page of the newspaper, right below the crest of its logo but above the Personals section and the other advertisements, Ramsay’s lively eyes fell on one particular headline, and stayed glued to the article until he’d finished it. At the end, he let a whistle pass below his clean-shaven lip. “Well, I guess that settles it,” he muttered, and he read the announcement a second time.
A woman was setting things up for the Christmas dinner at the Piccadilly Hotel on the 25th of December at 8 p.m., and set the price at six Guineas a plate. For that pittance, there would be nineteen exquisite courses.
“Piles of Imperial oysters, marinades, pastries…” the gentleman droned on and on, listing the courses on the menu. When he finally reached the end, he moved resolutely over to the telephone to deal with the hotel management. The discussion he had was short and to the point.
“No, I have no special requests for the space.” responded Ramsay, and thereupon as a suggestion was made to him, he agreed without another moment’s consideration. “Also, move number 28 to the last row on the right. The table car will be picked up later today. Thank you.”
The young man returned the phone to the receiver and looked back over at the clock. Since it was a quarter to 10, he rang the bell.
Within thirty seconds, Mrs. Machennan knocked timidly at the door and entered the room. She was a dainty woman, and still very pretty for her age, but the most attractive element of her being was the gentleness with which she conducted herself. She had a pair of large, emotive doe-eyes, a sweet and pleasant voice, and the upper curve of her plump lips always seemed to suggest that she had just won something.
Donald Ramsay greeted her with a friendly nod, and Mrs. Machennan batted her doe-eyes ashamedly. Then, she took a deep breath and let him hear her pleasant voice.
“I hope that everything has turned out to your liking, Mr. Ramsay,” she said. “Unfortunately, I’ll have to get going soon, and…”
“Of course everything is as I like it, and I’d feel that much better if you were able to stick around,” the new resident assured her charismatically, and the woman once again allowed her mouth to curl up into a downright blissful expression. “So don’t make any more trouble for me. Otherwise the neighbors might become aware of your coming-and-going, and that would bring about gossip.”
Mrs. Machennan continued to smile and shook her head. “Nobody else in the apartment cares about what we’ve got going on, Mr. Ramsay,” she insisted. “There’s nobody wandering around in the hallways, and the little one at the end of the hall is too shy around men to speak. Besides that, we’re facing the courtyard, and there’s only an old office building on that street.”
“That sounds just lovely to me,” said Donald Ramsay. “By the way, in a few hours I’ll be traveling to the countryside, but I’ll be back by noon the day after tomorrow. That evening, I’ll join back in for the Christmas dinner at Piccadilly.”
Mrs. Machennan, who had been listening very attentively, twirled her well-styled hair in her fingers. “So that means you’ll need your tailcoat. I’ll have everything arranged as soon as possible. You’ll probably want to put a flower in the buttonhole; am I right, Mr. Ramsay? The only question is: what kind?”
The young man smiled, showing his strong, flawless teeth. “Gosh, you really do think of everything Mrs. Machennan. Obviously I’ll need a flower, but I haven’t put any thought into it past that… It’s an important meeting, so it should be an important flower. Decisions, decisions…”
The gentleman pondered the issue with profound concentration. “Ah, yes, let’s say it’ll be a Chinese carnation. Do you know what that is? It’s not your average, garden-variety carnation, but instead a proper Chinese carnation. Do you think you could find something like that?”
“Oh, of course I could get that for you,” replied Mrs. Machennan, and she suddenly became talkative. “I happen to know exactly what a Chinese carnation looks like, so don’t patronize me.” she replied, coyly. “In fact, I saw that flower at an exciting trial brought against Miss Maude Hogarth a few months ago that took place in Old Bailey. It was said that the young woman had shot an officer. The whole affair was so full of mystery, and it was precisely that kind of flower you’ve been talking about that played a crucial role. A whole bouquet of them sat on the bench in front of the judge, and the people got into a fight over the flowers in the gallery when the verdict was given. Unfortunately, the mysterious case still has yet to be solved, and Miss Hogarth was only acquitted because the jury lacked the necessary evidence… yes.” Mrs. Machennan broke her train of thought suddenly and trailed off, as she noticed that her listener had become distracted and looked at the clock with obvious impatience.
“Well, a man should be coming for me soon,” he said.
“Oh, the man is already here,” Mrs. Machennan whispered to him with the most gentle smile. “I’ve already had him sent to the courtyard so he has a chance to clean his shoes. I’ll have him brought in shortly.”
When the door closed behind the industrious woman, Donald Ramsay was compelled to scan through the short advertisement for the Chinese carnation for a third time.
"'THE CHINESE CARNATION' has sprouted new flowers. After it comes into your house, you’ll have exactly five days before you’ll want to pick a new one up again," he read out loud, word for word, and became so thoughtful that this time he completely ignored the timid knock.
