migrant, writer, work in progress
I followed a path
thinking that it led somewhere
but it’s ended here—
*
It isn’t the road
not taken so much as the
untakeable road—
*
Follow my advice:
don’t follow a path—choose the
made up, pathless ways.
*
**
*
freddie omm
january 2021
*
with apologies to robert frost’s road not taken
– the poem is based on a meditation of Philippe de Saint Maurice
rereading lady with lapdog again (in translation) i was struck by the brilliant omniscience of chekhov’s narrative, and then enraged by the inconsistency in the translations of the lady’s hatgear.
in constance garnett’s translation it is a béret, in david magarshack’s penguin translation it is a toque.
berets are fairly ordinary working class items; toques are much more glam – napoleon replaced crowns on family crests with a nicely codified system of toques:
a Napoleonic Duke used a toque with 7 ostrich feathers and 3 lambrequins, a Count a toque with five feathers and two lambrequins, a Baron three feathers and one lambrequin, a Knight only one ostrich feather. (wikipedia)
i wonder what made constance prefer the beret over the toque?