Fiction (E-T) Discussion

Department of English

The translations given on this page are neither comprehensive nor definitive. They are here to give you an idea of the range of possibilities and to spark discussion. Suggestions and comments are welcome.

จงแปลเรื่องแต่งต่อไปนี้เป็นภาษาไทย

Her mouth opened and closed for a moment, before she replied in a whisper, "Madam."

Again Lena tried to speak. On her second attempt she managed to say, "Sorry, Madam."

Annette was in her dressing-gown; her blonde hair was in disorder, and on her lips there was some pale lipstick which she had not washed off before going to bed the previous night. She seemed very quick and firm, young and fleshy, next to Lena, as she helped the old woman to her feet. Lena stood against the washing-table, her head hanging over the sink. Her ears were filled with sound; the white sink seemed to jump with every beat of her heart, though she could feel its hardness and coldness, as if from a distance, between her fingers. Lena was not fully conscious yet, but even so she was ashamed—ashamed of having been found on the floor of the dishes she had broken, even of the way she was feeling.

Translation 1

Translation 2

Jacobson, Dan. "A Way of Life." Through the Wilderness and Other Stories. New York: Macmillan, 1968. 75–87. Print.

Lena, her employers admitted, looked awful. She had two long yellow teeth in the middle of her mouth, and no other teeth at all; the rest of her face was shrunken and wrinkled. Her eyes were small and bloodshot; her hair was thin; painfully she had dragged her peppercorns into a series of tiny topknots, bound together by strips of cloth. She wore her mistress's cast-off clothes; but even when she was given a dress in a reasonable condition it looked bedraggled and old-fashioned immediately she put it on. Partly this was because Lena was so much smaller than her mistress, though Annette Capon was not herself a large woman, so that the dresses all trailed about Lena’s ankles, with an odd missionary look. Seeing Lena, one might have expected the worst: slovenliness and illiteracy, servility, dishonesty, and shiftlessness.

In fact, you found nothing of the kind. Lena spoke a good English and wrote a clear hand; she was punctual, she was honest, she was loyal, she was clean. She never complained; she laughed often, showing her two teeth; and she was devoted to little Adam, the Capons’ three-year-old son. Where, how, had Lena learned her honesty, punctuality and loyalty, her cheerfulness and cleanliness? It was impossible to say. Her qualities, her virtues, seemed to be simply there—in her, part of her, like her teeth or her hair or the tiny red veins in her eyes. She had not known her father at all; her mother had been a washerwoman, who had gone in every week with bundles of clean washing to the white suburbs of Johannesburg, and had brought back dirty bundles, to be boiled on the stove and hand-pressed in the single room which was shared by Lena, her mother, her sister, her aunt and a fierce uncle. Lena had gone for a few years to a school run by a mission; but the school had been so crowded that it took in batches of children for only three hours a day. The rest of the time Lena had just wandered about the dusty streets of the “location.” As soon as she had been old enough, she had begun to help her mother with the washing, in addition to attending the school; then her mother had died of TB, and her aunt had left the location with "another man." Lena had been fourteen, then, she thought, but she wasn’t sure; her sister had been a year younger. As for her sister: “Soon,” Lena had told the Capons, in her plaintive, creaking voice, “she died also, from having a baby.” Lena herself had been more fortunate; she had managed to get taken on as a domestic servant with a white family almost immediately after the death of her mother; and a domestic servant she had remained ever since, for the last forty years.

During that time she had had positions with innumerable families; she had also had three children by three different men. She now knew the whereabouts of the two surviving children, but of none of the men. She was, she announced gladly to the Capons, "too old to get married now." Lena had no tribal loyalties (she did not even know to which tribe her father had belonged); she had no religious beliefs; she had never been legally married; her "papers" were in a state of chronic disorder; and though she had been born in Johannesburg, she was convinced that she was liable to instant deportation if she were ever caught by a policeman or a clerk in the Native Affairs Department vengeful or conscientious enough to follow up her case.

She had been with the Capons for four years, ever since she had been brought to Annette Capon by another servant in the block of flats who had known that Annette was looking for a "girl." Annette, who was working in town during the day, had been desperate for someone to look after the flat; and had taken Lena on as a stopgap merely until she found someone more presentable. But that day had never come. The Capons had been glad to keep her on. They gave her clothes to wear, newspapers to read, and a wage larger than that earned by most of the other "girls" who worked in the same block of flats. Lena's employers respected her; they were amused by her; they trusted her. And Lena trusted them. She had a good job with a "good baas" and a "good missus," and she was content.

Every morning she came down from the servants' dormitory on the top floor of the block, made coffee, and brought it into the Capons' bedroom, together with the newspaper. Then she went into the next room and dressed Adam; while the Capons drank their coffee and dressed, and Leslie Capon glanced at the paper’s headlines, they heard Lena and Adam talking and laughing next door. Often Lena sang to Adam, garbled nursery rhymes or hit tunes, and Adam sometimes joined in. Their voices both sounded pure—the one pure with youth, the other with age. When Adam ran into his parents’ room, Lena went back into the kitchen and made the porridge and fried the eggs.

After breakfast, Leslie Capon went off to work; Annette stayed a little longer, before taking Adam to the nursery school and going on to her own work. For the next few hours Lena washed dishes, made the beds, prepared lunch for herself and Adam, peeled vegetables for dinner; sometimes she went shopping, presenting to the grocer and butcher the lists which Annette wrote out for her. She talked to the other “girls” in the block of flats, and to the “boys” who polished the floors and the bathroom in each of the flats, and the corridors outside. At twelve o'clock she went to fetch Adam from his nursery school, and she and the little white boy walked home together, through sunlit streets, Lena carrying Adam’s tiny school-satchel. Their lunch they ate in the kitchen; Lena usually had her own mess of rice and “soup meat” cooking on the stove, and Adam ate the food which his mother had put out for him. Soon Annette Capon came back from town (she had a mornings-only job), and then, unless there was something she particularly wanted Lena to do, Lena took a couple of hours off. Later in the afternoon she helped Annette with making dinner, or did the washing and ironing; she served dinner, and ate her own meal among the unwashed pots and plates in the kitchen. She had a special white overall and cap which she put on to serve the dinner; this was the smartest of her outfits, and hid most of the trailing garments she wore underneath. After washing up, she left the flat quietly, to go upstairs to her dormitory. She walked up the six flights, because she was nervous of the lift.

On alternate Sundays she took a whole day off to visit her daughter in Alexandra Township; and she had twice gone down with the Capons to the sea, when they had taken their holidays. Then Lena fell ill—or rather, the Capons found out that she had been ill for some time. She had been feeling dizzy in the mornings; she had had funny feelings in her chest and arms; sometimes she had difficulty in breathing.

The Capons found out about it only when Lena fell down in the kitchen one morning; they heard a crash of crockery, and when Annette Capon rushed into the room she found Lena trying to get up from the floor, but unable to do so. The pieces of the plates she had broken in her fall lay on the floor around her, together with the slices of bread that she had been about to put in the toaster.

"Lena! What's the matter?" Her mouth opened and closed for a moment, before she replied in a whisper, "Madam." "Have you hurt yourself?" Again Lena tried to speak. On her second attempt she managed to say, "Sorry, Madam.”

Annette was in her dressing gown; her blonde hair was in disorder, and on her lips there was some pale lipstick which she had not washed off before going to bed the previous night. She seemed very quick and firm, plump and young, next to Lena, as she helped the old woman to her feet. Lena stood against the sink, her head hanging over it. Her ears were filled with sound; the white sink seemed to jump with every beat of her heart, though she could feel its hardness and coldness, as if from a distance, between her fingers. So far as she was conscious of anything else, Lena was ashamed—ashamed of having been found on the floor, of the dishes she had broken, even of the way she was feeling. "It's nothing, madam," she said, "it comes like this sometimes.”

"Why didn't you tell me? We must call the doctor." Annette couldn't help wondering whether Lena's illness was infectious; she also wondered what she would do about fetching Adam from nursery school. Yet her concern was genuine.

"Yes, madam." Slowly Annette took her arm away from Lena's shoulder; she stared doubtfully at Lena’s bent back.

"Drink this, it'll make you feel better." Lena took two sips at the water. Suddenly she clutched hard at the sink; she would have fallen again if Annette had not taken hold of her. Annette staggered as she led Lena to a chair, surprised by the sudden dead weight of her, though she was so small. Leaving Lena sitting at the table, Annette ran through to ask her husband to go and fetch Dr. Kantner, who lived in one of the flats on the same floor. Dr. Kantner came up with his shirt neatly buttoned, his chin freshly shaved, but with slippers on his feet and no tie around his collar. He examined Lena carefully, in Annette's presence, undoing without distaste the various layers of blouse and vest which Lena wore under her dress. The examination abashed Lena anew, especially as she was feeling better again; but she answered the doctor's questions as well as she could. When he had finished his examination, the doctor went into the next room and told Annette and Leslie Capon that he didn’t like the look of it—her heartbeat was not what it should be, her blood pressure was high, she would have to rest. He suspected that she would have to rest for a long time, he added. He would have another look at her later, when he could better spare the time; in the meantime, she must go back to bed. Then he went back into the kitchen and said jovially and loudly, "You're a naughty girl, Lena. You've got no business to upset everyone like this. From now on you must look after yourself, do you hear?"

"Yes, master," Lena said in complete, subdued acquiescence. She was ashamed of having upset everyone; she felt particularly guilty when she saw the doctor's felt slippers on his feet.

The Capons were left staring at each other. There was no breakfast, the kitchen was in a mess, Adam was shouting from his bedroom, Leslie would be late for work, and Annette would have to get off early to fetch Adam from his nursery school. And what would they do tomorrow? And the day after?

When they went into the kitchen, they found that Lena had swept up the broken crockery, and was now, with trembling hands, trying to lay the table for breakfast.

"No, you must come with me!" Annette shouted crossly, upset by the confusion of the morning, and by the pity she felt at seeing Lena attempting to carry on with her work.

She led Lena out of the flat, and went with her in the lift to the top floor. The servants' dormitory was right on the roof of the building, and they had to climb up a flight of steps after the lift had gone as far as it could. On the flat roof, in the open, there were numbers of washing lines, a couple of galvanized iron pressure tanks, the stack of the building's central-heating plant, two lavatories, and two low rooms of raw brick, with a single window of frosted glass let in at the end of each. One room was for the "boys"; the other for the "girls.” Inside the "girls" room, the beds stood in two rows, with a passageway between the rows, and about two feet of free space to the sides of each bed. Though it was a bright day outside, very little light came in through the window. A naked bulb was burning in the middle of the room, and its rays showed up the gray patched blankets on the beds, and the tin trunks which gleamed from under some of them. The room smelled faintly but distinctly of food and sweat. Here Annette left Lena, and here Lena remained for a week, getting up only to go to the women's lavatory at the other end of the roof. Once a day Annette came up to visit her, though she hated the room, and was embarrassed when any of the other African "girls" who happened to be off duty were sitting or lying there; and though Annette hated, too, the sight of Lena lying in her bed, like a dark shred of illness and pain, only her yellow teeth and her sunken eye reflecting any light. Annette felt guilty about her own repugnances; Lena, for her part, felt guilty for her illness and idleness, whenever her mistress was with her. But when Annette was not there Lena lay in a reverie, only half aware of what was around her; she had vivid dreams sometimes, and called out in her sleep. She was not afraid of death; but she was frightened of losing her job.

The doctor examined her several times, and told the Capons firmly that Lena should not go back to work—not for a couple of months at least; if she did, he would not be responsible for her. When Annette broke the news to her, Lena wept, for the first time since she had come to work for the Capons. She made no sound, but her head shook from side to side on her ticking-covered pillow, and the tears ran down the sides of her drawn black cheeks. Annette promised Lena that she would let her have the job again as soon as she was better.

"You can find me another girl, or your daughter can, and you can explain to her that she can have the job only while you're gone." But Lena cried that she was quite well again, that she could work for the missus if only the missus would let her. "If I go, the missus will forget me," Lena cried. "Let me do my work, madam."

"We'll give you a little money, and you can stay with your daughter." Lena's daughter was a plump, sly young woman, much lighter-skinned and much more smartly dressed than her mother. She came to fetch Lena after a message had been sent to her through one of the other "girls" who worked in the block; she came in a taxi, which Leslie Capon had agreed to pay for, and she brought with her the girl who was to take Lena's place—a very young, clean girl, wearing a pinafore dress, like a school gym tunic, and a black beret on her head. This girl's name was Frances, and she had a tiny, humble voice, and downcast eyes. Lena was helped out of the dormitory, and the new girl moved in with her tin trunk and blanket roll. "The madam will forget me," Lena said, without tears now, as she was being helped into the taxi; but Annette assured her that she would do no such thing. Though the day was bright and warm, Lena was wearing her coat, and she held its lapel over her mouth, as if she were suffering from toothache. She looked very old, even older than she had before her illness. Annette had given her a few pounds, and told her to send a message through her daughter if she needed more. Then the taxi— an enormous, decrepit, black Buick, with a sign African Taxi: Non-Europeans Only above the number plate— drove off. Lena was sitting on the back seat, but as it drove off Annette could not see Lena's head through the rear window. A week later, Lena appeared at the door of the flat. "You shouldn't be here," Annette scolded her, though she was pleased to see her.

"Very well, madam." She did seem much better; she spoke more firmly, and she clapped her hands with delight when she saw Adam.

"Little master, how big you grow!" she cried out. She had come to ask for her job. "I can't live with that girl," she told Annette— "that girl" being her daughter. "She complains to me, whatever I do, madam. I take up too much space. I eat too much food. I make work for her. And her husband, he is even worse. He took my money, madam, the money that the madam gave me. And he teaches the children to be cheeky to me. Please, madam, please take me back. The madam will see that I can still do all the work. I can't go back to that place.

Annette was distressed—not only to hear Lena's tale, but to have the whole problem of Lena's life thrust upon her once again. She pleaded with Lena to go back; she told her that she would speak to Lena's daughter and tell her to be kind to her mother; she asked Lena if she didn't know of some other woman with whom she could stay.

"But we can give you some." "Not enough, madam. How can the madam pay for me to live with another woman, and to buy my food, when madam is already paying for one girl here?" Annette had no answer: what Lena had just said had been worrying Annette and her husband too. The Capons only just managed to come out each month; they couldn't afford to pay indefinitely for two servants, one of whom did no work.

"But it will be for only a few weeks, Lena." Lena shook her head. "And if at the end the doctor says I am still not strong enough to work? How can the madam still pay for me? Then all I can do is to look for work with another missus, who does not know that I am sick." Lena had been sitting forward over the kitchen table; she leaned back, as if to show herself to Annette. "Madam can see that I'm getting sick and old, but she can see also that I must still live." Annette frowned. "No," she said. "I can't take on the responsibility. We'll help you, Lena, for the next few weeks, we'll give you money, and then the doctor will look at you again."

Lena went back to her daughter; the new girl, Frances, stayed on in the flat and continued to do the work that Lena had done. At the end of six weeks Lena came back to the flat, and the doctor examined her again. His report was discouraging. She was better than she had been; but she was far from well. She should still be resting in bed, not thinking of starting work again. On the other hand, she was not really sick enough to be given a bed in one of the African hospitals, which were all impossibly overcrowded, and which had to use their beds for those who required continuous attention, not those who merely needed to rest a strained heart.

"It's tough," the doctor said as he packed his bag; and as a friend he added, "But you can't let yourself get too involved, you know. And I suppose she'll be able to draw some kind of sickness benefit—I'll write out anything she needs for that, if she applies." Then he went out; and the Capons were again left with their problem. "You know what her benefit would be, more or less," Capon said to his wife. "About five shillings a week. Sixty pennies. Think of that." Annette said, "Besides she'd never go to claim it. She wouldn't go near any Government office, you can bet."

The Capons were decent people, who conscientiously voted for the Liberal Party at elections, and who talked, frequently, of getting out of South Africa altogether, the whole racial setup was so distasteful to them. Not that their getting out would help people like Lena. Poor bloody Lena. What could they do with her? They couldn't pay for her upkeep indefinitely; they just couldn't afford it. And as long as Annette worked (and it was only because Annette worked that they were able to come out, each month ) , they had to have a servant, and one they could rely on, too—not one who would be sick, on and off. But to send Lena away, to turn her out of doors, and tell her to go to the dreaded Native Affairs Department to claim her sixty pennies a week, or to send her trudging the streets looking for another job—that was impossible too.

"We'll just have to keep her," Annette said, "and put up with whatever happens. And see that she takes care of herself." Gloomily, her husband agreed.

"I just don't want to have her fainting all over the place all the time, that's all."

Frances was called into the sitting room, and was told that Lena was better now, and she would have to go. The girl received the news submissively and silently, as she had received every order given to her since she had come into the flat. She went out of the room, and Lena was called in.

"Yes, madam.” Lena waited quietly, clutching at the skirt of her dress with one hand, the other hand lifted to her flat bosom. She looked at neither of her employers. "He says you're still sick, Lena. You are better, but you still aren't well. Do you understand?" "Yes, madam." "Do you still want to work for us?" Annette did not know why she asked the question, when she already knew the answer to it. Only later did she realize that it was an attempt to shift the responsibility for the arrangement from her shoulders onto Lena's.

"No," Annette said. "That's why we've decided you can stay with us, Lena. But you mustn't work too hard. You must be careful with yourself." She could not go on, for Lena had bowed her head and covered her face with both hands. When she took her hands away, Lena's face was grave, her eyelids were lowered. "I am sorry that the madam has to take me," she said. She raised her eyes to look directly at her employers.

"The madam must not worry. If anything happens to me, it will not be the madam's fault."

"Whose fault will it be?" Leslie Capon called out suddenly, urgently, as if Lena might answer him. But none of them could answer the question. The next day, Lena made the coffee and brought it in with the newspaper; she dressed Adam, and sang to him; she made the breakfast and washed up after breakfast. At noon she went to fetch Adam from the nursery school, and carried his little satchel for him. Annette found them happily together when she came back from work. She sent Lena upstairs for her rest, then; and the only change was that now, timorously, Lena got into the lift and traveled up with it as far as it could go. Then slowly she climbed the last flight of steps to the dormitory.