During the four hours they spent alone three times a week, Hans and Sophie alternated between books and bed, bed and books, exploring one another in words and reading one another’s bodies. Thus, inadvertently, they developed a shared language, rewriting what they read, translating one another mutually. The more they worked together, the more similarities they discovered between love and translation, understanding a person and translating a text, retelling a poem in a different language and putting into words what the other was feeling. Both exercises were as happy as they were incomplete — doubts always remained, words that needed changing, missed nuances. They were both aware of the impossibility of achieving transparency as lovers and as translators. Cultural, political, biographical and sexual differences acted as a filter. The more they tried to counter them, the greater the dangers, obstacles, misunderstandings. And yet at the same time the bridges between the languages, between them, became broader and broader.
Sophie discovered she had similar feelings when she made love to Hans as when she was translating. She thought she knew exactly what she wanted, what she desired. But then her certainties began to melt away, leaving fervent, conflicting intuitions to which she surrendered without worrying about the result. Later she would experience a strange fleeting lucidity, sudden bursts of light that would enable her to discover what she had been searching for — a definitive meaning, the precise feeling, the exact words. Then she would close her eyes and feel she was about to embrace an enormous sphere, to wrap her arms around it, to understand. Then, just as she was reaching the heights and was preparing to write or to speak to Hans from up there, the idea would unravel and the sphere would slip from her grasp, shattering into a thousand pieces. And although Sophie knew that no trembling emotion, no poem could be rendered in other words, because its totality was unattainable, her only wish was to begin again.
Hans’s aim, which coincided in part with his publisher’s weekly assignment, was to work on the modern European poets, always with the idea in mind of an improbable anthology, over which, for commercial reasons, Brockhaus was still hesitating. How many countries are we talking about here? his editor had asked him in a letter. As many as possible, Hans had responded, without really thinking. Begin by sending a sample, the editor had replied with probable irony, then we’ll talk. Even so, Hans was convinced that in the end, with a little patience and with Sophie’s help, this volume would one day come into being.
How can we speak about free trade, Hans pronounced as he lay next to Sophie, of a customs union and all that implies, without considering a free exchange of literature? We should be translating as many foreign books as possible, publishing them, reclaiming the literature of other countries and taking it to the classroom! That’s what I told Brockhaus. And what did he say? Sophie asked, nibbling his nipple. Hans shrugged and stroked her back: He told me, yes, all in good time, and not to get agitated. But in such exchanges, said Sophie, it’s important that the more powerful countries don’t impose their literature on everyone else, don’t you think? Absolutely, replied Hans, plunging his hand between Sophie’s buttocks, and besides, powerful countries have a lot to learn from smaller countries, which are usually more open and curious, that is to say, more knowledgeable. You’re the curious one! Sophie sighed, allowing Hans’s probing fingers in and lying back. That, Hans grinned, must be because you’re so open and you know what’s what.
Refreshed and dressed, they were at the desk preparing to resume working when Hans began telling Sophie about a review he had read of the French adaptation of Tasso in which Goethe hailed the beginning of a new universal literature. He may be conservative in his political ideas, but you have to hand it to the old man, he’s years ahead of everyone else in his literary thinking. A Weltliteratur! He was one of the first to defend French culture after the fall of Bonaparte, and he always describes poetry as the homeland of the poet, regardless of where he is from and what he writes. Goethe is a little like Faust, don’t you think? And who wouldn’t like to be a little like Goethe — to be a ceaseless reader, a polyglot, to know about every country and study every period in history. Hans rummaged in his trunk, found the article, and handed it to Sophie. Where did you get all your magazines from? she asked, attempting to see inside his trunk. I have them sent to me, he replied, hastily shutting the lid. An era of universal literature is approaching, Sophie read aloud, and each one of us should contribute to its formation. Yes, Hans nodded excitedly, the only way to build a German literature is by challenging it, comparing it, mixing it with foreign literatures. Anything else would be tantamount to locking the door and throwing the key into the sea. I recently read an article on this very subject by a fellow called Mazzini, why don’t we translate it together next week, your Italian is better than mine. Mazzini was writing about Europe, but it seems to me that is only the beginning. For instance, Oriental literature is in fashion now, but soon it could be the turn of the Americas. And who knows, one day it might be necessary to go there in order to learn about ourselves. I’m thinking about sailing for America one of these days — listen! What if you came with me? What if we? What if we started working, Hans? Sophie interrupted, caressing him, it’ll soon be five o’clock. Yes, yes, Hans said, coming back down to earth, forgive me. After searching through the disarray in his room, he placed several books and a handful of folios on the table. So, it’s the turn of the English today, said Sophie, leafing through the various books. Indeed, my dear, sighed Hans in English, and I must actually confess that it is urgent.
There were two assignments for Brockhaus — a complete revision of an anthology of new English poets which the publisher wasn’t happy with and which had been out of print for two years, and a translation of the main excerpts of the preface to Lyrical Ballads, which would be included as an appendix. They did a quick first reading in order to highlight the most problematic passages and lighten their work the following day. The method they used was simple — Sophie, who without a shadow of a doubt recited poetry better than Hans, would read the original poem aloud, pausing after each verse so that the rhythm of the stanza could unfold and settle, then go on to the next, like building a house of cards. In the meantime, Hans would go over the translated version, crossing out words, underlining any imprecisions, and noting down alternatives for discussion later. He was accustomed to working alone, and at first he had found it difficult to concentrate because Sophie’s melodious voice, her pauses and inflections, made him feel an unexpected frisson. Slowly he began to enjoy this feeling that transported him from a foreign language to his lover’s body. And he sensed Sophie was similarly aware of the sensual effect of this approach — she enjoyed holding back, modulating the tension between the discipline of work and the distraction of her desires. Indeed, it was from this electrifying struggle, which heightened their senses and sharpened their intelligence, that some of their best ideas were born. After several translation sessions, they both had become used to desiring one another as they worked, and had understood that their search for different words was another way of connecting, of shortening the distance between their two mouths.