Rand Translates Hugo - updated with example

There are 3 places, by the way, where Rand translates short passages from Hugo:

1) Her essay, The Comprachicos

2) Her introduction to the The Man Who Laughs

3) Her L.A. Times review of Ninety-Three (which not the same as her Introduction to Ninety-Three)

In the first case, she mentions that it's her own translation. In the second and third case, she is silent, but I feel confident they are hers.

As was common among educated Russians of her time, she was fluent in French from an early age. As she mentions in item 3, discussing a climactic scene:

I heard this scene when I was seven years old, lying awake in the darkness, listening intently to a voice reading aloud behind the closed door of the nursery. It was my mother reading a French novel to my grandmother in the living room, and all I could hear was a few snatches.

I'm not fluent in French, so I can't address the question of whether her translations are more accurate than other people's. But I can tell you that they feel more "literary" to me.

There's something mysterious about translation, as there is about writing. The mystery doesn't pertain to the basics, which are logical, but to the fine tuning, which makes things feel magical.

Isn't it odd how a certain turn of phrase
Stays with you for days?

Example:

English by Lowell Bair:

Then, without haste, slowly and proudly, he stepped over the window sill and, without turning back, erect, with his back to the rungs and the fire behind him, facing the void, he began descending the ladder in silence, with the majesty of a phantom. Those who were on the ladder hurried down it. Everyone who saw him shuddered and drew back; around that man arriving from above there was an aura of sacred horror as around a vision. He gravely strode into the darkness before him; as they stepped back, he moved toward them; his marble pallor was expressionless, there was no light in his ghostly gaze; with each step that he took toward those men whose frightened eyes stared at him in the shadows, he seemed to grow larger; the ladder shook and creaked beneath his ominous tread, and he look like the statue of the commander going back into the grave.
When the marquis was at the bottom, when he had reached the last rung of the ladder and put his foot on the ground, a hand came down on his shoulder. He turned around.
"I arrest you," said Cimourdain.
"You are right," said Lantenac.

English by Ayn Rand (but she trimmed it for her review):

Then, without haste, slowly, proudly, he stepped over the window sill, and, not turning, standing straight, his back against the rungs of the ladder, with the flames behind him and the abyss ahead, he began to descend the ladder in silence with the majesty of a phantom.... With each step he made toward the men whose eye, aghast, stared at him through the darkness, he seemed to grow taller....
When he came down, when he had reached the last rung of the ladder and placed his foot on the ground, a hand fell on his shoulder. He turned.
"I arrest you," said --
"You are right."...


In French:

Puis sans se hâter, lentement, fièrement, il enjamba l'appui de la croisée, et, sans se retourner, droit, debout, adossé aux échelons, ayant derrière lui l'incendie, faisant face au précipice, il se mit à descendre l'échelle en silence avec une majesté de fantôme. Ceux qui étaient sur l'échelle se précipitèrent en bas, tous les assistants tressaillirent, il se fit autour de cet homme qui arrivait d'en haut un recul d'horreur sacré comme autour d'une vision. Lui, cependant, s'enfonçait gravement dans l'ombre qu'il avait devant lui; pendant qu'ils reculaient, il s'approchait d'eux; sa pâleur de marbre n'avait pas un pli, son regard de spectre n'avait pas un éclair; à chaque pas qu'il faisait vers ces hommes dont les prunelles
effarées se fixaient sur lui dans les ténèbres, il semblait plus grand, l'échelle tremblait et sonnait sous son pied lugubre, et l'on eût dit la statue du commandeur redescendant dans le sépulcre.

Quand le marquis fut en bas, quand il eut atteint le dernier échelon et posé son pied à terre, une main s'abattit sur son collet. Il se retourna.

--Je t'arrête, dit Cimourdain.

--Je t'approuve, dit Lantenac.