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First ProZ.com Translation Contest 2007: "First ProZ.com Translation Contest 2007" » English to French

Competition in this pair is now closed.

Source text in English

When she moved into his tiny house in Stroud, and took charge of his four small children, Mother was thirty and still quite handsome. She had not, I suppose, met anyone like him before. This rather priggish young man, with his devout gentility, his airs and manners, his music and ambitions, his charm, bright talk, and undeniable good looks, overwhelmed her as soon as she saw him. So she fell in love with him immediately, and remained in love for ever. And herself being comely, sensitive, and adoring, she attracted my father also. And so he married her. And so later he left her - with his children and some more of her own.

When he'd gone, she brought us to the village and waited. She waited for thirty years. I don't think she ever knew what had made him desert her, though the reasons seemed clear enough. She was too honest, too natural for this frightened man; too remote from his tidy laws. She was, after all, a country girl; disordered, hysterical, loving. She was muddled and mischievous as a chimney-jackdaw, she made her nest of rags and jewels, was happy in the sunlight, squawked loudly at danger, pried and was insatiably curious, forgot when to eat or ate all day, and sang when sunsets were red. She lived by the easy laws of the hedgerow, loved the world, and made no plans, had a quick holy eye for natural wonders and couldn't have kept a neat house for her life. What my father wished for was something quite different, something she could never give him - the protective order of an unimpeachable suburbia, which was what he got in the end.

The three or four years Mother spent with my father she fed on for the rest of her life. Her happiness at that time was something she guarded as though it must ensure his eventual return. She would talk about it almost in awe, not that it had ceased but that it had happened at all.

The winning entry has been announced in this pair.

There were 24 entries submitted in this pair during the submission phase. The winning entry was determined based on finals round voting by peers.

Competition in this pair is now closed.


Entries (24 total) Expand all entries

Entry #132
Winner
Voting points1st2nd3rd
7007 x1
Entry #110
ASE2
ASE2
Canada
Voting points1st2nd3rd
6006 x1
Entry #120
alexandre kounde (X)
alexandre kounde (X)
Slovenia
Voting points1st2nd3rd
3003 x1
Entry #136
Voting points1st2nd3rd
3003 x1
Entry #138
Jean-Charles (X)
Jean-Charles (X)
Voting points1st2nd3rd
3003 x1
Entry #146
Stéphanie Soudais (X)
Stéphanie Soudais (X)
France
Voting points1st2nd3rd
2002 x1
Entry #154
Voting points1st2nd3rd
2002 x1
Entry #160
Voting points1st2nd3rd
2002 x1
Entry #116
Voting points1st2nd3rd
2002 x1
Entry #144
nordiste
nordiste
France
Voting points1st2nd3rd
1001 x1
Entry #114
jemo
jemo
United States
Voting points1st2nd3rd
1001 x1
Entry #134
Voting points1st2nd3rd
1001 x1
Entry #142
Voting points1st2nd3rd
1001 x1