My first translation in the series Kollezzjoni Traduzzjonijiet Letterarji is that of Balzac’s long short story La maison du chat qui pelote/Id-dar tal-qattus bir-rakketta f’idu. This translation is a first-timer as Balzac has never before been translated into Maltese.

La maison du chat qui pelote is the first of Balzac’s writings, collectively known as the Comédie humaine. It was the first seed so to speak to sprout from Balzac’s mind and can be rightly considered to be the precursor of the world that was already haunting his mind. As early as 1830 it showed the traits that later on were to characterise his style and writing skills, putting him in a class of his own in French as well as world literature.

Balzac’s ambition was to paint a true picture of the post-Napoleonic society that he lived in and knew so well. And he insightfully manages to do this by delving not just into the social fabrics of the times he was living in but particularly into the human soul, penetrating deeply into the weaknesses and follies of human behaviour. Although just a scene from the Comédie humaine, La maison du chat qui pelote is full of aphorisms that – irrespective of the passage of time –  remain as valid today as they were before and during Balzac’s lifetime. Maxims each one of us can reflect about and truly feel to have experienced as they concern life and all its vagaries. Themes encountered in Id-dar tal-qattus bir-rakketta f’idu include amongst others the betrayal of true love, the internal conflict brought about by ambition, the shady relationship between business and politics, the conflict between genders, the role of the family and religion within society as well as education and social climbing. The aftermath of Augustine’s marriage to Theodore de Sommervieux - in this episode of the Comédie humaine - is not that of the fairy tale being blessed by the fairy godmother. Life, unfortunately, is too prosaic and hazardous to live truly happily ever after. Instead waiting in store for Augustine is the cruel destiny of an unrequited and forsaken love.

Admittedly, reading and translating Balzac is not easy as his style is convoluted, consisting most of the time of long and laborious descriptions purposely elaborated to give his readers a real picture of what went on in his imagination as well as in the outside world. Yet, in spite of the tricky style that characterises his writing, I aimed (and hope to have succeeded) to translate faithfully this long short story, remaining thoroughly close to the original. Aware for instance of the elaborated sentences and paragraphs, I therefore opted not to reduce their length as this would have lessened the desired effect intended by the author himself. The long paragraphs in Balzac’s novel function like pictures, cutting and trimming them into smaller sentences and paragraphs to render reading easier would only betray the truthfulness that I, as a translator, owe to the author, his readers and myself.

One can safely say that every translation involves a modicum of domestication and this I have done without ever losing sight that the story unfolds in a foreign context. I also wish to say that besides relentlessly aiming at literary equivalence, the skopos of my translation is also that of concretely demonstrating that both lexically and aesthetically Maltese, untainted by the onslaught of English as the language of globalisation, has the linguistic resources and potentiality to decode and encode the works of such great authors.

It was truly a pleasure translating Id-dar tal-qattus bir-rakketta f’idu as well as of great satisfaction to know that this gives today’s Maltese readers, incapable of reading it in the original, and those of future generations, the opportunity to do so in their native language other than in translation from another language. Enthusiastic readers with a taste for world literature in translation should not miss out on the opportunity to read and savour Balzac in Maltese.