MASARYK UNIVERSITY Translation and Analysis of Lemony Snicket's

MASARYK UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English language and literature

Translation and Analysis of

Lemony Snicket’s All the Wrong Questions

Final thesis

Brno 2021

Supervisor: Written by:

Mgr. Martin Němec, Ph.D. Mgr. Ondřej Kazda

Prohlášení:

Prohlašuji, že jsem závěrečnou práci vypracoval samostatně, a že jsem použil pouze uvedené zdroje. Souhlasím s uložení mé práce na Masarykově univerzitě v Brně v knihovně pedagogické fakulty a s jejím zpřístupněním ke studijním účelům.

Jindřichův Hradec, 21. dubna 2021 Mgr. Ondřej Kazda

Declaration:

I declare that I have worked on my thesis independently and that I have used only listed sources. I agree with the deposition of my thesis at Masaryk University, Brno, at the library of Faculty of Education and with making it accessible for study purposes.

Jindřichův Hradec, 21st April 2021 Mgr. Ondřej Kazda

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank to my supervisor Mgr. Martin Němec, Ph.D. for his kind and valuable advice and the guidance that he provided during my work on the thesis.

Bibliography

Kazda, Ondřej. Translation and Analysis of Lemony Snicket’s „All the Wrong Questions“: final thesis. Brno: Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, Department of English and literature.2021.77 pages. The supervisor of the final thesis: Mgr. Martin Němec, Ph.D.

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the young adult series “All the Wrong Questions” written by Daniel Handler under the penname Lemony Snicket and its translation into the Czech language. The practical part of the thesis consists of my own translation of the first two chapters of the initial volume of the series entitled “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”. The theoretical part of the thesis focuses on Daniel Handler and his life and work and on the analysis of my translation in accordance with linguistic theories by Jiří Levý and Dagmar Knittlová.

Key words: Daniel Handler, Lemony Snicket, translation, analysis, comparison, All the Wrong Questions

Bibliografický záznam

KAZDA, Ondřej. Translation and Analysis of Lemony Snicket’s „All the Wrong Questions“: final thesis.: závěrečná práce. Brno: Masarykova Univerzita, Pedagogická fakulta, Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury. 2015.77 stran. Vedoucí závěrečné práce: Mgr. Martin Němec, Ph.D.

Anotace

Tato závěrečná práce se zabývá dětskou knižní sérií “All the Wrong Questions”, jejímž autorem je Daniel Handler pod pseudonymem Lemony Snicket, a jejím překladem do českého jazyka. Praktická část práce je tvořena mým vlastním překladem úvodních dvou kapitol prvního dílu knižní série s názvem “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”. Teoretická část práce se soustředí na život a dílo Daniela Handlera a na analýzu mého překladu dle teorií Jiřího Levého a Dagmar Knittlové.

Klíčová slova: Daniel Handler, Lemony Snicket, překlad, analýza, porovnání, All the Wrong Questions

Table of Contents 1. The Illuminating Introduction or Four Wrong Questions ...... 8

1.1. Why Would Someone Choose to Read Such a Gloomy Story? ...... 8

1.2. Wasn’t One Dreary Series More Than Enough? ...... 10

1.3. How Can You Tell a Handler from a Snicket?...... 12

1.4. Is He Writing Like That on Purpose? ...... 15

1.4.1. Typical features of the Snicket books ...... 15

1.4.1.1. Alliteration ...... 15

1.4.1.2. Literary allusions ...... 16

1.4.1.3. Complex vocabulary ...... 16

2. The Thrilling Translation ...... 18

3. The Academic Analysis ...... 46

3.1. Proper names, geographical names ...... 46

3.1.1. Stain’d-by-the-Sea ...... 46

3.1.2. S. Theodora Markson ...... 47

3.1.3. The Clusterous Forest ...... 50

3.1.4. The Fountain of Victorious Finance, The Museum of Bad Breakfast ...... 51

3.1.5. Hemlock Tearoom and Stationery, Bellamy Station ...... 52

3.1.6. Other important names from the series ...... 53

3.1.6.1. The Bombinating Beast ...... 53

3.1.6.2.Hangfire...... 54

3.1.6.3.Geographical names using alliteration ...... 55

3.2. Measures, currency ...... 56

3.3. Explanatory words ...... 58

3.4. Reference ...... 61

3.4.1. Adding a pronoun ...... 62

3.4.2. Omitting a pronoun ...... 63

3.5. Idioms and similes ...... 64

3.6. The verb “say” and its repetition ...... 68

3.7. Complex vocabulary and its reflection in my translation ...... 69

4. The Concise Conclusion ...... 74

5. The Bookish Bibliography ...... 75

5.1. Printed Sources ...... 75

5.2. Electronic Sources ...... 76

1. The Illuminating Introduction or Four Wrong Questions 1.1. Why Would Someone Choose to Read Such a Gloomy Story? “If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.”1 Thus begins the first volume of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and the opening sentence aptly sets the tone for what is to follow. Written by Daniel Handler, under the penname Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events consists of thirteen books describing the misadventures, misfortunes and woes of the three Baudelaire children, who lose their parents in the first chapter and spend the rest of the series trying to survive in the face of adversity, personified mostly by an unsavory man named Count Olaf and a colorful cast of bizarre supporting characters who aid him in his efforts to get rid of the children and get his hands on the famed Baudelaire fortune.

It was on my eleventh birthday that I first became familiar with the books. I was in a bookstore in Prague, browsing the children section, looking for the perfect birthday book to buy. At that age, I would spend all my money on books, and I remember gradually growing just a little bit sick and tired of the same old fantasy stories with no real stakes, full of plucky heroes and heroines who would always end up triumphing over evil, no matter how unlikely and far-fetched that outcome was. Perhaps it was not entirely different from the way Daniel Handler felt, when he started to write his book series.

Tucked far away from the bestsellers section, almost as if hidden on purpose by the bookstore staff, I discovered a small stack of books, which at first glance seemed almost out of place among all the other book covers in the kids’ section, which for the most part depicted laughing children, animals, fantastical creatures, and brave knights in shining armor. There was no one laughing on the cover of these books. What was there, were three, extremely miserable looking children in a variety of gloomy, unpleasant locales, drawn in a gothic, Tim Burtonesque style. And there was the title, long, a bit unwieldy and impossible for me to look away

1 Snicket, The Bad Beginning, p.1

from. A Series of Unfortunate Events. On a whim I took the first volume from the shelf, opened it, and read the sentence which can be found in the beginning of this thesis. And I was hooked immediately. I bought the first book, read it cover to cover in the span of few hours and was back for three more books the following day.

Throughout the next four years, my obsession with the series only grew stronger. I quickly tore through the eight installments that had already been available on the Czech market and began a long and arduous wait for the rest of the books to be translated and published. Finally in 2007, the thirteenth volume, titled fittingly The End was published. I remember finishing the book and feeling very bittersweet about it. On the one hand, I was happy that Handler had stuck the landing and ended the series in a satisfying manner, without breaking the promise of a not entirely happy conclusion which he had given to the readers all those years back in the first chapter of the first book. On the other hand, it meant that my time with the Baudelaire orphans was over. There were no more twists left, no more conspiracy theories to ponder, no more shocking deaths of beloved characters to agonize about. It was done. In the years that followed I read and re-read the series numerous times, both in Czech and English, I listened to all the English audiobooks, I saw a film, which was made based on the first three volumes and which did not do the books justice in the slightest. And gradually, over time, I became content with the idea that there would be no more Snicket books coming out.

And then, five years later, in the beginning of 20122, the impossible happened. The Lemony Snicket website announced that another series written by Daniel Handler was coming out, set in the same world as A Series of Unfortunate Events and acting as a prequel, which would describe Lemony Snicket’s childhood training in V.F.D., a secretive organization, the mystery of which formed the backbone of the original series.

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Wrong_Questions

The new series, titled All the Wrong Questions, is shorter than the original, consisting of only four books, but they are just as good, if not better. And since, unlike the original, they have not been translated to Czech language (nor is such a translation planned , according to the Egmont publishing house, responsible for the Czech edition of A Series of Unfortunate Events), I thought it would make for an ideal subject for my final thesis.

The aim of this thesis of course is not to translate the new series in its entirety, but to show what a hypothetical translation might look like. The following chapters consist of my translation and analysis of the first two chapters of the initial volume, titled “Who Could That Be at This Hour?” as well as my suggestions for selected parts from the following three books – terminology, names, idioms, and wordplay – all the typical features of Handler’s writing.

1.2. Wasn’t One Dreary Series More Than Enough? All the Wrong Questions is a book series consisting of four volumes – “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, “When Did You See Her Last?”, “Shouldn’t You Be in School?” and “Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?”. As a whole, these books tell the gripping and harrowing tale of the growing up of one Lemony Snicket – a thirteen-year-old in service of a secret and secretive organization called V.F.D.. Compared to A Series of Unfortunate Events, All the Wrong Questions is significantly narrower in scale – vast majority of the action takes place in a once bustling industrial city called Stain’d-by-the-Sea, a city whose wealth used to come from manufacturing ink, “famous for making the darkest, most permanent stains.”3, but which in the beginning of the story is a little more than a ghost town on account of the ink running out. It is here, that Snicket spends his apprenticeship under the guidance of his instructor S. Theodora Markson – a woefully incompetent member of V.F.D. The two of them are hired to investigate and solve the theft of a statue of the mythical Bombinating Beast, a legendary creature which was once said to plague the town - a mystery, which seems laughably simple at

3 Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 27

first, only for it to get more and more eerie and complicated with each passing chapter, until the fate of the entire town hangs in balance.

Throughout the course of the four books Snicket meets some of the last remaining residents of the city (most of them children just like him) – Moxie Mallahan, a journalist and an apparent original owner of the statue, the Bellerophon brothers, two cabbies who drive Snicket around town in exchange for literary tips, and Cleo Knight, a scientist trying to perfect her formula for invisible ink, which could save the town, to name just a few. Together they strike an alliance to save the city no matter the cost. Their main adversary in this task is a mysterious villain called Hangfire, whose identity is one the biggest mysteries of the series, and who seems intent on destroying the entire town to avenge a grievance from a distant past. Halfway through the first book, a final key player is introduced, when Snicket meets and possibly falls in love with Ellington Feint, an enigmatic girl with “a smile that might have meant anything”4, who alternately seems to be working with Hangfire to doom the town and with Snicket to save it.

Just like with A Series of Unfortunate Events, the reader should not expect all of the characters to survive, and the ending is perhaps even darker and melancholic than that of the previous series. Where the two series differ considerably, though, is in their tone. A Series of Unfortunate Events is a Gothic tale, reminiscent in atmosphere of some of the darker books by Roald Dahl or Tim Burton’s older films (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, or Sleepy Hollow, to name a few). All the Wrong Questions, on the other hand, draws inspiration from noir hardboiled detective stories by Raymond Chandler, Charles Willeford and their contemporaries, with Snicket himself filling the role of a gumshoe private eye who unwillingly and unwittingly gets drawn deeper and deeper in the mystery of Stain’d-by-the-Sea, and Ellington Feint playing the role of the untrustworthy femme fatale toying with Snicket’s feelings for her and threatening to burn his world around him. To say any more about the plot would be criminal because its

4 Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p.131

twists and turns are best experienced firsthand, but needless to say, it goes to some very unexpected places.

1.3. How Can You Tell a Handler from a Snicket? In the first paragraphs of the introduction I mentioned that both A Series of Unfortunate Events and All the Wrong Questions have been written by Daniel Handler, and yet I would wager that a large part of the books’ readership would claim not to be familiar with the name. That is because, unless a person is interested in the behind-the-scenes trivia, there is little to no indication that Lemony Snicket is but a pseudonym. All of the books carry his name and his name only, and Daniel Handler remains rather dissociated from the novels, fully content with being the proverbial man behind the curtain.

Over the years he has published more than thirty written works under the name of Lemony Snicket5 – beside the two aforementioned series there is also a number of companion books adding some much-needed context and background to the Baudelaire / Snicket / V.F.D. tales. Then there are written works similar in tone but plot wise completely unrelated to the two main series – a fairy tale for young children called The Lump of Coal6 and an orchestra composition / detective story entitled The Composer is Dead7 are among the first which come to mind.

The entire Snicket / Handler situation is made even more complicated by the fact that Snicket, who in the first few volumes of A Series of Unfortunate Events was nothing but an observant and watchful narrator, gradually becomes more and more active throughout the series until he is just as much of an important character as the Baudelaire orphans themselves, and he steps even further into the spotlight in All the Wrong Questions where he becomes THE main character of the story. When asked about Snicket, it is clear that he is more than just a pen name or a pseudonym to

5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemony_Snicket_bibliography 6 https://www.lemonysnicket.com/9780061574283/the-lump-of-coal/ 7 https://www.lemonysnicket.com/9780061236273/the-composer-is-dead/

Handler – at various interviews he talks about Snicket in third person89, describing him as a character completely separate from himself.

So what should one know about Daniel Handler? For starters, he is an American writer, playwright, and musician, born in San Francisco in 1970. He started writing after finishing college, at a time when he took a series of office jobs which “paid the most amount of money for the least amount of time”10 so that he could fully focus on working on his literary debut. That book turned out to be The Basic Eight and getting it published proved to be a Herculean task – Handler himself remembers it being rejected no less than 37 times for being too dark.11 It was during this time that an editor acquaintance of his suggested that he might try to write something for children – an idea Handler first balked at on account of having zero experience with young adult literature. At that time, he had been working on one other novel besides The Basic Eight – a gothic story about adults and intended for adult audience called A Series of Unfortunate Events, which he felt was falling apart under his hands. It was here that a fortuitous and bold idea struck him, and he decided to repurpose the one hundred or so pages of this failing piece of writing into something children could read.12 Armed with the name and a brief outline (almost all of which changed by the time the book was finally published), he presented the story to the editor at a boozy restaurant meeting. When reminiscing about it in a 2005 interview with The AV Club, there is still a slight air of disbelief and depreciation about the way Handler talks about it: “I told her I had an idea for a gothic novel (…) I expected she would hate that idea, and instead she said she liked it, which embarrassed me even more.”13

The editor turned out to be the first of many people who fell head over heels for the Snicket books, as evidenced by their immediate popularity after The Bad Beginning came out in 199914, less than a year after The Basic Eight and to a much wider acclaim. In fact there came a point in the early aughts where seven of the top ten places on the

8 https://www.npr.org/2017/01/13/509587895/the-man-behind-lemony-snicket-talks-about-writing- for-kids-and-his-childhood-fea 9 https://www.jetfuelreview.com/interview-daniel-handler.html 10 https://mastersreview.com/an-unfortunate-interview-a-discussion-with-lemony-snicket/ 11 https://www.avclub.com/daniel-handler-1798208806 12 https://mastersreview.com/an-unfortunate-interview-a-discussion-with-lemony-snicket/ 13 https://www.avclub.com/daniel-handler-1798208806 14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Beginning

New York Times children’s literature bestseller list were occupied by various volumes of A Series of Unfortunate Events.15 The series has become a worldwide phenomenon, having been translated to more than 40 languages and sold over 60 million copies16, it has been turned into the aforementioned movie (one Handler has very conflicted feelings about, at least partly because he had been asked to write the script for the film and ended up being fired after coming up with eight drafts the studio was unhappy with17) and in the years 2017-2019 Netflix has turned the series into a largely successful TV show18, one which, though not without its failings, manages to more closely adhere to the story and atmosphere of the books.

Since 1998, when The Basic Eight came out, Handler has published six additional adult novels, as well as a stage play titled Imaginary Comforts, and The Story of The Ghost of The Dead Rabbit under his own name19. None of these have been as successful as his Snicket tales, something Handler freely admits20, saying his life would have been very different without them.21

To this day Handler has to appear at various book signing events as a literary representative of Mr. Snicket and explain to the eagerly expectant children that Mr. Snicket could not make it for one bizarre reason or another, such as being bitten in the armpit by a giant bug22 or hiding from the authorities. When asked by a reporter from The Guardian to sign a book for his young daughter, he wrote, characteristically: “For Juliett, a future orphan. DH (allegedly LS)”23.

15 https://www.avclub.com/daniel-handler-1798208806 16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Series_of_Unfortunate_Events 17 https://www.avclub.com/daniel-handler-1798208806 18 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Series_of_Unfortunate_Events_(TV_series) 19 https://www.onstageblog.com/reviews/2017/12/3/review-imaginary-comforts-or-the-story-of-the- ghost-of-the-dead-rabbit-at-berkeley-repertory-theatre 20 https://www.jetfuelreview.com/interview-daniel-handler.html 21 http://www.bookslut.com/features/2008_10_013548.php 22 https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-daniel-handler-aka-lemony-snicket/ 23 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/07/how-old-child-need-be-appreciate-lemony- snicket-daniel-handler-interview

1.4. Is He Writing Like That on Purpose? 1.4.1. Typical features of the Snicket books In this final part of my introduction, I would like to take a closer look at some of the typical features of Lemony Snicket’s literary style, because it is immediately identifiable and instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever opened some of his books. It is that very style, which, I believe forms a large part of his appeal and which made him so different from almost any other writer. When trying to pinpoint what makes Snicket’s writing so unique and disting, I was able to come up with the following four points: alliteration, literary allusions, the use of very complicated words (and the explanation of their meaning to the reader) and the general atmosphere of pessimism and melancholy. The last one, I feel, is pretty much self-explanatory, but as far as the other three are concerned, I thought it useful to look at each of them separately to better understand the linguistic and stylistic environment of the books.

1.4.1.1. Alliteration This is one of those things that does not become immediately obvious, but once you notice it for the first time, you start to see it everywhere. Daniel Handler absolutely loves alliteration and employs it constantly in his books. Starting with the titles of all but the last volume of A Series of Unfortunate Events – The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, The Miserable Mill and The Austere Academy just to name the first five, and continuing with landscapes riddled with alliterated geographical names, such as the Mortmain Mountains, the Stricken Stream, Briny Beach, street names like Blotted Boulevard, Rarely Ridden Road, Wayward Way, Lousy Lane and various businesses and institutions such as Caligari Carnival, Mulctuary Money Management, Fickle Fountain, Daedalus Dock and Prufrock Preparatory to mention but a few. There are even many characters getting the alliterated treatment with Polly Partial, Hungry Hix and Moxie Mallahan serving as fine examples of those.

It is also unfortunately one of the few areas where I found the Czech translation of the original series a little bit lacking, because a large number of the aforementioned names do not use alliteration in the Czech version. Therefore, one of the goals I set for myself when translating All the Wrong Questions was to try and retain as many cases of alliteration as possible.

1.4.1.2. Literary allusions One of my favorite features of the Snicket books is that, though ostensibly written mainly with a young audience in mind, there is an absolute overabundance of various easter eggs for adult readers – some political (there is a veiled reference to the controversial late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in one of the later All the Wrong Question Books ), some really, really adult, such as a bilingual orgasm joke in the sixth volume of A Series of Unfortunate Events, but for the most part they are of the literary kind. The world of Lemony Snicket is built around books and libraries, and more often than not, you can tell if a character is good or evil based on their literary beliefs and how they treat books.

There are many characters named after famous writers – the Baudelaire orphans, Mr. Poe and his son Edgar, dr. Georgina Orwell – those are some of the references that almost everyone is bound to recognize, but some of the allusions go even deeper. Esmé Squalor, one of the main antagonists is named after a poem by J.D. Salinger (For Esmé – With Love and Squalor), the characters routinely reference famous books, such as Moby Dick, The Wind in the Willows or Anna Karenina. In perhaps the most blatant example of how much value Handler sees in literature, in All the Wrong Questions, Lemony routinely uses literary tips instead of paying for food or taxi services and whenever there is a problem, it can always be solved with the right book.

Handler repeatedly said that he views the universe he has created as one, that is “governed entirely by books”24 and his love of literature can be clearly seen on every page.

1.4.1.3. Complex vocabulary There is a certain dictionary quality that all of the Snicket books share. The author very frequently uses vocabulary, that is at a much higher level than that of his presumed readers, only to explain it to them in the same breath. Here are just a few of the many examples:

24 https://www.npr.org/2017/01/13/509587895/the-man-behind-lemony-snicket-talks-about-writing- for-kids-and-his-childhood-fea

““Your reticence is not appreciated,” Theodora said, breaking my sour silence. “‘Reticence’ is a word which here means not talking enough. Say something, Snicket.””25

“It had a great appetite for human flesh and made a terrifying bombinating sound—I had to get up from the table and find a dictionary to learn that “bombinating” was a word which here meant buzzing—when looking for prey.”26

““Asinine” is a word that sounds like you shouldn’t say it, so when you do say it, people often gasp. This makes it a delicious way of saying “not very smart,” which is all it means.”27

“We called the game Beethoven, and my sister refused to play because she thought it was inane. “Inane” is a word which here means that my brother and I would pretend we couldn’t hear each other very well while we were talking.”28

The fact that he gets to use such an advanced vocabulary in his books is clearly a source of great amusement to Handler, who, when asked about the difficult words that abound in his books, is quoted saying: “It makes me very happy to know that now - I mean, there are sort of millions of fourth graders who know what the word ersatz means and that's - or know what the expression casing the joint or understand dramatic irony - that really excites me.”29

As a personal sidenote, this steady rhythm of “a difficult word – definition” makes Snicket’s books excellent for ESL students, who frequently, when confronted with an unknown word, do not have to search for its meaning in the dictionary, because the author readily provides explanation in the following sentence. I have used both All the Wrong Questions and A Series of Unfortunate Events in some of my lessons, and it makes me very happy to see a selected few students become as enamored with the stories as I was at their age.

25 Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 20 26 Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?“, p. 76 27 Snicket, “When Did You See Her Last?“, p. 138 28 Snicket, “Shouldn’t You Be in School?“, p.249 29 https://www.npr.org/2017/01/13/509587895/the-man-behind-lemony-snicket-talks-about-writing- for-kids-and-his-childhood-fea

2. The Thrilling Translation

KAPITOLA PRVNÍ CHAPTER ONE Bylo jedno městečko a jedna dívka a There was a town, and there was a girl, jedna loupež. V tom městečku jsem žil, and there was a theft. I was living in the tu loupež jsem měl vyšetřit a myslel town, and I was hired to investigate the jsem, že ta dívka s ní nemá nic theft, and I thought the girl had nothing společného. Bylo mi téměř třináct a to do with it. I was almost thirteen and I mýlil jsem se. Zmýlil jsem se v celé té was wrong. I was wrong about all of it. I záležitosti. Měl jsem se raději zeptat: should have asked the question “Why „Proč by někdo říkal, že byl okraden, would someone say something was když mu ta odcizená věc nikdy stolen when it was never theirs to begin nepatřila?“ Místo toho jsem si položil with?” Instead, I asked the wrong špatnou otázku – čtyři špatné otázky, question—four wrong questions, more více či méně. Toto je vyprávění o první or less. This is the account of the first. z nich. Hemlockova kavárna a papírnictví je The Hemlock Tearoom and Stationery jedno z těch míst, kde se vám podlaha Shop is the sort of place where the vždycky zdá špinavá, i když je zrovna floors always feel dirty, even when they zametená. V den, kdy tento příběh are clean. They were not clean on the začíná, zametená nebyla. Jídlo u day in question. The food at the Hemlocka je nepoživatelné, zejména Hemlock is too awful to eat, particularly jejich míchaná vajíčka, pravděpodobně the eggs, which are probably the worst ta nejhorší v celém městě, a to včetně eggs in the entire city, including those těch, která jsou vystavena v Muzeu on exhibit at the Museum of Bad špatných snídaní, jehož návštěvníci se Breakfast, where visitors can learn just mohou poučit, jak příšerně se vajíčka how badly eggs can be prepared. dají pokazit. Papíry a plnicí pera, která u Hemlocka The Hemlock sells paper and pens that prodávají, jsou poškozená a are damaged and useless, but the tea is nepoužitelná, ale tamní čaj je vcelku drinkable, and the place is located ucházející a celá kavárna se nachází přes across the street from the train station, ulici od vlakového nádraží,

19 což z ní činí přijatelné místo na posezení so it is an acceptable place to sit with s rodiči, zatímco čekáte na vlak, který one’s parents before boarding a train for vás odveze vstříc novému životu. Na a new life. I was wearing the suit I’d sobě jsem měl oblek, který jsem dostal been given as a graduation present. It had jako dárek k dokončení výcviku. Visel hung in my closet for weeks, like an mi ve skříni celé týdny, jako tělo bez empty person. I felt glum and thirsty. duše. Cítil jsem se pod psa a měl jsem žízeň. Donesli nám čaj a na chvíli nás zahalila When the tea arrived, for a moment the oblaka dýmu, který z něj stoupal. Dříve steam was all I could see. I’d said good- toho dne jsem se s někým ve spěchu bye to someone very quickly and was rozloučil a teď jsem si přál, abych býval wishing I’d taken longer. I told myself tolik nechvátal. Řekl jsem si, že na tom that it didn’t matter and that certainly it nesejde, a že teď rozhodně není čas was no time to frown around town. You propadat chmurám. Máš tu něco na have work to do, Snicket, I told myself. práci, Snickete, připomněl jsem si. Na There is no time for moping. černé myšlenky bude čas později. Stejně ji zanedlouho uvidíš znovu, You’ll see her soon enough in any case, pomyslel jsem si, netuše, jak moc se I thought, incorrectly. mýlím. Poté se čajový dým rozptýlil a já pohlédl Then the steam cleared, and I looked at na pár, který mi u stolu dělal společnost. the people who were with me. It is Je to prazvláštní pocit, dívat se na svou curious to look at one’s family and try to rodinu a zkoušet si představit, jak by se imagine how they look to strangers. I jevili cizím lidem. Seděl přede mnou saw a large-shouldered man in a brown, muž s širokými rameny v hnědém linty suit that looked like it made him plátěném obleku, který ho, jak se zdálo, uncomfortable, and a woman drumming svědil a kousal, a žena, která bubnovala her fingernails on the table, over and nehty o desku stolu, znovu a znovu a over, the sound like a tiny horse’s stále dokola, jako by po stole cválal galloping. drobný koník.

Ve vlasech měla vetknutou květinu. Oba She happened to have a flower in her se křenili od ucha k uchu, zejména ten hair. They were both smiling, muž. particularly the man. „Vlak ti jede až za hodnou chvíli, synu,“ “You have plenty of time before your řekl mi. „Nedal by sis něco k jídlu? train, son,” he said. “Would you like to Míchaná vajíčka?“ order something to eat? Eggs?” „Ne, děkuji,“ odvětil jsem. “No, thank you,” I said. „Oba jsme na našeho chlapce tak hrdí,“ “We’re both so proud of our little boy,” řekla ta žena, která by na náhodného said the woman, who perhaps would pozorovatele možná mohla působit have looked nervous to someone who nervózně. Anebo možná ne. Přestala was looking closely at her. Or perhaps klepat prsty do stolu a pocuchala mi not. She stopped drumming her fingers vlasy. Brzy budu potřebovat ostříhat. on the table and ran them through my „Musíš být celý bez sebe vzrušením.“ hair. Soon I would need a haircut. “You must be all a-tingle with excitement.” „Asi ano,“ přitakal jsem, ale necítil jsem “I guess so,” I said, but I did not feel a- se bez sebe, ani bez nikoho jiného. tingle. I did not feel a-anything. „Dej si ubrousek na klín,“ řekla mi. “Put your napkin in your lap,” she told me. „Už se stalo.“ “I did.” „Tak si vypij ten čaj,“ pobídla mě a v té “Well, then, drink your tea,” she said, chvíli do Hemlockovy kavárny vstoupila and another woman came into the další žena. Nevěnovala pozornost mně, Hemlock. She did not look at me or my mé rodině ani nikomu jinému. family or anywhere at all. She brushed Prosmýkla se kolem mého stolu, vysoká by my table, very tall, with a very great žena s divokou hřívou neučesaných deal of very wild hair. Her shoes made vlasů. Její boty hlasitě klapaly na noise on the floor. She stopped at a rack podlaze. Zastavila se u stojanu of envelopes and grabbed the first one s obálkami, popadla tu první, která jí she saw, tossing a coin to the woman přišla pod ruku a cvrnkla minci směrem behind the counter, who caught it almost k pokladní, která ji nedbale chytila. Poté without looking, and then she was back zamířila zpět k východu. out the door.

Mezi stoly posetými hrnky s čajem se With all the tea on all the tables, it looked skoro zdálo, jako by se z jedné z jejích like one of her pockets was steaming. I kapes kouřilo. Byl jsem jediný, kdo si jí was the only one who had noticed her. všiml. Neohlédla se. She did not look back. Existují dva důvody, proč by si člověk There are two good reasons to put your měl dát ubrousek na klín. Zaprvé se napkin in your lap. One is that food můžete pobryndat, a je lepší, když to might spill in your lap, and it is better to odnese ubrousek než vaše šaty. Zadruhé stain the napkin than your clothing. The může sloužit jako perfektní skrýš. other is that it can serve as a perfect Prakticky nikdo není tak vlezlý, aby se hiding place. Practically nobody is nosy vám pokoušel ubrousek strhnout a zjistit, enough to take the napkin off a lap to see co se pod ním skrývá. Zhluboka jsem si what is hidden there. I sighed deeply and povzdechl a zahleděl jsem se do klína, stared down at my lap, as if I were lost in jako kdybych byl zcela ponořen ve svých thought, and then quickly and quietly I úvahách, a pak jsem spěšně a potichu unfolded and read the note the woman rozložil vzkaz, který mi tam ta žena had dropped there. upustila. VYLEZ VEN OKNEM NA TOALETĚ. CLIMB OUT THE WINDOW IN THE SEJDEME SE V ULIČCE ZA TÍMTO BATHROOM AND MEET ME IN THE OBCHODEM. BUDU NA TEBE ALLEY BEHIND THIS SHOP. I WILL ČEKAT V ZELENÉM KABRIOLETU. BE WAITING IN THE GREEN MÁŠ NA TO PĚT MINUT. ROADS TER. YOU HAVE FIVE — P. MINUTES. — S. Věděl jsem, že „kabriolet“ je jen “Roadster,” I knew, was a fancy word for honosný výraz pro auto se stahovací “car,” and I couldn’t help but wonder střechou. Nedalo mi to, a musel jsem what kind of person would take the time přemýšlet, proč by se člověk zdržoval to write “roadster” when the word “car” tím, aby napsal slovo „kabriolet“, když would do. by bohatě stačilo napsat „auto“.

Také jsem si lámal hlavu s tím, proč by I also couldn’t help but wonder what sort někdo podepisoval tajný vzkaz, i když of person would sign a secret note, even jen písmenem P. Tajný vzkaz je tajný. if they only signed the letter S. A secret Není důvod ho podepisovat. note is secret. There is no reason to sign it. „Jsi v pořádku, synu?“ “Are you OK, son?” „Omluvte mě na chvíli,“ řekl jsem a “I need to excuse myself,” I said, and postavil jsem se. Ubrousek jsem odložil stood up. I put the napkin down on the zpátky na stůl, ale zmačkaný vzkaz jsem table but kept the note crumpled up in i nadále svíral v pěsti. my hand. „Vypij si ten čaj.“ “Drink your tea.” „Matko.“, povzdechl jsem. “Mother,” I said. „Jen ho nech jít, drahá,“ chlácholil ji muž “Let him go, dear,” said the man in the v hnědém obleku. „Tomu chlapci je brown suit. “He’s almost thirteen. It’s a skoro třináct. Je to složitý věk.“ difficult age.” Napřímil jsem se a odkráčel do zadní I stood up and walked to the back of the části Hemlockovy kavárny. Nejspíš už Hemlock. Probably one minute had uběhla celá minuta. Dáma za pultem mě passed already. The woman behind the sledovala, jak se rozhlížím ze strany na counter watched me look this way and stranu. V restauracích vždycky čekají, that. In restaurants they always make you než jim řeknete, že hledáte záchod, ask where the bathroom is, even when ačkoliv nic jiného byste hledat nemohli. there’s nothing else you could be looking Připomněl jsem si, že není důvod být for. I told myself not to be embarrassed. v rozpacích. „Kdybych byl záchod,“ oslovil jsem “If I were a bathroom,” I said to the dámu za pultem, „kde bych se woman, “where would I be?” nacházel?“ Ukázala směrem k úzké chodbě. Všiml She pointed to a small hallway. I noticed jsem si, že v ruce stále drží chycený the coin was still in her hand. I stepped peníz. Kvapně jsem zamířil do chodby a quickly down the hallway without neohlížel se. looking back.

Znovu jsem do Hemlockovy kavárny a I would not see the Hemlock Tearoom papírnictví vkročil až po mnoha and Stationery Shop again for years and dlouhých letech. years.

Vešel jsem na toalety a zaznamenal I walked into the bathroom and saw that jsem, že mám společnost. Napadly mě I was not alone. I could think of only two jen dvě věci, kterými se dá na záchodě things to do in a bathroom while waiting krátit dlouhá chvíle, zatímco čekáte, než tam budete sami. Rozhodl jsem se udělat to be alone. I did one of them, which was jednu z nich a stoupl jsem si to stand at the sink and splash some cold k umyvadlu, kde jsem si opláchl obličej water on my face. I took the opportunity studenou vodou. Při té příležitosti jsem tajný vzkaz zabalil do papírové utěrky na to wrap the note in a paper towel and ruce, kterou jsem pak strčil pod tekoucí then run the thing under the water so it vodu. Rychle se rozmělnila v cuckovitou was a wet mess. I threw it away. kaši, kterou jsem vyhodil do koše. Nejspíš po ní nikdo pátrat nebude. Probably nobody would look for it.

Z kabinky vylezl nějaký muž a střetli A man came out of the stall and caught jsme se pohledem v zrcadle. „Jsi my eye in the mirror. “Are you all right?” v pořádku?“ zeptal se. Musel jsem he asked me. I must have looked vypadat nervózně. nervous. „Měl jsem míchaná vajíčka,“ vysvětlil “I had the eggs,” I said, and he washed jsem mu, a on si opláchl ruce s výrazem his hands sympathetically and left. I soucitného pochopení a opustil místnost. turned off the water and looked at the Vypnul jsem tekoucí vodu a pohlédl na only window. It was small and square jediné okno, které na toaletách bylo. and had a very simple latch. A child Bylo malé, čtvercové a opatřené velmi could open it, which was good, because prostou petlicí. Dokázalo by ho otevřít i I was a child. malé dítě, což bylo dobře, protože já jsem byl malé dítě.

Jediná potíž spočívala v tom, že se The problem was that it was ten feet nacházelo tři metry nade mnou, above me, in a high corner of the v horním rohu místnosti. I když jsem si bathroom. Even standing on tiptoes, I stoupl na špičky, nedosáhl jsem na couldn’t reach the point where I’d have místo, kde bych musel stát, abych to to stand if I wanted to reach the point to okno dokázal otevřít. Jakýkoliv věk byl open the latch. Any age was a difficult složitý věk pro někoho, kdo chtěl to okno age for someone needing to get through použít k útěku. that window. Vešel jsem do jediné kabinky, která na I walked into the bathroom stall. Behind toaletách byla. Za mísou spočíval the toilet was a large parcel wrapped in rozměrný balík, nedbale omotaný brown paper and string, but wrapped hnědým papírem a ovinutý motouzem, loosely, as if nobody cared whether you jako kdyby nikomu nezáleželo na tom, opened it or not. Leaned up against the zda ho rozbalíte nebo ne. Takhle opřený wall like that, it didn’t look interesting. o zeď působil nevýznamně, jako součást It looked like something the Hemlock zařízení Hemlockovy kavárny nebo needed, or a piece of equipment a vybavení, které tam nechal ladem plumber had left behind. It looked like zapomnětlivý údržbář. Vypadal jako none of your business. I dragged it into něco, do čeho byste neměli strkat nos. the middle of the stall and shut the door Odtáhl jsem jej doprostřed kabinky, behind me as I tore open the paper. I zavřel za sebou dveře a začal z něj didn’t lock it. A man with large strhávat balící papír. Se zamykáním jsem shoulders could force open a door like se neobtěžoval. Každý muž s širokými that even if it were locked. rameny by ty dveře dokázal vyrazit, zámek nezámek. Uvnitř balíku byl skládací žebřík. Věděl It was a folding ladder. I knew it was jsem, že tam bude. Sám jsem ho tam there. I’d put it there myself. nachystal.

Přečtení tajného vzkazu mi zabralo It was probably one minute to find the kolem minuty, než jsem došel na toalety, note, one to walk to the bathroom, one to uběhla další minuta, minutu jsem musel wait for the man to leave, and two to set čekat, než mě muž z kabinky nechal o up the ladder, unlatch the window, and samotě a v následujících dvou minutách half-jump, half-slide out the window into jsem rozložil žebřík, odemknul okno a a small puddle in the alley. napůl vyskočil, napůl vypadl z okna do mělké louže v postranní uličce. Dohromady pět minut. Otřel jsem si That’s five minutes. I brushed muddy kalnou vodu z kalhot. Čekal na mne water off my pants. The roadster was drobný, zelený kabriolet s vytaženou small and green and looked like it had střechou, který snad kdysi sloužil jako once been a race car, but now it had závodní auto, ale nyní se po celé délce cracks and creaks all along its curved jeho zakřivené karosérie táhly trhliny a body. The roadster had been neglected. praskliny. Bylo to zanedbané auto. No one had taken care of it, and now it Nikdo se o něj nestaral a teď už bylo was too late. The woman was frowning příliš pozdě. Žena z kavárny seděla za behind the steering wheel when I got in. volantem, a když jsem nastoupil dovnitř, Her hair was now wrestled into place by kabonila se. Vlasy měla napěchované a small leather helmet. The windows pod malou koženou helmou. Okénka were rolled down, and the rainy air byla stažená dolů a chladný deštivý matched the mood in the car. vzduch ladil s náladou ve vozidle. „Jsem P. Theodora Marksonová,“ “I’m S. Theodora Markson,” she said. oznámila mi. „Já jsem Lemony Snicket,“ odvětil jsem “I’m Lemony Snicket,” I said, and a podal jí obálku, kterou jsem vyštrachal handed her an envelope I had in my z kapsy. Uvnitř se nacházelo něco, čemu pocket. Inside was something we called říkáme úvodní dopis, pár krátkých a letter of introduction, just a few odstavců, které mne líčily jako paragraphs describing me as somebody vynikajícího čtenáře, obstojného who was an excellent reader, a good kuchtíka, průměrného hudebníka a cook, a mediocre musician, and an awful otřesného diskutéra. quarreler.

Byl jsem jasně instruován, že svůj I had been instructed not to read my úvodní dopis nesmím číst, a zabralo mi letter of introduction, and it had taken nějaký čas, než se mi povedlo obálku me some time to slip the envelope open rozlepit a pak znovu zapečetit. and then reseal it. „Já vím, kdo jsi,“ odsekla a pohodila “I know who you are,” she said, and obálku na zadní sedadlo. Zírala skrz tossed the envelope into the backseat. čelní sklo, jako bychom už byli na She was staring through the windshield cestě. „Došlo ke změně plánu. Musíme like we were already on the road. si pospíšit. Celá situace je složitější, než “There’s been a change of plans. We’re bys dokázal pochopit, a za nynějších in a great hurry. The situation is more okolností nemám čas ti to vysvětlovat.“ complicated than you understand or than I am in a position to explain to you under the present circumstances.” „Za nynějších okolností.“ zopakoval “Under the present circumstances,” I jsem po ní. „Tím myslíte „teď“?“ repeated. “You mean, right now?” „Samozřejmě, že myslím „teď“.“ “Of course that’s what I mean.” „Jestli tak chvátáme, proč jste prostě “If we’re in a great hurry, why didn’t neřekla „teď“?“ you just say ‘right now’?” Žena se natáhla a otevřela dveře na She reached across my lap and pushed straně spolujezdce. „A ven,“ přikázala open the door. “Get out,” she said. mi. „Cože?“ “What?” „Takhle se mnou nikdo mluvit nebude. “I will not be spoken to this way. Your Tvůj předchůdce, mladík, který pro mne predecessor, the young man who pracoval před tebou, by si tohle nikdy worked under me before you, he never nedovolil. Nikdy. Ven.“ spoke to me this way. Never. Get out.” „Omlouvám se,“ řekl jsem. “I’m sorry,” I said. „Ven.“ “Get out.” „Omlouvám se,“ zopakoval jsem. “I’m sorry,” I said.

„Chceš pro mě pracovat, Snickete? “Do you want to work under me, Chceš, abych byla tvým instruktorem?“ Snicket? Do you want me to be your chaperone?”

Zahleděl jsem se do uličky. „Ano,“ I stared out at the alley. “Yes,” I said. odpověděl jsem. „Tak si zapamatuj tohle: nejsem tvůj “Then know this: I am not your friend. I kamarád. Nejsem tvůj rodič ani am not your teacher. I am not a parent opatrovník a nebudu se o tebe starat. or a guardian or anyone who will take Jsem tvůj instruktor, a ty jsi můj care of you. I am your chaperone, and praktikant, což v tomto případě znamená you are my apprentice, a word which „člověk, který pro mne pracuje a dělá here means ‘person who works under naprosto všechno, co si usmyslím.““ me and does absolutely everything I tell him to do.’” „Kaji se,“ řekl jsem, „což v tomto “I’m contrite,” I said, “a word which případě znamená – “ here means—” „Už jsi říkal, že se omlouváš,“ přerušila “You already said you were sorry,” S. mne P. Theodora Marksonová. Theodora Markson said. “Don’t repeat „Neopakuj se. Nejenže to je monotónní, yourself. It’s not only repetitive, it’s je to nadbytečné a zníš jako prasklá redundant, and people have heard it deska. Není to slušné. Není to rozumné. before.It’s not proper. It’s not sensible. I Jmenuji se P. Theodora Marksonová. am S. Theodora Markson. You may call Můžeš mi říkat Theodora nebo me Theodora or Markson. You are my Marksonová. Ty jsi můj praktikant. apprentice. You work under me, and Budeš pro mě pracovat a na slovo mě you will do everything I tell you to do. I poslouchat. Já ti budu říkat Snicket. will call you Snicket. There is no easy Trénovat praktikanta není snadné. Budu way to train an apprentice. My two k tomu používat dva nástroje – půjdu ti tools are example and nagging. I will příkladem a budu tě sekýrovat. Ukážu ti, show you what it is I do, and then I will co je náplní mé práce, a pak ti řeknu, tell you to do other things yourself. Do abys jiné věci zařídil sám. Srozuměno?“ you understand?” „Co znamená to P?“ “What’s the S stand for?”

„Přestaň mi klást špatné otázky,“ “Stop asking the wrong questions,” she odvětila a nastartovala motor. „Asi si replied, and started the engine. “You myslíš, že víš všechno, Snickete. Nejspíš probably think you know everything, jsi pyšný, žes dokázal dokončit výcvik a Snicket. You are probably very proud of utéct záchodovým okénkem za pět a půl yourself for graduating, and for minuty. Ale ve skutečnosti nevíš vůbec managing to sneak out of a bathroom nic.“ window in five and a half minutes. But you know nothing.” P. Theodora Marksonová sejmula jednu S. Theodora Markson took one of her ruku v rukavici z volantu a natáhla se gloved hands off the steering wheel and k palubní desce kabrioletu. Teprve tehdy reached up to the dashboard of the jsem si všiml, že na ní stojí šálek čaje, ze roadster. I noticed for the first time a kterého se stále ještě kouřilo. Na šálku teacup, still steaming. The side of the cup bylo ze strany napsáno HEMLOCK. read HEMLOCK.

„Nejspíš sis ani nevšiml, že jsem ti “You probably didn’t even notice I took zkonfiskovala čaj, Snickete,“ řekla, your tea, Snicket,” she said, and then natáhla se přese mě a vychrstla čaj reached across me and dumped the tea z okna. Ze země se začalo kouřit a my out the window. It steamed on the jsme po několik vteřin sledovali, jak ground, and for a few seconds we uličkou stoupá prapodivný obláček watched an eerie cloud rise into the air of dýmu. Voněl sladce a nebezpečně, jako the alley. The smell was sweet and exotická květina. wrong, like a dangerous flower. „Laudánum,“ vysvětlila mi. „Je to opiát, “Laudanum,” she said. “It’s an opiate. léčidlo s uspávacími účinky.“ Otočila se It’s a medicament. It’s a sleeping a poprvé mi pohlédla do očí. Pomyslel draught.” She turned and looked at me jsem si, že vypadá docela příjemně, ale for the first time. She looked pleasant nahlas bych jí to neřekl. Vypadala jako enough, I would say, though I wouldn’t žena, která má plné ruce práce, na což say it to her. She looked like a woman jsem spoléhal. with a great deal to do, which is what I was counting on.

„Po třech hltech bys začal být omámený, “Three sips of that and you would have což v tomto případě znamená, že bys been incoherent, a word which here blábolil nesmysly a nevěděl o sobě. means mumbling crazy talk and nearly Nikdy bys nenastoupil na svůj vlak, unconscious. You never would have Snickete. Tví rodiče by tě odtamtud caught that train, Snicket. Your parents odvlekli někam jinam, na místo, kde bys would have hurried you out of that place rozhodně nechtěl být.“ and taken you someplace else, someplace I assure you that you do not want to be.”

Dým se rozplynul, ale já dál zíral z okna. The cloud disappeared, but I kept staring Připadal jsem si v té uličce docela sám. at it. I felt all alone in the alley. If I had Kdybych býval vypil svůj čaj, nikdy drunk my tea, I never would have been bych do toho kabrioletu nenastoupil, a in that roadster, and if I had not been in kdybych do něj nikdy nenastoupil, nikdy that roadster, I never would have ended bych neskončil na špatném stromě, up falling into the wrong tree, or walking nikdy bych nevkročil do špatného into the wrong basement, or destroying sklepení, nezničil bych špatnou the wrong library, or finding all the other knihovnu a nenašel bych špatné wrong answers to the wrong questions I odpovědi na všechny špatné otázky, was asking. She was right, S. Theodora které jsem si kladl. P. Theodora Markson. There was no one to take care Marksonová měla pravdu. Nikdo se o mě of me. I was hungry. I shut the door of nepostará. Měl jsem hlad. Zabouchl jsem the car and looked her in the eye. dveře kabrioletu a pohlédl jí do očí. „To nebyli moji rodiče,“ řekl jsem jí a “Those weren’t my parents,” I said, and vyrazili jsme. off we went.

KAPITOLA DRUHÁ CHAPTER TWO Pokud požádáte toho správného If you ask the right librarian and you get knihovníka a ten vám donese tu the right map, you can find the small dot správnou mapu, najdete na ní drobnou of a town called Stain’d-by-the-Sea, skvrnku představující Inkoustové about half a day’s drive from the city. přístaviště zhruba půl dne cesty od But the town is actually nowhere near the města. Inkoustové přístaviště ve sea but instead at the end of a long, skutečnosti není blízko moře, ale na bumpy road that has no name which is konci dlouhé, neudržované cesty, jejíž on no map you can find. I know this jméno vám žádná mapa neprozradí. because it was in Stain’d-by-the-Sea that Tohle všechno vím, protože jsem svou I spent my apprenticeship, and not in the praxi strávil právě tam, nikoliv ve městě, city, where I thought it would be. I did jak jsem předpokládal. Že to tak nebude, not know this until S. Theodora Markson mi došlo, až když P. Theodora drove the roadster past the train station Marksonová prosvištěla kolem without even slowing down. vlakového nádraží. „My nejedeme vlakem?“, zeptal jsem se. “Aren’t we taking the train?” I asked. „To je další špatná otázka,“ odpověděla “That’s another wrong question,” she mi. „Už jsem ti říkala, že došlo ke změně said. “I told you there’s been a change of plánu. Realita je někde jinde. To je plans. The map is not the territory. That’s výraz, který v tomto případě znamená, an expression which means the world že svět a naše představy o něm se liší.“ does not match the picture in our heads.” „Myslel jsem, že budeme pracovat na “I thought we were working across druhé straně města.“ town.” „Přesně o tom mluvím, Snickete. Myslel “That’s exactly what I mean, Snicket. sis, že budeme pracovat na druhé straně You thought we were working across města, ale my ve městě nebudeme town, but we are not working in the city pracovat vůbec.“ at all.”

Měl jsem pocit, jako by mi žaludek klesl My stomach fell to the floor of the car, až na podlahu auta, které povážlivě which rattled as we took a sharp turn zarachotilo, když jsme ostře zabočili a around a construction site. A team of projeli kolem staveniště. Skupinka workers were digging up the street to dělníků tam hloubila jámu, do které měla start work on the Fountain of Victorious být vsazena Fontána finančního triumfu. Finance. Následujícího dne, bylo-li by možné, Tomorrow, if it were possible for an aby se novopečený praktikant odkradl na apprentice to sneak away for lunch, I was oběd, jsem se tam měl s někým sejít. supposed to meet someone right there, in Společně jsme chtěli změřit, jak přesně hopes of measuring how deep the hole je ta jáma hluboká. Pro tento účel jsem si was that they were digging. I’d managed opatřil zbrusu nový, velmi dlouhý to acquire a new measuring tape for just svinovací metr, který se po stisknutí that purpose, one that stretched out a tlačítka spěšně stáhl zpět do svého very long distance and then scurried pouzdra s uspokojivým cvaknutím. To back into its holder with a satisfying pouzdro bylo ve tvaru netopýra a páska click. The holder was shaped like a bat, metru byla červená, takže to vypadalo, and the tape measure was red, as if the jako by ten netopýr měl velmi dlouhý bat had a very long tongue. I realized I jazyk. Uvědomil jsem si, že ho už nikdy would never see it again. neuvidím. „Nechal jsem si kufr na nádraží,“ řekl “My suitcase,” I said, “is at the train jsem. station.” „Pořídila jsem ti nějaké šaty,“ odvětila “I purchased some clothes for you,” Theodora a hlavou v helmě pokynula Theodora said, and tilted her helmeted směrem k zadnímu sedadlu, na kterém head toward the backseat, where I saw a ležel malý, potlučený kufřík. „Sdělili mi small, bruised suitcase. “I was given tvé míry, tak by ti snad všechno mělo your measurements, so hopefully they sedět. Pokud ne, budeš muset buďto fit. If they don’t, you will have to either přibrat a vyrůst nebo zhubnout a zmenšit lose or gain weight or height. They’re se. Jsou to tuctové, obyčejné šaty. unremarkable clothes. The idea is not to Chceme být nenápadní.“ attract attention.”

Pomyslel jsem si, že mít na sobě I thought that wearing clothes either oblečení, které je mi příliš velké či too big or too small for me would be malé, by pravděpodobně poutalo likely to attract attention, and I značnou pozornost a vrátil jsem se thought of the small stack of books I v myšlenkách k malé hromádce had tucked next to the bat. One of knih, které jsem schoval vedle them was very important. It was a netopýřího metru. Jedna z nich byla history of the city’s underground nadmíru důležitá a pojednávala o sewer system. I had planned to take a historii městského kanalizačního few notes on chapter 5 of the book, systému. Plánoval jsem si cestou na on the train across town. When I druhou stranu města udělat výpisky disembarked at Bellamy Station, I z páté kapitoly. Po vystoupení na would crumple the notes into a ball Bellamyho stanici bych je zmuchlal and toss them to my associate a hodil své společnici, aniž by mě without being seen. někdo viděl. Měla na mě čekat u stojanu na She would be standing at the časopisy před Bellamyho magazine rack at Bellamy Books. It knihkupectvím. Všechno jsme to was all mapped out, but now the naplánovali, ale realita teď byla territory was different. She would někde jinde. Moje společnice tam read magazines for hours before bude celé hodiny listovat catching her own train to her own v magazínech, než nastoupí na svůj apprenticeship, but then what would vlastní vlak, který ji odveze vstříc její she do? What would I do? I scowled praxi, ale co udělá poté? Co budu out the window and asked myself dělat já? Mračil jsem se z okna a these and other hopeless questions. kladl si tyto beznadějné otázky a celou řadu dalších. „Už tam budeme?“ zeptal jsem se “Are we there yet?” I asked s nadějí v hlase, ačkoliv každý ví, že hopefully, although everyone knows na to by se člověk řidiče ptát neměl. that is the wrong question to ask the driver of a car.

„Kam to jedeme?“ zkusil jsem tedy “Where are we going?” I tried místo toho, ale Theodora chvilku instead, but for a moment Theodora neodpovídala. Kousala si ret, jako by did not answer. She was biting her ji také něco zklamalo, tak jsem zkusil lip, as if she were also disappointed ještě jednu otázka, která by jí mohla about something, so I tried one more zvednout náladu. „Co znamená to question that I thought she might like P?“ better. “What does the S stand for?” „Pryč odsud,“ řekla a měla pravdu. “Someplace else,” she replied, and it Netrvalo dlouho a nechali jsme za was true. Before long we had passed sebou čtvrť, pak okrsek, a nakonec i out of the neighborhood, and then celé město. Jeli jsme po klikaté out of the district, and then out of the silničce plné zákrut a já si děkoval za city altogether and were driving to, že jsem snídal jen velmi lehce. along a very twisty road that made Vzduch podivně páchnul, a tak jsme me grateful I had eaten little. The air museli vytáhnout okénka. Zdálo se, had such a curious smell that we had že se blíží déšť. Zíral jsem z okna a to close the windows of the roadster, sledoval, jak se připozdívá. and it looked like rain. I stared out the window and watched the day grow later. Cestou jsme potkali jen pár Few cars were on the road, but all of automobilů, ale všechny byly them were in better shape than v lepším stavu než ten Theodořin. Theodora’s. Twice I almost fell Dvakrát jsem málem usnul, zatímco asleep thinking of places and people jsem vzpomínal na místa a lidi ve in the city that were dearly important městě, kteří mi byli velmi drazí, a to me, and the distance between them kteří se mi stále více vzdalovali, and myself growing and growing dokud jsme od sebe nebyli tak until the distance grew so vast that daleko, že by ani netopýr s tím even the longest-tongued bat in the nejdelším jazykem na světě world could not lick the life I was nedokázal olíznout život, který jsem leaving behind. nechával za sebou.

Z myšlenek mne vytrhl nějaký nový A new sound rattled me out of my zvuk. Hrbolatá cesta pod koly thoughts. The road had become automobilu začala zvláštně praskat. rough and crackly under the Theodora nás vezla dolů z kopce, vehicle’s wheels as Theodora took us který byl tak strmý a dlouhý, že jsem down a hill so steep and long I could skrz špinavá okna automobilu not see the bottom of it through the nedokázal dohlédnout na jeho konec. roadster’s dirty windows. „Jedeme po lasturách,“ vysvětlila mi “We’re driving on seashells,” my moje instruktorka. „Tenhle poslední chaperone said in explanation. “This úsek cesty jsou samé lastury a last part of the journey is all seashells oblázky.“ and stones.” „Proč by někdo dláždil silnici “Who would pave a road like that?” lasturami?“ „Špatná otázka, Snickete,“ “Wrong question, Snicket,” she odpověděla. „Tohle není silnice a replied. “Nobody paved it, and it’s nikdo ji nedláždil. Celé tohle údolí not really a road. This entire valley bývalo pod vodou. Odvodnili ho již used to be underwater. It was drained před lety. Asi už vidíš, že by bylo some years back. You can see why it dočista nemožné jet sem vlakem.“ would be absolutely impossible to take the train.” V té chvíli kdesi zahoukala píšťala. A whistle blew right then. I decided Rozhodl jsem se raději nic neříkat. not to say anything. Theodora glared Theodora po mě i přesto střelila at me anyway and then frowned out zlostným pohledem a pak se the window. A distance away was the zamračila z okna. V dálce před námi hurried, slender shape of a long train, přes údolí, kterým jsme se kodrcali, balancing high above the bumpy uháněl dlouhý, štíhlý vlak. valley where we were driving.

Koleje byly posazené na dlouhém, The train tracks were on a long, high vysokém mostě, který se klenul ze bridge, which curved out from the břehu a končil na ostrově, který teď shore to reach an island that was now byl jen horou kamení, tyčící se just a mountain of stones rising out z odvodněného údolí. Theodora of the drained valley. Theodora zatočila směrem k ostrovu a když turned the roadster toward the island, jsme se blížili, rozeznal jsem v dáli and as we approached I could see a několik budov – omšelá, cihlová group of buildings—faded brick stavení obehnaná omšelou, cihlovou buildings enclosed by a faded brick zdí. Snad škola, či sídlo nějaké nudné wall. A school, per-haps, or the estate rodiny. Kdysi ty budovy mohly být of a dull family. The buildings had elegantní, ale teď bylo mnoho oken once been elegant, but many of the roztříštěných a zelo prázdnotou a windows were shattered and gone, nikde nebylo ani živáčka. Zrovna and there were no signs of life. I was jsme projížděli pod mostem, když surprised to hear, just as the roadster mě překvapilo hluboké dunění zvonu passed directly under the bridge, the z cihlové věže, která se smutně a low, loud clanging of a bell, from a opuštěně zdvihala z haldy kamení. high brick tower that looked abandoned and sad on a pile of rocks. Theodora si odkašlala. „Za tebou by Theodora cleared her throat. “There měly být dvě masky.“ should be two masks behind you.” „Masky?“ “Masks?” I said. „Neopakuj po mně, Snickete. Jsi “Don’t repeat what I say, Snicket. praktikant, ne papoušek. Na zadním You are an apprentice, not a mynah sedadle jsou dvě masky. Budeme je bird. There are two masks on the potřebovat.“ backseat. We need them.” Sáhl jsem dozadu a našel je, ale I reached back and found the items in chvíli jsem na ně jen hleděl, než jsem question but had to stare at them for našel kuráž je uchopit. a moment before I found the courage to pick them up.

Obě masky, jedna pro dospělého a . The two masks, one for an adult and jedna dětská, byly vyrobeny ze one for a child, were fashioned from stříbřitého, lesklého kovu a zezadu se a shiny silver metal, with a tangle of na nich proplétaly gumové trubičky a rubber tubes and filters on the back. filtry. Zepředu byly opatřeny úzkými On the front were narrow slits for the štěrbinami na oči a drobnou vlnkou eyes and a small ripple underneath na nos. Ústa na nich vyznačená for the nose. There was nothing nebyla, a ony na mne tiše a přízračně where a mouth might be, so the faces pohlížely, jako by byly toho názoru, of the masks looked at me silently že celá tahle cesta byla otřesný and spookily, as if they thought this nápad. whole journey was a bad idea. „Zcela souhlasím,“ přitakal jsem. “I absolutely agree,” I told them. Theodora se zamračila. “Zvonění Theodora frowned. “That bell means hrany signalizuje, že si máme nasadit we should don these masks. ‘Don’ is masky. “Hrana” v tomto případě a word which here means ‘put on our znamená “zvon”. Když si je heads.’ The pressure at this depth nenasadíme, bude se nám v tomto will make it difficult to breathe tlaku bude těžko dýchat.” otherwise.” „Jaký je tu tlak?“ “Pressure?” „Vodní tlak, Snickete. Je všude “Water pressure, Snicket. It’s kolem nás. To, že budeš mít masku, everywhere around us. Masked or neznamená, že přestaneš používat not, you must use your head.” hlavu.“ Hlava mi řekla, že nerozumí tomu, My head told me it didn’t understand jak nás může obklopovat vodní tlak. how there could be water pressure Nebyla tu žádná voda. Uvažoval everywhere around us. There wasn’t jsem, kam se všechna ta voda poděla, any water. I wondered where all the když tuto část moře odvodňovali, a water had gone when they’d drained měl jsem nad tím uvažovat déle this part of the sea, and I should have wondered. “

Ale řekl jsem si, že to je špatná But I told myself it was the wrong otázka, a tak jsem se raději zeptal na question and asked something else něco jiného. „Proč to udělali? Proč instead. “Why did they do this? Why celé tohle údolí odvodnili?“ did they drain the sea of its water?”

P. Theodora Marksonová si ode mě S. Theodora Markson took one mask vzala jednu z masek a nasadila si ji from my hands and slipped it onto přes helmu. „Aby zachránili město,“ her helmeted head. “To save the odpověděla tlumeným hlasem. town,” she replied in a muffled „Nasaď si tu masku, Snickete.“ voice. “Put your mask on, Snicket.”

Poslechl jsem ji. Vnitřek masky byl I did as Theodora said. The mask temný a linul se z něj odér, který was dark inside and smelled faintly matně připomínal jeskyni, nebo like a cave or a closet that had not skříň, kterou dlouho nikdo neotevřel. been opened in some time. A few Před ústy se mi tísnilo několik tubes huddled in front of my mouth, trubiček jako červi před rybou. like worms in front of a fish.

Zamrkal jsem skrz škvíry pro oči na I blinked behind the slits at Theodoru a ona zamrkala na mne. Theodora, who blinked back. „Funguje ta maska?“ zeptala se. “Is the mask working?” she asked me. „Jak se to pozná?“ “How can I tell?” „Jestli můžeš dýchat, tak funguje.“ “If you can breathe, then it’s working.” Neřekl jsem jí, že dýchat jsem mohl i I did not say that I had been předtím. Mou pozornost upoutalo breathing previously. Something něco zajímavějšího. Z okna jsem more interesting had attracted my spatřil veliké sudy, stařičké, zaoblené attention. Out the window of the a vyřádkované vedle podivných, roadster I saw a line of big barrels, obrovských strojů, které vypadaly round and old, squatting uncovered jako gigantické injekční stříkačky, next to some odd, enormous machines. The machines looked like huge hypodermic needles,

jako kdyby tam lékař plánoval as if a doctor were planning on očkování nějakého obra. Tu a tam se giving several shots to a giant. Here mezi nimi pohybovali lidé – and there were people—men or v maskách se nedalo poznat, zda women, it was impossible to tell in muži či ženy – a kontrolovali, zda vše their masks—checking on the funguje, jak má. Zdálo se, že ano. needles to make sure they were Jehly se nořily mezi lastury hluboko working properly. They were. With do země, doprovázeny otáčením a swinging of hinges and a turning of pantů a ozubených kol a zase se gears, the needles plunged deep into vracely na povrch, plné černočerné holes in the shell-covered ground kapaliny. Tu pak tiše vypustily do and then rose up again, full of a black přichystaných sudů a opět zajely do liquid. The needles deposited the děr v zemi, znovu a zas a znovu, liquid, with a quiet black splash, into zatímco jsem je sledoval škvírami ve the barrels and then plunged back své masce. into the holes, over and over again while I watched through the slits in my mask. „Ropa,“ zkusil jsem si tipnout. “Oil,” I guessed. „Inkoust,“ opravila mne Theodora. “Ink,” Theodora corrected. “The „Tohle městečko se jmenuje town is called Stain’d-by-the-Sea. Inkoustové přístaviště. Přístaviště už Of course, it is no longer by the sea, to samozřejmě není, protože as they’ve drained it away. But the odvodnili moře. Ale stále se tu těží town still manufactures ink that was inkoust, který byl kdysi proslulý tím, once famous for making the darkest, že dělal ty nejčernější, nejhůře most permanent stains.” vypratelné skvrny.“ „A ten je v těch dírách v zemi?“ “And the ink is in those holes?” „Ty díry jsou hluboké, úzké sluje,“ “Those holes are long, narrow vysvětlovala Theodora. caves,” Theodora said.

„Něco jako studny. A v těch slujích “Like wells. And in the caves are žijí chobotnice. Od nich se bere ten octopi. That’s where the ink comes inkoust.“ from.” Vzpomněl jsem si na svou známou, I thought of a friend of mine who had která také nedávno dokončila výcvik also just graduated, a girl who knew a věděla toho spoustu o podmořském about all sorts of underwater life. “I životě. „Myslel jsem, že chobotnice thought octopi make ink only when produkují inkoust jen tehdy, když they are frightened.” jsou vyděšené.“ „Ano, domnívám se, že každá “I imagine an octopus would find chobotnice je z těch strojů vyděšená those machines very frightening k smrti,“ přitakala Theodora a indeed,” Theodora said, and she odbočila na úzkou lasturovou stezku, turned the roadster onto a narrow která stoupala vzhůru po úpatí strmé, path in the shells that twisted rozeklané hory. Z jejího vrcholu upward, climbing a steep and craggy v tom šedivém odpoledni matně mountain. At its peak, I could see a pulzovalo sotva patrné světlo. Po faint, pulsing light through the chvíli mi došlo, že to je maják na afternoon gray. It took me a minute útesu, který se kdysi pnul nad to realize that it was a lighthouse, mořskou hladinou a teď už jen which stood on a cliff that dohlížel na tu nesmírnou, přízračnou overlooked what had been waves and krajinu. Zatímco Theodořin water and was now just a vast, eerie automobil prskal do svahu, uviděl landscape. As the roadster sputtered jsem z okna po její straně další up the hill, I looked out the windows prazvláštní výjev naproti on Theodora’s side and saw that inkoustovým slujím. opposite the inkwells was another strange sight. „Chaluhový hvozd,“ řekla Theodora “The Clusterous Forest,” Theodora ještě, než jsem se stačil zeptat. said, before I could even ask.

„Když tu vysušili moře, lidé si “When they drained the sea, mysleli, že zdejší řasy seschnou a everyone thought all of the seaweed zahynou. Ale podle mých zdrojů se would shrivel up and die. But my ty chaluhy z nějakého záhadného information says that for some důvodu naučily přežít na souši, a mysterious reason, the seaweed vyrostl tu obrovský les mořských řas, learned to grow on dry land, and now který se táhne na kilometry daleko. for miles and miles there is an Nikdy se k němu nepřibližuj, enormous forest of seaweed. Never Snickete. Je to divoké, nehostinné go in there, Snicket. It is a wild and místo, nebezpečné pro člověka i lawless place, not fit for man or zvěř.“ beast.” Nemusela mi říkat, že se tam nemám She did not have to tell me not to go přibližovat. Už jen ten pohled sám o into the Clusterous Forest. It was sobě byl děsivý. Spíše než les mi to frightening enough just to look at it. připomínalo nekonečnou masu It was less like a forest and more like křovisek a lesklých listů chaluh, an endless mass of shrubbery, with které se zmítaly všemi směry, jako the shiny leaves of the seaweed by stále byly pod rozbouřenými twisting this way and that, as if the vlnami. Dokonce i přes zavřená okna plants were still under churning jsem cítil slaný zápach rybiny a water. Even with the windows shut, I půdy, který se z hvozdu linul, a could smell the forest, a brackish slyšel šustění tisícovek stébel scent of fish and soil, and I could mořských řas, které nějakým hear the rustling of thousands of způsobem přežívaly i na pevnině. strands of seaweed that had somehow survived the draining of the sea.

Když automobil konečně dosáhl The bell rang again as the roadster vrcholu kopce, ohlásilo další zvonění finally reached the top of the hill, zvonu konec poplachu. signaling the all-clear.

Sundali jsme si masky a Theodora We removed our masks, and najela na dlážděnou silnici, která se Theodora steered the car onto an vinula podél mrkajícího majáku a actual paved road that wound past dolů z kopce posetého stromy. the blinking lighthouse and down a Minuli jsme malou, bílou chatku a hill lined with trees. We passed a zastavili na příjezdové cestě u sídla small white cottage and then came to tak velikého, že vypadalo jako a stop at the driveway of a mansion několik sídel dohromady. Některé so large it looked like several jeho části připomínaly hrad, s mansions had crashed together. Parts vysokými věžemi, které se tyčily of it looked like a castle, with several vysoko do oblak, a jiné spíše stan tall towers stretching high into the z šedivého, těžkého plátna, cloudy air, and parts of it looked like táhnoucího se nad zdobnou zahradou a tent, with heavy gray cloth plnou fontánek a soch, a jinde to zase stretched over an ornate garden vyhlíželo jako muzeum se strohým crawling with fountains and statues, hlavním vchodem a oknem, které se and parts of it looked more like a táhlo do dáli. Kdysi z něj musel být museum, with a severe front door překrásný výhled na vlny, které se and a long, long stretch of window. dole tříštily o útesy. The view from the window must have been very pretty once, with the waves crashing below the cliffs.

Teď již překrásný nebyl. Pohlédl It wasn’t pretty anymore. I looked jsem dolů a spatřil jen Chaluhový down and saw the top of the hvozd, líně se vlnící jako nějaké Clusterous Forest, moving in slow děsivé prádlo na šňůře, a v dálce ripples like spooky laundry hung out jehly, šplíchající inkoust do to dry, and the distant sight of the připravených sudů. needles spilling ink into the waiting barrels.

Theodora zabrzdila, vystoupila Theodora braked and got out of the z auta, protáhla se a sundala si car, stretched, and took off her rukavice a koženou helmu. gloves and her leather helmet.

Konečně jsem si mohl pořádně I finally had a good look at her long, prohlédnout její dlouhé, husté thick hair, which was almost as kadeře, což byl úkaz skoro strange a sight as everything I had podivnější než to, co jsem měl šanci seen on the way. I needed a haircut, vidět cestou. Sám jsem nutně but S. Theodora Markson made me potřeboval ostříhat, ale vedle P. look bald. Her hair stretched out Theodory Marksonové jsem vypadal every which way from her head in prakticky holohlavý. Vlasy jí čněly long, curly rows, like a waterfall do všech stran v dlouhých kudrnách, made from tangled yarn. It was very jako vodopád zašmodrchané vlny na hard to listen to her while it was in pletení. Bylo velmi těžké soustředit front of me. se na to, co mi říká. „Poslouchej dobře, Snickete,“ “Listen to me, Snicket,” my oslovila mne má instruktorka. „Jsi chaperone said. “You are on v podmínce. Nejsem si jistá, zda tě probation. Your penchant for asking chci učit, protože máš tendenci být too many questions and for general drzý a klást mi všetečné otázky. rudeness makes me reluctant to keep Slovo „tendence“ v tomto případě you. ‘Penchant’ is a word which here znamená zvyk.“ means habit.” „Já vím, co to je tendence.“, řekl “I know what penchant means,” I jsem. said. „Přesně o tom mluvím,“ odpověděla “That is exactly what I’m talking Theodora příkře a rychle si projela about,” Theodora said sternly, and vlasy rukou ve snaze je zkrotit, což quickly ran her fingers through her bylo stejně nemožné, jako snažit se hair in an attempt to tame it. It was zkrotit pijavice. „V tomto sídle žije impossible to tame, like leeches. náš první klient. Za chvíli se s ním “Our first client lives here, and we poprvé setkáme. Mluvení omezíš na are meeting with him for the first minimum a necháš mě dělat, co time. You are to speak as little as umím. possible and let me do the work.

Ve své práci jsem excelentní, a I am very excellent at my job, and můžeš se toho ode mě mnohé you will learn a great deal as long as naučit, pokud budeš držet jazyk za you keep quiet and remember you zuby a budeš mít na paměti, že jsi are merely an apprentice. Do you pouhý praktikant. Rozumíš mi?“ understand?” Rozuměl jsem jí. Krátce před I understood. Shortly before ukončením výcviku mi dali seznam graduation I’d been given a list of lidi, u kterých bych mohl absolvovat people with whom I could svou praxi. Byli seřazeni podle apprentice, ranked by their success svých úspěchů v nejrůznějších in their various endeavors. There aktivitách. Na tom seznamu bylo were fifty-two chaperones on the dvaapadesát instruktorů. P. list. S. Theodora Markson was Theodora Marksonová se umístila ranked fifty-second. She was wrong. na padesátém druhém místě. Pletla She was not excellent at her job, and se. Ve své práci nebyla excelentní, a this was why I wanted to be her přesně proto jsem chtěl být jejím apprentice. The map was not the praktikantem. Ale realita byla jinde. territory. I had pictured working as Představoval jsem si, že budu an apprentice in the city, where I pracovat ve městě, kde budu would have been able to complete a schopen dokončit nesmírně důležitý very important task with someone I úkol s člověkem, kterému jsem could absolutely trust. But the world bezvýhradně věřil. Ale svět a má did not match the picture in my představa o něm se lišily, a já místo head, and instead I was with a toho skončil s podivnou, strange, uncombed person, neučesanou osobou na útesu nad overlooking a sea without water and mořem bez vody a lesem bez a forest without trees. stromů. Následoval jsem Theodoru po I followed Theodora along the příjezdové cestě a po dlouhém driveway and up a long set of brick cihlovém schodišti ke hlavnímu stairs to the front door, where she vchodu, kde šestkrát za sebou rang the doorbell six times in a row. zazvonila na zvonek.

Zdálo se mi to jako špatná činnost u It felt like the wrong thing to do, špatných dveří a na špatném místě. standing at the wrong door in the Přesto jsme to udělali. To, že něco wrong place. We did it anyway. uděláte, i když dobře víte, že to je Knowing that something is wrong špatně, se v životě děje velmi často a and doing it anyway happens very pochybuji, že někdy zjistím, proč often in life, and I doubt I will ever tomu tak je. know why.

3. The Academic Analysis 3.1. Proper names, geographical names Vlastní jméno možno přeložit, pokud má hodnotu jen významovou. […] Když se význam ztratí úplně, pak je možný jen přepis, tj. zachování jména v cizím znění. (Levý, p. 116)

Exotismus, tj. vlastně převzetí slova z výchozího jazyka buď beze změny nebo přizpůsobeně cílové výslovnosti či pravopisu. (Knittlová, p. 28)

Jestliže ekvivalent v Cj neexistuje, je třeba řešit případy tzv. nulové ekvivalence či bezekvivalentní lexiky. (Knittlová, p. 84)

K převzetí dochází především u jmen a zeměpisných názvů. (Knittlová, p. 85)

Considering the fact, that the geography of the world from Lemony Snicket’s books is for the most part entirely fictional and that the various geographical terms are very often used both as a name and a descriptive of the places in question, I was forced to translate most of them to ensure as complete understanding as possible, especially since this is children’s literature. This is a similar approach to the one Petr Hejný has chosen when translating the original series. However, as mentioned before, I wanted to retain the alliteration on a more frequent basis than he did, considering it is one of the most important and distinguishing features of the books. The examples of my translation can be found below.

3.1.1. Stain’d-by-the-Sea If you ask the right librarian and you get the right map, you can find the small dot of a town called Stain’d-by-the-Sea, about half a day’s drive from the city. (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 17)

Pokud požádáte toho správného knihovníka a ten vám donese tu správnou mapu, najdete na ní drobnou skvrnku představující Inkoustové přístaviště zhruba půl dne cesty od města.

This is probably the geographical name that I spent the biggest amount of time with. Stain’d-by-the-Sea is the main location of the entire series – in fact fifty out of the fifty-two chapters of the books take place entirely in the city, so the name gets mentioned rather frequently and if I did not get the translation right, it would probably feel distracting to the reader. Originally, I was toying with the idea of retaining the highly unusual structure of the English name, but no matter how hard I tried, my efforts never amounted to anything successful or natural sounding. If we take the sentence from the top of this subchapter and try to translate the name of the town literally (“Pokud požádáte toho správného knihovníka a ten vám donese tu správnou mapu, najdete na ní dobrnou skvrnku představující Poskvrněno mořem zhruba půl dne cesty od města”). This is subjective, of course, but to me, it sounds distractingly off, and the idea of reading such a translation again and again (and the name really does get mentioned a lot) does not sound very appealing to me.

For that reason, I decided to come up with a different translation, one that would retain the idea of the name but that would sound more Czech. There are two main pieces of information that I needed to keep in my translation – the fact that the city is famous for manufacturing ink and the fact that it is (or used to be) located near the ocean. I think that the name I used in the end is successful in this regard – it provides the reader with the same information as the original while sounding a lot more natural.

3.1.2. S. Theodora Markson “I am S. Theodora Markson,” she said. (Snicket, p. 10)

“Jsem P. Theodora Marksonová,” oznámila mi.

This is another issue that I spent a lot of time with. I was originally reluctant to change the initials of one of the main characters of the story, but in the end, it felt like the correct solution. The reason for this is simple: as can already be seen in the first two chapters of “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, Theodora’s first name is presented as something of a running joke – at the end of the first chapter when Lemony asks her what the S. stands for, she does not answer him and instead says something else – and that answer also begins with the letter “s”. This setup is repeated frequently enough in the books that I had to take it into consideration and eventually I changed the initial S.

47 to P., because it was easier to come up with Theodora’s answers. What also helped me to decide to go through with the change is the fact that Theodora’s first name is never revealed in full in any of the books, and therefore I could not get into a situation where I would have to come up with an entirely new first name for the character – something, which I feel would perhaps be too big a change. Below, there can be found some examples of the running joke, not just from the first two chapters of the first book, but from the later ones as well.

“I will show you what it is I do, and then I will tell you to do other things yourself. Do you understand?” “What’s the S stand for? “Stop asking the wrong questions,” she replied and started the engine. (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour, p. 13) “Ukážu ti, co je náplní mé práce, a pak ti řeknu, abys jiné věci zařídil sám. Srozuměno?” “Co znamená to P?” “Přestaň mi klást špatné otázky,” odvětila a nastartovala motor.

“…so I tried one more question that I thought she might like better. “What does the S stand for?” “Someplace else,” she replied, and it was true.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 21) …tak jsem zkusil ještě jednu otázku, která by jí mohla zvednout náladu. “Co znamená to P?” “Pryč odsud,” řekla a měla pravdu.

“Charming boy,” she said, and then frowned again at Theodora. “What does the S stand for?” “Standing next to me is my apprentice,” Theodora said, and handed the old woman an envelope. (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 39) “Okouzlující chlapec,” odvětila a znovu se zaškaredila na Theodoru. “Co znamená to P?” “Po mé pravici stojí můj praktikant,” řekla Theodora a podala té stařeně obálku.”

“That reminds me,” I said. “What does the S stand for?” “Silly boy,” she said with a shake of her head, and pulled the car to a stop. (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 65)

“To mi připomíná,” řekl jsem. “Co znamená to P?” “Prostoduchý chlapče,” zavrtěla hlavou a zabrzdila.

“S. Theodora Markson does not need to explain anything to anybody,” she said. “What does the S stand for?” I asked. “Silence,” she hissed, and the door opened to reveal two identical faces and a familiar scent. (Snicket, “When Did You See Her Last?”, p. 18)

“P. Theodora Marksonová nikomu nemusí nic vysvětlovat,”, vysvětlila mi. “Co znamená to P?” zeptal jsem se. “Potichu,” poručila mi, načež se dveře otevřely a odhalily dva identické obličeje a povědomou vůni.

I faced my chaperone, S. Theodora Markson. “Tell me what the S stands for.” “Such a tone!” she said, in such a tone. “Not proper, Snicket. Be sensible.” (Snicket, “When Did You See Her Last?”, p. 267-268)

Otočil jsem se ke své instruktorce čelem. “Řekněte mi, co znamená to P.” “Podobný tón si vyprošuji,” řekla podobným tónem. “Není tu slušné, Snickete. Měj rozum.”

“There are questions that S. Theodora Markson needs to have answered.” “What does the S stand for?” I asked. Theodora glared at me. “Smart,” she said. “You’re a smart boy, Snicket…” (Snicket, “Shouldn’t You Be in School?”, p. 24)

“Jsou tu jisté otázky a P. Theodora Marksonová na ně potřebuje odpovědi.” “Co znamená to P?” zeptal jsem se. Theodora mě probodla pohledem. “Přece nejsi hloupý,” řekla. “Jsi chytrý chlapec, Snickete…”

“Lemony Snicket,” she said to me. “What are you doing?” “S. Theodora Markson,” I said. “What does the S stand for?” She frowned at me and at the Mitchums. “Surely there’s an explanation for this,” she said. (Snicket, “Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?”, p. 282-283)

“Lemony Snickete,” naléhala. “Co to provádíš?” “P. Theodoro Marksonová,” odvětil jsem. “Co znamená to P?” Zamračila se na mě a na strážníky Mitchumovy. “Pro tohle jistě existuje nějaké vysvětlení,” hlesla.

3.1.3. The Clusterous Forest “The Clusterous Forest,” Theodora said, before I could even ask. (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour, p. 28)

“Chaluhový hvozd,” řekla Theodora ještě, než jsem se stačil zeptat.

In the case of The Clusterous Forest, there was a number of translations I was toying with, some more literal, some less. Very early on I decided to translate the word “forest” as “hvozd” instead of “les”, because it seemed more colorful and poetic and much better fitting to the image of “an endless mass of shrubbery”30 described in the book. I spent a considerably longer period of time with “clusterous” because none of the literal translations seemed to convey the image I had in my mind. I discarded “Hroznovitý hvozd” and “Chuchvalcový hvozd” pretty much immediately, because they did not seem ominous enough – especially “Hroznovitý hvozd” sounds like a downright pleasant place to visit. I liked “Trsovitý hvozd” a bit more, but in the end, I decided that it sounded a bit clumsy, and what is more important, too general – I was not sure if it conveyed the image of the forest well enough for the reader. For that

30 Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour, p. 29

50 reason, I ended up using the more specific and descriptive “Chaluhový hvozd,” even though it is not the most literal translation possible.

3.1.4. The Fountain of Victorious Finance, The Museum of Bad Breakfast …including those on exhibit at the Museum of Bad Breakfast, where visitors can learn just how badly eggs can be prepared. (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 2) …včetně těch, která jsou vystavena v Muzeu špatných snídaní, jehož návštěvníci se mohou poučit, jak příšerně se vejce dají pokazit. ______

A team of workers were digging up the street to start work on the Fountain of Victorious Finance. (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 18) Skupinka dělníků tam hloubila jámu, do které měla být vsazena Fontána finančního triumfu.

I decided to put these two names together, because it is quite clear that they both needed to be translated into Czech, otherwise the sentences would sound unnatural and important information would be lost to a non-English speaking reader. With the museum, I tweaked the name only ever so slightly, switching the noun “breakfast” from singular to plural to imply that there is more than just the one exhibit on display there, as I believe was likely implied in the original. The name of the fountain took me longer to translate. For a long time, I thought of using the very literal “Fontána vítězného finačnictví” or “Fontána vítězných finančníků” but I was not exactly thrilled with either of these choices, so I decided to go in a slightly different direction with “Fontána finančního triumfu”, which rolls off the tongue a bit easier, in addition to all three words including the letter “F” in this translation, which makes it just a touch more linguistically and stylistically interesting in my eyes. ¨

3.1.5. Hemlock Tearoom and Stationery, Bellamy Station The Hemlock Tearoom and Stationery Shop is the sort of place where the floors always feel dirty, even when they are clean. (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour, p. 2) Hemlockova kavárna a papírnictví je jedno z těch míst, kde se vám podlaha vždycky zdá špinavá, i když je zrovna zametená.

When I disembarked at Bellamy Station, I would crumple the notes into a ball and toss them to my associate without being seen. (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour, p. 20) Po vystoupení na Bellamyho stanici bych je zmuchlal a hodil své společnici, aniž by mě někdo viděl.

Similarly to the previous subchapter, these two names can be lumped together as well, because they share some characteristics, namely they are both places named after a person – we have no way of knowing who Bellamy is, but Hemlock is very likely the name of the person / family owing the store. With the shop, it was necessary to translate the name into Czech, because it immediately provides the reader with a clearer idea as to what kind of an establishment it is (and the first chapter is already confusing enough without the reader struggling to grasp where exactly it takes place). As far as the station is concerned, it probably would not be problematic to leave it untranslated (“Po vystoupení na Bellamy Station bych je zmuchlal…” does not leave a lot of room for interpretation or confusion), however considering that I ended up translating all the other geographical and proper names, it felt like a good idea to follow suit with this one as well, for the sake of uniformity.

3.1.6. Other important names from the series 3.1.6.1. The Bombinating Beast As mentioned in the initial chapter of this thesis, the statue of the Bombinating Beast is the sole reason for Snicket’s and Theodora’s presence in Stain’d-by-the-Sea and the search for it is one of the longest running storylines of the entire series spanning all four books. The reason why seemingly everyone (but especially Hangfire) seeks the statue with all their might is nebulous at first but starts to take a more concrete shape in the latter half of the series, when it is slowly revealed that there is an actual living Bombinating Beast, and the statue can be used to summon it. Considering how often it gets mentioned and how heavily both the statue and the actual Beast feature in the series climax, it once again felt like one of the more important translations to get right. Here’s how the creature is first described in the books: “According to chapter 7, the Bombinating Beast was a mythological creature, half horse and half shark—although some legends claim half alligator and half bear—that lurked in the waters just outside Stain’d-by-the-Sea. It had a great appetite for human flesh and made a terrifying bombinating sound—I had to get up from the table and find a dictionary to learn that “bombinating” was a word which here meant buzzing— when looking for prey.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 76-77) And here is the way Lemony describes first hearing the sound it made: “Then, slowly, there was something else. It began far away, far enough that at first I thought the insects had started up again, with a dull buzzing appearing in the far corners of the air. I thought of the growl I’d heard from Stew Mitchum, outside Black Cat Coffee, and then it was louder. Maybe he’d gotten better at it. Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it wasn’t anyone. I thought of the hum of the engine of the Dilemma. Maybe it was a machine. It grew louder, fiercer, chopping the air like the spinning blades of a propeller, but rougher, and wetter, so that I decided it was no machine. It was something from the earth or the sky or the sea, or from a dream or the pages of a book I wasn’t yet old enough to read, about monsters I wasn’t brave enough to face. Soon it was an immense noise that rattled everything in my body. It was the sound of being chased in a nightmare, or the blind and violent fury of a bad parent, a tantrum that deafened the ears of the living and slithered across the bones of the dead.” (Snicket, “Shouldn’t You Be in School?”, p. 219)

I am including these two lengthy passages here for a reason, because they each played a part when I was deciding how to translate the name of the mythical beast. The first thing that I really wanted to contain was the alliteration, as mentioned in one of the earlier chapters. The second important aspect to consider was to come up with an appropriate descriptor of the noise that the beast produces. It needed to be a word that does not get used extremely often, so that Lemony has a reason to check its meaning in the library dictionary. And it also needed to properly convey how terrifying the noise that the creature produces is. For those reasons I decided against my original, quite literal idea, which was to translate the name as “Bzučící bestie”. Quite plainly, “Bzučící” does not sound like a word that someone as well-read as Lemony Snicket would have to check in the dictionary. Additionally, the adjective does not sound ominous and dangerous enough, instead producing association of an annoying insect, which is decidedly not something that the Bombinating Beast should remind the reader of. For that reason I decided to abandon the original “BB” alliteration and come up with a different one, which would be better suited to what is essentially the scariest living thing in the Lemony Snicket universe. After some deliberation I decided that the translation I liked the most would be “Mručící monstrum”. “Mručící”, while not as unusual as “Bombinating” is definitely used less frequently than “bzučící”, and therefore it is not out of the realm of possibility that Lemony would have to research its meaning. Also, “mručící” as a descriptor of the sound seems like a much better fit to the excerpt from “Shouldn’t You Be in School?” and to me at least it evokes something much more dangerous, a sound that a man-eating beast of prey would make.

3.1.6.2.Hangfire Hangfire is the main antagonist of All the Wrong Questions, a masked character shrouded in mystery, whose true identity and motives are only fully revealed in the penultimate chapter of the final book. He spends the majority of the books lurking in the background, communicating with Snicket over the phone or in various disguises, and enacting his nefarious scheme to bring Stain’d-by-the-Sea to its knees. In the story he functions as a boogeyman who can be hiding anywhere and everywhere, and all the characters in the books, children and adults alike, seem to be terrified of him.

His name is also uniquely untranslatable. This is how the origin of his name is described in the third book of the series:

““Do you know why he calls himself Hangfire?” I asked. “Villains always choose spooky names,” Jake said. “It was weeks before I thought to look it up in the dictionary,” I said. “It refers to something that takes a bit of time before it works. It usually describes explosions or blastings. But people use it in other circumstances, too. It can describe a slow-acting poison, or a tree that weakens for years before it falls. There’s a brand of old- fashioned phonograph called Hangfire, because it has a mechanism that allows the needle to hover over the record until the exact moment you want the music to play.” (Snicket, “Shouldn’t You Be in School?”, p. 128-129)

As can be seen from the excerpt above, there are many very specific meanings, that the potential Czech translation of “Hangfire” would have to carry. As far as I can tell, the closest Czech equivalent would be “opožděný výstřel”31 or, possibly, if we wanted to be less specific “zpožděná / opožděná reakce”. Needless to say that while both of these translations could be serviceable in some other context, they fail spectacularly as a “spooky” name for a terrifying chief antagonist, not to mention as a brand of old- fashioned phonographs. I was trying to come up with a way of simplifying the intended idea, with a word that would somehow indicate the idea of “delay” while sounding sinister enough to fit the main villain of the books, but alas, I was unsuccessful. For that reason, the solution that I propose, while admittedly far from being ideal, is to leave the name untranslated, in its original form. Hopefully, what it at least accomplishes is setting the villain apart from the other characters and making him even more enigmatic and mysterious.

3.1.6.3.Geographical names using alliteration To go through all of the geographical names from the book series one by one would go for entirely too long. In the final part of this chapter, I would like to briefly present my translation of selected few key locations from the story that include alliteration. As

31 https://gunlex.cz/zbrane-a-legislativa/strelecky-slovnik/tags/21?mainlanguage=cs&translations=en

I said earlier, my aim was to retain the alliterative properties of the original and I believe I was rather successful in this regard. Blotted Boulevard Skvrnitá silnice

Wayward Way Umíněná ulice

The statue of colonel Colophon Socha kapitána Kolofona

Dicey’s Department Store Ošidného obchodní dům

Homily Hill Kazatelův kopec

Handkerchief Heights Kapesníkový kopec

Rarely Ridden Road Stěží sjízdná stezka

3.2. Measures, currency Právě vědomí národní specifičnosti odlišuje problematiku při překládání měr a vah od překládání měny. Nezvyklé měrné systémy např. ruský a anglický, často nahrazujeme naší metrickou soustavou. (Levý, p. 124)

Substituce analogií skutečnosti a zkušeností z oblasti Cj. Tento způsob je nejčastější. Nejběžnější je v oblasti měrných jednotek, které se v únosných mezích přepočítávají tak, aby nenarušily ráz uměleckého textu a přitom dostatečně informovaly našeho adresáta. (Knittlová, p. 82)

Převádět cizí měnu není možné, protože měna je charakteristická vždy pro určitou zemi a koruny by nám lokalizovaly překlad do našeho prostředí. (Levý, p. 124)

In general, it is not very common that any kind of measures are mentioned anywhere in the Snicket books – the geography, distances between cities or landmarks are always described in very hazy and non-specific terms, so that it is (undoubtedly intentionally) very hard to make sense of the geography and timeline of the series - there is, for example, a theory that posits, that all of the Snicket books take place in America sometime after an unspecified apocalyptic event changed its geography considerably.

It is likely incorrect, but the fact that it cannot be disproved outright shows how blurry the geography of the Snicket world is. In the rare few instances where actual measures are used (and I found only two cases in the first book, both in the first two chapters), the author uses American measures – miles and feet. In both cases, in accordance with Mr. Levý’s and Mrs. Knittlová’s theories I transferred the units of measurements into Czech ones, so that a reader, a child reader, more specifically would have an easier time understanding the context. Both cases can be found below:

“The problem was that it was ten feet above me, in a high corner of the bathroom.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 8) “Jediná potíž spočívala v tom, že se nacházelo tři metry nade mnou, v horním rohu místnosti.” “But my information says that for some mysterious reason, the seaweed learned to grow on dry land, and now for miles and miles there is an enormous forest of seaweed.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour”, p. 28) “Ale podle mých zdrojů se ty chaluhy z nějakého záhadného důvodu naučily přežít na souši, a vyrostl tu obrovský les mořských řas, který se táhne na kilometry daleko.”

As far as currency is concerned, this was a problem that I did not have to deal with, because in all the seventeen main books, even though money is discussed quite frequently (one of the main characters in A Series of Unfortunate Events is a banker), no specific currency is ever given. At times, the author uses general terms, such as “notes” and “coins” – for example in the first chapter where Theodora pays for an envelope by “tossing a coin to the woman behind the counter”, on other occasions he goes to hilariously great lengths not to divulge what kind of currency is being used in this strange world – such as in the following example from the third chapter, where the value of the stolen statue of the Bombinating Beast is being discussed: “The statue has been in my family for generations and has been valued at upward of a great deal of money.”32

32 Snicket, „Who Could That Be at This Hour?“, p. 40

3.3. Explanatory words Ideálem je dosáhnout srozumitelnosti významové a přitom zároveň navodit představu cizího prostředí. (Levý, p. 119)

Dochází k přidávání informací, k používání explicativního řešení tam, kde by sdělení bylo našim čtenářům nesrozumitelné, a naopak k vypouštění informací, které by náš čtenář považoval za redundantní.

Někdy nezbytná vnitřní vysvětlivka mívá formu vysvětlujícího opisu, který by však měl být co nejstručnější, aby nedošlo k nadměrnému rozšiřování textu a zatěžování nominálními prvky, které jsou většinou nositeli přídatných informací. (Knittlová, p. 81)

Zejména v případech našemu čtenáři neznámých názvů, přidávají překladatelé obecný klasifikátor, který název zařadí do příslušné pojmové oblasti. (Knittlová, p. 82)

In accordance with what Mr. Levý and Mrs. Knittlová write, there were plentiful instances, where I felt I needed to add certain explanatory words to make sure that the situation and context is easy to understand to the reader or that the sentence sounds natural in the Czech language. This is of course important throughout the entire translation, but doubly so, I believe, in the opening chapter of the series, which is already rather disorienting (though, it should be noted, entirely intentionally), without the translation getting in the way and obfuscating something that might provide the reader with a better understanding of the situation. I do not think the use of explanatory words would be as quite as frequent in the chapters to follow, once the reader gets properly acquainted and familiarized with the background, characters and locales from the series. Below, a selection of explanatory words from the first chapter of “Who Could That Be at This Hour?” can be found.

“The food at the Hemlock is too awful to eat, particularly the eggs, which are probably the worst eggs in the entire city, including those on exhibit at the Museum of Bad Breakfast…” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 2)

Jídlo u Hemlocka je nepoživatelné, zejména jejich míchaná vajíčka, pravděpodobně ta nejhorší v celém městě, a to včetně těch, která jsou vystavena v Muzeu špatných snídaní…

This is a minor detail and possibly just a matter of personal preference, but without the explanatory adjective, the sentence “Jídlo u Hemlocka je nepoživatelné, zejména jejich vajíčka…” sounds off, unnatural and perhaps even unintentionally comical to me in Czech. I think it is far more common when talking about eggs (as in the meal) in the Czech language to specify the actual way of preparation. I do not mean to imply that omitting the adjective could cause any actual confusion and misunderstanding, but for the sake of clarity and to make the sentence sound more natural, I decided to be a bit more specific and included the word “míchaná”.

“When the tea arrived, for a moment the steam was all I could see. I’d said good-bye to someone very quickly and was wishing I’d taken longer.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 2)

Donesli nám čaj a na chvíli nás zahalila oblaka dýmu, který z něj stoupal. Dříve toho dne jsem se s někým ve spěchu rozloučil a teď jsem si přál, abych býval tolik nechvátal.

This is one of those revisions that I had to make, so that the reader did not feel completely lost already on the second page of the book. The timeline, the identity of all the people involved (namely the couple posing as Lemony’s parents and the mysterious person he was supposed to meet at Bellamy station) and the exact sequence of events referenced in the first chapter only really start making sense in the final chapter of book one – until then the readers are left to try and piece together what exactly has transpired at Hemlock Tearoom at Stationery Shop with precious few clues. The phrase highlighted above provides the reader with one of these clues and if left translated literally it would likely leave the reader even more confused that he already is. Let us consider for a moment the following translation, which does away with any explanatory words:

“Donesli nám čaj a na chvíli nás zahalila oblaka dýmu, který z něj stoupal. S někým jsem se ve spěchu rozloučil a přál jsem si, abych býval tolik nechvátal.”

To me at least, this translation makes it sound as if Lemony says his goodbye while hidden in the cloud of steam arising from the tea, which, of course, is not what is happening. In fact the goodbye had already happened before he even set foot in the tearoom – something which is signified by the use of past perfect in the original text, but which would get lost in translation, were we to use a literal one. For that reason, it was important to clarify this sequence of events with the explanatory phrase “dříve toho dne”. Coming up with the exact phrase required a bit of guesswork, because Snicket is rarely specific when it comes to dates. I briefly considered using the slightly vaguer phrase “krátce předtím”, however it still felt like it could be unnecessarily confusing for the reader. The way I translated makes it clear that the hasty goodbye had occurred before the tearoom scene. In the second part of the sentence I also added the word “teď”, which, in combination with the used conditional hopefully makes the sequence of events much easier to follow.

““Well, then, drink your tea,” she said, and another woman came into the Hemlock.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 4) “„No, tak si vypij ten čaj,“ pobídla mě a v té chvíli do Hemlockovy kavárny vstoupila další žena.” I stood up and walked to the back of the Hemlock. (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 6) “Napřímil jsem se a odkráčel do zadní části Hemlockovy kavárny.”

After the initial introduction, Lemony regularly refers to the locale in which majority of chapter one takes place simply by the name of the presumed owner of the shop – “the Hemlock”. There are some instances in the first chapter where I could replicate that – when Lemony talks about the purpose of the place (i.e. a shop / tearoom), I believe it sounds better to translate it as “u Hemlocka”, such as in the following examples:

“Jídlo u Hemlocka je nepoživatelné, zejména jejich míchaná vajíčka…” “Papíry a plnicí pera, která u Hemlocka prodávají, jsou poškozená a nepoužitelná…”

However, when it is the actual building, that is being described, I thought it much more fitting to add the explanatory word “kavárna”, because e.g. the sentence “Odkráčel jsem do zadní části Hemlocka.” does not sound particularly Czech to me. On the other hand, I thought it unnecessary to add the second part of the name of the establishment (i.e. “papírnictví”), because it would make the text sound needlessly wordy.

“She brushed by my table, very tall, with a very great deal of very wild hair.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 4) “Prosmýkla se kolem mého stolu, vysoká žena s divokou hřívou neučesaných vlasů.”

In this final example from chapter one, the author omitted the noun “woman”, from the sentence in question, which, while perfectly possible in English, would break the flow of the sentence in Czech – unlike in the original, which is easy to understand, in the translation it would feel like something is missing. This is another example of an explanatory word being used not because the meaning of the sentence is difficult to follow, but rather to not make it sound distracting to the reader.

3.4. Reference Reference reprezentuje odkaz na výraz užitý v textu, v angličtině jde nejčastěji o zájmennou referenci, některé jazyky odkazují raději lexikálním opakováním, jiné mají opět jiné zvyklosti. Pro překladatele do flexívní češtiny plyne v této oblasti uvážit, kdy odkazovací zájmena použít a kdy ne. Čeština by neměla zájmen nadužívat (zejména pozor na zájmena přivlastňovací!), jsou ovšem případy, kdy je nutno na vázanost upozornit, především tehdy, když koncovka nerozliší, na koho či na co se odkazuje. (Knittlová, p. 101)

The focus of this brief subchapter will be primarily the use of pronouns in the original text and how it is reflected in my translation. In accordance with what Dagmar Knittlová says in the abovementioned quotation, English and Czech use the pronouns very differently, and there were numerous occasions, where I had to either add a pronoun to clarify to the reader which object or person is being referred to, or to omit a pronoun (usually a possessive one) used in the original, either to avoid repetition or

61 simply because Czech language, unlike English does not use pronouns in certain expressions. Below a selected handful of examples of both of these approaches can be found, in some cases with a justification for their translation.

3.4.1. Adding a pronoun “The Hemlock Tearoom and Stationery Shop is the sort of place where the floors always feel dirty, even when they are clean.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 2)

“Hemlockova kavárna a papírnictví je jedno z těch míst, kde se vám podlaha vždycky zdá špinavá, i když je zrovna zametená.”

Throughout the entire series, the author uses the impersonal “you” rather frequently, to address the reader(s) - such as in the following sentences:

“There are two good reasons to put your napkin in your lap.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 5) “In restaurants they always make you ask where the bathroom is…”(Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 6) Therefore, I thought it fitting and not out of place to occasionally use the same structure in sentences which would benefit from it in the Czech language.

“The Hemlock sells paper and pens that are damaged and useless, but the tea is drinkable…” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 2) “Papíry a plnicí pera, která u Hemlocka prodávají, jsou poškozená a nepoužitelná, ale tamní čaj je vcelku ucházející…”

In the English text it is easy to understand that the author does not mean tea in general, but the tea from The Hemlock Tearoom due to the use of the definite article. Since Czech language does not use articles, I had to express the same distinction through the use of a demonstrative pronoun.

3.4.2. Omitting a pronoun The most common occurrence of omitting pronouns in my translation is connected with the way English uses possessive pronouns with parts of human body in a way that Czech language simply does not. In these cases it would be wholly unnecessary and distracting to include the pronoun in my translation. The following examples will further illustrate my point:

“…and a woman drumming her fingernails on the table, over and over, the sound like a tiny horse’s galloping. She happened to have a flower in her hair.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 3) “…a žena, která bubnovala nehty o desku stolu, znovu a znovu a stále dokola, jako by po stole cválal drobný koník. Ve vlasech měla vetknutou květinu.”

“I put the napkin down on the table but kept the note crumpled up in my hand.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 6) “Ubrousek jsem odložil zpátky na stůl, ale zmačkaný vzkaz jsem i nadále svíral v pěsti.”

“…and he washed his hands sympathetically and left.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 8) “…a on si opláchl ruce s výrazem soucitného pochopení a opustil místnost.”

There are some instances in my translation, where I decided to omit personal pronouns (especially in first person) to avoid repetition. Let us illustrate that point on only one example from the very beginning of the first chapter.

“I was living in the town, and I was hired to investigate the theft, and I thought the girl had nothing to do with it.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 1) “V tom městečku jsem žil, tu loupež jsem měl vyšetřit a myslel jsem, že ta dívka s ní nemá nic společného.”

3.5. Idioms and similes Kde slovo nemá význam samo o sobě, nýbrž jen jako součást celku, překládá se celek bez ohledu na významy jednotlivých slov. Jako lexikální jednotka se překládají ustálené fráze, idiomy a většina lidových rčení a přísloví. (Levý, p. 129) Adaptaci, tj. substituci situace popsané v originále, jinou, adekvátní situací, např. neexistuje-li v Cj ekvivalent přísloví, slovní hříčky aj. (Knittlová, p. 14)

I believe there are not many young adult book series that use idioms with such frequency as the Snicket books. In an earlier chapter about characteristic features of both A Series of Unfortunate Events and All the Wrong Questions, I mentioned the distinct dictionary quality that all Snicket books possess. Not only is the author clearly fond of using and (over)explaining various advanced parts of English vocabulary, he also evidently feels the same about idioms, similes and metaphors and uses them gleefully throughout his books with reckless abandon. Considering the frequency with which the author uses idiomatic expressions, I also felt it appropriate to use them in my translation where I felt it would enhance the reader’s experience and make the translation more careful and expressive, even in cases where there are no idioms used in the corresponding part of the English text. In a small handful of cases I also substituted a simile the author had used with a Czech equivalent which I thought sounded more suitable for the Czech reader. Trying to come up with fitting Czech equivalents for the idioms used in the first two chapters was one of the more interesting parts of this translation and the results of my efforts can be found in the following examples.

“I was wearing the suit I’d been given as a graduation present. It had hung in my closet for weeks, like an empty person. I felt glum and thirsty.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour, p. 2) “Na sobě jsem měl oblek, který jsem dostal jako dárek k dokončení výcviku. Visel mi ve skříni celé týdny, jako tělo bez duše. Cítil jsem se pod psa a měl jsem žízeň.”

In this excerpt, two idiomatic expressions can be found in my translation, where there are none in the original. The first expression of note is the rather unusual simile about

64 a suit hanging “like an empty person”, a striking and imaginative comparison that I have never heard before and therefore have concluded that it is probably a phrase Handler came up with on his own. My efforts to translate it literally were largely unsuccessful and sounded nowhere near as interesting as the original. For that reason I settled on using the Czech idiom “tělo bez duše”, which I am quite happy with, as I think it captures the essence of the original rather accurately. The second highlighted phrase is one of the instances where I substituted a relatively commonly used English adjective with a Czech idiom. Personally, I think it works very well in the sentence – it makes the translation a bit more interesting and colorful and it fits the overall tone and mood of the books.

“I told myself that it didn’t matter and that certainly it was no time to frown around town.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 2-3) “Řekl jsem si, že na tom nesejde, a že teď rozhodně není čas propadat chmurám.”

Just like in the previous example, I was not able to find any other instance of the phrase “frown around town” being used, so it is likely that this phrase is another Handler original. I think my translation sounds slightly more dramatic and it also loses the euphonic rhyme of [fraʊn əˈraʊnd taʊn], however I think that as a whole it is a suitable translation and trying to force any kind of rhyme would probably be distracting and to the detriment of the Czech text.

“Leaned up against the wall like that, it didn’t look interesting. It looked like something the Hemlock needed, or a piece of equipment a plumber had left behind. It looked like none of your business.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 8-9)

“Takhle opřený o zeď působil nevýznamně, jako součást zařízení Hemlockovy kavárny nebo vybavení, kterou tam nechal ladem zapomnětlivý údržbář. Vypadal jako něco, do čeho byste neměli strkat nos.”

This is an idiom, which I think could probably be translated almost literally without the reader being confused about its meaning (“Vypadal jako něco, do čeho vám nic není.”), but the use of “něco” and “nic” in such a close proximity makes it sound

65 clumsy and awkward and therefore I decided to use a different expression entirely – one, which I think suits well the detective genre, which All the Wrong Questions pays homage to.

““Don’t repeat yourself. It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant, and people have heard it before.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 12)

“„Neopakuj se. Nejenže to je monotónní, je to nadbytečné a zníš jako prasklá deska.”

Theodora’s tirade in the roadster at the end of the first chapter proved to be one of the most difficult parts of the translation for me, because no matter what I did, it kept sounding stiff and unnatural and not like something any human would say. Partly this is intentional, I think, because it paints Theodora as the sort of person who tries too hard to sound capable and competent, when in fact she is anything but, as the reader discovers at the end of the second chapter. Her stubborn insistence on using forty words where four would do just fine is an important part of her character, but at times it felt, like my translation made her sound too unnatural. For that reason, I decided to make certain changes in my original translation which would make her dialogue easier to follow. This is one of those changes. Originally, I followed the original more closely and translated the highlighted clause as “a lidé to už slyšeli předtím”, but ultimately it sounded like a sentence that no person would ever say and in order to make the translation more distinct and readable, I used the Czech idiom “znít jako prasklá deska”.

““That’s another wrong question,” she said. “I told you there’s been a change of plans. The map is not the territory. That’s an expression which means the world does not match the picture in our heads.”” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 18) „To je další špatná otázka,“ odpověděla mi. „Už jsem ti říkala, že došlo ke změně plánu. Realita je někde jinde. To je výraz, který v tomto případě znamená, že svět a naše představy o něm se liší.“

“It was all mapped out, but now the territory was different.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour, p. 20) “Všechno jsme to naplánovali, ale realita teď byla někde jinde.”

This was probably the hardest idiom to deal with in the entire translation. Unlike some of the previous examples, this expression exists outside the Snicket books. It is originally attributed to a Polish-American philosopher Alfred Korzybski33 who said: “A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.”34 It is exactly on brand for Daniel Handler to use such an obscure reference in a book that is ostensibly aimed at children audience, but it presented a substantial problem for me. Korzybski’s quote can be translated into Czech as “mapa není území”, but I am not entirely sure if that is something that I can realistically use in my Czech translation. In English, based on a cursory Google search, the phrase is used considerably more frequently than its Czech equivalent. As a result, I was faced with a difficult choice. On the one hand, the translation that I ended up using (“Realita je někde jinde.”) is far from ideal. It is considerably different from Korzybski’s original quote, but what is more, it sounds too modern and feels slightly out of place. On the other hand, I am not sure what the overlap between Snicket readers and people familiar with Alfred Korzbyski in the Czech Republic is, but I would wager it is not significant. I believe I have been able to preserve the intended meaning of the original in a way that is much less likely to confuse the potential readers. In the end, I decided that in this case it is in my best interest to favor clarity over word-for-word translation.

““Don’t repeat what I say, Snicket. You are an apprentice, not a mynah bird.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 23) ““Neopakuj po mně, Snickete. Jsi praktikant, ne papoušek.””

33 https://www.the-possible.com/the-map-is-not-the-territory/ 34 Korzybski, Alfred (1933). Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics

In this last excerpt, taken from the middle of chapter two during the drive to Stain’d- by-the-Sea, Theodora scolds Lemony Snicket for repeating her instructions and compares him to a mynah bird. This is a rather curious choice, because, at least in Czech, a mynah bird (loskuták) is probably not the first bird that comes to mind as one that is able to speak or at least mimic a language (though, apparently, they are able to). In the Czech Republic, I think, the first association that a lot of people would have upon hearing or reading the word “loskuták” would be the do-it-yourself TV show that has been airing since the early aughts called “Rady ptáka loskutáka”. That makes it, in my eyes, a rather unfortunate and distracting comparison and ultimately, I decided against using it, and substituted it with the much more commonly used simile. The fact that the words “praktikant” and “papoušek” both start with the letter “p” and therefore work as alliteration is a welcome bonus in my eyes.

3.6. The verb “say” and its repetition In general, I would argue that English as a language is much better suited for repetition than Czech. This presents a unique challenge for any translator, because while there are many cases where repetition can sound perfectly natural in English, trying to replicate it in Czech can often turn into a fool’s errand. In this brief subchapter, I would like to focus on the verb “say”, which is repeated frequently throughout the translation. In fact the word count shows that in the first two chapters alone, the verb appears more than 40 times (usually in its past simple form – “said”). Trying to translate it the same way every single time would likely sound extremely repetitive and boring. Therefore, I tried to substitute the verb with a different, usually more expressive one. This required proper and detailed understanding of the context of each situation, so that the changes I employed did not alter the meaning of the conversations in question or relationships between the characters (mostly between Snicket and Theodora). In the end, I used the literal translation of the verb “say” around 20 times, and in the other half of the cases, I tried to use a different, carefully chosen verb to make the translation more diverse and varied. The verbs I chose were either synonyms or more expressive verbs used to convey various actions and emotions, such as agreement („Asi ano,“ přitakal jsem… ), instruction (“„Tak si vypij ten čaj,“ pobídla mě…”), exasperation (“Matko,” povzdechl jsem.”), intention to calm someone down

(„Jen ho nech jít, drahá,“ chlácholil ji…”), explanation („Měl jsem míchaná vajíčka,“ vysvětlil jsem mu…”), frustration („Já vím, kdo jsi,“ odsekla…”), repetition („Omlouvám se,“ zopakoval jsem.”) or impatience („Už jsi říkal, že se omlouváš,“ přerušila mne…”).

3.7. Complex vocabulary and its reflection in my translation In the final subchapter of my thesis, I would like to focus on one of the distinctive features of the Snicket books, namely the use and explanation of overly complex vocabulary and various obscure idioms and expressions. The pattern is almost always the same – when the author uses an uncommon word, it is usually followed by some variation of “which here / in this case means…” and a definition. This can be illustrated on the following excerpt from the second chapter: “Your reticence is not appreciated,” Theodora said, breaking my sour silence. “‘Reticence’ is a word which here means not talking enough. “(Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 20)

The challenge this present for the translator is likely immediately obvious. It means that whenever the original uses this structure to explain a difficult word, the Czech translation should do the same, which at times is easier said than done, because frequently, the direct Czech translation of the world that is being explained, is far simpler and therefore should require no explanation whatsoever. Coming up with equally difficult sounding synonyms is therefore one of the biggest difficulties of any Snicket translations and at times requires a lot of creative thinking. Below, a number of examples are provided, sometimes with additional notes explaining and justifying my choices.

“Roadster,” I knew, was a fancy word for “car,” …” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 5) “Věděl jsem, že „kabriolet“je jen honosný výraz pro auto se stahovací střechou.”

Finding the proper translation for “roadster” proved to be especially tricky, due to the context in which the word is used, namely when Theodora gives Lemony the secret

69 message at the Hemlock and leaves him wondering why someone would use a word “roadster” instead of the shorter word “car”, when time (or lack of it) was clearly a factor. Therefore I knew that I needed a long and a difficult word to properly translate the joke. I immediately discarded the word “automobil” as a viable option, because even though it is suitably long, it does not sound difficult, or fancy enough and therefore would not work in the context. Not to mention the fact that the sentence „“automobil” je honosný výraz pro “auto”“ sounds rather clumsy. I toyed with using the word “vozidlo” for some time, but I felt like with the word being only one syllable longer than “auto”, the joke once again gets lost in translation. Ultimately, I settled on the word “kabriolet”, which I felt meets both of the requirements (i.e. length and complexity) but comes with its own unique problem. The world “roadster” can be translated as “kabriolet” i.e. a convertible, but usually it is used to refer to any kind of sports car, with or without roof, and there are three things which make me believe that the author did not intend Theodora’s car to be an actual convertible. Firstly, when Lemony gets in the car, he observes that the windows are rolled down. Secondly, when Theodora wants to get rid of the laudanum-laced tea, she has to open the car door to do so. Both of these actions are things that only make sense in a car equipped with a roof. The third and final reason has to do with the illustrations used in the book series which once again make it very clear that Theodora’s car really does have a roof. For that reason I made one other adjustment, which hopefully is not too distracting. When Lemony Snicket first sees the car, after his daring escape through the window of the tearoom, he describes it this way: “The roadster was small and green and looked like it had once been a race car…” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 9) In my translation I made the following change, which, I think, fixes all of the abovementioned problems: “Čekal na mne drobný, zelený kabriolet s vytaženou střechou, který snad kdysi sloužil jako závodní auto…”

“I am your chaperone, and you are my apprentice, a word which here means ‘person who works under me and does absolutely everything I tell him to do.’””

“Jsem tvůj instruktor, a ty jsi můj praktikant, což v tomto případě znamená „člověk, který pro mne pracuje a dělá naprosto všechno, co si usmyslím.““

The two titles used to describe the hierarchy in the organization both Lemony Snicket and S. Theodora Markson are members of, were a source of great deliberation for me, because they are used rather frequently throughout the book and the word “apprentice” is explained by Theodora, as if it were difficult to understand. I was deciding between translating it either as “učeň” or “praktikant”, and ultimately went with the second choice, firstly because I think “učeň” would probably evoke a student at a vocational school, which is far from an accurate description of what Lemony’s apprenticeship entails, and secondly because out of the two words, “praktikant” sounds like the one that is more foreign and therefore likely to warrant an explanation.

“I’m contrite,” I said, “a word which here means—” “You already said you were sorry,” S. Theodora Markson said. (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 12) „Kaji se,“ řekl jsem, „což v tomto případě znamená – “ „Už jsi říkal, že se omlouváš,“ přerušila mne P. Theodora Marksonová. In this example, the only significant change that I had to make was in the word class of the explained word. The adjective used in the original did not sound natural in Czech, so I substituted it with a verb with similar meaning.

“Your reticence is not appreciated,” Theodora said, breaking my sour silence. “‘Reticence’ is a word which here means not talking enough. Say something, Snicket.” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 20) „Tvá tajnosnubnost se mi nezamlouvá, “ přerušila Theodora mé rozmrzelé mlčení. „Slovo “tajnosnubnost” v tomto případě znamená, že bys měl více mluvit. Řekni něco, Snickete. “

“Theodora frowned. “That bell means we should don these masks. ‘Don’ is a word which here means ‘put on our heads.’ The pressure at this depth will make it difficult to breathe otherwise.”” (Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”, p. 24)

“Theodora se zamračila. “Zvonění hrany signalizuje, že si máme nasadit ty masky. “Hrana” v tomto případě znamená “zvon”. Když si je nenasadíme, bude se nám v tomto tlaku bude těžko dýchat.”

This excerpt ranks among the tougher nuts to crack in my translation. The verb “don”, that Theodora chooses to explain to Lemony, is a synonym of “put something on”, or in Czech “nasadit si”. Unfortunately, in Czech there is nothing about this verb that could cause confusion on Lemony’s part or require explanation on Theodora’s – the meaning is perfectly clear without any explanation required. Originally, I considered having Theodora explain it in the following terms: ““Nasadit si” v tomto případě znamená “dát si na hlavu”,” but it is a rather inelegant solution and does not really make a lot of sense. Therefore, after conceding that I was not able to find with an appropriate synonym for the verb, I decided to have Theodora explain a different word from that same sentence, which essentially gave me two options: I could either come up with an unusual Czech word for “a mask” or for “a bell”. I would prefer to be able to come up with a synonym for the word “maska” which would require an explanation, but the only word that could be even remotely considered was “škraboška”. Without any context, I think it could be a suitable translation, but as the very next paragraph of that same chapter makes abundantly clear, “škraboška” does not work, because it usually covers only the top part of a person’s face, whereas the masks in this story cover all of it (which is a very important plot point in one of the later books and therefore absolutely cannot be altered). For that reason, the only remaining word I could replace with an explanation requiring synonym was “zvon”. Here, I decided to use the word “hrana” which, I believe works rather well for the following reasons: it is unusual and archaic enough that it might believably require an explanation. It is also suitably foreboding and ominous way to describe the two characters’ arrival into Stain’d-by-the-Sea, because in Czech, the word “hrana” usually refers to the death knell, which fits the vibe of the story and subtly foreshadows the events yet to come. And last, but not least, it could also work as a subtle literary reference to Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (in Czech “Komu zvoní hrana”) which again makes sense both for the book itself(as established earlier, literary allusions are an integral part of

72 all the Snicket books) and for Theodora as a character, because the knowledge of classical literary works is one of the core tenets of the secret organization, she is a member of.

4. The Concise Conclusion Even before starting this translation, I was aware that it would be no easy task. Working on the Czech translation of “Who Could That Be at This Hour?” has been an experience completely different from all my previous translating endeavors. At first glance the language used in the book is deceptively simple and I expected the work to be fairly straightforward. It was only when I started to actually delve into the minute details and nuances of the text, that I realized how complicated and unusual some of the challenges lying before me were, and how much creative thinking would be required in the effort to overcome them and translate the book into Czech in a satisfying manner. Whether or not I succeeded in my job is not up to me decide, but it made me appreciate the world of Lemony Snicket all over again and for that alone I consider it time well spent.

5. The Bookish Bibliography 5.1. Printed Sources 1) KNITTLOVÁ, Dagmar. K teorii i praxi překladu. Vyd. 2. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2000. 215 s. ISBN 80-244-0143-6. 2) LEVÝ, Jiří. Umění překladu. Vyd. 3. Praha: Ivo Železný, 1998. 386 s. ISBN 802373539X. 3) ŘEŠETKA, Miroslav a kol. Anglicko-český, česko-anglický slovník. Vyd. 8 Olomouc: FIN Publishing, 2004. 1311 s. ISBN 8086002691. 4) PALA, Karel; Jan VŠIANSKÝ. Slovník českých synonym. Praha: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 1994, 439 s. ISBN 80-7106-059-3. 5) SNICKET, Lemony. The Bad Beginning.Vyd. 1. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. 192 s. ISBN 0060518286 6) SNICKET, Lemony. „Who Could That Be at This Hour?“. Vyd. 1. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2012. 258 s. ISBN 978-0316335478 7) SNICKET, Lemony. „When Did You See Her Last?“. Vyd. 1. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013. 277 s. ISBN 978-0316123051 8) SNICKET, Lemony. „Shouldn’t You Be in School?“. Vyd. 1. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2014. 325 s. ISBN 978-0316123068 9) SNICKET, Lemony. „Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?“. Vyd. 1. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2015. 291 s. ISBN 978-0316305747 10) KORZYBSKI, Alfred. Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. Vyd. 5. Institute of General Semantics, 1995. 927 s. ISBN 978-0937298015

5.2. Electronic Sources 1) Lemony Snicket [online] https://www.lemonysnicket.com/9780061574283/the-lump-of-coal/ [24. 4. 2021] https://www.lemonysnicket.com/9780061236273/the-composer-is-dead/ [24. 4. 2021]

2) Wikipedia [online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Wrong_Questions [24. 4. 2021] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemony_Snicket_bibliography [24. 4. 2021] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Beginning [24. 4. 2021] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Series_of_Unfortunate_Events [24. 4. 2021] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Series_of_Unfortunate_Events_(TV_series) [24. 4. 2021]

3) Onstage Blog [online] https://www.onstageblog.com/reviews/2017/12/3/review-imaginary-comforts-or-the- story-of-the-ghost-of-the-dead-rabbit-at-berkeley-repertory-theatre [24. 4. 2021]

4) Lightspeed Magazine [online] https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-daniel-handler-aka- lemony-snicket/ [24. 4. 2021]

5) The Guardian [online] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/07/how-old-child-need-be-appreciate- lemony-snicket-daniel-handler-interview [24. 4. 2021]

6) NPR [online] https://www.npr.org/2017/01/13/509587895/the-man-behind-lemony-snicket-talks- about-writing-for-kids-and-his-childhood-fea [24. 4. 2021]

7) The AV Club [online] https://www.avclub.com/daniel-handler-1798208806 [24. 4. 2021]

8) The Masters Review [online]

76 https://mastersreview.com/an-unfortunate-interview-a-discussion-with-lemony- snicket/ [24. 4. 2021]

9) Jet Fuel Review [online] https://www.jetfuelreview.com/interview-daniel-handler.html [24. 4. 2021]

10) Bookslut [online] http://www.bookslut.com/features/2008_10_013548.php [24. 4. 2021]

11) Gunlex [online] https://gunlex.cz/zbrane-a-legislativa/strelecky- slovnik/tags/21?mainlanguage=cs&translations=en [24. 4. 2021]

12) The Possible [online] https://www.the-possible.com/the-map-is-not-the-territory/ [24. 4. 2021]