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Italian to English: Estratto da 'L'amica geniale' di Elena Ferrante
Source text - Italian Elena Ferrante, L’amica geniale
La volta che Lila e io decidemmo di salire per le scale buie che portavano, gradino dietro gradino, rampa (1) dietro rampa, fino alla porta dell’appartamento di don Achille, cominciò la nostra amicizia.
Mi ricordo la luce violacea del cortile, gli odori di una serata tiepida di primavera. Era ora di rientrare, ma noi ci attardavamo sottoponendoci per sfida, senza mai rivolgerci la parola, a prove di coraggio. Da qualche tempo, dentro e fuori scuola, non facevamo che quello. Lila infilava la mano e tutto il braccio nella bocca nera di un tombino (2), e io lo facevo subito dopo a mia volta, col batticuore, sperando che gli scarafaggi non mi corressero su per la pelle e i topi non mi mordessero. […]
A un certo punto mi lanciò uno sguardo dei suoi, fermo, con gli occhi stretti, e si diresse verso la palazzina dove abitava don Achille. Mi gelai di paura. Don Achille era l’orco delle favole, avevo il divieto assoluto di parlargli, guardarlo, bisognava fare come se non esistessero né lui né la sua famiglia. C’erano nei suoi confronti, in casa mia ma non solo, un timore e un odio che non sapevo da dove nascessero. […] Credevo che se solo l’avessi visto da lontano mi avrebbe cacciato negli occhi qualcosa di acuminato (3) e bruciante. Se poi avessi fatto la pazzia di avvicinarmi alla porta di casa sua mi avrebbe uccisa.
Aspettai un po’ per vedere se Lila ci ripensava e tornava indietro. Sapevo cosa voleva fare, avevo inutilmente sperato che se ne dimenticasse, e invece no. I lampioni non si erano ancora accesi e nemmeno le luci delle scale. Per seguirla dovevo lasciare l’azzurrognolo del cortile ed entrare nel nero del portone. […]
Avanzammo tenendoci dal lato della parete, lei due gradini avanti, io due gradini indietro e combattuta tra accorciare la distanza o lasciare che aumentasse. […] Ogni rumore di passi, ogni voce era don Achille che ci arrivava alle spalle o ci veniva incontro con un lungo coltello […] Ero molto sudata, lei non so. Ogni tanto guardava in alto, ma non capivo cosa, si vedeva solo il grigiore dei finestroni a ogni rampa. […] Salivamo lentamente verso il più grande dei nostri terrori di allora, andavamo a esporci alla paura e a interrogarla.
Alla quarta rampa Lila si comportò in modo inatteso. Si fermò ad aspettarmi e quando la raggiunsi mi diede la mano. Questo gesto cambiò tutto tra noi per sempre.
Translation - English Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend
When Lila and I decided to go up the dark stairs which lead, step by step, flight by flight, up to Don Achille’s apartment door, our friendship began.
I remember the purplish light of the courtyard, the smells of a mild evening in springtime. It was time to go home, but we hung back, daring each other (without ever saying a word) to tests of courage. For some time, inside and outside school, that was all we did. Lila slipped her hand and entire arm into the black mouth of a man-hole and I did it too straight after; with butterflies in my stomach, hoping that cockroaches wouldn’t run up my skin and rats wouldn’t bite me.
At one point she gave me one of her looks, fixed with narrowed eyes, and she started in the direction of the block where Don Achille lived. I froze with fear. Don Achille was the fairytale ogre, I was absolutely forbidden to talk to him, look at him; you had to act as though neither he nor his family existed. My house wasn’t the only one in which there was fear and hatred towards him, the origins of which I couldn’t fathom. I believed that if I so much as saw him from afar he would get me in the eyes with something sharp and scorching. If then I was mad enough to go near the door of his house he would’ve killed me.
I waited a bit to see if Lila would change her mind and turn back. I knew what she wanted to do; I had vainly hoped that she would forget about it, but no. The street lights hadn’t come on yet and neither had the lights at the stairs. To follow her I had to leave the dusky blue of the courtyard and enter the blackness of the stair door.
We advanced keeping to the wall side, she two steps ahead and I two steps behind; conflicted between closing the distance and letting it widen. Every sound of footsteps, every voice was Don Achille creeping up behind us or coming at us with a long knife. I was very sweaty, I don’t know about her. Every now and again she looked up, but I didn’t know at what; all you could see was the gloom from the big windows at each flight. We climbed slowly towards our greatest terror at the time, we went to expose ourselves to fear and to confront it.
At the fourth flight Lila behaved unexpectedly. She stopped to wait for me and when I reached her she gave me her hand. This gesture changed everything between us forever.
My
activities range from work for national museums and universities to
international advertising firms and literary authors. Since graduation in 2017 I have
honed skills in translation, editing,
transcreation, and proofreading (both bilingual and English-only) as well as
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grammar and functions in my language pair, enabling me to justify my linguistic
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