Traduction des textes vus en terminale S ~ Eclipse

Comme pour l'espagnol, j'vais traduire de l'anglais au français les documents donnés en cours. J'voulais faire par thème mais finalement j'ai eu la flemme et j'ai préféré tout rassembler dans un topic xD Je commence par le second thème parce que le premier est archivé, il ne présente donc plus de caractère urgent et je m'en occuperais pendant les vacances.


Locations and forms of power

- A few landmarks
- I have a dream
- A slave's story
- A model citizen


Compréhensions écrites

- The Very Thought of You (extract)
- The Camel Bookmobile (extract)


Légende :

Urgent
Fait
En cours

The Very Thought of You (extract)

[The scene takes place during the Second World War].

Walking along in the cloudy sunshine, war seemed remote and unimaginable. Roberta wondered how she could be doing this to her beloved daughter. Perhaps war would not touch them. Perhaps it would not happen. Would any German planes really fly as far as London?
After her husband joined up, her first thought had been to leave the city with Anna. But they had no family outside London, nor the means to move. So, like other reluctant mothers, she had signed up for the evacuation scheme : all the parents at Anna's school had been urged to take part. At first she had thought she could go with Anna, but was later informed that only nursing mothers would be able to stay with their children. It'll only be temporary, Roberta told herself.
Anna, meanwhile, had no such trepidation. She assumed that all the evacuees would be going to the seaside, like a holiday. She had only ever been on a beach once before, at Margate, and she was longing to run through wet sand again. And now she had her own bathing costume, packed and ready.
She was expecting adventure; she had read so many fairy tales that she longed to set out into the world alone. Like Dick Whittington. The long road, the child with a small case, it seemed only naturel.
Her shoes were polished, her socks were clean. She carried her kit with pride. She did not fear parting, her mother's face felt closer than her pulse. She could not yet imagine any rift.
Beneath the red-brick gaze of the old Victorian school they joined an uneasy crowd of mothers, fathers, children, all there to say farewell. Children were crying, some of them howling. Mothers also were weeping. A sudden sadness washed over Roberta, though she and Anna were too resolutely independent to make any public display of sentiment. But still Roberta's resolve wavered. Shhe thought out a head teacher to ask where the children would be going.
"Buses will take them to St Pancras station."
"Can we go with them there?"
"No, I'm sorry," he said defensively, "you must say goodbye here."
There was a long wait in the school yard, and children sat on the ground, yawning. Roberta and Anna stood together, not saying much, just holding hands. Soon they were organized into class lines, with teachers ticking names on clipboards. Roberta was proud that Anna looked so pretty, so bright and fresh.
She could always take her back home again.
Suddenly the buses arrived, coming on from another school in World's End. Before Roberta had the chance to change her mind and retrieve her child, the crowd's momentum had swept Anna's class forwards. Without a backwards glance, Anna hurried to find a seat. She put down her bags and realized that, after so much waiting, she had hardly said goodbye to her mother. She pressed her face to the window.
There she was below, looking up at her - gleaming brown hair, and a smile meant for her alone, wishing her every joy and all good things.
"Goodbye, Mummy!" called Anna, through the glass. Suddenly, she began crumpling inside as she fixed her gaze on her mother. She could feel the pull of her mother's eyes right throuugh her - until she was going, gone, and Anna was away on her journey.
She sank down in her seat. The bus had a sour smell of stale cigarettes which made her nauseous. She yawned un the healt; there wasn't much air. She felt odd - excited and suspended in a strange new world, where anything might happen. She did not miss her mother yet, because she was still so firmly rooted inside her - her face, her voice, her touch.
But for Roberta the separation was immediate. She walked back home from the school feeling limp, like a wilting plant. The trees she passed looked parched and weary, and the pavement was cracked beneath her feet. The dryness of late summer was all around her, and the streets seemed unnaturally deserted.
Had she made thhe right choice?

The Camel Bookmobile (extract)

Fiiona Sweeney shoved a pair of rolled-up jeans into the corner of her purple duffet bad. Outside her bedroon window, a siren's wail sliced through the white noise of a wet snowfall. Those errie man-made moans were part of New York City's wallpaper, a signal of troubble commonplace enough to pass unnoticed. But Fi registered this one, maybe because she knew she wouldn't be hearing sirens for a while.
She turned her attention back to her bag, which still had space. What else should she take? Lifting a framed snapshot, she examined her mother as a young woman, wading into a stream, wearing rubber boots and carrying a fishing pole. Fi cherished the photograph; in real life, she'd never known her mother to be that carefree. The mother Fi had known wouldn't want to go to Africa. In fact, she wouldn't want Fi to go. Fi put the picture facedown and scanned the room, her attention drawn to a worn volume of Irish poetry by her bedside. She tucked it in.
"How about the netting?" Chris called from the living room where he sat with Devi.
"Already in," Fi answered.
"And repellent?" asked Devi.
"Yes, yes." Fi waved her hand as though shooing away a gnat - a gesture that Chris and Devi couldn't see from the other room. "Should have kept my mouth shut," she murmured.
Early on iin her research about Kenya, shhe'd discovered that the country's annual death toll from malaria was in the tens of thousands. She had pills; the had repellents; logically, she knew she'd be fine. Still, a figure that high jolted het. She became slightly obsessed and - here's the rub - discussed it with Chris and Devi. Mbu - mosquito - had been the first Swahili word she'd learned. Sometimes the insects even dive-bombed into her nightmares. Eventually, mosquitoes became a metaphor for everything she feared about this trip : all the stories she'd read about a violent and chaotic continent, plus the jitters that come with the unknown.
And what wasn't unknown? All she knew for sure, in fact, was why she was going. Fi's mom had never been a big talker, but she'd been a hero, raising four kids alone. Now it was Fi's turn to do something worthwhile.
"Fi." Chris, at the door of the bedroom, waved in the air the paper on which he'd written a list of all the items he thought she should brind and might forget. Money belt. Hat. Granola bars. "Have you been using this?" he asked half-mockingly in the tone of a teacher.
"I hate lists," Fi said.
He studied her a second. "OK," he said. "Then, what do you say, take a break?"
"Yeah, c'mon, Fi. We don't want to down all your wine bu ourselves," Devi called from the living room, where an Enya CD played low.
Pulling back her dark, frizzy hair and securing it with a clip, Fi moved to the living room and plopped onto the floor across from Devi, who sprawled in a long skirt on the couch. Chris poured Fi a glass of cabernet and sat in the chair nearest her. If they reached out, the three of them could hold hands. Fi felt connected to them in many ways, but at the same time, she was already partly in another place and period. A soft light fell in from the window, dousing the room in a flattering glow and intensifying the sensation that everything around her was diaphanous, and that she herself was half here and half not.
"You know, there's lots of illiteracy in this country," Devi said after a moment.
"That's why I've been volunteering after work," Fi said. "But there, it's different. They've never been exposed to libraries. Some have never held a book in their hands."
"Not to mention that it's moore dangerous, which somehow makes it appealing to Fi," Chris said to Devi, shaking his head. "Nai-robbery."
Though he spoke lightly, his words echoed those of Fi's brother and two sisters - especially her brother. She was ready with a retort. "I'll mainly be in Garissa, nit Nairobi,' she said. "It's no more dangerous there than New York City. Anyway, I want to take some risks - different risks. Break out of my rut. Do something meaningful." Then she made her tone playful. "The idealistic Irish. What can you do?"
"Sometimes idealism imposes," Chris said. "What if all they want is food and medecine?"
"You know what I think. Books are their future. A link to the modern world." Fi grinned. "Besides, we want Huckleberry Finn to arrive before Sex in the City reruns, don't we?"
Devi reachhed out to squeeze Fi's shoulder. "Just be home by March."

A few landmarks

January 1st, 1863 - Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, signs the Emancipation Proclamation, which declares all slaves in the Confederacy free.

April 15th, 1865 - Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Southern sympathizer.

February 3rd, 1870 - The 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States grants every citizen the right to vote, whatever their race, colour or previous condition of servitude.

1890s-1964 - Jim Crow laws in the southern states restrict most of the new privileges granted to African Americans after the Civil War.

December 1st, 1955 - Rosa Parks is arrested after refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. Reverend Martin Luther King launches the Civil Rights Movement.

August 28th, 1963 - Martin Luther King delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

July 2nd, 1964 - The Civil Rights Act outlaws discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex or nation origin.

April 4th, 1968 - Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, by a white supremacist.

November 2nd, 1983 - Predisent Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating a federal holiday, Martin Luther King Day. It is observed for the first time in all states on January 17th, 2000.

I have a dream (extract)

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed : "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

creed : credo
former : anciens
owners : propriétaires
sweltering : étouffer

A slave's story

The capture
Baaba Djibo lived in a small village on the west coast of Africa. One day, as he was coming back to his village, he was captured by a band of African slave traders. Baaba's hands were tied behind his back, a yoke was placed around his neck and the small group of prisoners was herded like cattle towards an unknown destination. The prisoners who didn't walk fast enough were whipped without pity.

The journey
After a long painful walk, the small group reached the sea at last. A slave ship was at anchor waiting for them. White men paid the slave traders and forced the prisoners to climb on deck. The men were then all crammed into the hold and shackled together.

The sale
One month later, they reached a small harbour on the southern coast of America. The white men selected the strongest men and women and took them to an auction sale. Buyers kept climbing onto the platform to inspect the prisoners, looking at their teeth and eyes as if they were cattle. Baaba was purchased for $ 500.

The runaway
Baaba's master was the owner of a large sugar plantation. More than a hundred slaves worked on his fields, under the watchful eye of the overseer. Whenever a slave disobeyed or tried to rebel/revolt/escape, he was flogged/whipped. After 6 months, Baaba decided to escape. He knew he could hide in the marshes for some time but he was also aware that a reward would be offered, attracting bounty hunters who would try to track him down.

slave trader : négrier
whip : fouet(ter)
cattle : bétail
yoke : joug
bundle : ballot, paquet
deck : pont
hold : cale
predicament : situation terrible
despair : désespoir
overseer : contremaître
runaway : fugitif
reward : récompense
bounty hunter : chasseur de prime
tie : lier, attacher
herd : mener (un troupeau)
be shackled : être enchaîné
be crammed : être entassé
hide : se cacher
track down : traquer et capturer


L'histoire d'un esclave

Capturé
Baaba Djibo vivait dans un petit village sur la côte ouest de l'Afrique. Un jour, alors qu'il rentrait au village, il a été capturé par un groupe de marchands d'esclaves. Ils attachèrent les mains de Baaba dans son dos, un joug placé autour de son coup et le petit groupe de prisonniers fut emmené comme du bétail vers une destination inconnue. Les prisonniers qui ne marchaient pas assez vite étaient fouettés sans pitié.

A model citizen

South Carolina, July 1964. Lily, 14, accompanies Rosaleen, her black nanny, into town.

After a few blocks we approached the Esso station on the corner of West Market and Park Street, generally recognized as a catchall place for men with too much time on their hands.
I noticed that not a single car was getting gas. Three men sat in dinette chairs beside the garage with a piece of plywood on their knees. They were playing cards. The dealer slapped a card down in front of him. He looked up and saw us, Rosaleen fanning and shuffling, swaying side to side. “Well, look what we got coming here,” he called out. “Where're you going, nigger?”
“Keep walking,” I whispered. “Don't pay any attention.”
But Rosaleen, who had less sense than I'd dreamed, said in this tone like she was explaining something real hard to a kindergarten student, “I'm going to register my name so I can vote, that's what.”
“We should hurry on,” I said, but the kept walking at her own slow pace.
The man next to the dealer, with hair combed straight back, put down his cards and said, “Did you hear that? We got ourselves a model citizen.” […]
We walked, and the men pushed back their table and came right down to the curb to wait for us, like they were spectators at a parade and we were the prize float.
“Did you ever see one that black?” said the dealer.
And the man with his combed-back hair said, “No, and I ain't seen one that big either.”
Naturally the third man felt obliged to say something, so he looked at Rosaleen sashaying along unperturbed, holding her white-lady fan, and he said, “Where'd you get that fan, nigger?”
“Stole it from a church,” she said. Just like that. […]
Coming alongside the men, Rosaleen lifted her snuff jug, which was filled with black spit, and calmly poured it across the tops of the men's shoes. […]
For a second they stared down at the juice, dribbled like car oil across their shoes. They blinked, trying to make it register. When they looked up, I watched their faces go from surprise to anger, then outright fury. They lunged at her, and everything started to spin. There was Rosaleen, grabbed and thrashing side to side, and the men yelling for her to apologize and clean their shoes.
“Clean it off!” That's all I could hear, over and over. […]
“Call the police,” yelled the dealer to a man inside.
By then Rosaleen lay sprawled on the ground, pinned, twisting her fingers around clumps of grass. Blood ran from a cut beneath her eye. It curved under her chin the way tears do.
When the policeman got there, he said we had to get into the back of his car.
“You're under arrest,” he told Rosaleen. “Assault, theft, and disturbing the peace.” Then he said to me, “When we get down to the station, I'll call your daddy and let him deal with you.”
Rosaleen climbed in, sliding over on the seat. I moved after her, sliding as the slid, sitting as she sat. The door closed...


Sue MONK KIDD (b. 1948) grew up in a small town in Georgia, which deeply influenced her writing. The Secret Life of Bees, her first novel, is a story of race relations and the ability of love to transform our lives. It became a bestseller, taught in schools, and was translated into more than 23 languages. Her second novel, The mermaid Chair, was published in 2005.


une nounou : a nanny
un lieu de rencontre : a catchall place
avoir du temps libre : to have time on one's hands
un donneur : a dealer
s'éventer : to fan
tanguer/rouler des hanches en marchant : to sway
le bon sens : sense
s'inscrire : to register
peigner : to comb
un pâté de maison : a block (of houses)
de l'essence (US) : gas
du contreplaqué : plywood
distribuer des cartes : to deal cards
traîner les pieds : to shuffle one's feet
chuchoter/murmurer : to whisper
la maternelle : kindergarten
se dépêcher : to hurry
le bord du trottoir (US) : the curb
marcher avec nonchalance : to sashay
un char (de parade) : a float
un éventail : a fan
lever : to lift
du crachat : spit
regarder fixement : to stare
cligner des yeux : to blink
bondir : to lunge
empoigner : to grab
hurler : to yell
rempli de : filled with
verser : to pour
dégouliner : dribble
total : outright
tourner très vite/aller dans tous les sens : to spin
battre des bras et des jambes : to thrash
s'excuser : to apologize
(s')étaler : to sprawl
tordre/entortiller : to twist
au dessous de : beneath
le menton : the chin
une agression : an assault
un voleur : a thief
s'occuper de : to deal with
clouer (ici, au sol) : to pin
une touffe : a clump
décrire une courbe : to curve
une larme : a tear
un vol : a theft
troubler/déranger : to disturb
(se) glisser : to slide