The following text and translation covers the page 10 of Thein Pe Myint's short story "ငွေစိန် လှေလှော်ရင်း တက်ကျိုးခြင်း", which I have scanned from page 338 of "ဝတ္ထုတိုပေါင်းချုပ်သစ်" [A new collection of short stories].
Vocabulary:
ဝိုင်းစက် ။ perfectly circular
အေးမြ ။ serene; peaceful
လူသူလေးပါး ။ four classes of society; people from all walks of life; people in general.
ပေကလပ် ပေကလပ် ။ fluttering
ယိမ်း ။ to lean
အဟမ်း ။ "ahem"
စိတ်ရှိလက်ရှိ ။ as much as one wishes
သည်းထန် ။ to be violent; strong; be excessive
ရှိုက် ။ to sob
အကယ်တိ ။ if [?]
ချုံး ။ reduce in size or length; pulled down (in appearance)
အရှိုက် ။ indrawn breath
Translation:
[While considering the question and scratching my neck with my hand...]
... I calculated the lawyer fee. She was staring at me with friendly eyes. Her eyes were beautifully circular and serene.
"Well, when you submit the case you must pay 100 kyat. Later when it is near to the end of the case you will have to pay 100 kyat again.
As soon as she was gazing at me with friendly eyes, with a sentiment of the difficulties of the different classes of people, I turned to look to the side. There was nobody near me. She fluttered her eyes and was biting her lips.
I pushed the table with my knee and sat down so as to lean on the chair.
"Oh my! Lady friend, will you be able to pay?" She exhaled a deep sigh.
"I can't pay money, sir. Ahem... Please take me barrister, as much as you wish."
As for me, I ought to have been surprised with a shock in my chest. I never expected this kind of lawyer's fee.
While my knees that were pushing the table fell, the front of my legs that were rising onto the chair fell with a 'thud'.
"Hey! What kind of a lawyer do you take me for? Go! Go! Never come to me! Go! Now, leave!" I hollered out.
At that time, Ngwe Sein turned her head down on the table and sobbed violently.
For her to be crying like that, I was all confused.
If it was a confused woman on the road, getting only my rejection I would walk away from her without breaking my smile.
At another location I would look for a big lawyer who was close to me for her. As for now, because of my rejection [of her] she was greatly ashamed and being degraded she cried.
"Hey, lady friend. Don't cry. I'm a lawyer who's only satisfied with money. And as for you, I don't want anything. Okay, okay, go on. Don't cry"
She cried quietly with determination. Her inhale, which was a quiet sob, did not remain. She wiped her tears and and glanced at me.
1 comments:
'myetsi tha-nge' = lit. eye child, helpless look
'bay pat le' = around
'luthu lay ba a kè khat' = check for people/company
'ant ar thint thwa lethi' = was surprised/taken aback (not ought to have been surprised - here 'thint' = to be struck by, as in 'hmya/kyi thint' = struck by arrow/bullet)
'dein ga nè' = with a bang
'shaik ywe shaik ywe' = with deep intake of breaths (in between sobs)
'seik shoak' = lit. mind messy, vexed ('gaung shoak' = lit. head messy, confused)
If she were a loose woman ('maimma shoak') on the street she would have taken my rejection not without a smile.
She would find another big lawyer elsewhere capitalizing her body ('ko hnint' = lit. body with, 'yin hnee'= invest, not close or intimate here).
'a-ngo teik' = to stop crying
'a-shaik' = deep intake of breath
'ta chet maw kyi' = to look up once
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