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Chameleon


Пущай мне заплатят, потому — я этим пальцем, может, неделю не пошевельну…

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Let them pay me for it, because this finger, maybe, I shan’t be able to stir for a week…

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Where it stands

Вы меня извините, я человек, который работающий… You’ll excuse me, but I’m a man who is a working man…

Работа у меня мелкая. My work is fine, delicate work.

Этого, ваше благородие, и в законе нет, чтоб от твари терпеть… There’s nothing in the law either, Your Honour, that a man must put up with it from a dumb beast…

Ежели каждый будет кусаться, то лучше и не жить на свете… If every one of them is going to bite, then it would be better not to live in this world at all…

The words in this sentence

пуща́й
let him, may he (dial. for пусть)
мне
to me (dat/prep of я) — я
запла́тят
they will pay (3pl) — заплатить
потому́
because (conj., colloq.)
я
I
э́тим
this/these (instr sg / dat pl) — этот
па́льцем
finger (instr sg) — палец
мо́жет
maybe, perhaps (parenthetical) — мочь
неде́лю
week (acc sg of неделя) — неделя
не
not
пошевельну́
I'll stir, move (1sg of пошевельнуть) — пошевельнуть

А. П. Чехов, «Хамелеон», 1884 · sentence 18 of 53

This is one sentence of «Хамелеон» — 53 sentences long, and the whole story reads like this: every word glossed where it stands, the English out of your eyeline until you ask for it. Free: the reader opens the first instalment with no account and the rest with a free account, and the page with the English under every line needs none at all.

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