Pride and Prejudice (1813), Jane Austen: summary

This romantic novel is 204 years by now, but the Bennets’s story still exists today probably in third country or non-democracy government. Of course, outside of those countries, it is so easy to find Lizzy Bennet. Though I have watched the film adaption, but I prefer the book. The underlining theme of this novel is how a 19 years old girl like Lizzy to deal with her age in deciding marriage. Mrs. Bennet, her mother, is so relieved to find her eldest daughter crossed in love to a Bingley.  There are still four daughters have came to their age in state of marriage.
 
I like the author in describing the Bennets, and also how she depicts Collins and Darcy. It is in details and delivered in natural and elegant conversation. This fiction allows me to understand what happened to middle class family back in early 1800s. This fiction is a perfect object for learning beautiful and classy writing, though I have to admit this fiction is not easy to comprehend.

Pride and Prejudice (1813), Jane Austen: summary

Not all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with assistance of her five daughters, could ask the subject, was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley. He was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely agreeable, and to crown to whole, he meant to be at the next assembly with a large party. In a few days Mr. Bingley returned Mr. Bennet’s visit. He had entertained hopes of being admitted to a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he heard much; but he only saw the father. An invitation dinner was soon afterwards dispatched; and already had Mrs. Bennet planned the courses that were to do credit to her housekeeping.

And when the party assembly room it consisted of only five altogether – Mr. Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the eldest, and another young man. Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women, with an air of decided fashion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand years. The ladies declared he was handsomer than Mr. Bingley and he was looked at great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of popularity; for he was discovered to be proud. His large estate in Derbyshire was unworthy to be compared with his friend.

Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in e room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield. What a contrast between him and his friend. Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking  about t room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everyone hoped that he would never come there again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of his general behavior was sharpened into particular resentment by his having slighted one of her daughters.

Mr. Bingley was dancing with the only handsome girl in the room as Darcy looked at the eldest Miss Bennet. The evening altogether passed off pleasantly to the whole family. Mrs. Bennet had seen her eldest daughter much admired by the Netherfield party. Mr. Bingley had danced with her twice, and she had been distinguished by his sisters. Jane was as much gratified by this as her mother could be, though in a quitter way. Elizabeth felt Jane’s pleasure. Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most accomplished girl in the neighborhood; and Catherine and Lydia had been fortune enough never to be without partners, which all that they had yet learnt to care for a ball.

Mr. Bingley inherited property to the huge amount from his father, who intended to purchase an estate. His sisters were anxious for his having an estate of his own; but though he was now only established as a tenant. Between him and Darcy there was a very steady friendship, in spite of great opposition character. Bingley was endeared to Darcy by the easiness, openness, and ductility of his temper. In understanding, Darcy was the superior. Bingley was by no means deficient, but Darcy was clever.

Bingley had never met with more pleasant people or pettier girls in his life; there had been no formality; he had soon felt acquainted with all the room; an as to Jane Bennet, he could not conceive an angel more beautiful. Darcy, on the contrary, had seen a collection of people in whom there was little beauty and no fashion, for none of whom he had felt the smallest interest. Elizabeth Bennet he acknowledged to be pretty, but she smiled too much. 

Lady Lucas was a very good kind of woman, not too clever to be a valuable neighbor to Mrs. Bennet. They had several children. The eldest of them, a sensible, intelligent young woman, about twenty-seven, was Elizabeth’s intimate friend. It was Charlotte Lucas.

Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley’s attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the ball. He began to wish to know more of her, and as a step towards conversing her himself, attended to her conversation with others. Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application. The third girl of Bennets was the only plain one in family.  

Mr. Bennet’s property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male. She had a sister married to a Mr. Philips, who had been a clerk to their father and succeeded him in the business, and a brother settled in London in a respectable line of trade. The two youngest of the family, Catherine and Lydia, were particularly frequent in these attentions; their minds were more vacant than their sisters.

Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society; the greatest part of his life having been spent under the guidance of an illiterate and misery father, and though he belonged to one universities. A fortune chance had recommended him Lady Catherine de Bourgh when the living of Hunsford was vacant; and the respect which he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness, mingling with very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and his right as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.

Having now a good house and a very sufficient income, he intended to marry; and in seeking a reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had a wife in view, as he meant to choose one of the daughters. Mr. Collins had only to change from Jane to Elizabeth.

As Elizabeth had no longer any interest of her own to pursue, she turned her attention almost entirely on her sister and Mr. Bingley. The discussion of Mr. Collins’s offer was now nearly at an end, and Elizabeth had only to suffer from the uncomfortable feelings necessarily attending it, and occasionally from some peevish allusions of her mother. Mr. Collins was also in the same state of angry pride. Elizabeth had hoped that his resentment might shorten his visit, but his plan did not appear in the least affected by it.

The Bennets were engaged to dine with the Lucases and again during the chief of the day was Miss Lucas so kind as to listen to Mr. Collins. Charlotte Lucas assured her friend of satisfaction in being useful, and that it amply repaid her for little sacrifice of her time. The strangeness of Mr. Collins making two offers of marriage within three days was nothing in comparison of being now accepted. Charlotte Lucas the wife of Mr. Collins was a most humiliating picture.

Jane confessed herself a little surprised at the match, but she said less of her astonishment than of her earnest desire for happiness, nor could Elizabeth persuade her consider it as improbable. Kitty and Lydia were far from envying Miss Lucas, for Mr. Collins was only clergyman; and it affected them in no other way than as a piece of news to spread at Meryton.

Mrs. Bennet persisted in disbelieving the whole of the matter. Mr. Bennet’s emotions were much more tranquil on the occasion, and such as he did experience he pronounced to be of a most agreeable sort; for it gratified, he said, to discover that Charlotte Lucas, whom he had been used to think tolerably sensible, was s foolish as his wife, and more foolish his daughter. Between Elizabeth and Charlotte there was a restraint which kept them mutually silent on the subject. Her disappointment in Charlotte made her turn with fonder regard to her sister.

Jane was crossed in love, Mr, Bennet suggested his second daughter to Mr. Wickham. Wickham’s society was of material service in dispelling the gloom which the late preserve occurrences was now openly acknowledged and publicly had thrown on many of the Longbourn family. The whole of what Elizabeth had already heard, his claims on Mr. Darcy, and all that he suffered from him.

Mrs. Bennet had the pleasure of receiving her brother and his wife, who came as usual to spend the Christmas at Longbourn. Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly superior to his sister, as well by nature as education. The Netherfield ladies would have had difficulty in believing that a man who lived by trade, and within view of his own warehouse, could have been so well-bred and agreeable. Mrs. Gardiner, who was several years younger than Mrs. Bennet nd Mrs. Philips, was an amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favorite with all her Loungbourn nieces. The first part of Mrs. Gardiner’s business on her arrival was to distribute her presents and describe the newest fashion.

Lady Catherine was tall, large woman, with strongly-marked features, which might once have been handsome. Her air was not conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by silence; but whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone. Mrs. Collins had invited her friend Lizzy to her new home. Lady Catherine was there too. Easter was approaching, and the week preceding it was to bring an addition to the family at Rosings, which in so small a circle must be important. Elizabeth had heard soon after her arrival that Mr. Darcy was expected there in the course of a few weeks. There were to nephews of Lady Catherine to require them, for Mr. Darcy had brought with him a Colonel Fitzwilliam, the younger son of his uncle Lord.    

Colonel Fitzwiliam’s manners were very much admired at the Parsonage, and the ladies all felt that he must add considerable to the pleasure of their engagement at Rosings. Lady Catherine continued her remarks on Elizabeth’s performance, mixing them with all the forbearance of civility, and at the request of the gentlemen, remained at the instrument till her ladyship’s carriage was ready to take all home.

All field sports were over. Within doors there was Lady Catherine, books, and a billiard-table, but gentlemen cannot always within doors.  The two cousins found a temptation from this period of walking thither almost every day. They called at various times of the morning, sometimes separately, sometime together, and now and then accompanied by their aunt. It was plain to them all that Colonel Fitzwilliam came because he had pleasure in their society; and Elizabeth was reminded by her own satisfaction in being with him, as well as by his evident admiration of her.  Her former favorite George Wickham; and though, in comparing them. In her kind schemes for Elizabeth, she sometimes planned her marrying Colonel Fitzwilliam.

Elizabeth awoke the next morning to the same thoughts and meditations which had at length closed eyes. She could not yet recover from the surprise of what had happened. She was proceeding directly to her favorite walk, when the reconciliation of Mr. Darcy’s sometimes coming there stopped her, and instead of entering the park, she turned up the lane, which led farther from the turnpike-road. After walking two or three times along that part of the lane. The five weeks which she had now passed in Kent had made a great difference in the country.

Mr. Darcy handed her a letter. He wrote it without any intention of paining her. He explained everything about himself and George Wickham. His father supported Wickham at school, and afterwards at Cambridge. George Wickham was the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good conduct in discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to be of service to him.

Fitzwilliam’s father had died five years ago, and his attachment to Mr. Wickham was to the last so steady. His own father did not long survive Fitz’s father. Wickham wrote him and hope Fitz should not think it unreasonable for expect some more immediate monetary advantage. Fitz’s sister who is more than ten years his junior, was left to the guardianship of her mother’s nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam.

When she read and re-read with the closet attention, the particulars immediately following of Wickham’s resigning all pretension to the living. The extravagance and general profligacy which he scrupled not to lay at Mr. Wickham’s charge, exceedingly shocked her; the more so, as she could bring no proof of its justice. She had never heard of him before his entrance into the military, in which he had engaged at the persuasion of the young man who, on meeting him accidentally in town. She grew absolutely ashamed herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think without feeling she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, and absurd.

Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father’s behavior as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affection at treatment of herself.  She was visiting her uncle in Pemberly. Mr. Gardiner and his wife was scarcely a less interesting personage tan to herself. They had long to see Darcy. The whole party before them, indeed, exited a lively attention. Elizabeth had settled it that Darcy brought his sister. Miss Darcy was tall, and on a larger scale than Lizzy. She was only sixteen, her figure was formed, and her appearance womanly and graceful.

In seeing Bingley at the party, her thoughts naturally flew to her sister, Jane. But, though that might be imaginary she could not be deceived as to his behavior to Miss Darcy, who had been set up as a rival to Jane.  

Bingley expressed great pleasure in certainty of seeing Elizabeth again, having still a great deal to say to her. Elizabeth, construing all this into a wish of hearing her speak of her sister, was pleased, and on this account, as well as some others found herself. But she had no reason to fear her uncle and his wife’s curiosity, it was not their wish to force her communication. Of Mr. Darcy it was now a matter of anxiety to think well, as far as their acquaintance reached, there was no fault to find. They could not touched but his politeness, and had they drawn his character from their own feelings and his servant’s report. They had nothing to accuse him of but pride; pride probably he had. It was acknowledged, however, that he was a liberal man, did much good among the poor.

Elizabeth got letter from her Jane. Their mother was grieved, Lydia, had left home; has thrown herself into the power of Mr. Wickham. She had no money, no connections. Mr. Bennet has gone to London, and Jane begged their uncle immediate assistance. In their letter to her friend, she call herself as Lydia Wickham. She was only sixteen. Their sister wedding day arrived; and Jane and Elizabeth felt for her probably more than she felt for herself. They came. Lydia’s voice was herd in her vestibule. Her mother embraced her. Lydia was Lydia still; untamed; wild; noisy; and fearless.

Wickham’s affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia’s for him. Lydia was exceedingly fond for him. The situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long secret. The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune. A week after Bingley’s engagement with Jane had been formed, Lady Catherine de Bourgh arrived in early morning. She was in Longbourn to see Lizzy on behalf her nephew, Mr. Darcy. It was unbelievable for Lizzy, he had sent his aunt to propose her.

*****

December, 28, 2017

Sekapur Sirih

Era Victoria diwarnai Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, dan banyak nama besar lainnya, tak kalah sejumlah penulis wanita turut serta, membawa suasana seperti Bronte bersaudara, George Elliot, dan Jane Austen (1775-1817) – umumnya bertema drama romantika. Hampir seluruh karya Austen terkenal dan diantaranya ialah Pride and Prejudice. Dapat dimengerti jika karya ini bombastis pada jamannya, karena hingga kini pun novel ini masih menarik dinikmati. Kisah drama romansa yang dituturkan dengan alami dan apa adanya tentang keluarga yang memiliki lima putri. Keluarga Bennet tidak memiliki putra, kelak penerus keluarga. Ny. Bennet ingin buru-buru menikahkan gadis-gadisnya.

Walau sudah pernah menikmati karya ini dalam bentuk film, dibintangi Keira Knightley, tapi membaca langsung selalu lebih memuaskan. Latar keluarga biasa dan penyewa yang hidup di desa, sebuah pesta dansa telah mempertemukan gadis Bennet dengan pria idaman mereka. Membayangkan memiliki lima gadis di jaman milenial sekarang, keluarga kelas menengah, tentu sangat kompleks atau mungkin saja bahkan berbalik, tentu tidak sepelik pemikiran Ny. Bennet. 

Perpaduan kemajuan Iptek-Internet dan persamaan gender membuka peluang besar bagi wanita terutama di negara maju dan berbasis demokrasi, dibarengi sejuta tantangan, konsekuensi, dan efek buruk pun muncul di era kebebasan dan teknologi media sosial ini -- plus-minus setiap jaman. Tokoh Jane, 22 tahun, gadis lembut rupawan, jatuh hati dan diberi harapan oleh pemuda dari kota. Elizabeth, 19 tahun, biasa dipanggil Lizza atau Lizzy, sebagai tokoh sentral, tergolong melawan jamannya; dia kritis, pemberontak dan berbeda dengan karakter gadis pada umumnya.

Kisah fiksi ini sudah 204 tahun, teknologi dan peradaban tidak juga mampu menghadang kejadian serupa nihil di sekeliling kita. Anak dijadikan sebagai tumpuan harapan keluar dari ekonomi keluarga lewat perjodohan. Memang Austen tidak secara ekstrim menggambarkan hal tersebut. Ny. Bennet mengharapkan putri keduanya, Lizzy, menikahi Collin, pewaris kaya, dia sangat bahagia Jane dipinang lelaki kaya.

Buku ini terbitan Gramedia Pustaka Utama 2017, sebanyak 520 halaman. Tidak tepat bagi pembaca pemula, agak sulit dipahami, saya harus kembali membaca untuk lebih mendalami makna setiap paragraf. Kita akan dimanjakan oleh keindahan tulisan dan percakapan, irama perlahan dan rapih membawa kita tenggelam dalam bahasa indah dan sopan.  

Terjemahan Ringkasan (Resume) Pride and Prejudice (1813) dalam Bahasa Indonesia

Kisah diawali dengan acara pesta dansa, kecantikan putri tertua keluarga Bennet memukau Tn. Bingley. Ny. Bennet sangat bersuka cita malam itu, putri tertuanya didekati pria berkualitas dan kaya seperti Bingley. Jane berusia 22 tahun, gadis tercantik di wilayahnya, adiknya Elizabeth tidak secantik dirinya, dikenal cerdas dan kritis, sangat berbeda denga gadis-gadis lainnya. Ia menginginkan pernikahan dengan atas cinta, tidak sekedar perjodohan. Ibunya sangat mengkuatirkan Lizzy yang tengah berusia 19 tahun. Mary putri ketiganya memiliki sifat datar dan acuh. Catherine dan si bungsu Lidya ceria dan tidak memiliki rasa takut.  

Selepas acara pesta dansa itu, Jane dan Tn. Bingley semakin dekat. Elizabeth sendiri menyukai Tn. Wickham, ayahnya sendiri menyarankan menerima tentara itu. Mr. Darcy, sahabat dari Bingley menaruh hati pada Elizabeth. Ny. Bennet sangat menentang, meminta putrinya menjauhi pria sombong itu. Fitzwilliam Darcy superior terhadap orang lain. Dalam pesta, ia adalah lelaki paling tampan, tapi perilakunya tidak menyenangkan dan memuakkan. Ia menyadari dirinya tidak sekedar tampan, tapi pewaris kekayaan melimpah, bisa dibilang pemua terkaya dalam pesta.

Dengan sikapnya yang kaku Tn. Collins dan bibinya Lady Catherine, wanita berkelas dn kaya, mendatangi kediaman Bennet, tujuannnya tak lain adalah untuk mencari istri. Dengan senang pula Ny. Bennet menjodohkan putrinya Lizzy untuk menjadi istri Collins. Lizzy sama sekali tidak tertarik dengan pria kaku itu. Selama kunjungan di rumah Bennet, Charlotte Lucas yang setia mendengar semua keinginan Collins. Keluraga Bennet membuat jamuan makan usapan terima kasih atas waktu dan kesediaan Charlotte menemani tamu mereka. Colins memang aneh, hanya dalam tiga hari dia meminang dua gadis. Lizzy menolaknya, ia lebih tertarik dengan Tuan muda Wickham, walau ia tidak tahu pasti apakah itu namanya cinta.

Ny. Bennet sungguh tak menyangka, akhirnya Collins melamar Charlotte, teman Lizzy. Kitty dan Lidya malah senang, bagi keduanya Collins kaku, formal tidak cocok buat Lizzy. Jane juga sangat heran dengan keputusan rencana pernikahan Collins dan Charlotte. Tn. Bennet sangat kecewa, itu seharusnya putrinya.

Charlotte dan suaminya mengundang Lizzy ke rumah mereka. Bagaimana pun Charlotte tetaplah  teman Lizzy, keadaannya agak kikuk. Selama tinggal di rumah Collins, wanita kaya Lady Catherine juga berada di sana, banyak memberi protes dan pandangannya akan keluarga Bennet yang terlalu berani dengan putri lima dan dibesarkan sendiri oleh ibunya, tanpa guru dan pengasuh. Saat paskah, Darcy dan sepupunya Colonel William melewatkan waktu di kediaman Collins. Lizzy sempat pula menyimpan rasa tertarik pada William, rupanya Darcy tetap menginginkannya.

Waktu berlalu. Jane dengan kisah sedih merasa tidak dipedulikan Bingley selama kunjungan di London, namun akhirnya hubungan keduanya mencair kembali. Darcy akhinya berhasil meyakinkan Lizzy dan meminang gadis itu. Keluarga Darcy yang sangat kaya raya mempekerjakan banyak orang termasuk ayah Wickham. Pemuda itu memilih karir militer. Wichkam sendiri tidak begitu peduli dengan Lizzy, terakhir ia mendekati Lydia. Surat Darcy yang mengisahkan semua keadaan rumah dan kisah Wickham meyakinkan bahwa Darcy tidak seburuk yang diberitakan orang-orang. Lizzy membuka hati untuknya. Pertemuan keduanya ketika di rumah pamannya Gardiner membuat mereka semakin mengenal satu sama lain. Darcy adalah pria kaya berkelas, Lizzy menyadari pria itu bukan untuknya, wanita itu telah jatuh hati padanya. Lagipula, selama ini ia berpikir ia telah dijodohkan dengan putri Lady Catherine.

Berita buruk tentang pelarian Lydia dengan Wickham sempat membuat sedih dan malu keluarga Bennet. Pada akhirnya pernikahan si bungsu Lydia dengan Wickham, belum genap enam belas tahun, membuat keluarga itu lega. Kebahagian datang, ketika lamaran Bingley pada Jane, disusul kedatangan Lady Catherine melamar Lizzy untuk keponakannya Darcy. Tersisa kini hanya Mary dan Kitty Bennet. 

******

28 Desember 2017

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia, a Short Story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: summary

This short story depicts intrigue of upper class in 1890, King of Bohemia as Holmes’s client and a famous actress as a manipulative girl.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia, a Short Story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: summary

Holmes was the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory. 

He was still deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police. He still lived in Baker Street. He was at work again.

The undated note just arrived, without signature and address. A gentleman desired to consult his case in Holmes’s chamber. He had stated the time, would be wearing a mask. The man who wrote it was presumably well-to-do. Watson recognized the paper was made in Bohemia (Today a region of the Czech Republic. But in 1880, Bohemia was in a German-speaking country and the region was occupied by German Confederation).

A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His dress was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as akin to bad taste. Boots which extended halfway up his calves, and which were trimmed the tops with rich brown fur, completed the impression of barbaric opulence which was suggested by his whole appearance. From the lower part of the face he appeared to be a man of strong character, with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.

Later Holmes acknowledged him as Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, hereditary King of Bohemia. And then then man in the mask introduced himself as King of Bohemia. He was undercover name as the Count Von Kramnn, a Bohemian nobleman.

He consulted about a famous actress, Irene Adler. She was a prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw. She just retired from operatic stage and lived in London. The king made the acquaintance of the well-known actress, Irene Adler five year ago. She was accused in stealing his seal. At that time he was only Crown Prince then. She had imitated their photographs, the King has worried those photograph would ruin his marriage. He was about to be married the second daughter of the King of Scandinavia. She was herself the very soul of delicacy. A shadow of a doubt as to his conduct would bring the matter to the end. The King was afraid Irene Adler would send the photograph as a threat.

Irene Adler had the face of the most beautiful women, and the mind of the most resolute of men. She lived quietly, sang at concerts, drove at five every day, and returned at seven sharp for dinner. Seldom went out at other times, except when she sang. Her only visitor was Mr. Godfrey Norton, of the Inner Temple. He was dark, handsome, and dashing. He was an English lawyer. Later the very next day, Holmes and Watson followed Irene Adler to a church. Watson had followed her to that church, and a surpliced clergyman, who seemed to be expostulating with them.

Watson was half-dragged up to the altar. It was all done in an instant, and there was gentleman thanking him on the side and the lady on the other, while the clergyman beamed on him in front. His lucky appearance saved the bridegroom from having to sally out into the streets in search of a best man. At the church door, however, they separated, he driving back to the Temple, and she to her own house. Adler has married to Godfrey Norton. The marriage rather simplified matters. The photograph became a double-edged weapon now. The chances were that she would be as averse to its being seen by Mr. Godfrey Norton, as Holmes’s client was to its coming to the eyes of his princess.

Holmes and Watson found themselves in Serpentine Avenue, Adler’s house. They believed she kept the photograph in her house. It was already dusk, and the lamps were just being lighted as they paced. The neighborhood appeared to be less private than he expected. On the contrary, for a small street in a quite neighborhood, it was remarkably animated. There was a group of shabbily dressed men smoking and laughing in a corner.

A blow was struck, and in an instant the lady, who had stepped from her carriage, was the centre of a little knot of flushed and struggling men, who struck savagely each other with their fist and sticks. Holmes dashed into the crowd to protect the lady, but he reached her he gave a cry and dropped to the ground, with the blood running freely down his face. They brought him to her house. Holmes had sat up upon the couch. He gave a signal then Watson tossed his rocket into the room with cried ‘fire’. But Holmes still did not have the photograph.

In the morning, the king of Bohemia rushed into Baker Street asked about the photograph. Holmes and Watson told him that Irene was married to an English lawyer. Then they headed to Irene’s house. An elderly woman, a maid with sardonic eye, welcomed them. Her mistress and her husband had left that morning. Holmes pushed the servant and rushed into the drawing-room, followed the King and Watson. The furniture was scattered about in every direction, with dismantled shelves and open drawers, as if the lady had hurried ransacked before her flight. The servant handed Holmes a letter and a photograph.

The photograph was Irene Adler herself in evening dress, the letter was super-scribed to Sherlock Holmes. In her letter she said she knew that the King had hired an agent. She also became suspicious on Watson as the clergyman. She had sent her man, named John, to watch Holmes. She loved her husband, and would do no harm to the King. She would not send the photograph to the princess. She kept it only to safeguard herself, and to preserve a weapon which he might take in the future. She left a photograph which King might care to possess.

*****

December 11, 2017

Sekapur Sirih

Dalam cerpen A Scandal in Bohemia ini, tokoh Holmes dan Watson diawali dengan kedatangan pesan misterius dan pada akhirnya klien di balik topeng. Baik tokoh baik dan jahat adalah orang terpandang yakni seorang raja dan gadis artis tersohor. Antagonis dalam Petualangan Sherlock Holmes kali ini tidaklah ekstrim, dan walau sempat bernada mengancam klien Holmes, tapi pada akhirnya tidak terbukti jahat, padahal Watson dan  Holmes sempat berakting dalam drama penyamaran agar bisa masuk ke dalam kehidupan dan rumah wanita itu. Artis cantik-cerdas mencium penyelidikan agen Holmes, ceritanya tetap menarik, apalagi mungkin di tahun 1880-an plot semacam ini tergolong luar biasa. 

Resume Terjemahan dalam Bahasa Indonesia: A Scandal in Bohemia, Cerpen dari Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Dr. Watson terlarut dalam kebahagiaan pernikahan dan praktek sehingga membuatnya jarang mampir dan berkunjung ke Jalan Baker menemui koleganya Holmes. Agen itu masih tinggal di sana, bekerja menangani kasus kejahatan yang tidak terpecahkan oleh polisi dan bahkan terabaikan. Namun hari itu, Watson menghampiri sahabat dan rekannya Sherlock Holmes. Sang agen masih rajin bekerja di tengah kebiasaan buruknya menikmati candu. Holmes tidak pernah membahas masalah wanita pada Watson, ia bersikap dingin dalam masalah itu. Seorang wanita cantik, artis ternama pernah membuatnya tergila-gila, Irene Adler. Wanita tersohor yang dikenal setiap orang menjadi bagian dari kasus yang ditanganinya.

Sepucuk pesan tiba di kantor Holmes, tanpa tanggal dan tanda tangan. Pesan yang misterius bagi Holmes dan Watson. Tulisannya sepertinya dari tangan seorang yang tidak biasa; kaya dan terpelajar. Watson menduga kertasnya buatan Bohemia. Dalam pesannya, seorang klien akan tiba pada jam yang ditentukan dan ia akan mengenakan topeng, agar Holmes dapat memakluminya.

Waktu yang ditentukan pun tiba, benarlah lelaki berperawakan tinggi dengan sepatu botnya tiba di Jalan Baker, kantor Holmes. Pakaiannya berbahan mahal, tapi selera pakaiannya masih di bawah selera orang London. Dari bibir yang menggantung di ujung topeng, menunjukkan lelaki itu berkarakter kuat dan tegas. Ia pun mengutarakan kasusnya. Holmes menebak-nebak siapa di balik topeng itu, lelaki itu akhirnya mengaku jika ia adalah Raja dari Bohemia. (Bohemia adalah sebuah wilayah Republik Czech masa ini, namun pada 1800 wilayah itu dikuasai Federasi Jerman, sehingga kala itu penduduknya berbahasa Jerman.) Dalam waktu singkat Holmes mengetahui namanya, sebelumnya ia sudah menduga penulis pesan pastilah orang penting.

Sekitar lima tahun lalu, saat ia masih muda dan berstatus Putra Mahkota, raja dekat dengan artis ternama Irene Adler, wanita tersohor berparas cantik luar biasa. Setiap orang mengetahui nama itu termasuk Holmes. Raja mencium sifat artis itu kurang baik, dan mengkuatirkannya wanita itu telah menyimpan foto mereka. Bahkan ia yakin Irene telah memalsukan foto mereka berdua. Dalam waktu dekat Raja akan menikahi putri kedua Raja Skandinavia. Calon istrinya itu dikenal sangat hati-hati, raja pun kuatir kalau Irene akan mengirimkan foto ancaman yang akan menghancurkan pernikahan raja.

Watson dan Holmes memulai penyidikan, mengikuti kegiatan sang artis saban hari. Artis kelahiran Amerika itu dulu sering berpentas di Warsaw dan telah memutuskan pensiun dan kini tinggal di London. Ia memiliki jadual yang hampir sama setiap hari, pagi hari sudah berangkat dari kediamannya dan menyanyi, sore hari pulang tepat sebelum makan malam. Hanya ada seoarng pria yang rutin mengunjunginya, bernama Godfrey Norton. Belakangan diketahui, pria tampan itu adalah pengacara kebangsaan Inggris. Mengikuti lebih lanjut, secara terpisah dan Godfrey dan Irene menuju sebuah gereja, rupanya keduanya didapati melangsungkan pernikahan. Watson menyusup dalam rombongan pendeta, berdiri menghadap altar. Ia separuh ditarik paksa ke altar dijadikan sebagai saksi pernikahan Irene dan Norton.

Pernikahan keduanya semakin membuat foto kian rumit. Bila ditemukan suami Irene akan semakin parah. Kedua agen itu berusaha mendapatkan foto itu. Mereka meyakini pastilah benda itu berada di rumah Irene. Lingkungan rumah Irene tidaklah seelite yang ia pikir, di depan rumah ada jalan kecil begitu ramai dipenuhi begundal. Beberapa orang berdiri dan berbincang sambil merokok malam itu, cukup ramai.

Mendadak sebuah mobil mengerem mendadak, dan sepasang lelaki berantam, berduel di tengah jalan dan hingga menghadang mobil ke arah wanita kaya yang turun dari dalam mobil. Holmes pun tiba-tiba berlari ke kerumunan, berniat menyelamatkan wanita itu. Ia belumur darah, Holmes pun dibawa dan dirawat di rumah wanita itu. Homes tengah duduk di sofa dalam rumah Irene, dekat jendela dan memberi isyarat pada Watson tengah berdiri di jalan raya. Watson pun melemparkan api dan berteriak ‘kebakaran’. Tapi sia-sia, Holmes tetap saja tidak berhasil menemukan foto.

Esok paginya, sang raja mendatangi Jalan Baker. Watson pun menceritakan pernikahan tersebut kepada kliennya, namun sang raja sulit percaya, karena Irene yang dikenalnya akan nekad mengancam pernikahannya. Ia meyakinkan raja bahwa Irene sudah menikahi seorang pengacara, berarti tidak mencintai sang raja lagi. Mereka bertiga bergegas menuju rumah Irene. 

Wanita licik itu dan suaminya telah pergi. Pembantu Irene, seorang wanita tua membukakan pintu dan memberi sepucuk surat dan foto. Dalam suratnya, Irene menyebutkan bahwa ia sadar telah dikuntiti oleh agen Holmes. Ia kecewa dan marah atas sikap raja yang mencurigainya, apalagi penyamaran Watson di gereja. Ia pun menyuruh anak buahnya bernama John memata-matai gerak-gerik Holmes dan Watson. 

Kali ini ia berujar tidak berminat menghancurkan raja, ia sudah bahagia, telah menemukan lelaki yang dicintai dan mencintainya, lebih dari raja. Foto itu ada padanya dan akan tetap menyimpannya, dijadikan senjata di kemudian hari bila diperlukan. Sehelai foto diri Irene dalam balutan gaun malam ditinggalkan untuk raja yang sudah menuduhnya, memberinya untaian kata mengejek. Bagi Holmes Irene Adler adalah wanita satu-satunya yang memikat.

*****

11 Desember 2017

The Breathing Method, a Winter’s Tale (1982), Stephen King; summary

This is the only horror story from four novellas of Different Season. The story follows David Adley that attends the men's club for years. His boss has invited him to the club. He experiences unnatural things since then, but he still expects another invitation. Ten years, more or less, has passed since he joined the club, while much has changed in the world outside. Nothing has changed in the club, and Stevens the doorman seems not to have aged a month, or a single day. In the years he comes to the club, then Dr. Emlyn McCarron brings a Christmas tale from the past, the Breathing Method story.

The Breathing Method, a Winter’s Tale (1982), Stephen King; summary

He was under the canopy of the apartment building in New York, where David and Ellen had lived since 1946, by quarter eight to eight, and when the cab was five minutes late, he found himself pacing up and down impatiently. It was two days before Christmas Eve, now the snow began again, coming first in thin membranes, then twisting into cyclone shapes ahead of them in the street. 

David Adley was glad to see that the steps leading up to the door of 249B had been sanded – that was Stevens’s work, Stevens was there, holding the door open, a moment later David was inside. He had been coming to the brownstone which stands at 294B East Thirty-fifth Street for ten years, it can be said he is a gentlemen’s club.

On night Emlyn McCarron told his story- the story of the Breathing Method. There were  perhaps thirteen club-members in all. Stevens might know about the members. Stevens seemed older than he looks. He has a faint Brooklyn accent, but in spite of that he is as brutally correct and as cuttingly punctilious as a third-generation English butler.

David came to the club as the guest of George Waterhouse. Waterhouse headed the law firm for which David worked since 1951. He looked around for Waterhouse, but he disappeared. Feeling a little uncomfortable and a lot out of place, David wandered over to the fireplace. The fireplace at 294B was big enough to broil and ox whole. The legend engraved on the stone; IT IS THE TALE, NOT HE WHO TELLS IT.

For one thing, he has always loved books, and walks slowly along the shelves. There were a set of Dickens, a set of Defoe, and there also set of novels –eleven of them -- by  man named Edward Gray Seville, and the name of the firm gold-stamped on the spine was Stedham and Son. David never heard of Seville or of his publishers. The copyright was 1911 and the date of the last was 1953.  

He met George Waterhouse the next day in the hallway. George nodded his way and went on without speaking as he had done for years. In the New York Public Library David checked the card catalogue for works of fiction by a named Edward Gray Seville. He was waiting for the next invitation, George Waterhouse finally broke down and asked him back.

The firm sent him to Copenhagen for six weeks that fall, and he returned to discover that John Hanrahan, one of regular attendees at 249B, had died of cancer. A collection was taken up for his wife, who had been left in unpleasant circumstances. It came to more than ten thousand dollars. He supposed Stevens has mailed. It just so happened that Arlene Hanrahan was member of Ellen’s Theater Society, and Ellen told him sometime later that Arlene had received an anonymous check for ten thousand four hundred dollars. Written on the check stub was the brief message: Friends of your late husband John.

The years went by. In those same years he re-read the novel of Seville, and an absolutely stunning poet-the equal of Ezra Pound and Wallace Steven. All three volumes of his work had been published by Stedham & Son, New York and Boston. He did not found the publisher in Public Library, even an antiquarian book-dealer and asked him about the  imprint. But he said he had never heard of it.

In years David had never herd McCarron tell a story. Ten years, more or less, had passed since he had first come to 294B with George Waterhouse, and while much had changed in the world outside, nothing had change in there, and Stevens seemed not to have aged a month, or even a single.

Dr. Emlyn McCarron was nearly eighty now. All his life had been associated with a building, Harriet White Memorial Hospital. The Harriet White after whom it was named was named was his father’s first wife, and she got her practical experience in nursing. A statue of the lady herself stands on a pedestal in the courtyard before the building.

Twenty-six is old to be just starting out in the world of medicine, but he had done more practical internship in France, at the end of World War I. McCarron began practicing medicine in 1929, a bad year to begin anything. By 1935, things had improved a bit. In April of that year he saw a new patient, a young woman, white, who stated her age to be twenty-eight. But her true age seemed to be younger than that-- 23-25 years old. In the register form, she sign her name was not Sandra Stansfield but Jane Smith. She was two months in pregnancy. She wore no wedding ring.

She came to New York because she thought it might be easier to get her foot in the door there. The legitimate theater interested her more than the talkies. She got a job selling perfume in one of the big department stores and enrolled in acting class. Sandra was smart and terribly determined. She was lonely too, perhaps the single girl fresh from small Midwestern town. It was a young man in her acting classes, the two of them went out several times. She did not love him, but she needed a friend. She discovered she was pregnant. When she told the young man, he was gone from his lodgings, leaving no forwarding address.

In the course of his reading on the subject of pregnancy, he discovered the principle of silent birth and the idea of the Breathing Method. Screaming wastes energy which would be better used to expel the baby. The method was supposed to help mother focus her attention on the job and to cope with pain by utilizing the body’s own resources. A woman employing the Breathing Method began to breathe in a series of short, measured inhales and exhales when she felt a contraction coming on. The harder the contraction, the longer the inhale-exhale. The final stage called ‘locomotive’ – imitating a steam-driven locomotive. Sandra was the ideal patient. She was sort of woman the Breathing Method was invented for.

Mrs. Kelly, her supervisor at work, began angry with her belly. She had previously been quite friendly to Sandra. She had two almost-grown children and her respectable husband, who owned barber-shop and voted Republican. Sandra was fired.

She had moved to the cheaper apartment. She had even found work of a sort. A blind woman with a fairly comfortable income had hired her to do some light housework, and then to read to her from the works of Gene Stratton Porter and Perl Buck. Mrs. Gibbs, the blind woman who hired her was impressed with her. Several of the blind woman’s friends had expressed an interest in employing her following the birth of her child.

It was at the foot of the statue of his father’s first wife, directly below tht inscription, that Sandra Stansfield died not quite four months later in a senseless accident that occurred just as she arrived at the hospital to deliver her child.

Sandra’s labor began on Christmas Eve. The cab was late and Sandra’s labor was progressing more rapidly than Dr. McCarron had predicted. The driver, seeing that his fare was about to have a baby, help her down. Sandra only nodded, preoccupied with her deep inhale-exhales as a fresh contraction seized her. Mrs. Gibbs told him later that the young cab driver was more nervous than her poor Sandra, and that was probably a contributing cause to the accident. Another was almost certainly the Breathing Method itself. The driver was not seriously injured I the accident. He said the sound of the steady deep breathing coming from the back seat made him nervous.

The baby was alive. His mother was as pale as milk, and while there was terror and a kind of superstitious awe on her face as she looked down at that weirdly breathing body. Her eyes moved, her lips parted and there were seven distinct sounds, Thank you, Dr. McCarron. He paid the burial expenses, she had no one else. The baby was adopted. The adoption records were kept as secret as possible. There was a young man and his wife-their name was not Harrison, but that is close enough, they lived in Maine. They could have no children of their own. They named him John. He was forty-five yet, a young man. John was handsome, intelligent, and charming. He was now head of English department at one of the two or three most respected private college in the country. He inherited his mother’s determination.

*******

October 9, 2017

Sekapur Sirih

Satu-satunya kisah horor dari empat novela Different Seasons-nya Stephen King. Ide ceritanya liar cukup membangunkan bulu kudu, hanya saja, ada jembatan terputus yang menyisakan rasa penasaran hingga cerita selesai: apakah benar Stevens seorang manusia dan bagaimana dengan koleksi novel dan penerbit misterius. Novela ini cukup sulit dipahami, sehingga membacanya perlahan dan berulang kali. Kisah ini juga menggambarkan penolakan sosial kala itu pada wanita hamil diluar nikah. Metode Pernafasan, metoda bernafas ibu hamil yang dipraktekkan seorang wanita tekun hingga menghantarkannya ke alam maut.

Ringkasan (Resume) the Breathing Method (Metoda Pernafasan), 1982, Stephen King

Tuturan dari David Adley, bekerja pada subuah firma hukum, diajak bosnya menghadiri sebuah klub. Lelaki itu tidak biasa berbohong pada istrinya Ellen, kali ini sulit untuk tidak. Sejak pertemuan pertama, hidupnya berubah dan mengalami hal aneh. Salju Desember di jalanan New York tidak mampu mengurungkan niat David menghadiri pertemuan pertamanya. Sekitar delapan belas orang lelaki berumur memenuhi ruangan klub, Stevens pria penjaga pintu 249B dengan ramah melayani para anggota.

Walau petemuan pertama agak aneh, David tetap mengharapkan undangan dari George Waterhouse, bosnya. Undangan yang dinanti pun tiba. Waktu berlalu tidak terasa David sudah sepuluh tahun menjadi anggota klub, mendengar berbagai kisah. Apartemen sangat besar, apalagi di pusat kota New York, tungkunya saja muat memanggang seekor sapi.

Satu hal tentang David, ia sangat menyukai buku, langkahnya pun menuju rak besar. Karya-karya besar berderet di sana, namun ada novel yang memikat perhatiannya. Ia sempat membacanya. Ketika ia ke perpustakaan umum, mengecek buku yang dibaca di klub, tapi tidak ditemukan, bahkan penerbitnya pun tidak didapat dari katalog perpustakaan. Pustakawan dan penjual buku juga mengatakan ia belum pernah mendengar baik penulis dan penerbitnya.

Setelah tahun ke sepuluh, dunia luar berubah tapi tidak dalam ruangan 429B, tempat para anggota berkumpul. Begitu juga penjaga pintu Stevens, sama sekali tidak menua. Tapi aksen Brooklyn-nya meyakinkan David, ia nyata. Dr. Emlyn McCarron tidak pernah bercerita selama sepuluh tahun, namun dua hari menjelang Natal, ia membawa kisah kelahiran di malam Natal, dari masa lalu, namun bukan kelahiran dua ribu tahun lalu.

Emlyn McCarron kini berusia delapan puluh tahun, ia menghabiskan hidupnya di sebuah gedung rumah sakit. Harriet White Memorial Hospital, nama istri pertma ayahnya yang didedikasikan menjadi nama rumah sakit tersebut. Harriet White dulunya adalah perawat. McCarron memulai karirnya sebagai dokter saat berusia dua puluh enam tahun, umur yang cukup, setelah memiliki pengalaman praktek di Perancis akhir PD I.

Tahun 1929 bukanlah waktu tepat memulai bisnis medis. Namun di tahun 1935, keadaan membaik. Tepatnya di bulan April, seorang gadis muda yang mengaku berumur 28 tahun mendatangi ruang praktek David. Pria itu yakin Sandra lebih muda dari pengakuannya. Gadis itu masih berumur 23-25 tahun sengaja menyembunyikan nama aslinya, Sandra Stransfield dengan nama samaran Jane Smith. Hamil diluar nikah, pada jaman itu adalah aib besar.

Sandra akhirnya berteman dengan Dr. McCarron, dan membagi kisahnya. Gadis itu datang dari kota kecil di Minnesota, merantau ke New York dengan berharap menjadi bintang panggung. Sandra cantik bekerja menjual parfum pada sebuah pusat perbelanjaan, sambil mengambil kelas akting. Anak desa, dan benar-benar sendirian, dan ia membutuhkan teman. Seorang pemuda dari kelas menjadi teman dekatnya, keduanya sering brsama. Sandra sendiri tidak jatuh cinta pada pria itu. Kehamilan itu  hanyalah sebuah kecelakaan. Saat pemuda itu diberitahu, ia raib, mengelak bertanggung-jawab bahkan tidak meninggalkan alamat sama sekali. Sandra akhirnya menemui dokter.

Dr. McCarron baru saja membaca buku dan tengah mempelajari sebuah Metoda Pernafsan, untuk membantu ibu hamil ketika melahirkan. Teriakan saat melahirkan diyakini hanya membuang tenaga, tidak efektif. Lebih baik fokus, diam dan tenang mengeluarkan bayi. Helaan nafas dan buangan nafas sebebas-bebasnya lebih menolong, cara pernafasan pun sesuai dengan tahapan kehamilan maupun persalinan. Sandra adalah pasien idealis, sepertinya metoda ini diciptakan untuk pasien seperti dirinya. Tidak hanya pengakuan, sang dokter dapat merasakan jika Sandra benar mengikuti metoda itu.

Ny. Kelly, supervisor, di kantor mendapati keganjilan dalam perubahn tubuh Sandra. Wanita taat memiliki dua orang anak hampir dewasa itu, serta suami terhormat, dan berjiwa Republik, geram dengan ketidakjujuran Sandra akan kehamilannya. Perselisihan pun terjadi, Sandra dipecat. Menghindari hinaan, ia membeli cincin kawin, dan mengenakannya, dan mengaku bahwa suaminya seorang supir truk, tewas dalam kecelakaan. Cincin itu melegakan, melegalisasikan bayi dalam kandungannya, bukan anak haram lagi. Ia pun pindah tempat tinggal, dan bahkan memiliki pekerjaan sebagai pembantu wanita buta, mengerjakan semua pekerjaan rumah dan membacakan buku pada Ny. Gibbs. 

Wanita buta sangat tertarik dengan kisah Sandra dan bisa merasakan kehamilannya, teman-teman wanita itu pun kerap memberikan pekerjaan pada Sandra. Jadual kelahiran pada 10 Desember, perkiraan Dr. McCarron rupanya meleset. Tepat malam Natal perut Sandra baru berkontraksi untuk melahirkan. Karena cuaca, taksi datang telat, supirnya masih muda, dengan spontan menolong Sandra memasuki taksi begitu melihat wanita itu tengah hamil tua. 

Sandra hanya mengangguk, tanpa sepatah kata pun. Selama dalam taksi supir itu hanya mendengar tarikan nafas aneh dan tidak biasa, hingga membuat lelaki muda itu semakin gugup dan ketakutan. Tepat di depan gedung rumah sakit, pada kaki patung Herriet White, taksi mengalami kecelakaan. Taksi tergelincir, supirnya hanya luka ringan, tidak terjadi apa-apa, namun Sandra meninggal. Kecemasan supir muda mendengar nafas aneh Sandra memicu kecelakaan, Metode Pernafasan telah membunuh wanita itu.

Dr. McCrron berhasil menyelamatkan bayinya. Tubuh Sandra mengisyaraktkan gerakan Metode Pernafasan, mulutnya mengeluarkan tujuh kombinasi suara, sesaat setelah dokter mengatakan bahwa bayinya berkelamin laki-laki. Suara aneh itu mengucapkan terima kasih pada Dr. McCarron. Sandra tidak memliki siapapun, Dr, McCarron membiayai pemakamannya, bayinya diserahkan untuk diadopsi. Keluarga pasangan muda, tidak memiliki anak mengadopsinya di Maine. Bayi yang ia tolong di malam Natal itu kini berusia empat puluh enam tahun, dia menjadi Kepala Departemen Bahasa Inggris di tiga universitas ternama di Amerika. John Harris berparas tampan, pintar, dan mewarisi ketekunaan ibunya.

*******

9 Oktober 2017

Royal Assassin, the Farseer Trilogy (1996) by Robin Hobb: summary

“A message is not delivered until it is understood.” (p.302)

The 675-page novel published by Bantam Books in 1996, Royal Assassin is the second book of the Farseer Trilogy. This fantasy book has the similar tone in many levels with the Game of Throne; the main character FitzChivalry Farseer is the bastard son, but in this tale he totally never met his father. Prince Chivalry is dead. He raised by Stablemaster Burrich, his late father loyalist. After came to his age, he served his uncle King-in- Waiting Verity as an errand boy and assassin. 

Like Jon Snow in Game of Throne, he also has a beast named Nighteyes. He is trained to be a royal assassin with magic skill named Wit and Skill. The Kingdom of Six Duchies is attacked by Outislanders, the Raiders-- they are descent of the traders and pirates. Duchy’s ancestor was not a warrior or fighter, so they are like only kids for Raider’s soldier. It is only Prince Verity’s magic that provides any protection for Duchies people. The death of Verity has led FitzChivalry to save his country from the Raiders, but his trickery uncle King-in-Waiting Regal has accused him in plotting the death of King Shrewd with using the Wit magic.

Although I don’t read the first book, but the author has provided the short description of characters or places before the chapter began. The fantasy book is written by US author. Robin Hobb is a great writer, she has worked on the Farseer Saga since 20 years ago, and has completed the final series this year.

Royal Assassin, the Farseer Trilogy (1996) by Robin Hobb: summary

To be the King in-Waiting, or the Queen-in-Waiting, is firmly straddle the fence between responsibility and authority. It is said the position was created to satisfy the ambitions of an heir power, while schooling him in the exercising of it. The eldest child in the royal family assumes the position upon the sixteenth birthday. Under King Shrewd, Prince Chivalry first became king in waiting. When Chivalry abdicated and Prince Verity became king-in-waiting, he inherited all the war with Outislanders, and the civil unrest this situation created between the Inland and Coastal Duchies.

This is the story of FitzChivalry. Even, Molly, his girl, did not suspect he was the Bastard, the unacknowledged son that ad toppled Prince Chivalry from his place in the line of succession. Everyone just knew he was the scribe’s errand boy, part time helper in the stables, a Keep runner. That alone was big enough secret. He was a Farseer who inherited the magic skill. The ability for the magics known as the Skilled is tied closely to blood relation to the royal Farseer line. One trained in the Skilled is able to reach out to another’s mind, no matter how distant ho distant, and know what he is thinking. Folklore tells of an even older magic, much despised now, known as the Wit. It is said, the Wit gave one the ability to speak tongues of the beasts.

King Shrewd sent Fitz as his assassin with great caravan of folk going to witness the pledging of the Mountain Princess Kettricken as Prince Verity’s bride. His mission was to quietly cause the death of her older brother, Prince Rurisk, subtly of course, so that she would be left the sole heir to the Mountain throne. But what he found when he arrived there was a web of deceit and lies engineered by his youngest uncle, Prince Regal, who hoped the topple Verity from the line of succession and claim the Princess as his own bride. Fitz was the pawn he would sacrifice for this goal; and he was the pawn who instead toppled the game pieces around him, bringing his wrath and vengeance down on myself, but saving the crown and the Princess for Prince Verity.

Long after he had defeated Regal’s plot, he lingered in a sickbed in the Mountain Kingdom. For the last time Burrich, Hands, and he sat down to break fast with Jonqui. Jonqui, the healer, had done every ways toward healing him. The poison or the beating damaged something permanently. He was not the only one who had fallen to Regal’s treachery. Burrich himself was but newly recovered from a skull blow that would have killed anyone less thick-headed than he.

Every part of him ached. He watched the tide of death rise to inundate the little town. The Outislander pirates leaped from the ship to the docks ad flowed up into the village. They trickled silently up the streets in bands of twos and threes, as deadly as poison unfurling in dock. These Raiders took no real booty.

Buckkeep hold overlooks the finest deep-water harbor in the six Duchies. The town of Buckkeep clings precariously to the cliffs, well away from the great river’s floodplain, with a good portion of it built by lander raids. With each succeeding generation of the Farseer line, the walls were fortified and the towers built taller and stouter. Since Taker, the founder of the Farseer line, Buckkeep has never fallen to enemy hands.

To Fitz, Burrich was not just a Hand. He has saved Fitz from death, he gave him his life since he was six. Chivalry was his father, but he never met him. Burrich had fathered him in years.

Princes Patience, Chivalry’s wife, reminded Fitz about his position in the royal household. He was royal blood. He must have the King’s permission to marry. Fitz had never really set out to court Molly, a childhood friend. Molly was living a lifetime of casual cruelty. In helping Fitz, Prince Patience, his father’s widow, set Molly as one of her serving women. She would civilize Molly, the ways of court. She must be accepted by the women of the court as one of Patience’s ladies – not the Bastard’s woman.

It had always been the custom and the expectancy that when a King or Queen of Buckkeep wed, the royal spouse would bring an entourage of his or her own as attendants. Such had the case with both of Shrewd’s queens. But when Queen Kettricken of the Mountains came to Buckkeep, she came as Sacrifice, as was her country’s custom. She came alone, with no women or men to attend her, not even a maid to be a confidante. She began her reign surrounded completely by strangers, not just at her won social level, but extending down to servants. As time progressed she gathered friends to her, and found servants as well who suite her.

In times of peace, the teaching of the Skill was restricted to those of royal blood, to keep the magic more exclusive and reduce the chance of it being turned against the King. Thus, when Galen became apprentice to Skill Master Solicity, his duties consisted of assisting in completing training of Chivalry and Verity. No others were receiving instruction at that time. Regl, a delicate child, was judged by his own mother to be too sickly to withstand the rigors of the Skill training. With the death of Galen and the blasting of Skill sense, Serene rose to be key member of Galen’s coterie. The other surviving members of the group were Justin, Will, Carrod, and Burl.

By the night he ran as a wolf. By the next night Fitz dreamed again so vividly. He awoke knowing that when he blocked from Verity and hence himself his dreams of Molly, he left himself wide to the wolf’s night thoughts. There was a whole realm where not Verity nor any Skilled one could follow him. It was a world bereft of court intrigues or plotting, of worries and plans. His wolf lived in the present. From day to day, he carried only that necessary of his survival. He did not remember how many shrews he had killed two nights ago, but only larger things, such as which game trails yielded the most rabbits to chase or where the spring ran swift enough that it never iced over.

Perhaps the most devastating part of their war with the Red-Ships was the sense helplessness that overpowered the Six Duchies army. The tactics of the Raiders were so incomprehensible that for the first year they stood still as if dazed. The Six Duchies skills were rusty; for too long they had been employed only against pirates who studied their seacoasts, their watch-tower position, their tides and currents, they were like children. Only Prince Verity’s Skilling provided any protection for them. How many ships he turned aside, how many navigators he muddled or pilots he confused, nobody knows.

King-in-Waiting Verity has asked Fitz to bring message for Queen Kettricken. Her look was pleasant, her eyes kind, but he did not sense she was really there at all.

Winterfest is as much a celebration of the light. For the first three days of Winterfeast, they pay homage to the darkness. The tales told and puppet shows presented are those that tell of resting of times and happy endings. The foods are salt fish and smoked flesh, harvested roots and fruit from last summer. The next three days are days that look toward the coming summer.

Molly, he thought, had healed with a touch what all the herbs and rest in a year could never have put the rights. The day suddenly stretched long in front of him, full of unbearable minutes of unendurable hours before nightfall and the kindly dark allowed them to be together again. He set her resolutely from his mind and resolved to fill the day with tasks. A dozen immediately leaped to mind. He had been neglecting Patience. He had promised his aid with Kettricken’s garden. An explanation was owed to Brother Nighteyes. A visit was owed King Shrewd. Molly kept moving to the top of the list.

King Shrewd was ill, Wallace the healer, tried to abort Fitz’s visiting. He was Regal’s man. Fitz came to report, but finding king’s chamber untidy and musty. The dirty plates left about, the linens of his bed unchanged. Regal stood, hands on hips, very much the man in charge, and stared at Fitz through narrow eyes. He knew that afternoons would now find Regal or Wallace or some spy of theirs always at King Shrewd’s side. His only thought wanted to save his king. King Shrewd was in danger. Forge ones converging still on Buckkeep, the King illness lingering. But King Shrewd’s health has declined much more swiftly than he can account for.

Six Duchies was a country besieged by a ravenous enemy who came to them, only to kill and maim. That was their sole goal. They had no fields to plant, no children to defend, no stock to live their day-to-day lives at the same time they tried to protected themselves from their destruction. The Red-Ships Raiders, their ravages were their day-to-day lives. That singleness of purpose was all they needed to destroy Six Duchies. Meanwhile, they were not warriors; had not been warriors for generations.

The tide of despair swept over him and threatened to pull him down. It swirled around him, but suddenly, in the middle of it, he found a place to stand. A place where the very uselessness of it was funny. Four little warships, not quite finished, with untrained crews. Watchtowers and fire signals to call inept defenders forth to slaughter. Burrich with his ax, and Fitz standing in the cold. Verity staring out the window, while below, Regal fed his own father drugs.

The Red-Ship was drawn up on the sand, just as the Rurisk was. There had been six Duchies men down there on the beach when the Red-Ships arrived. The Raiders were dark skin muscular men, wiry rather than massive. Most were heavily bearded and their hair hung black and wild to their shoulders. They wore body armor of plaited leather, carried heavy blades and axes. Some wore helms of metal. They were confident.

There was no strategy, no formation, no plan of battle. Somewhere, within him, were both Verity and Nighteyes, were drowned in passion of those around him. Fitz killed the first Raider. So the battle ended, and the defenders rushed forth to embrace Duchies’s crew. The autumn of the third year of the Red-Ship War was a bitter one for King-in-Waiting Verity. He came to his father asking his permission for an undertaking. He wished to leave Buckeep with a picked band of men, to attempt to follow the same path King Wisdom too so long ago. He wish to journey that winter to the Rain Wilds beyond Mountain Kingdom, to find the Elderlings and ask them to keep the pledge they made to Duchies’s ancestor. His queen stayed and represented his reign – protecting his interest. Burrich was leaving with Verity. Twenty-tree days after Verity left, the news went viral. A rider came in, the whole city near gone from the fires they set.

During the years of the Red-Ship raids, the Six Duchies suffered significantly from their atrocities. The folk of the Six Duchies at that time learned a greater hatred of the Outislanders than ever they had felt before. Outislander had been both traders and pirates. Raids were carried out by solitary ships.

Prince Regal was the only child of King Shrewd and Queen Desire to survive birth. Molly was gone. She was not coming back. Prince Verity was reported dead, but Fitz still believed his king was still alive. He tried to reach his uncle, he was too weak. Fitz was accused killing the king. Fitz found Justin and Serene killed the king with the King’s own knife. He was locked, time passed slowly in that unchanging place. He was not given food nor water unless he asked for them. Awake, he was a prisoner of his thoughts and worries. Once he tried to Skill to Verity, but the effort brought on a darkening of his vision and long period of pounding headache. Hunger became constant. As unrelenting as the cold of the cell. He heard the guards twice turn Petience away, heard them refuse to give him the food and bandages she had brought.

King-in-Waiting Regal charged FitzChivalry killed King Shrewd using the Wit. The dukes challenged Regal to prove Fitz’s Wit. If innocent. Fitz will be set in command of Buckkeep. The deaths of Justin and Serene. Stable Master Burrich was renowned during his years at Buckkeep as an extraordinary horse handlers as well as a houndsman and falconer. He began his years of service as a common soldier. Some say his grandmother was of slave stock. As a soldier, his fierceness in battle brought him to the attention of a young Prince Chivalry. His herbal remedy was responsible for halting the out-break of scallers that afflicted the lambs Bearns Duchy following the Blood Plague years. He saved the flocks from total decimation, as well as kept the disease from spreading into Buck Duchy. Burrich told him, just lied down. He trusted the stablemaster. 

Fitz had died in his cell, a day or two after the final beating. The Dukes had been wroth about his death, but Regal had had enough evidence and witness to his Wit magic. Patience had begged that his body not be burned, but be buried whole. He did not have memory of that frozen graveyard. Burrich would not leave him, he awoke him. He was not dead.  

*******

November 26, 2017

Sepatah Kata

Buku kedua dari trilogi Farseer, diterbitkan di USA dicetak dalam 675 halaman, disampaikan dalam tulisan bagus, namun sayang sekali tidak sepenuhnya dapat menikmati isi ceritanya. Buku ini fiksi fantasi karya Robin Hobb, membawa pembaca bertualang ke sebuah kerajaan bernama Six Duchies, kerajaan dipimpin oleh garis keturunan Farseer yang memiliki kemampuan sihir. Tokoh utamanya FitzChivalry, cucu haram raja, dimandatkan sebagai pembunuh bayaran, assassin. 

Penulis berkebangsaan Amerika, ia sangat lihai dalam mengeluarkan tokohnya satu persatu. Dikarenakan ini buku kedua, hampir pada awal setiap bab menjelaskan jati diri tokoh yang akan dibahas, sangat menolong pembaca seperti saya yang langsung membaca buku ke dua ini.  Kehadiran ilmu hitam dalam buku ini mungkin akan semakin memikat peminat genre fantasi, cukup terasa, ada sedikit kemiripan dengan Game of throne –nya G.R.R. Martin, pada tokoh utama Fitz yang memiliki binatang buas serigala yang bernama Nighteye, atau tokoh singa Aslan pada Narnia-nya C.S. Lewis. Robin Hobb, penulis fantasi hebat, ia mengerjakan kisah fantasi ini semenjak 20 tahun lalu, dan tahun ini menyelesaikan seri ke 16. 

Terjemahan dalam Bahasa Indonesia Royal Assassin (Pembunuh Bayaran), 1996: ringkasan

Di bawah kepemimpinan Raja Shrewd, anak tertua Pangeran Chivalry, adalah putra mahkota, kelak pengganti raja, namun sayang sang pangeran tewas terjatuh dari kuda. Dia tidak memiliki anak, seorang anak haram yang tidak pernah dibesarkan dan ditemuinya bernama FitzChivalry kini tumbuh menjadi seorang pemuda yang memiliki kemampuan majis. Darahnya Farseer, memiliki kemampuan lebih dari orang pada umumnya. Ia memiliki Skilled, mampu membaca pikiran orang lain dan memengaruhinya, mampu mengembara ke tempat lain dan membaca situasi dan pikiran orang-orang di sana. Kemampuan ini sangat bermanfaat dalam perang untuk menaklukan musuh.

Fitz dibesarkan Burrich, sang panglima, kepercayaan raja. Dia diasuh sejak berumur lenam tahun. Paman Fitz, Pangeran Verity kini mengambil posisi pewaris tahta. Ia akan segera menikahi putra Raja Mountain, Putri Kettricken. Raja Shrewd menugaskan Fitz sebagai pembunuh bayaran untuk melenyapkan saudara Kettricken, Rurisk, agar kerajaan Six Duchies menguasai Kerajaan Mountain.

Fitz pun berada dalam rombongan penjemput Kettricken, rencana tidaklah mulus. Regal, paman bungsu Chivalry, dikenal licik ingin membunuh Fitz, abangnya Pangeran Verity, agar Kettricken jatuh dan kerajaan miliknya. Pangeran Regal adalah putra bungsu dari Raja Shrewd, memiliki ibu berbeda dengan dua saudaraya: mendiang Chivalry dan Verity. Fitz dijadikan pion oleh kedua pamannya yang ingin duduk di tahta. Fitz secara resmi adalah anak buah pamannya Verity, walau pamannya mengingatkan Fitz hanyalah seorang anak haram, tidak memiliki peluang kursi tahta. Sisi lain, janda Chivalry, Putri Patience, mengingatkan Fitz tetaplah berdarah Farseer. Segala keputusan hidupnya ditentukan oleh raja, apalagi rencana Fitz hendak menikahi Molly, gadis biasa, teman kecilnya.

Kettricken akhirnya resmi menjadi calon Ratu Six Duchies, mendampingi Pangeran Verity. Fitz melaporkan keadaannya yang lemah akibat plot pamannya Regal yang meracuninya, dan rencana membunuh Verity. Pangeran Verity tidak memercayai laporan Fitz, ia lebih memilih menanamkan keyakinan pada adiknya Regal.

Patience memberi solusi, Molly harus dididik secara kerajaan agar bisa menjadi bagian Farseer. Keinginan Fitz sederhana, hanya ingin hidup normal di luar kerajaan, tanpa jabatan apapun. Patiece menjelaskan itu bukan hal mudah, raja tidak akan menyetujuinya. Molly harus diterima sebagai putri terdidik dan berkelas, bukan diterima sebagai kekasihnya anak haram. Molly pun dijadikan salah satu gadis pelayan Patience, kini Fitz tinggal satu atap dengan gadis pujaannya. Bila selama ini, Fitz sering masuk ke pikiran gadis udik itu lewat kekuatan ilmu hitamnya.

Perang pecah, Raider menyerang kampung-kampung dan membakar warga desa. Raider atau Otislanders dikenal tangguh dan memiliki alat perang kuat, bertolak belakang dengan kerajaan Six Duchies. Bagi Fitz kekuatan Six Duchies seperti lelucon musuh. Postur tubuh raider yang besar dan maskulin dan terlatih, dengan kapal perangnya yang  besar, sementara kapal perang Verity yang hanya empat unit itu pun belum selesai dikerjakan. Leluhur Six Duchies memang bukan petarung. Penjaga menaranya juga tidak terlatih. Kekuatan sihir lebih diandalkan. Namun satu-satunya yang bisa menaklukkan musuh Pangeran Verity. Entah berapa kapal yang sudah ia belokkan lewat keahliannya memengaruhi pikiran. Kekuatan Raider semakin bertambah, perkampungan sudah mulai porak poranda, kekuatan Verity tak mampu melawan.

Pangeran Verity tidak tinggal diam, ia ingin mencari bantuan dari sekutunya Elderlings. Ia membawa serta panglima Burrich bersamanya, Fitz tidak diijinkan ikut. Dalam perjalanan, pasukan Verity diserang sekelompok orang, walau akhirnya berhasil mengalahkan musuh, tapi mereka kekurangan perbekalan makanan membuat banyak pasukan tewas. Burrich selamat, diutus kembali ke pusat kerajaan di kota Buckkkep. Verity sendiri melanjutkan perjalanan misinya.

Tidak berseang lama, Regal mengumumkan Verity telah tewas dan membuat upacara pelepasan rohnya. Raja Shrewd sangat bersedih, dan semakin sakit. Fitz dengan kemampuannya, mendapati Verity masih hidup. Regal pun diangkat menjadi calon Raja, tapi memiliki kekuasaaan raja, kondisi kesehatan raja semakin menurun. Burrich dan Fitz dengan pasukannya menyerang balik the Raiders yang semakin menjadi-jadi, dengan kemampuan sihirnya dan strategi perang Burrich akhirnya the Raiders berhasil ditaklukkan.

Buckkep berduka, Raja Shrewd meninggal dan hasil investigasi mengatakan ia dibunuh. Fitz dikurung dan akan dihukum mati. Fitz mendapati dua orang suruhan Regal membunuh raja dan ia pun melumpuhkan keduanya, Regal malah menuduhnya menjadi pembunuh ayahnya.

Fitz disiksa berat, sebelum dieksekusi.  Beberapa hari dalam penyiksaan, ia ditemukan tewas. Putri Patience memohon Raja Regal agar tidak membakar mayatnya. Burrich hanya tersenyum, Fitz tidak pernah mati.  

******

26 November 2017