Indirect Discourse in German, Russian, and English

In his article "Indirect Discourse in German, Russian, and English" Henry Whittlesey Schroeder analyzes the different tenses of indirect discourse in these three languages. Indirect discourse in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century adopts a different time in English, German and Russian. English indirect discourse reports in the preterit; German indirect discourse hovers in the subjunctive; Russian indirect discourse speaks in the present. The transposition of English indirect discourse allows the character's discourse to surface in a tense identical to the narration. Consequently, the character can corrupt the narration, undermining the narrator's narration and commentary on that narration. German indirect discourse in the subjunctive and the absence of transposition in Russian mean that charactorial consciousness is kept separate from narration because of the difference in tense. Not only does the separation result in narration that originates solely with the narrator, but the time of the narrator's commentary coincides with the character's discourse. Whittlesey Schroeder illustrates selected texts with authorial narrators as to the idiosyncrasies and consequences of indirect discourse adopting divergent tenses in English, German, and Russian. Henry Whittlesey Schroeder, "Indirect Discourse in German, Russian, and English" page 2 of 10 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.4 (2009): Henry WHITTLESEY SCHROEDER Indirect Discourse in German, Russian, and English The main argument in my article is that contradictory narration in a past tense narrative requires the transposition of verbs to the past tense in indirect discourse. Languages that do not have transposition, such as Russian, also do not permit contradictions in narration. An ancillary argument is that languages without transposition potentially allow the authorial narrator (hereafter: commenting narrator) and characters to discourse equally on the narration and be certain about the source of that narration. By transposing indirect discourse to the subjunctive, as in German, this mode leaves narration uncorrupted and has the potential to elevate indirect discourse above other discourse by virtue of the timeless subjunctive form. Here is a simple sentence for comparison: He knew (that) she was pretty / On znal, čto ona krasiva / Er wusste, dass sie schön sei. This basic sentence in these three languages represents the typical form of indirect discourse in preterit narratives, in the case of German prior to preterit indirect discourse (e.g., in Goethe, Kleist, etc.). The focus here is on the relationship between narration (he knew) and indirect discourse (she was pretty). For indirect discourse to penetrate and thereby influence narration, it requires the tense of these two modes to be indistinguishable. The preterit of narration and transposed indirect discourse (governed indirect discourse and narrated monologue) in English facilitates this, whereas the present tense of Russian and the subjunctive of German indirect discourse prevent the character from gaining access to narration. At the same time, the clear delineation of discourse and narration gives indirect discourse in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Nikolai Gogol a more prominent place — outside narration. While the English narrator discourses primarily (comments) in the present and his/her characters in both the present (direct discourse) and past (indirect discourse), the narrators in Goethe and Gogol comment in the present and subjunctive just like their characters. The difference is even more prominent with regard to knowing and feeling: the commenting narrator in Henry James knows in the present while the characters can only know in the past due to the absence of a direct discourse mode for knowing; the characters in Goethe and Gogol on the other hand know in the subjunctive and present, again, just like the narrator. In order to develop categories for a clearer understanding of indirect discourse's role in German, Russian, and English, the narrative must be broken down into commentary and diegesis as well as narratext and discourse. Ultimately, this produces part of a model that helps clarify some differences between narrators, narratives, narration and discourse in these languages. The structure of narratives by James, Goethe, and Gogol consists of commentary and diegesis (see Vogt 58-60). A commenting narrator acts as the apprehender of the diegesis, is able to know what the characters do not know, to comment on the actions of his minions and organize all the parts. At the top stands the narrator, with his narrative containing a) commentary (narrator's discourse), b) diegesis (the story). Breaking down the narrative into commentary and diegesis means that the narrator constructs his text out of a mixture of the present and past tense, so he knows the narrative in present (or occasionally future) commentary and past narration. Commentary by the narrator distinguishes itself from the diegesis primarily through its ability to process the entire narrative act, to communicate with the reader and address extradiegetic subjects. This last point is particularly relevant because the character's discourse within the diegesis remains very similar to the narrator's commentary, but does not possess this extradiegetic element. Otherwise, commentary by the narrator expresses opinions, views, an understanding of the events in the diegesis. It is a means for him/her to convey the purport of his text or a given passage in the text. With commentary the narrator may run the text through his own mind, drawing conclusions, reinforcing morals, philosophizing, on the basis of what he sees in the diegesis (story) — a process again similar to the way the characters within the story may discourse or think about the developments in their diegetic lives. Untransposed verbs dominate the commentary of the narrator. In Russian and English, commentary appears in the present except in rare instances of retrospective or future commentary. In German, ceteris paribus, such discourse also adopts the present tense, although sometimes gid (governed indirect discourse) plumps out the subjunctive. Here is a sentence of commentary with gid in all three languages: It is not surprising that she is pretty / Es ist keine Überraschung, dass sie schön ist/dass Henry Whittlesey Schroeder, "Indirect Discourse in German, Russian, and English" page 3 of 10 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.4 (2009): sie sei schön / Èto ne udivitel'no/čto ona krasiva. Tense makes it easy to distinguish commentary from narration. The commenting narrator may also directly address the reader or stir in a "you," but the integrated present tense suffices to convey a shift from narration to commentary in the narratext. In all three languages, commentary also acts as a means of transition from the narrator's commentary to his narration: "we think it proper to observe, that she concluded the Whole with saying" (Fielding 46). The narrator comments in the inquit phrase and returns to narration in the subordinate clause of gid. This transition from commentary to narration occurs repeatedly in narratives like Elective Affinities, Dead Souls, and Tom Jones, emphasizing the close relationship between these modes, both being the speech of the narrator, yet fragmented into two distinct categories. The diegesis is the second part of the narrative and consists of narration, direct discourse and indirect discourse. In German, Russian, and English, a substantial portion of the diegesis involves narration and distinguishes itself from commentary in part on the basis of tense, being in the preterit as opposed to the present of commentary. Whereas commentary conveys opinions or thoughts, narration offers the story that serves as the object of opinion and thought. Otherwise, the language of narration differs on account of its dramatic or summary-like nature, double genitives, precision, the staging of events in space and time, etc. Another substantial block of the diegesis concerns untransposed direct discourse. In heterodiegetic narratives, such discourse is provided by the characters, and is considered to be free of narratorial control and the narrator's voice. Although it is demarcated from commentary and narration by way of quotation marks, direct discourse shares with commentary the typical characteristics of a subjective, discoursial mode and uses the narration as well as other direct discourse as the basis for declarations. The primary difference between narratorial commentary and charactorial direct discourse is that narratorial commentary can express an opinion on charactorial discourse, but a character's discourse cannot do the same in heterodiegetic narratives because the narrator's commentary lies outside the diegesis. The final component of the diegesis consists of indirect discourse, which straddles narration, discourse and commentary, and thus the sphere of the narrator and character. This border ground will be addressed in depth, throughout the rest of this paper, so first a glance at the structure of the narrative: Narrator: Commentary a) discourse on diegesis and b) discourse on extra-diegetic subjects; Narration: Diegesis a) narration (and narrativized discourse), b) direct discourse, and c) indirect discourse. This model illustrates how the narrative with a commenting narrator may be broken down into commentary and diegesis, although in the composition of the diegesis the narrator acts more like a collagist. In general, the narrator produces the commentary and – for our purposes at the moment – the narration, while direct discourse stems from the character and is thus seemingly imported by the narrator for the narrative. Consequently, this model produces two other categories that are important for interpreting the components of a narrative. They consist of narratext and discourse: Narratext: Commentary & narration & indirect discourse, i.e., all text that appears in the body of the narrative report; and particularly excluding direct discourse; Discourse: Commentary & direct discourse and indirect discourse, i.e., the sphere of discourse throughout the narrative; and particularly excluding narration. The first category, subsumed under the generic term narratext, represents the modes for relating the narrative to the reader in the body of the text. It is dominated by the narrator with his commentary and narration, and comprises on the whole either discourse or narration as long as the text is integrated (without quotation marks or hyphens). The second category of discourse lumps together any figure who comments or expresses a view, particularly the narrator in commentary, the character in direct discourse, and even potentially the critic writing an analysis in the present tense. It may also include indirect discourse, especially present Russian indirect discourse, but also the transposed German and English form. Finally, there will be some overlapping, with commentary and indirect discourse falling under discourse and narratext. This type of categorization establishes the framework for understanding what happens when the tense of indirect discourse is present rather than past: i) in the narratext, the weighting of the present shifts, with two of three components being in the present (commentary and indirect discourse) and the narrator no longer monopolizing the present tense there; ii) the weighting of discourse shifts, with all three components being in the present; iii) the weighting of the diegesis shifts, with two of three components being in the present (direct discourse and indirect discourse) and narration being clearly separated from discourse. Yet it is not the weighting of the components that is as significant as what Henry Whittlesey Schroeder, "Indirect Discourse in German, Russian, and English" page 4 of 10 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.4 (2009): this minor change in tense does to the relationship between narration and discourse as well as the narrator and character in addition to its determining of the source of narration and the place of discourse. The time of English gid is past, German — subjunctive, Russian — present. Dead Souls provides a nice sample of the diegesis becoming the subject for the discourse of the character and the commenting of the narrator. Within the diegesis appear characters who imitate the narrator: they discourse on the preceding and concurrent events as the narrator comments on what is related to Chichikov: Through the gates of the inn in the provincial town of N. drove a rather handsome, smallish spring britzka, which is the sort driven by bachelors: retired lieutenant colonels, staff captains, all those who are known as gentlemen of the middling sort. In the britzka sat a gentleman, not handsome, but also not bad-looking, neither too fat nor too thin; you cannot say he is old, yet neither is he all that young. His entrance caused no stir whatever in town and was accompanied by nothing special; only two Russian muzhiks standing by the door of the pot-house across from the inn made some remarks, which referred, however more to the vehicle than to the person sitting in it. "See that?" said one to the other, "there's a wheel for you! What do you say, would that wheel make it as far as Moscow, if it so happened, or wouldn't it? "It would," replied the other. "But not as far as Kazan I don't suppose?" "not as far as Kazan," replied the other. And with that the conversation ended. (Gogol 3; Volokonsky's and Pevear's translation is modified so that the time of all Russian commentary and discourse corresponds to the original) V vorota gostinicy gubernskogo goroda I v''exala dovol'no krasivaja ressornaja nebol'šaja brička, v kakoj ezdjat xolostjaki: otstavnye podpolkovniki, štabs-kapitany, pomeščniki, imejuščie okolo sotni duš krest'jan, — slovom, vse te, kotoryx nazyvajut gospodami srednej ruki. V bričke sidel gospodin, ne krasavec, no i ne durnoj naružnosti, ni sliškom tolst, ni sliškom tonok; nel'zja skazat', čtoby star, odnako ž i ne tak, čtoby sliškom molod. V''ezd ego ne proizvel v gorode soveršenno nikakogo šuma i ne byl soprovožden ničem osobennym; tol'ko dva russkie mužika, stojavšie u dverej kabaka protiv gostinicy, sdelali koe-kakie zamečanija, otnosivšiesja, vpročem, bolee k èkipažu, čem k sidevšemu v nem. "Viš' ty, skazal odin drugomu, — von kakoe koleso! Čto ty dumaeš', doedet to koleso, esli b slučilos', v Moskvu ili ne doedet?" — Doedet," — otvečal drugoj. "A v Kazan'-to, ja dumaju, ne doedet?" — "V Kazan' ne doedet," — otvečal drugoj. Ètim razgovor i končilsja. (Gogol 32) The preterit narration is first interrupted by commentary on the type of people who ride in the narrated carriage and a description of the gentleman in this one. When the narrator comments, his discourse appears in the present tense with the typical words of the narrator's commentary throughout Dead Souls: slovom, nazyvajut, nel'zja skazat' (40, 48, 137, 154, 179 in the original; slovom is not in the translation, nazyvajut is translated as "are known," nel'zja skazat' — "you cannot say"). But the narrator is not alone in commenting on the carriage. Two peasants (mužiki) also discuss the vehicle, wondering whether it could make it to Moscow and determining for sure that it would not make it to Kazan. The carriage described in narration becomes the subject for charactorial and narratorial discourse. Another point worth noting is the stylistic difference between discourse and narration. The former assumes a colloquial character with turns and hedges like slovom, von (both left out of translation) and, in part, simple syntax of a few words; whereas the latter sounds formal (Through the gates of the inn in the provincial town of N. (V vorota gostinicy gubernskogo goroda I) with double genitives, precision, multiple clauses etc. Nonetheless, especially the narrator has the ability to comment in a more sophisticated, even if colloquial fashion, as he does in explaining the type of person who rides in this carriage (which is the sort driven by / v kakoj ezdjat) with a colon, inversed word order, a dependent clause (which / kotoryj) and many clauses in general. When indirect discourse is mixed into the blend of the diegesis, the source of the information is unclear. In the work of commenting authors such as Fielding, James, Goethe, and Gogol, theoretically the narrator has sole authority over the telling in narration and the discourse in commentary, while the character controls direct discourse. But when the diegesis furnishes a passage of gid in English, this declaration walks the line of narration, narratorial commentary and charactorial discourse: the transposed preterit verbs liken it to narration while the inquit phrase states that a character is thinking or knowing the declaration. In Russian, however, the verbs of indirect discourse are not transposed, not shifted back one tense as in English. Consequently, these untransposed present verbs in gid liken them to discourse. Otherwise one traditional way of referring to this mode as governed indirect discourse also straddles discourse and narration with governed suggesting a narrator (a figure external Henry Whittlesey Schroeder, "Indirect Discourse in German, Russian, and English" page 5 of 10 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.4 (2009): to the discourse, but guiding it) and discourse unambiguously identifying its category as speech/thought, which the inquit phrase then attributes to a character. Yet another term that appears is indirect discourse, which alludes to less of a narratorial role, but nonetheless fringes the direct (present discourse) and indirect (past narration). In German, the meaning of the term indirekte Rede is very similar to English, while in Russian kosvennaja reč' also incorporates indirectness, but uses the metaphysical kosvennyj from Old Church Slavonic rather than the neprjamaja, i.e., the mundane adjective for indirect speech. The understanding of gid in a novel like Tom Jones or Elective Affinities or Dead Souls offers three possibilities for an interpretation of indirect discourse as representing: i) the character's perspective and the character's voice; ii) the character's perspective, but the narrator's voice; iii) the character acting as a mouthpiece for the narrator's perspective and voice. The basic example should help elucidate these three alternatives: He knew (that) she was pretty / Er wusste, dass sie schön sei / On znal, čto ona krasiva. If any of these sentences stitched a narrative, the inquit phrase (he knew) would be understood as narration. The declaration that follows in gid communicates information, the perspective and idiom of which may proffer the three aforementioned combinations. It is likely e.g., that the declaration "she was pretty" in all its various forms stems from the vantage point of the character: the inquit phrase states this (he knew it) and the context of the narrative must be focusing on him in consequence. But it is also very possible the narrator is involved, especially when this indirect discourse is negated. Another interesting case is more complex gid, e.g., with multiple clauses, where the likelihood increases that the narrator's voice governs the thoughts/knowledge of the character since the complex idiom exceeds the mental faculties of the character. That said, even these simple examples above incline different readings from language to language. In German and English the declarations are transposed, thus no longer containing the time of their direct discourse origin (the verbs change tense). The reduction in immediacy draws the transposed preterit of English gid closer to the idiom of narration, the tense of indirect discourse correlating with the preterit of narration. However, transposition in German involves the subjunctive, which is not related to narration and consequently reveals its pure discoursial orientation, close to the direct discourse of the character or the commentary of the narrator (though transposed). Finally, Russian indirect discourse achieves even greater congruity than German: the present tense in the indirect discourse of gid makes it identical to its time in direct discourse, enhancing the impression that the character is speaking in his idiom, yet also identical to the time and form of the narrator's commentary (see Sokolova 48-9, 89-108, 141; Bakhtin 419-20). Possibility iii) of the aforementioned interpretational categories views the declaration as the perspective and voice of the narrator slithering into the character, the narrator foisting his own narratorial discourse onto him or continuing narration through his character's mind. In this interpretation, general questions surface regarding the presence of the narrator in gid and the potential palimpsest of perspective in these declarations. First, a look at how the narrator either narrates in gid or smuggles his commentary into the seeming discourse of a character: He did not know that she was pretty / Er wusste nicht, dass sie schön sei/war / On ne znal, čto ona krasiva. The crux of the matter is that a character cannot formulate what he does not know. The inquit phrase of the narration introduces gid that cannot be the discourse of the character: if he did not know she was pretty then the narrator must know it. The differences between the conveying of this absent knowledge in the three languages opens up another can of worms in the interpretation of gid. Not only is the narrator suddenly descending in all force, but the mode (gid) seems to be narration in English due to the preterit; discourse with the subjunctive and narration with the preterit in German; yet consistently unambiguous discourse in Russian due to the present tense. This interesting case in Russian also illustrates the clearest instance of the narrator's view entering gid as discourse: he (the narrator) must comment (discourse) that "she is pretty" because the character does not know this discourse as the inquit phrase of narration states. In English, if not narration in this negated case, the formulation in gid must be the transposed discourse of the commenting narrator. While in German, the narrator chooses to represent the subordinate clause as his discourse or his narration depending on whether he employs the subjunctive or indicative. The transposition of English gid and narrated monologue means these modes coincide with the tense of narration, rendering any given passage in English either narration or transposed discourse (when viewed from a strictly grammatical perspective). In terms of the relationships within the Henry Whittlesey Schroeder, "Indirect Discourse in German, Russian, and English" page 6 of 10 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.4 (2009): diegesis, this means that two of three components (narration and indirect discourse) are in the past and the third is in the present (direct discourse). As for the narratext, again, two of three components (narration and indirect discourse) are in the past, while one appears in the present (commentary). The dominance of the past tense in the categories of diegesis and narratext produces not only a certain degree of discoursial authority for the narrator in the narratext (his commentary being the sole present tense part of the narratext), but also an inherent uncertainty about the source of narration. In a narrative such as Tom Jones, the composition of the narratext gives the narrator certain interpretive authority. When indirect discourse is transposed to the preterit, the narrator is the sole figure who can convey information in the present tense within the narratext. Direct discourse, the other present-tense mode in the narrative, is marginalized by quotation marks or hyphens, compounded by its inevitably more limited scope. This enviable position of the narrator in English is, however, undermined by the uncertainty that results from what gives him the sole present-tense voice in the narratext. Uncertainty about the source of narration derives precisely from this shifting (transposition) of a character's discourse one tense back to create his indirect discourse: [Verena on Olive Chancellor] Verena felt that by this time she knew Olive very well, and her mother's [Mrs Tarrant's] most complicated versions of motive and temperament (Mrs Tarrant, with the most imperfect idea of the meaning of the term, was always talking about people's temperament) rendered small justice to the phenomena it was now her [Verena's] privilege to observe in Charles Street. Olive was much more remarkable than Mrs Tarrant suspected, remarkable as Mrs Tarrant believed her [Olive] to be. She [Olive] had opened Verena's eyes to extraordinary pictures, made the girl believe that she had a heavenly mission, given her, as we have seen, quite a new measure of the interest in life. (92-93; sentence in parenthesis from James, person clarification added in brackets; underlining for gid; italics for narrated monologue) The addition in James's parenthesis and the eloquence of the narration ("rendered small justice to the phenomena") in comparison to Verena's simplicity suggest a narrator, but the emotional narrated monologue ("Olive was much more remarkable"; "extraordinary picture") and the simple syntax there reinforce the impression that these words originate with Verena's feelings. The tense consequently says little about whether the information appears as transposed discourse or narration or stems from the narrator or character. It overlaps every which way: inquit phrases and simplicity intimate the character's discourse; complex, multiclause gid and the close relationship to the narrativized version of gid (he knew her to be very remarkable) flag narration. At the center of such transposed indirect discourse lies the reciprocal influence of discourse on narration and narration on discourse, which leaves each mode gaining characteristics of the other. The formality, the clauses and inclusion of additional information, which are typical of narration, become a feature of indirect discourse. On the other hand, the appearance of a character's subjective indirect discourse in the narrative report rubs off on the narrator who is lured to adopt a subjective point of view: the emotion identified with Verena's narrated monologue also appears in parenthetical narration (most imperfect; always talking). Furthermore, the interweaving of gid, narrated monologue and narration entails that mental indirect discourse assume a degree of materiality and that in turn the narration assume a degree of mentality. Gid and narrated monologue are marked by the removal of the narrator in both space and time (Verena feels "by this time" rather than "by now"), while the narrator implicitly submits to limitation in scope and interpretation (he sees from the perspective of the focalized figure). Although it may be possible for the character to speak indirectly in gid and narrated monologue, and it may be possible for the narrator to climb into his head and rephrase, elaborate or convey what the character does not know, this and any indirect discourse borders narration in English. Juxtaposing the Basil–influenced narration cited in the introduction with narration influenced by Verena shows the impact of the character's indirect discourse on the narratext: "But this pale girl, with her light-green eyes, her pointed features and nervous manner, was visibly morbid; it was as plain as day that she was morbid. Poor Ransom announced this fact to himself as if he had made a great discovery; but in reality he had never been so 'Boeotian' as at that moment. It proved nothing of any importance, with regard to Miss Chancellor, to say that she was morbid; any sufficient account of her would be very much to the rear of that. Why was she morbid, and why was her morbidness typical?" (James 11) versus "Olive was much more remarkable than Mrs Tarrant suspected, remarkable as Mrs Henry Whittlesey Schroeder, "Indirect Discourse in German, Russian, and English" page 7 of 10 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.4 (2009): Tarrant believed her to be. She had opened Verena's eyes to extraordinary pictures, made the girl believe that she had a heavenly mission, given her, as we have seen, quite a new measure of the interest in life" (92-93). These two passages and their narration can present differing views of Olive Chancellor because the character's indirect discourse is influencing the narration. Some statements may be indirect discourse, but eventually the clauses, precision, complexity suggest narration – the narrator identifying with the character's view, i.e., the narrator being influenced by the character, and that influence creeping into narration: "It proved nothing of any importance... to say that she was morbid" in contrast to: "Olive was much more remarkable" or: "She had opened Verena's eyes to extraordinary pictures" or, still more clearly: "There was a light in Miss Chancellor's magnified face" (27). The character may alter the narration of the narrator, the narrator may contradict himself, gid may be narration or discourse from the narrator or character or both overlapped. Charivari. What may seem like an obvious point becomes startling when the position of the English narrator is compared with the German and Russian counterparts. Indirect discourse is not transposed in Russian. Consequently, the weighting of the diegesis as well as the categories of the narratext and discourse are different than in English. Untransposed discourse means two of three components in the diegesis appear in the present tense (direct discourse and indirect discourse); likewise, two of three components in the narratext are present (commentary and indirect discourse) and finally every component of discourse is in the present. In this arrangement, that narration represents the only past tense mode in the diegesis and narratext, but in turn the narrator no longer possesses the sole present-tense mode in the narratext. Without the transposition of indirect discourse, the narratext potentially becomes a battle ground with different figures struggling to control the interpretation of the narration in the narratext. The indirect discourse of the character can compete with the commentary of the narrator. But first a look at the similarity between direct and indirect discourse to see how the character attains this unique position in a Russian narrative. Marmeladov's discourse in Crime and Punishment exemplifies this: "[Marmeladov screams as his wife drags him by the hair] 'Even this is a pleasure to me' he managed to yelp out" (58; modified from the McDuff translation) ("I èto mne v naslaždenie! vykrikival on [Marmeladov])" (254; quotation marks added to emphasize mode of direct discourse [original with hyphens]; information in parenthesis added for context). Their laughter was particularly animated when Marmeladov, as he was being dragged along by his hair, shouted that this is a pleasure to him (58; modified from the McDuff translation to recreate time of indirect discourse in Russian original) ("Osobenno potešno smejalis' oni, kogda Marmeladov, taskaemyj za volosy, kričal, čto èto emu v naslaždenie" [254]). The time of "this is a pleasure" ("èto v naslaždenie") remains identical, the word order identical and if Marmeladov were not speaking about himself or omitted the person (a possibility in Russian), the gid and direct discourse would mirror each other (see Bakhtin 420-23; Sokolova 69, 76-77). The voice and idiom reflect the character's own, with only the shift in the personal pronoun producing a deviation. Should there be a transition from gid to direct discourse, their congruence would also allow one mode to segue to the next without a jump in time. If in this context the narrator makes a (counter-)comment on Marmeladov (e.g., "But, reader, he is only pretending to enjoy this."), the content of Marmeladov's declaration will not be placed at a disadvantage per se to the narrator's commentary because both are in the present and integrated into the body of the narratext. This arrangement contrasts sharply with the English narratext where only the narrator can resort to the present. As in English, however, uncertainty about the source of discourse is common. For this reason, narrators like to collaborate and sympathize with the indirect discourse of characters (although mockery and marginalization is also possible, see e.g. Gogol), and simple gid is a convenient way to blur the boundary between the narrator and character. In Tolstoy, who prefers such simple indirect discourse, there are however passages that incorporate details hinting at a narrator's idiom: "[Kitty observes Anna at ball] She noticed that Anna is intoxicated by the rapture she has produced" (Tolstoy 95; modified from the Maude translation to recreate tense in original) ("Ona videla, čto Anna p'jana vinom vozbuždaemogo eju vosxiščenija" [84]); "[Kitty awaits evening with Vronsky] She felt that this evening, when they meet for the first time, will decide her fate" (Tolstoy 55; modified from the Maude translation) ("Ona čuvstvovala, čto nynešnij večer, kogda oni oba v pervyj raz vstrečajutsja, dolžen byt' rešitel'nyj v ee sud'be" [50]). If Kitty were to say what she saw, it might be identical: "Anna is intoxicated by the rapture she has produced" ("Anna p'jana vinom vozbuždaemogo eju vosxiščenija"), Henry Whittlesey Schroeder, "Indirect Discourse in German, Russian, and English" page 8 of 10 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.4 (2009): but the present tense of such gid still confronts the slightly elevated sound of Kitty's observation, especially in the Russian original. The participle modifying "rapture/vosxiščenie," along with the personal pronoun specifying the person, hint at the language of a narrator. In the second example, the independent clause renders this gid as unlikely to be a reproduction of Kitty's thoughts, although the mode is certainly discourse. This process calls to mind the narrator reporting on the mental or emotional sphere of a character from his perspective, i.e. collaborating with the character to convey an idea (e.g. today will decide her fate). The oddest form of this collaboration is when the character does not know his/her own thoughts. Then the narrator, reporting on the absence of a character's present-tense thought, must be sharing his/her own (narratorial) discourse in the guise of that figure: "As he had not known when he will be able to leave Moscow, Koznyshev had not sent a telegram to his brother asking to be met at the station" (Tolstoy 920; modified from the Maude translation to recreate time of original) ("Ne znaja, kogda emu možno budet vyexat' iz Moskvy, Sergej Ivanovič ne telegrafiroval bratu, čtoby vysylat' za nim" [765]). Whereas this sentence in an English narrative would be "Sergey had not known when he would be able to leave Moscow," this information in Russian is in the future. The narrator looks at the situation from the point of view of Sergey at the given time and place of his not telegraphing his brother, but discourses on it rather than narrate. As a result of all discourse being untransposed in Russian, irrespective of it coming from the character or narrator, there is no question about whether indirect discourse consists of narration or discourse and thus ensures that the character will not penetrate or corrupt the narration by way of indirect discourse. At no point can a character's (indirect or direct) discourse imitate the narration of the narrator. This clear demarcation of narration and discourse gives everyone the assurance that the narration stems only from the narrator. With certainty about the narration of the past, i.e. the facts of the story, each character and the narrator can discourse on them with equal confidence that they at least know the narration (story) even if they differ in its interpretation. There is no fear that the description of Olive has been corrupted by Verena. In German, indirect discourse is transposed to a timeless tense. This produces a diegesis that consists of the past (narration), present (direct discourse), and a timeless subjunctive (indirect discourse). The same weighting exists in the narratext with present commentary, past narration and timeless indirect discourse. In the category of discourse, the present (commentary and direct discourse) meets the timeless (indirect discourse). Similar to Russian narratives, Elective Affinities reflects the pure discoursial nature of subjunctive indirect discourse, but this discourse does not resemble standard direct discourse or main-clause commentary due to the subjunctive: "[The Captain and Eduard enjoying life] And then it appeared that the Captain had forgotten, for the first time in many years, to wind up his chronometer; and they seemed, if not to feel, at least to have a dim perception, that time be beginning to become irrelevant to them" (Goethe, Elective Affinities, 53, modified; grammatically incorrect conjugation of the verb "be beginning" to reflect German subjunctive; "irrelevant" has also replaced "indifferent") ("Da zeigte sich denn, daß der Hauptmann vergessen hatte, seine chronometrische Sekundenuhr aufzuziehen, das erstemal seit vielen Jahren; und sie schienen, wo nicht zu empfinden, doch zu ahnen, daß die Zeit anfange, ihnen gleichgültig zu werden" (Die Wahlverwandtschaften 55). The subjunctive separates "die Zeit anfange" from every other mode in Goethe's narrative. Here the indirect discourse could easily be transposed back to direct discourse, with a character saying: "Time is beginning to become irrelevant," or to the narrator. In simple cases it suggests the character, whereas in more complex ones with more elevated declarations, it suggests narratorial interference. Nonetheless, only discourse, as was seen earlier in the generic example of commentary with gid, can be transposed to the subjunctive, rendering such indirect discourse indisputably discourse as opposed to narration. In this constellation, again similar to Russian, the delineation of discourse and narration means that the character cannot usurp the narration or influence the narrator by way of tense identity. The narration stems from one source (the narrator) and can be relied on as the sole account of the past events. In German, consequently, the subjunctive is also very conducive for a narrator's effort to use characters as a mouthpiece for his own opinion, values, morality, etc. on his own uncorrupted, absolute account of the past (narration). If e.g. the idea of "time beginning to become irrelevant" is particularly important, the German narrator can frame it in subjunctive indirect discourse, its timeless character endowing the content of such passages with additional force by not being bound to the present or past. In some ways, it is similar to Russian narrators idenHenry Whittlesey Schroeder, "Indirect Discourse in German, Russian, and English" page 9 of 10 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 11.4 (2009): tifying with their characters; and even English, with its past tense gid, often finds the narrator's commentary and the character's gid in harmony with each other. But the German of Goethe can take this mouthpiece function one step further by having a form, the subjunctive, which makes the declarations timeless and spaceless as well as having the confidence that the account of the past is not being corrupted by characters. As such, German gravitates toward the relationships in Russian, with uncorrupted narration that gives the discoursers a firm basis for their opinion. The character's discourse, however, has a special position thanks to the subjunctive, making it attractive for the narrator to collaborate with him. Finally, as in Russian, no mode of the character can destabilize the stance of the narrator at the outset of the narrative. The narrator remains consistent until German begins to adopt a preterit form for indirect discourse in the nineteenth century. In summary, a Russian narrative fluctuates between a uniform commenting narrator and a body of equal discoursers, with all participants basing their interpretations on consistent narration created by the narrator. The participants use present direct discourse, indirect discourse and commentary to express their opinion on that uncorrupted past narration. A German narrative with indirect discourse in the subjunctive ensures the consistency of the narration, but eschews equality in discourse by having a timeless subjunctive. An English narrative, however, may have a contradictory narrator because the characters can corrupt the preterit narration with their congruous discourse. Thus in English, it is possible to have a narrative like The Bostonians where the preterit narration is corrupted by the preterit indirect discourse of the characters so that ultimately the opinion (commentary/discourse) and even the narration of the narrator changes depending on the diegetic character influencing the narration. This is not possible in Russian and it is why the narration of The Bostonians can paint a picture of Olive Chancellor that is at odds with itself. As for implications, in Russian there has never been a period where the commenting narrator fully withdrew from the past tense narrative. Even if he does not comment like Gogol, he must be implicitly present because ultimately discourse is the mode of apprehension, and a narrative requires an apprehender that employs an available mode of discourse for the justification of the narrative. In English and German, however, the commenting narrator could withdraw because linguistic developments allowed narratives to be perceived as apprehending themselves on account of preterit indirect discourse (German preterit indirect discourse began to appear in the nineteenth century). But the consequence are not just limited to literature, it is conceivable that this linguistic nuance accounts in part for a discourser's relationship to the past, with a Russian discourser being the most confident of his past and closely attached to its message because of tense; in German, after the development of a past tense form of gid and narrated monologue (erlebte Rede), the past could be corrupted but still contain messages in eternal subjunctive gid that speak to readers in the present. In English, past gid makes us dismiss our past as literally past, while, furthermore, the narration of the facts is doubtful with so much potential corruption by that past discourse.