Away From Zherkov

Tolstoy has Field Marshall Kutuzov retreating up the Danube.  Napoleon is on his trail.   Things have suddenly gone bad.  We all know it’s going to get a lot worse.  I’m catching a few pages of the adventure with my older daughter before she heads out shopping with mom and sis.

Kutuzov retreats to Melk.  “Hey do you remember Melk?  You’ve been there!”  “Was it in Ireland?”  Oh dear.  I pretend to pray to a deity. “Please.  I tried hard.  I meant well.” She laughs.  “It’s in Austria.  Remember the place were we went up to the monastery and momma didn’t want to go up, but we went up together and it had those beautiful . . . “  It’s drawing a blank. 

 

“Charlemagne was the last one who pulled it off.  He gets Western Europe unified and then it falls apart when his son Pippin takes over.  It takes about one thousand years before someone is audacious enough to do it again.  But Europe doesn't hold the way China does."  Her sister needs to discuss something with her.  And then we're back along the Danube.  We learn that Prince Andrey is heading to Krems.  “You’ve been there too.  We ate in that outdoor garden there and . . .” Prince Andrew thinks he has good news.  But he will soon be told otherwise. 

I don’t know how to pronounce the standard Romanization of Russian, but one character, a hussar is named Zherkov forces me to make assumptions.  Presumably Americans at least would pronounce that ‘zz-erkov.’  I however have lived in China too long.  The default pinyin Romanization of Chinese language renders the ‘zh’ sound as an aspirated “j” sound.  It appears daily.  “he walked away from Zherkov, leaving him at a loss for words.”  I look at her after pronouncing it.  I show her how its spelled and we laugh.  The cab's here.  They have to go now.