II. Capítulo 2
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A Paris love story for C1
The Lady of the Camellias La dama de las camelias
Alexandre Dumas fils, 1912
Alexandre Dumas fils’s 1848 novel in a Spanish translation published in 1912, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is C1: about 61,600 words and 17 words per sentence on average. 27 chapters about the love of Armand Duval and the courtesan Marguerite Gautier; the first three chapters are the hardest, then the text moves in shorter sentences.
- C1
- 61 632 words
- 10-17 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 the first three chapters, with 26-word sentences, and the old vos form of address (sois, sabéis, amadme) will slow you down.
B2C1
This text
You can manage it at C1: the opening chapters need attention, and from chapter IV Armand’s story and the conversations move in shorter sentences.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 the novel reads freely; only the old-fashioned language of the 1912 translation slows you down.
Start readingThe average sentence has 17 words, as in The Corsican Brothers from the same Sopena edition, but one word in ten has 9 letters or more here, against one in twelve there. That is more often than in any Spanish B2 book in the catalog. The difficulty is uneven: chapters I-III, where the narrator describes the sale and Marguerite herself, average 26 words per sentence, and chapter II holds a sentence of a hundred words; from chapter IV, when Armand appears, sentences shorten to 16 words. The old vos form of address (sois, sabéis) adds work. Hence C1 rather than B2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 61 632
- words
- 17
- words in an average sentence
- 10-17
- hours of reading
- 1912
- Casa Editorial Sopena
Casa Editorial Sopena, 1912. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
The narrator attends the sale of the belongings of Marguerite Gautier, the most famous courtesan in Paris, and buys a copy of Manon Lescaut inscribed by one Armand Duval. Soon Armand comes to see him and tells his story: how he fell in love with Marguerite, how she warned him that her life cost more than he could afford, and how they left Paris for the village of Bougival. How their love ended is not revealed here.
Compare two places
La dama de las camelias
X. Capítulo 10
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Choose an underlined word.
A portrait in one sentence
The whole paragraph is one sentence of a hundred words, held together by first-person plural imperatives: coloquemos, velemos, dibujemos, pintemos, esmaltemos (“let us place, veil, draw...”), closing with y tendremos una idea (“and we shall have an idea”). The narrator paints Marguerite together with the reader. Cutis means “complexion” here, and melocotón is “peach”.
Vos instead of usted
Marguerite addresses Armand as vos, as old bookish Spanish did: sois, sabéis, ignoráis, amadme, dirigíos. These are vosotros forms aimed at one person, polite and a little solemn; today one would say usted or tú. Os arruinaría means “I would ruin you”, and lisa y llanamente “plainly and frankly”.
Where the text gets harder
I-IIIa hard opening
IV-XXVIIshorter sentences
- IVCapítulo 4
- VCapítulo 5
- VICapítulo 6
- VIICapítulo 7
- VIIICapítulo 8
- IXCapítulo 9
- XCapítulo 10
- XICapítulo 11
- XIICapítulo 12
- XIIICapítulo 13
- XIVCapítulo 14
- XVCapítulo 15
- XVICapítulo 16
- XVIICapítulo 17
- XVIIICapítulo 18
- XIXCapítulo 19
- XXCapítulo 20
- XXICapítulo 21
- XXIICapítulo 22
- XXIIICapítulo 23
- XXIVCapítulo 24
- XXVCapítulo 25
- XXVICapítulo 26
- XXVIICapítulo 27
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
In chapter II the portrait of Marguerite is a single sentence of a hundred words: translating the whole sentence in Reader shows how it is built.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
Spanish books B2 Earlier The Corsican Brothers Una familia corsa The same 1912 Sopena volume, but a novella by Dumas’s father at B2: sentences are the same 17 words, and a long word comes one in twelve rather than one in ten B2
All books at this level
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is Alexandre Dumas fils’s complete novel in a Spanish translation, not an adaptation. The French original, La Dame aux camélias, came out in 1848. The reader follows the 1912 Barcelona edition by Sopena, which does not name the translator; The Corsican Brothers by Dumas’s father appeared in the same volume.
Is there an audiobook?
The Lady of the Camellias has no audiobook on MovaReader: here the novel is read. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for bookish words such as aterciopelado and for the old vos forms.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. In this novel it helps most in chapters I-III, where sentences average 26 words, and chapter II gives Marguerite’s portrait in a single sentence of a hundred words. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole novel takes about 10-17 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. Chapters run from 550 to 3,900 words, so one makes an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
From chapter IV. Chapters I-III average 26 words per sentence, and from chapter IV, when Armand appears, about 16.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so you can come back to the novel every evening where you left off. Any of the 27 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example chapter IV, where the text gets easier.