Emmanuella Sep 15, 2021:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Jeu de paume tableaux brules...

Emmanuella Sep 15, 2021:

Je paraphrase : on pouvait Y voir ( dans les flammes lorsqu'elles éblouissaient) , des images...
J'avais uniquement suggéré s'il était possible de rendre l'idée avec la préposition 'through' , ce qui est plausible, mais Daryo a vu juste.

Mpoma Sep 15, 2021:

@SafeTex Here's an example from TLFi: "La falaise de maisons, à droite, se décrochait par élans successifs, du même mouvement que l'escalier (ROMAINS, Hommes bonne vol., 1932, p.184)". Very similar usage to the ST. As TLFi describes this use: "[Le subst. désigne un fragment, un élément discret]".

Or just think of the expression par moments: this doesn't mean "by moments", it means "at moments" (more colloquially "occasionally").

Par has got a hidden life in this respect, particularly in a literary context. Daryo's suggestion also uses it non-instrumentally.

SafeTex Sep 14, 2021:

@ Mpoma and all I think that you may be right as to how you see the scene but I'm really not sure about how you translate "par"

You say it means "as" here but I would have thought "comme" would = "as". Maybe a French native speaker can confirm things one way or another.

Mpoma Sep 14, 2021:

@Emmanuella Your initial discussion point flatly contradicted the possibility suggested by Chris. That was impolite (and also incorrect, since there is another way of reading this).

Conversely I only suggested (and continue to) that you "may not have understood".

Touchy much?

Emmanuella Sep 14, 2021:

@ Mpoma - Please check the various meanings of ' par' as well as the use of the indefinite article. Moreover, try to be polite !

Mpoma Sep 14, 2021:

"par" I think Emmanuella may not have understood that in French this "par" can actually mean "as", rather than "by", i.e. "as/in successive bursts/flares/whatever", rather than "[were lit up] *by* bursts/flares...".

Lending weight to this interpretation (because at first it seems either is possible) is the absence of the partitive "des": if "par" meant "by" we should expect the writer to have written "par des éblouissements successifs". French is less flexible than English with these grammatical niceties of course.

Think about it for a nanosecond and you'll see I'm right. So I'm with Chris on this one.

Further corroboration perhaps: if these are successive bursts of light illuminating the paintings they must be instantaneous: a flash and then gone. But we are are told that the images then disappear in the fire: what's actually lighting them up at this point? NB in this connection it would be useful to know if this is a night-time scene or not. I tend to picture it that way: flames, images etc. would be less likely to be éblouissantes during the day.

If it is the images which are the éblouissements this makes for a more plausible literary image.

Marge Hogarty Sep 14, 2021:

I think the image that Chris wants to convey is particularly powerful, although, agreed, it does refer to the flame, as Emmanuella points out.

Emmanuella Sep 14, 2021:

Through successive glares of fire

Barbara Cochran, MFA (asker) Sep 14, 2021:

Oui, je suis d'accord.

Emmanuella Sep 14, 2021:

Éblouissement se réfère à la lumière de la flamme

Barbara Cochran, MFA (asker) Sep 14, 2021:

Yes, I think you and SafeTex have the right idea (which was mine, too). Thanks for your confirmation, and for offering an extended explanation of what you see as the entire scenario.

chris collister Sep 14, 2021:

The idea is, I think, that at random intervals, a particularly flammable picture might flare up and then illuminate itself and/or other pictures before being consumed and then disappearing.