Laza Lazarević's prose rewards readers who follow viewpoint as closely as vocabulary. In this opening from Sve će to narod pozlatiti, a sequence of aorists clears people from a river landing while two tiny quoted excuses let the departing crowd's own voice leak into the narrator's. That interaction of aspect, clitics, and irony disappears in a word-for-word translation.
Verified passage and translation
The passage comes from the opening of „Све ће то народ позлатити“, in the public-domain text published by Project Rastko. Wording is retained; its straight quotation marks are regularized here as Serbian „…“.
И сумрак се поче хватати, а лађе још нема. Свет који ју је и чекао поче се разилазити. Оде и дечко с црним земичкама и капетаница с бајатим лицем. Одоше и оба практиканта, с Марком столаром, свадивши се најпре с гостионичаром што им је точио још прошле среде отворено пиво. Пођоше и кочијаши нудећи се да по два гроша возе у варош; али већина, „ради апетита“ или „опружања ногу“, оде пешице заметнувши прут на раме а палац од леве руке за шпаг од пршњака.
An idiomatic translation:
Dusk began to gather, and still there was no boat. The people who had been waiting for it began to drift away. Off went the boy with the dark bread rolls and the captain's wife with the stale-looking face. The two junior clerks left too, together with Marko the carpenter, after first quarreling with the innkeeper who had served them beer opened the previous Wednesday. The coachmen also set off, offering rides into town for two groschen a head; but most people went on foot, supposedly “to work up an appetite” or “stretch their legs,” with a switch over one shoulder and the left thumb hooked into the pocket of a homespun waistcoat.
The translation makes supposedly explicit because the Serbian quotation marks signal distance: those phrases are the walkers' convenient explanation, not an objective narratorial diagnosis.
Sentence-by-sentence annotation
| Passage unit | Grammar and viewpoint |
|---|---|
| И сумрак се поче хватати | Поче is aorist of почети; the infinitive хватати се presents the gradual process it initiates. |
| а лађе још нема | Present existential нема takes genitive лађе: “there is still no boat.” |
| Свет који ју је и чекао | Ју is accusative “it/her,” referring to feminine лађа; the cluster is pronoun + auxiliary: ју је. |
| Оде… Одоше… Пођоше… оде | Perfective aorists advance the foreground in quick steps: one person went, several left, others set off, the majority went. |
| свадивши се… нудећи се… заметнувши | Adverbial participles package prior or simultaneous actions around the main departures. |
| „ради апетита“ / „опружања ногу“ | The quoted noun phrases echo other people's explanations without a reporting clause, creating ironic free-indirect texture. |
Сумрак се поче хватати, а чамац се још није видео.
Dusk began to gather, and the boat was still nowhere in sight.
In contemporary conversation, the perfect is more usual:
Сумрак је почео да се спушта, а чамца још није било.
Dusk had begun to fall, and there was still no boat.
That is a modernization, not Lazarević's wording. The aorist is still grammatical, especially in southern speech and vivid narration, but its density here is (literary).
The clitic cluster ју је
The antecedent лађа is feminine singular, so the direct-object clitic is ју. Serbian unstressed object pronouns precede the unstressed perfect auxiliary је inside the second-position cluster: који ју је чекао. The additive particle и comes after the cluster and means “actually/even did wait for it” in this context.
Лађу смо дуго чекали, али ју је магла задржала.
We waited a long time for the boat, but the fog delayed it.
Свет који ју је чекао полако се разишао.
The people who had been waiting for it slowly dispersed.
English object it gives no gender cue and is not restricted to a clitic cluster. Serbian makes both decisions unavoidable. The full account belongs in the second-position guide.
Aspectual sequencing: background and departures
The opening process поче хватати establishes fading light. Against it, perfective оде, одоше, пођоше cuts the crowd into departing groups. In Оде и дечко… и капетаница…, the verb precedes the coordinated subject and takes singular agreement from the first, nearest conjunct дечко; the second conjunct is then added in a stylized presentational sequence. Neutral contemporary prose would more often make the coordination explicit with plural отишли су и дечко… и капетаница…. Одоше and пођоше explicitly mark plural subjects.
Прво оде продавац, затим одоше чиновници, а на крају пођоше кочијаши.
First the vendor left, then the clerks went, and finally the coachmen set off.
Отићи profiles departure and endpoint; поћи profiles setting out. Translating both merely as “went” hides the staging.
Кочијаши пођоше ка вароши, али се један убрзо врати.
The coachmen set off toward town, but one soon returned.
The adverbial participles compress subordinate clauses. Свадивши се is anterior: “having quarreled.” Нудећи се is simultaneous: “while offering.” Заметнувши presents the adopted posture accompanying the walk.
Посвађавши се с гостионичаром, практиканти одоше пешице.
Having quarreled with the innkeeper, the junior clerks left on foot.
In ordinary speech, a finite clause is more natural: Пошто су се посвађали…, отишли су… The participial form is (formal/literary).
Free-indirect texture without a reporting verb
No one explicitly says Идемо ради апетита. Yet quotation marks around „ради апетита“ and „опружања ногу“ briefly reproduce the crowd's self-justifying vocabulary. The narrator's choice to quote only those fragments makes them sound faintly ridiculous. This is related to free indirect discourse: another consciousness colors narration without a full рекли су да… frame.
Већина је, „ради здравља“, кренула пешице — тек пошто су кочијаши подигли цену.
Most set off on foot ‘for their health’—but only after the coachmen raised the price.
Quotation marks here do not prove verbatim speech. They mark an attributed formulation and narratorial distance. A neutral paraphrase removes that ambiguity:
Већина је тврдила да иде пешице како би протегла ноге.
Most claimed that they were walking in order to stretch their legs.
Nineteenth-century vocabulary
Практикант here is a junior trainee clerk, not simply a modern “intern.” Грош is a historical coin denomination. Варош survives but is more marked than neutral град. Шпаг and пршњак name parts of traditional clothing and need cultural rather than mechanical translation. Земичка is a bread roll. Бајато лице transfers “stale” from food to a face, an intentionally unflattering image.
Два практиканта понудила су да помогну писару.
Two junior trainee clerks offered to help the scribe.
У савременом препричавању рекли бисмо да су за малу суму нудили превоз до града.
In a modern retelling we would say that they offered rides into town for a small sum.
Do not silently replace these words inside quotation. Quote the source accurately, then gloss or paraphrase it.
Reuse exercises
Task 1: expand the literary participle
Rewrite свадивши се најпре с гостионичаром, одоше in neutral contemporary prose.
Пошто су се најпре посвађали с гостионичаром, отишли су.
After first quarreling with the innkeeper, they left.
Task 2: preserve the clitic order
Replace лађа with кочија and refer back to it with a pronoun.
Кочију су чекали сатима, али ју је возач послао у други град.
They waited for the carriage for hours, but the driver sent it to another town.
Task 3: create narratorial distance
Give a suspicious excuse in quotation marks, then disclose the real motive.
Отишао је раније „због обавеза“, мада је утакмица почињала за десет минута.
He left early ‘because of obligations,’ although the match was starting in ten minutes.
Common Mistakes
❌ Свет који је ју чекао поче се разилазити.
Incorrect clitic order: the object clitic precedes the auxiliary in this cluster.
✅ Свет који ју је чекао поче се разилазити.
The people who had been waiting for it began to disperse.
❌ А лађа још нема.
Incorrect case after existential нема: the absent entity is genitive.
✅ А лађе још нема.
And still there is no boat.
❌ Свадивши се значи да је свађа трајала истовремено с одласком.
Incorrect—the perfective adverbial participle presents the quarrel as completed before departure.
✅ Пошто су се посвађали, отишли су.
After they had quarreled, they left.
❌ Практикант увек значи савремени неплаћени стажиста.
Incorrect historical reading: in this setting it denotes a junior trainee clerk.
✅ У овом тексту практиканти су млађи чиновнички приправници.
In this text, the praktikanti are junior clerical trainees.
Key Takeaways
- Perfective aorists оде, одоше, пођоше drive the departures against a slower background.
- The cluster ју је places the object clitic before the perfect auxiliary.
- Quoted fragments such as „ради апетита“ import the crowd's excuse into the narrator's ironic voice.
- Historical vocabulary must be glossed, not silently rewritten inside a quotation.
Related Topics
- The Second-Position (Wackernagel) RuleB1 — Why clitics land right after the first element of the clause.
- Aspect in Narrative Foreground and BackgroundB2 — A focused guide to aspect in narrative foreground and background in Serbian.
- The Aorist (aorist)B2 — The simple past still alive in Serbian narration and speech.
- Literary SerbianC1 — A focused guide to literary serbian in Serbian.