площадка сад, 'кентурия', etc
'...,заносило дымком в колоннаду через верхнюю площадку сада, и к горьковатому дыму, свидетельствовавшему о том, что кашевары в кентуриях начали готовить обед, примешивался все тот же жирный розовый дух.' (Bulgakov)
I translate the sentence as:-
' a plume of smoke carried into the colonnade across the upper (landing/area?) of the garden, and into that bitterish smoke, testifying to this;- that the cooks in the (?) had started to prepare dinner, (was) mixed all this greasy rosey air.
Which makes some sense to me, after a lot of effort. The reference to 'rosy air' (rose scent in the air) is from a previous paragraph. It's set in a Roman courtyard, by the way.
Can anyone provide translations for 'площадка сад' and 'кентурия'? The first one brings up pictures of children's playgrounds on google, but I can't quite picture Roman centurians playing happily on the swings...
The structure of this sentence is complicated, but I think it is a bit like:-
заносило дымком в колоннаду через верхнюю площадку сада, и к горьковатому дыму, примешивался жирный розовый дух, with another clause added in the middle. In which case I think I understand it to mean:-
'a plume of smoke carried into the colonnade across the upper (landing/area?) of the garden, and into that bitterish smoke, (was) mixed all this greasy rosy air.'
In general I'm having a lot of trouble distinguishing between the various uses of commas in Russian text; which ones begin dependant clauses, which ones are part of phrases, etc. For instance, it took me a while to work out that 'свидетельствовавшему о том, что кашевары в кентуриях начали готовить обед' was a complete clause. Is 'свидетельствовавшему о том' a standard phrase of some sort? I've translated it as 'testifying to this;-'
Thanks to anyone who can help.
