Coffee Break
Member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2022
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Korean
- Home Country
- South Korea
- Current Location
- South Korea
I read this expression, "as quickly as the second day", but am finding it difficult to understand it. Could you please let me know what it means? Here is the excerpt:
Over the course of these first sessions, Amina grew increasingly uneasy. The case involved a great deal of testimony regarding terrible atrocities, and hour by hour she carried this testimony from one language into another. She found herself on occasion struggling to control the tremor in her voice, she felt herself becoming entirely too emotional. But then, as quickly as the second day and for reasons she did not fully understand, a certain hardness overtook her, she discovered a new and acerbic tone, not exactly neutral, perhaps even reproachful. At one point, as she relayed the details of an embezzlement scheme, something that was morally questionable but a trifle compared to the other charges against the man, she found herself using a voice of cold disapproval, as if she were a wife scolding a husband for some small domestic failing, neglecting to do the dishes, for example, rather than addressing his rampant infidelity, or the fact that he had gambled away their life’s savings.
- Katie Kitamura, Intimacies, Chapter 2
This is a novel published in 2021 in the United States of America. The protagonist is an interpreter working at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Now she is listening to her colleague Amina's experience when she interpreted for a war criminal.
In this part, I wonder what this phrase means.
I guess it might mean "on the second day, and the second day was very early indeed", but there is no "on" whatsoever, so I just cannot grasp what this part exactly means.
Over the course of these first sessions, Amina grew increasingly uneasy. The case involved a great deal of testimony regarding terrible atrocities, and hour by hour she carried this testimony from one language into another. She found herself on occasion struggling to control the tremor in her voice, she felt herself becoming entirely too emotional. But then, as quickly as the second day and for reasons she did not fully understand, a certain hardness overtook her, she discovered a new and acerbic tone, not exactly neutral, perhaps even reproachful. At one point, as she relayed the details of an embezzlement scheme, something that was morally questionable but a trifle compared to the other charges against the man, she found herself using a voice of cold disapproval, as if she were a wife scolding a husband for some small domestic failing, neglecting to do the dishes, for example, rather than addressing his rampant infidelity, or the fact that he had gambled away their life’s savings.
- Katie Kitamura, Intimacies, Chapter 2
This is a novel published in 2021 in the United States of America. The protagonist is an interpreter working at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Now she is listening to her colleague Amina's experience when she interpreted for a war criminal.
In this part, I wonder what this phrase means.
I guess it might mean "on the second day, and the second day was very early indeed", but there is no "on" whatsoever, so I just cannot grasp what this part exactly means.
