Owen

[topaz jay]

Please be patient

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[dawn turret]

"l'horreur que lui inspirait

should this not be "qui"

and i have no idea what "le cédait presque à celle" even means

"The horror he felt at this crime was almost as great as the horror he felt at my insensitivity." deepl translates it as this

i have no idea how it mangaged to get to that

also theres a fly in my room thats pissing me off

[left wagon]

it shouldn't be "qui", because "l'horreur" is object for the verb "inspirer", not subject. The subject is "ce crime" => "ce crime inspire l'horreur"

I think you're used to having the subject directly following "que", but this is actually not mandatory, you can use stylistic inversion and have the subject follow the verb. "qui" vs "que" is what decides subject vs object
l'horreur que lui inspirait ce crime = l'horreur que ce crime lui inspirait

[dawn turret]

oh yehhhh

i just didnt recognise it

[left wagon]

so, "l'horreur que lui inspirait ce crime" means "the horror he felt at this crime"
céder kinda means to yield, that horror almost yielded to another kind of horror (implying it was only barely higher). "celle qu'il ressentait devant mon insensibilité"
celle meaning "the one" (referring back to "l'horreur")

[dawn turret]

what is the "le" refering to

"ce crime"?

"le cédait"

like if its "l'horreur" why use the "le"

like "l'horreur, que ce crime lui inspirait, cédait presque à celle qu'il ressentait devant mon insensibilité"

[left wagon]

hum, actually, it would be closer to "almost gave it up to the one he felt facing my insensibility"
(céder "ce crime")

because céder is transitive, it would be closer to like concede smth rather than to yield

[dawn turret]

ah concede is a good way of understanding it here and makes the deepl translation make more sense

thank you very much

[gentle moon]

Le céder à is practically idiomatic at this point.

[dawn turret]

thank you for that thats good to know

so does this mean the "le" isnt really refering to anything?

[gentle moon]

Pretty much. We just stopped wondering what the pronoun refers to.

[dawn turret]

thank you

[gentle moon]

Hm, could come from "céder le pas à".

[dawn turret]

thats an interesting thought