Grrrr stuck on the translation

[charmian]

Posting on the off chance that anyone can help:

The context is a conversation between A and B. A is planning some kind of coup, and B is one of his followers.

B: "blah blah blah....もう舞台から降りるなんて、ナシですよ。　あなたを待ってる人がいる。　......裏切らないでください」
Narration: [cut] 裏切ったら殺すともとれるが、Aには裏切ってもいいとも聞こえた。理由は分からない。たとえばBがAを裏切っても、Aは別に彼を殺さないし、それをBも知っている。けれどBは、それが気に食わないようだった。むしろ自分が裏切ったら殺すくらいしてほしいと、いつだって言っている気がした。　だから、いつからAが自分を裏切っても構わないけれど、その時は、裏切らないのと同じくらいの対価が欲しい。　そんな風に聞こえる。どっちにせよ、Bが求めるものは、本当はたった一つでしかない気がした。　裏切るにせよ、信じるにせよ。誰が相手でも。Bの生き方はいつだってそうだ。　確かなのは、相手にとびきり高価な対価を求めるということ。　払いきれないと、すべてを失う。

The underlined part is what I don't get. -_- I included the rest for context.

This whole passage is kind of confusing in general (as you might guess from this passage, B is somewhat nutty, as evidenced by him suddenly trying to strangle A for no apparent reason whatsoever. A is like all 'whatevers' about it, though. I suppose it's hard to find good help these days.

Comments

[starlady]

Since I'm about to translate some manga...

"So, though it makes no difference to B whether A betrays [A-reflexive-pronoun], when [A does], [B] wants a compensation the same as if A hadn't."

...I think. Still a little unclear on the whether I have the subjects/topics reversed, but that's my bet on the structure.

[charmian]

Hmm, shouldn't 自分 refer to B instead? As so far we have had no references to people betraying themselves, just to situations in which A might betray B or B might betray A.

[starlady]

That was my first reading (自分＝B）but then I read the sentences before that and confused myself a bit on which was referring to which. So I think you're right.

[charmian]

Thanks for your response, BTW. It does strike me as a plausible reading, grammatically. But argh, I still am totally confused as to why the idea of compensation comes into it at all, and what in the world this would consist of.

[starlady]

Yeah, I agree, it's very strange--compensation from whom? B?

[charmian]

Yeah, it is confusing. Perhaps it isn't 'compensation' but more like 'reward?' or 'valuation of his worth?'

[starlady]

Rikai-chan says "consideration" as a possible meaning, which could be in the sense of "valuation" or "reward"--I think those would make sense too.

[sub_divided]

"It makes to difference to B whether A betrays him - he only wants A to treat him the same way afterwards"?

Says the person with no knowledge of Japanese. :p Please ignore me!

[starlady]

No, thank you for commenting! It's easy for me to get trapped in grammatical accuracy and neglect readability.

[sub_divided]

Whoops, did I reply to you? I meant to reply to Charmian. Your literal translation really highlights the difficulties inherent in translation from Japanese, with not one but two subject- and object-less verbs in one sentence.

Speaking of readability, that should have been "no difference," not "to difference," above.