IMHO «Когда я смотрел сквозь туман, моё будущее...» would be closer to the English sentence.

Да, согласен. Спасибо.

Although, I think there's a slight discrepancy in tenses now... Cause the Russian suggests that the speaker was looking through the fog continuously when the glimpse occurred (whereas the others all suggest that the glimpse occurred as a result of looking... sort of).

Maybe взглянул would be better, instead of смотрел?

Doesn't English mean he looked at the fog for a short period of time?

I’m not quite sure, but Lingvo gives «in — во время, в течение» as one of the translations. That suggests the speaker may have looked for the fog for the some time.

It's slightly ambiguous, but "in looking..." here can be taken as "because I happened to look...". It's not so much the imperfect tense as it is a cause and effect.

E.g.: "In reading this book, I was able to get a much deeper understanding of the subject."

I originally wanted to start is as «Смотря сквозь туман, моё...», but that would have been ambiguous, I think (since in Russian, the glimpse is not caught by subject, but rather the subject is exposed to the glimpse).

> «Смотря сквозь туман, моё...»
Yes, that would have been a grammar mistake, because the subject of деепричастный оборот is different from the subject of the sentence. At school we are taught this is a mistake. But even Chekhov had such sentences. ;)

> Doesn't English mean he looked at the fog for a short period of time?

No, I don't think it does. He only sees a glimpse of his future, but he might have been staring into the fog for an hour for all we know.

Взглянув сквозь туман, я увидел как...?

Вопрос: а как лучше перестроить вторую половину, что бы подлежащем стал «я»?

Right, he could have been staring at the mist from anywhere between "a glimpse" to "eternity".

> Взглянув сквозь туман, я увидел как...?
Да, так будет правильно.

Но учитывая, что сказал Blay Paul, я уже не уверен, нужен ли там совершенный вид. Может, добавить два варианта перевода?

> Вопрос: а как лучше перестроить вторую
> половину, что бы подлежащем стал «я»?
А зачем? :) По-моему, если начать вторую половину перестраивать, она не будет так красиво звучать.

Могу предложить «я мельком увидел», но, на мой взгляд, это хуже, чем текущий вариант.

I think it's fine to use the perfective, because the action of looking is definitively completed once the glimpse of the future is caught. It's not stated explicitly, but one can assume from the general aura of the sentence that the whole purpose of looking was to catch the glimpse of future (even if the subject did not intend it). Once the glimpse is caught, then the looking is - as far as anyone cares - done.

So, it wouldn't be wrong, but... Would: Смотря сквозь туман, я увидел как... be better?

IMO, the как ruins it, because it gives the feeling (at least, to me) that we now care about *how* the glimpse occurred, rather than the occurrence itself, which is the most important part.

The difference between «взглянул» and «смотрел» is not merely in the aspect. «Взглянул» implies that the action was short. (Though «посмотрел» would also mean the action was short.)

Imperfective aspect doesn’t always imply that action wasn’t finished. Unfortunately, I don’t know the rule. -_-

IMHO «Я увидел, как» doesn’t really change the sentence much. I believe it can be safely added as an alternative translation.

Please, change this one back. I liked it, and it has a Belarusian translation. :p

Sure.