The paper tackles cross-cultural pragmatics through translation, namely, how the relational dynamics between fictional characters are constructed through rendition of speech acts, in the Russian and Greek target versions of an English novel, The Shell Seekers by Pilcher. The study uses naturalistic evidence (the Russian and Greek target versions of the novel) to trace relational shifts in speech act performance and highlight the appropriate relational dynamics between characters, across the parallel versions. It also uses experimental research methodology in that it elicited data, through questionnaires, from bilingual or trilingual respondents with respect to the appropriateness of the relational dynamics portrayal in a target version. Findings show that speech act performance, in the three data sets, manifests itself through variation in interpersonal distance (Brown and Levinson in Politeness: Some universals in language use. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987) between interlocutors or in the dimension of power distance (Hofstede et al. in Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. McGraw Hill, New York, 2005).