これは、いまから、四年まえの話である。私が伊豆の三島の知り合いのうちの二階で一夏を暮し、ロマネスクという小説を書いていたころの話である。或る夜、酔いながら自転車に乗りまちを走って、怪我をした。右足のくるぶしの上のほうを裂いた。疵は深いものではなかったが、それでも酒をのんでいたために、出血がたいへんで、あわててお医者に駈けつけた。まち医者は三十二歳の、大きくふとり、西郷隆盛に似ていた。たいへん酔っていた。私と同じくらいにふらふら酔って診察室に現われたので、私は、おかしかった。治療を受けながら、私がくすくす笑ってしまった。するとお医者もくすくす笑い出し、とうとうたまりかねて、ふたり声を合せて大笑いした。
This is a story from four years ago now. It is a story from the time I was spending a summer in the upstairs room of an acquaintance's house in Mishima, Izu, writing a novel called Romanesque. One night, drunk, I rode a bicycle through the town and got hurt. I cut the part above my right ankle. The wound was not deep, but even so, because I had been drinking, the bleeding was considerable, and in a panic I rushed to the doctor. The town doctor was thirty-two, big and stout, and resembled Saigō Takamori. He was very drunk. He appeared in the examination room reeling just about as drunk as I was, and I found it funny. While receiving treatment, I burst into stifled laughter. Then the doctor began to laugh too, stifling it, until at last neither of us could hold it in, and the two of us burst out laughing together.
その夜から私たちは仲良くなった。お医者は、文学よりも哲学を好んだ。私もそのほうを語るのが、気が楽で、話がはずんだ。お医者の世界観は、原始二元論ともいうべきもので、世の中の有様をすべて善玉悪玉の合戦と見て、なかなか歯切れがよかった。私は愛という単一神を信じたく内心つとめていたのであるが、それでもお医者の善玉悪玉の説を聞くと、うっとうしい胸のうちが、一味爽涼を覚えるのだ。たとえば、宵の私の訪問をもてなすのに、ただちに奥さんにビールを命ずるお医者自身は善玉であり、今宵はビールでなくブリッジ（トランプ遊戯の一種）いたしましょう、と笑いながら提議する奥さんこそは悪玉である、というお医者の例証には、私も素直に賛成した。奥さんは、小がらの、おたふくがおであったが、色が白く上品であった。子供はなかったが、奥さんの弟で沼津の商業学校にかよっているおとなしい少年がひとり、二階にいた。
From that night we became close. The doctor preferred philosophy to literature. Talking of that was easier for me too, and our conversation flourished. The doctor's view of the world was something like a primitive dualism — he saw everything in the world as a battle between good fellows and bad fellows, and it was, in its way, quite clean-cut. I had been inwardly striving to believe in love as a single god, but even so, hearing the doctor's theory of good fellows and bad fellows brought a certain refreshing coolness to my clouded chest. For instance, in the doctor's illustration, when I called on him of an evening, the doctor himself — who at once ordered his wife to bring beer — was the good fellow, while his wife — who, laughing, proposed that tonight we play bridge (a card game) instead of beer — was precisely the bad fellow; and to this I too readily agreed. The wife was small, with a round, plain face, but her complexion was fair and refined. They had no children, but there was one quiet boy upstairs, the wife's younger brother, who attended the commercial school in Numazu.
お医者の家では、五種類の新聞をとっていたので、私はそれを読ませてもらいにほとんど毎朝、散歩の途中に立ち寄って、三十分か一時間お邪魔した。裏口からまわって、座敷の縁側に腰をかけ、奥さんの持って来る冷い麦茶を飲みながら、風に吹かれてぱらぱら騒ぐ新聞を片手でしっかり押えつけて読むのであるが、縁側から二間と離れていない、青草原のあいだを水量たっぷりの小川がゆるゆる流れていて、その小川に沿った細い道を自転車で通る牛乳配達の青年が、毎朝きまって、おはようございます、と旅の私に挨拶した。その時刻に、薬をとりに来る若い女のひとがあった。簡単服に下駄をはき、清潔な感じのひとで、よくお医者と診察室で笑い合っていて、ときたまお医者が、玄関までそのひとを見送り、
At the doctor's house they took five newspapers, so I would drop by nearly every morning, in the course of my walk, to be allowed to read them, and would impose on them for thirty minutes or an hour. Going around by the back door, I would sit on the veranda of the sitting room and, sipping the cold barley tea the wife brought me, hold down with one hand the newspaper that rustled and fluttered in the wind as I read; and along the narrow path beside the little stream — not two ken from the veranda — that flowed slow and full of water between the green meadows, a young milk-delivery man passing by on his bicycle would, every single morning without fail, call out "Good morning" to me, the traveler. At that same hour there was a young woman who came to fetch medicine. She wore a simple summer dress and geta, a person with a clean, fresh air about her, who often laughed together with the doctor in the examination room, and now and then the doctor would see her off as far as the entrance, and
「奥さま、もうすこしのご辛棒ですよ。」と大声で叱咤することがある。
"Now, ma'am, just a little more patience," he would scold, in a loud voice.
お医者の奥さんが、或るとき私に、そのわけを語って聞かせた。小学校の先生の奥さまで、先生は、三年まえに肺をわるくし、このごろずんずんよくなった。お医者は一所懸命で、その若い奥さまに、いまがだいじのところと、固く禁じた。奥さまは言いつけを守った。それでも、ときどき、なんだか、ふびんに伺うことがある。お医者は、その都度、心を鬼にして、奥さまもうすこしのご辛棒ですよ、と言外に意味をふくめて叱咤するのだそうである。
The doctor's wife once told me the reason for this. She was the wife of a primary-school teacher; the teacher had ruined his lungs three years before, and these days was steadily improving. The doctor worked at it with all his might, and had strictly forbidden it to the young wife, telling her that now was the crucial time. The wife obeyed his instructions. And yet, from time to time, she would come and ask, looking somehow pitiable. Each time, the doctor, hardening his heart, would scold her — now, ma'am, just a little more patience — meaning, by that, something more than the words themselves, or so it was said.
八月のおわり、私は美しいものを見た。朝、お医者の家の縁側で新聞を読んでいると、私の傍に横坐りに坐っていた奥さんが、
At the end of August, I saw something beautiful. One morning, as I was reading the newspaper on the veranda of the doctor's house, the wife, sitting sideways beside me,
「ああ、うれしそうね。」と小声でそっと囁いた。
"Ah, she does look happy," she whispered softly, in a low voice.
ふと顔をあげると、すぐ眼のまえの小道を、簡単服を着た清潔な姿が、さっさっと飛ぶようにして歩いていった。白いパラソルをくるくるっとまわした。
Glancing up, I saw, on the little path right before my eyes, a clean, fresh figure in a simple summer dress walking along as though flying, briskly, briskly. She gave her white parasol a quick twirl.
「けさ、おゆるしが出たのよ。」奥さんは、また、囁く。
"This morning, permission came," the wife whispered again.
三年、と一口にいっても、――胸が一ぱいになった。年つき経つほど、私には、あの女性の姿が美しく思われる。あれは、お医者の奥さんのさしがねかも知れない。
Three years — to say it in a single breath is easy enough, but — my chest filled up. The more the years pass, the more beautiful that woman's figure seems to me. That, perhaps, was the doctor's wife's own doing.