竹一の予言の、一つは当り、一つは、はずれました。惚れられるという、名誉で無い予言のほうは、あたりましたが、きっと偉い絵画きになるという、祝福の予言は、はずれました。
One of Takeichi's two prophecies came true, and one did not. The dishonorable prophecy — that I would be fallen in love with — came true, but the blessed prophecy, that I would surely become a great painter, did not.
自分は、わずかに、粗悪な雑誌の、無名の下手な漫画家になる事が出来ただけでした。
I managed to become nothing more than an obscure, unskilled cartoonist for shoddy magazines.
鎌倉の事件のために、高等学校からは追放せられ、自分は、ヒラメの家の二階の、三畳の部屋で寝起きして、故郷からは月々、極めて小額の金が、それも直接に自分宛ではなく、ヒラメのところにひそかに送られて来ている様子でしたが、（しかも、それは故郷の兄たちが、父にかくして送ってくれているという形式になっていたようでした）それっきり、あとは故郷とのつながりを全然、断ち切られてしまい、そうして、ヒラメはいつも不機嫌、自分があいそ笑いをしても、笑わず、人間というものはこんなにも簡単に、それこそ手のひらをかえすが如くに変化できるものかと、あさましく、いや、むしろ滑稽に思われるくらいの、ひどい変り様で、
Because of the affair in Kamakura I was expelled from the higher school, and I took up lodging in a three-mat room on the second floor of Flatfish's house; from home a very small sum of money came each month, and even that, it seemed, was not sent directly to me but secretly to Flatfish (though it seemed to be arranged so that my elder brothers back home were sending it without my father's knowledge), and beyond that my connection to home was cut off entirely. Flatfish himself was always in a foul mood; even when I forced a smile at him he would not smile back, and the change in him was so extreme that it struck me as sordid — no, rather comical — that human beings could alter themselves so easily, as though turning over the palm of a hand.
「出ちゃいけませんよ。とにかく、出ないで下さいよ」
"You mustn't go out. Whatever happens, please don't go out."
そればかり自分に言っているのでした。
That was all he ever said to me.
ヒラメは、自分に自殺のおそれありと、にらんでいるらしく、つまり、女の後を追ってまた海へ飛び込んだりする危険があると見てとっているらしく、自分の外出を固く禁じているのでした。けれども、酒も飲めないし、煙草も吸えないし、ただ、朝から晩まで二階の三畳のこたつにもぐって、古雑誌なんか読んで阿呆同然のくらしをしている自分には、自殺の気力さえ失われていました。
Flatfish seemed to suspect me of being at risk of suicide — that is, he seemed to think there was a danger that I might follow the woman in death and throw myself into the sea again — and so he strictly forbade me from going out. And yet I could not drink, and I could not smoke; I merely burrowed under the kotatsu in the three-mat room upstairs from morning to night, reading old magazines, living a life fit for a fool, and even the will to kill myself had drained out of me.
ヒラメの家は、大久保の医専の近くにあり、書画骨董商、青竜園、だなどと看板の文字だけは相当に気張っていても、一棟二戸の、その一戸で、店の間口も狭く、店内はホコリだらけで、いい加減なガラクタばかり並べ、（もっとも、ヒラメはその店のガラクタにたよって商売しているわけではなく、こっちの所謂旦那の秘蔵のものを、あっちの所謂旦那にその所有権をゆずる場合などに活躍して、お金をもうけているらしいのです）店に坐っている事は殆ど無く、たいてい朝から、むずかしそうな顔をしてそそくさと出かけ、留守は十七、八の小僧ひとり、これが自分の見張り番というわけで、ひまさえあれば近所の子供たちと外でキャッチボールなどしていても、二階の居候をまるで馬鹿か気違いくらいに思っているらしく、大人の説教くさい事まで自分に言い聞かせ、自分は、ひとと言い争いの出来ない質なので、疲れたような、また、感心したような顔をしてそれに耳を傾け、服従しているのでした。この小僧は渋田のかくし子で、それでもへんな事情があって、渋田は所謂親子の名乗りをせず、また渋田がずっと独身なのも、何やらその辺に理由があっての事らしく、自分も以前、自分の家の者たちからそれに就いての噂を、ちょっと聞いたような気もするのですが、自分は、どうも他人の身の上には、あまり興味を持てないほうなので、深い事は何も知りません。しかし、その小僧の眼つきにも、妙に魚の眼を聯想させるところがありましたから、或いは、本当にヒラメのかくし子、……でも、それならば、二人は実に淋しい親子でした。夜おそく、二階の自分には内緒で、二人でおそばなどを取寄せて無言で食べている事がありました。
Flatfish's house stood near the medical school in Okubo; the sign out front proclaimed something grand enough — Dealer in Paintings, Calligraphy, and Antiques, Seiryuen — but it was one half of a two-family row house, with a narrow shopfront, the interior thick with dust, lined with nothing but shoddy odds and ends. (Though in truth Flatfish did not seem to make his living from the junk in that shop; his real trade, it seemed, was earning money by arranging, between one so-called patron and another, the transfer of some treasured piece one wished to sell.) He was hardly ever to be found sitting in the shop; nearly every morning he put on a difficult face and hurried out, and while he was away the house was left to a boy of seventeen or eighteen, who served, in effect, as my keeper. Whenever he had a spare moment this boy would be out playing catch with the neighborhood children, and yet he seemed to regard the freeloader upstairs as little better than a fool or a madman, and would lecture me with the sort of things grown-ups say; and since I am not the sort who can argue with anyone, I would listen with a face that looked tired, or perhaps impressed, and submit to him. This boy was Shibuta's hidden child, though for some strange reason Shibuta would not acknowledge him as his son, and it seemed there was some reason behind the fact that Shibuta had remained a bachelor all this time as well; I thought I had once heard some rumor about it from people in my own family, but I have never had much interest in other people's affairs, so I know nothing of the particulars. Still, there was something in that boy's eyes that oddly called to mind the eyes of a fish, and so perhaps he really was Flatfish's hidden child after all — but if so, then the two of them made a truly lonely sort of father and son. Late at night, without telling me upstairs, the two of them would sometimes order soba and eat it together in silence.
ヒラメの家では食事はいつもその小僧がつくり、二階のやっかい者の食事だけは別にお膳に載せて小僧が三度々々二階に持ち運んで来てくれて、ヒラメと小僧は、階段の下のじめじめした四畳半で何やら、カチャカチャ皿小鉢の触れ合う音をさせながら、いそがしげに食事しているのでした。
In Flatfish's house, meals were always prepared by that boy, and only the meal for the nuisance upstairs was set on its own tray and carried up three times a day, while Flatfish and the boy ate hurriedly down in the damp four-and-a-half-mat room at the foot of the stairs, the clatter of dishes and small bowls knocking against each other.
三月末の或る夕方、ヒラメは思わぬもうけ口にでもありついたのか、または何か他に策略でもあったのか、（その二つの推察が、ともに当っていたとしても、おそらくは、さらにまたいくつかの、自分などにはとても推察のとどかないこまかい原因もあったのでしょうが）自分を階下の珍らしくお銚子など附いている食卓に招いて、ヒラメならぬマグロの刺身に、ごちそうの主人みずから感服し、賞讃し、ぼんやりしている居候にも少しくお酒をすすめ、
One evening near the end of March, whether Flatfish had come into some unexpected profit or had some other scheme in mind (and even if both of those guesses were right, there were probably, besides, a number of finer reasons quite beyond my power to guess), he invited me down to the table, where, unusually, a flask of sake had even been set out, and over slices of tuna sashimi — not flatfish, for once — the master of this feast admired and praised the food himself, and pressed a little sake even on his vacant-eyed freeloader, saying,
「どうするつもりなんです、いったい、これから」
"What do you mean to do, I wonder, from here on?"
自分はそれに答えず、卓上の皿から畳鰯をつまみ上げ、その小魚たちの銀の眼玉を眺めていたら、酔いがほのぼの発して来て、遊び廻っていた頃がなつかしく、堀木でさえなつかしく、つくづく「自由」が欲しくなり、ふっと、かぼそく泣きそうになりました。
I gave him no answer; I picked up a sheet of dried baby sardines from the plate on the table and sat gazing at the silver eyes of those little fish, and as the sake began to take a faint hold on me, I found myself missing the days when I used to go about playing, missing even Horiki, and I wanted, from the depths of me, "freedom" — and all at once I very nearly began, thinly, to cry.
自分がこの家へ来てからは、道化を演ずる張合いさえ無く、ただもうヒラメと小僧の蔑視の中に身を横たえ、ヒラメのほうでもまた、自分と打ち解けた長噺をするのを避けている様子でしたし、自分もそのヒラメを追いかけて何かを訴える気などは起らず、ほとんど自分は、間抜けづらの居候になり切っていたのです。
Since coming to this house I had not even had the heart to perform my clowning; I merely lay there under the contempt of Flatfish and the boy, and Flatfish, for his part, seemed to be avoiding any long, open talk with me, while I for my own part had no impulse to chase after Flatfish and press him with anything — I had all but turned, by now, into a freeloader with the face of a fool.
「起訴猶予というのは、前科何犯とか、そんなものには、ならない模様です。だから、まあ、あなたの心掛け一つで、更生が出来るわけです。あなたが、もし、改心して、あなたのほうから、真面目に私に相談を持ちかけてくれたら、私も考えてみます」
"A suspended prosecution, it seems, does not count as a criminal record of any kind. So, well, it all comes down to your own resolve whether you can start your life over. If you truly reform, and come to me yourself, seriously, to talk things over, then I'll give it some thought."
ヒラメの話方には、いや、世の中の全部の人の話方には、このようにややこしく、どこか朦朧として、逃腰とでもいったみたいな微妙な複雑さがあり、そのほとんど無益と思われるくらいの厳重な警戒と、無数といっていいくらいの小うるさい駈引とには、いつも自分は当惑し、どうでもいいやという気分になって、お道化で茶化したり、または無言の首肯で一さいおまかせという、謂わば敗北の態度をとってしまうのでした。
In the way Flatfish spoke — no, in the way everyone in the world speaks — there was always this same convoluted, faintly murky, almost evasive sort of delicate complication, and I was forever bewildered by the elaborate caution, all but useless as it seemed, and by the countless petty maneuverings that went with it, until I would fall into a mood of not caring either way, and would either laugh the whole thing off with clowning or else simply nod in silence and leave everything up to the other — what you might call an attitude of defeat.
この時もヒラメが、自分に向って、だいたい次のように簡単に報告すれば、それですむ事だったのを自分は後年に到って知り、ヒラメの不必要な用心、いや、世の中の人たちの不可解な見栄、おていさいに、何とも陰鬱な思いをしました。
This time too, it was only much later that I came to realize Flatfish could simply have told me, in substance, the following, and it would have settled the matter; and Flatfish's needless caution — no, the incomprehensible vanity and face-saving of people in the world in general — left me feeling indescribably gloomy.
ヒラメは、その時、ただこう言えばよかったのでした。
What Flatfish ought to have said at the time was simply this.
「官立でも私立でも、とにかく四月から、どこかの学校へはいりなさい。あなたの生活費は、学校へはいると、くにから、もっと充分に送って来る事になっているのです。」
"Whether it's a national school or a private one, in any case, get into some school starting in April. Once you enroll, your living expenses will be sent from home in much fuller amounts."
ずっと後になってわかったのですが、事実は、そのようになっていたのでした。そうして、自分もその言いつけに従ったでしょう。それなのに、ヒラメのいやに用心深く持って廻った言い方のために、妙にこじれ、自分の生きて行く方向もまるで変ってしまったのです。
I learned only much later that this was, in fact, the arrangement. And I would have followed that instruction, too. And yet, because of the way Flatfish put things, so needlessly cautious and roundabout, everything became strangely tangled, and the whole direction of my life was changed entirely.
「真面目に私に相談を持ちかけてくれる気持が無ければ、仕様がないですが」
"If you haven't the heart to come to me seriously and talk things over, then there's nothing to be done, I suppose."
「どんな相談？」
"Talk over what?"
自分には、本当に何も見当がつかなかったのです。
I truly had no idea what he meant.
「それは、あなたの胸にある事でしょう？」
"That's something you must have in your own heart, surely?"
「たとえば？」
"For instance?"
「たとえばって、あなた自身、これからどうする気なんです」
"What do you mean, 'for instance' — what do you yourself mean to do from here on?"
「働いたほうが、いいんですか？」
"Would it be better if I worked?"
「いや、あなたの気持は、いったいどうなんです」
"No, what I'm asking is what your own feelings actually are."
「だって、学校へはいるといったって、……」
"But even if I said I'd go into a school..."
「そりゃ、お金が要ります。しかし、問題は、お金でない。あなたの気持です」
"Well, that takes money, of course. But the question isn't the money. It's your feelings."
お金は、くにから来る事になっているんだから、となぜ一こと、言わなかったのでしょう。その一言に依って、自分の気持も、きまった筈なのに、自分には、ただ五里霧中でした。
Why did he not simply say, in one word, that the money was arranged to come from home? That one word alone should have been enough to settle my own feelings; but as it was, I was left in a fog, utterly lost.
「どうですか？ 何か、将来の希望、とでもいったものが、あるんですか？ いったい、どうも、ひとをひとり世話しているというのは、どれだけむずかしいものだか、世話されているひとには、わかりますまい」
"Well? Do you have anything — any hope for the future, so to speak? Really, I doubt the person being looked after ever knows just how difficult it is to look after someone."
「すみません」
"I'm sorry."
「そりゃ実に、心配なものです。私も、いったんあなたの世話を引受けた以上、あなたにも、生半可な気持でいてもらいたくないのです。立派に更生の道をたどる、という覚悟のほどを見せてもらいたいのです。たとえば、あなたの将来の方針、それに就いてあなたのほうから私に、まじめに相談を持ちかけて来たなら、私もその相談には応ずるつもりでいます。それは、どうせこんな、貧乏なヒラメの援助なのですから、以前のようなぜいたくを望んだら、あてがはずれます。しかし、あなたの気持がしっかりしていて、将来の方針をはっきり打ち樹て、そうして私に相談をしてくれたら、私は、たといわずかずつでも、あなたの更生のために、お手伝いしようとさえ思っているんです。わかりますか？ 私の気持が。いったい、あなたは、これから、どうするつもりでいるのです」
"That's a real worry, you know. Having once taken on the responsibility of looking after you, I don't want you going about it half-heartedly either. I want to see some sign of your resolve to make an honest recovery. For instance, if you would come to me seriously yourself and talk over your plans for the future, I intend to hear you out on it. Of course, since this is nothing but the support of a poor Flatfish, if you're hoping for the kind of extravagance you once had, you'll be disappointed. But if your feelings are firm, and you set a clear course for the future, and then come and talk to me about it, I mean to help you, even if only a little at a time, toward making a fresh start. Do you understand? How I feel about this? Really now, what do you mean to do from here on?"
「ここの二階に、置いてもらえなかったら、働いて、……」
"If I can't stay on here upstairs, I'll work, and..."
「本気で、そんな事を言っているのですか？ いまのこの世の中に、たとい帝国大学校を出たって、……」
"Are you saying that seriously? In the world as it is now, even a graduate of an Imperial University..."
「いいえ、サラリイマンになるんでは無いんです」
"No, I don't mean to become a salaried man."
「それじゃ、何です」
"Then what is it?"
「画家です」
"A painter."
思い切って、それを言いました。
I made up my mind and said it.
「へええ？」
"Heh? Is that so?"
自分は、その時の、頸をちぢめて笑ったヒラメの顔の、いかにもずるそうな影を忘れる事が出来ません。軽蔑の影にも似て、それとも違い、世の中を海にたとえると、その海の千尋の深さの箇所に、そんな奇妙な影がたゆとうていそうで、何か、おとなの生活の奥底をチラと覗かせたような笑いでした。
I cannot forget the look on Flatfish's face at that moment — how he drew his neck in and laughed, a shadow of something unmistakably crafty upon it. It resembled contempt, and yet it was not quite that; if you likened the world to a sea, it was the kind of strange shadow that seemed to hover at some fathomless depth of that sea, a laugh that seemed to let me catch, for one instant, a glimpse into the depths of a grown man's life.
そんな事では話にも何もならぬ、ちっとも気持がしっかりしていない、考えなさい、今夜一晩まじめに考えてみなさい、と言われ、自分は追われるように二階に上って、寝ても、別に何の考えも浮びませんでした。そうして、あけがたになり、ヒラメの家から逃げました。
He told me that talk like that got us nowhere, that my feelings weren't the least bit firm, that I should think it over — think it over seriously, tonight, the whole night through — and, as if driven, I went up to the room upstairs, and even lying down, no thoughts of any kind came to me. And then, as dawn broke, I fled Flatfish's house.
夕方、間違いなく帰ります。左記の友人の許へ、将来の方針に就いて相談に行って来るのですから、御心配無く。ほんとうに。
I will be back this evening without fail. I am going to see the friend named below to talk over my plans for the future, so please don't worry. Truly.
と、用箋に鉛筆で大きく書き、それから、浅草の堀木正雄の住所姓名を記して、こっそり、ヒラメの家を出ました。
So I wrote in large letters, in pencil, on a sheet of writing paper, and then I set down the name and address of Horiki Masao in Asakusa, and slipped out of Flatfish's house.
ヒラメに説教せられたのが、くやしくて逃げたわけではありませんでした。まさしく自分は、ヒラメの言うとおり、気持のしっかりしていない男で、将来の方針も何も自分にはまるで見当がつかず、この上、ヒラメの家のやっかいになっているのは、ヒラメにも気の毒ですし、そのうちに、もし万一、自分にも発奮の気持が起り、志を立てたところで、その更生資金をあの貧乏なヒラメから月々援助せられるのかと思うと、とても心苦しくて、いたたまらない気持になったからでした。
It was not that I fled because I resented being lectured by Flatfish. I was, exactly as Flatfish said, a man whose feelings were not the least bit firm, with no idea whatsoever of any future plan, and it pained me to go on being a burden to Flatfish; and when I thought that even if, by some remote chance, a spirit of resolve should rise in me and I should set myself a purpose, the funds for that new start would still have to come, month after month, from that same poor Flatfish, it became more than I could bear, and I could not stay still another moment.
しかし、自分は、所謂「将来の方針」を、堀木ごときに、相談に行こうなどと本気に思って、ヒラメの家を出たのでは無かったのでした。それは、ただ、わずかでも、つかのまでも、ヒラメに安心させて置きたくて、（その間に自分が、少しでも遠くへ逃げのびていたいという探偵小説的な策略から、そんな置手紙を書いた、というよりは、いや、そんな気持も幽かにあったに違いないのですが、それよりも、やはり自分は、いきなりヒラメにショックを与え、彼を混乱当惑させてしまうのが、おそろしかったばかりに、とでも言ったほうが、いくらか正確かも知れません。どうせ、ばれるにきまっているのに、そのとおりに言うのが、おそろしくて、必ず何かしら飾りをつけるのが、自分の哀しい性癖の一つで、それは世間の人が「嘘つき」と呼んで卑しめている性格に似ていながら、しかし、自分は自分に利益をもたらそうとしてその飾りつけを行った事はほとんど無く、ただ雰囲気の興覚めた一変が、窒息するくらいにおそろしくて、後で自分に不利益になるという事がわかっていても、れいの自分の「必死の奉仕」それはたといゆがめられ微弱で、馬鹿らしいものであろうと、その奉仕の気持から、つい一言の飾りつけをしてしまうという場合が多かったような気もするのですが、しかし、この習性もまた、世間の所謂「正直者」たちから、大いに乗ぜられるところとなりました）その時、ふっと、記憶の底から浮んで来たままに堀木の住所と姓名を、用箋の端にしたためたまでの事だったのです。
And yet it was not that I left Flatfish's house truly meaning to go and consult that fellow Horiki about my so-called "plans for the future." It was only that I wanted, even briefly, even for a moment, to set Flatfish's mind at ease — (it might be more accurate to say not that I wrote that note out of some detective-novel scheme to buy myself time to flee as far away as possible while he waited, though no doubt a trace of that feeling was there too, but rather that what I truly dreaded was simply the thought of shocking Flatfish outright and throwing him into confusion and bewilderment. It was one of my sad habits that, even when I knew perfectly well a thing was bound to be found out anyway, I dreaded saying it as it was and never failed to dress it up with some ornament; and this resembles the trait that the world calls, and despises as, being a "liar," and yet I have almost never dressed things up in order to bring myself some advantage — it was simply that the sudden souring of the atmosphere frightened me to the point of suffocation, so that even when I knew it would work to my own disadvantage later, it was, it seems to me, most often out of that "desperate service" of mine, however twisted, however feeble, however absurd it might be, that I would tack on, without meaning to, one small ornamental word. And yet this same habit of mine was also, in the end, greatly exploited by those so-called "honest people" of the world.) — and it was in that state that Horiki's name and address rose up out of the bottom of my memory, and I simply set it down, just as it came to me, at the edge of the writing paper.
自分はヒラメの家を出て、新宿まで歩き、懐中の本を売り、そうして、やっぱり途方にくれてしまいました。自分は、皆にあいそがいいかわりに、「友情」というものを、いちども実感した事が無く、堀木のような遊び友達は別として、いっさいの附き合いは、ただ苦痛を覚えるばかりで、その苦痛をもみほぐそうとして懸命にお道化を演じて、かえって、へとへとになり、わずかに知合っているひとの顔を、それに似た顔をさえ、往来などで見掛けても、ぎょっとして、一瞬、めまいするほどの不快な戦慄に襲われる有様で、人に好かれる事は知っていても、人を愛する能力に於いては欠けているところがあるようでした。（もっとも、自分は、世の中の人間にだって、果して、「愛」の能力があるのかどうか、たいへん疑問に思っています）そのような自分に、所謂「親友」など出来る筈は無く、そのうえ自分には、「訪問」の能力さえ無かったのです。他人の家の門は、自分にとって、あの神曲の地獄の門以上に薄気味わるく、その門の奥には、おそろしい竜みたいな生臭い奇獣がうごめいている気配を、誇張でなしに、実感せられていたのです。
I left Flatfish's house and walked as far as Shinjuku, where I sold a book I had on me, and even so I found myself at a complete loss. Though I was agreeable to everyone, I had never once, in all my life, truly felt what people call "friendship" — aside from playmates like Horiki, every kind of company was nothing to me but a source of suffering, and in trying to knead that suffering away I would throw myself desperately into clowning, only to end up utterly worn out; and even the sight, in the street, of a face I barely knew, or even a face merely resembling one I knew, would startle me and strike me with a moment's unpleasant shudder, almost dizzying — I knew how to be liked by people, but it seemed there was something lacking in me when it came to the capacity to love people. (Though, for that matter, I have serious doubts whether human beings in general really possess any capacity for "love" at all.) A man like that could hardly be expected to have what people call a "close friend," and beyond that I did not even have the capacity to "visit" anyone. The gate of another person's house was, to me, more unnerving than the gate of Hell in that Divine Comedy, and I felt, quite without exaggeration, as though behind that gate some dreadful, dragon-like, raw-smelling monster lay stirring.
誰とも、附き合いが無い。どこへも、訪ねて行けない。
I had no company with anyone. There was nowhere I could go and visit.
堀木。
Horiki.
それこそ、冗談から駒が出た形でした。あの置手紙に、書いたとおりに、自分は浅草の堀木をたずねて行く事にしたのです。自分はこれまで、自分のほうから堀木の家をたずねて行った事は、いちども無く、たいてい電報で堀木を自分のほうに呼び寄せていたのですが、いまはその電報料さえ心細く、それに落ちぶれた身のひがみから、電報を打っただけでは、堀木は、来てくれぬかも知れぬと考えて、何よりも自分に苦手の「訪問」を決意し、溜息をついて市電に乗り、自分にとって、この世の中でたった一つの頼みの綱は、あの堀木なのか、と思い知ったら、何か脊筋の寒くなるような凄じい気配に襲われました。
It was, in truth, a case of a joke turning serious. Just as I had written in that note, I decided to go and call on Horiki in Asakusa after all. Up to then I had never once gone to visit Horiki's house on my own account — I had always simply summoned him to me by telegram — but now even the cost of a telegram was more than I could easily spare, and besides, with the warped suspicion of a man fallen on hard times, it occurred to me that a telegram alone might not be enough to bring Horiki to me; and so I resolved on "visiting," the very thing I was worst at, and with a sigh I boarded the streetcar, and when it struck me that Horiki, of all people, was the one and only thread I had left to cling to in this world, I was seized by a terrible feeling that seemed to send a chill straight up my spine.
堀木は、在宅でした。汚い露路の奥の、二階家で、堀木は二階のたった一部屋の六畳を使い、下では、堀木の老父母と、それから若い職人と三人、下駄の鼻緒を縫ったり叩いたりして製造しているのでした。
Horiki was at home. His house stood at the back of a filthy alley, a two-story building; Horiki used the single six-mat room on the second floor, while below, his old parents and a young craftsman, three of them together, made a living sewing and hammering the thongs of geta.
堀木は、その日、彼の都会人としての新しい一面を自分に見せてくれました。それは、俗にいうチャッカリ性でした。田舎者の自分が、愕然と眼をみはったくらいの、冷たく、ずるいエゴイズムでした。自分のように、ただ、とめどなく流れるたちの男では無かったのです。
That day Horiki showed me a new side of himself, the side of him as a man of the city. It was what people commonly call a shrewd, calculating nature — a cold, cunning egoism that left me, country bumpkin that I was, staring in astonishment. He was not, like me, the sort of man who simply drifts on and on without a stop.
「お前には、全く呆れた。親爺さんから、お許しが出たかね。まだかい」
"You really do amaze me. Has your old man given his permission yet? Not yet, I suppose?"
逃げて来た、とは、言えませんでした。
I could not say that I had run away.
自分は、れいに依って、ごまかしました。いまに、すぐ、堀木に気附かれるに違いないのに、ごまかしました。
As usual, I covered it over with a lie. Even though I knew Horiki was certain to see through it any moment, I covered it over all the same.
「それは、どうにかなるさ」
"That'll work itself out somehow."
「おい、笑いごとじゃ無いぜ。忠告するけど、馬鹿もこのへんでやめるんだな。おれは、きょうは、用事があるんだがね。この頃、ばかにいそがしいんだ」
"Hey, this isn't a laughing matter. Let me give you some advice—it's about time you quit playing the fool. I've got business today, you know. I've been terribly busy lately."
「用事って、どんな？」
"Business? What kind?"
「おい、おい、座蒲団の糸を切らないでくれよ」
"Hey, hey, don't go snapping the threads on that cushion."
自分は話をしながら、自分の敷いている座蒲団の綴糸というのか、くくり紐というのか、あの総のような四隅の糸の一つを無意識に指先でもてあそび、ぐいと引っぱったりなどしていたのでした。堀木は、堀木の家の品物なら、座蒲団の糸一本でも惜しいらしく、恥じる色も無く、それこそ、眼に角を立てて、自分をとがめるのでした。考えてみると、堀木は、これまで自分との附合いに於いて何一つ失ってはいなかったのです。
As I talked, I had been unconsciously toying between my fingertips with one of those tassel-like threads at the four corners of the cushion I sat on—the binding thread, or the tie-cord, whatever it was called—tugging at it now and then. Horiki, it seemed, begrudged even a single thread of a cushion so long as it belonged to the Horiki household, and without a trace of shame, indeed with real anger flashing in his eyes, he reproached me for it. Thinking it over, Horiki had never once, in all his dealings with me up to now, lost so much as a single thing.
堀木の老母が、おしるこを二つお盆に載せて持って来ました。
Horiki's aged mother came in carrying two bowls of sweet red-bean soup on a tray.
「あ、これは」
"Ah, well now."
と堀木は、しんからの孝行息子のように、老母に向って恐縮し、言葉づかいも不自然なくらい丁寧に、
Horiki said, and turning to his mother with the air of a truly devoted son, overcome with gratitude, spoke to her in a tone so polite it sounded almost unnatural:
「すみません、おしるこですか。豪気だなあ。こんな心配は、要らなかったんですよ。用事で、すぐ外出しなけれゃいけないんですから。いいえ、でも、せっかくの御自慢のおしるこを、もったいない。いただきます。お前も一つ、どうだい。おふくろが、わざわざ作ってくれたんだ。ああ、こいつあ、うめえや。豪気だなあ」
"Sorry to trouble you—oh, sweet bean soup? Marvelous. You needn't have bothered—I've got to go straight out on business. No, but it would be a shame to waste your proud specialty. I'll have some. You have one too, eh? The old lady went to the trouble of making it. Ahh, this stuff's good. Marvelous."
と、まんざら芝居でも無いみたいに、ひどく喜び、おいしそうに食べるのです。自分もそれを啜りましたが、お湯のにおいがして、そうして、お餅をたべたら、それはお餅でなく、自分にはわからないものでした。決して、その貧しさを軽蔑したのではありません。（自分は、その時それを、不味いとは思いませんでしたし、また、老母の心づくしも身にしみました。自分には、貧しさへの恐怖感はあっても、軽蔑感は、無いつもりでいます）あのおしること、それから、そのおしるこを喜ぶ堀木に依って、自分は、都会人のつましい本性、また、内と外をちゃんと区別していとなんでいる東京の人の家庭の実体を見せつけられ、内も外も変りなく、ただのべつ幕無しに人間の生活から逃げ廻ってばかりいる薄馬鹿の自分ひとりだけ完全に取残され、堀木にさえ見捨てられたような気配に、狼狽し、おしるこのはげた塗箸をあつかいながら、たまらなく侘びしい思いをしたという事を、記して置きたいだけなのです。
And he was hugely delighted, as though it were not altogether an act, and ate it as though it were truly delicious. I sipped mine too, but it smelled of hot water, and when I ate the rice cake in it, it did not taste like rice cake at all, but like something I could not identify. I never meant, by this, to despise that poverty. (I did not think it tasted bad at the time, and the old mother's thoughtfulness touched me deeply. I have a fear of poverty, but I don't believe I hold it in contempt.) It is only that, through that bowl of sweet bean soup, and through Horiki's delight in it, I was shown the frugal true nature of a city dweller, the reality of a Tokyo household run with a proper distinction kept between what is shown within and what is shown without, and I mean simply to set down here that I was thrown into confusion at the sense of being left utterly alone, the only one—the same within as without, endlessly fleeing from the life of human beings, a half-witted fool—abandoned now, it seemed, even by Horiki, and that, fumbling with the sweet-bean-soup chopsticks whose lacquer had flaked away, I felt an unbearable forlornness.
「わるいけど、おれは、きょうは用事があるんでね」
"Sorry, but I've got business today, you see."
堀木は立って、上衣を着ながらそう言い、
Horiki said this as he stood and put on his coat,
「失敬するぜ、わるいけど」
"I'll be off then, sorry about it."
その時、堀木に女の訪問者があり、自分の身の上も急転しました。
Just then a woman came to visit Horiki, and my own circumstances took a sudden turn.
堀木は、にわかに活気づいて、
Horiki suddenly came alive,
「や、すみません。いまね、あなたのほうへお伺いしようと思っていたのですがね、このひとが突然やって来て、いや、かまわないんです。さあ、どうぞ」
"Oh, sorry about this. I was just about to come see you, but this person turned up out of nowhere—no, it's quite all right. Come in, please."
よほど、あわてているらしく、自分が自分の敷いている座蒲団をはずして裏がえしにして差し出したのを引ったくって、また裏がえしにして、その女のひとにすすめました。部屋には、堀木の座蒲団の他には、客座蒲団がたった一枚しか無かったのです。
He seemed considerably flustered; when I took the cushion I had been sitting on, turned it over, and held it out, he snatched it from me, turned it over yet again, and offered it to the woman. Besides Horiki's own cushion, there was only that one guest cushion in the room.
女のひとは痩せて、脊の高いひとでした。その座蒲団は傍にのけて、入口ちかくの片隅に坐りました。
She was a thin, tall woman. She set the cushion aside and sat in a corner near the entrance.
自分は、ぼんやり二人の会話を聞いていました。女は雑誌社のひとのようで、堀木にカットだか、何だかをかねて頼んでいたらしく、それを受取りに来たみたいな具合いでした。
I listened absently to the two of them talking. The woman seemed to be from some magazine company; it appeared she had earlier commissioned an illustration or something of the sort from Horiki, and had come now to collect it.
「いそぎますので」
"I'm in a hurry, so—"
「出来ています。もうとっくに出来ています。これです、どうぞ」
"It's done. It's been done for ages now. Here it is, take it."
電報が来ました。
A telegram arrived.
堀木が、それを読み、上機嫌のその顔がみるみる険悪になり、
Horiki read it, and his good-humored face turned grim before my eyes.
「ちぇっ！ お前、こりゃ、どうしたんだい」
"Tch! You—what the devil is this?"
ヒラメからの電報でした。
It was a telegram from Flatfish.
「とにかく、すぐに帰ってくれ。おれが、お前を送りとどけるといいんだろうが、おれにはいま、そんなひまは、無えや。家出していながら、その、のんきそうな面ったら」
"Anyway, go home at once. I suppose it would be best if I saw you back myself, but I've got no time for that now. You run off from home, and then that carefree mug of yours—"
「お宅は、どちらなのですか？」
"Whereabouts is your home?"
「大久保です」
"Okubo."
ふいと答えてしまいました。
The answer slipped out before I thought.
「そんなら、社の近くですから」
"Well then, that's near my office."
女は、甲州の生れで二十八歳でした。五つになる女児と、高円寺のアパートに住んでいました。夫と死別して、三年になると言っていました。
The woman had been born in Koshu and was twenty-eight. She lived with a five-year-old daughter in an apartment in Koenji. She said it had been three years since she lost her husband.
「あなたは、ずいぶん苦労して育って来たみたいなひとね。よく気がきくわ。可哀そうに」
"You seem like someone who's had a hard time of it, growing up. You're very thoughtful. Poor thing."
はじめて、男めかけみたいな生活をしました。シヅ子（というのが、その女記者の名前でした）が新宿の雑誌社に勤めに出たあとは、自分とそれからシゲ子という五つの女児と二人、おとなしくお留守番という事になりました。それまでは、母の留守には、シゲ子はアパートの管理人の部屋で遊んでいたようでしたが、「気のきく」おじさんが遊び相手として現われたので、大いに御機嫌がいい様子でした。
For the first time I lived a life like a kept man. After Shizuko—that was the woman reporter's name—went off to her work at the magazine company in Shinjuku, I would be left quietly minding the house together with the five-year-old girl named Shigeko. Until then, it seemed, whenever her mother was out Shigeko had played in the apartment manager's room, but now that a "thoughtful" uncle had appeared to play with her, she seemed in high spirits indeed.
一週間ほど、ぼんやり、自分はそこにいました。アパートの窓のすぐ近くの電線に、奴凧が一つひっからまっていて、春のほこり風に吹かれ、破られ、それでもなかなか、しつっこく電線にからみついて離れず、何やら首肯いたりなんかしているので、自分はそれを見る度毎に苦笑し、赤面し、夢にさえ見て、うなされました。
For about a week I stayed on there, in a daze. On the electric wire just outside the apartment window a kite in the shape of a footman had gotten tangled, and it was blown about by the dusty spring wind, torn, and yet it clung stubbornly to the wire and would not come free, nodding this way and that as though in assent, and every time I saw it I would give a bitter smile and flush red, and it even came to me in dreams and made me groan in my sleep.
「お金が、ほしいな」
"I want some money."
「……いくら位？」
"...How much?"
「たくさん。……金の切れ目が、縁の切れ目、って、本当の事だよ」
"A lot. ...When the money runs out, the relationship runs out—that's the plain truth of it, you know."
「ばからしい。そんな、古くさい、……」
"Don't be silly. That's such an old, worn-out..."
「そう？ しかし、君には、わからないんだ。このままでは、僕は、逃げる事になるかも知れない」
"You think so? But you don't understand. If things go on like this, I may end up running away."
「いったい、どっちが貧乏なのよ。そうして、どっちが逃げるのよ。へんねえ」
"Now really, which one of us is poor here? And which one is going to run away? How odd."
「自分でかせいで、そのお金で、お酒、いや、煙草を買いたい。絵だって僕は、堀木なんかより、ずっと上手なつもりなんだ」
"I want to earn my own money and buy sake with it—no, cigarettes. As for painting, I flatter myself I'm far better at it than Horiki, anyway."
このような時、自分の脳裡におのずから浮びあがって来るものは、あの中学時代に画いた竹一の所謂「お化け」の、数枚の自画像でした。失われた傑作。それは、たびたびの引越しの間に、失われてしまっていたのですが、あれだけは、たしかに優れている絵だったような気がするのです。その後、さまざま画いてみても、その思い出の中の逸品には、遠く遠く及ばず、自分はいつも、胸がからっぽになるような、だるい喪失感になやまされ続けて来たのでした。
At such times, what rose up of itself in my mind were the several self-portraits I had painted back in middle school, the ones Takeichi had called "ghosts." Lost masterpieces. They had been lost somewhere along the way, in the course of my many moves, but I have the feeling that those, at least, were truly fine paintings. Afterward, no matter what I tried to paint, nothing came anywhere near that exquisite piece in my memory, and I was left continually plagued by a dull sense of loss, as though something had left my chest hollow.
飲み残した一杯のアブサン。
A half-finished glass of absinthe.
自分は、その永遠に償い難いような喪失感を、こっそりそう形容していました。絵の話が出ると、自分の眼前に、その飲み残した一杯のアブサンがちらついて来て、ああ、あの絵をこのひとに見せてやりたい、そうして、自分の画才を信じさせたい、という焦燥にもだえるのでした。
That was the secret phrase I used for that sense of loss which seemed forever beyond making up. Whenever the talk turned to painting, that half-finished glass of absinthe would flicker before my eyes, and I would writhe with the restless longing to show her that painting—ah, to make her believe in my talent for it.
「ふふ、どうだか。あなたは、まじめな顔をして冗談を言うから可愛い」
"Ha, I wonder about that. You're adorable, the way you make jokes with a perfectly straight face."
冗談ではないのだ、本当なんだ、ああ、あの絵を見せてやりたい、と空転の煩悶をして、ふいと気をかえ、あきらめて、
It is not a joke, it's true, ah, I want to show her that painting—so I struggled in vain, agonizing over it, and then abruptly changed my mind, gave it up, and said,
「漫画さ。すくなくとも、漫画なら、堀木よりは、うまいつもりだ」
"Cartoons, I mean. At least when it comes to cartoons, I flatter myself I'm better than Horiki."
その、ごまかしの道化の言葉のほうが、かえってまじめに信ぜられました。
That evasive, clowning remark was, on the contrary, taken far more seriously.
「そうね。私も、実は感心していたの。シゲ子にいつもかいてやっている漫画、つい私まで噴き出してしまう。やってみたら、どう？ 私の社の編輯長に、たのんでみてあげてもいいわ」
"That's true. Actually, I've been impressed myself. The cartoons you're always drawing for Shigeko—even I end up bursting out laughing at them. Why don't you give it a try? I could put in a word for you with the editor-in-chief at my office, if you like."
その社では、子供相手のあまり名前を知られていない月刊の雑誌を発行していたのでした。
That company published a monthly magazine for children, not a very well-known one.
……あなたを見ると、たいていの女のひとは、何かしてあげたくて、たまらなくなる。……いつも、おどおどしていて、それでいて、滑稽家なんだもの。……時たま、ひとりで、ひどく沈んでいるけれども、そのさまが、いっそう女のひとの心を、かゆがらせる。
...When most women look at you, they can't help wanting to do something for you. ...You're always so timid and jittery, and yet such a clown besides. ...Now and then you sink into a terrible gloom all by yourself, but even that only makes a woman's heart itch all the more.
シヅ子に、そのほかさまざまの事を言われて、おだてられても、それが即ち男めかけのけがらわしい特質なのだ、と思えば、それこそいよいよ「沈む」ばかりで、一向に元気が出ず、女よりは金、とにかくシヅ子からのがれて自活したいとひそかに念じ、工夫しているものの、かえってだんだんシヅ子にたよらなければならぬ破目になって、家出の後仕末やら何やら、ほとんど全部、この男まさりの甲州女の世話を受け、いっそう自分は、シヅ子に対し、所謂「おどおど」しなければならぬ結果になったのでした。
Shizuko said all manner of other things besides, flattering me, but whenever I thought that this was simply the squalid nature of a kept man, it only made me sink further and further into gloom, and my spirits never rose in the least; money rather than women, I told myself—at any rate I secretly longed and schemed to break free of Shizuko and support myself—but instead I found myself, little by little, forced to depend on her all the more, and for the settling of the whole business of running away from home, and everything else besides, I was cared for almost entirely by this Koshu woman who was more than a match for any man, with the result that I had all the more reason to feel, as they say, "timid and jittery" before Shizuko.
シヅ子の取計らいで、ヒラメ、堀木、それにシヅ子、三人の会談が成立して、自分は、故郷から全く絶縁せられ、そうしてシヅ子と「天下晴れて」同棲という事になり、これまた、シヅ子の奔走のおかげで自分の漫画も案外お金になって、自分はそのお金で、お酒も、煙草も買いましたが、自分の心細さ、うっとうしさは、いよいよつのるばかりなのでした。それこそ「沈み」に「沈み」切って、シヅ子の雑誌の毎月の連載漫画「キンタさんとオタさんの冒険」を画いていると、ふいと故郷の家が思い出され、あまりの侘びしさに、ペンが動かなくなり、うつむいて涙をこぼした事もありました。
Through Shizuko's arrangement, a three-way meeting was held among Flatfish, Horiki, and Shizuko, and I was cut off entirely from my home, and it was settled that Shizuko and I should live together "openly, before the whole world"; and this too, thanks to Shizuko's efforts, meant that my cartoons brought in a surprising amount of money, with which I bought both sake and cigarettes, but my sense of helplessness and gloom only went on mounting all the more. Sunk in gloom upon gloom, as I sat drawing "The Adventures of Kinta-san and Ota-san," the monthly comic strip serialized in Shizuko's magazine, my old home would suddenly come to mind, and my forlornness would grow so great that my pen would stop moving, and there were times I bowed my head and let the tears fall.
そういう時の自分にとって、幽かな救いは、シゲ子でした。シゲ子は、その頃になって自分の事を、何もこだわらずに「お父ちゃん」と呼んでいました。
At such times, my one faint comfort was Shigeko. By then, Shigeko had taken to calling me "Papa," without any hesitation at all.
「お父ちゃん。お祈りをすると、神様が、何でも下さるって、ほんとう？」
"Papa. When you pray, is it true that God gives you anything you ask for?"
自分こそ、そのお祈りをしたいと思いました。
It was I who wanted to say that prayer.
ああ、われに冷き意志を与え給え。われに、「人間」の本質を知らしめ給え。人が人を押しのけても、罪ならずや。われに、怒りのマスクを与え給え。
Oh, grant me a cold will. Let me know the true nature of human beings. Is it not a sin when one person shoves another aside? Grant me a mask of anger.
「うん、そう。シゲちゃんには何でも下さるだろうけれども、お父ちゃんには、駄目かも知れない」
"Yes, that's so. God will probably give Shige-chan anything she wants, but he may not give Papa anything at all."
自分は神にさえ、おびえていました。神の愛は信ぜられず、神の罰だけを信じているのでした。信仰。それは、ただ神の笞を受けるために、うなだれて審判の台に向う事のような気がしているのでした。地獄は信ぜられても、天国の存在は、どうしても信ぜられなかったのです。
I was afraid even of God. I could not believe in God's love; I believed only in God's punishment. Faith — it felt to me like nothing more than bowing one's head and walking to the judgment seat only to receive God's whip. I could believe in hell, but the existence of heaven I could not, no matter what, believe in.
「どうして、ダメなの？」
"Why won't he?"
「親の言いつけに、そむいたから」
"Because I disobeyed what my parents told me to do."
「そう？ お父ちゃんはとてもいいひとだって、みんな言うけどな」
"Really? But everyone says Papa is a very good person."
それは、だましているからだ、このアパートの人たち皆に、自分が好意を示されているのは、自分も知っている、しかし、自分は、どれほど皆を恐怖しているか、恐怖すればするほど好かれ、そうして、こちらは好かれると好かれるほど恐怖し、皆から離れて行かねばならぬ、この不幸な病癖を、シゲ子に説明して聞かせるのは、至難の事でした。
That is because I am deceiving them — I knew well enough that everyone in this apartment building showed me their goodwill, but how greatly I feared them all, and how the more I feared them the more they liked me, and the more I was liked the more I feared them, until I had to draw away from everyone — to explain this unhappy affliction to Shigeko was a thing beyond doing.
「シゲちゃんは、いったい、神様に何をおねだりしたいの？」
"What is it Shige-chan wants to ask God for, anyway?"
自分は、何気無さそうに話頭を転じました。
I turned the subject, as though it were nothing.
「シゲ子はね、シゲ子の本当のお父ちゃんがほしいの」
"Shigeko wants — Shigeko wants her real papa."
ぎょっとして、くらくら目まいしました。敵。自分がシゲ子の敵なのか、シゲ子が自分の敵なのか、とにかく、ここにも自分をおびやかすおそろしい大人がいたのだ、他人、不可解な他人、秘密だらけの他人、シゲ子の顔が、にわかにそのように見えて来ました。
I was startled, and my head swam. An enemy. Whether I was Shigeko's enemy or Shigeko was mine, in any case here too was one of those terrifying adults who threatened me — a stranger, an incomprehensible stranger, a stranger full of secrets; Shigeko's face suddenly began to look to me just so.
シゲ子だけは、と思っていたのに、やはり、この者も、あの「不意に虻を叩き殺す牛のしっぽ」を持っていたのでした。自分は、それ以来、シゲ子にさえおどおどしなければならなくなりました。
I had thought that Shigeko at least — and yet this child too, after all, possessed that "tail of a cow that suddenly swats a horsefly dead." From that time on I had to go about timid and fearful even of Shigeko.
「色魔！ いるかい？」
"Lady-killer! Are you in?"
堀木が、また自分のところへたずねて来るようになっていたのです。あの家出の日に、あれほど自分を淋しくさせた男なのに、それでも自分は拒否できず、幽かに笑って迎えるのでした。
Horiki had taken again to coming around to see me. Though he was the man who, on the day I ran away from home, had made me feel so utterly alone, still I could not refuse him, and I would meet him with a faint smile.
「お前の漫画は、なかなか人気が出ているそうじゃないか。アマチュアには、こわいもの知らずの糞度胸があるからかなわねえ。しかし、油断するなよ。デッサンが、ちっともなってやしないんだから」
"Your comics are getting pretty popular, I hear. There's no beating an amateur — you've got that damn-fool nerve that doesn't know what fear is. But don't get careless. Your drawing isn't up to snuff at all."
お師匠みたいな態度をさえ示すのです。自分のあの「お化け」の絵を、こいつに見せたら、どんな顔をするだろう、とれいの空転の身悶えをしながら、
He even put on the air of a master instructor. I wondered, writhing inwardly in that familiar futile way of mine, what face he would make if I showed him that "ghost" picture of mine, and said,
「それを言ってくれるな。ぎゃっという悲鳴が出る」
"Don't say that. It makes me want to shriek."
堀木は、いよいよ得意そうに、
Horiki, looking more pleased with himself than ever, said,
「世渡りの才能だけでは、いつかは、ボロが出るからな」
"Talent for getting by in the world isn't enough on its own — sooner or later the seams will show."
世渡りの才能。……自分には、ほんとうに苦笑の他はありませんでした。自分に、世渡りの才能！ しかし、自分のように人間をおそれ、避け、ごまかしているのは、れいの俗諺の「さわらぬ神にたたりなし」とかいう怜悧狡猾の処生訓を遵奉しているのと、同じ形だ、という事になるのでしょうか。ああ、人間は、お互い何も相手をわからない、まるっきり間違って見ていながら、無二の親友のつもりでいて、一生、それに気附かず、相手が死ねば、泣いて弔詞なんかを読んでいるのではないでしょうか。
Talent for getting by in the world. ... I could do nothing but laugh bitterly. Talent for getting by in the world — in me! And yet, is it, in the end, the same shape as following that clever, cunning maxim, "Let sleeping gods lie," for me to go on fearing human beings, avoiding them, deceiving them, the way I do? Ah, is it not so that human beings never understand one another at all — seeing each other altogether wrongly, believing all their lives that the other is a friend without equal, never once noticing the mistake, and then, when the other dies, weeping and reading out some eulogy over him?
堀木は、何せ、（それはシヅ子に押してたのまれてしぶしぶ引受けたに違いないのですが）自分の家出の後仕末に立ち合ったひとなので、まるでもう、自分の更生の大恩人か、月下氷人のように振舞い、もっともらしい顔をして自分にお説教めいた事を言ったり、また、深夜、酔っぱらって訪問して泊ったり、また、五円（きまって五円でした）借りて行ったりするのでした。
Horiki, after all — no doubt Shizuko had pressed him into it and he had taken it on reluctantly — had been the one present when the aftermath of my running away was settled, and so he now carried on as though he were the great benefactor of my rehabilitation, or a matchmaker under the moon, putting on a solemn face to lecture me on this or that, or else coming to visit drunk in the dead of night and staying over, or else borrowing five yen (it was always exactly five yen) and going off with it.
「しかし、お前の、女道楽もこのへんでよすんだね。これ以上は、世間が、ゆるさないからな」
"But you'd better call a halt to this womanizing of yours about now. Any more of it and the world won't forgive you."
世間とは、いったい、何の事でしょう。人間の複数でしょうか。どこに、その世間というものの実体があるのでしょう。けれども、何しろ、強く、きびしく、こわいもの、とばかり思ってこれまで生きて来たのですが、しかし、堀木にそう言われて、ふと、
Just what is this thing called "the world"? Is it human beings in the plural? Where is the substance of this thing called the world? And yet, up to now I had lived thinking of it only as something strong, harsh, and terrible — but hearing Horiki say that, it suddenly occurred to me,
「世間というのは、君じゃないか」
"Isn't 'the world' just you?"
という言葉が、舌の先まで出かかって、堀木を怒らせるのがイヤで、ひっこめました。
and the words rose to the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them back, not wanting to make Horiki angry.
（それは世間が、ゆるさない）
(The world won't forgive it.)
（世間じゃない。あなたが、ゆるさないのでしょう？）
(Not the world. It's you who won't forgive it, isn't it?)
（そんな事をすると、世間からひどいめに逢うぞ）
(Do a thing like that and the world will make you suffer for it.)
（世間じゃない。あなたでしょう？）
(Not the world. You, isn't it?)
（いまに世間から葬られる）
(Before long the world will bury you.)
（世間じゃない。葬むるのは、あなたでしょう？）
(Not the world. It's you who will do the burying, isn't it?)
汝は、汝個人のおそろしさ、怪奇、悪辣、古狸性、妖婆性を知れ！ などと、さまざまの言葉が胸中に去来したのですが、自分は、ただ顔の汗をハンケチで拭いて、
Know, thou, thine own individual terror, thine own strangeness, thine own viciousness, the cunning old badger in thee, the witch-hag in thee! — such words as these came and went in my heart, but I only wiped the sweat from my face with a handkerchief, and said,
「冷汗、冷汗」
"Cold sweat, cold sweat."
と言って笑っただけでした。
and only laughed.
けれども、その時以来、自分は、（世間とは個人じゃないか）という、思想めいたものを持つようになったのです。
But from that time on, I came to hold something like an idea: that the world is nothing but the individual.
そうして、世間というものは、個人ではなかろうかと思いはじめてから、自分は、いままでよりは多少、自分の意志で動く事が出来るようになりました。シヅ子の言葉を借りて言えば、自分は少しわがままになり、おどおどしなくなりました。また、堀木の言葉を借りて言えば、へんにケチになりました。また、シゲ子の言葉を借りて言えば、あまりシゲ子を可愛がらなくなりました。
And once I had begun to think that the thing called the world might be nothing but the individual, I became able, if only somewhat more than before, to move by my own will. To borrow Shizuko's words, I grew a little selfish, and no longer went about so timidly. Or, to borrow Horiki's words, I grew strangely stingy. Or, to borrow Shigeko's words, I stopped being so fond of her.
無口で、笑わず、毎日々々、シゲ子のおもりをしながら、「キンタさんとオタさんの冒険」やら、またノンキなトウサンの歴然たる亜流の「ノンキ和尚」やら、また、「セッカチピンチャン」という自分ながらわけのわからぬヤケクソの題の連載漫画やらを、各社の御注文（ぽつりぽつり、シヅ子の社の他からも注文が来るようになっていましたが、すべてそれは、シヅ子の社よりも、もっと下品な謂わば三流出版社からの注文ばかりでした）に応じ、実に実に陰鬱な気持で、のろのろと、（自分の画の運筆は、非常におそいほうでした）いまはただ、酒代がほしいばかりに画いて、そうして、シヅ子が社から帰るとそれと交代にぷいと外へ出て、高円寺の駅近くの屋台やスタンド・バアで安くて強い酒を飲み、少し陽気になってアパートへ帰り、
Silent, never laughing, minding Shigeko day after day, I filled the orders that came in from various companies (little by little, orders had begun coming from places besides Shizuko's company too, but they were all, without exception, from what might be called third-rate publishers, coarser even than Shizuko's) — drawing "The Adventures of Kinta and Ota," and "Easygoing Priest," a plain enough imitation of the "Easygoing Dad" strips, and a serial with a title I myself could make no sense of, thrown together out of sheer desperation, "Hasty Pinchan" — in a truly, truly gloomy mood, working slowly (my hand was always very slow at drawing), drawing now only for the sake of having money for liquor, and then, the moment Shizuko came home from her office, trading places with her and slipping abruptly out to drink cheap, strong liquor at the food stalls and stand-bars near Kōenji station, and coming back to the apartment a little cheerful, saying,
「見れば見るほど、へんな顔をしているねえ、お前は。ノンキ和尚の顔は、実は、お前の寝顔からヒントを得たのだ」
"The more I look at you, the stranger your face is. You know, the face of Easygoing Priest — I actually got the idea from your sleeping face."
「あなたの寝顔だって、ずいぶんお老けになりましてよ。四十男みたい」
"Your own sleeping face has gotten quite old too, you know. You look like a man of forty."
「お前のせいだ。吸い取られたんだ。水の流れと、人の身はあサ。何をくよくよ川端やなあぎいサ」
"It's your fault. You've drained it out of me. The flow of water, the life of man, ah — why fret and brood, by the willows on the riverbank, ah—"
「騒がないで、早くおやすみなさいよ。それとも、ごはんをあがりますか？」
"Stop making a fuss and go to bed already. Or would you rather have something to eat?"
落ちついていて、まるで相手にしません。
She was quite unruffled, and paid me no mind at all.
「酒なら飲むがね。水の流れと、人の身はあサ。人の流れと、いや、水の流れえと、水の身はあサ」
"I'll take a drink, though. The flow of water, the life of man, ah. The flow of man — no, the flow of water — the life of water, ah—"
唄いながら、シヅ子に衣服をぬがせられ、シヅ子の胸に自分の額を押しつけて眠ってしまう、それが自分の日常でした。
Singing all the while, I would let Shizuko undress me, and press my forehead against her breast and fall asleep — that was my daily life.
してその翌日も同じ事を繰返して、
And the next day I would repeat the same thing again, and
昨日に異らぬ慣例に従えばよい。
One need only follow the same old custom, no different from yesterday's.
即ち荒っぽい大きな歓楽を避けてさえいれば、
That is: so long as one only avoids any great, rough joy,
自然また大きな悲哀もやって来ないのだ。
then naturally no great sorrow comes either.
ゆくてを塞ぐ邪魔な石を
The bothersome stone that blocks the way ahead,
蟾蜍は廻って通る。
the toad goes around.
上田敏訳のギイ・シャルル・クロオとかいうひとの、こんな詩句を見つけた時、自分はひとりで顔を燃えるくらいに赤くしました。
When I came upon these lines of verse — by someone called Guy-Charles Cros, I believe, in Ueda Bin's translation — I blushed, all alone, until my face was fairly burning.
蟾蜍。
The toad.
（それが、自分だ。世間がゆるすも、ゆるさぬもない。葬むるも、葬むらぬもない。自分は、犬よりも猫よりも劣等な動物なのだ。蟾蜍。のそのそ動いているだけだ）
(That is what I am. It is not a matter of the world's forgiving me or not forgiving me, burying me or not burying me. I am an animal inferior to a dog, inferior even to a cat. A toad. Merely creeping sluggishly along.)
自分の飲酒は、次第に量がふえて来ました。高円寺駅附近だけでなく、新宿、銀座のほうにまで出かけて飲み、外泊する事さえあり、ただもう「慣例」に従わぬよう、バアで無頼漢の振りをしたり、片端からキスしたり、つまり、また、あの情死以前の、いや、あの頃よりさらに荒んで野卑な酒飲みになり、金に窮して、シヅ子の衣類を持ち出すほどになりました。
My drinking gradually increased in quantity. It was not only in the area near Kōenji station — I went out to drink as far as Shinjuku and Ginza, and there were times I even stayed out all night, simply so as not to follow "custom": playing the ruffian at the bar, kissing anyone within reach, one after another — in short, I turned once more into the same dissolute, coarse sort of drinker I had been before that love-suicide, no, even more dissolute than that, until I was reduced to carrying off Shizuko's clothes for want of money.
ここへ来て、あの破れた奴凧に苦笑してから一年以上経って、葉桜の頃、自分は、またもシヅ子の帯やら襦袢やらをこっそり持ち出して質屋に行き、お金を作って銀座で飲み、二晩つづけて外泊して、三日目の晩、さすがに具合い悪い思いで、無意識に足音をしのばせて、アパートのシヅ子の部屋の前まで来ると、中から、シヅ子とシゲ子の会話が聞えます。
More than a year had passed since I came here and gave that wry smile over the torn kite, and now, in the season when the cherry trees were coming into leaf, I once again secretly carried off Shizuko's sash and undergarments to the pawnshop, made some money out of them, drank in Ginza, and stayed out two nights running; on the third night, feeling at last that this was going rather too far, I found myself, without meaning to, muffling my footsteps as I came up to the door of Shizuko's room in the apartment, and from inside I could hear Shizuko and Shigeko talking.
「なぜ、お酒を飲むの？」
"Why does he drink?"
「お父ちゃんはね、お酒を好きで飲んでいるのでは、ないんですよ。あんまりいいひとだから、だから、……」
"It's not that Daddy likes to drink, you know. It's because he's too good a person, that's why he... "
「いいひとは、お酒を飲むの？」
"Do good people drink?"
「そうでもないけど、……」
"Not exactly, but... "
「お父ちゃんは、きっと、びっくりするわね」
"Daddy's sure to be surprised, isn't he."
「おきらいかも知れない。ほら、ほら、箱から飛び出した」
"He might not like it. Look, look, it jumped right out of the box!"
「セッカチピンチャンみたいね」
"It's like a little hasty-britches."
「そうねえ」
"So it is."
シヅ子の、しんから幸福そうな低い笑い声が聞えました。
I could hear Shizuko's low laugh, a laugh that sounded happy from the very bottom of her heart.
自分が、ドアを細くあけて中をのぞいて見ますと、白兎の子でした。ぴょんぴょん部屋中を、はね廻り、親子はそれを追っていました。
I opened the door a crack and peeped inside, and saw it was a baby white rabbit. It went hopping all around the room, and mother and daughter were chasing after it.
（幸福なんだ、この人たちは。自分という馬鹿者が、この二人のあいだにはいって、いまに二人を滅茶苦茶にするのだ。つつましい幸福。いい親子。幸福を、ああ、もし神様が、自分のような者の祈りでも聞いてくれるなら、いちどだけ、生涯にいちどだけでいい、祈る）
(They are happy, these two. A fool like me has come between them, and before long will wreck the two of them utterly. A modest happiness. A good mother and daughter. Happiness — ah, if God would only hear even the prayer of a creature such as myself, just this once, only once in my whole life, that is enough, I pray for it.)
自分は、そこにうずくまって合掌したい気持でした。そっと、ドアを閉め、自分は、また銀座に行き、それっきり、そのアパートには帰りませんでした。
I felt like crouching down right there and pressing my hands together in prayer. Gently I closed the door, and went off to Ginza again, and after that I never went back to that apartment.
そうして、京橋のすぐ近くのスタンド・バアの二階に自分は、またも男めかけの形で、寝そべる事になりました。
And so I ended up once more lying about on the second floor of a stand-bar close by Kyōbashi, in the shape, again, of a kept man.
世間。どうやら自分にも、それがぼんやりわかりかけて来たような気がしていました。個人と個人の争いで、しかも、その場の争いで、しかも、その場で勝てばいいのだ、人間は決して人間に服従しない、奴隷でさえ奴隷らしい卑屈なシッペがえしをするものだ、だから、人間にはその場の一本勝負にたよる他、生き伸びる工夫がつかぬのだ、大義名分らしいものを称えていながら、努力の目標は必ず個人、個人を乗り越えてまた個人、世間の難解は、個人の難解、大洋は世間でなくて、個人なのだ、と世の中という大海の幻影におびえる事から、多少解放せられて、以前ほど、あれこれと際限の無い心遣いする事なく、謂わば差し当っての必要に応じて、いくぶん図々しく振舞う事を覚えて来たのです。
The world. It seemed to me that I was somehow beginning, however dimly, to understand it. It is a struggle between individual and individual — and moreover a struggle of the moment, in which all that matters is winning then and there; human beings never truly submit to other human beings; even a slave will pay back a servile, cringing sort of revenge; and so a human being has no way to go on living except by relying on that one bout, then and there, win or lose. People may go about proclaiming something that sounds like a great cause, but the real object of their efforts is always an individual — one individual overcome, and then another individual beyond him; the difficulty of the world is the difficulty of the individual; the great ocean is not "the world" — the great ocean is the individual. Once I had grasped that much, I was freed, somewhat, from my terror of the phantom of that vast sea called the world, and I learned, without fretting over this and that without end as I had before, to conduct myself — in response, so to speak, to whatever the immediate need required — with a certain measure of shamelessness.
高円寺のアパートを捨て、京橋のスタンド・バアのマダムに、
I abandoned the apartment in Kōenji, and said to the madam of the stand-bar in Kyōbashi,
「わかれて来た」
"I've left her."
それだけ言って、それで充分、つまり一本勝負はきまって、その夜から、自分は乱暴にもそこの二階に泊り込む事になったのですが、しかし、おそろしい筈の「世間」は、自分に何の危害も加えませんでしたし、また自分も「世間」に対して何の弁明もしませんでした。マダムが、その気だったら、それですべてがいいのでした。
That was all I said, and it was enough — the one bout was settled — and from that very night I brazenly moved myself in to sleep on the second floor there; and yet "the world," which was supposed to be such a terrifying thing, did me no harm whatsoever, and for my part I offered "the world" no explanation of any kind. If the madam was willing, then everything was fine.
自分は、その店のお客のようでもあり、亭主のようでもあり、走り使いのようでもあり、親戚の者のようでもあり、はたから見て甚だ得態の知れない存在だった筈なのに、「世間」は少しもあやしまず、そうしてその店の常連たちも、自分を、葉ちゃん、葉ちゃんと呼んで、ひどく優しく扱い、そうしてお酒を飲ませてくれるのでした。
I must have been something like a customer of that shop, and something like its proprietor, and something like an errand boy, and something like a relation of the family — to anyone looking on I must have been a thoroughly unaccountable presence — and yet "the world" suspected nothing at all, and the regular customers of the place, too, called me Yo-chan, Yo-chan, and treated me with great gentleness, and let me drink.
自分は世の中に対して、次第に用心しなくなりました。世の中というところは、そんなに、おそろしいところでは無い、と思うようになりました。つまり、これまでの自分の恐怖感は、春の風には百日咳の黴菌が何十万、銭湯には、目のつぶれる黴菌が何十万、床屋には禿頭病の黴菌が何十万、省線の吊皮には疥癬の虫がうようよ、または、おさしみ、牛豚肉の生焼けには、さなだ虫の幼虫やら、ジストマやら、何やらの卵などが必ずひそんでいて、また、はだしで歩くと足の裏からガラスの小さい破片がはいって、その破片が体内を駈けめぐり眼玉を突いて失明させる事もあるとかいう謂わば「科学の迷信」におびやかされていたようなものなのでした。それは、たしかに何十万もの黴菌の浮び泳ぎうごめいているのは、「科学的」にも、正確な事でしょう。と同時に、その存在を完全に黙殺さえすれば、それは自分とみじんのつながりも無くなってたちまち消え失せる「科学の幽霊」に過ぎないのだという事をも、自分は知るようになったのです。お弁当箱に食べ残しのごはん三粒、千万人が一日に三粒ずつ食べ残しても既にそれは、米何俵をむだに捨てた事になる、とか、或いは、一日に鼻紙一枚の節約を千万人が行うならば、どれだけのパルプが浮くか、などという「科学的統計」に、自分は、どれだけおびやかされ、ごはんを一粒でも食べ残す度毎に、また鼻をかむ度毎に、山ほどの米、山ほどのパルプを空費するような錯覚に悩み、自分がいま重大な罪を犯しているみたいな暗い気持になったものですが、しかし、それこそ「科学の嘘」「統計の嘘」「数学の嘘」で、三粒のごはんは集められるものでなく、掛算割算の応用問題としても、まことに原始的で低能なテーマで、電気のついてない暗いお便所の、あの穴に人は何度にいちど片脚を踏みはずして落下させるか、または、省線電車の出入口と、プラットホームの縁とのあの隙間に、乗客の何人中の何人が足を落とし込むか、そんなプロバビリティを計算するのと同じ程度にばからしく、それは如何にも有り得る事のようでもありながら、お便所の穴をまたぎそこねて怪我をしたという例は、少しも聞かないし、そんな仮説を「科学的事実」として教え込まれ、それを全く現実として受取り、恐怖していた昨日までの自分をいとおしく思い、笑いたく思ったくらいに、自分は、世の中というものの実体を少しずつ知って来たというわけなのでした。
I gradually stopped being wary of the world. I came to think that the world was not, after all, so very terrifying a place. That is to say, the fear I had felt up till then had been something like this: that the spring wind carries several hundred thousand germs of whooping cough, that the public bath harbors several hundred thousand germs that can blind you, that the barbershop harbors several hundred thousand germs of baldness, that the leather straps on the commuter trains are crawling with scabies mites, that raw fish, or beef or pork not cooked through, must certainly conceal the larvae of tapeworms, or liver flukes, or the eggs of one thing or another, and that if you walk barefoot a sliver of glass may enter through the sole of your foot and travel about inside your body until it pierces your eyeball and blinds you — I had been menaced, one might say, by nothing more than "the superstitions of science." That hundreds of thousands of germs are indeed floating and swimming and squirming about is no doubt, "scientifically" speaking, perfectly accurate. But at the same time I came to understand that if one simply ignores their existence altogether, they lose every last connection with oneself and vanish on the spot, being nothing more than "the ghosts of science." Three grains of rice left uneaten in a lunchbox — if ten million people leave three grains uneaten every single day, that already amounts to so many bales of rice thrown uselessly away — or again, if ten million people economized on a single sheet of tissue paper each day, how much pulp would that save — by such "scientific statistics" I had been menaced no end, and every time I left even a single grain of rice uneaten, every time I blew my nose, I was tormented by the illusion that I was squandering a mountain of rice, a mountain of pulp, and fell into a dark mood as though I were at that very moment committing some grave crime. But that is precisely the "lie of science," the "lie of statistics," the "lie of mathematics": three grains of rice are not a thing that can actually be gathered together in that way, and even taken purely as an exercise in multiplication and division it is a thoroughly primitive, feeble-minded proposition — every bit as foolish as calculating the probability of how many times out of how many a person will miss his footing and let one leg drop into the hole of a dark, unlit outhouse, or how many out of how many passengers will let a foot slip into that gap between the doorway of a commuter train and the edge of the platform; it may well sound as though such a thing could happen, and yet one never hears of a single case of anyone actually being hurt by missing his footing over an outhouse hole. Having been taught such hypotheses as "scientific fact," and having taken them for reality itself and gone in terror of them, I now found that I could feel something like tenderness, could even want to laugh, toward the self I had been only up until yesterday — which is to say, I had come, little by little, to know the true substance of this thing called the world.
そうは言っても、やはり人間というものが、まだまだ、自分にはおそろしく、店のお客と逢うのにも、お酒をコップで一杯ぐいと飲んでからでなければいけませんでした。こわいもの見たさ。自分は、毎晩、それでもお店に出て、子供が、実は少しこわがっている小動物などを、かえって強くぎゅっと握ってしまうみたいに、店のお客に向って酔ってつたない芸術論を吹きかけるようにさえなりました。
Even so, human beings themselves were still, even now, a thing of terror to me, and before I could so much as meet the shop's customers I had to gulp down a full glass of sake first. The fascination of what one fears. And yet every night I still went out to the shop, and — like a child who, being secretly a little afraid of some small animal, only grips it the tighter for that very fear — I even went so far as to hold forth to the customers, drunk, with my clumsy theories of art.
漫画家。ああ、しかし、自分は、大きな歓楽も、また、大きな悲哀もない無名の漫画家。いかに大きな悲哀があとでやって来てもいい、荒っぽい大きな歓楽が欲しいと内心あせってはいても、自分の現在のよろこびたるや、お客とむだ事を言い合い、お客の酒を飲む事だけでした。
A cartoonist. Ah, but I was a nameless cartoonist with neither great joys nor great sorrows. However inwardly I might chafe with wanting some rough, tremendous joy, however willing I was to have some great sorrow come afterward as its price, my actual pleasure, as things stood, consisted of nothing more than trading idle nonsense with the customers and drinking the sake they bought me.
京橋へ来て、こういうくだらない生活を既に一年ちかく続け、自分の漫画も、子供相手の雑誌だけでなく、駅売りの粗悪で卑猥な雑誌などにも載るようになり、自分は、上司幾太（情死、生きた）という、ふざけ切った匿名で、汚いはだかの絵など画き、それにたいていルバイヤットの詩句を插入しました。
I had come to Kyōbashi and had already kept up this worthless kind of life for nearly a year now, and my cartoons had come to appear not only in magazines for children but in the cheap, indecent magazines sold at the station stalls as well, where, under the utterly frivolous pen name Jōshi Ikuta (jōshi, ikita — "a love-suicide, and lived"), I drew filthy pictures of naked bodies, and into these I generally worked lines of verse from the Rubaiyat.
無駄な御祈りなんか止せったら
Stop it, I tell you, with these useless prayers.
涙を誘うものなんか かなぐりすてろ
Fling off anything that only calls up tears.
まア一杯いこう 好いことばかり思出して
Come now, let's have a drink, and call to mind nothing but good things.
よけいな心づかいなんか忘れっちまいな
Forget every needless worry, why don't you.
不安や恐怖もて人を脅やかす奴輩は
Those fellows who go about frightening people with anxiety and dread —
自の作りし大それた罪に怯え
cower before some outrageous sin of their own making,
死にしものの復讐に備えんと
bracing themselves against the revenge of the dead,
自の頭にたえず計いを為す
forever scheming away inside their own heads.
よべ 酒充ちて我ハートは喜びに充ち
Last night, my cup full of wine, my heart was full of joy;
けさ さめて只に荒涼
this morning I wake, and there is nothing but desolation.
いぶかし 一夜さの中
Strange, isn't it, that in the space of a single night
様変りたる此気分よ
this mood of mine should be so utterly changed.
祟りなんて思うこと止めてくれ
Do stop thinking about curses and retribution.
遠くから響く太鼓のように
Like a drum sounding from far away,
何がなしそいつは不安だ
somehow or other the thing unsettles me.
屁ひったこと迄一々罪に勘定されたら助からんわい
If even farting is to be tallied up, one by one, as a sin, then there's no saving me.
正義は人生の指針たりとや？
Is justice really meant to be life's guiding star?
さらば血に塗られたる戦場に
Then on the blood-soaked battlefield,
暗殺者の切尖に
on the point of the assassin's blade,
何の正義か宿れるや？
what justice, tell me, is lodged there?
いずこに指導原理ありや？
Where, then, is any guiding principle to be found?
いかなる叡智の光ありや？
What light of wisdom is there, anywhere?
美わしくも怖しきは浮世なれ
This fleeting world is a thing both beautiful and terrible.
かよわき人の子は背負切れぬ荷をば負わされ
The frail children of men are made to shoulder a burden too heavy for them to carry,
どうにもできない情慾の種子を植えつけられた許りに
only because they have had planted in them the seeds of a lust they can do nothing about,
善だ悪だ罪だ罰だと呪わるるばかり
and then are cursed at, over and over, with good and evil, sin and punishment.
どうにもできない只まごつくばかり
There is nothing to be done about it — nothing but to stand there bewildered,
抑え摧く力も意志も授けられぬ許りに
for they were never given the strength, nor the will, to master it and break it down.
どこをどう彷徨まわってたんだい
Just where, and by what road, have you been wandering, round and round, all this while?
ナニ批判 検討 再認識？
What's this — critique? examination? reappraisal?
ヘッ 空しき夢を ありもしない幻を
Heh — empty dreams, phantoms that never were,
エヘッ 酒を忘れたんで みんな虚仮の思案さ
Eheh — it's because you've forgotten the wine that it's all foolish thinking, every bit of it,
どうだ 此涯もない大空を御覧よ
Look now — look at this boundless expanse of sky,
此中にポッチリ浮んだ点じゃい
just a speck floating somewhere in it,
此地球が何んで自転するのか分るもんか
who knows why this earth turns on its axis,
自転 公転 反転も勝手ですわい
spin, revolve, reverse — let it do as it likes,
至る処に 至高の力を感じ
everywhere I feel the highest power,
あらゆる国にあらゆる民族に
in every country, among every people,
同一の人間性を発見する
I find one and the same human nature,
我は異端者なりとかや
and they call me a heretic for it,
みんな聖経をよみ違えてんのよ
everyone's misreading the scriptures,
でなきゃ常識も智慧もないのよ
or else they've no common sense, no wisdom at all,
生身の喜びを禁じたり 酒を止めたり
forbidding the joys of the living flesh, making you give up wine,
いいわ ムスタッファ わたしそんなの 大嫌い
no thank you, Mustafa — that sort of thing I hate.
けれども、その頃、自分に酒を止めよ、とすすめる処女がいました。
But around that time there was a virgin girl who urged me to give up drinking.
「いけないわ、毎日、お昼から、酔っていらっしゃる」
"That won't do — drunk every day, from noon on."
バアの向いの、小さい煙草屋の十七、八の娘でした。ヨシちゃんと言い、色の白い、八重歯のある子でした。自分が、煙草を買いに行くたびに、笑って忠告するのでした。
She was a girl of seventeen or eighteen from the small tobacco shop across from the bar. Her name was Yoshi-chan — fair-skinned, with a snaggletooth. Every time I went to buy cigarettes, she would laugh and give me this same warning.
「なぜ、いけないんだ。どうして悪いんだ。あるだけの酒をのんで、人の子よ、憎悪を消せ消せ消せ、ってね、むかしペルシャのね、まあよそう、悲しみ疲れたるハートに希望を持ち来すは、ただ微醺をもたらす玉杯なれ、ってね。わかるかい」
"Why won't it do? What's bad about it? Drink all the wine there is, and, child of man, wipe out, wipe out, wipe out your hatred — that's from old Persia somewhere, well, never mind — to a heart grown weary with sorrow, what brings hope back again is only the cup that carries the faint flush of wine — do you understand that?"
「わからない」
"I don't understand it."
「この野郎。キスしてやるぞ」
"You little wretch. I'll kiss you for that."
「してよ」
"Go on, then."
ちっとも悪びれず下唇を突き出すのです。
She would stick out her lower lip, not the least bit abashed.
「馬鹿野郎。貞操観念、……」
"Idiot. Your sense of chastity, …"
しかし、ヨシちゃんの表情には、あきらかに誰にも汚されていない処女のにおいがしていました。
But in Yoshi-chan's expression there was, unmistakably, the fragrance of a virgin whom no one had yet defiled.
としが明けて厳寒の夜、自分は酔って煙草を買いに出て、その煙草屋の前のマンホールに落ちて、ヨシちゃん、たすけてくれえ、と叫び、ヨシちゃんに引き上げられ、右腕の傷の手当を、ヨシちゃんにしてもらい、その時ヨシちゃんは、しみじみ、
When the new year came, on a night of bitter cold, I went out drunk to buy cigarettes and fell into the manhole in front of that tobacco shop, and cried out, Yoshi-chan, help me, help me, and was pulled up by Yoshi-chan, and had the wound on my right arm tended by Yoshi-chan, and it was then that Yoshi-chan said, with real feeling,
「飲みすぎますわよ」
"You drink too much."
と笑わずに言いました。
and said it without laughing.
自分は死ぬのは平気なんだけど、怪我をして出血してそうして不具者などになるのは、まっぴらごめんのほうですので、ヨシちゃんに腕の傷の手当をしてもらいながら、酒も、もういい加減によそうかしら、と思ったのです。
I do not mind dying, but to be hurt and bleed and end up a cripple is quite another matter, one I want no part of, and so, as Yoshi-chan tended the wound on my arm, I found myself thinking that perhaps it really was time to let the drink go.
「やめる。あしたから、一滴も飲まない」
"I'll quit. Starting tomorrow, not one drop."
「ほんとう？」
"Really?"
「きっと、やめる。やめたら、ヨシちゃん、僕のお嫁になってくれるかい？」
"I'll quit for certain. And if I quit, Yoshi-chan, will you be my bride?"
しかし、お嫁の件は冗談でした。
But the business about being my bride was only a joke.
「モチよ」
"Sure thing."
モチとは、「勿論」の略語でした。モボだの、モガだの、その頃いろんな略語がはやっていました。
Sure was short for of course. Modern boy, modern girl — all sorts of clipped words like that were the fashion just then.
「ようし。ゲンマンしよう。きっとやめる」
"Good. Let's shake on it. I'll quit for certain."
そうして翌る日、自分は、やはり昼から飲みました。
And then the very next day, I went and drank from noon again, just the same.
夕方、ふらふら外へ出て、ヨシちゃんの店の前に立ち、
In the evening I staggered outside and stood in front of Yoshi-chan's shop,
「ヨシちゃん、ごめんね。飲んじゃった」
"Yoshi-chan, forgive me. I drank."
「あら、いやだ。酔った振りなんかして」
"Oh, stop it. Pretending to be drunk like that."
ハッとしました。酔いもさめた気持でした。
I was startled. It felt as though the drink had gone clean out of me.
「いや、本当なんだ。本当に飲んだのだよ。酔った振りなんかしてるんじゃない」
"No, it's true. I really did drink. I'm not pretending to be drunk."
「からかわないでよ。ひとがわるい」
"Don't tease me. You're a wicked one."
てんで疑おうとしないのです。
She would not even try to doubt me.
「見ればわかりそうなものだ。きょうも、お昼から飲んだのだ。ゆるしてね」
"You'd think you could tell just by looking. I drank again today, from noon on. Forgive me."
「お芝居が、うまいのねえ」
"What a fine little actor you are."
「芝居じゃあないよ、馬鹿野郎。キスしてやるぞ」
"It's not an act, idiot. I'll kiss you for that."
「してよ」
"Go on, then."
「いや、僕には資格が無い。お嫁にもらうのもあきらめなくちゃならん。顔を見なさい、赤いだろう？ 飲んだのだよ」
"No — I have no right to now. I'll have to give up the idea of taking you as my bride, too. Look at my face, isn't it red? I drank."
「それあ、夕陽が当っているからよ。かつごうたって、だめよ。きのう約束したんですもの。飲む筈が無いじゃないの。ゲンマンしたんですもの。飲んだなんて、ウソ、ウソ、ウソ」
"That's only the evening sun on it. It's no use trying to fool me. We made a promise yesterday. There's no reason you'd have drunk. We shook on it. Saying you drank — that's a lie, a lie, a lie."
薄暗い店の中に坐って微笑しているヨシちゃんの白い顔、ああ、よごれを知らぬヴァジニティは尊いものだ、自分は今まで、自分よりも若い処女と寝た事がない、結婚しよう、どんな大きな悲哀がそのために後からやって来てもよい、荒っぽいほどの大きな歓楽を、生涯にいちどでいい、処女性の美しさとは、それは馬鹿な詩人の甘い感傷の幻に過ぎぬと思っていたけれども、やはりこの世の中に生きて在るものだ、結婚して春になったら二人で自転車で青葉の滝を見に行こう、と、その場で決意し、所謂「一本勝負」で、その花を盗むのにためらう事をしませんでした。
Yoshi-chan's white face, smiling there where she sat in the dim shop — ah, virginity unsullied is a precious thing, I thought; I had never until then lain with a virgin younger than myself; let us marry, I thought, and whatever great sorrow might come of it afterward, let it come; just once in a lifetime I wanted a joy violent enough to be almost brutal; I had always supposed the beauty of virginity to be nothing but the sweet, sentimental illusion of some foolish poet, and yet here it was, living and present in this world after all; once we were married, I thought, when spring came the two of us would go by bicycle to see a waterfall among the green leaves — I resolved all this on the spot, and in what is called a single throw of the dice, I did not hesitate to steal that flower.
そうして自分たちは、やがて結婚して、それに依って得た歓楽は、必ずしも大きくはありませんでしたが、その後に来た悲哀は、凄惨と言っても足りないくらい、実に想像を絶して、大きくやって来ました。自分にとって、「世の中」は、やはり底知れず、おそろしいところでした。決して、そんな一本勝負などで、何から何まできまってしまうような、なまやさしいところでも無かったのでした。
And so we were before long married, and the joy we gained by it was not necessarily so very great, but the sorrow that came afterward arrived on a scale so far beyond imagining that to call it ghastly would not be enough. For me, the world was, after all, a fathomlessly frightening place. It was never, in the end, so soft and yielding a place that everything could be settled once and for all by a single throw of the dice like that.