『クリスマス・キャロル』英文/和訳 STAVE III　三人の精霊の第二の精霊　上

Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and

sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told

that the bell was again upon the stroke

of One.

スクルージは大きないびきの途中で目を覚まし、鐘がまた一時を打とうとしていることを悟る。

He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for

the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through

Jacob Marley‘s intervention.

But, finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains

this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hands,

and

, lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed.

For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not

マーレイの手配した第二の使者と会うため、ちょうど意識を取り戻したのだと感じている。

wish to be taken by surprise and

made nervous.

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move

or two, and being usually equal to the time of day, express the wide range of

their capacity for

adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between

語り手は、スクルージが奇妙な出現にはかなり備えていたと説明する。

which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and

comprehensive range of subjects.

Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don’t mind calling on you to

believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing

赤ん坊からサイまで、たいていのものが出ても驚かないほどの心構えであった。

between a baby and

a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and

consequently, when the bell struck One, and

no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling.

Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came.

しかし「何も現れない」ことには備えていなかったため、スクルージは赤い光の中で激しく震える。

All this time he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze

of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and

which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to

make out what it meant, or would be at; and

was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of

spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it.

At last, however, he began to think–as you or I would have thought at first;

for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have

やがて光の源が隣室にあると考え、そっとドアへ向かう。

been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too–

at last, I say, he began to think that the source and

secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing

it, it seemed to shine.

This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly, and shuffled in his

slippers to the door.

The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name,

and bade him enter.

He obeyed.

スクルージが錠に手をかけた瞬間、不思議な声が彼の名を呼び、中へ入れと命じる。

彼はそれに従う。

It was his own room.

There was no doubt about that.

But it had undergone a surprising transformation.

The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove

そこは自分の部屋でありながら、まるで森のように緑で飾られ、暖炉には大きな炎が燃え、食べ物と果物と菓子が山のように積まれている。

from every part of which bright gleaming berries glistened.

The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many

little mirrors had been scattered there; and

such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney as that dull petrifaction of a hearth

had never known in Scrooge’s time, or Marley’s, or for many and

many a winter season gone.

Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry,

brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs

そこには、豊穣を象徴するような陽気な巨人が座っていた。

long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts,

cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch,

that

made the chamber dim with their delicious steam.

In easy state upon this couch there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore

a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty‘s horn, and

held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge as he came peeping round

the door.

“Come in!” exclaimed the Ghost.

“Come in! and know me better, man!” Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this

Spirit.

He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and, though the Spirit’s eyes were clear

精霊は「入って来い、私をもっとよく知れ」と呼びかける。

and

kind, he did not like to meet them.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Spirit.

“Look upon me!” Scrooge reverently did so.

スクルージはおずおずと入り、現在のクリスマスの精霊を見上げる。

It was clothed in one simple deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur.

This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as

if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice.

Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its

head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and

there with shining icicles.

Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye,

its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and

精霊は濃緑の衣とヒイラギの冠をまとい、陽気で開放的な姿をしていた。

its joyful air.

Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the

ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

“You have never seen the like of me before!” exclaimed the Spirit.

“Never,” Scrooge made answer to it.

“Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family

meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?” pursued the

精霊は「私のようなものを見たことがないだろう」と言う。

Phantom.

“I don’t think I have,” said Scrooge.

“I am afraid I have not.

Have you had many brothers, Spirit?””More than eighteen hundred,” said the Ghost.

スクルージは、精霊の兄弟がどれほどいるのかを尋ね、千八百を超えると聞いて、その大家族を養うのは大変だとつぶやく。

“A tremendous family to provide for,” muttered Scrooge.

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

“Spirit,” said Scrooge submissively,” conduct me where you will.

I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now.

To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.””

Touch my robe!” Scrooge did as he was told, and

スクルージは、昨夜の教訓をすでに学び始めているので、今夜も教えがあるなら導いてほしいと申し出る。

held it fast.

精霊は彼に、自分の衣に触れるよう命じる。

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages,

oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and

punch, all vanished instantly.

So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood

ヒイラギも食べ物も炎も部屋もすべて消え、二人はクリスマスの朝の街路に立つ。

in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made

a rough, but brisk and

not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their

dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys

人々は厳しい寒さの中でも、雪をかきながら活気ある音を立てている。

to see it come plumping down into the road below, and

splitting into artificial little snow-storms.

The house-fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the

smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground

which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts

and waggons; furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets

黒ずんだ家並みと白い雪、轍の泥水、煤けた霧が描かれる。

branched off; and

made intricate channels, hard to trace, in the thick yellow mud and icy water.

The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half

thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as

if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing

away to their dear hearts’ content.

There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an

air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and

気候も街も明るくはないのに、そこには夏の太陽でも広げられないほどの陽気さが満ちている。

brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee;

calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball–

better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest–laughing heartily if it went right, and

not less heartily if it went wrong.

屋根の上の人々は笑い合い、雪玉を投げ合い、鳥屋や果物屋にはクリスマスらしい豊かさがあふれている。

The poulterers’ shops were still half open, and the fruiterers’ were radiant in their glory.

There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old

gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and

tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence.

There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth

like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they

went by, and

glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe.

There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made,

in the shopkeepers’ benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people’s mouths might water gratis

as they passed

there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the

果物や栗、葡萄、香り高い木の実が、人々の口を潤わせるように並んでいる。

woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and

swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of

their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags, and

eaten after dinner.

The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though

members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going

on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and

round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

The Grocers ‘! oh, the Grocers ‘! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one;

but through those gaps such glimpses!

It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or

that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up

食料品店では、茶や珈琲、干し葡萄、アーモンド、香辛料、砂糖漬けの果物が華やかに並ぶ。

and

down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so

grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and

rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other

spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make

the coldest lookers-on feel faint, and

subsequently bilious.

Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed

in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and

in its Christmas dress; but

the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day,

that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and

客たちは忙しくも機嫌よく買い物をし、店の人々も心を外に出しているかのように明るい。

left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds

of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were

so frank and fresh, that

the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn

outside for general inspection, and for

Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.

But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and away they came,

flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and

with their gayest faces.

And at the same time there emerged, from scores of by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings,

やがて鐘が人々を教会や礼拝堂へ呼び、同時に多くの人が夕食をパン屋へ運んでいく。

innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers ‘ shops.

The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood

with Scrooge beside him in a baker’s doorway, and

, taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch.

And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice, when there were

angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops

of water on them from it, and

their good-humour was restored directly.

精霊は食事に香を振りかけ、口論になりかけた人々の機嫌をすぐに和らげる。

For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas-day.

And so it was!

God love it, so it was!

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a

genial shadowing forth of all these dinners, and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed

blotch of wet above each baker’s oven

where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.

“Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?” asked Scrooge.

“There is.

My own.””Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?” asked Scrooge.

“To any kindly given.

スクルージが松明から振りかけるものに特別な味があるのかと尋ねると、精霊は「ある。

私自身の味だ」と答える。

To a poor one most.””Why to a poor one most?” asked Scrooge.

“Because it needs it most.”

それは親切に与えられた食事に効き、貧しい食事にこそ最も必要なのだという。

“Spirit!” said Scrooge after a moment’s thought.

“I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to

cramp these people’s opportunities of innocent enjoyment.””I!”

cried the Spirit.

スクルージは、クリスマスの名のもとに人々の楽しみを制限する者がいると話す。

“You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day

on which they can be said to dine at all,” said Scrooge

“wouldn’t you?””I!” cried the Spirit.

“You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day,” said Scrooge.

“And it comes to the same thing.”” I seek!” exclaimed the Spirit.

“Forgive me if I am wrong.

It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,” said

Scrooge.

精霊は、自分たちの名をかたって激情、高慢、悪意、偏狭、利己心を行う者たちは、精霊とは無縁なのだと厳しく告げる。

“There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit,”who lay claim to know

us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness

in our name, who

are as strange to us, and all our kith and kin, as if they had never

lived.

Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”

Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into

the suburbs of the town.

It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker’s), that,

notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he

二人は見えないまま郊外へ進む。

stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and

like a supernatural creature as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of

his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all

poor men, that

led him straight to Scrooge’s clerk’s; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding

to his robe; and, on the threshold of the door, the Spirit smiled, and

stopped to bless Bob Cratchit’s dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch.

精霊は巨人の姿でありながらどんな小さな場所にも身を合わせることができ、その温かい性質と貧しい人々への共感から、ボブ・クラチットの家へ向かう。

Think of that!

Bob had but fifteen”Bob” a week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of

his Christian name; and

yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!

Then up rose Mrs.

Cratchit, Cratchit’s wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons,

which are cheap, and make a goodly show for sixpence; and

she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons;

クラチット夫人は貧しいながらもリボンで晴れやかに装い、食卓を整える。

while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and

getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob’s private property, conferred upon his son and

heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired,

and

yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks.

And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker’s

they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and, basking in luxurious thoughts

of sage and

子どもたちはガチョウの匂いを嗅いできたと興奮し、ピーターも大きすぎる襟を誇らしく思っている。

onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies,

while

he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes,

bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan lid to be let out and

peeled.

“What has ever got your precious father, then?” said Mrs.

Cratchit.

“And your brother, Tiny Tim?

And Martha warn’t as late last Christmas-day by half an hour!””Here’s Martha, mother!” said

クラチット夫人はボブ、ティム、マーサの帰りを気にする。

a girl, appearing as she spoke.

“Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young Cratchits.

“Hurrah!

There’s such a goose, Martha!””Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!”

said Mrs.

Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with

officious zeal.

“We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,” replied the girl,”and had to

マーサが現れると皆が喜び、父親を驚かせるために隠れることになる。

clear away this morning, mother!””Well! never mind so

long as you are come,” said Mrs.

Cratchit.

“Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!””No,

no!

There’s father coming,” cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once.

“Hide, Martha, hide!”

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet

of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up

and brushed to look seasonable; and

Tiny Tim upon his shoulder.

ボブが、すり切れた服を整え、小さなティムを肩に乗せて帰ってくる。

Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an

iron frame!

“Why, where’s our Martha?” cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.

“Not coming,” said Mrs.

Cratchit.

“Not coming!” said Bob with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been

Tim’s blood horse all the way from church, and

had come home rampant.

マーサが来ないと聞いて一瞬しょげるが、彼女が飛び出すと喜んで抱きしめる。

“Not coming upon Christmas-day!” Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were only

in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his

arms, while

the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that

he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

“And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs.

Cratchit when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and

Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content.” As good as gold,” said Bob,”and

better.

ボブは、ティムが教会で、自分の姿を見た人々が「足の不自由な者を歩かせ、盲人を見えるようにした方」を思い出してくれればよいと言ったと語る。

Somehow, he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever

heard.

He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because

he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas-day

who made lame beggars walk and

blind men see.” Bob’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when

he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and

hearty.

その声は震えていた。

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another

word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire; and

while Bob, turning up his cuffs–

as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby–compounded some hot mixture

in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round, and put it

on the hob to simmer, Master Peter and

the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in

high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds;

a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course–

and, in truth, it was something very like it in that house.

Mrs.

ガチョウが運ばれると、家中が大騒ぎになる。

Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the

potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates

Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young

Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and

, mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose

before their turn came to be helped.

At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said.

It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs.

クラチット夫人は熱いグレイビーを作り、ピーターは力いっぱいジャガイモをつぶし、子どもたちは自分の番を待ちきれずにいる。

Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but

when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of

delight arose all round the board, and

even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle

of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose.

Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked.

Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration.

Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole

そのガチョウは一家にとって最高のごちそうだった。

family; indeed, as Mrs.

Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they

hadn’t ate it all at last!

Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were steeped in

sage and onion to the eyebrows!

But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs.

Cratchit left the room alone–too nervous to bear witnesses–to take the pudding up, and

bring it in.

皆が十分に食べ、今度はプディングがうまくできているか、壊れないか、盗まれていないかと不安が膨らむ。

Suppose it should not be done enough!

Suppose it should break in turning out!

Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard and stolen it, while

they were merry with the goose–

a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid!

All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo!

A great deal of steam!

The pudding was out of the copper.

A smell like a washing-day!

湯気と匂いに包まれてプディングが登場する。

That was the cloth.

A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a

laundress’s next door to that!

That was the pudding!

In half a minute Mrs.

Cratchit entered–flushed, but smiling proudly–with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard

and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and

bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding!

Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by

Mrs.

Cratchit since their marriage.

燃えるブランデーとヒイラギに飾られたそれを、ボブは結婚以来のクラチット夫人の最大の成功だと称える。

Mrs.

Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her

doubts about the quantity of flour.

Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all

a small pudding for a large family.

It would have been flat heresy to do so.

Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the

fire made up.

The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon

the table, and

食事が終わり、炉辺が整えられ、リンゴやオレンジ、焼き栗、温かい飲み物が出される。

a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire.

Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called a circle,

meaning half a one; and

at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass.

Two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have

done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered

and

質素な器でも、家族にとっては黄金の杯と同じ価値を持っていた。

cracked noisily.

Then Bob proposed:

“A merry Christmas to us all, my dears.

God bless us!” Which all the family re-echoed.” God bless us every one!” said

Tiny Tim, the last of all.

He sat very close to his father’s side, upon his little stool.

ボブは「私たちみんなにメリー・クリスマスを。

神の祝福を」と乾杯する。

Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished

to keep him by his side, and

dreaded that he might be taken from him.

最後に小さなティムが「神が皆を祝福されますように」と言い、ボブはその弱った小さな手を握って離したくないと思っている。

“Spirit,” said Scrooge with an interest he had never felt before,”tell me if Tiny Tim

will live.””I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost,”in the poor chimney-corner, and

a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved.

If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.””No, no,” said Scrooge.

スクルージは初めて深い関心を抱き、ティムは生きるのかと尋ねる。

“Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.””If these shadows remain unaltered by the

Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost

“will find him here.

What then?

If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome

with penitence and

grief.

精霊は、未来が変わらなければ空席と持ち主のない松葉杖が残ると答え、かつてのスクルージ自身の「余剰人口」という言葉を突き返す。

“Man,” said the Ghost,”if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant

until you have discovered What the surplus is, and

Where it is.

Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die?

It may be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit

to live than millions like this poor man’s child.

Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among

his hungry brothers in the dust!”

Scrooge bent before the Ghost’s rebuke, and, trembling, cast his eyes upon the ground.

But he raised them speedily on hearing his own name.

“Mr.

Scrooge!” said Bob.

ボブがスクルージを「ごちそうの創始者」として乾杯に加えると、クラチット夫人は彼の冷酷さを怒る。

“I’ll give you Mr.

Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!””The Founder of the Feast, indeed!” cried Mrs.

Cratchit, reddening.

“I wish I had him here.

I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have

a good appetite for

it.””My dear,” said Bob,”the children!

Christmas-day.””It should be Christmas-day, I am sure,” said she,”on which one drinks

the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling

man as Mr.

Scrooge.

You know he is, Robert!

それでもボブのため、そしてクリスマスのために、彼女はスクルージの健康を飲む。

Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!””My dear!” was Bob’s mild answer.

“Christmas-day.””I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,” said Mrs.

Cratchit,”not for his.

Long life to him!

A merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

He’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!” The children drank the toast

after her.

It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it.

Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn’t care twopence for it.

Scrooge was the Ogre of the family.

The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled

for full five minutes.

After it had passed away they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief

of Scrooge the Baleful being done with.

Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which

would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly.

その名が落とした暗い影が消えると、一家は前より十倍陽気になる。

The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter’s being a man of business;

and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as

if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt

of that bewildering income.

Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner’s, then told them what kind of work

she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she

meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for

a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home.

彼らは貧しく、服も靴も粗末だが、互いに満ち足り、感謝し、幸せだった。

Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the

lord”was much about as tall as Peter”; at which Peter pulled up his collars so

high, that

you couldn’t have seen his head if you had been there.

All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-by

they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who

had a plaintive little voice, and

sang it very well indeed.

スクルージは最後まで、特に小さなティムから目を離さなかった。

There was nothing of high mark in this.

They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from

being waterproof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and

very likely did, the inside of a pawn-broker’s.

But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when

they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit’s torch at parting,

Scrooge had his eye upon them, and

especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.