『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　下

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Scrooge and the

Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and

all sorts of rooms was wonderful.

Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking

夕方になり雪が強く降る中、スクルージと精霊は街を進む。

through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut

out cold and

darkness.

There, all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their

married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and

be the first to greet them.

Here, again, were shadows on the window blinds of guests assembling; and there a group of

handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to

some near neighbour’s house

where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter–artful witches, well they knew

it–in a glow!

But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings,

家々の炉火や食事の支度、親しい集まりへ向かう人々の姿があり、精霊はあらゆる場所へ明るく無害な陽気さを注いでいく。

you might have thought that no one was

at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company,

and piling up its fires half-chimney high.

Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted!

How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring,

with a generous hand, its bright and

harmless mirth on everything within its reach!

The very lamp-lighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light,

and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed,

though

little kenned the lamp-lighter that he had any company but Christmas.

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a

bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it

were the burial-place or giants; and

water spread itself wheresoever it listed; or would have done so, but for the frost that

二人は突然、荒涼とした荒野に立つ。

held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and

coarse, rank grass.

Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared

upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and

, frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

“What place is this?” asked Scrooge.

“A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,” returned the Spirit.

“But they know me.

そこは地の底で働く鉱夫たちの住む場所だった。

See!” A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it.

Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a

glowing fire.

An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children’s children, and

another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire.

The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon

the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song; it had been a very old song

when he was a boy; and

泥と石の小屋の中では、年老いた人々から子どもたちまでが祭日の装いをして、古いクリスマスの歌を歌っている。

from time to time they all joined in the chorus.

So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and,

so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and, passing on above

the moor, sped whither?

Not to sea?

To sea.

精霊はさらに海へ向かう。

To Scrooge’s horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a

frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water,

as it rolled and roared, and

raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which

the waters chafed and

dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.

Great heaps of seaweed clung to its base, and storm-birds–born of the wind, one

might suppose, as seaweed of the water–rose and

fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

But, even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire that through the

loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a

恐ろしい岩場、轟く水、孤独な灯台が現れるが、そこでも灯台守たちは火を囲み、粗末な杯でメリー・クリスマスを祝い、嵐のように力強い歌を歌っている。

ray of brightness on the awful sea.

Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other

Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them, the elder too, with his

face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as

the figure-head of an old ship might be, struck up a sturdy song that was

like a gale in itself.

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea–on, on–until, being far

away, as

he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship.

They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers

次に二人は、岸から遠く離れた船の上に立つ。

who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but

every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below

his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas-day

with homeward hopes belonging to it.

And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word

for one another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared

to some extent in its festivities; and

had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to

remember him.

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and

thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an

unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as death: it was a great surprise to

舵手も見張りも当直の者も、それぞれの場所でクリスマスの調べや思い出を胸に抱き、遠くの大切な人を思っている。

Scrooge, while

thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh.

It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew‘s,

and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by

his side, and

looking at that same nephew with approving affability!

“Ha, ha!” laughed Scrooge’s nephew.

“Ha, ha, ha!” If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more

blessed in a laugh than Scrooge’s nephew, all

I can say is, I should like to know him too.

やがてスクルージは、自分の甥フレッドの心からの笑い声を聞く。

Introduce him to me, and I’ll cultivate his acquaintance.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that, while there is infection in

disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and

good-humour.

When Scrooge’s nephew laughed in this way, holding his sides, rolling his head, and

twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions, Scrooge’s niece, by marriage, laughed as

heartily as he.

And their assembled friends, being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.

“Ha, ha!

Ha, ha, ha, ha!””He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!” cried Scrooge’s

nephew.

“He believed it, too!””More shame for him, Fred!” said Scrooge’s niece indignantly.

明るい部屋では、フレッドと妻、友人たちが笑い合い、妻は晴れやかで美しく、場全体に笑いと上機嫌が伝染している。

Bless those women! they never do anything by halves.

They are always in earnest.

She was very pretty; exceedingly pretty.

With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be

kissed–as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that

melted into one another when she laughed; and

the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature’s head.

Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too.

Oh, perfectly satisfactory!

“He’s a comical old fellow,” said Scrooge’s nephew,”that’s the truth; and not so pleasant as

he might be.

However, his offences carry their own punishment, and

I have nothing to say against him.””I’m sure he is very rich, Fred,” hinted Scrooge’s

フレッドはスクルージを滑稽な老人だと言いながらも、怒るより気の毒に思っている。

niece.

“At least, you always tell me so.””What of that, my dear?” said Scrooge’s nephew.

“His wealth is of no use to him.

He don’t do any good with it.

He don’t make himself comfortable with it.

He hasn’t the satisfaction of thinking–ha, ha, ha!–

that he is ever going to benefit Us with it.””I have no patience with him,”

observed Scrooge’s niece.

Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.

“Oh, I have!” said Scrooge’s nephew.

“I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried.

Who suffers by his ill whims?

Himself always.

Here he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won’t come and dine

with us.

What’s the consequence?

He don’t lose much of a dinner.””Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,”

interrupted Scrooge’s niece.

Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because

they had just had dinner

and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamp-light.

“Well!

I am very glad to hear it,” said Scrooge’s nephew,”because I haven’t any great faith

in these young housekeepers.

What do you say, Topper?” Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge’s niece’s

sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who

had no right to express an opinion on the subject.

Whereat Scrooge’s niece’s sister–the plump one with the lace tucker, not the one with the

彼は毎年同じように伯父を招き続けるつもりで、たとえ伯父が来なくても、いつか少しはよい気持ちになるだろうと考えている。

roses–blushed.

“Do go on, Fred,” said Scrooge’s niece, clapping her hands.

“He never finishes what he begins to say!

He is such a ridiculous fellow!” Scrooge’s nephew revelled in another laugh, and, as it was

impossible to keep the infection off, though

the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, his example was unanimously followed.

“I was only going to say,” said Scrooge’s nephew,”that the consequence of his taking a

dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses

some pleasant moments, which

could do him no harm.

I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either

in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers.

I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not,

for I pity him.

He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can’t help thinking better of

it–I defy him–if he finds me going there in good temper, year after year,

and

saying, ‘Uncle Scrooge, how are you?’ If it only puts him in the vein to

leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that’s something; and

I think I shook him yesterday.” It was their turn to laugh, now, at the notion

of his shaking Scrooge.

But, being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they

laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and

passed the bottle, joyously.

After tea they had some music.

For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about when they sung a

Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass

like a good one, and

食後には音楽が始まる。

never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it.

Scrooge’s niece played well upon the harp; and played, among other tunes, a simple little air

(a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which

had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had

been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past.

When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him came upon

his mind; he softened more and more; and

thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated

甥の妻がハープで弾いた旋律は、スクルージが過去の精霊に見せられた学校時代を思い出させ、彼の心をますます和らげる。

the kindnesses of life for

his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton’s spade that buried

Jacob Marley.

But they didn’t devote the whole evening to music.

After awhile they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never

better than at Christmas, when

its mighty Founder was a child himself.

その後、彼らは罰ゲームや目隠し鬼で遊ぶ。

Stop!

There was first a game at blindman’s buff.

Of course there was.

And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in

his boots.

My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge’s nephew; and that

the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it.

The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on

the credulity of human nature.

Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself

amongst the curtains, wherever she went, there went he!

He always knew where the plump sister was.

He wouldn’t catch anybody else.

If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did) on purpose, he would

have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to

your understanding, and

would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister.

She often cried out that it wasn’t fair; and it really was not.

But when, at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and

her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape,

then his conduct was the most execrable.

For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her

head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon

her finger, and

大人が子どものように遊ぶクリスマスの楽しさが描かれ、スクルージも、声は聞こえないのに夢中になって答えを口に出す。

a certain chain about her neck, was vile, monstrous!

No doubt she told him her opinion of it when, another blind man being in office,

they were so very confidential together behind the curtains.

Scrooge’s niece was not one of the blindman’s buff party, but was made comfortable with a

large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner where the Ghost and

Scrooge were close behind her.

But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters

of the alphabet.

Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and, to the

secret joy of Scrooge’s nephew, beat her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as

Topper could have told you.

There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so

did Scrooge; for, wholly forgetting, in the interest he had in what was going on, that

his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite

loud, and very often guessed right, too, for

the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than

Scrooge

blunt as he took it in his head to be.

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with

such favour, that

he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed.

But this the Spirit said could not be done.

スクルージはこの雰囲気を楽しみ、もう少しだけ残りたいと願う。

“Here is a new game,” said Scrooge.

“One half-hour, Spirit, only one!” It was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge’s

nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering

to their questions yes or no, as

the case was.

The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed elicited from him that he was

thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal

that growled and grunted sometimes, and

talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn’t made a show

of, and wasn’t led by anybody, and didn’t live in a menagerie, and was never killed

in a market, and

was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger,

or a dog, or a pig, or a cat

or a bear.

At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar

of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the

続いて「イエス・ノー遊び」が始まり、答えはロンドンにいる、うなることも話すこともある、かなり不愉快な動物――つまりスクルージ伯父さんだと判明する。

sofa, and

stamp.

At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:”I have found it

out!

I know what it is, Fred!

I know what it is!””What is it?” cried Fred.

“It’s your uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!” Which it certainly was.

Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to”Is it a bear?”

ought to have been”Yes”:

inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr.

Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.

“He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,” said Fred,”and it would be

ungrateful not to drink his health.

Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I

say, ‘Uncle Scrooge!'””Well!

フレッドは、スクルージが皆に笑いを与えてくれたのだから、彼の健康を祝おうと言う。

Uncle Scrooge!” they cried.

“A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!” said

Scrooge’s nephew.

“He wouldn’t take it from me, but may he have it nevertheless.

Uncle Scrooge!” Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would

have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if

the Ghost had given him time.

But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his

スクルージはいつの間にか心が軽くなり、返礼したいほどだったが、場面は甥の言葉とともに消えてしまう。

nephew; and he and

the Spirit were again upon their travels.

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a

happy end.

The Spirit stood beside sick-beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were

close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty,

二人は多くの家々、病床、外国、貧困の場、救貧院、病院、牢獄を訪れる。

and

it was rich.

In almshouse, hospital, and gaol, in misery‘s every refuge, where vain man in his little

brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his

どこでも精霊は祝福を残す。

blessing, and

taught Scrooge his precepts.

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts

of this, because

the Christmas holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together.

It was strange, too, that, while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost

grew older, clearly older.

Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children’s

長い夜のうちに、精霊は次第に年老いていく。

Twelfth-Night party, when

, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its

hair was grey.

“Are spirits’ lives so short?” asked Scrooge.

“My life upon this globe is very brief,” replied the Ghost.

“It ends to-night.””To-night!” cried Scrooge.

“To-night at midnight.

スクルージが精霊の命は短いのかと尋ねると、精霊は自分の地上での命は今夜の真夜中に終わると答える。

Hark!

The time is drawing near.” The chimes were ringing the three-quarters past eleven at that

moment.

鐘はすでに十一時四十五分を打っていた。

“Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at

the Spirit’s robe,”but I see something strange, and

not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts.

Is it a foot or a claw?””It might be a claw, for

スクルージは、精霊の衣の下から奇妙なものが突き出ていることに気づく。

the flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply.

“Look here.” From the foldings of its robe it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful,

hideous, miserable.

They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

精霊が衣を開くと、そこから惨めで恐ろしい二人の子どもが現れ、精霊の足もとにすがりつく。

“Oh, Man! look here!

Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl.

Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility.

精霊は「人間よ、ここを見よ」と叫ぶ。

Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints,

a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and

pulled them into shreds.

Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing.

少年と少女は黄色く、痩せ、ぼろをまとい、狼のようでありながら、卑屈にひざまずいている。

No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of

wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled.

Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children,

人間性のどんな堕落の中にも、これほど恐ろしい怪物はいないと語られる。

but

the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them.

“And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.

This boy is Ignorance.

スクルージが「あなたの子どもですか」と尋ねると、精霊は「人間の子どもだ」と答える。

This girl is Want.

Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,

for

on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

少年は無知、少女は欠乏であり、特に少年を警戒せよ、その額には消されなければ破滅と読める文字があると警告する。

Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city.

“Slander those who tell it ye!

Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse!

And bide the end!”

“Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.

“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his

own words.

“Are there no workhouses?” The bell struck Twelve.

スクルージが彼らに避難所や助けはないのかと叫ぶと、精霊は彼自身の言葉で「牢獄はないのか。

救貧院はないのか」と返す。

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not.

As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and,

lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and

hooded, coming like a mist along the ground towards him.

鐘が十二時を打ち、精霊は消え、かわって頭巾をかぶった厳かな幻影が霧のように近づいてくる。