3.
実のところ、イカボデは小賢しさと単純な信心深さの奇妙な混合体だった。驚異的なものに対する食欲とそれを消化吸収する力が同じくらい並外れていて、その両方とも、この呪術的な地方に滞在することで膨れ上がっていたのだ。ゲテモノであろうと化け物じみていようと、どんな話でも呑み込んでしまう。午後に学校が終わると、時には校舎の側を流れる小川のほとり、クローバーの贅沢な寝台に身を横たえ、老メイザーの悲惨な物語を読み耽るのが楽しみだった。夕闇が迫ってきて、目の前にある本のページに霧がかかるまで。それから沼地や小川や恐ろしげな森を抜けて、そのとき宿にしていた農家へ向かう道すがら、逢魔が時の自然のあらゆる音が、彼の興奮した想像力をかき立てた。丘の中腹から聞こえる夜鷹※1）のうめき声、嵐の前触れであるツキノワガエルの不吉な鳴き声、ミミズクの金切り声、あるいは怯えた鳥が止まり木から立てる茂みのざわめき。ヒアブも、こと暗い場所では鮮やかに光るものだが、尋常でない明るさの奴がそこここに行く手を遮り、彼を驚かせた。偶然、巨大なカブトムシが彼に向かって飛んでくると、哀れな小物は、魔女の烙印を押されたのだと思い込み、幽霊に降参するところだった。このようなとき、思考を紛らわせたり悪霊を追い払ったりするための手段は、詩篇の曲を歌うことのみ。スリーピー・ホロウの善良な人々は、夕暮れ時、戸口に座りながら、遠くの丘や薄暗い道から流れてくる「甘美に繋がり長く引き伸ばされた」鼻にかかった旋律を聞いて、しばしば畏敬の念に包まれたものである。
He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvellous and his powers of digesting it were equally extraordinary, and both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his school-house, and there con over old Mather's direful tales until the gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of Nature at that witching hour fluttered his excited imagination: the moan of the whip-poor-will *1) from the hillside; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes; and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe at hearing his nasal melody, "in linked sweetness long drawn out," floating from the distant hill or along the dusky road.
彼のもうひとつの恐るべき楽しみは、冬の長い夜、焚き火の側に腰を下ろして糸を紡ぐ年老いたオランダ人の女房たちと一緒に過ごし、炉端に沿って並べた林檎が焼けて音を立てるのを前に、女たちが物語るお化けや妖怪、物の怪に憑かれた野原や小川や橋や家、そして特に首なし騎手、あるいは窪地を駆けるヘッセン人と呼ばれるものの不思議な話に耳を傾けることだった。
彼の方では、呪術の逸話や、コネチカットの古い時代に広まっていた恐ろしい前兆や予兆的な光景や空気中の音で女たちを喜ばせた。はたまた彗星や流れ星についての推測や、疑う余地なく世界がくるくる回っていて、自分たちが1日の半分は逆さまになっているのだという驚くべき事実で、皆をひどく怖がらせた。
Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft and of the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut, and would frighten them woefully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars, and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round and that they were half the time topsy-turvy.
しかし、薪の火がパチパチと音をたてて赤々と輝き、もちろん妖怪が顔を出すこともない部屋の煙突の隅で、ぴったりと寄り添っている間に、このような楽しみがあったことには、その後の家路の恐怖が代償となった。雪の降る夜、薄暗くぞっとするような眩しさの中、彼の行く手にはどんな恐ろしい形や影が立ちはだかったことだろう！遠くの窓から野原を横切って差し込む、震えるような一筋の光に、どれほど切ない眼差しを向けたことだろう！雪に覆われた潅木が、まるで一面に覆われた妖怪のように行く手に立ちはだかり、何度愕然としたことだろう！足元の凍った地肌を踏みしめる自分の足音に、凍りつくような畏怖の念を抱いて縮こまり、背後から近づいてくる無作法な者を見ないかと、肩越しに見るのも恐れたことも！木々の間を吠え急き立てるような爆風に、いくたび狼狽させられたことだろう！
But if there was a pleasure in all this while snugly cuddling in the chimney-corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood-fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to show its face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what wistful look did be eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path! How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet, and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! And how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings!
しかし、これらはすべて夜の恐怖、暗闇を歩く心からの幻影にすぎなかった。その時代に多くの妖怪を見たし、「孤独な放浪の中でさまざまな姿をしたサタンに何度も悩まされた」が、昼の光がこれらの災いをすべて消し去ってくれた。つまり悪魔が居ようと何をしようと、彼は楽しい人生を送った筈だった、幽霊や妖怪や魔女を合わせたものよりも、人を当惑させる存在が、彼の行く手を横切っていかなければ。…それは一人の女だった。
All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though be had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that wasーa woman.
原註[1] ウィップ・プア・ウィルは夜にしか鳴かない鳥である。名前の由来は、その鳴き声がこの言葉に似ているからだと考えられている。
The whip-poor-will is a bird which is only heard at night. It receives its name from its note, which is thought to resemble those words.
訳注：ホイッパーウィルヨタカという北米に住む夜鷹の一種。鳴き声が whip-poor-willと聞こえるという。
Galloping Hessian of the Hollow: この名の有名な妖怪が既に存在したかのように書かれているが、検索できるのは本作の引用ばかり。
comets and shooting stars: 同じものを並べているとしか見えないが、これは英語の慣用句で。夜空に尾を引き続ける大彗星をcomet、一瞬のうちに流れて消えてしまう星をshooting starと呼び分けたものである。
and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes in his lonely perambulations,: マタイによる福音書４章
1 さて、イエスは御霊によって荒野に導かれた。悪魔に試みられるためである。
