グレート・ギャッツビー 対訳 第二章-5

グレート・ギャッツビー　第二章-5

　ウイルソンの声がとぎれ、トムは落ち着きなくガレージを見渡した。そこで階段から足音が聞こえ、がっしりした女の影が事務所の灯りを遮った。その女は30代半ばで、小太りだったけど、一部の女がそうであるように一層色気が増していた。水玉がついた紺色のドレスの上からのぞく顔は、美しくはないが、彼女の全身の神経が燃えているようなすごみを感じさせた。彼女はゆっくり微笑むと、まるでトムが握手しているのは幽霊ですと言った感じで夫に近寄り、燃える目でトムを見上げた。そして、唇を舐めると、夫を見もせずに、柔らかいしゃがれ声で言った。

「椅子を持って来なさいよ。お客様が座れないじゃないの」

「ああ、そうだね」

　ウイルソンはうなずくと、急いでセメント色の壁の向こう側に飛び込んだ。白い灰のような塵が、彼の黒いスーツも薄い色の金髪も、そして周り全部をも薄くおおっていた。トムに歩み寄った彼の妻だけは例外だったけど。

Chapter 2-5

His voice faded off and Tom glanced impatiently around the garage. Then I heard footsteps on a stairs and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and walking through her husband as if he were a ghost shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice:

"Get some chairs, why don't you, so somebody can sit down."

"Oh, sure," agreed Wilson hurriedly and went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity--except his wife, who moved close to Tom.