グレート・ギャッツビー 第六章-3 悪夢と陶酔

グレート・ギャッツビー  第六章-3

　1年以上もの間、彼はスペリオル湖の南岸でアサリ掘りやサケ漁など、食べ物と寝床を得るために、ありとあらゆる仕事をした。日に焼けて鍛えられた体は、時に激しく、時にのんびりした試練の日々を自然にこなしていった。早くから女を知っていたが、女に甘やかされてきたせいで彼らを軽蔑するようになっていた。若い処女は無知だったし、他の女は、圧倒的な自己陶酔の中で彼が当然と思う事にもヒステリックになったので。

　しかし、彼の心はいつも揺れていた。これ以上は無い程のグロテスクで幻想的な陶酔が、夜のベッドで彼を悩ませた。洗面台の上で時計が時を刻み、床の上の脱ぎ散らした服を月がしっとりした光で湿らせている間、彼の脳の中には、例えようのないきらびやかな宇宙が渦巻いていた。毎晩、鮮やかな光景を眠りが柔らかく包みこむまで、空想の羽を限りなく広げていった。しばらくの間、こうした幻想が彼の空想のはけ口をなしていたんだ。それは現実の中に非現実が存在する十分な証であり、重い現実世界が実は妖精の羽の上にしっかり腰を据えているという印だった。 

For over a year he had been beating his way along the south shore of Lake Superior as a clam digger and a salmon fisher or in any other capacity that brought him food and bed. His brown, hardening body lived naturally through the half fierce, half lazy work of the bracing days. He knew women early and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others because they were hysterical about things which in his overwhelming self-absorption he took for granted.

But his heart was in a constant, turbulent riot. The most grotesque and fantastic conceits haunted him in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the wash-stand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing.