I clearly recall the day I first became truly aware of myself, I mean of myself as something that everything else was not. As a boy I liked best those dead intervals of the year when one season had ended and the next had not yet begun, and all was grey and hushed and still, and out of the stillness and the hush something would seem to approach me, some small, soft, tentative thing, and offer itself to my attention. This day of which I speak I was walking along the main street of the town. It was November, or March, not cold, but neutral. From a lowering sky fine rain was falling, so fine as to be hardly felt. It was morning, and the housewives were out, with their shopping bags and headscarves. A questing dog trotted busily past me looking neither to right nor left, following a straight line drawn invisibly on the pavement. There was a smell of smoke and butcher’s meat, and a brackish smell of the sea, and, as always in the town in those days, the faint sweet stench of pig-swill. The open doorway of a hardware shop breathed brownly at me as I went past. Taking in all this, I experienced something to which the only name I could give was happiness, although it was not happiness, it was more and less than happiness. What had occurred? What in that commonplace scene before me, the ordinary sights and sounds and smells of the town, had made this unexpected thing, whatever it was, burgeon suddenly inside me like the possibility of an answer to all the nameless yearnings of my life? Everything was the same now as it had been before, the housewives, that busy dog, the same, and yet in some way transfigured. Along with the happiness went a feeling of anxiety. It was as if I were carrying some frail vessel that it was my task to protect, like the boy in the story told to us in religious class who carried the Host through the licentious streets of ancient Rome hidden inside his tunic; in my case, however, it seemed I was myself the precious vessel. Yes, that was it, it was I that was happening here. I did not know exactly what this meant, but surely, I told myself, surely it must mean something. And so I went on, in happy puzzlement, under the small rain, bearing the mystery of myself in my heart.
Was it that same phial of precious ichor, still inside me, that spilled in the cinema that afternoon, and that I carry in me yet, and that yet will overflow at the slightest movement, the slightest misbeat of my heart?
初めて私自身というものを真に意識するようになった日のことははっきりと思い出せる。ここで私自身というのは、他の何ものとも異なる自分自身のことである。子供の頃、ひとつの季節がすでに終わり次の季節がまだ始まっていない一年のうちの虚ろな合間の時期が一番好きだった。すべてが灰色で静かで、静寂の中から何かが、小さくて柔らかいためらいがちな何かが、私の方へ近づき、私の注意を引くように思われた。ここで話題にしている当のこの日、私は町の大通りを歩いていた。十一月、もしくは三月のことで、寒くはなく、どっちつかずで曖昧な気候だった。低い空から細かな雨が降っていたが、あまりにも細かいためにほとんど感じられないほどだった。午前中のことで、主婦たちは買い物袋を提げ頭にスカーフを巻いて出かけていた。何かの跡をつけているらしい犬が脇目も振らず、歩道の上に引かれた見えない直線をたどって忙しげに私のそばを駆け過ぎていった。煙と肉屋の肉のにおい、海の塩っ気を含んだにおいがしていて、あの頃の町ではいつもそうだったように、かすかに甘ったるい残飯の嫌なにおいもしていた。私が通り過ぎると、金物屋の開いた戸口から茶色い空気が吹きつけてきた。こうしたものすべてに囲まれ、私は幸せとしか名づけようのないものを経験していた。それは幸せなどではなく、それ以上でもありそれ以下でもあるものだったのだが。何が起こったのだろう。私の目前に広がるこんなありふれた場所で、町の平凡な光景や音やにおいが、この思いがけないものを、それが何であれ、私の人生の名もない切望のすべてに対する答えの可能性であるかのように、突如私の内側に芽吹かせたというのか。すべての物事は以前と同じ状態だった、主婦たちも、あの忙しげな犬も、みんな同じ、それでいてどこかしら変わってしまったところがあった。幸せとともに、不安が心を過(よぎ)った。まるで守る役目を負って脆い器を運んでいるかのようだった。宗教の授業で読み聞かせられる物語の中の、聖体を上着の内側に隠し持ち古代ローマの堕落した通りを行く少年のように。しかし私の場合、私自身が大切な器そのものであるようだった。そう、その通り、ここで起こっているのは私自身であったのだ。このことが何を意味するのか正確なところはわからなかったが、しかし確信を持って、私は自分自身に告げた、これには何かしらの意味があるに違いないと。そして私は歩き続けた、幸せな困惑の中、霧雨に打たれながら、私自身という謎を胸に抱きながら。
あの午後に映画館でこぼれたのは、未だ私の内にある貴重な霊液の小瓶であったのだろうか。未だに私がこの身に入れて運んでいる、ほんのわずかな動き、私の心臓の鼓動のわずかな狂いによってさえもこぼれてしまうだろうあの小瓶だったのだろうか。
Comment on Eclipse
This scene of recollection excerpted from Eclipse is filled with a “neutral” atmosphere that is fragile and therefore beautiful. Throughout my process of translating this, I was feeling as if I were wrapped in a pale grey mist. This mist consists of what “I” see and feel on a nameless day of November or March as a child, such as a questing dog, a brackish smell of the sea, and a brown breeze from a hardware shop’s open doorway. Each depiction seems meaningless in itself, and in fact nothing special happens on the day. Nevertheless, a pile of these trifling things shapes something precious only to “me”, as each tiny water drop creates a fine mist as a whole. The mist is hardly felt but actually exists and keeps touching “me” softly. When “I” suddenly notice such a permanent, voiceless message, “I first became truly aware of myself”. The episode in this excerpt is quite private but somehow universal at the same time, and the reader can feel as if this mist consists of his own commonplace but irreplaceable memories.
Wrapped in such a mysterious mist, “I” am carefully carrying a frail phial inside “me” lest precious ichor spill from it. John Banville’s exquisite use of commas expresses the subtle movement of “my” mind. Each short phrase connected by commas seems to imply “my” careful walk to keep a proper balance and remain “neutral”. Especially at the end of the paragraph which begins with “I clearly recall ...”, a certain rhythm created by short pauses indicated with commas encourages the reader to imagine that “I” savour the existence of the precious phial at every step with both pleasure and anxiety at the same time — “And so I went on, in happy puzzlement, under the small rain, bearing the mystery of myself in my heart”. There is a kind of tension in “my” mind because “I” have to keep the well-balanced, “neutral” state that will be lost by even the slightest movement, but this tension is not extreme and strangely includes softness and sweetness in it. How can these exquisite sentences, which have a subtle balance between contradictory elements, be translated without losing their beauty? This was one of the most significant questions I had in the process of translation. Simply reflecting the commas of the original text in the translation can create unnatural Japanese expressions, while dividing a long sentence which consists of several phrases connected by commas into two separate sentences has a risk of ignoring the rich rhythm of the original. Banville’s writing itself was precious ichor for me, and this translation project told me how carefully and preciously translators should carry the original English text to readers in non-English-speaking countries with as little spill as possible.
John Banville