芥川龍之介
蜜柑
或曇った冬の日暮である。私は横須賀発上り二等客車の隅に腰を下して、ぼんやり発車の笛を待っていた。とうに電燈のついた客車の中には、珍らしく私の外に一人も乗客はいなかった。外を覗くと、うす暗いプラットフォオムにも、今日は珍しく見送りの人影さえ跡を絶って、唯、檻に入れられた小犬が一匹、時々悲しそうに、吠え立てていた。これらはその時の私の心もちと、不思議な位似つかわしい景色だった。私の頭の中には云いようのない疲労と倦怠とが、まるで雪曇りの空のようなどんよりした影を落していた。私は外套のポッケットへじっと両手をつっこんだまま、そこにはいっている夕刊を出して見ようと云う元気さえ起らなかった。
が、やがて発車の笛が鳴った。私はかすかな心の寛ぎを感じながら、後の窓枠へ頭をもたせて、眼の前の停車場がずるずると後ずさりを始めるのを待つともなく待ちかまえていた。ところがそれよりも先にけたたましい日和下駄の音が、改札口の方から聞え出したと思うと、間もなく車掌の何か云い罵る声と共に、私の乗っている二等室の戸ががらりと開いて、十三四の小娘が一人、慌しく中へはいって来た、と同時に一つずしりと揺れて、徐に汽車は動き出した。一本ずつ眼をくぎって行くプラットフォオムの柱、置き忘れたような運水車、それから車内の誰かに祝儀の礼を云っている赤帽――そう云うすべては、窓へ吹きつける煤煙の中に、未練がましく後へ倒れて行った。私は漸くほっとした心もちになって、巻煙草に火をつけながら、始めて懶い睚をあげて、前の席に腰を下していた小娘の顔を一瞥した。
それは油気のない髪をひっつめの銀杏返しに結って、横なでの痕のある皸だらけの両頬を気持の悪い程赤く火照らせた、如何にも田舎者らしい娘だった。しかも垢じみた萌黄色の毛糸の襟巻がだらりと垂れ下った膝の上には、大きな風呂敷包みがあった。その又包みを抱いた霜焼けの手の中には、三等の赤切符が大事そうにしっかり握られていた。私はこの小娘の下品な顔だちを好まなかった。それから彼女の服装が不潔なのもやはり不快だった。最後にその二等と三等との区別さえも弁えない愚鈍な心が腹立たしかった。だから巻煙草に火をつけた私は、一つにはこの小娘の存在を忘れたいと云う心もちもあって、今度はポッケットの夕刊を漫然と膝の上へひろげて見た。するとその時夕刊の紙面に落ちていた外光が、突然電燈の光に変って、刷の悪い何欄かの活字が意外な位鮮に私の眼の前へ浮んで来た。云うまでもなく汽車は今、横須賀線に多い隧道の最初のそれへはいったのである。
しかしその電燈の光に照らされた夕刊の紙面を見渡しても、やはり私の憂鬱を慰むべく、世間は余りに平凡な出来事ばかりで持ち切っていた。講和問題、新婦新郎、涜職事件、死亡広告――私は隧道へはいった一瞬間、汽車の走っている方向が逆になったような錯覚を感じながら、それらの索漠とした記事から記事へ殆機械的に眼を通した。が、その間も勿論あの小娘が、あたかも卑俗な現実を人間にしたような面持ちで、私の前に坐っている事を絶えず意識せずにはいられなかった。この隧道の中の汽車と、この田舎者の小娘と、そうして又この平凡な記事に埋っている夕刊と、――これが象徴でなくて何であろう。不可解な、下等な、退屈な人生の象徴でなくて何であろう。私は一切がくだらなくなって、読みかけた夕刊を抛り出すと、又窓枠に頭を靠せながら、死んだように眼をつぶって、うつらうつらし始めた。
それから幾分か過ぎた後であった。ふと何かに脅されたような心もちがして、思わずあたりを見まわすと、何時の間にか例の小娘が、向う側から席を私の隣へ移して、頻に窓を開けようとしている。が、重い硝子戸は中々思うようにあがらないらしい。あの皸だらけの頬は愈赤くなって、時々鼻洟をすすりこむ音が、小さな息の切れる声と一しょに、せわしなく耳へはいって来る。これは勿論私にも、幾分ながら同情を惹くに足るものには相違なかった。しかし汽車が今将に隧道の口へさしかかろうとしている事は、暮色の中に枯草ばかり明い両側の山腹が、間近く窓側に迫って来たのでも、すぐに合点の行く事であった。にも関らずこの小娘は、わざわざしめてある窓の戸を下そうとする、――その理由が私には呑みこめなかった。いや、それが私には、単にこの小娘の気まぐれだとしか考えられなかった。だから私は腹の底に依然として険しい感情を蓄えながら、あの霜焼けの手が硝子戸を擡げようとして悪戦苦闘する容子を、まるでそれが永久に成功しない事でも祈るような冷酷な眼で眺めていた。すると間もなく凄じい音をはためかせて、汽車が隧道へなだれこむと同時に、小娘の開けようとした硝子戸は、とうとうばたりと下へ落ちた。そうしてその四角な穴の中から、煤を溶したようなどす黒い空気が、俄に息苦しい煙になって、濛々と車内へ漲り出した。元来咽喉を害していた私は、手巾を顔に当てる暇さえなく、この煙を満面に浴びせられたおかげで、殆息もつけない程咳きこまなければならなかった。が、小娘は私に頓着する気色も見えず、窓から外へ首をのばして、闇を吹く風に銀杏返しの鬢の毛を戦がせながら、じっと汽車の進む方向を見やっている。その姿を煤煙と電燈の光との中に眺めた時、もう窓の外が見る見る明くなって、そこから土の匂や枯草の匂や水の匂が冷かに流れこんで来なかったなら、漸咳きやんだ私は、この見知らない小娘を頭ごなしに叱りつけてでも、又元の通り窓の戸をしめさせたのに相違なかったのである。
しかし汽車はその時分には、もう安々と隧道を辷りぬけて、枯草の山と山との間に挟まれた、或貧しい町はずれの踏切りに通りかかっていた。踏切りの近くには、いずれも見すぼらしい藁屋根や瓦屋根がごみごみと狭苦しく建てこんで、踏切り番が振るのであろう、唯一旒のうす白い旗が懶げに暮色を揺っていた。やっと隧道を出たと思う――その時その蕭索とした踏切りの柵の向うに、私は頬の赤い三人の男の子が、目白押しに並んで立っているのを見た。彼等は皆、この曇天に押しすくめられたかと思う程、揃って背が低かった。そうして又この町はずれの陰惨たる風物と同じような色の着物を着ていた。それが汽車の通るのを仰ぎ見ながら、一斉に手を挙げるが早いか、いたいけな喉を高く反らせて、何とも意味の分らない喊声を一生懸命に迸らせた。するとその瞬間である。窓から半身を乗り出していた例の娘が、あの霜焼けの手をつとのばして、勢よく左右に振ったと思うと、忽ち心を躍らすばかり暖な日の色に染まっている蜜柑が凡そ五つ六つ、汽車を見送った子供たちの上へばらばらと空から降って来た。私は思わず息を呑んだ。そうして刹那に一切を了解した。小娘は、恐らくはこれから奉公先へ赴こうとしている小娘は、その懐に蔵していた幾顆の蜜柑を窓から投げて、わざわざ踏切りまで見送りに来た弟たちの労に報いたのである。
暮色を帯びた町はずれの踏切りと、小鳥のように声を挙げた三人の子供たちと、そうしてその上に乱落する鮮な蜜柑の色と――すべては汽車の窓の外に、瞬く暇もなく通り過ぎた。が、私の心の上には、切ない程はっきりと、この光景が焼きつけられた。そうしてそこから、或得体の知れない朗な心もちが湧き上って来るのを意識した。私は昂然と頭を挙げて、まるで別人を見るようにあの小娘を注視した。小娘は何時かもう私の前の席に返って、相不変皸だらけの頬を萌黄色の毛糸の襟巻に埋めながら、大きな風呂敷包みを抱えた手に、しっかりと三等切符を握っている。…………
私はこの時始めて、云いようのない疲労と倦怠とを、そうして又不可解な、下等な、退屈な人生を僅に忘れる事が出来たのである。
Original Text
https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000879/files/43017_17431.html
“ Mandarin Orange ”
It was dusk on a cloudy winter day. I was sitting in the corner of a second-class coach, waiting for the whistle to start the train. There was not a single passenger in the carriage, which was already lit, except for me. When I looked outside, I saw that even in the darkened platform, there was no sign of anyone seeing me off. The scenery was strangely similar to what I was feeling at that time. My head was filled with an inexplicable fatigue and weariness, casting a shadow like a cloudy, snowy sky. I kept my hands in the pockets of my cloak and couldn't even muster up the energy to pull out the evening paper that was in there.
But then the train whistle sounded. I leaned my head against the back window sill, feeling a faint sense of relaxation, and waited for the train to start backing away from the stop in front of me. But before I knew it, I heard the racket of clogs coming from the ticket gate, and soon after, with the conductor cursing, the door to the second class compartment I was in opened wide and a small girl of thirteen and fourteen hurriedly walked in. The platfoam pillars, which were nipping at my eyes one by one, the water truck, which seemed to have been left behind, and the red cap, which was thanking someone in the car for the congratulations - all of these things fell back into the sooty smoke blowing into the window, unhappy. Finally feeling relieved, I lit a cigarette and glanced at the face of the little girl sitting in front of me for the first time, raising her face slackly as I lit a cigarette.
She looked like a country girl, with her greaseless hair tied up in a tight gingko bun, and her cheeks, scarred and chapped, glowing an unpleasant red. In addition, there was a large furoshiki wrapping on her knees, with a grimy yellow woolen collar hanging down slackly. In the frostbitten hand that held the package, a third-class red ticket was held tightly and carefully. I did not like this little girl's vulgar face. I also didn't like her filthy clothes. Lastly, I was annoyed by her stupid mind that couldn't even distinguish between second class and third class. So I lit up a cigarette and, partly wanting to forget this little girl's existence, I absent-mindedly spread out the evening paper in my pocket on my lap. At that moment, the light that had been falling on the page of the evening paper was suddenly replaced by the light of an electric lamp, and some poorly printed letters appeared in front of my eyes surprisingly vividly. Needless to say, the train was now entering the first of the many tunnels on the Yokosuka Line.
But even as I looked over the pages of the evening paper, illuminated by the electric lights, I could see that the world was filled with so many mundane events to comfort my melancholy. The peace issue, the bride and groom, the blasphemy case, the death advertisement... I felt as if the train had reversed its direction the moment I entered the tunnel, and mechanically skimmed from one vague article to the next. But all the while, of course, I couldn't help but be aware that the little girl was sitting in front of me, looking as if she were a human being in a vulgar reality. The train in the tunnel, the small country girl, and the evening paper filled with mundane articles - what was this if not a symbol? What is it if not a symbol of an inexplicable, lowly, boring life? I threw away the evening paper I was about to read and began to slump down again, leaning my head against the window sill and closing my eyes as if I were dead.
It was some time later when he suddenly felt threatened. I suddenly felt as if I was threatened by something, and I looked around. But it seems that the heavy glass door doesn't go up as far as she wants. Her chapped cheeks were getting redder and redder, and the sound of her sniffling came hurriedly into my ears, along with the sound of her little breathless voice. Of course, this was enough to make me feel some sympathy for him. However, the fact that the train was now approaching the mouth of the tunnel was immediately clear to me, even as the hillsides on both sides, lit only by dry grass in the dusk, loomed close to my window. But I couldn't understand why this little girl was going to the trouble of pulling down the closed window. No, I could only think that it was a whim of the little girl. So, with a stern feeling still in the pit of my stomach, I watched Yoko's frostbitten hand struggle to raise the glass door with a cruel look, as if praying that it would never succeed. Soon after, the train rushed into the tunnel with a tremendous bang, and the glass door she was trying to open finally fell down. As soon as the train entered the tunnel, the glass door she had tried to open slammed down, and the black, sooty air suddenly filled the car with a thick, suffocating smoke. I had a sore throat, so I didn't even have time to put a hand towel over my face, but the smoke was so thick that I had to cough so hard I could hardly breathe. However, the little girl didn't seem to care about me and stretched her head out the window, her ginkgo sidelocks fluttering in the dark wind, and looked intently at the direction the train was going. When I looked at her in the sooty smoke and electric light, the light outside the window became brighter and brighter, and the smell of earth, dry grass, and water did not flow in coldly from the window.
But by that time, the train had already slipped through the tunnel without any trouble and was passing a railroad crossing on the outskirts of a poor town between two mountains of dry grass. Near the crossing, the only white flag waving by the crossing guard wavered lazily in the dusk. I thought I was finally out of the tunnel, but then I saw three boys with red cheeks standing in a row behind the railing of the crossing. They were all so short that I thought they had been squeezed together by the cloudy weather. They were all so short that I thought they had been squeezed in by the cloudy weather, and they were also wearing kimonos of the same color as the gloomy ones on the outskirts of the city. As they looked up at the train passing by, they all raised their hands in unison, and with their throats raised high, they let out a battle cry that made no sense whatsoever. Then, at that moment. The girl who had been leaning halfway out the window stretched out her frost-burned hands and waved them vigorously from side to side, and suddenly five or six honeysuckles, tinted with the warm color of the sun that made my heart leap, fell from the sky in pieces on the children who had seen the train off. I gulped. Then, in a moment, I understood everything. The little girl, who was probably going to her place of employment, threw a few honeysuckles from her pocket out the window to repay her brothers for coming all the way to the train crossing to see her off.
The dusk-colored railroad crossing on the outskirts of town, the three children screaming like little birds, and the fresh color of the tangerines falling on them all passed by outside the train window without a moment to spare. But the scene was burned into my mind so clearly that it made me sad. Then I became aware of an inexplicable good feeling rising up from it. I raised my head in agitation and looked at the little girl as if I were looking at a different person. In the event you have any questions regarding where and how to use the internet, you can call us at the web site. ............
For the first time, I was able to forget about my inexplicable fatigue and weariness, as well as my inexplicable, lowly, boring life.
Translation is my own