よみうち英語Read the classics by typingNotes Scene 54: The Story Begins
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Notes on this scene
Turner describes McCarthy as evil and says the man controlled his life for twenty years. He begins in the Victorian goldfields of the early 1860s, where his reckless youth and bad company led him into robbery. Known as Black Jack of Ballarat, he belonged to a gang that raided stations and stopped wagons.
Japanese in this scene
- 二十年もの間
- もの after a quantity emphasizes its extent: as many as twenty years. 間 then names the duration. Turner stresses how long the other man's control has burdened his life.
- ようになったかを
- 〜ようになる describes coming to a new state. The final か turns the clause into an embedded question, and を makes that history the object of what Turner will explain.
- 時には
- 時には means ‘at times’ or ‘sometimes.’ Repeating it introduces different examples of the gang's actions, rather than claiming that they always committed both kinds of robbery together.
Full text: original English and Japanese translation
"You didn't know this dead man, McCarthy. He was a devil incarnate. I tell you that. God keep you out of the clutches of such a man as he. His grip has been upon me these twenty years, and he has blasted my life. I'll tell you first how I came to be in his power.
「あなた方は、この死んだ男、マッカーシーを知らなかったのです。あれは悪魔の化身でした。断言します。あの男のような者の手に落ちないよう、神がお守りくださいますように。二十年もの間、私はあの男に握られ、人生を台無しにされてきました。まず、どうしてあの男に支配されるようになったかを、お話ししましょう。
"It was in the early '60's at the diggings. I was a young chap then, hot-blooded and reckless, ready to turn my hand at anything; I got among bad companions, took to drink, had no luck with my claim, took to the bush, and in a word became what you would call over here a highway robber. There were six of us, and we had a wild, free life of it, sticking up a station from time to time, or stopping the wagons on the road to the diggings. Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I went under, and our party is still remembered in the colony as the Ballarat Gang.
「一八六〇年代の初め、金の採掘場でのことでした。私は若く、血気にはやり、無鉄砲で、何にでも手を出す気でいました。悪い仲間と付き合い、酒に走り、採掘鉱区では運に恵まれず、奥地へ逃げ込みました。要するに、こちらで言う追いはぎになったのです。仲間は六人で、時には牧場を襲い、時には採掘場への道を行く荷馬車を止め、荒っぽい自由な暮らしをしていました。私はバララットのブラック・ジャックと呼ばれ、一味は今でも、あの植民地でバララット一味として記憶されています。