よみうち英語Read the classics by typingNotes Scene 51: The Night Drive
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Notes on this scene
Holmes remains silent during most of the drive, absorbed in remembered music. Near the destination, he explains that Merryweather is a bank director with a personal interest in the affair. Jones is not an imaginative officer, Holmes says, but he is brave, persistent, and useful when physical action is required.
Japanese in this scene
- ている
- The 〜ている form can show an action in progress, a continuing condition, or the present result of a completed action. The surrounding context selects the meaning.
- ように
- ように can express a goal, an intended result, or resemblance, depending on the words around it. With a verb of request, it can also report what someone was told to do.
- ような
- ような links a comparison or example to a following noun: “like; such as.” It is the noun-modifying form corresponding to ように.
- という
- という connects quoted words, a name, or an idea to the noun that follows. Depending on context, it can mean “called,” “that,” or “the idea that.”
Background
- Gas-lit streets
- Gas lamps illuminated Victorian London, and lamplighters lit them individually each evening. Electric street lighting spread only gradually toward the end of the century.
Full text: original English and Japanese translation
Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive and lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets until we emerged into Farrington Street.
長い道中、シャーロック・ホームズはあまり口をきかず、辻馬車の座席にもたれて、午後に聴いた曲を口ずさんでいた。私たちはガス灯のともる果てしない迷路のような街路を、がたごとと揺られながら抜けていき、やがてファリントン街に出た。
"We are close there now," my friend remarked. "This fellow Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. He is not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog and as tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone. Here we are, and they are waiting for us."
「もうすぐそこだ」と友が言った。「このメリーウェザーという男は銀行の重役でね、この件には自分の利害もからんでいる。ジョーンズも一緒に連れていくほうがいいと思ったのさ。悪い男ではないんだが、本職のほうはまるきり能なしでね。それでも、はっきりした取り柄がひとつある。ブルドッグのように勇敢で、いったん相手にはさみをかけたら、ロブスターのようにしつこく離さないのだ。さあ着いた、二人とも待っているよ」