解説　場面 31「面会の話」

"Ah, thereby hangs a rather painful tale. This fellow is madly, insanely, in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was only a lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been away five years at a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get into the clutches of a barmaid in Bristol and marry her at a registry office? No one knows a word of the matter, but you can imagine how maddening it must be to him to be upbraided for not doing what he would give his very eyes to do, but what he knows to be absolutely impossible. It was sheer frenzy of this sort which made him throw his hands up into the air when his father, at their last interview, was goading him on to propose to Miss Turner. On the other hand, he had no means of supporting himself, and his father, who was by all accounts a very hard man, would have thrown him over utterly had he known the truth. It was with his barmaid wife that he had spent the last three days in Bristol, and his father did not know where he was. Mark that point. It is of importance. Good has come out of evil, however, for the barmaid, finding from the papers that he is in serious trouble and likely to be hanged, has thrown him over utterly and has written to him to say that she has a husband already in the Bermuda Dockyard, so that there is really no tie between them. I think that that bit of news has consoled young McCarthy for all that he has suffered."

「ああ、そこには、かなりつらい話があるのだ。あの青年は、彼女に夢中で、気も狂わんばかりに恋をしている。ところが二年ほど前、まだほんの少年で、彼女のことも本当によくは知らなかった頃、というのも彼女は五年間、寄宿学校に行っていたのだが、あの愚か者は何をしたと思う。ブリストルの酒場の給仕の女性につかまり、婚姻登録所で結婚してしまったのだ。そのことは誰も一言も知らない。だが、目玉を差し出してでもしたいことを、しないと責められ、しかも、それが絶対に不可能だと本人は知っているのだから、どれほど気が変になりそうか、想像はできるだろう。父親と最後に会ったとき、ターナー嬢に求婚しろとしつこくけしかけられて両手を宙に振り上げたのも、まさに、そうしたどうにもならない激情のためだったのだ。一方で、彼には自活する手段がなく、誰に聞いてもたいへん冷酷だったという父親は、真相を知れば、彼を完全に見捨てただろう。この三日間ブリストルで一緒に過ごしていたのは、その酒場の給仕だった妻で、父親は息子の居場所を知らなかったのだ。その点を覚えておきたまえ。重要なことだ。もっとも、悪いことからよいことも生じた。酒場の女性は、青年が深刻な窮地に陥り、絞首刑にもなりそうだと新聞で知ると、彼をすっかり見捨て、バミューダ造船所にはすでに自分の夫がいると手紙をよこした。それで、二人の間に本当は何の絆もないことになったのだ。その知らせは、これまで苦しんできた若いマッカーシーを慰めたのだと思う」