解説　場面 35「庭への落下」

"I was shaken but not hurt by the fall; so I picked myself up and rushed off among the bushes as hard as I could run, for I understood that I was far from being out of danger yet. Suddenly, however, as I ran, a deadly dizziness and sickness came over me. I glanced down at my hand, which was throbbing painfully, and then, for the first time, saw that my thumb had been cut off and that the blood was pouring from my wound. I endeavoured to tie my handkerchief round it, but there came a sudden buzzing in my ears, and next moment I fell in a dead faint among the rose-bushes.

「落下で体は揺さぶられたもののけがはなく、まだ危険を脱していないと分かっていたので、起き上がって茂みの中を全力で走りました。ところが走っていると、突然ひどい目まいと吐き気に襲われました。激しく脈打つ手を見ると、初めて親指が切り落とされ、傷から血が流れているのに気づきました。ハンカチを巻こうとしましたが、突然耳鳴りがして、次の瞬間、薔薇の茂みで完全に気を失いました。

"How long I remained unconscious I cannot tell. It must have been a very long time, for the moon had sunk, and a bright morning was breaking when I came to myself. My clothes were all sodden with dew, and my coat-sleeve was drenched with blood from my wounded thumb. The smarting of it recalled in an instant all the particulars of my night's adventure, and I sprang to my feet with the feeling that I might hardly yet be safe from my pursuers. But to my astonishment, when I came to look round me, neither house nor garden were to be seen. I had been lying in an angle of the hedge close by the high road, and just a little lower down was a long building, which proved, upon my approaching it, to be the very station at which I had arrived upon the previous night. Were it not for the ugly wound upon my hand, all that had passed during those dreadful hours might have been an evil dream.

「どれほど意識を失っていたか分かりません。月が沈み、目覚めたときには明るい朝が始まっていたので、かなり長かったはずです。服は露でずぶ濡れ、上着の袖は傷ついた親指の血で濡れていました。ひりつく痛みで昨夜の冒険の細部を一瞬に思い出し、まだ追っ手から安全ではないかもしれないと思って跳び起きました。ところが驚いたことに、見回しても屋敷も庭もありませんでした。私は街道近くの生け垣の角に横たわっており、少し下には長い建物がありました。近づくと、昨夜到着したまさにあの駅でした。手の醜い傷がなければ、恐ろしい数時間の出来事は悪夢だったと思えたでしょう。