解説　場面 3「秋分の嵐」

It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and to recognise the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilisation, like untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea-stories until the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves. My wife was on a visit to her mother's, and for a few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker Street.

九月も末のころで、秋分の暴風が並外れた激しさで吹き始めていた。一日じゅう風が叫び、雨が窓を打ちつけていたので、偉大な人工の都市ロンドンの中心にいる私たちでさえ、日々の暮らしから一瞬思いを離し、文明という檻の鉄格子越しに、飼いならされぬ獣のように人間へ叫びかける、大自然の巨大な力の存在を認めずにはいられなかった。夕暮れになると嵐は一層強く騒がしくなり、風が煙突の中で子どものように泣き、すすり泣いた。暖炉の片側ではホームズがむっつりと犯罪記録の相互索引を作り、反対側では私がクラーク・ラッセルの見事な海洋小説に読みふけっていた。やがて外の暴風のうなりは文章と溶け合い、雨のはねる音は海の波の長いうねりへと続いていくかのように思われた。妻が母親を訪ねて留守にしていたので、私は数日間、ベイカー街の昔の住まいに再び身を寄せていたのである。