解説　場面 8「おじの来歴」

"My name," said he, "is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have, as far as I can understand, little to do with this awful business. It is a hereditary matter; so in order to give you an idea of the facts, I must go back to the commencement of the affair.

「私は」と彼は言った。「ジョン・オープンショーと申します。ですが、私の個人的な事情は、分かる限りでは、この恐ろしい事件とほとんど関係がないのです。一族に受け継がれてきた問題ですので、事情をお分かりいただくには、発端までさかのぼらなければなりません。

"You must know that my grandfather had two sons—my uncle Elias and my father Joseph. My father had a small factory at Coventry, which he enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He was a patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business met with such success that he was able to sell it and to retire upon a handsome competence.

「祖父には息子が二人いました。おじのイライアスと、父のジョゼフです。父はコヴェントリーに小さな工場を持っており、自転車が発明されたころに、それを拡張しました。オープンショー式の壊れないタイヤの特許を持っていて、商売が大変うまくいったため、事業を売り、十分な財産で引退生活を送れるようになりました。

"My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done very well. At the time of the war he fought in Jackson's army, and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel. When Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where he remained for three or four years. About 1869 or 1870 he came back to Europe and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham. He had made a very considerable fortune in the States, and his reason for leaving them was his aversion to the negroes, and his dislike of the Republican policy in extending the franchise to them. He was a singular man, fierce and quick-tempered, very foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a most retiring disposition. During all the years that he lived at Horsham, I doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a garden and two or three fields round his house, and there he would take his exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave his room. He drank a great deal of brandy and smoked very heavily, but he would see no society and did not want any friends, not even his own brother.

「おじのイライアスは若いころアメリカへ移住し、フロリダで農園主になりました。そこで大いに成功したと聞いています。戦争中はジャクソンの軍で戦い、その後フッドの指揮下に入り、大佐にまでなりました。リーが武器を置くと、おじは農園へ戻り、三、四年そこにいました。一八六九年か七〇年ごろ、ヨーロッパへ戻り、サセックスのホーシャム近くに小さな屋敷と土地を手に入れました。アメリカでは相当な財産を築きましたが、国を離れた理由は、黒人への嫌悪と、彼らに選挙権を広げる共和党の政策への反感でした。変わった人で、荒々しく短気で、怒るとひどく口が悪く、何より人付き合いを避けました。ホーシャムに暮らした長い年月の間に、一度でも町へ足を踏み入れたかどうか怪しいものです。家の周りには庭と二つ三つの畑があり、そこで体を動かしていましたが、何週間も部屋から出ないこともよくありました。ブランデーもたばこも大量にのみましたが、誰とも付き合わず、友人を欲しがりもせず、実の兄弟である父さえ歓迎しませんでした。