解説　場面 56「日記を開く」

So far I have been able to quote from the reports which I have forwarded during these early days to Sherlock Holmes. Now, however, I have arrived at a point in my narrative where I am compelled to abandon this method and to trust once more to my recollections, aided by the diary which I kept at the time. A few extracts from the latter will carry me on to those scenes which are indelibly fixed in every detail upon my memory. I proceed, then, from the morning which followed our abortive chase of the convict and our other strange experiences upon the moor.

ここまでは、この最初の数日間にシャーロック・ホームズへ送った報告から引用できた。しかし物語がここまで来ると、その方法を捨て、当時つけていた日記の助けを借りながら、再び記憶に頼らざるを得ない。日記からいくつか抜き出せば、細部まで消えることなく記憶に刻まれた場面へ進めるだろう。そこで、脱獄囚を捕らえ損ねた追跡と、荒れ地でのもう一つの奇妙な体験の翌朝から始めよう。

October 16th.—A dull and foggy day with a drizzle of rain. The house is banked in with rolling clouds, which rise now and then to show the dreary curves of the moor, with thin, silver veins upon the sides of the hills, and the distant boulders gleaming where the light strikes upon their wet faces. It is melancholy outside and in. The baronet is in a black reaction after the excitements of the night. I am conscious myself of a weight at my heart and a feeling of impending danger—ever present danger, which is the more terrible because I am unable to define it.

10月16日——霧が立ちこめ、霧雨の降る陰気な一日。館は流れる雲に取り囲まれている。雲が時折持ち上がると、荒れ地のもの寂しい起伏、丘の斜面を走る細い銀色の筋、そして光が濡れた面に当たって輝く遠くの大岩が見える。外も中も気が沈む。準男爵は、昨夜の興奮の反動でひどくふさぎ込んでいる。私自身も胸に重荷を感じ、危険が迫っているという思いにとらわれている——いつもそこにあるのに正体を定められず、それだけにいっそう恐ろしい危険だ。