こんにちは、ベンツです。引き続き「機械が停まる」を英語で読んでいきましょう。前回では、家具もほとんどない蜂の巣型の部屋に住んでいる女性がこの物語の主人公らしい、ということが分かりました。さて、電子ベルが鳴ったようですぞ。
An electric bell rang.
The woman touched a switch and the music was silent.
“I suppose I must see who it is”, she thought, and set her chair in motion. The chair, like the music, was worked by machinery and it rolled her to the other side of the room where the bell still rang importunately.
“Who is it?” she called. Her voice was irritable, for she had been interrupted often since the music began. She knew several thousand people, in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously.
But when she listened into the receiver, her white face wrinkled into smiles, and she said:
“Very well. Let us talk, I will isolate myself. I do not expect anything important will happen for the next five minutes ―― for I can give you fully five minutes, Kuno. Then I must deliver my lecture on ‘Music during the Australian Period’.”
She touched the isolation knob, so that no one else could speak to her. Then she touched the lighting apparatus, and the little room was plunged into darkness.
“Be quick!” She called, her irritation returning. “Be quick, Kuno; here I am in the dark wasting my time.”
But it was fully fifteen seconds before the round plate that she held in her hands began to glow. A faint blue light shot across it, darkening to purple, and presently she could see the image of her son, who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her.
“Kuno, how slow you are.”
He smiled gravely.
She knew several thousand people, in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously. 「彼女には数千人の知りあいがいた。ある方向に関しては、人との交流が非常に発達していたのである」
She touched the isolation knob, so that no one else could speak to her. 「彼女は隔絶用のスイッチを押したので、だれも彼女に話しかけることができなくなった」ということは、スイッチひとつで隔絶状態になれる、っていうわけね。これって交流はとれても、一方通行的じゃない？スマホの電源切る、みたいな状態よ。
彼女に連絡してきたのは、地球の反対側に住んでいる息子クーノー(Kuno)のようですな。“Be quick!” She called, her irritation returning. “Be quick, Kuno; here I am in the dark wasting my time.”というところから、彼女はせっかちで、時間を無駄にしたくない、つまり、「時間＝コスト」の考え方の持ち主のようです。さて、次回は彼女と息子がどんな話をするのか、一緒に読んでみましょう。
みなさんも、スイッチ切らんといてください。