ゼロの焦点

能登に行こうかと思い、再読。というか、再再読。
新潮文庫版 昭和50年6月15日16刷。
ヤセの断崖の記憶もなく、ポーの「アナベル・リー」も記憶にない。
殺人の動機が納得がいかず、何となく、もやもやとした読了感の記憶しかない。
 
さて、再読してみると。
最初に読んだ時も、既に、遠い過去のことと思ったのだが、更に、過去のこととなっていた。
 
輪島に向かう能登線はすでになし。寝台特急「北陸」も廃止。
能登金剛とは書いてあるが、ヤセの断崖とは書いていない。(同じことか?)
 
ポーの詩についても、どうも納得がいかないので、図書館から、阿部保訳ポー詩集を借りて来た。
新潮文庫版 昭和63年11月10日41刷。
ゼロの焦点」の中の「海沿いの墓場」、「夫の意味」の章に、詩文が記載されている。
ほぼ同じと思われるが、詩は「海中の都市」である。
最後の2行だけが、「アナベル・リー」
何故、繋げたのか??
しかも、別の詩であるという注釈もない。ポーの詩の引用とも書いていない。
禎子の記憶だから、曖昧でいいのか???
「海中の都市」をまるまる引用で、いいと思うが??
 
この世のものとも思われぬ呻吟の中に
都会のだんだんと沈んでいくとき
地獄は、一千の王座から立ち上がり、
この都に敬礼を払え。
 (ポー 海中の都市から 阿部保訳)※漢字と振り仮名を変更
 
wikipediaを見てみたが、理由は不明。
ついでに、カバー裏表紙のあらすじを確認してみたら、確かに、夫の正体が。
古い版にもいいことがある、と。
でも、これが手がかりの一つで、これが判らないと、犯人に辿り着かない。動機も判らない。
ネタばれという程の問題じゃないと思うが。ほかに重要な問題が幾つかもあると思うのだが。。。。
 
見合いでよく知らない男と結婚、新婚早々、夫が失踪。
愛情があったとも思えず。
探しに行かずに、離婚した方がいいのでは、と思ってしまう。
犯人もそれを期待したのかな??
それに、やはり、犯人の動機がよく判らない。
それだけ必死だったのか???
 
 
The City in the Sea   By Edgar Allan Poe
 
LO! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
 
No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently,
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free:
Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls,
Up fanes, up Babylon-like walls,
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers,
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathëd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
 
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye,—
Not the gayly-jewelled dead,
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas,
Along that wilderness of glass;
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea;
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene!

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave—there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide;
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven!
The waves have now a redder glow,
The hours are breathing faint and low;
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

 
ANNABEL LEE.    By Edgar Allan Poe
 
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
 
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love;
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
 
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
 
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me;
Yes! ;that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
 
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we;
Of many far wiser than we;
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
 
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling; my darling; my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.