The Secret · American Version

Illustration: THE GARDENGOYLE — Plate, American edition Zoom Full-size scan

THE GARDENGOYLE, image 1 — The Gardengoyle is an agro-vation from Omaha to Miami.

THE GARDENGOYLE, image 2 — The Gardengoyle is an agro-vation from Omaha to Miami.

THE GARDENGOYLE

Horror cultus

RANGE Wherever paper seed packs, faded to indecipherability, look down from weathered popsicle sticks upon rows of deeply disturbed topsoil; near window boxes enriched by alkaline pigeon droppings, roof gardens watered by acid rain, and where elderly but energetic horticulturists minister to necrotic carrots in stony vacant lots, there strolls the Gardengoyle.

HABITS Summer after summer, pest and pestilences descend on the backyard gardens of America: rabbits with the destructive abilities of warthog troops, for example, or moldy blights that wither green and growing things like a blast of the midsummer sun on Serengeti. Yet spring after spring, Americans root up foul-smelling compost heaps, break fork tines on adamantine topsoil, and wear out countless layers of epidermis plying absurd backward hoes allegedly designed to make the work go easier. And it is the Gardengoyle who wickedly inspires these people to believe that this year will at last mean success for their little garden because whatever the Gardengoyle did to it last year is simply too horrible to occur twice in the same patch on the same planet in the same century. The Gardengoyle is a master of blights and a smut monger. He is adept at the distribution of cutworms and beetles. Where the gypsy moth pitches its tent, you may find the Gardengoyle, seeking shelter from the hail storm he has just caused to beat sprouting produce into mouldering ratatouille.

HISTORY The Gardengoyle hails from the region of North Africa formerly known as the Saharan Garden, now more widely known as the Sahara Desert. He helped out in the New World Garden at the Plymouth Colony, where yearly crop failures made the poor Puritans so hungry that even turkey tasted good to them. Later, the Gardengoyle took a special interest in Oklahoma and the surrounding states, where a succession of disastrous droughts gave the simple religious folk of the region an abiding taste for water, which many are hard put to understand. SPOTTER’S

TIPS The careful hoe-towing seeker of the Gardengoyle may have some luck as he is a large, frisky green spirit resembling an ambulatory shock of corn and is to be found most often amongst the small, withered brownish rust-slighted vegetables in his charge.

Two editions, one page

The American and Japanese printings side by side. Click either page to zoom in.

Illustration: THE GARDENGOYLE — American edition

Japanese edition page: THE GARDENGOYLE — 日本語版 · Japanese edition

日本語版の本文

The Houseplant Sprite · The Gardengoyle

The Japanese text, section by section, with an English back-translation.

棲息地あたり一面にごみの散らかった地面, アルカリ性の鳩のフンで栄養を補給された窓際の鉢、酸性の雨で水分を補給されれた屋上の庭, 年老いてはいるがエネルギッシュな園芸家の石がごろごろしているあき地、こうしたところを園芸の精はうろついている。

Habitat Litter-strewn ground, windowsill pots nourished by alkaline pigeon droppings, rooftop gardens watered by acid rain, rocky vacant lots tended by elderly but energetic gardeners — the gardening sprite wanders all these places.

習性夏がめぐってくるたびに家庭には疫病が舞い降りる。そのくせ、毎年春になると、悪臭のする堆肥の山をかきまわすのだ。こういう人びとに, 今年こそは自分の庭は緑あざやかに美しくなるにちがいないと思いこませるのが, 園芸の精なのである。というのも、去年はどうであれ、同じ地球上の同じ庭に、同じ災難がふりかかるわけはない,と信じこませるからなのだ。ところが,そうはいかない。観葉植物をならべたり、自家菜園をつくったりするようなナウイ生活がいかにはかないものであるか園芸の精はよく知っていて、つねに人びとに警告を発しているのである。このことは、園芸の精の棲息地を考えれば、だれにでもわかることだ。自然の緑は、ファッションのなかからは育たないものなのである。

Behavior Every summer a plague descends on households. And yet every spring, people go back to turning over foul-smelling compost heaps. What makes these people believe that this year their garden will surely bloom green and beautiful — that’s the gardening sprite’s doing. Because it convinces them that whatever happened last year, the same disaster couldn’t possibly strike the same garden on the same earth twice. But it does. How fleeting the fashionable life of arranging houseplants and cultivating home vegetable gardens truly is — the gardening sprite knows this well and is always issuing warnings to people. Anyone can understand this simply by considering where the gardening sprite actually lives. Natural greenery cannot grow from within fashion.

歴史園芸の精は,かつてはサハラ庭園と呼ばれ, いまではサハラ砂漠として全世界に知られている北アフリカの出身である。世界じゅうに広まった彼らは、いわば道楽で植物をもっている人に狙いをさだめて活躍しているのだ。

History The gardening sprite originates from North Africa — once known as the Saharan Garden, now known to the entire world as the Sahara Desert. Having spread across the world, they set their sights specifically on people who keep plants purely as a hobby.

私立探偵の情報観葉植物をたくさん飾っている人びとの家,とくに茶色に枯れた葉が多いところに見られる。

Field Intelligence Found in homes with many decorative houseplants — particularly where a high proportion of the leaves have turned brown and died.

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