The Secret · American Version

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

THE LEPRACHAUNMAN, image 1

THE LEPRACHAUNMAN, image 2

THE LEPRACHAUNMAN

Melancholia extremis

RANGE Three a.m. Rainy Sundays. Strange, cheap hotels. Near-empty saloons. (If you find yourself sitting in the near-empty saloon of a cheap hotel at three a.m. on a rainy Sunday, he’s got you for certain.) The Leprachaunman’s correct mailing address is Bleak House, Lonely Street, Slough of Despond, Valley of Despair, Bluesville, State of Depression 00013.

HABITS It is customary to attribute your typical Irish blatherskite’s “gift of gab” to his having kissed the Blarney Stone. Like others of his kith and kin, he is invisible to all but the particular mortal he has singled out for his attentions. He has a soothing, sympathetic way about him. Faith, but he feels nearly as sorry for yourself as you do! And isn’t it but he appreciates what a special class of individual you are: full of promise and potential, shamefully misunderstood, hard done by, but bearing up bravely. Here, have another of those. Make it a double. Sure, he’s just the company that misery loves! And what, you may well ask, does the Leprachaunman do with the dull, gray, soggy, tattered little souls he collects from his victims? Well, in the old days, he’d wad them together, into something that looked like a ball of used Kleenex, and sell them for screenplays or one act plays. Today he peddles them, one by one, as country and western hits.

HISTORY There’s nary a need of a professional genealogist to tell us that he emerged, nodding thoughtfully and keening softly, from the soggy Celtic Twilight. He’s as Irish as treason and learned his soul-stealing craft in the land where many possess the power to transform both whiskey and beer into whine. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Eugene O’Neill are a pair of his notable victims, but there’s scarcely a Jesuit high school in the New World as hasn’t graduated a poet or two into his clutches. SPOTTER’S

TIPS He can be found backstage at the closing night of any play, oozing out of an envelope in the wake of a rejection slip, standing a round in the gin mill nearest the unemployment insurance office, offering his smarmy, unctuous condolences: “I’m sorry for yer trouble. . . .”

Two editions, one page

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

Illustration: THE LEPRACHAUNMAN — American edition

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

日本語版の本文

The Melancholy Sprite · The Leprachaunman

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

棲息地雨の日曜日, 午前3時,ひとり住まいのアパートの部屋(これで憂鬱にならない人間がいたら奇跡だ)。おまけにデートの相手もなければ, 訪ねてくる友人もない。あるのはもてあましている時間だけである。この雨では洗濯もできないし、夕飯の買い物に行くにはすこしはやすぎる。まったくもって呪いたくなるような気分である。

Habitat A rainy Sunday. 3am. A solo apartment. (Anyone who doesn’t get depressed under these conditions would be a miracle.) No date. No friends coming to visit. Nothing but time to kill. Can’t do laundry in this rain. Too early to go shopping for dinner. The kind of mood that makes you want to curse the universe.

習性この“ふさぎの虫” の妖精たちの姿は,とりつかれた人以外には見ることができない。誤解, 喧嘩などといった人間の気分がマイナスに働く瞬間を狙ってとりつこうと, 妖精たちはいつも待ちかまえている。ふさぎの虫が生みだす憂欝は, 悲嘆とはちがう。かなり軽度の精神的な落ちこみ状態をいうのであるが, 原因がいまひとつはっきりしないところに問題があり、適切な治療方法が見つからない理由もそこにある。なんとなく憂鬱というのが,いちばん多い症例なのだ。また若い女の子たちは、憂鬱の状態にいることを“わたしブルーなの”と表現する。ブルーは海の色, 空の色である。では,どうして憂鬱が、海や空の色と同義語で考えられているのだろうか。それをじっくりと考えるのも、憂鬱からぬけだす方法ではないだろうか。えっ、ますます憂鬱になるって? ごもっともです。

Behavior The melancholy sprite can only be seen by the person it has possessed. It lurks in wait, ready to pounce at any moment when human emotions tip negative — misunderstandings, arguments, that sort of thing. The gloom the sprite produces is different from grief. It’s a fairly mild form of mental depression — but the problem lies in the fact that the cause is never quite clear, which is also why no appropriate treatment can be found. “Just feeling vaguely blue” is the most common presenting symptom. Young women express being in this state as “I’m feeling blue.” Blue is the color of the sea, the color of the sky. So why has melancholy come to be considered synonymous with the colors of the sea and sky? Perhaps sitting quietly and pondering that question is itself a way out of the blues. “What? That just makes me more depressed?” Fair enough.

歴史アイルランドの重苦しい天気のなかで生まれた。近代ではF・スコット・フィッツジェラルド, ユージン・オニールらが,このふさぎの虫の犠牲者。わが国では, 芥川龍之介,太宰治などがいる。

History Born in the heavy, oppressive weather of Ireland. In modern times, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Eugene O’Neill are among its victims. In Japan — Akutagawa Ryunosuke and Dazai Osamu.

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