(100%) The Canterville Ghost (3)
본 글은 지적활동증명(Proof of Brain) 워크시트입니다. 참여를 위해서는 반드시 번역 가이드를 읽으세요.
[34] The next morning, when the Otis family met at breakfast, they discussed the ghost at some length. The United States Minister was naturally a little annoyed to find that his present had not been accepted. "I have no wish," he said, "to do the ghost any personal injury, and I must say that, considering the length of time he has been in the house, I don't think it is at all polite to throw pillows at him,"--a very just remark, at which, I am sorry to say, the twins burst into shouts of laughter. "Upon the other hand," he continued, "if he really declines to use the Rising Sun Lubricator, we shall have to take his chains from him. It would be quite impossible to sleep, with such a noise going on outside the bedrooms."
[35] ✔︎ For the rest of the week, however, they were undisturbed, the only thing that excited any attention being the continual renewal of the blood-stain on the library floor. This certainly was very strange, as the door was always locked at night by Mr. Otis, and the windows kept closely barred. The chameleon-like colour, also, of the stain excited a good deal of comment.
[36] ✔︎ Some mornings it was a dull (almost Indian) red, then it would be vermilion, then a rich purple, and once when they came down for family prayers, according to the simple rites of the Free American Reformed Episcopalian Church, they found it a bright emerald-green. These kaleidoscopic changes naturally amused the party very much, and bets on the subject were freely made every evening. The only person who did not enter into the joke was little Virginia, who, for some unexplained reason, was always a good deal distressed at the sight of the blood-stain, and very nearly cried the morning it was emerald-green.
[37] ✔︎ The second appearance of the ghost was on Sunday night. Shortly after they had gone to bed they were suddenly alarmed by a fearful crash in the hall. Rushing down-stairs, they found that a large suit of old armour had become detached from its stand, and had fallen on the stone floor, while seated in a high-backed chair was the Canterville ghost, rubbing his knees with an expression of acute agony on his face.
[38] ✔︎ The twins, having brought their pea-shooters with them, at once discharged two pellets on him, with that accuracy of aim which can only be attained by long and careful practice on a writing-master, while the United States Minister covered him with his revolver, and called upon him, in accordance with Californian etiquette, to hold up his hands! The ghost started up with a wild shriek of rage, and swept through them like a mist, extinguishing Washington Otis's candle as he passed, and so leaving them all in total darkness. On reaching the top of the staircase he recovered himself, and determined to give his celebrated peal of demoniac laughter.
[39] ✔︎ This he had on more than one occasion found extremely useful. It was said to have turned Lord Raker's wig grey in a single night, and had certainly made three of Lady Canterville's French governesses give warning before their month was up. He accordingly laughed his most horrible laugh, till the old vaulted roof rang and rang again, but hardly had the fearful echo died away when a door opened, and Mrs. Otis came out in a light blue dressing-gown. "I am afraid you are far from well," she said, "and have brought you a bottle of Doctor Dobell's tincture.
[40] ✔︎ If it is indigestion, you will find it a most excellent remedy." The ghost glared at her in fury, and began at once to make preparations for turning himself into a large black dog, an accomplishment for which he was justly renowned, and to which the family doctor always attributed the permanent idiocy of Lord Canterville's uncle, the Hon. Thomas Horton. The sound of approaching footsteps, however, made him hesitate in his fell purpose, so he contented himself with becoming faintly phosphorescent, and vanished with a deep churchyard groan, just as the twins had come up to him.
[41] ✔︎ On reaching his room he entirely broke down, and became a prey to the most violent agitation. The vulgarity of the twins, and the gross materialism of Mrs. Otis, were naturally extremely annoying, but what really distressed him most was that he had been unable to wear the suit of mail. He had hoped that even modern Americans would be thrilled by the sight of a Spectre in armour, if for no more sensible reason, at least out of respect for their natural poet Longfellow, over whose graceful and attractive poetry he himself had whiled away many a weary hour when the Cantervilles were up in town.
[42] ✔︎ Besides it was his own suit. He had worn it with great success at the Kenilworth tournament, and had been highly complimented on it by no less a person than the Virgin Queen herself. Yet when he had put it on, he had been completely overpowered by the weight of the huge breastplate and steel casque, and had fallen heavily on the stone pavement, barking both his knees severely, and bruising the knuckles of his right hand.
[43] ✔︎ For some days after this he was extremely ill, and hardly stirred out of his room at all, except to keep the blood-stain in proper repair. However, by taking great care of himself, he recovered, and resolved to make a third attempt to frighten the United States Minister and his family. He selected Friday, August 17th, for his appearance, and spent most of that day in looking over his wardrobe, ultimately deciding in favour of a large slouched hat with a red feather, a winding-sheet frilled at the wrists and neck, and a rusty dagger. Towards evening a violent storm of rain came on, and the wind was so high that all the windows and doors in the old house shook and rattled.
[44] ✔︎ In fact, it was just such weather as he loved. His plan of action was this. He was to make his way quietly to Washington Otis's room, gibber at him from the foot of the bed, and stab himself three times in the throat to the sound of low music. He bore Washington a special grudge, being quite aware that it was he who was in the habit of removing the famous Canterville blood-stain by means of Pinkerton's Paragon Detergent. Having reduced the reckless and foolhardy youth to a condition of abject terror, he was then to proceed to the room occupied by the United States Minister and his wife, and there to place a clammy hand on Mrs. Otis's forehead, while he hissed into her trembling husband's ear the awful secrets of the charnel-house.
[45] ✔︎ With regard to little Virginia, he had not quite made up his mind. She had never insulted him in any way, and was pretty and gentle. A few hollow groans from the wardrobe, he thought, would be more than sufficient, or, if that failed to wake her, he might grabble at the counterpane with palsy-twitching fingers. As for the twins, he was quite determined to teach them a lesson.
[46] ✔︎ The first thing to be done was, of course, to sit upon their chests, so as to produce the stifling sensation of nightmare. Then, as their beds were quite close to each other, to stand between them in the form of a green, icy-cold corpse, till they became paralyzed with fear, and finally, to throw off the winding-sheet, and crawl round the room, with white, bleached bones and one rolling eyeball, in the character of "Dumb Daniel, or the Suicide's Skeleton," a rôle in which he had on more than one occasion produced a great effect, and which he considered quite equal to his famous part of "Martin the Maniac, or the Masked Mystery."
[47] ✔︎ At half-past ten he heard the family going to bed. For some time he was disturbed by wild shrieks of laughter from the twins, who, with the light-hearted gaiety of schoolboys, were evidently amusing themselves before they retired to rest, but at a quarter-past eleven all was still, and, as midnight sounded, he sallied forth.
[48] ✔︎ The owl beat against the window-panes, the raven croaked from the old yew-tree, and the wind wandered moaning round the house like a lost soul; but the Otis family slept unconscious of their doom, and high above the rain and storm he could hear the steady snoring of the Minister for the United States. He stepped stealthily out of the wainscoting, with an evil smile on his cruel, wrinkled mouth, and the moon hid her face in a cloud as he stole past the great oriel window, where his own arms and those of his murdered wife were blazoned in azure and gold. On and on he glided, like an evil shadow, the very darkness seeming to loathe him as he passed.
[49] ✔︎ Once he thought he heard something call, and stopped; but it was only the baying of a dog from the Red Farm, and he went on, muttering strange sixteenth-century curses, and ever and anon brandishing the rusty dagger in the midnight air. Finally he reached the corner of the passage that led to luckless Washington's room. For a moment he paused there, the wind blowing his long grey locks about his head, and twisting into grotesque and fantastic folds the nameless horror of the dead man's shroud.
[50] ✔︎ Then the clock struck the quarter, and he felt the time was come. He chuckled to himself, and turned the corner; but no sooner had he done so than, with a piteous wail of terror, he fell back, and hid his blanched face in his long, bony hands. Right in front of him was standing a horrible spectre, motionless as a carven image, and monstrous as a madman's dream! Its head was bald and burnished; its face round, and fat, and white; and hideous laughter seemed to have writhed its features into an eternal grin.
[51] ✔︎ From the eyes streamed rays of scarlet light, the mouth was a wide well of fire, and a hideous garment, like to his own, swathed with its silent snows the Titan form. On its breast was a placard with strange writing in antique characters, some scroll of shame it seemed, some record of wild sins, some awful calendar of crime, and, with its right hand, it bore aloft a falchion of gleaming steel.
[52] ✔︎ Never having seen a ghost before, he naturally was terribly frightened, and, after a second hasty glance at the awful phantom, he fled back to his room, tripping up in his long winding-sheet as he sped down the corridor, and finally dropping the rusty dagger into the Minister's jack-boots, where it was found in the morning by the butler. Once in the privacy of his own apartment, he flung himself down on a small pallet-bed, and hid his face under the clothes. After a time, however, the brave old Canterville spirit asserted itself, and he determined to go and speak to the other ghost as soon as it was daylight.
[53] ✔︎ Accordingly, just as the dawn was touching the hills with silver, he returned towards the spot where he had first laid eyes on the grisly phantom, feeling that, after all, two ghosts were better than one, and that, by the aid of his new friend, he might safely grapple with the twins. On reaching the spot, however, a terrible sight met his gaze.
[54] ✔︎ Something had evidently happened to the spectre, for the light had entirely faded from its hollow eyes, the gleaming falchion had fallen from its hand, and it was leaning up against the wall in a strained and uncomfortable attitude. He rushed forward and seized it in his arms, when, to his horror, the head slipped off and rolled on the floor, the body assumed a recumbent posture, and he found himself clasping a white dimity bed-curtain, with a sweeping-brush, a kitchen cleaver, and a hollow turnip lying at his feet! Unable to understand this curious transformation, he clutched the placard with feverish haste, and there, in the grey morning light, he read these fearful words:--
[55]
YE OTIS GHOSTE
Ye Onlie True and Originale Spook,
Beware of Ye Imitationes.
All others are counterfeite.
[56] ✔︎ The whole thing flashed across him. He had been tricked, foiled, and out-witted! The old Canterville look came into his eyes; he ground his toothless gums together; and, raising his withered hands high above his head, swore according to the picturesque phraseology of the antique school, that, when Chanticleer had sounded twice his merry horn, deeds of blood would be wrought, and murder walk abroad with silent feet.
[57] ✔︎ Hardly had he finished this awful oath when, from the red-tiled roof of a distant homestead, a cock crew. He laughed a long, low, bitter laugh, and waited. Hour after hour he waited, but the cock, for some strange reason, did not crow again.
[58] ✔︎ Finally, at half-past seven, the arrival of the housemaids made him give up his fearful vigil, and he stalked back to his room, thinking of his vain oath and baffled purpose. There he consulted several books of ancient chivalry, of which he was exceedingly fond, and found that, on every occasion on which this oath had been used, Chanticleer had always crowed a second time.
[59] ✔︎ "Perdition seize the naughty fowl," he muttered, "I have seen the day when, with my stout spear, I would have run him through the gorge, and made him crow for me an 'twere in death!" He then retired to a comfortable lead coffin, and stayed there till evening.
[44] 그것은 실제로 그가 사랑하는 날씨였다. 그의 행동 계획은 다음과 같았다. 그는 워싱턴 오티스 방에 조용히 가서 침대 발치에서 그를 향해 중얼거리며, 낮은 음악 소리에 맞춰 목덜미를 세 번 찌르는 것이었다. 그는 워싱턴에게 특별한 원한을 품고 있었는데, 핑커톤 파라곤 세제를 써가며 제거 유명한 캔터빌 핏자국을 지우는 게 그라는 걸 알았기 때문이다. 신중하지 못하고 무모한 젊음을 극도의 공포로 몰아넣은 다음, 미국 목사와 그의 부인에게 가 축축한 손을 오티스 부인의 이마에 얹고, 그러는 동안 겁에 질린 남편의 귀에는 납골당의 끔찍한 비밀을 낮게 조아리기로 했다.
[43] 이 일이 있은 후 며칠 동안 그는 몹시 아팠다. 핏자국이 계속 생겨나게 하는 것 외에는, 자신의 방 안도 제대로 돌아다닐 수 없었다. 하지만 자신을 무척 잘 돌봐 몸을 회복한 그는, 미국 목사와 그의 가족들을 놀래키기 위한 세 번째 시도를 하기로 결심했다. 그는 8월 17일 금요일에 나타나기로 했다. 그는 그 날 대부분을 옷장을 훑어보며 보냈는데, 결국 붉은 깃털이 달린 커다랗고 구부정한 모자와 손목과 목에 구불구불 주름 장식이 된 시트, 녹슨 단검을 골랐다. 저녁이 되자 격렬한 폭풍우가 몰아졌고, 바람이 거세게 불어 오래된 집의 모든 창문과 문이 덜컹거렸다.
[48] 부엉이가 유리창을 두들겼고, 까마귀가 오래된 주목나무에서 까악거렸으며, 바람이 잃어버린 영혼처럼 집 주위에서 신음소리를 냈다. 그러나 오티스 가족은 그들의 파멸을 의식하지 못한 채 잠을 자고 있었고, 그는 미국 목사가 비와 폭풍우 보다 더 크게 그치지 않고 코를 고는 소리를 들었다. 그는 사악하고 주름집 입가에 악랄한 미소를 머금고, 살금살금 징두리 벽판 밖으로 나왔다. 그가 퇴창을 살며시 지나가자 달빛이 그녀의 얼굴을 구름에 감추었고, 그의 팔과 그의 살해당한 아내가 하늘색과 금색으로 빛났다. 그는 계속해서 악마의 그림자처럼 미끄러져 갔고, 그가 지날때면 어둠이 그를 무척 꺼려하는 것 같았다.
[54] 유령에게 무슨 일이 있어났던 것이 분명했다. 푹 꺼진 두 눈에서 빛이 완전히 사라졌고, 빛나는 검은 손에서 떨어져 나가 있었다. 그는 부자연스럽고 불편해 보이는 자세로 벽에 기대어 있었다. 그는 황급히 앞으로 달려가 그를 품에 안았는데, 그러자 무섭게도, 그의 머리가 미끄러져 바닥으로 굴러 떨어졌고, 몸은 힘을 잃고 쓰러졌다. 그는 자신이 하얗고 희미한 침대 커튼을 꼭 껴안고 있는 걸 발견했고, 빗자루와 부엌의 식칼, 속이 꺼진 무가 그의 다리에 있는 걸 발견했다! 이 기이한 변신을 이해할 수 없었던 그는, 몹시 흥분하며 플래카드를 움켜쥐었고, 그곳에 비치는 잿빛 아침 빛 속에서 그는 다음과 같은 무서운 말을 읽었다.
[46] 가장 먼저 해야 할 일은 물론 그들의 가슴에 걸터 앉아 숨이 막힐듯한 악몽의 느낌을 만들어내는 것이었다. 그리고 그들이 서로 상당히 가깝게 붙어 자게 되면, 얼음처럼 차가운 초록빛 시체의 모습으로 그들 사이에 있다가, 그들이 하얗게 겁에 질려, 마침내 주름진 시트를 던지고, 하얗게 탈색된 뼈와 굴러 다니는 눈알로 방 안을 기어 다니며, 효과가 한 번 이상 좋았던 "멍청한 다니엘 또는 자살한 해골"로 등장할 것이었다. 그는 자신의 유명세가 "마틴 더 매니악이나 마스크드 미스터리"와 상당히 동등하다 생각했다.
[52] 그런 유령은 전에 본 적이 없는 당연히 몹시 겁이 났고, 끔찍한 유령을 재빨리 두 번 힐끗 바라보고서는 방으로 도망쳤고, 복도를 서둘러 내려가다 구불구불한 시트에 걸려 넘어졌다. 그리고 마침내 녹슨 단검을 목사의 잭 부츠에 떨어뜨렸는데, 집사가 아침에 이를 발견했다. 자신의 아파트에 돌아와서는, 작고 초라한 침대로 몸을 내던지고, 옷 아래 얼굴을 감췄다. 그러나 잠시 후, 용감한 늙은 캔터빌 유령의 영혼이 깨어났고, 그는 날이 밝는 대로 유령에게 가 말을 걸어보기로 결심했다.
[38] 쌍둥이는 완두콩 총을 가져왔고, 그에게 두 방을 쐈는데, 그러한 정확성은 길고 긴 신중한 연습을 통해서만 얻어질 수 있는 것이었다. 미국 목사는 리볼버를 무장한 채, 캘리포니아 에티켓을 따라 그에게 손을 들어 달라고 요청했다! 유령은 거친 분노의 비명을 지르며, 안개처럼 그들을 휩쓸고 지나갔다. 그 바람에 워싱턴 오티스의 촛불이 꺼졌고, 그들은 완전한 어둠 속에 남게 되었다. 계단 꼭대기에 이르러 그는 자신을 추슬렀고, 자신의 유명한 악마 같은 큰 웃음 소리를 내기로 했다.
[41] 방에 도착한 그는 완전히 지쳐서, 몹시 격렬한 불안에 시달렸다. 저속한 쌍둥이들과 오티스 부인의 역겨운 물질주의가 정말이지 몹시도 짜증스러웠지만, 그를 가장 괴롭게 하는 것은 쇠사슬 갑옷을 입을 수 없다는 것이었다. 그는 비록 현대 미국인일지라도 갑옷을 입은 유령을 목격하고 흥분하기를 기대했다. 만약 합리적인 이유가 없다면, 적어도 그들의 자연 시인인 롱펠로우를 존경하는 마음에서 그러길 바랐다. 그는 캔터빌이 시내에 있을 당시 지겨운 시간을 달래기 위해 우아하고 매력적인 그 시를 읽곤 했다.
[36] 어느날 아침에는 칙칙한(거의 인도스러운) 붉은색이었고, 그 다음에는 빨간색, 그 다음에는 풍성한 보라색이었다. 한번은 가족이 자유 미국 개혁 성공회의 간단한 의식을 따라 기도를 하기 위해 내려왔는데, 그때는 밝은 에메랄드-녹색 이었다. 이처럼 변화무쌍한 변화는 자연스레 가족들을 몹시 즐겁게 했고, 매일 밤 그들은 여기에 자유롭게 내기를 하기도 했다. 이러한 농담에 참여하지 않는 유일한 사람은 바로 꼬마 버지니아 였는데, 무슨 이유에서인지, 핏자국을 보면 늘 몹시 괴로워했고, 색깔이 에마랄드-녹색일 때는 거의 울음을 터뜨릴 뻔 했다.
[39] 그는 그 웃음이 한밤중에 무척 유용하다는 것을 알았다. 그것은 레이커 경의 가발을 하룻밤 만에 잿빛으로 물들였고, 캔터빌 부인의 프랑스 가정 교사 세 명이 한 달이 채 되기도 전에 분명히 경고를 줬다. 그는 최선을 다해 아치형 지붕이 울리고 다시 울릴 때까지 가장 무섭게 웃었다. 문이 열렸을 때 무서운 메아리가 거의 사라지지 않은 상태였지만, 오티스 부인이 옅은 파란 드레스 가운을 입고 나와서는 "안타깝지만 아직 멀었군요. 여기 도벨 박사의 팅크 한 병을 가져 왔어요."하고 말했다.