#2 夏目漱石『それから』
誰か慌ただしく門前を馳けて行く足音がした時、代助の頭の中には、大きな俎下駄が空から、ぶら下がっていた。けれども、その俎下駄は、足音の遠退くに従って、すうと頭から抜け出して消えてしまった。そうして眼が覚めた。
As someone hastily ran past the gate, a large wooden clog dangled from a vast emptiness in Daisuke’s mind. But, as the sound of the footsteps receded, the wooden clog quietly slipped out of his mind and disappeared. And then, he woke up.
Vocabulary:
夏目漱石 なつめそうせき Natsume Soseki (author, 1867-1916)
誰か だれか someone
慌ただしく あわただしく hastily, in a hurry
門前 もんぜん in front of the gate
馳ける かける to run, to dash (more commonly 駆ける)
足音 あしおと footsteps, the sound of someone walking
代助 だいすけ Daisuke (proper name of the main character)
俎下駄 まないたげた large wooden clogs (size of a ‘chopping board’)
空 くう vast empty space (not そら, which means ‘sky’)
ぶら下がる ぶらさがる to hang, to dangle
遠退く とおのく to recede, to grow distant
~に従って にしたがって as…, the more…
すうと gently, softly, quietly (onomatopoeia)
抜け出す ぬけだす to slip out
消える きえる to disappear
眼が覚める めがさめる to wake up
Grammar:
足音がした
In the case of sounds and smells, it is common to use ~がする. Rather than saying ‘I heard a noise’ you would say 音がした ‘a noise occurred’. The same is true for this passage. But this also poses a problem for the translator. To whom is the sound audible? It’s tempting to believe that Daisuke is at the receiving end of the sound, but grammatically this is less evident. When you read Japanese literature regularly, especially older literature, you’ll notice the presence of a “場面に潜在する第三者の視点”, the perspective of an invisible third person present in the scene. To be clear, this is completely normal in Japanese, and only becomes problematic when translating into other languages. (The first sentence in Kawabata Yasunari’s novel Snow Country is another famous example of this phenomenon.)
~に従って
Means ‘as…’ or ‘the more…’, indicating a gradual increase (or decrease) of the action preceding it.
As I am reviewing this, I realize that I cannot find すうとin any dictionary (jisho.com, imiwa, midori). They only return 数等 (すうとう) meaning "by far". Is that an archaic word, or a typo?
Thanks!