ilyaさんの おぼえた日記 - 2012年11月17日(土)

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (Ursula Le Guin) (5 そして最終回)

At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or woman much older falls silent for a day or two, and then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl, man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

ときどき、思春期の少年・少女で、家に帰って泣いたり喚いたりしないものがいる。彼らはそもそも 帰ってこないのだ。時折、成年の男女で二三日打ち沈んでいたかと思うと、家を出るものがいる。 彼らは通りを下って歩き続け、市門を出る。夜になっても、これらの人々は農地を越え、近隣の村を 過ぎ、歩き続ける。銘々がただ一人で荒野の闇の中に歩みいるのだ。彼らは帰ってこない。Omelas を 去ったのだ。どこへいくのか、私には分からない。しかし彼らは知っているらしい、どこへ彼ら が向かっているかを。これら Omelas から歩み去る人々は。