Hazel Motes sat at a forward angle on the green plush train seat, looking one minute at the window as if he might want to jump out of it, and the next down the aisle at the other end of the car. The train was racingthrough tree tops that fell away at intervals and showed the sun standing , very red, on the edge of the farthest woods. Nearer, the plowed fields curved and faded and the few hogs nosing in the furrows looked like large spotted stones. Mrs. Wally Bee Hitchcock, who was facing Motes in the section , said that she thought the early evening like this was the prettiest time of day and she asked himif he didn’t think so too. She was a fat woman with pink collars and cuffs and pear-shaped legs that slanted off the train seat and didn’t reach the floor.(Wise Blood, 1952, Ch. 1)
“Maybe He didn’t raise the dead,” the old lady mumbled, not knowing what she was saying and feeling sodizzy that she sank down in the ditchwith her legs twisted under her.“I wasn’t there so I can’t say He didn’t,” The Misfit said. “I wisht I had of been there,” he said, hitting the groundwith his fist. “It ain’t right I wasn’t there because if I had of been there I would of known*. Listen lady,” he said in a high voice, “if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn’t be like I am now.” His voice seemed about to crack and the grandmother’s head cleared for an instant. She saw the man’s face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” She reached out and touched him on the shoulder. The Misfit sprang back as if a snake had bitten him and shot her three times through the chest. Then he put his gun down on the ground and took off his glasses and began to clean them.(A Good Man Is Hard toFind , 1953)
正しくはI wish I had been there 正しくはif I had been there I would have known
“Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” という祖母の言葉は、それまで連発してきた紋切り型の続きなのか、そこからの飛躍なのか、それすら定かでない豊かな曖昧さ。素直に訳せばこの曖昧さはいちおう伝わると思うが（“one of” をどう扱うかは微妙だが）、〈はみ出し者〉の豊かな訥弁の方はどうか。文法的に間違っているからこそ生じる、正しい英語からは出てこない切実さ。オコナーをはじめ、アメリカの作家はこうした雄弁を巧みに操るが、これほど翻訳しづらいものもほかにない。間違いを間違いとして訳すのはほとんどの場合不可能なのだ。
