午前零時を過ぎてすぐに、いきなり、そしてはっきりと、火災は勢いを増した。あちらこちらで盛大に高く火の手を上げる建物が見え始めた。五、そして十、二十、そして三十、ぼくと目に映る限りの遠い光景のあいだを、炎は跳ね、いつまでも燃え続け、燃え落とした。ぼくの心は次第に熱を帯び、踊った――深い興奮の神秘、甘いスリル。ぼくはこの極上さをちびりちびりと味わい、ゆったりと愉しんだ。そのうちに、より大きな炎の天使が、しっかりとした野望を胸に「奈落」より立ち上り、広げた腕とともにその場所に長く君臨したとき、ぼくは少し椅子から腰を浮かせて、まるで有名な俳優を目にしたときのように、拍手しようとやや体を前に傾けた。あるいは、ぼくはその炎に女性の名前を与えて、陽気に大声で呼びかけた。なぜならぼくにはあかね色のガラスを通じて悪の巣窟の宇宙の唸りを目にしているようにしか思えず、そしてその大気はひどく暑くて、ぼくの目の玉は炎の燃え盛る炉の真ん中を覗き込みながら歩いているかのようで、皮膚は凄まじくチクチクとする痒みでうずいた。そのうち、ぼくはワーグナーのワルキューレの騎行のハープの音色に心を打たれた。
午前三時近くになって、ぼくの甘美な罪はクライマックスを迎えた。酔いの回った瞼は贅沢な悦楽の中で閉じられ、唇にはだらしのない笑みが浮かんで、涎を垂らしていた。この上なき平和の感覚、全能の力の感覚、それがぼくを慰めてくれた。今では溢れだす涙の向こうに映る全景には、一万もの雷鳴が響きわたり、星々の彼方へと吠える、南方へとなだれ込んでゆく苦しみの声は、煙のない、赤く染まった雄大な大西洋の水平線へと押し寄せていた。そしてその中で戯れ、すべての地獄の友たちは自らを洗い、笑い、叫び、荒々しく飛び回り、休んだ。それからぼく――自分の種族の最初のものは――近くの星々へと向けて、ひとつのシグナルを送り出したのだ……
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Soon after midnight there was a sudden and very visible increase in the conflagration. On all hands I began to see blazing structures soar, with grand hurrahs, on high. In fives and tens, in twenties and thirties, all between me and the remote limit of my vision, they leapt, they lingered long, they fell. My spirit more and more felt, and danced--deeper mysteries of sensation, sweeter thrills. I sipped exquisitely, I drew out enjoyment leisurely. Anon, when some more expansive angel of flame would arise from the Pit with steady aspiration, and linger with outspread arms, and burst, I would lift a little from the chair, leaning forward to clap, as at some famous acting; or I would call to them in shouts of cheer, giving them the names of Woman. For now I seemed to see nothing but some bellowing pandemonic universe through crimson glasses, and the air was wildly hot, and my eye-balls like theirs that walk staring in the inner midst of burning fiery furnaces, and my skin itched with a fierce and prickly itch. Anon I touched the chords of the harp to the air of Wagner's 'Walküren-ritt.'
Near three in the morning, I reached the climax of my guilty sweets. My drunken eye-lids closed in a luxury of pleasure, and my lips lay stretched in a smile that dribbled; a sensation of dear peace, of almighty power, consoled me: for now the whole area which through streaming tears I surveyed, mustering its ten thousand thunders, and brawling beyond the stars the voice of its southward-rushing torment, billowed to the horizon one grand Atlantic of smokeless and flushing flame; and in it sported and washed themselves all the fiends of Hell, with laughter, shouts, wild flights, and holiday; and I--first of my race--had flashed a signal to the nearer planets....
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午前三時近くになって、ぼくの甘美な罪はクライマックスを迎えた。酔いの回った瞼は贅沢な悦楽の中で閉じられ、唇にはだらしのない笑みが浮かんで、涎を垂らしていた。この上なき平和の感覚、全能の力の感覚、それがぼくを慰めてくれた。今では溢れだす涙の向こうに映る全景には、一万もの雷鳴が響きわたり、星々の彼方へと吠える、南方へとなだれ込んでゆく苦しみの声は、煙のない、赤く染まった雄大な大西洋の水平線へと押し寄せていた。そしてその中で戯れ、すべての地獄の友たちは自らを洗い、笑い、叫び、荒々しく飛び回り、休んだ。それからぼく――自分の種族の最初のものは――近くの星々へと向けて、ひとつのシグナルを送り出したのだ……
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Soon after midnight there was a sudden and very visible increase in the conflagration. On all hands I began to see blazing structures soar, with grand hurrahs, on high. In fives and tens, in twenties and thirties, all between me and the remote limit of my vision, they leapt, they lingered long, they fell. My spirit more and more felt, and danced--deeper mysteries of sensation, sweeter thrills. I sipped exquisitely, I drew out enjoyment leisurely. Anon, when some more expansive angel of flame would arise from the Pit with steady aspiration, and linger with outspread arms, and burst, I would lift a little from the chair, leaning forward to clap, as at some famous acting; or I would call to them in shouts of cheer, giving them the names of Woman. For now I seemed to see nothing but some bellowing pandemonic universe through crimson glasses, and the air was wildly hot, and my eye-balls like theirs that walk staring in the inner midst of burning fiery furnaces, and my skin itched with a fierce and prickly itch. Anon I touched the chords of the harp to the air of Wagner's 'Walküren-ritt.'
Near three in the morning, I reached the climax of my guilty sweets. My drunken eye-lids closed in a luxury of pleasure, and my lips lay stretched in a smile that dribbled; a sensation of dear peace, of almighty power, consoled me: for now the whole area which through streaming tears I surveyed, mustering its ten thousand thunders, and brawling beyond the stars the voice of its southward-rushing torment, billowed to the horizon one grand Atlantic of smokeless and flushing flame; and in it sported and washed themselves all the fiends of Hell, with laughter, shouts, wild flights, and holiday; and I--first of my race--had flashed a signal to the nearer planets....
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