奇妙なことに、火山は全て海の近くにある。なぜかは知らない。誰でも知っていることは考えない。その事実は、海底火山の噴火と関連して、火山についての化学的な学説の裏付けとともに述べられていたが、そこで仮定されていたことは、爆発性の燃料の原料となる物質を含んだ断層に海水が侵入したということである。だがもしそれが真実なら、神は知っている。その高所の存在は一時的に休んでいて――一世紀、二世紀、十世紀と、静かに待っていて、彼らがその力を振るうときには、哀れにもいくつかの地域を黙らせてしまうのだ。世界の暗い運命を、誰が知っていたというのだろう?時々、それらは鋳物工場の下にある煙突のように、ひとつにまとまって一方向に伸びる火道で構成された線状システムを形成する。山の場合、鋸状に連なる山頂部を持つというのは、白雲石の存在を意味している。円い山頂部なら、石灰石の存在を意味している。鋭く尖った山頂は、結晶片岩であるということを意味している。北半球の方が陸地が多いのは、遥か昔の地質学的な新世紀において、凄まじい隆起が引き起こされたのだということを物語っている。人間に言えることなど、それくらいのことだ。だが、どこからが凄まじいと言えるのか?ぼくには地球の地下については十マイルほどの知識しかない。だが地球は八千マイルもの直径があるのだ。そしてその内部が炎なのか液体なのか、固いのか柔らかいのか、ぼくは知らない、知らないのだ。彼女が石炭を生成する仕組み、間欠泉や硫黄温泉、宝石、そして環礁やサンゴ礁。片麻岩のような、沈殿によって生成された変成岩、深成岩、火山岩、溶岩、そして外層を構成している無成層の塊。収穫、開花、食物連鎖。ぼくにはそれらのことについての知識はないが、ぼくと同じように彼女のもとに存在するものであり、その火の心臓、同じ竈の中で溶かされていたものなのだ。彼女は暗く、移り気で、気まぐれで、不吉で、まるで人食いライオンのように、彼女の子供を引き裂く。そして彼女は老猾で、ウルクが建設したHur of the Chaldeesを、惑星を象徴した七本の角柱の中に聳えるベル神殿、ビル・ニムルドとハラン、古代ペルセポリスとサイラスの墓、そしてこれらの修道院のようなヒマラヤの岩から切り出された古代仏教のビハラ寺院を、まるで昨日のことであるかのように覚えている。極東から引き返しながら、ぼくはイスマイリアに寄り、それからカイロ、さらにはメンフィスを見て、ある明るい深夜零時、サハラの偉大なるピラミッドと黙りこくったスフィンクスの前に立ち、そしてひとつの石の墓の穴に座って、頬に哀れみの涙が伝うまで見つめていた。なぜなら、偉大なるものはこの大地であり、彼女の年齢であって、人類が「姿を消してしまった」ということではないのだから。これらの墓には、まるで二つの宮殿の柱であるかのような、夥しい数の柱があり、それは円柱ばかりだったが、ぼくの柱は角柱だった。それゆえぼくはその柱を選んだのだ。だが柱の上端には、同じ閉じた蓮の花の装飾があったが、台輪から分離しているぼくの小さな方形の柱礎だけには台輪がなかった。墓は、小さな外側の神殿あるいは王宮で構成され、それから穴の中に入ると、その中には別の小さな部屋があり、想像では、そこに死者は横たえられていたのだろうが、リボンのような玉縁が周りを取り巻いている壁は、大胆に突き出したコーニスによって飾られ、頂板が戴せられていた。ぼくは食欲に突き動かされるまでずっとここにいた。どんどんと地球という存在がぼくの中で大きく成長し、語りかけ、ぼくと同化していたからだ。ぼくは自分自身に問いかけた。「きっといずれは、ぼくは人間であることを止めて、小さな地球、まさに彼女の複製と呼べるような、とてつもなく奇妙で獰猛な、半ば悪魔的で、半ば野蛮で、どこまでも神秘的な――気難しく荒れ狂う――発作的で、錯乱状態で、そして悲しい――彼女のようにならざるをえないのではないか?」
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Strange that volcanoes are all near the sea: I don't know why; I don't think that anyone ever knew. This fact, in connection with submarine explosions, used to be cited in support of the chemical theory of volcanoes, which supposed the infiltration of the sea into ravines containing the materials which form the fuel of eruptions: but God knows if that is true. The lofty ones are intermittent―a century, two, ten, of silent waiting, and then their talk silenced for ever some poor district; the low ones are constant in action. Who could know the dark way of the world? Sometimes they form a linear system, consisting of several vents which extend in one direction, near together, like chimneys of some long foundry beneath. In mountains, a series of serrated peaks denotes the presence of dolomites; rounded heads mean calcareous rocks; and needles, crystalline schists. The preponderance of land in the northern hemisphere denotes the greater intensity there of the causes of elevation at a remote geologic epoch: that is all that one can say about it: but whence that greater intensity? I have some knowledge of the earth for only ten miles down: but she has eight thousand miles: and whether through all that depth she is flame or fluid, hard or soft, I do not know, I do not know. Her method of forming coal, geysers and hot sulphur-springs, and the jewels, and the atols and coral reefs; the metamorphic rocks of sedimentary origin, like gneiss, the plutonic and volcanic rocks, rocks of fusion, and the unstratified masses which constitute the basis of the crust; and harvests, the burning flame of flowers, and the passage from the vegetable to the animal: I do not know them, but they are of her, and they are like me, molten in the same furnace of her fiery heart. She is dark and moody, sudden and ill-fated, and rends her young like a cannibal lioness; and she is old and wise, and remembers Hur of the Chaldees which Uruk built, and that Temple of Bel which rose in seven pyramids to symbolise the planets, and Birs-i-Nimrud, and Haran, and she bears still, as a thing of yesterday, old Persepolis and the tomb of Cyrus, and those cloister-like vihârah-temples of the ancient Buddhists, cut from the Himalayan rock; and returning from the Far East, I stopped at Ismailia, and so to Cairo, and saw where Memphis was, and stood one bright midnight before that great pyramid of Shafra, and that dumb Sphynx, and, seated at the well of one of the rock-tombs, looked till tears of pity streamed down my cheeks: for great is the earth, and her Ages, but man 'passeth away.' These tombs have pillars extremely like the two palace-pillars, only that these are round, and mine are square: for I chose it so: but the same band near the top, then over this the closed lotus-flower, then the small square plinth, which separates them from the architrave, only mine have no architrave; the tombs consist of a little outer temple or court, then comes a well, and inside another chamber, where, I suppose, the dead were, a ribbon-like astragal surrounding the walls, which are crowned with boldly-projecting cornices, surmounted by an abacus. And here, till the pressing want of food drove me back, I remained: for more and more the earth over-grows me, wooes me, assimilates me; so that I ask myself this question: 'Must I not, in time, cease to be a man, and become a small earth, precisely her copy, extravagantly weird and fierce, half-demoniac, half-ferine, wholly mystic―morose and turbulent―fitful, and deranged, and sad―like her?'
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Strange that volcanoes are all near the sea: I don't know why; I don't think that anyone ever knew. This fact, in connection with submarine explosions, used to be cited in support of the chemical theory of volcanoes, which supposed the infiltration of the sea into ravines containing the materials which form the fuel of eruptions: but God knows if that is true. The lofty ones are intermittent―a century, two, ten, of silent waiting, and then their talk silenced for ever some poor district; the low ones are constant in action. Who could know the dark way of the world? Sometimes they form a linear system, consisting of several vents which extend in one direction, near together, like chimneys of some long foundry beneath. In mountains, a series of serrated peaks denotes the presence of dolomites; rounded heads mean calcareous rocks; and needles, crystalline schists. The preponderance of land in the northern hemisphere denotes the greater intensity there of the causes of elevation at a remote geologic epoch: that is all that one can say about it: but whence that greater intensity? I have some knowledge of the earth for only ten miles down: but she has eight thousand miles: and whether through all that depth she is flame or fluid, hard or soft, I do not know, I do not know. Her method of forming coal, geysers and hot sulphur-springs, and the jewels, and the atols and coral reefs; the metamorphic rocks of sedimentary origin, like gneiss, the plutonic and volcanic rocks, rocks of fusion, and the unstratified masses which constitute the basis of the crust; and harvests, the burning flame of flowers, and the passage from the vegetable to the animal: I do not know them, but they are of her, and they are like me, molten in the same furnace of her fiery heart. She is dark and moody, sudden and ill-fated, and rends her young like a cannibal lioness; and she is old and wise, and remembers Hur of the Chaldees which Uruk built, and that Temple of Bel which rose in seven pyramids to symbolise the planets, and Birs-i-Nimrud, and Haran, and she bears still, as a thing of yesterday, old Persepolis and the tomb of Cyrus, and those cloister-like vihârah-temples of the ancient Buddhists, cut from the Himalayan rock; and returning from the Far East, I stopped at Ismailia, and so to Cairo, and saw where Memphis was, and stood one bright midnight before that great pyramid of Shafra, and that dumb Sphynx, and, seated at the well of one of the rock-tombs, looked till tears of pity streamed down my cheeks: for great is the earth, and her Ages, but man 'passeth away.' These tombs have pillars extremely like the two palace-pillars, only that these are round, and mine are square: for I chose it so: but the same band near the top, then over this the closed lotus-flower, then the small square plinth, which separates them from the architrave, only mine have no architrave; the tombs consist of a little outer temple or court, then comes a well, and inside another chamber, where, I suppose, the dead were, a ribbon-like astragal surrounding the walls, which are crowned with boldly-projecting cornices, surmounted by an abacus. And here, till the pressing want of food drove me back, I remained: for more and more the earth over-grows me, wooes me, assimilates me; so that I ask myself this question: 'Must I not, in time, cease to be a man, and become a small earth, precisely her copy, extravagantly weird and fierce, half-demoniac, half-ferine, wholly mystic―morose and turbulent―fitful, and deranged, and sad―like her?'
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"The Purple Cloud"
Written by M.P. Shiel
(M.P. シール)
Translated by shigeyuki