I had my glasses on again, and was walking on.
"How did your husband react to his sister's accusations?"
I said.
"He was remarkably kind."
"Kind?"
"Oh, yes, in the circumstances. Because she started up a lot of gossip in the neighbourhood. It was only a small town. It was a long time before I could persuade him to send her to a home for the blind where she could be looked after. There was a terrible bond between them. Unconscious incest."
"Didn't you know that when you married him? I should have thought it would have been obvious."
She looked at me again. "I had not studied psychology at that time," she said.
I thought, neither had I.
We were silent for the third turn about the lake. Then she said, "Well, I was telling you how I came to study psychology and practise it. My husband had this breakdown after his sister went away. He had delusions. He kept imagining he saw eyes looking at him everywhere. He still sees them from time to time. But eyes, you see. That's significant. Unconsciously he felt he had blinded his sister. Because unconsciously he wanted to do so. He keeps confessing that he did so."
Muriel SparkのThe Dark Glassesからの英文です。
過去の回想シーンから現代に戻って、主人公とDr Grayが湖のまわりを一緒に歩きながら話している場面です。
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最後の方に
He kept imagining he saw eyes looking at him everywhere. He still sees them from time to time. But eyes, you see.
とあるのですが、
But eyes, you see.のButはどういう意味になって、この一文はどう訳すのでしょうか?
教えてください。よろしくお願いします。
前文は
"It can all be explained psychologically, as we've tried to show to my husband. We've told him and told him, and given him every sort of treatment--shock, insulin, everything. And after all, the stuff didn't have any effect on his sister immediately, and when she did go blind it was caused by acute glaucoma. She would probably have lost her sight in any case. Well, she went off her head completely and accused her brother of having put the wrong drug in the bottle deliberately. This is the interesting part from the psychological point of view--she said she had seen something that he didn't want her to see, something disreputable. She said he wanted to blind the eye that saw it. She said...."
We were walking round the lake for the second time. When we came to the spot where I had seen her face reflected I stopped and looked over the water.
"I'm boring you."
"No, no."
"I wish you would take off those glasses."
I took them off for a moment. I rather liked her for her innocence in not recognizing me, though she looked hard and said, "There's a subconscious reason why you wear them."
"Dark glasses hide dark thoughts," I said.
"Is that a saying?"
"Not that I've heard. But it is one now."
She looked at me anew. But she didn't recognize me.
These fishers of the mind have no eye for outward things. Instead, she was "recognizing" my mind:I already came under some category of hers.
となっています。
お礼
このButは「強調・感動・実感性・意外性、またはこれらの混合」を表すということがわかりました。 「実に、まさに、本当に、まったくもって、~とは参った、恐れ入りやの鬼子母神、いやはや…」という感じになるのですね。 But delicious!の例文もなるほどです。 訳もよくわかりました。 ありがとうございます!