81歳の女性と９０歳の男性 An 81-year old Woman & a 90-year-old Man

81歳の女性と９０歳の男性

英語の番組で「モス・ラジオ・アワー」というのがある。これは自分の特異な経験をステージに立って聴衆に向かって話す番組だ。

きのう聞いたのは面白かった。８１歳の女性が、７０歳のときに小説を出版して、その小説を読んだ人が、黄色いぼろぼろの紙タオルを女性に送ってきた。メッセージに「このタオル覚えていますか」と書いてある。それは、女性が18歳のとき海洋研究室で働いていたが、同僚の研究員の男性にあげたものであった。男性は２８歳であった。もう60年以上前のことだ。今、９０歳になる男性は６０年以上ずっと持っていたことになる。

覚えていると返事をし、それ以来男性と文通するようになった。女性は夫の暴力に耐えられなくて離婚しており、五年前に子供をなくしていた。男性は妻を亡くしており、同じく５年前に子供をなくしていた。二人は同じような経験をしていることから急に身近に感ずるようになった。ある時、男性から七本の番号付きの花が送られてきた（花の名前は英語で私にはよくわからなかった）。最初はHの文字からから始まる花、次がEから始まる花、次にLから、Oから、Vから、Eから、そして最後にSから始まる花であった。

 女性の友達は、ぜひ男性に会いに行くべきだと言う。そして、彼女は最後に話をこうくくった。 

「それでね、みなさん、今私の机の上にはカリフォルニアに行くチケットがのっているのですよ」

 聴衆から大歓声があがった。

 An 81-year old Woman & a 90-year-old Man

　I often listen to an English radio program, “Moth Radio Hour,” in which the speaker talks about his or her unique experience to the audience.

  The program I listened to yesterday was interesting. An 81-year-old woman was the speaker. According to her, she published a book at the age of 72. A man living in California who read it sent her a worn-out yellow paper towel with the message, “Do you remember this towel?” It was the towel she gave to a 28-year-old co-worker at a marine research laboratory some 60 years ago. The man, now 90 years old, had kept it for more than 60 years.

   She wrote to him, “Yes, I remember.” They began to correspond with each other. She had divorced because she could not stand her ex-husband’s violence. She had lost her child five years before. The man had his wife deceased and had lost his child five years before, too.

   She and the man suddenly became close with each other because of the similar experience.

   One day, she received seven numbered flowers. The first letter of the first flower was “H.” (I don’t know their exact names in English.) The first letter of the second was “E,” that of the third was “L,” the fourth “O,” the fifth “V,” the sixth “E,” and the last “S."

   When she told her friend about him, she strongly suggested to her that she should go to California to meet him.

   The speaker finished her talk by saying, “Now, everyone, I have an air ticket on my desk.” The audience applauded enthusiastically.

北斎と馬琴 Hokusai and Bakin (an illustrator and a novelist)

 北斎と馬琴

狐はどこに描いてあるでしょう

「葛飾北斎伝」（飯島虚心著）に、葛飾北斎が曲亭馬琴と喧嘩をしたと書いてある。

　馬琴は読本作家で、その読本に北斎が挿絵を描いていた。『三七全伝南柯夢』（さんしちぜんでんなんかのゆめ）という三勝と半七が心中しようとする場面で、北斎は勝手に挿絵に狐を描いた。馬琴は狐の絵が気に食わない。話には狐のことには一切触れていないからだ。「狐を削れ」「いや、削らない。二人は狐にとりつかれたように気が狂ったことを現わすために、狐は必要だ」と言い争う。

　北斎はどういう狐を描いたのかと思い、図書館で「三七全伝南柯夢』を借りてきて挿絵を全部調べたが狐の絵はない。ネットでも調べたが、狐はどこにもない。北斎は狐を削ったのかと思ったが、もう一度、丁寧に調べてみたら、あった、あった。小さな狐が七匹ちゃんと描いてある。見落とすところであった。

　北斎と馬琴はこのことで喧嘩をしたのかと思うと、二人とも自分の仕事に真剣だったのだ。

　さて、上の写真で、どこに狐がいるでしょう。

  Hokusai and Bakin (an illustrator and a novelist)

According to “Katsushika Hokusai Den” (Biography of Katsushika Hokusai) written by Kyoshin Iijima, Hokusai once had a quarrel with Kyokutei Bakin.

Bakin was a novelist near the end of Edo period (19^th century) and Hokusai was a painter, who drew illustrations for Bakin’s novels. Hokusai drew foxes in a scene of “Sanhichi Zenden Nanka no Yume” in which Sankatsu (a woman) and Hanhichi (a man) tried to commit a love suicide. Bakin did not like the illustration of foxes because he did not mention anything about foxes in the novel, nor did he give permission to Hokusai to draw the animals.  

   Bakin said, “Erase the foxes,” but Hokusai refused saying, “Foxes are necessary because I want to suggest that the couple were as insane as those who were haunted by foxes.”

  I wanted to see the foxes Hokusai drew, went to a library, and borrowed the book aforementioned. I check all the illustrations in it but failed to find the picture of the foxes. I googled the novel, but there were no foxes in it. I thought Hokusai had erased the animals as Bakin wanted him to, but one more time I looked at each illustration with the utmost care one by one, and at last, I found the foxes. There were seven of them and were so tiny that you would miss them.

  Considering the quarrel over the tiny foxes, or in other words, a trivial matter, I admire Hokusai and Bakin because I think they were truly serious about their jobs. They did not make light of even a trifling thing.

  Look at the picture above, can you find the foxes?