PART I // chapter 6-4

[모나리자]

하지만 계단은 마치 모두가 잠든 것처럼 조용했다.... 그는 전날의 일을 잊은 채로 잠을 자고 아무것도 하지 않고 아무것도 준비하지 않은 것이 이상하고 괴상하게 느껴졌다.... 그러는 사이에 아마도 6시가 되었을 것이다. 그리고 그의 졸음과 무감각은 이상하고 열이 나는, 마치 산만한 서둘러짐으로 이어졌다. 하지만 준비해야 할 것은 별로 없었다.

그는 모든 것을 생각하고 아무것도 잊지 않는 데 온 힘을 기울였다. 그리고 그의 심장은 계속 뛰고 쿵쾅거려서 거의 숨을 쉴 수 없었다. 먼저 그는 올가미를 만들어 외투에 꿰매야 했다. 순식간에 할 수 있는 일이었다. 그는 베개 밑을 뒤져서 그 아래에 쑤셔 넣은 린넨 중에서 낡고 씻지 않은 셔츠를 골랐다.

그는 그 누더기에서 폭이 2인치, 길이가 약 16인치인 긴 띠를 찢었다. 그는 이 띠를 두 조각으로 접고, 두꺼운 면 소재로 된 넓고 튼튼한 여름용 외투(그의 유일한 겉옷)를 벗고, 왼쪽 겨드랑이 아래 안쪽에 걸레의 두 끝을 꿰매기 시작했습니다. 그는 꿰매는 동안 손이 떨렸지만, 코트를 다시 입었을 때 아무것도 보이지 않도록 성공적으로 꿰매었습니다.

그는 오래 전에 바늘과 실을 준비했고, 종이 한 장으로 테이블 위에 올려놓았습니다. 올가미에 관해서는, 그것은 그 자신의 매우 독창적인 장치였습니다. 올가미는 도끼를 위해 고안된 것이었습니다. 그가 손으로 도끼를 거리로 들고 다닐 수는 없었습니다. 그리고 코트 아래에 숨겨져 있다면, 그는 여전히 손으로 그것을 지탱해야 했을 것이고, 그것은 눈에 띄었을 것입니다. 이제 그는 도끼의 머리를 올가미에 넣기만 하면, 그것은 그의 팔 아래 안쪽에 조용히 매달려 있을 것입니다.

그는 코트 주머니에 손을 넣고, 손잡이의 끝을 끝까지 잡을 수 있었기 때문에, 흔들리지 않았습니다. 그리고 코트는 매우 꽉 차 있었고, 사실 일반적인 자루였기 때문에 주머니에 넣은 손으로 무언가를 잡고 있다는 것을 밖에서는 볼 수 없었습니다. 이 올가미도 그는 2주 전에 디자인했습니다.

그가 이것을 다 만들고 나서, 그는 소파와 바닥 사이의 작은 구멍에 손을 넣고 왼쪽 모서리에서 더듬어 오래 전에 준비해 숨겨두었던 담보를 꺼냈습니다.

그러나 이 담보물은 은색 담배 케이스 크기와 두께의 매끈하게 깎은 나무 조각에 불과했습니다. 그는 작업장이 있는 안뜰을 돌아다니던 중 이 나무 조각을 집어들었습니다. 그런 다음 그는 거리에서 동시에 집어들었던 얇고 매끈한 철 조각을 나무에 더했습니다. 조금 더 작은 철 조각을 나무 조각에 얹고, 실을 교차하고 다시 교차하여 매우 단단히 고정했습니다. 그런 다음 그것들을 깨끗하고 흰 종이에 조심스럽고 정성스럽게 싸서 묶은 것을 풀기 매우 어렵게 묶었습니다.

이것은 그녀가 매듭을 풀려고 하는 동안 잠시 그녀의 주의를 돌리고 시간을 벌기 위한 것이었습니다. 무게를 더하기 위해 철제 띠를 추가했기 때문에, 그 여자는 "그것"이 나무로 만들어졌다는 것을 첫 순간에 알아채지 못할 것입니다. 이 모든 것은 그가 미리 소파 아래에 보관해 두었습니다. 그는 방금 담보를 꺼냈을 때 마당에서 누군가 갑자기 다가오는 소리를 들었습니다.

"오래전에 여섯 시가 났습니다." "오래전에요! 세상에!" 그는 문으로 달려가서 귀를 기울이고 모자를 집어 들고 고양이처럼 조심스럽게, 소리 없이 열세 개의 계단을 내려가기 시작했습니다. 그는 여전히 가장

중요한 일을 해야 했습니다. 주방에서 도끼를 훔치는 것입니다. 그 일은 오래전에 도끼로 해야 한다고 결심했습니다. 그는 또한 주머니용 가지치기 칼을 가지고 있었지만, 칼에 의지할 수 없었고, 더욱이 자신의 힘에 의지할 수 없었기 때문에 결국 도끼로 결심했습니다.

우리는 그가 이 문제에 대해 내린 모든 최종 결의와 관련하여 한 가지 특이한 점을 지적할 수 있습니다. 그것은 하나의 이상한 특징을 가지고 있었습니다. 더 최종적일수록 그의 눈에 더 흉측하고 더 어리석어 보였습니다. 그의 모든 고통스러운 내면의 갈등에도 불구하고, 그는 그동안 단 한 순간도 자신의 계획이 실행될 것이라고 믿을 수 없었습니다.

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But all was quiet on the stairs as if everyone was asleep.... It seemed to him strange and monstrous that he could have slept in such forgetfulness from the previous day and had done nothing, had prepared nothing yet.... And meanwhile perhaps it had struck six. And his drowsiness and stupefaction were followed by an extraordinary, feverish, as it were distracted haste. But the preparations to be made were few.

He concentrated all his energies on thinking of everything and forgetting nothing; and his heart kept beating and thumping so that he could hardly breathe. First he had to make a noose and sew it into his overcoat—a work of a moment. He rummaged under his pillow and picked out amongst the linen stuffed away under it, a worn out, old unwashed shirt.

From its rags he tore a long strip, a couple of inches wide and about sixteen inches long. He folded this strip in two, took off his wide, strong summer overcoat of some stout cotton material (his only outer garment) and began sewing the two ends of the rag on the inside, under the left armhole. His hands shook as he sewed, but he did it successfully so that nothing showed outside when he put the coat on again.

The needle and thread he had got ready long before and they lay on his table in a piece of paper. As for the noose, it was a very ingenious device of his own; the noose was intended for the axe. It was impossible for him to carry the axe through the street in his hands. And if hidden under his coat he would still have had to support it with his hand, which would have been noticeable. Now he had only to put the head of the axe in the noose, and it would hang quietly under his arm on the inside.

Putting his hand in his coat pocket, he could hold the end of the handle all the way, so that it did not swing; and as the coat was very full, a regular sack in fact, it could not be seen from outside that he was holding something with the hand that was in the pocket. This noose, too, he had designed a fortnight before.

When he had finished with this, he thrust his hand into a little opening between his sofa and the floor, fumbled in the left corner and drew out the pledge, which he had got ready long before and hidden there.

This pledge was, however, only a smoothly planed piece of wood the size and thickness of a silver cigarette case. He picked up this piece of wood in one of his wanderings in a courtyard where there was some sort of a workshop. Afterwards he had added to the wood a thin smooth piece of iron, which he had also picked up at the same time in the street. Putting the iron which was a little the smaller on the piece of wood, he fastened them very firmly, crossing and re-crossing the thread round them; then wrapped them carefully and daintily in clean white paper and tied up the parcel so that it would be very difficult to untie it.

This was in order to divert the attention of the old woman for a time, while she was trying to undo the knot, and so to gain a moment. The iron strip was added to give weight, so that the woman might not guess the first minute that the “thing” was made of wood. All this had been stored by him beforehand under the sofa. He had only just got the pledge out when he heard someone suddenly about in the yard.

“It struck six long ago.” “Long ago! My God!” He rushed to the door, listened, caught up his hat and began to descend his thirteen steps cautiously, noiselessly, like a cat. He had still the most

important thing to do—to steal the axe from the kitchen. That the deed must be done with an axe he had decided long ago. He had also a pocket pruning-knife, but he could not rely on the knife and still less on his own strength, and so resolved finally on the axe.

We may note in passing, one peculiarity in regard to all the final resolutions taken by him in the matter; they had one strange characteristic: the more final they were, the more hideous and the more absurd they at once became in his eyes. In spite of all his agonising inward struggle, he never for a single instant all that time could believe in the carrying out of his plans.