[빈처] 앞부분 영역본 초고

<빈처> 앞부분입니다.책의 분량 때문에 분재할 계획입니다.현 원고는 3명이 만든 번역문입니다. 7일 모임 때 '고견'을 들고 오시기 바랍니다.그 이전에 clean053@naver.com 으로 말씀하셔도 됩니다.  A Poor Man's Wife   1 “Where on earth is it?”Opening up the wardrobe door to search for something, Wife whispers to herself.“What is missing?”I asked her, sitting at the desk, going back and forth on the pages absent-mindedly.“I am pretty sure I have seen one last silk jacket here.”“……”I could not respond to that statement. I know exactly why she is looking for it. She is trying to pawn it. Despite the fact that I couldn’t bring a single coin home, I still had guts to ask her for meal. For that reason, she often pawned house goods and clothes to make the living.Even now she is looking for the silk jacket to prepare breakfast. I sighed silently, closing the book. Half of spring has passed. Still, wet cold of the night creeps up and surrounds us. Raining, although not so late in the night, no one is in the street. The air being silent as if it were empty, rain drops bring a thought of endless sadness.“Damn it… I don't care anymore.”I muttered, grooming up my messy hair with my hands. However, my words cause even more pitiful thoughts. I sighed again and collapsed on the desk and closed my eyes, leaning my head on my left arm.I suddenly remember what happened today.It was when I just lighted up my cigarette after having had a late lunch. T, who works at Hanseong Bank, came to play because it was his day off. All my relatives live not far away, but I seldom get in touch with them. I don't want to share my poor life with them, and I didn't want to see them frowning in advance and making me shut up, because they think I would be asking for financial help, which I never did. Therefore, I did not visit them, nor did they visit me. Still, T visited us often, especially because he was a close relative.T is a person with a sincere and innocent personality, who is even empathetic to the smallest things. The two of us, being of the same age, were always compared by our relatives. Of course, I have never had a good reputation. "T knows money and is a sincere person, so one day he will be rich! But K(my name) is not good at all. You wrote something in that superior ‘Eonmun'(a term used to lower Korean language) and you are going around telling people that one day you will be a famous writer of Joseon! You pathetic wretch!This was their eval‎uation of us. The fact that I eager to lead myself to be a great writer was irritating to them for no reason. Furthermore, I have not contributed a penny to their birthdays or weddings. T, who apparently has a stable job, has helped them with one thing or another. One of the uncles went far and said, “In no time, T will live well, and K will be a beggar. Mark my words!”I don't tell anyone else to listen, but I'm sure that's what everyone thinks in their hearts. Although they never publicly said so, I am sure my own parents and siblings would have the same feeling towards me.Of course, my parents scold me when they are angry.“If you continue to live like that, you will end up begging.”But he comforted himself, and he also comforted his daughter-in-law.“Some people bloom later than others.”Although he lost his faith in my success, he still wants his son to succeed.Anyways, these are examples of T's personality. When he came to our house, he gave me a cheerful smile and told me funny stories on a purpose. For this reason, T was a very welcome presence for our couple, who lived quietly together.Today, he lively enters the house, puts a long piece of paper wrapped in newspaper on the floor, as if he wants us to pay attention to it, and busily unties his shoelaces.“What is this?”I asked.“It's my wife's parasol. I bought a new one because it was already worn out, and she told me that the parasol ribs were broken.”He answers with a smile as he steps onto the floor. He looked at my wife and suddenly said,“Madam, would you like to take a look?”He took off the wrapping paper and opened the parasol. It was a parasol with a couple of plum blossoms embroidered on a white silk background.“There were many good umbrellas of black color, but they looked too dull… I didn't like any of the gray or yellow ones, that's why I bought this.”His tone felt as if he were announcing to everyone, 'No one could buy an umbrella better than this.'“This one is very good, too.”My wife compliments on the umbrella. The wife opens the parasol and looks around as if she were possessed. In my wife's eyes, I can clearly see the thought of “I wish I had one like this.” I suddenly had rush of an unpleasant thought. “Hey, talk to me.” said I to T, who had a smile on his face, looking at my wife examining the umbrella. And then I dragged him into the room.T went back after talking for a long time about inflation, his salary raised, how he had quite a profit after buying stocks for a few weeks, and how he excelled in performance at the recent banker ability competition.After I sent T, I was thinking about the ending of my novel. Then, my wife's trembling voice can be heard right next to my ear.“Darling!”His wife's pale face is slightly red. My wife sits right next to me.“You should try to find a way to make a living, too.”“……”“Here she goes again!”I was in a bad mood. But I had no excuse, so I just kept my mouth shut.“Shouldn't we get to live like everyone else?”My wife seems to have been greatly stimulated by the T's parasol. In the past, she was determined to live like a poor artist's wife. That's why She didn't say such a thing. However, when she was greatly stimulated by something, she revealed her inner feelings that she had endured. When I hear my wife say that I empathized with her thinking, 'My wife deserves to act that way...' Still, I didn't feel good.The same can be said about this time. Although I did have a sympathy for her "reasonable” words, it was hard to bear the unpleasant feeling. I held it in for a moment, then muttered, finally revealing an unpleasant feeling.“Things will be better soon…!”“I had Enough of your 'better soon.' Not in a thousand years.”My wife's face turns red. The wife uttered harsh words in an excited tone that I had never seen before. In a closer distant, my wife's eyes were seen to be filled with tears.I was absent-minded for a moment. Soon a fiery anger filled up my heart. I couldn't stand it.“I'm going to get married to the youngest, but who told me to get married? What's with all that artist's wife!”You should've married a man who would have done anything for money. Why did you marry me instead! What kind of an artist’s wife are you!In a ferocious tone, he snapped at her.“Ek…!”My wife's face changed slightly and looked at me in a bewilderment. Then she gradually lowers her head, and finally drops tears on the floor.I recall back what happened today. My wife's warm heart looking for clothes to the pawnshop to prepare my breakfast tomorrow… The sad thoughts that cannot be expressed in words seem to scratch my heart and body to the bone like the autumn wind.The lonely sound of rain, which becomes loud and quite in a repetitive fashion, feels even more miserable due to the silent night air. The windshield covering the lamp is full of soot, and the light leaking from it is as subtle as the moonlight covered by clouds. The gold leaf title of the Western book that I had such a hard time to purchase catches the light and flashes. 2 My wife, standing blankly in front of the closet, speaks quietly about what came to her mind, nodding her head.“Oh… That's right, that day….”I ask.“Did you find it?”“No, it has already been pawned… The day your brother who lives in Incheon visited us…”“……”The one my wife was looking for eagerly is already in the pawnshop storage and covered in dust! My wife is a person who cares with all her heart about even a small bowl. I don't know whether such a wife pawned silk clothes or not. It is understandable how much poverty has broken her spirit.“……”“……”We couldn't speak for a while. I became so frustrated that I rather wished I could fight with someone. I had a boiling, strange feeling that I wanted to shout and cry my heart out. I openly expressed this feeling to my wife.“You must be tired of living because of the increasingly difficult living conditions?”The wife, who was standing as if she had lost her mind, asks back with her blurred eyes wide open.“What? Why?”“You must be!”“I have never thought of it.”I get more and more excited while talking. So even when my wife, in a shaky voice, asked, “How could you even think so?”“Do you think I stupid?”I answered her question with another question with a furiously raised voice.My wife gives me a slightly resentful look. I looked at my wife in disgust and said,“You don't imagine that I didn't know that. You've been patient until today, but you're changing! Of course, it's understandable, but...!” While letting out these words, I recall back my past events appear like photos.It was six years ago (I was 16 and my wife was 18), not long after we got married. I left home to drink the sea water of knowledge. Like willow leaves fluttering in the wind, I visited China one day and Japan another. Then I ran out of the funds for studying abroad. I came back without sufficiently drinking the sea water of knowledge.When I returned home, my wife, who was like a bud to bloom when she got married, had turned into a withering flower. The light that she once had on both of her beautiful cheeks disappeared, and I could observe a couple of lines of wrinkles on the forehead.I ended up living with my wife in the house which in-laws provided us. At first, I could manage to live, but since I had no income, it became increasingly difficult after two months. Nevertheless, I devoted myself only to reading books that were not economically helpful and to writing that did not contribute to gaining the fame as a writer. I lived without knowing whether the sun was setting or dawning, whether there was any rice left in the house, or whether there was any firewood. It was only my wife's contribution that I sometimes have delicious side dishes on my dining table, and the clothes I wore were not so dirty.My wife didn't have any income. My wife went to her parents' house to get food and clothes, despite her shyness, but asking for help like that happens only once or twice. It is not something that can be done every time during such long years. It stops after once or twice.Finally, the wife had no choice but to pawn the clothes, furniture, and bowls she brought when she got married. I knew my wife was doing that but pretended not to know. After all the hard time she was going through, my wife still believed in my success. And she prayed and prayed for my success.One day, when I threw the manuscript paper and got angry at myself because I couldn't do what I wanted to do while writing, my wife said,“Why are you so impatient? I believe there will be a day when your name will shine in the world. The suffering we are in is only the groundwork for the success in the future.”I once wandered abroad and fell into a new fashion and hated old-fashioned women for no reason. Thus, I regretted getting married early. Whenever I heard that a boy and a girl were dating, my heart pounded, envied, and felt sad for no reason.However, as I got older, such thoughts disappeared, and when I returned home and lived with my wife, I unexpectedly found a warm and pure side in her. Her love was not selfish love, but devoted love. How happy my heart must have been as I realized it more and more! Once she fell asleep straightening the clothes wrinkles until late at night. Looking at her pale face I said, “Ah, you are an angel that gives me comfort and resources.”I was so moved that I shed tears by myself.While not having much talent, I constantly devoted myself to creation and reading with the ambition of making my name known as a writer. Of course, I am not enough to be recognized by others yet. That is our life is in the worst state.My wife has endured this difficulty for nearly two years. However, I have not been able to be paid off from my writing work, and as a result, the number of furniture placed in the room has decreased and the clothes that were filled in the closet have almost disappeared.As a result, even my wife, who was very patient, sometimes sighs these days. She stands at the end of the floor and looks at the distant mountains endlessly, and when she sometimes sews, she holds still absent-minded, like a person who lost her mind. I also found tears in my wife's worried eyes sitting in the blurred sunlight reflected in the window. At that time, I was caught in an indescribably lonely thought and said,“My darling!”Then the wife startles and turns her head to the other side, wiping away tears with her skirt and replies, “Yes?” in a trembling voice of sadness.I feel my body cringe as if someone poured cold water on my back, and a pitiful thought flowing coldly in my heart. My dissatisfaction I had with myself gets worse. I am blaming on myself thinking, ‘It's because I'm not qualified as a husband.’Then it becomes even more unbearable.‘It is understandable that she acts that way....’A sympathy for the wife gets to arise. At the same time, unpleasant thoughts arise.I muttered a complaint to himself, ‘Women are always like that.’Those events weighed on my chest one by one, as if projected by a magic lantern, and now I have no courage to say anything. The only person in the world who trusted me and comforted me now thinks otherwise! In her heart, she would blame me thinking, ‘You've made my life miserable for six years! You wretch!'As I was thinking like that, my wife's passionate love seemed to fade. No, it seemed to have disappeared without a trace. I was flustered with emotion and said,“I didn't mean to make you suffer! I want to buy you silk clothes, and I want to buy you a good parasol! That's why I'm studying all day. People seem to be thinking that I am just wasting my time, but that's not true! Can't you see it all along?”I lost my stern stance and made a ridiculous excuse, revealing the increasingly lousy truth.“It doesn't matter if everyone in the world laughs at me and blasphemes me. But what should I do if my wife doesn't trust me?”While saying that, I was overwhelmed with emotion and finally fell on the floor saying, “Ah.”At that moment, my wife, who was lowering her head and biting her lips endlessly, suddenly said,“Darling!”She cries and falls on my face as if she is collapsing.“Forgive...”She is speechless by the crying that comes out from her heart, and she presses my face with her two fiery cheeks and sobs. Warm tears that spring from my wife's eyes spread between her cheeks and mine. Tears are also flowing down my eyes. The uneasy thoughts disappeared like spring snow melting in my wife's hot tears.After a while, we washed away our tears. I felt somewhat cool and unburdened inside.“Please forgive me! I didn't know you'd think so.”As she talks, her tear swollen eye lids slow move as if in pain.“However difficult my life may be, I would never lose faith in you. I made up my mind in the past…”Looking at my wife's tearful face, who was making excuses in a calm voice, I managed to relieve my mind and body. (to be continued in the next issue) 1월 8일 일부 수정