என்னைப் பற்றிய ஒரு குறிப்பில் அராத்து பின்வருமாறு எழுதியுள்ளார்:
கோசமாய் கடற்கரையில் நள்ளிரவு 2 மணிக்கு , தஸ்தாவஸ்கி , டால்ஸ்டாய் எல்லாம் குடும்பக் கதை எழுத்தாளர்கள் என்று சொன்ன (துர்மக்னிகோவோ என்னவோ பெயர் மறந்து விட்டது) ஒருவரைப் பற்றி ஆரம்பித்து, அவரின் குருவைச் சொல்லி, நடுவில் நபக்கோவ் பற்றி சேர்த்துக்கொண்டு, கிட்டத்தட்ட ஒரு மணி நேரம் நான் ஸ்டாப்பாக பேசிக்கொண்டு இருந்தார் சாரு.
நாங்களும் லேசாக கண்கள் கலங்க அதைத் தனியாக ஒரு குழுவாக அமர்ந்து கேட்டுக்கொண்டு இருந்தோம். கண் கலங்கியது எதற்கென்றால், கோசமாய் வந்தும் நைட் லைஃபையெல்லாம் விட்டு விட்டு, அதே துஸ்மெக்னிகோவ் , துர்மஸ்கினிகோவ் பற்றி பேசத்தானா என்றுதான்
***
கோ சமாய் தீவு ஒரு சொர்க்கத் தீவு. தாய்லாந்தில் உள்ளது. அங்கே போயும் துஸ்மெக்னிகோவ் துர்மஸ்கினிகோவ் பற்றியெல்லாம் பேசி நண்பர்களை அழ வைத்ததற்கு மன்னிப்புக் கேட்டுக் கொள்கிறேன். ஆனால் அதையெல்லாம் இன்னமும் ஞாபகம் வைத்துக் கொண்டிருக்கும் அராத்துவையும் மற்ற நண்பர்களையும் பாராட்டுகிறேன். தஸ்தயேவ்ஸ்கி, தல்ஸ்தோய் ஆகிய இருவரையும் குடும்பக் கதை எழுத்தாளர்கள் என்று சொன்னவர் ஒரு ஃப்ரெஞ்சுக்காரர். பெயர் ஆலன் ராப் க்ரியே. Alain Robbe-Grillet. இவர் ஃப்ரெஞ்ச் இலக்கியத்திலேயே அதிகம் அறியப்படாதவர். ஆனால் இவர் தான் தன்னுடைய குரு என்கிறார் மிஷல் ஃபூக்கோ. ஆலனின் தோழர் மற்றும் குரு Alain Resnais. அலென் ரெஸ்னே. இவருடைய last in marianbad என்ற படத்தைப் பார்க்கும்படி அராத்துவையும் நண்பர்களையும் கேட்டுக் கொள்கிறேன். ஆலன் ராப் க்ரியே பற்றி அராத்துவிடம் ஏற்கனவே பேசியிருக்கிறேன். அவருடைய பீச் என்ற சிறுகதை பற்றி உங்கள் கருத்து என்ன என்றும் கேட்டிருக்கிறேன். என்ன பதில் சொன்னார் என்று மறந்து விட்டேன்.
பின் வருவது அந்தக் கதையின் ஆங்கில மொழிபெயர்ப்பு:
The Beach
Three children are walking along a beach. They move forward, side by side, holding hands. They are roughly the same height, and probably the same age too: about twelve. The one in the middle, though, is a little smaller than the other two.
Apart from these three children, the whole long beach is deserted. It is a fairly wide, even strip of sand, with neither isolated rocks nor pools, and with only the slightest downward slope between the steep cliff, which looks impassable, and the sea.
It is a very fine day. The sun illuminates the yellow sand with a violent, vertical light. There is not a cloud in the sky. Neither is there any wind. The water is blue and calm, without the faintest swell from the open sea, although the beach is completely exposed as far as the horizon.
But, at regular intervals, a sudden wave, always the same, originating a few yards away from the shore, suddenly rises and then immediately breaks, always in the same line. And one does not have the impression that the water is flowing and then ebbing; on the contrary, it is as if the whole movement were being accomplished in the same place. The swelling of the Water at first produces a slight depression on the shore side, and the wave recedes a little, with a murmur of rolling gravel; then it bursts, and spreads milkily over the slope, but it is merely regaining the ground it has lost. It is only very occasionally that it rises slightly higher and for a moment moistens a few extra inches.
And everything becomes still again; the sea, smooth and blue, stops at exactly the same level on the yellow sand along the beach where, side by side, the three children are walking.
They are blond, almost the same colour as the sand: their skin is a little darker, their hair a little lighter. They are all three dressed alike; shorts and shirt, both of a coarse, faded blue linen. They are walking side by side, holding hands, in a straight line, parallel to the sea and parallel to the cliff; almost equidistant from both, a little nearer the water, though. The sun is at the zenith, and leaves no shadow at their feet.
In front of them is virgin sand, yellow and smooth from the rock to the water. The children move forward in a straight line, at an even speed, without making the slightest little detour, calm, holding hands. Behind them the sand, barely moist, is marked by the three lines of prints left by their bare feet, three even series of similar and equally spaced footprints, quite deep, unblemished.
The children are looking straight ahead. They don’t so much as glance at the tall cliff on their left, or at the sea, whose little waves are periodically breaking, on the other side. They are even less inclined to turn round and look back at the distance they have come. They continue on their way with even, rapid steps.
*
In front of them is a flock of sea-birds walking along the shore, just at the edge of the waves. They are moving parallel to the children, in the same direction, about a hundred yards away from them. But, as the birds are going much less quickly, the children are catching them up. And while the sea is continually obliterating the traces of their star-shaped feet, the children’s footsteps remain clearly inscribed in the barely moist sand, where the three lines of prints continue to lengthen.
The depths of these prints is constant: just less than an inch. They are not deformed; either by a crumbling of the edges, or by too deep an impression of toe or heel. They look as if they have been mechanically punched out of a more mobile, surface-layer of ground.
Their triple line extends thus ever farther, and seems at the same time to narrow, to become slower, to merge into a single line, which divides the shore into two strips along the whole of its length, and ends in a minute mechanical movement at the far end: the alternate fall and rise of six bare feet, almost as if they are marking time.
But as the bare feet move farther away, they get nearer to the birds. Not only are they covering the ground rapidly, but the relative distance separating the two groups is also diminishing far more quickly, compared to the distance already covered. There are soon only a few paces between them. . . .
But when the children finally seem just about to catch up with the birds, they suddenly flap their wings and fly off, first one, then two, then ten. . . And all the white and grey birds in the flock describe a curve over the sea and then come down again on to the sand and start walking again, still in the same direction, just at the edge of the waves, about a hundred yards away.
At this distance, the movements of the water are almost imperceptible, except perhaps through a sudden change of colour, every ten seconds, at the moment when the breaking foam shines in the sun.
*
Taking no notice of the tracks they are carving so precisely in the virgin sand, nor of the little waves on their right, nor of the birds, now flying, now walking, in front of them, the three blond children move forward side by side, with even, rapid steps, holding hands.
Their three sunburnt faces, darker than their hair, are alike. The expression is the same: serious, thoughtful, perhaps a little anxious. Their features, too, are identical, though it is obvious that two of these children are boys and the third a girl. The girl’s hair is only slightly longer, slightly more curly, and her limbs just a trifle more slender. But their clothes are exactly the same: shorts and shirt, both of coarse, faded blue linen.
The girl is on the extreme right, nearest the sea. On her left the boy who is slightly the smaller of the two. The other boy, nearest the cliff, is the same height as the girl.
In front of them the smooth, yellow sand stretches as far as the eye can see. On their left rises, almost vertically, the wall of brown stone, with no apparent way through it. On their right, motionless and blue all the way to the horizon, the level surface of the sea is fringed with a sudden little wave, which immediately breaks and runs away in white foam.
*
Then, ten seconds later, the swelling water again hollows out the same depression on the shore side, with a murmur of rolling gravel.
The wavelet breaks; the milky foam again runs up the slope, regaining the few inches of lost ground. During the ensuing silence, the chimes of a far distant bell ring out in the calm air.
‘There’s the bell,’ says the smaller of the boys, the one walking in the middle.
But the sound of the gravel being sucked up by the sea drowns the extremely faint ringing. They have to wait till the end of the cycle to catch the few remaining sounds which are distorted by the distance.
‘It’s the first bell,’ says the bigger boy.
The wavelet breaks, on their right. When it is calm again, they can no longer hear anything. The three blonde children are still walking in the same regular rhythm, all three holding hands. In front of them, a sudden contagion affects the flock of birds, who were only a few paces away; they flap their wings and fly off.
They describe the same curve over the water, and then come down on to the sand and start walking again, still in the same direction, just at the edge of the waves, about a hundred yards away.
*
‘Maybe it wasn’t the first,’ the smaller boy continues, ‘if we didn’t hear the other, before . . . ‘
‘We’d have heard it the same,’ replies the boy next to him.
But this hasn’t made them modify their pace; and the same prints, behind them, continue to appear, as they go along, under their six bare feet.
‘We weren’t so close, before,’ says the girl.
After a moment, the bigger of the boys, the one on the
cliff side, says:
‘We’re still a long way off.’
And then all three walk on in silence.
They remain thus silent until the bell, still as indistinct, again rings out in the calm air. The bigger of the boys says then: ‘There’s the bell.’ The others don’t answer. The birds, which they had been on the point of catching up, flap their wings and fly off, first one, then two, then ten.
Then the whole flock is once more on the sand, moving along the shore, about a hundred yards in front of the children.
The sea is continually obliterating the star-shaped traces of their feet. The children, on the other hand, who are walking nearer to the cliff, side by side, holding hands, leave deep footprints behind them, whose triple line lengthens parallel to the shore across the very long beach.
On the right, on the side of the level motionless sea, always in the same place the same little wave is breaking.
இந்தக் கதையின் மற்றொரு மொழிபெயர்ப்பை இந்த இணைப்பில் காணலாம். இந்தக் கதையோடு நீங்கள் பேலா தார் இயக்கிய Turin Horse படத்தையும் இணைத்துப் பார்க்க வேண்டும். ஒருநாள் பாரதிராஜாவிடம் துரின் ஹார்ஸ் படத்தில் முதல் பத்து நிமிடத்தைப் போட்டுக் காண்பித்தேன். இப்படியும் சினிமா எடுக்க முடியுமா என்றார்.
உலகின் மிக முக்கியமான கதைகளில் ஒன்றாக இதைக் கருதுகிறேன். உங்கள் கருத்தை எழுதவும்.