Bugün de Steinbeck var sırada.
Adam Trask ve oğulları. (Aron ve Cal)(Habil ve Kabil) .
Burada iki bilge insan Çinli Lee ve Samuel ortaya çıkıyor.
Din ve tanrı konusunu aktarımlar ve yorumlarla insanların algılaması irdeleniyor. Ortaya tasavvuf felsefesi benzeri bir düşünce çıkıyor. İnsan Tanrı’nın bir parçasıdır ve kararları ile gelişime yön vermelidir diye düşünüyorum ben.
Tercüme her zaman aslı yansıtmıyor. Ben de romanları da orjinalinden izlemeye çalışıyorum. Bir kelimenin bile yanlış aktarımı insanlığın yaşamını yönlendirebilir. Bu cümleyi başka bir dile çeviren o dilin kuralları ile yönlendirir diye de çevirebilir. Bu da çok yanlış yorumlara yol açar.
Lee bu konuyu 90 yaşlarından büyüklerden oluşan aile meclisine götürüyor. Çinliler eski ahiti o zamanki dilleri de öğrenerek okuyarak, yorumlayıp, iki yılda bu sonuca varıyorlar. Sihirli kelime timshel oluyor.
But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’—that gives a choice.
“It’s a little different from that, really,” said Lee. “I went there because in our family there are a
number of ancient reverend gentlemen who are great scholars. They are thinkers in exactness. A man may spend many years pondering a sentence of the scholar you call Confucius. I thought there might be experts in meaning who could advise me.
“They are fine old men. They smoke their two pipes of opium in the afternoon and it rests and
sharpens them, and they sit through the night and their minds are wonderful. I guess no other people have been able to use opium well.”
Lee dampened his tongue in the black brew. “I respectfully submitted my problem to one of these
sages, read him the story, and told him what I understood from it. The next night four of them met and called me in. We discussed the story all night long.”
Lee laughed. “I guess it’s funny,” he said. “I know I wouldn’t dare tell it to many people. Can you
imagine four old gentlemen, the youngest is over ninety now, taking on the study of Hebrew? They
engaged a learned rabbi. They took to the study as though they were children. Exercise books,
grammar, vocabulary, simple sentences. You should see Hebrew written in Chinese ink with a brush!
The right to left didn’t bother them as much as it would you, since we write up to down. Oh, they were perfectionists! They went to the root of the matter.”
“And you?” said Samuel.
“I went along with them, marveling at the beauty of their proud clean brains. I began to love my
race, and for the first time I wanted to be Chinese. Every two weeks I went to a meeting with them, and in my room here I covered pages with writing. I bought every known Hebrew dictionary. But the old gentlemen were always ahead of me. It wasn’t long before they were ahead of our rabbi; he brought a colleague in. Mr. Hamilton, you should have sat through some of those nights of argument and discussion. The questions, the inspection, oh, the lovely thinking—the beautiful thinking.
“After two years we felt that we could approach your sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of
Genesis. My old gentlemen felt that these words were very important too—’Thou shalt’ and ‘Do
thou.’ And this was the gold from our mining: ‘Thou mayest.’ ‘Thou mayest rule over sin.’ The old
gentlemen smiled and nodded and felt the years were well spent. It brought them out of their Chinese shells too, and right now they are studying Greek.”
’Thou shalt’ and ‘Do thou.’
‘Thou mayest.’ ‘Thou mayest rule over sin.’
Samuel said, “It’s a fantastic story. And I’ve tried to follow and maybe I’ve missed somewhere.
Why is this word so important?”
Lee’s hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. “Don’t you see?”
he cried. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin
ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?”
“Yes, I see. I do see. But you do not believe this is divine law. Why do you feel its importance?”
“Ah!” said Lee. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time. I even anticipated your questions and
I am well prepared. Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable
people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But “Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.” Lee’s voice was a chant of triumph.
Adam said, “Do you believe that, Lee?”
“Yes, I do. Yes, I do. It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of
deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a
man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There’s no godliness there. And do you
know, those old gentlemen who were sliding gently down to death are too interested to die now?”
Adam said, “Do you mean these Chinese men believe the Old Testament?”
Lee said, “These old men believe a true story, and they know a true story when they hear it. They
are critics of truth. They know that these sixteen verses are a history of humankind in any age or
culture or race.
“I know it. I think that’s why I picked him when he was a colt. Do you know I paid two dollars for
him thirty-three years ago? Everything was wrong with him, hoofs like flapjacks, a hock so thick and short and straight there seems no joint at all. He’s hammer-headed and sway-backed. He has a pinched chest and a big behind. He has an iron mouth and he still fights the crupper. With a saddle he feels as though you were riding a sled over a gravel pit. He can’t trot and he stumbles over his feet when he walks. I have never in thirty-three years found one good thing about him. He even has an ugly disposition. He is selfish and quarrelsome and mean and disobedient. To this day I don’t dare walk behind him because he will surely take a kick at me. When I feed him mash he tries to bite my hand. And I love him.”
Lee said, “And you named him ‘Doxology.’ ”
“Surely,” said Samuel, “so ill endowed a creature deserved, I thought, one grand possession. He
hasn’t very long now.”
Adam said, “Maybe you should put him out of his misery.”
“What misery?” Samuel demanded. “He’s one of the few happy and consistent beings I’ve ever
met.”
“He must have aches and pains.”
“Well, he doesn’t think so. Doxology still thinks he’s one hell of a horse. Would you shoot him,
Adam?”
“Yes, I think I would. Yes, I would.”
“You’d take the responsibility?”
“Yes, I think I would. He’s thirty-three. His lifespan is long over.”
Lee had set his lantern on the ground. Samuel squatted beside it and instinctively stretched his
hands for warmth to the butterfly of yellow light.
“I’ve been bothered by something, Adam,” he said.
“What is that?”
“You would really shoot my horse because death might be more comfortable?”
“Well, I meant—”
Samuel said quickly, “Do you like your life, Adam?”
“Of course not.”
“If I had a medicine that might cure you and also might kill you, should I give it to you? Inspect
yourself, man.”
“What medicine?”
“No,” said Samuel. “If I tell you, believe me when I say it may kill you.”
Lee said, “Be careful, Mr. Hamilton. Be careful.”
“What is this?” Adam demanded. “Tell me what you’re thinking of.”
Samuel said softly, “I think for once I will not be careful. Lee, if I am wrong—listen—if I am
mistaken, I accept the responsibility and I will take what blame there is to take.”
“Are you sure you’re right?” Lee asked anxiously.
“Of course I’m not sure. Adam, do you want the medicine?”
“Yes. I don’t know what it is but give it to me.”
“Adam, Cathy is in Salinas. She owns a whorehouse, the most vicious and depraved in this whole
end of the country. The evil and ugly, the distorted and slimy, the worst things humans can think up are for sale there. The crippled and crooked come there for satisfaction. But it is worse than that. Cathy, and she is now called Kate, takes the fresh and young and beautiful and so maims them that they can never be whole again. Now, there’s your medicine. Let’s see what it does to you.”
“You’re a liar!” Adam said.
“No, Adam. Many things I am, but a liar I am not.”
Adam whirled on Lee. “Is this true?”
“I’m no antidote,” said Lee. “Yes. It’s true.”
Adam stood swaying in the lantern light and then he turned and ran. They could hear his heavy
steps running and tripping. They heard him falling over the brush and scrambling and clawing his
way upward on the slope. The sound of him stopped only when he had gone over the brow of the hill.
Lee said, “Your medicine acts like poison.”
“I take responsibility,” said Samuel. “Long ago I learned this: When a dog has eaten strychnine
and is going to die, you must get an ax and carry him to a chopping block. Then you must wait for his next convulsion, and in that moment—chop off his tail. Then, if the poison has not gone too far, your dog may recover. The shock of pain can counteract the poison. Without the shock he will surely die.”
“But how do you know this is the same?” Lee asked.
“I don’t. But without it he would surely die.”
“You’re a brave man,” Lee said.
“No, I’m an old man. And if I should have anything on my conscience it won’t be for long.”
Lee asked, “What do you suppose he’ll do?”
“I don’t know,” said Samuel, “but at least he won’t sit around and mope. Here, hold the lantern
for me, will you?”
“You’re a kind man, Mr. Hamilton. And I’ve always thought it was the kindness that comes from
not wanting any trouble. And your mind is as facile as a young lamb leaping in a daisy field. You have never to my knowledge taken a bulldog grip on anything. And then tonight you did a thing that tears down my whole picture of you.”
Samuel wrapped the lines around a stick stuck in the whip socket, and Doxology stumbled on
down the rutty road. The old man stroked his beard, and it shone very white in the starlight. He took off his black hat and laid it in his lap.
“I guess it surprised me as much as it did you,” he said. “But if you want to know why—look into yourself.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“If you had only told me about your studies earlier it might have made a great difference, Lee.”
“I still don’t understand you.”
“Careful, Lee, you’ll get me talking. I told you my Irish came and went. It’s coming now.”
Lee said, “Mr. Hamilton, you’re going away and you’re not coming back. You do not intend to
live very much longer.”
“That’s true, Lee. How did you know?”
“There’s death all around you. It shines from you.”
“I didn’t know anyone could see it,” Samuel said. “You know, Lee, I think of my life as a kind of music, not always good music but still having form and melody. And my life has not been a full orchestra for a long time now. A single note only—and that note unchanging sorrow. I’m not alone in my attitude, Lee. It seems to me that too many of us conceive of a life as ending in defeat.”
Lee said, “Maybe everyone is too rich. I have noticed that there is no dissatisfaction like that of
the rich. Feed a man, clothe him, put him in a good house, and he will die of despair.”
“It was your two-word retranslation, Lee—”Thou mayest.’ It took me by the throat and shook
me. And when the dizziness was over, a path was open, new and bright. And my life which is ending seems to be going on to an ending wonderful. And my music has a new last melody like a bird song in the night.”
Lee was peering at him’ through the darkness. “That’s what it did to those old men of my
family.”
“ ‘Thou mayest rule over sin,’ Lee. That’s it. I do not believe all men are destroyed. I can name
you a dozen who were not, and they are the ones the world lives by. It is true of the spirit as it is true of battles—only the winners are remembered. Surely most men are destroyed, but there are others who like pillars of fire guide frightened men through the darkness. ‘Thou mayest, Thou mayest!’ What glory! It is true that we are weak and sick and quarrelsome, but if that is all we ever were, we would, millenniums ago, have disappeared from the face of the earth. A few remnants of fossilized jawbone, some broken teeth in strata of limestone, would be the only mark man would have left of his existence in the world. But the choice, Lee, the choice of winning! I had never understood it or accepted it before. Do you see now why I told Adam tonight? I exercised the choice. Maybe I was wrong, but by telling him I also forced him to live or get off the pot. What is that word, Lee?”
“Timshel,” said Lee. “Will you stop the cart?”
“You’ll have a long walk back.”
Lee climbed down. “Samuel!” he said.
“Here am I.” The old man chuckled. “Liza hates for me to say that.”
“Samuel, you’ve gone beyond me.”
“It’s time, Lee.”
“Good-by, Samuel,” Lee said, and he walked hurriedly back along the road. He heard the iron
tires of the cart grinding on the road. He turned and looked after it, and on the slope he saw old
Samuel against the sky, his white hair shining with starlight.
