Záhada zlatého skarabea

Edgar Allan Poe je považován z jednoho ze zakladatelů klasického hororu - a je také autorem, který mezi prvními prezentoval použití analytického myšlení k řešení detektivního problému. Povídka Zlatý skarabeus využívá obou těchto specialit, a řadí se mezi Poeovy nejznámější a nejpopulárnější texty.

Fulltext je legálně k dispozici v projektu Guttenberg.

_____________________________________

1. Připomeňte si děj povídky (najděte si synopsi, přečtete si celý originální text)
2. Identifikujte charakteristické rysy textu, zamyslete se nad možnými překladatelskými problémy. Najděte klíčová slova a jejich překlad.
3. Přeložte obě části ukázky vyznačené tučně.
_____________________________________

"But," I interposed, "you say that the skull was not upon the parchment

when you made the drawing of the beetle. How then do you trace any

connexion between the boat and the skull--since this latter, according

to your own admission, must have been designed (God only knows how or by

whom) at some period subsequent to your sketching the scarabæus?"

"Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although the secret, at this

point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving. My steps were

sure, and could afford but a single result. I reasoned, for example,

thus: When I drew the scarabæus, there was no skull apparent upon

the parchment. When I had completed the drawing I gave it to you, and

observed you narrowly until you returned it. You, therefore, did not

design the skull, and no one else was present to do it. Then it was not

done by human agency. And nevertheless it was done.

"At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, and did

remember, with entire distinctness, every incident which occurred about

the period in question. The weather was chilly (oh rare and happy

accident!), and a fire was blazing upon the hearth. I was heated with

exercise and sat near the table. You, however, had drawn a chair close

to the chimney. Just as I placed the parchment in your hand, and as you

were in the act of inspecting it, Wolf, the Newfoundland, entered,

and leaped upon your shoulders. With your left hand you caressed him and

kept him off, while your right, holding the parchment, was permitted to

fall listlessly between your knees, and in close proximity to the fire.

At one moment I thought the blaze had caught it, and was about to

caution you, but, before I could speak, you had withdrawn it, and were

engaged in its examination. When I considered all these particulars, I

doubted not for a moment that heat had been the agent in bringing to

light, upon the parchment, the skull which I saw designed upon it. You

are well aware that chemical preparations exist, and have existed time

out of mind, by means of which it is possible to write upon either paper

or vellum, so that the characters shall become visible only when

subjected to the action of fire. Zaffre, digested in aqua regia, and

diluted with four times its weight of water, is sometimes employed; a

green tint results. The regulus of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre,

gives a red. These colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after

the material written upon cools, but again become apparent upon the

re-application of heat.

"I now scrutinized the death's-head with care. Its outer edges--the

edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the vellum--were far more

distinct than the others. It was clear that the action of the caloric

had been imperfect or unequal. I immediately kindled a fire, and

subjected every portion of the parchment to a glowing heat. At first,

the only effect was the strengthening of the faint lines in the skull;

but, upon persevering in the experiment, there became visible, at

the corner of the slip, diagonally opposite to the spot in which the

death's-head was delineated, the figure of what I at first supposed to

be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me that it was intended

for a kid."

"Ha! ha!" said I, "to be sure I have no right to laugh at you--a million

and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth--but you are not

about to establish a third link in your chain--you will not find any

especial connexion between your pirates and a goat--pirates, you know,

have nothing to do with goats; they appertain to the farming interest."

"But I have just said that the figure was not that of a goat."

"Well, a kid then--pretty much the same thing."

"Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. "You may have heard of

one Captain Kidd. I at once looked upon the figure of the animal as a

kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say signature; because

its position upon the vellum suggested this idea. The death's-head at

the corner diagonally opposite, had, in the same manner, the air of a

stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the absence of all else--of

the body to my imagined instrument--of the text for my context."

"I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp and the

signature."

"Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly impressed with

a presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I can scarcely

say why. Perhaps, after all, it was rather a desire than an actual

belief;--but do you know that Jupiter's silly words, about the bug

being of solid gold, had a remarkable effect upon my fancy? And then the

series of accidents and coincidences--these were so very extraordinary.

Do you observe how mere an accident it was that these events should have

occurred upon the sole day of all the year in which it has been, or may

be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that without the fire, or without

the intervention of the dog at the precise moment in which he appeared,

I should never have become aware of the death's-head, and so never the

possessor of the treasure?"

"But proceed--I am all impatience."

"Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories current--the thousand

vague rumors afloat about money buried, somewhere upon the Atlantic

coast, by Kidd and his associates. These rumors must have had some

foundation in fact. And that the rumors have existed so long and so

continuous, could have resulted, it appeared to me, only from the

circumstance of the buried treasure still remaining entombed. Had Kidd

concealed his plunder for a time, and afterwards reclaimed it, the

rumors would scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying form.

You will observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers,

not about money-finders. Had the pirate recovered his money, there the

affair would have dropped. It seemed to me that some accident--say the

loss of a memorandum indicating its locality--had deprived him of the

means of recovering it, and that this accident had become known to his

followers, who otherwise might never have heard that treasure had been

concealed at all, and who, busying themselves in vain, because unguided

attempts, to regain it, had given first birth, and then universal

currency, to the reports which are now so common. Have you ever heard of

any important treasure being unearthed along the coast?"

"Never."

"But that Kidd's accumulations were immense, is well known. I took it

for granted, therefore, that the earth still held them; and you will

scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I felt a hope, nearly

amounting to certainty, that the parchment so strangely found, involved

a lost record of the place of deposit."

"But how did you proceed?"

"I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the heat; but

nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating of dirt

might have something to do with the failure; so I carefully rinsed the

parchment by pouring warm water over it, and, having done this, I

placed it in a tin pan, with the skull downwards, and put the pan upon

a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few minutes, the pan having become

thoroughly heated, I removed the slip, and, to my inexpressible joy,

found it spotted, in several places, with what appeared to be figures

arranged in lines. Again I placed it in the pan, and suffered it to

remain another minute. Upon taking it off, the whole was just as you see

it now." Here Legrand, having re-heated the parchment, submitted it to

my inspection. The following characters were rudely traced, in a red

tint, between the death's-head and the goat:

  "53‡‡†305))6*;4826)4‡)4‡);806*;48†8¶60))85;1‡);:‡

  *8†83(88)5*†;46(;88*96*?;8)*‡(;485);5*†2:*‡(;4956*

  2(5*--4)8¶8*;4069285);)6†8)4‡‡;1(‡9;48081;8:8‡1;4

  8†85;4)485†528806*81(‡9;48;(88;4(‡?34;48)4‡;161;:

  188;‡?;"

"But," said I, returning him the slip, "I am as much in the dark as

ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me upon my solution of 
this enigma, I am quite sure that I should be unable to earn them."

__________________________________________________

UKÁZKA PRASTARÉHO PŘEKLADU
Volně k dispozici na webu


Znění tohoto textu vychází z díla Zlatý chrobák tak, jak bylo vydáno nakladatelstvím Františka Šimáčka v roce 1894 (POE, Edgar Allan. Zlatý chrobák a jiné novely. Přel. Vácslav ČERNÝ. Praha: František Šimáček, 1894. 76 s. Levné svazky novel, sv. 1).

„Řekl jsem vám však, že to nebyla koza.“
„Pro mne tedy kozel – jaký vsak v tom rozdíl?“
„Velký rozdíl ovšem není – zcela správně, ale přece to není
docela totéž,“ odvětil Legrand. Zajisté slyšel jste o jistém kapitánu
Kiddovi.2 Co mne se týče, spatřoval jsem v obraze zvířete ihned
jakýsi druh hříčky slovní nebo hieroglyfickou značku, poněvadž
taková myšlénka musela přijíti každému, kdo si blíže umístění
podoby na pergamenu povšiml. – V umrlčí hlavě, ležící na protějším
rohu úhlopříčném, spatřoval jsem jakýsi znak nebo pečeť. Při tom
všem stále scházel k úplnému smyslu text: nebylo mi lze s tím co
počíti.“
„Bezpochyby domníval jste se, že odhalíte mezi umrlčí hlavou
a hieroglyfickou značkou nějaké písmo?“
„Ano, něco takového. Tolik aspoň jest jisto, že jsem měl bezděčně
předtuchu o nesmírném štěstí, jehož se mi má dostali. Proč jsem tuto
předtuchu pojal, nemohu nikterak říci. Možná, že to bylo spíše přáni
nežli předtucha nebo skutečná víra; věztež však také, že Jupiterova
pošetilá slova, dle nichž prý byl brouk z ryzího zlata, mocně
účinkovala na mou fantasii. A pak ona podivuhodná shoda
okolností. Pomyslete si jen, jak čirá náhoda tomu chtěla, že všecky
tyto události sběhly se právě v onom jediném dni, kdy bylo tak
studeno, že se oheň rozdělali musel. Bez ohně a bez psa, jenž vběhl
do pokoje právě ve chvíli, kdy se to vše dálo, nikdy bych nebyl
umrlčí hlavy spatřil a tedy také na poklad nepřipadl?“
„Jen pokračujte – nemohu se dočkati“
„Dobře, bezpochyby slyšel jste také mnohokráte pověsti, tisíceré
nejasné zprávy, dle nichž prý Kidd a jeho soudruzi zakopali na
neznámém místě atlantického břehu nesmírné množství peněz.
Takovéto pověsti nemohou však jen tak z ničeho povstati a se
rozšířili. A že se tak trvale a dlouho udržely, možno, jak se mně zdá,
jen odtud vysvětlili, že zakopaný poklad ještě v zemi odpočíval.
Kdyby byl kapitán Kidd své poklady jen na nějaký čas zakopal
a pak je vyzdvihl, nebyly by se zajisté pověsti ty v jejich původní
i nezměněné podobě až na nás udržely. Dojista jste pozoroval, že se
všude a vždy mluvilo a vypravovalo o pátratelích po pokladech,
nikdy vsak o nálezcích. Kdyby však byl pirát poklad vyzdvihl, bylo
by vše zapadlo ponenáhlu v zapomenutí. Zdá se mi však, že nějaká
nehoda – snad ztráta noticky označující umístění – učinila
nemožným, aby kapitán svůj poklad opět nalezl, jakož i že by snad
tento případ byl znám jeho soudruhům? Ti snad ani nezaslechli, že
by byl nějaký poklad zakopal. A ti pak, kteří se pokoušeli, ač marně,
ježto postrádali všech jistých vodítek, pokladu vydobyti, uvěřili
pouze pověstem vůbec rozšiřovaným. Či snad jste slyšel, že by se
bylo někomu podařilo pokladu dosíci?“
„Nikdy.“
„Právě tak známo jest, že byly poklady Kiddovy nesmírně veliké.
Přijal jsem tedy za pravdu, že jsou pod zemí skryty, a snad se
podivíte, když doložím, že ve mně vznikla naděje skoro až v jistotu
se stupňující, že by snad i proužek pergamenový, tak vzácným
způsobem nalezený, mohl udati, kde asi se poklady nalézají.
Proužek pergamenový byl mi jako ztracená noticka pirátova – tudíž
drahocenný dokument, k němuž jsem takovou náhodou přišel.“

„A jak jste pokračoval?“

2 Kidd – kozlík – mladý kozel.