<영어로 읽는 고전 _ 나다니엘 호손의 결혼식 종소리>
"The Wedding-Knell"은 Nathaniel Hawthorne의 또 다른 단편 소설로, 1835년 그의 컬렉션 "Twice-Told Tales"에도 출판되었다.
이 이야기는 늦은 나이에 재결합한 한 쌍의 연인에 관한 것이다.
60대의 엘렌우드 씨는 얼마 전 고향으로 돌아온 과부 댑니 부인과 결혼하기로 한다. 결혼식 당일, 댑니 부인은 화려한 옷을 입고 젊은 신부 들러리들과 함께 교회로 향하지만, 종은 마치 장례식처럼 울려 퍼진다.
신랑이 도착했을 때, 그는 수의를 입은 채 나타난다. 그는 젊은 시절 댑니가 자신의 행복과 희망을 앗아갔으며, 이제는 그녀의 쇠퇴와 죽음밖에 남지 않았다고 말한다.
댑니는 충격을 받지만, 곧 그들의 삶이 헛되고 공허했음을 깨닫는다. 결국 두 사람은 비록 늦었지만 영원한 사랑을 맹세하며 결혼식을 마친다.
장례 같은 분위기 속에서도 마지막에는 오르간 연주가 울려 퍼지며 두 영혼의 만남을 축복한다. 이 결혼은 세속적인 희망의 종말이자, 영원한 사랑의 시작이었던 것이다.
<Classics to read in English_ THE WEDDING_KNELL by Nathaniel Hawthorne >
"The Wedding-Knell" is another short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, also published in his collection "Twice-Told Tales" in 1835.
This story is about a pair of lovers who reunite at a late age.
Mr. Ellen Wood, in his 60s, decides to marry Mrs. Dabney, a widow who recently returned to his hometown. On her wedding day, Mrs. Dabney dresses in fancy clothes and heads to church with her young bridesmaids, but the bells ring as if at a funeral.
When the groom arrives, he appears in a shroud. He says that in her youth Dabni had robbed her of her own happiness and hope, and that now all that remains is her decline and death.
Dabni is shocked, but soon realizes that their lives have been meaningless and empty. In the end, although it is late, the two end their wedding vowing eternal love.
Even in a funeral-like atmosphere, an organ plays at the end, blessing the meeting of two souls. This marriage was the end of worldly hopes and the beginning of eternal love.
Summary
There is a certain church, in the city of New York which I have always regarded with peculiar interest on account of a marriage there solemnized under very singular circumstances in my grandmother’s girlhood. That venerable lady chanced to be a spectator of the scene, and ever after made it her favorite narrative. Whether the edifice now standing on the same site be the identical one to which she referred I am not antiquarian enough to know, nor would it be worth while to correct myself, perhaps, of an agreeable error by reading the date of its erection on the tablet over the door. It is a stately church surrounded by an enclosure of the loveliest green, within which appear urns, pillars, obelisks,….
