Disgrace

කතෘ: J. M. Coetzee

ප්‍රකාශක: Penguin

David Lurie විශ්ව විද්‍යාලයක මහාචාර්ය වරයෙකි. ඔහු දික්කසාද වී සිටින තනිකඩයෙකි. ඔහුගේ මුල් බිරිය (ex-wife) Rosalind හා ඔහු අතර තවමත් සුහද සම්බන්ධතා ඇත. ඔවුන්ගේ දුව Lucy ඇයගේ යෙහෙලියක් සමග ගම්බද ගොවිපොලක් නඩත්තු කරයි.

David ඔහු උගන්නන පංතියේ සිටින ගැහැනු ලමයකු සමග සඹඳතාවයක් ඇති කර ගනී. ඔහු ඇය මගදි හමුවී ඔහුගේ ගෙදරට කැඳවා ගෙන යයි.

… As she sips, he leans over and touches her cheek. ‘You’re very lovely,’ he says. ‘I ‘m going to invite you to do something reckless.” He touches her again. ‘Stay. Spend the night with me.’

Across the rim of the cup she regards him steadily. ‘Why?’

‘Because you ought to’

‘Why ought I to?

‘Why? Because a woman’s beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.’

මේ සම්බන්ධය වැඩි දුර යාමෙන් David කරදරයට පත් වේ. Rosalind ඔහුට කෑමකට ආරාධනා කරයි.

‘People talk David. Everyone knows about this latest affair of yours, in the juiciest detail. It’s in no one’s interest to hush it up, no one’s but your own. Am I allowed to tell you how stupid it looks?

‘No, you are not.’

‘I will anyway, stupid, and ugly too. I don’t know what you do about sex and I don’t want to know, but this is not the way to go about it. You’re what—fifty-two? Do you think a young girl finds any pleasure in going to bed with a man of that age? Do you think she finds it good to watch you in the middle of your…? Do you ever think about that?’

රැකියාව අහිමි වන David  Lucyගේ ගොවිපොල කරා යයි.

‘When you were small, when we were still living in Kenilworth, the people next door had a dog, a golden retriever. I do not know whether you remember.’

‘Dimly’

‘It was a male. Whenever there was a bitch in the vicinity it would get excited and unmanageable, and with Pavlovian regularity the owners would beat it. This went on until the poor dog didn’t know what to do. At the smell of a bitch it would chase around the garden with its ears flat and its tail between its legs, whining, trying to hide.’

He pauses. ‘I don’t see the point,’ says Lucy. And indeed, what is the point?

‘There was something so ignoble in the spectacle that I despaired. One can punish a dog, it seems to me, for an offense like chewing a slipper. A dog will accept the justice of that: a beating for chewing. But desire is another story. No animal will accept the justice of being punished for following its instincts.’

මෙම කෙටි සටහන තුල මම මෙම කතාව ගැන "කිසිවක්" හෙලි කලේ නැත.  මේ පොත මා සසල කලේය.  එහෙත් මෙය පරිසමාප්තාර්තයෙන්ම 'වැඩිහිටියන්ට පමනක්’ සුදුසු කතාවකි.

J. M. Coetzee සාහිත්‍යය සඳහා දෙදහස් තුනේ Nobel ත්‍යාගය ලැබීය.