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This was when it got busy at the front desk with people going home from work, stopping by the coffee shop for a cup of tea, foreigners coming down from their offices to wait for the hotel elevator, and what not. 

프론트데스크는 이때부터 한참이다.

퇴근하는 사람, 커피숍에 들러 차를 마시려는 사람,

오피스에서 내려와 호텔용 엘리베이터를 기다리는 외국인들 등...

Ji-yeon was a modern girl who majored in literature in college. She got a job manning the front desk at a hotel and lived by herself in a new apartment located halfway up Namsan Mountain. She believed that she could take complete control of her life only if she became financially independent.

Interview by Seoul Nat’l Univ. Korean Literature Professor Bang Min-ho

The author wanted to present the model of an après girl, a woman of the post-war generation who came of age after the Korean War. These women willingly severed their ties to tradition. They had a very strong desire to cut off their roots, their ties to the old way of life, because they had to pioneer their lives amidst death and ruin. 

Everything ended today. It’s “Goodbye, Monsieur” from this evening, as if seeing him was an act of pleasure that can be satisfying only when Mr. Jeong was jealous of it. 

“So, I can’t be happy on my own. That’s what fate is.”

She wanted to write again, to create, but…

Ji-yeon knew that her aspiration was too young for her to give her life up. 

There is still tomorrow, the splendid unknown. 

She hastily got ready for work. She couldn’t take a day off from work. She didn’t want sympathy.               

허공에 꽃잎처럼 산산이 흩어지는

그녀의 아름다운 생의 순간 순간이 

현황하게 압도해오는 긴박한 순간이다.

모든 것은 오늘로 끝나버린 것이다.

오늘 저녁부터 무슈 쎙과도 굿바이다.

마치 그의 질투가 지속하는 한 

쾌감을 느낄 수 있는 향락의 행위인 것처럼.

“결국 나 혼자만으로는 나의 행복을 만들 수 없는 것이다.

 운명이란 것이“ 

문학이 다시 하고 싶어진다. 창작이, 그러나...

생을 체념하기엔 그녀의 의욕이 너무나 젊은 것임을 지연은 안다.

내일이 있기 때문이다.

찬란한 미지수의.

지연은 부지런히 출근할 준비를 하기 시작한다.

오늘도 오피스에 쉬지 않고 나가야 한다. 동정은 싫다.

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Sohn Jang-soon (Born in Seoul, Feb. 21, 1935 ~ Aug. 24, 2014)

: 1958 Published “Statue“ on literary magazine Modern Literature

1969 Received the 4th Female Writer’s Award

1996 Received the Pen Literature Award