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The band again changed to waltz music. She thinks that she should have worked as a dancer to begin with. But it makes no sense that she gets paid only after working for a month. She needs money now to have dinner and spend the night at an inn. It only costs 2,000 hwan to do all that, so a month later wouldn’t do. 

밴드는 다시금 왈츠로 바뀌었다.

애당초에 댄서로 취직할 것을 잘못했다는 생각도 해본다.

그러나 한 달 동안 일을 한 연후에야

겨우 월급을 탄다는 것은 안될 말이다.

오늘 저녁을 먹고, 이 한 밤을 여관에서 자기 위한 돈이 필요한데,

그것도 단돈 이천 환이면 되지만, 한 달 후가 다 무엇이냐.

Jin-young had a value system that was hard to imagine for the 1950s. She was a young woman living a shockingly loose life. She was working as a dancer and sleeping with strange men to find a place to live, invited herself into the room of her boyfriend’s friend, and willingly accepted an offer to live with a man for a week in return for a substantial amount of money. 

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

This episode shows that Jin-young is not a woman chasing after only money or carnal lust. She is a person who is aware that she is living a life at the cliff’s edge. This story stirred up a serious literary controversy about existentialism. 

Jin-young drank the whisky and lied prone on the soft bed. She couldn’t have felt better. She felt her confidence for life bursting, so much so that she wanted to tempt her fate. She had nothing to fear. Only her drive to paint was burning bright. 

Jin-young got up from the bed and sat down by the window with her sketchbook. 

진영은 위스키를 마셨다.

폭신한 베드에 엎드려본다.

기분이 여간 좋지 않다.

귀신이라도 농락해보고 싶을 만큼 삶에 대한 자신이 강력히 솟구친다.

무서울 것도 꺼릴 것도 없다.

오로지 그려야 한다는 의욕만이 파랗게 불탈 뿐이다.

진영은 베드에서 일어나서 창가에 스케치북을 들고 앉았다

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Han Mal-suk (Born on Dec. 27, 1931, Seoul)

: Debuted in 1956 with "Cliff of Myth"

  Won the 1st Hankook Ilbo Literature Award in 1968