Looking back

Passage

・・・そのとき私は最後の別れを告げるつもりで金閣のほうを眺めたのである。金閣は雨夜の闇におぼめいており、その輪郭は定かでなかった。それは黒々と、まるで夜がそこに結晶しているかのように立っていた。瞳を凝らして見ると、三階のくっきょう頂にいたって俄かに細まるその構造や、法水院と潮音洞の細身の柱の林も辛うじて見えた。しかし嘗てあのように私を感動させた細部は、ひと色の闇の中に融け去っていた。

三島由紀夫「金閣寺」p.544.

My attempt

I turned to look at the Golden Temple, intending at that moment to say a final goodbye. The Temple could only be seen vaguely in the dark of the falling rain. Its outline was indistinct but there it stood, deep black like the dark of the evening crystallised in place. If you squinted you could just about make out the Temple's construction - the third storey suddenly coming to a sharp point, some details of the clump of pillars in Housui Temple and the Cave of Echoing Tides. But the details of the Temple, details that had so entranced me in the past, were dissolved into an immutable black.

From the original translation

…for at that moment I gazed at the Golden Temple to bid it a last farewell. The Temple was dim in the darkness of the rainy night and its outline was indistinct. It stood there in deep black, as though it were a crystallization of the night itself. When I strained my eyes, I managed to make out the Kukyochou, the top story of the temple, where the entire structure suddenly became narrow, and also the forest of narrow pillars that surrouned the Choonodo and the Housui-in. But the various details of the temple, which had moved me so greatly in the past, had melted away into the monochrome darkness.

Comments

Not bad for a first attempt at literary translation. Note " 三階のくっきょう頂にいたって俄かに細まるその構造" is a noun phrase appearing as a list of items that could just be seen. 構造 is modified as a noun, where その refers to the modificiation itself. Give yourself some marks for a great job!

vocabularly

• 雨夜, あまよ、an evening with falling rain
• おぼめく、be ambiguous, not clearly defined
• 定か、さだか、of facts etc clear
• 瞳を凝らす、ひとみをこらす、focus your eyes
• 俄かに、にわかに、suddenly, abruptly
• 嘗て、かつて、in the past
• 融ける、とける、melt