红字(外研社双语读库)(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)

作者：Nathaniel Hawthorne 纳撒尼尔·霍桑

出版社：外语教学与研究出版社

格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT

红字(外研社双语读库)试读：

第一章监狱的门

A throng of bearded men, in sadcoloured garments, and grey, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.

一群蓄着胡须、身穿暗色外衣、头戴灰色尖顶高帽的男人，夹带了一些女人——她们有的蒙着兜帽，有的光着脑袋，都聚在一所木制的建筑物外，大门是用厚实的橡木制成，上面钉满了大铁钉。

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognised it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. In accordance with this rule, it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house somewhere in the vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson's lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old churchyard of King's Chapel. Certain it is, that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than anything else in the New World. Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era. Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grassplot, much overgrown with burdock, pigweed, appleperu, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilised society, a prison. But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.

新殖民地的建立者，不论他们起初对人类道德和幸福抱有怎样不切实际的理想，在其早期的实际需求中，总会意识到要划出一片处女地作为墓地，还有一部分要用来修建监狱。根据这个惯例，我们可以有把握地推断出，在波士顿定居的祖先们已经在康希尔一带修建了第一座监狱，同时期他们还在艾萨克‧约翰逊地带标出了第一块墓地。以坟墓为中心，皇室教堂的古冢便逐渐形成了。可以肯定的是，在城镇建立十五年或二十年之后，那座木制的监狱已经刻上了日晒雨淋和岁月流逝的痕迹，为它那狰狞阴森的大门增添几分晦暗凄凉的景象。笨重的橡木门上铁锈斑斑，显得比新大陆上的任何事物都古老。就像一切与罪恶有关的事物一样，这座监狱似乎从未经历过所谓的青春年华。在这座丑陋的建筑物前，一直到布满车辙的街道之间，是一片草地，长满了牛蒡、茨藜、假酸浆等此类难看的草木。它们显然与这片土地意气相投，因为这里很早便滋生了文明社会的罪恶之花——监狱。然而，在大门的一侧，几乎是在门坎处，长了一簇野玫瑰。在这个六月，玫瑰枝上开满了如宝石般精致的花朵。人们想象，它们会给踏进监狱的犯人，以及那些即将直面命运的刑徒，带来芬芳和妩媚。它们以此表示，大自然在内心深处仍对那些罪人怀有一丝同情与怜爱。

This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally over-shadowed it— or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the prison-door — we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolise some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.

由于某种不可思议的机缘，这簇玫瑰得以历劫而永生;仅是因为当年遮掩它的巨松和橡树倒下了，这簇玫瑰才得以在古老的荒野中存活下来吗？还是如人们所深信不疑的权威说法那样，当年圣徒安‧哈钦森踏进狱门时，玫瑰便从她脚下破土而出了呢？这都无需我们亲自去确定。既然故事要从这道不祥的大门开始，而这簇野玫瑰刚好就长在门坎处，我们不如摘下其中一朵玫瑰，将其献给读者。但愿这簇玫瑰，能在这个关于人性脆弱和哀伤的故事中，作为道德之花的象征，让人访得一丝甜美，或是在读完阴晦凄惨的故事结局时，使人得到些许慰藉。Chapter 2THE MARKET-PLACE

第二章市场

The grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants of Boston, all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured some awful business in hand. It could have betokened nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit, on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment. But, in that early severity of the Puritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post. It might be, that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle and vagrant Indian, whom the white man's firewater had made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. It might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bittertempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows. In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on the part of the spectators; as befitted a people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and the severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for from such bystanders at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty, which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself.

二百多年前的一个夏日早晨，在监狱大街牢房前的一片草地上，站着一大群波士顿居民，大家的目光都紧盯着布满铁钉的橡木牢门。这些善良的人们脸上蓄着胡须，一副冷峻严肃的表情，如果换成其他地区的老百姓，或是在新英格兰历史的晚期，这可能预示着要发生什么可怕的事情。可能意味着某个臭名昭著的罪犯即将受到制裁——法庭对罪犯的判决仅是对舆论裁决的确认而已。然而，由于早期清教徒严以自律，这种推断未免言之过早。也许这是一个懒散的奴隶，或者是个被父母送交地方当局的不孝子，要被放在鞭挞柱上管教一番。也许那是一名唯信仰论者、教友会教徒，或者是其他异教徒就要被鞭挞出城的，亦或是某个懒惰散漫、四处流浪的印第安人，因为喝了白人烈酒，满街胡闹，要挨着鞭子给赶到树林去。也许是一个巫婆，就像西宾斯老太太那样脾气刻毒的官老爷遗孀，将要在绞架上吊死。无论是哪种情况，围观者总是摆出同样的庄严姿态，这倒挺符合早期居民的身份，因为他们视宗教和法律为一体，二者的特质相互渗透，凡涉及公共守则，无论是轻微的还是严重的，都同样令人肃然起敬并望而生畏。确实，对一个在刑台上的罪犯，旁观者鲜有同情之心，显得十分冷漠。另一方面，刑罚如今只意味着某程度上的冷嘲热讽，但在当年却带有如同死刑般严厉的色彩。

It was a circumstance to be noted, on the summer morning when our story begins its course, that the women, of whom there were several in the crowd, appeared to take a peculiar interest in whatever penal infliction might be expected to ensue. The age had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety restrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale from stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution. Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding, than in their fair descendants, separated from them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout that chain of ancestry, every successive mother has transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not a character of less force and solidity, than her own. The women who were now standing about the prison-door stood within less than half a century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth had been the not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex. They were her countrywomen; and the beef and ale of their native land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely into their composition. The bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and welldeveloped busts and on round and ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far-off island, and had hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New England. There was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to its purport or its volume of tone.

有一点值得注意，就是在故事发生的那个夏天清晨，几个妇女挤在人群中，她们似乎对接下来所用的刑罚特别感兴趣。那个时代不怎么讲究得体，身穿衬裙和撑裙的女人们出入于大庭广众，只要有可能，便利用她们健壮的身躯，挤进最靠近刑台的人群中去，而并未觉得有任何不妥。那些在英伦故土上出生和成长的媳妇和姑娘们，比起她们六七代以后的子孙，身体要粗壮些，精神也粗犷些。因为通过家系承袭的链条，每一代母亲遗传给她女儿的，即使不缺少性格中的坚强有力，也总是会有比较柔弱的体质、更加精致和短暂的美貌，以及更加纤细的身材。站在监狱门口的妇女们，和当年充满男子气概、堪称女性代表的伊丽莎白相距不足半个世纪。她们是那位女王的同胞乡亲。 她们家乡的牛肉和麦酒，佐以未经提炼的精神食粮，大量进入到她们的躯体。因此那明媚晨光所照耀到的，是宽阔的肩膀、发育良好的胸脯和圆润的双颊——她们都是在遥远的岛屿上长大成人的，不像在新英格兰这种环境下成长的姑娘那般白皙和纤瘦。尤其是这些主妇大多数一开口便是粗喉咙、大嗓门，要是在今天，无论是她们谈论的内容还是话语的音量，都足以使我们瞠目结舌。

"Goodwives, " said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "I'll tell ye a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof, if we women, being of mature age and churchmembers in good repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne. What think ye, gossips? If the hussy stood up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I trow not!"“婆娘们，” 一个面相凶恶、五十岁左右的老婆子说道，“我跟你们说说我的想法吧。要是我们这些年长的、名声好的教友，能处理赫斯特·普林那种坏女人，就算是给大伙做了一件好事。你们觉得怎样，婆娘们?要是那个荡妇交给咱们五个人来审判——就是眼下一道站在这里的五个人，她能就这样，带着我们可敬的官爷们赏给她的判决，蒙混过关吗?天呀，我才不相信呢！”

"People say, " said another, "that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation. "“听人说，” 另一个女人说，“尊敬的马斯特·丁梅斯代尔教长，正是她的牧师，在教众面前出了这桩丑事简直伤心透了。”

"The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch — that is a truth, " added a third autumnal matron. "At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madam Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she — the naughty baggage — little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or suchlike heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!"“那些官老爷都是敬主的先生，可惜慈悲心太重了——这可是事实，”第三个人老气横秋的婆娘补充道。“最起码，他们应该在赫斯特·普林额头上烙个记号。赫斯特太太会有点退缩，我敢这样说。但是她——那个烂货，她才不在乎他们在她前襟前贴上个什么呢！哼，你们等着瞧吧，她准会别上个胸针什么的，或者是异教徒饰物，挡住胸口，照样招摇过市！”

"Ah, but, " interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand, "Let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart. "“啊，不过，”一个手里牵着孩子的年轻媳妇轻声插嘴道，“她要想挡着那记号就随她去吧，反正她心里总会不好受的。”

"What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown, or the flesh of her forehead?" cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. "This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statutebook. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray!"“我们讲什么记号、烙印的，管它是在前襟上还是额头上呢？”另一个女人嚷着，她是这些自封的法官中长得最丑的，也最不留情的。“这女人让我们大伙都丢了脸，她该死。难道没有专门管这种事的法律吗?当然有了，圣经和法典上全都写着呢。那些个官老爷不照章办事，到时候他们自己的老婆女儿若是也走上了歧途，那就是自作自受。”

"Mercy on us, goodwife, " exclaimed a man in the crowd, "is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows? That is the hardest word yet! Hush, now, gossips! for the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes Mistress Prynne herself. "“饶了我们吧，婆娘们，”人群中的一个男人惊呼道，“难道女人们除了看到绞刑架会害怕，就没有其他美德了吗？别把话说得太重！小声点，喂，婆娘们！牢门的锁在转呢，普林太太本人就要出来了。”

The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the townbeadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward; until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquainted only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison.

牢门一下子就从里面给打开了，最先露面的是狱吏，一副阴森恐怖的模样，像个暗影似的出现在日光之下，腰侧挎着剑，手中握着权杖。这尊容便是清教徒法典中冷酷无情的象征和代表，对触犯法律的罪犯作出最终和最直接的执法，便是他的差事。他左手举起权杖，右手抓着一个年轻妇女的肩膀，拉着她向前一直走到牢门前。此时，出于一种天生的尊严和人格的力量，她推开了狱吏，走到室外，仿佛这都是她自愿做的。她抱着一个三个月左右大的婴儿，那孩子眨着眼睛，转过小脸，以躲开过于耀眼的阳光。因为从出生到现在，她一直生活在地牢或其他晦暗的牢房，只习惯那种昏暗的光线。

When the young woman — the mother of this child — stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.

那个年轻女人正是婴儿的母亲。站在人群面前，她的第一反应似乎就是把孩子紧紧抱在胸前；她这样做与其说是出于母爱的冲动，倒不如说是为了掩盖某个标志，那个标志是缝制或系挂在衣裙上的。然而，她很快就醒悟过来，用她耻辱的一个标记来掩盖另一个标记是无补于事的。她索性用胳膊架着孩子，虽然满脸通红，却露出桀骜不驯的笑容，毫无愧色地环视着她的同镇居民和街坊邻居。在她裙袍的前胸露出了一个字母A，是用红色细布为底，周围加之金丝线刺绣制成的，做工精致，手艺奇巧。这个字母做得如此别致，充满了丰富而华美的想象，佩在衣服上简直如同画龙点睛一般； 而她穿着的这身衣服也十分华美，与那个年代的审美品位相符，只是远远超出了殖民地俭朴标准的规定。

The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterised by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is now recognised as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true, that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it. Her attire, which, indeed, she had wrought for the occasion, in prison, and had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which drew all eyes and, as it were, transfigured the wearer — so that both men and women, who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time — was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.

那年轻女人身材修长，体态优美至极。她乌黑浓密的秀发在阳光下熠熠生辉。她不仅五官端正、面色润泽，而且眉宇清秀，双眼漆黑深邃，楚楚动人。就那个年代女性举止优雅的风范而言，她应属贵妇之列； 她有一种端庄的风韵，并不同于现今人们心中的那种纤巧、轻盈和不可言喻的优雅。即使以当年的标准而言，在步出监狱的那一刻，赫斯特·普林正像极了一个贵妇。先前认识她的那些人，本以为她在经历过这些磨难后一定会黯然失色。结果却令他们万分惊讶，因为他们看到，她美得光芒四射，竟然把笼罩着她的不幸和耻辱凝聚成了一轮光环。然而，目光敏锐的旁观者无疑能察觉到，其中带有一种微妙的悲痛。她在狱中凭借自己的想象，专门为这个场合制作了服饰，通过其狂野独特的个性，表达她的精神状态和绝望而不顾一切的情绪。但是，吸引了众人目光并使赫斯特·普林焕然一新的，似乎是她胸前闪闪发光的那个红字。那个字绣得如此妙不可言，以至于那些原本与她认识的男男女女，几乎以为这是第一次与她谋面。这红字具有一种魔力，使她从普通的人际关系中超脱出来，封闭在自己的天地里。

"She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain," remarked one of her female spectators; "but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it! Why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a punishment?"“她做得一手好针线活，这是毫无疑问，” 一个旁观的女人说，“但这个厚颜的荡妇居然想用这手段来显露自己，我可真是从来没见过。哎，婆娘们，这不纯粹是在当面嘲笑咱们那些虔诚的官爷吗？不是借那些可敬的绅士们所作出的判决而大出风头么？”

"It were well, " muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames, "if we stripped Madam Hester's rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for the red letter, which she hath stitched so curiously, I'll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel, to make a fitter one!"“我看啊，”那个面孔板得最紧的老太婆嘀咕道，“最好我们把赫斯特太太那件华丽的衣服，从她秀气的肩膀扒下来。至于她绣得稀奇古怪的那个红字嘛，我会给她一块我得风湿病时穿过的法兰绒破布，做出个更合适的！”

"Oh, peace, neighbours, peace!" whispered their youngest companion; "do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that embroidered letter, but she has felt it in her heart. "“噢，安静点，街坊们，安静点！” 她们当中最年轻的同伴悄声说，“别让她听见咱们的话！绣在她衣服上的字母，针针都扎在她心里呢。”

The grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff.

那个讨厌的狱吏用权杖做了个手势。

"Make way, good people, make way, in the King's name!" cried he. "Open a passage; and, I promise ye, Mistress Prynne shall be set where man, woman, and child may have a fair sight of her brave apparel, from this time till an hour past meridian. A blessing on the righteous Colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine! Come along, Madam Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place!"“让路，好心的人们，让路呀，看在国王的份上！”他叫嚷着。“让开一条路吧，我向诸位保证，普林太太要站的地方，会让男女老少都能看清楚她漂亮的衣服，从现在起直到午后一点，保证你们能看个够。祝福公正的马萨诸塞殖民地，一切罪恶都得拉出来暴露在阳光之下！ 过来吧，赫斯特太太，在这市场里给大家看看你那鲜红的字母吧！”

A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browed men and unkindly visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards the place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads continually to stare into her face, and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast. It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison-door to the market-place. Measured by the prisoner's experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length; for, haughty as her demeanour was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston's earliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there.

围观的人让开了一条通道。赫斯特·普林跟着前面开路的狱吏，走向指定她接受惩罚的地方，身后跟随着拧眉攒目的男人和心狠面恶的女人，三三两两地行进着。一群怀着好奇心来凑热闹的小孩，对眼前的事情不明所以，只知道学校放了半天假。 他们一边在前头跑着，一边不时回头看一眼她的脸和她怀里抱着的、正眨着眼的婴儿，还有她胸前那个不光彩的红字。那时候，牢门到市场没有多远的距离。然而，以囚犯的经历来估量，这恐怕还是有段距离的，虽说她姿态高傲，但在人们逼视的目光下，或许每迈出一步都要忍受一番痛苦，就像她的心已经给抛到街道上，任人唾弃和践踏。不过在人类的本性里，原存有着一种奇妙的慈悲之心，遭受苦难的人在承受痛楚的当下，通常无法觉察到痛苦的剧烈程度，反而是过后延绵的悲伤，最叫人撕心裂肺。赫斯特·普林几乎是带着一种安静平和的神态，度过了这种煎熬，来到市场西端的刑台跟前。刑台几乎就竖立在波士顿最早的教堂屋檐下，看上去像是教堂的一部分。

In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent, in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France. It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common nature — whatever be the delinquencies of the individual — no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame; as it was the essence of this punishment to do. In Hester Prynne's instance, however, as not unfrequently in other cases, her sentence bore, that she should stand a certain time upon the platform but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowing well her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude, at about the height of a man's shoulders above the street.

事实上，这座刑台是处刑机器的一部分。时隔二三代，它在我们当中仅仅代表着历史和传统，然而，在旧时，它却如同法国大革命时期处罚恐怖分子的断头台一样，被视为教化劝善的有效工具。简言之，刑台就是一座颈手枷的平台，上面竖着这个惩罚工具的架子，设计得刚好能把人头紧紧卡住，以便供人们观瞻。这个用木头和铁制成的发明，几近“完美”地诠释了丑恶。依我看来，无论犯有何等过失，再没有比这种暴行更违背我们的人性了，不准罪人因羞耻而遮掩他的面容——没有什么暴行会比还骇人听闻。可这恰恰是该刑罚的本意所在。不过就赫斯特·普林的例子而言，和其他案件相似，她所受到的惩罚是在刑台上罚站示众一段时间，无需受斩首绞刑之苦，其特点无疑就是这架羞陋机器的最邪恶之处。她深知自己现在的角色，举步登上一段木梯，站到与成年男子肩膀一样高的刑台上，将自己暴露在众目睽睽之下。

Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent;

如果在这群清教徒中有一个是罗马天主教徒的话，他或许会从这个美丽的女人、她华美的服饰，以及怀中的婴儿，联想到圣母玛丽亚的形象，那正是众多杰出画家所争先描绘的。

something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world.

然而，他这种联想只能在对比中产生，圣像中的那母亲纯洁无比，而她的孩子则是未来的救世主。

Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne.

然而在她身上，世俗生活中最神圣的品德，却因最深重的罪孽而被玷污，其结果只能使这个世界由于这妇人的美丽变得更加晦暗，她生下的婴儿也必将堕落。

The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellowcreature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering, at it. The witnesses of Hester Prynne's disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the Governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a general, and the ministers of the town; all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house, looking down upon the platform. When such personages could constitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual meaning. Accordingly, the crowd was sombre and grave. The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentred at her bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment, and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude — each man, each woman, each little shrillvoiced child, contributing their individual parts — Hester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once.

这种罪恶与耻辱的场面，总掺杂着一点敬畏之意。在社会尚未腐败到极点之前，即使人们不会为之战栗，也不至于仅一笑付之。而亲眼看到赫斯特·普林示众的人们，还没失去他们的朴实纯真。如果她被判死刑，他们会冷冷地看着她死去，并不会抱怨其过于严苛；但他们也不会像另一种社会形态中的人那般无情，把眼前这种示众当作笑柄。即使有人心里觉得这事有点可笑，也会因几位尊贵大人物的郑重出席，而不敢放肆。总督以及他的参议、法官、将军和镇上的牧师们，全都坐着或站在议事厅的阳台上，俯视着刑台。能有这样的人物到场，有他们显赫的地位和受人尊敬的职位作保证，我们可以有把握地推断，所做的判决应当是有其法律效力和意义的。因此，群众也显得忧郁而庄重。千百双用无情的眼睛逼视着这个不幸的罪人，目光都集中在她的胸前，她用尽一个女人最大的力量支撑着。这实在是让人难以忍受。凭着容易冲动和充满激情的天性，此时的她已使自己坚强起来，以面对众人各种各样的诋毁和利刃般的侮辱。但是人们沉重的情绪，倒令气氛变得更可怕，她宁愿看到一张张僵硬的面孔对她露出轻蔑的笑。如果每个男人、女人，每个尖嗓门的孩子一齐爆发出哄笑，赫斯特·普林或许还可以对所有人报以倔傲的冷笑。可是，她注定要忍受这种沉重的打击，她时时感到要鼓起胸中全部的力量来尖声呼号，并纵身从刑台翻到地面上去，否则，她肯定会立刻疯掉的。

Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or, at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images. Her mind, and especially her memory, was preternaturally active, and kept bringing up other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the Western wilderness; other faces than were lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those steeple-crowned hats. Reminiscences, the most trifling and immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports, childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, came swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in her subsequent life; one picture precisely as vivid as another; as if all were of similar importance, or all alike a play. Possibly it was an instinctive device of her spirit, to relieve itself, by the exhibition of these phantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weight and hardness of the reality.

然而，在她充当众目所瞩对象的过程中，她不时感到眼前的一切似乎消失不见，至少，人群像一大堆支离破碎、光怪陆离的幻象般模糊起来。她的思绪，尤其是她的记忆，却不可思异地活跃起来，跳出这个蛮荒的大洋西岸边缘上的小镇街道，不断带来其他的景色与场面。她想到的，并不是她脚边那些尖高帽檐下藐视她的面孔。那些最为琐碎、零散、无关紧要的记忆，孩提时代和学校生活，儿时的游戏和争吵，婚前在娘家的种种琐事全涌到了她的脑海里，其中还混杂着她后来生活中最重大事情的诸多片断，一切都是那么清晰，似乎每一件事都非常重要，宛若一场戏。可能这只是她本能的反应：通过展现这些各式各样、变幻莫测的画面，把自己的精神从眼前残酷的现实压力下解放出来。

Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point of view that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track along which she had been treading since her happy infancy. Standing on that miserable eminence, she saw her native village, in old England, and her paternal home; a decayed house of grey stone, with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half-obliterated shield of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility. She saw her father's face, with its bald brow and reverend white beard, that flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan ruff; her mother's, too, with the look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in her daughter's pathway. She saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There she beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamplight that had served them to pore over many ponderous books. Yet those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it was their owner's purpose to read the human soul. This figure of the study and the cloister, as Hester Prynne's womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right. Next rose before her, in memory's picture-gallery, the intricate and narrow thoroughfares, the tall, grey houses, the huge cathedrals, and the public edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a Continental city; where a new life had awaited her, still in connection with the misshapen scholar; a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne — yes, at herself — who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom!

无论如何，这座示众的刑台成了一个观望点，向赫斯特·普林展现出她幸福童年以来的全部轨迹。她痛苦地站在那里，并再一次看见了故乡英格兰的村落和父母的家园：那是一座破败的灰色石屋，虽说外表破败不堪，但在门廊上方还残存着盾形家族纹章的痕迹，彰显着古老的尊贵地位。她看到父亲的脸：光秃秃的额头，威风凛凛的白胡须散落在伊丽莎白时代的老式宽硬皱领上。母亲无微不至的爱和牵肠挂肚神情，也都时时在她脑海中萦绕，即使在母亲去世之后，仍经常在女儿的人生路上留下谆谆教诲。她看到了自己，那光彩动人的容貌，照亮了将她惯于凝视的那面昏暗镜子的整个镜心。她还看到了另一副面孔，那是一个年老力衰的男人，苍白而瘦削，一副学者的模样，由于在灯光下研读一册册长篇巨著而老眼昏花。然而正是这双昏花的眼睛，在一心要窥测他人灵魂时，又具有奇特的洞察力。尽管赫斯特·普林女性的幻想曾竭力想去摆脱，但那学者和隐士的身影还是缓缓呈现了，他略带畸形，左肩比右肩稍高。在她回忆的画廊中，接下来出现的是欧洲大陆上的一座城市，里面纵横交错的狭窄街道、高大的灰色住宅、宏伟的天主教堂，以及年深日久、古色古香的公共建筑物。一种崭新的生活在那里等待着她，不过仍和那个畸形的学者密切相关。那种生活就好比是一簇青苔附在坍塌的墙壁上，只能靠腐朽的物质来喂养自己。最后，这些不断变换的场景都烟消云散，赫斯特·普林又回到这片清教徒殖民地的简陋市场上，全镇的居民都聚在这里，冷酷地盯着她——是的，盯着她——她就站在示众的刑台上，怀抱着婴儿，胸前有一个用金丝巧妙绣了边的、鲜红的字母A!

Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes! — these were her realities — all else had vanished!

这一切都是真的吗？她把孩子紧紧抱在胸前，孩子哇的一声哭了。她垂下眼睛注视那鲜红的字母，甚至还用指头碰了一下，告诉自己：婴儿和耻辱都是真的。是啊，这些才是她的现实，其余的一切都消失了！Chapter 3THE RECOGNITION

第三章相认

From this intense consciousness of being the object of severe and universal observation, the wearer of the scarlet letter was at length relieved, by discerning on the outskirts of the crowd, a figure which irresistibly took possession of her thoughts. An Indian, in his native garb, was standing there; but the red men were not so infrequent visitors of the English settlements, that one of them would have attracted any notice from Hester Prynne at such a time; much less would he have excluded all other objects and ideas from her mind. By the Indian's side, and evidently sustaining a companionship with him, stood a white man, clad in a strange disarray of civilised and savage costume.

这个佩戴红字的人终于从众人严厉的注视中解脱了出来，因为此时的她注意到人群外围站着一个身影，那个身影不可遏止地占据了她全部的思考。一个身穿土著装束的印第安人站在那里，但在这块英国殖民地中，红种人并不鲜见。此时有这么一个人站在那儿并不会引起赫斯特·普林的任何注意，更不会把其他一切的事情和思绪从她的脑海中排挤出去。那个印度安人的旁边站着一个白人，此人的服饰体现出一种文明与野蛮的奇怪组合，无疑是那个印第安人的同伴。

He was small in stature, with a furrowed visage, which, as yet, could hardly be termed aged. There was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to mould the physical to itself, and become manifest by unmistakable tokens. Although, by a seemingly careless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb, he had endeavoured to conceal or abate the peculiarity, it was sufficiently evident to Hester Prynne that one of this man's shoulders rose higher than the other. Again, at the first instant of perceiving that thin visage, and the slight deformity of the figure, she pressed her infant to her bosom with so convulsive a force that the poor babe uttered another cry of pain. But the mother did not seem to hear it.

他身材矮小，满脸皱纹，不过还很难说他年事已高。他看上去像是一个很有智慧的人，似乎心智上的高度发展难免引起外形上的变化，而且形成了明显的特征。尽管他像是漫不经心地随便穿了件土著人的衣服，但其实是刻意用它遮掩或减少身体的怪异之处，可赫斯特·普林仍一眼便能看出那个人的双肩不一般高。同样，她第一眼看到那人瘦削的面孔和稍稍变形的躯体时，便不由自主地再一次把婴儿紧抱在胸前，弄得那可怜的孩子又疼得哭起来。但做母亲的好象对此充耳不闻。

At his arrival in the market-place, and some time before she saw him, the stranger had bent his eyes on Hester Prynne. It was carelessly, at first, like a man chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external matters are of little value and import, unless they bear relation to something within his mind. Very soon, however, his look became keen and penetrative. A writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause, with all its wreathed intervolutions in open sight. His face darkened with some powerful emotion, which, nevertheless, he so instantaneously controlled by an effort of his will, that, save at a single moment, its expression might have passed for calmness. After a brief space, the convulsion grew almost imperceptible, and finally subsided into the depths of his nature. When he found the eyes of Hester Prynne fastened on his own, and saw that she appeared to recognise him, he slowly and calmly raised his finger, made a gesture with it in the air, and laid it on his lips.

在他来到市场、赫斯特·普林没有看到他之前，那陌生人的目光早已直勾勾地盯上了她。起初，他的目光很随意，像是一个习惯于洞察他人内心的人，除非外表上的什么东西与内心有关，否则外表便无丝毫重要价值可言。然而很快，他的目光变得敏锐而犀利起来。一阵痛苦的恐惧扭曲了他的面孔，仿佛一条蛇在上面迅速地滑动，因稍停片刻而使那盘踞的形体清晰可见。他的脸色由于某种强大的情感而变得阴暗，不过他立刻用意志力控制住了，因而这种神色只停留了一小会儿，随即他脸上又出现一副平静的表情。转眼之间，那种扭曲抽搐几乎消逝得无影无踪，最终沉积在他天性的深渊里。当他发现赫斯特·普林与他的目光相遇，并认出了他时，便平静而缓慢地伸起一根手指做了个手势，然后把手指放在自己的嘴唇上。

Then, touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood next to him, he addressed him in a formal and courteous manner.

随后，他碰了碰旁边的一个本镇居民的肩膀，用正式客气的态度跟他说话。

"I pray you, good Sir, " said he, "who is this woman? — and wherefore is she here set up to public shame?"“我请问您，好心的先生，”他说，“这位妇女是谁？——为什么她要站在这里示众受辱呢？”

"You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend, " answered the townsman, looking curiously at the questioner and his savage companion, "else you would surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prynne, and her evil doings. She hath raised a great scandal, I promise you, in godly Master Dimmesdale's church. "“朋友你大概不是本地人吧，”那个人回答，并好奇地打量这个发问的人，和他那貌似还未开化的同伴，“不然的话，你一定听过赫斯特·普林太太，还有她的丑事。我可以向你保证，她在虔诚的丁梅斯代尔牧师的教堂里，引起了一件大丑闻。”

"You say truly, " replied the other. "I am a stranger, and have been a wanderer, sorely against my will. I have met with grievous mishaps by sea and land, and have been long held in bonds among the heathen folk, to the southward; and am now brought hither by this Indian, to be redeemed out of my captivity. Will it please you, therefore, to tell me of Hester Prynne's — have I her name rightly? — of this woman's offences, and what has brought her to yonder scaffold?"“您说对了，”那人接道，“我是外地人，迫不得已而四处漂泊。我在海上和陆上屡遭艰险，在南方被那些不信教的人囚禁了很久，如今又被这个印第安人带到这里来找人赎身。您能不能告诉我，赫斯特·普林——名字说对了吗？——这个女人犯了什么过错以至于给带到那座刑台上了呢？”

"Truly, friend; and methinks it must gladden your heart, after your troubles and sojourn in the wilderness, " said the townsman, "to find yourself, at length, in a land where iniquity is searched out, and punished in the sight of rulers and people, as here in our godly New England. Yonder woman, Sir, you must know, was the wife of a certain learned man, English by birth, but who had long dwelt in Amsterdam, whence, some good time agone, he was minded to cross over and cast in his lot with us of the Massachusetts. To this purpose, he sent his wife before him, remaining himself to look after some necessary affairs. Marry, good Sir, in some two years, or less, that the woman has been a dweller here in Boston, no tidings have come of this learned gentleman, Master Prynne; and his young wife, look you, being left to her own misguidance" —

镇上的人说道：“说实话，朋友，我想您在蛮荒之地历经千辛万苦之后，终于来到我们这块敬仰上帝的新英格兰，心里一定挺高兴的吧。在这里，一切罪恶都要被当众揭发，在长官和百姓面前加以惩罚。那上边站着的女人嘛，先生，你应该知道，她是一个有学问的人的妻子。他在英国出生，但在阿姆斯特丹长期定居，很久之前决心漂洋过海，搬到我们马萨诸塞这儿来。为此，他先把他妻子送来，自己留在那边处理一些必要的事务。天啊，好心的先生，差不多两年的时间里，也许还没那么久呢，这女人一直是我们波士顿的居民，那位学者普林先生却始终没有一点音讯。后来他这位年轻的老婆，你看，就误入歧途了——”

"Ah! — aha! — I conceive you, " said the stranger, with a bitter smile. "So learned a man as you speak of should have learned this too in his books. And who, by your favour, Sir, may be the father of yonder babe — it is some three or four months old, I should judge — which Mistress Prynne is holding in her arms?"“啊！啊哈！明白了。”那陌生人苦笑着说，“照您说的，那位饱学之士本应在书本中就学到这一点了。那么，先生您能不能顺便告诉我一下，谁是那婴儿的父亲呢？我看啊，普林太太怀里抱着的那个孩子，大概有三四个月大了吧。”

"Of a truth, friend, that matter remaineth a riddle; and the Daniel who shall expound it is yet a-wanting, " answered the townsman. "Madam Hester absolutely refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid their heads together in vain. Peradventure the guilty one stands looking on at this sad spectacle, unknown of man, and forgetting that God sees him."“说实话，朋友，那还是个谜呢。像丹尼尔那样能揭开谜底的人，我们这儿还没有哪，”那个镇上人回答说。“赫斯特太太守口如瓶，官爷们就算再挖空心思，想要弄清楚是怎么回事，那也是白费劲儿。说不定那个罪人正站在哪儿，注视着这让人伤心的场面呢。别人还不知道是他干的，不过他可别忘了，上帝正盯着呢。”

"The learned man, " observed the stranger, with another smile, "should come himself, to look into the mystery. "“那个学者，”陌生人冷笑着说，“应该亲自来调查调查这桩奇案。”

"It behooves him well, if he be still in life, " responded the townsman. "Now, good Sir, our Massachusetts magistracy, bethinking themselves that this woman is youthful and fair, and doubtless was strongly tempted to her fall — and that, moreover, as is most likely, her husband may be at the bottom of the sea — they have not been bold to put in force the extremity of our righteous law against her. The penalty thereof is death. But in their great mercy and tenderness of heart, they have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then and thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life, to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom.“要是他还活着，是该由他来办的。”那镇上人附和道。“好心的先生，现在我们马萨诸塞治安团认为，这个女人如此年轻貌美，毫无疑问是受了极大的诱惑才堕落的。更何况，她的丈夫很可能已经葬身海底，那些当官的不大敢用我们正义的法律强制判处她极刑。论罪，她是该处死的。可是，他们心肠太软，只判普林太太在刑台站三个小时，并且在她的有生之年，胸前要永远佩戴一个耻辱的标记。”

"A wise sentence!" remarked the stranger, gravely bowing his head. "Thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the ignominious letter be engraved upon her tombstone. It irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not, at least, stand on the scaffold by her side. But he will be known! — he will be known! — he will be known!" He bowed courteously to the communicative townsman, and, whispering a few words to his Indian attendant, they both made their way through the crowd.“果然是明智的判决！”陌生人沉重地垂下头说道。“这样一来，她就成了告诫人们抵制罪恶的活生生的例子，直到那个耻辱的字母刻到她的墓碑上为止。不过，我最受不了的是，那个和她共同犯下罪孽的人，至少也应该陪她一起在刑台上站着才对啊。反正他会让人知道的！会让人知道的！他一定会让人知道的！”陌生人向那健谈的镇上人恭恭敬敬地鞠了一躬，又跟他的印第安随从耳语了几句，便双双穿过人群到前边去了。

While this passed, Hester Prynne had been standing on her pedestal, still with a fixed gaze towards the stranger; so fixed a gaze, that, at moments of intense absorption, all other objects in the visible world seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her.

在这段时间里，赫斯特·普林一直站在刑台上，牢牢盯着那陌生人；她的注意力完全集中到他身上，一时间她视线内所有其他的东西全都从眼前消失了，只剩下了他和她两个人。

Such an interview, perhaps, would have been more terrible than even to meet him as she now did, with the hot, midday sun burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame; with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronly veil, at church. Dreadful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses. It was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet him, face to face, they two alone. She fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure, and dreaded the moment when its protection should be withdrawn from her. Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice behind her, until it had repeated her name more than once, in a loud and solemn tone, audible to the whole multitude.

或许，同现在的情形相比，在另一种场合同他邂逅要更加可怕。她的姿容，原本应该出现在壁炉旁恬静的柔光里、家庭中温馨的隐蔽处，或是戴着庄重的面纱出现在教堂里。可眼下，她在聚拢来的全镇人面前，被大家仿佛看热闹似的死盯着。正午的炎炎烈日烧灼着她的面容，照亮了她脸上的耻辱，她胸前佩戴着丑陋的鲜红标记，她怀中抱着因罪孽而生下的婴儿。此情此景虽然可怕，但她却感到，这数以千计的旁观者的存在，倒是一种庇护。这样站着就好了，他们之间虽然隔着这么多人，可总比只有他们两个面对面寒暄要好受一些。可以说，这种示众场合成了她所寻求的庇护，她担心不知何时这种保护会从她身边消失。她的脑海充满了种种念头，对于她身后传来的话语竟然充耳不闻。直到后来，那严肃的话音越来越高，并一再重复她的名字，使得在场所有的人都听得一清二楚。

"Hearken unto me, Hester Prynne!" said the voice.“听我说，赫斯特·普林！”那声音喊道。

It has already been noticed that directly over the platform on which Hester Prynne stood was a kind of balcony, or open gallery, appended to the meeting-house. It was the place whence proclamations were wont to be made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such public observances in those days. Here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself, with four sergeants about his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard of honour. He wore a dark feather in his hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic beneath; a gentleman advanced in years, with a hard experience written in his wrinkles. He was not ill fitted to be the head and representative of a community, which owed its origin and progress, and its present state of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern and tempered energies of manhood and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined and hoped so little. The other eminent characters, by whom the chief ruler was surrounded, were distinguished by a dignity of mien, belonging to a period when the forms of authority were felt to possess the sacredness of Divine institutions. They were, doubtless, good men, just and sage. But, out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons, who should be less capable of sitting in judgment on an erring woman's heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her face. She seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever sympathy she might expect lay in the larger and warmer heart of the multitude; for, as she lifted her eyes towards the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale and trembled. The voice which had called her attention was that of the reverend and famous John Wilson, the eldest clergyman of Boston, a great scholar, like most of his contemporaries in the profession, and withal a man of kind and genial spirit. This last attribute, however, had been less carefully developed than his intellectual gifts, and was, in truth, rather a matter of shame than self-congratulation with him. There he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skull-cap; while his grey eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester's infant, in the unadulterated sunshine. He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons; and had no more right than one of those portraits would have to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish.

前面已经提过，就在赫斯特·普林所站的高台正上方，有一处阳台，或者说是露天走廊，从议事厅延伸出来。当年，在地方长官集会时，如果要发布什么公告，需要镇民都来出席聆听，就会在这里举行种种仪式。今天，为了目睹我们上面所描写的场面，贝林厄姆总督亲自坐镇，椅子后面站着四个持戟的警卫充当仪仗。他的帽子上插着一支黑羽毛，披风上绣着花边，里面衬着黑丝绒的紧身衣；他是一位中年的绅士，曾经艰苦的经历都深深烙印在皱纹里。他出任此地区的首脑和代表当之无愧，因为这个殖民地的起源和发展及其现状，并非源自青春的鲁莽冲动，而是有赖于成年人的坚毅而有节制的精力，以及经历过岁月洗礼之人的权谋和手腕。他们所以能成就颇多，恰恰是因为他们少有幻想和期望。总督周围还有其他显要，个个都威风凛凛，正因他们都属于那样一个年代，那时政府机构的组织形式具有神权制度的神圣性。毫无疑问，他们都是善良、正义且充满智慧的人。然而，要从整个人类大家庭里，选出同等数量的英明贤德之士绝非易事，因为他们将要坐下来审判一个犯罪女人的心灵，并分清善恶交错的盘结。比起赫斯特·普林此时转身面对的这群严厉圣人，他们定然做不到那么出色。确实，她似乎意识到，不管期待着什么样的同情，它们都只能从人们博大温暖的胸怀中升起。因为当她抬眼朝阳台上望去时，这个不幸的女人立即变得面色苍白，全身战栗。德高望重的约翰·威尔逊牧师刚才的呼喊声引起了她的注意。他是波士顿神职人员中年事最高的一位，如同大部分从事这个职业的同辈人一样，他是一位伟大的学者，而且亲切和蔼。不过，他这种待人亲切和蔼的心肠，并没有像他那理智的头脑一样得到认真的培养。事实上，对他来说，这种好心肠并不值得自我庆幸，反而更应该被视作是一种耻辱。他站在那里，无边便帽下露出一绺灰白的假发。他那双习惯了书斋朦胧光线的灰色眼睛，在纯净的阳光中，也像赫斯特的婴儿一样眨动着。他看上去就像我们在古老经书的扉页上见过的黑色木刻肖像。而此时，当他迈步向前干涉着人类的罪孽、情欲和苦恼时，他的权力也并不比那些肖像多。

"Hester Prynne, " said the clergyman, "I have striven with my young brother here, under whose preaching of the word you have been privileged to sit, " — here Mr. Wilson laid his hand on the shoulder of a pale young man beside him — "I have sought, I say, to persuade this godly youth, that he should deal with you, here in the face of Heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers, and in hearing of all the people, as touching the vileness and blackness of your sin. Knowing your natural temper better than I, he could the better judge what arguments to use, whether of tenderness or terror, such as might prevail over your hardness and obstinacy; insomuch that you should no longer hide the name of him who tempted you to this grievous fall. But he opposes to me (with a young man's over-softness, albeit wise beyond his years) that it were wronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay open her heart's secrets in such broad daylight, and in the presence of so great a multitude. Truly, as I sought to convince him, the shame lay in the commission of the sin, and not in the showing of it forth. What say you to it, once again, Brother Dimmesdale? Must it be thou, or I, that shall deal with this poor sinner's soul?"“赫斯特·普林，”牧师说道，“我已经和这位年轻的兄弟讨论过，由他来为你进行布道，”此时，威尔逊先生把手放到了身边一个脸色苍白的年轻人肩头。“我说，我曾经试图说服这位虔诚的青年，在神圣的苍穹之下，在这些英明正直的长官面前，在全体人民的旁听下，来处理你的问题，触及你罪孽中邪恶而阴暗的一面。他比我更了解你的脾性，所以应该是个更合格的法官，更清楚应该用刚柔相济的辞令，克服你的桀骜不驯，使你不再隐瞒那个诱惑你、并使你如此堕落的人的名字。然而，(尽管他的才华超出了年龄，却仍有年轻人的优柔)，他同我争辩道，强制一个妇女在光天化日，大庭广众之中，敞开自己内心的隐私，对于女性来说是非常不公正的。确实，正如我试图说服他时所讲的那样，只有在犯下罪孽过程中才会觉得羞愧，而在事后的袒露中则不然。你再说一遍吧，丁梅斯代尔兄弟，你对此看法如何？到底该由你还是由我，去探究这个可怜罪人的灵魂呢？”

There was a murmur among the dignified and reverend occupants of the balcony; and Governor Bellingham gave expression to its purport, speaking in an authoritative voice, although tempered with respect towards the youthful clergyman whom he addressed.

阳台上那些高贵的、受人敬重的先生们彼此交头接耳，贝林厄姆总督对此作出了表示，他说话时语气庄重而威严，不过仍含有对他指认的那位年轻牧师的尊敬。

"Good Master Dimmesdale, " said he, "the responsibility of this woman's soul lies greatly with you. It behooves you, therefore, to exhort her to repentance, and to confession, as a proof and consequence thereof. "“善良的丁梅斯代尔牧师先生，”他说，“你对这女人的灵魂负有极大的责任。因此，应该由你亲自来规劝她悔过和坦白，以证明你的确尽职尽责。”

The directness of this appeal drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon the Reverend Mr Dimmesdale; a young clergyman who had come from one of the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild forest-land. His eloquence and religious fervour had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow, large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self-restraint. Notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air about this young minister — an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look — as of a being who felt himself quite astray and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own. Therefore, so far as his duties would permit, he trod in the shadowy bypaths, and thus kept himself simple and childlike, coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said, affected them like the speech of an angel.

这番直截了当的要求，把整个人群的目光都吸引到了丁梅斯代尔牧师的身上。他是个毕业于英国名牌大学的年轻牧师，把当时的全部学识都带到了我们这片荒野密林。他雄辩的口才和对宗教的热情，早已预示了他在职业上将要飞黄腾达。他的外貌很吸引人：他有着高耸、白皙的额头和一双忧郁深邃的褐色大眼，至于嘴唇，若不是刻意紧闭，很容易就会颤抖，表明他既有神经质的敏感又有极大的自制力。尽管有着极高的天赋和学者般的造诣，这位年轻的牧师身上却流露出一种忧心忡忡和惊慌失措的神色，就像一个人在人生道路上偏离了方向，充满了迷惘，只有把自己封闭起来才觉得安然。因此，只要职责允许，他就会在浓荫密布的小径上漫步，借以保持他自己的纯真和稚气。必要时，他还会带着清新芬芳和露水般晶莹纯洁的思想迈步走出来，正如许多人所说，用天使般的话语影响着他们。

Such was the young man whom the Reverend Mr. Wilson and the Governor had introduced so openly to the public notice, bidding him speak, in the hearing of all men, to that mystery of a woman's soul, so sacred even in its pollution. The trying nature of his position drove the blood from his cheek, and made his lips tremulous.

威尔逊牧师先生和总督大人为引起大家注意而作公开介绍的，正是这样一个年轻人。他们要他在万众瞩目下质问那个女人灵魂中的秘密——她的灵魂虽然受到玷污，却依然神圣不可侵犯。处于此种境地的他，面颊失去血色，双唇不停地颤抖。

"Speak to the woman, my brother, " said Mr. Wilson. "It is of moment to her soul, and therefore, as the worshipful Governor says, momentous to thine own, in whose charge hers is. Exhort her to confess the truth!"“跟这个女人谈谈吧，我的兄弟，”威尔逊先生说。“这是她灵魂的关键时刻，正如我们崇敬的总督大人所说，由于你对她的灵魂负有职责，因此，这对你自己的灵魂也同样是关键时刻。劝诫她招认实情吧！”

The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale bent his head, in silent prayer, as it seemed, and then came forward.

丁梅斯代尔牧师先生低下头去，像是在默默祈祷，然后便迈步向前。

"Hester Prynne, " said he, leaning over the balcony, and looking down steadfastly into her eyes, "thou hearest what this good man says, and seest the accountability under which I labour. If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him — yea, compel him, as it were — to add hypocrisy to sin? Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumph over the evil within thee, and the sorrow without. Take heed how thou deniest to him — who, perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for himself — the bitter, but wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips!"“赫斯特·普林，”他俯身探出阳台，坚定地朝下凝视着她的眼睛说道，“你已经听到了这位好心的先生所讲的话，也已经看到了我所肩负的重任。如果你觉得这样做能让灵魂安宁，觉得现在所受的惩罚更能拯救你的灵魂，那么我就责令你说出和你一起犯下罪孽、并承受罪过的人吧！不要因为对他抱有错误的怜悯和慈悲而保持沉默。请你相信我的话，赫斯特，虽然那样一来，他就要从高位上走下来，站到你的身边，和你同受示众之辱，但总比终生埋藏着一颗罪恶的心灵要好受得多。你的沉默对他有何用？无非是诱引他——是的，事实上是迫使他——在罪孽上再蒙以虚伪?上天已经赐予你示众的机会，那么你就该光明正大地站胜你内心的邪恶和外在的悲伤。现在呈献到你唇边的酒，虽然苦涩却大有裨益。那个人或许缺乏勇气接过来端给自己，可是我要请你注意，不要阻止他去接受啊！”

The young pastor's voice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, and broken. The feeling that it so evidently manifested, rather than the direct purport of the words, caused it to vibrate within all hearts, and brought the listeners into one accord of sympathy. Even the poor baby at Hester's bosom, was affected by the same influence; for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms, with a half-pleased, half-plaintive murmur. So powerful seemed the minister's appeal that the people could not believe but that Hester Prynne would speak out the guilty name; or else that the guilty one himself, in whatever high or lowly place he stood, would be drawn forth by an inward and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascend the scaffold. Hester shook her head.

青年牧师的话音不断颤抖着，听起来那么甜美、丰润、深沉，实在撼人心肺。那明显表达出来的感情，要比言词的直接涵义更能扣人心弦，因此博得了听众一致的同情。甚至赫斯特怀中那可怜的婴儿都受到了同样的感染：她将依旧还很茫然的目光投向丁梅斯代尔先生，还举起两条小胳膊，发出一阵似忧似喜的声音。牧师的规劝实在很有说服力，以致在场所有人都相信，赫斯特·普林就要说出那罪人的名字了。否则，那个犯罪的男人，不论身处的地位或高或低，也都会受内心不可避免的力量推动，而被迫登上刑台。赫斯特摇了摇头。

"Woman, transgress not beyond the limits of Heaven's mercy!" cried the Reverend Mr. Wilson, more harshly than before. "That little babe hath been gifted with a voice, to second and confirm the counsel which thou hast heard. Speak out the name! That, and thy repentance, may avail to take the scarlet letter off thy breast. "“女人啊，你违背上天的仁慈可不要超过限度！”威尔逊牧师先生更加严厉地嚷道。“你那小小的婴儿都用她那天赐的声音，来附和并肯定你所听到的规劝了。把那人的名字说出来吧！那样一来，加上你的悔改，会有助于从你胸前取下那红字。”

"Never!" replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. Wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. "It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine!"“我永远不会说的！”赫斯特·普林回答说，她的眼睛没有去看威尔逊先生，而是凝视着那年轻牧师深邃而忧郁的眼睛。“这红字烙得太深了。你是取不下来的。但愿我能在忍受我的痛苦，同时也替他承受他的痛苦！”

"Speak, woman!" said another voice, coldly and sternly, proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold. "Speak; and give your child a father!"“说吧，女人！”从刑台附近的人群中发出的另一个冷酷的声音。“说出来吧，让你的孩子有一个父亲！”

"I will not speak!" answered Hester, turning pale as death, but responding to this voice, which she too surely recognized. "And my child must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly one!"“我不说！”赫斯特回答着，她的脸色虽然变得像死人一样惨白，但还是对那个她确认无疑的声音作出了答复。“我的孩子应该追求一个天上的父亲！她将永远不会知道她有一个世俗的父亲！”

"She will not speak!" murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand upon his heart, had awaited the result of his appeal. He now drew back, with a long respiration. "Wondrous strength and generosity of a woman's heart! She will not speak!"“她不肯说！”丁梅斯代尔先生低声道。他一直俯身探出阳台，一只手捂住心口，等候着听他呼吁的结果。这时他长长吐了一口气，缩回了身体。“这个女人的心胸是多么坚强和宽阔啊！她不肯说！”

Discerning the impractible state of the poor culprit's mind, the elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addressed to the multitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continual reference to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did he dwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more during which his periods were rolling over the people's heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit. Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference. She had borne, that morning, all that nature could endure; and as her temperament was not of the order that escapes from too intense suffering by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties of animal life remained entire. In this state, the voice of the preacher thundered remorselessly, but unavailingly, upon her ears. The infant, during the latter portion of her ordeal, pierced the air with its wailings and screams; she strove to hush it, mechanically, but seemed scarcely to sympathise with its trouble. With the same hard demeanour, she was led back to prison, and vanished from the public gaze within its iron-clamped portal. It was whispered, by those who peered after her, that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passage-way of the interior.

虽然看到这可怜的罪人一意孤行，年长的牧师却对此早已成竹在胸，他向人群发表了一通论述罪恶的演讲，列举了形形色色的罪过，并且不断涉及那耻辱的字母。他在长达一个多小时的演讲中，详尽地叙述着这个标记，他那强有力的言辞在人们耳边反复轰鸣，并在他们的心头引起了新的恐惧，似乎那鲜红的颜色乃是来源于地狱之火。与此同时，赫斯特·普林保持着一种疲惫的淡然神情，在耻辱的邢台上，她凝眸端立。那天早晨，她忍受了人性所能承担的一切。由于她的气质决定了她不会以昏厥来逃避过于强烈的苦难，她的灵魂只有躲藏在麻木的石质硬壳下，生命的机能才能完好无损。因此，那位布道者的声音虽在她耳畔残酷无情地轰响着，但到头来依旧徒劳无功。在她备受折磨的后一段时间里，婴儿的尖声哭号直贯云霄。她虽有下意识地哄孩子安静下来，但似乎对婴儿的痛痒并没有多少同情。就这样，她以同样僵硬的姿态又给带回了监狱，从众人眼前消失了，走进了钉满铁钉的牢门。人们窥视着她的背影，窃窃私语。她胸前的红字在监狱内黑漆漆的通路上投下了一道血红的闪光。Chapter 4THE INTERVIEW

第四章会面

After her return to the prison, Hester Prynne was found to be in a state of nervous excitement that demanded constant watchfulness, lest she should perpetrate violence on herself, or do some half-frenzied mischief to the poor babe. As night approached, it proving impossible to quell her insubordination by rebuke or threats of punishment, Master Brackett, the jailer, thought fit to introduce a physician. He described him as a man of skill in all Christian modes of physical science, and likewise familiar with whatever the savage people could teach, in respect to medicinal herbs and roots that grew in the forest. To say the truth, there was much need of professional assistance, not merely for Hester herself, but still more urgently for the child, who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom, seemed to have drunk in with it all the turmoil, the anguish and despair, which pervaded the mother's system. It now writhed in convulsions of pain, and was a forcible type, in its little frame, of the moral agony which Hester Prynne had borne throughout the day.

返回监狱之后，赫斯特·普林便陷入了一种神经质的亢奋之中，必须得有人片刻不离地看守着她，以防止她作出自残之举，或在一时癫狂之中伤及可怜的婴儿。夜幕降临，人们发现，无论是大声呵斥抑或是以惩罚作威胁，对于她来说都无济于事，看守长布拉克特先生便主张请来一个医生给她看看。根据他的介绍，那医生不但精通基督教的各种医术，而且熟谙从野蛮人那里学来的、 长在林间的一切草药。老实讲，需要医生诊治的，不仅是赫斯特本人，更为迫切的倒是那孩子。由于她要从母亲的乳汁中汲取营养，似乎也同时吸进了渗透在母亲肌体中的一切骚动、痛楚和绝望。此时，她正在痛苦地抽搐着，而那小小的身躯有力地展现了赫斯特·普林一天所忍受到的精神痛苦。

Closely following the jailer into the dismal apartment appeared that individual, of singular aspect, whose presence in the crowd had been of such deep interest to the wearer of the scarlet letter. He was lodged in the prison, not as suspected of any offence, but as the most convenient and suitable mode of disposing of him, until the magistrates should have conferred with the Indian sagamores respecting his ransom. His name was announced as Roger Chillingworth. The jailer, after ushering him into the room, remained a moment, marvelling at the comparative quiet that followed his entrance; for Hester Prynne had immediately become as still as death, although the child continued to moan.

那个外表奇特的陌生人紧跟着看守，走进了阴暗的房间，他在上午人群中露面的时候，曾经引起了红字佩戴者的深切注意。长官们后来安排他暂时待在狱中，倒不是担心他会作出什么有害之举，而是在和印第安头目协商他的赎身问题前，只有如此才最为方便妥善。据称他名叫罗杰·奇林沃思。看守长把他领进牢房后，仅逗留了片刻，整个屋子居然也随那人的到来而安静了下来，这使看守颇为诧异。此时，婴儿虽然依旧呻吟不止，赫斯特·普林却立刻像是死去般僵呆了。

"Prithee, friend, leave me alone with my patient, " said the practitioner. Trust me, good jailer, you shall briefly have peace in your house; and, I promise you, Mistress Prynne shall hereafter be more amenable to just authority than you may have found her heretofore. "“朋友，请让我和病人单独呆一会儿，”那医生说道。“请相信我，看守长，你管的这间牢房很快就会安静下来的。而且我还向你保证，普林太太将从此遵从执法长官，不会再像原先那样了。”

"Nay, if your worship can accomplish that, " answered Master Brackett, "I shall own you for a man of skill indeed! Verily, the woman hath been like a possessed one; and there lacks little, that I should take in hand to drive Satan out of her with stripes. "“嘿，要是你老先生能够做到这一条，”看守马斯特·布拉克特回答说，“那么我承认你的确有两下子！真的，这女人一直就像是被魔鬼缠身似的，我简直使尽了招数，就差用鞭子把撒旦从她身上赶走啦。”

The stranger had entered the room with the characteristic quietude of the profession to which he announced himself as belonging. Nor did his demeanour change when the withdrawal of the prison keeper left him face to face with the woman, whose absorbed notice of him, in the crowd, had intimated so close a relation between himself and her. His first care was given to the child; whose cries, indeed, as she lay writhing on the trundlebed, made it of peremptory necessity to postpone all other business to the task of soothing her. He examined the infant carefully, and then proceeded to unclasp a leathern case, which he took from beneath his dress. It appeared to contain medical preparations, one of which he mingled with a cup of water.

陌生人心平气和地走进牢房，态度倒和他自称的医生职业相称。看守长退出以后，只剩他和那女人面面相对，他依然保持着镇定的姿态，她在人群中曾经那么专注地望着他，说明他俩之间的关系异常密切。他先诊视那孩子，是啊，那婴儿躺在轮床上辗转哭泣，使他不得不先撇下其他事情，把安抚她作为当务之急。他仔细给孩子做了检查，然后从衣服里掏出并打开了一个皮匣。里面像是装着药物，他取出一粒，放进水杯里搅拌。

"My old studies in alchemy, " observed he, "and my sojourn, for above a year past, among a people well versed in the kindly properties of simples, have made a better physician of me than many that claim the medical degree. Here, woman! The child is yours — she is none of mine — neither will she recognise my voice or aspect as a father's. Administer this draught, therefore, with thine own hand. "“我过去对炼金术有研究，”他述说着，“再加上过去一年里生活在一个精通草药药性的民族中间，使我比许多科班出身的医生更高明。听我说，妇人！这孩子是你的，和我毫无血缘关系，她也不会把我的音容认作是她父亲的。所以，还是由你亲手给她喂药吧。”

Hester repelled the offered medicine, at the same time gazing with strongly marked apprehension into his face.

赫斯特推开了他举着的那剂药，同时两眼紧盯着他的面孔。

"Wouldst thou avenge thyself on the innocent babe?" whispered she.“你打算在这无辜的婴儿身上发泄你的仇恨吗？”她悄声说。

"Foolish woman!" responded the physician, half coldly, half soothingly. "What should ail me, to harm this misbegotten and miserable babe? The medicine is potent for good; and were it my child — yea, mine own, as well as thine! — I could do no better for it. "“蠢女人！”那医生不冷不热地应道。“加害于这样一个不幸的私生婴儿，难道我发疯了？给她喝下去会药到病除的，即使她是我的孩子——对，就像是你的，也是我的！——我也没有更好的药了。”

As she still hesitated, being, in fact, in no reasonable state of mind, he took the infant in his arms, and himself administered the draught. It soon proved its efficacy, and redeemed the leech's pledge. The moans of the little patient subsided; its convulsive tossings gradually ceased; and, in a few moments, as is the custom of young children after relief from pain, it sank into a profound and dewy slumber. The physician, as he had a fair right to be termed, next bestowed his attention on the mother. With calm and intent scrutiny, he felt her pulse, looked into her eyes — a gaze that made her heart shrink and shudder, because so familiar, and yet so strange and cold — and, finally, satisfied with his investigation, proceeded to mingle another draught.

她仍然迟疑不决，事实上，她的头脑此时已经不清醒了。他便借机抱过婴儿，亲自给她喂了药。药力很快便见效了，看来医生说的没错。患病小家伙的呻吟总算平息了，痉挛般的扭动也逐渐停止了，过了一会儿，跟小孩子解除痛苦后常见的那样，她香甜地进入了梦乡。那医生如今可以当之无愧了。这下他才开始诊治那位母亲。他仔细认真、专心致志地为她号脉，观察她的眼睛。他的凝视本应如此熟悉，可此刻却是陌生而冷酷，看得她的心都抽搐打颤。最后，他满意地结束了诊断，开始调和另一剂药。

"I know not Lethe nor Nepenthe, " remarked he, "but I have learned many new secrets in the wilderness, and here is one of them — a recipe that an Indian taught me, in requital of some lessons of my own, that were as old as Paracelsus. Drink it! It may be less soothing than a sinless conscience. That I cannot give thee. But it will calm the swell and heaving of thy passion, like oil thrown on the waves of a tempestuous sea. "“我不晓得什么迷魂汤或忘忧草之类的东西，”他说道，“但我在那些野蛮人中间学到了许多新的配方，这里的就是其中一种——这是个印第安人教给我的一种偏方，以报答我传授给他的一些像巴拉塞尔苏斯那样古老知识。喝了吧！这药也许不如一颗纯洁的善心那样让人舒服。那我可没办法给你。不过，这药可以平息你那翻腾不已的情绪，就像把油泼在暴风雨肆虐的海面一样。”

He presented the cup to Hester, who received it with a slow, earnest look into his face; not precisely a look of fear, yet full of doubt and questioning, as to what his purposes might be. She looked also at her slumbering child.

他把杯子端给了赫斯特，她一边接过杯子一边缓缓地打量起他的面容，目光里说不上有什么恐惧，倒是充满了疑虑和探究，想弄清他的目的何在。她接着又看了看她那熟睡的孩子。

"I have thought of death, " said she — "have wished for it — would even have prayed for it, were it fit that such as I should pray for anything. Yet, if death be in this cup, I bid thee think again, ere thou beholdest me quaff it. See! It is even now at my lips. "“我想到过死，”她说，“我巴不得去死，甚至还祈祷过上帝让我去死，如果我还可以有所祈求的话。不过，要是这杯药可以置我于死地，在你眼看着我一口吞下去之前，我请求你再想一想。看！杯子已经沾到我嘴唇了。”

"Drink, then, " replied he, still with the same cold composure. "Dost thou know me so little, Hester Prynne? Are my purposes wont to be so shallow? Even if I imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could I do better for my object than to let thee live — than to give thee medicines against all harm and peril of life — so that this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom?" As he spoke, he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to scorch into Hester's breast, as if it had been red-hot. He noticed her involuntary gesture, and smiled. "Live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee, in the eyes of men and women — in the eyes of him whom thou didst call thy husband — in the eyes of yonder child! And, that thou mayest live, take off this draught. "“那就喝吧。”他回应，神情依然冷酷，不动声色。“难道你就这么不了解我吗，赫斯特·普林？我的目标会如此浅薄吗？即使我心里有着复仇的念头，我也要让你活着，给你药吃，让你的生命不受任何伤害和危险。因为那样的话，这灼热的耻辱就可以继续烧烫你的胸膛，难道我还有其他更高明的做法来达到我复仇的目的吗？”他一边说着，一边把长长的食指放到那红字上，那字立刻变得炙热起来，就像是要烙进赫斯特的胸膛。他注意到她那不由自主的姿势，微微一笑。“所以说，还是活下去吧，在男男女女的眼前，在你曾经称作丈夫的人眼前，在这个孩子眼前，承受你注定的命运吧！那么，为了你可以活下去，把药吃了吧。”

Without further expostulation or delay, Hester Prynne drained the cup, and, at the motion of the man of skill, seated herself on the bed where the child was sleeping; while he drew the only chair which the room afforded, and took his own seat beside her. She could not but tremble at these preparations; for she felt that — having now done all that humanity, or principle, or, if so it were, a refined cruelty, impelled him to do, for the relief of physical suffering — he was next to treat with her as the man whom she had most deeply and irreparably injured.

赫斯特·普林没有再提出异议，也没有再加拖延，举杯将药一饮而尽，然后按照这个技艺高超的男人的示意，坐到了孩子睡着的床上；而他则拉过牢房中唯一的一把椅子，坐在她的旁边。面对种种安排，她不由得全身颤栗起来。因为她感觉到，他完成这一切是基于人道主义，或者原则，或者说是基于一种优雅的残忍。而做完这些事情，解除了她肉体上痛苦之后，接下来，他就要作为一个被她深深伤害过的、伤得无法换回的人来对待她了。

"Hester, " said he, "I ask not wherefore, nor how, thou hast fallen into the pit, or say, rather, thou hast ascended to the pedestal of infamy on which I found thee. The reason is not far to seek. It was my folly, and thy weakness. I — a man of thought — the bookworm of great libraries — a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge — what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own! Misshapen from my birth-hour, how could I delude myself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl's fantasy! Men call me wise. If sages were ever wise in their own behoof, I might have foreseen all this. I might have known that, as I came out of the vast and dismal forest, and entered this settlement of Christian men, the very first object to meet my eyes would be thyself, Hester Prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy, before the people. Nay, from the moment when we came down the old church steps together, a married pair, I might have beheld the bale-fire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!"“赫斯特，”他说，“我并不想质问你是出于什么原因或以何种方式堕入了深渊，或者确切地说，你如何登上了耻辱的刑台——我正是在那儿见到你的。原因显而易见。那就是我的愚蠢和你的软弱。我，一个思想深刻之人，一个博览群书的书呆子，我把大好年华都用来满足对知识的渴求，如今已是垂暮之人，我与你的青春美貌已经无关了！生来畸形，我又怎能自欺欺人，竟以为在年轻姑娘的心目中，知识和智慧可以掩盖肉体的缺陷！人们都称我为明智的人。如果智者有自知之明，我早就该预见到这一切了。我原先就该料到，当我走出那广袤的森林，步入这基督徒的地方，首先映入我眼帘的就是你本人，赫斯特·普林，作为耻辱的雕像，高高站在众人面前。唉，从我们携手一起走下那古老教堂的台阶那一刻，我就应该看到：在我们道路的尽头燃着红字的烈火！”

"Thou knowest, " said Hester — for, depressed as she was, she could not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her shame — "thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any. "“你要知道，”赫斯特说，——尽管她十分沮丧，但依旧无法忍受，方才他在代表了耻辱的红字上那轻轻的一戳——“你知道我一向对你很坦率。我没有感受过爱情，我也不想假装。”

"True, " replied he. "It was my folly! I have said it. But, up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. The world had been so cheerless! My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one! It seemed not so wild a dream — old as I was, and sombre as I was, and misshapen as I was — that the simple bliss, which is scattered far and wide for all mankind to gather up, might yet be mine. And so, Hester, I drew thee into my heart, into its innermost chamber, and sought to warm thee by the warmth which thy presence made there!"“的确，”他回答说。“那是我太愚蠢！我刚才已经说过了。但是，直到我生命的那个时期，我都白活了。整个世界都那么郁郁寡欢，我的心宽敞得可以容下好多人，但孤寂而凄凉，没有一处炉火。我多盼望能点燃一簇火焰啊！看来这并不是非分之想。尽管我年老力衰，我性情阴郁，我身体畸形，但是放眼宽广的世间，人人都可以通过朴素的祈祷来实现自己的梦想，我也不例外。于是，赫斯特，我就把你装进心窝，放到最深的地方，想用你给我的温暖来温暖你！”

"I have greatly wronged thee, " murmured Hester.“我让你受委屈了，”赫斯特讷讷地说。

"We have wronged each other, " answered he. "Mine was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay. Therefore, as a man who has not thought and philosophised in vain, I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against thee. Between thee and me, the scale hangs fairly balanced. But, Hester, the man lives who has wronged us both! Who is he?"“我们彼此都让对方受了委屈，”他回答道。“是我先委屈了你，我把你含苞待放的青春同我的腐朽衰败，错误地、不自然地联系在了一起，从而断送了你。因此，作为一个有思想、明是非的人，我既不会报复你，也不会对你怀有丝毫邪念。你我之间谁都不欠谁。不过，那个伤害了你我二人的人还活着，赫斯特！他是谁？”

"Ask me not!" replied Hester Prynne, looking firmly into his face. "That thou shalt never know!"“不要问我！”赫斯特·普林回答，用目光坚定地望着他的脸。“你永远不会知道！”

"Never, sayest thou?" rejoined he, with a smile of dark and self-relying intelligence. "Never know him! Believe me, Hester, there are few things — whether in the outward world, or, to a certain depth, in the invisible sphere of thought — few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery. Thou mayest cover up thy secret from the prying multitude. Thou mayest conceal it, too, from the ministers and magistrates, even as thou didst this day, when they sought to wrench the name out of thy heart, and give thee a partner on thy pedestal. But, as for me, I come to the inquest with other senses than they possess. I shall seek this man as I have sought truth in books; as I have sought gold in alchemy. There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine!"“永远不会，你是这么说的吗？”他接道，脸上露出阴沉和自信的笑意。“你永远不会知道他的！相信我，赫斯特，如果一个人全心全意、不顾一切地要去解开一个谜，那么就没有什么事情——无论是在外部世界，还是在不可见的某种思想深处——都没有什么事情能够逃过他的眼睛。你可以对那些刨根问底的群众隐藏你的秘密。你可以对那些牧师和官爷们掩饰你的秘密，即使他们像今天所做的那样，竭力想把那人的名字从你心中挖出来，然后让他跟你在耻辱的邢台上作伴。至于我呢，我要用他们所不具备的感知来寻求答案。我一定会找出这个男人，就像我从书中索求真理、用炼金术提炼黄金那样。有种感觉能够让我意识到他的存在。我将看到他浑身颤抖。我会突然而不自主地感到自己也在颤栗。他迟早要落入我的掌握之中！”

The eyes of the wrinkled scholar glowed so intensely upon her, that Hester Prynne clasped her hands over her heart, dreading lest he should read the secret there at once.

这个满脸皱纹的学者，双眼炯炯发亮，直逼赫斯特·普林；她用双手紧紧捂住胸口，唯恐他马上从那儿探视到她的秘密。

"Thou wilt not reveal his name? Not the less he is mine, " resumed he, with a look of confidence, as if destiny were at one with him. "He bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou dost; but I shall read it on his heart. Yet fear not for him! Think not that I shall interfere with Heaven's own method of retribution, or, to my own loss, betray him to the gripe of human law. Neither do thou imagine that I shall contrive aught against his life; no, nor against his fame, if, as I judge, he be a man of fair repute. Let him live! Let him hide himself in outward honour, if he may! Not the less he shall be mine!"“你不想说出他的名字吗？反正他是逃不出我的手心的，”他接着说，露出得意的神情，好像是他在主宰命运一样。“他的衣服上虽然没有像你那样烙下罪恶的红字，但我仍可以洞察他的内心。不过不必为他担心！不要以为我会扰乱上天的惩治方式，或者把他揭露出来，诉请人间的法律去制裁，那样我会得不偿失。你也不要想着我会设法取他的性命；不，我也不会诋毁他的名誉，要是我没猜错的话，他是一个颇有名望的人。让他活着吧！如果他愿意，就让他把真实的自我藏在外在的荣耀下！反正他逃不出我的手掌心！”

"Thy acts are like mercy, " said Hester, bewildered and appalled. "But thy words interpret thee as a terror!"“你的行为像在发慈悲呢，”赫斯特既困惑又惊恐地说。“可你的言辞却让人感到害怕！”

"One thing, thou that wast my wife, I would enjoin upon thee, " continued the scholar. "Thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour. Keep, likewise, mine! There are none in this land that know me. Breathe not, to any human soul, that thou didst ever call me husband! Here, on this wild outskirt of the earth, I shall pitch my tent; for, elsewhere a wanderer, and isolated from human interests, I find here a woman, a man, a child, amongst whom and myself there exist the closest ligaments. No matter whether of love or hate; no matter whether of right or wrong! Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me. My home is where thou art, and where he is. But betray me not!"“既然你曾经是我的妻子，我便命令你，”学者继续说道。“既然你一定要替你的情人保守秘密。那么也不要对任何人说起我的存在！反正这地方没人认识我。绝对不要对任何人露一点口风，说我曾经是你的丈夫！这里，在地球上这块边远的蛮荒之地，我要扎下我的帐篷，因为在别的地方我也是一个漂泊者，与世人隔绝，而在这里我发现了一个女人、一个男人、一个孩子，我和他们之间存着最紧密的联系。不管是爱还是恨，不管是对还是错，你和你的东西，赫斯特·普林，都是属于我的。你在哪儿，他在哪儿，我的家就安在哪儿。但你别把我泄露出去！”

"Wherefore dost thou desire it?" inquired Hester, shrinking, she hardly knew why, from this secret bond. "Why not announce thyself openly, and cast me off at once?"“你为什么要这样呢？”赫斯特怯生生地问，她也说不清怎么会由于这秘密约定而畏缩了。“那你为什么不公开站出来，立刻就把我抛弃呢？”

"It may be, " he replied, "because I will not encounter the dishonour that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman. It may be for other reasons. Enough, it is my purpose to live and die unknown. Let, therefore, thy husband be to the world as one already dead, and of whom no tidings shall ever come. Recognise me not, by word, by sign, by look! Breathe not the secret, above all, to the man thou wottest of. Shouldst thou fail me in this, beware! His fame, his position, his life, will be in my hands. Beware!"“可能是因为我不愿意蒙受一个不忠的女人带给丈夫的侮辱吧。”他答道。“也有可能是别的什么原因。总之，无论是生是死，我都不想让别人知道。因此，就让这里的人都以为你丈夫已经死了吧，不会再有他的消息了。无论从言谈间，从表情上，还是从动作上，都要装作不认识我！别露一点口风，尤其是对你恋着的那个男人。要是你敢坏我的事，你就得小心点了！他的名誉、地位和生命，全都握在我的手心里。当心吧！”

"I will keep thy secret, as I have this, " said Hester.“我会像为他保密一样来为你保密的。”赫斯特说道。

"Swear it!" rejoined he.“发个誓吧！”他接着说。

And she took the oath.

于是她起了誓。

"And now, Mistress Prynne, " said old Roger Chillingworth, as he was hereafter to be named, "I leave thee alone; alone with thy infant, and the scarlet letter! How is it, Hester? Doth thy sentence bind thee to wear the token in thy sleep? Art thou not afraid of nightmares and hideous dreams?"“现在，普林太太，”老罗杰·奇林沃思说——从今以后我们就这么称呼他了，“我不管你了，你就和你的孩子，还有那红字一起过日子吧！怎么样，赫斯特？判决是不是规定你睡觉时也要佩着那标记？难道你不怕会做恶梦么？”

"Why dost thou smile so at me?" inquired Hester, troubled at the expression of his eyes. "Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us? Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?"“你干嘛要这样笑我？”赫斯特看着他的眼神，一脸费解地问。“你打算像那个在森林里游荡的黑男人一样，纠缠我们吗？你是不是已经把我引进了一个圈套，证明我的灵魂被毁掉了呢？”

"Not thy soul, " he answered, with another smile. "No, not thine!"“不是你的灵魂，”他笑着回答道。“不，不是你的！”Chapter 5HESTER AT HER NEEDLE

第五章做针线活儿的赫斯特

Hester Prynne's term of confinement was now at an end. Her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, which, falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast. Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison, than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger. Then, she was supported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph. It was, moreover, a separate and insulated event, to occur but once in her lifetime, and to meet which, therefore, reckless of economy, she might call up the vital strength that would have sufficed for many quiet years. The very law that condemned her — a giant of stern features, but with vigour to support, as well as to annihilate, in his iron arm — had held her up through the terrible ordeal of her ignominy. But now, with this unattended walk from her prison-door, began the daily custom; and she must either sustain and carry it forward by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink beneath it. She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present grief. To-morrow would bring its own trial with it; so would the next day, and so would the next; each its own trial, and yet the very same that was now so unutterably grievous to be borne. The days of the far-off future would toil onward; still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her, but never to fling down; for the accumulating days and added years would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame. Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast — at her, the child of honourable parents — at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman — at her, who had once been innocent — as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument.

现在赫斯特·普林的监禁期满了。牢门打开，她迈步走到阳光下。普照众生的阳光，在她那病态扭曲的心灵看来，似乎只为了暴露她胸前的红字。前面所写到，她在众目睽睽下走上千夫所指的受辱刑台示众。可与那相比，也许她第一次独自步出牢门才是一次真正的折磨。那时，有一种异常的神经紧张和个性中所有的好斗能量支撑着她，使她能够将这种场面看成是一种惊人的胜利。何况，这是在她生命中唯一一次单独被孤立的事件，为此她不得不调动全部的精力去应对。这些精力若是换在平稳安定的情况下，足够她消耗很多年了。那惩办她的法律是一个外貌狰狞的巨人，他既可以用铁腕消灭她，也可以支撑她。正是这法律扶持着她挺过了示众的可怕煎熬。然而现在，从孑然一身走出狱门起，她就要开始正常的生活了。她必须以自身的能力支撑自己活下去，否则等待她的只有堕落。她再也不能靠预支未来来缓解现在的伤痛。明天还有明天的考验，后天也会如此，往后也是一样。每天都有每天的考验，但不变的是她必须忍受的无言的悲伤，正如此刻一样。未来的日子会很漫长，而且步步艰辛。她仍要承载重荷，并终生背负，永远不得抛却。因为日复一日，年复一年，时间会不停地在耻辱上堆积层层苦难。她将在长年累月之中，放弃自己的个性，成为布道师和道学家指指点点的对象，让他们借以形象和具体地说明女性的脆弱与罪孽的激情。于是他们会教育纯洁的年轻人，瞧瞧，这个胸前佩戴着灼热鲜明红字的女人；瞧瞧，这个有着可敬父母的孩子；瞧瞧，这个为人之母的，她孩子将来也会成长为一个女人；瞧瞧，这个原本纯洁无辜的女人——她竟成了罪恶的象征、罪恶的化身、罪恶的存在。这份耻辱必将伴随着她直到走进坟墓，成为矗立在她坟上的唯一墓碑。

It may seem marvellous, that, with the world before her—kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so remote and so obscure — free to return to her birthplace, or to any other European land, and there hide her character and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if emerging into another state of being

有件事说来令人不可思议：既然她的判决词中没有条款限制她不得超越清教徒民区，那么在这片偏僻无名的土地外，面对着整个世界，她原可以自由地回到她的出生地或任何其他欧洲国家，改头换面，隐姓埋名，就像一切都重新开始一样。

— and having also the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life were alien from the law that had condemned her. — it may seem marvellous, that this woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only, she must needs be the type of shame.

她面前还有条条小径通向阴森莫测的莽林，在那里，她可以使自己狂放的本性得到释放，虽然那些民族的习俗传统迥异于制裁她的那套规则。看来似乎有些不可思议的是，她竟然仍把这地方视作自己的家园。而恰恰在这里，也只有在这里，她才会成为耻辱的典型。

But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. Her sin, her ignominy, were the roots which she had struck into the soil. It was as if a new birth, with stronger assimilations than the first, had converted the forest-land, still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne's wild and dreary but life-long home. All other scenes of earth — even that village of rural England, where happy infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet to be in her mother's keeping, like garments put off long ago — were foreign to her, in comparison. The chain that bound her here was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but could never be broken.

但有一种宿命，一种冥冥之中无法抗拒的情感，它迫使人们像幽灵一样游荡并停留在某个地方，那个地方发生过重要的标志性事件，给他的生命涂上了一层颜色。而且，那事件的悲伤色调越浓，人们也就越难以背离那块地方。她的罪孽，她的耻辱，便是她深扎于此地的根。她在这块土地上好像获得了新生，比她降生人世时更具同化力。这一新生把这片林地变成了赫斯特·普林荒凉阴郁却终身不离的家，虽然所有其他朝圣者和漂泊者对这片林地仍感到格格不入。相比之下，世界上其他的景色——甚至包括她度过幸福的童年和纯洁少女时期的英格兰乡村，像是早已换下的衣服，交给母亲去保管了——在她眼里已经算是异地他乡了。把她束缚在这里的，是在痛彻她灵魂深处的那条永远不会断裂的铁链。

It might be, too — doubtless it was so, although she hid the secret from herself, and grew pale whenever it struggled out of her heart, like a serpent from its hole — it might be that another feeling kept her within the scene and pathway that had been so fatal. There dwelt, there trode the feet of one with whom she deemed herself connected in a union, that, unrecognised on earth, would bring them together before the bar of final judgment, and make that their marriage-altar, for a joint futurity of endless retribution. Over and over again, the tempter of souls had thrust this idea upon Hester's contemplation, and laughed at the passionate and desperate joy with which she seized, and then strove to cast it from her. She barely looked the idea in the face, and hastened to bar it in its dungeon. What she compelled herself to believe — what, finally, she reasoned upon as her motive for continuing a resident of New England — was half a truth, and half a self-delusion. Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saintlike, because the result of martyrdom.

有一个秘密她虽然向自己隐藏着，但只要它像蟒蛇出洞似地从她心中一钻出来，她就会面色苍白：或许——应该说无疑——是另一种情感使她滞留在这种灾难性的场景与小路中。这里住着一个人，在小路上也踏着他的脚步，她自以为能够跟他连为一体。这不被世人认可的结合，将带领他们共同来到末日审判的法庭前，他们在那里举行神圣的婚礼，以共同承担未来永无止期的报应。灵魂的引诱者一再把这个念头塞进赫斯特的脑海，还嘲笑她紧握不放的狂热与激情，然后又竭力让她抛掉这个念头。她对这个念头只能匆匆一瞥，又急忙把它紧锁在地牢中。最后，她迫使自己相信，她最终分析出的继续留在新英格兰的理由，其实只有一半是真情，另一半则是自欺。她对自己说，这里是她曾犯下罪孽的地方，也应是她接受世俗惩罚的地方。这样，她每日受到耻辱的折磨，或许最终会荡涤她的灵魂，并产生出比她失去的那个还要神圣的另一种纯洁，作为她殉道的结果。

Hester Prynne, therefore, did not flee. On the outskirts of the town, within the verge of the peninsula, but not in close vicinity to any other habitation, there was a small thatched cottage. It had been built by an earlier settler, and abandoned because the soil about it was too sterile for cultivation, while its comparative remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity which already marked the habits of the emigrants. It stood on the shore, looking across a basin of the sea at the forest-covered hills, towards the west. A clump of scrubby trees, such as alone grew on the peninsula, did not so much conceal the cottage from view, as seem to denote that here was some object which would fain have been, or at least ought to be, concealed. In this little, lonesome dwelling, with some slender means that she possessed, and by the license of the magistrates, who still kept an inquisitorial watch over her, Hester established herself, with her infant child. A mystic shadow of suspicion immediately attached itself to the spot. Children, too young to comprehend wherefore this woman should be shut out from the sphere of human charities, would creep nigh enough to behold her plying her needle at the cottage-window, or standing in the doorway, or labouring in her little garden, or coming forth along the pathway that led townward; and, discerning the scarlet letter on her breast, would scamper off with a strange, contagious fear.

因此，赫斯特·普林并没有出走。在小镇郊区，在半岛边缘上，在远离其他居民的地方，有—间小茅屋。它由一位早期移民建造的，后来又被弃置了，因为这一带土地过于贫瘠，不宜耕种。况且，这里地处偏远，无法进行社会活动，而社会活动已成为当时移民的习惯。茅屋位于岸边，隔着海水与西边密林覆盖的小山相望。半岛上只长着一丛孤零零的矮树，不但没有遮住茅屋，反倒像在指示出这里有一个东西，而这东西原本不情愿或者至少是该隐藏起来的。赫斯特和她的孩子就住在这间孤陋的小屋里。尽管赫斯特仍受到当局的严密监控，她仍获得了批准，可以凭借一些简单的方法来养活自己和孩子。随即，一个令人不解的神秘阴影笼罩了这间小屋。年幼无知的孩子们不能理解，这个女人为何会被人类的仁慈拒之门外。他们会蹑手蹑脚地走近那里，看她在茅屋窗边做针线活儿，看她站在门廊里，看她在小花园中耕作，看她踏上通往镇子的小径。等看清她胸前的红字，他们便怀着一种有传染性的奇异恐惧，迅速地逃开了。

Lonely as was Hester's situation, and without a friend on earth who dared to show himself, she, however, incurred ever, no risk of want. She possessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded comparatively little scope for its exercise, to supply food for her thriving infant and herself. It was the art — then, as now, almost the only one within a woman's grasp — of needlework. She bore on her breast, in the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her delicate and imaginative skill, of which the dames of a court might gladly have availed themselves, to add the richer and more spiritual adornment of human ingenuity to their fabrics of silk and gold. Here, indeed, in the sable simplicity that generally characterised the Puritanic modes of dress, there might be an infrequent call for the finer productions of her handiwork. Yet the taste of the age, demanding whatever was elaborate in compositions of this kind, did not fail to extend its influence over our stern progenitors, who had cast behind them so many fashions which it might seem harder to dispense with. Public ceremonies, such as ordinations, the installation of magistrates, and all that could give majesty to the forms in which a new government manifested itself to the people, were, as a matter of policy, marked by a stately and well-conducted ceremonial and a sombre, but yet a studied magnificence. Deep ruffs, painfully wrought bands and gorgeously embroidered gloves, were all deemed necessary to the official state of men assuming the reins of power; and were readily allowed to individuals dignified by rank or wealth, even while sumptuary laws forbade these and similar extravagances to the plebeian order. In the array of funerals, too — whether for the apparel of the dead body, or to typify, by manifold emblematic devices of sable cloth and snowy lawn, the sorrow of the survivors — there was a frequent and characteristic demand for such labour as Hester Prynne could supply. Baby-linen — for babies then wore robes of state — afforded still another possibility of toil and emolument.

尽管赫斯特处境孤立，没有一个朋友敢露面前来拜访，但她倒不至于缺衣少穿。她有门手艺。这手艺即使在这片土地上没有过多发挥的余地，也还足以养活她自己和日见长大的婴儿。这门手艺——无论在当时抑或在现在，它几乎都是女性唯一可以信手拈来的——就是做针线活。她胸前佩戴着的那个绣技绝妙的字母，就体现了她精湛而富于想象的技艺。为了在自己的金丝织物上增加手工艺装饰品的绚丽和灵性，恐怕那些宫廷贵妇也巴不得对此加以利用。诚然，在这里，清教徒们的服饰一般以深黑和简朴为特色，她那些精美的针线活儿可能很少有人问津。不过，时尚总在日益增加对这类精美制品的需求，并且或多或少对我们那些严厉的祖先产生了影响——他们也曾抛弃过许多看来是难以废除的风气。作为一种成规，一些公众典礼，像授任圣职、官吏就任等种种新政府可以对人民显示威严的形式，都执行得庄严有序，显示出一种阴郁而蓄意的壮丽。高高的环状皱领、精心编织的饰带和刺绣华丽的手套，都被认定是官场中人夸耀权势的必需品。而且，尽管禁止奢侈的法律不准平民等级效法这一类铺张，但是地位高或财富多的人，随时都可得到赦免。丧葬活动也是一样，无论是死者的服饰，还是遗属致哀用的黑丧服和白麻布上种种象征性的图案，都对赫斯特·普林的手艺有经常和具体的需求。而婴儿的服装——当时的婴儿是穿袍服的——也为她提供了劳动和赚钱的另一种可能。

By degrees, nor very slowly, her handiwork became what would now be termed the fashion.

没过多久，她的针线活就逐渐成了现在所称的时髦款式。

Whether from commiseration for a woman of so miserable a destiny; or from the morbid curiosity that gives a fictitious value even to common or worthless things;or by whatever other intangible circumstance was then, as now, sufficient to bestow, on some persons, what others might seek in vain;or because Hester really filled a gap which must otherwise have remained vacant; it is certain that she had ready and fairly requited employment for as many hours as she saw fit to occupy with her needle.

或许是出于对这位命苦的女人的怜悯；或许是出于一种病态的好奇，即给普普通通的、无甚价值的东西添上一个虚有的高价；亦或许是由于当时某种不可捉摸的原因，就跟如今一样，即某些人苦求不得的东西，在另一些人却唾手可得；或许是因为赫斯特确实填补了原先的一项空白。不管是什么原因吧，反正找她做针线活儿的人不少，她想做多久都会有活做。

Vanity, it may be, chose to mortify itself, by putting on, for ceremonials of pomp and state, the garments that had been wrought by her sinful hands. Her needlework was seen on the ruff of the Governor; military men wore it on their scarfs, and the minister on his hand; it decked the baby's little cap; it was shut up to be mildewed and moulder away, in the coffins of the dead. But it is not recorded that, in a single instance, her skill was called in aid to embroider the white veil which was to cover the pure blushes of a bride. The exception indicated the ever-relentless vigour with which society frowned upon her sin.

一些人可能是为了抑制自己的虚荣心，才在一些堂皇庄重的场合专门穿戴由她那双有罪的手所缝制的服装。于是，她的针线活便出现在总督的飞边上、军人的绶带上、牧师的领结上，装饰在婴儿的小帽上，还被封闭在死人的棺木中霉烂掉。但是在记载中，从来没人让她为新娘刺绣白色的面纱，那是用来遮盖她们纯洁容颜的。这一绝无仅有的例外说明，社会对她的罪孽始终是深恶痛绝的。

Hester sought not to acquire anything beyond a subsistence, of the plainest and most ascetic description, for herself, and a simple abundance for her child. Her own dress was of the coarsest materials and the most sombre hue; with only that one ornament — the scarlet letter — which it was her doom to wear. The child's attire, on the other hand, was distinguished by a fanciful, or, we might rather say, a fantastic ingenuity, which served, indeed, to heighten the airy charm that early began to develop itself in the little girl, but which appeared to have also a deeper meaning. We may speak further of it hereafter. Except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her infant, Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on wretches less miserable than herself, and who not infrequently insulted the hand that fed them. Much of the time which she might readily have applied to the better efforts of her art, she employed in making coarse garments for the poor. It is probable that there was an idea of penance in this mode of occupation, and that she offered up a real sacrifice of enjoyment, in devoting so many hours to such rude handiwork. She had in her nature a rich, voluptuous, Oriental characteristic — a taste for the gorgeously beautiful, which, save in the exquisite productions of her needle, found nothing else in all the possibilities of her life to exercise itself upon. Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle. To Hester Prynne it might have been a mode of expressing, and therefore soothing, the passion of her life. Like all other joys, she rejected it as sin. This morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and steadfast penitence, but something doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong, beneath.

赫斯特除维持生计之外便一无所求。她自己过着极其艰苦朴素的生活，对孩子的衣食则稍有宽容。她自己的裙子用的是最粗糙的物料和最灰暗的颜色，上面只有一件饰物，就是那红字——那是她非戴不可的。然而，孩子的服饰却显得别出心裁，体现着一种神奇的、甚至可以说是绝妙的才智和能力，这确实给那小姑娘早就开始显露出的活泼动人又增添了几分魅力。不过，做母亲的给她这样打扮，似乎还有更深的含义。这一点我们以后再说。赫斯特除在打扮孩子上稍有花费外，把其余全部积蓄都用在了救济他人身上——尽管她要比那些人更加不幸，而且他们还经常忘恩负义地对她横加侮辱。她时常替穷人制作粗布衣服，而她如果把这些时间用来做些更好的东西，收入原可以更多的。她做这种活计可能有忏悔的念头；而且，她花这么多时间干粗活，确实牺牲了很多人生乐趣。她天生就有一种富丽、撩人的东方人特性，一种对极致的美的追求，而这一点在她全部的生活中，除了在她那精美的针线中有所显示之外，已经别无表达的可能了。女人从一针一线的操劳中所能获得的乐趣，是男人无法理解的。对赫斯特·普林来说，这或许是一种宣泄的方式，用以慰藉自己对生活的激情。和其他任何形式的愉悦一样，她将它视是为一种罪。把良心和一件无关紧要的事情病态地联系在一起，恐怕并不是真心实意的忏悔，其背后可能有些值得怀疑、极其错误的东西。

In this manner, Hester Prynne came to have a part to perform in the world. With her native energy of character, and rare capacity, it could not entirely cast her off, although it had set a mark upon her, more intolerable to a woman's heart than that which branded the brow of Cain. In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. She stood apart from moral interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside and can no longer make itself seen or felt; no more smile with the household joy, nor mourn with the kindred sorrow; or, should it succeed in manifesting its forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror and horrible repugnance. These emotions, in fact, and its bitterest scorn besides, seemed to be the sole portion that she retained in the universal heart. It was not an age of delicacy; and her position, although she understood it well, and was in little danger of forgetting it, was often brought before her vivid self-perception, like a new anguish, by the rudest touch upon the tenderest spot. The poor, as we have already said, whom she sought out to be the objects of her bounty, often reviled the hand that was stretched forth to succour them. Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart; sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtile poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by a coarser expression, that fell upon the sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound. Hester had schooled herself long and well; she never responded to these attacks, save by a flush of crimson that rose irrepressibly over her pale cheek, and again subsided into the depths of her bosom.

就这样，赫斯特·普林在人世上有了自己的一席之地。虽说人们让她佩戴了一个标志——它对女性内心来说比烙在凯恩额上的印记还要难堪的，但由于她生性倔强，而且才能出众，这些都无法彻底击溃她。然而，她在和社会的一切交往中，仍有格格不入之感。同她有所接触的人的一言一行，甚至他们的沉默不语，都在暗示——大多数情况下是直接表明——她是被排除在外的。而她孤零的境遇似乎昭示着，她是生活在另一个世界的，同其他人的交流也只能靠非一般的感觉器官。对于人们感兴趣的道德问题，她避之犹恐不及，却又不能不关心，就好像一缕幽魂重新回到熟悉的家园，却又无法让家人看见或察觉到，不能和家中的亲人们分享欢乐和悲伤；或者，即使它表现出了被禁止的同情，也只能唤起别人的恐惧与厌恶。事实上，这些情感和随之而来最为辛辣的嘲讽，似乎成了她在世人心目中遗留的唯一印象。那不是一个讲求精致细腻的时代。虽然她深知自己的处境，时刻不敢忘怀，但人们她对最嫩弱的地方不时粗暴的触痛，仍使她清晰地自我感觉到一次次新的剧痛。如前所述，虽然她一心一意接济穷苦人，但她伸出的救援之手所得到的回报却是谩骂。同样，在她由于职业的关系而迈入贵族之家时，上流社会的夫人们习惯向她冷嘲热讽。有时她们不动声色地对她施展阴谋——女人们最善于利用日常琐事调制精巧的毒药；有时她们则明目张胆地攻击她毫无防御的心灵，犹如在溃烂的伤口上再给予重重的一击。长期以来，赫斯特都泰然处之。她从来没有回应过，只有一股红潮不禁在苍白的面颊上泛起，随后再次隐匿于灵魂深处。

She was patient — a martyr, indeed — but she forbore to pray for her enemies, lest, in spite of her forgiving aspirations, the words of the blessing should stubbornly twist themselves into a curse.

她凡事忍让，确实是一位殉道者，但她不准自己为敌人祈祷——尽管她宽宏大量，却害怕自己原本祝福的言辞会固执得自动转化为诅咒。

Continually, and in a thousand other ways, did she feel the innumerable throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly contrived for her by the undying, the everactive sentence of the Puritan tribunal. Clergymen paused in the street to address words of exhortation that brought a crowd, with its mingled grin and frown, around the poor, sinful woman. If she entered a church, trusting to share the Sabbath smile of the Universal Father, it was often her mishap to find herself the text of the discourse. She grew to have a dread of children; for they had imbibed from their parents a vague idea of something horrible in this dreary woman, gliding silently through the town, with never any companion but one only child. Therefore, first allowing her to pass, they pursued her at a distance with shrill cries, and the utterance of a word that had no distinct purport to their own minds, but was none the less terrible to her, as proceeding from lips that babbled it unconsciously. It seemed to argue so wide a diffusion of her shame, that all nature knew of it; it could have caused her no deeper pang, had the leaves of the trees whispered the dark story among themselves — had the summer breeze murmured about it — had the wintry blast shrieked it aloud! Another peculiar torture was felt in the gaze of a new eye. When strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter — and none ever failed to do so — they branded it afresh into Hester's soul; so that oftentimes, she could scarcely refrain, yet always did refrain, from covering the symbol with her hand. But then, again, an accustomed eye had likewise its own anguish to inflict. Its cool stare of familiarity was intolerable. From first to last, in short, Hester Prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture.

清教徒法庭对她的惩罚非常狡猾，时刻不停地以种种方式让她感到永无休止的痛苦。牧师会在街上停住脚步，对她规劝一番，还会招来一群人围着这有罪的可怜女人，皱着眉对她讥笑。当她走进教堂，一心分享众生之父在安息日的微笑时，往往会不幸地发现，她正是讲道的内容。她对孩子们渐生畏惧之心，因为他们从父母那里获得了一种模模糊糊的概念：这个除了一个小孩之外，从无伴侣、在镇上独自游荡的可怕女人，身上有着某种骇人之处。于是，他们先放她过去，再远远尾随着她尖声喊叫；即便那些脱口而出的是无心之语，对她来说同样可怕。她的耻辱似乎已广为传播，世间万物都已知晓。即使树叶在悄然谈论，即使夏日的微风在轻声低语，即使隆冬的寒风在高声疾呼，讲的都是那个阴暗的故事，她的痛楚也不过如此！此外，一双双陌生眼睛的凝视也会让她感到特别难过。每当陌生人毫无例外地用好奇的目光盯着她那红字时，它便再一次深深烙印进赫斯特的灵魂；因此她常常禁不住要用手捂住那象征，但终归还是控制住自己。然而，熟人的目光又何尝不给她带来苦恼！那种习以为常的冷冷一瞥真叫她受不了。简而言之，每当人们的目光落在她胸口的红字时，赫斯特·普林自始至终都遭受着可怕的痛楚。那块地方非但不会结痂，相反，似乎还随着每日的折磨而变得愈加敏感。

But sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in many months, she felt an eye — a human eye — upon the ignominious brand, that seemed to give a momentary relief, as if half of her agony were shared. The next instant, back it all rushed again, with still a deeper throb of pain; for, in that brief interval, she had sinned anew. Had Hester sinned alone?

但有时——许多天来有这么一次，或者要好几个月才有这么一次——她会感到有一双眼睛，一双人类的眼睛，望着她那耻辱的印记。这似乎能给她片刻的宽慰，分担她一半的痛苦。但那瞬间一过，更剧烈的刺痛便疾速返回，因为在这短暂的邂逅中，她又犯了新罪。赫斯特是独自犯下这罪过的吗？

Her imagination was somewhat affected, and, had she been of a softer moral and intellectual fibre, would have been still more so, by the strange and solitary anguish of her life. Walking to and fro, with those lonely footsteps in the little world with which she was outwardly connected, it now and then appeared to Hester — if altogether fancy, it was nevertheless too potent to be resisted — she felt or fancied, then, that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts. She was terror-stricken by the revelations that were thus made. What were they? Could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne's? Or, must she receive those intimations — so obscure, yet so distinct — as truth? In all her miserable experience, there was nothing else so awful and so loathsome as this sense. It perplexed as well as shocked her, by the irreverent inopportuneness of the occasions that brought it into vivid action. Sometimes the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb, as she passed near a venerable minister or magistrate, the model of piety and justice, to whom that age of antique reverence looked up, as to a mortal man in fellowship with angels. "What evil thing is at hand?" would Hester say to herself. Lifting her reluctant eyes, there would be nothing human within the scope of view, save the form of this earthly saint! Again, a mystic sisterhood would contumaciously assert itself as she met the sanctified frown of some matron, who, according to the rumour of all tongues, had kept cold snow within her bosom throughout life. That unsunned snow in the matron's bosom, and the burning shame on Hester Prynne's — what had the two in common? Or, once more, the electric thrill would give her warning — "Behold, Hester, here is a companion!" — and, looking up, she would detect the eyes of a young maiden glancing at the scarlet letter, shyly and aside, and quickly averted with a faint, chill crimson in her cheeks; as if her purity were somewhat sullied by that momentary glance. O Fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst thou leave nothing, whether in youth or age, for this poor sinner to revere? — such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin. Be it accepted as a proof that all was not corrupt in this poor victim of her own frailty, and man's hard law, that Hester Prynne yet struggled to believe that no fellow-mortal was guilty like herself.

她古怪、孤独、痛苦的生活经历，已经在一定程度上影响了她的想象力。倘若她在精神上怯懦些，心理上脆弱些，这种影响就会更加严重。每当她迈着孤独的步伐，在这片使她与外界还保有联系的小天地里走来走去时，赫斯特似乎时常觉得——即便是出于幻觉，它的效力之大也是不可抗拒的——她感到或者说想象着，那红字赋予了她一种新的体验。她战战兢兢又不得不相信，那字母让她感应到别人内心中隐藏着的罪孽。她对这些启示诚惶诚恐。这些启示是什么呢？如果不是邪恶天使的阴险挑动，难道还能是别的吗？他一心想说服这个目前还只是他半个牺牲品、劳苦挣扎着的女人：表面的贞洁不过是骗人的伪装，如果个人内心的真实都被暴露在光天化日之下的话，除赫斯特·普林外，好多人的胸前也都会有红字闪烁着。或许，她应该把那些如此含糊又如此明晰的暗示当做真理来接受？在她所有不幸的遭遇中，再也没有比这种感受更使她难堪和厌恶的了。这种感受总是不合时宜地涌上心头，令她既困惑又震惊。有时，当她走过一位德高望重的长官或牧师身边时，她胸前的红色耻辱就会感应出一种悸动。可这些人都是虔诚的楷模和正义的化身，在那个崇尚古风的年代，他们都是人间天使，令人肃然起敬。每逢这种时刻，赫斯特总会自忖：“我又遇到什么魔障了吗？”可是，当她犹豫着张开双眼，除了那位人间圣者的身形外，她却看不到任何人！也有时候，当她遇到某位太太，望着她们那神圣凛然的面孔，心中便会油然生出一种神秘的姐妹之情——而那位太太向来都被公认为是玉洁冰清的。那位太太心中未见阳光的冰雪和赫斯特·普林胸前灼热逼人的耻辱，这二者之间有何共同之处呢？还有时候，一股让她全身通电似的颤抖警告她说；“看啊，赫斯特，这位可是你的同伴！”而她抬头一看，就会发现一双少女的眼睛，羞怯地对红字一瞥，便连忙溜开，脸上迅速泛起一片隐约可见的冰冷赧颜，似乎她的贞洁因这刹那的一瞥受到某种侮辱。啊，用那个致命的象征为护身符的恶魔，你无论在青年人还是老年人身上，难道都不肯给这个可怜的罪人留下一点值得崇敬的东西吗？像这样的丧失信仰从来都是罪恶招来的最悲惨的结果。然而，赫斯特·普林仍在竭力使自己相信，世人还没有像她那样罪孽深重。如果承认这一点，就足以证明：这个因自身脆弱和男人的严酷法律而成为牺牲品的可怜人，还没有彻底堕落。

The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always contributing a grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations, had a story about the scarlet letter which we might readily work up into a terrific legend. They averred, that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight, whenever Hester Prynne walked abroad in the night-time. And we must needs say, it seared Hester's bosom so deeply, that perhaps there was more truth in the rumour than our modern incredulity may be inclined to admit.

在那个压抑人性的古老年月里，凡夫俗子们对他们感兴趣的事情，总要涂上一层荒诞恐怖的色彩。他们就此杜撰了一篇关于红字的故事，我们完全可以把它随手写成一个骇人的传说。他们曾经断言，那个象征不仅是人间的染缸中染出来的红布，而且还由炼狱之火烧得通红，每逢海丝待·普林夜间外出，那红字便闪闪发光。而我们要说，那红字烙进赫斯特的胸膛如此之深，以至于那个传说中或许包含的真相，比我们当下愿意相信的要多得多。Chapter 6PEARL

第六章小珠儿

We have as yet hardly spoken of the infant; that little creature, whose innocent life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion. How strange it seemed to the sad woman, as she watched the growth, and the beauty that became every day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine over the tiny features of this child! Her Pearl! — For so had Hester called her; not as a name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned lustre that would be indicated by the comparison. But she named the infant "Pearl, " as being of great price — purchased with all she had — her mother's only treasure! How strange, indeed! Man had marked this woman's sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself. God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonoured bosom, to connect her parent for ever with the race and descent of mortals, and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven! Yet these thoughts affected Hester Prynne less with hope than apprehension. She knew that her deed had been evil; she could have no faith, therefore, that its result would be for good. Day after day, she looked fearfully into the child's expanding nature, ever dreading to detect some dark and wild peculiarity, that should correspond with the guiltiness to which she owed her being.

我们迄今还未谈及那个婴儿。那个小家伙是凭着神秘莫测的天意而诞生，这个无辜的生命是在罪恶的情欲泛滥中绽放的一朵可爱而永不凋谢的花朵，。当那个悲伤的女人眼看着她长大，看着她的美丽日渐增辉添色，看着智慧如阳光般在她小小脸蛋上闪耀，做母亲的该感到多么惊诧啊！那是她的珠儿啊！赫斯特这么叫她，并非出于她的外表，因为她绝不像“珠儿”所暗示的那样，有着柔和、洁白和平静的光泽。她给这个婴儿取名 “珠儿”，是因为这孩子极其昂贵，花费了她的全部，是她这做母亲的唯一财富！真是太奇妙了！人们用一个红字来标明这个女人的罪孽，它具有灾难性的强大效力：除了和她本人一样罪孽深重的人之外，没有人会向她表示同情。人们对这种罪的惩罚如此严厉，可上帝却赐予了她一个可爱的孩子，作为其直接的后果。这个孩子被置于那同一个不光彩的怀抱中，成为她母亲同人类世代的永恒联系，最后她的灵魂将在天国中受到祝福！然而，这种种想法给赫斯特·普林带来的，主要是忧虑而不是希望。她知道她是有罪的，因此她不相信会有好的结果。日复一日，她心怀悸惧地观察着孩子逐渐成长的天性，唯恐发现什么阴郁狂野的特征，与带来孩子生命的罪孽相应。

Certainly, there was no physical defect. By its perfect shape, its vigour, and its natural dexterity in the use of all its untried limbs, the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden; worthy to have been left there, to be the plaything of the angels, after the world's first parents were driven out. The child had a native grace which does not invariably coexist with faultless beauty; its attire, however simple, always impressed the beholder as if it were the very garb that precisely became it best. But little Pearl was not clad in rustic weeds. Her mother, with a morbid purpose, that may be better understood hereafter, had bought the richest tissues that could be procured, and allowed her imaginative faculty its full play in the arrangement and decoration of the dresses which the child wore, before the public eye. So magnificent was the small figure when thus arrayed, and such was the splendour of Pearl's own proper beauty, shining through the gorgeous robes which might have extinguished a paler loveliness, that there was an absolute circle of radiance around her on the darksome cottage floor. And yet a russet gown, torn and soiled with the child's rude play, made a picture of her just as perfect. Pearl's aspect was imbued with a spell of infinite variety; in this one child there were many children, comprehending the full scope between the wild-flower prettiness of a peasant-baby, and the pomp, in little, of an infant princess. Throughout all, however, there was a trait of passion, a certain depth of hue, which she never lost; and if, in any of her changes, she had grown fainter or paler, she would have ceased to be herself — it would have been no longer Pearl.

诚然，孩子身上没有生理缺陷。婴儿体形完美、精力旺盛，稚嫩的四肢动作天生灵活，可称得上是出生在伊甸园中的。可以说，在世上第一对父母被逐出之后，她也值得留在园中当作天使们的玩物。这孩子有一种天生的优雅，这可不是无瑕的美貌所一定具备的。无论她的衣服怎样简朴，见到的人总会认为只有这样穿着才能极尽其美。但是小珠儿穿的并不是破衣烂衫。她的母亲怀着一种病态的目的——这一点我们以后会看得更清楚——尽其所能购买最昂贵的衣料，调动全部的想象来装扮孩子的衣裙，供人们欣赏。这小家伙经这么一打扮，实在漂亮动人。在那灰暗的茅屋地面上，简直像有一轮圣洁的光环围绕着她—— 当然，这也是珠儿自身恰到好处的美丽光彩，若是把这身明艳的袍子穿到一个不那么可爱的孩子身上，那可爱反而会黯然失色的。不过，她即使身穿土布袍子，满地打滚地玩，弄得衣服破破烂烂，也仍旧完美。珠儿的外貌中蕴含着万千变化之美。在她身上，集合了许多孩子不同的美，从农家孩子那种野花式美到小公主那种精致高贵的美。不过，透过这一切，一种热情的特性和浓重的色调是她永远不会失去的。而这种特性和色调倘若变得黯淡或苍白，她也就不再是她自己，不再是珠儿了。

This outward mutability indicated, and did not more than fairly express, the various properties of her inner life. Her nature appeared to possess depth, too, as well as variety; but — or else Hester's fears deceived her — it lacked reference and adaptation to the world into which she was born. The child could not be made amenable to rules. In giving her existence, a great law had been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder; or with an order peculiar to themselves, amidst which the point of variety and arrangement was difficult or impossible to be discovered. Hester could only account for the child's character — and even then most vaguely and imperfectly — by recalling what she herself had been, during that momentous period while Pearl was imbibing her soul from the spiritual world, and her bodily frame from its material of earth. The mother's impassioned state had been the medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the intervening substance. Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit, at that epoch, was perpetuated in Pearl. She could recognise her wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart. They were now illuminated by the morning radiance of a young child's disposition, but, later in the day of earthly existence, might be prolific of the storm and whirlwind.

这种外表上的千变万化说明，也恰好表现出，她内在生命的多方面特性。除了多方面的特性之外，她似乎也具备深沉之处，只是对她所降临的这个世界还缺乏了解和适应的能力——也许赫斯特只是由于忧心忡忡才误以为如此。这孩子根本不懂得服从规矩。她的诞生，破坏了一条重大法律，结果构成这小家伙的元素虽然也许可以说是美艳照人的，但都错了位；或许它本来有独特的次序，只是人们无法或者很难发现这种安排和变化的精髓。赫斯特只能靠回忆来分析这孩子的性格：当珠儿从精神世界汲取自己的灵魂、在物质世界形成自己的躯体时，她自己的情况如何。但这样来推断孩子性格，仍十分模糊不清。做母亲的激动心情成为了将道德生活光束传送给胎儿的媒介。不管光束原先是多么洁白，总要深深地染上绯红和金黄的污渍、火焰般的光辉、漆黑的阴影和飘忽不定的光彩。而最主要的是，赫斯特当时的斗争精神也永远注入了珠儿的身心。从珠儿身上，她能够看到她当时的狂野、绝望和挑战的情绪，任性的性格，甚至还有某种曾笼罩她心灵的阴郁和沮丧的愁云。如今，一切都在这小孩子的气质中略见端倪。然而，尽管眼下犹如晨曦照射，她今后的人生岁月可能会充满骤雨狂风。

The discipline of the family, in those days, was of a far more rigid kind than now. The frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent application of the rod, enjoined by Scriptural authority, were used, not merely in the way of punishment for actual offences, but as a wholesome regimen for the growth and promotion of all childish virtues. Hester Prynne, nevertheless, the lonely mother of this one child, ran little risk of erring on the side of undue severity. Mindful, however, of her own errors and misfortunes, she early sought to impose a tender but strict control over the infant immortality that was committed to her charge. But the task was beyond her skill. After testing both smiles and frowns, and proving that neither mode of treatment possessed any calculable influence, Hester was ultimately compelled to stand aside, and permit the child to be swayed by her own impulses. Physical compulsion or restraint was effectual, of course, while it lasted. As to any other kind of discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, little Pearl might or might not be within its reach, in accordance with the caprice that ruled the moment. Her mother, while Pearl was yet an infant, grew acquainted with a certain peculiar look, that warned her when it would be labour thrown away to insist, persuade, or plead. It was a look so intelligent, yet inexplicable, so perverse, sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits, that Hester could not help questioning, at such moments, whether Pearl was a human child. She seemed rather an airy sprite, which, after playing its fantastic sports for a little while upon the cottage floor, would flit away with a mocking smile. Whenever that look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply black eyes, it invested her with a strange remoteness and intangibility; it was as if she were hovering in the air and might vanish, like a glimmering light that comes we know not whence, and goes we know not whither. Beholding it, Hester was constrained to rush towards the child to pursue the little elf in the flight which she invariably began, to snatch her to her bosom, with a close pressure and earnest kisses — not so much from overflowing love, as to assure herself that Pearl was flesh and blood, and not utterly delusive. But Pearl's laugh, when she was caught, though full of merriment and music, made her mother more doubtful than before.

当时的家规比现在的严厉得多。怒目瞪视、厉声呵斥和经常性的体罚，全都有《圣经》可依。这些手段不仅是对错误言行的处罚，而且也是培养儿童品德、促进成长的有益方法。尽管如此，赫斯特·普林和珠儿是寡母孤儿，她绝不会对孩子太过严苛。然而，想到自己的过失和不幸，她很早便想对这个由她负责照顾的婴儿，施以慈爱且严格的管教。但这职责非她所能胜任。赫斯特对珠儿试过用好言相劝或厉声训斥，可两种办法都不能奏效。她最后只好被迫站在一旁，听凭孩子随心所欲了。当然，体罚和束缚在施行时还是有效的。至于对孩子思想和感情的其他教育，小珠儿也可能听，也可能不听：这全看她当时是否高兴了。当珠儿还是婴儿时，她的母亲就渐渐熟悉了她的一种特别的神情。那神情是在告诉母亲，此时对她的一切强制、劝说或请求都将无济于事。那种神情充满狡黠，却令人费解，极其刚健，有时又异常凶狠，但总伴随着一种奔放的情绪；这时，赫斯特不禁怀疑，珠儿到底是不是一个凡人的子嗣。她看起来更像是—个飘忽的精灵，在茅屋的地面上做过一阵奇思异想的游戏后，便要面带嘲笑地飞走了。每逢她那狂野、明亮、漆黑的眼睛里现出那种神情时，她便蒙上了一层遥不可及的神秘色彩，仿佛她正在空中翱翔，随时都可能像那不知来自何处、去往何方的闪光一样，消失不见。赫斯特看到这情景，就会像追逐逃跑的小精灵那样向孩子扑去，而珠儿也一定会开始逃跑；母亲抓住孩子，把她紧紧贴在胸前，热切地亲吻着——她这样做倒不是出自爱的洋溢，而是要使自己确信珠儿是个血肉之躯，而并非虚幻之物。但在珠儿被抓住时，她咯咯的笑声中虽然充满欢乐，却使母亲不由得更为困惑。

Heart-smitten at this bewildering and baffling spell that so often came between herself and her sole treasure, whom she had bought so dear and who was all her world, Hester sometimes burst into passionate tears. Then, perhaps — for there was no foreseeing how it might affect her — Pearl would frown, and clench her little fist, and harden her small features into a stern, unsympathising look of discontent. Not seldom, she would laugh anew, and louder than before, like a thing incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow. Or — but this more rarely happened — she would be convulsed with a rage of grief, and sob out her love for her mother in broken words, and seem intent on proving that she had a heart, by breaking it. Yet Hester was hardly safe in confiding herself to that gusty tenderness; it passed as suddenly as it came. Brooding over all these matters, the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit, but, by some irregularity in the process of conjuration, has failed to win the master-word that should control this new and incomprehensible intelligence. Her only real comfort was when the child lay in the placidity of sleep. Then she was sure of her, and tasted hours of quiet, sad, delicious happiness; until — perhaps with that perverse expression glimmering from beneath her opening lids — little Pearl awoke!

赫斯特把她花了极其高昂的代价才得到的珠儿，看作她唯一的财富和天地，于是每当她发觉自己和孩子之间出现令人困惑不已的魔咒时，她便痛心不已，有时还流下热泪。此时，珠儿或许会——因为无法预见那魔咒对她的影响——攥起小手，紧皱眉头，板起面孔，露出不满的冷冷表情。有时，她会再次咯咯大笑，比前一次笑得还要大声，仿佛对人类的哀伤不能知晓无法了解。更罕见的是，有时她会因一阵悲恸而全身抽搐，抽抽噎噎地说出几个不连贯的词语，以表达她对母亲的爱，似乎非要故意心碎才能证明她确实有一颗心。不过，赫斯特无法使自己相信这种来得快、去得也快的柔情。这位母亲思前想后，觉得自己像是呼唤了一个精灵，但是由于没有按照魔法的步骤行事，还没有掌握咒语来制服这个不知底细的精灵。只有在孩子躺下安然入睡时，她才感到真正的宽心。那时她才能确定她的存在，体会上几小时的恬静和幸福，直到小珠儿一觉醒来——也许就在孩子刚刚睁眼的时候，那种倔劲又表现出来了！

How soon — with what strange rapidity, indeed! — did Pearl arrive at an age that was capable of social intercourse, beyond the mother's ever-ready smile and nonsense-words! And then what a happiness would it have been, could Hester Prynne have heard her clear, bird-like voice mingling with the uproar of other childish voices, and have distinguished and unravelled her own darling's tones, amid all the entangled outcry of a group of sportive children! But this could never be. Pearl was a born outcast of the infantile world. An imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants. Nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed, with which the child comprehended her loneliness; the destiny that had drawn an inviolable circle round about her; the whole peculiarity, in short, of her position in respect to other children. Never, since her release from prison, had Hester met the public gaze without her. In all her walks about the town, Pearl, too, was there; first as the babe in arms, and afterwards as the little girl, small companion of her mother, holding a forefinger with her whole grasp, and tripping along at the rate of three or four footsteps to one of Hester's. She saw the children of the settlement, on the grassy margin of the street, or at the domestic thresholds, disporting themselves in such grim fashion as the Puritanic nurture would permit; playing at going to church, perchance; or at scourging Quakers; or taking scalps in a sham-fight with the Indians; or scaring one another with freaks of imitative witchcraft. Pearl saw, and gazed intently, but never sought to make acquaintance. If spoken to, she would not speak again. If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble because they had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue.

好快啊，真是迅速得出奇呢！珠儿已经长到能够与社会交往的年纪了，她不再满足于母亲频繁的微笑和无意义的唠叨！如果赫斯特·普林能够在孩子们的叫嚷声中，听到珠儿那莺啼燕啭般的清脆嗓音，能够从一群嬉戏儿童的喧哗声中，便认出她自己宝贝儿的声调．她将是多么幸福啊！然而这是绝不可能的。珠儿生来便是儿童世界的弃子。她是一个邪恶的小妖精，是罪孽的标志和产物，无权跻身于受洗的婴孩之列。值得注意的是，这孩子仿佛有一种理解自己孤独处境的本能，她懂得自己周围有条命中注定不可逾越的鸿沟。简言之，她知道自己与其他孩子迥然不同的特殊地位。自从赫斯特出狱以来，她从没单独在人们面前出现过。她在镇上四处走动时，珠儿也始终在她身边。起初是她怀中的婴儿，后来又成了一个小姑娘，陪着她母亲，握着她的一根食指，一路蹦蹦跳跳，用三四步才能赶上赫斯特的一步。珠儿看到过这块殖民地上的小孩子们。他们在路边的草地上或在自家门前，做着清教徒规定所允许的种种怪里怪气的游戏：他们或是装作一起去教堂，或是装作拷问教友派的教徒，或是玩同印第安人打仗和剥头皮的把戏，或是模仿巫术的怪样互相吓唬。珠儿在一边观察着，注视着，但从来没打算要认识他们。如果别人对她说话，她也不会回应。孩子们有时把她围起来，她就发起小脾气，变得非常凶狠，捡起石头向他们扔去，同时发出连续的尖声怪叫，就像巫婆似的用没人能懂的咒语喊叫，吓得她母亲浑身颤抖。

The truth was that the little Puritans, being of the most intolerant brood that ever lived, had a vague idea of something outlandish, unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashions, in the mother and child; and therefore scorned them in their hearts, and not unfrequently reviled them with their tongues. Pearl felt the sentiment, and requited it with the bitterest hatred that can be supposed to rankle in a childish bosom. These outbreaks of a fierce temper had a kind of value, and even comfort, for her mother; because there was at least an intelligible earnestness in the mood, instead of the fitful caprice that so often thwarted her in the child's manifestations. It appalled her, nevertheless, to discern here, again, a shadowy reflection of the evil that had existed in herself. All this enmity and passion had Pearl inherited, by inalienable right, out of Hester's heart. Mother and daughter stood together in the same circle of seclusion from human society; and in the nature of the child seemed to be perpetuated those unquiet elements that had distracted Hester Prynne before Pearl's birth, but had since begun to be soothed away by the softening influences of maternity.

事实上，这伙小清教徒们是世上最不容人的。他们早就在这对母女身上模模糊糊地看出点名堂，觉得她们不像是人世间的人，古里古怪、与众不同，于是便从心里蔑视她们，嘴里时常不干不净地诅咒她们。珠儿察觉出了这种情绪，便以一个孩子心胸中所能激起的最刻毒的仇恨来回应。这种大发脾气对她母亲还颇有价值，甚至是一种慰藉，因为在这种气氛中，她至少表现出一种显而易见的真诚，替代了那种刺痛她母亲的孩童的任性。尽管如此，赫斯特还是惊愕不已，她发现，其中隐约反射出那种自己身上曾有的罪恶。这一切仇恨和热情，珠儿都理所当然地从赫斯特心中承袭下来。母女二人一起被摒弃在人间社会之外；那些在珠儿出生前折磨着赫斯特·普林、孩子出生后随母性的温柔而渐渐平息下去的不安定成分，似乎都植根于珠儿的天性之中。

At home, within and around her mother's cottage, Pearl wanted not a wide and various circle of acquaintance. The spell of life went forth from her ever-creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand objects, as a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied. The unlikeliest materials — a stick, a bunch of rags, a flower — were the puppets of Pearl's witchcraft, and, without undergoing any outward change, became spiritually adapted to whatever drama occupied the stage of her inner world. Her one baby-voice served a multitude of imaginary personages, old and young, to talk withal. The pine-trees, aged, black, and solemn, and flinging groans and other melancholy utterances on the breeze, needed little transformation to figure as Puritan elders; the ugliest weeds of the garden were their children, whom Pearl smote down and uprooted, most unmercifully. It was wonderful, the vast variety of forms into which she threw her intellect, with no continuity, indeed, but darting up and dancing, always in a state of preternatural activity — soon sinking down, as if exhausted by so rapid and feverish a tide of life — and succeeded by other shapes of a similar wild energy. It was like nothing so much as the phantasmagoric play of the northern lights. In the mere exercise of the fancy, however, and the sportiveness of a growing mind, there might be little more than was observable in other children of bright faculties; except as Pearl, in the dearth of human playmates, was thrown more upon the visionary throng which she created. The singularity lay in the hostile feelings with which the child regarded all these offspring of her own heart and mind. She never created a friend, but seemed always to be sowing broadcast the dragon's teeth, whence sprung a harvest of armed enemies, against whom she rushed to battle. It was inexpressibly sad — then what depth of sorrow to a mother, who felt in her own heart the cause! — to observe, in one so young, this constant recognition of an adverse world, and so fierce a training of the energies that were to make good her cause in the contest that must ensue.

在家里，在母亲的茅屋附近，珠儿并不想结识很多不同的伙伴。她那永不停歇的创造精神迸发出生命的魔力，并犹如点燃一切的火炬一样，同千万种物体交流。那些最不值一玩的东西——棍子、破布、小花——都是珠儿的巫术玩偶，而且无需经过任何的外部变化，便可以在她内心世界的戏剧中派上用场。她用自己的童音扮成想象中许多形形色色、老老少少的角色，让他们相互交谈。那些在微风中发出细碎的呻吟以及其他忧郁声响的松树，黝黑、苍老而又肃穆，无需变形，便可充当清教徒中的长者，花园中最丑陋的杂草便是他们的子孙——珠儿毫不留情地将他们踩倒，再连根拔起。她脑里幻化出来各色各样的形体，真是绝妙之极！虽然它们确实缺乏连续性，但活泼跳跃，永远充满着超越自然的活力——但仿佛因过于急剧又狂热的生命浪潮而精疲力尽，这种活力很快便消沉下去，随即又被另一种相似的狂野力量替代。这和北极光的变幻不定极其相似。然而，对正在成长的、喜欢想象又活泼好动的珠儿来说，她和其他聪慧的儿童相比，并没有什么明显的长处，珠儿只不过是由于缺乏玩伴，和自己幻想创造出来的人群更加接近而已。她的独特之处在于，她对自己心灵和头脑中幻化出来的所有东西都怀着敌对情绪。她从来没有创造过一个朋友，却总是在大面积地播种龙牙来收获到一支敌军，然后与之厮杀。看到孩子还这么年幼，居然对一个和自己作对的世界有如此坚定的认识，而且积极地训练自己的实力以确保在争斗中获胜，这种心酸实在难以形容！而当母亲在体会到这一切都是由她引起时，又是多么的哀伤啊！

Gazing at Pearl, Hester Prynne often dropped her work upon her knees, and cried out with an agony which she would fain have hidden, but which made utterance for itself, betwixt speech and a groan — "O Father in heaven — if Thou art still my Father — what is this being which I have brought into the world!" And Pearl, overbearing the ejaculation, or aware, through some more subtile channel, of those throbs of anguish, would turn her vivid and beautiful little face upon her mother, smile with sprite-like intelligence, and resume her play.

望着珠儿时，赫斯特·普林常常将手中的活儿掉落在膝上，失声痛哭。她本想竭力隐藏这种痛苦，却未能成功，它像是在诉说，又像是在呻吟：“噢，天上的圣父啊——如果您还是我的圣父的话——我带到这人世上来的是一个什么样的生命啊！”珠儿呢，或是偷听到这迸射而出的语言，或是通过某种更微妙的渠道感受到了那痛苦的悸动，便会把她那美丽动人的小脸转向她母亲，露出精灵般聪慧的笑容，然后继续玩起她的游戏。

One peculiarity of the child's deportment remains yet to be told. The very first thing which she had noticed in her life, was — what? — not the mother's smile, responding to it, as other babies do, by that faint, embryo smile of the little mouth, remembered so doubtfully afterwards, and with such fond discussion whether it were indeed a smile. By no means! But that first object of which Pearl seemed to become aware was — shall we say it? — the scarlet letter on Hester's bosom! One day, as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant's eyes had been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the letter; and, putting up her little hand, she grasped at it, smiling, not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam, that gave her face the look of a much older child. Then, gasping for breath, did Hester Prynne clutch the fatal token, instinctively endeavouring to tear it away; so infinite was the torture inflicted by the intelligent touch of Pearl's baby hand. Again, as if her mother's agonised gesture were meant only to make sport for her, did little Pearl look into her eyes, and smile! From that epoch, except when the child was asleep, Hester had never felt a moment's safety; not a moment's calm enjoyment of her. Weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse, during which Pearl's gaze might never once be fixed upon the scarlet letter; but then, again, it would come at unawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and always with that peculiar smile, and odd expression of the eyes.

这孩子的举止还有一个特别之处值得一提。她自降生以来所注意到的第一件事情是什么呢？不是母亲的微笑。其他孩子会学着用自己的小嘴浅浅一笑来呼应，事后就会记忆模糊，以致热烈地争论那到底是不是一个真的微笑。珠儿意识到她第一个目标绝不是母亲的微笑！那个目标似乎是——我们要不要说出来呢？——是赫斯特胸前的红字！一天，她母亲停留在摇篮旁，婴儿的眼睛盯住了那字母四周金线刺绣的闪光。接着，她便伸出小手朝那字母抓去，脸上还带着确定无疑的笑容，充满果断的光彩，使她的脸看上去像个大得多的孩子。当时，赫斯特·普林喘着粗气，紧紧抓住那致命的标记，本能地要把它扯下来。珠儿那小手这狡黠的一触，给她带来了无穷无尽的煎熬啊。再一次，小珠儿仿佛以为她母亲那痛苦的表情不过是和她闹着玩的，便盯着母亲的眼睛，微微一笑！从那时起，除非这孩子在睡觉，赫斯特没有片刻的安全感，也没有体会到这孩子带来过片刻宁静的享受。确实，有时一连几个星期过去了，其间珠儿再没有注视过一次红字。之后，在不经意间，她又会瞄上一眼，就像人猝死时的猛然一抽，而且脸上总要露出那特有的微笑，眼睛也总要带着奇怪的表情。

Once, this freakish, elvish cast came into the child's eyes, while Hester was looking at her own image in them, as mothers are fond of doing; and, suddenly — for women in solitude, and with troubled hearts, are pestered with unaccountable delusions — she fancied that she beheld, not her own miniature portrait, but another face, in the small black mirror of Pearl's eye. It was a face, fiend-like, full of smiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of features that she had known full well, though seldom with a smile, and never with malice in them. It was as if an evil spirit possessed the child, and had just then peeped forth in mockery. Many a time afterwards had Hester been tortured, though less vividly, by the same illusion.

有一次，赫斯特像做母亲的都喜欢做的那样，在孩子的眼睛中看着自己的倒影，这时珠儿的眼睛又出现了那种不可捉摸的像精灵似的目光。内心烦闷的妇女常常会被莫名其妙的幻象所萦绕，她因此突然幻想着，在珠儿的眼睛那面小镜子中，她看到的不是她自己的小小肖像，而是另外一张面孔。那是一张魔鬼似的面孔，充满恶意地微笑着。可是容貌却像极了她熟悉的面孔，虽然她熟悉的面容上很少有笑脸，更从来不会有恶意的笑脸。那时就像是有一个邪恶精灵附在了孩子身上，探出头来嘲弄地望着她。事后，赫斯特曾多次受到同一幻觉折磨，不过之后那幻觉就没有那么强烈了。

In the afternoon of a certain summer's day, after Pearl grew big enough to run about, she amused herself with gathering handfuls of wild-flowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her mother's bosom, dancing up and down like a little elf, whenever she hit the scarlet letter. Hester's first motion had been to cover her bosom with her clasped hands. But, whether from pride or resignation, or a feeling that her penance might best be wrought out by this unutterable pain, she resisted the impulse, and sat erect, pale as death, looking sadly into little Pearl's wild eyes. Still came the battery of flowers, almost invariably hitting the mark, and covering the mother's breast with hurts for which she could find no balm in this world, nor knew how to seek it in another. At last, her shot being all expended, the child stood still and gazed at Hester with that little, laughing image of a fiend peeping out — or, whether it peeped or no, her mother so imagined it — from the unsearchable abyss of her black eyes.

不久，珠儿已经长大，能够到处跑了。一个夏日的午后，她采了一大把野花自娱自乐，然后把它们一朵一朵地掷到母亲胸口上。每当花朵打中红字，她就像个小精灵似的蹦蹦跳跳。赫斯特的第一个动作就是想合着双手，捂住胸膛。可是，不知是出于自尊还是出于容忍顺从，或是觉得只有靠这种难言的痛苦才能最好地完成赎罪的苦行，她压抑住这一冲动，直挺挺地坐着，脸色变得像死人般苍白，伤心地盯着珠儿狂野的眼睛。可是，花朵仍接二连三地抛来，几乎每一下都打中了那标记，在她的胸口上撒满伤痛。这种痛她不但在这世间找不到任何止痛药，就是在另一个世界里，也不知道如何去寻找。终于，孩子的弹药全都用完了，她一动不动地站在那里瞪着赫斯特。她那深不可测的黑眼睛里，那笑眯眯的小魔鬼又探出头来望着她了——或者，它有没有探头，只是她母亲这么想象罢了。

"Child, what art thou?" cried the mother.“孩子，你到底是个什么呀？”母亲叫着。

"O, I am your little Pearl!" answered the child.“噢，我是你的小珠儿！”孩子回答。

But, while she said it, Pearl laughed, and began to dance up and down, with the humorsome gesticulation of a little imp, whose next freak might be to fly up the chimney.

但珠儿边说边笑着，像小妖精似的调皮地蹦蹦跳跳，她下一步想入非非的行动可能是从烟囱中飞出去。

"Art thou my child, in very truth?" asked Hester.“你真是我的孩子吗？”赫斯特问。

Nor did she put the question altogether idly, but, for the moment, with a portion of genuine earnestness; for such was Pearl's wonderful intelligence, that her mother half doubted whether she were not acquainted with the secret spell of her existence, and might not now reveal herself.

她绝不是随便提出这样一个问题，就当时而论，她确实带着几分认真的。因为珠儿这么机灵，她母亲有点怀疑：也许她未必不清楚自己的身世之谜，只不过现在还不打算亲口说出来而已。

"Yes; I am little Pearl!" repeated the child, continuing her antics.“是啊！我是小珠儿！”孩子又说了一遍，同时继续着她的调皮动作。

"Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!" said the mother, half playfully; for it was often the case that a sportive impulse came over her, in the midst of her deepest suffering. "Tell me, then, what thou art, and who sent thee hither?"“你不是我的孩子！你不是我的珠儿！”母亲半开玩笑地说。因为在最为痛苦的时候，她心里往往会涌起一阵开玩笑的冲动。“那就告诉我吧，你是什么？是谁把你打发到这儿来的？”

"Tell me, Mother!" said the child seriously, coming up to Hester, and pressing herself close to her knees. "Do thou tell me!"“告诉我吧，妈妈！”孩子走到赫斯特跟前，紧紧靠着她膝头，一本正经地说。“一定告诉吧！”

"Thy Heavenly Father sent thee!" answered Hester Prynne.“是你的天父把你送来的！”赫斯特·普林回答说。

But she said it with a hesitation that did not escape the acuteness of the child. Whether moved only by her ordinary freakishness, or because an evil spirit prompted her, she put up her small forefinger, and touched the scarlet letter.

但她说话时有点犹豫，这没有逃过珠儿锐利的目光。不知孩子是和往常一样想要调皮，还是受到一个邪恶精灵的指使，她举起她小小的食指，去摸那红字。

"He did not send me!" cried she, positively. "I have no Heavenly Father!"“不是他把我送来的！”她确定地说。“我没有天父！”

"Hush, Pearl, hush! Thou must not talk so!" answered the mother, suppressing a groan. "He sent us all into this world. He sent even me, thy mother. Then, much more, thee! Or, if not, thou strange and elfish child, whence didst thou come?"“嘘，珠儿，嘘！不许这么说！”母亲咽下一声哀叹，回答说。“我们所有的人都是他送到这世上来的。连我——你妈妈，都是他送来的。你就更不用说了！要不是这样，你这个怪里怪气的小妖精是从哪儿来的？”

"Tell me! Tell me!" repeated Pearl, no longer seriously, but laughing, and capering about the floor. "It is thou that must tell me!"“告诉我！告诉我！”珠儿一再喊着，这次不再板着脸，而是笑出了声，还在地上跳着。“非得你告诉我才行！”

But Hester could not resolve the query, being herself in a dismal labyrinth of doubt. She remembered — betwixt a smile and a shudder — the talk of the neighbouring townspeople; who, seeking vainly elsewhere for the child's paternity, and observing some of her old attributes, had given out that poor little Pearl was a demon offspring; such as, ever since old Catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their mother's sin, and to promote some foul and wicked purpose.

对于这样的逼问，赫斯特可没法回答，因为连她也还在阴暗的迷宫中徘徊呢。她面带微笑，却全身发抖地想起了镇上邻居的说法。他们遍寻这孩子的父亲没有结果，又观察到珠儿的古怪作为，就声称可怜的小珠儿是个妖魔的子嗣。例如，从古天主教时代以来，世上常有这种孩子，他们都是由于母亲的罪孽，才生下来，以助长肮脏和恶毒。

Luther, according to the scandal of his monkish enemies, was a brat of that hellish breed; nor was Pearl the only child to whom this inauspicious origin was assigned among the New England Puritans.

按照教会中路德的敌人所说，他本人就是恶魔的孽种；而在新英格兰的清教徒中间，有这种可疑血统的，可不止珠儿一个孩子。Chapter 7THE GOVERNOR'S HALL

第七章总督的官邸

Hester Prynne went one day to the mansion of Governor Bellingham, with a pair of gloves, which she had fringed and embroidered to his order, and which were to be worn on some great occasion of state; for, though the chances of a popular election had caused this former ruler to descend a step or two from the highest rank, he still held an honourable and influential place among the colonial magistracy.

有一天，赫斯特·普林到贝林厄姆总督官邸，去交他定做的手套。这副手套是按总督的要求绣花镶边的，总督要在某个重大的政典上戴。这位前统治者虽然在一次普选中降了一两级，但他在殖民地的行政长官中，仍然受人尊崇，保持着举足轻重的地位。

Another and far more important reason than the delivery of a pair of embroidered gloves impelled Hester, at this time, to seek an interview with a personage of so much power and activity in the affairs of the settlement. It had reached her ears, that there was a design on the part of some of the leading inhabitants, cherishing the more rigid order of principles in religion and government, to deprive her of her child. On the supposition that Pearl, as already hinted, was of demon origin, these good people not unreasonably argued that a Christian interest in the mother's soul required them to remove such a stumbling-block from her path. If the child, on the other hand, were really capable of moral and religious growth, and possessed the elements of ultimate salvation, then, surely, it would enjoy all the fairer prospect of these advantages by being transferred to wiser and better guardianship than Hester Prynne's. Among those who promoted the design, Governor Bellingham was said to be one of the most busy. It may appear singular, and indeed not a little ludicrous, that an affair of this kind, which, in later days, would have been referred to no higher jurisdiction than that of the selectmen of the town, should then have been a question publicly discussed, and on which statesmen of eminence took sides. At that epoch of pristine simplicity, however, matters of even slighter public interest, and of far less intrinsic weight, than the welfare of Hester and her child, were strangely mixed up with the deliberations of legislators and acts of state. The period was hardly, if at all, earlier than that of our story, when a dispute concerning the right of property in a pig not only caused a fierce and bitter contest in the legislative body of the colony, but resulted in an important modification of the framework itself of the legislature.

此时，还有一个比递交绣好的手套更为重要的原因，促使赫斯特寻找机会来晋见这位在殖民地事务中有权势的人物。她听说，有几位力主在宗教和政府原则上要严加治理的大人物，正在谋划夺走她的孩子。前面已经暗示过，珠儿可能是妖魔的孽种，因此这些人们便主张：出于基督教对母亲灵魂的关心，他们应该从她的人生路上去掉这块绊脚石。另一方面，如果这孩子真能接受宗教和道德的教化，并且最终获得救赎，那么，把孩子移交给比赫斯特·普林更高明的监护人，珠儿就可以更充分地发挥这些条件，从而肯定能享有更美好的将来。据说在这群推广这个计划的人们当中，贝林厄姆总督是最为热心积极的一个。这类事情如在若干年后发生，最多交由市镇行政管理委员会裁定。而在当时，居然要兴师动众地加以讨论，而且还有显要人物来参与，似乎稀奇得很，也确实有点荒唐可笑。然而，在原始的朴素年代，无论是在公众利益方面，还是在事情本身的重要性上，比起赫斯特和她孩子的安置问题还要次要的事情，竟然都要由立法者审议并由政府立法。就在我们这个故事发生之前，曾经发生过一起涉及一只猪所有权的纠纷。这件事不仅在殖民地立法机构中引起了激烈争论，而且还导致了该机构框架上的重大变更。

Full of concern, therefore — but so conscious of her own right that it seemed scarcely an unequal match between the public, on the one side, and a lonely woman, backed by the sympathies of nature, on the other — Hester Prynne set forth from her solitary cottage. Little Pearl, of course, was her companion. She was now of an age to run lightly along by her mother's side, and, constantly in motion, from morn till sunset, could have accomplished a much longer journey than that before her. Often, nevertheless, more from caprice than necessity, she demanded to be taken up in arms; but was soon as imperious to be set down again, and frisked onward before Hester on the grassy pathway, with many a harmless trip and tumble. We have spoken of Pearl's rich and luxuriant beauty; a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints; a bright complexion, eyes possessing intensity both of depth and glow, and hair already of a deep, glossy brown, and which, in after years, would be nearly akin to black. There was fire in her and throughout her; she seemed the unpremeditated offshoot of a passionate moment. Her mother, in contriving the child's garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of her imagination their full play; arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic of a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread. So much strength of colouring, which must have given a wan and pallid aspect to cheeks of a fainter bloom, was admirably adapted to Pearl's beauty and made her the very brightest little jet of flame that ever danced upon the earth.

赫斯特·普林深知这件事关系到切身的利益，虽然一边是广大公众，另一边是她孤身一个女人，仅有自然的同情为后盾，双方实力悬殊，难以对垒，但她还是忧心忡忡地从小茅屋出发去力争了。当然，小珠儿仍然陪伴着她。如今，珠儿已经到了能在母亲身边跑来跑去的年龄，一天到晚不肯闲着，就是比这再远的路也能走到了。不过，她还经常要母亲抱着走。其实并不是因为走不动，而是想撒娇；可是没抱几步，她就又迫不及待地要下来，蹦蹦跳跳地在赫斯特前面走着，跑着，不时还在长草的小路上磕磕绊绊，不过并不会受伤。我们曾经谈到珠儿光彩照人的美丽，她的生命丰富多彩：她有着晶莹的皮肤，一双既专注又炯炯有神的大眼睛，而她那深棕色的头发，再过几年就几乎是全黑色的了。她浑身上下有一团火，向四下发散着，就好像是在激情时刻偶然孕育的一个子嗣。母亲为给孩子设计服装费了不少心思，充分发挥了她天马行空的想象，用鲜红的天鹅绒为她裁剪了式样独特的束腰裙衫，还用金丝线在上面绣满新奇多彩的花样。这种强烈的色调，如果被用来衬托一块不够红润的面颊，会使容貌显得苍白黯淡，但它却与珠儿的美貌相得益彰，使她成了一簇世上前所未有的火焰。

But it was a remarkable attribute of this garb, and, indeed, of the child's whole appearance, that it irresistibly and inevitably reminded the beholder of the token which Hester Prynne was doomed to wear upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life! The mother herself — as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched into her brain that all her conceptions assumed its form — had carefully wrought out the similitude; lavishing many hours of morbid ingenuity to create an analogy between the object of her affection and the emblem of her guilt and torture. But, in truth, Pearl was the one, as well as the other; and only in consequence of that identity had Hester contrived so perfectly to represent the scarlet letter in her appearance.

然而，老实讲，这身衣裙还有这孩子的整个外貌，实在引人注目，使旁观者忍不住，也难以避免地想到，赫斯特·普林胸前佩戴着的那个红字标记。这孩子是另一种形式的红字，是被赋予了生命的红字！这红字的耻辱似乎全部深深烙印在母亲的脑海里，使她的一切观念都采取了它的形式，让她不惜花费许多时间，用病态的创造力，在她的爱恋与她的愧疚和痛苦之间，精心创造出这样一个仿照物。然而，事实上，珠儿正集二者于一身。而且，也正因为有了这个同一性，赫斯特才能如此完美地用孩子的外表来象征她身上的红字。

As the two wayfarers came within the precincts of the town, the children of the Puritans looked up from their play — or what passed for play with those sombre little urchins — and spake gravely one to another: — "Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter; and, of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter running along by her side! Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!"

这两个路人来到镇区时，清教徒的孩子们停下了游戏——那些闷闷不乐的小家伙其实也没什么可玩的。他们抬起眼来，一本正经地互相议论着：“瞧，还真有个戴红字的女人，而且一点不假，还有个像红字似的小东西在她身边跑着呢！这下可好啦，咱们朝她们扔泥巴吧！”

But Pearl, who was a dauntless child, after frowning, stamping her foot, and shaking her little hand with a variety of threatening gestures, suddenly made a rush at the knot of her enemies, and put them all to flight. She resembled, in her fierce pursuit of them, an infant pestilence — the scarlet fever, or some such half-fledged angel of judgment — whose mission was to punish the sins of the rising generation. She screamed and shouted, too, with a terrific volume of sound which, doubtless, caused the hearts of the fugitives to quake within them. The victory accomplished, Pearl returned quietly to her mother, and looked up, smiling, into her face.

可珠儿是个谁也不怕的孩子。她在皱眉，跺脚，还挥着小手作出各种吓人的姿势，然后突然朝这伙敌人冲过去，把他们全都赶跑了。她怒气冲冲地追着他们，简直像个小瘟神——猩红热或某个羽毛未丰、专司惩罚的小天使，其使命就是惩处正在成长的这一代人的罪孽。她尖呼高叫，其音量之骇人，无疑使这些逃跑的孩子们心惊胆寒。珠儿大获全胜，不声不响地凯旋而归，回到母亲身边，微笑着抬眼望着母亲的脸。

Without further adventure, they reached the dwelling of Governor Bellingham. This was a large wooden house, built in a fashion of which there are specimens still extant in the streets of our elder towns; now moss-grown, crumbling to decay, and melancholy at heart with the many sorrowful or joyful occurrences, remembered or forgotten, that have happened, and passed away, within their dusky chambers. Then, however, there was the freshness of the passing year on its exterior, and the cheerfulness, gleaming forth from the sunny windows, of a human habitation, into which death had never entered. It had, indeed, a very cheery aspect; the walls being overspread with a kind of stucco, in which fragments of broken glass were intermixed; so that, when the sunshine fell a slantwise over the front of the edifice, it glittered and sparkled as if diamonds had been flung against it by the double handful. The brilliancy might have befitted Aladdin's palace rather than the mansion of a grave old Puritan ruler. It was further decorated with strange and seemingly cabalistic figures and diagrams, suitable to the quaint taste of the age, which had been drawn in the stucco when newly laid on, and had now grown hard and durable, for the admiration of after times.

之后，她们便一路平安地来到了贝林厄姆总督的住所。这是一座宏大的木造宅邸，建筑风格在今天的一些老城镇街道上仍然可见。不过，如今这里已青苔丛生，摇摇欲坠。在那些昏暗的房间中，曾发生过并随即消逝了的悲欢离合，无论记忆犹新还是全然忘却，都令人黯然伤感。然而在当年，这样的宅邸在外观上仍保持着初建年代的清新，阳光普照的窗户中闪耀着家庭欢乐，死神也从未造访。这里确实呈现着一派欣然的景象：墙上涂着一层灰泥，由于里面掺着大量的碎玻璃，当阳光斜照到宅邸的跟前时，它们便会闪起耀眼的光芒，仿佛有一双手在向它抛射着钻石。这种夺目的光彩或许更适合阿拉丁的宫殿，而对于庄重的清教徒统治者并不适宜。宅邸的外墙还装饰着一些奇形怪状、格调古雅的人形和图像，很符合当年人们的品味。这都是在涂灰泥时画的，此时已变得坚实耐用，可供后世观赏了。

Pearl, looking at this bright wonder of a house, began to caper and dance, and imperatively required that the whole breadth of sunshine should be stripped off its front, and given her to play with.

珠儿望着这幢明亮而奇妙的住宅，开始雀跃起来，一个劲地要把整整一层阳光从住宅上剥下来，好让她玩个痛快。

"No, my little Pearl!" said her mother. "Thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee!"“不行，我的小珠儿！”她母亲说。“你要采集你自己的阳光。我可没有阳光给你呢！”

They approached the door, which was of an arched form, and flanked on each side by a narrow tower or projection of the edifice, in both of which were lattice windows, with wooden shutters to close over them at need. Lifting the iron hammer that hung at the portal, Hester Prynne gave a summons, which was answered by one of the Governor's bond-servants; a free-born Englishman, but now a seven years' slave. During that term he was to be the property of his master, and as much a commodity of bargain and sale as an ox, or a joint-stool. The serf wore the blue coat, which was the customary garb of serving-men at that period, and long before, in the old hereditary halls of England.

她们走近了大门。这门是拱形的，两侧各有细高的塔楼或者说是突出的外墙，上面镶着格子窗，里面还有木制的百叶窗，必要时可以关上。赫斯特·普林举起吊在门口的铁锤，敲了一下门，总督的家奴应声而至；他本是一个英国的自由民，但已当了七年的奴仆。在这期间，他只是主人的财产，和公牛或折椅一样，无非只是个可以交易和出售的商品。按照当时以及早年英国世袭大宅仆人的习惯装束，那奴仆穿着一件蓝色大衣。

"Is the worshipful Governor Bellingham within?" inquired Hester.“贝林厄姆总督大人在吗？”赫斯特问。

"Yea, forsooth, " replied the bond-servant, staring with wide-open eyes at the scarlet letter, which, being a new-comer in the country, he had never before seen. "Yea, his honourable worship is within. But he hath a godly minister or two with him, and likewise a leech. Ye may not see his worship now. "“是的，在家，”家仆一边回答，一边睁大眼睛瞪着那红字。他来到这地方只有几年，以前从未见过那标记。“是的，大人在里面。只是他有—两位牧师陪着，还有一个医生。恐怕你现在不能见大人。”

"Nevertheless, I will enter, " answered Hester Prynne, and the bond-servant, perhaps judging from the decision of her air, and the glittering symbol in her bosom that she was a great lady in the land, offered no opposition.“不过，我还是要进去，”赫斯特·普林回答说。家仆大概从她那不容置辩的神态和胸前闪耀的标志判断，把她当作了本地的一位贵妇，没有表示反对。

So the mother and little Pearl were admitted into the hall of entrance. With many variations, suggested by the nature of his building-materials, diversity of climate, and a different mode of social life, Governor Bellingham had planned his new habitation after the residences of gentlemen of fair estate in his native land. Here, then, was a wide and reasonably lofty hall, extending through the whole depth of the house, and forming a medium of general communication, more or less directly, with all the other apartments. At one extremity, this spacious room was lighted by the windows of the two towers, which formed a small recess on either side of the portal. At the other end, though partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully illuminated by one of those embowed hall-windows which we read of in old books, and which was provided with a keep and cushioned seat. Here, on the cushion, lay a folio tome, probably of the Chronicles of England, or other such substantial literature; even as, in our own days, we scatter gilded volumes on the centre-table, to be turned over by the casual guest. The furniture of the hall consisted of some ponderous chairs, the backs of which were elaborately carved with wreaths of oaken flowers; and likewise a table in the same taste; the whole being of the Elizabethan age, or perhaps earlier, and heirlooms, transferred hither from the Governor's paternal home. On the table — in token that the sentiment of old English hospitality had not been left behind — stood a large pewter tankard, at the bottom of which, had Hester or Pearl peeped into it, they might have seen the frothy remnant of a recent draught of ale.

于是，母亲和小珠儿走进了大厅。贝林厄姆总督是按照他故土乡绅的住宅样式来设计他在殖民地的新居的，但由于他所使用的建筑材料质地不同，当地气候以及社交生活模式的差异，居所还是做了不少变动。宅邸中就有—座宽敞恢弘的大厅，前后贯穿住宅，作为公共活动的中心，与宅中所有的房间都直接或间接相通。在这敞亮的大厅的一头，阳光从两座塔楼的窗户透进来，在门的两侧各自形成了小小的方框。另一头有一排窗户，虽然窗帘半掩着，但透过窗户的光线仍将通道照得十分明亮。这种走廊窗我们在古书中读到过——它们深深地凹进墙中，而且上面还有坐垫。在窗子的坐垫上放着对开的厚书，可能是《英格兰编年史》这—类的大部头著作。即便是现在，我们还会将一些烫金的书卷散放在室中的桌上，供客人翻阅消遣。大厅中的家具中有几把很重的椅子，椅背上雕刻着一团团橡树花，还有一张与椅子配套的桌子，以及一整套伊丽莎白时代的家具，说不定是从更早的年代传下来的，从总督的故乡运到了这里。为表明英格兰好客的遗风犹存，桌子上摆着一个硕大的锡制单柄酒杯。如果赫斯特或珠儿朝杯里张望的话，可能还会看见杯底上残存着刚喝完的啤酒的泡沫。

On the wall hung a row of portraits, representing the forefathers of the Bellingham lineage, some with armour on their breasts, and others with stately ruffs and robes of peace. All were characterised by the sternness and severity which old portraits so invariably put on; as if they were the ghosts, rather than the pictures, of departed worthies, and were gazing with harsh and intolerant criticism at the pursuits and enjoyments of living men.

墙上悬着一排肖像画，都是贝林厄姆家族的祖先。他们有的胸前护着铠甲，有的穿着衬有环状皱领的长袍。作为当年雕像必备的特征，他们个个面露威严，似乎这些都不是已故的风云人物的画像，而是他们的鬼魂，以苛责的批评眼光审视着人们的活动和娱乐。

At about the centre of the oaken panels, that lined the hall was suspended a suit of mail, not, like the pictures, an ancestral relic, but of the most modern date; for it had been manufactured by a skilful armourer in London the same year in which Governor Bellingham came over to New England. There was a steel headpiece, a cuirass, a gorget, and greaves, with a pair of gauntlets and a sword hanging beneath; all, and especially the helmet and breastplate, so highly burnished as to glow with white radiance, and scatter an illumination everywhere about upon the floor. This bright panoply was not meant for mere idle show, but had been worn by the Governor on many a solemn muster and training field, and had glittered, moreover, at the head of a regiment in the Pequod war. For, though bred a lawyer, and accustomed to speak of Bacon, Coke, Noye, and Finch as his professional associates, the exigencies of this new country had transformed Governor Bellingham into a soldier as well as a statesman and ruler.

大厅四周全都镶嵌着橡木护墙板，正中的位置悬挂着一副甲胄。那可不是像画那样的遗物，而是当时最新的制品，因为那是在贝林厄姆总督跨海来到新英格兰那一年，由伦敦一位巧手工匠打造出来的。那里还有头盔、护胸、胫甲、一副金属手套和一把吊在下面的长剑。这全套甲胄，尤其是头盔和护胸，都被擦得铮亮，闪着白色的光辉，把四下的地板照得通明。这套明晃晃的盔甲，可不只是摆设——总督曾多次在庄严的阅兵式预演场上穿过它，更重要的是，他曾穿着它在皮阔特之战中冲锋陷阵。虽然贝林厄姆总督是律师出身，惯于在言谈中将培根、科克、诺耶和芬奇引为同道中人，但这个新国家的形势不仅将他造就成了一名政治家和统治者，同时也把他造就成了一名军人。

Little Pearl — who was as greatly pleased with the gleaming armour as she had been with the glittering frontispiece of the house — spent some time looking into the polished mirror of the breastplate.

就像刚才很喜欢大宅闪亮的正面一样，小珠儿此时对那明晃晃的盔甲也十分感兴趣，在擦得铮亮的护胸镜前照了好长时间。

"Mother, " cried she, "I see you here. Look! Look!"“妈妈，”她叫道，“我在这里面看见你了。瞧瞧啊！”

Hester looked, by way of humouring the child; and she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance. In truth, she seemed absolutely hidden behind it. Pearl pointed upward, also, at a similar picture in the headpiece; smiling at her mother, with the elfish intelligence that was so familiar an expression on her small physiognomy. That look of naughty merriment was likewise reflected in the mirror, with so much breadth and intensity of effect, that it made Hester Prynne feel as if it could not be the image of her own child, but of an imp who was seeking to mould itself into Pearl's shape.

赫斯特为了逗孩子开心，就往里瞧了瞧。由于这一凸面镜的特殊功能，她看到红字的映像极为夸张，比例显得极大，成了她全身最显著的特征。事实上，她好像完全给红字遮住了。珠儿还向上指了指头盔中一个相似的映像，向母亲笑着，小小的脸上又露出了那常有的鬼精灵似的表情。她那既调皮又开心的神情，同样映现在盔甲的凸面镜中，显得非常夸张和专注，使赫斯特·普林觉得那似乎不是她自己孩子，而是一个正在试图变作珠儿模样的精灵。

"Come along, Pearl, " said she, drawing her away. "Come and look into this fair garden. It may be we shall see flowers there; more beautiful ones than we find in the woods. "“走吧，珠儿，”赫斯特说着，拉着她走开。“来看看这座漂亮的花园。我们在那儿也许能看到花，比我们在树林里找到的还要好看呢。

Pearl, accordingly, ran to the bow-window at the further end of the hall, and looked along the vista of a gardenwalk, carpeted with closely shaven grass and bordered with some rude and immature attempt at shrubbery. But the proprietor appeared already to have relinquished, as hopeless, the effort to perpetuate on this side of the Atlantic, in a hard soil and amid the close struggle for subsistence, the native English taste for ornamental gardening. Cabbages grew in plain sight; and a pumpkin vine, rooted at some distance, had run across the intervening space, and deposited one of its gigantic products directly beneath the hall-window; as if to warn the Governor that this great lump of vegetable gold was as rich an ornament as New England earth would offer him. There were a few rose-bushes, however, and a number of apple-trees, probably the descendants of those planted by the Reverend Mr. Blackstone, the first settler of the peninsula, that half-mythological personage, who rides through our early annals, seated on the back of a bull.

于是珠儿便跑到大厅最远端的弓形窗前，沿着园中小径望过去。小径上铺着被剪得矮矮的青草，两侧夹着由外行人随便种下的灌木。但花园的主人似乎已经看到，在大西洋的彼岸，在这坚硬的土地上，在剧烈的生存竞争中，要把故乡英格兰装点园艺的情趣移植过来，实在是枉费心机，于是决定放弃这一努力。卷心菜长得一般；远远种着的一株南瓜藤，穿过空隙，末端在大厅窗下结下—颗硕大的果实，似乎在提醒总督：这个金黄色的大南瓜，已经是新英格兰的土壤能够为他奉献的最华丽的点缀了。不过，园中还有几株玫瑰花和几棵苹果树，大概是牧师布莱克斯通先生所栽植株的后代。他是第一个来到这个定居的人，是个半神话式的人物，出现在早期的编年史中，说他骑在牛背上四处行走。

Pearl, seeing the rose-bushes, began to cry for a red rose, and would not be pacified.

珠儿看见了玫瑰丛，开始叫着要一朵红玫瑰，怎么也安静不下来。

"Hush, child, hush!" said her mother, earnestly. "Do not cry, dear little Pearl! I hear voices in the garden. The Governor is coming, and gentlemen along with him!"“轻点，孩子，轻点！”她母亲认真地说。“别嚷，亲爱的小珠儿！我听见花园里有人说话。总督走来了，还有几位先生跟他在一起呢！”

In fact, adown the vista of the garden avenue a number of persons were seen approaching towards the house. Pearl, in utter scorn of her mother's attempt to quiet her, gave an eldritch scream and then became silent; not from any notion of obedience, but because the quick and mobile curiosity of her disposition was excited by the appearance of these new personages.

事实上，在花园中林荫路的那头，有几个人正朝房子走过来。珠儿对母亲的劝说毫不在乎，反倒发出一声怪叫，然后才安静下来。这安静也不是出于听话，只因为她那种瞬息万变的好奇心，此时已被几个新出现的人激发起来了。Chapter 8THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER

第八章精灵孩子和牧师

Governor Bellingham, in a loose gown and easy cap — such as elderly gentlemen loved to endue themselves with, in their domestic privacy — walked foremost, and appeared to be showing off his estate, and expatiating on his projected improvements. The wide circumference of an elaborate ruff beneath his grey beard, in the antiquated fashion of King James' reign, caused his head to look not a little like that of John the Baptist in a charger. The impression made by his aspect, so rigid and severe, and frost-bitten with more than autumnal age, was hardly in keeping with the appliances of worldly enjoyment wherewith he had evidently done his utmost to surround himself. But it is an error to suppose that our grave forefathers — though accustomed to speak and think of human existence as a state merely of trial and warfare, and though unfeignedly prepared to sacrifice goods and life at the behest of duty — made it a matter of conscience to reject such means of comfort, or even luxury, as lay fairly within their grasp. This creed was never taught, for instance, by the venerable pastor, John Wilson, whose beard, white as a snow-drift, was seen over Governor Bellingham's shoulder; while its wearer suggested that pears and peaches might yet be naturalised in the New England climate, and that purple grapes might possibly be compelled to flourish against the sunny garden-wall.

贝林厄姆总督身穿一件宽大的长袍，头戴一顶便帽，正是上了年纪的绅士居家独处时喜欢的装扮。他走在最前面，似乎是在一边炫耀他的产业，一边论述着他筹划中的种种改进方案。他的灰色胡须下，围着詹姆斯国王统治期间那种旧式的环状皱领；皱领既精致又宽大，使他像极了托盘中的约翰施洗者。他外貌刻板而有威严，再加上已入垂暮之年，鹤发鸡皮。由此给人的印象，与他竭力使自己耽于世俗享乐的明显作法，很难协调起来。我们严肃的先人们虽然习惯这么说，也这么想，即人类的生存无非是经受考验和冲突，并且诚心诚意地准备好，在他们需要尽责任时，牺牲自己的财富和生命。但如果就此认定，他们拒绝唾手可得的享乐或奢侈是一种道义的必须，那就大错特错了。例如，可尊可敬的约翰·威尔逊牧师，就从来没有宣讲过这一信条。此时他正跟在贝林厄姆总督身后，越过总督肩膀，我们可以看见他雪白的胡须。这时他建议说，梨和桃可以适应新英格兰的气候，紫葡萄也能靠在日照的园墙上繁茂地生长。

The old clergyman, nurtured at the rich bosom of the English Church, had a long-established and legitimate taste for all good and comfortable things; and however stern he might show himself in the pulpit or in his public reproof of such transgressions as that of Hester Prynne, still, the genial benevolence of his private life had won him warmer affection than was accorded to any of his professional contemporaries.

这位受英国教会悉心培养的年老牧师，早已对一切美好舒适的东西怀有合法的嗜好。然而，无论是在布道坛上，还是在公开谴责赫斯特·普林的罪名时，他都显得那么声色俱厉。他在私生活中的温和宽厚，使他深受爱戴，其程度超过跟他同一个时代的那些神职人员。

Behind the Governor and Mr. Wilson came two other guests; one, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, whom the reader may remember as having taken a brief and reluctant part in the scene of Hester Prynne's disgrace; and, in close companionship with him, old Roger Chillingworth, a person of great skill in physic, who, for two or three years past, had been settled in the town. It was understood that this learned man was the physician as well as friend of the young minister, whose health had severely suffered, of late, by his too unreserved self-sacrifice to the labours and duties of the pastoral relation.

紧随在总督和威尔逊先生身后的，是另外两位客人：一位就是阿瑟·丁梅斯代尔牧师，读者们大概记得，在赫斯特·普林示众的场面中，他短短地扮演了一个不情愿的角色；另一位紧随着他的是老罗杰·奇林沃斯，这位精通医术的人已经在镇上居住了两三年了。年轻牧师由于在教会事务上不遗余力，自我牺牲，最近健康状况严重受损，因此这位学者兼医生成为他的朋友，也就可以理解了。

The Governor, in advance of his visitors, ascended one or two steps, and, throwing open the leaves of the great hall-window, found himself close to little Pearl. The shadow of the curtain fell on Hester Prynne, and partially concealed her.

走在客人前面的总督，踏上一两级台阶，打开大厅的窗户，发现了眼前的小珠儿。但窗帘的阴影罩住了赫斯特·普林，遮住了她的部分身体。

"What have we here?" said Governor Bellingham, looking with surprise at the scarlet little figure before him. "I profess, I have never seen the like, since my days of vanity, in old King James's time, when I was wont to esteem it a high favour to be admitted to a court mask! There used to be a swarm of these small apparitions, in holiday time; and we called them children of the Lord of Misrule. But how gat such a guest into my hall?"“我们这儿有个什么呀？”贝林厄姆总督吃惊地望着眼前这个鲜红的小人儿，说道。“我敢说，自从我在老王詹姆斯时代荣获恩宠，时常被召进宫中参加假面舞会、大出风头以来，我还从来没见过这样的小家伙呢。那时候，每逢节日，常有这样成群的小精灵，我们都把他们叫作司戏者的孩子。可这样一位客人怎么会跑到我的大厅里来了？”

"Ay, indeed!" cried good old Mr. Wilson. "What little bird of scarlet plumage may this be? Methinks I have seen just such figures, when the sun has been shining through a richly painted window, and tracing out the golden and crimson images across the floor. But that was in the old land. Prithee, young one, who art thou, and what has ailed thy mother to bedizen thee in this strange fashion? Art thou a Christian child — ha? Dost know thy catechism? Or art thou one of those naughty elfs or fairies, whom we thought to have left behind us, with other relics of Papistry, in merry old England?"“可不是嘛！”好心肠的威尔逊老先生叫道。“这长着鲜红羽毛的小鸟会是什么呢？我想，在阳光穿过五彩绘的窗户，在地板上折射出金黄和绯红的影像时，我曾看到过这样子的人。不过那是在我的故乡啊。请问你，小家伙，你是谁呀？你母亲为什么把你打扮成这副怪模样啊？你是基督徒的孩子吗，啊？你学过教义问答手册吗？也许，你是一个调皮的小妖精或小仙女吧？我们还以为，你连同罗马天主教的其他遗物，全都被留在快乐的老英格兰了呢。”

"I am Mother's child, " answered the scarlet vision, "and my name is Pearl!"“我是妈妈的孩子，”那鲜红的幻象回答说，“我叫珠儿！”

"Pearl? — Ruby, rather! — or Coral! — or Red Rose, at the very least, judging from thy hue!" responded the old minister, putting forth his hand in a vain attempt to pat little Pearl on the cheek. "But where is this mother of thine? Ah! I see, " he added; and, turning to Governor Bellingham, whispered, "This is the selfsame child of whom we have held speech together; and behold here the unhappy woman, Hester Prynne, her mother!"“珠儿？——还不如叫红宝石呢！——要不就叫红珊瑚！——要不就叫红玫瑰，最起码从你的颜色来看，应该是这样！”老牧师答应着，并伸出一只手，想摸摸小珠儿的脸蛋，可是没有成功。“可你的妈妈在哪儿呢？啊！我明白了，”他又补充了一句，然后转向贝林厄姆总督，悄悄说：“这就是我们一起议论过的那个孩子，往这儿瞧，那个不幸的女人，赫斯特·普林，就是她母亲！”

"Sayest thou so?" cried the Governor. "Nay, we might have judged that such a child's mother must needs be a scarlet woman, and a worthy type of her of Babylon! But she comes at a good time; and we will look into this matter forthwith. "“你是这么说的吗？”总督叫道。“不，我们大可以推测出，这样一个孩子的母亲，应该是一个鲜红色的女人，而且是个当之无愧的巴比伦式女人。不过，她来得正好！我们就来研究研究这件事吧。“

Governor Bellingham stepped through the window into the hall, followed by his three guests.

贝林厄姆总督跨过窗户，步入大厅，后面跟着他的三位客人。

"Hester Prynne, " said he, fixing his naturally stern regard on the wearer of the scarlet letter, "there hath been much question concerning thee, of late. The point hath been weightily discussed, whether we, that are of authority and influence, do well discharge our consciences by trusting an immortal soul, such as there is in yonder child, to the guidance of one who hath stumbled and fallen, amid the pitfalls of this world. Speak thou, the child's own mother! Were it not, thinkest thou, for thy little one's temporal and eternal welfare, that she be taken out of thy charge, and clad soberly, and disciplined strictly, and instructed in the truths of heaven and earth? What canst thou do for the child, in this kind?"“赫斯特·普林，”他说着，用生来冷峻的目光盯住这戴红字的女人，“最近，关于你的事议论不少呢。我们已经郑重地讨论过了，把一个不朽的灵魂，比如说那边那孩子，交付给一个曾堕入世俗陷阱的人来指导，我们这些有威信有影响的人是否能心安理得。你说吧，孩子的母亲！你想想吧，要是把她从你身边带走，让她穿上朴素的衣服，受到严格的训练，学会天上和人间的真理，是不是对这小家伙目前和长远利益都有好处呢？在这方面，你又能为这孩子做些什么呢？”

"I can teach my little Pearl what I have learned from this!" answered Hester Prynne, laying her finger on the red token.“我能把我从这里学到的东西教给我的小珠儿！”赫斯特·普林把手指放到那红色标志上，回答道。

"Woman, it is thy badge of shame!" replied the stern magistrate. "It is because of the stain which that letter indicates, that we would transfer thy child to other hands. "“女人，那是你耻辱的标志啊！”严厉的官老爷回答道。“正是因为那字母所指明的污秽，我们才要把你的孩子交给别人。”

"Nevertheless, " said the mother, calmly, though growing more pale, "this badge hath taught me — it daily teaches me — it is teaching me at this moment — lessons whereof my child may be the wiser and better, albeit they can profit nothing to thyself. "“可是，”母亲平静地说，不过面色变得更苍白了，“这个标志已经教会了我——它每日每时都在教育我，此时此刻也在教育我——我要接受教训，让我的孩子变得更聪明、更美好，尽管这一切对我本人已毫无用处了。

"We will judge warily, " said Bellingham, "and look well what we are about to do. Good Master Wilson, I pray you, examine this Pearl — since that is her name — and see whether she hath had such Christian nurture as befits a child of her age. "“我们会做出慎重的判断，”贝林厄姆说，“而且也会认真考虑我们会采取的措施。善良的威尔逊先生，我请求您审视一下这个珠儿——我们姑且这样叫她吧——看看她具不具备这个年龄的孩子应有的基督徒教养。”

The old minister seated himself in an arm-chair, and made an effort to draw Pearl betwixt his knees. But the child, unaccustomed to the touch or familiarity of any but her mother, escaped through the open window, and stood on the upper step looking like a wild tropical bird, of rich plumage, ready to take flight into the upper air. Mr. Wilson, not a little astonished at this outbreak — for he was a grandfatherly sort of personage, and usually a vast favourite with children — essayed, however, to proceed with the examination.

老牧师在安乐椅中坐下后，想把珠儿拉到他的膝间。但除了与母亲之外，孩子还不习惯与别人亲密，立即穿过敞开的窗户逃了出去，站在最高一层的台阶上，像一只长着斑斓羽毛的热带鸟儿似的，随时准备飞上天空，逃之夭夭。威尔逊先生对这一反抗举动颇为吃惊——因为他是老爷爷般的人物，通常极受孩子们的喜爱——但他仍继续测试。

"Pearl, " said he, with great solemnity, "thou must take heed to instruction, that so, in due season, thou mayest wear in thy bosom the pearl of great price. Canst thou tell me, my child, who made thee?"“珠儿，”他严肃地说，“你应当留心听取教诲，这样，到时候你才能在胸前佩戴价值连城的珠宝。你能不能告诉我，我的孩子，是谁造出了你？”

Now Pearl knew well enough who made her; for Hester Prynne, the daughter of a pious home, very soon after her talk with the child about her Heavenly Father, had begun to inform her of those truths which the human spirit, at whatever stage of immaturity, imbibes with such eager interest. Pearl, therefore, so large were the attainments of her three years' lifetime, could have borne a fair examination in the New England Primer, or the first column of the Westminster Catechisms although unacquainted with the outward form of either of those celebrated works. But that perversity which all children have more or less of, and of which little Pearl had a tenfold portion, now, at the most inopportune moment, took thorough possession of her, and closed her lips, or impelled her to speak words amiss. After putting her finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer good Mr. Wilson's question, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door.

如今珠儿十分清楚是谁造出了她，因为赫斯特·普林是个出身于虔诚家庭的女儿，在同孩子谈过她的天父之后不久，就开始向她灌输那些真理。而一个人的心灵哪怕再不成熟，都会以极大的兴趣来汲取这些真理的。因此，珠儿虽然年仅三岁，却已颇有造诣，完全经得起《新英梧兰入门》或《威斯敏斯特教义问答手册》初阶的测验——尽管她连这两部名著是什么样子都不知道。一般孩子都有的任性，在小珠儿身上本来就多于别的儿童十倍，而且在目前这最不合时宜的时候，它更是彻底地支配了她。她不是闭口不言，就是被逼得说岔了。这孩子把手指放到嘴里，对好心肠的威尔逊先生的问题拒不回答，最后居然宣称她根本不是造出来的，而是她妈妈从长在牢门边的野玫瑰丛中采下来的。

This fantasy was probably suggested by the near proximity of the Governor's red roses, as Pearl stood outside of the window; together with her recollection of the prison rose-bush, which she had passed in coming hither.

大概是由于珠儿正站在窗边，附近就有总督的红玫瑰，再加上她想起来走过狱前见到的玫瑰丛，就受到启示，产生了这样一种奇思异想。

Old Roger Chillingworth, with a smile on his face, whispered something in the young clergyman's ear. Hester Prynne looked at the man of skill, and even then, with her fate hanging in the balance, was startled to perceive what a change had come over his features — how much uglier they were — how his dark complexion seemed to have grown duskier, and his figure more misshapen — since the days when she had familiarly known him. She met his eyes for an instant, but was immediately constrained to give all her attention to the scene now going forward.

老罗杰·奇林沃斯面带微笑，对着年轻牧师耳语了几句。即使此刻攸关她的命运，赫斯特·普林望着这位医生，也还是惊讶地发现，他的外貌发生了很大的变化——自从她认识他以来，他的黑皮肤似乎变得越来越灰暗，身体也越来越难看了。她与他的目光接触了瞬间，便立即把全部注意力集中到眼前正在进行的场面中去。

"This is awful!" cried the Governor, slowly recovering from the astonishment into which Pearl's response had thrown him. "Here is a child of three years old, and she cannot tell who made her! Without question, she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its present depravity, and future destiny! Methinks, gentlemen, we need inquire no further. "“这太可怕了！”总督叫着，渐渐从珠儿的应答所带给他的震惊中反应过来。“这是个三岁的孩子，可她根本说不出是谁造出了她！毫无疑问，她对自己的灵魂，对目前的堕落，对未来的命运，一无所知！依我看来，诸位先生，我们无需再问了。”

Hester caught hold of Pearl, and drew her forcibly into her arms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate with almost a fierce expression. Alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defend them to the death.

赫斯特抓住珠儿，强把她拉进自己的怀里，几乎凶狠地面对着清教徒长官。她被世界所抛弃，形单影只，只有这珍宝才能维持心灵的生存，她感到自己有不可剥夺的权利来对抗这个世界，而且准备要一直维护自己的权利直到死去。

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