书虫四级《红字》：0.塞勒姆，我的家乡

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Salem, my home town...

塞勒姆，我的家乡

Salem, my home town, is a quiet place, and not many ships call at the port here, though in the last century, before the war with Britain, the port was often busy. Now the ships go down the coast to the great seaports of Boston or New York, and grass grows in the streets around the old port buildings in Salem.

塞勒姆，我的家乡，是一个平静的地方，没有太多的船只在这里的港口停靠，但在上个世纪我们和英国开战之前，这个港口还挺繁忙的。如今，船只都沿着海岸南下，驶向波士顿或纽约的大港口了。塞勒姆旧港口建筑物周围的街道上蔓生着野草。

For a few years, when I was a young man, I worked in the port offices of Salem. Most of the time, there was very little work to do, and one day in 1849 I was looking through an old wooden box in one of the dusty, unused rooms of the building. It was full of papers about long-forgotten ships, but then something red caught my eye. I took it out and saw that it was a piece of red material, in the shape of a letter about ten centimetres long. It was the capital letter A. It was a wonderful piece of needlework, with patterns of gold thread around the letter, but the material was now worn thin with age.

我年轻时，曾在塞勒姆的港口办事处工作过几年。大多数时候，我都很清闲，但是在1849年的一天，我在一间布满灰尘、已经废弃不用的房间里查看一个旧木匣子。匣子中塞满了早已被人遗忘的船只的有关文件，有一件红色的东西引起了我的注意。我把它拿出来才发现原来是一片红色的布料，看起来像是一个字母，约有10厘米长，那是个大写的“A”。这是一件精细的针线活儿，金线滚边，不过由于年代久远，布料已被磨得很薄了。

It was a strange thing to find. What could it mean? Was it once part of some fashionable lady's dress long years ago? Perhaps a mark to show that the wearer was a famous person, or someone of good family or great importance?

这真是一件很奇怪的东西。它代表什么？它是多年前某位时髦女士衣衫上的一个装饰吗？或许这是一个标志，表明佩戴者声名显赫，或是有良好的家室背景，抑或地位不凡？

I held it in my hands, wondering, and it seemed to me that the scarlet letter had some deep meaning, which I could not understand. Then I held the letter to my chest and—you must not doubt my words—experienced a strange feeling of burning heat. Suddenly the letter seemed to be not red material, but red-hot metal. I trembled, and let the letter fall upon the floor.

我把它捧在手里猜想着，这个猩红的字母似乎有某种深刻的意义，是我不能理解的。我把这个字母贴在胸前——你一定要相信我所说的——我感觉到一种奇特的灼热。突然间，这个字母似乎不再是一片红布，而是变成了一块烧红的金属。我颤抖起来，红字滑落到了地板上。

Then I saw that there was an old packet of papers next to its place in the box. I opened the packet carefully and began to read. There were several papers, explaining the history of the scarlet letter, and containing many details of the life and experiences of a woman called Hester Prynne. She had died long ago, sometime in the 1690s, but many people in the state of Massachusetts at that time had known her name and story.

接着我看到匣子里还有一捆很旧的文件，就放在紧挨着那个红字的地方。我小心地打开了这捆文件读起来。其中的几张纸介绍了红字的历史，包括了一个名叫赫斯特·普林的女人的生平和经历的很多细节。她早已去世，大约是17世纪90年代的事了，但是在当时的马萨诸塞州，有很多人都听到过她和她的故事。

And it is Hester Prynne's story that I tell you now. It is a story of the early years of Boston, soon after the City Fathers had built with their own hands the first wooden buildings—the houses, the churches... and the prison.

现在我要讲给你们听的就是赫斯特·普林的故事。这个故事发生在波士顿建城之初，在先辈们用双手建成了第一批木质建筑之后，这些建筑有房屋、教堂……还有监狱。