那些无法抗拒的名篇22:The Scarlet Letter 红字(节选)
22 红字
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 fire-water 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 bitter-tempered 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.
两百多年前一个夏日的上午，波士顿监狱门前的那块草地上万人攒动，众人的眼睛都牢牢地盯着布满铁钉的栎木大门。要是在其他居民区，或者在时间上推迟至新英格兰后来的历史时期，这些蓄着胡须的男子脸上的严峻表情，一定会被人认为是将要发生某种可怕事端的先兆，很可能预示着一个臭名昭著的罪犯要被押出来接受宣判，尽管当时对人的宣判只是确认一下公众舆论对他的裁决而已。但是在清教徒清规戒律非常严厉的早期，这种推测未免过于武断。也许，受惩罚的是一个偷懒的奴仆;或者是一个不守规矩的顽童，其父母把他交给当局，让他在笞刑柱上受管教。也许，是一位唯信仰论者、一位贵格派的教友，或者其他异端的教徒，他们要被鞭挞出城。也许，是一名游手好闲的印第安人，因为喝了白人的烈酒在大街上胡闹，要挨着鞭子给赶进树林。也完全可能是一个巫婆，就像那个地方官的遗孀西宾斯老太太那样恶毒的老巫婆，要被判处死刑，送上刑台。不管属于哪种情况，围观者总是摆出分毫不爽的庄严姿态;这倒十分符合早期移民的身份，因为他们把宗教和法律视为一体，二者在他们的品性中融二为一，凡涉及公共纪律的条款，不管是最轻微的还是最严重的，都令他们肃然起敬和望而生畏。确实，一个站在刑台上的罪人能从这些旁观者身上谋得的同情是少之又少，冷而又冷的。此外，在我们今天只会引起某种冷嘲热讽的惩罚，在当时却如死刑般被赋予令人望而生畏的威严。
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 country-women;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 well-developed 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.
就在我们故事发生的那个夏天的早晨，有一个情况颇值一书:挤在那人群中有好几个妇女，看来她们对即将发生的任何宣判惩处都抱有特殊的兴趣。那年月没有那么多的讲究，这些穿着衬裙和圈着环裙的女人毫不在乎地出入于大庭广众之间，而且只要有可能，还扭动她们那结实的身躯向前挤，挤到最靠近刑台的人群中去，也不会给人什么不成体统的感觉。在英国土生土长的那些妇女和少女，比之相隔六七代之后她们的漂亮后代，无论在体魄上还是在精神上，都具有一种更粗犷的品质，因为在世代繁衍的过程中，每代母亲遗传给她们女儿的，就体质而言，往往要比她们自己纤弱一些，容貌更为娇嫩，身材更为苗条，纵然在性格方面，其坚毅顽强的程度也未必逊色。当时站在狱门附近的妇女，跟那位堪称代表女性的、具有男子气概的伊丽莎白女王相距不足半个世纪。她们是那位女王的同胞乡亲，家乡的牛肉和麦酒，以及丝毫没有经过加工的精神食粮大量地进入她们的躯体滋养助长。因此，灿烂的晨曦所照射的是她们宽厚的肩膀、丰满的胸脯和又圆又红润的双颊—她们都是在遥远的祖国本岛上长大成人的，还没有受到新英格兰环境的熏陶而变得白哲或瘦削些呢!再者，这些妇女，至少是其中的大多数人，说起话来都是粗声粗气，直截了当，要是在今天，无论是她们说话的内容，还是嗓门的大小都会使我们瞳目结舌，叹为观止。
"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 church一members 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 trove not!"
“娘儿们!”一个满脸横肉的50多岁的老女人说，“我要跟你们说说我的想法。要是我们这些上了年纪、在教会里有名声的妇道人家，能把像海丝特· 白兰那样的坏女人处置了，倒是给公众办了一件大好事。你们是怎么想的，娘儿们?要是把那个破鞋交给我们眼下站在这儿的五个娘儿们来审判，她会获得像那些可敬的地方长官们给她的判决，而轻易地混过去吗?哼，我才不信呢!”“听人说，”另一个妇女说:“她的教长、尊敬的丁梅斯代尔牧师，为他自己的教会里发生这样的丑事伤透了心。”
"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 such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!
“那些地方长官都是些敬畏上帝的好好先生，心肠太软—那倒是实话。”第三个人老珠黄的婆娘接着说，“最起码，他们该在海丝特·白兰的额头上烙上个印记。我敢说，这个小贱人才会有点畏忌。但是，现在他们在她衣服的胸口上贴个什么东西，她—那个贱货—才不会在乎呢!嗨，你们等着瞧吧，她会别上一枚胸针，或者异教徒爱佩戴的其他什么装饰品，把它遮住，照样招摇过市!”
作者介绍:
纳撒尼尔·霍桑(1804-1864)是19世纪美国著名的浪漫主义小说家，出生在美国东部新英格兰地区某镇，是当地居民中一个有名望的家族后代。大学毕业后，除了在海关供职和出任驻英公使之外，一生致力于文学写作，写下了《红字》、《七个尖角阁的房屋》、《福谷传奇》、《玉石雕像》等四部长篇小说，为美国文学的发展做出了杰出的贡献。他称自己的作品是人的“心理罗曼史”，故文学史家常把他列为浪漫主义作家。
小说描写女主人公海丝特·白兰跟丈夫从英国移居美国波士顿。中途丈夫被印第安人俘虏。海丝特只身到了美国，被一青年牧师诱骗怀孕。此事，被当地虚伪的清教徒社会视为大逆不道。当局把海丝特抓起来并关入监狱，游街示众，还要终身佩带象征耻辱的红色的A字(Adultery:通奸女犯)。海丝特宁愿一人受辱，誓死也不招供。在远离社会，受尽屈辱的处境中，海丝特孤苦顽强地生活着，若干年后，珠儿，海丝特的女儿，长大成人，海丝特一人再回到波士顿，仍带着那个红色的A字，用自己的“崇高的道德和助人精神”，把耻辱的红字变成了道德与光荣的象征，直到老死。
