【经典名著阅读】《红字》第二十章（上）
Chapter 20 THE MINISTER IN A MAZE第二十章 迷悯中的牧师
AS the minister departed, in advance of Hester Prynne and little Pearl, he threw a backward glance; half expecting that he should discover only some faintly traced features or outline of the mother and the child, slowly fading into the twilight of the woods. So great a vicissitude in his life could not at once be received as real. But there was Hester, clad in her grey robe, still standing beside the tree-trunk, which some blast had overthrown a long antiquity ago, and which time had ever since been covering with moss, so that these two fated ones, with earth's heaviest burden on them, might there sit down together, and find a single hour's rest and solace. And there was Pearl, too, lightly dancing from the margin of the brook- now that the intrusive third person was gone- and taking her old place by her mother's side. So the minister had not fallen asleep, and dreamed!牧师先回去了。他一面在前面走着，一面回过头来望着海丝特·白兰和小珠儿，怀着几分期望，想透过林中暮霭，再看看逐渐模糊的母女二人的身影或面容。他的生活中发生了如此巨大的变迁，他一时还无法相信是真的。但是海丝特就在那儿，身穿灰袍，仍然站在树干的旁边——那是多年前被一阵疾风吹例的，之后年深日久就长满了青蔷，于是他们这两个承受着世上最沉重的负担的同命运的人，才得以一起坐在上面，安享那难得的一小时的休憩与慰藉。那儿还有珠儿，又轻捷地从溪边蹦跳着回到了母亲身边她的老位置，因为那闯来的第三者已经离去了。这么看来，牧师刚才并没有昏昏睡去，并非在梦中才见到这一切的！
In order to free his mind from this indistinctness and duplicity of impression, which vexed it with a strange disquietude, he recalled and more thoroughly defined the plans which Hester and himself had sketched for their departure. It had been determined between them, that the Old World, with its crowds and cities, offered them a more eligible shelter and concealment than the wilds of New England, or all America, with its alternatives of an Indian wigwam, or the few settlements of Europeans, scattered thinly along the seaboard. Not to speak of the clergyman's health, so inadequate to sustain the hardships of a forest life, his native gifts, his culture, and his entire development, would secure him a home only in the midst of civilisation and refinement; the higher the state, the more delicately adapted to it the man. In furtherance of this choice, it so happened that a ship lay in the harbour; one of those questionable cruisers, frequent at that day, which, without being absolutely outlaws of the deep, yet roamed over its surface with a remarkable irresponsibility of character. This vessel had recently arrived from the Spanish Main, and, within three days' time, would sail for Bristol. Hester Prynne- whose vocation, as a self-enlisted Sister of Charity, had brought her acquainted with the captain and crew- could take upon herself to secure the passage of two individuals and a child, with all the secrecy which circumstances rendered more than desirable.为了摆脱那搅得他莫名其妙地心烦意乱的说不清、道不明的印象，他回忆并更加彻底地澄清了一下他和海丝特为出走所安排的计划。他俩已经商妥，比起只在沿海一带疏落地散布着印第安人的茅屋或欧洲移民聚居区的新英格兰或全美洲的荒野，旧大陆人烟稠密、城市辏集，更适合于他们隐蔽或隐居式的生活。不消说，牧师的健康状况极不宜于忍受森林中的艰苦条件，何况他的天赋才能、他的文化教养以及他的全部前程，也只有在文明和优雅的环境中才能找到归宿；地位越高，他才越有用武之地。促使他们作出这一抉择的，还因为刚好有一条船停在港湾；这是那年月中时常有的一种形迹可疑的航船，虽说在深海中并非绝对地非法，却是带有极不负责任的性质在海面上游荡的。这艘船最近从拉丁美洲北部海域开来，准备在三天之内驶往英国的布利斯托尔。海丝特·白兰作为妇女慈善会的志愿人员，有机会结识了船长和海员，她可以有把握为两个大人和一个孩子弄到舱位，而且那种环境还提供了求之不得的一切保密要求。
The minister had inquired of Hester, with no little interest, the precise time at which the vessel might be expected to depart. It would probably be on the fourth day from the present. "That is most fortunate!" he had then said to himself. Now, why the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale considered it so very fortunate, we hesitate to reveal. Nevertheless- to hold nothing back from the reader- it was because, on the third day from the present, he was to preach the Election Sermon; and, as such an occasion formed an honourable epoch in the life of a New England clergyman, he could not have chanced upon a more suitable mode and time of terminating his professional career. "At least, they shall say of me," thought this exemplary man, "that I leave no public duty unperformed, nor ill performed!" Sad, indeed, that an introspection so profound and acute as this poor minister's should be so miserably deceived! We have had, and may still have, worse things to tell of him; but none, we apprehend, so pitiably weak; no evidence, at once so slight and irrefragable, of a subtle disease, that had long since begun to eat into the real substance of his character. No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.牧师曾经兴致勃勃地向海丝特询问了那艘船可能启航的准确时间。大概是从那天算起的第四天。“那可太幸运了！”他当时曾经这样自言自语。那么，为什么丁梅斯代尔牧师先生认为狠幸运呢？我们本不大想公之于众；然而，为了对读者无所隐瞒，我们不妨说说，因为在第三天，他要在庆祝选举的布道会上宣教；由于这样一个机缘构成了新英格兰牧师一生中的荣誉时期，因此也就成了他结束他的牧师生涯的难得的最恰当的方式和时机。“至少，他们在谈起我时，”这位为人楷模的人自忖，“会认为裁并非未尽公职或草草了事！”象这位可怜的牧师如此深刻和一丝不苟的自省，居然会遭到被人欺骗的悲惨下场，委实令人伤心！我们已经说过、也许还会说到他这个人的过失；但就我们所知，没有一件比这更软弱得可怜的了；眼下也没有任何证据比这更微不足道却无可辩驳地说明：一种微妙的疾病早巳开始蚕食他性格的实体了。在相当长的时期内，谁也无法对自己装扮出一副面孔，而对众人又装扮出另一副面孔，其结果必然是连他本人都会弄不清到底哪一副是真实的了。
The excitement of Mr. Dimmesdale's feelings, as he returned from his interview with Hester, lent him unaccustomed physical energy, and hurried him townward at a rapid pace. The pathway among the woods seemed wilder, more uncouth with its rude natural obstacles and less trodden by the foot of man than he remembered it on his outward journey. But he leaped across the plashy places, thrust himself through the clinging underbrush, climbed the ascent, plunged into the hollow, and overcame, in short, all the difficulties of the track, with an unweariable activity that astonished him. He could not but recall how feebly, and with what frequent pauses for breath, he had toiled over the same ground, only two days before. As he drew near the town, he took an impression of change from the series of familiar objects that presented themselves. It seemed not yesterday, not one, nor two, but many days, or even years ago, since he had quitted them. There, indeed, was each former trace of the street, as he remembered it, and all the peculiarities of the houses, with the due multitude of gable-peaks, and a weather-cock at every point where his memory suggested one. Not the less, however, came this importunately obtrusive sense of change. The same was true as regarded the acquaintances whom he met, and all the well-known shapes of human life, about the little town. They looked neither older nor younger now; the beards of the aged were no whiter, nor could the creeping babe of yesterday walk on his feet to-day; it was impossible to describe in what respect they differed from the individuals on whom he had so recently bestowed a parting glance; and yet the minister's deepest sense seemed to inform him of their mutability. A similar impression struck him most remarkably, as he passed under the walls of his own church. The edifice had so very strange, and yet so familiar, an aspect, that Mr. Dimmesdale's mind vibrated between two ideas; either that he had seen it only in a dream hitherto, or that he was merely dreaming about it now.丁梅斯代尔先生同海丝特会面之后的归途中，他激动的感情赋予了他所不习惯曲体能，催促着他大步流星地向前走去。那林间小路在他看来，比他记忆中来时的途径，似是更加蛮荒，由于天然的高低不平面更加坎坷，而且更少有人迹了。但他跨越了积水的坑洼，穿过了绊腿的灌木，爬上了高坡，步入了低谷，总而言之，以他自己都不解的不知疲倦的活力，克服了路上的一切障碍。他不禁忆起仅仅在两天之前，在他一路辛辛苦苦地沿着这同样的途径走来时，他是多么地周身无力，气喘吁吁，走不上两步就要停下来喘上一口气。在他走近镇子的时候，一系列熟悉的东西呈现在眼前，却给了他一种似是而非的印象。好象不是昨天不是一天、两天，而是许多天，甚至好几年之前，他就离开此地了。确实，那里还有那条街道的每一个原有的痕迹，这和他记忆中的是一致的，而房舍的各个独特之处，诸如众多的山墙，各个尖顶上都有的风信鸡，凡是他记得的都应有尽有。然而，那种起了变化的突出感觉仍然丝毫不减地纠缠着他。这小镇上人们生活的种种熟悉的景象，他所遇到的熟人，本来也一成未变。他们现在的样子既没有变老，也没有年轻；长者的胡须并没有更白，那些昨天还只会爬来爬去的婴儿，今天也没有直立行走；实在说不出这些在他最近离去时还瞥过一眼的人，到底在哪些方面与原来不同了；然而，牧师最深层的感觉，似乎在告诉他，他们已经变了。当他走过他自己教堂的墙下时，这种类似的印象给他的感触最为突出。那建筑物的外观看来那么陌生，可又那么熟悉，了梅斯代尔先生在两种念头之间犹豫徘徊：到底只是他先前在梦中见过呢，还是他现在正在梦中观看。
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