【经典名著阅读】《红字》第九章（上）

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        Chapter 09 THE LEECH第九章　医生
        UNDER the appellation of Roger Chillingworth, the reader will remember, was hidden another name, which its former wearer had resolved should never more be spoken. It has been related, how, in the crowd that witnessed Hester Prynne's ignominious exposure, stood a man, elderly, travel-worn, who, just emerging from the perilous wilderness, beheld the woman, in whom he hoped to find embodied the warmth and cheerfulness of home, set up as a type of sin before the people. Her matronly fame was trodden under all men's feet. Infamy was babbling around her in the public market-place. For her kindred, should the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions of her unspotted life, there remained nothing but the contagion of her dishonour; which would not fail to be distributed in strict accordance and proportion with the intimacy and sacredness of their previous relationship. Then why- since the choice was with himself- should the individual, whose connection with the fallen woman had been the most intimate and sacred of them all, come forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so little desirable? He resolved not to be pilloried beside her on her pedestal of shame. Unknown to all but Hester Prynne, and possessing the lock and key of her silence, he chose to withdraw his name from the roll of mankind, and as regarded his former ties and interests, to vanish out of life as completely as if he indeed lay at the bottom of the ocean, whither rumour had long ago consigned him. This purpose once effected, new interests would immediately spring up, and likewise a new purpose; dark, it is true, if not guilty, but of force enough to engage the full strength of his faculties.读者会记得，在罗杰·齐灵渥斯的称呼背后，还隐藏着另一个姓名，原来叫那姓名的人下了决心再不让人提起。前面已经叙述过，在目睹海丝特·白兰示众的人群中，站着一个风尘仆仆的上了年纪的男人，他刚刚逃出危险的荒野，却看到体现着他所希冀的家庭温暖和欢乐的女人，在众人面前作为罪孽的典型高高站在那里。她那主妇的声名任凭所有的人践踏在脚下。在公共市场上，她周围泛滥着对她丑行的种种议论。若是这些浪潮传到她的亲属或是她身无暇疵时代的同伴那里，除去染上她的耻辱之外，别无其它！这种耻辱，会随原有关系的亲密和神圣程度，而严格成比例地在亲友中相应加以分配。那么，作为与这个堕落的女人关系最亲密和最神圣的一个人，既然他还有选挥的余地，何必前来公开要求这份并非求之不得的遗产呢？他决心不同她在那受辱台上并肩而立。由于除海丝特·白兰之外谁都不认识他，而且他还掌握着锁钥，让她缄口不言，他打定主意将自己的姓名从人类的名单上勾销；即使考虑到他原先的关系和利益，他也要从生活中彻底消失，就象他当真如早已风传的那样葬身海底了。这一目的一旦达到，就立刻涌现了新的利益，于是也就又有了新的目标；这个目标即使不是罪过的，也实在是见不得人的，但其力量之强，足以运用他的全部机能与精力去奋争。

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        In pursuance of this resolve, he took up his residence in the Puritan town, as Roger Chillingworth, without other introduction than the learning and intelligence of which he possessed more than a common measure. As his studies, at a previous period of his life, had made him extensively acquainted with the medical science of the day, it was as a physician that he presented himself, and as such was cordially received. Skilful men, of the medical and chirurgical profession, were of rare occurrence in the colony. They seldom, it would appear, partook of the religious zeal that brought other emigrants across the Atlantic. In their researches into the human frame, it may be that the higher and more subtile faculties of such men were materialised, and that they lost the spiritual view of existence amid the intricacies of that wondrous mechanism, which seemed to involve art enough to comprise all of life within itself. At all events, the health of the good town of Boston, so far as medicine had aught to do with it, had hitherto lain in the guardianship of an aged deacon and apothecary, whose piety and godly deportment were stronger testimonials in his favour than any that he could have produced in the shape of a diploma. The only surgeon was one who combined the occasional exercise of that noble art with the daily and habitual flourish of a razor. To such a professional body Roger Chillingworth was a brilliant acquisition. He soon manifested his familiarity with the ponderous and imposing machinery of antique physic; in which every remedy contained a multitude of far-fetched and heterogeneous ingredients, as elaborately compounded as if the proposed result had been the Elixir of Life. In his Indian captivity, moreover, he had gained much knowledge of the properties of native herbs and roots; nor did he conceal from his patients, that these simple medicines, Nature's boon to the untutored savage, had quite as large a share of his own confidence as the European pharmacopoeia, which so many learned doctors had spent centuries in elaborating.为了实现自己的决心，他以罗杰·齐灵漫斯的名义在这座清教徒城镇中居住下来，他毋须其它介绍，只消他所具备的异乎寻常的学识就成了。由于他的前半生对当时的医学科学作了广泛的研究，于是他就以所熟悉的医生这—行当为业、出现在这里，并且受到了热烈欢迎。当时在殖民地，精通内外科医术的人尚不多见。看来，医生们并不具备促使其他人飘洋过海的那种宗教热情。他们在深入钻研人体内部时，可能把更高明、更微妙的能力表现在物质上，错综复杂的人体机构令人惊诧，似乎其内部包含着全部生命，具备足够的艺术，从而对生命的存在丧失了精伸方面的看法。无论如何，波士顿这座美好城镇的健康，凡涉及医学二字的，以往全都置于一位年老的教会执事兼任药剂师的监督之下，他那驾信宗教的举止就是明证，比起靠一纸文凭配出的药剂，更能赢得人们的信赖。唯一的外科医生则是一位每日惯于操刀为人忙于理发的人，只是偶尔才实践一下这种高贵的技艺。与这两位同行相比，罗杰·齐灵渥斯成了夺目的新星。他很快就证明他对博大精深的古典医道了如指掌，其中每个偏方都含有许多四处接寻面来、形形色色的成分，其配制之精良，似是要获得长生不老药的效果。况且，在他被印第安人俘虏囚禁期间，又对当地的草药的性质掌握了大量的知识；他对病人毫不隐讳地说，大自然恩赐给那些未开化的野蛮入的这些简单药物，同众多博学的医生在试验室中花费了数世纪才积累起来的欧洲药典，几乎可以取得他本人同等的信任。