英文名著精选阅读：《红字》第十二章（中）

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　　英文名著精选阅读：《红字》第十二章(中)
　　Chapter 12 THE MINISTER'S VIGIL
　　第十二章　牧师的夜游
　　Carried away by the grotesquehorror of this picture, the minister, unawares, and to his own infinite alarm, burst into a great pealof laughter. It was immediately responded to by a light, airy, childish laugh, in which, with a thrill of the heart- but he knew not whether of exquisitepain, or pleasure as acute- he recognised the tones of little Pearl.
　　牧师的神思随着这一荒唐可怖的画面驰骋，在不知不觉之中突然爆发出一阵狂笑，一连他自己都大吃一惊。这狂笑立刻得到一声轻灵的童稚笑声的响应，随着一阵心悸——不过他弄不清到底是出于剧烈的痛楚抑或极度的欢乐——，他从笑声中辨出了小珠儿的腔调。
　　"Pearl! Little Pearl!" cried he, after a moment's pause; then, suppressinghis voice- "Hester! Hester Prynne! Are you there?"
　　“珠儿!小珠儿!”他稍停片刻就喊道;然后，他压低了嗓音说：“海丝特!海丝特·白兰!是你在那儿吗?”
　　"Yes; it is Hester Prynne!" she replied, in a tone of surprise; and the minister heard her footsteps approaching from the sidewalk, along which she had been passing. "It is I, and my little Pearl."
　　“是的;我是海丝特·白兰!”她应答着，语调中充满惊奇;接着牧师听到了她走下便道，逐渐接近的脚步声。“是我，还有我的小珠儿。
　　"Whence come you, Hester?" asked the minister. "What sent you hither?"
　　“你从哪里来，海丝特?”牧师问道。“你怎么到这儿来啦?”
　　"I have been watching at a death-bed," answered Hester Prynne- "at Governor Winthrop's death-bed, and have taken his measure for a robe, and am now going homeward to my dwelling."
　　“我刚刚守护在一个死者的床边，”海丝特·白兰回答说，“是在温斯洛普总督床边，给他量了袍子的尺寸，现在我正往家里走。”
　　"Come up hither, Hester, thou and little Pearl," said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. "Ye have both been here before, but I was not with you. Come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together!"
　　“上这儿来吧，海丝特，你，还有小珠儿，”可敬的丁梅斯代尔先生说。“你们母女俩以前已经在这儿站过了，可是我当时没和你们在一起。再上来一次吧，我们三日人一起站着吧!”
　　She silently ascended the steps, and stood on the platform, holding little Pearl by the hand. The minister felt for the child's other hand, and took it. The moment that he did so, there came what seemed a tumultuousrush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like a torrentinto his heart, and hurrying through all his veins, as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his half-torpidsystem. The three formed an electric chain.
　　她默默地踏上台阶，并且站到了台上，手中一直牵着小珠儿。牧师够着孩子的另一只手，也握住了。就在他这么做的瞬间，似有一般不同于他自己生命的新生命的激越之潮，急流般涌入他的心房，冲过他周身的血管，仿佛那母女俩正把她们生命的温暖传递给他半麻木的躯体。三人构成了一条闭合的电路。
　　
            
            

ensix

　　"Minister!" whispered little Pearl.
　　“牧师!”小珠儿悄声说。
　　"What wouldst thou say, child?" asked Mr. Dimmesdale.
　　“你要说什么啊，孩子?”丁梅斯代尔先生问道。
　　"Wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?" inquired Pearl.
　　“你愿意在明天中午的时候，跟妈妈和我一块站在这儿吗?”珠儿询问着。
　　"Nay; not so, my little Pearl," answered the minister; for, with the new energy of the moment, all the dread of public exposure, that had so long been the anguishof his life, had returned upon him; and he was already trembling at the conjunctionin which- with a strange joy, nevertheless- he now found himself. "Not so, my child. I shall, indeed, stand with thy mother and thee one other day, but not to-morrow."
　　“不成;不能那样，我的小珠儿，”牧师回答说;由于那瞬间的新精力，长期以来折磨着他生命的对示众的种种恐惧，又重新回到他心头;而且，他对目前的这种团聚——虽说也有一种陌生的欢偷——已经颤栗不安了。“那样不成，我的孩子。真的，终有一天，我一定同你妈妈和你站在一起，不过明天还不成。”珠儿笑着，想抽出她的手。但牧师紧紧地握住了。
　　Pearl laughed, and attempted to pull away her hand. But the minister held it fast. "A moment longer, my child!" said he.
　　珠儿笑着，想抽出她的手。但牧师紧紧地握住了。“再稍待一会儿，我的孩子!”他说。
　　"But wilt thou promise," asked Pearl, "to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrow noontide?"
　　“可你一定要答应，”殊儿问道，“明天中午握着我的手和妈妈的手，好吧?”
　　"Not then, Pearl," said the minister, "but another time."
　　“明天还不成，珠儿，”牧师说着，“得换换时间。”
　　"And what other time?" persisted the child.
　　“那在什么时候呢?”孩子一劲地追问。
　　"At the great judgment day," whispered the minister- and, strangely enough, the sense that he was a professional teacher of the truth impelledhim to answer the child so. "Then, and there, before the judgment-seat, thy mother, and thou, and I, must stand together. But the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!"
　　“在最后审判日，”牧师耳语说——说来奇怪，是他身为传播真理的牧师的职业感迫使他这么答复孩子的。“到了那一天，在审判座前面，你妈妈，你，还有我，应该站在一起。但这个世界的光天化日是不会看到我们在一起的!”
　　Pearl laughed again.
　　珠儿又笑了。
　　
            
            

enthree

　　But, before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, a light gleamedfar and wide over all the muffledsky. It was doubtless caused by one of those meteors which the night-watcher may so often observe burning out to waste, in the vacant regions of the atmosphere. So powerful was its radiance, that it thoroughly illuminatedthe dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. The great vaultbrightened, like the dome of an immense lamp. It showed the familiar scene of the street, with the distinctness of mid-day, but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomedlight. The wooden houses, with their juttingstories and quaintgable-peaks; the door-steps and thresholds, with the early grass springing up about them; the garden-plots, black with freshly turned earth; the wheel-track, little worn, and, even in the market-place, marginedwith green on either side all- were visible, but with a singularityof aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things of this world than they had ever borne before. And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroideredletter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two. They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendour, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another.
　　但不等丁梅斯代尔先生把话讲完，乌云遮蔽的夜空上便远远地闪过一道宽阔的亮光。那无疑是一颗流星发出来的，守夜人可能经常看到这种流星在空旷的苍窜中燃成灰烬。它发散出的光辉十分强烈，把天地间浓厚的云层照得通明。那广漠的天穹变得雪亮，犹如一盏巨灯的圆顶。它就象白昼一般清晰地勾勒出街上熟悉的景色，但也乎添了那种由不寻常的光线照到熟悉的物体上总要产生的可怕印象。那些附有突出的楼层和古怪的角顶的木屋;那台阶和门槛，以、及周围早早破土而出的青草;那些覆着新翻出的黑土的园圃;那些有点发旧，甚至在市场一带两侧都长满了绿草的车道——这一切全都清晰可见，不过都露出一种独特的模样，似是给这些世上的事物一种前所未有的另一种道义上的解释。就在那儿，站着牧师，他一手捂着心口;还有海丝特，白兰，胸前闪着刺绣的字母;以及小珠儿，她本人就是一个象征着他同她之间连接的环节。他们三人站在亮如白昼的奇妙而肃穆的光辉里，似乎正是那光辉要揭示一切隐秘，而那白昼则要将所有相属的人结合在一起。
　　There was witchcraftin little Pearl's eyes; and her face, as she glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile which made its expression frequently so elvish. She withdrew her hand from Mr. Dimmesdale's, and pointed across the street. But he clasped both his hands over his breast, and cast his eyes towards the zenith.
　　小珠儿的眼中闪着妖气，当她仰望牧师时，脸上带着那种调皮的微笑，使她的表情时常都是那么鬼精灵似的。她从牧师手中抽出手来，指着街道对面。但他紧握双手捂在胸前，抬眼眺望天顶。
　　
            
            

entwo

　　Nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all meteoricappearances, and other natural phenomena, that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revelationsfrom a supernaturalsource. Thus, a blazing spear, a sword of flame, a bow, or a sheafof arrows, seen in the midnight sky, prefigured Indian warfare. Pestilencewas known to have been foreboded by a shower of crimsonlight. We doubt whether any marked event, for good or evil, ever befell New England, from its settlement down to Revolutionary times, of which the inhabitants had not been previously warned by some spectacle of this nature. Not seldom, it had been seen by multitudes. Oftener, however, its credibility rested on the faith of some lonely eye-witness, who beheld the wonder through the coloured, magnifying, and distorting medium of his imagination, and shaped it more distinctly in his afterthought. It was, indeed, a majesticidea, that the destiny of nations should be revealed, in these awful hieroglyphics, on the cope of heaven. A scroll so wide might not be deemed too expansive for Providence to write a people's doom upon. The belief was a favourite one with our forefathers, as betokening that their infant commonwealth was under a celestialguardianship of peculiar intimacy and strictness. But what shall we say, when an individual discovers a revelation, addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of record! In such a case, it could only be the symptom of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, rendered morbidlyself-contemplative by long, intense, and secret pain, had extended his egotismover the whole expanse of nature, until the firmamentitself should appear no more than a fitting page for his soul's history and fate!
　　在那年代，凡是流星出现和不象日月升落这么规律的其它自然现象，统统都被解释为超自然力量所给予的启示，这是再普通不过的事了。于是，在午夜的天空中，如果看到一支闪光的长矛、一支冒着烈焰的剑、一张弓、一簇箭这类形象，便会认为是印第安人要打仗的预兆。瘟疫，则人所周知是由一阵红光示警的。从移民时期直到革命年代，凡是发生在新英格兰的重大事件，无论好也罢，坏也罢，恐怕都受过这类性质的某种景象的事先警告。许多人都曾多次见过。不过，更多的情况是，这种景象的可信性不过是某个单独的目睹者心诚所致，他用想象中那种有色的、放大的和变形的中介来看待这种奇迹，再在事后的回忆中更加清晰地勾勒出来。国家的命运居然会在无限的天际中用这些可怕而费解的符号揭示出来，这种念头实在伟大。对于上苍来说，在这样广漠的轴卷上写下对一个民族的判决，恐怕也不能算太大。我们的先祖笃信这类事情倒是好事，因为这说明，他们的新生的共和国，是在天意的格外垂青和严格监视之下的。但是，当某人发现出现在同样大幅的卷面上的一个启示只是针对他一人的时候，我们又该作何评论呢?在这种情况下——当一个人由于长期的和强烈的隐痛而备受自我反省的煎熬，他把自我已经扩展到整个大自然，以致天空本身不过是适于书写他的历史和命运的纸张时，这种“启示”只能是他精神状态极度混乱的症状罢了!
　　We imputeit, therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye and heart, that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter- the letter A- marked out in lines of dull red light. Not but the meteor may have shown itself at that point, burning duskilythrough a veil of cloud; but with no such shape as his guilty imagination gave it; or, at least, with so little definiteness, that another's guilt might have seen another symbol in it.
　　因此，当牧师抬眼眺望天顶，看到出现了用暗红色的光线勾出的巨大字母“A”时，我们只能归结为他由于心病而眼睛出了毛病。这并非是说，当时根本没有流星出现并在云霭中隐隐燃烧;而是说并没有他那负罪的想象力所赋予的那种形状;或者，至少不是那么确定无疑——别的罪人也可能从中看到另一种象征呢。