Chapter 05 HESTER AT HER NEEDLE
第五章　海絲特做針線

HESTER PRYNNE'S term of confinement was now at an end. Her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, which, falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast. Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison, than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger. Then, she was supported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph. It was, moreover, a separate and insulated event, to occur but once in her lifetime, and to meet which, therefore, reckless of economy, she might call up the vital strength that would have sufficed for many quiet years. The very law that condemned her- a giant of stern features, but with vigour to support, as well as to annihilate, in his iron arm- had held her up, through the terrible ordeal of her ignominy. But now, with this unattended walk from her prison-door, began the daily custom; and she must either sustain and carry it forward by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink beneath it. She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present grief. Tomorrow would bring its own trial with it; so would the next day, and so would the next; each its own trial, and yet the very same that was now so unutterably grievous to be borne. The days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her, but never to fling down; for the accumulating days, and added years, would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame. Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast- at her, the child of honourable parents- at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman- at her, who had once been innocent- as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument.
海絲特·白蘭的監(jiān)禁期滿了。牢門打開，她邁步走到陽光下。普照眾生的日光，在她那病態(tài)的心靈看來，似乎只是為了暴露她胸前的紅字。這是她第一次獨自步出牢門，比超前面所描寫的在眾目睽睽之下前呼后擁，走上千夫所指的示眾受辱臺，這才是一次真正的折磨。那天，她為一種反常的神經緊張和個性中全部好斗的精神所支撐，使她能夠將那種場面變成一種慘淡的勝利。更主要的，那是在她一生中獨一無二的一次各別的孤立事件，因此她可以不借調動在平靜的歲月中足夠多年消耗的生命力去應付一時之需。就懲辦她示眾的法律而論，那是一個外貌猙獰的巨人，其鐵腕既可以消滅她，也可以支撐她，正是法律本身扶持著她挺過了那示眾的可怕煎熬。然而此時此刻，從不然一身步出獄門起，她就要開始過一天又一天的正常生活了；她必須以自身的普通體力支撐自己活下去，否則只有倒在生活下面。她再也不能靠預支生命力來幫助自己度過目前的悲痛。明天還要有明天的考驗與之俱來，后天也會如此，再下一天仍會如此；每天都有每天的考驗，然而在忍受難以言喻的痛苦這一點士又都是一樣的。遙遠的未來的時日，仍有其要由她承載的重荷，需要她一步步攝下去，終生背負著，永遠不得拋卻；日復一日，年復一年，都將在恥辱曲堆積上再疊上層層苦難。她將在長年累月之中，放棄她的個性，面成為布道師和道學家指指點點的一般象征，借以形象具體地說明女性的脆弱與罪孽的情欲。他們將教育純沾的年輕人望著她——這個胸前佩戴著灼熱鮮明的紅字的女人；望著她——這個有著可敬的父母的孩子；望著她———這個有著今后會長成女人的嬰兒的母親；望著她——這個原本是純潔無辜的女人；把她當作罪惡的形象、罪惡的肉體和罪惡的存在。而她必將帶到墳墓中去的那個恥辱，將是矗立在她墳上的唯一墓碑。

It may seem marvellous, that, with the world before her- kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so remote and so obscure- free to return to her birthplace, or to any other European land, and there hide her character and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if emerging into another state of being- and having also the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life were alien from the law that had condemned her- it may seem marvellous, that this woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only, she must needs be the type of shame. But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. Her sin, her ignominy, were the roots which she had struck into the soil. It was as if a new birth, with stronger assimilations than the first, had converted the forest-land, still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne's wild and dreary, but life-long home. All other scenes of earth- even that village of rural England, where happy infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet to be in her mother's keeping, like garments put off long ago- were foreign to her, in comparison. The chain that bound her here was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but could never be broken.
這事說來令人不可思議：既然她的判決詞中沒有限制她不得超越清教徒居民區(qū)的條款，那么在這片邊遠偏僻的土地之外，她面對著整個世界，原可以自由地回到她的出生地或任何其它歐洲國家，改頭換面，隱姓埋名，一切從新開始；她還面對著通向陰森莫測的莽林的道路，也可以在那里逃脫制裁她的法律，使自己不馴順的本性在生活習俗完全兩樣的民族中相得益彰?？磥韺嵲诓豢伤甲h的是，她竟然仍把這地方視作自己的家園；而恰恰在這里，況且也只有在這里，她才會成為恥辱的典型。但確實有一種天數，一種具有冥冥之力的如此不可抗拒和難以避免的感情，迫使人們象幽靈般出汲并滯留在發(fā)生過為他終生增色添輝、引人矚目的重大事件的地方，而且那事件的悲傷色調愈濃，人們也就愈難以背離那塊地方。她的罪孽，她的恥辱，便是她深扎于此地的根。她在這塊土地上好象獲得了比她降生人世更具融熔力量的新生，海絲特·白蘭的這一新生把所有其他移民和飄泊者仍感到格格不入的森林地帶，變成了她自己荒涼陰郁但卻是終生安身立命之家。世界上別的景色，甚至包括她度過幸福的童年和無暇的少女時期的英格蘭鄉(xiāng)村——象是早巳換下的衣服，交給她母親去保管了——，相比之下，那些地方在她眼里那是它鄉(xiāng)異地了。將她束縛在這里的，是源源傲進她心靈深處的鐵打的鎖鏈，永遠不可能斷裂了。