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THE MARKET-PLACE
第二章 市场
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 firewater 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 bittertempered 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.
二百多年前的一个夏日早晨，在监狱大街牢房前的一片草地上，站着一大群波士顿居民，大家的目光都紧盯着布满铁钉的橡木牢门。这些善良的人们脸上蓄着胡须，一副冷峻严肃的表情，如果换成其他地区的老百姓，或是在新英格兰历史的晚期，这可能预示着要发生什么可怕的事情。可能意味着某个臭名昭著的罪犯即将受到制裁--法庭对罪犯的判决仅是对舆论裁决的确认而已。然而，由于早期清教徒严以自律，这种推断未免言之过早。也许这是一个懒散的奴隶，或者是个被父母送交地方当局的不孝子，要被放在鞭挞柱上管教一番。也许那是一名唯信仰论者、教友会教徒，或者是其他异教徒就要被鞭挞出城的，亦或是某个懒惰散漫、四处流浪的印第安人，因为喝了白人烈酒，满街胡闹，要挨着鞭子给赶到树林去。也许是一个巫婆，就像西宾斯老太太那样脾气刻毒的官老爷遗孀，将要在绞架上吊死。无论是哪种情况，围观者总是摆出同样的庄严姿态，这倒挺符合早期居民的身份，因为他们视宗教和法律为一体，二者的特质相互渗透，凡涉及公共守则，无论是轻微的还是严重的，都同样令人肃然起敬并望而生畏。确实，对一个在刑台上的罪犯，旁观者鲜有同情之心，显得十分冷漠。另一方面，刑罚如今只意味着某程度上的冷嘲热讽，但在当年却带有如同死刑般严厉的色彩。
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 countrywomen; 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 welldeveloped 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.
有一点值得注意，就是在故事发生的那个夏天清晨，几个妇女挤在人群中，她们似乎对接下来所用的刑罚特别感兴趣。那个时代不怎么讲究得体，身穿衬裙和撑裙的女人们出入于大庭广众，只要有可能，便利用她们健壮的身躯，挤进最靠近刑台的人群中去，而并未觉得有任何不妥。那些在英伦故土上出生和成长的媳妇和姑娘们，比起她们六七代以后的子孙，身体要粗壮些，精神也粗犷些。因为通过家系承袭的链条，每一代母亲遗传给她女儿的，即使不缺少性格中的坚强有力，也总是会有比较柔弱的体质、更加精致和短暂的美貌，以及更加纤细的身材。站在监狱门口的妇女们，和当年充满男子气概、堪称女性代表的伊丽莎白相距不足半个世纪。她们是那位女王的同胞乡亲。她们家乡的牛肉和麦酒，佐以未经提炼的精神食粮，大量进入到她们的躯体。因此那明媚晨光所照耀到的，是宽阔的肩膀、发育良好的胸脯和圆润的双颊--她们都是在遥远的岛屿上长大成人的，不像在新英格兰这种环境下成长的姑娘那般白皙和纤瘦。尤其是这些主妇大多数一开口便是粗喉咙、大嗓门，要是在今天，无论是她们谈论的内容还是话语的音量，都足以使我们瞠目结舌。
"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 churchmembers 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 trow not! "
“婆娘们，” 一个面相凶恶、五十岁左右的老婆子说道， “我跟你们说说我的想法吧。要是我们这些年长的、名声好的教友，能处理赫斯特·普林那种坏女人，就算是给大伙做了一件好事。你们觉得怎样，婆娘们? 要是那个荡妇交给咱们五个人来审判--就是眼下一道站在这里的五个人，她能就这样，带着我们可敬的官爷们赏给她的判决，蒙混过关吗? 天呀，我才不相信呢！”
"People say, " said another, "that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation. "
“听人说，” 另一个女人说， “尊敬的马斯特·丁梅斯代尔教长，正是她的牧师，在教众面前出了这桩丑事简直伤心透了。”
"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 suchlike heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever! "
“那些官老爷都是敬主的先生，可惜慈悲心太重了--这可是事实，” 第三个人老气横秋的婆娘补充道。 “最起码，他们应该在赫斯特·普林额头上烙个记号。赫斯特太太会有点退缩，我敢这样说。但是她--那个烂货，她才不在乎他们在她前襟前贴上个什么呢！哼，你们等着瞧吧，她准会别上个胸针什么的，或者是异教徒饰物，挡住胸口，照样招摇过市！”
"Ah, but, " interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand, "Let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart. "
“啊，不过，” 一个手里牵着孩子的年轻媳妇轻声插嘴道， “她要想挡着那记号就随她去吧，反正她心里总会不好受的。”
"What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown, or the flesh of her forehead? " cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. "This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statutebook. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray! "
“我们讲什么记号、烙印的，管它是在前襟上还是额头上呢？” 另一个女人嚷着，她是这些自封的法官中长得最丑的，也最不留情的。 “这女人让我们大伙都丢了脸，她该死。难道没有专门管这种事的法律吗？当然有了，圣经和法典上全都写着呢。那些个官老爷不照章办事，到时候他们自己的老婆女儿若是也走上了歧途，那就是自作自受。”
"Mercy on us, goodwife, " exclaimed a man in the crowd, "is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows? That is the hardest word yet! Hush, now, gossips! for the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes Mistress Prynne herself. "
“饶了我们吧，婆娘们，” 人群中的一个男人惊呼道， “难道女人们除了看到绞刑架会害怕，就没有其他美德了吗？别把话说得太重！小声点，喂，婆娘们！牢门的锁在转呢，普林太太本人就要出来了。”
The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the townbeadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward; until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquainted only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison.
牢门一下子就从里面给打开了，最先露面的是狱吏，一副阴森恐怖的模样，像个暗影似的出现在日光之下，腰侧挎着剑，手中握着权杖。这尊容便是清教徒法典中冷酷无情的象征和代表，对触犯法律的罪犯作出最终和最直接的执法，便是他的差事。他左手举起权杖，右手抓着一个年轻妇女的肩膀，拉着她向前一直走到牢门前。此时，出于一种天生的尊严和人格的力量，她推开了狱吏，走到室外，仿佛这都是她自愿做的。她抱着一个三个月左右大的婴儿，那孩子眨着眼睛，转过小脸，以躲开过于耀眼的阳光。因为从出生到现在，她一直生活在地牢或其他晦暗的牢房，只习惯那种昏暗的光线。
When the young woman-the mother of this child-stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.
那个年轻女人正是婴儿的母亲。站在人群面前，她的第一反应似乎就是把孩子紧紧抱在胸前；她这样做与其说是出于母爱的冲动，倒不如说是为了掩盖某个标志，那个标志是缝制或系挂在衣裙上的。然而，她很快就醒悟过来，用她耻辱的一个标记来掩盖另一个标记是无补于事的。她索性用胳膊架着孩子，虽然满脸通红，却露出桀骜不驯的笑容，毫无愧色地环视着她的同镇居民和街坊邻居。在她裙袍的前胸露出了一个字母A，是用红色细布为底，周围加之金丝线刺绣制成的，做工精致，手艺奇巧。这个字母做得如此别致，充满了丰富而华美的想象，佩在衣服上简直如同画龙点睛一般；而她穿着的这身衣服也十分华美，与那个年代的审美品位相符，只是远远超出了殖民地俭朴标准的规定。
The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterised by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is now recognised as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true, that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it. Her attire, which, indeed, she had wrought for the occasion, in prison, and had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which drew all eyes and, as it were, transfigured the wearer-so that both men and women, who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time-was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.
那年轻女人身材修长，体态优美至极。她乌黑浓密的秀发在阳光下熠熠生辉。她不仅五官端正、面色润泽，而且眉宇清秀，双眼漆黑深邃，楚楚动人。就那个年代女性举止优雅的风范而言，她应属贵妇之列；她有一种端庄的风韵，并不同于现今人们心中的那种纤巧、轻盈和不可言喻的优雅。即使以当年的标准而言，在步出监狱的那一刻，赫斯特·普林正像极了一个贵妇。先前认识她的那些人，本以为她在经历过这些磨难后一定会黯然失色。结果却令他们万分惊讶，因为他们看到，她美得光芒四射，竟然把笼罩着她的不幸和耻辱凝聚成了一轮光环。然而，目光敏锐的旁观者无疑能察觉到，其中带有一种微妙的悲痛。她在狱中凭借自己的想象，专门为这个场合制作了服饰，通过其狂野独特的个性，表达她的精神状态和绝望而不顾一切的情绪。但是，吸引了众人目光并使赫斯特·普林焕然一新的，似乎是她胸前闪闪发光的那个红字。那个字绣得如此妙不可言，以至于那些原本与她认识的男男女女，几乎以为这是第一次与她谋面。这红字具有一种魔力，使她从普通的人际关系中超脱出来，封闭在自己的天地里。
"She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain, " remarked one of her female spectators; "but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it! Why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a punishment? "
“她做得一手好针线活，这是毫无疑问，” 一个旁观的女人说， “但这个厚颜的荡妇居然想用这手段来显露自己，我可真是从来没见过。哎，婆娘们，这不纯粹是在当面嘲笑咱们那些虔诚的官爷吗？不是借那些可敬的绅士们所作出的判决而大出风头么？”
"It were well, " muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames, "if we stripped Madam Hester's rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for the red letter, which she hath stitched so curiously, I'll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel, to make a fitter one! "
“我看啊，” 那个面孔板得最紧的老太婆嘀咕道， “最好我们把赫斯特太太那件华丽的衣服，从她秀气的肩膀扒下来。至于她绣得稀奇古怪的那个红字嘛，我会给她一块我得风湿病时穿过的法兰绒破布，做出个更合适的！”
"Oh, peace, neighbours, peace! " whispered their youngest companion; "do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that embroidered letter, but she has felt it in her heart. "
“噢，安静点，街坊们，安静点！” 她们当中最年轻的同伴悄声说， “别让她听见咱们的话！绣在她衣服上的字母，针针都扎在她心里呢。”
The grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff.
那个讨厌的狱吏用权杖做了个手势。
"Make way, good people, make way, in the King's name! " cried he. "Open a passage; and, I promise ye, Mistress Prynne shall be set where man, woman, and child may have a fair sight of her brave apparel, from this time till an hour past meridian. A blessing on the righteous Colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine! Come along, Madam Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place! "
“让路，好心的人们，让路呀，看在国王的份上！” 他叫嚷着。 “让开一条路吧，我向诸位保证，普林太太要站的地方，会让男女老少都能看清楚她漂亮的衣服，从现在起直到午后一点，保证你们能看个够。祝福公正的马萨诸塞殖民地，一切罪恶都得拉出来暴露在阳光之下！过来吧，赫斯特太太，在这市场里给大家看看你那鲜红的字母吧！”
A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browed men and unkindly visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards the place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads continually to stare into her face, and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast. It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison-door to the market-place. Measured by the prisoner's experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length; for, haughty as her demeanour was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston's earliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there.
围观的人让开了一条通道。赫斯特·普林跟着前面开路的狱吏，走向指定她接受惩罚的地方，身后跟随着拧眉攒目的男人和心狠面恶的女人，三三两两地行进着。一群怀着好奇心来凑热闹的小孩，对眼前的事情不明所以，只知道学校放了半天假。他们一边在前头跑着，一边不时回头看一眼她的脸和她怀里抱着的、正眨着眼的婴儿，还有她胸前那个不光彩的红字。那时候，牢门到市场没有多远的距离。然而，以囚犯的经历来估量，这恐怕还是有段距离的，虽说她姿态高傲，但在人们逼视的目光下，或许每迈出一步都要忍受一番痛苦，就像她的心已经给抛到街道上，任人唾弃和践踏。不过在人类的本性里，原存有着一种奇妙的慈悲之心，遭受苦难的人在承受痛楚的当下，通常无法觉察到痛苦的剧烈程度，反而是过后延绵的悲伤，最叫人撕心裂肺。赫斯特·普林几乎是带着一种安静平和的神态，度过了这种煎熬，来到市场西端的刑台跟前。刑台几乎就竖立在波士顿最早的教堂屋檐下，看上去像是教堂的一部分。
In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent, in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France. It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common nature-whatever be the delinquencies of the individual-no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame; as it was the essence of this punishment to do. In Hester Prynne's instance, however, as not unfrequently in other cases, her sentence bore, that she should stand a certain time upon the platform but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowing well her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude, at about the height of a man's shoulders above the street.
事实上，这座刑台是处刑机器的一部分。时隔二三代，它在我们当中仅仅代表着历史和传统，然而，在旧时，它却如同法国大革命时期处罚恐怖分子的断头台一样，被视为教化劝善的有效工具。简言之，刑台就是一座颈手枷的平台，上面竖着这个惩罚工具的架子，设计得刚好能把人头紧紧卡住，以便供人们观瞻。这个用木头和铁制成的发明，几近 “完美” 地诠释了丑恶。依我看来，无论犯有何等过失，再没有比这种暴行更违背我们的人性了，不准罪人因羞耻而遮掩他的面容--没有什么暴行会比还骇人听闻。可这恰恰是该刑罚的本意所在。不过就赫斯特·普林的例子而言，和其他案件相似，她所受到的惩罚是在刑台上罚站示众一段时间，无需受斩首绞刑之苦，其特点无疑就是这架羞陋机器的最邪恶之处。她深知自己现在的角色，举步登上一段木梯，站到与成年男子肩膀一样高的刑台上，将自己暴露在众目睽睽之下。
Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent;
如果在这群清教徒中有一个是罗马天主教徒的话，他或许会从这个美丽的女人、她华美的服饰，以及怀中的婴儿，联想到圣母玛丽亚的形象，那正是众多杰出画家所争先描绘的。
something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world.
然而，他这种联想只能在对比中产生，圣像中的那母亲纯洁无比，而她的孩子则是未来的救世主。
Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne.
然而在她身上，世俗生活中最神圣的品德，却因最深重的罪孽而被玷污，其结果只能使这个世界由于这妇人的美丽变得更加晦暗，她生下的婴儿也必将堕落。
The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellowcreature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering, at it. The witnesses of Hester Prynne's disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the Governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a general, and the ministers of the town; all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house, looking down upon the platform. When such personages could constitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual meaning. Accordingly, the crowd was sombre and grave. The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentred at her bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment, and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude-each man, each woman, each little shrillvoiced child, contributing their individual parts-Hester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once.
这种罪恶与耻辱的场面，总掺杂着一点敬畏之意。在社会尚未腐败到极点之前，即使人们不会为之战栗，也不至于仅一笑付之。而亲眼看到赫斯特·普林示众的人们，还没失去他们的朴实纯真。如果她被判死刑，他们会冷冷地看着她死去，并不会抱怨其过于严苛；但他们也不会像另一种社会形态中的人那般无情，把眼前这种示众当作笑柄。即使有人心里觉得这事有点可笑，也会因几位尊贵大人物的郑重出席，而不敢放肆。总督以及他的参议、法官、将军和镇上的牧师们，全都坐着或站在议事厅的阳台上，俯视着刑台。能有这样的人物到场，有他们显赫的地位和受人尊敬的职位作保证，我们可以有把握地推断，所做的判决应当是有其法律效力和意义的。因此，群众也显得忧郁而庄重。千百双用无情的眼睛逼视着这个不幸的罪人，目光都集中在她的胸前，她用尽一个女人最大的力量支撑着。这实在是让人难以忍受。凭着容易冲动和充满激情的天性，此时的她已使自己坚强起来，以面对众人各种各样的诋毁和利刃般的侮辱。但是人们沉重的情绪，倒令气氛变得更可怕，她宁愿看到一张张僵硬的面孔对她露出轻蔑的笑。如果每个男人、女人，每个尖嗓门的孩子一齐爆发出哄笑，赫斯特·普林或许还可以对所有人报以倔傲的冷笑。可是，她注定要忍受这种沉重的打击，她时时感到要鼓起胸中全部的力量来尖声呼号，并纵身从刑台翻到地面上去，否则，她肯定会立刻疯掉的。
Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or, at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images. Her mind, and especially her memory, was preternaturally active, and kept bringing up other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the Western wilderness; other faces than were lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those steeple-crowned hats. Reminiscences, the most trifling and immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports, childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, came swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in her subsequent life; one picture precisely as vivid as another; as if all were of similar importance, or all alike a play. Possibly it was an instinctive device of her spirit, to relieve itself, by the exhibition of these phantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weight and hardness of the reality.
然而，在她充当众目所瞩对象的过程中，她不时感到眼前的一切似乎消失不见，至少，人群像一大堆支离破碎、光怪陆离的幻象般模糊起来。她的思绪，尤其是她的记忆，却不可思异地活跃起来，跳出这个蛮荒的大洋西岸边缘上的小镇街道，不断带来其他的景色与场面。她想到的，并不是她脚边那些尖高帽檐下藐视她的面孔。那些最为琐碎、零散、无关紧要的记忆，孩提时代和学校生活，儿时的游戏和争吵，婚前在娘家的种种琐事全涌到了她的脑海里，其中还混杂着她后来生活中最重大事情的诸多片断，一切都是那么清晰，似乎每一件事都非常重要，宛若一场戏。可能这只是她本能的反应：通过展现这些各式各样、变幻莫测的画面，把自己的精神从眼前残酷的现实压力下解放出来。
Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point of view that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track along which she had been treading since her happy infancy. Standing on that miserable eminence, she saw her native village, in old England, and her paternal home; a decayed house of grey stone, with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half-obliterated shield of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility. She saw her father's face, with its bald brow and reverend white beard, that flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan ruff; her mother's, too, with the look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in her daughter's pathway. She saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There she beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamplight that had served them to pore over many ponderous books. Yet those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it was their owner's purpose to read the human soul. This figure of the study and the cloister, as Hester Prynne's womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right. Next rose before her, in memory's picture-gallery, the intricate and narrow thoroughfares, the tall, grey houses, the huge cathedrals, and the public edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a Continental city; where a new life had awaited her, still in connection with the misshapen scholar; a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne-yes, at herself-who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom!
无论如何，这座示众的刑台成了一个观望点，向赫斯特·普林展现出她幸福童年以来的全部轨迹。她痛苦地站在那里，并再一次看见了故乡英格兰的村落和父母的家园：那是一座破败的灰色石屋，虽说外表破败不堪，但在门廊上方还残存着盾形家族纹章的痕迹，彰显着古老的尊贵地位。她看到父亲的脸：光秃秃的额头，威风凛凛的白胡须散落在伊丽莎白时代的老式宽硬皱领上。母亲无微不至的爱和牵肠挂肚神情，也都时时在她脑海中萦绕，即使在母亲去世之后，仍经常在女儿的人生路上留下谆谆教诲。她看到了自己，那光彩动人的容貌，照亮了将她惯于凝视的那面昏暗镜子的整个镜心。她还看到了另一副面孔，那是一个年老力衰的男人，苍白而瘦削，一副学者的模样，由于在灯光下研读一册册长篇巨著而老眼昏花。然而正是这双昏花的眼睛，在一心要窥测他人灵魂时，又具有奇特的洞察力。尽管赫斯特·普林女性的幻想曾竭力想去摆脱，但那学者和隐士的身影还是缓缓呈现了，他略带畸形，左肩比右肩稍高。在她回忆的画廊中，接下来出现的是欧洲大陆上的一座城市，里面纵横交错的狭窄街道、高大的灰色住宅、宏伟的天主教堂，以及年深日久、古色古香的公共建筑物。一种崭新的生活在那里等待着她，不过仍和那个畸形的学者密切相关。那种生活就好比是一簇青苔附在坍塌的墙壁上，只能靠腐朽的物质来喂养自己。最后，这些不断变换的场景都烟消云散，赫斯特·普林又回到这片清教徒殖民地的简陋市场上，全镇的居民都聚在这里，冷酷地盯着她--是的，盯着她--她就站在示众的刑台上，怀抱着婴儿，胸前有一个用金丝巧妙绣了边的、鲜红的字母A!
Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes! -these were her realities-all else had vanished!
这一切都是真的吗？她把孩子紧紧抱在胸前，孩子哇的一声哭了。她垂下眼睛注视那鲜红的字母，甚至还用指头碰了一下，告诉自己：婴儿和耻辱都是真的。是啊，这些才是她的现实，其余的一切都消失了！