英文名著精选阅读：《红字》第二十二章（上）

英文名著精选阅读：《红字》第二十二章(上)

Chapter 22 THE PROCESSION

第二十二章 游行

BEFORE Hester Prynne could call together her thoughts, and consider what was practicableto be done in this new and startling aspect of affairs, the sound of military music was heard approaching along a contiguousstreet. It denoted the advance of the procession of magistrates and citizens, on its way towards the meeting-house; where, in compliancewith a custom thus early established, and ever since observed, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale was to deliver an Election Sermon.

海丝特·白兰还没来得及集中她的思路，考虑采取什么切实的措施来应付这刚刚出现的惊人局面，已经从毗邻的街道上传来了越来越近的军乐声。这表示官民们的游行队伍正在朝着议事厅前进;按照早已确立并一直遵照执行的规矩，丁梅斯代尔牧师先生将在那里进行庆祝选举的布道。

Soon the head of the procession showed itself with a slow and stately march, turning a corner, and making its way across the market-place. First came the music. It comprised a variety of instruments, perhaps imperfectly adapted to one another, and played with no great skill; but yet attaining the great object for which the harmonyof drum and clarionaddresses itself to the multitude- that of imparting a higher and more heroicair to the scene of life that passes before the eye. Little Pearl at first clapped her hands, but then lost, for an instant, the restless agitation that had kept her in a continual effervescencethroughout the morning; she gazed silently, and seemed to be borne upward, like a floating sea-bird, on the long heaves and swells of sound. But she was brought back to her former mood by the shimmer of the sunshine on the weapons and bright armourof the military company, which followed after the music, and formed the honorary escort of the procession. This body of soldiery- which still sustains a corporate existence, and marches down from past ages with an ancient and honourable fame- was composed of no mercenarymaterials. Its ranks were filled with gentlemen, who felt the stirrings of martial impulse, and sought to establish a kind of College of Arms, where, as in an association of Knights Templars, they might learn the science, and, so far as peaceful exercise would teach them, the practices of war. The high estimation then placed upon the military character might be seen in the lofty port of each individual member of the company. Some of them, indeed, by their services in the Low Countries and on other fields of European warfare, had fairly won their title to assume the name and pomp of soldiership. The entire array, moreover, clad in burnished steel, and with plumagenodding over their bright morions, had a brilliancy of effect which no modern display can aspireto equal.

不久就可看到游行队伍的排头，缓慢而庄严地前进着，转过街角，朝市场走来。走在最前面的军乐队，由各式各样的乐器组成，或许彼此之间不很和谐，而且演奏技巧也不高明;然而那军鼓和铜号的合奏对于大众来说，却达到了要在他们眼前通过的人生景象上增添更加崇高和英雄的气氛这一伟大目标。小珠儿起初拍着手掌，但后来却忽而失去了整个上午她始终处于的那种兴奋不安的情绪;她默不作声地注视着，似乎象一只盘旋的海鸟在汹涌澎湃的声涛中扶摇直上。但在乐队之后接踵而来、充当队伍光荣的前卫的军人们，他们那在阳光下闪闪发光的明亮的甲胄和武器，又使她回到了原来的心情之中。这个士兵组成的方阵，里面没有一个是雇佣兵，因此仍然保持着一个整体而存在，他们从拥有古老而荣誉的声名的过去的岁月中齐步走来。队列中有不少绅士，他们体会到尚武精神的冲动，谋求建立一种军事学院，以便在那里象在“圣堂骑士那种社团那样，学习军事科学，至少能在和平时期学会演习战争。这支队伍中人人趾高气昂，从中可以看出当年对军人是多么尊崇。其中有些人也确实由于在低地国家①服役和在其它战场上作战，而赢得了军人的头衔和高傲。何况，他们周身裹着捏亮的铠甲，耀眼的钢盔上还晃动着羽毛，那种辉煌气概，实非如今的阅兵所能媲美。

And yet the men of civil eminence, who came immediately behind the military escort, were better worth a thoughtful observer's eye. Even in outward demeanour, they showed a stamp of majesty that made the warrior's haughtystride look vulgar, if not absurd. It was an age when what we call talent had far less consideration than now, but the massive materials which produce stability and dignity of character a great deal more. The people possessed, by hereditary right, the quality of reverence; which, in their descendants, if it survive at all, exists in smaller proportion, and with a vastly diminished force, in the selection and estimate of public men. The change may be for good or ill, and is partly, perhaps, for both. In that old day, the English settler on these rude shores- having left king, nobles, and all degrees of awful rank behind, while still the faculty and necessity of reverence were strong in him- bestowed it on the white hair and venerablebrow of age; on long-tried integrity; on solid wisdom and sad-coloured experience; on endowmentsof that grave and weighty order which gives the idea of permanence, and comes under the general definition of respectability. These primitive statesmen, therefore- Bradstreet, Endicott, Dudley, Bellingham, and their compeers- who were elevated to power by the early choice of the people, seem to have been not often brilliant, but distinguished by a ponderoussobriety, rather than activity of intellect. They had fortitude and self-reliance, and, in time of difficulty or peril, stood up for the welfare of the state like a line of cliffs against a tempestuous tide. The traits of character here indicated were well represented in the square cast of countenanceand large physical development of the new colonial magistrates. So far as a demeanour of natural authority was concerned, the mother country need not have been ashamed to see these foremost men of an actual democracy adopted into the House of Peers, or made the Privy Council of the sovereign.

而紧随卫队而来的文职官员们，却更值得有头脑的旁观者瞩目。单从举止外貌来说，那种庄严神气，就使那群高视阔步的武夫们即使没有显得怪模怪样，也是俗不可耐了。那个时代，我们所说的天才远没有今天这样备受重视，但形成坚定与尊严的人格的多方面的因素却要大受青睐。人们通过世袭权而拥有的受人尊敬的缘由，在其后裔身上，即使仍能侥幸存在，其比例也要小得多，而且由于官员需要公选和评估，他们的势力也要大大减少。这一变化也许是好事，也许是坏事，也许好坏兼而有之。在那旧时的岁月，移民到这片荒滩上的英国定居者，虽然已经把王公贵族以及种种令人生畏的显要抛在脑后，但内心中仍有很强的敬畏的本能和需要，便将此加诸老者的苍苍白发和年迈的额头，加诸久经考验的诚笃，加诸坚实的智慧和悲哀色彩的经历，加诸那种庄重的制度中的才能——那种制度来自“体面的一般涵义并提供永恒的概念。因此，早年被人们推举而当政的政治家，——勃莱斯特里特、思狄柯特、杜德莱、贝灵汉以及他们的同辈，似乎并非十分英明，但却具备远胜睿智行动的老练沉稳。他们坚定而自信，在困难和危险的时刻，为了国家利益挺身而出，犹如一面危崖迎击拍岸的怒涛。这里提及的性格特点，充分体现在这些新殖民地执政官们的四方脸庞和大块头体格上。就这些生就的当权者的举止而论，这些实行民主的先驱们，即使被接受为贵族院的成员，或委以枢密院顾问之要职，也无愧于他们的英格兰祖国的。

Next in order to the magistrates came the young and eminentlydistinguished divine, from whose lips the religious discourse of the anniversary was expected. His was the profession, at that era, in which intellectual ability displayed itself far more than in political life; for- leaving a higher motive out of the question- it offered inducementspowerful enough, in the almost worshipping respect of the community, to win the most aspiring ambition into its service. Even political power- as in the case of Increase Mather- was within the grasp of a successful priest.

跟在官员们后面依次而来的，是那位声名显赫的青年牧师，人们正期待着从他嘴里听到庆祝日的宗教演说。在那个时代，他从事的职业所显示出的智能要远比从政生涯为多，撇开更高尚的动机不谈，这种职业在引起居民们近乎崇拜的这一点上，就具有极强的诱惑力，足以吸引最有抱负的人侧身其间。甚至连政权都会落在一个成功牧师的掌握之中，英克利斯·马瑟②就是一例。

It was the observation of those who beheld him now, that never, since Mr. Dimmesdale first set his foot on the New England shore, had he exhibited such energy as was seen in the gait and air with which he kept his pace in the procession. There was no feeblenessof step, as at other times; his frame was not bent; nor did his hand rest ominously upon his heart. Yet, if the clergyman were rightly viewed, his strength seemed not of the body. It might be spiritual, and imparted to him by angelic ministrations. It might be the exhilarationof that potent cordial, which is distilled only in the furnace-glow of earnest and long-continued thought. Or, perchance, his sensitive temperament was invigorated by the loud and piercing music, that swelled heavenward, and uplifted him on its ascending wave.Nevertheless, so abstracted was his look, it might be questioned whether Mr. Dimmesdale even heard the music. There was his body, moving onward, and with an unaccustomed force. But where was his mind? Far and deep in its own region, busying itself, with preternaturalactivity, to marshal a procession of stately thoughts that were soon to issue thence; and so he saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing, of what was around him; but the spiritual element took up the feeble frame, and carried it along, unconscious of the burden, and converting it to spirit like himself. Men of uncommon intellect, who have grown morbid, possess this occasional power of mighty effort, into which they throw the life of many days, and then are lifeless for as many more.

此时，那些殷殷里看着他的人注意到，自从丁梅斯代尔先生初次踏上新英格兰海岸以来，他还从来没有显示过这样允沛的精力，人们看到他精神抖擞地健步走在队伍之中。他的步履不象平时那样虚弱，他的躯干不再弯曲，他的手也没有病态地捂在心口。然而，如果没有看错的话，牧师的力量似乎并不在身体上，倒是在精神上，而且是由天使通过宗教仪式赋予他的。那力量可能是潜在热情的兴奋表现，是从长期不断的诚挚思想的熔炉中蒸馏出来的。或者，也许是，他的敏感的气质受到了那向天升腾并把他托着飞升的响亮而尖利的音乐的鼓舞。然而，他的目光是那么茫然，人们不禁纳闷，丁梅斯代尔先生到底听没听见那音乐。只见他的躯体正在以一种不同寻常的力量向前移动，但他的心灵何在呢?他的心灵正深深地蕴藏在自己的领域，忙不迭地进行着超自然的活动，以便安排那不久就要源源讲出的一系列庄严的思想，因此，他对于周围的一切全都视而不见，听而不闻，也毫不知晓;但这精神的因素正提携着那虚弱的躯体向前行进，不但毫不感到它的重量，而且将它生成象自身一样的精神。拥有非凡的智力而且已经病体缠身的人，通过巨大努力而获得的这种偶然的能力，能够把许多天凝聚于一时，而随后的那么多天却变得没有生命力了。

Hester Prynne, gazing steadfastlyat the clergyman, felt a dreary influence come over her, but wherefore or whence she knew not; unless that he seemed so remote from her own sphere, and utterly beyond her reach. One glance of recognition, she had imagined, must needs pass between them. She thought of the dim forest, with its little dell of solitude, and love, and anguish, and the mossy tree-trunk, where, sitting hand in hand, they had mingled their sad and passionate talk with the melancholymurmur of the brook. How deeply had they known each other then! And was this the man? She hardly knew him now! He, moving proudly past, enveloped, as it were, in the rich music, with the procession of majestic and venerable fathers; he, so unattainablein his worldly position, and still more so in that far vista of his unsympathising thoughts, through which she now beheld him! Her spirit sank with the idea that all must have been a delusion, and that, vividly as she had dreamed it, there could be no real bond betwixtthe clergyman and herself. And thus much of woman was there in Hester, that she could scarcely forgive him- least of all now, when the heavy footstep of their approaching Fate might be heard, nearer, nearer, nearer!- for being able so completely to withdraw himself from their mutual world; while she groped darkly, and stretched forth her cold hands, and found him not.

不错眼神地紧盯着牧师的海丝特·白兰，感到一种阴沉的势力渗透她的全身，至于这种势力出于什么原因和从何而来，她却无从知晓：她只觉得他离她自己的天地十分遥远，已经全然不可及了。她曾经想象过。他俩之问需要交换一次彼此心照的眼色。她回忆起那阴暗的树林，那孤寂的山谷，那爱情，那极度的悲痛，那长满青苔的树干，他们携手并坐，将他们哀伤而热情的谈活交溶在小溪的忧郁的低语之中。当时，他俩是多么息息相通啊!眼前的这个人就是他吗?她此时简直难以辨认他了!他在低沉的乐声中，随着那些威严而可敬的神父们，高傲地走了过去，他在尘世的地位已经如此高不可攀，而她此时所看到的他.正陷入超凡脱俗的高深莫测的思绪之中，益发可望而不可及了!她认为一切全都是一场梦幻，她虽然梦得如此真切，但在牧师和她本人之间不可能有任何真实的联系，她的精神随着这种念头而消沉了。而由于海丝特身上存在着那么多女性的东西，她简直难以原谅他——尤其是此时此刻，当他们面临的命运之神的沉重的脚步已经可以听得见是越走越近的时候!——因为他居然能够从他俩的共同世界中一千二净地抽身出去，却把她留在黑暗中摸索，虽伸出她冰冷的双手，却遍寻他而不得见。

Pearl either saw and responded to her mother's feelings, or herself felt the remoteness and intangibilitythat had fallen around the minister. While the procession passed, the child was uneasy, fluttering up and down, like a bird on the point of taking flight. When the whole had gone by, she looked up into Hester's face.

珠儿对她母亲的感情或者是看出了，或者是感应到了，要不就是她自己也觉得牧师已经笼罩在遥不可及之中了。当游行队伍走过时，珠儿就象一只跃跃欲飞的鸟儿一般不安地跳起又落下。队伍全部过完之后，她抬头盯着海丝特的面孔。

"Mother," said she, "was that the same minister that kissed me by the brook?"

“妈妈，她说，“他就是那个在小溪边亲吻过我的牧师吗?

"Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!" whispered her mother. "We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest."

“别出声，亲爱的小珠儿!她母亲悄悄说。“我们在市场这儿可不准谈起我们在树林里遇到的事。

"I could not be sure that it was he; so strange he looked," continued the child. "Else I would have run to him, and bid him kiss me now, before all the people; even as he did yonder among the dark old trees. What would the minister have said, mother? Would he have clapped his hand over his heart, and scowledon me, and bid me begone?"“

我弄不准那是不是他;他刚才的样子真怪极了，孩子接着说。“要不我就朝他跑过去，当着所有人的面要他亲我了——就象他在那片黑黑的老树林子里那样。牧师会说些什么呢，妈妈?他会不会用手捂着心口，对我瞪起眼睛，要我走开呢?

"What should he say, Pearl?" answered Hester, "save that it was no time to kiss, and that kisses are not to be given in the market-place? Well for thee, foolish child, that thou didst not speak to him!"

“他能说些什么呢，珠儿?海丝特回答说，“他只能说，这不是亲你的时候，而且也不能在市场上亲你。总算还好，傻孩子，你没跟他讲话!

Another shade of the same sentiment, in reference to Mr. Dimmesdale, was expressed by a person whose eccentricities- or insanity, as we should term it- led her to do what few of the townspeople would have ventured on; to begin a conversation with the wearer of the scarlet letter, in public. It was Mistress Hibbins, who, arrayed in great magnificence, with a triple ruff, a broidered stomacher, a gown of rich velvet, and a gold-headed cane, had come forth to see the procession. As this ancient lady had the renown (which subsequently cost her no less a price than her life) of being a principal actor in all the works of necromancythat were continually going forward, the crowd gave way before her, and seemed to fear the touch of her garment, as if it carried the plague among its gorgeous folds. Seen in conjunction with Hester Prynne- kindly as so many now felt towards the latter- the dread inspired by Mistress Hibbins was doubled, and caused a general movement from that part of the market-place in which the two women stood.

对于丁梅斯代尔牧师，还有一个人也表达了同样的感觉，那人居然荒唐——或者我们应该说成是疯狂——到干出镇上绝少有人做得出的事情：在大庭广众之中与红字的佩戴者讲起话来。那个人就是西宾斯太太。她套着三层皱领，罩着绣花胸衣，穿着华丽的绒袍，还握着根金头手杖，打扮得富丽堂皇地出来看游行。在当年巫术风行一时之际，这位老太婆因在其中担任主角而颇有名气(后来竟为此付出了生命作代价);人们纷纷趋避，仿佛唯恐碰上她的衣袍，就象是那华丽的褶襞中夹带着瘟疫似的。虽说目前已有好多人对海丝特·白兰怀有好感，但人们看到西宾斯太太和她站到一起，由那老太婆引起的恐惧更增加了一倍，于是便从她俩站立的地方纷纷后撤。

①指荷兰、比利时和卢森堡。

②英克利斯’马瑟(1639一1723)，美国教士和神学家，曾出任哈佛学院院长，在萨莱姆驱巫案审讯中起过重要作用。

（编辑：薛琳）