Assignment III

Assignment III

Passage 1

Father Hooper’s breath heaved; it rattled in his throat; but, with a mighty effort, grasping forward with his hands, he caught hold of life, and held it back till he should speak. He even raised himself in bed; and there he sat, shivering with the arms of death around him, while the black veil hung down, awful, at that last moment, in the gathered terrors of a lifetime. And yet the faint, sad smile, so often there, now seemed to glimmer from its obscurity, and linger on Father Hooper’s lips.

胡伯教父奄奄一息，一口气在喉咙里咔咔作响。但是他用手拼命向前挣扎，才使得命运之神留得片刻，好让他把话说完。他甚至抬身坐了起来，在死神的怀抱中颤抖。这时，那可怕的黑色面纱竟垂落而下，在这最后的时刻，凝聚了一生的恐怖。那时常出现的淡淡的凄楚的微笑，透过黑色面纱闪现出来，在教父的唇边久久不去。

“Why do you tremble at me alone?” cried he, turning his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators. “Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!” (Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minister’s Black Veil)

他把他那戴面纱的脸转过来，环顾着四周面色苍白的围观者说道：“为什么在我面前你们就两腿发抖？” “你们彼此见面也该发抖啊！男人躲着我，女人不可怜我，小孩儿（见了我）叫喊着跑开，就因为我的黑色面纱吗？

它黑漆漆的颜色却有种神秘感，可是什么使得这块面纱这么恐怖呢？等到有一天，朋友以及爱人之间坦诚相见，人类不再妄想摆脱造物主的目光并且昧着良心地掩藏自己的罪孽时，再把我看作是怪物吧。因为无论我在世时还是死后都总戴着它。我看着你们呢！看啊！你们每个人脸上都蒙着一块黑纱！”

Passage 2

But, before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky. 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 illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. The great vault brightened, 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 unaccustomed light. The wooden houses, with their jutting stories and quaint gable-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, margined with green on either side; -- all were visible, but with a singularity of 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 embroidered letter 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. (Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter)

但是，不等狄姆斯台尔把话说完，远处一道宽阔的亮光划过云雾蒙蒙的夜空。毋庸置疑，这是由一颗流星造成的，在空旷的天穹中守夜的人也许会常常看到这种流星燃烧殆尽的现象。它所发出的光亮如此强大，以至于天地之间浓厚的云层都被照得通明。浩瀚的苍穹好似一盏巨灯的灯罩，被照得通明。就像在正午时分，清晰

地展现着熟悉的街景，但也平添了一种由这种异乎寻常的光线照射到熟悉物体上的可怕感觉。那些楼层突起且角墙顶端奇趣的木屋；那早早地就长满小草的台阶和门槛；那刚刚被翻出新土后的园子；那有些发旧，甚至在集会市场两侧都零零散散地长满绿草的车道。这一切都清晰可见，只不过它们显得那样独特，似乎是由于世界以一种前所未有的方式赋予了它们另一种道义上的诠释。牧师就站在这里，他一手放在胸前；以及海斯特·普林，他胸前刺上去的字母闪闪发光；还有小珍珠，她本人就是那两个人之间相互连接的象征。他们三人共同站在那如白昼般的奇妙而庄严的光辉里，好似那光辉正要去揭示所有秘密，而白昼则要将所有属于彼此的人类相结合。

Passage 3

“People of New England!” cried he, with a voice that rose over them, high, solemn, and majestic, -- yet had always a tremor through it, and sometimes a shriek, struggling up out of a fathomless depth of remorse and woe, -- “ye, that have loved me!-- ye, that have deemed me holy!-- behold me here, the one sinner of the world! At last! -- I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood; here, with this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains me, at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down upon my face! Lo, the scarlet letter which Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! Wherever her walk hath been, -- wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to find repose, -- it hath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible repugnance roundabout her. But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!”

他喊道：“新英格兰的人们”，声音高昂，庄重而威严，直到越过他们（头顶），但总是夹杂着震颤，有时候甚至是尖叫声，那声音是在懊悔与悲痛的无尽深渊中挣扎而来的，那些爱我的人们！那些视我为神圣的人们！看我啊，看看我这个世间的罪人！终于！——我站在了七年前我就该站立的地方；在这可怕的时刻，是这个女人在这里，以她瘦弱无力的臂膀支撑着我，使我爬上来而不至于扑面摔倒在地上！看看吧，海斯特戴着红字！你们一直唯恐不及地要避开这个红字！无论她走到哪里——无论她多么悲惨地身负重担。她只想获得一份安宁——然而这红字使她周围充满了令人畏惧且深恶痛绝的可怕的目光。但现在在你们中间站着这样一个人，他身

负罪恶和丑行，你们却不回避。

It seemed, at this point, as if the minister must leave the remainder of his secret undisclosed. But he fought back the bodily weakness-- and, still more, the faintness of heart-- that was striving for the mastery with him. He threw off all assistance, and stepped passionately forward a pace before the woman and the child.

“It was on him!” he continued, with a kind of fierceness; so determined was he to speak out the whole. “God’s eye beheld it! The angels were forever pointing at it! The Devil knew it well, and fretted it continually with the touch of his burning finger! But he hid it cunningly from men, and walked among you with the mien of a spirit, mournful, because so pure in a sinful world!-- and sad, because he missed his heavenly kindred! Now, at the death-hour, he stands up before you! He bids you look again at Hester’s scarlet letter! He tells you, that, with all its mysterious horror, it is but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast, and that even this, his own red stigma, is no more than the type of what has seared his inmost heart! Stand any here that question God’s judgment on a sinner? Behold! Behold a dreadful witness of it!”

他面色狰狞地继续说着：“那烙印也在他身上！” 他如此决绝要把整个事件和盘托出。“上帝在注视着它！天使们也会永远指着它！魔鬼也非常清楚，不时地用他灼烧的手指触碰它使它焦躁不安。

但它却在人前人后故作聪明地遮掩着它，还衣冠楚楚地走在你们中间。他很悲哀，因为在这个罪恶的世界里他看上去却如此春节！——他也很难过，因为他想念着他天堂里的亲人！现在，在临死之际，他就站在你们面前！他请求你们再次看看海斯特的红字！”他告诉你们，那红字虽然神秘而可怕，但它只不过是他胸前戴着的红字的影子罢了，即使是这样，他的那个红色印记也只不过是他自己放在心头的烙印。站在这里的人们，你们对上帝的裁判有疑问吗？看吧！见证这可怕的时刻吧！”

With a convulsive motion, he tore away the ministerial band from before his breast. It was revealed! But it were irreverent to describe that revelation. For an instant the gaze of the horror-stricken multitude was concentred on the ghastly miracle; while the minister stood, with a flush of triumph in his face, as one who, in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory. Then, down he sank upon the scaffold! Hester partly raised him, and supported his head against her bosom. Old Roger Chillingworth knelt down beside him, with a blank, dull countenance, out of which the life seemed to have departed.

他在颤抖，猛地撕开他胸前牧师衣服上的饰带。红字露出来了！但这好像和他描述的揭露毫不相干。就在那一刹间，人们惊慌失色，目光都锁定在那近乎恐怖的奇迹之上；此时，牧师却面带胜利的喜悦之色，就像一个饱受病痛之扰的人在紧要关头取得了胜利似的。然后他就倒在了邢台上！海斯特撑起了他的上半身，把他的头贴在她的胸前。老罗杰·齐灵沃斯屈膝在他旁边，面色惨白，表情呆滞，似乎早已经离开了人世。

“Thou hast escaped me!” he repeated more than once. “Thou hast escaped me!”

“May God forgive thee!” said the minister. “Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!” (Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter)

“你总算摆脱我了！”他一遍遍地重复。“你总算摆脱我了！”

牧师说：“愿上帝饶恕你吧！你同样是罪孽深重的”。