英文名著精选阅读:《红字》第五章(上)
Chapter 05 HESTER AT HER NEEDLE
第五章 海丝特做针线
HESTER PRYNNE'S term of confinementwas 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 morbidheart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast. Perhaps there was a more real torturein her first unattendedfootsteps from the thresholdof 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 combativeenergy of her character, which enabled her to convertthe scene into a kind of luridtriumph. It was, moreover, a separate and insulatedevent, to occur but once in her lifetime, and to meet which, therefore, recklessof economy, she might call up the vital strength that would have sufficedfor 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 ordealof 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 unutterablygrievousto be borne. The days of the far-off future would toilonward, 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 vivifyand embody their images of woman's frailtyand 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.
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