英文名著精选阅读:《红字》第五章(下)
Chapter 05 HESTER AT HER NEEDLE
第五章 海丝特做针线
Except for that small expenditurein the decorationof her infant, Hester bestowed all her superfluousmeans in charity, on wretches less miserable than herself, and who not infrequently insulted the hand that fed them. Much of the time, which she might readily have applied to the better efforts of her art, she employed in making coarsegarments for the poor. It is probable that there was an idea of penancein this mode of occupation, and that she offered up a real sacrifice of enjoyment, in devoting so many hours to such rude handiwork. She had in her nature a rich, voluptuous, Oriental characteristic- a taste for the gorgeously beautiful, which, save in the exquisiteproductions of her needle, found nothing else, in all the possibilities of her life, to exercise itself upon. Women derivea pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle. To Hester Prynne it might have been a mode of expressing, and therefore soothing, the passion of her life. Like all other joys, she rejected it as sin. This morbidmeddling of conscience with an immaterialmatter betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and steadfastpenitence, but something doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong, beneath.
海丝特除去在打扮孩子上稍有花费外,她把全部积蓄都用在了救济他人上面,尽管那些入并不比她更为不幸,而且还时常忘思负义地对她横加侮辱。她时常替穷人制作粗布衣服,而如果她把这些时间用来发挥她的手艺,收入原可以更多的。她做这种活计可能有忏悔的念头,不过,她花这么多时间干粗活,确实牺牲了乐趣。她天生就有一种追求富足和奢华的东方人的秉性——一种喜欢穷奢极欲的情调,但这一点在她的全部生活中,除去在她那精美的针线手士中尚可施展之外,已经别无表现的可能了。女人从一针一线的操劳中所能获得的乐趣,是男人无法理解的。对海丝特·白兰来说,可能只有靠这样一种抒发形式,才能慰藉自己对生活的激情。但即使对这绝无仅有的一点乐趣,她也不例外地象看待其它乐趣一样地视为罪过。把良心和一件无关紧要的事情病态地联系在一起,恐怕并不能说明真心实意的仟悔,其背后可能有些颇值怀疑和极其荒谬的东西。
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