而在牧师那一方面,却从来没有过一种经历会引导他跨越雷池一步;虽说只有一例,他曾经那么可怕地冒犯了其中最为神圣的戒条。但那只是情感冲动造成的罪过,并非原则上的对抗,甚至不是故意而为。从那倒霉的时日起,他一直以病态的热情,小心翼翼地监视着自己的,不是他的行为——因为这很容易调整——,而是他的每一丝情绪和每一个念头。当年,牧师们是身居社会首位的,因此他只能更受戒律、原则甚至偏见的束缚。身为牧师,他的等级观必然也会限制他。作为一个一度犯罪、但又因未愈的伤口的不断刺激而良心未泯并备受折磨的人,他或许会认为比起他从未有过罪孽反倒在道德上更加保险。
Thus, we seem to see that, as regarded Hester Prynne, the whole seven years of outlaw and ignominyhad been little other than a preparation for this very hour. But Arthur Dimmesdale! Were such a man once more to fall, what pleacould be urged in extenuationof his crime? None; unless it avail him somewhat, that he was broken down by long and exquisitesuffering; that his mind was darkened and confused by the very remorsewhich harrowed it; that, between fleeing as an avowedcriminal, and remaining as a hypocrite, conscience might find it hard to strike the balance; that it was human to avoid the peril of death and infamy, and the inscrutablemachinationsof an enemy; that, finally, to this poor pilgrim, on his dreary and desert path, faint, sick, miserable, there appeared a glimpseof human affection and sympathy, a new life, and a true one, in exchange for the heavy doom which he was now expiating. And be the stern and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired. It may be watched and guarded; so that the enemy shall not force his way again into the citadel, and might even, in his subsequent assaults, select some other avenue, in preference to that where he had formerly succeeded. But there is still the ruined wall, and, near it, the stealthytread of the foe that would win over again his unforgotten triumph.
【英文名著精选阅读:《红字》第十八章(上)】相关文章:
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