“尤其是,年轻牧师接着说,“如果我们换一个角度来看待这件事,我们岂不是说,那创造了一切肉体的天父,只是随便地承认了一次罪行,而对亵渎的淫秽和神圣的爱情之间毫不加以区别吗?这孩子是她父亲的罪孽和她母亲的耻辱的产物,但却来自上帝之手,面上帝要通过许多方式来感化做母亲的心灵,因此她才这么诚挚地、怀着这么痛苦的精神来祈求养育孩子的极利。她是在祈求祝福,向赐于孩子生命的上帝祈求祝福!毫无疑问,诚如这母亲自己对我们所说,她也是在祈求一种报应;她在祈求一种折磨,让她在意想不到的许多时刻体会到这种折磨;她在祈求一阵剧痛,一下刺扎,一种时时复发的、纠缠着她的快乐的痛楚!在这可怜的孩子的衣服上,她不是表达了她的这种想法吗?这身衣服不是有力地提醒我们那烙进她胸口的红色象征吗?
"Well said again!" cried good Mr. Wilson. "I feared the woman had no better thought than to make a mountebankof her child!"
“还是你说得高明!好心肠的威尔逊先生叫道。“我本来担心这女人除去拿她的孩子装幌子再也没有更好的想法呢!
"Oh, not so!- not so!" continued Mr. Dimmesdale. "She recognises, believe me, the solemn miracle which God hath wrought, in the existence of that child. And may she feel, too- what, methinks, is the very truth- that this boonwas meant, above all things else, to keep the mother's soul alive, and to preserve her from blacker depths of sin into which Satan might else have sought to plungeher! Therefore it is good for this poor, sinful woman that she hath an infant immortality, a being capable of eternaljoy or sorrow, confided to her care- to be trained up by her to righteousness- to remind her, at every moment, of her fall- but yet to teach her, as it were by the Creator's sacred pledge, that, if she bring the child to heaven, the child also will bring its parent thither! Herein is the sinful mother happier than the sinful father. For Hester Prynne's sake, then, and no less for the poor child's sake, let us leave them as Providence hath seen fit to place them!"
【英文名著精选阅读:《红字》第八章(下)】相关文章:
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