"No matter, darling!" responded Mistress Hibbins, making Pearl a profound reverence. "Thou thyself wilt see it, one time or another. They say, child, thou art of the lineage of the Prince of the Air! Wilt thou ride with me, some fine night, to see thy father? Then thou shalt know wherefore the minister keeps his hand over his heart!"Laughing so shrilly that all the market-place could hear her, the weird old gentlewoman took her departure.
“别去管这个吧,乖孩子!”西宾斯太太对珠儿毕恭毕敬地说。“总有一天,你自己会看到的。孩子,他们都说你是‘空中王子’的后代呢!你愿意在一个晚上和我一起驾云上天去看你父亲吗?到那时你就会明白,牧师总把手指在心口上的原因了!”那怪模怪样的老夫人尖声大笑着走开了,惹得全市场的人都听到了。

By this time the preliminary prayer had been offered in the meeting-house, and the accents of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale were heard commencing his discourse. An irresistible feeling kept Hester near the spot. As the sacred edifice was too much thronged to admit another auditor, she took up her position close beside the scaffold of the pillory. It was in sufficient proximity to bring the whole sermon to her ears, in the shape of an indistinct, but varied, murmur and flow of the minister's very peculiar voice.
此时,议事厅中已经作完场前祈祷,可以听到丁梅斯代尔牧师先生开始布道的声音了。一种不可抑制的情感促使海丝特向近处靠去。由于神圣的大厦中挤得人山人海,再也无法容纳新的听讲人,她只好在紧靠刑台的地方占了个位置。这地方足以听到全部说教.虽说不很响亮,但牧师那富有特色的声音象是流水的低吟,缓缓送入她的耳鼓。

The vocal organ was in itself a rich endowment; insomuch that a listener, comprehending nothing of the language in which the preacher spoke, might still have been swayed to and fro by the mere tone and cadence. Like all other music, it breathed passion and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart, wherever educated. Muffled as the sound was by its passage through the church walls, Hester Prynne listened with such intentness, and sympathised so intimately, that the sermon had throughout a meaning for her, entirely apart from its indistinguishable words. These, perhaps, if more distinctly heard, might have been only a grosser medium, and have clogged the spiritual sense. Now she caught the low undertone, as of the wind sinking down to repose itself; then ascended with it, as it rose through progressive gradations of sweetness and power, until its volume seemed to envelop her with an atmosphere of awe and solemn grandeur. And yet, majestic as the voice sometimes became, there was for ever in it an essential character of plaintiveness; a loud or low expression of anguish- the whisper, or the shriek, as it might be conceived, of suffering humanity, that touched a sensibility in every bosom! At times this deep strain of pathos was all that could be heard, and scarcely heard, sighing amid a desolate silence. But even when the minister's voice grew high and commanding- when it gushed irrepressibly upward- when it assumed its utmost breadth and power, so overfilling the church as to burst its way through the solid walls, and diffuse itself in the open air- still, if the auditor listened intently, and for the purpose, he could detect the same cry of pain. What was it? The complaint of a human heart, sorrow-laden, perchance guilty, telling its secret, whether of guilt or sorrow, to the great heart of mankind; beseeching its sympathy or forgiveness- at every moment- in each accent- and never in vain! It was this profound and continual undertone that gave the clergyman his most appropriate power. During all this time, Hester stood, statue-like, at the foot of the scaffold. If the minister's voice had not kept her there, there would nevertheless have been an inevitable magnetism in that spot, whence she dated the first hour of her life of ignominy. There was a sense within her- to ill-defined to be made a thought, but weighing heavily on her mind- that her whole orb of life, both before and after, was connected with this spot, as with the one point that gave it unity.
那发育器官本身就是一种圆润的天赋;对一个听讲人来说,哪怕全然不懂牧师布道的语言,仍然可以随着那声腔的抑扬顿挫而心往神驰。那声音如同一切音乐一般,传达着热情与悲怆,传达着高昂或温柔的激动,不管你在何地受的教育,听起来内心都会感到亲切熟悉。那声音虽因穿过教堂的重重墙壁而显得低沉,但海丝特·白兰听得十分专注,产生了息息相通的共鸣,那布道对她有着一种与其难以分辨的词句全然无关的完整的含义。这些话如果所得分明些,或许只是一种粗俗的媒介,反倒影响了其精神意义。如今她聆听着那低低的音调,犹如大风缓吹,逐渐平患一般;然后,她又随着那步步上升的甜美和力量飞腾,直到那音量似乎用敬畏和庄严的宏体氛围将她包裹起来。然而,尽管那声音有时变得很威严,但其中始终有一种娓娓动听的本色。那听起来时而如低语,时面如高叫的忽低忽高地表达出来的极度痛苦和受难的人生,触动着每个人心扉的感受!那低沉而悲怆的旋律时时成为你所能听到的全部声音,隐约地在凄凉的沉默之中哀叹。但是甚至当牧师的声音变得高亢而威严,当他的声音不可遏止地直冲云霄,当他的声音达到了最为宽厚有力的音量,以致要充斥整个教堂,甚至要破壁而出,弥漫到户外的空气之中的时候,如果一个听讲人洗耳恭听,他仍然会由此而得以清晰地分辨出同样的痛苦的呼号。那是什么呢?那是一颗人心的哀怨,悲痛地或许是负疚地向人类的伟大胸怀诉说着深藏的秘密,不管是罪孽还是悲伤;它无时无刻不在通过每一个音素祈求着同情或谅解,而且从来都不是徒劳无益的!牧师正是靠了这种深邃而持续的低沉语调而获得了恰到好处的力量。在整个这段时间,海丝特都如泥塑木雕般地僵立在刑台脚下。如果不是牧师的声音把她吸引在那里的话,就必然还有一个不可或缺的磁力让她离不开这块她经受了耻辱生活第一个小时的地方。她内心有一种感觉,虽说难于明晰地表现为一种思想,但却沉重地区在她心头,那就是,她的全部生活轨道,无论过去还是未来,都和这地方密不可分,似乎是由这一点才把她的生活连成一体。