Chapter 21 THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY
第二十一章 新英格兰的节日

BETIMES in the morning of the day on which the new Governor was to receive his office at the hands of the people, Hester Prynne and little Pearl came into the market-place. It was already thronged with the craftsmen and other plebeian inhabitants of the town, in considerable numbers; among whom, likewise, were many rough figures, whose attire of deer-skins marked them as belonging to some of the forest settlements, which surrounded the little metropolis of the colony. On this public holiday, as on all other occasions, for seven years past, Hester was clad in a garment of coarse grey cloth. Not more by its hue than by some indescribable peculiarity in its fashion, it had the effect of making her fade personally out of sight and outline; while, again, the scarlet letter brought her back from this twilight indistinctness, and revealed her under the moral aspect of its own illumination. Her face, so long familiar to the townspeople, showed the marble quietude which they were accustomed to behold there. It was like a mask; or, rather, like the frozen calmness of a dead woman's features; owing this dreary resemblance to the fact that Hester was actually dead, in respect to any claim of sympathy, and had departed out of the world with which she still seemed to mingle.
在新总督从人民手中接受他的职位的那天早晨,海丝特·白兰和小珠儿来到市场。那地方已然挤满了数量可观的工匠和镇上的其他黎民百姓;其中也有许多粗野的身形,他们身上穿的鹿皮衣装,表明他们是这个殖民地小都会周围的林中居民。在这个公共假日里,海丝特和七年来的任何场合一样,仍然穿着她那身灰色粗布作的袍子。这身衣服的颜色,尤其是那说不出来的独特的样式,有一种使她轮廓模糊、不引人注目的效果;然而,那红字又使她从朦胧难辨之中跳出来,以其自身的闪光,把她显示在其精神之下。她那早巳为镇上居民所熟悉的面孔,露出那种常见的大理石般的静穆,伊如一副面具,或者更象一个亡妇脸上的那种僵死的恬静;如此令人沮丧的类比,是因为事实上海丝特无权要求任何同情,犹如实际上死去一般,她虽然看来似混迹于人间,确已经辞世。

It might be, on this one day, that there was an expression unseen before, nor, indeed, vivid enough to be detected now; unless some preternaturally gifted observer should have first read the heart, and have afterwards sought a corresponding development in the countenance and mien. Such a spiritual seer might have conceived, that, after sustaining the gaze of the multitude through seven miserable years as a necessity, a penance, and something which it was a stern religion to endure, she now, for one last time more, encountered it freely and voluntarily, in order to convert what had so long been agony into a kind of triumph. "Look your last on the scarlet letter and its wearer!"- the people's victim and life-long bond-slave, as they fancied her, might say to them. "Yet a little while, and she will be beyond your reach! A few hours longer, and the deep, mysterious ocean will quench and hide for ever the symbol which ye have caused to burn upon her bosom!" Nor were it an inconsistency too improbable to be assigned to human nature, should we suppose a feeling of regret in Hester's mind, at the moment when she was about to win her freedom from the pain which had been thus deeply incorporated with her being. Might there not be an irresistible desire to quaff a last, long, breathless draught of the cup of wormwood and aloes, with which nearly all her years of womanhood had been perpetually flavoured? The wine of life, henceforth to be presented to her lips, must be indeed rich, delicious, and exhilarating, in its chased and golden beaker; or else leave an inevitable and weary languor, after the lees of bitterness wherewith she had been drugged, as with a cordial of intensest potency.
这一天,她脸上或许有一种前所未见的表情,不过此时尚未清晰可察;除非有一个具备超自然秉赋的观察者能够首先洞悉她的内心,然后才会在她的表情和举止上找到相应的变化。这样一个能够洞悉内心的观察者或许可以发现,历经七年痛苦岁月,她将众目睽睽的注视作为一种必然、一种惩罚和某种宗教的严峻煎熬忍受着,如今,已是最后一次了,她要自由而自愿地面对人们的注视,以便把长期的苦难一变而为胜利。“再最后看一眼这红字和佩戴红字的人吧!”人们心目中的这个牺牲品和终身奴仆会对他们这样说。“不过再过一段时间,她就会远走高飞了!只消几个小时,那深不可测的大海将把你们在她胸前灼烧的标记永远淹没无存!”假如我们设想,当海丝特此时此刻即将从与她深深相联的痛苦中赢得自由时,心中可能会升起一丝遗憾之感,恐怕也并不有悼于人之本性。既然自从她成为妇人以来的多年中,几乎始终品尝着苦艾和芦荟,难道这时就不会有一种难以逼止的欲望要最后一次屏住气吸上一大杯这种苦剂吗?今后举到她唇边的、盛在雕花的金色大杯中的生活的美酒,肯定是醇厚、馥郁和令人陶醉的;不然的话,在她喝惯了具有强效的兴奋剂式的苦酒渣之后,必然会产生一种厌烦的昏昏然之感。