红字 内容简介

这部小说是19世纪美国浪漫主义作家霍桑的长篇小说。小说以两百多年前的殖民地时代的美洲为题材，但揭露的却是19世纪资本主义发展时代美国社会法典的残酷、宗教的欺骗和道德的虚伪。主人公海斯特被写成了崇高道德的化身。她不但感化了表里不一的丁梅斯代尔，同时也在感化着充满罪恶的社会。它不仅是美国浪漫主义小说的代表作，同时也被称作是美国心理分析小说的开创篇。本书是小说的英汉对照版。

红字 目录

红字 节选

The Prison-Door

THRONG of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray,

steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods,

and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden

edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and

studded with iron spiks.

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human

virtue and happiness they might originally project, have

invariably recognized it among their earliest practical

necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery,

and another portion as the site of a prison. In accordance with

this rule, it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of

Boston had built the first prison-house, somewhere in the

vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the

first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson's lot, and round about his

grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the

congregated sepulchres in the old church-yard of King's Chapel.

Certain it is,that, some fifteen or twenty years after the

settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with

weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet

darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on

the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than

anything else in the new world. Like all that pertains to crime,

it seemed never to have known a youthful era. Before this ugly

edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a

grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru,

and such unsightly vegetation,which evidently found something

congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of

civilized society, a prison. But, on one side of the portal, anti

rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered,

in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be

imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the

prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came

forth to his doom,in token that the deep heart of Nature could

pity and be kind to him.

This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in

history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old

wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks

that originally overshadowed it--or whether, as there is fair

authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of

the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the prison-door--we

shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the

threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that

inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one

of its flowers and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us

hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found

along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of

human frailty and sorrow.

**章 狱门

一群满脸胡子的男子，身穿深暗色的衣服，头戴灰色的尖帽，其中还混

杂着一些扎了头巾或光着脑袋的妇女，聚集在一所大木屋前面。屋门是栎木

做的，很厚实，上面钉满了大头铁钉。

新殖民地的创始人，不管他们原先设计的是一种什么样的人间美满、幸

福的乌托邦，可都一定承认，根据他们草创时期的实际需要，应从这片处女

地中划出一部分做墓地，再划出一部分做监狱的基地。按照这一常规，可以

万无一失地推断，波士顿的祖先们在伊萨克．约翰逊①的地段内，在他的坟

墓周围划出了*早的葬地，并且几乎与此同时，还在康布尔附近一个地方建

立了**所监狱。伊萨克·约翰逊的坟墓后来成了皇家旧教堂墓地里一片坟

墓的中心。的确，在这个城市建成大约十五至二十年以后，那所木造监狱由

于风吹雨打和年深日久已是痕迹斑斑了。这就给那狰狞而阴森的监狱正面更

增加了一番凄凉景象。它那栎木大门上面沉重的大头铁钉长满了铁锈，看上

去比美洲的任何东西都要古老。它像一切有罪的东西一样，从不知道自己有

过一段青春时期。在这座阴森可怕的木屋前面，在它同街上那条车道之间，

是一块草坪，上面长满了牛蒡、茨藜、蒺藜牵牛以及诸如此类的很不雅观的

植物，显而易见，它们在这片很早就开出了文明社会的黑花——监狱——的

土壤中，找到了适宜生长的养料。然而，在入口的另一面，几乎就在门槛上

生了根的，是一丛野玫瑰，它在这六月的天气里，缀满了宝石般晶莹的花朵

。这也许可以设想，这些花朵要把自己的芳香和娇艳献给那步人牢房的囚犯

，献给那跨出牢房去接受极刑的死囚，借以表示造物主的内心对他的同情和

仁慈。

这一丛玫瑰由于一个奇妙的机缘，已永垂青史了。但是，它是否仅仅是

那原来遮盖它的那些参天古松和栎树倒落以后很久而从荒芜的原野中幸存下

来的呢?还是有充分的