書蟲四級(jí)《紅字》：0.塞勒姆，我的家鄉(xiāng)

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Salem, my home town...

塞勒姆，我的家鄉(xiāng)

Salem, my home town, is a quiet place, and not many ships call at the port here, though in the last century, before the war with Britain, the port was often busy. Now the ships go down the coast to the great seaports of Boston or New York, and grass grows in the streets around the old port buildings in Salem.

塞勒姆，我的家鄉(xiāng)，是一個(gè)平靜的地方，沒有太多的船只在這里的港口?？?，但在上個(gè)世紀(jì)我們和英國開戰(zhàn)之前，這個(gè)港口還挺繁忙的。如今，船只都沿著海岸南下，駛向波士頓或紐約的大港口了。塞勒姆舊港口建筑物周圍的街道上蔓生著野草。

For a few years, when I was a young man, I worked in the port offices of Salem. Most of the time, there was very little work to do, and one day in 1849 I was looking through an old wooden box in one of the dusty, unused rooms of the building. It was full of papers about long-forgotten ships, but then something red caught my eye. I took it out and saw that it was a piece of red material, in the shape of a letter about ten centimetres long. It was the capital letter A. It was a wonderful piece of needlework, with patterns of gold thread around the letter, but the material was now worn thin with age.

我年輕時(shí)，曾在塞勒姆的港口辦事處工作過幾年。大多數(shù)時(shí)候，我都很清閑，但是在1849年的一天，我在一間布滿灰塵、已經(jīng)廢棄不用的房間里查看一個(gè)舊木匣子。匣子中塞滿了早已被人遺忘的船只的有關(guān)文件，有一件紅色的東西引起了我的注意。我把它拿出來才發(fā)現(xiàn)原來是一片紅色的布料，看起來像是一個(gè)字母，約有10厘米長，那是個(gè)大寫的“A”。這是一件精細(xì)的針線活兒，金線滾邊，不過由于年代久遠(yuǎn)，布料已被磨得很薄了。

It was a strange thing to find. What could it mean? Was it once part of some fashionable lady's dress long years ago? Perhaps a mark to show that the wearer was a famous person, or someone of good family or great importance?

這真是一件很奇怪的東西。它代表什么？它是多年前某位時(shí)髦女士衣衫上的一個(gè)裝飾嗎？或許這是一個(gè)標(biāo)志，表明佩戴者聲名顯赫，或是有良好的家室背景，抑或地位不凡？

I held it in my hands, wondering, and it seemed to me that the scarlet letter had some deep meaning, which I could not understand. Then I held the letter to my chest and—you must not doubt my words—experienced a strange feeling of burning heat. Suddenly the letter seemed to be not red material, but red-hot metal. I trembled, and let the letter fall upon the floor.

我把它捧在手里猜想著，這個(gè)猩紅的字母似乎有某種深刻的意義，是我不能理解的。我把這個(gè)字母貼在胸前——你一定要相信我所說的——我感覺到一種奇特的灼熱。突然間，這個(gè)字母似乎不再是一片紅布，而是變成了一塊燒紅的金屬。我顫抖起來，紅字滑落到了地板上。

Then I saw that there was an old packet of papers next to its place in the box. I opened the packet carefully and began to read. There were several papers, explaining the history of the scarlet letter, and containing many details of the life and experiences of a woman called Hester Prynne. She had died long ago, sometime in the 1690s, but many people in the state of Massachusetts at that time had known her name and story.

接著我看到匣子里還有一捆很舊的文件，就放在緊挨著那個(gè)紅字的地方。我小心地打開了這捆文件讀起來。其中的幾張紙介紹了紅字的歷史，包括了一個(gè)名叫赫斯特·普林的女人的生平和經(jīng)歷的很多細(xì)節(jié)。她早已去世，大約是17世紀(jì)90年代的事了，但是在當(dāng)時(shí)的馬薩諸塞州，有很多人都聽到過她和她的故事。

And it is Hester Prynne's story that I tell you now. It is a story of the early years of Boston, soon after the City Fathers had built with their own hands the first wooden buildings—the houses, the churches... and the prison.

現(xiàn)在我要講給你們聽的就是赫斯特·普林的故事。這個(gè)故事發(fā)生在波士頓建城之初，在先輩們用雙手建成了第一批木質(zhì)建筑之后，這些建筑有房屋、教堂……還有監(jiān)獄。