The Scarlet Letter / Алая буква. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Натаниель Готорн

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СКАЧАТЬ still hesitated, he took the infant in his arms, and himself administered the draught. It soon proved its efficacy, and redeemed the leech’s pledge. The moans of the little patient subsided; its convulsive tossings gradually ceased; and in a few moments it sank into a profound and dewy slumber. The physician next bestowed his attention on the mother. With calm and intent scrutiny, he felt her pulse, looked into her eyes – a gaze that made her heart shrink and shudder, because so familiar, and yet so strange and cold – and, finally, satisfied with his investigation, proceeded to mingle another draught.

      “I have learned many new secrets in the wilderness, and here is one of them – a recipe that an Indian taught me, in requital of some lessons of my own, that were as old as Paracelsus[8]. Drink it! It may be less soothing than a sinless conscience, but it will calm the swell and heaving of thy passion.”

      He presented the cup to Hester, who received it with a slow, earnest look into his face; not precisely a look of fear, yet full of doubt.

      “I have thought of death,” said she – “have wished for it. Yet, if death be in this cup, I bid thee think again. See! It is even now at my lips.”

      “Drink, then,” replied he, still with the same cold composure. “Dost thou know me so little, Hester Prynne? Even if I imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could I do better for my object than to let thee live so that this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom?” As he spoke, he laid his long fore-finger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to scorch into Hester’s breast, as if it had been red hot. He noticed her involuntary gesture, and smiled. “Live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee! And, that thou mayest live, take off this draught.”

      Without further expostulation or delay, Hester Prynne drained the cup, and, at the motion of the man of skill, seated herself on the bed, where the child was sleeping; while he drew the chair and took his own seat beside her. She could not but tremble at these preparations; for she felt that – having now done all that humanity, he was next to treat with her as the man whom she had most deeply and irreparably injured.

      “Hester,” said he, “I ask not how thou hast ascended to the pedestal of infamy on which I found thee. The reason is not far to seek. It was my folly, and thy weakness. I – the book-worm of great libraries – a man already in decay – what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own? Misshapen from my birth-hour, how could I delude myself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl’s fantasy? Men call me wise. If sages were ever wise in their own behoof, I might have foreseen all this. From the moment when we came down the old church-steps together, a married pair, I might have beheld the bale-fire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!”

      “Thou knowest[9],” said Hester – for, depressed as she was, she could not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her shame – “thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any.”

      “True,” replied he. “It was my folly! But, up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. The world had been so cheerless! My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one! And so, Hester, I drew thee into my heart, and sought to warm thee by the warmth which thy presence made there!”

      “I have greatly wronged thee,” murmured Hester.

      “We have wronged each other,” answered he. “Mine was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay. Therefore, I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against thee. But, Hester, the man lives who has wronged us both! Who is he?”

      “Ask me not!” replied Hester Prynne, looking firmly into his face. “That thou shalt never know!”

      “Never, sayest thou?” rejoined he, with a smile of dark and self-relying intelligence. “Believe me, Hester, there are few things in the world hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery. Thou mayest cover up thy secret from the prying multitude. But I come to the inquest with other senses than they possess. I shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books: as I have sought gold in alchemy. There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine.”

      The eyes of the wrinkled scholar glowed so intensely upon her, that Hester Prynne clasped her hand over her heart, dreading lest he should read the secret there at once.

      “He bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou dost, but I shall read it on his heart. Yet fear not for him! Think not that I shall interfere with Heaven’s own method of retribution, or, to my own loss, betray him to the gripe of human law. Neither shall I contrive aught against his life; no, nor against his fame, if as I judge, he be a man of fair repute. Let him live! Let him hide himself in outward honour, if he may! Not the less he shall be mine!”

      “One thing, thou that wast my wife, I would enjoin upon thee,” continued the scholar. “Thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour. Keep, likewise, mine! Breathe not to any human soul that thou didst ever call me husband! Here, on this wild outskirt of the earth, I shall pitch my tent; for, I find here a woman, a man, a child, amongst whom and myself there exist the closest ligaments. No matter whether of love or hate! Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me. My home is where thou art and where he is. But betray me not!”

      “Wherefore dost thou desire it?” inquired Hester, shrinking, from this secret bond.

      “It may be,” he replied, “because I will not encounter the dishonour that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman. It may be for other reasons. Let, therefore, thy husband be to the world as one already dead. Recognise me not, by word, by sign, by look! Breathe not the secret, above all, to the man thou wottest[10] of. Shouldst thou fail me in this, his fame, his position, his life will be in my hands. Beware!”

      “I will keep thy secret, as I have his,” said Hester.

      “Swear it!” rejoined he.

      And she took the oath.

      “And now, Mistress Prynne,” said old Roger Chillingworth, “I leave thee alone: alone with thy infant and the scarlet letter! How is it, Hester? Doth thy sentence bind thee to wear the token in thy sleep? Art thou not afraid of nightmares?”

      “Why dost thou smile so at me?” inquired Hester, troubled at the expression of his eyes. “Art thou like the Black Man[11] that haunts the forest round about us? Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?”

      “Not thy soul,” he answered, with another smile. “No, not thine!”

      V

      Hester at Her Needle

      Hester Prynne’s term of confinement was now at an end. Her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, which seemed to her as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast. Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described. Then, she was supported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph. It was, moreover, a separate event, to meet which she might call up the vital strength that would have sufficed for many quiet years. But now, with this unattended walk from her prison door, began the daily custom. She СКАЧАТЬ