《THESCARLETLETTER(红字)电子版.docx》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《THESCARLETLETTER(红字)电子版.docx（165页珍藏版）》请在三一办公上搜索。
1、THE SCARLET LETTERby Nathaniel HawthorneEDITORS NOTENathaniel Hawthorne was already a man of forty-six, and a tale writer of some twenty-four years standing, when The Scarlet Letter appeared. He was born at Salem, Mass., on July 4th, 1804, son of a sea-captain. He led there a shy and rather sombre l
2、ife; of few artistic encouragements, yet not wholly uncongenial, his moody, intensely meditative temperament being considered. Its colours and shadows are marvelously reflected in his Twice-Told Tales and other short stories, the product of his first literary period. Even his college days at Bowdoin
3、 did not quite break through his acquired and inherited reserve; but beneath it all, his faculty of divining men and women was exercised with almost uncanny prescience and subtlety. The Scarlet Letter, which explains as much of this unique imaginative art, as is to be gathered from reading his highe
4、st single achievement, yet needs to be ranged with his other writings, early and late, to have its last effect. In the year that saw it published, he began The House of the Seven Gables, a later romance or prose-tragedy of the Puritan-American community as he had himself known it defrauded of art an
5、d the joy of life, starving for symbols as Emerson has it. Nathaniel Hawthorne died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, on May 18th, 1864.The following is the table of his romances, stories, and other works:Fanshawe, published anonymously, 1826; Twice-Told Tales, 1stSeries, 1837; 2nd Series, 1842; Grandfath
6、ers Chair, a historyfor youth, 1845: Famous Old People (Grandfathers Chair), 1841Liberty Tree: with the last words of Grandfathers Chair, 1842;Biographical Stories for Children, 1842; Mosses from an OldManse, 1846; The Scarlet Letter, 1850; The House of the SevenGables, 1851: True Stories from Histo
7、ry and Biography (the wholeHistory of Grandfathers Chair), 1851 A Wonder Book for Girls andBoys, 1851; The Snow Image and other Tales, 1851: The BlithedaleRomance, 1852; Life of Franklin Pierce, 1852; Tanglewood Tales(2nd Series of the Wonder Book), 1853; A Rill from the Town-Pump,with remarks, by T
8、elba, 1857; The Marble Faun; or, The Romance ofMonte Beni (4 EDITORS NOTE) (published in England under thetitle of Transformation), 1860, Our Old Home, 1863; DolliverRomance (1st Part in Atlantic Monthly), 1864; in 3 Parts, 1876;Pansie, a fragment, Hawthorne last literary effort, 1864;American Note-
9、Books, 1868; English Note Books, edited by SophiaHawthorne, 1870; French and Italian Note Books, 1871; SeptimiusFelton; or, the Elixir of Life (from the Atlantic Monthly),1872; Doctor Grimshawes Secret, with Preface and Notes byJulian Hawthorne, 1882.Tales of the White Hills, Legends of New England,
10、 Legends of theProvince House, 1877, contain tales which had already beenprinted in book form in Twice-Told Tales and the MossesSketched and Studies, 1883.Hawthornes contributions to magazines were numerous, and most of his tales appeared first in periodicals, chiefly in The Token, 1831-1838, New En
11、gland Magazine, 1834,1835; Knickerbocker, 1837-1839; Democratic Review, 1838-1846; Atlantic Monthly, 1860-1872 (scenes from the Dolliver Romance, Septimius Felton, and passages from Hawthornes Note-Books).Works: in 24 volumes, 1879; in 12 volumes, with introductory notes by Lathrop, Riverside Editio
12、n, 1883.Biography, etc.; A. H. Japp (pseud. H. A. Page), Memoir of N. Hawthorne, 1872; J. T. Fields Yesterdays with Authors, 1873 G. P. Lathrop, A Study of Hawthorne, 1876; Henry James English Men of Letters, 1879; Julian Hawthorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife, 1885; Moncure D. Conway, Life of
13、Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1891; Analytical Index of Hawthornes Works, by E. M. OConnor 1882.CONTENTSINTRODUCTORY. THE CUSTOM-HOUSECHAPTER I. THE PRISON-DOORCHAPTER II. THE MARKET-PLACECHAPTER III. THE RECOGNITIONCHAPTER IV. THE INTERVIEWCHAPTER V. HESTER AT HER NEEDLECHAPTER VI. PEARLCHAPTER VII. THE GOV
14、ERNORS HALLCHAPTER VIII. THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTERCHAPTER IX. THE LEECHCHAPTER X. THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENTCHAPTER XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEARTCHAPTER XII. THE MINISTERS VIGILCHAPTER XIII. ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTERCHAPTER XIV. HESTER AND THE PHYSICIANCHAPTER XV. HESTER AND PEARLCHAPTER XVI. A FORES
15、T WALKCHAPTER XVII. THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONERCHAPTER XVIII. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINECHAPTER XIX. THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDECHAPTER XX. THE MINISTER IN A MAZECHAPTER XXI. THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAYCHAPTER XXII. THE PROCESSIONCHAPTER XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTERCHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSIONTHE
16、 CUSTOM-HOUSEINTRODUCTORY TO THE SCARLET LETTERIt is a little remarkable, thatthough disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friendsan autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. The first t
17、ime was three or four years since, when I favoured the readerinexcusably, and for no earthly reason that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imaginewith a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old Manse. And nowbecause, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough t
18、o find a listener or two on the former occasionI again seize the public by the button, and talk of my three years experience in a Custom-House. The example of the famous P. P., Clerk of this Parish, was never more faithfully followed. The truth seems to be, however, that when he casts his leaves for
19、th upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates. Some authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves in such confidential depths of revelati
20、on as could fittingly be addressed only and exclusively to the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writers own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communio
21、n with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the cl
22、osest friend, is listening to our talk; and then, a native reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness, we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil. To this extent, and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be
23、autobiographical, without violating either the readers rights or his own.It will be seen, likewise, that this Custom-House sketch has a certain propriety, of a kind always recognised in literature, as explaining how a large portion of the following pages came into my possession, and as offering proo
24、fs of the authenticity of a narrative therein contained. This, in facta desire to put myself in my true position as editor, or very little more, of the most prolix among the tales that make up my volumethis, and no other, is my true reason for assuming a personal relation with the public. In accompl
25、ishing the main purpose, it has appeared allowable, by a few extra touches, to give a faint representation of a mode of life not heretofore described, together with some of the characters that move in it, among whom the author happened to make one.In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, hal
26、f a century ago, in the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharfbut which is now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia
27、 schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewoodat the head, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grasshere, with a view from its front win
28、dows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, stands a spacious edifice of brick. From the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but with the thirteen strip
29、es turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a military, post of Uncle Sams government is here established. Its front is ornamented with a portico of half-a-dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps descends t
30、owards the street. Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this un
31、happy fowl, she appears by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens careful of their safety against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. Neverthele
32、ss, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking at this very moment to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eiderdown pillow. But she has no great tenderness even in her best of moods, and, sooner or la
33、teroftener soon than lateis apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows.The pavement round about the above-described edificewhich we may as well name at once as the Custom-House of the porthas grass enough growing in its ch
34、inks to show that it has not, of late days, been worn by any multitudinous resort of business. In some months of the year, however, there often chances a forenoon when affairs move onward with a livelier tread. Such occasions might remind the elderly citizen of that period, before the last war with
35、England, when Salem was a port by itself; not scorned, as she is now, by her own merchants and ship-owners, who permit her wharves to crumble to ruin while their ventures go to swell, needlessly and imperceptibly, the mighty flood of commerce at New York or Boston. On some such morning, when three o
36、r four vessels happen to have arrived at once usually from Africa or South Americaor to be on the verge of their departure thitherward, there is a sound of frequent feet passing briskly up and down the granite steps. Here, before his own wife has greeted him, you may greet the sea-flushed ship-maste
37、r, just in port, with his vessels papers under his arm in a tarnished tin box. Here, too, comes his owner, cheerful, sombre, gracious or in the sulks, accordingly as his scheme of the now accomplished voyage has been realized in merchandise that will readily be turned to gold, or has buried him unde
38、r a bulk of incommodities such as nobody will care to rid him of. Here, likewisethe germ of the wrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded, careworn merchantwe have the smart young clerk, who gets the taste of traffic as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends adventures in his masters ships, when he had b
39、etter be sailing mimic boats upon a mill-pond. Another figure in the scene is the outward-bound sailor, in quest of a protection; or the recently arrived one, pale and feeble, seeking a passport to the hospital. Nor must we forget the captains of the rusty little schooners that bring firewood from t
40、he British provinces; a rough-looking set of tarpaulins, without the alertness of the Yankee aspect, but contributing an item of no slight importance to our decaying trade.Cluster all these individuals together, as they sometimes were, with other miscellaneous ones to diversify the group, and, for t
41、he time being, it made the Custom-House a stirring scene. More frequently, however, on ascending the steps, you would discern in the entry if it were summer time, or in their appropriate rooms if wintry or inclement weathersa row of venerable figures, sitting in old-fashioned chairs, which were tipp
42、ed on their hind legs back against the wall. Oftentimes they were asleep, but occasionally might be heard talking together, in voices between a speech and a snore, and with that lack of energy that distinguishes the occupants of alms-houses, and all other human beings who depend for subsistence on c
43、harity, on monopolized labour, or anything else but their own independent exertions. These old gentlemenseated, like Matthew at the receipt of custom, but not very liable to be summoned thence, like him, for apostolic errandswere Custom-House officers.Furthermore, on the left hand as you enter the f
44、ront door, is a certain room or office, about fifteen feet square, and of a lofty height, with two of its arched windows commanding a view of the aforesaid dilapidated wharf, and the third looking across a narrow lane, and along a portion of Derby Street. All three give glimpses of the shops of groc
45、ers, block-makers, slop-sellers, and ship-chandlers, around the doors of which are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, and such other wharf-rats as haunt the Wapping of a seaport. The room itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with grey s
46、and, in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse; and it is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness of the place, that this is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent access. In the way of furniture, there is a stove with
47、a voluminous funnel; an old pine desk with a three-legged stool beside it; two or three wooden-bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and infirm; andnot to forget the libraryon some shelves, a score or two of volumes of the Acts of Congress, and a bulky Digest of the Revenue laws. A tin pipe ascends th
48、rough the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocal communication with other parts of the edifice. And here, some six months agopacing from corner to corner, or lounging on the long-legged stool, with his elbow on the desk, and his eyes wandering up and down the columns of the morning newspaperyou might
49、have recognised, honoured reader, the same individual who welcomed you into his cheery little study, where the sunshine glimmered so pleasantly through the willow branches on the western side of the Old Manse. But now, should you go thither to seek him, you would inquire in vain for the Locofoco Surveyor. The besom of reform hath swept him out of office, and a worthier succe
