Chapter 17 THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER
第十七章　教長和教民

Hester Prynne was now fully sensible of the deep injury for which she was responsible to this unhappy man, in permitting him to lie for so many years, or, indeed, for a single moment, at the mercy of one whose purposes could not be other than malevolent. The very contiguity of his enemy, beneath whatever mask the latter might conceal himself, was enough to disturb the magnetic sphere of a being so sensitive as Arthur Dimmesdale. There had been a period when Hester was less alive to this consideration; or, perhaps, in the misanthropy of her own trouble, she left the minister to bear what she might picture to herself as a more tolerable doom. But of late, since the night of his vigil, all her sympathies towards him had been both softened and invigorated. She now read his heart more accurately. She doubted not, that the continual presence of Roger Chillingworth the secret poison of his malignity, infecting all the air about him- and his authorised interference, as a physician, with the minister's physical and spiritual infirmities- that these bad opportunities had been turned to a cruel purpose. By means of them, the sufferer's conscience had been kept in an irritated state, the tendency of which was, not to cure by wholesome pain, but to disorganise and corrupt his spiritual being. Its result, on earth, could hardly fail to be insanity, and hereafter, that eternal alienation from the Good and True, of which madness is perhaps the earthly type.
海絲特·白蘭如今才充分意識到，這個不幸的男人所受的傷害有多深，她對此是有責(zé)任的，她不該允許那個一心抱著惡毒動機的人在他身邊擺布他這么些年，其實即使是一瞬間也不該的。那個心懷叵測的人不管蒙上什么面具來遮掩，僅僅接近一下象阿瑟，丁梅斯代爾那樣敏感的人，就足以擾亂他的方寸了。有一段時間，海絲特沒怎么動腦筋考慮這一點；也許是因為她自己痛不欲生，而把他的厄運看得比較容易忍受，也就沒去過問他。但自從他那天晚上夜游以來，最近她對他的全部同情都變得又溫柔又有力了。如今她對他的心看得更準(zhǔn)了。她毫不懷疑，羅杰·齊靈渥斯沒日沒夜地守在他身邊，他那不可告人的險惡用心毒化了他周圍的氣氛，他那醫(yī)生的身分對牧師的身心癰疾具有權(quán)威性的影響——這一切都構(gòu)成了達到殘酷目的的可乘之機。凡此種種，使那個受苦人的良心始終處于一種煩躁狀態(tài)，長此以往，不但不會以有益健康的痛苦治愈他，反而會紊亂和腐蝕他的精神生命。其結(jié)果，他在世間難以不弄得精神錯亂，之后則與“真”和“善”永遠絕緣，其現(xiàn)世的表現(xiàn)就是瘋狂。

Such was the ruin to which she had brought the man, once- nay, why should we not speak it?- still so passionately loved! Hester felt that the sacrifice of the clergyman's good name, and death itself, as she had already told Roger Chillingworth, would have been infinitely preferable to the alternative which she had taken upon herself to choose. And now, rather than have had this grievous wrong to confess, she would gladly have lain down on the forest-leaves, and died there, at Arthur Dimmesdale's feet.
這就是她帶給那個男人的毀滅，而那個男人正是她一度——唉，我們何必不直說呢？——而且至今仍滿懷激情地愛戀著的！海絲特覺得，正如她最近對羅杰·齊靈渥斯所說，犧牲掉牧師的好名聲，甚至讓他死掉，都比她原先所選擇的途徑要強得多。如今，與其把這極其嚴重的錯誤坦白出來，她寧可高高興興地躺在這林中落葉之上，死在阿瑟·丁梅斯代爾腳旁。