She upbraided herself for the sentiment, but could not overcome or lessen it. Attempting to do so, she thought of those long-past days, in a distant land, when he used to emerge at eventide from the seclusion of his study, and sit down in the firelight of their home, and in the light of her nuptial smile. He needed to bask himself in that smile, he said, in order that the chill of so many lonely hours among his books might be taken off the scholar's heart. Such scenes had once appeared not otherwise than happy, but now, as viewed through the dismal medium of her subsequent life, they classed themselves among her ugliest remembrances. She marvelled how such scenes could have been! She marvelled how she could ever have been wrought upon to marry him! She deemed it her crime most to be repented of, that she had ever endured, and reciprocated, the lukewarm grasp of his hand, and had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes to mingle and melt into his own. And it seemed a fouler offence committed by Roger Chillingworth, than any which had since been done him, that, in the time when her heart knew no better, he had persuaded her to fancy herself happy by his side.
她為這種感情而自責(zé)，但她既不能抑制也不能減少這種感情。為了克制這種感情，她回憶起那些早巳逝去的歲月，那是在遙遠的土地上，那時候他每到傍晚便從幽靜的書齋中出來，坐在他們家的壁爐旁，沉浸在他妻子容光煥發(fā)的嬌笑之中。他那時常說，他需要在她的微笑中溫暖自己，以便從他那學(xué)者的心中驅(qū)散長時間埋頭書卷所積郁的寒氣。這種情景也曾經(jīng)作為幸福而出現(xiàn)過；但如今，透過她隨之而來的生活的悲慘的折射，只能歸類于她回憶中最不堪入目的部分了。她驚詫何以會有過這種情景！她驚詫自己何以會最終嫁給了他！她認為，她以前竟然忍受并回握了他那不冷不熱的篡握，竟然以自己眉眼和嘴唇的微笑來迎合他的笑意，實在是她最應(yīng)追悔的罪過。在她看來，羅杰·齊靈渥斯對她的觸犯，就是在她不諳世事時便使她誤以為追隨在他身邊便是幸福，而這比起他后來受到的傷害要大得多。

"Yes, I hate him!" repeated Hester, more bitterly than before. "He betrayed me! He has done me worse wrong than I did him!"
“是啊，我是恨他！”海絲特又重復(fù)了一句，口氣更狠了?！八嗔宋遥∷麄乙任覀麉柡Φ枚?！”

Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable fortune, as it was Roger Chillingworth's, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality. But Hester ought long ago to have done with this injustice. What did it betoken? Had seven long years, under the torture of the scarlet letter, inflicted so much of misery, and wrought out no repentance?
讓那些只贏得女人首肯婚約但沒有同時贏得她們內(nèi)心最深處的激情的男人們發(fā)抖吧！他們會象羅杰·齊靈渥斯一樣遭到不幸的：因為當某一個比他們更有力的接觸喚醒她們的全部感知時，即使是他們當作溫暖的現(xiàn)實而要加諸女人的那種平靜的滿足，那種堅如磐石的幸福形象，都要統(tǒng)統(tǒng)受到指責(zé)。但海絲特早就應(yīng)該對這種不公乎處之泰然了。不公平又能怎樣？難道在七年漫長的歲月中，在紅字曲折磨下備受痛苦，還悟不出一些仟悔之意嗎？