Читать онлайн «The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings»
Автор Натаниель Готорн
Table of Contents
I - The Prison-Door
II - The Market-Place
III - The Recognition
IV - The Interview
V - Hester at Her Needle
VI - Pearl
VII - The Governor’s Hall
VIII - The Elf-Child and the Minister
IX - The Leech
X - The Leech and His Patient
XI - The Interior of a Heart
XII - The Minister’s Vigil
XIII - Another View of Hester
XIV - Hester and the Physician
XV - Hester and Pearl
XVI - A Forest Walk
XVII - The Pastor and His Parishioner
XVIII - A Flood of Sunshine
XIX - The Child at the Brook-Side
XX - The Minister in a Maze
XXI - The New England Holiday
XXII - The Procession
XXIII - The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter
XXIV - Conclusion
FROM THE PAGES OF
She took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.
(page 46)
It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself.
(page 46)
“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! It seemed not so wild a dream. ”
(page 63)
There is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it.
(page 67)
Her matronly fame was trodden under all men’s feet.
Infamy was babbling around her in the public market-place. For her kindred, should the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions of her unspotted life, there remained nothing but the contagion of her dishonor; which would not fail to be distributed in strict accordance and proportion with the intimacy and sacredness of their previous relationship.(page 98)
And now, through the chamber which these spectral thoughts had made so ghastly, glided Hester Prynne, leading along little Pearl, in her scarlet garb, and pointing her forefinger, first, at the scarlet letter on her bosom, and then at the clergyman’s own breast.
(page 121)
“Let the black flower blossom as it may!”
(page 144)
Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!
(page 146)
The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, —stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
