Passage One (1) So Roger Chillingworth—a deformed old figure, with a fa

游客2023-11-24  13

问题     Passage One
    (1)  So Roger Chillingworth—a deformed old figure, with a face that haunted men’s memories longer than they liked—took leave of Hester Prynne, and went stooping away along the earth. He gathered here and there an herb, or grubbed up a root, and put it into the basket on his arm. His grey beard almost touched the ground, as he crept onward. Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track of his footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure. She wondered what sort of herbs they were, which the old man was so sedulous to gather. Would not the earth, quickened to by the sympathy of his eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs, of species hitherto unknown, that would start up under his fingers? Or might it suffice him, that every wholesome growth should be converted into something deleterious and malignant at his touch? Did the sun, which shone so brightly everywhere else, really fall upon him? Or was there, as it rather seemed, a circle of ominous shadow moving along with his deformity, whichever way he turned himself? And whither was he now going? Would he not suddenly sink into the earth, leaving a barren and blasted spot, where, in due course of time, would be seen deadly nightshade (龙葵) , dogwood (山茱萸) , henbane (天仙子) , and whatever else of vegetable wickedness the climate could produce, all flourishing with hideous luxuriance? Or would he spread bat’s wings and flee away, looking so much the uglier, the higher he rose towards heaven?
    (2)   "Be it sin or no," said Hester Prynne bitterly, as she still gazed after him, "I hate the man’"
    (3)  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 (黄昏) 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.
    (4)   "Yes, I hate him!" repeated Hester, more bitterly than before. "He betrayed me! He has done me worse wrong than I did him!"
    (5)  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?
    (6)   The emotions of that brief space, while she stood gazing after the crooked figure of old Roger Chillingworth, threw a dark light on Hester’s state of mind, revealing much that she might not otherwise have acknowledged to herself.
    (7)  He being gone, she summoned back her child.
    (8)   "Pearl! Little Pearl! Where are you?"
    (9)   Pearl, whose activity of spirit never flagged, had been at no loss for amusement while her mother talked with the old gatherer of herbs. At first, as already told, she had flirted fancifully with her own image in a pool of water, beckoning the phantom forth, and—as it declined to venture—seeking a passage for herself into its sphere of impalpable earth and unattainable sky. Soon finding, however, that either she or the image was unreal, she turned elsewhere for better pastime. She made little boats out of birch-bark (桦树皮), and freighted them with snail-shells, and sent out more ventures on the mighty deep than any merchant in New England; but the larger part of them foundered near the shore. She seized a live horse-shoe (鲎) by the tail, and made prize of several five-fingers (海星) , and laid out a jelly-fish to melt in the warm sun. Then she took up the white foam, that streaked the line of the advancing tide, and threw it upon the breeze, scampering after it, with winged footsteps, to catch the great snow flakes ere they fell. Perceiving a flock of beach-birds, that fed and fluttered along the shore, the naughty child picked up her apron full of pebbles, and, creeping from rock to rock after these small sea-fowl, displayed remarkable dexterity in pelting them. One little grey bird, with a white breast, Pearl was almost sure, had been hit by a pebble, and fluttered away with a broken wing. But then the elf-child sighed, and gave up her sport; because it grieved her to have done harm to a little being that was as wild as the sea-breeze, or as wild as Pearl herself.
    (10)  Her final employment was to gather sea-weed, of various kinds, and make herself a scarf, or mantle, and a head-dress, and thus assume the aspect of a little mermaid. She inherited her mother’s gift for devising drapery and costume. As the last touch to her mermaid garb, Pearl took some eel-grass, and imitated, as best she could, on her own bosom, the decoration with which she was so familiar on her mother’s. A letter—the letter A—but freshly green, instead of scarlet! The child bent her chin upon her breast, and contemplated this device with strange interest; even as if the one only thing for which she had been sent into the world was to make out its hidden import.  [br] What can NOT be concluded from the first five paragraphs about Roger Chillingworth?

选项 A、He was physically and psychologically monstrous.
B、He was deficient in human warmth.
C、He might be a doctor.
D、He has won his wife’s heart early in their marriage.

答案 D

解析 推断题。由第三段最后一句“罗杰.齐灵沃斯犯下的过错更为恶劣,在她不谙世事时使她误以为追随在他身边便是幸福……”以及第五段前两句“除非同时赢得女人们内心最深处的激情,否则就让那些只获得她们首肯婚约的男人们发抖吧!他们会像罗杰.齐灵沃斯一样命运悲惨……”可以推断出齐灵沃斯从未真正赢得妻子的芳心,故[D]为答案。第一段第一句提到了齐灵沃斯的身体畸形,同时从第一段对齐灵沃斯邪恶心理的描述还可推断出他的心理也畸形,故排除[A];第三段第三句提到齐灵沃斯需要她的微笑来温暖自己,以便驱散因为长时间独自埋头读书而在他那学者的心中所积郁的寒气,由此可知,他缺乏人类温暖,故排除[B];由第一段第二句中的“他到处采集药草或挖掘植物根茎”和第五句中的“她想知道那老人如此勤快采集的药草是哪一种”可以推断出齐灵沃斯目前的职业可能是医生,故排除[C]。
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