Алая буква

УДК 
372.8
ББК 
81.2 Англ-93
 
Г74

ISBN 978-5-9925-1119-2

 
Готорн, Натаниель.
Г74  
Алая буква : книга для чтения на английском языке. — Санкт-Петербуг : КАРО, 2016. — 
224 с. — (Classical Literature).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1119-2.

Натаниель Готорн (1804–1864) — один из наиболее значительных американских писателей XIX века. Предлагаем вниманию 
читателей одно из самых известных его произведений, роман «Алая 
буква» (1850), первый американский роман, вызвавший широкий 
резонанс в Европе.
В книге приводится неадаптированный текст романа в сокращении с комментариями и словарем.
УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ-93

© КАРО, 2016

The Prison Door

A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured 
garments and grey steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and 
others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a 
wooden edifi ce, the door of which was heavily 
timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.
Th e founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of 
human virtue and happiness they might originally 
project, have invariably recognised it among their 
earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the 
virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as 
the site of a prison. In accordance with this rule 
it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of 
Boston had built the fi rst prison-house somewhere 
in the Vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably 
as they marked out the fi rst burial-ground, on 
Isaac Johnson’s1 lot, and round about his grave, 

1 Isaac Johnson — Айзек Джонсон, один из ранних 
колонистов, обосновавшихся в Бостоне

which subsequently became the nucleus of all the 
congregated sepulchres in the old churchyard of 
King’s Chapel1. Certain it is that, some fi ft een or 
twenty years aft er the settlement of the town, the 
wooden jail was already marked with weatherstains and other indications of age, which gave a 
yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy 
front. Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed 
never to have known a youthful era. Before this 
ugly edifi ce, and between it and the wheel-track 
of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown 
with unsightly vegetation, which evidently found 
something congenial in the soil that had so early 
borne the black fl ower of civilised society, a prison. 
But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost 
at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush with its 
delicate gems, which might be imagined to off er 
their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner 
as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as 
he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep 
heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.
Th is rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been 
kept alive in history; but whether it had merely 
survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long 

1 King’s Chapel — Королевская церковь, старинная 
церковь в Бостоне

aft er the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that 
originally overshadowed it, or whether, as there is 
fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under 
the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson1 as 
she entered the prison-door, we shall not take 
upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the 
threshold of our narrative, which is now about to 
issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly 
do otherwise than pluck one of its fl owers, and 
present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, 
to symbolise some sweet moral blossom that may 
be found along the track, or relieve the darkening 
close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.

II
The Market-Place

Th e grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, 
on a certain summer morning, not less than two 
centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number 
of the inhabitants of Boston, all with their eyes 

1 Ann Hutchinson — Энн Хетчинсон (1591–1643), 
глава религиозной секты антиномистов, утверждавших, что верующий сливается со святым духом без 
посредства церкви и священников. В 1636–1637 годах 
ее судили и приговорили к отлучению от церкви

intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. 
Amongst any other population, or at a later period 
in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that 
petrifi ed the bearded physiognomies of these good 
people would have augured some awful business 
in hand. But, in that early severity of the Puritan 
character, it might be that a sluggish bond-servant, 
or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given 
over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the 
whipping-post. It might be that an Antinomian, a 
Quaker1, or other heterodox religionist, was to be 
scourged out of the town, or an idle or vagrant 
Indian, whom the white man’s fi rewater had made 
riotous about the streets. It might be, too, that a 
witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, was to die upon 
the gallows. In either case, there was very much 
the same solemnity of demeanour on the part of 
the spectators, as befi tted a people among whom 
religion and law were almost identical, and in whose 
character both were so thoroughly interfused, that 
the mildest and severest acts of public discipline 
were alike made venerable and awful. On the other 
hand, a penalty which, in our days, would infer 

1 a Quaker — квакеры, религиозная секта, основанная Джорд жем Фоксом (1624–1691), протестантское 
христианское движение

a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might 
then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as 
the punishment of death itself.
It was a circumstance to be noted on the summer morning when our story begins its course, 
that the women, of whom there were several in the 
crowd, appeared to take a peculiar interest in whatever penal infl iction might be expected to ensue. 
Th e age had not so much refi nement, that any sense 
of impropriety restrained the wearers of petticoat 
and farthingale from stepping forth into the 
public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial 
persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearest 
to the scaff old at an execution. Morally, as well as 
materially, there was a coarser fi bre in those wives 
and maidens of old English birth and breeding 
than in their fair descendants.
“Goodwives,” said a hard-featured dame of fi ft y, 
“I’ll tell ye a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for 
the public behoof if we women, being of mature age 
and church-members in good repute, should have 
the handling of such malefactresses as this Hester 
Prynne. If the hussy stood up for judgment before 
us fi ve, that are now here in a knot together, would 
she come off  with such a sentence as the worshipful 
magistrates have awarded? Marry, I trow not.”

“People say,” said another, “that the Reverend 
Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very 
grievously to heart that such a scandal should have 
come upon his congregation.”
“Th e magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, 
but merciful overmuch,” added a third autumnal 
matron. “At the very least, they should have put the 
brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead. But 
little will she care what they put upon the bodice of 
her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a 
brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so 
walk the streets as brave as ever!”
“Ah, but,” interposed, more soft ly, a young 
wife, holding a child by the hand, “let her cover 
the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always 
in her heart.”
“What do we talk of marks and brands, whether 
on the bodice of her gown or the fl esh of her 
forehead?” cried another female, the ugliest as well 
as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. 
“Th is woman has brought shame upon us all, and 
ought to die; is there not law for it? Truly there is, 
both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Th en 
let the magistrates, who have made it of no eff ect, 
thank themselves if their own wives and daughters 
go astray.”

“Mercy on us, goodwife!” exclaimed a man in 
the crowd, “is there no virtue in woman, save what 
springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows? 
Hush now, gossips, for here comes Mistress Prynne 
herself.”
Th e door of the jail being fl ung open from within 
there appeared, in the fi rst place the grim and 
grisly presence of the town-beadle. Th is personage 
prefi gured and represented in his aspect the whole 
dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which 
it was his business to administer in its fi nal and 
closest application to the off ender. Stretching forth 
the offi  cial staff  in his left  hand, he laid his right 
upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he 
thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the 
prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked 
with natural dignity and force of character, and 
stepped into the open air as if by her own free will. 
She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three 
months old, who winked and turned aside its little 
face from the too vivid light of day; because its 
existence, heretofore, had brought it acquaintance 
only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other 
darksome apartment of the prison.
When the young woman stood fully revealed 
before the crowd, it seemed to be her fi rst impulse to 

clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much 
by an impulse of motherly aff ection, as that she 
might thereby conceal a certain token, which was 
wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, 
however, wisely judging that one token of her shame 
would but poorly serve to hide another, 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 fi ne red 
cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery 
and fantastic fl ourishes of gold thread, appeared 
the letter A1. It was so artistically done, and with so 
much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that 
it had all the eff ect of a last and fi tting decoration 
to the apparel which she wore, and which was of 
a splendour in accordance with the taste of the 
age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the 
sumptuary regulations of the colony.
Th e young woman was tall, with a fi gure of 
perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark 
and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off  the 
sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides 
being beautiful from regularity of feature and 

1 А — сокр. от Adulteress — прелюбодейка