Yet Mr. Dimmesdale would perhaps have seen this individual's character more perfectly, if a certain morbidness, to which sick hearts are liable, had not rendered him suspicious of all mankind. Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognise his enemy when the latter actually appeared. He therefore still kept up a familiar intercourse with him, daily receiving the old physician in his study; or visiting the laboratory, and, for recreation's sake, watching the processes by which weeds were converted into drugs of potency.
而丁梅斯代爾先生如果沒有病人常有的某種病態(tài)，以致對整個人類抱著猜疑的態(tài)度的話，他或許會對此人的品性看得更充分些。由于他不把任何人視為可信賴的朋友，故此當敵人實際上已出現(xiàn)時，仍然辨認不出。所以，他依舊同老醫(yī)生：隨意傾談，每天都在書齋中接待他；或者到他的實驗室去拜訪他，并且出于消遣的目的，在一旁觀看他如何把藥草制成有效的藥劑。

One day, leaning his forehead on his hand, and his elbow on the sill of the open window, that looked towards the graveyard, he talked with Roger Chillingworth, while the old man was examining a bundle of unsightly plants.
一天，他用一只手支著前額，肘部墊在朝墳墓開著的窗子的窗臺上，同羅杰·齊靈渥斯談話，那老人正在檢看一簇難看的植物。

"Where," asked he, with a look askance at them- for it was the clergyman's peculiarity that he seldom, nowadays, looked straight-forth at any object, whether human or inanimate- "where, my kind doctor, did you gather those herbs, with such a dark, flabby leaf?"
“在哪兒，”他斜眼看著那簇植物開口問道——最近牧師有個特點，他很少直視任何東西，不管是人還是無生命的——“我好心的朋友，你在哪兒搜集到的這些藥草，葉子這么黝黑松軟？”

"Even in the graveyard here at hand," answered the physician, continuing his employment. "They are new to me. I found them growing on a grave, which bore no tombstone, nor other memorial of the dead man, save these ugly weeds, that have taken upon themselves to keep him in remembrance. They grew out of his heart, and typify, it may be, some hideous secret that was buried with him, and which he had done better to confess during his lifetime."
“在這跟前的墳地里就有，”醫(yī)生一邊繼續(xù)干他的活，一邊回答。“我以前還沒見過這種草。我是在一座墳墓上發(fā)現(xiàn)的。那座墳上沒有墓碑，除去長著這種丑陋的野草也沒有其它東西紀念死者。這種草是從死者的心里長出來的，或許是顯示了某種隨同死者一起埋葬的隱私，要是能在生前公開承認就好了?！?/div>

"Perchance," said Mr. Dimmesdale, "he earnestly desired it, but could not."
“也可能，”丁梅斯代爾先生說，“他誠心誠意地切望如此，但他辦不到?！?

"And wherefore?" rejoined the physician. "Wherefore not; since all the powers of nature call so earnestly for the confession of sin, that these black weeds have sprung up out of a buried heart, to make manifest an unspoken crime?"
“那又為什么呢？”醫(yī)生接口說。“既然一切自然力量都這么誠摯地要求仟侮罪過，連這些黑色雜草都從死者的心中生長出來，宣布了一樁沒有說出口的罪行，為什么辦不到呢？”