Nor would it have been singular had they ceased to remember that the House of Seven Gables was resting its heavy framework on a foundation that was rightfully their own. There is something so massive, stable, and almost irresistibly imposing, in the exterior presentment of established rank and great possessions, that their very existence seems to give them a right to exist; at least, so excellent a counterfeit of right, that few poor and humble men have moral force enough to question it, even in their secret minds. Such is the case now, after so many ancient prejudices have been overthrown; and it was far more so in ante-revolutionary days, when aristocracy could venture to be proud, and the low were content to be abased. |
Было бы неудивительно, если бы они и вовсе перестали вспоминать, что Дом с семью шпилями стоит на земле, принадлежавшей их предку. |
Thus the Maules, at all events, kept their resentments within their own breasts. |
Моулы таили свое неудовольствие в глубине души. |
They were generally poverty-stricken; always plebeian and obscure; working with unsuccessful diligence at handicrafts; laboring on the wharves, or following the sea, as sailors before the mast; living here and there about the town, in hired tenements, and coming finally to the almshouse, as the natural home of their old age. |
Они постоянно вынуждены были бороться с бедностью, так как принадлежали к классу простолюдинов, добывали себе пропитание трудами рук своих, работали на пристанях или плавали по морям в качестве матросов; жили то в одном, то в другом конце города в съемных лачугах и под конец жизни переселялись в богадельню. |
At last, after creeping, as it were, for such a length of time, along the utmost verge of the opaque puddle of obscurity, they had taken that downright plunge, which, sooner or later, is the destiny of all families, whether princely or plebeian. |
Наконец, после долгого блуждания по дорогам судьбы они канули на дно и исчезли навеки, что, впрочем, рано или поздно предстоит каждому. |
For thirty years past, neither town record, nor gravestone, nor the directory, nor the knowledge or memory of man, bore any trace of Matthew Maule's descendants. |
В течение последних тридцати лет ни в городских актах, ни на могильных камнях, ни в народных переписях, ни в частных воспоминаниях - нигде не появлялось ни единого следа потомков Мэтью Моула. |
His blood might possibly exist elsewhere; here, where its lowly current could be traced so far back, it had ceased to keep an onward course. |
Может быть, они и существуют где-нибудь до сих пор, но этого не знает никто. |
So long as any of the race were to be found, they had been marked out from other men-not strikingly, nor as with a sharp line, but with an effect that was felt, rather than spoken of-by an hereditary character of reserve. |
Пока не исчезли представители рода Моула, они отличались от других людей; это отличие не бросалось в глаза, его легче было почувствовать, чем выразить словами: оно состояло в их врожденно-осторожном характере. |
Their companions, or those who endeavoured to become such, grew conscious of a circle round about the Maules, within the sanctity or the spell of which, in spite of an exterior of sufficient frankness and good-fellowship, it was impossible for any man to step. |
Приятели их - или по крайней мере желавшие быть их приятелями - убеждались, что Моулы будто обведены магическим кругом, за черту которого при всей их внешней откровенности и дружелюбии посторонний не мог проникнуть. |
It was this indefinable peculiarity, perhaps, that, by insulating them from human aid, kept them always so unfortunate in life. |
Может быть, эта-то особенность их характера и удерживала людей на расстоянии от них. |
It certainly operated to prolong, in their case, and to confirm to them, as their only inheritance, those feelings of repugnance and superstitious terror with which the people of the town, even after awakening from their frenzy, continued to regard the memory of the reputed witches. The mantle, or rather the ragged cloak, of old Matthew Maule, had fallen upon his children. |
Она, без сомнения, только усиливала в отношении к ним это чувство суеверного страха, с которым горожане продолжали смотреть на все, что напоминало им мнимого колдуна: такое грустное оставил он наследство! |
They were half believed to inherit mysterious attributes; the family eye was said to possess strange power. |
По мнению горожан, потомки Моула наследовали его таинственные качества, и, по убеждению многих, глаза их были наделены странной силой. |
Among other good-for-nothing properties and privileges, one was especially assigned them: of exercising an influence over people's dreams. |
Среди других отличий, им также приписывали дар нарушать сон ближних. |
The Pyncheons, if all stories were true, haughtily as they bore themselves in the noonday streets of their native town, were no better than bond-servants to those plebeian Maules, on entering the topsy-turvy commonwealth of sleep. Modern psychology, it may be, will endeavour to reduce these alleged necromancies within a system, instead of rejecting them as altogether fabulous. A descriptive paragraph or two, treating of the seven-gabled mansion in its more recent aspect, will bring this preliminary chapter to a close. |
Нам остается написать еще немного о Доме с семью шпилями, и введение будет окончено. |
The street in which it upreared its venerable peaks has long ceased to be a fashionable quarter of the town; so that, though the old edifice was surrounded by habitations of modern date, they were mostly small, built entirely of wood, and typical of the most plodding uniformity of common life. Doubtless, however, the whole story of human existence may be latent in each of them, but with no picturesqueness, externally, that can attract the imagination or sympathy to seek it there. |
Улица, на которой он стоял, давно уже перестала слыть лучшей частью города; так что, хотя старое здание и было окружено новыми домами, все они в основном были невелики, построены из дерева и достаточно однообразны, как и многие жилища простолюдинов. |
But as for the old structure of our story, its white-oak frame, and its boards, shingles, and crumbling plaster, and even the huge clustered chimney in the midst, seemed to constitute only the least and meanest part of its reality. |
Что касается древнего здания - театра нашей драмы, - то его образ составляли дубовый сруб, доски, гонт, осыпающаяся мало-помалу штукатурка и громадная труба посреди кровли. |
So much of mankind's varied experience had passed there-so much had been suffered, and something, too, enjoyed-that the very timbers were oozy, as with the moisture of a heart. |
А в его стенах люди пережили столько разнообразных чувств, в нем столько страдали, а иногда и радовались, что само дерево как будто пропиталось этими ощущениями. |
It was itself like a great human heart, with a life of its own, and full of rich and sombre reminiscences. |
Дом этот в наших глазах есть огромное сердце со своей самостоятельной жизнью, со своими приятными и мрачными воспоминаниями. |