C 5
Hester Prynne’s term of confinement was now at an end. Her prison-
door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, which,
falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant
for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast.
Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended
footsteps from the threshold of the prison than even in the
procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was
made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to
point its finger. Then, she was supported by an unnatural tension of
the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which
enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph. It was,
moreover, a separate and insulated event, to occur but once in her
lifetime, and to meet which, therefore, reckless of economy, she
might call up the vital strength that would have sufficed for many
quiet years. The very law that condemned herÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯a giant of stem
featured but with vigour to support, as well as to annihilate, in his
iron armÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯had held her up through the terrible ordeal of her
ignominy. But now, with this unattended walk from her prison door,
began the daily custom; and she must either sustain and carry it
forward by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink beneath it.
She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the
present grief. Tomorrow would bring its own trial with it; so would the
next day, and so would the next: each its own trial, and yet the very
same that was now so unutterably grievous to be borne. The days of
the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her
to take up, and bear along with her, but never to fling down; for the
accumulating days and added years would pile up their misery upon
the heap of shame. Throughout them all, giving up her individuality,
she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and
moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their
images of woman’s frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and
pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on
her breastÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯at her, the child of honourable parentsÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯at her, the
mother of a babe that would hereafter be a womanÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯at her, who had
once been innocentÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. And
over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her
only monument.
It may seem marvellous that, with the world before herÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯kept by
no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the
Puritan settlement, so remote and so obscureÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯free to return to her
birth-place, or to any other European land, and there hide her
character and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if
emerging into another state of beingÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯and having also the passes of
the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness of her
nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life
were alien from the law that had condemned herÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯it may seem
marvellous that this woman should still call that place her home,
where, and where only, she must needs be the type of shame. But
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 the colour to their lifetime; and, still the more
irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. Her sin, her ignominy,
were the roots which she had struck into the soil. It was as if a new
birth, with stronger assimilations than the first, had converted the
forest-land, still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer,
into Hester Prynne’s wild and dreary, but life-long home. All other
scenes of earthÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯even that village of rural England, where happy
infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet to be in her mother’s
keeping, like garments put off long agoÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯were foreign to her, in
comparison. The chain that bound her here was of iron links, and
galling to her inmost soul, but could never be broken.
It might be, tooÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯doubtless it was so, although she hid the secret
from herself, and grew pale whenever it struggled out of her heart,
like a serpent from its holeÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯it might be that another feeling kept her
within the scene and pathway that had been so fatal. There dwelt,
there trode, the feet of one with whom she deemed herself
connected in a union that, unrecognised on earth, would bring them
together before the bar of final judgment, and make that their
marriage-altar, for a joint futurity of endless retribution. Over and
over again, the tempter of souls had thrust this idea upon Hester’s
contemplation, and laughed at the passionate an desperate joy with
which she seized, and then strove to cast it from her. She barely
looked the idea in the face, and hastened to bar it in its dungeon.
What she compelled herself to believeÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯what, finally, she reasoned
upon as her motive for continuing a resident of New EnglandÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯was
half a truth, and half a self-delusion. Here, she said to herself had
been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her
earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily
shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity
than that which she had lost: more saint-like, because the result of
martyrdom.
Hester Prynne, therefore, did not flee. On the outskirts of the town,
within the verge of the peninsula, but not in close vicinity to any other
habitation, there was a small thatched cottage. It had been built by
an earlier settler, and abandoned, because the soil about it was too
sterile for cultivation, while its comparative remoteness put it out of
the sphere of that social activity which already marked the habits of
the emigrants. It stood on the shore, looking across a basin of the
sea at the forest-covered hills, towards the west. A clump of scrubby
trees, such as alone grew on the peninsula, did not so much conceal
the cottage from view, as seem to denote that here was some object
which would fain have been, or at least ought to be, concealed. In
this little lonesome dwelling, with some slender means that she
possessed, and by the licence of the magistrates, who still kept an
inquisitorial watch over her, Hester established herself, with her
infant child. A mystic shadow of suspicion immediately attached itself
to the spot. Children, too young to comprehend wherefore this
woman should be shut out from the sphere of human charities,
would creep nigh enough to behold her plying her needle at the
cottage-window, or standing in the doorway, or labouring in her little
garden, or coming forth along the pathway that led townward, and,
discerning the scarlet letter on her breast, would scamper off with a
strange contagious fear.
Lonely as was Hester’s situation, and without a friend on earth
who dared to show himself, she, however, incurred no risk of want.
She possessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded
comparatively little scope for its exercise, to supply food for her
thriving infant and herself. It was the art, then, as now, almost the
only one within a woman’s graspÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯of needle-work. She bore on her
breast, in the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her
delicate and imaginative skill, of which the dames of a court might
gladly have availed themselves, to add the richer and more spiritual
adornment of human ingenuity to their fabrics of silk and gold. Here,
indeed, in the sable simplicity that generally characterised the
Puritanic modes of dress, there might be an infrequent call for the
finer productions of her handiwork. Yet the taste of the age,
demanding whatever was elaborate in compositions of this kind, did
not fail to extend its influence over our stern progenitors, who had
cast behind them so many fashions which it might seem harder to
dispense with.
Public ceremonies, such as ordinations, the installation of
magistrates, and all that could give majesty to the forms in which a
new government manifested itself to the people, were, as a matter of
policy, marked by a stately and well-conducted ceremonial, and a
sombre, but yet a studied magnificence. Deep ruffs, painfully
wrought bands, and gorgeously embroidered gloves, were all
deemed necessary to the official state of men assuming the reins of
power, and were readily allowed to individuals dignified by rank or
wealth, even while sumptuary laws forbade these and similar
extravagances to the plebeian order. In the array of funerals, tooÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯
whether for the apparel of the dead body, or to typify, by manifold
emblematic devices of sable cloth and snowy lawn, the sorrow of the
survivorsÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯there was a frequent and characteristic demand for such
labour as Hester Prynne could supply. Baby-linenÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯for babies then
wore robes of stateÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯afforded still another possibility of toil and
emolument.
By degrees, not very slowly, her handiwork became what would
now be termed the fashion. Whether from commiseration for a
woman of so miserable a destiny; or from the morbid curiosity that
gives a fictitious value even to common or worthless things; or by
whatever other intangible circumstance was then, as now, sufficient
to bestow, on some persons, what others might seek in vain; or
because Hester really filled a gap which must otherwise have
remained vacant; it is certain that she had ready and fairly equited
employment for as many hours as she saw fit to occupy with her
needle. Vanity, it may be, chose to mortify itself, by putting on, for
ceremonials of pomp and state, the garments that had been wrought
by her sinful hands. Her needle-work was seen on the ruff of the
Governor; military men wore it on their scarfs, and the minister on his
band; it decked the baby’s little cap; it was shut up, to be mildewed
and moulder away, in the coffins of the dead. But it is not recorded
that, in a single instance, her skill was called in to embroider the
white veil which was to cover the pure blushes of a bride. The
exception indicated the ever relentless vigour with which society
frowned upon her sin.
Hester sought not to acquire anything beyond a subsistence, of
the plainest and most ascetic description, for herself, and a simple
abundance for her child. Her own dress was of the coarsest
materials and the most sombre hue, with only that one ornamentÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯
the scarlet letterÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯which it was her doom to wear. The child’s attire,
on the other hand, was distinguished by a fanciful, or, we may rather
say, a fantastic ingenuity, which served, indeed, to heighten the airy
charm that early began to develop itself in the little girl, but which
appeared to have also a deeper meaning. We may speak further of it
hereafter. Except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her
infant, Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on
wretches less miserable than herself, and who not unfrequently
insulted the hand that fed them. Much of the time, which she might
readily have applied to the better efforts of her art, she employed in
making coarse garments for the poor. It is probable that there was an
idea of penance in this mode of occupation, and that she offered up
a real sacrifice of enjoyment in devoting so many hours to such rude
handiwork. She had in her nature a rich, voluptuous, Oriental
characteristicÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯a taste for the gorgeously beautiful, which, save in
the exquisite productions of her needle, found nothing else, in all the
possibilities of her life, to exercise itself upon. Women derive a
pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of
the needle. To Hester Prynne it might have been a mode of
expressing, and therefore soothing, the passion of her life. Like all
other joys, she rejected it as sin. This morbid meddling of conscience
with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine
and steadfast penitence, but something doubtful, something that
might be deeply wrong beneath.
In this matter, Hester Prynne came to have a part to perform in the
world. With her native energy of character and rare capacity, it could
not entirely cast her off, although it had set a mark upon her, more
intolerable to a woman’s heart than that which branded the brow of
Cain. In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing
that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every
word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact,
implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much
alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the
common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human
kind. She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them,
like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make
itself seen or felt; no more smile with the household joy, nor mourn
with the kindred sorrow; or, should it succeed in manifesting its
forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror and horrible repugnance.
These emotions, in fact, and its bitterest scorn besides, seemed to
be the sole portion that she retained in the universal heart. It was not
an age of delicacy; and her position, although she understood it well,
and was in little danger of forgetting it, was often brought before her
vivid self-perception, like a new anguish, by the rudest touch upon
the tenderest spot. The poor, as we have already said, whom she
sought out to be the objects of her bounty, often reviled the hand that
was stretched forth to succour them. Dames of elevated rank,
likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation,
were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart;
sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women
can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes,
also, by a coarser expression, that fell upon the sufferer’s
defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound.
Hester had schooled herself long and well; and she never responded
to these attacks, save by a flush of crimson that rose irrepressibly
over her pale cheek, and again subsided into the depths of her
bosom. She was patientÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯a martyr, indeed but she forebore to pray
for enemies, lest, in spite of her forgiving aspirations, the words of
the blessing should stubbornly twist themselves into a curse.
Continually, and in a thousand other ways, did she feel the
innumerable throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly contrived
for her by the undying, the ever-active sentence of the Puritan
tribunal. Clergymen paused in the streets, to address words of
exhortation, that brought a crowd, with its mingled grin and frown,
around the poor, sinful woman. If she entered a church, trusting to
share the Sabbath smile of the Universal Father, it was often her
mishap to find herself the text of the discourse. She grew to have a
dread of children; for they had imbibed from their parents a vague
idea of something horrible in this dreary woman gliding silently
through the town, with never any companion but one only child.
Therefore, first allowing her to pass, they pursued her at a distance
with shrill cries, and the utterances of a word that had no distinct
purport to their own minds, but was none the less terrible to her, as
proceeding from lips that babbled it unconsciously. It seemed to
argue so wide a diffusion of her shame, that all nature knew of it; it
could have caused her no deeper pang had the leaves of the trees
whispered the dark story among themselvesÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯had the summer
breeze murmured about itÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯had the wintry blast shrieked it aloud!
Another peculiar torture was felt in the gaze of a new eye. When
strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter and none ever failed
to do soÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯they branded it afresh in Hester’s soul; so that, oftentimes,
she could scarcely refrain, yet always did refrain, from covering the
symbol with her hand. But then, again, an accustomed eye had
likewise its own anguish to inflict. Its cool stare of familiarity was
intolerable. From first to last, in short, Hester Prynne had always this
dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot
never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more
sensitive with daily torture.
But sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in many months,
she felt an eyeÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯a human eyeÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯upon the ignominious brand, that
seemed to give a momentary relief, as if half of her agony were
shared. The next instant, back it all rushed again, with still a deeper
throb of pain; for, in that brief interval, she had sinned anew. (Had
Hester sinned alone?)
Her imagination was somewhat affected, and, had she been of a
softer moral and intellectual fibre would have been still more so, by
the strange and solitary anguish of her life. Walking to and fro, with
those lonely footsteps, in the little world with which she was
outwardly connected, it now and then appeared to HesterÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯if
altogether fancy, it was nevertheless too potent to be resistedÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯she
felt or fancied, then, that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a
new sense. She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing,
that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other
hearts. She was terror- stricken by the revelations that were thus
made. What were they? Could they be other than the insidious
whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the
struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise
of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be
shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides
Hester Prynne’s? Or, must she receive those intimationsÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯so
obscure, yet so distinctÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯as truth? In all her miserable experience,
there was nothing else so awful and so loathsome as this sense. It
perplexed, as well as shocked her, by the irreverent inopportuneness
of the occasions that brought it into vivid action. Sometimes the red
infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb, as she
passed near a venerable minister or magistrate, the model of piety
and justice, to whom that age of antique reverence looked up, as to
a mortal man in fellowship with angels. “What evil thing is at hand?”
would Hester say to herself. Lifting her reluctant eyes, there would
be nothing human within the scope of view, save the form of this
earthly saint! Again a mystic sisterhood would contumaciously assert
itself, as she met the sanctified frown of some matron, who,
according to the rumour of all tongues, had kept cold snow within her
bosom throughout life. That unsunned snow in the matron’s bosom,
and the burning shame on Hester Prynne’sÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯what had the two in
common? Or, once more, the electric thrill would give her warning
Ä�ā‚¬ā€¯”Behold Hester, here is a companion!” and, looking up, she would
detect the eyes of a young maiden glancing at the scarlet letter,
shyly and aside, and quickly averted, with a faint, chill crimson in her
cheeks as if her purity were somewhat sullied by that momentary
glance. O Fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst thou
leave nothing, whether in youth or age, for this poor sinner to
revere?Ä�ā‚¬ā€¯such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin.
Be it accepted as a proof that all was not corrupt in this poor victim of
her own frailty, and man’s hard law, that Hester Prynne yet struggled
to believe that no fellow-mortal was guilty like herself.
The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always
contributing a grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations,
had a story about the scarlet letter which we might readily work up
into a terrific legend. They averred that the symbol was not mere
scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but was red-hot with
infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight whenever Hester
Prynne walked abroad in the night-time. And we must needs say it
seared Hester’s bosom so deeply, that perhaps there was more truth
in the rumour than our modern incredulity may be inclined to admit.
