In this manner, Hester Prynne came to have a part to perform in the world. 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. 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 often reviled the hand that was stretched forth to succour them. Dames of elevated rank, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart. 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. She was patient – 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. 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 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. Another peculiar torture was felt in the gaze of a new eye. When strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter they branded it afresh in Hester’s soul. But then, again, an accustomed eye had likewise its own anguish to inflict. Its cool stare of familiarity was intolerable.
But sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in many months, she felt an eye – a human eye – 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 by the strange and solitary anguish of her life. Walking to and fro, with those lonely footsteps she felt 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 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 intimations – so obscure, yet so distinct – as truth? In all her miserable experience, there was nothing else so awful and so loathsome as this sense. 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. 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. Or, once more, the electric thrill would give her warning and, looking up, she would detect the eyes of a young maiden glancing at the scarlet letter, shyly, with a faint, chill crimson in her cheeks as if her purity were somewhat sullied by that momentary glance. O Fiend, wouldst thou leave nothing, whether in youth or age, for this poor sinner to revere? – 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 had a story 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.
VI
Pearl
We have as yet hardly spoken of the infant; that little creature, whose innocent life had sprung out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion. How strange it seemed to the sad woman, as she watched the growth, and the beauty that became every day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine over the tiny features of this child! Her Pearl – for so had Hester called her – as being of great price – purchased with all she had – her mother’s only treasure! How strange, indeed! Man had marked this woman’s sin by a scarlet letter. God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child! Yet these thoughts affected Hester Prynne less with hope than apprehension. She knew that her deed had been evil; she could have no faith, therefore, that its result would be good. Day after day she looked fearfully into the child’s expanding nature, ever dreading to detect some dark and wild peculiarity that should correspond with the guiltiness to which she owed her being.
Certainly there was no physical defect. By its perfect shape, its vigour, and its natural dexterity in the use of all its untried limbs, the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden. The child had a native grace which does not invariably co-exist with faultless beauty. Her mother, with a morbid purpose that may be better understood hereafter, had bought the richest tissues that could be procured, and allowed her imaginative faculty its full play in the arrangement and decoration of the dresses which the child wore before the public eye. So magnificent was the small figure when thus arrayed, and such was the splendour of Pearl’s own proper beauty that there was an absolute circle of radiance around her. And yet a russet gown, torn and soiled with the child’s rude play, made a picture of her just as perfect. Pearl’s aspect was imbued with a spell of infinite variety, comprehending the full scope between the wild-flower prettiness of a peasant-baby, and the pomp of an infant princess. Throughout all, however, there was a trait of passion, a certain depth of hue, which she never lost.
This outward mutability indicated the various properties of her inner life. Her nature appeared to possess depth, too, as well as variety. But the child could not be made amenable to rules. In giving her existence a great law had been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder. Hester could only account for the child’s character by recalling what she herself had been during that momentous period while Pearl was imbibing her soul from the spiritual world. The mother’s impassioned state had been the medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the intervening substance. Above all, the warfare of Hester’s spirit at that epoch was perpetuated in Pearl.