The Scarlet Letter

HE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE.

“Thou wilt love her dearly,” repeated Hester Prynne, as she and the
minister sat watching little Pearl. “Dost thou not think her
beautiful? And see with what natural skill she has made those simple
flowers adorn her! Had she gathered pearls, and diamonds, and rubies,
in the wood, they could not have become her better. She is a splendid
child! But I know whose brow she has!”

“Dost thou know, Hester,” said Arthur Dimmesdale, with an unquiet
smile, “that this dear child, tripping about always at thy side, hath
caused me many an alarm? Methought—O Hester, what a thought is that,
and how terrible to dread it!—that my own features were partly
repeated in her face, and so strikingly that the world might see them!
But she is mostly thine!”

“No, no! Not mostly!” answered the mother, with a tender smile. “A
little longer, and thou needest not to be afraid to trace whose child
she is. But how strangely beautiful she looks, with those
wild-flowers in her hair! It is as if one of the fairies, whom we left
in our dear old England, had decked her out to meet us.”

It was with a feeling which neither of them had ever before
experienced, that they sat and watched Pearl’s slow advance. In her
was visible the tie that united them. She had been offered to the
world, these seven years past, as the living hieroglyphic, in which
was revealed the secret they so darkly sought to hide,—all written in
this symbol,—all plainly manifest,—had there been a prophet or
magician skilled to read the character of flame! And Pearl was the
oneness of their being. Be the foregone evil what it might, how could
they doubt that their earthly lives and future destinies were
conjoined, when they beheld at once the material union, and the
spiritual idea, in whom they met, and were to dwell immortally
together? Thoughts like these—and perhaps other thoughts, which they
did not acknowledge or define—threw an awe about the child, as she
came onward.

“Let her see nothing strange—no passion nor eagerness—in thy way of
accosting her,” whispered Hester. “Our Pearl is a fitful and fantastic
little elf, sometimes. Especially, she is seldom tolerant of emotion,
when she does not fully comprehend the why and wherefore. But the
child hath strong affections! She loves me, and will love thee!”

“Thou canst not think,” said the minister, glancing aside at Hester
Prynne, “how my heart dreads this interview, and yearns for it! But,
in truth, as I already told thee, children are not readily won to be
familiar with me. They will not climb my knee, nor prattle in my ear,
nor answer to my smile; but stand apart, and eye me strangely. Even
little babes, when I take them in my arms, weep bitterly. Yet Pearl,
twice in her little lifetime, hath been kind to me! The first
time,—thou knowest it well! The last was when thou ledst her with
thee to the house of yonder stern old Governor.”

“And thou didst plead so bravely in her behalf and mine!” answered the
mother. “I remember it; and so shall little Pearl. Fear nothing! She
may be strange and shy at first, but will soon learn to love thee!”

By this time Pearl had reached the margin of the brook, and stood on
the farther side, gazing silently at Hester and the clergyman, who
still sat together on the mossy tree-trunk, waiting to receive her.
Just where she had paused, the brook chanced to form a pool, so smooth
and quiet that it reflected a perfect image of her little figure, with
all the brilliant picturesqueness of her beauty, in its adornment of
flowers and wreathed foliage, but more refined and spiritualized than
the reality. This image, so nearly identical with the living Pearl,
seemed to communicate somewhat of its own shadowy and intangible
quality to the child herself. It was strange, the way in which Pearl
stood, looking so steadfastly at them through the dim medium of the
forest-gloom; herself, meanwhile, all glorified with a ray of
sunshine, that was attracted thitherward as by a certain sympathy. In
the brook beneath stood another child,—another and the same,—with
likewise its ray of golden light. Hester felt herself, in some
indistinct and tantalizing manner, estranged from Pearl; as if the
child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of the
sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainly
seeking to return to it.

There was both truth and error in the impression; the child and
mother were estranged, but through Hester’s fault, not Pearl’s. Since
the latter rambled from her side, another inmate had been admitted
within the circle of the mother’s feelings, and so modified the aspect
of them all, that Pearl, the returning wanderer, could not find her
wonted place, and hardly knew where she was.

“I have a strange fancy,” observed the sensitive minister, “that this
brook is the boundary between two worlds, and that thou canst never
meet thy Pearl again. Or is she an elfish spirit, who, as the legends
of our childhood taught us, is forbidden to cross a running stream?
Pray hasten her; for this delay has already imparted a tremor to my
nerves.”

“Come, dearest child!” said Hester, encouragingly, and stretching out
both her arms. “How slow thou art! When hast thou been so sluggish
before now? Here is a friend of mine, who must be thy friend also.
Thou wilt have twice as much love, henceforward, as thy mother alone
could give thee! Leap across the brook, and come to us. Thou canst
leap like a young deer!”

[Illustration: The Child at the Brook-Side]

Pearl, without responding in any manner to these honey-sweet
expressions, remained on the other side of the brook. Now she fixed
her bright, wild eyes on her mother, now on the minister, and now
included them both in the same glance; as if to detect and explain to
herself the relation which they bore to one another. For some
unaccountable reason, as Arthur Dimmesdale felt the child’s eyes upon
himself, his hand—with that gesture so habitual as to have become
involuntary—stole over his heart. At length, assuming a singular air
of authority, Pearl stretched out her hand, with the small forefinger
extended, and pointing evidently towards her mother’s breast. And
beneath, in the mirror of the brook, there was the flower-girdled and
sunny image of little Pearl, pointing her small forefinger too.

“Thou strange child, why dost thou not come to me?” exclaimed Hester.

Pearl still pointed with her forefinger; and a frown gathered on her
brow; the more impressive from the childish, the almost baby-like
aspect of the features that conveyed it. As her mother still kept
beckoning to her, and arraying her face in a holiday suit of
unaccustomed smiles, the child stamped her foot with a yet more
imperious look and gesture. In the brook, again, was the fantastic
beauty of the image, with its reflected frown, its pointed finger, and
imperious gesture, giving emphasis to the aspect of little Pearl.

“Hasten, Pearl; or I shall be angry with thee!” cried Hester Prynne,
who, however inured to such behavior on the elf-child’s part at other
seasons, was naturally anxious for a more seemly deportment now. “Leap
across the brook, naughty child, and run hither! Else I must come to
thee!”

But Pearl, not a whit startled at her mother’s threats, any more than
mollified by her entreaties, now suddenly burst into a fit of passion,
gesticulating violently, and throwing her small figure into the most
extravagant contortions. She accompanied this wild outbreak with
piercing shrieks, which the woods reverberated on all sides; so that,
alone as she was in her childish and unreasonable wrath, it seemed as
if a hidden multitude were lending her their sympathy and
encouragement. Seen in the brook, once more, was the shadowy wrath of
Pearl’s image, crowned and girdled with flowers, but stamping its
foot, wildly gesticulating, and, in the midst of all, still pointing
its small forefinger at Hester’s bosom!

“I see what ails the child,” whispered Hester to the clergyman, and
turning pale in spite of a strong effort to conceal her trouble and
annoyance. “Children will not abide any, the slightest, change in the
accustomed aspect of things that are daily before their eyes. Pearl
misses something which she has always seen me wear!”

“I pray you,” answered the minister, “if thou hast any means of
pacifying the child, do it forthwith! Save it were the cankered wrath
of an old witch, like Mistress Hibbins,” added he, attempting to
smile, “I know nothing that I would not sooner encounter than this
passion in a child. In Pearl’s young beauty, as in the wrinkled witch,
it has a preternatural effect. Pacify her, if thou lovest me!”

Hester turned again towards Pearl, with a crimson blush upon her
cheek, a conscious glance aside at the clergyman, and then a heavy
sigh; while, even before she had time to speak, the blush yielded to a
deadly pallor.

“Pearl,” said she, sadly, “look down at thy feet! There!—before
thee!—on the hither side of the brook!”

The child turned her eyes to the point indicated; and there lay the
scarlet letter, so close upon the margin of the stream, that the gold
embroidery was reflected in it.

“Bring it hither!” said Hester.

“Come thou and take it up!” answered Pearl.

“Was ever such a child!” observed Hester, aside to the minister. “O, I
have much to tell thee about her! But, in very truth, she is right as
regards this hateful token. I must bear its torture yet a little
longer,—only a few days longer,—until we shall have left this
region, and look back hither as to a land which we have dreamed of.
The forest cannot hide it! The mid-ocean shall take it from my hand,
and swallow it up forever!”

With these words, she advanced to the margin of the brook, took up the
scarlet letter, and fastened it again into her bosom. Hopefully, but a
moment ago, as Hester had spoken of drowning it in the deep sea, there
was a sense of inevitable doom upon her, as she thus received back
this deadly symbol from the hand of fate. She had flung it into
infinite space!—she had drawn an hour’s free breath!—and here again
was the scarlet misery, glittering on the old spot! So it ever is,
whether thus typified or no, that an evil deed invests itself with the
character of doom. Hester next gathered up the heavy tresses of her
hair, and confined them beneath her cap. As if there were a withering
spell in the sad letter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of her
womanhood, departed, like fading sunshine; and a gray shadow seemed to
fall across her.

When the dreary change was wrought, she extended her hand to Pearl.

“Dost thou know thy mother now, child?” asked she, reproachfully, but
with a subdued tone. “Wilt thou come across the brook, and own thy
mother, now that she has her shame upon her,—now that she is sad?”

“Yes; now I will!” answered the child, bounding across the brook, and
clasping Hester in her arms. “Now thou art my mother indeed! And I am
thy little Pearl!”

In a mood of tenderness that was not usual with her, she drew down her
mother’s head, and kissed her brow and both her cheeks. But then—by a
kind of necessity that always impelled this child to alloy whatever
comfort she might chance to give with a throb of anguish—Pearl put up
her mouth, and kissed the scarlet letter too!

“That was not kind!” said Hester. “When thou hast shown me a little
love, thou mockest me!”

“Why doth the minister sit yonder?” asked Pearl.

“He waits to welcome thee,” replied her mother. “Come thou, and
entreat his blessing! He loves thee, my little Pearl, and loves thy
mother too. Wilt thou not love him? Come! he longs to greet thee!”

“Doth he love us?” said Pearl, looking up, with acute intelligence,
into her mother’s face. “Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we
three together, into the town?”

“Not now, dear child,” answered Hester. “But in days to come he will
walk hand in hand with us. We will have a home and fireside of our
own; and thou shalt sit upon his knee; and he will teach thee many
things, and love thee dearly. Thou wilt love him; wilt thou not?”

“And will he always keep his hand over his heart?” inquired Pearl.

“Foolish child, what a question is that!” exclaimed her mother. “Come
and ask his blessing!”

But, whether influenced by the jealousy that seems instinctive with
every petted child towards a dangerous rival, or from whatever caprice
of her freakish nature, Pearl would show no favor to the clergyman. It
was only by an exertion of force that her mother brought her up to
him, hanging back, and manifesting her reluctance by odd grimaces; of
which, ever since her babyhood, she had possessed a singular variety,
and could transform her mobile physiognomy into a series of different
aspects, with a new mischief in them, each and all. The
minister—painfully embarrassed, but hoping that a kiss might prove a
talisman to admit him into the child’s kindlier regards—bent forward,
and impressed one on her brow. Hereupon, Pearl broke away from her
mother, and, running to the brook, stooped over it, and bathed her
forehead, until the unwelcome kiss was quite washed off, and diffused
through a long lapse of the gliding water. She then remained apart,
silently watching Hester and the clergyman; while they talked
together, and made such arrangements as were suggested by their new
position, and the purposes soon to be fulfilled.

And now this fateful interview had come to a close. The dell was to be
left a solitude among its dark, old trees, which, with their
multitudinous tongues, would whisper long of what had passed there,
and no mortal be the wiser. And the melancholy brook would add this
other tale to the mystery with which its little heart was already
overburdened, and whereof it still kept up a murmuring babble, with
not a whit more cheerfulness of tone than for ages heretofore.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XX.