The Scarlet Letter

HE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER.

The eloquent voice, on which the souls of the listening audience had
been borne aloft as on the swelling waves of the sea, at length came
to a pause. There was a momentary silence, profound as what should
follow the utterance of oracles. Then ensued a murmur and half-hushed
tumult; as if the auditors, released from the high spell that had
transported them into the region of another’s mind, were returning
into themselves, with all their awe and wonder still heavy on them. In
a moment more, the crowd began to gush forth from the doors of the
church. Now that there was an end, they needed other breath, more fit
to support the gross and earthly life into which they relapsed, than
that atmosphere which the preacher had converted into words of flame,
and had burdened with the rich fragrance of his thought.

In the open air their rapture broke into speech. The street and the
market-place absolutely babbled, from side to side, with applauses of
the minister. His hearers could not rest until they had told one
another of what each knew better than he could tell or hear. According
to their united testimony, never had man spoken in so wise, so high,
and so holy a spirit, as he that spake this day; nor had inspiration
ever breathed through mortal lips more evidently than it did through
his. Its influence could be seen, as it were, descending upon him, and
possessing him, and continually lifting him out of the written
discourse that lay before him, and filling him with ideas that must
have been as marvellous to himself as to his audience. His subject, it
appeared, had been the relation between the Deity and the communities
of mankind, with a special reference to the New England which they
were here planting in the wilderness. And, as he drew towards the
close, a spirit as of prophecy had come upon him, constraining him to
its purpose as mightily as the old prophets of Israel were
constrained; only with this difference, that, whereas the Jewish seers
had denounced judgments and ruin on their country, it was his mission
to foretell a high and glorious destiny for the newly gathered people
of the Lord. But, throughout it all, and through the whole discourse,
there had been a certain deep, sad undertone of pathos, which could
not be interpreted otherwise than as the natural regret of one soon to
pass away. Yes; their minister whom they so loved—and who so loved
them all, that he could not depart heavenward without a sigh—had the
foreboding of untimely death upon him, and would soon leave them in
their tears! This idea of his transitory stay on earth gave the last
emphasis to the effect which the preacher had produced; it was as if
an angel, in his passage to the skies, had shaken his bright wings
over the people for an instant,—at once a shadow and a
splendor,—and had shed down a shower of golden truths upon them.

Thus, there had come to the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale—as to most men,
in their various spheres, though seldom recognized until they see it
far behind them—an epoch of life more brilliant and full of triumph
than any previous one, or than any which could hereafter be. He stood,
at this moment, on the very proudest eminence of superiority, to which
the gifts of intellect, rich lore, prevailing eloquence, and a
reputation of whitest sanctity, could exalt a clergyman in New
England’s earliest days, when the professional character was of itself
a lofty pedestal. Such was the position which the minister occupied,
as he bowed his head forward on the cushions of the pulpit, at the
close of his Election Sermon. Meanwhile Hester Prynne was standing
beside the scaffold of the pillory, with the scarlet letter still
burning on her breast!

Now was heard again the clangor of the music, and the measured tramp
of the military escort, issuing from the church-door. The procession
was to be marshalled thence to the town-hall, where a solemn banquet
would complete the ceremonies of the day.

Once more, therefore, the train of venerable and majestic fathers was
seen moving through a broad pathway of the people, who drew back
reverently, on either side, as the Governor and magistrates, the old
and wise men, the holy ministers, and all that were eminent and
renowned, advanced into the midst of them. When they were fairly in
the market-place, their presence was greeted by a shout. This—though
doubtless it might acquire additional force and volume from the
childlike loyalty which the age awarded to its rulers—was felt to be
an irrepressible outburst of enthusiasm kindled in the auditors by
that high strain of eloquence which was yet reverberating in their
ears. Each felt the impulse in himself, and, in the same breath,
caught it from his neighbor. Within the church, it had hardly been
kept down; beneath the sky, it pealed upward to the zenith. There were
human beings enough, and enough of highly wrought and symphonious
feeling, to produce that more impressive sound than the organ tones of
the blast, or the thunder, or the roar of the sea; even that mighty
swell of many voices, blended into one great voice by the universal
impulse which makes likewise one vast heart out of the many. Never,
from the soil of New England, had gone up such a shout! Never, on New
England soil, had stood the man so honored by his mortal brethren as
the preacher!

How fared it with him then? Were there not the brilliant particles of
a halo in the air about his head? So etherealized by spirit as he was,
and so apotheosized by worshipping admirers, did his footsteps, in the
procession, really tread upon the dust of earth?

As the ranks of military men and civil fathers moved onward, all eyes
were turned towards the point where the minister was seen to approach
among them. The shout died into a murmur, as one portion of the crowd
after another obtained a glimpse of him. How feeble and pale he
looked, amid all his triumph! The energy—or say, rather, the
inspiration which had held him up, until he should have delivered the
sacred message that brought its own strength along with it from
heaven—was withdrawn, now that it had so faithfully performed its
office. The glow, which they had just before beheld burning on his
cheek, was extinguished, like a flame that sinks down hopelessly
among the late-decaying embers. It seemed hardly the face of a man
alive, with such a death-like hue; it was hardly a man with life in
him, that tottered on his path so nervelessly, yet tottered, and did
not fall!

One of his clerical brethren,—it was the venerable John
Wilson,—observing the state in which Mr. Dimmesdale was left by the
retiring wave of intellect and sensibility, stepped forward hastily to
offer his support. The minister tremulously, but decidedly, repelled
the old man’s arm. He still walked onward, if that movement could be
so described, which rather resembled the wavering effort of an infant,
with its mother’s arms in view, outstretched to tempt him forward. And
now, almost imperceptible as were the latter steps of his progress, he
had come opposite the well-remembered and weather-darkened scaffold,
where, long since, with all that dreary lapse of time between, Hester
Prynne had encountered the world’s ignominious stare. There stood
Hester, holding little Pearl by the hand! And there was the scarlet
letter on her breast! The minister here made a pause; although the
music still played the stately and rejoicing march to which the
procession moved. It summoned him onward,—onward to the
festival!—but here he made a pause.

Bellingham, for the last few moments, had kept an anxious eye upon
him. He now left his own place in the procession, and advanced to give
assistance; judging, from Mr. Dimmesdale’s aspect, that he must
otherwise inevitably fall. But there was something in the latter’s
expression that warned back the magistrate, although a man not readily
obeying the vague intimations that pass from one spirit to another.
The crowd, meanwhile, looked on with awe and wonder. This earthly
faintness was, in their view, only another phase of the minister’s
celestial strength; nor would it have seemed a miracle too high to be
wrought for one so holy, had he ascended before their eyes, waxing
dimmer and brighter, and fading at last into the light of heaven.

He turned towards the scaffold, and stretched forth his arms.

“Hester,” said he, “come hither! Come, my little Pearl!”

It was a ghastly look with which he regarded them; but there was
something at once tender and strangely triumphant in it. The child,
with the bird-like motion which was one of her characteristics, flew
to him, and clasped her arms about his knees. Hester Prynne—slowly,
as if impelled by inevitable fate, and against her strongest
will—likewise drew near, but paused before she reached him. At this
instant, old Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the
crowd,—or, perhaps, so dark, disturbed, and evil, was his look, he
rose up out of some nether region,—to snatch back his victim from
what he sought to do! Be that as it might, the old man rushed forward,
and caught the minister by the arm.

“Madman, hold! what is your purpose?” whispered he. “Wave back that
woman! Cast off this child! All shall be well! Do not blacken your
fame, and perish in dishonor! I can yet save you! Would you bring
infamy on your sacred profession?”

“Ha, tempter! Methinks thou art too late!” answered the minister,
encountering his eye, fearfully, but firmly. “Thy power is not what it
was! With God’s help, I shall escape thee now!”

He again extended his hand to the woman of the scarlet letter.

“Hester Prynne,” cried he, with a piercing earnestness, “in the name
of Him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last
moment, to do what—for my own heavy sin and miserable agony—I
withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine
thy strength about me! Thy strength, Hester; but let it be guided by
the will which God hath granted me! This wretched and wronged old man
is opposing it with all his might!—with all his own might, and the
fiend’s! Come, Hester, come! Support me up yonder scaffold!”

The crowd was in a tumult. The men of rank and dignity, who stood more
immediately around the clergyman, were so taken by surprise, and so
perplexed as to the purport of what they saw,—unable to receive the
explanation which most readily presented itself, or to imagine any
other,—that they remained silent and inactive spectators of the
judgment which Providence seemed about to work. They beheld the
minister, leaning on Hester’s shoulder, and supported by her arm
around him, approach the scaffold, and ascend its steps; while still
the little hand of the sin-born child was clasped in his. Old Roger
Chillingworth followed, as one intimately connected with the drama of
guilt and sorrow in which they had all been actors, and well entitled,
therefore, to be present at its closing scene.

“Hadst thou sought the whole earth over,” said he, looking darkly at
the clergyman, “there was no one place so secret,—no high place nor
lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me,—save on this very
scaffold!”

“Thanks be to Him who hath led me hither!” answered the minister.

Yet he trembled, and turned to Hester with an expression of doubt and
anxiety in his eyes, not the less evidently betrayed, that there was a
feeble smile upon his lips.

“Is not this better,” murmured he, “than what we dreamed of in the
forest?”

“I know not! I know not!” she hurriedly replied. “Better? Yea; so we
may both die, and little Pearl die with us!”

“For thee and Pearl, be it as God shall order,” said the minister;
“and God is merciful! Let me now do the will which he hath made plain
before my sight. For, Hester, I am a dying man. So let me make haste
to take my shame upon me!”

Partly supported by Hester Prynne, and holding one hand of little
Pearl’s, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale turned to the dignified and
venerable rulers; to the holy ministers, who were his brethren; to the
people, whose great heart was thoroughly appalled, yet overflowing
with tearful sympathy, as knowing that some deep life-matter—which,
if full of sin, was full of anguish and repentance likewise—was now
to be laid open to them. The sun, but little past its meridian, shone
down upon the clergyman, and gave a distinctness to his figure, as he
stood out from all the earth, to put in his plea of guilty at the bar
of Eternal Justice.

“People of New England!” cried he, with a voice that rose over them,
high, solemn, and majestic,—yet had always a tremor through it, and
sometimes a shriek, struggling up out of a fathomless depth of remorse
and woe,—“ye, that have loved me!—ye, that have deemed me
holy!—behold me here, the one sinner of the world! At last!—at
last!—I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have
stood; here, with this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength
wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains me, at this dreadful
moment, from grovelling down upon my face! Lo, the scarlet letter
which Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! Wherever her walk
hath been,—wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to
find repose,—it hath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible
repugnance round about her. But there stood one in the midst of you,
at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!”

It seemed, at this point, as if the minister must leave the remainder
of his secret undisclosed. But he fought back the bodily
weakness,—and, still more, the faintness of heart,—that was striving
for the mastery with him. He threw off all assistance, and stepped
passionately forward a pace before the woman and the child.

“It was on him!” he continued, with a kind of fierceness; so
determined was he to speak out the whole. “God’s eye beheld it! The
angels were forever pointing at it! The Devil knew it well, and
fretted it continually with the touch of his burning finger! But he
hid it cunningly from men, and walked among you with the mien of a
spirit, mournful, because so pure in a sinful world!—and sad, because
he missed his heavenly kindred! Now, at the death-hour, he stands up
before you! He bids you look again at Hester’s scarlet letter! He
tells you, that, with all its mysterious horror, it is but the shadow
of what he bears on his own breast, and that even this, his own red
stigma, is no more than the type of what has seared his inmost heart!
Stand any here that question God’s judgment on a sinner? Behold!
Behold a dreadful witness of it!”

[Illustration: “Shall we not meet again?”]

With a convulsive motion, he tore away the ministerial band from
before his breast. It was revealed! But it were irreverent to describe
that revelation. For an instant, the gaze of the horror-stricken
multitude was concentred on the ghastly miracle; while the minister
stood, with a flush of triumph in his face, as one who, in the
crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory. Then, down he sank upon the
scaffold! Hester partly raised him, and supported his head against her
bosom. Old Roger Chillingworth knelt down beside him, with a blank,
dull countenance, out of which the life seemed to have departed.

“Thou hast escaped me!” he repeated more than once. “Thou hast escaped
me!”

“May God forgive thee!” said the minister. “Thou, too, hast deeply
sinned!”

He withdrew his dying eyes from the old man, and fixed them on the
woman and the child.

“My little Pearl,” said he, feebly,—and there was a sweet and gentle
smile over his face, as of a spirit sinking into deep repose; nay, now
that the burden was removed, it seemed almost as if he would be
sportive with the child,—“dear little Pearl, wilt thou kiss me now?
Thou wouldst not, yonder, in the forest! But now thou wilt?”

Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief,
in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her
sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father’s cheek, they were
the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor
forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her
mother, too, Pearl’s errand as a messenger of anguish was all
fulfilled.

“Hester,” said the clergyman, “farewell!”

“Shall we not meet again?” whispered she, bending her face down close
to his. “Shall we not spend our immortal life together? Surely,
surely, we have ransomed one another, with all this woe! Thou lookest
far into eternity, with those bright dying eyes! Then tell me what
thou seest?”

“Hush, Hester, hush!” said he, with tremulous solemnity. “The law we
broke!—the sin here so awfully revealed!—let these alone be in thy
thoughts! I fear! I fear! It may be, that, when we forgot our
God,—when we violated our reverence each for the other’s soul,—it
was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in an
everlasting and pure reunion. God knows; and He is merciful! He hath
proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions. By giving me this
burning torture to bear upon my breast! By sending yonder dark and
terrible old man, to keep the torture always at red-heat! By bringing
me hither, to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people!
Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost forever!
Praised be his name! His will be done! Farewell!”

That final word came forth with the minister’s expiring breath. The
multitude, silent till then, broke out in a strange, deep voice of awe
and wonder, which could not as yet find utterance, save in this murmur
that rolled so heavily after the departed spirit.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XXIV.