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Had
there
been
a
Papist
among
the
crowd
of
Puritans
,
he
might
have
seen
in
this
beautiful
woman
,
so
picturesque
in
her
attire
and
mien
,
and
with
the
infant
at
her
bosom
,
an
object
to
remind
him
of
the
image
of
Divine
Maternity
,
which
so
many
illustrious
painters
have
vied
with
one
another
to
represent
;
something
which
should
remind
him
,
indeed
,
but
only
by
contrast
,
of
that
sacred
image
of
sinless
motherhood
,
whose
infant
was
to
redeem
the
world
.
Here
,
there
was
the
taint
of
deepest
sin
in
the
most
sacred
quality
of
human
life
,
working
such
effect
,
that
the
world
was
only
the
darker
for
this
woman
's
beauty
,
and
the
more
lost
for
the
infant
that
she
had
borne
.
The
scene
was
not
without
a
mixture
of
awe
,
such
as
must
always
invest
the
spectacle
of
guilt
and
shame
in
a
fellow-creature
,
before
society
shall
have
grown
corrupt
enough
to
smile
,
instead
of
shuddering
at
it
.
The
witnesses
of
Hester
Prynne
's
disgrace
had
not
yet
passed
beyond
their
simplicity
.
They
were
stern
enough
to
look
upon
her
death
,
had
that
been
the
sentence
,
without
a
murmur
at
its
severity
,
but
had
none
of
the
heartlessness
of
another
social
state
,
which
would
find
only
a
theme
for
jest
in
an
exhibition
like
the
present
.
Even
had
there
been
a
disposition
to
turn
the
matter
into
ridicule
,
it
must
have
been
repressed
and
overpowered
by
the
solemn
presence
of
men
no
less
dignified
than
the
governor
,
and
several
of
his
counsellors
,
a
judge
,
a
general
,
and
the
ministers
of
the
town
,
all
of
whom
sat
or
stood
in
a
balcony
of
the
meeting-house
,
looking
down
upon
the
platform
.
When
such
personages
could
constitute
a
part
of
the
spectacle
,
without
risking
the
majesty
,
or
reverence
of
rank
and
office
,
it
was
safely
to
be
inferred
that
the
infliction
of
a
legal
sentence
would
have
an
earnest
and
effectual
meaning
.
Accordingly
,
the
crowd
was
sombre
and
grave
.
The
unhappy
culprit
sustained
herself
as
best
a
woman
might
,
under
the
heavy
weight
of
a
thousand
unrelenting
eyes
,
all
fastened
upon
her
,
and
concentrated
at
her
bosom
.
It
was
almost
intolerable
to
be
borne
.
Of
an
impulsive
and
passionate
nature
,
she
had
fortified
herself
to
encounter
the
stings
and
venomous
stabs
of
public
contumely
,
wreaking
itself
in
every
variety
of
insult
;
but
there
was
a
quality
so
much
more
terrible
in
the
solemn
mood
of
the
popular
mind
,
that
she
longed
rather
to
behold
all
those
rigid
countenances
contorted
with
scornful
merriment
,
and
herself
the
object
.
Had
a
roar
of
laughter
burst
from
the
multitude
--
each
man
,
each
woman
,
each
little
shrill-voiced
child
,
contributing
their
individual
parts
--
Hester
Prynne
might
have
repaid
them
all
with
a
bitter
and
disdainful
smile
.
But
,
under
the
leaden
infliction
which
it
was
her
doom
to
endure
,
she
felt
,
at
moments
,
as
if
she
must
needs
shriek
out
with
the
full
power
of
her
lungs
,
and
cast
herself
from
the
scaffold
down
upon
the
ground
,
or
else
go
mad
at
once
.
Yet
there
were
intervals
when
the
whole
scene
,
in
which
she
was
the
most
conspicuous
object
,
seemed
to
vanish
from
her
eyes
,
or
,
at
least
,
glimmered
indistinctly
before
them
,
like
a
mass
of
imperfectly
shaped
and
spectral
images
.
Her
mind
,
and
especially
her
memory
,
was
preternaturally
active
,
and
kept
bringing
up
other
scenes
than
this
roughly
hewn
street
of
a
little
town
,
on
the
edge
of
the
western
wilderness
:
other
faces
than
were
lowering
upon
her
from
beneath
the
brims
of
those
steeple-crowned
hats
.
Reminiscences
,
the
most
trifling
and
immaterial
,
passages
of
infancy
and
school-days
,
sports
,
childish
quarrels
,
and
the
little
domestic
traits
of
her
maiden
years
,
came
swarming
back
upon
her
,
intermingled
with
recollections
of
whatever
was
gravest
in
her
subsequent
life
;
one
picture
precisely
as
vivid
as
another
;
as
if
all
were
of
similar
importance
,
or
all
alike
a
play
.
Possibly
,
it
was
an
instinctive
device
of
her
spirit
to
relieve
itself
by
the
exhibition
of
these
phantasmagoric
forms
,
from
the
cruel
weight
and
hardness
of
the
reality
.
Be
that
as
it
might
,
the
scaffold
of
the
pillory
was
a
point
of
view
that
revealed
to
Hester
Prynne
the
entire
track
along
which
she
had
been
treading
,
since
her
happy
infancy
.
Standing
on
that
miserable
eminence
,
she
saw
again
her
native
village
,
in
Old
England
,
and
her
paternal
home
:
a
decayed
house
of
grey
stone
,
with
a
poverty-stricken
aspect
,
but
retaining
a
half
obliterated
shield
of
arms
over
the
portal
,
in
token
of
antique
gentility
.
She
saw
her
father
's
face
,
with
its
bold
brow
,
and
reverend
white
beard
that
flowed
over
the
old-fashioned
Elizabethan
ruff
;
her
mother
's
,
too
,
with
the
look
of
heedful
and
anxious
love
which
it
always
wore
in
her
remembrance
,
and
which
,
even
since
her
death
,
had
so
often
laid
the
impediment
of
a
gentle
remonstrance
in
her
daughter
's
pathway
.
She
saw
her
own
face
,
glowing
with
girlish
beauty
,
and
illuminating
all
the
interior
of
the
dusky
mirror
in
which
she
had
been
wont
to
gaze
at
it
.
There
she
beheld
another
countenance
,
of
a
man
well
stricken
in
years
,
a
pale
,
thin
,
scholar-like
visage
,
with
eyes
dim
and
bleared
by
the
lamp-light
that
had
served
them
to
pore
over
many
ponderous
books
.
Yet
those
same
bleared
optics
had
a
strange
,
penetrating
power
,
when
it
was
their
owner
's
purpose
to
read
the
human
soul
.
This
figure
of
the
study
and
the
cloister
,
as
Hester
Prynne
's
womanly
fancy
failed
not
to
recall
,
was
slightly
deformed
,
with
the
left
shoulder
a
trifle
higher
than
the
right
Next
rose
before
her
in
memory
's
picture-gallery
,
the
intricate
and
narrow
thoroughfares
,
the
tall
,
grey
houses
,
the
huge
cathedrals
,
and
the
public
edifices
,
ancient
in
date
and
quaint
in
architecture
,
of
a
continental
city
;
where
new
life
had
awaited
her
,
still
in
connexion
with
the
misshapen
scholar
:
a
new
life
,
but
feeding
itself
on
time-worn
materials
,
like
a
tuft
of
green
moss
on
a
crumbling
wall
.
Lastly
,
in
lieu
of
these
shifting
scenes
,
came
back
the
rude
market-place
of
the
Puritan
,
settlement
,
with
all
the
townspeople
assembled
,
and
levelling
their
stern
regards
at
Hester
Prynne
--
yes
,
at
herself
--
who
stood
on
the
scaffold
of
the
pillory
,
an
infant
on
her
arm
,
and
the
letter
A
,
in
scarlet
,
fantastically
embroidered
with
gold
thread
,
upon
her
bosom
.
Could
it
be
true
?
She
clutched
the
child
so
fiercely
to
her
breast
that
it
sent
forth
a
cry
;
she
turned
her
eyes
downward
at
the
scarlet
letter
,
and
even
touched
it
with
her
finger
,
to
assure
herself
that
the
infant
and
the
shame
were
real
.
Yes
these
were
her
realities
--
all
else
had
vanished
!
From
this
intense
consciousness
of
being
the
object
of
severe
and
universal
observation
,
the
wearer
of
the
scarlet
letter
was
at
length
relieved
,
by
discerning
,
on
the
outskirts
of
the
crowd
,
a
figure
which
irresistibly
took
possession
of
her
thoughts
.
An
Indian
in
his
native
garb
was
standing
there
;
but
the
red
men
were
not
so
infrequent
visitors
of
the
English
settlements
that
one
of
them
would
have
attracted
any
notice
from
Hester
Prynne
at
such
a
time
;
much
less
would
he
have
excluded
all
other
objects
and
ideas
from
her
mind
.
By
the
Indian
's
side
,
and
evidently
sustaining
a
companionship
with
him
,
stood
a
white
man
,
clad
in
a
strange
disarray
of
civilized
and
savage
costume
.
