Nathaniel Hawthorne/Nathaniel Hawthorne.iso/pc/articles/a1/t0005

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                                                          III                                                   67
                                            The Recognition

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.
     He was small in stature, with a furrowed visage, which, as yet, could
hardly be termed aged. There was a remarkable intelligence in his features,
as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to
mould the physical to itself, and become manifest by unmistakable tokens.
Although, by a seemingly careless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb,
he had endeavoured to conceal or abate the peculiarity, it was sufficiently
evident to Hester Prynne, that one of this man's shoulders rose higher than
the other. Again, at the first instant of perceiving that thin visage, and the
slight deformity of the figure, she pressed her infant to her bosom, with so
convulsive a force that the poor babe uttered another cry of pain. But the
mother did not seem to hear it.
     At his arrival in the market-place, and some time before she saw him, the
stranger had bent his eyes on Hester Prynne. It was carelessly, at first, like
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a man chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external matters are
of little value and import, unless they bear relation to something within his
mind. Very soon, however, his look became keen and penetrative. A
writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly
over them, and making one little pause, with all its wreathed intervolutions
in open sight. His face darkened with some powerful emotion, which,
nevertheless, he so instantaneously controlled by an effort of his will, that,
save at a single moment, its expression might have passed for calmness.
After a brief space, the convulsion grew almost imperceptible, and finally
subsided into the depths of his nature. When he found the eyes of Hester
Prynne fastened on his own, and saw that she appeared to recognize him,
he slowly and calmly raised his finger, made a gesture with it in the air, and
laid it on his lips.
     Then, touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood next to him, he
addressed him in a formal and courteous manner.
     "I pray you, good Sir," said he, "who is this woman?--and wherefore is
she here set up to public shame?"
     "You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend," answered the
townsman, looking curiously at the questioner and his savage companion;
"else you would surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prynne, and her evil
doings. She hath raised a great scandal, I promise you, in godly Master
Dimmesdale's church."
     "You say truly," replied the other. "I am a stranger, and have been a
wanderer, sorely against my will. I have met with grievous mishaps by sea
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and land, and have been long held in bonds among the heathen-folk, to the
southward; and am now brought hither by this Indian, to be redeemed out
of my captivity. Will it please you, therefore, to tell me of Hester Prynne's,
--have I her name rightly?--of this woman's offences, and what has brought
her to yonder scaffold?"
     "Truly, friend, and methinks it must gladden your heart, after your
troubles and sojourn in the wilderness," said the townsman, "to find
yourself, at length, in a land where iniquity is searched out, and punished
in the sight of rulers and people; as here in our godly New England. Yonder
woman, Sir, you must know, was the wife of a certain learned man,
English by birth, but who had long dwelt in Amsterdam, whence, some
good time agone, he was minded to cross over and cast in his lot with us of
the Massachusetts. To this purpose, he sent his wife before him, remaining
himself to look after some necessary affairs. Marry, good Sir, in some two
years, or less, that the woman has been a dweller here in Boston, no tidings
have come of this learned gentleman, Master Prynne; and his young wife,
look you, being left to her own misguidance----"
     "Ah!--aha!--I conceive you," said the stranger, with a bitter smile. "So
learned a man as you speak of should have learned this too in his books.
And who, by your favor, Sir, may be the father of yonder babe--it is some
three or four months old, I should judge--which Mistress Prynne is holding
in her arms?"
     "Of a truth, friend, that matter remaineth a riddle; and the Daniel who
shall expound it is yet a-wanting," answered the townsman. "Madam Hester
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absolutely refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid their heads
together in vain. Peradventure the guilty one stands looking on at this sad
spectacle, unknown of man, and forgetting that God sees him."
     "The learned man," observed the stranger, with another smile, "should
come himself to look into the mystery."
     "It behooves him well, if he be still in life," responded the townsman.
"Now, good Sir, our Massachusetts magistracy, bethinking themselves that
this woman is youthful and fair, and doubtless was strongly tempted to her
fall;--and that, moreover, as is most likely, her husband may be at the
bottom of the sea;--they have not been bold to put in force the extremity of
our righteous law against her. The penalty thereof is death. But, in their
great mercy and tenderness of heart, they have doomed Mistress Prynne to
stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then
and thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life, to wear a mark of shame
upon her bosom."
     "A wise sentence!" remarked the stranger, gravely bowing his head.
"Thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the ignominious letter be
engraved upon her tombstone. It irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of
her iniquity should not, at least, stand on the scaffold by her side. But he
will be known!--he will be known!--he will be known!"
     He bowed courteously to the communicative townsman, and,
whispering a few words to his Indian attendant, they both made their way
through the crowd.
     While this passed, Hester Prynne had been standing on her pedestal, still
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with a fixed gaze towards the stranger; so fixed a gaze, that, at moments of
intense absorption, all other objects in the visible world seemed to vanish,
leaving only him and her. Such an interview, perhaps, would have been
more terrible than even to meet him as she now did, with the hot, mid-day
sun burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame; with the scarlet
token of infamy on her breast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a
whole people, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that should
have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow
of a home, or beneath a matronly veil, at church. Dreadful as it was, she
was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses. It
was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet
him, face to face, they two alone. She fled for refuge, as it were, to the
public exposure, and dreaded the moment when its protection should be
withdrawn from her. Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice
behind her, until it had repeated her name more than once, in a loud and
solemn tone, audible to the whole multitude.
     "Hearken unto me, Hester Prynne!" said the voice.
     It has already been noticed, that directly over the platform on which
Hester Prynne stood was a kind of balcony, or open gallery, appended to
the meeting-house. It was the place whence proclamations were wont to be
made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that
attended such public observances in those days. Here, to witness the scene
which we are describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself, with four
sergeants about his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard of honor. He wore a
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dark feather in his hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black
velvet tunic beneath; a gentleman advanced in years, and with a hard
experience written in his wrinkles. He was not ill fitted to be the head and
representative of a community, which owed its origin and progress, and its
present state of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern
and tempered energies of manhood, and the sombre sagacity of age;
accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined and hoped so little.
The other eminent characters, by whom the chief ruler was surrounded,
were distinguished by a dignity of mien, belonging to a period when the
forms of authority were felt to possess the sacredness of divine institutions.
They were, doubtless, good men, just, and sage. But, out of the whole
human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of
wise and virtuous persons, who should be less capable of sitting in
judgment on an erring woman's heart, and disentangling its mesh of good
and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now
turned her face. She seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever sympathy she
might expect lay in the larger and warmer heart of the multitude; for, as she
lifted her eyes towards the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale and
trembled.
     The voice which had called her attention was that of the reverend and
famous John Wilson, the eldest clergyman of Boston, a great scholar, like
most of his contemporaries in the profession, and withal a man of kind and
genial spirit. This last attribute, however, had been less carefully developed
than his intellectual gifts, and was, in truth, rather a matter of shame than
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self-congratulation with him. There he stood, with a border of grizzled
locks beneath his skull-cap; while his gray eyes, accustomed to the shaded
light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester's infant, in the
unadulterated sunshine. He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which
we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons; and had no more right than one
of those portraits would have, to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with
a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish.
     "Hester Prynne," said the clergyman, "I have striven with my young
brother here, under whose preaching of the word you have been privileged
to sit,"--here Mr. Wilson laid his hand on the shoulder of a pale young man
beside him,--"I have sought, I say, to persuade this godly youth, that he
should deal with you, here in the face of Heaven, and before these wise and
upright rulers, and in hearing of all the people, as touching the vileness and
blackness of your sin. Knowing your natural temper better than I, he could
the better judge what arguments to use, whether of tenderness or terror,
such as might prevail over your hardness and obstinacy; insomuch that you
should no longer hide the name of him who tempted you to this grievous
fall. But he opposes to me, (with a young man's oversoftness, albeit wise
beyond his years,) that it were wronging the very nature of woman to force
her to lay open her heart's secrets in such broad daylight, and in presence of
so great a multitude. Truly, as I sought to convince him, the shame lay in
the commission of the sin, and not in the showing of it forth. What say you
to it, once again, brother Dimmesdale? Must it be thou or I that shall deal
with this poor sinner's soul?"
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     There was a murmur among the dignified and reverend occupants of the
balcony; and Governor Bellingham gave expression to its purport, speaking
in an authoritative voice, although tempered with respect towards the
youthful clergyman whom he addressed.
     "Good Master Dimmesdale," said he, "the responsibility of this
woman's soul lies greatly with you. It behooves you, therefore, to exhort
her to repentance, and to confession, as a proof and consequence thereof."
     The directness of this appeal drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon the
Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale; a young clergyman, who had come from one of
the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our
wild forest-land. His eloquence and religious fervor had already given the
earnest of high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very
striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow, large, brown,
melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed
it, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast
power of self-restraint. Notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-
like attainments, there was an air about this young minister,--an
apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look,--as of a being who felt
himself quite astray and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, and
could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own. Therefore, so far as his
duties would permit, he trode in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept
himself simple and childlike; coming forth, when occasion was, with a
freshness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many
people said, affected them like the speech of an angel.
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     Such was the young man whom the Reverend Mr. Wilson and the
Governor had introduced so openly to the public notice, bidding him speak,
in the hearing of all men, to that mystery of a woman's soul, so sacred even
in its pollution. The trying nature of his position drove the blood from his
cheek, and made his lips tremulous.
     "Speak to the woman, my brother," said Mr. Wilson. "It is of moment to
her soul, and therefore, as the worshipful Governor says, momentous to
thine own, in whose charge hers is. Exhort her to confess the truth!"
     The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale bent his head, in silent prayer, as it
seemed, and then came forward.
     "Hester Prynne," said he, leaning over the balcony, and looking down
stedfastly into her eyes, "thou hearest what this good man says, and seest
the accountability under which I labor. If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's
peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual
to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and
fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for
him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high
place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were
it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for
him, except it tempt him--yea, compel him, as it were--to add hypocrisy to
sin? Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest
work out an open triumph over the evil within thee, and the sorrow without.
Take heed how thou deniest to him--who, perchance, hath not the courage
to grasp it for himself--the bitter, but wholesome, cup that is now presented
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to thy lips!"
     The young pastor's voice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, and
broken. The feeling that it so evidently manifested, rather than the direct
purport of the words, caused it to vibrate within all hearts, and brought the
listeners into one accord of sympathy. Even the poor baby, at Hester's
bosom, was affected by the same influence; for it directed its hitherto vacant
gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms, with a half
pleased, half plaintive murmur. So powerful seemed the minister's appeal,
that the people could not believe but that Hester Prynne would speak out the
guilty name; or else that the guilty one himself, in whatever high or lowly
place he stood, would be drawn forth by an inward and inevitable necessity,
and compelled to ascend the scaffold.
     Hester shook her head.
     "Woman, transgress not beyond the limits of Heaven's mercy!" cried the
Reverend Mr. Wilson, more harshly than before. "That little babe hath been
gifted with a voice, to second and confirm the counsel which thou hast
heard. Speak out the name! That, and thy repentance, may avail to take the
scarlet letter off thy breast."
     "Never!" replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. Wilson, but into the
deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. "It is too deeply branded.
Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well as
mine!"
     "Speak, woman!" said another voice, coldly and sternly, proceeding
from the crowd about the scaffold. "Speak; and give your child a father!"
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     "I will not speak!" answered Hester, turning pale as death, but
responding to this voice, which she too surely recognized. "And my child
must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly one!"
     "She will not speak!" murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, who, leaning over the
balcony, with his hand upon his heart, had awaited the result of his appeal.
He now drew back, with a long respiration. "Wondrous strength and
generosity of a woman's heart! She will not speak!"
     Discerning the impracticable state of the poor culprit's mind, the elder
clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addressed
to the multitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continual
reference to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did he dwell upon this
symbol, for the hour or more during which his periods were rolling over the
people's heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, and seemed
to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit. Hester Prynne,
meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes,
and an air of weary indifference. She had borne, that morning, all that
nature could endure; and as her temperament was not of the order that
escapes from too intense suffering by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter
itself beneath a stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties of animal life
remained entire. In this state, the voice of the preacher thundered
remorselessly, but unavailingly, upon her ears. The infant, during the latter
portion of her ordeal, pierced the air with its wailings and screams; she
strove to hush it, mechanically, but seemed scarcely to sympathize with its
trouble. With the same hard demeanour, she was led back to prison, and
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vanished from the public gaze within its iron-clamped portal. It was
whispered, by those who peered after her, that the scarlet letter threw a lurid
gleam along the dark passage-way of the interior.