Nathaniel Hawthorne/Nathaniel Hawthorne.iso/pc/articles/a1/t0021

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                                                        XIX                                                  235
                                     The 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
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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
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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 stedfastly at them through the dim
medium of the forest-gloom; herself, meanwhile, all glorified with a ray of
sunshine, that was attracted thither-ward 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
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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!"
     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
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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 behaviour 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
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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 for ever!"
     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
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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
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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,
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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.