Nathaniel Hawthorne/Nathaniel Hawthorne.iso/pc/articles/a1/t0026

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                                                      XXIV                                                  293
                                                  Conclusion

After many days, when time sufficed for the people to arrange their
thoughts in reference to the foregoing scene, there was more than one
account of what had been witnessed on the scaffold.
     Most of the spectators testified to having seen, on the breast of the
unhappy minister, a SCARLET LETTER--the very semblance of that worn
by Hester Prynne--imprinted in the flesh. As regarded its origin, there were
various explanations, all of which must necessarily have been conjectural.
Some affirmed that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the very day when
Hester Prynne first wore her ignominous badge, had begun a course of
penance,--which he afterwards, in so many futile methods, followed out,--
by inflicting a hideous torture on himself. Others contended that the stigma
had not been produced until a long time subsequent, when old Roger
Chillingworth, being a potent necromancer, had caused it to appear, through
the agency of magic and poisonous drugs. Others, again,--and those best
able to appreciate the minister's peculiar sensibility, and the wonderful
operation of his spirit upon the body,--whispered their belief, that the awful
symbol was the effect of the ever active tooth of remorse, gnawing from the
inmost heart outwardly, and at last manifesting Heaven's dreadful judgment
by the visible presence of the letter. The reader may choose among these
theories. We have thrown all the light we could acquire upon the portent,
and would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase its deep print out of
our own brain; where long meditation has fixed it in very undesirable
distinctness.
                        The Scarlet Letter -- XXIV. Conclusion                     294

     It is singular, nevertheless, that certain persons, who were spectators of
the whole scene, and professed never once to have removed their eyes from
the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, denied that there was any mark whatever on
his breast, more than on a new-born infant's. Neither, by their report, had
his dying words acknowledged, nor even remotely implied, any, the
slightest connection, on his part, with the guilt for which Hester Prynne had
so long worn the scarlet letter. According to these highly respectable
witnesses, the minister, conscious that he was dying,--conscious, also, that
the reverence of the multitude placed him already among saints and angels,--
had desired, by yielding up his breath in the arms of that fallen woman, to
express to the world how utterly nugatory is the choicest of man's own
righteousness. After exhausting life in his efforts for mankind's spiritual
good, he had made the manner of his death a parable, in order to impress on
his admirers the mighty and mournful lesson, that, in the view of Infinite
Purity, we are sinners all alike. It was to teach them, that the holiest among
us has but attained so far above his fellows as to discern more clearly the
Mercy which looks down, and repudiate more utterly the phantom of human
merit, which would look aspiringly upward. Without disputing a truth so
momentous, we must be allowed to consider this version of Mr.
Dimmesdale's story as only an instance of that stubborn fidelity with which
a man's friends--and especially a clergyman's--will sometimes uphold his
character; when proofs, clear as the mid-day sunshine on the scarlet letter,
establish him a false and sin-stained creature of the dust.
     The authority which we have chiefly followed--a manuscript of old date,
                        The Scarlet Letter -- XXIV. Conclusion                     295

drawn up from the verbal testimony of individuals, some of whom had
known Hester Prynne, while others had heard the tale from contemporary
witnesses--fully confirms the view taken in the foregoing pages. Among
many morals which press upon us from the poor minister's miserable
experience, we put only this into a sentence:--"Be true! Be true! Be true!
Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the
worst may be inferred!"
     Nothing was more remarkable than the change which took place, almost
immediately after Mr. Dimmesdale's death, in the appearance and
demeanour of the old man known as Roger Chillingworth. All his strength
and energy--all his vital and intellectual force--seemed at once to desert him;
insomuch that he positively withered up, shrivelled away, and almost
vanished from mortal sight, like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the
sun. This unhappy man had made the very principle of his life to consist in
the pursuit and systematic exercise of revenge; and when, by its completest
triumph and consummation, that evil principle was left with no further
material to support it,--when, in short, there was no more devil's work on
earth for him to do, it only remained for the unhumanized mortal to betake
himself whither his Master would find him tasks enough, and pay him his
wages duly. But, to all these shadowy beings, so long our near
acquaintances,--as well Roger Chillingworth as his companions,--we would
fain be merciful. It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether
hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost
development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge;
                        The Scarlet Letter -- XXIV. Conclusion                     296

each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and
spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less
passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object.
Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the
same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance, and the
other in a dusky and lurid glow. In the spiritual world, the old physician
and the minister--mutual victims as they have been--may, unawares, have
found their earthly stock of hatred and antipathy transmuted into golden
love.
     Leaving this discussion apart, we have a matter of business to
communicate to the reader. At old Roger Chillingworth's decease (which
took place within the year), and by his last will and testament, of which
Governor Bellingham and the Reverend Mr. Wilson were executors, he
bequeathed a very considerable amount of property, both here and in
England, to little Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne.
     So Pearl--the elf-child,--the demon offspring, as some people, up to that
epoch, persisted in considering her--became the richest heiress of her day,
in the New World. Not improbably, this circumstance wrought a very
material change in the public estimation; and, had the mother and child
remained here, little Pearl, at a marriageable period of life, might have
mingled her wild blood with the lineage of the devoutest Puritan among
them all. But, in no long time after the physician's death, the wearer of the
scarlet letter disappeared, and Pearl along with her. For many years, though
a vague report would now and then find its way across the sea,--like a
                        The Scarlet Letter -- XXIV. Conclusion                     297

shapeless piece of driftwood tost ashore, with the initials of a name upon
it,--yet no tidings of them unquestionably authentic were received. The
story of the scarlet letter grew into a legend. Its spell, however, was still
potent, and kept the scaffold awful where the poor minister had died, and
likewise the cottage by the sea-shore, where Hester Prynne had dwelt. Near
this latter spot, one afternoon, some children were at play, when they
beheld a tall woman, in a gray robe, approach the cottage-door. In all those
years it had never once been opened; but either she unlocked it, or the
decaying wood and iron yielded to her hand, or she glided shadow-like
through these impediments,--and, at all events, went in.
     On the threshold she paused,--turned partly round,--for, perchance, the
idea of entering, all alone, and all so changed, the home of so intense a
former life, was more dreary and desolate than even she could bear. But her
hesitation was only for an instant, though long enough to display a scarlet
letter on her breast.
     And Hester Prynne had returned, and taken up her long-forsaken shame.
But where was little Pearl? If still alive, she must now have been in the
flush and bloom of early womanhood. None knew--nor ever learned, with
the fulness of perfect certainty--whether the elf-child had gone thus untimely
to a maiden grave; or whether her wild, rich nature had been softened and
subdued, and made capable of a woman's gentle happiness. But, through
the remainder of Hester's life, there were indications that the recluse of the
scarlet letter was the object of love and interest with some inhabitant of
another land. Letters came, with armorial seals upon them, though of
                        The Scarlet Letter -- XXIV. Conclusion                     298

bearings unknown to English heraldry. In the cottage there were articles of
comfort and luxury, such as Hester never cared to use, but which only
wealth could have purchased, and affection have imagined for her. There
were trifles, too, little ornaments, beautiful tokens of a continual
remembrance, that must have been wrought by delicate fingers, at the
impulse of a fond heart. And, once, Hester was seen embroidering a baby-
garment, with such a lavish richness of golden fancy as would have raised a
public tumult, had any infant, thus apparelled, been shown to our sombre-
hued community.
     In fine, the gossips of that day believed,--and Mr. Surveyor Pue, who
made investigations a century later, believed,--and one of his recent
successors in office, moreover, faithfully believes,--that Pearl was not only
alive, but married, and happy, and mindful of her mother; and that she
would most joyfully have entertained that sad and lonely mother at her
fireside.
     But there was a more real life for Hester Prynne, here, in New England,
than in that unknown region where Pearl had found a home. Here had been
her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence. She had
returned, therefore, and resumed,--of her own free will, for not the sternest
magistrate of that iron period would have imposed it,--resumed the symbol
of which we have related so dark a tale. Never afterwards did it quit her
bosom. But, in the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful, and self-devoted years
that made up Hester's life, the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which
attracted the world's scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something
                        The Scarlet Letter -- XXIV. Conclusion                     299

to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too.
And, as Hester Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in any measure for her
own profit and enjoyment, people brought all their sorrows and
perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone
through a mighty trouble. Women, more especially,--in the continually
recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and
sinful passion,--or with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, because
unvalued and unsought,--came to Hester's cottage, demanding why they
were so wretched, and what the remedy! Hester comforted and counselled
them, as best she might. She assured them, too, of her firm belief, that, at
some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in
Heaven's own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the
whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual
happiness. Earlier in life, Hester had vainly imagined that she herself might
be the destined prophetess, but had long since recognized the impossibility
that any mission of divine and mysterious truth should be confided to a
woman stained with sin, bowed down with shame, or even burdened with a
life-long sorrow. The angel and apostle of the coming revelation must be a
woman, indeed, but lofty, pure, and beautiful; and wise, moreover, not
through dusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy; and showing how
sacred love should make us happy, by the truest test of a life successful to
such an end!
     So said Hester Prynne, and glanced her sad eyes downward at the scarlet
letter. And, after many, many years, a new grave was delved, near an old
                        The Scarlet Letter -- XXIV. Conclusion                     300

and sunken one, in that burial-ground beside which King's Chapel has
since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space
between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one
tombstone served for both. All around, there were monuments carved with
armorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate--as the curious
investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport--there
appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a
herald's wording of which might serve for a motto and brief description of
our now concluded legend; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-
glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow:--

                             "On a field, sable, the letter A, gules."

                                                    THE END.