The Scarlet Letter

When the young woman--the mother of this child--stood fully

revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to

clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse

of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a

certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In

a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame

would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her

arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a

glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her

townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine

red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic

flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so

artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous

luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and

fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore, and which was

of a splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, but

greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of

the colony.

The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a

large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it

threw off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides

being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of

complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow

and deep black eyes. She was ladylike, too, after the manner of

the feminine gentility of those days; characterised by a certain

state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and

indescribable grace which is now recognised as its indication.

And never had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike, in the

antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the

prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to

behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were

astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone

out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she

was enveloped. It may be true that, to a sensitive observer,

there was some thing exquisitely painful in it. Her attire,

which indeed, she had wrought for the occasion in prison, and

had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the

attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood,

by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which

drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer--so that

both men and women who had been familiarly acquainted with

Hester Prynne were now impressed as if they beheld her for the

first time--was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically

embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of

a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity,

and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.