The Scarlet Letter

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.