The Scarlet Letter

Without further expostulation or delay, Hester Prynne drained

the cup, and, at the motion of the man of skill, seated herself

on the bed, where the child was sleeping; while he drew the only

chair which the room afforded, and took his own seat beside her.

She could not but tremble at these preparations; for she felt

that--having now done all that humanity, or principle, or, if so

it were, a refined cruelty, impelled him to do for the relief of

physical suffering--he was next to treat with her as the man

whom she had most deeply and irreparably injured.

"Hester," said he, "I ask not wherefore, nor how thou hast

fallen into the pit, or say, rather, thou hast ascended to the

pedestal of infamy on which I found thee. The reason is not far

to seek. It was my folly, and thy weakness. I--a man of

thought--the book-worm of great libraries--a man already in

decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of

knowledge--what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine

own? Misshapen from my birth-hour, how could I delude myself

with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical

deformity in a young girl's fantasy? Men call me wise. If sages

were ever wise in their own behoof, I might have foreseen all

this. I might have known that, as I came out of the vast and

dismal forest, and entered this settlement of Christian men, the

very first object to meet my eyes would be thyself, Hester

Prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy, before the people.

Nay, from the moment when we came down the old church-steps

together, a married pair, I might have beheld the bale-fire of

that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!"

"Thou knowest," said Hester--for, depressed as she was, she

could not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her

shame--"thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love,

nor feigned any."

"True," replied he. "It was my folly! I have said it. But, up

to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. The world had

been so cheerless! My heart was a habitation large enough for

many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire.

I longed to kindle one! It seemed not so wild a dream--old as I

was, and sombre as I was, and misshapen as I was--that the

simple bliss, which is scattered far and wide, for all mankind

to gather up, might yet be mine. And so, Hester, I drew thee

into my heart, into its innermost chamber, and sought to warm

thee by the warmth which thy presence made there!"

"I have greatly wronged thee," murmured Hester.

"We have wronged each other," answered he. "Mine was the first

wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and

unnatural relation with my decay. Therefore, as a man who has

not thought and philosophised in vain, I seek no vengeance, plot

no evil against thee. Between thee and me, the scale hangs

fairly balanced. But, Hester, the man lives who has wronged us

both! Who is he?"