In this manner, Hester Prynne came to have a part to perform in

the world. With her native energy of character and rare

capacity, it could not entirely cast her off, although it had

set a mark upon her, more intolerable to a woman's heart than

that which branded the brow of Cain. In all her intercourse with

society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she

belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence

of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often

expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she

inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature

by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. She

stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a

ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer

make itself seen or felt; no more smile with the household joy,

nor mourn with the kindred sorrow; or, should it succeed in

manifesting its forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror and

horrible repugnance. These emotions, in fact, and its bitterest

scorn besides, seemed to be the sole portion that she retained

in the universal heart. It was not an age of delicacy; and her

position, although she understood it well, and was in little

danger of forgetting it, was often brought before her vivid

self-perception, like a new anguish, by the rudest touch upon

the tenderest spot. The poor, as we have already said, whom she

sought out to be the objects of her bounty, often reviled the

hand that was stretched forth to succour them. Dames of elevated

rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her

occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into

her heart; sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by

which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles;

and sometimes, also, by a coarser expression, that fell upon the

sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an

ulcerated wound. Hester had schooled herself long and well; and

she never responded to these attacks, save by a flush of crimson

that rose irrepressibly over her pale cheek, and again subsided

into the depths of her bosom. She was patient--a martyr, indeed

but she forebore to pray for enemies, lest, in spite of her

forgiving aspirations, the words of the blessing should

stubbornly twist themselves into a curse.

Continually, and in a thousand other ways, did she feel the

innumerable throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly

contrived for her by the undying, the ever-active sentence of

the Puritan tribunal. Clergymen paused in the streets, to

address words of exhortation, that brought a crowd, with its

mingled grin and frown, around the poor, sinful woman. If she

entered a church, trusting to share the Sabbath smile of the

Universal Father, it was often her mishap to find herself the

text of the discourse. She grew to have a dread of children; for

they had imbibed from their parents a vague idea of something

horrible in this dreary woman gliding silently through the town,

with never any companion but one only child. Therefore, first

allowing her to pass, they pursued her at a distance with shrill

cries, and the utterances of a word that had no distinct purport

to their own minds, but was none the less terrible to her, as

proceeding from lips that babbled it unconsciously. It seemed to

argue so wide a diffusion of her shame, that all nature knew of

it; it could have caused her no deeper pang had the leaves of

the trees whispered the dark story among themselves--had the

summer breeze murmured about it--had the wintry blast shrieked

it aloud! Another peculiar torture was felt in the gaze of a new

eye. When strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter and

none ever failed to do so--they branded it afresh in Hester's

soul; so that, oftentimes, she could scarcely refrain, yet

always did refrain, from covering the symbol with her hand. But

then, again, an accustomed eye had likewise its own anguish to

inflict. Its cool stare of familiarity was intolerable. From

first to last, in short, Hester Prynne had always this dreadful

agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew

callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with

daily torture.




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