The Scarlet Letter
Page 48In 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
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
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
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.