The Scarlet Letter

Gazing at Pearl, Hester Prynne often dropped her work upon her

knees, and cried out with an agony which she would fain have

hidden, but which made utterance for itself betwixt speech and a

groan--"O Father in Heaven--if Thou art still my Father--what is

this being which I have brought into the world?" And Pearl,

overhearing the ejaculation, or aware through some more subtile

channel, of those throbs of anguish, would turn her vivid and

beautiful little face upon her mother, smile with sprite-like

intelligence, and resume her play.

One peculiarity of the child's deportment remains yet to be

told. The very first thing which she had noticed in her life,

was--what?--not the mother's smile, responding to it, as other

babies do, by that faint, embryo smile of the little mouth,

remembered so doubtfully afterwards, and with such fond

discussion whether it were indeed a smile. By no means! But that

first object of which Pearl seemed to become aware was--shall we

say it?--the scarlet letter on Hester's bosom! One day, as her

mother stooped over the cradle, the infant's eyes had been

caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the

letter; and putting up her little hand she grasped at it,

smiling, not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam, that gave her

face the look of a much older child. Then, gasping for breath,

did Hester Prynne clutch the fatal token, instinctively

endeavouring to tear it away, so infinite was the torture

inflicted by the intelligent touch of Pearl's baby-hand. Again,

as if her mother's agonised gesture were meant only to make

sport for her, did little Pearl look into her eyes, and smile.

From that epoch, except when the child was asleep, Hester had

never felt a moment's safety: not a moment's calm enjoyment of

her. Weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse, during which

Pearl's gaze might never once be fixed upon the scarlet letter;

but then, again, it would come at unawares, like the stroke of

sudden death, and always with that peculiar smile and odd

expression of the eyes.

Once this freakish, elvish cast came into the child's eyes while

Hester was looking at her own image in them, as mothers are fond

of doing; and suddenly for women in solitude, and with troubled

hearts, are pestered with unaccountable delusions she fancied

that she beheld, not her own miniature portrait, but another

face in the small black mirror of Pearl's eye. It was a face,

fiend-like, full of smiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of

features that she had known full well, though seldom with a

smile, and never with malice in them. It was as if an evil

spirit possessed the child, and had just then peeped forth in

mockery. Many a time afterwards had Hester been tortured, though

less vividly, by the same illusion.