No More Learning

"Hast thou not tortured him enough? " said Hester, noticing the old
man's look. "Has he not paid thee all? "

"No! --no! --He has but increased the debt! " answered the physician; and
as he proceeded his manner lost its fiercer characteristics, and
subsided into gloom. "Dost thou remember me, Hester, as I was nine
years agone? Even then, I was in the autumn of my days, nor was it the
early autumn. But all my life had been made up of earnest, studious,
thoughtful, quiet years, bestowed faithfully for the increase of mine
own knowledge, and faithfully, too, though this latter object was but
casual to the other,--faithfully for the advancement of human welfare.
No life had been more peaceful and innocent than mine; few lives so
rich with benefits conferred. Dost thou remember me? Was I not, though
you might deem me cold, nevertheless a man thoughtful for others,
craving little for himself,--kind, true, just, and of constant, if not
warm affections? Was I not all this? "

"All this, and more," said Hester.

"And what am I now? " demanded he, looking into her face, and
permitting the whole evil within him to be written on his features. "I
have already told thee what I am! A fiend! Who made me so? "

"It was myself! " cried Hester, shuddering. "It was I, not less than
he. Why hast thou not avenged thyself on me? "

"I have left thee to the scarlet letter," replied Roger Chillingworth.
"If that have not avenged me, I can do no more! "

He laid his finger on it, with a smile.

"It has avenged thee! " answered Hester Prynne.

"I judged no less," said the physician. "And now, what wouldst thou
with me touching this man? "

"I must reveal the secret," answered Hester, firmly. "He must discern
thee in thy true character. What may be the result, I know not. But
this long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin
I have been, shall at length be paid. So far as concerns the overthrow
or preservation of his fair fame and his earthly state, and perchance
his life, he is in thy hands. Nor do I,--whom the scarlet letter has
disciplined to truth, though it be the truth of red-hot iron, entering
into the soul,--nor do I perceive such advantage in his living any
longer a life of ghastly emptiness, that I shall stoop to implore thy
mercy. Do with him as thou wilt! There is no good for him,--no good
for me,--no good for thee! There is no good for little Pearl! There is
no path to guide us out of this dismal maze! "

"Woman, I could wellnigh pity thee! " said Roger Chillingworth, unable
to restrain a thrill of admiration too; for there was a quality almost
majestic in the despair which she expressed. "Thou hadst great
elements. Peradventure, hadst thou met earlier with a better love than
mine, this evil had not been. I pity thee, for the good that has been
wasted in thy nature! "

"And I thee," answered Hester Prynne, "for the hatred that has
transformed a wise and just man to a fiend! Wilt thou yet purge it out
of thee, and be once more human? If not for his sake, then doubly for
thine own! Forgive, and leave his further retribution to the Power
that claims it! I said, but now, that there could be no good event for
him, or thee, or me, who are here wandering together in this gloomy
maze of evil, and stumbling, at every step, over the guilt wherewith
we have strewn our path. It is not so! There might be good for thee,
and thee alone, since thou hast been deeply wronged, and hast it at
thy will to pardon. Wilt thou give up that only privilege? Wilt thou
reject that priceless benefit? "

"Peace, Hester, peace! " replied the old man, with gloomy sternness.
"It is not granted me to pardon. I have no such power as thou tellest
me of. My old faith, long forgotten, comes back to me, and explains
all that we do, and all we suffer. By thy first step awry thou didst
plant the germ of evil; but since that moment, it has all been a dark
necessity. Ye that have wronged me are not sinful, save in a kind of
typical illusion; neither am I fiend-like, who have snatched a fiend's
office from his hands. It is our fate. Let the black flower blossom as
it may! Now go thy ways, and deal as thou wilt with yonder man. "

He waved his hand, and betook himself again to his employment of
gathering herbs.

[Illustration: Mandrake]




[Illustration]

XV.

HESTER AND PEARL.


So Roger Chillingworth--a deformed old figure, with a face that
haunted men's memories longer than they liked--took leave of Hester
Prynne, and went stooping away along the earth. He gathered here and
there an herb, or grubbed up a root, and put it into the basket on his
arm. His gray beard almost touched the ground, as he crept onward.
Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half-fantastic
curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be
blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track of his footsteps,
sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure. She wondered what sort of
herbs they were, which the old man was so sedulous to gather. Would
not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sympathy of his
eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs, of species hitherto unknown,
that would start up under his fingers? Or might it suffice him, that
every wholesome growth should be converted into something deleterious
and malignant at his touch? Did the sun, which shone so brightly
everywhere else, really fall upon him? Or was there, as it rather
seemed, a circle of ominous shadow moving along with his deformity,
whichever way he turned himself? And whither was he now going? Would
he not suddenly sink into the earth, leaving a barren and blasted
spot, where, in due course of time, would be seen deadly nightshade,
dogwood, henbane, and whatever else of vegetable wickedness the
climate could produce, all flourishing with hideous luxuriance? Or
would he spread bat's wings and flee away, looking so much the uglier,
the higher he rose towards heaven?

[Illustration: "He gathered herbs here and there"]

"Be it sin or no," said Hester Prynne, bitterly, as she still gazed
after him, "I hate the man! "

She upbraided herself for the sentiment, but could not overcome or
lessen it. Attempting to do so, she thought of those long-past days,
in a distant land, when he used to emerge at eventide from the
seclusion of his study, and sit down in the firelight of their home,
and in the light of her nuptial smile. He needed to bask himself in
that smile, he said, in order that the chill of so many lonely hours
among his books might be taken off the scholar's heart. Such scenes
had once appeared not otherwise than happy, but now, as viewed through
the dismal medium of her subsequent life, they classed themselves
among her ugliest remembrances. She marvelled how such scenes could
have been! She marvelled how she could ever have been wrought upon to
marry him! She deemed it her crime most to be repented of, that she
had ever endured, and reciprocated, the lukewarm grasp of his hand,
and had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes to mingle and melt
into his own. And it seemed a fouler offence committed by Roger
Chillingworth, than any which had since been done him, that, in the
time when her heart knew no better, he had persuaded her to fancy
herself happy by his side.

"Yes, I hate him! " repeated Hester, more bitterly than before. "He
betrayed me! He has done me worse wrong than I did him! "

Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with
it the utmost passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable
fortune, as it was Roger Chillingworth's, when some mightier touch
than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be
reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness,
which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality. But Hester
ought long ago to have done with this injustice. What did it betoken?
Had seven long years, under the torture of the scarlet letter,
inflicted so much of misery, and wrought out no repentance?

The emotions of that brief space, while she stood gazing after the
crooked figure of old Roger Chillingworth, threw a dark light on
Hester's state of mind, revealing much that she might not otherwise
have acknowledged to herself.

He being gone, she summoned back her child.

"Pearl! Little Pearl! Where are you? "

[Illustration: Pearl on the Sea-Shore]

Pearl, whose activity of spirit never flagged, had been at no loss for
amusement while her mother talked with the old gatherer of herbs. At
first, as already told, she had flirted fancifully with her own image
in a pool of water, beckoning the phantom forth, and--as it declined
to venture--seeking a passage for herself into its sphere of
impalpable earth and unattainable sky. Soon finding, however, that
either she or the image was unreal, she turned elsewhere for better
pastime. She made little boats out of birch-bark, and freighted them
with snail-shells, and sent out more ventures on the mighty deep than
any merchant in New England; but the larger part of them foundered
near the shore. She seized a live horseshoe by the tail, and made
prize of several five-fingers, and laid out a jelly-fish to melt in
the warm sun. Then she took up the white foam, that streaked the line
of the advancing tide, and threw it upon the breeze, scampering after
it, with winged footsteps, to catch the great snow-flakes ere they
fell. Perceiving a flock of beach-birds, that fed and fluttered along
the shore, the naughty child picked up her apron full of pebbles, and,
creeping from rock to rock after these small sea-fowl, displayed
remarkable dexterity in pelting them. One little gray bird, with a
white breast, Pearl was almost sure, had been hit by a pebble, and
fluttered away with a broken wing. But then the elf-child sighed, and
gave up her sport; because it grieved her to have done harm to a
little being that was as wild as the sea-breeze, or as wild as Pearl
herself.

Her final employment was to gather sea-weed, of various kinds, and
make herself a scarf, or mantle, and a head-dress, and thus assume the
aspect of a little mermaid. She inherited her mother's gift for
devising drapery and costume. As the last touch to her mermaid's garb,
Pearl took some eel-grass, and imitated, as best she could, on her own
bosom, the decoration with which she was so familiar on her mother's.
A letter,--the letter A,--but freshly green, instead of scarlet! The
child bent her chin upon her breast, and contemplated this device with
strange interest; even as if the one only thing for which she had been
sent into the world was to make out its hidden import.

"I wonder if mother will ask me what it means? " thought Pearl.

Just then, she heard her mother's voice, and flitting along as lightly
as one of the little sea-birds, appeared before Hester Prynne,
dancing, laughing, and pointing her finger to the ornament upon her
bosom.

"My little Pearl," said Hester, after a moment's silence, "the green
letter, and on thy childish bosom, has no purport. But dost thou know,
my child, what this letter means which thy mother is doomed to wear? "

"Yes, mother," said the child. "It is the great letter A. Thou hast
taught me in the horn-book. "

Hester looked steadily into her little face; but, though there was
that singular expression which she had so often remarked in her black
eyes, she could not satisfy herself whether Pearl really attached any
meaning to the symbol. She felt a morbid desire to ascertain the
point.

"Dost thou know, child, wherefore thy mother wears this letter? "

"Truly do I! " answered Pearl, looking brightly into her mother's face.
"It is for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand over his
heart! "

"And what reason is that? " asked Hester, half smiling at the absurd
incongruity of the child's observation; but, on second thoughts,
turning pale. "What has the letter to do with any heart, save mine? "

"Nay, mother, I have told all I know," said Pearl, more seriously than
she was wont to speak. "Ask yonder old man whom thou hast been talking
with! It may be he can tell. But in good earnest now, mother dear,
what does this scarlet letter mean? --and why dost thou wear it on thy
bosom? --and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart? "

She took her mother's hand in both her own, and gazed into her eyes
with an earnestness that was seldom seen in her wild and capricious
character. The thought occurred to Hester, that the child might really
be seeking to approach her with childlike confidence, and doing what
she could, and as intelligently as she knew how, to establish a
meeting-point of sympathy. It showed Pearl in an unwonted aspect.
Heretofore, the mother, while loving her child with the intensity of a
sole affection, had schooled herself to hope for little other return
than the waywardness of an April breeze; which spends its time in airy
sport, and has its gusts of inexplicable passion, and is petulant in
its best of moods, and chills oftener than caresses you, when you take
it to your bosom; in requital of which misdemeanors, it will
sometimes, of its own vague purpose, kiss your cheek with a kind of
doubtful tenderness, and play gently with your hair, and then be gone
about its other idle business, leaving a dreamy pleasure at your
heart. And this, moreover, was a mother's estimate of the child's
disposition. Any other observer might have seen few but unamiable
traits, and have given them a far darker coloring. But now the idea
came strongly into Hester's mind, that Pearl, with her remarkable
precocity and acuteness, might already have approached the age when
she could be made a friend, and intrusted with as much of her mother's
sorrows as could be imparted, without irreverence either to the parent
or the child. In the little chaos of Pearl's character there might be
seen emerging--and could have been, from the very first--the steadfast
principles of an unflinching courage,--an uncontrollable will,--a
sturdy pride, which might be disciplined into self-respect,--and a
bitter scorn of many things, which, when examined, might be found to
have the taint of falsehood in them. She possessed affections, too,
though hitherto acrid and disagreeable, as are the richest flavors of
unripe fruit. With all these sterling attributes, thought Hester, the
evil which she inherited from her mother must be great indeed, if a
noble woman do not grow out of this elfish child.

Pearl's inevitable tendency to hover about the enigma of the scarlet
letter seemed an innate quality of her being. From the earliest epoch
of her conscious life, she had entered upon this as her appointed
mission. Hester had often fancied that Providence had a design of
justice and retribution, in endowing the child with this marked
propensity; but never, until now, had she bethought herself to ask,
whether, linked with that design, there might not likewise be a
purpose of mercy and beneficence. If little Pearl were entertained
with faith and trust, as a spirit messenger no less than an earthly
child, might it not be her errand to soothe away the sorrow that lay
cold in her mother's heart, and converted it into a tomb? --and to help
her to overcome the passion, once so wild, and even yet neither dead
nor asleep, but only imprisoned within the same tomb-like heart?

Such were some of the thoughts that now stirred in Hester's mind, with
as much vivacity of impression as if they had actually been whispered
into her ear. And there was little Pearl, all this while, holding her
mother's hand in both her own, and turning her face upward, while she
put these searching questions, once, and again, and still a third
time.

"What does the letter mean, mother? --and why dost thou wear it? --and
why does the minister keep his hand over his heart? "

"What shall I say? " thought Hester to herself. "No! If this be the
price of the child's sympathy, I cannot pay it. "

Then she spoke aloud.

"Silly Pearl," said she, "what questions are these? There are many
things in this world that a child must not ask about. What know I of
the minister's heart? And as for the scarlet letter, I wear it for the
sake of its gold-thread. "

In all the seven bygone years, Hester Prynne had never before been
false to the symbol on her bosom. It may be that it was the talisman
of a stern and severe, but yet a guardian spirit, who now forsook her;
as recognizing that, in spite of his strict watch over her heart, some
new evil had crept into it, or some old one had never been expelled.
As for little Pearl, the earnestness soon passed out of her face.

But the child did not see fit to let the matter drop. Two or three
times, as her mother and she went homeward, and as often at
supper-time, and while Hester was putting her to bed, and once after
she seemed to be fairly asleep, Pearl looked up, with mischief
gleaming in her black eyes.

"Mother," said she, "what does the scarlet letter mean? "

And the next morning, the first indication the child gave of being
awake was by popping up her head from the pillow, and making that
other inquiry, which she had so unaccountably connected with her
investigations about the scarlet letter:--

"Mother! --Mother! --Why does the minister keep his hand over his
heart? "

"Hold thy tongue, naughty child! " answered her mother, with an
asperity that she had never permitted to herself before. "Do not tease
me; else I shall shut thee into the dark closet! "

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

XVI.

A FOREST WALK.


Hester Prynne remained constant in her resolve to make known to Mr.
Dimmesdale, at whatever risk of present pain or ulterior consequences,
the true character of the man who had crept into his intimacy. For
several days, however, she vainly sought an opportunity of addressing
him in some of the meditative walks which she knew him to be in the
habit of taking, along the shores of the peninsula, or on the wooded
hills of the neighboring country. There would have been no scandal,
indeed, nor peril to the holy whiteness of the clergyman's good fame,
had she visited him in his own study; where many a penitent, ere now,
had confessed sins of perhaps as deep a dye as the one betokened by
the scarlet letter. But, partly that she dreaded the secret or
undisguised interference of old Roger Chillingworth, and partly that
her conscious heart imputed suspicion where none could have been felt,
and partly that both the minister and she would need the whole wide
world to breathe in, while they talked together,--for all these
reasons, Hester never thought of meeting him in any narrower privacy
than beneath the open sky.

At last, while attending in a sick-chamber, whither the Reverend Mr.
Dimmesdale had been summoned to make a prayer, she learnt that he had
gone, the day before, to visit the Apostle Eliot, among his Indian
converts. He would probably return, by a certain hour, in the
afternoon of the morrow. Betimes, therefore, the next day, Hester took
little Pearl,--who was necessarily the companion of all her mother's
expeditions, however inconvenient her presence,--and set forth.

The road, after the two wayfarers had crossed from the peninsula to
the mainland, was no other than a footpath. It straggled onward into
the mystery of the primeval forest. This hemmed it in so narrowly, and
stood so black and dense on either side, and disclosed such imperfect
glimpses of the sky above, that, to Hester's mind, it imaged not amiss
the moral wilderness in which she had so long been wandering. The day
was chill and sombre. Overhead was a gray expanse of cloud, slightly
stirred, however, by a breeze; so that a gleam of flickering sunshine
might now and then be seen at its solitary play along the path. This
flitting cheerfulness was always at the farther extremity of some long
vista through the forest. The sportive sunlight--feebly sportive, at
best, in the predominant pensiveness of the day and scene--withdrew
itself as they came nigh, and left the spots where it had danced the
drearier, because they had hoped to find them bright.

"Mother," said little Pearl, "the sunshine does not love you.
It runs
away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your
bosom. Now, see! There it is, playing, a good way off. Stand you
here, and let me run and catch it. I am but a child. It will not flee
from me; for I wear nothing on my bosom yet! "

"Nor ever will, my child, I hope," said Hester.

"And why not, mother? " asked Pearl, stopping short, just at the
beginning of her race. "Will not it come of its own accord, when I am
a woman grown? "

"Run away, child," answered her mother, "and catch the sunshine! It
will soon be gone. "

Pearl set forth, at a great pace, and, as Hester smiled to perceive,
did actually catch the sunshine, and stood laughing in the midst of
it, all brightened by its splendor, and scintillating with the
vivacity excited by rapid motion. The light lingered about the lonely
child, as if glad of such a playmate, until her mother had drawn
almost nigh enough to step into the magic circle too.

"It will go now," said Pearl, shaking her head.

"See! " answered Hester, smiling. "Now I can stretch out my hand, and
grasp some of it. "

As she attempted to do so, the sunshine vanished; or, to judge from
the bright expression that was dancing on Pearl's features, her mother
could have fancied that the child had absorbed it into herself, and
would give it forth again, with a gleam about her path, as they should
plunge into some gloomier shade. There was no other attribute that so
much impressed her with a sense of new and untransmitted vigor in
Pearl's nature, as this never-failing vivacity of spirits; she had not
the disease of sadness, which almost all children, in these latter
days, inherit, with the scrofula, from the troubles of their
ancestors. Perhaps this too was a disease, and but the reflex of the
wild energy with which Hester had fought against her sorrows, before
Pearl's birth. It was certainly a doubtful charm, imparting a hard,
metallic lustre to the child's character. She wanted--what some people
want throughout life--a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus
humanize and make her capable of sympathy. But there was time enough
yet for little Pearl.

"Come, my child! " said Hester, looking about her from the spot where
Pearl had stood still in the sunshine. "We will sit down a little way
within the wood, and rest ourselves. "

"I am not aweary, mother," replied the little girl. "But you may sit
down, if you will tell me a story meanwhile. "

"A story, child! " said Hester. "And about what? "

"O, a story about the Black Man," answered Pearl, taking hold of her
mother's gown, and looking up, half earnestly, half mischievously,
into her face. "How he haunts this forest, and carries a book with
him,--a big, heavy book, with iron clasps; and how this ugly Black Man
offers his book and an iron pen to everybody that meets him here among
the trees; and they are to write their names with their own blood. And
then he sets his mark on their bosoms! Didst thou ever meet the Black
Man, mother? "

"And who told you this story, Pearl? " asked her mother, recognizing a
common superstition of the period.

"It was the old dame in the chimney-corner, at the house where you
watched last night," said the child. "But she fancied me asleep while
she was talking of it. She said that a thousand and a thousand people
had met him here, and had written in his book, and have his mark on
them. And that ugly-tempered lady, old Mistress Hibbins, was one. And,
mother, the old dame said that this scarlet letter was the Black Man's
mark on thee, and that it glows like a red flame when thou meetest
him at midnight, here in the dark wood. Is it true, mother? And dost
thou go to meet him in the night-time? "

"Didst thou ever awake, and find thy mother gone? " asked Hester.

"Not that I remember," said the child. "If thou fearest to leave me in
our cottage, thou mightest take me along with thee. I would very
gladly go! But, mother, tell me now! Is there such a Black Man? And
didst thou ever meet him? And is this his mark? "

"Wilt thou let me be at peace, if I once tell thee? " asked her mother.

"Yes, if thou tellest me all," answered Pearl.

"Once in my life I met the Black Man! " said her mother. "This scarlet
letter is his mark! "

Thus conversing, they entered sufficiently deep into the wood to
secure themselves from the observation of any casual passenger along
the forest track. Here they sat down on a luxuriant heap of moss;
which, at some epoch of the preceding century, had been a gigantic
pine, with its roots and trunk in the darksome shade, and its head
aloft in the upper atmosphere. It was a little dell where they had
seated themselves, with a leaf-strewn bank rising gently on either
side, and a brook flowing through the midst, over a bed of fallen and
drowned leaves. The trees impending over it had flung down great
branches, from time to time, which choked up the current and compelled
it to form eddies and black depths at some points; while, in its
swifter and livelier passages, there appeared a channel-way of
pebbles, and brown, sparkling sand. Letting the eyes follow along the
course of the stream, they could catch the reflected light from its
water, at some short distance within the forest, but soon lost all
traces of it amid the bewilderment of tree-trunks and underbrush, and
here and there a huge rock covered over with gray lichens. All these
giant trees and bowlders of granite seemed intent on making a mystery
of the course of this small brook; fearing, perhaps, that, with its
never-ceasing loquacity, it should whisper tales out of the heart of
the old forest whence it flowed, or mirror its revelations on the
smooth surface of a pool. Continually, indeed, as it stole onward, the
streamlet kept up a babble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy,
like the voice of a young child that was spending its infancy without
playfulness, and knew not how to be merry among sad acquaintance and
events of sombre hue.

"O brook! O foolish and tiresome little brook! " cried Pearl, after
listening awhile to its talk. "Why art thou so sad? Pluck up a spirit,
and do not be all the time sighing and murmuring! "

But the brook, in the course of its little lifetime among the
forest-trees, had gone through so solemn an experience that it could
not help talking about it, and seemed to have nothing else to say.
Pearl resembled the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life gushed
from a well-spring as mysterious, and had flowed through scenes
shadowed as heavily with gloom. But, unlike the little stream, she
danced and sparkled, and prattled airily along her course.

"What does this sad little brook say, mother? " inquired she.

"If thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, the brook might tell thee of
it," answered her mother, "even as it is telling me of mine! But now,
Pearl, I hear a footstep along the path, and the noise of one putting
aside the branches. I would have thee betake thyself to play, and
leave me to speak with him that comes yonder. "

"Is it the Black Man? " asked Pearl.

"Wilt thou go and play, child? " repeated her mother. "But do not stray
far into the wood. And take heed that thou come at my first call. "

"Yes, mother," answered Pearl. "But if it be the Black Man, wilt thou
not let me stay a moment, and look at him, with his big book under his
arm? "

"Go, silly child! " said her mother, impatiently. "It is no Black Man!
Thou canst see him now, through the trees. It is the minister! "

"And so it is! " said the child. "And, mother, he has his hand over his
heart! Is it because, when the minister wrote his name in the book,
the Black Man set his mark in that place? But why does he not wear it
outside his bosom, as thou dost, mother? "

"Go now, child, and thou shalt tease me as thou wilt another time,"
cried Hester Prynne. "But do not stray far. Keep where thou canst hear
the babble of the brook. "

The child went singing away, following up the current of the brook,
and striving to mingle a more lightsome cadence with its melancholy
voice. But the little stream would not be comforted, and still kept
telling its unintelligible secret of some very mournful mystery that
had happened--or making a prophetic lamentation about something that
was yet to happen--within the verge of the dismal forest. So Pearl,
who had enough of shadow in her own little life, chose to break off
all acquaintance with this repining brook. She set herself, therefore,
to gathering violets and wood-anemones, and some scarlet columbines
that she found growing in the crevices of a high rock.

When her elf-child had departed, Hester Prynne made a step or two
towards the track that led through the forest, but still remained
under the deep shadow of the trees. She beheld the minister advancing
along the path, entirely alone, and leaning on a staff which he had
cut by the wayside. He looked haggard and feeble, and betrayed a
nerveless despondency in his air, which had never so remarkably
characterized him in his walks about the settlement, nor in any other
situation where he deemed himself liable to notice. Here it was
wofully visible, in this intense seclusion of the forest, which of
itself would have been a heavy trial to the spirits. There was a
listlessness in his gait; as if he saw no reason for taking one step
farther, nor felt any desire to do so, but would have been glad, could
he be glad of anything, to fling himself down at the root of the
nearest tree, and lie there passive, forevermore. The leaves might
bestrew him, and the soil gradually accumulate and form a little
hillock over his frame, no matter whether there were life in it or no.
Death was too definite an object to be wished for, or avoided.

To Hester's eye, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale exhibited no symptom of
positive and vivacious suffering, except that, as little Pearl had
remarked, he kept his hand over his heart.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

XVII.

THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER.


Slowly as the minister walked, he had almost gone by, before Hester
Prynne could gather voice enough to attract his observation. At
length, she succeeded.

"Arthur Dimmesdale! " she said, faintly at first; then louder, but
hoarsely. "Arthur Dimmesdale! "

"Who speaks? " answered the minister.

Gathering himself quickly up, he stood more erect, like a man taken by
surprise in a mood to which he was reluctant to have witnesses.
Throwing his eyes anxiously in the direction of the voice, he
indistinctly beheld a form under the trees, clad in garments so
sombre, and so little relieved from the gray twilight into which the
clouded sky and the heavy foliage had darkened the noontide, that he
knew not whether it were a woman or a shadow. It may be, that his
pathway through life was haunted thus, by a spectre that had stolen
out from among his thoughts.

He made a step nigher, and discovered the scarlet letter.

"Hester! Hester Prynne! " said he. "Is it thou? Art thou in life? "

"Even so! " she answered. "In such life as has been mine these seven
years past! And thou, Arthur Dimmesdale, dost thou yet live? "

It was no wonder that they thus questioned one another's actual and
bodily existence, and even doubted of their own. So strangely did they
meet, in the dim wood, that it was like the first encounter, in the
world beyond the grave, of two spirits who had been intimately
connected in their former life, but now stood coldly shuddering, in
mutual dread; as not yet familiar with their state, nor wonted to the
companionship of disembodied beings. Each a ghost, and awe-stricken at
the other ghost! They were awe-stricken likewise at themselves;
because the crisis flung back to them their consciousness, and
revealed to each heart its history and experience, as life never does,
except at such breathless epochs. The soul beheld its features in the
mirror of the passing moment. It was with fear, and tremulously, and,
as it were, by a slow, reluctant necessity, that Arthur Dimmesdale put
forth his hand, chill as death, and touched the chill hand of Hester
Prynne. The grasp, cold as it was, took away what was dreariest in the
interview. They now felt themselves, at least, inhabitants of the same
sphere.

Without a word more spoken,--neither he nor she assuming the guidance,
but with an unexpressed consent,--they glided back into the shadow of
the woods, whence Hester had emerged, and sat down on the heap of moss
where she and Pearl had before been sitting. When they found voice to
speak, it was, at first, only to utter remarks and inquiries such as
any two acquaintance might have made, about the gloomy sky, the
threatening storm, and, next, the health of each. Thus they went
onward, not boldly, but step by step, into the themes that were
brooding deepest in their hearts. So long estranged by fate and
circumstances, they needed something slight and casual to run before,
and throw open the doors of intercourse, so that their real thoughts
might be led across the threshold.

After a while, the minister fixed his eyes on Hester Prynne's.

"Hester," said he, "hast thou found peace? "

She smiled drearily, looking down upon her bosom.

"Hast thou? " she asked.

"None! --nothing but despair! " he answered. "What else could I look
for, being what I am, and leading such a life as mine? Were I an
atheist,--a man devoid of conscience,--a wretch with coarse and brutal
instincts,--I might have found peace, long ere now. Nay, I never
should have lost it! But, as matters stand with my soul, whatever of
good capacity there originally was in me, all of God's gifts that were
the choicest have become the ministers of spiritual torment. Hester, I
am most miserable! "

"The people reverence thee," said Hester. "And surely thou workest
good among them! Doth this bring thee no comfort? "

"More misery, Hester! --only the more misery! " answered the clergyman,
with a bitter smile. "As concerns the good which I may appear to do, I
have no faith in it. It must needs be a delusion. What can a ruined
soul, like mine, effect towards the redemption of other souls? --or a
polluted soul towards their purification? And as for the people's
reverence, would that it were turned to scorn and hatred! Canst thou
deem it, Hester, a consolation, that I must stand up in my pulpit, and
meet so many eyes turned upward to my face, as if the light of heaven
were beaming from it! --must see my flock hungry for the truth, and
listening to my words as if a tongue of Pentecost were speaking! --and
then look inward, and discern the black reality of what they idolize?
I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast
between what I seem and what I am! And Satan laughs at it! "

"You wrong yourself in this," said Hester, gently. "You have deeply
and sorely repented. Your sin is left behind you, in the days long
past. Your present life is not less holy, in very truth, than it seems
in people's eyes. Is there no reality in the penitence thus sealed and
witnessed by good works? And wherefore should it not bring you peace? "

"No, Hester, no! " replied the clergyman. "There is no substance in it!
It is cold and dead, and can do nothing for me! Of penance, I have had
enough! Of penitence, there has been none! Else, I should long ago
have thrown off these garments of mock holiness, and have shown myself
to mankind as they will see me at the judgment-seat. Happy are you,
Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine
burns in secret! Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the
torment of a seven years' cheat, to look into an eye that recognizes
me for what I am! Had I one friend,--or were it my worst enemy! --to
whom, when sickened with the praises of all other men, I could daily
betake myself, and be known as the vilest of all sinners, methinks my
soul might keep itself alive thereby. Even thus much of truth would
save me! But, now, it is all falsehood! --all emptiness! --all death! "

Hester Prynne looked into his face, but hesitated to speak. Yet,
uttering his long-restrained emotions so vehemently as he did, his
words here offered her the very point of circumstances in which to
interpose what she came to say.