THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 15

作者: Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

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 grey 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? "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,     FACE="Arial"> and had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes to mingle and melt     FACE="Arial"> into his own. And it seemed a fouler offence committed by Roger     FACE="Arial"> Chillingworth, than any which had since been done him, that, in the     FACE="Arial"> time when her heart knew no better, he had persuaded her to fancy     FACE="Arial"> herself happy by his side.

"Yes, I hate him!" repeated Hester, more bitterly than before. "He FACE="Arial"> 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     FACE="Arial"> fortune, as it was Roger Chillingworth's, when some mightier touch     FACE="Arial"> than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be     FACE="Arial"> reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of     FACE="Arial"> 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?"

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 horse-shoe 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 snowflakes
    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
    grey 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 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     FACE="Arial"> 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 FACE="Arial"> 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="Arial"> 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 FACE="Arial"> absurd incongruity of the child's observation; but, on second FACE="Arial"> 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     FACE="Arial"> 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 soul
    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 misdemeanours,
    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 colouring.
    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 entrusted 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 flavours 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     FACE="Arial"> 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     FACE="Arial"> upward, while she put these searching questions, once, and again,     FACE="Arial"> and still a third time.

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

"What shall I say?" thought Hester to herself. "No! If this be the FACE="Arial"> 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 FACE="Arial"> things in this world that a child must not ask about. What know I of FACE="Arial"> 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
    recognising 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 FACE="Arial"> suppertime, and while Hester was putting her to bed, and once after FACE="Arial"> she seemed to be fairly asleep, Pearl looked up, with mischief FACE="Arial"> 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     FACE="Arial"> asperity that she had never permitted to herself before. "Do not
    tease me; else I shall shut thee into the dark closet!"

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