THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 19

作者: Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

"THOU wilt love her dearly," repeated Hester Prynne, as she and the minister
    sat watching little Pearl. "Dost thou not think her beautiful? And see with what
    natural skill she has made those simple flowers adorn her! Had she gathered pearls, and
    diamonds, and rubies, in the wood, they could not have become her better. She is a
    splendid child! But I know whose brow she has!"

"Dost thou know, Hester," said Arthur Dimmesdale, with an unquiet smile,
    "that this dear child, tripping about always at thy side, hath caused me many an
    alarm? Methought- O Hester, what a thought is that, and how terrible to dread it!- that my
    own features were partly repeated in her face, and so strikingly that the world might see
    them! But she is mostly thine!"

"No, no! Not mostly!" answered the mother, with a tender smile. "A
    little longer and thou needest not be afraid to trace whose child she is. But how
    strangely beautiful she looks, with those wild flowers in her hair! It is as if one of the
    fairies, whom we left in our dear old England, had decked her out to meet us."

It was with a feeling which neither of them had ever before experienced, that they sat
    and watched Pearl's slow advance. In her was visible the tie that united them. She had
    been offered to the world, these seven years past, as the living hieroglyphic, in which
    was revealed the secret they so darkly sought to hide- all written in this symbol- all
    plainly manifest- had there been a prophet or magician skilled to read the character of
    flame! And Pearl was the oneness of their being. Be the foregone evil what it might, how
    could they doubt that their earthly lives and future destinies were conjoined, when they
    beheld at once the material union, and the spiritual idea, in whom they met, and were to
    dwell immortally together? Thoughts like these- and perhaps other thoughts, which they did
    not acknowledge or define- threw an awe about the child, as she came onward.

"Let her see nothing strange- no passion nor eagerness- in thy way of accosting
    her," whispered Hester. "Our Pearl is a fitful and fantastic little elf,
    sometimes. Especially, she is seldom tolerant of emotion, when she does not fully
    comprehend the why and wherefore. But the child hath strong affections! She loves me, and
    will love thee!"

"Thou canst not think," said the minister, glancing aside at Hester Prynne,
    "how my heart dreads this interview, and yearns for it! But, in truth, as I already
    told thee, children are not readily won to be familiar with me. They will not climb my
    knee, nor prattle in my ear, nor answer to my smile; but stand apart, and eye me
    strangely. Even little babes, when I take them in my arms, weep bitterly. Yet Pearl, twice
    in her little lifetime, hath been kind to me! The first time- thou knowest it well! The
    last was when thou ledst her with thee to the house of yonder stern old Governor."

"And thou didst plead so bravely in her behalf and mine!" answered the
    mother. "I remember it; and so shall little Pearl. Fear nothing! She may be strange
    and shy at first, but will soon learn to love thee!"

By this time Pearl had reached the margin of the brook, and stood on the farther side,
    gazing silently at Hester and the clergyman, who still sat together on the mossy
    tree-trunk, waiting to receive her. Just where she had paused, the brook chanced to form a
    pool, so smooth and quiet that it reflected a perfect image of her little figure, with all
    the brilliant picturesqueness of her beauty, in its adornment of flowers and wreathed
    foliage, but more refined and spiritualised than the reality. This image, so nearly
    identical with the living Pearl, seemed to communicate somewhat of its own shadowy and
    intangible quality to the child herself. It was strange, the way in which Pearl stood,
    looking so steadfastly at them through the dim medium of the forest-gloom; herself,
    meanwhile, all glorified with a ray of sunshine, that was attracted thitherward as by a
    certain sympathy. In the brook beneath stood another child- another and the same- with
    likewise its ray of golden light. Hester felt herself, in some indistinct and tantalising
    manner, estranged from Pearl; as if the child, in her lonely, ramble through the forest,
    had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now
    vainly seeking to return to it.

There was both truth and error in the impression; the child and mother were estranged,
    but through Hester's fault, not Pearl's. Since the latter rambled from her side, another
    inmate had been admitted within the circle of the mother's feelings, and so modified the
    aspect of them all, that Pearl, the returning wanderer, could not find her wonted place,
    and hardly knew where she was.

"I have a strange fancy," observed the sensitive minister, "that this
    brook is the boundary between two worlds, and that thou canst never meet thy Pearl again.
    Or is she an elfish spirit, who, as the legends of our childhood taught us, is forbidden
    to cross a running stream? Pray hasten her; for this delay has already imparted a tremor
    to my nerves."

"Come, dearest child!" said Hester encouragingly, and stretching out both her
    arms. "How slow thou art! When hast thou been so sluggish before now? Here is a
    friend of mine, who must be thy friend also. Thou wilt have twice as much love,
    henceforward, as thy mother alone could give thee! Leap across the brook, and come to us.
    Thou canst leap like a young deer!"

Pearl, without responding in any manner to these honey-sweet expressions, remained on
    the other side of the brook. Now she fixed her bright, wild eyes on her mother, now on the
    minister, and now included them both in the same glance; as if to detect and explain to
    herself the relation which they bore to one another. For some unaccountable reason, as
    Arthur Dimmesdale felt the child's eyes upon himself, his hand- with that gesture so
    habitual as to have become involuntary- stole over his heart. At length, assuming a
    singular air of authority, Pearl stretched out her hand, with the small forefinger
    extended, and pointing evidently towards her mother's breast. And beneath, in the mirror
    of the brook, there was the flower-girdled and sunny image of little Pearl, pointing her
    small forefinger too.

"Thou strange child, why dost thou not come to me?" exclaimed Hester.

Pearl still pointed with her forefinger; and a frown gathered on her brow; the more
    impressive from the childish, the almost baby-like aspect of the features that conveyed
    it. As her mother still kept beckoning to her, and arraying her face in a holiday suit of
    unaccustomed smiles, the child stamped her foot with a yet more imperious look and
    gesture. In the brook, again, was the fantastic beauty of the image, with its reflected
    frown, its pointed finger, and imperious gesture, giving emphasis to the aspect of little
    Pearl.

"Hasten, Pearl; or I shall be angry with thee!" cried Hester Prynne, who,
    however inured to such behaviour on the elf-child's part at other seasons, was naturally
    anxious for a more seemly deportment now. "Leap across the brook, naughty child, and
    run hither! Else I must come to thee!"

But Pearl, not a whit startled at her mother's threats, any more than mollified by her
    entreaties, now suddenly burst into a fit of passion, gesticulating violently, and
    throwing her small figure into the most extravagant contortions. She accompanied this wild
    outbreak with piercing shrieks, which the woods reverberated on all sides; so that, alone
    as she was in her childish and unreasonable wrath, it seemed as if a hidden multitude were
    lending her their sympathy and encouragement. Seen in the brook, once more, was the
    shadowy wraith of Pearl's image, crowned and girdled with flowers, but stamping its foot,
    wildly gesticulating, and, in the midst of all, still pointing its small forefinger at
    Hester's bosom!

"I see what ails the child," whispered Hester to the clergyman, and turning
    pale in spite of a strong effort to conceal her trouble and annoyance. "Children will
    not abide any, the slightest, change in the accustomed aspect of things that are daily
    before their eyes. Pearl misses something which she has always seen me wear!"

"I pray you," answered the minister, "if thou hast any means of
    pacifying the child, do it forthwith! Save it were the cankered wrath of an old witch,
    like Mistress Hibbins," added he, attempting to smile, "I know nothing that I
    would not sooner encounter than this passion in a child. In Pearl's young beauty, as in
    the wrinkled witch, it has a preternatural effect. Pacify her, if thou lovest me!"

Hester turned again towards Pearl, with a crimson blush upon her cheek, a conscious
    glance aside at the clergyman, and then a heavy sigh; while, even before she had time to
    speak, the blush yielded to a deadly pallor.

"Pearl," said she sadly, "look down at thy feet! There- before thee!-
the hither side of the brook!"

The child turned her eyes to the point indicated; and there lay the scarlet letter, so
close upon the margin of the stream, that the gold embroidery was reflected in it.

"Bring it hither!" said Hester.

"Come thou and take it up!" answered Pearl.

"Was ever such a child!" observed Hester, aside to the minister. "Oh, I
    have much to tell thee about her! But, in very truth, she is right as regards this hateful
    token. I must bear its torture yet a little longer- only a few days longer- until we shall
    have left this region, and look back hither as to a land which we have dreamed of. The
    forest cannot hide it! The mid-ocean shall take it from my hand, and swallow it up for
    ever!"

With these words, she advanced to the margin of the brook, took up the scarlet letter,
    and fastened it again into her bosom. Hopefully, but a moment ago, as Hester had spoken of
    drowning it in the deep sea, there was a sense of inevitable doom upon her, as she thus
    received back this deadly symbol from the hand of fate. She had flung it into infinite
    space!- she had drawn an hour's free breath!- and here again was the scarlet misery,
    glittering on the old spot! So it ever is, whether thus typified or no, that an evil deed
    invests itself with the character of doom. Hester next gathered up the heavy tresses of
    her hair, and confined them beneath her cap. As if there were a withering spell in the sad
    letter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed, like fading
    sunshine; and a grey shadow seemed to fall across her.

When the dreary change was wrought, she extended her hand to Pearl.

"Dost thou know thy mother now, child?" asked she reproachfully, but with a
    subdued tone. "Wilt thou come across the brook, and own thy mother, now that she has
    her shame upon her- now that she is sad?"

"Yes; now I will!" answered the child, bounding across the brook, and
    clasping Hester in her arms. "Now thou art my mother indeed! And I am thy little
    Pearl!"

In a mood of tenderness that was not usual with her, she drew down her mother's head,
    and kissed her brow and both her cheeks. But then- by a kind of necessity that always
    impelled this child to alloy whatever comfort she might chance to give with a throb of
    anguish- Pearl put up her mouth, and kissed the scarlet letter too!

"That was not kind!" said Hester. "When thou hast shown me a little
love, thou mockest me!"

"Why doth the minister sit yonder?" asked Pearl.

"He waits to welcome thee," replied her mother. "Come thou, and entreat
    his blessing! He loves thee, my little Pearl, and loves thy mother too. Wilt thou not love
    him? Come! he longs to greet thee!"

"Doth he love us?" said Pearl, looking up, with acute intelligence, into her
    mother's face. "Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we three together into the
    town?"

"Not now, dear child," answered Hester. "But in days to come he will
    walk hand in hand with us. We will have a home and fireside of our own; and thou shalt sit
    upon his knee; and he will teach thee many things, and love thee dearly. Thou wilt love
    him; wilt thou not?"

"And will he always keep his hand over his heart?" inquired Pearl.

"Foolish child, what a question is that!" exclaimed her mother. "Come
and ask his blessing!"

But, whether influenced by the jealousy that seems instinctive with every petted child
    towards a dangerous rival, or from whatever caprice of her freakish nature, Pearl would
    show no favour to the clergyman. It was only by an exertion of force that her mother
    brought her up to him, hanging back, and manifesting her reluctance by odd grimaces; of
    which, ever since her babyhood, she had possessed a singular variety, and could transform
    her mobile physiognomy into a series of different aspects, with a new mischief in them,
    each and all. The minister- painfully embarrassed, but hoping that a kiss might prove a
    talisman to admit him into the child's kindlier regards-bent forward, and impressed one on
    her brow. Hereupon, Pearl broke away from her mother, and, running to the brook, stooped
    over it, and bathed her forehead, until the unwelcome kiss was quite washed off, and
    diffused through a long lapse of the gliding water. She then remained apart, silently
    watching Hester and the clergyman: while they talked together, and made such arrangements
    as were suggested by their new position, and the purposes soon to be fulfilled.

And now this fateful interview had come to a close. The dell was to be left a solitude
    among its dark, old trees, which, with their multitudinous tongues, would whisper long of
    what had passed there, and no mortal be the wiser. And the melancholy brook would add this
    other tale to the mystery with which its little heart was already overburdened, and
    whereof it still kept up a murmuring babble, with not a whit more cheerfulness of tone
    than for ages heretofore.