THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 13

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• Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

IN her late singular interview with Mr. Dimmesdale, Hester Prynne was shocked at the   
    condition to which she found the clergyman reduced. His nerve seemed absolutely destroyed.   
    His moral force was abased into more than childish weakness. It grovelled helpless on the   
    ground, even while his intellectual faculties retained their pristine strength, or had   
    perhaps acquired a morbid energy, which disease only could have given them. With her   
    knowledge of a train of circumstances hidden from all others, she could readily infer   
    that, besides the legitimate action of his own conscience, a terrible machinery had been   
    brought to bear, and was still operating, on Mr. Dimmesdale's well-being and repose.   
    Knowing what this poor fallen man had once been, her whole soul was moved by the   
    shuddering terror with which he had appealed to her- the outcast woman- for support   
    against his instinctively discovered enemy. She decided, moreover, that he had a right to   
    her utmost aid. Little accustomed, in her long seclusion from society, to measure her   
    ideas of right and wrong by any standard external to herself, Hester saw- or seemed to   
    see- that there lay a responsibility upon her, in reference to the clergyman, which she   
    owed to no other, nor to the whole world besides. The links that united her to the rest of   
    human kind- links of flowers, or silk, or gold, or whatever the material- had all been   
    broken. Here was the iron link of mutual crime, which neither he nor she could break. Like   
    all other ties, it brought along with it its obligations.

  
   

Hester Prynne did not now occupy precisely the same position in which we beheld her   
    during the earlier periods of her ignominy. Years had come and gone. Pearl was now seven   
    years old. Her mother, with the scarlet letter on her breast, glittering in its fantastic   
    embroidery, had long been a familiar object to the townspeople. As is apt to be the case   
    when a person stands out in any prominence before the community, and, at the same time,   
    interferes neither with public nor individual interests and convenience, a species of   
    general regard had ultimately grown up in reference to Hester Prynne. It is to the credit   
    of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more   
    readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to   
    love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling   
    of hostility. In this matter of Hester Prynne, there was neither irritation nor   
    irksomeness. She never battled with the public, but submitted, uncomplainingly, to its   
    worst usage; she made no claim upon it, in requital for what she suffered; she did not   
    weigh upon its sympathies. Then, also, the blameless purity of her life during all these   
    years in which she had been set apart to infamy, was reckoned largely in her favour. With   
    nothing now to lose, in the sight of mankind, and with no hope, and seemingly no wish, of   
    gaining anything, it could only be a genuine regard for virtue that had brought back the   
    poor wanderer to its paths.

  
   

It was perceived, too, that while Hester never put forward even the humblest title to   
    share in the world's privileges- further than to breathe the common air, and earn daily   
    bread for little Pearl and herself by the faithful labour of her hands- she was quick to   
    acknowledge her sisterhood with the race of man, whenever benefits were to be conferred.   
    None so ready as she to give of her little substance to every demand of poverty; even   
    though the bitter-hearted pauper threw back a gibe in requital of the food brought   
    regularly to his door, or the garments wrought for him by the fingers that could have   
    embroidered a monarch's robe. None so self-devoted as Hester, when pestilence stalked   
    through the town. In all seasons of calamity, indeed, whether general or of individuals,   
    the outcast of society at once found her place. She came, not as a guest, but as a   
    rightful inmate into the household that was darkened by trouble; as if its gloomy twilight   
    were a medium in which she was entitled to hold intercourse with her fellow-creatures.   
    There glimmered the embroidered letter, with comfort in its unearthly ray. Elsewhere the   
    token of sin, it was the taper of the sick-chamber. It had even thrown its gleam, in the   
    sufferer's hard extremity, across the verge of time. It had shown him where to set his   
    foot, while the light of earth was fast becoming dim, and ere the light of futurity could   
    reach him. In such emergencies, Hester's nature showed itself warm and rich; a well-spring   
    of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest. Her   
    breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one.   
    She was self-ordained a Sister of Mercy; or, we may rather say, the world's heavy hand had   
    so ordained her, when neither the world nor she looked forward to this result. The letter   
    was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her- so much power to do, and   
    power to sympathise- that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original   
    signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's   
    strength.

  
   

It was only the darkened house that could contain her. When sunshine came again, she   
    was not there. Her shadow had faded across the threshold. The helpful inmate had departed,   
    without one backward glance to gather up the meed of gratitude, if any were in the hearts   
    of those whom she had served so zealously. Meeting them in the street, she never raised   
    her head to receive their greeting. If they were resolute to accost her, she laid her   
    finger on the scarlet letter and passed on. This might be pride, but was so like humility,   
    that it produced all the softening influence of the latter quality on the public mind. The   
    public is despotic in its temper; it is capable of denying common justice, when too   
    strenuously demanded as a right; but quite as frequently it awards more than justice when   
    the appeal is made, as despots love to have it made, entirely to its generosity.   
    Interpreting Hester Prynne's deportment as an appeal of this nature, society was inclined   
    to show its former victim a more benign countenance than she cared to be favoured with,   
    or, perchance, than she deserved.

  
   

The rulers, and the wise and learned men of the community, were longer in acknowledging   
    the influence of Hester's good qualities than the people. The prejudices which they shared   
    in common with the latter were fortified in themselves by an iron framework of reasoning,   
    that made it a far tougher labour to expel them. Day by day, nevertheless, their sour and   
    rigid wrinkles were relaxing into something which, in the due course of years, might grow   
    to be an expression of almost benevolence. Thus it was with the men of rank, on whom their   
    eminent position imposed the guardianship of the public morals. Individuals in private   
    life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had   
    begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin, for which she had   
    borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since. "Do you see   
    that woman with the embroidered badge?" they would say to strangers. "It is our   
    Hester- the town's own Hester- who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so   
    comfortable to the afflicted!" Then, it is true, the propensity of human nature to   
    tell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of another, would constrain   
    them to whisper the black scandal of bygone years. It was none the less a fact, however,   
    that, in the eyes of the very men who spoke thus, the scarlet letter had the effect of the   
    cross on a nun's bosom. It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness, which enabled her   
    to walk securely amid all peril. Had she fallen among thieves, it would have kept her   
    safe. It was reported, and believed by many, that an Indian had drawn his arrow against   
    the badge, and that the missile struck it, but fell harmless to the ground.

  
   

The effect of the symbol- or, rather, of the position in respect to society that was   
    indicated by it- on the mind of Hester Prynne herself, was powerful and peculiar. All the   
    light and graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by this red-hot brand,   
    and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh outline, which might have been   
    repulsive, had she possessed friends or companions to be repelled by it. Even the   
    attractiveness of her person had undergone a similar change. It might be partly owing to   
    the studied austerity of her dress, and partly to the lack of demonstration in her   
    manners. It was a sad transformation, too, that her rich and luxuriant hair had either   
    been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a shining lock of it ever   
    once gushed into the sunshine. It was due in part to all these causes, but still more to   
    something else, that there seemed to be no longer anything in Hester's face for Love to   
    dwell upon; nothing in Hester's form, though majestic and statue-like, that Passion would   
    ever dream of clasping in its embrace; nothing in Hester's bosom, to make it ever again   
    the pillow of Affection. Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had   
    been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern   
    development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and   
    lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die.   
    If she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or- and the outward   
    semblance is the same- crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself   
    more. The latter is perhaps the truest theory. She who has once been woman, and ceased to   
    be so, might at any moment become a woman again, if there were only the magic touch to   
    effect the transfiguration. We shall see whether Hester Prynne were afterwards so touched,   
    and so transfigured.

  
   

Much of the marble coldness of Hester's impression was to be attributed to the   
    circumstance, that her life had turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling, to   
    thought. Standing alone in the world- alone, as to any dependence on society, and with   
    little Pearl to be guided and protected- alone, and hopeless of retrieving her position,   
    even had she not scorned to consider it desirable- she cast away the fragments of a broken   
    chain. The world's law was no law for her mind. It was an age in which the human   
    intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many   
    centuries before. Men of the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than these   
    had overthrown and rearranged- not actually, but within the sphere of theory, which was   
    their most real abode- the whole system of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of   
    ancient principle. Hester Prynne imbibed this spirit. She assumed a freedom of   
    speculation, then common enough on the other side of the Atlantic, but which our   
    forefathers, had they known it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that   
    stigmatised by the scarlet letter. In her lonesome cottage by the seashore, thoughts   
    visited her, such as dared to enter no other dwelling in New England; shadowy guests, that   
    would have been as perilous as demons to their entertainer could they have been seen so   
    much as knocking at her door.

  
   

It is remarkable, that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the   
    most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. The thought suffices them,   
    without investing itself in the flesh and blood of action. So it seemed to be with Hester.   
    Yet, had little Pearl never come to her from the spiritual world, it might have been far   
    otherwise. Then, she might have come down to us in history, hand in hand with Ann   
    Hutchinson, as the foundress of a religious sect. She might, in one of her phases, have   
    been a prophetess. She might, and not improbably would, have suffered death from the stern   
    tribunals of the period, for attempting to undermine the foundations of the Puritan   
    establishment. But, in the education of her child, the mother's enthusiasm of thought had   
    something to wreak itself upon. Providence, in the person of this little girl, had   
    assigned to Hester's charge the germ and blossom of womanhood, to be cherished and   
    developed amid a host of difficulties. Everything was against her. The world was hostile.   
    The child's own nature had something wrong in it, which continually betokened that she had   
    been born amiss- the effluence of her mother's lawless passion- and often impelled Hester   
    to ask, in bitterness of heart, whether it were for ill or good that the poor little   
    creature had been born at all.

  
   

Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind, with reference to the whole   
    race of womanhood. Was existence worth accepting, even to the happiest among them? As   
    concerned her own individual existence, she had long ago decided in the negative, and   
    dismissed the point as settled. A tendency to speculation, though it may keep woman quiet,   
    as it does man, yet makes her sad. She discerns, it may be, such a hopeless task before   
    her. As a first step, the whole system of society is to be torn down, and built up anew.   
    Then, the very nature of the opposite sex, or its long hereditary habit, which has become   
    like nature, is to be essentially modified, before woman can be allowed to assume what   
    seems a fair and suitable position. Finally, all other difficulties being obviated, woman   
    cannot take advantage of these preliminary reforms, until she herself shall have undergone   
    a still mightier change; in which, perhaps, the ethereal essence, wherein she has her   
    truest life, will be found to have evaporated. A woman never overcomes these problems by   
    any exercise of thought. They are not to be solved, or only in one way. If her heart   
    chance to come uppermost, they vanish. Thus, Hester Prynne, whose heart had lost its   
    regular and healthy throb, wandered without a clew in the dark labyrinth of mind; now   
    turned aside by an insurmountable precipice; now starting back from a deep chasm. There   
    was wild and ghastly scenery all around her, and a home and comfort nowhere. At times, a   
    fearful doubt strove to possess her soul, whether it were not better to send Pearl at once   
    to heaven, and go herself to such futurity as Eternal Justice should provide.

  
   

The scarlet letter had not done its office.

  
   

Now, however, her interview with the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the night of his   
    vigil, had given her a new theme of reflection, and held up to her an object that appeared   
    worthy of any exertion and sacrifice for its attainment. She had witnessed the intense   
    misery beneath which the minister struggled, or, to speak more accurately, had ceased to   
    struggle. She saw that he stood on the verge of lunacy, if he had not already stepped   
    across it. It was impossible to doubt, that, whatever painful efficacy there might be in   
    the secret sting of remorse, a deadlier venom had been infused into it by the hand that   
    proffered relief. A secret enemy had been continually by his side, under the semblance of   
    a friend and helper, and had availed himself of the opportunities thus afforded for   
    tampering with the delicate springs of Mr. Dimmesdale's nature. Hester could not but ask   
    herself, whether there had not originally been a defect of truth, courage, and loyalty, on   
    her own part, in allowing the minister to be thrown into a position where so much evil was   
    to be foreboded, and nothing auspicious to be hoped. Her only justification lay in the   
    fact, that she had been able to discern no method of rescuing him from a blacker ruin than   
    had overwhelmed herself, except by acquiescing in Roger Chillingworth's scheme of   
    disguise. Under that impulse, she had made her choice, and had chosen, as it now appeared,   
    the more wretched alternative of the two. She determined to redeem her error, so far as it   
    might yet be possible. Strengthened by years of hard and solemn trial, she felt herself no   
    longer so inadequate to cope with Roger Chillingworth as on that night, abased by sin, and   
    half maddened by the ignominy that was still new, when they had talked together in the   
    prison-chamber. She had climbed her way, since then, to a higher point. The old man, on   
    the other hand, had brought himself nearer to her level, or perhaps below it, by the   
    revenge which he had stooped for.

  
   

In fine, Hester Prynne resolved to meet her former husband, and do what might be in her   
    power for the rescue of the victim on whom he had so evidently set his gripe. The occasion   
    was not long to seek. One afternoon, walking with Pearl in a retired part of the   
    peninsula, she beheld the old physician, with a basket on one arm, and a staff in the   
    other hand, stooping along the ground, in quest of roots and herbs to concoct his   
    medicines withal.  
   

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1. Ebooks list page : 86
2. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 2
3. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 11
4. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 10
5. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 7
6. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 8
7. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 5
8. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 9
9. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 20
10. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 6
11. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 4
12. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 23
13. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 3
14. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 1
15. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 12
16. THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 14