THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 2

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• Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

THE grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer     
    morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the     
    inhabitants of Boston; all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken     
    door. Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England,     
    the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have     
    augured some awful business in hand. It could have betokened nothing short of the     
    anticipated execution of some noted culprit, on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had     
    but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment. But, in that early severity of the Puritan     
    character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It might be, that     
    a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the     
    civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post. It might be, that an     
    Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist, was to be scourged out of the town,     
    or an idle and vagrant Indian, whom the white man's fire-water had made riotous about the     
    streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. It might be, too,     
    that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was     
    to die upon the gallows. In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of     
    demeanour on the part of the spectators; as befitted a people amongst whom religion and     
    law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that     
    the mildest and the severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and     
    awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from     
    such bystanders, at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty which, in our days, would     
    infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern     
    a dignity as the punishment of death itself.

   
   

It was a circumstance to be noted, on the summer morning when our story     
    begins its course, that the women, of whom there were several in the crowd, appeared to     
    take a peculiar interest in whatever penal infliction might be expected to ensue. The age     
    had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety restrained the wearers of     
    petticoat and farthingale from stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their not     
    unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearest to the scaffold at an     
    execution. Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and     
    maidens of old English birth and breeding, than in their fair descendants, separated from     
    them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout that chain of ancestry,     
    every successive mother has transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and     
    briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not a character of less force and     
    solidity, than her own. The women who were now standing about the prison-door stood within     
    less than half a century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth had been the not     
    altogether unsuitable representative of the sex. They were her country-women; and the beef     
    and ale of their native land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely     
    into their composition. The bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and     
    well-developed busts, and on round and ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far-off     
    island, and had hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New England. There     
    was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them     
    seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to its purport     
    or its volume of tone.

   
   

"Goodwives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "I'll     
    tell ye a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof, if we women, being     
    of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such     
    malefactresses as this Hester Prynne. What think ye, gossips? If the hussy stood up for     
    judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with     
    such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I trow not!"

   
   

"People say," said another, "that the Reverend Master     
    Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should     
    have come upon his congregation."

   
   

"The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful     
    overmuch-that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. "At the very     
    least,they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madam     
    Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she- the naughty baggage- little will     
    she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a     
    brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!"

   
   

"Ah, but," interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a     
    child by the hand, "Let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always     
    in her heart."

   
   

"What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her     
    gown, or the flesh of her forehead?" cried another female, the ugliest as well as the     
    most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. "This woman has brought shame upon us     
    all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and     
    the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank     
    themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray!"

   
   

"Mercy on us, goodwife," exclaimed a man in the crowd,     
    "is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows?     
    That is the hardest word yet! Hush, now, gossips! for the lock is turning in the     
    prison-door, and here comes Mistress Prynne herself."

   
   

The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in     
    the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence     
    of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This     
    personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the     
    Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest     
    application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid     
    his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward; until, on the     
    threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity     
    and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free will. She     
    bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its     
    little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had     
    brought it acquainted only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome     
    apartment of the prison.

   
   

When the young woman- the mother of this child- stood fully revealed     
    before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her     
    bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal     
    a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however,     
    wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she     
    took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance     
    that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast     
    of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic     
    flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so     
    much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and     
    fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendour in     
    accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary     
    regulations of the colony.

   
   

The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large     
    scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a     
    gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness     
    of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She     
    was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterised     
    by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable     
    grace, which is now recognised as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared     
    more ladylike, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the     
    prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured     
    by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty     
    shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It     
    may be true, that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it.     
    Her attire, which, indeed, she had wrought for the occasion, in prison, and had modelled     
    much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate     
    recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which     
    drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer- so that both men and women, who     
    had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as if they beheld     
    her for the first time- was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and     
    illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary     
    relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.

   
   

"She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain," remarked     
    one of her female spectators; "but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy,     
    contrive such a way of showing it! Why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of     
    our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a     
    punishment?"

   
   

"It were well," muttered the most iron-visaged of the old     
    dames, "if we stripped Madam Hester's rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for     
    the red letter, which she hath stitched so curiously, I'll bestow a rag of mine own     
    rheumatic flannel, to make a fitter one!"

   
   

"Oh, peace, neighbours, peace!" whispered their youngest     
    companion; "do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that embroidered letter, but she     
    has felt it in her heart."

   
   

The grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff.

   
   

"Make way, good people, make way, in the King's name!" cried     
    he."Open a passage; and, I promise ye, Mistress Prynne shall be set where man, woman,     
    and child, may have a fair sight of her brave apparel, from this time till an hour past     
    meridian. A blessing on the righteous Colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is     
    dragged out into the sunshine! Come along, Madam Hester, and show your scarlet letter in     
    the market-place!"

   
   

A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Preceded by     
    the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browed men and     
    unkindly-visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards the place appointed for her     
    punishment. A crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in     
    hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their     
    heads continually to stare into her face, and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the     
    ignominious letter on her breast. It was no great distance, in those days, from the     
    prison-door to the market-place. Measured by the prisoner's experience, however, it might     
    be reckoned a journey of some length; for, haughty as her demeanour was, she perchance     
    underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart     
    had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. In our nature,     
    however, there is a provision alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should     
    never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the     
    pang that rankles after it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne     
    passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western     
    extremity of the market-place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston's earliest     
    church, and appeared to be a fixture there.

   
   

In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which     
    now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and traditionary among     
    us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent, in the promotion of good     
    citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France. It was, in short,     
    the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of     
    discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it     
    up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this     
    contrivance of wood and iron. There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common     
    nature- whatever be the delinquencies of the individual- no outrage more flagrant than to     
    forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame; as it was the essence of this punishment to     
    do. In Hester Prynne's instance, however, as not unfrequently in other cases, her sentence     
    bore, that she should stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing that     
    gripe about the neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which was the most     
    devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowing well her part, she ascended a flight     
    of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude, at about the height     
    of a man's shoulders above the street.

   
   

Had there been a papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen     
    in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her     
    bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious     
    painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him,     
    indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was     
    to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality     
    of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's     
    beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne.

   
   

The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest     
    the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society shall have grown     
    corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering, at it. The witnesses of Hester Prynne's     
    disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon     
    her death, had that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none of     
    the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an     
    exhibition like the present. Even if there had been a disposition to turn the matter into     
    ridicule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no     
    less dignified than the Governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a general, and     
    the ministers of the town; all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meetinghouse,     
    looking down upon the platform. When such personages could constitute a part of the     
    spectacle, without risking the majesty or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to     
    be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual     
    meaning. Accordingly, the crowd was sombre and grave. The unhappy culprit sustained     
    herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all     
    fastened upon her and concentrated at her bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of     
    an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and     
    venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there     
    was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she     
    longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment,     
    and herself the object. Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude- each man, each     
    woman, each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts- Hester Prynne     
    might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden     
    infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs     
    shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon     
    the ground, or else go mad at once.

   
   

Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the most     
    conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or at least, glimmered indistinctly     
    before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images. Her mind, and     
    especially her memory. was preternaturally active, and kept bringing up other scenes than     
    this roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the Western wilderness; other     
    faces than were lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those steeple-crowned hats.     
    Reminiscences, the most trifling and immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days,     
    sports, childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, came     
    swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in her     
    subsequent life; one picture precisely as vivid as another; as if all were of similar     
    importance, or all alike a play. Possibly, it was an instinctive device of her spirit, to     
    relieve itself, by the exhibition of these phantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weight and     
    hardness of the reality.

   
   

Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point of view     
    that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track along which she had been treading, since     
    her happy infancy. Standing on that miserable eminence, she saw her native village, in old     
    England, and her paternal home; a decayed house of grey stone, with a poverty-stricken     
    aspect, but retaining a half-obliterated shield of arms over the portal, in token of     
    antique gentility. She saw her father's face, with its bald brow, and reverend white     
    beard, that flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan ruff; her mother's, too, with the     
    look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even     
    since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in her     
    daughter's pathway. She saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating     
    all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There she     
    beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like     
    visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamplight that had served them to pore over many     
    ponderous books. Yet those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it     
    was their owner's purpose to read the human soul. This figure of the study and the     
    cloister, as Hester Prynne's womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightly deformed,     
    with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right. Next rose before her, in memory's     
    picture-gallery, the intricate and narrow thoroughfares, the tall grey houses, the huge     
    cathedrals, and the public edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a     
    Continental city; where a new life had awaited her, still in connection with the misshapen     
    scholar; a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss     
    on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude     
    market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled and levelling     
    their stern regards at Hester Prynne- yes, at herself- who stood on the scaffold of the     
    pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered     
    with gold thread, upon her bosom!

   
   

Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast, that     
    it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched     
    it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes!- these     
    were her realities- all else had vanished!   
   

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