Evening journal., 1892-09-01
CHAPTER ".


CHAPTER ".
HESTER. AT HER NEEDLE.
Hester PIynne's term of confinement |
was now at an end. Her prison door 4
was thrown open and she came forth into |
the sunshine, which, falling on all alike, |
seemed TO her sick and morbid heart as
if meant for no other purpose than to
reveal tho scarlet letter ON her breast. |
Perhaps there was a more real torture |
in her first unattended footsteps from
the threshold Of the prison than even in
the procession and spectacle that have
been described, where she was made the
common infamy, at which all mankind
was summoned to point its finger. Then
She was supported by an unnatural ten
sion of the nerves and by all the COM
batvo energy Of her character, which
enabled her to convert the scene into a
kind Of lurd triumph.
it was, moreover, q separate and in
sulatcd event, to occur but once in her
lifetime, and to meet which, therefore,
reckless Of economy, she might call uT
the vital strength that would have suf-
feed for many quiet years. The very
law that condemned her-a giant of
stern features, but with vigor to sup
port. as well rs to annihilate, in his iron
arm-had held her up, through the ter
rible ordeal Of her ignominy. But now,
with this unattended walk from her
prison door, began the daily custom;
and She must either sustain and carry it
forward by the ordinary resources Of
her nature or sink beneath it. She
could no longer borrow from the future
TO help her through the present grief
Tomorrow would bring its own trial
with it.; so would the next day, and so
would the next; each its own trial, and
yet the very same that was now so I'M
utteiably grievous to be borne.
The days OF the far of future would
toll onward, still with the same burden
for her to take up and bear along with
her, but never TO fling down, for the ac-
cumulating days and added years would
pile up their misery upon the heap of
shame. Throughout them all, giving up
her individuality, she would become the
general symbol at which the preacher
and moralist might point and in which
they might vivify and embody their inn
ages Of woman's frailty and sinful pas
sion. Thus the young and pure would
be taught TO look ut her, with the scarlet
letter flaming ON her breast-at her, the
child of honorable parents; at her, the
mother of a babe that would hereafter
be woman; at her, who had once been
innoccnt-as the figure, the body, the
reality Of sin. And over her grave the
infany that she must carry thither
would be her only monument.
1t may seem marvellous that with the
world before her-kept by no restrictive
clause of her condemnation within the
limits of tho Puritan settlement, so re-
mote and SO obscure-free to return tC
her birthplace or to any other European
land, and there hide her character and
identity under q new exterior, as com
pletoly as If emerging into another state
of being, and having also the passes OF
the dark inscrutable forest open to her
where the wildnoss Of her nature might
assimilate itself with a people who's,
customs and life were alien from the
law that had condemned her-it may
seem marvellous that this woman Should
stll call that place her home, where
and where only, she must needs be the
tyne of shame But there is q fatality
q feeling SO irresistible and inevitable
that it has the force of doom, which al
most invariably compels human being
10 linger around and haunt, ghostlike
the spot where some great and marked
event has given the color TO their life
time, and still the more irresistbly, th
darker the tingo that saddens it.
Her sin, her ignominy, were the root
which she had struck into the soil.
was as If @ new birth, with stronge
assimiations than tho first, had con
verified the forest land. still so uncor
genial to every other pilgrim an
wandcror into Hester Prynne's vii
and drcarv but lifelong home All othe
scenes of earth-even that village q
rural England, whore happy infanc
and stainless motherhood seemed yet {
be in her mothers keeping, like gai
ments put of long ago-were foreign
her in comparison. The chain thi
bound her here was of iron links an
oqlling to her inmost soul. but coul
never be broken.
IL might be, too-doubtlcss it was 81
although she hid the secret from he
self and grew pale Whenever it strul
plod out Of her heart, like serpcl
from its hole-it might be That anoth'
feeling kept her within the scene ar
pathway that had been so fatal The
dwelt, there trod the feet Of one wi
whom she deemed herself connected
union that, mrecognized on cart
would bring them together before q