In her late singular interview with Mr. Dimmesdale, HesterPrynne was shocked at the condition to which she found theclergyman reduced. His nerve seemed absolutely destroyed. Hismoral force was abased into more than childish weakness. Itgrovelled helpless on the ground, even while his intellectualfaculties retained their pristine strength, or had perhapsacquired a morbid energy, which disease only could have giventhem. With her knowledge of a train of circumstances hidden fromall others, she could readily infer that, besides the legitimateaction of his own conscience, a terrible machinery had beenbrought to bear, and was still operating, on Mr. Dimmesdale'swell-being and repose. Knowing what this poor fallen man hadonce been, her whole soul was moved by the shuddering terrorwith which he had appealed to her--the outcast woman--forsupport against his instinctively discovered enemy. She decided,moreover, that he had a right to her utmost aid. Littleaccustomed, in her long seclusion from society, to measure herideas of right and wrong by any standard external to herself,Hester saw--or seemed to see--that there lay a responsibilityupon her in reference to the clergyman, which she owned to noother, nor to the whole world besides. The links that united herto the rest of humankind--links of flowers, or silk, or gold, orwhatever the material--had all been broken. Here was the ironlink of mutual crime, which neither he nor she could break. Likeall other ties, it brought along with it its obligations.

Hester Prynne did not now occupy precisely the same position inwhich we beheld her during the earlier periods of her ignominy.Years had come and gone. Pearl was now seven years old. Hermother, with the scarlet letter on her breast, glittering in itsfantastic embroidery, had long been a familiar object to thetownspeople. As is apt to be the case when a person stands outin any prominence before the community, and, at the same time,interferes neither with public nor individual interests andconvenience, a species of general regard had ultimately grown upin reference to Hester Prynne. It is to the credit of humannature that, except where its selfishness is brought into play,it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual andquiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless thechange be impeded by a continually new irritation of theoriginal feeling of hostility. In this matter of Hester Prynnethere was neither irritation nor irksomeness. She never battledwith the public, but submitted uncomplainingly to its worstusage; she made no claim upon it in requital for what shesuffered; she did not weigh upon its sympathies. Then, also, theblameless purity of her life during all these years in which shehad been set apart to infamy was reckoned largely in her favour.With nothing now to lose, in the sight of mankind, and with nohope, and seemingly no wish, of gaining anything, it could onlybe a genuine regard for virtue that had brought back the poorwanderer to its paths.

It was perceived, too, that while Hester never put forward eventhe humblest title to share in the world's privileges--furtherthan to breathe the common air and earn daily bread for littlePearl and herself by the faithful labour of her hands--she wasquick to acknowledge her sisterhood with the race of manwhenever benefits were to be conferred. None so ready as she togive of her little substance to every demand of poverty, eventhough the bitter-hearted pauper threw back a gibe in requitalof the food brought regularly to his door, or the garmentswrought for him by the fingers that could have embroidered amonarch's robe. None so self-devoted as Hester when pestilencestalked through the town. In all seasons of calamity, indeed,whether general or of individuals, the outcast of society atonce found her place. She came, not as a guest, but as arightful inmate, into the household that was darkened bytrouble, as if its gloomy twilight were a medium in which shewas entitled to hold intercourse with her fellow-creature. Thereglimmered the embroidered letter, with comfort in its unearthlyray. Elsewhere the token of sin, it was the taper of the sickchamber. It had even thrown its gleam, in the sufferer's bardextremity, across the verge of time. It had shown him where toset his foot, while the light of earth was fast becoming dim,and ere the light of futurity could reach him. In suchemergencies Hester's nature showed itself warm and rich--awell-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand,and inexhaustible by the largest. Her breast, with its badge ofshame, 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 theworld nor she looked forward to this result. The letter was thesymbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her--somuch power to do, and power to sympathise--that many peoplerefused to interpret the scarlet A by its originalsignification. They said that it meant Abel, so strong wasHester Prynne, with a woman's strength.

It was only the darkened house that could contain her. Whensunshine came again, she was not there. Her shadow had fadedacross the threshold. The helpful inmate had departed, withoutone backward glance to gather up the meed of gratitude, if anywere in the hearts of those whom she had served so zealously.Meeting them in the street, she never raised her head to receivetheir greeting. If they were resolute to accost her, she laidher finger on the scarlet letter, and passed on. This might bepride, but was so like humility, that it produced all thesoftening influence of the latter quality on the public mind.The public is despotic in its temper; it is capable of denyingcommon justice when too strenuously demanded as a right; butquite as frequently it awards more than justice, when the appealis made, as despots love to have it made, entirely to itsgenerosity. Interpreting Hester Prynne's deportment as an appealof this nature, society was inclined to show its former victim amore 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, werelonger in acknowledging the influence of Hester's good qualitiesthan the people. The prejudices which they shared in common withthe latter were fortified in themselves by an iron frame-work ofreasoning, that made it a far tougher labour to expel them. Dayby day, nevertheless, their sour and rigid wrinkles wererelaxing into something which, in the due course of years, mightgrow to be an expression of almost benevolence. Thus it was withthe men of rank, on whom their eminent position imposed theguardianship 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 thetoken, not of that one sin for which she had borne so long anddreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since. "Do you seethat woman with the embroidered badge?" they would say tostrangers. "It is our Hester--the town's own Hester--who is sokind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to theafflicted!" Then, it is true, the propensity of human nature totell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person ofanother, would constrain them to whisper the black scandal ofbygone years. It was none the less a fact, however, that in theeyes of the very men who spoke thus, the scarlet letter had theeffect of the cross on a nun's bosom. It imparted to the wearera kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amidall peril. Had she fallen among thieves, it would have kept hersafe. It was reported, and believed by many, that an Indian haddrawn his arrow against the badge, and that the missile struckit, and fell harmless to the ground.

The effect of the symbol--or rather, of the position in respectto society that was indicated by it--on the mind of HesterPrynne herself was powerful and peculiar. All the light andgraceful foliage of her character had been withered up by thisred-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare andharsh outline, which might have been repulsive had she possessedfriends or companions to be repelled by it. Even theattractiveness of her person had undergone a similar change. Itmight be partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress, andpartly to the lack of demonstration in her manners. It was a sadtransformation, too, that her rich and luxuriant hair had eitherbeen cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not ashining lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine. It wasdue in part to all these causes, but still more to somethingelse, that there seemed to be no longer anything in Hester'sface for Love to dwell upon; nothing in Hester's form, thoughmajestic and statue like, that Passion would ever dream ofclasping in its embrace; nothing in Hester's bosom to make itever again the pillow of Affection. Some attribute had departedfrom her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep hera woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the sterndevelopment, of the feminine character and person, when thewoman has encountered, and lived through, an experience ofpeculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. Ifshe survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her,or--and the outward semblance is the same--crushed so deeplyinto her heart that it can never show itself more. The latter isperhaps the truest theory. She who has once been a woman, andceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again, ifthere were only the magic touch to effect the transformation. Weshall see whether Hester Prynne were ever afterwards so touchedand so transfigured.

Much of the marble coldness of Hester's impression was to beattributed to the circumstance that her life had turned, in agreat measure, from passion and feeling to thought. Standingalone in the world--alone, as to any dependence on society, andwith little Pearl to be guided and protected--alone, andhopeless of retrieving her position, even had she not scorned toconsider it desirable--she cast away the fragment of a brokenchain. The world's law was no law for her mind. It was an age inwhich the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a moreactive and a wider range than for many centuries before. Men ofthe sword had overthrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than thesehad overthrown and rearranged--not actually, but within thesphere of theory, which was their most real abode--the wholesystem of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much ofancient principle. Hester Prynne imbibed this spirit. Sheassumed a freedom of speculation, then common enough on theother side of the Atlantic, but which our forefathers, had theyknown it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than thatstigmatised by the scarlet letter. In her lonesome cottage, bythe seashore, thoughts visited her such as dared to enter noother dwelling in New England; shadowy guests, that would havebeen as perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they havebeen seen so much as knocking at her door.

It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldlyoften conform with the most perfect quietude to the externalregulations of society. The thought suffices them, withoutinvesting itself in the flesh and blood of action. So it seemedto be with Hester. Yet, had little Pearl never come to her fromthe spiritual world, it might have been far otherwise. Then shemight have come down to us in history, hand in hand with AnnHutchinson, as the foundress of a religious sect. She might, inone of her phases, have been a prophetess. She might, and notimprobably would, have suffered death from the stern tribunalsof the period, for attempting to undermine the foundations ofthe Puritan establishment. But, in the education of her child,the mother's enthusiasm of thought had something to wreak itselfupon. Providence, in the person of this little girl, hadassigned 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'sown nature had something wrong in it which continually betokenedthat she had been born amiss--the effluence of her mother'slawless passion--and often impelled Hester to ask, in bitternessof heart, whether it were for ill or good that the poor littlecreature had been born at all.

Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind withreference to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worthaccepting even to the happiest among them? As concerned her ownindividual existence, she had long ago decided in the negative,and dismissed the point as settled. A tendency to speculation,though it may keep women quiet, as it does man, yet makes hersad. She discerns, it may be, such a hopeless task before her.As a first step, the whole system of society is to be torn downand built up anew. Then the very nature of the opposite sex, orits long hereditary habit, which has become like nature, is tobe essentially modified before woman can be allowed to assumewhat seems a fair and suitable position. Finally, all otherdifficulties being obviated, woman cannot take advantage ofthese preliminary reforms until she herself shall have undergonea still mightier change, in which, perhaps, the etherealessence, wherein she has her truest life, will be found to haveevaporated. A woman never overcomes these problems by anyexercise of thought. They are not to be solved, or only in oneway. If her heart chance to come uppermost, they vanish. ThusHester Prynne, whose heart had lost its regular and healthythrob, wandered without a clue in the dark labyrinth of mind;now turned aside by an insurmountable precipice; now startingback from a deep chasm. There was wild and ghastly scenery allaround her, and a home and comfort nowhere. At times a fearfuldoubt strove to possess her soul, whether it were not better tosend Pearl at once to Heaven, and go herself to such futurity asEternal Justice should provide.

The scarlet letter had not done its office. Now, however, herinterview with the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the night of hisvigil, had given her a new theme of reflection, and held up toher an object that appeared worthy of any exertion and sacrificefor its attainment. She had witnessed the intense misery beneathwhich the minister struggled, or, to speak more accurately, hadceased to struggle. She saw that he stood on the verge oflunacy, if he had not already stepped across it. It wasimpossible to doubt that, whatever painful efficacy there mightbe in the secret sting of remorse, a deadlier venom had beeninfused into it by the hand that proffered relief. A secretenemy had been continually by his side, under the semblance of afriend and helper, and had availed himself of the opportunitiesthus afforded for tampering with the delicate springs of Mr.Dimmesdale's nature. Hester could not but ask herself whetherthere had not originally been a defect of truth, courage, andloyalty on her own part, in allowing the minister to be throwninto a position where so much evil was to be foreboded and nothingauspicious to be hoped. Her only justification lay in the factthat she had been able to discern no method of rescuing him froma blacker ruin than had overwhelmed herself except byacquiescing in Roger Chillingworth's scheme of disguise. Underthat impulse she had made her choice, and had chosen, as it nowappeared, the more wretched alternative of the two. Shedetermined to redeem her error so far as it might yet bepossible. Strengthened by years of hard and solemn trial, shefelt herself no longer so inadequate to cope with RogerChillingworth as on that night, abased by sin and half-maddenedby the ignominy that was still new, when they had talkedtogether in the prison-chamber. She had climbed her way sincethen to a higher point. The old man, on the other hand, hadbrought himself nearer to her level, or, perhaps, below it, bythe revenge which he had stooped for.

In fine, Hester Prynne resolved to meet her former husband, anddo what might be in her power for the rescue of the victim onwhom he had so evidently set his gripe. The occasion was notlong to seek. One afternoon, walking with Pearl in a retiredpart of the peninsula, she beheld the old physician with abasket on one arm and a staff in the other hand, stooping alongthe ground in quest of roots and herbs to concoct his medicinewithal.