The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

  XII.

  THE MINISTER'S VIGIL.

  Walking in the shadow of a dream, as it were, and perhaps actuallyunder the influence of a species of somnambulism, Mr. Dimmesdalereached the spot where, now so long since, Hester Prynne had livedthrough her first hours of public ignominy. The same platform orscaffold, black and weather-stained with the storm or sunshine ofseven long years, and foot-worn, too, with the tread of many culpritswho had since ascended it, remained standing beneath the balcony ofthe meeting-house. The minister went up the steps.

  It was an obscure night of early May. An unvaried pall of cloudmuffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon. If the samemultitude which had stood as eye-witnesses while Hester Prynnesustained her punishment could now have been summoned forth, theywould have discerned no face above the platform, nor hardly theoutline of a human shape, in the dark gray of the midnight. But thetown was all asleep. There was no peril of discovery. The ministermight stand there, if it so pleased him, until morning should reddenin the east, without other risk than that the dank and chill night-airwould creep into his frame, and stiffen his joints with rheumatism,and clog his throat with catarrh and cough; thereby defrauding theexpectant audience of to-morrow's prayer and sermon. No eye could seehim, save that ever-wakeful one which had seen him in his closet,wielding the bloody scourge. Why, then, had he come hither? Was it butthe mockery of penitence? A mockery, indeed, but in which his soultrifled with itself! A mockery at which angels blushed and wept, whilefiends rejoiced, with jeering laughter! He had been driven hither bythe impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose ownsister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice whichinvariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when theother impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure. Poor,miserable man! what right had infirmity like his to burden itself withcrime? Crime is for the iron-nerved, who have their choice either toendure it, or, if it press too hard, to exert their fierce and savagestrength for a good purpose, and fling it off at once! This feeble andmost sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continually did onething or another, which intertwined, in the same inextricable knot,the agony of heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance.

  And thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain show ofexpiation, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, asif the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast,right over his heart. On that spot, in very truth, there was, andthere had long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain.Without any effort of his will, or power to restrain himself, heshrieked aloud; an outcry that went pealing through the night, andwas beaten back from one house to another, and reverberated from thehills in the background; as if a company of devils, detecting so muchmisery and terror in it, had made a plaything of the sound, and werebandying it to and fro.

  "It is done!" muttered the minister, covering his face with his hands."The whole town will awake, and hurry forth, and find me here!"

  But it was not so. The shriek had perhaps sounded with a far greaterpower, to his own startled ears, than it actually possessed. The towndid not awake; or, if it did, the drowsy slumberers mistook the cryeither for something frightful in a dream, or for the noise ofwitches; whose voices, at that period, were often heard to pass overthe settlements or lonely cottages, as they rode with Satan throughthe air. The clergyman, therefore, hearing no symptoms of disturbance,uncovered his eyes and looked about him. At one of the chamber-windowsof Governor Bellingham's mansion, which stood at some distance, on theline of another street, he beheld the appearance of the old magistratehimself, with a lamp in his hand, a white night-cap on his head, and along white gown enveloping his figure. He looked like a ghost, evokedunseasonably from the grave. The cry had evidently startled him. Atanother window of the same house, moreover, appeared old MistressHibbins, the Governor's sister, also with a lamp, which, even thus faroff, revealed the expression of her sour and discontented face. Shethrust forth her head from the lattice, and looked anxiously upward.Beyond the shadow of a doubt, this venerable witch-lady had heard Mr.Dimmesdale's outcry, and interpreted it, with its multitudinous echoesand reverberations, as the clamor of the fiends and night-hags, withwhom she was well known to make excursions into the forest.

  Detecting the gleam of Governor Bellingham's lamp, the old ladyquickly extinguished her own, and vanished. Possibly, she went upamong the clouds. The minister saw nothing further of her motions. Themagistrate, after a wary observation of the darkness,--into which,nevertheless, he could see but little further than he might into amill-stone,--retired from the window.

  The minister grew comparatively calm. His eyes, however, were soongreeted by a little, glimmering light, which, at first a long way off,was approaching up the street. It threw a gleam of recognition on herea post, and there a garden-fence, and here a latticed window-pane, andthere a pump, with its full trough of water, and here, again, anarched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for thedoorstep. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale noted all these minuteparticulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of hisexistence was stealing onward, in the footsteps which he now heard;and that the gleam of the lantern would fall upon him, in a fewmoments more, and reveal his long-hidden secret. As the light drewnearer, he beheld, within its illuminated circle, his brotherclergyman,--or, to speak more accurately, his professional father, aswell as highly valued friend,--the Reverend Mr. Wilson; who, as Mr.Dimmesdale now conjectured, had been praying at the bedside of somedying man. And so he had. The good old minister came freshly from thedeath-chamber of Governor Winthrop, who had passed from earth toheaven within that very hour. And now, surrounded, like the saint-likepersonages of olden times, with a radiant halo, that glorified himamid this gloomy night of sin,--as if the departed Governor had lefthim an inheritance of his glory, or as if he had caught upon himselfthe distant shine of the celestial city, while looking thitherward tosee the triumphant pilgrim pass within its gates,--now, in short, goodFather Wilson was moving homeward, aiding his footsteps with a lightedlantern! The glimmer of this luminary suggested the above conceits toMr. Dimmesdale, who smiled,--nay, almost laughed at them,--and thenwondered if he were going mad.

  As the Reverend Mr. Wilson passed beside the scaffold, closelymuffling his Geneva cloak about him with one arm, and holding thelantern before his breast with the other, the minister could hardlyrestrain himself from speaking.

  "A good evening to you, venerable Father Wilson! Come up hither, Ipray you, and pass a pleasant hour with me!"

  Good heavens! Had Mr. Dimmesdale actually spoken? For one instant, hebelieved that these words had passed his lips. But they were utteredonly within his imagination. The venerable Father Wilson continued tostep slowly onward, looking carefully at the muddy pathway before hisfeet, and never once turning his head towards the guilty platform.When the light of the glimmering lantern had faded quite away, theminister discovered, by the faintness which came over him, that thelast few moments had been a crisis of terrible anxiety; although hismind had made an involuntary effort to relieve itself by a kind oflurid playfulness.

  Shortly afterwards, the like grisly sense of the humorous again stolein among the solemn phantoms of his thought. He felt his limbs growingstiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night, and doubtedwhether he should be able to descend the steps of the scaffold.Morning would break, and find him there. The neighborhood would beginto rouse itself. The earliest riser, coming forth in the dimtwilight, would perceive a vaguely defined figure aloft on the placeof shame; and, half crazed betwixt alarm and curiosity, would go,knocking from door to door, summoning all the people to behold theghost--as he needs must think it--of some defunct transgressor. Adusky tumult would flap its wings from one house to another. Then--themorning light still waxing stronger--old patriarchs would rise up ingreat haste, each in his flannel gown, and matronly dames, withoutpausing to put off their night-gear.
The whole tribe of decorouspersonages, who had never heretofore been seen with a single hair oftheir heads awry, would start into public view, with the disorder of anightmare in their aspects. Old Governor Bellingham would come grimlyforth, with his King James's ruff fastened askew; and MistressHibbins, with some twigs of the forest clinging to her skirts, andlooking sourer than ever, as having hardly got a wink of sleep afterher night ride; and good Father Wilson, too, after spending half thenight at a death-bed, and liking ill to be disturbed, thus early, outof his dreams about the glorified saints. Hither, likewise, would comethe elders and deacons of Mr. Dimmesdale's church, and the youngvirgins who so idolized their minister, and had made a shrine for himin their white bosoms; which now, by the by, in their hurry andconfusion, they would scantly have given themselves time to cover withtheir kerchiefs. All people, in a word, would come stumbling overtheir thresholds, and turning up their amazed and horror-strickenvisages around the scaffold. Whom would they discern there, with thered eastern light upon his brow? Whom, but the Reverend ArthurDimmesdale, half frozen to death, overwhelmed with shame, and standingwhere Hester Prynne had stood!

  Carried away by the grotesque horror of this picture, the minister,unawares, and to his own infinite alarm, burst into a great peal oflaughter. It was immediately responded to by a light, airy, childishlaugh, in which, with a thrill of the heart,--but he knew not whetherof exquisite pain, or pleasure as acute,--he recognized the tones oflittle Pearl.

  "Pearl! Little Pearl!" cried he after a moment's pause; then,suppressing his voice,--"Hester! Hester Prynne! Are you there?"

  "Yes; it is Hester Prynne!" she replied, in a tone of surprise; andthe minister heard her footsteps approaching from the sidewalk, alongwhich she had been passing. "It is I, and my little Pearl."

  "Whence come you, Hester?" asked the minister. "What sent you hither?"

  "I have been watching at a death-bed," answered Hester Prynne;--"atGovernor Winthrop's death-bed, and have taken his measure for a robe,and am now going homeward to my dwelling."

  "Come up hither, Hester, thou and little Pearl," said the Reverend Mr.Dimmesdale. "Ye have both been here before, but I was not with you.Come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together!"

  She silently ascended the steps, and stood on the platform, holdinglittle Pearl by the hand. The minister felt for the child's otherhand, and took it. The moment that he did so, there came what seemed atumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like atorrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins, as if themother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to hishalf-torpid system. The three formed an electric chain.

  "Minister!" whispered little Pearl.

  "What wouldst thou say, child?" asked Mr. Dimmesdale.

  "Wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?"inquired Pearl.

  "Nay; not so, my little Pearl," answered the minister; for, with thenew energy of the moment, all the dread of public exposure, that hadso long been the anguish of his life, had returned upon him; and hewas already trembling at the conjunction in which--with a strange joy,nevertheless--he now found himself. "Not so, my child. I shall,indeed, stand with thy mother and thee one other day, but notto-morrow."

  Pearl laughed, and attempted to pull away her hand. But the ministerheld it fast.

  "A moment longer, my child!" said he.

  "But wilt thou promise," asked Pearl, "to take my hand, and mother'shand, to-morrow noontide?"

  "Not then, Pearl," said the minister, "but another time."

  "And what other time?" persisted the child.

  "At the great judgment day," whispered the minister,--and, strangelyenough, the sense that he was a professional teacher of the truthimpelled him to answer the child so. "Then, and there, before thejudgment-seat, thy mother, and thou, and I must stand together. Butthe daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!"

  Pearl laughed again.

  "They stood in the noon of that strange splendor"]

  But, before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, a light gleamed far andwide over all the muffled sky. It was doubtless caused by one of thosemeteors, which the night-watcher may so often observe burning out towaste, in the vacant regions of the atmosphere. So powerful was itsradiance, that it thoroughly illuminated the dense medium of cloudbetwixt the sky and earth. The great vault brightened, like the domeof an immense lamp. It showed the familiar scene of the street, withthe distinctness of mid-day, but also with the awfulness that isalways imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light. Thewooden houses, with their jutting stories and quaint gable-peaks; thedoorsteps and thresholds, with the early grass springing up aboutthem; the garden-plots, black with freshly turned earth; thewheel-track, little worn, and, even in the market-place, margined withgreen on either side;--all were visible, but with a singularity ofaspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the thingsof this world than they had ever borne before. And there stood theminister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with theembroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herselfa symbol, and the connecting link between those two. They stood in thenoon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it were the light thatis to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all whobelong to one another.

  There was witchcraft in little Pearl's eyes, and her face, as sheglanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile which made itsexpression frequently so elvish. She withdrew her hand from Mr.Dimmesdale's, and pointed across the street. But he clasped both hishands over his breast, and cast his eyes towards the zenith.

  Nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all meteoricappearances, and other natural phenomena, that occurred with lessregularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so manyrevelations from a supernatural source. Thus, a blazing spear, a swordof flame, a bow, or a sheaf of arrows, seen in the midnight sky,prefigured Indian warfare. Pestilence was known to have been forebodedby a shower of crimson light. We doubt whether any marked event, forgood or evil, ever befell New England, from its settlement down toRevolutionary times, of which the inhabitants had not been previouslywarned by some spectacle of this nature. Not seldom, it had been seenby multitudes. Oftener, however, its credibility rested on the faithof some lonely eye-witness, who beheld the wonder through the colored,magnifying, and distorting medium of his imagination, and shaped itmore distinctly in his after-thought. It was, indeed, a majestic idea,that the destiny of nations should be revealed, in these awfulhieroglyphics, on the cope of heaven. A scroll so wide might not bedeemed too expansive for Providence to write a people's doom upon. Thebelief was a favorite one with our forefathers, as betokening thattheir infant commonwealth was under a celestial guardianship ofpeculiar intimacy and strictness. But what shall we say, when anindividual discovers a revelation addressed to himself alone, on thesame vast sheet of record! In such a case, it could only be thesymptom of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, renderedmorbidly self-contemplative by long, intense, and secret pain, hadextended his egotism over the whole expanse of nature, until thefirmament itself should appear no more than a fitting page for hissoul's history and fate!

  We impute it, therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye andheart, that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld therethe appearance of an immense letter,--the letter A,--marked out inlines of dull red light. Not but the meteor may have shown itself atthat point, burning duskily through a veil of cloud; but with no suchshape as his guilty imagination gave it; or, at least, with so littledefiniteness, that another's guilt might have seen another symbol init.

  There was a singular circumstance that characterized Mr. Dimmesdale'spsychological state, at this moment. All the time that he gazed upwardto the zenith, he was, nevertheless, perfectly aware that little Pearlwas pointing her finger towards old Roger Chillingworth, who stood atno great distance from the scaffold. The minister appeared to see him,with the same glance that discerned the miraculous letter. To h
isfeatures, as to all other objects, the meteoric light imparted a newexpression; or it might well be that the physician was not carefulthen, as at all other times, to hide the malevolence with which helooked upon his victim. Certainly, if the meteor kindled up the sky,and disclosed the earth, with an awfulness that admonished HesterPrynne and the clergyman of the day of judgment, then might RogerChillingworth have passed with them for the arch-fiend, standing therewith a smile and scowl, to claim his own. So vivid was the expression,or so intense the minister's perception of it, that it seemed still toremain painted on the darkness, after the meteor had vanished, with aneffect as if the street and all things else were at once annihilated.

  "Who is that man, Hester?" gasped Mr. Dimmesdale, overcome withterror. "I shiver at him! Dost thou know the man? I hate him, Hester!"

  She remembered her oath, and was silent.

  "I tell thee, my soul shivers at him!" muttered the minister again."Who is he? Who is he? Canst thou do nothing for me? I have a namelesshorror of the man!"

  "Minister," said little Pearl, "I can tell thee who he is!"

  "Quickly, then, child!" said the minister, bending his ear close toher lips. "Quickly!--and as low as thou canst whisper."

  Pearl mumbled something into his ear, that sounded, indeed, like humanlanguage, but was only such gibberish as children may be heard amusingthemselves with, by the hour together. At all events, if it involvedany secret information in regard to old Roger Chillingworth, it was ina tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman, and did but increase thebewilderment of his mind. The elvish child then laughed aloud.

  "Dost thou mock me now?" said the minister.

  "Thou wast not bold!--thou wast not true!"--answered the child. "Thouwouldst not promise to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrownoontide!"

  "Worthy Sir," answered the physician, who had now advanced to the footof the platform. "Pious Master Dimmesdale, can this be you? Well,well, indeed! We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have needto be straitly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walkin our sleep. Come, good Sir, and my dear friend, I pray you, let melead you home!"

  "How knewest thou that I was here?" asked the minister, fearfully.

  "Verily, and in good faith," answered Roger Chillingworth, "I knewnothing of the matter. I had spent the better part of the night at thebedside of the worshipful Governor Winthrop, doing what my poor skillmight to give him ease. He going home to a better world, I, likewise,was on my way homeward, when this strange light shone out. Come withme, I beseech you, Reverend Sir; else you will be poorly able to doSabbath duty to-morrow. Aha! see now, how they trouble thebrain,--these books!--these books! You should study less, good Sir,and take a little pastime; or these night-whimseys will grow uponyou."

  "I will go home with you," said Mr. Dimmesdale.

  With a chill despondency, like one awaking, all nerveless, from anugly dream, he yielded himself to the physician, and was led away.

  The next day, however, being the Sabbath, he preached a discoursewhich was held to be the richest and most powerful, and the mostreplete with heavenly influences, that had ever proceeded from hislips. Souls, it is said more souls than one, were brought to the truthby the efficacy of that sermon, and vowed within themselves to cherisha holy gratitude towards Mr. Dimmesdale throughout the long hereafter.But, as he came down the pulpit steps, the gray-bearded sexton methim, holding up a black glove, which the minister recognized as hisown.

  "It was found," said the sexton, "this morning, on the scaffold whereevil-doers are set up to public shame. Satan dropped it there, I takeit, intending a scurrilous jest against your reverence. But, indeed,he was blind and foolish, as he ever and always is. A pure hand needsno glove to cover it!"

  "Thank you, my good friend," said the minister, gravely, but startledat heart; for, so confused was his remembrance, that he had almostbrought himself to look at the events of the past night as visionary."Yes, it seems to be my glove, indeed!"

  "And since Satan saw fit to steal it, your reverence must needs handlehim without gloves, henceforward," remarked the old sexton, grimlysmiling. "But did your reverence hear of the portent that was seenlast night?--a great red letter in the sky,--the letter A, which weinterpret to stand for Angel. For, as our good Governor Winthrop wasmade an angel this past night, it was doubtless held fit that thereshould be some notice thereof!"

  "No," answered the minister, "I had not heard of it."