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The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne
and
Wayne Josephson

Readable Classics
Charlottesville VA 22901

Readable Classics
Readable Classics gently edits great works of literature, retaining the original
authors' voices, and making them less frustrating for students and more
enjoyable for modern readers.

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 The Scarlet Letter
Puritan Boston, 1600’s -- Beautiful, defiant Hester Prynne commits adultery,
refuses to name the father of her illegitimate child, and is condemned to wear
a scarlet ‘A’ on her breast for the rest of her life. She becomes the first true
heroine of American fiction.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 masterpiece was the first American novel to

explore the moral struggle with sin, guilt, and pride; the conflict between the
heart and the mind; and the deadly consequences of not being able to forgive
ourselves and others.

Copyright 2010 by Readable Classics

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form without written permission from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-615-32444-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009937410
Readable Classics
Charlottesville, VA 22901

www.ReadableClassics.com

Chapter 1
The Prison Door

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 A throng of bearded men in sad-coloured garments and grey pointed hats,
and women, some wearing hoods and others bareheaded, was assembled in
front of a wooden building, the door of which was made of heavy oak and
studded with iron spikes.
The founders of any new colony, regardless of whatever Utopia of virtue
and happiness they might originally plan, soon recognize that one of their
first practical necessities is to build a cemetery and a prison.
In accordance with this rule, the forefathers of Boston built the first
prison, and marked out the first burial ground, on Isaac Johnson’s land, near
his grave, which subsequently became the old churchyard of King’s Chapel.
Fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of Boston, the wooden jail
was already marked with weather stains, which gave its gloomy front an even
darker appearance. The rust on the heavy ironwork of its oak door looked
more antique than anything else in the New World. Like all that relates to
crime, it seemed to never have looked new.
Between this ugly prison and the tracks of the street was a grass plot,
overgrown with weeds and unsightly vegetation that flourished in the same
soil that had produced the black flower of civilized society--a prison.
But on one side of the door, almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-
bush, in full bloom in this month of June, which offered its fragrance and
fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as
he came out to face his doom. At least Nature had a deep heart and could pity
him, even if man could not.
This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has survived for over two hundred
years; but whether it merely survived in the harsh wilderness, or whether, as
there is evidence for believing, it sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted
Ann Hutchinson as she entered the prison door, we shall not attempt to
determine.
Finding the rose-bush on the threshold of our story, the subject of whom
is now about to exit from that prison door, we cannot help but pluck one of
its flowers and present it to the reader. Let us hope it may symbolize some
sweet moral blossom, or provide some relief for a tale of human frailty and
sorrow.

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 Chapter 2
The Market-Place

On a certain summer morning over two centuries ago, the grass plot in
front of the jail in Prison Lane was crowded with a large number of the
inhabitants of Boston, all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-
clamped oaken door.
At a later period in the history of New England, the grim expression of
these bearded faces would have indicated some awful business at hand--
perhaps the execution of some rioted culprit, on whom the verdict and
sentence had been pronounced.
But here, instead, among the severe Puritans of Boston, this scene might
indicate that a lazy servant or rebellious child was to be corrected at the
whipping post; or that a Quaker was forced to leave town; or a vagrant
Indian, whom the white man’s liquor had made riotous in the streets, was to
be driven back into the forest with lashes of the whip.
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 any case, the solemn faces of the spectators suited people to whom
religion and law were almost identical, and so intertwined that both the
mildest and severest acts of public punishment were both honored and awful.
The sympathy that a sinner on the scaffold might look for in these
bystanders was meager and cold. On the other hand, a penalty which we
might ridicule today would, back then, be regarded as deserving as death
itself.
When our story begins, it is to be noted that the women, of whom there
were several in the crowd, appeared to be quite interested in the punishment
to be inflicted. This Puritan age was not so refined women could not step out
in public and wedge their often substantial bodies into the throng nearest to
the scaffold at an execution.

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 Those English-born and bred women were morally and physically
coarser than their fair descendants; for, during the next six or seven
generations, each mother passed on to her child a fainter bloom, a more
delicate beauty, and a slighter physical frame--though not a less solid and
forceful character--than her own.
The women who now stood around the prison door were less than two
generations removed from the reign of the man-like Queen Elizabeth. These
were her countrywomen--and their bodies and morals reflected the beef and
ale of England.
The bright morning sun, therefore, shone on women with broad
shoulders, well-developed busts, and ruddy cheeks that had ripened in
England and had not yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New
England. There was, moreover, a boldness in the speech among these
matrons that would startle us today.
“Good wives,” said a hard-featured dame of fifty, “I’ll give you a piece of
my mind. It would good if we women, being of mature age and church
members in good repute, should be in charge of punishing sinners such as
this Hester Prynne. What think you, gossips? If that hussy received her
judgment from the five of us, would she come off with such a light sentence
as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? I think 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 overly merciful--that is
the truth,” added a third older matron. “At the very least, they should have
put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead. Madame Hester
would have winced at that, I warrant. But the naughty sinner will little care
what they put upon the bosom of her gown. Why, look, she may cover it with
a brooch or such heathen adornment and walk the streets as brave as ever.”
“Ah,” interposed a young wife, more softly, holding a child by the hand,
“she may cover the mark as she will, but the pain of it will be always in her
heart.”
“Why do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bosom of her
gown or the flesh of her forehead?” cried another female, the ugliest of these
self-proclaimed judges. “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and
ought to die. Is there not a law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and
the statute book. Then let the magistrates, who have not enforced it, thank
themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray.”
“Have mercy on us, good wife,” exclaimed a man in the crowd. “Is there

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no virtue in women except that which comes from fear of the gallows? Hush
now, gossips, for the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes
Mistress Prynne herself.”
The door of the jail was flung open, and from inside appeared, like a
black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and gristly town beadle, with
a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This parish official’s
appearance represented the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of
law, which it was his business to administer to the offender.
He stretched forth the official staff in his left hand, and laid his right upon
the shoulder of a young woman, whom he brought forward to the threshold
of the prison door. She repelled him--an action of natural dignity and force of
character--and stepped into the open air by her own free will.
She held a child in her arms, a baby of three months old, who winked and
turned its little face away from the bright light of day--because up till now,
the baby had only been acquainted with the grey twilight of a dungeon and
the darkness of the prison.
When the young mother stood fully revealed before the crowd, her first
impulse was to clasp the infant closely to her bosom--not from motherly
affection, but so she might conceal something that was fastened onto her
dress.
A moment later, however, wisely judging that one symbol of her shame
would not hide the other, she took the baby on her arm. Then with a burning
blush, but yet a haughty smile, and a glance that refused to be ashamed, she
looked around at her townspeople and neighbours.
On the breast of her fancy black dress, in fine red cloth, surrounded by
elaborate embroidery of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was artistically
done, with gorgeous luxury of imagination. Its splendor was in accordance
with the fashion of the day, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the
regulations of the Puritan colony.
The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance. She had
dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam.
Her face was beautiful, with a rich complexion, a prominent forehead, and
deep black eyes. She was ladylike, too, with feminine dignity rather than
delicate grace.
And never had Hester Prynne appeared more ladylike than when she
stepped from the prison. Those who knew her, and expected her to be
dimmed by her disaster, were astonished and even startled to see how her
beauty shone out, and made a halo of her misfortune and disgrace.
It may be true that the sensitive observer saw something exquisitely

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painful in it. Her fancy dress, which she had made for her prison stay, seemed
to express the attitude of her spirit and the desperate recklessness of her
mood.
But the point which drew all eyes and transformed her--so that both men
and women who knew Hester Prynne were now impressed as if they saw 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
realm of ordinary humans and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.
“She has good skill at her needle, that’s certain,” remarked one of her
female spectators, “but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy, show it
in such a manner as that? Why, gossips, what does it do, except to laugh in
the faces of our godly magistrates and make pride out of punishment?”
“It would be well,” muttered the most iron-faced old dame, “if we
stripped Madame Hester’s rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for the
red letter which she has stitched so curiously, I’ll give her a rag of my own
flannel to make a more suitable one!”
“Oh, peace, neighbours--peace!” whispered their youngest companion.
“Do not let her hear you! There is not a stitch in that embroidered letter that
she did not feel 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.
“Make way, and I promise you, Mistress Prynne shall be put where man,
woman, and child may have a fair sight of her brave apparel from this time
till an hour past noon. It is a blessing on the righteous colony of
Massachusetts, where sin is dragged out into the sunshine! Come along,
Madame Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place!”
The crowd of spectators immediately parted. Hester Prynne, followed by
the beadle, led the procession of stern-browed men and unkindly-faced
women toward the place appointed for her punishment.
A crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the
matter at hand except that they were given a half-holiday, ran before her,
turning their heads continually to stare into her face, at the winking baby, and
at the shameful letter on her breast.
It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison-door to the
market-place. From the prisoner’s point of view, however, it might be
considered a journey of some length--for haughty as her demeanor was,
Hester Prynne perhaps experienced 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 trample on.

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 The marvelous and merciful quality of human nature is such that a
sufferer never feels the intensity of torture when it occurs--it is afterwards
that the pain stings.
With a serene manner, therefore, Hester Prynne passed through this
portion of her ordeal and came to a scaffold at the western end of the market-
place. It stood nearly beneath the roof of Boston’s oldest church, and
appeared to be a permanent structure.
In fact, this scaffold was part of a punishment machine which, today, is
merely of historical interest. But in the old days of the Puritans, it was as
effective a way to promote good citizenship as the guillotine was among the
terrorists of France.
It was, in short, the pillory. Above the platform rose the wooden frame of
that instrument of discipline. The holes were designed to lock the human
head and hands in its tight grasp and hold them up to public gaze. The very
ideal of disgrace came to life and was made obvious in this contrivance of
wood and iron.
There can be no greater outrage against a man than to prevent the culprit
from hiding his face for shame, as this punishment did. In Hester Prynne’s
instance, however, as frequently occurred in other cases, her sentence
required that she should stand a certain time upon the platform, but without
her head being confined.
Knowing her part well, she ascended the 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 Catholic among the crowd of Puritans, he might have
seen, in this beautiful woman with the infant at her bosom, a reminder of the
Virgin Mary--that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to
redeem the world. Here, by contrast, the taint of deepest sin darkened this
woman’s beauty, and the world was more lost for the infant she had borne.
This spectacle of guilt and shame inspired a sense of awe. The solemn
presence of the governor, several of his counselors, a judge, a general, and
the ministers of the town, all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the
meeting-house, looking down upon the platform, gave the event earnest
meaning. Accordingly, the crowd was somber and grave.
The unhappy sinner held up 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 an intolerable burden to bear.
Hester Prynne had an impulsive and passionate nature, and she had
prepared herself for loud, venomous insults from the crowd. But their solemn

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mood was much more terrible. She rather wished those rigid faces had
instead been full of laughter, so that she could have repaid them with a bitter
and disdainful smile.
But the silence made her feel, at moments, that she would 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 moments when the whole scene seemed to vanish from
her eyes. Her mind and her memory were uncannily active, and kept bringing
up other scenes and other faces than those glowering upon her from beneath
the brims of those steeple-crowned hats.
Reminiscences--trifling and immaterial, of infancy and school days,
sports, childish quarrels, and her maiden years--came swarming back upon
her, one picture precisely as vivid as another. Possibly, it was her spirit
relieving her from the cruel weight and hardness of reality.
Standing on that miserable scaffold, she saw again her happy infancy in
her native village in Old England; her home, a poverty-stricken, decayed
house of grey stone, but with a half-ruined shield of arms over the door, a
token of her family’s long-ago gentility.
She saw her father’s face, with its bold forehead, and the white beard that
flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan ruff collar; her mother’s face, too,
with the look of attentive and anxious love, even after her death. She saw her
own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating the mirror at which
she gazed.
Then she beheld another face, of a man well-advanced in years, a pale,
thin, scholar-like face, with eyes dim and bleary from poring over many
ponderous books in the lamp-light. Yet those same eyes had a strange,
penetrating power when they were used to read the human soul. His body
was slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right.
Next her in memory’s picture gallery, she saw a great European city, with
ancient buildings of quaint architecture, the intricate and narrow roads, the
tall, grey houses, and the huge cathedrals. Here a new life had awaited her
upon her marriage to the misshapen scholar--a new life that became more
like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall.
Lastly, she came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement,
with all the townspeople assembled, and leveling their stern gaze at her, as
she 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 let
out a cry. She turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even

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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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 Chapter 3
The Recognition

From this intense awareness of being the object of severe observation,

Hester Prynne saw, at length, on the outskirts of the crowd, a person who
caught her attention.
An Indian in his native garb was standing there--but the red men were
often visitors to the English settlements. It was not he that caught her
attention. By the Indian’s side, and evidently a friend, stood a white man,
clad in a strange combination of civilized and savage costume.
He was small in stature, with a wrinkled face which could not yet be
considered old. There was a remarkable intelligence in his features. And
though he had tried to conceal his deformity, it was evident to Hester Prynne
that one of this man’s shoulders rose higher than the other.
At the first instant of perceiving that thin face, and the slight defect of
figure, she pressed her infant to her bosom with so convulsive a force that the
poor baby uttered another cry of pain. But the mother did not seem to hear it.
Upon his arrival in the market-place, and some time before she saw him,
the stranger had set his eyes on Hester Prynne. It was careless at first, but
very soon his look became keen and penetrating.
A writhing horror twisted itself across his face, which darkened with
some powerful emotion. Nevertheless, he quickly changed his expression to
appear calm.
When he found the eyes of Hester Prynne fastened on his own, and saw
that she appeared to recognize him, he slowly and calmly raised his finger,
made a gesture with it in the air, and laid it on his lips.
Then, touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood near to him, he
addressed him in a formal and courteous manner:
“I pray you, good Sir,” said he, “who is this woman? And why is she
here, set up to public shame?”
“You must be a stranger in this region, friend,” answered the townsman,

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looking curiously at the questioner and his savage companion, “or else you
would surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prynne and her evil doings. She
has raised a great scandal, I promise you, in godly Master Dimmesdale’s
church.”
“Truly, I am a stranger,” replied the other, “and have been a wanderer,
against my will. I have met with grievous mishaps by sea and land, and have
been long held in bonds among the heathens to the south; and am now
brought here by this Indian, released out of my captivity. Will it please you,
therefore, to tell me of Hester Prynne’s--have I her name rightly?--of this
woman’s offenses, and what has brought her to that scaffold?”
“Truly, friend, and I think it must gladden your heart, after your troubles
in the wilderness,” said the townsman, “to find yourself in a land where
immorality is searched out and punished in the sight of the people, as here in
our godly New England.”
He continued, “That woman, Sir, you must know, was the wife of a
certain learned Englishman who had dwelt in Amsterdam. Some time ago, he
decided to cross over and live in Massachusetts. To this end, he sent his wife
ahead of him, remaining himself to look after some necessary affairs. During
the two years, good Sir, that the woman has been a dweller here in Boston,
no news had come of this learned gentleman, Master Prynne. And his young
wife, you see, being left to her own misguidance--”
“Aha! I understand you,” said the stranger with a bitter smile. “Such a
learned man should have learned this, too, in his books. And who, Sir, may
be the father of that baby--it is some three or four months old, I should
judge--which Mistress Prynne is holding in her arms?”
“In truth, friend, that matter remains a riddle; and the father has still not
spoken,” answered the townsman. “Madame Hester absolutely refuses to
speak, and the magistrates have put their heads together in vain. Perhaps the
guilty man stands here, unknown to others, looking at this sad spectacle, and
forgetting that God sees him.”
“The learned man,” observed the stranger with another smile, “should
come here himself to look into the mystery.”
“Yes, it would behoove him well--if he is still alive,” responded the
townsman. “Now, good Sir, our Massachusetts magistracy thinks that
because this woman is youthful and fair, and was strongly tempted, and that
her husband is most likely at the bottom of the sea, they have not enforced
the extreme punishment of our righteous law against her--which is death. In
their great mercy and tenderness of heart, they have doomed Mistress Prynne
to stand for only three hours on the platform of the pillory, and thereafter for

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the remainder of her life to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom.”
“A wise sentence,” remarked the stranger, gravely, bowing his head.
“Thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the shameful letter be
engraved upon her tombstone. It irks me, though, that her partner in sin
should not at least stand on the scaffold by her side. But he will be known!
He will be known! He will be known!”
He bowed courteously to the townsman and, whispering a few words to
his Indian attendant, they both made their way through the crowd.
While this occurred, Hester Prynne stood on her pedestal, still with a
fixed gaze toward the stranger--so fixed a gaze that everything around her
seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her.
Dreadful as it this punishment was, she felt protected in the presence of
these thousand witnesses. It was better to stand with so many people between
him and her, than to greet him face to face. She dreaded the moment when
the crowd’s protection should be withdrawn from her.
Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice behind her until it
had repeated her name more than once, in a loud and solemn tone, heard by
the whole multitude.
“Listen to me, Hester Prynne!” said the voice.
In the balcony that we noticed before, sat Governor Bellingham himself
with four sergeants about his chair, as a guard of honour. He wore a dark
feather in his hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet
tunic beneath.
He was a gentleman advanced in years, with hard experience written in
his wrinkles. He was well-suited to head the community which owed its
origin and progress to the stern and somber wisdom of aged men.
The other eminent characters surrounding the chief ruler had a great
dignity--belonging to a time when authority figures were felt to possess the
sacredness of Divine institutions.
These men were good, just, wise, and virtuous. But no group of men was
less capable of sitting in judgment of an erring woman’s heart, and
untangling its mesh of good and evil, than the rigid sages toward whom
Hester Prynne now turned her face.
She seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever sympathy she might expect
lay in the larger and warmer heart of the crowd gathered around her. As she
lifted her eyes toward the balcony and the voice, the unhappy woman grew
pale, and trembled.
The voice which had called her attention was that of the famous
Reverend John Wilson, the eldest clergyman of Boston--a great scholar and a

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man of kind and genial spirit. This last quality, however, had been less
carefully developed than his intellectual gifts, and was, in truth, rather a
matter of shame with him.
There he stood, with grizzled hair beneath his skull-cap, while his grey
eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking in the bold
sunshine. He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see in the
preface of old volumes of sermons, and had no more right than one of those
portraits to meddle with questions of human guilt, passion, and anguish.
“Hester Prynne,” said the clergyman, “I have strived with my young
brother here, the good Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, whose preaching of the
Word you have been privileged to hear,” as Mr. Wilson laid his hand on the
shoulder of the pale young man beside him, “and I have tried to persuade this
godly youth that he should deal with you--here, in the face of Heaven, before
these wise and upright rulers, and all the people--as to the vileness and
blackness of your sin. Knowing your natural temper better than I, he could
better prevail upon you to reveal the name of him who tempted you to this
grievous fall.
“But he opposes me, with a young man’s softness, saying that it would
wrong the very nature of a woman to force her to lay open her heart’s secrets
in such broad daylight, and in presence of so great a multitude. Truly, I
sought to convince him that the shame lay in the commission of the sin, not
in showing it. Once again, what say you, brother Dimmesdale? Must it be
you, or I, that shall deal with this poor sinner’s soul?”
There was a murmured conference among the dignified occupants of the
balcony; then Governor Bellingham spoke in an authoritative voice, but with
respect toward the youthful clergyman whom he addressed:
“Good Master Dimmesdale,” said he, “the responsibility of this woman’s
soul lies greatly with you. It behooves you, therefore, to urge her to repent
and confess, as proof of her sin.”
This appeal from the Governor drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon
the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale--a young clergyman who had come from one
of the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our
wild forest land.
His eloquence and religious fervor had already given him a high position
in his profession. He had a very striking appearance, with a high, threatening
forehead; large, brown, melancholy eyes; and a mouth which looked nervous.
Despite his great gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an
apprehensive, half-frightened look about him--as if he felt lost in the pathway
of life, and could only be comfortable in seclusion. And so, he appeared

15
simple and childlike, coming forth with a freshness and purity that many
people said affected them like the speech of an angel.
Such was the young man whom the Reverend Mr. Wilson and the
Governor introduced to the public, bidding him to speak to the mystery of a
woman’s soul, which was sacred even in sin. The trying nature of his position
made his cheeks pale and his lips tremble.
“Speak to the woman, my brother,” said Mr. Wilson. “It is important to
her soul and to your own. Urge her to confess the truth!”
The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale bent his head, in silent prayer it seemed,
and then came forward.
“Hester Prynne,” said he, leaning over the balcony and looking down
steadfastly into her eyes, “you hear what this good man says. If you feel that
it will give your soul peace, and that your earthly punishment will lead to
salvation, I charge you to speak out the name of your fellow sinner and
fellow sufferer! Have no pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester,
though he might be brought down from a high place to stand beside you on
your pedestal of shame, it would be better than to hide a guilty heart through
life.”
He paused, then said, “What can your silence do for him, except tempt
him to add hypocrisy to sin? Heaven has granted you a public disgrace so
that you may work out a public triumph over the evil within you and the
sorrow without. Pay attention how you deny your partner the bitter but
wholesome cup that is now presented to your lips!”
The young pastor’s nervous voice was sweet, rich, deep, and broken. The
feeling that it conveyed, rather than the words themselves, caused it to
vibrate within all hearts, and united the listeners in sympathy. Even the poor
baby at Hester’s bosom gazed at Mr. Dimmesdale and held up its little arms
with a murmur.
So powerful was the minister’s appeal that the people certainly believed
that Hester Prynne would speak out the guilty name, or the guilty man
himself would be drawn forth and compelled to ascend the scaffold.
Hester shook her head.
“Woman, do not sin beyond the limits of Heaven’s mercy!” cried the
Reverend Mr. Wilson, more harshly than before. “Speak out the name and
repent, and that may help to take the scarlet letter off your breast.”
“Never,” replied Hester Prynne, looking not at Mr. Wilson, but into the
deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. “The letter is too deeply
branded. You cannot take it off. I will endure his agony as well as mine!”
“Speak, woman!” said another voice, coldly and sternly, coming from the

16
crowd around the scaffold. “Speak and give your child a father!”
“I will not speak!” answered Hester, turning pale as death, but responding
to this voice, which she recognized. “My child must seek a heavenly father;
she shall never know an earthly one!”
“She will not speak!” murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, who was leaning over
the balcony, with his hand upon his heart. He now drew back with a long
sigh. “The wondrous strength and generosity of a woman’s heart! She will
not speak!”
The Reverend Wilson then addressed the multitude with a sermon on sin,
with continual reference to the shameful scarlet letter. So forcibly did he
dwell upon this symbol for an hour or more, that the letter terrified the
people’s imagination and seemed to receive its scarlet color from the flames
of hell.
Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame,
with glazed eyes and a weary lack of interest. She had withstood all that a
person could endure that morning; and since she was not the kind of woman
who escaped from intense suffering by fainting, she wore a stony crust.
The voice of the preacher thundered remorselessly upon her ears. The
infant pierced the air with its wailings and screams; Hester mechanically
tried to hush the baby, but barely seemed to sympathize with its trouble.
Then, with the same hard demeanor, Hester Prynne was led back to
prison, and vanished from the public gaze. It was whispered by those who
peered after her that the scarlet letter threw a vivid gleam along the dark
passageway of the prison’s interior.

17
 Chapter 4
The Interview

After her return to the prison, Hester Prynne was in a state of nervous
excitement that demanded constant watchfulness, in case she should do harm
to herself or some half-frenzied mischief to the poor baby.
As night approached, and she could not be stopped either by reprimand
or threats of punishment, Master Brackett, the jailer, thought fit to bring in a
physician.
The jailer described him as a man of skill in all Christian methods of
physical science, and likewise familiar with medicinal herbs and roots that
grew in the forest, which he learned about from savage tribes.
To tell the truth, the physician was needed not merely for Hester, but
more urgently for the child--who, nursing on her breast, seemed to have
drank in all the anguish and despair of the mother’s body. The infant now
writhed in convulsions of pain.
Closely following the jailer into the dismal room, the individual was the
same man in the crowd who had expressed such deep interest in the wearer of
the scarlet letter.
His name was announced as Roger Chillingworth. The jailer, after
ushering him into the room, remained a moment, marveling that Hester
Prynne had immediately become as still as death, although the child
continued to moan.
“Pray, friend, leave me alone with my patient,” said the physician. “Trust
me, good jailer, you shall soon have peace here and, I promise you, Mistress
Prynne shall soon be more cooperative with authority than before.”
“If your worship can accomplish that,” answered Master Brackett, “I
shall regard you as a man of skill, indeed! Truly, the woman has been like a
possessed one; and there is very little keeping me from driving Satan out of
her with lashes of the whip.”
The stranger had entered the room with the characteristic quiet of a

18
physician. Nor did his demeanor change when the prison keeper left, and he
was face-to-face with the woman, whose notice of him in the crowd had
implied a close a relationship between himself and her.
His first care was given to the child, whose cries made it necessary to
soothe her. He examined the infant carefully, and then proceeded to unlock a
leather case which he took from beneath his garb. It appeared to contain
medical preparations, one of which he mingled with a cup of water.
“My old studies in alchemy,” observed he, “and my journey during the
last year, among people well versed in these preparations, have made me a
better physician than many with a medical degree. Here, woman! The child is
yours--she is not mine--neither will she recognize my voice nor my face as a
father. Give her this drink, therefore, with your own hand.”
Hester rejected the offered medicine, at the same time gazing with strong
dread into his face.
“Would you take revenge on the innocent baby?” she whispered.
“Foolish woman!” responded the physician, half-coldly, half-soothingly.
“What would make me harm this illegitimate and miserable babe? The
medicine is good, and were it my child--yes, my own as well as yours!--I
could do no better for it.”
As she still hesitated, still not in a reasonable state of mind, he took the
infant in his arms, and himself administered the drink. It soon proved
effective; the moans of the little patient subsided; its convulsive tossing
gradually ceased; and in a few moments, it sank into a profound sleep.
The physician next gave his attention to the mother. With calm and intent
scrutiny, he felt her pulse, looked into her eyes--a gaze that made her heart
shrink and shudder because it was so familiar, and yet so strange and cold--
and, finally, satisfied with his investigation, proceeded to mix another drink
of medicine.
“I learned many secrets in the wilderness,” remarked he, “and here is one
of them--a recipe that an Indian taught me. Drink it! It may be less soothing
than a sinless conscience--that I cannot give you. But it will calm your
emotions, like oil thrown on the waves of a tempestuous sea.”
He presented the cup to Hester, who received it with a slow, earnest look
at his face--not precisely a look of fear, yet full of doubt and questioning as
to what his intentions might be. She also looked at her slumbering child.
“I have thought of death,” said she. “I have wished for it, and would even
have prayed for it, if I deserved to pray for anything. Yet, if death is in this
cup, I ask you to think again, before you watch me drink it. See! It is now at
my lips.”

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 “Drink, then,” replied he, still with the same cold composure. “Do you
know me so little, Hester Prynne? Are my intentions likely to be so shallow?
Even if I desire vengeance, what would be better than to let you live, so that
this burning shame may still blaze upon your bosom?”
As he spoke, he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter, which then
seemed to scorch into Hester’s breast, as if it had been red-hot. He noticed
her involuntary gesture, and smiled. “Live, therefore, and bear your doom in
the eyes of men and women--in the eyes of him whom you called your
husband--in the eyes of that child! And, so that you may live, take this
drink.”
Without further delay, Hester Prynne drained the cup and seated herself
on the bed where the child was sleeping. He drew up the only chair in the
room, and took his seat beside her.
She trembled, for she felt that, having now relieved her physical
suffering, he would address her as the man whom she had most deeply and
permanently injured.
“Hester,” said he, “I ask not why or how you have fallen into the pit, or
rather, have ascended the pedestal of infamy on which I found you. The
reason is not far to seek. It was my folly, and your weakness. I, a man of
thought, the bookworm of great libraries, a man already in decay, having
given my best years to pursue knowledge--what did I have to do with youth
and beauty such as yours?”
He continued, “Misshapen from birth, how could I delude myself that
intellectual gifts might hide physical deformity in a young girl’s fantasy?
Men call me wise. If wise men were ever wise about themselves, I might
have foreseen all this. I might have known that, as I came out of the savage
forest and entered this town of Christian men, the very first object to meet
my eyes would be you, Hester Prynne, standing on a statue of shame before
the people. Nay, from the moment when we married, I might have seen the
fire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!”
“You know,” said Hester, for depressed as she was, she could not endure
this last quiet stab at the symbol of her shame, “you know that I was honest
with you. I felt no love, nor pretended any.”
“True,” replied he. “It was my folly! I have said it. But, up to then, the
world had been so cheerless! My heart was large, but it was lonely and chilly,
without a fire at home. I longed to kindle a flame! It seemed not so wild a
dream--old as I was, and somber as I was, and misshapen as I was--that
simple bliss might yet be mine. And so, Hester, I drew you into my heart and
sought to warm you by the warmth which your presence made there!”

20
 “I have greatly wronged you,” murmured Hester.
“We have wronged each other,” answered he. “Mine was the first wrong,
when I deceived your budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with
my decay. Therefore, as a man who has given it much thought, I seek no
vengeance, plot no evil against you. Between you and me, the scale hangs
fairly balanced. But Hester, the man who has wronged us both still lives!
Who is he?”
“Ask me not,” replied Hester Prynne, looking firmly into his face. “You
shall never know his name!”
“Never, you say?” rejoined he, with a smile of dark and confident
intelligence. “Never know him? Believe me, Hester, there are few things
hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly to the solution of a
mystery. You may cover up your secret from the prying multitude. You may
conceal it, too, from the ministers and magistrates, even as you did today. But
I shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books, as I have sought gold in
alchemy. There is an understanding that will make me aware of him. I shall
see him tremble. Sooner or later, he will be mine.”
The eyes of the wrinkled scholar glowed so intensely upon her, that
Hester Prynne clasped her hand over her heart, dreading that he should read
the secret there at once.
“You will not reveal his name? He is no less mine,” resumed he, with a
look of confidence. “He wears no letter of shame on his garment, as you do,
but I shall read it on his heart. Yet do not fear for him! Do not think that I
shall interfere with Heaven’s own method of punishment or reveal him to
human law. Nor shall I plot against his life, nor against his reputation. Let
him live! He shall be mine!”
“Your acts are merciful,” said Hester, bewildered and appalled, “but your
words announce you as a terror!”
“One thing I would command you,” continued the scholar. “You, who
were my wife, have kept the secret of your lover. Likewise, keep mine! There
are none in this land that know me. Breathe not to any human soul that you
ever called me husband! Here I shall settle down--for here, I find a woman, a
man, and a child with whom I have the closest bond. No matter whether this
is love or hate, no matter whether this is right or wrong! You and yours,
Hester Prynne, belong to me. My home is where you are and where he is. But
betray me not!”
“Why do you desire this secret?" inquired Hester, shrinking from him.
“Why not announce yourself publicly and cast me off at once?”
“It may be,” he replied, “because I do not want the dishonor that

21
disgraces the husband of a faithless woman. It may be for other reasons.
Enough--it is my intention to live and die unknown. Therefore, let the world
believe your husband is already dead. Recognize me not, by word, by sign,
by look! Breathe not the secret, above all, to the man you love. Should you
fail me in this, beware! His fame, his position, his life will be in my hands.
Beware!”
“I will keep your secret, as I have his,” said Hester.
“Swear it!” rejoined he.
And she took the oath.
“And now, Mistress Prynne,” said old Roger Chillingworth, as he was
hereafter to be called, “I leave you alone--alone with your infant and the
scarlet letter! How is it, Hester? Does your sentence require you to wear the
token in your sleep? Are you not afraid of nightmares and hideous dreams?”
“Why do you smile so at me?” inquired Hester, troubled at the expression
of his eyes. “Are you like the Black Man--the Devil in disguise--that haunts
the forest round about us? Have you led me into a bond that will prove the
ruin of my soul?”
“Not your soul,” he answered, with another smile. “No, not yours!”

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