Original Text
|
Modern Text
|
|
Hester Prynne’s term of confinement was now at an end. Her
prison-door 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 the 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 tension of the nerves, and
by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the
scene into a kind of lurid triumph. It was, moreover, a separate and insulated
event, to occur but once in her lifetime, and to meet which, therefore, reckless
of economy, she might call up the vital strength that would have sufficed for
many quiet years. The very law that condemned her—a giant of stern features, but
with vigor to support, as well as to annihilate, in his iron arm—had held her
up, through the terrible 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. To-morrow 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
unutterably grievous to be borne. The days of the far-off future would toil
onward, still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her,
but never to fling down; for the accumulating 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 images of
woman’s frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and pure would be taught to
look at 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 a
woman,—at her, who had once been innocent,—as the figure, the body, the reality
of sin. And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her
only monument.
|
Hester Prynne’s prison sentence was over. The prison door was
thrown open, and she walked out into the sunshine. Although the light fell
equally on everyone, to Hester it seemed designed to show off the scarlet letter
on her breast. Those first steps out of the prison may have been a greater
torture than the elaborate public humiliation described before, when the entire
town gathered to point its finger at her. At least then, her concentration and
fierce combativeness allowed her to transform the scene into a sort of grotesque
victory. And that was just a one-time event—the kind that happens only once in a
lifetime—so she could expend several years’ worth of energy to endure it. The
law that condemned her was like an iron-fisted giant, and it had the strength to
either support or destroy her. It had held her up throughout that terrible
ordeal. But now, with this lonely walk from the prison door, her new reality
began. This would be her everyday life, and she could use only everyday
resources to endure it, or else she would be crushed by it. Tomorrow would bring
its own struggle, and the next day, and the day after that—every day its own
struggle, just like the one that was so unbearable today. The days in the
distant future would arrive with the same burden for her to bear and to never
put down. The accumulating days and years would pile up their misery upon the
heap of shame. Through them all, she would be a symbol for the preacher and the
moralist to point at: the symbol of feminine frailty and lust. The young and
pure would be taught to look at Hester and the scarlet letter burning on her
breast. She was the child of good parents, the mother of a baby that would grow
to womanhood; she had once been innocent herself. But now she would become the
embodiment of sin, and her infamy would be the only monument over her
grave.
|
|
It may seem marvellous, that, with the world before her,—kept by no
restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan
settlement, so remote and so obscure,—free to return to her birthplace, or to
any other European land, and there hide her character and identity under a new
exterior, as completely as if emerging into another state of being,—and having
also the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness
of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life were
alien from the law that had condemned her,—it may seem marvellous, that this
woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only, she must
needs be the type of shame. But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible
and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels
human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great
and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more
irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. Her sin, her ignominy, were
the roots which she had struck into the soil. It was as if a new birth, with
stronger assimilations than the first, had converted the forest-land, still so
uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne’s wild and
dreary, but life-long home. All other scenes of earth—even that village of rural
England, where happy infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet to be in her
mother’s keeping, like garments put off long ago—were foreign to her, in
comparison. The chain that bound her here was of iron links, and galling to her
inmost soul, but never could be broken.
|
It may seem unbelievable that, with the whole world open to her, this woman
would remain in the one and only place where she would face this shame. The
conditions of her sentence didn’t force her to stay in that remote and obscure
Puritan settlement. She was free to return to her birthplace—or anywhere else in
Europe—where she could hide under a new identify, as though she had become a new
person. Or she could have simply fled to the forest, where her wild nature would
be a good fit among Indians unfamiliar with the laws that had condemned her. But
an irresistible fatalism exists that forces people to haunt the place where some
dramatic event shaped their lives. And the sadder the event, the greater the
bond. Hester’s sin and shame rooted her in that soil. It was as if the birth of
her child had turned the harsh wilderness of New England into her lifelong home.
Every other place on Earth—even the English village where she had been a happy
child and a sinless young woman—was now foreign to her. The chain that bound her
to this place was made of iron, and though it troubled her soul, it could not be
broken.
|
|
It might be, too,—doubtless it was so, although she hid the secret from
herself, and grew pale whenever it struggled out of her heart, like a serpent
from its hole,—it might be that another feeling kept her within the scene and
pathway that had been so fatal. There dwelt, there trode the feet of one with
whom she deemed herself connected in a union, that, unrecognized on earth, would
bring them together before the bar of final judgment, and make that their
marriage-altar, for a joint futurity of endless retribution. Over and over
again, the tempter of souls had thrust this idea upon Hester’s contemplation,
and laughed at the passionate and desperate joy with which she seized, and then
strove to cast it from her. She barely looked the idea in the face, and hastened
to bar it in its dungeon. What she compelled herself to believe,—what, finally,
she reasoned upon, as her motive for continuing a resident of New England,—was
half a truth, and half a self-delusion. Here, she said to herself, had been the
scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and
so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul,
and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saint-like,
because the result of martyrdom.
|
Perhaps there was also another feeling that kept her in this place that was so
tragic for her. This had to be true, though she hid the secret from herself and
grew pale whenever it slithered, like a snake, out of her heart. A man lived
there who she felt was joined with her in a union that, though unrecognized on
earth, would bring them together on their last day. The place of final judgment
would be their marriage altar, binding them in eternity. Over and over, the
Devil had suggested this idea to Hester and then laughed at the desperate,
passionate joy with which she grasped at it, then tried to cast it off. She
barely acknowledged the thought before quickly locking it away. What she forced
herself to believe—the reason why she chose to stay in New England—was based
half in truth and half in self-delusion. This place, she told herself, had been
the scene of her guilt, so it should be the scene of her punishment. Maybe the
torture of her daily shame would finally cleanse her soul and make her pure
again. This purity would be different than the one she had lost: more saint-like
because she had been martyred.
|
