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The old man, on the other hand, had brought himself nearer to her level, or perhaps below it, by the revenge which he had stooped for. In fine, Hester Prynne resolved to meet her former husband, and do what might be in her power for the rescue of the victim on whom he had so evidently set his gripe. The occasion was not long to seek.
There he was, with the pen still between his fingers, and a vast, immeasurable tract of written space behind him! Betimes in the morning of the day on which the new Governor was to receive his office at the hands of the people, Hester Prynne and little Pearl came into the market-place.
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. Hester Prynne, therefore, did not flee.
From the first scene in the drama, we are lifted above ourselves, and sustained so by Hawthorne's genius, until the close. This sense of power arises from dealing with a subject which demanded the whole force and intensity of Hawthorne's nature. Hester Prynne herself is a strong character, and her errors are those of strength and independence rather than of weakness. She says to Mr.
Were it not, thinkest thou, for thy little one's temporal and eternal welfare that she be taken out of thy charge, and clad soberly, and disciplined strictly, and instructed in the truths of heaven and earth? What canst thou do for the child in this kind?" "I can teach my little Pearl what I have learned from this!" answered Hester Prynne, laying her finger on the red token.
As regarded its origin there were various explanations, all of which must necessarily have been conjectural. Some affirmed that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the very day when Hester Prynne first wore her ignominious badge, had begun a course of penance which he afterwards, in so many futile methods, followed out by inflicting a hideous torture on himself.
This year, the king sent a squadron against Sallee; and, with the assistance of the emperor of Morocco, destroyed that receptacle of pirates, by whom the English commerce, and even the English coasts, had long been infested. Prynne himself was tried for a new offence; and, together with another fine of five thousand pounds, was condemned to lose what remained of his ears.
Lifting the iron hammer that hung at the portal, Hester Prynne gave a summons, which was answered by one of the Governor's bond-servants; a free-born Englishman, but now a seven years' slave. During that term he was to be the property of his master, and as much a commodity of bargain and sale as an ox, or a joint-stool.
“Be it sin or no,” said Hester Prynne, bitterly, as she still gazed after him, “I hate the man!” She upbraided herself for the sentiment, but could not overcome or lessen it.
Prynne, a man of most furiously scrupulous principles, who would have thought himself damned had he worn a cassock instead of a short cloak, and have been glad to see one-half of mankind cut the other to pieces for the glory of God, and the Propaganda Fide; took it into his head to write a most wretched satire against some pretty good comedies, which were exhibited very innocently every night before their majesties.
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