The Scarlet Letter: A Romance - Section 19 - A Forest Walk

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section nineteen of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter sixteen, a
forest walk Hester Prynne remained constant in her resolve to
make known to mister Dimmesdale, at whatever risk of present
pain or ulterior consequences, the true character of the man

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who had crept into his intimacy. For several days. However,
she vainly sought an opportunity of addressing him in some
of the meditative walks which she knew him to be
in the habit of taking along the shores of the
peninsula or on the wooded hills of the neighboring country.
There would have been no scandal, indeed, nor peril to
the holy whiteness of the clergyman's good fame, had she

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visited him in his own study, where many a penitent
ere now had confessed sins of perhaps as deep a
die as the one betokened by the Scarlet Letter. But
partly that she dreaded the secret or undisguised interference of
old Roger Chillingworth, and partly that her conscious heart imputed
suspicion where none could have been felt, And partly that

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both the minister and she would need the whole wide
world to breathe in while they talked together. For all
these reasons, Hester never thought of meeting him in any
narrower privacy than beneath the open sky. At last, while
attending a sick chamber whither the Reverend mister Dimmesdale had
been summoned to make a prayer, she learnt that he

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had gone the day before to visit the Apostle Eliot
among his Indian converts. He would probably return by a
certain hour in the afternoon of the morrow betimes. Therefore,
the next day Hester took little Pearl, who was necessarily
the companion of all her mother's expeditions, however, inconvenient her presence,

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and set forth. The road after the two wayfarers had
crossed from the peninsula to the mainland, was no other
than a footpath. It straggled onward into the mystery of
the primeval forest. This hemmed it in so narrowly, and
stood so black and dense on either side, and disclosed

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such imperfect glimpses of the sky above, that to Hester's
mind it imaged not amiss the moral wilderness in which
she had so long been wandering. The day was chill
and somber. Overhead was a gray expanse of cloud, slightly stirred, however,
by a breeze, so that a gleam of flickering sunshine

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might now and then be seen at its solitary play
along the path. This flitting cheerfulness was always at the
farther extremity of some long vista through the forest. The
sportive sunlight, feebly sportive at best in the predominant pensiveness
of the day, and scene withdrew itself as they came
nigh and left the spots where it had danced the

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drearia because they had hoped to find them bright, Mother said,
little pearl. Sunshine does not love you. It runs away
and hides itself because it is afraid of something on
your bosom. Now see there, it is playing a good
way off. Stand you here and let me run and
catch it. I am but a child. It will not

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run from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet,
nor ever will my child, I hope said hester. And
why not, mother asked pearl, stopping short just at the
beginning of her race. Will it not come of its
own accord? When I am a woman grown run away child,
answered her mother. And catch the sunshine. It will soon

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be gone. Pearl set forth at a great pace, and,
as Hester smiled to perceive, did actually catch the sunshine,
and stood laughing in the midst of it, all brightened
by its splendor and scintillating with a vivacity excited by
rapid motion. The light lingered about the lonely child, as

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if glad of such a playmate, until her mother had
drawn almost nigh enough to step into the magic circle too.
It will go now, said Pearl, shaking her head see,
answered Hester, smiling. Now I can stretch out my hand
and grasp some of it. As she attempted to do so,
the sunshine vanished. Or, to judge from the bright expression

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that was dancing on Pearl's features, her mother could have
fancied that the child had absorbed it into herself and
would give it forth again with a gleam about her path,
as they should plunge into some gloomier shade. There was
no other attribute that so much impressed her, with a
sense of new and untransmitted vigor in Pearl's nature, as
this never failing vivacity of spirits, she had not the

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disease of sadness which almost all children in these latter
days inherit with the scrofula from the troubles of their ancestors.
Perhaps this too was a disease, and but the reflex
of the wild energy with which Hester had fought against
her sorrows before Pearl's birth, it was certainly a doubtful charm,

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imparting a hard metallic luster to the child's character. She
wanted what some people want throughout life, a grief that
should deeply touch her and thus humanize and make her
capable of sympathy. But there was time enough yet for
little Pearl. Come, my child, said Hester, looking about her

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from the spot where Pearl had stood still in the sunshine.
We will sit down a little way within the wood
and rest ourselves. I am not a weary mother, replied
the little girl. But you may sit down if you
will tell me a story. Meanwhile, a story, child, said Hester.
And what about, oh? A story about the black man,

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answered Pearl, taking hold of her mother's gown and looking up,
half earnestly, half mischievously into her face. How he haunts
this forest, and there is a book with him, a
big heavy book with iron clasps, and how this ugly
black man offers his book and an iron pen to
everybody that meets him here among the trees, and they

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are to write their names with their own blood, and
then he set his mark on their bosoms. Didst thou
ever meet the black man? Mother? And who told you
this story? Pearl asked her mother, recognizing a common superstition
of the period. It was the old dame in the
chimney corner at the house where you watched last night,

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said the child, But she fancied me asleep while she
was talking of it. She said that a thousand and
a thousand people had met him here and had written
in his book and have his mark on them, and
that ugly tempered lady, old Mistress Hibbins, was one and
mother the old dame said that this scarlet letter was
the black man's mark on thee and that it glows

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like a red flame when thou meetest him at midnight
here in the dark wood? Is it true? Mother? And
dost thou go to meet him in the night time?
Didst thou ever awake and find thy mother gone? Asked hester,
Not that I remember, said the child. If thou fearest
to leave me in our cottage, thou mightest take me

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along with thee. I would very gladly go. But Mother,
tell me, now, is there such a black man? And
didst thou ever meet him? And is this his mark?
Wilt thou let me be at peace if I once
tell thee? Asked her mother. Yes, if thou tellest me all,
answered Pearl, Once in my life I met the black man,

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said her mother. This scarlet letter is his mark. Thus conversing,
they entered sufficiently deep into the wood to secure themselves
from the observation of any casual passenger along the forest track.
Here they sat down on the luxuriant heap of mass, which,
at some epoch of the preceding century had been a

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gigantic pine, with its roots and trunk in the darksome
shade and its head aloft in the upper atmosphere. It
was a little dell where they had seated themselves, with
a leaf strewn bank rising gently on either side, and
a brook flowing through the midst over a bed of
fallen and drowned leaves. The trees impending over it had

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flung down great branches from time to time, which choked
up the current and compelled it to form eddies and
black depths at some points, while in its swifter and
livelier passages there appeared a channel way of pebbles and
brown sparkling sand. Letting the eyes follow along the course
of the stream, they could catch the reflected light from

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its water at some short distance within the forest, but
soon lost all traces of it amid the bewilderment of
tree trunks and underbrush, and here and there a huge
rock covered over with gray lichens. All these giant trees
and boulders of granite seemed intent on making a mystery
of the course of this small brook, fearing perhaps that

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with its never ceasing loquacity, it should whisper tales out
of the heart of the old forest. Whence it flowed,
or mirror its revelations on the smooth surface of a
pool continually. Indeed, as it stole onward, the streamlet kept
up a babble, kind quiet, soothing, but melancholy, like the

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voice of a young child that was spending its infancy
without playfulness, and knew not how to be merry among
sad acquaintance and events of somber Hue, Oh Brook, Oh
foolish and tiresome little brook, cried Pearl, after listening a
while to its talk. Why art thou so sad? Pluck
up a spirit and do not be all the time

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sighing and murmuring. But the brook, in the course of
its little lifetime among the forest trees, had gone through
so solemn an experience that it could not help talking
about it, and seemed to have nothing else to say.
Pearl resembled the brook inasmuch as the current of her
life gushed from a well spring as mysterious, and had

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flowed through scenes shadowed as heavily with gloom. But unlike
the little stream, she danced and sparkled and prattled airily
along her course. What does this sad little brook say?
Mother inquired She if thou hadst a sorrow of thine own,
the brook might tell THEE of it, answered her mother,

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even as it is telling me of mine. But now, Pearl,
I hear a footstep along the path, and the noise
of one putting aside the branches. I would have thee
take thyself to play and leave me to speak with
him that comes yonder? Is it? The black man asked Pearl.
Wilt thou go and play, child, repeated her mother. But

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do not stray far into the wood, and take heed
that thou come at my first call? Yes, mother answered pearl.
But if it be the black man, wilt thou not
let me stay a moment and look at him with
his big book under his arm? Go, silly, child, said
her mother impatiently. It is no black man. Thou canst

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see him now through the trees. It is the minister.
And so it is, said the child and mother. He
has his hand over his heart? Is it because when
the minister wrote his name in the book, the black
man set his mark in that place? But why does
he not wear it outside his bosom as thou dost? Mother?

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Go now, child, and thou shalt tease me as thou
wilt another time, cried hester Brynne. But do not stray far,
keep where thou canst hear the babble of the brook.
The child went singing away, following up the current of
the brook and striving to mingle a more lightsome cadence
with its melancholy voice. But the little stream would not

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be comforted, and still kept telling its unintelligible secret of
some very mournful mystery that had happened, and or making
a prophetic lamentation about something that was yet to happen
within the verge of the dismal forest. So Pearl, who
had had enough of shadow in her own little life,
chose to break off all acquaintance with this repining brook.

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She set herself therefore to gathering violets and woodenemonies, and
some scarlet columbines that she found growing in the crevice
of a high rock. When her elf child had departed,
hester Prynne made a step or two towards the track
that led through the forest, but still remained under the
deep shadow of the trees. She beheld the Minister advancing

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along the path, entirely alone and leaning on a staff
which he had cut by the wayside. He looked haggard
and feeble, and betrayed a nerveless despondency in his air,
which had never so remarkably characterized him in his walks
about the settlement, nor in any other situation where he
deemed himself liable to notice. Here it was woefully visible.

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In the this intense seclusion of the forest, which of
itself would have been a heavy trial to the spirits,
there was a listlessness in his gait, as if he
saw no reason for taking one step farther, nor felt
any desire to do so, but would have been glad.
Could he be glad of anything to fling himself down
at the root of the nearest tree, and lie there

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passive for evermore the leaves might bestrew him, and the
soil gradually accumulate and form a little hillock over his frame,
no matter whether there were life in it or no.
Death was too definite an object to be wished for
or avoided. To Hester's eye, the reverend mister Dimmesdale exhibited

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no symptom of positive and vivacious suffering, except that, as
Little Pearl had remarked, he kept his hand over his
heart end of Section nineteen