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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dream Ario Books presents Section six of The Scarlet Letter
Banathaniel Hawthorne, Chapter three. The recognition from this intense consciousness
of being the object of severe and universal observation. The
wearer of the scarlet letter was at length relieved by
(00:21):
discerning on the outskirts of the crowd a figure which
irresistibly took possession of her thoughts. An Indian in his
native garb was standing there. But the Red men were
not so infrequent visitors of the English settlements that one
of them would have attracted any notice from Hester Prynne
at such a time, much less would he have excluded
(00:41):
all other objects and ideas from her mind. By the
Indian's side, and evidently sustaining a companionship with him, stood
a white man clad in a strange disarray of civilized
and savage costume. He was small in stature, with a
furrowed visage which as yet could hardly be termed aged.
(01:03):
There was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of
a person who had so cultivated his mental part that
it could not fail to mold the physical to itself
and become manifest by unmistakable tokens. Although by a seemingly
careless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb he had endeavored to
conceal or abate the peculiarity. It was sufficiently evident to
(01:26):
hester Prynne that one of this man's shoulders rose higher
than the other. Again, at the first instant of perceiving
that thin visage and the slight deformity of the figure,
she pressed her infant to her bosom with so convulsive
a force that the poor babe uttered another cry of pain,
but the mother did not seem to hear it. At
(01:49):
his arrival in the market place, and some time before
she saw him, the stranger had bent his eyes on
hester Prynne. It was carelessly at first, like a man
chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external matters
are of little value and import unless they bear relation
to something within his mind. Very soon, however, his look
(02:11):
became keen and penetrative. A writhing horror twisted itself across
his features, like a snake, gliding swiftly over them, and
making one little pause with all its wreathed intervolutions in
open sight. His face darkened with some powerful emotion, which
nevertheless he so instantaneously controlled by an effort of his
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will that savored a single moment, its expression might have
passed for calmness. After a brief space, the convulsion grew
almost imperceptible, and finally subsided into the depths of his nature.
When he found the eyes of hester Prynne fastened on
his own, and saw that she appeared to recognize him,
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he slowly and calmly raised his fingers, made a gesture
with it in the air, and laid it on his lips. Then,
touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood near him,
he addressed him in a formal and courteous manner. I
pray you good, sir, said he. Who is this woman?
And wherefore is she here? Set up to public shame?
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You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend,
answered the townsman, looking curiously at the questioner and his
savage companion. Else you would surely have heard of mistress
hester Prynne and her evil doings. She hath raised a
great scandal. I promise you in Godly Master Dimmesdale's church,
you say, truly, replied the other. I am a stranger
(03:44):
and have been a wanderer sorely against my will. I
have met with grievous mishaps by sea and land, and
have been long held in bonds among the heathen folk
to the southward, and am now brought hither by this
Indian to be redeemed 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
(04:08):
has brought her to Yonder Scaffold truly, friend, And methinks
it must gladden your heart after your troubles and sojourn
in the wilderness, said the townsman, to find yourself at
length in a land where iniquity is searched out and
punished in the sight of rulers and people, as here
in our godly New England. Yonder woman, sir, you must know,
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was the wife of a certain learned man English by birth,
but who had long ago dwelt in Amsterdam. Whence some
good time agone he was minded to cross over and
cast in his lot with us of the Massachusetts. To
this purpose he sent his wife before him, remaining himself,
to look after some necessary affairs. Marry good, sir. In
(04:53):
some two years or less that the woman has been
a dweller here in Boston. No tidings have come of
this learned GENI, gentleman, Master Prynne, and his young wife
look you, being left to her own misguidance. Ah Aha,
I conceive you, said the stranger, with a bitter smile.
So learned a man as you speak of should have
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learned this too in his books, And who, by your favor, sir,
may be the father of Yonder babe. It is some
three or four months old. I should judge which Mistress
Prynne is holding in her arms of a truth. Friend,
that matter remaineth a riddle, and the daniel who shall
expound it is yet a wanting, answered the townsman. Madame
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Hester absolutely refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid
their heads together in vain peradventure. The guilty one stands
looking on at this sad spectacle unknown of man, and
forgetting that God sees him. The learned man, observed the stranger,
with another smile, should come himself to look into the mystery.
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Behoove sim well, if he be still in life, responded
the townsmen. Now, good, sir, our Massachusetts Magistracy, bethinking themselves
that this woman is youthful and fair, and doubtless was
strongly tempted to her fall, And that, moreover, as is
most likely, her husband may be at the bottom of
the sea. They have not been bold to put in
(06:21):
force the extremity of our righteous law against her. The
penalty thereof is death. But in their great mercy and
tenderness of heart, they have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand
only a space of three hours on the platform of
the pillory, and then and thereafter, for the remainder of
her natural life, to wear a mark of shame upon
(06:42):
her bosom. A wise sentence, remarked the stranger, gravely bowing
his head. Thus she will be a living sermon against
sin until the ignominious letter be engraved upon her tombstone.
It irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity
should not at least stand on the scaffold by her side.
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But he will be known, He will be known, He
will be known. He bowed courteously to the communicative townsmen,
and whispering a few words to his Indian attendant, they
both made their way through the crowd. While this passed,
hester Prynne had been standing on her pedestal, still with
(07:27):
a fixed gaze towards the stranger, so fixed a gaze that,
at moments of intense absorption, all other objects in the
visible world seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her.
Such an interview perhaps would have been more terrible than
even to meet him as she now did, with the
hot midday sun burning down upon her face and lighting
(07:50):
up its shame, with the scarlet token of infamy on
her breast, with the sin born infant in her arms,
with the whole people drawn forth to a festival, staring
at the features that should have been seen only in
the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow
of a home, or beneath a matronly veil at church.
(08:12):
Dreadful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter
in the presence of these thousand witnesses. It was better
to stand thus with so many betwixt him and her,
than to greet him face to face they two alone.
She fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure,
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and dreaded the moment when its 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 audible to
the whole multitude. Hearken to me, Hester Prynne, said the voice.
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It has already been noticed that directly over the platform
on which hester Prynne stood, as a kind of balcony
or open gallery, appended to the meeting house. It was
the place whence proclamations were wont to be made amidst
an assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that
attended such public observances in those days. Here to witness
(09:17):
the scene which we are describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself
with four sergeants about his chair, bearing Halberd's as a
guard of honor. He wore a dark feather in his hat,
a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black
velvet tunic beneath. A gentleman advanced in years, with a
hard experience written in his wrinkles, he was not ill
(09:41):
fitted to be the head and representative of a community
which owed its origin and progress, and its present state
of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to
the stern and tempered energies of manhood, and the somber
sagacity of age, accomplishing so much precisely because it imagined
and hoped so little. The other eminent characters by whom
(10:06):
the chief ruler was surrounded were distinguished by a dignity
of mien, belonging to a period when the forms of
authority were felt to possess the sacredness of divine institutions.
They were doubtless good men, just and sage. But out
of the whole human family, it would not have been
(10:27):
easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous
persons who should be less capable of sitting in judgment
on an erring woman's heart and disentangling its mesh of
good and evil than the sages of rigid aspect. Towards
whom Hester Prynne now turned her face. She seemed conscious, indeed,
(10:47):
that whatever sympathy she might expect, lay in the larger
and warmer heart of the multitude. For as she lifted
her eyes towards the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale
and trembled. The voice which had called her attention was
that of the reverend and famous John Wilson, the eldest
clergyman of Boston, a great scholar, like most of his
(11:11):
contemporaries in the profession, and with all a man of
kind and genial spirit. This last attribute, however, had been
less carefully developed than his intellectual gifts, and was in
truth rather a matter of shame than self congratulation. With him.
There he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath
(11:32):
his skull cap, while his gray eyes, accustomed to the
shaded light of his study, were winking like those of
Hester's infant. In the unadulterated sunshine. He looked like the
darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes
of sermons, and had no more right than one of
those portraits would have to step forth as he now did,
(11:56):
and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish.
Ester Prynne said the clergyman, I have striven with my
young brother here, under whose preaching of the word you
have been privileged to sit here. Mister Wilson laid his
hand on the shoulder of a pale young man beside him.
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I have sought, I say, to persuade this godly youth
that he should deal with you here in the face
of Heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers, and
in hearing of all the people, as touching the vileness
and blackness of your sin, knowing your natural temper better
than I, he could the better judge what argument to use,
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whether of tenderness or terror, such as might prevail over
your hardness and obstinacy, insomuch that you should no longer
hide the name of him who tempted you to this
grievous fall. But he opposes to me, with the young
man's over softness, albeit wise beyond his years, that it
were wronging the very nature of woman to force her
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to lay open her heart's secrets in such broad daylight,
and in presence of so great a multitude. Truly, as
I sought to convince him, the shame lay in the
commission of the sin, and not in the showing of it. Forth,
what say you to it? Once again, Brother Dimsdale, Must
it be thou or I that shall deal with this
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poor sinner's soul? There was a murmur among the dignified
and reverend occupants of the balcony, and Governor Bellingham gave
expression to its purport, speaking in an authoritative voice, though
tempered with respect towards the youthful clergyman whom he addressed.
Good Master Dimsdale said he, the responsibility of this woman's
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soul lies greatly with you. It behooves you, therefore to
exhort her to repentance and to confession, as a proof
and consequence thereof, the directness of this appeal drew the
eyes of the whole crowd upon the reverend mister Dimmesdale,
a young clergyman who had come from one of the
great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age
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into our wild forest land. His eloquence and religious fervor
had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession.
He was a person of very striking aspect, with a white,
lofty and impending brow, large brown melancholy eyes, and a
mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed, it was apt
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to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast
power of self restraint. Notwithstanding his high native gifts and
scholarlike attainments, there was an air about this young minister,
an apprehensive, a startled, a half frightened look, as of
a being who felt himself quite astray and at a
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loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only
be at ease in some seclusion of his own. Therefore,
so far as his duties would permit, he trod in
the shadowy bypaths, and thus kept himself simple and childlike,
coming forth when occasion was, with a freshness and fragrance
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and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said,
affected them like the speech of an angel. Such was
the young man whom the Reverend, mister Wilson and the
Governor had introduced so openly to the public notice, bidding
him speak in the hearing of all men, to that
mystery of a woman's soul, so sacred even in its pollution.
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The trying nature of his position drove the blood from
his cheek and made his lips tremulous. Speak to the woman,
my brother, said, mister Wilson, it is of moment to
her soul. And therefore, as the worshipful Governor says, momentous
to thine own, in whose charge hers is exhought her
to confess the truth. The Reverend mister Dimmesdale bent his
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head in silent prayer, as it seemed, and then came
forward Hester Pryne said, he leaning over the balcony and
looking down steadfastly into her eyes. Thou hearest what this
good man says, and seest the accountability under which I labor.
If thou feelest it be for thy soul's peace, and
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that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual
to salvation. I charge THEE to speak out the name
of thy fellow sinner and fellow sufferer. Be not silent
from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him. For believe me,
hester though he were to step down from a high
place and stand there beside THEE on thy pedestal of shame,
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yet better were it so than to hide a guilty
heart through life? What can thy silence do for him
except it tempt him, yea, compel him, as it were
to add hypocrisy to sin. Heaven hath grant THEE an
open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out and open
triumph over the evil within THEE and the sorrow without
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take heed, how thou deniest to him who perchance hath
not the courage to grasp it for himself, the bitter
but wholesome cup that is now presented to thy lips.
The young Pastor's voice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, and broken.
The feeling that it so evidently manifested, rather than a
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direct purport of the words, caused it to vibrate within
all hearts and brought the listeners into one accord of sympathy.
Even the poor baby at Hester's bosom was affected by
the same influence, for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze
towards mister Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms with
a half pleased, half plaintive murmur. So powerful seemed the
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Minister's appeal that the people could not believe but that
Hester Prynne would speak out the guilty negs, or else
that the guilty one himself, in whatever high or lowly
place he stood, would be drawn forth by an inward
and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascend the scaffold. Hester
shook her head. Woman transgress not beyond the limits of
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Heaven's mercy, cried the Reverend mister Wilson, more harshly than before.
That little babe hath been gifted with a voice to
second and confirm the counsel which thou hast heard speak
out the name that, and thy repentance may avail to
take the scarlet letter off thy breast, never replied Hester Prynne,
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looking not at mister Wilson, but into the deep and
troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. It is too deeply branded.
Ye cannot take it off, and would that I might
endure his agony as well as mine. Speak, woman, said
another voice, coldly and sternly, proceeding from the crowd about
the scaffold, Speak and give your child a father. I
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will not speak, answered Hester, turning pale as death, but
responding to this voice, which she too surely recognized. And
my child must seek a heavenly father. She shall never
know an earthly one. She will not speak, murmured mister Dimmesdale,
who leaning over the balcony with his hand upon his heart,
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had awaited the result of his appeal. He now drew
back with a long respiration, wonder as strength and generosity
of a woman's heart, She will not speak. Discerning the
impracticable state of the poor culprit's mind, the elder clergyman,
who had carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addressed to
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the multitude a discourse on sin in all its branches,
but with continual reference to the ignominious letter. So f
sssibly did he dwell upon this symbol for the hour
or more during which his periods were rolling over the
people's heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination,
and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames
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of the infernal pit. Hester Prynne meanwhile, kept her place
upon the pedestal of shame with glazed eyes and an
air of weary indifference. She had borne that morning all
that nature could endure, and as her temperament was not
of the order that escapes from too intense suffering by
a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a
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stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties of animal life
remained entire. In this state, the voice of the preacher
thundered remorselessly but unavailingly upon her ears. The infant, during
the latter part of her ordeal, pierced the air with
its wailings and screams. She strove to harsh it mechanically,
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but seemed scarcely to sympathize with its trouble with the
same hard demeanor. She was led back to prison and
vanished from the public gaze within its iron clamped portal.
It was whispered by those who peered after her that
the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark
passageway of the interior end of Section six. Dream Audio
(21:22):
Books hopes you have enjoyed this program.
Dream Ario Books presents Section six of The Scarlet Letter
Banathaniel Hawthorne, Chapter three. The recognition from this intense consciousness
of being the object of severe and universal observation. The
wearer of the scarlet letter was at length relieved by
(00:21):
discerning on the outskirts of the crowd a figure which
irresistibly took possession of her thoughts. An Indian in his
native garb was standing there. But the Red men were
not so infrequent visitors of the English settlements that one
of them would have attracted any notice from Hester Prynne
at such a time, much less would he have excluded
(00:41):
all other objects and ideas from her mind. By the
Indian's side, and evidently sustaining a companionship with him, stood
a white man clad in a strange disarray of civilized
and savage costume. He was small in stature, with a
furrowed visage which as yet could hardly be termed aged.
(01:03):
There was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of
a person who had so cultivated his mental part that
it could not fail to mold the physical to itself
and become manifest by unmistakable tokens. Although by a seemingly
careless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb he had endeavored to
conceal or abate the peculiarity. It was sufficiently evident to
(01:26):
hester Prynne that one of this man's shoulders rose higher
than the other. Again, at the first instant of perceiving
that thin visage and the slight deformity of the figure,
she pressed her infant to her bosom with so convulsive
a force that the poor babe uttered another cry of pain,
but the mother did not seem to hear it. At
(01:49):
his arrival in the market place, and some time before
she saw him, the stranger had bent his eyes on
hester Prynne. It was carelessly at first, like a man
chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external matters
are of little value and import unless they bear relation
to something within his mind. Very soon, however, his look
(02:11):
became keen and penetrative. A writhing horror twisted itself across
his features, like a snake, gliding swiftly over them, and
making one little pause with all its wreathed intervolutions in
open sight. His face darkened with some powerful emotion, which
nevertheless he so instantaneously controlled by an effort of his
(02:35):
will that savored a single moment, its expression might have
passed for calmness. After a brief space, the convulsion grew
almost imperceptible, and finally subsided into the depths of his nature.
When he found the eyes of hester Prynne fastened on
his own, and saw that she appeared to recognize him,
(02:57):
he slowly and calmly raised his fingers, made a gesture
with it in the air, and laid it on his lips. Then,
touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood near him,
he addressed him in a formal and courteous manner. I
pray you good, sir, said he. Who is this woman?
And wherefore is she here? Set up to public shame?
(03:21):
You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend,
answered the townsman, looking curiously at the questioner and his
savage companion. Else you would surely have heard of mistress
hester Prynne and her evil doings. She hath raised a
great scandal. I promise you in Godly Master Dimmesdale's church,
you say, truly, replied the other. I am a stranger
(03:44):
and have been a wanderer sorely against my will. I
have met with grievous mishaps by sea and land, and
have been long held in bonds among the heathen folk
to the southward, and am now brought hither by this
Indian to be redeemed 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
(04:08):
has brought her to Yonder Scaffold truly, friend, And methinks
it must gladden your heart after your troubles and sojourn
in the wilderness, said the townsman, to find yourself at
length in a land where iniquity is searched out and
punished in the sight of rulers and people, as here
in our godly New England. Yonder woman, sir, you must know,
(04:31):
was the wife of a certain learned man English by birth,
but who had long ago dwelt in Amsterdam. Whence some
good time agone he was minded to cross over and
cast in his lot with us of the Massachusetts. To
this purpose he sent his wife before him, remaining himself,
to look after some necessary affairs. Marry good, sir. In
(04:53):
some two years or less that the woman has been
a dweller here in Boston. No tidings have come of
this learned GENI, gentleman, Master Prynne, and his young wife
look you, being left to her own misguidance. Ah Aha,
I conceive you, said the stranger, with a bitter smile.
So learned a man as you speak of should have
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learned this too in his books, And who, by your favor, sir,
may be the father of Yonder babe. It is some
three or four months old. I should judge which Mistress
Prynne is holding in her arms of a truth. Friend,
that matter remaineth a riddle, and the daniel who shall
expound it is yet a wanting, answered the townsman. Madame
(05:37):
Hester absolutely refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid
their heads together in vain peradventure. The guilty one stands
looking on at this sad spectacle unknown of man, and
forgetting that God sees him. The learned man, observed the stranger,
with another smile, should come himself to look into the mystery.
(05:59):
Behoove sim well, if he be still in life, responded
the townsmen. Now, good, sir, our Massachusetts Magistracy, bethinking themselves
that this woman is youthful and fair, and doubtless was
strongly tempted to her fall, And that, moreover, as is
most likely, her husband may be at the bottom of
the sea. They have not been bold to put in
(06:21):
force the extremity of our righteous law against her. The
penalty thereof is death. But in their great mercy and
tenderness of heart, they have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand
only a space of three hours on the platform of
the pillory, and then and thereafter, for the remainder of
her natural life, to wear a mark of shame upon
(06:42):
her bosom. A wise sentence, remarked the stranger, gravely bowing
his head. Thus she will be a living sermon against
sin until the ignominious letter be engraved upon her tombstone.
It irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity
should not at least stand on the scaffold by her side.
(07:04):
But he will be known, He will be known, He
will be known. He bowed courteously to the communicative townsmen,
and whispering a few words to his Indian attendant, they
both made their way through the crowd. While this passed,
hester Prynne had been standing on her pedestal, still with
(07:27):
a fixed gaze towards the stranger, so fixed a gaze that,
at moments of intense absorption, all other objects in the
visible world seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her.
Such an interview perhaps would have been more terrible than
even to meet him as she now did, with the
hot midday sun burning down upon her face and lighting
(07:50):
up its shame, with the scarlet token of infamy on
her breast, with the sin born infant in her arms,
with the whole people drawn forth to a festival, staring
at the features that should have been seen only in
the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow
of a home, or beneath a matronly veil at church.
(08:12):
Dreadful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter
in the presence of these thousand witnesses. It was better
to stand thus with so many betwixt him and her,
than to greet him face to face they two alone.
She fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure,
(08:33):
and dreaded the moment when its 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 audible to
the whole multitude. Hearken to me, Hester Prynne, said the voice.
(08:54):
It has already been noticed that directly over the platform
on which hester Prynne stood, as a kind of balcony
or open gallery, appended to the meeting house. It was
the place whence proclamations were wont to be made amidst
an assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that
attended such public observances in those days. Here to witness
(09:17):
the scene which we are describing, sat Governor Bellingham himself
with four sergeants about his chair, bearing Halberd's as a
guard of honor. He wore a dark feather in his hat,
a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black
velvet tunic beneath. A gentleman advanced in years, with a
hard experience written in his wrinkles, he was not ill
(09:41):
fitted to be the head and representative of a community
which owed its origin and progress, and its present state
of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to
the stern and tempered energies of manhood, and the somber
sagacity of age, accomplishing so much precisely because it imagined
and hoped so little. The other eminent characters by whom
(10:06):
the chief ruler was surrounded were distinguished by a dignity
of mien, belonging to a period when the forms of
authority were felt to possess the sacredness of divine institutions.
They were doubtless good men, just and sage. But out
of the whole human family, it would not have been
(10:27):
easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous
persons who should be less capable of sitting in judgment
on an erring woman's heart and disentangling its mesh of
good and evil than the sages of rigid aspect. Towards
whom Hester Prynne now turned her face. She seemed conscious, indeed,
(10:47):
that whatever sympathy she might expect, lay in the larger
and warmer heart of the multitude. For as she lifted
her eyes towards the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale
and trembled. The voice which had called her attention was
that of the reverend and famous John Wilson, the eldest
clergyman of Boston, a great scholar, like most of his
(11:11):
contemporaries in the profession, and with all a man of
kind and genial spirit. This last attribute, however, had been
less carefully developed than his intellectual gifts, and was in
truth rather a matter of shame than self congratulation. With him.
There he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath
(11:32):
his skull cap, while his gray eyes, accustomed to the
shaded light of his study, were winking like those of
Hester's infant. In the unadulterated sunshine. He looked like the
darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes
of sermons, and had no more right than one of
those portraits would have to step forth as he now did,
(11:56):
and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish.
Ester Prynne said the clergyman, I have striven with my
young brother here, under whose preaching of the word you
have been privileged to sit here. Mister Wilson laid his
hand on the shoulder of a pale young man beside him.
(12:16):
I have sought, I say, to persuade this godly youth
that he should deal with you here in the face
of Heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers, and
in hearing of all the people, as touching the vileness
and blackness of your sin, knowing your natural temper better
than I, he could the better judge what argument to use,
(12:39):
whether of tenderness or terror, such as might prevail over
your hardness and obstinacy, insomuch that you should no longer
hide the name of him who tempted you to this
grievous fall. But he opposes to me, with the young
man's over softness, albeit wise beyond his years, that it
were wronging the very nature of woman to force her
(13:01):
to lay open her heart's secrets in such broad daylight,
and in presence of so great a multitude. Truly, as
I sought to convince him, the shame lay in the
commission of the sin, and not in the showing of it. Forth,
what say you to it? Once again, Brother Dimsdale, Must
it be thou or I that shall deal with this
(13:22):
poor sinner's soul? There was a murmur among the dignified
and reverend occupants of the balcony, and Governor Bellingham gave
expression to its purport, speaking in an authoritative voice, though
tempered with respect towards the youthful clergyman whom he addressed.
Good Master Dimsdale said he, the responsibility of this woman's
(13:45):
soul lies greatly with you. It behooves you, therefore to
exhort her to repentance and to confession, as a proof
and consequence thereof, the directness of this appeal drew the
eyes of the whole crowd upon the reverend mister Dimmesdale,
a young clergyman who had come from one of the
great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age
(14:07):
into our wild forest land. His eloquence and religious fervor
had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession.
He was a person of very striking aspect, with a white,
lofty and impending brow, large brown melancholy eyes, and a
mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed, it was apt
(14:30):
to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast
power of self restraint. Notwithstanding his high native gifts and
scholarlike attainments, there was an air about this young minister,
an apprehensive, a startled, a half frightened look, as of
a being who felt himself quite astray and at a
(14:52):
loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only
be at ease in some seclusion of his own. Therefore,
so far as his duties would permit, he trod in
the shadowy bypaths, and thus kept himself simple and childlike,
coming forth when occasion was, with a freshness and fragrance
(15:13):
and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said,
affected them like the speech of an angel. Such was
the young man whom the Reverend, mister Wilson and the
Governor had introduced so openly to the public notice, bidding
him speak in the hearing of all men, to that
mystery of a woman's soul, so sacred even in its pollution.
(15:37):
The trying nature of his position drove the blood from
his cheek and made his lips tremulous. Speak to the woman,
my brother, said, mister Wilson, it is of moment to
her soul. And therefore, as the worshipful Governor says, momentous
to thine own, in whose charge hers is exhought her
to confess the truth. The Reverend mister Dimmesdale bent his
(16:01):
head in silent prayer, as it seemed, and then came
forward Hester Pryne said, he leaning over the balcony and
looking down steadfastly into her eyes. Thou hearest what this
good man says, and seest the accountability under which I labor.
If thou feelest it be for thy soul's peace, and
(16:23):
that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual
to salvation. I charge THEE to speak out the name
of thy fellow sinner and fellow sufferer. Be not silent
from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him. For believe me,
hester though he were to step down from a high
place and stand there beside THEE on thy pedestal of shame,
(16:45):
yet better were it so than to hide a guilty
heart through life? What can thy silence do for him
except it tempt him, yea, compel him, as it were
to add hypocrisy to sin. Heaven hath grant THEE an
open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out and open
triumph over the evil within THEE and the sorrow without
(17:08):
take heed, how thou deniest to him who perchance hath
not the courage to grasp it for himself, the bitter
but wholesome cup that is now presented to thy lips.
The young Pastor's voice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, and broken.
The feeling that it so evidently manifested, rather than a
(17:30):
direct purport of the words, caused it to vibrate within
all hearts and brought the listeners into one accord of sympathy.
Even the poor baby at Hester's bosom was affected by
the same influence, for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze
towards mister Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms with
a half pleased, half plaintive murmur. So powerful seemed the
(17:54):
Minister's appeal that the people could not believe but that
Hester Prynne would speak out the guilty negs, or else
that the guilty one himself, in whatever high or lowly
place he stood, would be drawn forth by an inward
and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascend the scaffold. Hester
shook her head. Woman transgress not beyond the limits of
(18:19):
Heaven's mercy, cried the Reverend mister Wilson, more harshly than before.
That little babe hath been gifted with a voice to
second and confirm the counsel which thou hast heard speak
out the name that, and thy repentance may avail to
take the scarlet letter off thy breast, never replied Hester Prynne,
(18:40):
looking not at mister Wilson, but into the deep and
troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. It is too deeply branded.
Ye cannot take it off, and would that I might
endure his agony as well as mine. Speak, woman, said
another voice, coldly and sternly, proceeding from the crowd about
the scaffold, Speak and give your child a father. I
(19:05):
will not speak, answered Hester, turning pale as death, but
responding to this voice, which she too surely recognized. And
my child must seek a heavenly father. She shall never
know an earthly one. She will not speak, murmured mister Dimmesdale,
who leaning over the balcony with his hand upon his heart,
(19:28):
had awaited the result of his appeal. He now drew
back with a long respiration, wonder as strength and generosity
of a woman's heart, She will not speak. Discerning the
impracticable state of the poor culprit's mind, the elder clergyman,
who had carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addressed to
(19:51):
the multitude a discourse on sin in all its branches,
but with continual reference to the ignominious letter. So f
sssibly did he dwell upon this symbol for the hour
or more during which his periods were rolling over the
people's heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination,
and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames
(20:13):
of the infernal pit. Hester Prynne meanwhile, kept her place
upon the pedestal of shame with glazed eyes and an
air of weary indifference. She had borne that morning all
that nature could endure, and as her temperament was not
of the order that escapes from too intense suffering by
a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a
(20:35):
stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties of animal life
remained entire. In this state, the voice of the preacher
thundered remorselessly but unavailingly upon her ears. The infant, during
the latter part of her ordeal, pierced the air with
its wailings and screams. She strove to harsh it mechanically,
(20:57):
but seemed scarcely to sympathize with its trouble with the
same hard demeanor. She was led back to prison and
vanished from the public gaze within its iron clamped portal.
It was whispered by those who peered after her that
the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark
passageway of the interior end of Section six. Dream Audio
(21:22):
Books hopes you have enjoyed this program.
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