The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

  VI.

  PEARL.

  We have as yet hardly spoken of the infant; that little creature,whose innocent life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree ofProvidence, a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxurianceof a guilty passion. How strange it seemed to the sad woman, as shewatched the growth, and the beauty that became every day morebrilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine overthe tiny features of this child! Her Pearl!--For so had Hester calledher; not as a name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of thecalm, white, unimpassioned lustre that would be indicated by thecomparison. But she named the infant "Pearl," as being of greatprice,--purchased with all she had,--her mother's only treasure! Howstrange, indeed! Man had marked this woman's sin by a scarlet letter,which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathycould reach her, save it were sinful like herself. God, as a directconsequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovelychild, whose place was on that same dishonored bosom, to connect herparent forever with the race and descent of mortals, and to be finallya blessed soul in heaven! Yet these thoughts affected Hester Prynneless with hope than apprehension. She knew that her deed had beenevil; she could have no faith, therefore, that its result would begood. Day after day, she looked fearfully into the child's expandingnature, ever dreading to detect some dark and wild peculiarity, thatshould correspond with the guiltiness to which she owed her being.

  Certainly, there was no physical defect. By its perfect shape, itsvigor, and its natural dexterity in the use of all its untried limbs,the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden; worthy tohave been left there, to be the plaything of the angels, after theworld's first parents were driven out. The child had a native gracewhich does not invariably coexist with faultless beauty; its attire,however simple, always impressed the beholder as if it were the verygarb that precisely became it best. But little Pearl was not clad inrustic weeds. Her mother, with a morbid purpose that may be betterunderstood hereafter, had bought the richest tissues that could beprocured, and allowed her imaginative faculty its full play in thearrangement and decoration of the dresses which the child wore, beforethe public eye. So magnificent was the small figure, when thusarrayed, and such was the splendor of Pearl's own proper beauty,shining through the gorgeous robes which might have extinguished apaler loveliness, that there was an absolute circle of radiance aroundher, on the darksome cottage floor. And yet a russet gown, torn andsoiled with the child's rude play, made a picture of her just asperfect. Pearl's aspect was imbued with a spell of infinite variety;in this one child there were many children, comprehending the fullscope between the wild-flower prettiness of a peasant-baby, and thepomp, in little, of an infant princess. Throughout all, however, therewas a trait of passion, a certain depth of hue, which she never lost;and if, in any of her changes, she had grown fainter or paler, shewould have ceased to be herself,--it would have been no longer Pearl!

  This outward mutability indicated, and did not more than fairlyexpress, the various properties of her inner life. Her nature appearedto possess depth, too, as well as variety; but--or else Hester's fearsdeceived her--it lacked reference and adaptation to the world intowhich she was born. The child could not be made amenable to rules. Ingiving her existence, a great law had been broken; and the result wasa being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but allin disorder; or with an order peculiar to themselves, amidst which thepoint of variety and arrangement was difficult or impossible to bediscovered. Hester could only account for the child's character--andeven then most vaguely and imperfectly--by recalling what she herselfhad been, during that momentous period while Pearl was imbibing hersoul from the spiritual world, and her bodily frame from its materialof earth. The mother's impassioned state had been the medium throughwhich were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its morallife; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deepstains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, andthe untempered light of the intervening substance. Above all, thewarfare of Hester's spirit, at that epoch, was perpetuated in Pearl.She could recognize her wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightinessof her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom anddespondency that had brooded in her heart. They were now illuminatedby the morning radiance of a young child's disposition, but later inthe day of earthly existence might be prolific of the storm andwhirlwind.

  The discipline of the family, in those days, was of a far more rigidkind than now. The frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent applicationof the rod, enjoined by Scriptural authority, were used, not merely inthe way of punishment for actual offences, but as a wholesome regimenfor the growth and promotion of all childish virtues. Hester Prynne,nevertheless, the lonely mother of this one child, ran little risk oferring on the side of undue severity. Mindful, however, of her ownerrors and misfortunes, she early sought to impose a tender, butstrict control over the infant immortality that was committed to hercharge. But the task was beyond her skill. After testing both smilesand frowns, and proving that neither mode of treatment possessed anycalculable influence, Hester was ultimately compelled to stand aside,and permit the child to be swayed by her own impulses. Physicalcompulsion or restraint was effectual, of course, while it lasted. Asto any other kind of discipline, whether addressed to her mind orheart, little Pearl might or might not be within its reach, inaccordance with the caprice that ruled the moment. Her mother, whilePearl was yet an infant, grew acquainted with a certain peculiar look,that warned her when it would be labor thrown away to insist,persuade, or plead. It was a look so intelligent, yet inexplicable,so perverse, sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by awild flow of spirits, that Hester could not help questioning, at suchmoments, whether Pearl were a human child. She seemed rather an airysprite, which, after playing its fantastic sports for a little whileupon the cottage floor, would flit away with a mocking smile. Wheneverthat look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply black eyes, it investedher with a strange remoteness and intangibility; it was as if she werehovering in the air and might vanish, like a glimmering light, thatcomes we know not whence, and goes we know not whither. Beholding it,Hester was constrained to rush towards the child,--to pursue thelittle elf in the flight which she invariably began,--to snatch her toher bosom, with a close pressure and earnest kisses,--not so much fromoverflowing love, as to assure herself that Pearl was flesh and blood,and not utterly delusive. But Pearl's laugh, when she was caught,though full of merriment and music, made her mother more doubtful thanbefore.

  Heart-smitten at this bewildering and baffling spell, that so oftencame between herself and her sole treasure, whom she had bought sodear, and who was all her world, Hester sometimes burst intopassionate tears. Then, perhaps,--for there was no foreseeing how itmight affect her,--Pearl would frown, and clench her little fist, andharden her small features into a stern, unsympathizing look ofdiscontent. Not seldom, she would laugh anew, and louder than before,like a thing incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow. Or--but thismore rarely happened--she would be convulsed with a rage of grief, andsob out her love for her mother, in broken words, and seem intent onproving that she had a heart, by breaking it. Yet Hester was hardlysafe in confiding herself to that gusty tenderness; it passed, assuddenly as it came. Brooding over all these matters, the mother feltlike one who has evoked a spirit, but, by some irregularity in theprocess of conjuration, has failed to win the master-word that shouldcontrol this new and incomprehensible intelligence. Her only realcomfort was when the child lay in the placidity of sleep. Then she wassure of her, and tasted hours of quiet, sad, delicious happiness;until--perhaps with that perverse expression glimmering from beneathher opening lids--little Pearl awoke!

  How soon--with what strange rapidity, indeed!--did Pearl arrive at anage that was capable of social intercourse, beyond the mother'sever-ready smile and nonsense-words! And then what a happi
ness wouldit have been, could Hester Prynne have heard her clear, bird-likevoice mingling with the uproar of other childish voices, and havedistinguished and unravelled her own darling's tones, amid all theentangled outcry of a group of sportive children! But this could neverbe. Pearl was a born outcast of the infantile world. An imp of evil,emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants.Nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed, withwhich the child comprehended her loneliness; the destiny that haddrawn an inviolable circle round about her; the whole peculiarity, inshort, of her position in respect to other children. Never, since herrelease from prison, had Hester met the public gaze without her. Inall her walks about the town, Pearl, too, was there; first as the babein arms, and afterwards as the little girl, small companion of hermother, holding a forefinger with her whole grasp, and tripping alongat the rate of three or four footsteps to one of Hester's. She saw thechildren of the settlement, on the grassy margin of the street, or atthe domestic thresholds, disporting themselves in such grim fashionas the Puritanic nurture would permit; playing at going to church,perchance; or at scourging Quakers; or taking scalps in a sham-fightwith the Indians; or scaring one another with freaks of imitativewitchcraft. Pearl saw, and gazed intently, but never sought to makeacquaintance. If spoken to, she would not speak again. If the childrengathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positivelyterrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, withshrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble, becausethey had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknowntongue.

  The truth was, that the little Puritans, being of the most intolerantbrood that ever lived, had got a vague idea of something outlandish,unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashions, in the mother andchild; and therefore scorned them in their hearts, and notunfrequently reviled them with their tongues. Pearl felt thesentiment, and requited it with the bitterest hatred that can besupposed to rankle in a childish bosom. These outbreaks of a fiercetemper had a kind of value, and even comfort, for her mother; becausethere was at least an intelligible earnestness in the mood, instead ofthe fitful caprice that so often thwarted her in the child'smanifestations. It appalled her, nevertheless, to discern here, again,a shadowy reflection of the evil that had existed in herself. All thisenmity and passion had Pearl inherited, by inalienable right, out ofHester's heart. Mother and daughter stood together in the same circleof seclusion from human society; and in the nature of the child seemedto be perpetuated those unquiet elements that had distracted HesterPrynne before Pearl's birth, but had since begun to be soothed away bythe softening influences of maternity.

  At home, within and around her mother's cottage, Pearl wanted not awide and various circle of acquaintance. The spell of life went forthfrom her ever-creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousandobjects, as a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied. Theunlikeliest materials--a stick, a bunch of rags, a flower--were thepuppets of Pearl's witchcraft, and, without undergoing any outwardchange, became spiritually adapted to whatever drama occupied thestage of her inner world. Her one baby-voice served a multitude ofimaginary personages, old and young, to talk withal. The pine-trees,aged, black and solemn, and flinging groans and other melancholyutterances on the breeze, needed little transformation to figure asPuritan elders; the ugliest weeds of the garden were their children,whom Pearl smote down and uprooted, most unmercifully. It waswonderful, the vast variety of forms into which she threw herintellect, with no continuity, indeed, but darting up and dancing,always in a state of preternatural activity,--soon sinking down, as ifexhausted by so rapid and feverish a tide of life,--and succeeded byother shapes of a similar wild energy. It was like nothing so much asthe phantasmagoric play of the northern lights. In the mere exerciseof the fancy, however, and the sportiveness of a growing mind, theremight be little more than was observable in other children of brightfaculties; except as Pearl, in the dearth of human playmates, wasthrown more upon the visionary throng which she created. Thesingularity lay in the hostile feelings with which the child regardedall these offspring of her own heart and mind. She never created afriend, but seemed always to be sowing broadcast the dragon's teeth,whence sprung a harvest of armed enemies, against whom she rushed tobattle. It was inexpressibly sad--then what depth of sorrow to amother, who felt in her own heart the cause!--to observe, in one soyoung, this constant recognition of an adverse world, and so fierce atraining of the energies that were to make good her cause, in thecontest that must ensue.

  Gazing at Pearl, Hester Prynne often dropped her work upon her knees,and cried out with an agony which she would fain have hidden, butwhich made utterance for itself, betwixt speech and a groan,--"OFather in Heaven,--if Thou art still my Father,--what is this beingwhich I have brought into the world!" And Pearl, overhearing theejaculation, or aware, through some more subtile channel, of thosethrobs of anguish, would turn her vivid and beautiful little face uponher mother, smile with sprite-like intelligence, and resume her play.

  A touch of Pearl's baby-hand]

  One peculiarity of the child's deportment remains yet to be told. Thevery first thing which she had noticed in her life was--what?--not themother's smile, responding to it, as other babies do, by that faint,embryo smile of the little mouth, remembered so doubtfully afterwards,and with such fond discussion whether it were indeed a smile. By nomeans! But that first object of which Pearl seemed to become awarewas--shall we say it?--the scarlet letter on Hester's bosom! One day,as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant's eyes had beencaught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the letter; and,putting up her little hand, she grasped at it, smiling, notdoubtfully, but with a decided gleam, that gave her face the look of amuch older child. Then, gasping for breath, did Hester Prynne clutchthe fatal token, instinctively endeavoring to tear it away; soinfinite was the torture inflicted by the intelligent touch of Pearl'sbaby-hand. Again, as if her mother's agonized gesture were meant onlyto make sport for her, did little Pearl look into her eyes, andsmile! From that epoch, except when the child was asleep, Hester hadnever felt a moment's safety; not a moment's calm enjoyment of her.Weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse, during which Pearl's gazemight never once be fixed upon the scarlet letter; but then, again, itwould come at unawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and alwayswith that peculiar smile, and odd expression of the eyes.

  Once, this freakish, elvish cast came into the child's eyes, whileHester was looking at her own image in them, as mothers are fond ofdoing; and, suddenly,--for women in solitude, and with troubledhearts, are pestered with unaccountable delusions,--she fancied thatshe beheld, not her own miniature portrait, but another face, in thesmall black mirror of Pearl's eye. It was a face, fiend-like, full ofsmiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of features that she hadknown full well, though seldom with a smile, and never with malice inthem. It was as if an evil spirit possessed the child, and had justthen peeped forth in mockery. Many a time afterwards had Hester beentortured, though less vividly, by the same illusion.

  In the afternoon of a certain summer's day, after Pearl grew bigenough to run about, she amused herself with gathering handfuls ofwild-flowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her mother's bosom;dancing up and down, like a little elf, whenever she hit the scarletletter. Hester's first motion had been to cover her bosom with herclasped hands. But, whether from pride or resignation, or a feelingthat her penance might best be wrought out by this unutterable pain,she resisted the impulse, and sat erect, pale as death, looking sadlyinto little Pearl's wild eyes. Still came the battery of flowers,almost invariably hitting the mark, and covering the mother's breastwith hurts for which she could find no balm in this world, nor knewhow to seek it in another. At last, her shot being all expended, thechild stood still and gazed at Hester, with that little, laughingimage of a fiend peeping out--or, whether it peeped or no, her motherso imagined it--from the unsearchable abyss of her black eyes.

  "Child, what art thou?" cried the mother.
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  "O, I am your little Pearl!" answered the child.

  But, while she said it, Pearl laughed, and began to dance up and down,with the humorsome gesticulation of a little imp, whose next freakmight be to fly up the chimney.

  "Art thou my child, in very truth?" asked Hester.

  Nor did she put the question altogether idly, but, for the moment,with a portion of genuine earnestness; for, such was Pearl's wonderfulintelligence, that her mother half doubted whether she were notacquainted with the secret spell of her existence, and might not nowreveal herself.

  "Yes; I am little Pearl!" repeated the child, continuing her antics.

  "Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!" said the mother,half playfully; for it was often the case that a sportive impulse cameover her, in the midst of her deepest suffering. "Tell me, then, whatthou art, and who sent thee hither."

  "Tell me, mother!" said the child, seriously, coming up to Hester, andpressing herself close to her knees. "Do thou tell me!"

  "Thy Heavenly Father sent thee!" answered Hester Prynne.

  But she said it with a hesitation that did not escape the acuteness ofthe child. Whether moved only by her ordinary freakishness, orbecause an evil spirit prompted her, she put up her small forefinger,and touched the scarlet letter.

  "He did not send me!" cried she, positively. "I have no HeavenlyFather!"

  "Hush, Pearl, hush! Thou must not talk so!" answered the mother,suppressing a groan. "He sent us all into this world. He sent even me,thy mother. Then, much more, thee! Or, if not, thou strange and elfishchild, whence didst thou come?"

  "Tell me! Tell me!" repeated Pearl, no longer seriously, but laughing,and capering about the floor. "It is thou that must tell me!"

  But Hester could not resolve the query, being herself in a dismallabyrinth of doubt. She remembered--betwixt a smile and a shudder--thetalk of the neighboring towns-people; who, seeking vainly elsewherefor the child's paternity, and observing some of her odd attributes,had given out that poor little Pearl was a demon offspring; such as,ever since old Catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth,through the agency of their mother's sin, and to promote some foul andwicked purpose. Luther, according to the scandal of his monkishenemies, was a brat of that hellish breed; nor was Pearl the onlychild to whom this inauspicious origin was assigned, among the NewEngland Puritans.