The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne (most interesting books to read .TXT) đ
- Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
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At home, within and around her motherâs cottage, Pearl wanted not a wide and various circle of acquaintance. The spell of life went forth from her ever-creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand objects, as a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied. The unlikeliest materialsâ âa stick, a bunch of rags, a flowerâ âwere the puppets of Pearlâs witchcraft, and, without undergoing any outward change, became spiritually adapted to whatever drama occupied the stage of her inner world. Her one baby-voice served a multitude of imaginary personages, old and young, to talk withal. The pine-trees, aged, black and solemn, and flinging groans and other melancholy utterances on the breeze, needed little transformation to figure as Puritan elders; the ugliest weeds of the garden were their children, whom Pearl smote down and uprooted, most unmercifully. It was wonderful, the vast variety of forms into which she threw her intellect, with no continuity, indeed, but darting up and dancing, always in a state of preternatural activityâ âsoon sinking down, as if exhausted by so rapid and feverish a tide of lifeâ âand succeeded by other shapes of a similar wild energy. It was like nothing so much as the phantasmagoric play of the northern lights. In the mere exercise of the fancy, however, and the sportiveness of a growing mind, there might be little more than was observable in other children of bright faculties; except as Pearl, in the dearth of human playmates, was thrown more upon the visionary throng which she created. The singularity lay in the hostile feelings with which the child regarded all these offspring of her own heart and mind. She never created a friend, but seemed always to be sowing broadcast the dragonâs teeth, whence sprung a harvest of armed enemies, against whom she rushed to battle. It was inexpressibly sadâ âthen what depth of sorrow to a mother, who felt in her own heart the cause!â âto observe, in one so young, this constant recognition of an adverse world, and so fierce a training of the energies that were to make good her cause, in the contest 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, but which made utterance for itself, betwixt speech and a groanâ ââO Father in Heavenâ âif Thou art still my Fatherâ âwhat is this being which I have brought into the world!â And Pearl, overhearing the ejaculation, or aware, through some more subtle channel, of those throbs of anguish, would turn her vivid and beautiful little face upon her mother, smile with sprite-like intelligence, and resume her play.
One peculiarity of the childâs deportment remains yet to be told. The very first thing which she had noticed in her life wasâ âwhat?â ânot the motherâs 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 no means! But that first object of which Pearl seemed to become aware wasâ âshall we say it?â âthe scarlet letter on Hesterâs bosom! One day, as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infantâs eyes had been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the letter; and, putting up her little hand, she grasped at it, smiling, not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam, that gave her face the look of a much older child. Then, gasping for breath, did Hester Prynne clutch the fatal token, instinctively endeavoring to tear it away; so infinite was the torture inflicted by the intelligent touch of Pearlâs baby-hand. Again, as if her motherâs agonized gesture were meant only to make sport for her, did little Pearl look into her eyes, and smile! From that epoch, except when the child was asleep, Hester had never felt a momentâs safety; not a momentâs calm enjoyment of her. Weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse, during which Pearlâs gaze might never once be fixed upon the scarlet letter; but then, again, it would come at unawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and always with that peculiar smile, and odd expression of the eyes.
Once, this freakish, elvish cast came into the childâs eyes, while Hester was looking at her own image in them, as mothers are fond of doing; and, suddenlyâ âfor women in solitude, and with troubled hearts, are pestered with unaccountable delusionsâ âshe fancied that she beheld, not her own miniature portrait, but another face, in the small black mirror of Pearlâs eye. It was a face, fiend-like, full of smiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of features that she had known full well, though seldom with a smile, and never with malice in them. It was as if an evil spirit possessed the child, and had just then peeped forth in mockery. Many a time afterwards had Hester been tortured, though less vividly, by the same illusion.
In the afternoon of a certain summerâs day, after Pearl grew big enough to run about, she amused herself with gathering handfuls of wildflowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her motherâs bosom; dancing up and down, like
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