Those who had before known her, and had expected to
behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were
astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone
out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she
was enveloped. It may be true that, to a sensitive observer,
there was some thing exquisitely painful in it. Her attire,
which indeed, she had wrought for the occasion in prison, and
had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the
attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood,
by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which
drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer--so that
both men and women who had been familiarly acquainted with
Hester Prynne were now impressed as if they beheld her for the
first time--was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically
embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of
a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity,
and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.
"She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain," remarked
one of her female spectators; "but did ever a woman, before this
brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it? Why, gossips,
what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates,
and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a
punishment?"
"It were well," muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames,
"if we stripped Madame Hester's rich gown off her dainty
shoulders; and as for the red letter which she hath stitched so
curiously, I'll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel to
make a fitter one!"
"Oh, peace, neighbours--peace!" whispered their youngest
companion; "do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that
embroidered letter but she has felt it in her heart.
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