He kept vigils,
likewise, night after night, sometimes in utter darkness,
sometimes with a glimmering lamp, and sometimes, viewing his own
face in a looking-glass, by the most powerful light which he
could throw upon it. He thus typified the constant introspection
wherewith he tortured, but could not purify himself. In these
lengthened vigils, his brain often reeled, and visions seemed to
flit before him; perhaps seen doubtfully, and by a faint light
of their own, in the remote dimness of the chamber, or more
vividly and close beside him, within the looking-glass. Now it
was a herd of diabolic shapes, that grinned and mocked at the
pale minister, and beckoned him away with them; now a group of
shining angels, who flew upward heavily, as sorrow-laden, but
grew more ethereal as they rose. Now came the dead friends of
his youth, and his white-bearded father, with a saint-like
frown, and his mother turning her face away as she passed by.
Ghost of a mother--thinnest fantasy of a mother--methinks she
might yet have thrown a pitying glance towards her son! And now,
through the chamber which these spectral thoughts had made so
ghastly, glided Hester Prynne leading along little Pearl, in her
scarlet garb, and pointing her forefinger, first at the scarlet
letter on her bosom, and then at the clergyman's own breast.
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