There were many people present from the
country round about, who had often heard of the scarlet letter,
and to whom it had been made terrific by a hundred false or
exaggerated rumours, but who had never beheld it with their own
bodily eyes. These, after exhausting other modes of amusement,
now thronged about Hester Prynne with rude and boorish
intrusiveness. Unscrupulous as it was, however, it could not
bring them nearer than a circuit of several yards. At that
distance they accordingly stood, fixed there by the centrifugal
force of the repugnance which the mystic symbol inspired. The
whole gang of sailors, likewise, observing the press of
spectators, and learning the purport of the scarlet letter, came
and thrust their sunburnt and desperado-looking faces into the
ring. Even the Indians were affected by a sort of cold shadow of
the white man's curiosity and, gliding through the crowd,
fastened their snake-like black eyes on Hester's bosom,
conceiving, perhaps, that the wearer of this brilliantly
embroidered badge must needs be a personage of high dignity
among her people. Lastly, the inhabitants of the town (their own
interest in this worn-out subject languidly reviving itself, by
sympathy with what they saw others feel) lounged idly to the
same quarter, and tormented Hester Prynne, perhaps more than all
the rest, with their cool, well-acquainted gaze at her familiar
shame.
Pages:
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376