HESTER AT HER NEEDLE But sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in many months, she felt an eye—a human eye—upon the ignominious brand, that seemed to give a momentary relief, as if half of her agony were shared. The next instant, back it all rushed again, with still a deeper throb of pain; for, in that brief interval, she had sinned anew. (Had Hester sinned alone?)
Her imagination was somewhat affected, and, had she been of a softer moral and intellectual fibre would have been still more so, by the strange and solitary anguish of her life. Walking to and fro, with those lonely footsteps, in the little world with which she was outwardly connected, it now and then appeared to Hester—if altogether fancy, it was nevertheless too potent to be resisted—she felt or fancied, then, that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts. She was terror-stricken by the revelations that were thus made. What were they? Could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne's? Or, must she receive those intimations—so obscure, yet so distinct—as truth? In all her miserable experience, there was nothing else so awful and so loathsome as this sense. It perplexed, as well as shocked her, by the irreverent inopportuneness of the occasions that brought it into vivid action. Sometimes the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb, as she ed near a venerable minister or magistrate, the model of piety and justice, to whom that age of antique reverence looked up, as to a mortal man in fellowship with angels. "What evil thing is at hand?" would Hester say to herself. Lifting her reluctant eyes, there would be nothing human within the scope of view, save the form of this earthly saint! Again a mystic sisterhood would contumaciously assert itself, as she met the sanctified frown of some matron, who, according to the rumour of all tongues, had kept cold snow within her bosom throughout life. That unsunned snow in the matron's bosom, and the burning shame on Hester Prynne's—what had the two in common? Or, once more, the electric thrill would give her warning—"Behold Hester, here is a companion!" and, looking up, she would detect the eyes of a young maiden glancing at the scarlet letter, shyly and aside, and quickly averted, with a faint, chill crimson in her cheeks as if her purity were somewhat sullied by that momentary glance. O Fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst thou leave nothing, whether in youth or age, for this poor sinner to revere?—such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin. Be it accepted as a proof that all was not corrupt in this poor victim of her own frailty, and man's hard law, that Hester Prynne yet struggled to believe that no fellow-mortal was guilty like herself. The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always contributing a grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations, had a story about the scarlet letter which we might readily work up into a terrific legend. They averred that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight whenever Hester Prynne walked abroad in the night-time. And we must needs say it seared Hester's bosom so deeply, that perhaps there was more truth in the rumour than our modern incredulity may be inclined to it. |
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ESTER AGUJA EN MANO Pero alguna que otra vez, quizs con intervalo de muchos das o acaso de varios meses, tena la sensacin de que una mirada—una mirada compasiva—se fijaba en la letra ignominiosa; y esto pareca proporcionarla un alivio momentneo, como si alguien compartiera la mitad de su agona. Pero un instante despus se reduplicaba sta con renovado dolor, porque en aquel breve momento haba pecado nuevamente. Haba Ester pecado sola?
Su imaginacin estaba un tanto afectada, y a haber posedo menos fibra intelectual y moral, se habra afectado aun mucho ms, en consecuencia de la soledad y de la angustia continua en que viva. Yendo al reducido mundo exterior con que estaba en relaciones y regresando a su morada, y siempre solitaria en esos paseos, crey Ester, o se imagin creer, que la letra escarlata la haba dotado de un nuevo sentido. Se estremeca al pensar, y no poda menos de pensar as, que aquella le proporcionaba una especie de conocimiento intuitivo de las culpas secretas de otras almas. Las revelaciones que de este modo se presentaron a sus ojos la llenaban de terror. Y cules eran? Pero qu podan ser sino las insidiosas insinuaciones del ngel malo, que habra deseado persuadir a aquella mujer, que estaba luchando y era solo su vctima a medias, que el aspecto exterior de pureza no era ms que una mentira, y que si la verdad se conociera, la letra escarlata brillara en ms de un seno, y no nicamente en el de Ester Prynne? Deba ella acaso recibir esas obscuras insinuaciones como si fueran una cosa real y positiva? Esta especie de sentido sobrenatural de que se crea dotada, era de lo ms terrible insoportable que hubiese experimentado en el curso de su desgraciada existencia. La llenaba de perplejidad y de malestar, pues a veces aquella marca roja de infamia en el pecho de su vestido, pareca como si latiera y se agitase cuando Ester pasaba junto a un venerable eclesistico o magistrado, modelos de piedad y de justicia, a quienes el mundo contemplaba como si fueran los compaeros de los ngeles.
—Qu malvado pasa junto a m? Se deca Ester para sus adentros.
Y levantando con repugnancia la cabeza vea que en aquellos alrededores no haba ms ser humano que aquel hombre que todos consideraban un santo. Otras veces crea tener a su lado a una hermana en la culpa, y al levantar los ojos tropezaba con la forma de una devota y spera matrona, cuyo corazn, segn la creencia pblica, haba sido un pedazo de hielo durante toda su vida. Aquel hielo en el pecho de la matrona y la candente ignominia de Ester qu tenan de comn? Otras veces el estremecimiento elctrico le daba la seal, como si le dijera: "Ester, ah tienes una compaera,"—y al alzar los ojos, vea a una joven doncella que contemplaba la letra escarlata, a hurtadillas, y se alejaba rpidamente con un ligero rubor en las mejillas, como si su pureza se hubiera empaado con aquella ojeada instantnea. Semejante falta de fe en la virtud de los dems, es una de las consecuencias ms tristes del pecado. Pero una prueba de que en esta pobre vctima de su propia fragilidad y de la dureza de las leyes del hombre, la corrupcin no haba hecho mucho progreso, consista en la constante lucha de su espritu para creer que ningn mortal era tan culpable como ella misma.
El vulgo, que en aquellos rudos tiempos aada siempre el elemento de lo grotesco a todo lo que hiriera su imaginacin, haba inventado una historia acerca de la letra escarlata, que fcilmente podramos convertir en una terrible leyenda. Afirmaban que aquel smbolo no era simplemente un pao escarlata, teido con un color que era obra del hombre, sino que el rojo ardiente lo produca el fuego del infierno, y se le poda ver brillar con todo su fulgor cuando Ester se paseaba sola, junto a su morada, durante la noche. |
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