# The Scarlet Letter: A Romance -Section 09 - Pearl

An episode of [The Scarlet Letter: A Romance - Audiobook by Nathaniel Hawthorne](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1771236763), 7 Sep 2024, 24 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/61321472/scarletletter_06_hawthorne_64kb.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Dream Adio Books presents section nine of The Scarlet Letter
[0:04] Speaker 1: by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Chapter six. Pearl. We have as yet
[0:11] Speaker 1: hardly spoken of the infant, that little creature whose innocent
[0:15] Speaker 1: life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a
[0:19] Speaker 1: lovely and immortal flower out of the rank luxuriance of
[0:23] Speaker 1: a guilty passion. How strange it seemed to the sad
[0:27] Speaker 1: woman as she watched the growth and the beauty that
[0:31] Speaker 1: became every day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw
[0:35] Speaker 1: its quivering sunshine over the tiny features of this child,
[0:39] Speaker 1: her pearl. For so had Hester called her not as
[0:43] Speaker 1: a name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of
[0:46] Speaker 1: the calm, white, unimpassioned luster that would be indicated by
[0:51] Speaker 1: the comparison. But she named the infant pearl as being
[0:55] Speaker 1: of great price, purchased with all she had, her mother's
[0:59] Speaker 1: only treasure. How strange, indeed, Man had marked this woman's
[1:05] Speaker 1: sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and
[1:09] Speaker 1: disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her, save
[1:13] Speaker 1: it were sinful like herself. God, as a direct consequence
[1:18] Speaker 1: of the sin which Man thus punished, had given her
[1:21] Speaker 1: a lovely child whose place was on that same dishonored Bosom,
[1:26] Speaker 1: to connect her parent forever with the race and descent
[1:29] Speaker 1: of mortals, and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven.
[1:34] Speaker 1: Yet these thoughts affected hester Prynne less with hope than apprehension.
[1:39] Speaker 1: She knew that her deed had been evil. She could
[1:42] Speaker 1: have no faith therefore that its result would be good.
[1:46] Speaker 1: Day after day, she looked fearfully into the child's expanding nature,
[1:50] Speaker 1: ever dreading to detect some dark and wild peculiarity that
[1:54] Speaker 1: should correspond with a guiltiness to which she owed her being.
[2:00] Speaker 1: Certainly there was no physical defect. By its perfect shape,
[2:04] Speaker 1: its vigor, and its natural dexterity in the use of
[2:08] Speaker 1: all its untried limbs, the infant was worthy to have
[2:11] Speaker 1: been brought forth in Eden, worthy to have been left
[2:14] Speaker 1: there to be the plaything of the angels after the
[2:17] Speaker 1: world's first parents were driven out. The child had a
[2:22] Speaker 1: native grace, which does not invariably coexist with faultless beauty.
[2:26] Speaker 1: Its attire, however, simple, always impressed the beholder as if
[2:30] Speaker 1: it were the very garb that precisely became at best.
[2:35] Speaker 1: But little Pearl was not clad in rustic weeds. Her mother,
[2:39] Speaker 1: with a morbid purpose that maybe better understood hereafter, had
[2:43] Speaker 1: bought the richest tissues that could be procured, and allowed
[2:46] Speaker 1: her imaginative faculty its full play in the arrangement and
[2:50] Speaker 1: decoration of the dresses which the child wore before the
[2:53] Speaker 1: public eye. So magnificent was the small figure when thus arrayed,
[2:59] Speaker 1: and such was the splendor of Pearl's own proper beauty
[3:02] Speaker 1: shining through the gorgeous robes, which might have extinguished a
[3:05] Speaker 1: paler loveliness, that there was an absolute circle of radiance
[3:09] Speaker 1: about her on the darksome cottage floor. And yet a
[3:14] Speaker 1: russet gown, torn and soiled with the child's rude play,
[3:18] Speaker 1: made a picture of her just as perfect. Pearl's aspect
[3:23] Speaker 1: was imbued with a spell of infinite variety in this
[3:27] Speaker 1: one child. There were many children comprehending the full scope
[3:31] Speaker 1: between the wild flower prettiness of a peasant baby and
[3:34] Speaker 1: the pomp in little of an infant princess. Throughout all, however,
[3:40] Speaker 1: there was a trait of passion, a certain depth of hue,
[3:43] Speaker 1: which she never lost, And if in any of her
[3:47] Speaker 1: changes she had grown fainter or paler, she would have
[3:51] Speaker 1: ceased to be herself, it would have been no longer Pearl.
[3:56] Speaker 1: This outward mutability indicated, and did not more than fair express,
[4:01] Speaker 1: the various properties of her inner life. Her nature appeared
[4:05] Speaker 1: to possess depth too, as well as variety. But or
[4:09] Speaker 1: else Hester's fears deceived her. It lacked reference and adaptation
[4:13] Speaker 1: to the world into which she was born. The child
[4:17] Speaker 1: could not be made amenable to rules. In giving her existence,
[4:21] Speaker 1: a great law had been broken, and the result was
[4:24] Speaker 1: a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but
[4:28] Speaker 1: all in disorder or with an order peculiar to themselves,
[4:32] Speaker 1: amidst which the point of variety and arrangement was difficult
[4:36] Speaker 1: or impossible to be discovered. Hester could only account for
[4:40] Speaker 1: the child's character, and even then most vaguely and imperfectly,
[4:45] Speaker 1: by recalling what she herself had been during that momentous
[4:48] Speaker 1: period when Pearl was imbibing her soul from the spiritual
[4:52] Speaker 1: world and her bodily frame from its material of earth.
[4:56] Speaker 1: The mother's impassioned state had been the medium through which
[5:00] Speaker 1: who were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of
[5:03] Speaker 1: its moral life, and however white and clear, originally they
[5:08] Speaker 1: had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the
[5:11] Speaker 1: fiery luster, the black shadow, and the untempered light of
[5:16] Speaker 1: the intervening substance. Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit
[5:21] Speaker 1: at that epoch was perpetuated in Pearl. She could recognize
[5:26] Speaker 1: her wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper,
[5:32] Speaker 1: and even some of the very cloud shapes of gloom
[5:34] Speaker 1: and despondency that had brooded in her heart. They were
[5:39] Speaker 1: now illuminated by the morning radiance of a young child's disposition,
[5:43] Speaker 1: but later in the day of earthly existence might be
[5:46] Speaker 1: prolific of the storm and whirlwind. The discipline of the
[5:51] Speaker 1: family in those days was of a far more rigid
[5:54] Speaker 1: kind than now. The frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent
[5:59] Speaker 1: application of the rod enjoined by scriptural authority, were used
[6:04] Speaker 1: not merely in the way of punishment for actual offenses,
[6:07] Speaker 1: but as a wholesome regimen for the growth and promotion
[6:10] Speaker 1: of all childish virtues. Esther Prynne. Nevertheless, the loving mother
[6:16] Speaker 1: of this one child, ran little risk of erring on
[6:20] Speaker 1: the side of undue severity. Mindful, however, of her own
[6:24] Speaker 1: errors and misfortunes, she early sought to impose a tender
[6:28] Speaker 1: but strict control over the infant immortality that was committed
[6:32] Speaker 1: to her charge, but the task was beyond her skill.
[6:37] Speaker 1: After testing both smiles and frowns, and proving that neither
[6:41] Speaker 1: mode of treatment possessed any calculable influence, Esther was ultimately
[6:45] Speaker 1: compelled to stand aside and permit the child to be
[6:49] Speaker 1: swayed by her own impulses. Physical compulsion or restraint was effectual,
[6:55] Speaker 1: of course, while it lasted. As to any other kind
[6:59] Speaker 1: of discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, little
[7:03] Speaker 1: Pearl might or might not be within its reach. In
[7:06] Speaker 1: accordance with the caprice that ruled the moment, her mother,
[7:10] Speaker 1: while Pearl was yet an infant, grew acquainted with a
[7:13] Speaker 1: certain peculiar look that warned her when it would be
[7:16] Speaker 1: labor thrown away to insist, persuade, or plead. It was
[7:21] Speaker 1: a look so intelligent yet inexplicable, so perverse, sometimes so malicious,
[7:28] Speaker 1: but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits that
[7:32] Speaker 1: Hester could not help questioning at such moments whether Pearl
[7:35] Speaker 1: was a human child. She seemed rather an airy sprite, which,
[7:42] Speaker 1: after playing its fantastic sports for a little while, upon
[7:44] Speaker 1: the cottage floor would flit away with a mocking smile.
[7:49] Speaker 1: Whenever that look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply black eyes.
[7:54] Speaker 1: It invested her with a strange remoteness and intangibility. It
[7:59] Speaker 1: was as if she were hovering in the air, and
[8:01] Speaker 1: might vanish, like a glimmering light that comes we know
[8:05] Speaker 1: not whence and goes, We know not whither beholding it,
[8:09] Speaker 1: Hester was constrained to rush towards the child, to pursue
[8:13] Speaker 1: the little elf in the flight which she invariably began,
[8:17] Speaker 1: to snatch her to her bosom with a close pressure
[8:20] Speaker 1: and earnest kisses, not so much from overflowing love as
[8:25] Speaker 1: to assure herself that Pearl was flesh and blood and
[8:29] Speaker 1: not utterly delusive. But Pearl's laugh when she was caught,
[8:34] Speaker 1: though full of merriment and music, made her mother more
[8:38] Speaker 1: doubtful than before. Heart Smitten at this bewildering and baffling
[8:44] Speaker 1: spell that so often came between herself and her sole treasure,
[8:48] Speaker 1: whom she had bought so dear, and who was all
[8:51] Speaker 1: her world, Hester sometimes burst into passionate tears. Then, perhaps,
[8:58] Speaker 1: for there was no foreseeing how it might affect her,
[9:01] Speaker 1: Pearl would frown and clench her little fist and harden
[9:04] Speaker 1: her small features into a stern, unsympathizing look of discontent.
[9:10] Speaker 1: Not seldom she would laugh anew and louder than before,
[9:14] Speaker 1: like a thing incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow. Or
[9:19] Speaker 1: but this more rarely happened. She would be convulsed with
[9:23] Speaker 1: a rage of grief, and sob out her love for
[9:26] Speaker 1: her mother in broken words, and seem intent on proving
[9:29] Speaker 1: that she had a heart by breaking it. Yet Hester
[9:33] Speaker 1: was hardly safe in confiding herself to that gusty tenderness.
[9:37] Speaker 1: It passed as suddenly as it came brooding. Over all
[9:42] Speaker 1: these matters, the mother felt like one who has evoked
[9:45] Speaker 1: a spirit, but by some irregularity in the process of conjuration,
[9:51] Speaker 1: has failed to win the master word that should control
[9:53] Speaker 1: this new and incomprehensible intelligence. Her only real comfort was
[9:59] Speaker 1: when the child lay in the placidity of sleep. Then
[10:03] Speaker 1: she was sure of her and tasted hours of quiet, sad,
[10:08] Speaker 1: delicious happiness, until, perhaps with that perverse expression glimmering from
[10:14] Speaker 1: beneath her opening lids, little Pearl awoke. How soon with
[10:20] Speaker 1: what strange rapidity, indeed, did Pearl arrive at an age
[10:24] Speaker 1: that was capable of social intercourse beyond the mother's ever
[10:27] Speaker 1: ready smile and nonsense words. And then what happiness would
[10:32] Speaker 1: it have been? Could Hester Prynne have heard her clear,
[10:35] Speaker 1: bird like voice mingling with the uproar of other childish voices,
[10:40] Speaker 1: and have distinguished and unraffled her own darling's tones amid
[10:44] Speaker 1: all the entangled outcry of a group of sportive children.
[10:49] Speaker 1: But this could never be. Pearl was a born outcast
[10:53] Speaker 1: of the infantile world, an imp of evil, emblem, and
[10:58] Speaker 1: product of sin. She had no right among christened infants.
[11:03] Speaker 1: Nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed,
[11:07] Speaker 1: with which the child comprehended her loneliness, the destiny that
[11:11] Speaker 1: had drawn an inviolable circle round about her, the whole
[11:15] Speaker 1: peculiarity in short of her position in respect to other children.
[11:21] Speaker 1: Never since her release from prison had Hester met the
[11:24] Speaker 1: public gaze without her. In all her walks about the town,
[11:29] Speaker 1: Pearl too was there first as the babe in arms,
[11:33] Speaker 1: and afterwards as the little girl, small companion of her mother,
[11:37] Speaker 1: holding a forefinger with her whole grasp, and tripping along
[11:40] Speaker 1: at the rate of three or four footsteps to one
[11:42] Speaker 1: of Hester's. She saw the children of the settlement on
[11:46] Speaker 1: the grassy margin of the street, or at the domestic thresholds,
[11:50] Speaker 1: disporting themselves in such grim fashion as the Puritanic nurture
[11:54] Speaker 1: would permit, playing at going to church perchance, or at
[11:58] Speaker 1: scourging Quakers, or taking scalps in a sham fight with
[12:02] Speaker 1: the Indians, or scaring one another with freaks of imitative witchcraft.
[12:08] Speaker 1: Pearl saw and gazed intently, but never sought to make acquaintance.
[12:13] Speaker 1: If spoken to, she would not speak again. If the
[12:18] Speaker 1: children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would
[12:21] Speaker 1: grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones
[12:25] Speaker 1: to fling at them with shrill incoherent exclamations that made
[12:30] Speaker 1: her mother tremble, because they had so much the sound
[12:33] Speaker 1: of a witches and athemas in some unknown tongue. The
[12:37] Speaker 1: truth was that the little Puritans, being of the most
[12:41] Speaker 1: intolerant brood that ever lived, had got a vague idea
[12:44] Speaker 1: of something outlandish, unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashions
[12:50] Speaker 1: in the mother and child, and therefore scorned them in
[12:53] Speaker 1: their hearts, and not unfrequently reviled them with their tongues.
[12:58] Speaker 1: Pearl felt the center and requited it with the bitterest
[13:02] Speaker 1: hatred that can be supposed to rankle in a childish bosom.
[13:06] Speaker 1: These outbreaks of a fierce temper had a kind of
[13:09] Speaker 1: value and even comfort for her mother, because there was
[13:13] Speaker 1: at least an intelligible earnestness in the mood, instead of
[13:16] Speaker 1: the fitful caprice that so often thwarted her in the
[13:19] Speaker 1: child's manifestations. It appalled her, nevertheless to discern here again
[13:26] Speaker 1: a shadowy reflection of the evil that had existed in herself.
[13:31] Speaker 1: All this enmity and passion had Pearl inherited by an
[13:35] Speaker 1: alienable right out of Hester's heart. Mother and daughter stood
[13:40] Speaker 1: together in the same circle of seclusion from human society,
[13:44] Speaker 1: and in the nature of the child seemed to be
[13:47] Speaker 1: perpetuated those unquiet elements that had distracted Hester Prynne before
[13:51] Speaker 1: Pearl's birth, but had since begun to be soothed away
[13:55] Speaker 1: by the softening influences of maternity home. Within and around
[14:01] Speaker 1: her mother's cottage, Pearl wanted not a wide and various
[14:05] Speaker 1: circle of acquaintance. The spell of life went forth from
[14:09] Speaker 1: her ever creative spirit and communicated itself to a thousand objects,
[14:14] Speaker 1: as a torch kindles aflame wherever it may be applied.
[14:19] Speaker 1: The unlikeliest materials, a stick, a bunch of rags, a
[14:23] Speaker 1: flower were the puppets of Pearls witchcraft, and without undergoing
[14:28] Speaker 1: any outward change, became spiritually adapted to whatever drama occupied
[14:33] Speaker 1: the stage of her inner world. Her one baby voice
[14:38] Speaker 1: served a multitude of imaginary personages, old and young to
[14:42] Speaker 1: talk withal the pine trees, aged black and solemn and
[14:48] Speaker 1: flinging groans, and other melancholy utterances on the breeze needed
[14:52] Speaker 1: little transformation to figure as puritan elders, the ugliest weeds
[14:57] Speaker 1: of the garden, with their children, whom Pearl smote down
[15:00] Speaker 1: and uprooted, most unmercifully. It was wonderful, the vast variety
[15:06] Speaker 1: of forms into which she threw her intellect, with no continuity, indeed,
[15:11] Speaker 1: but darting up and dancing, always in a state of
[15:15] Speaker 1: preternatural activity, soon sinking down as if exhausted by so
[15:20] Speaker 1: rapid and feverish a tide of life, and succeeded by
[15:23] Speaker 1: other shapes of a similar wild energy. It was like
[15:28] Speaker 1: nothing so much as the phantasmogoric play of the Northern lights.
[15:33] Speaker 1: In the mere exercise of the fancy, however, and the
[15:36] Speaker 1: sportiveness of a growing mind, there might be little more
[15:40] Speaker 1: than was observable in other children of bright faculties, except
[15:44] Speaker 1: as pearl In the dearth of human playmates was thrown
[15:48] Speaker 1: more upon the visionary throng which she created. The singularity
[15:53] Speaker 1: lay in the hostile feelings with which the child regarded
[15:57] Speaker 1: all these offspring of her own heart and mind. She
[16:01] Speaker 1: never created a friend, but seemed always to be sowing
[16:05] Speaker 1: broadcast the dragon's teeth. Whence sprung a harvest of armed enemies,
[16:10] Speaker 1: against whom she rushed to battle. It was inexpressibly sad. Then,
[16:17] Speaker 1: what depth of sorrow to a mother who felt in
[16:19] Speaker 1: her own heart the cause to observe in one so
[16:24] Speaker 1: young this constant recognition of an adverse world, and so
[16:28] Speaker 1: fierce a training of the energies that were to make
[16:31] Speaker 1: good her cause in the contest that must ensue. Gazing
[16:36] Speaker 1: at pearl Hester, Prynne often dropped her work upon her
[16:39] Speaker 1: knees and cried out with an agony which she would
[16:42] Speaker 1: fain have hidden, but which made utterance Forred's self betwixt
[16:46] Speaker 1: speech and a groan, oh Father in heaven. If thou
[16:51] Speaker 1: art still my father, what is this being which I
[16:54] Speaker 1: have brought into the world? And Pearl overhearing the ejaculation,
[17:00] Speaker 1: or aware through some more subtle channel of those throbs
[17:04] Speaker 1: of anguish, would turn her vivid and beautiful little face
[17:08] Speaker 1: upon her mother, smile with spritelike intelligence, and resume her play.
[17:15] Speaker 1: One peculiarity of the child's deportment remains yet to be told.
[17:20] Speaker 1: The very first thing which she had noticed in her
[17:23] Speaker 1: life was what not the mother's smile, responding to it
[17:28] Speaker 1: as other babies do by that faint embryo smile of
[17:32] Speaker 1: the little mouth, remembered so doubtfully afterwards, and with such
[17:36] Speaker 1: fond discussion whether it were indeed a smile by no means.
[17:42] Speaker 1: But that first object of which Pearl seemed to become
[17:45] Speaker 1: aware was, shall we say it, the scarlet letter on
[17:50] Speaker 1: Hester's bosom. One day, as her mother stooped over the cradle,
[17:55] Speaker 1: the infant's eyes had been caught by the glimmering of
[17:58] Speaker 1: the gold embroidery about the letter, and putting up her
[18:02] Speaker 1: little hand, she grasped at it, smiling not doubtfully, but
[18:07] Speaker 1: with a decided gleam that gave her face the look
[18:10] Speaker 1: of a much older child. Then, gasping for breath, did
[18:16] Speaker 1: Hester pryne clutch the fatal token, instinctively endeavoring to tear
[18:20] Speaker 1: it away. So infinite was the torture inflicted by the
[18:23] Speaker 1: intelligent touch of Pearl's baby hand. Again, as if her
[18:28] Speaker 1: mother's agonized gesture were meant only to make sport for her,
[18:33] Speaker 1: did little Pearl look into her eyes and smile. From
[18:37] Speaker 1: that epoch, except when the child was asleep, Hester had
[18:41] Speaker 1: never felt a moment's safety, not a moment's calm enjoyment.
[18:45] Speaker 1: Of her weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse during
[18:50] Speaker 1: which Pearl's gaze might never once be fixed upon the
[18:53] Speaker 1: scarlet letter. But then again it would come at Annoir's
[18:58] Speaker 1: like the stroke of sudden death, and always with that
[19:01] Speaker 1: peculiar smile and odd expression of the eyes. Once this freakish,
[19:07] Speaker 1: elvish cast came into the child's eyes, while Hester was
[19:11] Speaker 1: looking at her own image in them, as mothers are
[19:13] Speaker 1: fond of doing, and suddenly, for women in solitude and
[19:18] Speaker 1: with troubled hearts, appested with unaccountable delusions, she fancied that
[19:23] Speaker 1: she beheld not her own miniature portrait, but another face
[19:27] Speaker 1: in the small black mirror of Pearl's eye. It was
[19:31] Speaker 1: a face fiend like, full of smiling malice, yet bearing
[19:36] Speaker 1: the semblance of features that she had known full well,
[19:40] Speaker 1: though seldom with a smile and never with malice in them.
[19:45] Speaker 1: It was as if an evil spirit possessed the child
[19:48] Speaker 1: and had just then peeped forth in mockery. Many a
[19:53] Speaker 1: time afterwards had Hester been tortured, though less vividly, by
[19:57] Speaker 1: the same illusion. In the afternoon of a certain summer's day,
[20:02] Speaker 1: after Pearl grew big enough to run about, she amused
[20:05] Speaker 1: herself with gathering handfuls of wild flowers and flinging them
[20:09] Speaker 1: one by one at her mother's bosom, dancing up and
[20:13] Speaker 1: down like a little elf whenever she hit the scarlet
[20:15] Speaker 1: letter Esther's first motion had been to cover her bosom
[20:20] Speaker 1: with her clasped hands, But whether from pride or resignation,
[20:25] Speaker 1: or a feeling that her penance might best be wrought
[20:27] Speaker 1: out by this unutterable pain, she resisted the impulse and
[20:32] Speaker 1: sat erect, pale as death, looking sadly into little Pearl's
[20:36] Speaker 1: wild eyes. Still came the battery of flowers, almost invariably
[20:43] Speaker 1: hitting the mark and covering the mother's breast with hurts
[20:46] Speaker 1: for which she could find no balm in this world,
[20:48] Speaker 1: nor knew how to seek it in another. At last,
[20:53] Speaker 1: her shot being all expended, the child stood still and
[20:56] Speaker 1: gazed at Hester with that little laughing image a fiend
[21:00] Speaker 1: peeping out, or whether it peeped or no, her mother
[21:04] Speaker 1: so imagined it from the unsearchable abyss of her black eyes. Child,
[21:11] Speaker 1: What art thou cried the mother? Oh, I am your
[21:16] Speaker 1: little pearl, answered the child. But while she said it,
[21:22] Speaker 1: Pearl laughed and began to dance up and down with
[21:25] Speaker 1: the humorsome gesticulation of a little imp whose next freak
[21:29] Speaker 1: might be to fly up the chimney. Art thou my child?
[21:33] Speaker 1: In very truth? Asked Hester. Nor did she put the
[21:38] Speaker 1: question altogether idly, but for the moment with a portion
[21:42] Speaker 1: of genuine earnestness. For such was Pearl's wonderful intelligence that
[21:48] Speaker 1: her mother half doubted whether she were not acquainted with
[21:50] Speaker 1: the secret spell of her existence, and might not now
[21:53] Speaker 1: reveal herself. Yes, I am little pal, repeated the child.
[21:59] Speaker 1: Continue her antics. Thou art not my child? Thou art
[22:04] Speaker 1: no pearl of mine, said the mother half playfully, For
[22:09] Speaker 1: it was often the case that a sportive impulse came
[22:11] Speaker 1: over her in the midst of her deepest suffering. Tell me, then,
[22:16] Speaker 1: what thou art and who sent thee? Hither tell me, mother,
[22:20] Speaker 1: said the child, seriously, coming up to Hester and pressing
[22:24] Speaker 1: herself close to her knees. Do thou tell me, thy
[22:29] Speaker 1: heavenly father send thee? Answered Hester prynne, But she said
[22:34] Speaker 1: it with a hesitation that did not escape the acuteness
[22:37] Speaker 1: of the child, Whether moved only by her ordinary freakishness
[22:42] Speaker 1: or because an evil spirit prompted her. She put up
[22:45] Speaker 1: her small forefinger and touched the scarlet letter. He did
[22:49] Speaker 1: not send me, cried she positively. I have no heavenly father. Hush, Pearl, hush,
[22:57] Speaker 1: thou must not talk, so answered the mother, suppressing a groan.
[23:02] Speaker 1: He send us all into this world, he sent even me,
[23:06] Speaker 1: thy mother, Then much more thee. Or if not thou
[23:11] Speaker 1: strange and elfish child, whence didst thou come tell me?
[23:16] Speaker 1: Tell me, repeated Pearl, no longer seriously, but laughing and
[23:21] Speaker 1: capering about the floor. It ist thou that must tell me.
[23:26] Speaker 1: But Hester could not resolve the query. Being herself in
[23:30] Speaker 1: a dismal labyrinth of doubt, she remembered betwixt a smile
[23:35] Speaker 1: and a shudder, the talk of the neighboring townspeople, who,
[23:39] Speaker 1: seeking vainly elsewhere for the child's paternity, and observing some
[23:44] Speaker 1: of her odd attributes, had given out that poor little
[23:47] Speaker 1: Pearl was a demon offspring, such as ever since old
[23:51] Speaker 1: Catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth, through the
[23:55] Speaker 1: agency of their mother's sin and to promote some foul
[23:58] Speaker 1: and wicked purpose. Luther, according to the scandal of his
[24:03] Speaker 1: Monkish enemies, was a brat of that hellish breed. Nor
[24:07] Speaker 1: was Pearl the only child to whom this inauspicious origin
[24:10] Speaker 1: was assigned among the New England Puritans. End of Section
[24:16] Speaker 1: nine Dream Audiobooks. Hopes you have enjoyed this program.

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