Walking, as if in a dream—perhaps actually sleep-walking—Mr. Dimmesdale reached the spot where long ago Hester Prynne had first been publicly shamed. The same platform was there, black and weather-stained after seven long years. It was worn, too, from the feet of the many guilty people who had ascended it since. The minister went up the steps.
It was a dark night in early May. A thick layer of clouds covered the sky. If the same crowd that witnessed Hester Prynne's punishment could have been summoned, they would barely have been able to see the outline of a human shape, much less a face above the platform, in the gray dark of midnight. But the town was asleep. There was no danger of discovery. If the minister wished to stand there until the sun rose in the east, the only risk he would face is the damp, cold night air creeping into his body, stiffening his joints with arthritis and making his throat sore. His congregation might be cheated of their morning prayers and sermon, but that would be the worst of it. The only eye that would see him was God's, just as when he whipped himself in his closet. So why had he come there? Was it only to pretend to be sorry? Of course, that's the same game his soul always played! And angels blushed and cried at this masquerade, while demons rejoiced with jeering laughter! He had been led there by the same feeling of remorse that followed him everywhere. But cowardice—the sister and close companion of remorse—drew him back with her trembling grip just as he was on the verge of confession. Poor, miserable man! Why should his weak spirit burden itself with crime? Crime is for the iron-nerved—those who can either endure the guilt or use their strength to confess and bring an end to their pain! This weak and sensitive spirit could do neither. But he always went back and forth, weaving Heaven-defying guilt and vain remorse into an unbreakable knot.
While standing on the platform in this futile charade of repentance, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with horror, as though the universe were staring at a scarlet mark on his breast, right over his heart. To tell the truth, there had long been a gnawing, poisonous pain in that spot. Without the will or power to restrain himself, he cried aloud. The cry rang out through the night, bouncing from one house to another and echoing off the distant hills. It was as though a horde of devils had made a toy out of the horrible, miserable outcry and were tossing it back and forth.
"It is done!" muttered the minister, covering his face with his hands. "The whole town will awake and rush out to find me here!"
But this didn't happen. Perhaps the shriek sounded louder to him than it actually was. The town did not awake—or, if it did, the drowsy sleepers mistook the cry for a nightmare, or the sound of witches. At that time, witches were often heard as they rode with Satan above the settlements or lonely cottages. The minister, hearing no one stirring, uncovered his eyes and looked around. At one of the bedroom windows of Governor Bellingham's mansion, some distance away, he saw the old magistrate himself with a lamp in his hand and nightcap on his head. He wore a long white gown that made him look like a ghost rising suddenly from the grave. The cry had evidently startled him. Old Mistress Hibbins, the Governor's sister, appeared at another window of the same house. She also had a lamp. Even this far away, its light revealed her sour, unhappy face. She stuck her head out and looked anxiously upward. Without a doubt, this old witch-lady had heard Mr. Dimmesdale's cry and interpreted it as the sound of the demons and witches she was known to spend time with in the forest.
Seeing the light of Governor Bellingham's lamp, the old lady quickly extinguished her own and vanished. Maybe she flew up to the clouds. The minister didn't see her again that night. The magistrate, after cautiously surveying the darkness—which he could see into about as good as if he were looking through stone—drew back from the window.
The minister calmed down a bit, but his eyes soon detected a small glimmering light approaching from way up the street. It briefly illuminated nearby objects as it made its way: a post here, a garden fence there; a window, a water pump and trough; and that oak door, iron knocker, and wooden step of the prison house. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale noticed all of these details, even as he became convinced that the light was his doom drawing near. In a few moments, the lantern's beam would fall on him, revealing his long-hidden secret. As the light came closer he saw his fellow clergyman within its circle. To be more precise, it was his mentor and good friend, the Reverend Mr. Wilson. Mr. Dimmesdale assumed he had been praying at the bedside of some dying man. In fact, he had. The good old minister came from the death chamber of Governor Winthrop, who had passed to Heaven that very hour. Good Father Wilson was making his way home, his footsteps aided by a lantern's light which surrounded him with a radiant halo, like the saints of old. He seemed glorified on this gloomy, sin-filled night, as if the dead Governor had bequeathed to him his brilliance, or as if he had caught the shine from the heavenly city as he watched the Governor make his way there. These are the images that occurred to Mr. Dimmesdale. He smiled and almost laughed at the extravagant metaphors, and then he wondered if he were going mad.
