The Scarlet Letter

On the morning of Election Day, Hester takes Pearl to watch the procession in the marketplace. Pearl is in high spirits and once again questions her mother about why Dimmesdale won’t greet them publicly.

Hester tries to distract Pearl by drawing her attention to the festivities around them, which are more exuberant than those that would characterize later generations of Puritans: “[T]he great, honest face of the people smiled, grimly, perhaps, but widely too. Nor were sports wanting, such as the colonists had witnessed, and shared in, long ago, at the country fairs and on the village-greens of England” (201). The crowd also includes several Native Americans, along with the crew of the ship Hester and Dimmesdale plan to board, who “transgressed, without fear or scruple, the rules of behavior that were binding on all others; smoking tobacco under the beadle’s very nose, although each whiff would have cost a townsman a shilling” (202).

The captain of this ship enters the marketplace with Chillingworth before recognizing and approaching Hester. He casually mentions the need to prepare for one more passenger, then explains that Chillingworth has told him he is traveling with Hester and Dimmesdale. Hester looks up to see Chillingworth smirking at her.