The Minister's Night Vigil

Arthur Dimmesdale's midnight vigil on the scaffold is the novel's most concentrated dramatization of his hidden guilt, his longing for confession, and the psychological torment that has consumed him for seven years. Walking "in the shadow of a dream" and perhaps under the influence of somnambulism, the minister reaches the same platform where Hester Prynne endured her first hours of public ignominy. The scaffold, black and weather-stained by seven years of storm and sunshine, and foot-worn by the tread of many subsequent culprits, still stands beneath the balcony of the meeting-house. In the obscurity of an early May night, with an unvaried pall of cloud muffling the entire sky, Dimmesdale ascends the steps, driven by the impulse of Remorse that dogs him everywhere, but also by the Cowardice that invariably draws him back from the verge of disclosure.

The Shriek and the Town's Response

Standing on the scaffold in this vain show of expiation, Dimmesdale is overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast over his heart. On that spot, there has long been the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain. Without any effort of his will or power to restrain himself, he shrieks aloud, an outcry that goes pealing through the night, beaten back from house to house and reverberating from the hills, as if a company of devils were bandying the sound to and fro. He covers his face, muttering that the whole town will awake and find him there. But the town does not awake; drowsy slumberers mistake the cry for something frightful in a dream or for the noise of witches riding with Satan through the air. At Governor Bellingham's mansion, the old magistrate himself appears at a chamber window with a lamp, looking like a ghost evoked unseasonably from the grave. At another window, old Mistress Hibbins thrusts forth her head, and, detecting the gleam of the Governor's lamp, quickly extinguishes her own and vanishes. The minister grows comparatively calm, but is soon greeted by a little glimmering light approaching up the street: the lantern of the Reverend Mr. Wilson, who has just come from the death-chamber of Governor Winthrop. As Wilson passes beside the scaffold, Dimmesdale can hardly restrain himself from speaking, but the words are uttered only within his imagination. After the light fades, the minister, carried away by the grotesque horror of the scene, bursts into a great peal of laughter.

The Encounter with Hester and Pearl

Dimmesdale's laughter is immediately responded to by a light, airy, childish laugh, and he recognizes the tones of little Pearl. Hester Prynne, who has been watching at Governor Winthrop's death-bed and taking his measure for a robe, is passing by with Pearl. The minister calls them up onto the scaffold, and the three stand together, hand in hand. The moment he takes Pearl's other hand, there comes a tumultuous rush of new life, as if the mother and child are communicating their vital warmth to his half-torpid system; the three form an electric chain. Pearl asks if he will stand with them tomorrow noontide, but Dimmesdale, trembling with the dread of public exposure, answers that he will stand with them one other day, but not tomorrow. When Pearl persists, he whispers that they will stand together at the great judgment day. Pearl laughs again.

The Meteor and the Scarlet A

Before Dimmesdale has finished speaking, a light gleams far and wide over the muffled sky, caused by a meteor. Its radiance thoroughly illuminates the dense cloud, showing the familiar scene of the street with the distinctness of mid-day but with an awfulness imparted by unaccustomed light. There stands the minister with his hand over his heart, Hester with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom, and little Pearl, herself a symbol and the connecting link between them. Looking upward to the zenith, Dimmesdale beholds the appearance of an immense letter A marked out in lines of dull red light. The meteor may have shown itself at that point, but with no such shape as his guilty imagination gives it. A singular circumstance characterizes his psychological state: all the time he gazes upward, he is perfectly aware that little Pearl is pointing her finger toward old Roger Chillingworth, who stands at no great distance from the scaffold. To Dimmesdale's features, as to all other objects, the meteoric light imparts a new expression, and the physician appears with a smile and scowl like the arch-fiend. The minister, overcome with terror, gasps to Hester, asking who that man is and saying he shivers at him and hates him. Hester, remembering her oath, is silent. Pearl mumbles something into the minister's ear that sounds like human language but is only gibberish, and then laughs aloud.

The Physician's Intervention

Roger Chillingworth, who has advanced to the foot of the platform, addresses the minister with feigned concern, asking how he knew he was there and claiming he has spent the better part of the night at Governor Winthrop's bedside. He urges Dimmesdale to come home, warning that he will be poorly able to do Sabbath duty tomorrow. With a chill despondency, like one awakening from an ugly dream, the minister yields himself to the physician and is led away. The next day, being the Sabbath, Dimmesdale preaches a discourse held to be the richest and most powerful that ever proceeded from his lips. As he comes down the pulpit steps, the sexton meets him with a black glove found that morning on the scaffold, and tells him of the portent seen the previous night: a great red letter A in the sky, which the people interpret to stand for Angel, because Governor Winthrop was made an angel that night.