with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were
real. Yes! - these were her realities, - all else had vanished!
 

                              III. The Recognition

From this intense consciousness of being the object of severe and universal
observation, the wearer of the scarlet letter was at length relieved by
discerning, on the outskirts of the crowd, a figure which irresistibly took
possession of her thoughts. An Indian, in his native garb, was standing there;
but the red men were not so infrequent visitors of the English settlements, that
one of them would have attracted any notice from Hester Prynne, at such a time;
much less would he have excluded all other objects and ideas from her mind. By
the Indian's side, and evidently sustaining a companionship with him, stood a
white man, clad in a strange disarray of civilized and savage costume.
    He was small in stature, with a furrowed visage, which, as yet, could hardly
be termed aged. There was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of a
person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to mould the
physical to itself, and become manifest by unmistakable tokens. Although, by a
seemingly careless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb, he had endeavoured to
conceal or abate the peculiarity, it was sufficiently evident to Hester Prynne,
that one of this man's shoulders rose higher than the other. Again, at the first
instant of perceiving that thin visage, and the slight deformity of the figure,
she pressed her infant to her bosom, with so convulsive a force that the poor
babe uttered another cry of pain. But the mother did not seem to hear it.
    At his arrival in the market-place, and some time before she saw him, the
stranger had bent his eyes on Hester Prynne. It was carelessly, at first, like a
man chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external matters are of
little value and import, unless they bear relation to something within his mind.
Very soon, however, his look became keen and penetrative. A writhing horror
twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and
making one little pause, with all its wreathed intervolutions in open sight. His
face darkened with some powerful emotion, which, nevertheless, he so
instantaneously controlled by an effort of his will, that, save at a single
moment, its expression might have passed for calmness. After a brief space, the
convulsion grew almost imperceptible, and finally subsided into the depths of
his nature. When he found the eyes