And he gets the greatest thrill of all, in falling.--"Seduce me, Mrs. Hercules."
And the pair of them share the subtlest delight in keeping up pure appearances, when everybody knows all the while. But the power of pure appearances is something to exult in. All America gives in to it. _Look_ pure!
To seduce a man. To have everybody know. To keep up appearances of purity. Pure!
_A._ The Scarlet Letter. Adulteress! The great Alpha. Alpha! Adulteress! The new Adam and Adama! American!
_A._ Adulteress! Stitched with gold thread, glittering upon the bosom. The proudest insignia.
Put her upon the scaffold and worship her there. Worship her there. The Woman, the Magna Mater. _A._ Adulteress! Abel!
The fiery heart. _A._ Mary of the Bleeding Heart. Mater Adolerata! _A._ Capital _A._ Adulteress. Glittering with gold thread. Abel! Adultery. Admirable!
It is, perhaps, the most colossal satire ever penned. _The Scarlet Letter._ And by a blue-eyed darling of a Nathaniel.
The human spirit, fixed in a lie, adhering to a lie, giving itself perpetually the lie.
Adultress. Alpha. Abel, Adam. _A._ America.
"Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless Motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world."
Whose infant was to redeem the world indeed! It will be a startling redemption the world will get from the American infant.
"Here was a taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and more lost for the infant she had borne."
Just listen to the darling. Isn't he a master of apology?
His pious blame is a chuckle of praise all the while.
Oh, Hester, you are a demon. A man _must_ be pure, just that you can seduce him to a fall. Because the greatest thrill in life is to bring down the Sacred Saint with a flop into the mud. Then when you've brought him down, humbly wipe off the mud with your hair, another Magdalen. And then go home and dance a witch's jig of triumph, and stitch yourself a Scarlet Letter with gold thread, as duchesses used to stitch themselves coronets. And then stand meek on the scaffold and fool the world. Who will all be envying you your sin, and beating you because you've stolen an advantage over them.