Explore "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Hester’s intense awareness of the public’s attention was finally relieved by the shocking sight of a figure at the far edge of the crowd. An Indian in his native dress was standing there. Indians were not such uncommon visitors in the English settlements that Hester Prynne would have noticed one at such a time, much less been captivated by his presence. But next to the Indian, seeming like his friend, stood a white man, dressed in a strange mixture of English and Indian garments.
He was a short man with a face that was wrinkled but not that old. His features indicated great intelligence, as though he had so cultivated his mind that it began to shape his body. It was clear to Hester Prynne that one of the man’s shoulders rose higher than the other, though the man had tried to conceal the fact with a seemingly careless arrangement of his strange clothing. Upon first seeing that thin face and slightly deformed figure, Hester pressed her infant to her breast so hard that the poor child cried out. But Hester did not seem to hear it.