The Scarlet Letter Ch. 15: The Devil's Bargain

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Devil's Bargain Revealed

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Summary

Hester sends Pearl to the margin of the water to play with shells and seaweed, and the child goes like a bird, barefoot, stopping to look at her own face in a pool the tide has left. Hester uses the interval. The gatherer of herbs is the man she married, and she has come to say what seven years of his care have been.

He tells her he has exhausted his art on the minister. That Dimmesdale still breathes and creeps upon the earth is owing to him. Hester answers that it would have been better if the minister had died at once. The physician will not accept the name of devil. He has snatched a fiend's office, he says, and the black flower may blossom as it will. Then he releases her. Go thy ways, and deal as thou wilt with yonder man.

He waves his hand and goes back to the herbs. The permission is not kindness. It is a man so far along his revenge that her silence is no longer the tool he needs. Pearl, barefoot in a tide pool, is the only witness who is not part of the bargain. He goes back to gathering herbs.

In this chapter:Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Recognizing Revenge That Consumes

Revenge often damages the avenger more than the target. Chillingworth admits he has become a fiend, yet he calls his cruelty necessity and refuses pardon.

When someone treats harm as fate, ask what identity they would lose if they stopped.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Hester Prynne

When he calls himself a fiend, she answers that she made him so. The cry is not only guilt. It names the bargain. Her silence gave his revenge a room and a patient. She has been the public body and the private lock. Once she sees that, the vow no longer looks like protection.

Continue this thoughtChillingworth Needs the Secret to Stay Sick

Coming Up in Chapter 16

The old man stoops away along the beach, beard almost in the weeds. Pearl comes back from the water and asks why the minister keeps his hand over his heart. Hester, for the first time, threatens to shut her in the dark closet.

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Original text

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Chapter 15

The Devil's Bargain Revealed

HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN. Hester bade little Pearl run down to the margin of the water, and play with the shells and tangled sea-weed, until she should have talked awhile with yonder gatherer of herbs. So the child flew away like a bird, and, making bare her small white feet, went pattering along the moist margin of the sea. Here and there she came to a full stop, and peeped curiously into a pool, left by the retiring tide as a mirror for Pearl to see her face in. Forth peeped at her, out of the pool, with dark, glistening…

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The Devil's Bargain Revealed

Summary

Why This Matters