But before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, a light gleamed far
and wide over all the muffled sky. It was doubtless caused by
one of those meteors, which the night-watcher may so often
observe burning out to waste, in the vacant regions of the
atmosphere. So powerful was its radiance, that it thoroughly
illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth.
The great vault brightened, like the dome of an immense lamp. It
showed the familiar scene of the street with the distinctness of
mid-day, but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to
familiar objects by an unaccustomed light. The wooden houses,
with their jutting storeys and quaint gable-peaks; the doorsteps
and thresholds with the early grass springing up about them; the
garden-plots, black with freshly-turned earth; the wheel-track,
little worn, and even in the market-place margined with green on
either side--all were visible, but with a singularity of aspect
that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things
of this world than they had ever borne before. And there stood
the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne,
with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little
Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those
two. They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn
splendour, as if it were the light that is to reveal all
secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one
another.
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There was witchcraft in little Pearl's eyes; and her face, as
she glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile
which made its expression frequently so elvish. She withdrew her
hand from Mr. Dimmesdale's, and pointed across the street. But
he clasped both his hands over his breast, and cast his eyes
towards the zenith.
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