Chapter 21: The New England Holiday

-The time came to elect a new governor, and similarly to the beginning where people gathered to watch Hester, they gathered in the same area.
--“It was like a mask; or, rather, like the frozen calmness of a dead woman's features; owing this dreary resemblance to the fact that Hester was actually dead, in respect to any claim of sympathy, and had departed out of the world, with which she still seemed to mingle”(203).
--“‘Look your last on the scarlet letter and its wearer!’ - the people's victim and life-long bond-slave, as they fancied her, might say to them. ‘Yet a little while, and she will be beyond your reach! A few hours longer and the deep, mysterious ocean will quench and hide for ever the symbol which ye have caused to burn on her bosom!’”(203)
-Pearl continues to ponder over why Dimmesdale cannot encounter she and Hester in the middle of the day.
--“‘He should not nod and smile at me, for all that, - the black, grim, ugly-eyed old man!’ said Pearl. ‘He may nod at thee, if he will; for thou art clad in gray, and wearest the scarlet letter. But see, mother, how many faces of strange people, and Indians among them, and sailors! What have they all come to do, here in the market-place?’”(205)
--“‘What a strange, sad man is he!’ said the child, as if speaking partly to herself. ‘In the dark night-time he calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the
scaffold yonder. And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss! And he kisses my forehead, too, so that the little brook would hardly wash it off! But here, in the sunny day, and among all the people, he knows us not; nor must we know him! A strange, sad man is he, with his hand always over his heart!’”(205)
-Chillingworth appears at the procession, and appears as the most outstanding, perhaps because he is glad of something he has found out.
--“The latter was by far the most showy and gallant figure, so far as apparel went, anywhere to be seen among the multitude. He wore a profusion of ribbons on his garment, and gold-lace on his hat, which was also encircled by a gold chain, and surmounted with a feather. There was a sword at his side, and a sword-cut on his forehead, which, by the arrangement of his hair, he seemed anxious rather to display than hide”(209).
-Hester is ultimately defeated when she speaks with one of the sailors of the ship that would be bringing herself and Dimmesdale to Europe, and finds out that Chillingworth is coming. The sailor said that it was a good thing, since they may need a doctor.
--“‘Why, know you not,’ cried the shipmaster, ‘that this physician here - Chillingworth, he calls himself - is minded to try my cabin-fare with you? Ay, ay, you must have known it; for he tells me he is of your party, and a close friend to the gentleman you spoke of, - he that is in peril from these sour old Puritan rulers!’”(210)
-Hester sees Chillingworth in a lonely corner of the marketplace, and he simply smirks at her.
--“Nothing further passed between the mariner and Hester Prynne. But, at that instant, she beheld old Roger Chillingworth himself, standing in the remotest comer of the market-place, and smiling on her; a smile which - across the wide and bustling square, and through all the talk and laughter, and various thoughts, moods, and interests of the crowd - conveyed secret and fearful meaning”(210-211).