Crowd Reaction - Conclusion

After the crowd had time to proccess what exactly had happened that day and reevaluate their initial reactions of shock and confusion, some members of the crowd were unable to come to mental realization of what they had saw. "...spectators of the whole scene, and professed never once to have removed their eyes from the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast..." (Hawthorne page 163). Another important explanation some members of the crowd believed was that "some affirmed that the Reverend Mr. Dimmsdale, on the very day when Hester Prynne first wore her ignominious badge, had begun a course of penance, which he afterwards, in so many futile methods, fallowed out, by inflicting a hideous torture on himself" (Hawthorne page 162).