380
PARTISAN REVIEW
of ambiguity and weariness" has been spent at home, and has a sec–
ond fantasy of such hallucinatory vividness that he wonders if he is
"here or there." Nor is this an idle question. His father and Major
Molineux are so inextricably linked in his mind that in a sense the
drama in which he is involved is being played out "there"-at home
-as well as in the town where bodily he happens to be.
The climax of this drama, so puzzling to the conscious intellect,
is immediately comprehensible to that portion of the mind which has
been following the hidden course of developments. It is comprehen–
sible although Hawthorne describes Robin's feelings, as is right, in
vague terms. Robin never understands those feelings and the reader
would find it disturbing if they were too plainly labelled.
The feelings would probably never have secured open expression
except under circumstances as out of the ordinary as those the story
describes. But now everything conspires not simply to permit but to
encourage Robin to give in to tendencies which as we know he was
finding
it
difficult to control. To everyone present Major Molineux
is
overtly what he is to the youth on some dark and secret level–
a symbol of restraint and unwelcome authority. He is this even to
the elderly gentleman, the watchman, the man by his side-people
whose disapproval of the crowd's behavior might have had a power–
ful effect upon
him.
Without a voice being raised in protest, the
crowd is acting out the youth's repressed impulses and in effect urg–
ing him to act on them also. The joy the crowd takes
in
asserting its
strength and the reappearance of the lady of the scarlet petticoat
provide
him
with incentives for letting himself go.
And so Robin makes common cause with the crowd. He laughs
-he laughs louder than anyone else. So long as he himself did not
know how he would act he had reason to fear the crowd, and the
relief he feels at the easing of the immediate situation is one of the
sources of his laughter. But his decision resolves still deeper and more
vexing conflicts. The relief he feels that he can vent his hostility for
his kinsman and abandon his search for him is the ultimate source
of his "riotous mirth." It is fueled by energy which until then was
being expended in repression and inner conflict.
Although Hawthorne uses figurative language which may keep
his meaning from being consciously noted, he is at pains to let us
know that murderous hate underlies the merriment of the crowd of
