The Custom-House: A short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne

In the once thriving, but now forlorn port town of Salem, MA, dilapidated boats pepper the dilapidated pier plying their dilapidated wares on the all around dilapidated setting. Things are so run down they can’t even afford a wider variety of adjectives to describe it. Amid this picture of health sits a red brick custom-house. Adorning the archway at the entrance rests an eagle, clutching thunderbolts and lightning, and looking very, very frightening. It looks like it is just waiting for an excuse to peck out your eyes. Naturally, everyone looks to it with admiration while they pass under its warm, inviting scowl.

Outside the building are overgrown weeds, and inside the building are overgrown cobwebs and dust bunnies. One decrepit office was once the abode of our humble narrator, who until recently, was the local surveyor. This means he calculated the dues and taxes on all imported goods coming into the port. Sadly, he was dismissed due to changing political climates and a change of the local administration. He now wiles away his time writing a satirical review of his former place of employment.

At this point in the narrative I will switch to the first person without warning and relate how I am fond of this place for no discernable reason other than the fact my family has lived her a long time. In this case “I” refers to Nathaniel Hawthorne and not that hack, Jim Brewster, and will do so for the remainder of my narrative. I will switch between first person and third person without warning, because, as author, I do what I want want.

My ancestors are counted among the first settlers, and were known for persecuting Quakers. I am happy to report, however, that their many sins are punished in this day and age by having an idle, disgraceful teller of stories such as myself as an heir. They would be appalled by my sense of humor and amiable personality, and we can all take great comfort in their shame.

This town of Salem is actually all around depressing, dreary, and dying, but as my family have lived and died here for generations, I am inextricably tied to it. I have made sure to move elsewhere for just long enough for my children have been born elsewhere, so that they are not tied to this Puritanical hellscape as I have been. Then I moved back because, again, i do what I want, and my Puritanical heritage requires that I be as miserable as possible.

Upon my appointment as surveyor of the Customs House, I discovered the place to be staffed entirely by elderly retired sea captains. Some of these old salts were so infirm and bedridden that they did not make an appearance at their place of employment outside of June and July, when the weather warmed enough to draw them from their hibernation. I did them a great favor by relieving them of official duties so they had sufficient time to repent of any evil practices they may have fallen into before journeying to everlasting shores.

The entirety of the office were of the Whig party and much affrighted of the appointment of a Democrat such as myself, lest I fire them all. I should point out that in this time, the Democratic party was very different than it is in your day, dear reader, and probably more akin to the current Republican party in many ways. Andrew Jackson was a democrat, for example. The opposing party, the Whigs, were, from what I can tell, more similar to the current Democratic party, but someone who knows more than me would likely disagree, as this knowledge comes from an exhaustive cursory skim on Wikipedia.

In any event, even though I am a proud Democrat, my dismissals were purely related to the total lack of any actual work being done by the employees than for political motivations. Had I been politically motivated I certainly would have fired everyone, but I had not the heart to do so. Instead I merely set out to write this satirical piece mocking them in every possible way. Upon learning I was not out for blood, they happily returned to mostly sleeping at their desks and being all around terrible at their jobs. Whenever they missed smuggled contraband, which was often, they did a marvelous job of feeling badly about it and making a great show of overreacting to trivial matters in recompense.

I tend to find the good in people, and while lazy and incompetent, my coworkers had many admirable qualities. In general though, I could not be faulted “if I characterize them generally as a set of wearisome old souls, who had gathered nothing worth preservation from their varied experience of life. They seem to have flung away all the golden grain of practical wisdom, which they had enjoyed so many opportunities of harvesting, and most carefully to have stored their memories with the husks.”

The man in charge of all custom-houses was a gentleman of eighty-five who was a “rare perfection of…animal nature, the moderate proportion of intellect, and the very trifling admixture of moral and spiritual ingredients; these latter qualities, indeed, being in barely enough measure to keep the old gentleman from walking on all-fours.”

One advantage he had over his four-legged kin was his ability to recollect and describe, in detail, the many gourmet meals he had enjoyed in his life. As he had no other virtues that could possibly be diminished by his voracious appetite, it was with great delight that I listened to him describe his every meal, knowing that I could think no less of him for doing so. He was, in short, the absolute model of perfection for a custom-house master. The mind-numbing tedium of such a job could have no affect on him, and he could continue to enjoy his meals without the detrimental effects of intelligent thought.

I could expound on the single virtue of our dear leader, but I would be remiss not to describe the other inhabitants of the decrepit old custom-house. I turn your attention now to our gallant collector of revenue. A retired General of seventy, so feeble as to require a servant and liberal use of a guardrail to ascend the steps of the guardhouse, and yet still quite obviously not dead. Though he often had a vacant stare, when roused to speak or to listen (which was difficult for him) it was immediately apparent that the dim light inside him still flickered.

It was easy to perceive that light, however dim, of being the glow of an iron forge in his youth as he bravely soldiered into battle. Though he had undoubtedly slain his enemies with a steadfast resolve, he was, at his core, a gentle soul. His aged countenance delighted in the sight and smell of flowers, and his humor and kindness engendered an easy fondness. Though he did nothing useful, he did an admirable job of taking up space. I did my utmost to not interact with him in any way.

Next we have a man of business who was so entirely able to manage affairs of the office that he was the very embodiment of the custom-house. He no doubt saw the rest of us as dimwits but was very gentle about. This is likely the only person thus far that has been described without tongue-in-cheek sarcasm.

In short, it was an esoteric bunch that comprised my new companionship. Before this I had populated my entire social sphere with writers and philosophers. It does one good, I think, to surround oneself to individuals entirely different than ones self. It was also a lesson much needed that my imagined fame as a writer did not extend outside my circle of fellow writers. With these new surroundings I set aside my love of books and writing for my time at the custom-house, but on occasion it was revived.

One such occasion was in the second story of the dilapidated edifice. At one time Salem was imagined to become an important center of shipping, but was overtaken by Boston, and fell into obscurity. On the second story stood a large, unfinished room with exposed beams and unfinished walls. It was likely to be used for the never-realized industrial scale of the Salem sea port. Fow ahat, exacttly, I am not sure. Inside the room sat barrels full of forgotten old customs papers that made up the livelihood of their creators back in yesteryear. Scattered about the floor were equally forgotten writings and poems that made no profit for their creators whatsoever.

One rainy and idle day, as I was pawing through these old relics, I chanced upon a small, yellowed package. I opened this to discover the writings of a past surveyor from the early parts of the 18th century. Among these were a natural history of the town, and a well worn scrap of red cloth with the remnants of the letter A embroidered in golden thread. As I began pondering the possible meanings of the scrap of red cloth, I placed it on my chest on a whim and felt scalding heat as of iron fresh from a forge. As I flung it down I noticed a scroll of papers around which the scarlet letter had been wrapped. I examined these and discovered a reasonable explanation of the letter drawn from first hand accounts recorded by our long forgotten surveyor.

The letter in question was worn by one Hester Prynne, a woman of some note, it appeared, at the close of the 17th century. It struck me that if I faithfully embellished these half dozen or so pages, and added totally fictitious details that I would make up and tack on haphazardly, I would be able to make a fabulously inaccurate and fanciful story that kind of, sort of resembled the original story. I further reasoned that if my story was good enough, it could be further fictionalized and adapted into a movie fit for a younger, edgier audience. In that movie, all of the explosions and fistfights that never occurred in the original account could be accurately recreated, and all the characters would be portrayed by absurdly attractive models. As this was clearly the objective of the old surveyor, I set out to bring the heroic tale of Hester Prynne to the wide world. I found it difficult to do so at the custom-house, though I did my utmost to annoy my coworkers by incessantly pacing around the creaky floorboards pondering about it while they attempted to nap. My imaginations were constantly interrupted by actual work or by tales of past banquets from our corpulent master.

Instead of writing in the office, I attempted to do so at home. Pondering about things at night, in the moonlight, tinged by weak coal fire light, while looking in a mirror, is, of course, the best way to write, as everyone knows. The moonlight gives a ghostly quality to everyday objects and allows one to see a ghost hanging out in a corner. The coal light gives a fleshy tone that makes them real, and the mirror separates it from reality enough to let the imagination flow. This is, of course, old news to you, dear reader.

Even this obvious solution did not avail itself to me, as the tedium of my day job followed me home. I ceased to be a mediocre writer and instead became a mediocre surveyor of customs. I also noticed a gradual diminishing of self. You see, those who are reliant on Uncle Sam’s employ or charity of his pocket for too long gradually lose the will to struggle for one’s freely earned existence and instead depend fully on external support. As I began ruminating on how to avoid such a fate, I had the good fortune to be fired before the atrophy fully set in. A changing of the political climate led to a good old fashioned purge. Even though I describe this as a good thing, I am clearly trying to convince myself of it as I spend the next two pages describing in detail what an injustice it was. I will use such metaphors as being a man contemplating suicide but having the good fortune to be murdered instead, and likening my dismissal to the guillotine. I will even go so far as to suggest this story along with several others should be titled “POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF A DECAPITATED SURVEYOR” in all caps to emphasize my thinly veiled bitterness.

The tale of the Scarlet Letter, though entirely and faithfully retold with extreme embellishment, as I mentioned, was written under such a bitter pall, and is perhaps less cheery than it might otherwise have been as a result.

This part is so great I am just copying it word for word below:

MUCH to the author’s surprise, and (if he may say so without additional offence) considerably to his amusement, he finds that his sketch of official life, introductory to The Scarlet Letter, has created an unprecedented excitement in the respectable community immediately around him. It could hardly have been more violent, indeed, had he burned down the Custom-House, and quenched its last smoking ember in the blood of a certain venerable personage, against whom he is supposed to cherish a peculiar malevolence. As the public disapprobation would weigh very heavily on him, were he conscious of deserving it, the author begs leave to say, that he has carefully read over the introductory pages, with a purpose to alter or expunge whatever might be found amiss, and to make the best reparation in his power for the atrocities of which he has been adjudged guilty. But it appears to him, that the only remarkable features of the sketch are its frank and genuine good-humor, and the general accuracy with which he has conveyed his sincere impressions of the characters therein described. As to enmity, or ill-feeling of any kind, personal or political, he utterly disclaims such motives. The sketch might, perhaps, have been wholly omitted, without loss to the public, or detriment to the book; but, having undertaken to write it, he conceives that it could not have been done in a better or a kindlier spirit, nor, so far as his abilities availed, with a livelier effect of truth.

The author is constrained, therefore, to republish his introductory sketch without the change of a word.

SALEM, March 30, 1850.