Abstract
At the head (Custom-House) of a tale (The Scarlet Letter), where its author (Hawthorne), as we discover at The End—in the rear, if you will—has been missing from the outset, decapitated up front, in a pre-face whose face is missing (even more so) once this headless talking turns around, on this pretext alone, this rear-end disclosure, it should come as no surprise to learn that the House of Custom is always and everywhere a chopping block. This hors-d'oeuvre prefigures the dirty work (oeuvre) in advance, announces—in good taste, nonetheless—the of the work to follow, whose main course would be most unsavory were it to arrive with its head still on. At the head of this scenario (The Letter), the head(less: [of Hawthorne])—lacking noth ing of foresight—previews a veritable panorama of butchery: One fine morn ing, I ascended the flight of granite steps, with the President's commission in my pocket, and was introduced to the of who were to aid me in my weighty responsibility, as chief executive officer of the Custom-House.1 For corps of gentlemen we'd best be advised to read, instead, corpses of gentlemen. For what, after all, is this patriarchal of veterans (1:12) upon which Hawthorne's authority is brought to bear if not a brain-dead as a (w)hole, a whose head has never been present in the first place: seemed to have flung away all the golden grain of practical wisdom, which they had enjoyed so many opportunities of harvesting, and most care fully to have stored their memories with the husks. They spoke with far more interest and unction of their morning's breakfast, or yesterday's, today's or to morrow's dinner, than of the shipwreck of forty or fifty years ago, and all the world's wonders which they had witnessed with their youthful eyes (1:16). From the outset, the head of this (uncivil) body has lost its sense, feeds on the husk rather than the grain. Its heart (Kern) keeps pace with nothing, survives upon a kernel of nonsense, the idle chitchat that inhabits the heart of
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