Guilt possesses Reverend Dimmesdale. Unlike Hester, Dimmesdale fails to clarify his sin of fornication until moments before his death. Therefore, he struggles with his guilt throughout the book, almost until his death. Hester learns to deal with her scarlet "A," but Dimmesdale can't without confessing. When he doesn't confess, he becomes depressed and self-inflicts punishment by carving an "A" on his chest near his heart, among other actions. In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale suffers from his sin throughout the story until seconds before his death, when he absolves himself of all guilt. As Hester hangs with Pearl for a day without him, Dimmesdale is forever haunted by his guilty conscience. He inflicts a lot of damage on himself both physically and mentally. “And so, as he stood upon the scaffold, in this vain display of atonement, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great mental horror, as if the universe beheld a scarlet mark upon his bare breast, just above his heart. In that point, in truth, there was, and had already been there for some time, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of physical pain. Without any effort of will, or power to restrain himself, he cried out aloud; a cry that rang through the night, and was borne back from house to house, and rang across the hills beyond; as if a company of devils, seeing so much misery and terror in it, had made a toy of the sound, and were swinging it to and fro” (Hawthorne 128). Dimmesdale comes close to confessing many times, but cowardice and self-preservation come into play, influencing his decision. He is unable to summon the power to confess, but instead tortures himself and carves an "A" into his heart. He quickly realizes that he won't survive long in his current situation.