The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

  XIV.

  HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN.

  Hester bade little Pearl run down to the margin of the water, and playwith the shells and tangled sea-weed, until she should have talkedawhile with yonder gatherer of herbs. So the child flew away like abird, and, making bare her small white feet, went pattering along themoist margin of the sea. Here and there she came to a full stop, andpeeped curiously into a pool, left by the retiring tide as a mirrorfor Pearl to see her face in. Forth peeped at her, out of the pool,with dark, glistening curls around her head, and an elf-smile in hereyes, the image of a little maid, whom Pearl, having no otherplaymate, invited to take her hand, and run a race with her. But thevisionary little maid, on her part, beckoned likewise, as if tosay,--"This is a better place! Come thou into the pool!" And Pearl,stepping in, mid-leg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom;while, out of a still lower depth, came the gleam of a kind offragmentary smile, floating to and fro in the agitated water.

  Meanwhile, her mother had accosted the physician.

  "I would speak a word with you," said she,--"a word that concerns usmuch."

  "Aha! and is it Mistress Hester that has a word for old RogerChillingworth?" answered he, raising himself from his stoopingposture. "With all my heart! Why, Mistress, I hear good tidings of youon all hands! No longer ago than yester-eve, a magistrate, a wise andgodly man, was discoursing of your affairs, Mistress Hester, andwhispered me that there had been question concerning you in thecouncil. It was debated whether or no, with safety to the common weal,yonder scarlet letter might be taken off your bosom. On my life,Hester, I made my entreaty to the worshipful magistrate that it mightbe done forthwith!"

  "It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off thisbadge," calmly replied Hester. "Were I worthy to be quit of it, itwould fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into somethingthat should speak a different purport."

  "Nay, then, wear it, if it suit you better," rejoined he. "A womanmust needs follow her own fancy, touching the adornment of her person.The letter is gayly embroidered, and shows right bravely on yourbosom!"

  All this while, Hester had been looking steadily at the old man, andwas shocked, as well as wonder-smitten, to discern what a change hadbeen wrought upon him within the past seven years. It was not so muchthat he had grown older; for though the traces of advancing life werevisible, he bore his age well, and seemed to retain a wiry vigor andalertness. But the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man,calm and quiet, which was what she best remembered in him, hadaltogether vanished, and been succeeded by an eager, searching,almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look. It seemed to be his wishand purpose to mask this expression with a smile; but the latterplayed him false, and flickered over his visage so derisively, thatthe spectator could see his blackness all the better for it. Ever andanon, too, there came a glare of red light out of his eyes; as if theold man's soul were on fire, and kept on smouldering duskily withinhis breast, until, by some casual puff of passion, it was blown into amomentary flame. This he repressed, as speedily as possible, andstrove to look as if nothing of the kind had happened.

  In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man'sfaculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for areasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office. This unhappyperson had effected such a transformation, by devoting himself, forseven years, to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture, andderiving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery tortureswhich he analyzed and gloated over.

  The scarlet letter burned on Hester Prynne's bosom. Here was anotherruin, the responsibility of which came partly home to her.

  "What see you in my face," asked the physician, "that you look at itso earnestly?"

  "Something that would make me weep, if there were any tears bitterenough for it," answered she. "But let it pass! It is of yondermiserable man that I would speak."

  "And what of him?" cried Roger Chillingworth, eagerly, as if he lovedthe topic, and were glad of an opportunity to discuss it with the onlyperson of whom he could make a confidant. "Not to hide the truth,Mistress Hester, my thoughts happen just now to be busy with thegentleman. So speak freely; and I will make answer."

  "When we last spake together," said Hester, "now seven years ago, itwas your pleasure to extort a promise of secrecy, as touching theformer relation betwixt yourself and me. As the life and good fame ofyonder man were in your hands, there seemed no choice to me, save tobe silent, in accordance with your behest. Yet it was not withoutheavy misgivings that I thus bound myself; for, having cast off allduty towards other human beings, there remained a duty towards him;and something whispered me that I was betraying it, in pledging myselfto keep your counsel. Since that day, no man is so near to him as you.You tread behind his every footstep. You are beside him, sleeping andwaking. You search his thoughts. You burrow and rankle in his heart!Your clutch is on his life, and you cause him to die daily a livingdeath; and still he knows you not. In permitting this, I have surelyacted a false part by the only man to whom the power was left me to betrue!"

  "What choice had you?" asked Roger Chillingworth. "My finger, pointedat this man, would have hurled him from his pulpit into adungeon,--thence, peradventure, to the gallows!"

  "It had been better so!" said Hester Prynne.

  "What evil have I done the man?" asked Roger Chillingworth again. "Itell thee, Hester Prynne, the richest fee that ever physician earnedfrom monarch could not have bought such care as I have wasted on thismiserable priest! But for my aid, his life would have burned away intorments, within the first two years after the perpetration of hiscrime and thine. For, Hester, his spirit lacked the strength thatcould have borne up, as thine has, beneath a burden like thy scarletletter. O, I could reveal a goodly secret! But enough! What art cando, I have exhausted on him. That he now breathes, and creeps about onearth, is owing all to me!"

  "Better he had died at once!" said Hester Prynne.

  "Yea, woman, thou sayest truly!" cried old Roger Chillingworth,letting the lurid fire of his heart blaze out before her eyes. "Betterhad he died at once! Never did mortal suffer what this man hassuffered. And all, all, in the sight of his worst enemy! He has beenconscious of me. He has felt an influence dwelling always upon himlike a curse. He knew, by some spiritual sense,--for the Creator nevermade another being so sensitive as this,--he knew that no friendlyhand was pulling at his heart-strings, and that an eye was lookingcuriously into him, which sought only evil, and found it. But he knewnot that the eye and hand were mine! With the superstition common tohis brotherhood, he fancied himself given over to a fiend, to betortured with frightful dreams, and desperate thoughts, the sting ofremorse, and despair of pardon; as a foretaste of what awaits himbeyond the grave. But it was the constant shadow of my presence!--theclosest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged!--andwho had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direstrevenge! Yea, indeed!--he did not err!--there was a fiend at hiselbow! A mortal man, with once a human heart, has become a fiend forhis especial torment!"

  The unfortunate physician, while uttering these words, lifted hishands with a look of horror, as if he had beheld some frightful shape,which he could not recognize, usurping the place of his own image ina glass. It was one of those moments--which sometimes occur only atthe interval of years--when a man's moral aspect is faithfullyrevealed to his mind's eye. Not improbably, he had never before viewedhimself as he did now.

  "Hast thou not tortured him enough?" said Hester, noticing the oldman's look. "Has he not paid thee all?"

  "No!--no!--He has but increased the debt!" answered the physician; andas he proceeded his manner lost its fiercer characteristics, andsubsided into gloom. "Dost thou remember me, Hester, as I was nineyears agone? Even then, I was in the autumn of my days, nor was it theearly autumn. But all my life had been made up of earnest, studious,thoughtful, quiet years, besto
wed faithfully for the increase of mineown knowledge, and faithfully, too, though this latter object was butcasual to the other,--faithfully for the advancement of human welfare.No life had been more peaceful and innocent than mine; few lives sorich with benefits conferred. Dost thou remember me? Was I not, thoughyou might deem me cold, nevertheless a man thoughtful for others,craving little for himself,--kind, true, just, and of constant, if notwarm affections? Was I not all this?"

  "All this, and more," said Hester.

  "And what am I now?" demanded he, looking into her face, andpermitting the whole evil within him to be written on his features. "Ihave already told thee what I am! A fiend! Who made me so?"

  "It was myself!" cried Hester, shuddering. "It was I, not less thanhe. Why hast thou not avenged thyself on me?"

  "I have left thee to the scarlet letter," replied Roger Chillingworth."If that have not avenged me, I can do no more!"

  He laid his finger on it, with a smile.

  "It has avenged thee!" answered Hester Prynne.

  "I judged no less," said the physician. "And now, what wouldst thouwith me touching this man?"

  "I must reveal the secret," answered Hester, firmly. "He must discernthee in thy true character. What may be the result, I know not. Butthis long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruinI have been, shall at length be paid. So far as concerns the overthrowor preservation of his fair fame and his earthly state, and perchancehis life, he is in thy hands. Nor do I,--whom the scarlet letter hasdisciplined to truth, though it be the truth of red-hot iron, enteringinto the soul,--nor do I perceive such advantage in his living anylonger a life of ghastly emptiness, that I shall stoop to implore thymercy. Do with him as thou wilt! There is no good for him,--no goodfor me,--no good for thee! There is no good for little Pearl! There isno path to guide us out of this dismal maze!"

  "Woman, I could wellnigh pity thee!" said Roger Chillingworth, unableto restrain a thrill of admiration too; for there was a quality almostmajestic in the despair which she expressed. "Thou hadst greatelements. Peradventure, hadst thou met earlier with a better love thanmine, this evil had not been. I pity thee, for the good that has beenwasted in thy nature!"

  "And I thee," answered Hester Prynne, "for the hatred that hastransformed a wise and just man to a fiend! Wilt thou yet purge it outof thee, and be once more human? If not for his sake, then doubly forthine own! Forgive, and leave his further retribution to the Powerthat claims it! I said, but now, that there could be no good event forhim, or thee, or me, who are here wandering together in this gloomymaze of evil, and stumbling, at every step, over the guilt wherewithwe have strewn our path. It is not so! There might be good for thee,and thee alone, since thou hast been deeply wronged, and hast it atthy will to pardon. Wilt thou give up that only privilege? Wilt thoureject that priceless benefit?"

  "Peace, Hester, peace!" replied the old man, with gloomy sternness."It is not granted me to pardon. I have no such power as thou tellestme of. My old faith, long forgotten, comes back to me, and explainsall that we do, and all we suffer. By thy first step awry thou didstplant the germ of evil; but since that moment, it has all been a darknecessity. Ye that have wronged me are not sinful, save in a kind oftypical illusion; neither am I fiend-like, who have snatched a fiend'soffice from his hands. It is our fate. Let the black flower blossom asit may! Now go thy ways, and deal as thou wilt with yonder man."

  He waved his hand, and betook himself again to his employment ofgathering herbs.

  Mandrake]