 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recorded by George Pilling, www.storysales.com. The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 8, The Elf Child and the Minister Governor Bellingham, in a loose gown and easy cap, such as elderly gentlemen love to undo themselves within their domestic privacy, walked foremost and appeared to be showing off his estate and expatiating on his projected improvements. The wide circumference of an elaborate ruff beneath his grey beard in the antiquated fashion of King James's reign caused his head to look not a little like that of John the Baptist in a charger. The impression made by his aspect, so rigid and severe and frostbitten with more than autumnal age, was hardly in keeping with the appliances of worldly enjoyment wherewith he had evidently done his utmost to surround himself. But it is an error to suppose that our grave forefathers, though accustomed to speak and think of human existence as a state merely of trial and warfare, and though unfainedly prepared to sacrifice goods in life at the behest of duty, made it a matter of conscience to reject such means of comfort or even luxury as lay fairly within their grasp. This creed was never taught, for instance, by the venerable pastor John Wilson, whose beard, white as a snowdrift, was seen over Governor Bellingham's shoulder, while its wearer suggested that pears and peaches might yet be naturalized in the New England climate and that purple grapes might possibly be compelled to flourish against the sunny garden wall. The old clergyman, nurtured at the rich bosom of the English church, had a long established and legitimate taste for all good and comfortable things, and however stern he might show himself in the pulpit or in his public reproof of such transgressions as that of Hester Prynne. Still, the genial benevolence of his private life had won him warmer affection than was accorded to any of his professional contemporaries. Behind the Governor and Mr. Wilson came two other guests, one, the Reverend Arthur Dimsdale, whom the reader may remember as having taken a brief and reluctant part in the scene of Hester Prynne's disgrace, and, in close companionship with him, old Roger Chillingworth, a person of great skill and physique, who, for two or three years past, had been settled in the town. It was understood that this learned man was the physician as well as friend of the young minister, whose health had severely suffered of late by his two unreserved self-sacrifice to the labors and duties of the pastoral relation. The Governor, in advance of his visitors, ascended one or two steps, and, throwing open the leaves of the great hall window, found himself close to little Pearl. The shadow of the curtain fell on Hester Prynne and partially concealed her. What have we here? said Governor Bellingham, looking with surprise at the scarlet little figure before him. Hey, profess, I have never seen the like since my days of vanity in old King James's time, when I was wont to esteem it in high favor to be admitted to a court mask. There used to be a swarm of these small apparitions in holiday time, and we called them children of the Lord of Misrule. But how got such a guest into my hall? Hey, indeed! cried good old Mr. Wilson. What little bird of scarlet plumage may this be? Me thinks I have seen just such figures when the sun has been shining through a richly painted window and tracing out the golden and crimson images across the floor. But that was in the old land. Pretty young one, who art thou? And what is ill thy mother to bedise in thee in this strange fashion? Art thou a Christian child? Ah? Does thou know thy aceticism? Or art thou one of those naughty ills or ferries whom we thought to have left behind us with other relics of papistry in merry old England? I am my mother's child, answered the scarlet vision, and my name is Pearl. Pearl? I'd be rather a coral, or red rose at the very least, judging from my you, responded the old minister, putting forth his hand in vain attempt to pat little Pearl on the cheek. But where is this mother of thine? Ah, I see, he added, and turning to the Governor Bellingham whispered, This is the self-same child of whom we have held speech together, and behold, here the unhappy woman has to print her mother. Say, it's thou so? Cried the Governor, Nay, we might have judged that such a child's mother must need be a scarlet woman and a worthy type of her of Babylon. But she comes at a good time, and we will look into this matter forthwith. Governor Bellingham stepped through the window into the hall, followed by his three guests. Hester Prynne, said he, fixing his naturally stern regard on the wearer of the scarlet letter, there hath been much question concerning thee of late. The point hath been weirdly discussed, whether we, that are of authority and influence, to well discharge our consciences by trusting in a mortal soul, such as there is in yonder child, to the guidance of one who has stumbled and fallen amid the pitfalls of this world. Speak, thou, the child's own mother! Were it not, thinkest thou, for thy little one's temporal and eternal welfare, that she be taken out of thy charge and clad soberly and disciplined strictly and instructed in the truths of heaven and earth, what canst thou do for the child in this kind? I can teach my little pearl what I have learned from this, answered Hester Prynne, laying her finger on the red token. Woman, it is thy badge of shame! replied the stern magistrate. It is because of the stain which that letter indicates that we would transfer thy child to other hands. Nevertheless, said the mother calmly, though growing more pale, this badge hath taught me. It daily teaches me. It is teaching me at this moment, lessons whereof my child may be the wiser and better, albeit they can profit nothing to myself. We will judge warily, said Bellingham, and look well what we are about to do. Good Master Wilson, I pray you examine this pearl, since that is her name, and see whether she hath had such Christian nurture as befits a child of her age. The old minister seeded himself in an armchair and made an effort to draw pearl betwixt his knees, but the child, unaccustomed to the touch of familiarity of any but her mother, escaped through the open window and stood on the upper step looking like a wild tropical bird of rich plumage ready to take flight into the upper air. Mr. Wilson, not a little astonished at this outbreak, for he was a grandfatherly sort of personage and usually a vast favorite with children, essayed, however, to proceed with the examination. Pearl, said he with great solemnity, thou must take heed to instruction, that so, in due season, thou mayest wear and thy bosom the pearl of great price. Canst thou tell me, my child, who made thee? Now Pearl knew well enough who made her, for Hester Prynne, the daughter of a pious home, very soon after her talk with the child about her heavenly father, had begun to inform her of those truths which the human spirit, at whatever stage of immaturity, imbibes of such eager interest. Pearl, therefore, so large were the attainments of her three years' lifetime, could have borne a fair examination in the New England Primer, or the first column of the Westminster Catechisms, although unacquainted with the outward form of either of those celebrated works. But that perversity which all children have more or less of, and of which little Pearl had a tenfold portion, now, at the most inopportune moment, took a thorough possession of her and closed her lips or impelled her to speak words amiss. After putting her finger in her mouth with many ungracious refusals to answer good Mr. Wilson's questions, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison door. This fantasy was probably suggested by the near proximity of the Governor's red roses, as Pearl stood outside of the window, together with the recollection of the prison rose bush, which she had passed in Coving Hither. Old Roger Chillingworth, with a smile on his face, whispered something in the young clergyman's ear. Hester Prynne looked at the man of skill, and even then, with her fate hanging in the balance, was startled to perceive what a change had come over his features, how much uglier they were, how his dark complexion seemed to have grown duskier and his figure more misshapen since the days when she had familiarly known him. She met his eyes for an instant, but was immediately constrained to give all her attention to the scene now going forward. This is awful, cried the Governor, slowly recovering from the astonishment into which Pearl's response had thrown him. Here is a child of three years old, and she cannot tell whom made her. Without question she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its present depravity, and future destiny. Many thanks, gentlemen, we need inquire no further. Hester caught hold of Pearl and drew her forcibly into her arms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate with almost a fierce expression. One in the world, cast off by it, and with his sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefensible rights against the world and was ready to defend them to the death. God gave me this child, cried she. He gave her and were quite a lot of all things else which he had taken from me. She is my happiness, she is my torture nonetheless. Pearl keeps me here in life, Pearl punishes me too. See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved and so endowed with a million fold the power of retribution for my sin. Ye shall not take her, I will die first. My poor woman, said the not unkind old minister, the child shall be well cared for, far better than thou can do it. God gave her into my keeping, repeated Hester Prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek, I will not give her up. And here, by a sudden impulse he turned to the young clergyman, Mr. Dimmesdale, at whom, up to this moment, she had seemed hardly so much as once to direct her eyes. Speak thou for me, cried she. Thou wasst my pastor and hadst charge of my soul, and knowest me better than these men can, I will not lose the child. Speak for me, thou knowest, for thou wasst sympathies which these men lack, thou knowest what is in my heart and what are a mother's rights and how much the stronger they are for a child in the scarlet letter, look thou to it, I will not lose the child, look to it. At this wild and singular appeal which indicated that Hester Prynne's situation had provoked her to little less than madness, the young minister at once came forward, pale, and holding his hand over his heart as was his custom whenever his peculiarly nervous temperament was thrown into agitation. He looked now more careworn and emaciated than as we described him at the scene of Hester's public ignominy. And whether it were his failing health or whatever the cause might be, his large dark eyes had a world of pain in their troubled and melancholy depth. There is truth in what she says, began the minister with a voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful, in so much that the whole re-echoed and the hollow armor rang with it. The truth in what Hester says and in the feeling which inspires her, God gave her the child and gave her too an instinctive knowledge of its nature and requirements, both seemingly so peculiar which no other mortal being can possess. And moreover, is there not a quality of awful sacredness in the relation between this mother and this child? Aye? How is that, good master Dimmesdale? interrupted the governor. Make it plain, I pray you. It must be even so, resumed the minister. Four, if we deem it otherwise, do we not thereby say that the Heavenly Father, the Creator of all flesh, has lightly recognized the deed of sin and made of no account the distinction between unhallowed lust and holy love? This child of its father's guilt and its mother's shame have come from the hand of God to work in many ways upon her heart who plead so earnestly and with such bitterness of spirit the right to keep her. It was meant for a blessing, for a retribution too, a torture to be felt at many an unthought-of moment, a pang, a sting, an ever-recurring agony in the midst of a troubled joy. Has she not expressed this thought in the garb of the poor child so forcibly reminding us of that red symbol which sears her bosom? Well said again, cried good Mr. Wilson. I fear the woman had no better thought than to make a mount-a-bank of a child. Oh, no, not so, not so! continued Mr. Dimmesdale. She recognizes, believe me, the solemn miracle which God had wrought in the existence of that child. And may she feel too what me thinks is the very truth that this boon was meant above all things else to keep the mother's soul alive and to preserve her from blacker depths of sin into which Satan might else have sought the plunger. Therefore it is good for this poor sinful woman that she hath an infant immortality of being capable of eternal joy or sorrow confided to her care to be trained up by her to righteousness to remind her at every moment of her fall, but yet to teach her, as it were by the Creator's sacred pledge that if she bring the child to heaven the child also will bring its parent thither. Herein is the sinful mother happier than the sinful father for Hester Brunsake then blessed for the poor child's sake. Let us leave them as providence hath seen fit to place them. You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness, said old Roger Chillingworth, smiling at him. And there is weighty import in what my young brother hath spoken. How did the reverend Mr. Wilson? What say you, worshipful Master Bellingham? hath he not pleaded well for the poor woman? Indeed hath he, answered the magistrate, do such arguments that we will even leave the matter as it now stands so long at least as there shall be no further scandal in the woman? Care must be had, nevertheless, to put the child to due and stated examination in the catechism at thy hands are Master Dimmesdale's. Moreover, at a proper season the tithing men must take heed that she go both to school and to meeting. The young minister, on ceasing to speak, hath withdrawn a few steps from the group made with his face partially concealed in the heavy folds of the window curtains while the shadow of his figure, which the sunlight cast upon the floor was tremulous with the vehemence of his appeal. Pearl, that wild and flighty little elf, stole softly towards him and taking his hand in the grasp of both her own, laid her cheek against it, a caress so tender and with all so unobtrusive that her mother, who was looking on, asked herself, yet she knew that there was love in the child's heart, although it mostly revealed itself in passion and hardly twice in her lifetime had been softened by such gentleness as now. The minister, for save the long sought regards of woman, nothing is sweeter than those marks of childish preference accorded spontaneously by a spiritual instinct and therefore seeming to imply in us something truly worthy to be loved. The minister looked round, laid his hand in the child's head, hesitated in instant, and then kissed her brow. Little Pearl's unwanted mood of sentiment lasted no longer. She laughed and went capering down the hall so airily that old Mr. Wilson raised a question whether even her tiptoes touched the floor. The little baggage-hath witchcraft in her, I profess, said he to Mr. Dimmesdale, she needs no old woman's broomstick to fly with all. As strange child, remarked old Roger Chillingworth, it is easy to see the mother's part in her. Would it be beyond a philosopher's research, thank you gentlemen, to analyze that child's nature and from its make and mold to give shrewd guess as the father? Nay, it would be sinful in such a question to follow the clue of profane philosophy, said Mr. Wilson, better to fast than pray upon it and still better it may be to leave the mystery as we find it unless providence reveal it of its own accord. Thereby every good Christian man hath a title to show a father's kindness toward the poor, deserted babe. The affair being so satisfactorily concluded, Hester Prynne with Pearl departed from the house. As they descended the steps, it is a word that the lattice of a chamber window was thrown open and forth into the sunny day was thrust the face of Mr. Sibbins, Governor Bellingham's bitter-tempered sister and the same who, a few years later, was executed as a witch. HIST! HIST! said she while her ill-ohmen physiognomy seemed to cast a shadow over the cheerful newness of the house. Well, thou go with us tonight. There will be a merry company in the forest and I will and I promise the black man that comely Hester Prynne should make one. Make my excuse to him, so please you, answered Hester with a triumphant smile. I must tarry at home and keep watch over my little Pearl. If I had taken her from me, I would willingly have gone with thee into the forest and signed my name in the black man's book too and that with mine own blood. We shall have thee there and on, said the witch-lady frowning as she drew back her head. But here, if we suppose this interview betwixt Mr. Sibbins and Hester Prynne to be authentic and not a parable, was already an illustration of the young minister's argument against sundering the relation of her frailty, even thus early had the child saved her from Satan's snare. End of Chapter 8 CHAPTER 9 OF THE SCARLET LETTER This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org Recorded by George Pilling The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne The Leech Under the appellation of Roger Chillingworth was hidden another name which its former wearer had resolved should never more be spoken. It has been related how in the crowd that witnessed Hester Prynne's ignominious exposure stood a man elderly, travel-worn who, just emerging from the perilous wilderness, beheld the woman in whom he hoped to find embodied the warmth and cheerfulness of home set up as a type of sin before the people. Her matronly frame was trodden under all men's feet. Infamy was babbling around her in the public marketplace. For her kindred, should the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions of her unspotted life, there remained nothing but the contagion of her dishonor which would not fail to be distributed in strict accordance and proportion with the intimacy and sacredness of their previous relationship. Then why, since a choice was with himself, to the individual whose connection with the fallen woman had been the most intimate and sacred of them all, come forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so little desirable. He resolved not to be pilloried beside her on the pedestal of shame. Unknown to all but Hester Prynne, and possessing the lock and key of her silence, he chose to withdraw his name from the role of mankind, and as regarded his former ties and interests to vanish out of life as if he indeed lay at the bottom of the ocean, with a rumor had long ago consigned him. This purpose once affected, new interests would immediately spring up, and likewise a new purpose, dark it is true, if not guilty, but have forced enough to engage the full strength of his faculties. In pursuance of this resolve, he took up his residence in the Puritan town as Roger Chillingworth, without other introduction than the learning and intelligence of which he possessed more than a common measure. As his studies at a previous period of his life had made him extensively acquainted with the medical science of the day, it was as a physician that he presented himself and as such was cordially received. Skillful men of the medical and cururgical profession were of rare occurrence in the colony. They seldom it would appear partook of the religious zeal that brought other emigrants across the Atlantic. In their researches into the human frame, it may be that the higher and more subtle faculties of such men were materialized and that they lost the spiritual view of existence amid the intricacies of that wondrous mechanism which seemed to involve art enough to comprise all of life within itself. At all events the health of the good town of Boston so far as medicine had ought to do with it had hitherto lain in the guardianship of an aged deacon and apothecary whose piety and godly deportment were stronger testimonials in his favor than any that he could have produced in the shape of a diploma. The only surgeon was one who combined the occasional exercise of that noble art with a daily habitual flourish of a razor. To such a professional body Roger Chillingworth was a brilliant acquisition. He soon manifested his familiarity with the ponderous and imposing machinery of antique physics in which every remedy contained far-fetched and heterogenous ingredients has elaborately compounded as if the proposed result had been the elixir of life. In his Indian captivity, moreover he had gained much knowledge of the properties of native herbs and roots nor did he conceal from his patients that these simple medicines, nature's boon to the untutored savage had quite as large a share of his own confidence as the European pharmacopia with so many learned doctors had spent centuries in elaborating. This learned stranger was exemplary as regarded at least the outward forms of a religious life, and early after his arrival had chosen for a spiritual guide the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The young divine, whose scholar-like renown still lived in Oxford, was considered by his more fervent admirers as little less than a heavenly ordained apostle destined should he live in labor for the ordinary term of life to do as great deeds for the now feeble New England church as the early fathers had achieved for the infancy of the Christian faith. About this period, however, the health of Mr. Dimmesdale had evidently begun to fail. By those best acquainted with his habits the paleness of the young minister's cheek was accounted for by his too earnest devotion to study, his scrupulous fulfillment of parochial duty, and more than all to the fasts and vigils he made a frequent practice in order to keep the grossness of this earthly state from clogging and obscuring his spiritual lamp. Some declared that if Mr. Dimmesdale were really going to die, it was cause enough that the world was not worthy to be any longer trodden by his feet. He himself, on the other hand, with characteristic humility avowed his belief that if providence should see fit to remove him, it would be because of his own unworthiness to perform its humblest with all this difference of opinion as the cause of his decline there could be no question of the fact. His form grew emaciated, his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it. He was often observed on any slight alarm or other sudden accident to put his hand over his heart with first a flush and then a paleness indicative of pain. Such was the young clergyman's condition and so imminent the prospect that his dawning light would be extinguished all untimely when Roger Chillingworth made his advent to the town. His first entry on the scene, few people could tell whence dropping down, as it were, out of the sky or starting from the nether earth had an aspect of mystery which was easily heightened to the miraculous. He was now known to be a man of skill. It was observed that he gathered herbs in the blossoms of wildflowers and dug up roots and plucked off twigs from the forest trees like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to commonize. He was heard to speak of Sir Kennel Dinkbee, another famous man whose scientific attainments were esteemed hardly less than supernatural as having been his correspondence or associates. Why was such rank in the learned world had he come hither? What could he whose fear was in great cities be seeking in the wilderness? In answer to this query a rumor gained ground and however absurd was entertained by some very sensible people that heaven had wrought an absolute miracle by transporting an eminent doctor of physics from a German university bodily through the air and setting him down at the door of Mr. Dimmesdale's study. Individuals of wiser faith indeed, who knew that heaven promotes its purposes without aiming to what is called miraculous interposition were inclined to see a providential hand in Roger Chillingworth's so opportune arrival. This idea was countenanced by the strong interest which the physician ever manifested in the young clergyman. He attached himself to him as a parishioner and sought to win a friendly regard in confidence from his naturally reserved sensibility. He expressed great alarm at his pastor's state of health but was anxious to attempt the cure and if early undertaken seemed not despondent of a favorable result. The elders, the deacons, the motherly dames and the young and fair maidens of Mr. Dimmesdale's flock were alike importunate that he should make trial of the physician's frankly offered skill. Mr. Dimmesdale gently repelled their entreaties. I need no medicine said he. But how could the young minister say so when with every success of Sabbath his cheek was paler and thinner and his voice more tremulous than before when it had now become a constant habit rather than a casual gesture to press his hand over his heart. Was he weary of his labors? Did he wish to die? These questions were solemnly propounded to Mr. Dimmesdale by the elder ministers of Boston and the deacons of his church who, to use their own phrase, dealt with him. On the sin of rejecting the aid which providence so manifestly held out he listened in silence and finally promised to confer with the physician. Were it God's will said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale when, in fulfillment of this pledge he requested old Roger Chillingworth's professional advice I could well be content that my labors and my sorrows and my sins and my pains should shortly end with me and what is earthly of them be buried in my grave and the spirit shall go with me to my eternal state rather than that you should put your skill to the proof in my behalf. Ah, replied Roger Chillingworth, with that quietness which, whether imposed or natural marked all his deportment it is thus that a young clergyman is apt to speak. Youthful men not having taken a deep root give up their hold of life so easily and saintly men who walk with God on earth would feign be away to walk with him on the golden pavements of the new Jerusalem. Nay, rejoined the young minister putting his hand to his heart with a flush of pain flitting over his brow were I worthier to walk there I could be better content to toil here. Good men ever interpret themselves too meanly said the physician. In this manner the mysterious old Roger Chillingworth became the medical advisor of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale as not only the disease interested the physician but he was strongly moved to look into the character and qualities of the patient these two men so different in age came gradually to spend much time together for the sake of the minister's health and to enable the leech together plants with healing balm in them they took long walks on the seashore or in the forest mingling various walks with the splash and murmur of the waves and the solemn wind anthem among the treetops often likewise one was a guest of the other in his place of study and retirement there was a fascination for the minister in the company of the man of science in whom he recognized an intellectual cultivation of no moderate depth or scope together with a range and freedom of ideas that he would have vainly look for among the members of his own profession in truth he was startled, if not shocked to find this attribute in the physician Mr. Dimmesdale was a true priest a true religionist with a reverential sentiment largely developed and an order of mind that impelled itself powerfully along the track of a creed and wore its passage continually deeper with the lapse of time in no state of society would he have been what is called a man of liberal views it would always be essential to his peace the nature of a faith about him support him while it can find him with its iron framework not the less however though with a tremulous enjoyment did he feel the occasional relief of looking at the universe through the medium of another kind of intellect than those with which he habitually held converse it was as if a window were thrown open admitting a freer atmosphere into the close and stifled study whereas life was wasting itself away amid lamp light obstructed by day beams and the musty fragrance be it sensual or moral that exhales from books but the air was too fresh and chill to be long breathed with comfort so the minister and the physician with him withdrew again within the limits of what their church defined as orthodox thus Roger Chillingworth scrutinized his patient carefully both as he saw him in his ordinary life keeping an accustomed pathway closer to him and as he appeared when thrown amidst other moral scenery the novelty of which might call out something new to the surface of his character he deemed it essential it would seem to know the man before attempting to do him good wherever there is a heart and an intellect the diseases of the physical frame are tinged with the peculiarity of these in Arthur Dimmesdale thought and imagination were so active and sensibility so intense that the bodily infirmity would be likely to have its groundwork there so Roger Chillingworth the man of skill the kind and friendly physician strove to go deep into his patient's bosom delving among his principles prying into his recollections and probing everything with a cautious touch like a treasure seeker in a dark cavern few secrets can escape an investigator who has an opportunity and license to undertake such a quest and skill to follow it up a man burdened with a secret should especially avoid the intimacy of his physician if the latter possess native sagacity and a nameless something more let us call it intuition if he show no intrusive egotism nor disagreeable prominent characteristics of his own if he have the power which must be born with him to bring his mind into such affinity with his patients that this last so unawares have spoken what he imagines himself only to have thought if such revelations be received without tumult and acknowledged not so often by an uttered sympathy as by silence an inarticulate breath and here in there a word to indicate that all is understood if to these qualifications of a confidant be joined the advantages afforded by his recognized character as a physician then at some inevitable moment will the soul of the sufferer be dissolved and flow forth in a dark but transparent stream bringing all its mysteries into the daylight Roger Chillingworth possessed all or most of the attributes above enumerated nevertheless time went on a kind of intimacy as we have said grew up between these two cultivated minds which had as wide a field as a whole sphere of human thought and study to meet upon they discussed every topic of ethics and religion of public affairs and private character they talked much on both sides of matters that seemed personal to themselves and yet no secret such as the physician fancied must exist there ever stole out of the minister's consciousness into his companion's ear the letter had his suspicions indeed that even the nature of Mr. Dimmesdale's bodily disease had never been fairly revealed to him it was a strange reserve after a time at a hint from Roger Chillingworth the friends of Mr. Dimmesdale affected an arrangement by which the two were lodged in the same house so that every ebb and flow of the minister's life tide might pass under the eye of his anxious and attached physician there was much joy throughout the town when this greatly desirable object was attained it was held to be the best possible measure for the young clergyman's welfare unless indeed as often urged by such as felt authorized to do so he had selected one of the many blooming damsels spiritually devoted to him to become his devoted wife this latter step however there was no present prospect that Arthur Dimmesdale would be prevailed upon to take he rejected all suggestions of the kind as if priestly celibacy were one of his articles of church discipline doomed by his own choice therefore as Mr. Dimmesdale so evidently was to eat his unsavory morsel always at another's board and endure the lifelong chill which must be his lot who seeks to warm himself only at another's fireside it truly seemed that this sagacious, experienced benevolent old physician with his concord of paternal and reverential love for the young pastor was the very man of all mankind to be constantly within reach of his voice the new abode of the two friends was with a pious widow of good social rank who dwelt in a house covering pretty nearly the sight on which the venerable structure of King's Chapel has since been built it had the graveyard originally Isaac Johnson's home field on one side and so was well adapted to call up serious reflections suited to their respective employments in both minister and man of physics the motherly care of the good widow assigned to Mr. Dimmesdale a front apartment with a sunny exposure and heavy window curtains noontide shadow when desirable the walls were hung round with tapestry said to be from the goblin looms and at all events representing the scriptural story of David and Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet in color still unfaded but which made the fair woman of the scene almost as grimly picturesque as a woe denouncing seer here the pale clergyman piled up his library rich with parchment bound folios of the fathers and the lure of the rabbis and monk a sherry edition of which the Protestant the vines even while they vilified and decried that class of writers were yet constrained often to avail themselves on the other side of the house old Roger Chillingworth arranged his study and laboratory not such as a modern man of science would reckon even tolerably complete but provided with a distilling apparatus and the means of compounding drugs and chemicals which the practiced alchemist knew well how to turn to purpose with such comodiousness of situation these two learned persons set themselves down each in his own domain yet familiarly passing from one apartment to the other and bestowing a mutual and not in curious inspection into one another's business and the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale's best discerning friends as we have intimated very reasonably imagine that the hand of providence had done all this for the purpose besought in so many public and domestic and secret prayers of restoring the young minister to health but it must now be said another portion of the community had laterally begun to take its own view of the relation betwixt Mr. Dimmesdale and the mysterious old physician when an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes it is exceedingly apt to be deceived when however it forms its judgment as it usually does on the intuitions of its great and warm heart the conclusions thus attained are often so profound and so unerring as to possess the character of truth supernaturally revealed the people in the case of which we speak could justify its prejudice against Roger Chillingworth by no factor argument worthy of serious refutation there was an aged handicraftsman it is true it is an of London at the period of Sir Thomas Overby's murder now some 30 years ago he testified to having seen the physician under some other name with the narrator of the story had now forgotten in company with Dr. Forman the famous old conjurer who was implicated in the affair of Overbury two or three individuals hinted that the man of skill during his Indian captivity had enlarged his medical attainments by joining in the incantations of the savage priests who were universally acknowledged to be powerful enchanters often performing seemingly miraculous cures by their skill in the black art a large number and many of these were persons of such sober sense and practical observation that their opinions would have been valuable in other matters affirmed that Roger Chillingworth's aspect had undergone a remarkable change while he had dwelt in town and especially since his abode with Mr. Dimmesdale at first his expression had been calm meditative, scholar-like now there was something ugly and evil in his face which they had not previously noticed and which grew still the more obvious to sight the oftener they looked upon him according to the vulgar idea the fire in his laboratory had been brought from the lower regions and was fed with infernal fuel and so as might be expected his visage was getting sooty with the smoke to sum up the matter it grew to be a widely diffused opinion that Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale like many other personages of special sanctity in all ages of the Christian world was haunted either by Satan himself or by Satan's emissary in the guise of old Roger Chillingworth this diabolical agent had the divine permission for a season to burrow into the clergyman's intimacy and plot against his soul and the man it was confessed could doubt on which side the victor would turn the people looked with an unshaken hope to see the minister come forth out of the conflict transfigured with the glory which he would unquestionably win meanwhile nevertheless it was sad to think of the perchance mortal agony through which he must struggle toward his triumph alas to judge from the gloom and terror in the depth of the poor minister's eyes the battle was a sore one and the victory anything but secure End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of the Scarlet Letter this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Chapter 10 of the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Old Roger Chillingworth throughout life had been calm in temperament kindly though not of warm affections but ever and in all his relations with the world a pure and upright man he had begun an investigation as he imagined with the severe and equal integrity of a judge desirous only of truth even as if the question involved no more than the air drawn lines and figures of a geometrical problem instead of human passions and wrongs inflicted on himself but as he proceeded a terrible fascination a kind of fierce though still calm necessity seized the old man within its grip and never set him free again from all its bidding he now dug into the poor clergyman's heart like a miner searching for gold or rather like a sexton delving into a grave possibly in quest of a jewel that had been buried on the dead man's bosom but likely to find nothing save mortality and corruption alas for his own soul if these were what he sought sometimes a light glimmered out of the physician's eyes burning blue and ominous like the reflection of a furnace or let us say like one of those gleams of ghastly fire that darted from Bunyan's awful doorway in the hillside and quivered on the pilgrim's face the soil where this dark miner was working had perchance shown indications that encouraged him this man said he at one such moment to himself pure as they deem him all spiritual as he seems hath inherited a strong animal nature from his father or his mother let us dig a little further in the direction of this man then after a long search into the minister's dim interior and turning over many precious materials in the shape of high aspirations for the welfare of his race warm love of souls pure sentiments natural piety strengthened by thought and study and illuminated by revelation all of which in valuable gold was perhaps no better than rubbish to the seeker he would turn back discouraged and begin his quest towards another point he groped along as stealthily with as cautious a tread and as wary an outlook as a thief entering a chamber where a man lies only half asleep or it may be broad awake with a purpose to steal the very treasure which this man guards as the apple of his eye in spite of his premeditated carefulness the floor would now and then creak his garments would rustle the shadow of his presence in a forbidden proximity thrown across his victim in other words Mr. Dimmesdale whose sensibility of nerve often produced the effect of spiritual intuition would become vaguely aware that something inimical to his peace had thrust itself into relation with him but old Roger Chillingworth too had perceptions that were almost intuitive and when the minister threw his startled eyes towards him his position sacked his kind watchful sympathising but never intrusive friend yet Mr. Dimmesdale would perhaps have seen this individual's character more perfectly if for certain morbidness to which sick hearts are liable had not rendered him suspicious of all mankind trusting no man as his friend he could not recognise his enemy when the latter actually appeared he therefore still kept up a familiar intercourse with him daily receiving the old physician in his study or visiting the laboratory and for recreation's sake watching the processes by which weeds were converted into drugs of potency one day leaning his forehead on his hand and his elbow on the sill of the open window that looked towards the graveyard he talked with Roger Chillingworth while the old man was examining a bundle of unsightly plants where asked he were the looker scants at them for it was the clergyman's peculiarity that he seldom nowadays looked straight forth at any object whether human or inanimate where my kind doctor did you gather those herbs with such a dark, flabby leaf even here in the graveyard here at hand answered the physician continuing his employment they are new to me I found them growing on a grave which bore no tombstone no other memorial of the dead man save these ugly weeds that have taken upon themselves to keep him in remembrance they grew out of his heart and typify it may be some hideous secret that was buried with him and which he had done better to confess during his lifetime Pachant said Mr. Dimmesdale he earnestly desired it but could not and wherefore rejoined the physician wherefore not since all the powers of nature call so earnestly for the confession of sin that these black weeds have sprung up out of a buried heart to make manifest an outspoken crime that good sir is but a fantasy of yours replied the minister there can be if I forebode a right no power short of the divine mercy to disclose whether by uttered words or by type or emblem the secrets that may be buried in the human heart the heart making itself guilty of such secrets must perforce hold them until the day when all hidden things shall be revealed nor have I so read or interpreted holy writ as to understand that the disclosure of human thoughts and deeds then to be made is intended as a part of the retribution that surely were a shallow view of it no these revelations unless I greatly err are meant merely to promote the intellectual satisfaction of all intelligent beings who will stand waiting on that day to see the dark problem of this life made plain a knowledge of men's hearts will be needful to the completest solution of that problem and I can see moreover that the hearts holding such miserable secrets as you speak of will yield them up at that last day not with reluctance but with a joy unutterable then why not reveal it here asked Roger Chillingworth glancing quietly aside at the minister why should not the guilty ones sooner avail themselves of this unutterable solace they mostly do said the clergyman gripping hard at his breast as if afflicted with an important drop of pain many many a poor soul have given its confidence to me not only on the deathbed but while strong in life and fair in reputation and ever after such an outpouring oh what a relief have I witnessed in those sinful brethren even as in one who at last draws free air after a long stifling with his own polluted breath how can it be otherwise then guilty we will say of murder prefer to keep the dead corpse buried in his own heart rather than fling it forth at once and let the universe take care of it yet some men bury their secrets thus observed the calm physician true there are such men answered Mr. Dimmesdale but not to suggest more obvious reasons it may be that they are kept silent by the very constitution of their nature or can we not suppose it guilty as they may be retaining nevertheless a zeal for God's glory and man's welfare they shrink from displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men because thence forward no good can be achieved by them no evil of the past be redeemed by better service so to their own unutterable torment they go about among their fellow creatures pure as new fallen snow while their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid themselves these men deceive themselves said Roger Chillingworth with somewhat more emphasis than usual and making a slight gesture with his forefinger they fear to take up the shame that rightfully belongs to them their love for man their zeal for God's service these holy impulses may not coexist in their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has unbarred the door and which must needs propagate a hellish breed within them but if they seek to glorify God let them not lift heavenward their unclean hands if they would serve their fellow men let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience in constraining them to penitential self-abasement would thou have me to believe a wise and pious friend that a false show can be better can be more for God's glory or man's welfare than God's own truth trust me such men deceive themselves it may be so said the young clergyman indifferently as waving a discussion that he considered irrelevant or unseasonable he had a ready faculty indeed of escaping from any topic that agitated his too sensitive and nervous temperament but now I would ask of my well-skilled physician whether in good soothe he deems me to have profited by his kindly care of this weak frame of mind before Roger Chillingworth could answer they heard the clear wild laughter of a young child's voice proceeding from the adjacent burial ground looking instinctively from the open window for it was summertime the minister beheld Hester Prynne and little Pearl passing along the footpath that traversed the enclosure Pearl looked as beautiful as the day but was in one of those moods of perverse merriment which, whenever they occurred seemed to remove her entirely out of the sphere of sympathy or human contact she now skipped irreverently from one grave to another until coming to the broad flat armorial tombstone of a departed worthy perhaps of Isaac Johnson himself she began to dance upon it in reply to her mother's command and entreaty that she would behave more decorously little Pearl paused to gather the prickly burrs from a tall burdock which grew beside the tomb taking a handful of these she arranged them along the lines of the scarlet letter that decorated the maternal bosom to which the burrs, as their nature was tenaciously adhered Hester did not pluck them off Roger Chenningworth had by this time approached the window and smiled grimly down there is no law nor reverence for authority no regard for human ordinances or opinions right or wrong mixed up with that child's composition, remarked he as much to himself as to his companion I saw her the other day bespatter the governor himself with water at the cattle-droff in Spring Lane what in heaven's name is she is the imp all together evil hath she affections hath she any discoverable principle of being none saved the freedom of a broken law answered Mr. Dimmesdale in a quiet way as if he had been discussing the point within himself whether capable of good I know not the child probably overheard their voices for looking up to the window with a bright but naughty smile of mirth and intelligence she threw one of the prickly birds at the reverent Mr. Dimmesdale the sensitive clergyman shrank with nervous dread from the light missile detecting his emotion Pearl clapped her little hands in the most extravagant ecstasy Hester Prynne likewise had involuntarily looked up and all these four persons old and young one another in silence till the child laughed aloud and shouted come away mother come away or yonder old black man will catch you he hath got hold of the minister already come away mother or he will catch you but he cannot catch little pearl so she drew her mother away skipping dancing and frisking fantastically among the hillocks of the dead people like a creature that had nothing in common with a bygone and buried generation nor owned herself akin to it it was as if she had been made afresh out of new elements and must perforce be permitted to live her own life and be a law unto herself without her eccentricities being reckoned to her for a crime there goes a woman resumed Roger Chillingworth after a pause who be her demerits what they may hath none of that mystery of hidden sinfulness which you deem so grievous to be born is hath to print the less miserable thank you for that scarlet letter on her breast I do verily believe it answered the clergyman nevertheless I cannot answer for her there was a look of pain in her face which I would gladly have been spared the sight of but still me thinks it must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain as this poor woman who had lost her history than to cover it up in his heart there was another pause and the physician began anew to examine and arrange the plants which he had gathered you inquired of me a little time ago said he at length my judgement as touching your health I did answer the clergyman and would gladly learn it speak frankly I pray you be it for life or death freely then and plainly said I feel busy with his plants but keeping a wary eye on Mr Dimmesdale the disorder is a strange one not so much in itself nor as outwardly manifested in so far at least as the symptoms have been laid open to my observation looking daily at you my good sir and watching the tokens of your aspect now for months gone by I should deem you a man so sick it may be yet not so sick that an instructed and watchful physician might well hope to cure you but I know not what to say the disease is what I seem to know yet know it not you speak in riddles learn it sir said the pale minister glancing aside out of the window then to speak more plainly continued the physician and I crave pardon sir should it seem to require pardon for this needful plainness of my speech let me ask as your friend as one having charge under providence of your life and physical well-being hath all the operations of this disorder been fairly laid open and recounted to me how can you question it asked the minister surely it were Charles play to call in a physician and then hide the sore you would tell me then that I know all said Roger Chillingworth deliberately concentrated intelligence on the minister's face be it so but again he to whom only the outward and physical evil is laid open knoweth often times but half the evil which is called upon to cure a bodily disease which we look upon as whole and entire within itself may after all be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part your pardon once again could sir if my speech give the shadow of offence you sir of all men whom I have known are he whose body is the closest conjoined and imbued and identified so to speak with the spirit whereof it is the instrument then I need ask no further said the clergyman somewhat hastily rising from his chair you deal not I take it in medicine for the soul thus the sickness continued Roger Chillingworth going on an unaltered tone without heeding the interruption but standing up and confronting the emaciated and white cheek minister with his low dark and misshapen figure a sickness a sore place if we may so call it in your spirit hath immediately its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame would you therefore let your physician heal the bodily evil how may this be unless you first lay open to him or trouble in your soul no not to thee not to an earthly physician cried Mr. Dimmesdale passionately and turning his eyes full and bright and with a kind of fierceness on old Roger Chillingworth not to thee but if it be the soul's disease then do I commit myself to the one physician of the soul he if it stand with his good pleasure can cure or he can kill let him do with me as in his justice and wisdom he shall see good but who at thou that medlist in this matter that dares thrust himself between the sufferer and his god with a frantic gesture he rushed out of the room it is as well to have made this step said Roger Chillingworth to himself looking after the minister with a grave smile there is nothing lost we shall be friends again and on but see now how passion takes hold upon this man and hurried him out of himself as with one passion so with another he hath done a wild thing here now this pious master Dimmesdale in the hot passion of his heart it proved not difficult to re-establish the intimacy of the two companions on the same footing and in the same degree as here to four the young clergyman after a few hours of privacy was sensible that the disorder his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly outbreak of temper which there had been nothing in the physician's words to excuse or palliate he marveled indeed at the violence with which he had thrust back the kind old man when merely proffering the advice which it was his duty to bestow and which the minister himself had expressly sought with these remorseful feelings he lost no time in making simplistic apologies and besought his friend still to continue the care which if not successful in restoring him to health had in all probability been the means of prolonging his feeble existence to that hour Roger Chinningworth readily assented and went on with his medical supervision of the minister doing his best for him in all good faith but always quitting the patient's apartment and he chose of the professional interview with a mysterious and puzzled smile upon his lips this expression was invisible in Mr. Dimmesdale's presence but grew strongly evident as the physician crossed the threshold a rare case he muttered I must needs look deeper into it a strange sympathy betwixt soul and body were it only for art's sake I must search this matter at the bottom it came to pass not long after the scene above recorded that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale noonday and entirely unawares fell into a deep deep slumber sitting in his chair with a large black letter volume opened before him on the table it must have been a work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature the profound depth of the minister's repose was the more remarkable in as much as he was one of those persons whose sleep ordinarily is as light as fitful and as easily scared away as a small bird hopping on a twig to such an unwanted remoteness however had his spirit now withdrawn into itself that he stirred not in his chair when old Roger Chinningworth without any extraordinary precaution came into the room the physician advanced directly in front of his patient laid his hand upon his bosom and thrust aside the vestment that hitherto had always covered it even from the professional eye then indeed Mr. Dimmesdale shuddered and slightly stirred after a brief pause the physician turned away but with what a wild look of wonder, joy and honour with what a ghastly rapture as it were too mighty to be expressed only by the eye and features and therefore bursting forth through the whole ugliness of his figure and making itself even riotously manifest by the extravagant gestures with which he threw up his arms towards the ceiling and stamped his foot upon the floor had a man seen old Roger Chinningworth at that moment of his ecstasy he would have had no need to ask how Satan comports himself the precious human soul is lost to Heaven and won into his kingdom but what distinguished the physician's ecstasy from Satan's was the trait of wonder in it End of Chapter 10 This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Chapter 11 The Interior of a Heart After the incident last described the intercourse between the clergyman and the physician though externally the same was really of another character than it had previously been The intellect of Roger Chinningworth had now a sufficiently plain path before it It was not indeed precisely that which he had laid out for himself to tread calm, gentle, passionless as he appeared there was yet we fear a quiet depth of malice hitherto latent but active now in this unfortunate old man which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever reeked upon an enemy To make himself the one trusted friend to whom should be confided all the fear the remorse, the agony the ineffectual repentance the backward rush of sinful thoughts expelled in vain all that guilty sorrow hidden from the world whose great heart would have pitted and forgiven to be revealed to him the pitiless to him the unforgiving all that dark treasure to be lavished on the very man to whom nothing else could so adequately pay the debt of vengeance the clergyman's shy and sensitive reserve had bought this scheme Roger Chenningworth however was inclined to be hardly if at all less satisfied with the aspect of affairs which providence using the avenger and his victim for its own purposes and perchance pardoning where it seemed most to punish had substituted for his black devices the revelation he could almost say had been granted to him it mattered little for his object whether celestial or from what other region by its aid in all the subsequent relations betwixt him and Mr. Dimmesdale not merely the external presence but the very inmost soul of the latter seemed to be brought out before his eyes so that he could see and comprehend its every movement he became thenceforth not a spectator only but a chief actor in the poor minister's interior world he could play upon him as he chose would he arouse him with a throb of agony the victim was forever on the rack it needed only to know the spring that controlled the engine and the physician knew it well would he startle him with sudden fear as at the waving of a magician's wand up rose a thousand grizzly phantoms in many shapes of death or more awful shame all flocking round the clergyman and pointing with their fingers at his breast all this was accomplished with a subtlety so perfect that the minister, though he had constantly a dim perception of some evil influence watching over him could never gain a knowledge of its actual nature true he looked doubtfully fearfully even at times with horror and the bitterness of hatred at the deformed figure of the old physician his gestures his gate his grizzled beard his slightest and most indifferent acts the very fashion of his garments were odious in the clergyman's sight a token implicitly to be relied on of a deeper antipathy in the breast greater than he was willing to acknowledge to himself for, as it was impossible to assign a reason for such distrust and abhorrence so Mr. Dimmesdale conscious that the poison of one morbid spot was infecting his heart's entire substance attributed all his presentiments to no other cause he took himself to task for his bad sympathies in reference to Roger Chillingworth disregarded the lesson that he should have drawn from them and did his best to root them out unable to accomplish this he nevertheless, as a matter of principle continued his habits of social familiarity with the old man and thus gave him constant opportunities for perfecting the purpose to which poor forlorn creature that he was and more wretched than his victim the Avenger had devoted himself while thus suffering under bodily disease and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul and given over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy the reverent Mr. Dimmesdale had achieved a brilliant popularity in his sacred office he won it indeed in great part by his sorrows his intellectual gifts his moral perceptions his power of experiencing and communicating emotion were kept in a state of preternatural activity by the prick and anguish of his daily life his fame though still on its upward slope already overshadowed the soberer reputations of his fellow clergymen eminent as several of them were there are scholars among them who had spent more years in acquiring abstruse law connected with the divine profession than Mr. Dimmesdale had lived and who might well therefore be more profoundly versed in such solid and valuable attainments than their youthful brother there were men too of a sturdier texture of mind than his and endowed with a far greater share of shrewd hard iron or granite understanding which duly mingled with a fair proportion of doctrinal ingredient constitutes a highly respectable efficacious and unamiable variety of the clerical species there were others again two saintly fathers whose faculties had been elaborated by weary toil among their books and by patient thought and etherealised moreover by spiritual communications with the better world into which their purity of life had almost introduced these holy personages with their garments of mortality still clinging to them all that they lacked was the gift that descended upon the chosen disciples at Pentecost of Flame symbolising it would seem not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages but that of addressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart's native language these fathers otherwise so apostolic lacked heaven's last and rarest attestation of their office the tongue of flame they would have vainly sought had they ever dreamt of seeking truths through the humblest medium of familiar words and images their voices came down afar and indistinctly from the upper heights where they habitually dwelt not improbably it was to this latter class of minister that Mr. Dimmesdale by many of his traits of character naturally belonged to the high mountain peaks of faith and sanctity he would have climbed had not the tendency been thwarted whatever it might be of crime or anguish beneath which it was his doom to totter it kept him down on a level with the lowest him, the man of ethereal attributes whose voice the angels might else have listened to and answered but this very burden it was that gave him sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind so that his heart vibrated in unison with theirs and received their pain into itself and sent its own throb of pain through a thousand other hearts in gushes of sad persuasive eloquence oftenest persuasive but sometimes terrible the people knew not the power that moved them thus they deemed the young clergyman a miracle of holiness they fancied him the mouthpiece of heaven's messages of wisdom and rebuke and love their eyes the very ground on which he trod was sanctified the virgins of his church grew pale around him victims of a passion so imbued with religious sentiment that they imagined it to be all religion and brought it openly in their white bosoms as their most acceptable sacrifice before the altar the aged members of his flock beholding Mr. Dimmesdale's frame so feeble while they were themselves so ragged in their infirmity believed that he would go heavenward before them and enjoined it upon their children that their old bones should be buried close to their young pastor's holy grave and all this time perchance when poor Mr. Dimmesdale was thinking of his grave he questioned with himself whether the grass would ever grow on it because an accursed thing must there be buried it is inconceivable the agony with which this public veneration tortured him it was his genuine impulse to adore the truth and to reckon all things shadow like an utterly devoid of weight or value that had not its divine essence as the life within their life then what was he a substance or the dimmest of all shadows he longed to speak out from his own pulpit at the full height of his voice and tell the people what he was I whom you behold in these black garments of the priesthood I who ascend the sacred desk and turn my pale face heavenward taking upon myself to hold communion in your behalf with the most high omniscience I in whose daily life you discern the sanctity of Enoch I whose footsteps as you suppose leave a gleam along my earthly track whereby the pilgrims that shall come after me may be guided to the regions of the blessed I who have laid the hand of baptism upon your children I who have breathed the parting prayer of your dying friends to whom the our men sounded faintly from a world which they had quitted I your pastor whom you so reverence and trust and utterly a pollution and a lie more than once Mr. Dimmesdale had gone into the pulpit with a purpose never to come down its steps until he should have spoken words like the above more than once he had cleared his throat and drawn in the long deep and tremulous breath which when sent forth again would come burdened with the black secret of his soul more than once nay, more than a hundred times he had actually spoken spoken but how he had told his hearers that he was altogether vile a vile companion of the vilest the worst of sinners an abomination a thing of unimaginable iniquity and that the only wonder was that they did not see his wretched body shriveled up before their eyes by the burning wrath of the almighty could there be plainer speech than this would not the people start up in their seats by a simultaneous impulse and tear him down out of the pulpit which he defiled not so indeed they heard it all and did but reverence him the more they little guessed what deadly purport lurked in those self-condemning words the godly youth said they among themselves the saint on earth alas if he discerned such symphonies in his own white soul what horrid spectacle would he behold thine or mine the minister well knew subtle but remorseful hypocrite that he was the light in which his vague confession would be viewed he had striven to put a cheat upon himself by making the avowal of a guilty conscience but had gained only one other sin and a self-acknowledged shame without the momentary relief of being self-deceived he had spoken the very truth and transformed it into the various falsehood and yet by the constitution of his nature he loved the truth and loathed the lie as few men ever did therefore above all things else he loathed his miserable self his inward trouble drove him to practice his mourn accordance with the old corrupted faith of Rome than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred in the dimsdale's secret closet under lock and key there was a bloody scourge often times this protestant and puritan divine had applied it on his own shoulders laughing bitterly at himself the while and smiting so much the more pitilessly because of that bitter laugh it was his custom too as it has been that of many other pious puritans to fast but however like them in order to purify the body and render it the fitter medium of celestial illumination but rigorously until his knees trembled beneath him as an act of penance he kept vigils likewise night after night sometimes in utter darkness sometimes with a glimmering lamp and sometimes viewing his own face in a looking glass by the most powerful light he thus typified the constant introspection wherewith he tortured but could not purify himself in these lengthened vigils his brain often reeled and visions interflit before him perhaps seen doubtfully and by a faint light of their own in the remote dimness of the chamber or more vividly and close beside him within the looking glass now it was a herd of diabolic shapes that grinned and mocked at the pale minister and beckoned him away with them now a group of shining angels who flew upward heavily as sorrow laden but grew more ethereal as they rose now came the dead friends of his youth and his white-bearded father with a saint-like frown and his mother turning her face away as she passed by ghost of a mother of a fantasy of a mother we think she might yet have thrown a pitying glance towards her son and now through the chamber which these spectral thoughts had made so ghastly glided Hester Prynne leading along little Pearl in her scarlet garb and pointing her forefinger first at the scarlet letter on her bosom and then at the clergyman's own breast none of these visions ever quite deluded him at any moment by an effort of his will he could discern substances through their misty lack of substance and convince himself that they were not solid in their nature like yonder table of carved oak or that big square leather-bound and brazen-classed volume of divinity but for all that they were in one sense the truest and most substantial things which the poor minister now dealt with it is the unspeakable misery of a life so false as his that it steals the pith and substance out of whatever realities there are around us and which were meant by heaven to be the spirit's joy and nutriment to the untrue man the whole universe is false it is impalpable it shrinks to nothing within his grasp and he himself in so far as he shows himself in a false light becomes a shadow and indeed ceases to exist the only truth that continued to give Mr. Dimmesdale a real existence on this earth was the anguish in his inmost soul and the undissembled expression of it in his aspect had he once found power to smile and wear a face of gaiety there would have been no such man on one of these ugly nights which we have faintly hinted at but foreborn to picture fourth the minister started from his chair a new thought had struck him there might be a moment's peace in it attiring himself with as much care as if it had been for public worship and precisely in the same manner he stole softly down the staircase undid the door and issued fourth End of Chapter 11 This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for further information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Chapter 12 The Minister's Vigil Walking in the shadow of a dream as it were and perhaps actually under the influence of a species of Semnambulism Mr. Dimmesdale reached the spot where now so long since Hester Prynne had lived through her first hours of public ignominy The same platform or scaffold black and weather stained with the storm or sunshine of seven long years and footworn too with the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting house The Minister went up the steps It was an obscure night in early May An unwearied pool of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon If the same multitude which had stood as eyewitnesses while Hester Prynne sustained her punishment could now have been summoned forth They would have discerned no face above the platform nor hardly the outline of a human shape in the dark grey of the midnight But the town was all asleep There was no peril of discovery The Minister might stand there if it so pleased him until morning should redden in the east Without other risk the dank and chill night air would creep into his frame and stiffen his joints with rheumatism and clog his throat with guitar and cough thereby defrauding the expectant audience of tomorrow's prayer and sermon No I could see him save that ever-waitful one which had seen him in his closet wielding the bloody scourge Why then had he come hither Was it but the mockery of penitence a mockery indeed but in which his soul trifled with itself a mockery at which angels blushed and wept while fiends rejoiced with jeering laughter He had been driven hither by the impulse of that remorse which dogged him everywhere and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that cowardice which invariably drew him back with her tremulous grip just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure Poor miserable man what right had infirmity like his to burden itself with crime Crime is for the iron-nerved who have their choice either to endure it or to press too hard to exert their fierce and savage strength for a good purpose and fling it off at once This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither yet continually did one thing or another which intertwined in the same inextricable knot the agony of heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance And thus, while standing on the scaffold in this vain show of expiation Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind as if the universe was gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast right over his heart On that spot in very truth there was and there had long been the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain Without any effort of his will or power to restrain himself he shrieked aloud an outcry that went peeling through the night back from one house to another and reverberated from the hills in the background as if a company of devils detecting so much misery and terror in it had made a plaything of the sound and were bandying it to and fro It is done muttered the minister covering his face with his hands The whole town wore awake and hurried forth and fined me here But it was not so The shriek had perhaps sounded with a far greater power to his own startled ears than it actually possessed The town did not awake or if it did the drowsy slumberers mistook the cry either for something frightful in a dream or for the noise of witches whose voices at that period were often heard to pass over the settlements or lonely cottages as they rode with Satan through the air The clergyman therefore hearing no symptoms of disturbance uncovered his eyes and looked about him At one of the chamber windows of Governor Bellingham's mansion which stood at some distance on the line of another street he beheld the appearance of the old magistrate himself with a lamp in his hand a white night cap on his head and a long white gown enveloping his figure He looked like a ghost evoked unseasonably from the grave The cry had evidently startled him At another window of the same house moreover appeared old mistress Hibbins the governor's sister also with a lamp which even thus far off revealed the expression of her sour and discontented face She thrust forth her head from the lattice and looked anxiously upward Beyond the shadow of a doubt this venerable witch-lady had heard Mr. Dimmesdale's outcry and interpreted it with its multitudinous echoes and reverberations as the clamour of the fiends and night-hags with whom she was well known to make excursions in the forest Detecting the gleam of Governor Bellingham's lamp the old lady quickly extinguished her own and vanished Possibly she went up among the clouds The minister saw nothing further of her motions The magistrate, after a wary observation of the darkness nevertheless he could see but little further than he might into a millstone retired from the window The minister grew comparatively calm His eyes however were soon greeted by a little glimmering light which at first a long way off was approaching up the street It threw a gleam of recognition on here a post and there a garden fence and here a latticed window-pane and there a pump with its full trough of water and here again an arched door of oak with an iron knocker and a rough log for the doorstep The reverent Mr. Dimmesdale noted all these minute particulars even while firmly convinced that the doom of his existence was stealing onward in the footsteps which he now heard and that the gleam of the lantern would fall upon him in a few moments more and reveal his long hidden secret As the light drew nearer he beheld within its illuminated circle his brother clergyman or to speak more accurately his professional father as well as highly valued friend the reverent Mr. Wilson who as Mr. Dimmesdale now conjectured had been praying at the bedside of some dying man and so he had The good old minister came freshly from the death chamber of Governor Winthrop who had passed from earth to heaven within that very hour and now surrounded like the saint-like personage of olden times with a radiant halo that glorified him amid this gloomy night of sin as if the departed Governor had left him an inheritance of his glory or as if he had caught upon himself the distant shine of the celestial city while looking thitherward to see the triumphant pilgrim pass within its gates Now in short Good Father Wilson was moving homeward aiding his footsteps with a lighted lantern The glimmer of this luminary suggested the above conceits to Mr. Dimmesdale who smiled they almost laughed at them and then wondered if he was going mad As the reverent Mr. Wilson passed beside the scaffold closely muffling his Geneva cloak about him with one arm and holding the lantern before his breast with the other the minister could hardly restrain himself speaking A good evening to you, Venerable Father Wilson Come up hither, I pray you and pass a pleasant hour with me Good Heavens had Mr. Dimmesdale actually spoken for one instant he believed that these words had passed his lips but they were uttered only within his imagination The Venerable Father Wilson continued to step slowly onward looking carefully at the muddy pathway before his feet and never once turning his head towards the guilty platform When the light of the glimmering lantern had faded quite away the minister discovered by the faintness which came over him that the last few moments had been a crisis of terrible anxiety although his mind had made an involuntary effort to relieve itself by a kind of lurid playfulness Shortly afterwards the like, grisly sense of the humerus again stole in among the solemn phantoms of his thought He felt his limbs growing stiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night and doubted whether he should be able to descend the steps of the scaffold Morning would break and find him there The neighbourhood would begin to rouse itself The earliest riser, coming forth in a dim twilight would perceive a vaguely defined figure aloft on the place of shame and half-crazed betwixt alarm and curiosity would go knocking from door to door summoning all the people to behold the ghost as he needs must think it of some defunct transgressor A dusky tumult would flap its wings from one house to another Then the morning light still waxing stronger Old patriarchs would rise up in great haste each in his flannel down and matronly dames without pausing to put off their night gear The whole tribe of decarous personages who had never here to fore been seen with a single hair of their heads awry would start into public view with the disorder of a nightmare in their aspects Old Governor Bellingham would come grimly forth with his King James Ruff fastened a skew and Mistress Hibbins with some twigs of the forest clinging to her skirts and looking sourer than ever as having hardly got a wink of sleep after her night ride Then Good Father Wilson too after spending half the night at a death bed and liking ill to be disturbed thus early out of his dreams about the glorified saints Hither likewise would come the elders and deacons of Mr. Dimmesdale's church and the young virgins who so idolized their minister and had made a shrine for him in their white bosoms which now by the by in their hurry and confusion they would scantily have given themselves time to cover with their kerchiefs All people in a word would come stumbling over their thresholds and turning up their amazed and horror-stricken visages around the scaffold Whom would they discern there with the rared eastern light upon his brow half frozen to death overwhelmed with shame and standing where Hester Prynne had stood Carried away by the grotesque horror of this picture the minister unawares and to his own infinite alarm burst into a great peel of laughter It was immediately responded to by a light, airy, childish laugh in which with a thrill of the heart but he knew not whether of exquisite pain so cute he recognized the tones of little Pearl Pearl, little Pearl cried he after a moment's pause then suppressing his voice Hester, Hester Prynne are you there? Yes, it is Hester Prynne she replied in a tone of surprise and the minister heard her footsteps approaching from the sidewalk along which she had been passing it is I and my little Pearl Whence come you Hester asked the minister what sent you Hither I have been watching at a deathbed answered Hester Prynne at Governor Winthrop's deathbed and have taken his measure for a robe and am now going homeward to my dwelling Come up hither, Hester Thou and little Pearl said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale ye have both been here before but I was not with you Come up hither once again and we will stand all three together She silently ascended the steps and stood on the platform holding little Pearl by the hand the minister felt for the child's other hand and took it the moment that he did so there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own pouring like a torrent into his heart and hurrying through all his veins as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his half torpid system the three formed an electric chain Minister whispered little Pearl What would thou say, child? asked Mr. Dimmesdale Wilt thou stand here with my mother and me, tomorrow noontide? inquired Pearl Nay, not so, my little Pearl answered the minister for with the new energy of the moment all the dread of public exposure that had so long been the anguish of his life had returned upon him and he was already trembling at the conjunction in which with the strange joy nevertheless he now found himself not so, my child I shall indeed stand with thy mother and thee one other day but not tomorrow Pearl laughed and attempted to pull away her hand but the minister held it fast a moment longer, my child said he but wilt thou promise? asked Pearl to take my hand and mother's hand, tomorrow noontide not then Pearl said the minister but another time and what other time persisted the child at the great judgment day whispered the minister and strangely enough the sense that he was a professional teacher of the truth impelled him to answer the child so then and there before the judgment seat mother and thou and I must stand together but the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting Pearl laughed again but before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky it was doubtless caused by one of those meteors which the night watcher may so often observe burning out to waste in the vacant regions of the atmosphere so powerful was its radiance that it thoroughly illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth the great vault brightened like the dome of an immense lamp it showed the familiar scene of the street with the distinctness of midday but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light the wooden houses with their jutting stories and quaint gable peaks the doorsteps and thresholds with the early grass springing up about them the garden plots black with freshly turned earth the wheel-track, little worn and even in the marketplace margined with green on either side all were visible but with a singularity of aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things of this world than they had ever borne before and there stood the minister with his hand over his heart and Hester Prynne with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom and little Pearl herself a symbol and the connecting link between those two they stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendour as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another there was witchcraft in little Pearl's eyes and her face as she glanced upward the minister wore that naughty smile which made its expression frequently so elvish she withdrew her hand from Mr Dimmesdale's and pointed across the street but he clasped both his hands over his breast and cast his eyes towards the zenith nothing was more common in those days than to interpret all meteoric appearances and other natural phenomena that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon there's so many revelations from a supernatural source thus a blazing spear a sword of flame a bow or a sheaf of arrows seen in the midnight sky prefigured Indian warfare pestilence was known to have been foreboded by a shower of crimson light we doubt whether any marked event for good or evil ever befell New England from its settlement down to revolutionary times of which the inhabitants had not been previously warned by some spectacle of its nature not seldom it had been seen by multitudes oftener however its credibility rested on the faith of some lonely eyewitness who beheld the wonder through the coloured magnifying and distorted medium of his imagination and shaped it more distinctly in his afterthought it was indeed a majestic idea that the destiny of nations should be revealed in these awful hieroglyphics on the cope of heaven a scroll so wide might not be deemed too expensive for providence to write a people's doom upon the belief was a favourite one with our forefathers as betokening that their infant commonwealth was under a celestial guardianship of peculiar intimacy and strictness but what shall we say when an individual discovers a revelation addressed to himself alone on the same vast sheet of record in such a case it could only be the symptom of a highly disordered mental state when a man rendered morbidly self-contemplative by long intense and secret pain had extended his egotism over the whole expanse of nature until the firmament itself should appear no more than a fitting page for his soul's history and fate we impute it therefore solely to the disease in his own eye and heart that the minister looking upward to the zenith beheld there the appearance of an immense letter the letter A marked out in lines of dull red light not but the meteor may have shown itself at that point burning duskily through a veil of cloud but with no such shape as his guilty imagination gave it or at least with so little definiteness that another's guilt might have seen another symbol in it there was a singular circumstance that characterised Mr. Dimmesdale's psychological state at this moment all the time that he gazed upward to the zenith he was nevertheless perfectly aware that little pearl was hinting her finger towards old Roger Chillingworth who stood at no great distance from the scaffold the minister appeared to see him with the same glance that discerned the miraculous letter to his feature as to all other objects the meteoric light imparted a new expression or it might well be that the physician was not careful then as at all other times to hide the malevolence with which he looked upon his victim certainly if the meteor kindled up the sky and disclosed the earth with an awfulness that admonished Hester Prynne and the clergyman of the day of judgement then might Roger Chillingworth have passed with them for the archfiend standing there with a smile and a scowl to claim his own so vivid was the expression or so intense the minister's perception of it that it seemed still to remain painted on the darkness after the meteor had vanished with an effect as if the street and all things else were at once annihilated who is that man Hester gasped Mr Dimmesdale overcome with terror I shiver at him does thou know the man I hate him Hester she remembered her oath and was silent I tell thee my soul shivers at him muttered the minister again who is he, who is he canst thou do nothing for me I have a nameless horror of the man minister said little Pearl, I can tell thee who he is quickly then child said the minister bending his ear close to her lips quickly and as low as thou canst whisper Pearl mumbled something into his ear that sounded indeed like human language but was only such gibberish as children may be heard amusing themselves with by the hour together at all events if it involved any secret information in regard to old Roger Chenningworth it was in a tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman and did but increase the bewilderment of his mind the elvish child then laughed aloud does thou mock me now said the minister thou wasst not bold thou wasst not true answered the child thou wouldst not promise to take my hand for a new tide worthy sir answered the physician who had now advanced to the foot of the platform pious master dimsdale can this be you well indeed we men of study whose heads are in our books have need to be straightly looked after we dream in our waking moments and walk in our sleep come good sir and my dear friend I pray you let me lead you home how newest thou that I was here asked the minister fearfully barely and in good faith answered Roger Chenningworth I knew nothing of the matter I had spent the better part of the night at the bedside of the worshipful Governor Winthrop doing what my poor skill might to give him ease he going home to a better world I likewise was on my way homeward when this light shone out come with me I beseech you and sir else you will be poorly able to do Sabbath duty tomorrow aha see now how they trouble the brain these books these books you should study less good sir and take a little pastime or these night whimsies will grow upon you I will go home with you said Mr. Dimmesdale with a chill despondency like one awakening all nervous from an ugly dream he yielded himself to the physician and was led away the next day however being the Sabbath he preached a discourse which was held to be the richest and most powerful and the most replete with heavenly influences that had ever proceeded from his lips souls it is said more souls than one were brought to the truth by the efficacy of that sermon and vowed within themselves to cherish a holy gratitude to Mr. Dimmesdale throughout the long hereafter but as he came down the pulpit steps the gray-bearded sexton met him holding up a black glove which the minister recognized as his own it was found said the sexton this morning on the scaffold where evil doers are set to public shame Satan dropped it there I take it intending a scurrilous jest against your reverence but indeed he was blind foolish as he ever and always is a pure hand needs no glove to cover it thank you my good friend said the minister gravely but startled at heart for so confused was his remembrance that he had almost brought himself to look at the events of the past night as visionary yes it seems to me my glove indeed and since Satan saw fit to steal it your reverence must needs handle him your gloves henceforward remarked the old sexton grimly smiling but did your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last night a great red letter in the sky the letter A which we interpret to stand for angel for as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night it was doubtless held fit that there should be some notice thereof no answered the minister I had not heard of it and of chapter 12