THE SCARLET LETTER: CHAPTER 10

作者: Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

OLD Roger Chillingworth, throughout life, had been calm in temperament,
    kindly, though not of warm affections, but ever, and in     FACE="Arial"> 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 gripe, and never set him free
    again, until he had done 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 hill-side, 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 FACE="Arial"> deem him- all spiritual as he seems- hath inherited a strong animal FACE="Arial"> nature from his father or his mother. Let us dig a little farther in FACE="Arial"> the direction of this vein!"

Then, after 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 invaluable 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 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, would be 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, there the physician sat; his kind, watchful,
    sympathising, but never intrusive friend.

Yet Mr. Dimmesdale would perhaps have seen this individual's character
    more perfectly, if a 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     FACE="Arial"> of unsightly plants.

"Where," asked he, with a look askance at them- for it was the     FACE="Arial"> clergyman's peculiarity that he seldom, nowadays, looked     FACE="Arial"> 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 in the graveyard here at hand," answered the physician,     FACE="Arial"> continuing his employment. "They are new to me. I found them
    growing on a grave, which bore no tombstone, nor 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."

"Perchance," said Mr. Dimmesdale, "he earnestly desired it, but FACE="Arial"> could not."

"And wherefore?" rejoined the physician. "Wherefore not; since all     FACE="Arial"> 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 unspoken crime?"

"That, good sir, is but a fantasy of yours," replied the minister."There
    can be, if I forebode aright, no power, short of the Divine mercy,
    to disclose, whether by uttered words, or by type or emblem, the
    secrets that may be buried with a 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 conceive, 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 them here?" asked Roger Chillingworth, glancing FACE="Arial"> quietly aside at the minister. "Why should not the guilty ones FACE="Arial"> sooner avail themselves of this unutterable solace?"

"They mostly do," said the clergyman, griping hard at his breast, as     FACE="Arial"> if afflicted with an importunate throb of pain. "Many, many a
    poor soul hath 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 long stifling with his own polluted
    breath. How can it be otherwise? Why should a wretched man,
    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     FACE="Arial"> suggest more obvious reasons, it may be that they are kept silent by     FACE="Arial"> the very constitution of their nature. Or- can we not suppose it?-     FACE="Arial"> 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, thenceforward, 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, looking 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     FACE="Arial"> somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture with     FACE="Arial"> his forefinger. "They fear to take up the shame that rightfully     FACE="Arial"> belongs to them. Their love for man, their zeal for God's service-     FACE="Arial"> these holy impulses may or may not coexist in their hearts with the     FACE="Arial"> evil inmates to which their guilt has unbarred the door, and which     FACE="Arial"> 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     FACE="Arial"> constraining them to penitential self-abasement!
    Wouldst thou have me to believe, O 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
    waiving 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 sooth, he deems me to have profited
    by his kindly care of this weak frame of mine?"

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
    summer-time- 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     FACE="Arial"> Johnson himself- she began to dance upon it. In reply to her     FACE="Arial"> mother's command and entreaty that she would behave more decorously,     FACE="Arial"> little Pearl paused to gather the prickly burrs from a tall burdock     FACE="Arial"> which grew beside the tomb. Taking a handful of these, she arranged     FACE="Arial"> 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 Chillingworth had by this time approached the window, and smiled
grimly down.

"There is no law, nor reverence for authority, no regard for human     FACE="Arial"> ordinances or opinions, right or wrong, mixed up with that child's     FACE="Arial"> composition," remarked her, as much to himself as to his
    companion. "I saw her, the other day, bespatter the
    Governor himself with water, at the cattle-trough in Spring
    Lane. What, in Heaven's name, is she? Is the imp altogether
    evil? Hath she affections? Hath she any discoverable principle
    of being?"

"None- save the freedom of a broken law," answered Mr. Dimmesdale, FACE="Arial"> 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 burrs at the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The sensitive
    clergyman shrunk, 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, regarded 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,     FACE="Arial"> "who, be her demerits what they may, hath none of that mystery
    of hidden sinfulness which you deem so grievous to be borne. Is
    Hester Prynne the less miserable, think you, for that scarlet
    letter on her breast?"

"I do verily believe it," answered the clergyman. "Nevertheless, I FACE="Arial"> cannot answer for her. There was a look of pain in her face, which I FACE="Arial"> would gladly have been spared the sight of. But still, methinks, it FACE="Arial"> must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, FACE="Arial"> as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it all 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 agone," said he, at length, "my FACE="Arial"> judgment as touching your health."

"I did," answered the clergyman, "and would gladly learn it. Speak FACE="Arial"> frankly, I pray you, be it for life or death."

"Freely, then, and plainly," said the physician, still busy with his     FACE="Arial"> 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 dally at you, my good sir, and
    watching the tokens of your aspect, now for months gone by, I
    should deem you a man sore sick, it may be, yet not so sick but
    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, learned sir," said the pale minister, FACE="Arial"> glancing aside out of the window.

"Then, to speak more plainly," continued the physician, "and I crave FACE="Arial"> pardon, sir- should it seem to require pardon- for this needful FACE="Arial"> plainness of my speech. Let me ask, as your friend- as one having FACE="Arial"> charge, under Providence, of your life and physical well-being- hath FACE="Arial"> all the operation of this disorder been fairly laid open and
recounted to me?"

"How can you question it?" asked the minister. "Surely, it were FACE="Arial"> child's play, to call in a physician, and then hide the sore!"

"You would tell me, then, that I know all?" said Roger Chillingworth     FACE="Arial"> deliberately, and fixing an eye, bright with intense and     FACE="Arial"> 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, oftentimes, but half the evil which be 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,
    good 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 FACE="Arial"> rising from his chair. "You deal not, I take it, in medicine for
the soul!"

"Thus, a sickness," continued Roger Chillingworth going on, in an     FACE="Arial"> unaltered tone, without heeding the interruption, but standing up     FACE="Arial"> and confronting the emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his     FACE="Arial"> 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, that your physician heal the bodily evil? How may
    this be, unless you first lay open to him the wound 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     FACE="Arial"> 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 art thou,
    that meddlest 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     FACE="Arial"> to himself, looking after the minister, with a grave smile.
    "There is nothing lost. We shall be friends again anon. But
    see, now, how passion takes hold upon this man, and hurrieth him
    out of himself! As with one passion, so with another! He hath
    done a wild thing ere 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 heretofore. The
    young clergyman, after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that
    the disorder of 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 marvelled, 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 the amplest 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 Chillingworth
    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, at the close of a
    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 FACE="Arial"> strange sympathy betwixt soul and body! Were it only for the art's FACE="Arial"> sake, I must search this matter to the bottom!"

It came to pass, not long after the scene above recorded, that the Reverend
    Mr. Dimmesdale, at noon-day, and entirely unawares, fell into a
    deep, deep slumber, sitting in his chair, with a large black-letter
    volume open 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, inasmuch
    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 unwonted remoteness, however, had his spirit now withdrawn
    into itself, that he stirred not in his chair, when old Roger
    Chillingworth, 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 horror! 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 Chillingworth,
    at that moment of his ecstasy, he would have had no need to ask
    how Satan comports himself, when a 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!

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