C 20
As the minister departed, in advance of Hester Prynne and little
Pearl, he threw a backward glance, half expecting that he should
discover only some faintly traced features or outline of the mother
and the child, slowly fading into the twilight of the woods. So great a
vicissitude in his life could not at once be received as real. But there
was Hester, clad in her gray robe, still standing beside the tree-trunk,
which some blast had overthrown a long antiquity ago, and which
time had ever since been covering with moss, so that these two
fated ones, with earth’s heaviest burden on them, might there sit
down together, and find a single hour’s rest and solace. And there
was Pearl, too, lightly dancing from the margin of the brookÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯now
that the intrusive third person was goneÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯and taking her old place by
her mother’s side. So the minister had not fallen asleep and
dreamed!
In order to free his mind from this indistinctness and duplicity of
impression, which vexed it with a strange disquietude, he recalled
and more thoroughly defined the plans which Hester and himself had
sketched for their departure. It had been determined between them
that the Old World, with its crowds and cities, offered them a more
eligible shelter and concealment than the wilds of New England or all
America, with its alternatives of an Indian wigwam, or the few
settlements of Europeans scattered thinly along the sea-board. Not
to speak of the clergyman’s health, so inadequate to sustain the
hardships of a forest life, his native gifts, his culture, and his entire
development would secure him a home only in the midst of
civilization and refinement; the higher the state the more delicately
adapted to it the man. In futherance of this choice, it so happened
that a ship lay in the harbour; one of those unquestionable cruisers,
frequent at that day, which, without being absolutely outlaws of the
deep, yet roamed over its surface with a remarkable irresponsibility
of character. This vessel had recently arrived from the Spanish Main,
and within three days’ time would sail for Bristol. Hester PrynneÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯
whose vocation, as a self-enlisted Sister of Charity, had brought her
acquainted with the captain and crewÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯could take upon herself to
secure the passage of two individuals and a child with all the secrecy
which circumstances rendered more than desirable.
The minister had inquired of Hester, with no little interest, the
precise time at which the vessel might be expected to depart. It
would probably be on the fourth day from the present. “This is most
fortunate!” he had then said to himself. Now, why the Reverend Mr.
Dimmesdale considered it so very fortunate we hesitate to reveal.
NeverthelessÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯to hold nothing back from the readerÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯it was
because, on the third day from the present, he was to preach the
Election Sermon; and, as such an occasion formed an honourable
epoch in the life of a New England Clergyman, he could not have
chanced upon a more suitable mode and time of terminating his
professional career. “At least, they shall say of me,” thought this
exemplary man, “that I leave no public duty unperformed or ill-
performed!” Sad, indeed, that an introspection so profound and
acute as this poor minister’s should be so miserably deceived! We
have had, and may still have, worse things to tell of him; but none,
we apprehend, so pitiably weak; no evidence, at once so slight and
irrefragable, of a subtle disease that had long since begun to eat into
the real substance of his character. No man, for any considerable
period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude,
without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
The excitement of Mr. Dimmesdale’s feelings as he returned from
his interview with Hester, lent him unaccustomed physical energy,
and hurried him townward at a rapid pace. The pathway among the
woods seemed wilder, more uncouth with its rude natural obstacles,
and less trodden by the foot of man, than he remembered it on his
outward journey. But he leaped across the plashy places, thrust
himself through the clinging underbush, climbed the ascent, plunged
into the hollow, and overcame, in short, all the difficulties of the track,
with an unweariable activity that astonished him. He could not but
recall how feebly, and with what frequent pauses for breath he had
toiled over the same ground, only two days before. As he drew near
the town, he took an impression of change from the series of familiar
objects that presented themselves. It seemed not yesterday, not one,
not two, but many days, or even years ago, since he had quitted
them. There, indeed, was each former trace of the street, as he
remembered it, and all the peculiarities of the houses, with the due
multitude of gable-peaks, and a weather-cock at every point where
his memory suggested one. Not the less, however, came this
importunately obtrusive sense of change. The same was true as
regarded the acquaintances whom he met, and all the well-known
shapes of human life, about the little town. They looked neither older
nor younger now; the beards of the aged were no whiter, nor could
the creeping babe of yesterday walk on his feet to-day; it was
impossible to describe in what respect they differed from the
individuals on whom he had so recently bestowed a parting glance;
and yet the minister’s deepest sense seemed to inform him of their
mutability. A similar impression struck him most remarkably a he
passed under the walls of his own church. The edifice had so very
strange, and yet so familiar an aspect, that Mr. Dimmesdale’s mind
vibrated between two ideas; either that he had seen it only in a
dream hitherto, or that he was merely dreaming about it now.
This phenomenon, in the various shapes which it assumed,
indicated no external change, but so sudden and important a change
in the spectator of the familiar scene, that the intervening space of a
single day had operated on his consciousness like the lapse of
years. The minister’s own will, and Hester’s will, and the fate that
grew between them, had wrought this transformation. It was the
same town as heretofore, but the same minister returned not from
the forest. He might have said to the friends who greeted himÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯”I am
not the man for whom you take me! I left him yonder in the forest,
withdrawn into a secret dell, by a mossy tree trunk, and near a
melancholy brook! Go, seek your minister, and see if his emaciated
figure, his thin cheek, his white, heavy, pain-wrinkled brow, be not
flung down there, like a cast-off garment!” His friends, no doubt,
would still have insisted with himÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯”Thou art thyself the man!” but the
error would have been their own, not his. Before Mr. Dimmesdale
reached home, his inner man gave him other evidences of a
revolution in the sphere of thought and feeling. In truth, nothing short
of a total change of dynasty and moral code, in that interior kingdom,
was adequate to account for the impulses now communicated to the
unfortunate and startled minister. At every step he was incited to do
some strange, wild, wicked thing or other, with a sense that it would
be at once involuntary and intentional, in spite of himself, yet growing
out of a profounder self than that which opposed the impulse. For
instance, he met one of his own deacons. The good old man
addressed him with the paternal affection and patriarchal privilege
which his venerable age, his upright and holy character, and his
station in the church, entitled him to use and, conjoined with this, the
deep, almost worshipping respect, which the minister’s professional
and private claims alike demanded. Never was there a more
beautiful example of how the majesty of age and wisdom may
comport with the obeisance and respect enjoined upon it, as from a
lower social rank, and inferior order of endowment, towards a higher.
Now, during a conversation of some two or three moments between
the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale and this excellent and hoary-bearded
deacon, it was only by the most careful self-control that the former
could refrain from uttering certain blasphemous suggestions that
rose into his mind, respecting the communion-supper. He absolutely
trembled and turned pale as ashes, lest his tongue should wag itself
in utterance of these horrible matters, and plead his own consent for
so doing, without his having fairly given it. And, even with this terror
in his heart, he could hardly avoid laughing, to imagine how the
sanctified old patriarchal deacon would have been petrified by his
minister’s impiety.
Again, another incident of the same nature. Hurrying along the
street, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale encountered the eldest female
member of his church, a most pious and exemplary old dame, poor,
widowed, lonely, and with a heart as full of reminiscences about her
dead husband and children, and her dead friends of long ago, as a
burial-ground is full of storied gravestones. Yet all this, which would
else have been such heavy sorrow, was made almost a solemn joy
to her devout old soul, by religious consolations and the truths of
Scripture, wherewith she had fed herself continually for more than
thirty years. And since Mr. Dimmesdale had taken her in charge, the
good grandam’s chief earthly comfortÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯which, unless it had been
likewise a heavenly comfort, could have been none at allÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯was to
meet her pastor, whether casually, or of set purpose, and be
refreshed with a word of warm, fragrant, heaven-breathing Gospel
truth, from his beloved lips, into her dulled, but rapturously attentive
ear. But, on this occasion, up to the moment of putting his lips to the
old woman’s ear, Mr. Dimmesdale, as the great enemy of souls
would have it, could recall no text of Scripture, nor aught else, except
a brief, pithy, and, as it then appeared to him, unanswerable
argument against the immortality of the human soul. The instilment
thereof into her mind would probably have caused this aged sister to
drop down dead, at once, as by the effect of an intensely poisonous
infusion. What he really did whisper, the minister could never
afterwards recollect. There was, perhaps, a fortunate disorder in his
utterance, which failed to impart any distinct idea to the good widows
comprehension, or which Providence interpreted after a method of
its own. Assuredly, as the minister looked back, he beheld an
expression of divine gratitude and ecstasy that seemed like the shine
of the celestial city on her face, so wrinkled and ashy pale.
Again, a third instance. After parting from the old church member,
he met the youngest sister of them all. It was a maiden newly-wonÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯
and won by the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale’s own sermon, on the
Sabbath after his vigilÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯to barter the transitory pleasures of the world
for the heavenly hope that was to assume brighter substance as life
grew dark around her, and which would gild the utter gloom with final
glory. She was fair and pure as a lily that had bloomed in Paradise.
The minister knew well that he was himself enshrined within the
stainless sanctity of her heart, which hung its snowy curtains about
his image, imparting to religion the warmth of love, and to love a
religious purity. Satan, that afternoon, had surely led the poor young
girl away from her mother’s side, and thrown her into the pathway of
this sorely tempted, orÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯shall we not rather say?Ä�ā‚¬ā€¯this lost and
desperate man. As she drew nigh, the arch-fiend whispered him to
condense into small compass, and drop into her tender bosom a
germ of evil that would be sure to blossom darkly soon, and bear
black fruit betimes. Such was his sense of power over this virgin
soul, trusting him as she did, that the minister felt potent to blight all
the field of innocence with but one wicked look, and develop all its
opposite with but a word. SoÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯with a mightier struggle than he had
yet sustainedÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯he held his Geneva cloak before his face, and
hurried onward, making no sign of recognition, and leaving the
young sister to digest his rudeness as she might. She ransacked her
conscienceÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯which was full of harmless little matters, like her pocket
or her work-bagÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯and took herself to task, poor thing! for a thousand
imaginary faults, and went about her household duties with swollen
eyelids the next morning.
Before the minister had time to celebrate his victory over this last
temptation, he was conscious of another impulse, more ludicrous,
and almost as horrible. It wasÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯we blush to tell itÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯it was to stop
short in the road, and teach some very wicked words to a knot of
little Puritan children who were playing there, and had but just begun
to talk. Denying himself this freak, as unworthy of his cloth, he met a
drunken seaman, one of the ship’s crew from the Spanish Main. And
here, since he had so valiantly forborne all other wickedness, poor
Mr. Dimmesdale longed at least to shake hands with the tarry black-
guard, and recreate himself with a few improper jests, such as
dissolute sailors so abound with, and a volley of good, round, solid,
satisfactory, and heaven-defying oaths! It was not so much a better
principle, as partly his natural good taste, and still more his
buckramed habit of clerical decorum, that carried him safely through
the latter crisis.
“What is it that haunts and tempts me thus?” cried the minister to
himself, at length, pausing in the street, and striking his hand against
his forehead.
“Am I mad? or am I given over utterly to the fiend? Did I make a
contract with him in the forest, and sign it with my blood? And does
he now summon me to its fulfilment, by suggesting the performance
of every wickedness which his most foul imagination can conceive?”
At the moment when the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale thus
communed with himself, and struck his forehead with his hand, old
Mistress Hibbins, the reputed witch-lady, is said to have been
passing by. She made a very grand appearance, having on a high
head-dress, a rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the
famous yellow starch, of which Anne Turner, her especial friend, had
taught her the secret, before this last good lady had been hanged for
Sir Thomas Overbury’s murder. Whether the witch had read the
minister’s thoughts or no, she came to a full stop, looked shrewdly
into his face, smiled craftily, andÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯though little given to converse with
clergymenÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯began a conversation.
“So, reverend sir, you have made a visit into the forest,” observed
the witch-lady, nodding her high head-dress at him. “The next time I
pray you to allow me only a fair warning, and I shall be proud to bear
you company. Without taking overmuch upon myself my good word
will go far towards gaining any strange gentleman a fair reception
from yonder potentate you wot of.”
“I profess, madam,” answered the clergyman, with a grave
obeisance, such as the lady’s rank demanded, and his own good
breeding made imperativeÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯”I profess, on my conscience and
character, that I am utterly bewildered as touching the purport of your
words! I went not into the forest to seek a potentate, neither do I, at
any future time, design a visit thither, with a view to gaining the
favour of such personage. My one sufficient object was to greet that
pious friend of mine, the Apostle Eliot, and rejoice with him over the
many precious souls he hath won from heathendom!”
“Ha, ha, ha!” cackled the old witch-lady, still nodding her high
head-dress at the minister. “Well, well! we must needs talk thus in
the daytime! You carry it off like an old hand! But at midnight, and in
the forest, we shall have other talk together!”
She passed on with her aged stateliness, but often turning back
her head and smiling at him, like one willing to recognise a secret
intimacy of connexion.
“Have I then sold myself,” thought the minister, “to the fiend whom,
if men say true, this yellow-starched and velveted old hag has
chosen for her prince and master?”
The wretched minister! He had made a bargain very like it!
Tempted by a dream of happiness, he had yielded himself with
deliberate choice, as he had never done before, to what he knew
was deadly sin. And the infectious poison of that sin had been thus
rapidly diffused throughout his moral system. It had stupefied all
blessed impulses, and awakened into vivid life the whole
brotherhood of bad ones. Scorn, bitterness, unprovoked malignity,
gratuitous desire of ill, ridicule of whatever was good and holy, all
awoke to tempt, even while they frightened him. And his encounter
with old Mistress Hibbins, if it were a real incident, did but show its
sympathy and fellowship with wicked mortals, and the world of
perverted spirits.
He had by this time reached his dwelling on the edge of the burial
ground, and, hastening up the stairs, took refuge in his study. The
minister was glad to have reached this shelter, without first betraying
himself to the world by any of those strange and wicked
eccentricities to which he had been continually impelled while
passing through the streets. He entered the accustomed room, and
looked around him on its books, its windows, its fireplace, and the
tapestried comfort of the walls, with the same perception of
strangeness that had haunted him throughout his walk from the
forest dell into the town and thitherward. Here he had studied and
written; here gone through fast and vigil, and come forth half alive;
here striven to pray; here borne a hundred thousand agonies! There
was the Bible, in its rich old Hebrew, with Moses and the Prophets
speaking to him, and God’s voice through all.
There on the table, with the inky pen beside it, was an unfinished
sermon, with a sentence broken in the midst, where his thoughts had
ceased to gush out upon the page two days before. He knew that it
was himself, the thin and white-cheeked minister, who had done and
suffered these things, and written thus far into the Election Sermon!
But he seemed to stand apart, and eye this former self with scornful
pitying, but half-envious curiosity. That self was gone. Another man
had returned out of the forestÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯a wiser oneÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯with a knowledge of
hidden mysteries which the simplicity of the former never could have
reached. A bitter kind of knowledge that!
While occupied with these reflections, a knock came at the door of
the study, and the minister said, “Come in!”Ä�ā‚¬ā€¯not wholly devoid of an
idea that he might behold an evil spirit. And so he did! It was old
Roger Chillingworth that entered. The minister stood white and
speechless, with one hand on the Hebrew Scriptures, and the other
spread upon his breast.
“Welcome home, reverend sir,” said the physician “And how found
you that godly man, the Apostle Eliot? But methinks, dear sir, you
look pale, as if the travel through the wilderness had been too sore
for you. Will not my aid be requisite to put you in heart and strength
to preach your Election Sermon?”
“Nay, I think not so,” rejoined the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. “My
journey, and the sight of the holy Apostle yonder, and the free air
which I have breathed have done me good, after so long
confinement in my study. I think to need no more of your drugs, my
kind physician, good though they be, and administered by a friendly
hand.”
All this time Roger Chillingworth was looking at the minister with
the grave and intent regard of a physician towards his patient. But, in
spite of this outward show, the latter was almost convinced of the old
man’s knowledge, or, at least, his confident suspicion, with respect to
his own interview with Hester Prynne. The physician knew then that
in the minister’s regard he was no longer a trusted friend, but his
bitterest enemy. So much being known, it would appear natural that
a part of it should he expressed. It is singular, however, how long a
time often passes before words embody things; and with what
security two persons, who choose to avoid a certain subject, may
approach its very verge, and retire without disturbing it. Thus the
minister felt no apprehension that Roger Chillingworth would touch,
in express words, upon the real position which they sustained
towards one another. Yet did the physician, in his dark way, creep
frightfully near the secret.
“Were it not better,” said he, “that you use my poor skill tonight?
Verily, dear sir, we must take pains to make you strong and vigorous
for this occasion of the Election discourse. The people look for great
things from you, apprehending that another year may come about
and find their pastor gone.”
“Yes, to another world,” replied the minister with pious resignation.
“Heaven grant it be a better one; for, in good sooth, I hardly think to
tarry with my flock through the flitting seasons of another year! But
touching your medicine, kind sir, in my present frame of body I need
it not.”
“I joy to hear it,” answered the physician. “It may be that my
remedies, so long administered in vain, begin now to take due effect.
Happy man were I, and well deserving of New England’s gratitude,
could I achieve this cure!”
“I thank you from my heart, most watchful friend,” said the
Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale with a solemn smile. “I thank you, and
can but requite your good deeds with my prayers.”
“A good man’s prayers are golden recompense!” rejoined old
Roger Chillingworth, as he took his leave. “Yea, they are the current
gold coin of the New Jerusalem, with the King’s own mint mark on
them!”
Left alone, the minister summoned a servant of the house, and
requested food, which, being set before him, he ate with ravenous
appetite. Then flinging the already written pages of the Election
Sermon into the fire, he forthwith began another, which he wrote with
such an impulsive flow of thought and emotion, that he fancied
himself inspired; and only wondered that Heaven should see fit to
transmit the grand and solemn music of its oracles through so foul
an organ pipe as he. However, leaving that mystery to solve itself, or
go unsolved for ever, he drove his task onward with earnest haste
and ecstasy.
Thus the night fled away, as if it were a winged steed, and he
careering on it; morning came, and peeped, blushing, through the
curtains; and at last sunrise threw a golden beam into the study, and
laid it right across the minister’s bedazzled eyes. There he was, with
the pen still between his fingers, and a vast, immeasurable tract of
written space behind him!
