C 4
After her return to the prison, Hester Prynne was found to be in a
state of nervous excitement, that demanded constant watchfulness,
lest she should perpetrate violence on herself, or do some half-
frenzied mischief to the poor babe. As night approached, it proving
impossible to quell her insubordination by rebuke or threats of
punishment, Master Brackett, the jailer, thought fit to introduce a
physician. He described him as a man of skill in all Christian modes
of physical science, and likewise familiar with whatever the savage
people could teach in respect to medicinal herbs and roots that grew
in the forest. To say the truth, there was much need of professional
assistance, not merely for Hester herself, but still more urgently for
the childÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom,
seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil, the anguish and
despair, which pervaded the mother’s system. It now writhed in
convulsions of pain, and was a forcible type, in its little frame, of the
moral agony which Hester Prynne had borne throughout the day.
Closely following the jailer into the dismal apartment, appeared
that individual, of singular aspect whose presence in the crowd had
been of such deep interest to the wearer of the scarlet letter. He was
lodged in the prison, not as suspected of any offence, but as the
most convenient and suitable mode of disposing of him, until the
magistrates should have conferred with the Indian sagamores
respecting his ransom. His name was announced as Roger
Chillingworth. The jailer, after ushering him into the room, remained
a moment, marvelling at the comparative quiet that followed his
entrance; for Hester Prynne had immediately become as still as
death, although the child continued to moan.
“Prithee, friend, leave me alone with my patient,” said the
practitioner. “Trust me, good jailer, you shall briefly have peace in
your house; and, I promise you, Mistress Prynne shall hereafter be
more amenable to just authority than you may have found her
heretofore. ”
“Nay, if your worship can accomplish that,” answered Master
Brackett, “I shall own you for a man of skill, indeed! Verily, the
woman hath been like a possessed one; and there lacks little that I
should take in hand, to drive Satan out of her with stripes. ”
The stranger had entered the room with the characteristic quietude
of the profession to which he announced himself as belonging. Nor
did his demeanour change when the withdrawal of the prison keeper
left him face to face with the woman, whose absorbed notice of him,
in the crowd, had intimated so close a relation between himself and
her. His first care was given to the child, whose cries, indeed, as she
lay writhing on the trundle-bed, made it of peremptory necessity to
postpone all other business to the task of soothing her. He examined
the infant carefully, and then proceeded to unclasp a leathern case,
which he took from beneath his dress. It appeared to contain medical
preparations, one of which he mingled with a cup of water.
“My old studies in alchemy,” observed he, “and my sojourn, for
above a year past, among a people well versed in the kindly
properties of simples, have made a better physician of me than
many that claim the medical degree. Here, woman! The child is
yoursÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯she is none of mineÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯neither will she recognise my voice or
aspect as a father’s. Administer this draught, therefore, with thine
own hand.”
Hester repelled the offered medicine, at the same time gazing with
strongly marked apprehension into his face. “Wouldst thou avenge
thyself on the innocent babe?” whispered she.
“Foolish woman!” responded the physician, half coldly, half
soothingly. “What should ail me to harm this misbegotten and
miserable babe? The medicine is potent for good, and were it my
childÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯yea, mine own, as well as thine! I could do no better for it.”
As she still hesitated, being, in fact, in no reasonable state of
mind, he took the infant in his arms, and himself administered the
draught. It soon proved its efficacy, and redeemed the leech’s
pledge. The moans of the little patient subsided; its convulsive
tossings gradually ceased; and in a few moments, as is the custom
of young children after relief from pain, it sank into a profound and
dewy slumber. The physician, as he had a fair right to be termed,
next bestowed his attention on the mother. With calm and intent
scrutiny, he felt her pulse, looked into her eyesÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯a gaze that made
her heart shrink and shudder, because so familiar, and yet so
strange and coldÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯and, finally, satisfied with his investigation,
proceeded to mingle another draught.
“I know not Lethe nor Nepenthe,” remarked he; “but I have learned
many new secrets in the wilderness, and here is one of themÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯a
recipe that an Indian taught me, in requital of some lessons of my
own, that were as old as Paracelsus. Drink it! It may be less soothing
than a sinless conscience. That I cannot give thee. But it will calm
the swell and heaving of thy passion, like oil thrown on the waves of
a tempestuous sea.”
He presented the cup to Hester, who received it with a slow,
earnest look into his face; not precisely a look of fear, yet full of
doubt and questioning as to what his purposes might be. She looked
also at her slumbering child.
“I have thought of death,” said sheÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯”have wished for itÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯would
even have prayed for it, were it fit that such as I should pray for
anything. Yet, if death be in this cup, I bid thee think again, ere thou
beholdest me quaff it. See! it is even now at my lips.”
“Drink, then,” replied he, still with the same cold composure. “Dost
thou know me so little, Hester Prynne? Are my purposes wont to be
so shallow? Even if I imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could I
do better for my object than to let thee liveÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯than to give thee
medicines against all harm and peril of lifeÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯so that this burning
shame may still blaze upon thy bosom?” As he spoke, he laid his
long fore-finger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to
scorch into Hester’s breast, as if it ad been red hot. He noticed her
involuntary gesture, and smiled. “Live, therefore, and bear about thy
doom with thee, in the eyes of men and womenÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯in the eyes of him
whom thou didst call thy husbandÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯in the eyes of yonder child! And,
that thou mayest live, take off this draught.”
Without further expostulation or delay, Hester Prynne drained the
cup, and, at the motion of the man of skill, seated herself on the bed,
where the child was sleeping; while he drew the only chair which the
room afforded, and took his own seat beside her. She could not but
tremble at these preparations; for she felt thatÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯having now done all
that humanity, or principle, or, if so it were, a refined cruelty, impelled
him to do for the relief of physical sufferingÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯he was next to treat
with her as the man whom she had most deeply and irreparably
injured.
“Hester,” said he, “I ask not wherefore, nor how thou hast fallen
into the pit, or say, rather, thou hast ascended to the pedestal of
infamy on which I found thee. The reason is not far to seek. It was
my folly, and thy weakness. IÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯a man of thoughtÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯the book-worm of
great librariesÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯a man already in decay, having given my best years
to feed the hungry dream of knowledgeÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯what had I to do with youth
and beauty like thine own? Misshapen from my birth-hour, how could
I delude myself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical
deformity in a young girl’s fantasy? Men call me wise. If sages were
ever wise in their own behoof, I might have foreseen all this. I might
have known that, as I came out of the vast and dismal forest, and
entered this settlement of Christian men, the very first object to meet
my eyes would be thyself, Hester Prynne, standing up, a statue of
ignominy, before the people. Nay, from the moment when we came
down the old church-steps together, a married pair, I might have
beheld the bale-fire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our
path!”
“Thou knowest,” said HesterÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯for, depressed as she was, she
could not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her shame
Ä�ā‚¬ā€¯”thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned
any.”
“True,” replied he. “It was my folly! I have said it. But, up to that
epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. The world had been so
cheerless! My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests,
but lonely and chill, and without a household fire. I longed to kindle
one! It seemed not so wild a dreamÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯old as I was, and sombre as I
was, and misshapen as I wasÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯that the simple bliss, which is
scattered far and wide, for all mankind to gather up, might yet be
mine. And so, Hester, I drew thee into my heart, into its innermost
chamber, and sought to warm thee by the warmth which thy
presence made there!”
“I have greatly wronged thee,” murmured Hester.
“We have wronged each other,” answered he. “Mine was the first
wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural
relation with my decay. Therefore, as a man who has not thought
and philosophised in vain, I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against
thee. Between thee and me, the scale hangs fairly balanced. But,
Hester, the man lives who has wronged us both! Who is he?”
“Ask me not?” replied Hester Prynne, looking firmly into his face.
“That thou shalt never know!”
“Never, sayest thou?” rejoined he, with a smile of dark and self-
relying intelligence. “Never know him! Believe me, Hester, there are
few things whether in the outward world, or, to a certain depth, in the
invisible sphere of thoughtÄ�ā‚¬ā€¯few things hidden from the man who
devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a
mystery. Thou mayest cover up thy secret from the prying multitude.
Thou mayest conceal it, too, from the ministers and magistrates,
even as thou didst this day, when they sought to wrench the name
out of thy heart, and give thee a partner on thy pedestal. But, as for
me, I come to the inquest with other senses than they possess. I
shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books: as I have
sought gold in alchemy. There is a sympathy that will make me
conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder,
suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine.”
The eyes of the wrinkled scholar glowed so intensely upon her,
that Hester Prynne clasped her hand over her heart, dreading lest he
should read the secret there at once.
“Thou wilt not reveal his name? Not the less he is mine,” resumed
he, with a look of confidence, as if destiny were at one with him. “He
bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou dost, but I
shall read it on his heart . Yet fear not for him! Think not that I shall
interfere with Heaven’s own method of retribution, or, to my own
loss, betray him to the gripe of human law. Neither do thou imagine
that I shall contrive aught against his life; no, nor against his fame, if
as I judge, he be a man of fair repute. Let him live! Let him hide
himself in outward honour, if he may! Not the less he shall be mine!”
“Thy acts are like mercy,” said Hester, bewildered and appalled;
“but thy words interpret thee as a terror!”
“One thing, thou that wast my wife, I would enjoin upon thee,”
continued the scholar. “Thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour.
Keep, likewise, mine! There are none in this land that know me.
Breathe not to any human soul that thou didst ever call me husband!
Here, on this wild outskirt of the earth, I shall pitch my tent; for,
elsewhere a wanderer, and isolated from human interests, I find here
a woman, a man, a child, amongst whom and myself there exist the
closest ligaments. No matter whether of love or hate: no matter
whether of right or wrong! Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to
me. My home is where thou art and where he is. But betray me not!”
“Wherefore dost thou desire it?” inquired Hester, shrinking, she
hardly knew why, from this secret bond. “Why not announce thyself
openly, and cast me off at once?”
“It may be,” he replied, “because I will not encounter the dishonour
that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman. It may be for
other reasons. Enough, it is my purpose to live and die unknown.
Let, therefore, thy husband be to the world as one already dead, and
of whom no tidings shall ever come. Recognise me not, by word, by
sign, by look! Breathe not the secret, above all, to the man thou
wottest of. Shouldst thou fail me in this, beware! His fame, his
position, his life will be in my hands. Beware!”
“I will keep thy secret, as I have his,” said Hester.
“Swear it!” rejoined he.
And she took the oath.
“And now, Mistress Prynne,” said old Roger Chillingworth, as he
was hereafter to be named, “I leave thee alone: alone with thy infant
and the scarlet letter! How is it, Hester? Doth thy sentence bind thee
to wear the token in thy sleep? Art thou not afraid of nightmares and
hideous dreams?”
“Why dost thou smile so at me?” inquired Hester, troubled at the
expression of his eyes. “Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the
forest round about us? Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will
prove the ruin of my soul?”
“Not thy soul,” he answered, with another smile. “No, not thine!”
