The Scarlet Letter - Page 102/161

In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of

man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will

only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's

office. This unhappy person had effected such a transformation

by devoting himself for seven years to the constant analysis of

a heart full of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and

adding fuel to those fiery tortures which he analysed and

gloated over.

The scarlet letter burned on Hester Prynne's bosom. Here was

another ruin, the responsibility of which came partly home to

her.

"What see you in my face," asked the physician, "that you look

at it so earnestly?"

"Something that would make me weep, if there were any tears

bitter enough for it," answered she. "But let it pass! It is of

yonder miserable man that I would speak."

"And what of him?" cried Roger Chillingworth, eagerly, as if he

loved the topic, and were glad of an opportunity to discuss it

with the only person of whom he could make a confidant. "Not to

hide the truth, Mistress Hester, my thoughts happen just now to

be busy with the gentleman. So speak freely and I will make

answer."

"When we last spake together," said Hester, "now seven years

ago, it was your pleasure to extort a promise of secrecy as

touching the former relation betwixt yourself and me. As the

life and good fame of yonder man were in your hands there seemed

no choice to me, save to be silent in accordance with your

behest. Yet it was not without heavy misgivings that I thus

bound myself, for, having cast off all duty towards other human

beings, there remained a duty towards him, and something

whispered me that I was betraying it in pledging myself to keep

your counsel. Since that day no man is so near to him as you.

You tread behind his every footstep. You are beside him,

sleeping and waking. You search his thoughts. You burrow and

rankle in his heart! Your clutch is on his life, and you cause

him to die daily a living death, and still he knows you not. In

permitting this I have surely acted a false part by the only man

to whom the power was left me to be true!"

"What choice had you?" asked Roger Chillingworth. "My finger,

pointed at this man, would have hurled him from his pulpit into

a dungeon, thence, peradventure, to the gallows!"

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

"What evil have I done the man?" asked Roger Chillingworth

again. "I tell thee, Hester Prynne, the richest fee that ever

physician earned from monarch could not have bought such care as

I have wasted on this miserable priest! But for my aid his life

would have burned away in torments within the first two years

after the perpetration of his crime and thine. For, Hester, his

spirit lacked the strength that could have borne up, as thine

has, beneath a burden like thy scarlet letter. Oh, I could

reveal a goodly secret! But enough. What art can do, I have

exhausted on him. That he now breathes and creeps about on earth

is owing all to me!"