Bab Bab 10 · THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT

. THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT

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 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 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 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 recognize 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, with a look askance at them—for it was the

clergyman’s peculiarity that he seldom, now-a-days, 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 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.”

“Perchance,” 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 phantasy of yours,” replied the minister.

“There can be, if I forbode 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 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

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 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, griping hard at his breast, as if

afflicted with an importunate throb of pain. “Many, many a poor soul

hath given its confidence to me, not only on the death-bed, 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? 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

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, 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 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 or 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 fellowmen, 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, 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 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 Chillingworth 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-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, 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 Rev. 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 ecstacy. 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, “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

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, methinks, it

must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as

this poor woman Hester is, 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 agone,” said he, at length, “my

judgment as touching your health.”

“I did,” answered the clergyman, “and would gladly learn it. Speak

frankly, I pray you, be it for life or death.”

“Freely then, and plainly,” said the physician, still 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 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, 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 operation of this disorder been fairly laid open and recounted

to me?”

“How can you question it?” asked the minister. “Surely it were 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,

deliberately, and fixing an eye, bright with intense and 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 he 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

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

unaltered tone, without heeding the interruption, but standing up and

confronting the emaciated and white-cheeked 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, 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 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 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 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 the art’s

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 noonday, 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!

XI.