Nathaniel Hawthorne/Nathaniel Hawthorne.iso/pc/articles/a1/t0011

Text File | 1998-01-06 | 21.9 KB | 321 lines

                                                          IX                                                   133
                                                   The Leech

UNDER the appellation of Roger Chillingworth, the reader will remember,
was hidden another name, which its former wearer had resolved should
never more be spoken. It has been related, how, in the crowd that witnessed
Hester Prynne's ignominious exposure, stood a man, elderly, travel-worn,
who, just emerging from the perilous wilderness, beheld the woman, in
whom he hoped to find embodied the warmth and cheerfulness of home, set
up as a type of sin before the people. Her matronly fame was trodden under
all men's feet. Infamy was babbling around her in the public market-place.
For her kindred, should the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions
of her unspotted life, there remained nothing but the contagion of her
dishonor; which would not fail to be distributed in strict accordance and
proportion with the intimacy, and sacredness of their previous relationship.
Then why--since the choice was with himself--should the individual, whose
connection with the fallen woman had been the most intimate and sacred of
them all, come forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so little
desirable? He resolved not to be pilloried beside her on her pedestal of
shame. Unknown to all but Hester Prynne, and possessing the lock and key
of her silence, he chose to withdraw his name from the roll of mankind,
and, as regarded in his former ties and interests, to vanish out of life as
completely as if he indeed lay at the bottom of the ocean, whither rumor had
long ago consigned him. This purpose once effected, new interests would
immediately spring up, and likewise a new purpose; dark, it is true, if not
guilty, but of force enough to engage the full strength of his faculties.
                          The Scarlet Letter -- IX. The Leech                       134

     In pursuance of this resolve, he took up his residence in the Puritan
town, as Roger Chillingworth, without other introduction than the learning
and intelligence of which he possessed more than a common measure. As
his studies, at a previous period of his life, had made him extensively
acquainted with the medical science of the day, it was as a physician that he
presented himself, and as such was cordially received. Skillful men, of the
medical and chirurgical profession, were of rare occurrence in the colony.
They seldom, it would appear, partook of the religious zeal that brought
other emigrants across the Atlantic. In their researches into the human
frame, it may be that the higher and more subtile faculties of such men were
materialized, and that they lost the spiritual view of existence amid the
intricacies of that wondrous mechanism, which seemed to involve art
enough to comprise all of life within itself. At all events, the health of the
good town of Boston, so far as medicine had aught to do with it, had
hitherto lain in the guardianship of an aged deacon and apothecary, whose
piety and godly deportment were stronger testimonials in his favor, than any
that he could have produced in the shape of a diploma. The only surgeon
was one who combined the occasional exercise of that noble art with the
daily and habitual flourish of a razor. To such a professional body Roger
Chillingworth was a brilliant acquisition. He soon manifested his familiarity
with the ponderous and imposing machinery of antique physic; in which
every remedy contained a multitude of far-fetched and heterogeneous
ingredients, as elaborately compounded as if the proposed result had been
the Elixir of Life. In his Indian captivity, moreover, he had gained much
                          The Scarlet Letter -- IX. The Leech                       135

knowledge of the properties of native herbs and roots; nor did he conceal
from his patients, that these simple medicines, Nature's boon to the
untutored savage, had quite as large a share of his own confidence as the
European pharmacopœia, which so many learned doctors had spent
centuries in elaborating.
     This learned stranger was exemplary, as regarded at least the outward
forms of a religious life, and, early after his rival, had chosen for his
spiritual guide the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The young divine, whose
scholar-like renown still lived in Oxford, was considered by his more
fervent admirers as little less than a heaven-ordained apostle, destined,
should he live and labor for the ordinary term of life, to do as great deeds
for the now feeble New England Church, as the early Fathers had achieved
for the infancy of the Christian faith. About this period, however, the health
of Mr. Dimmesdale had evidently begun to fail. By those best acquainted
with his habits, the paleness of the young minister's cheek was accounted
for by his too earnest devotion to study, his scrupulous fulfilment of
parochial duty, and, more than all, by the fasts and vigils of which he made
a frequent practice, in order to keep the grossness of this earthly state from
clogging and obscuring his spiritual lamp. Some declared, that, if Mr.
Dimmesdale were really going to die, it was cause enough, that the world
was not worthy to be any longer trodden by his feet. He himself, on the
other hand, with characteristic humility, avowed his belief, that, if
Providence should see fit to remove him, it would be because of his own
unworthiness to perform its humblest mission here on earth. With all this
                          The Scarlet Letter -- IX. The Leech                       136

difference of opinion as to the cause of his decline, there could be no
question of the fact. His form grew emaciated; his voice, though still rich
and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often
observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over
his heart, with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain.
     Such was the young clergyman's condition, and so imminent the
prospect that his dawning light would be extinguished, all untimely, when
Roger Chillingworth made his advent to the town. His first entry on the
scene, few people could tell whence, dropping down, as it were, out of the
sky, or starting from the nether earth, had an aspect of mystery, which was
easily heightened to the miraculous. He was now known to be man of skill;
it was observed that he gathered herbs, and the blossoms of wild-flowers,
and dug up roots and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees, like one
acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes. He
was heard to speak of Sir Kenelm Digby, and other famous men,--whose
scientific attainments were esteemed hardly less than supernatural,--as
having been his correspondents or associates. Why, with such rank in the
learned world, had he come hither? What could he, whose sphere was in
great cities, be seeking in the wilderness? In answer to this query, a rumor
gained ground,--and, however absurd, was entertained by some very
sensible people,--that Heaven had wrought an absolute miracle, by
transporting an eminent Doctor of Physic, from a German university, bodily
through the air, and setting him down at the door of Mr. Dimmesdale's
study! Individuals of wiser faith, indeed, who knew that Heaven promotes
                          The Scarlet Letter -- IX. The Leech                       137

its purposes without aiming at the stage-effect of what is called miraculous
interposition, were inclined to see a providential hand in Roger
Chillingworth's so opportune arrival.
     This idea was countenanced by the strong interest which the physician
ever manifested in the young clergyman; he attached himself to him as a
parishioner, and sought to win a friendly regard and confidence from his
naturally reserved sensibility. He expressed great alarm at his pastor's state
of health, but was anxious to attempt the cure, and, if early undertaken,
seemed not despondent of a favorable result. The elders, the deacons, the
motherly dames, and the young and fair maidens, of Mr. Dimmesdale's
flock, were alike importunate that he should make trial of the physician's
frankly offered skill. Mr. Dimmesdale gently repelled their entreaties. "I
need no medicine," said he.
     But how could the young minister say so, when, with every successive
Sabbath, his cheek was paler and thinner, and his voice more tremulous
than before,--when it had now become a constant habit, rather than a casual
gesture, to press his hand over his heart? Was he weary of his labors? Did
he wish to die? These questions were solemnly propounded to Mr.
Dimmesdale by the elder ministers of Boston and the deacons of his church,
who, to use their own phrase, "dealt with him" on the sin of rejecting the
aid which Providence so manifestly held out. He listened in silence, and
finally promised to confer with the physician.
     "Were it God's will," said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, when, in
fulfilment of this pledge, he requested old Roger Chillingworth's
                          The Scarlet Letter -- IX. The Leech                       138

professional advice, "I could be well content, that my labors, and my
sorrows, and my sins, and my pains, should shortly end with me, and what
is earthly of them be buried in my grave, and the spiritual go with me to my
eternal state, rather than that you should put your skill to the proof in my
behalf."
     "Ah," replied Roger Chillingworth, with that quietness which, whether
imposed or natural, marked all his deportment, "it is thus that a young
clergyman is apt to speak. Youthful men, not having taken a deep root, give
up their hold of life so easily! And saintly men, who walk with God on
earth, would fain be away, to walk with him on the golden pavements of the
New Jerusalem."
     "Nay," rejoined the young minister, putting his hand to his heart, with a
flush of pain flitting over his brow, "were I worthier to walk there, I could
be better content to toil here."
     "Good men ever interpret themselves too meanly," said the physician.
     In this manner, the mysterious old Roger Chillingworth became the
medical adviser of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. As not only the disease
interested the physician, but he was strongly moved to look into the
character and qualities of the patient, these two men, so different in age,
came gradually to spend much time together. For the sake of the minister's
health, and to enable the leech to gather plants with healing balm in them,
they took long walks on the sea-shore, or in the forest; mingling various
talk with the plash and murmur of the waves, and the solemn wind-anthem
among the treetops. Often, likewise, one was the guest of the other, in his
                          The Scarlet Letter -- IX. The Leech                       139

place of study and retirement. There was a fascination for the minister in the
company of the man of science, in whom he recognized an intellectual
cultivation of no moderate depth or scope; together with a range and
freedom of ideas, that he would have vainly looked for among the members
of his own profession. In truth, he was startled, if not shocked, to find this
attribute in the physician. Mr. Dimmesdale was a true priest, a true
religionist, with the reverential sentiment largely developed, and an order of
mind that impelled itself powerfully along the track of a creed, and wore its
passage continually deeper with the lapse of time. In no state of society
would he have been what is called a man of liberal views; it would always
be essential to his peace to feel the pressure of a faith about him,
supporting, while it confined him within its iron framework. Not the less,
however, though with a tremulous enjoyment, did he feel the occasional
relief of looking at the universe through the medium of another kind of
intellect than those with which he habitually held converse. It was as if a
window were thrown open, admitting a freer atmosphere into the close and
stifled study, where his life was wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or
obstructed day-beams, and the musty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that
exhales from books. But the air was too fresh and chill to be long breathed,
with comfort. So the minister, and the physician with him, withdrew again
within the limits of what their church defined as orthodox.
     Thus Roger Chillingworth scrutinized his patient carefully, both as he
saw him in his ordinary life, keeping an accustomed pathway in the range of
thoughts familiar to him, and as he appeared when thrown amidst other
                          The Scarlet Letter -- IX. The Leech                       140

moral scenery, the novelty of which might call out something new to the
surface of his character. He deemed it essential, it would seem, to know the
man, before attempting to do him good. Wherever there is a heart and an
intellect, the diseases of the physical frame are tinged with the peculiarities
of these. In Arthur Dimmesdale, thought and imagination were so active,
and sensibility so intense, that the bodily infirmity would be likely to have
its groundwork there. So Roger Chillingworth--the man of skill, the kind
and friendly physician--strove to go deep into his patient’s bosom, delving
among his principles, prying into his recollections, and probing every thing
with a cautious touch, like a treasure-seeker in a dark cavern. Few secrets
can escape an investigator, who has opportunity and license to undertake
such a quest, and skill to follow it up. A man burdened with a secret should
especially avoid the intimacy of his physician. If the latter possess native
sagacity, and a nameless something more,--let us call it intuition; if he show
no intrusive egotism, nor disagreeably prominent characteristics of his own;
if he have the power, which must be born with him, to bring his mind into
such affinity with his patient's, that this last shall unawares have spoken
what he imagines himself only to have thought; if such revelations be
received without tumult, and acknowledged not so often by an uttered
sympathy, as by silence, an inarticulate breath, and here and there a word,
to indicate that all is understood; if, to these qualifications of a confidant be
joined the advantages afforded by his recognized character as a physician;--
then, at some inevitable moment, will the soul of the sufferer be dissolved,
and flow forth in a dark, but transparent stream, bringing all its mysteries
                          The Scarlet Letter -- IX. The Leech                       141

into the daylight.
     Roger Chillingworth possessed all, or most, of the attributes above
enumerated. Nevertheless, time went on; a kind of intimacy, as we have
said, grew up between these two cultivated minds, which had as wide a
field as the whole sphere of human thought and study, to meet upon; they
discussed every topic of ethics and religion, of public affairs, and private
character; they talked much, on both sides, of matters that seemed personal
to themselves; and yet no secret, such as the physician fancied must exist
there, ever stole out of the minister's consciousness into his companion's
ear. The latter had his suspicions, indeed, that even the nature of Mr.
Dimmesdale's bodily disease had never fairly been revealed to him. It was a
strange reserve!
     After a time, at a hint from Roger Chillingworth, the friends of Mr.
Dimmesdale effected an arrangement by which the two were lodged in the
same house; so that every ebb and flow of the minister's life-tide might pass
under the eye of his anxious and attached physician. There was much joy
throughout the town, when this greatly desirable object was attained. It was
held to be the best possible measure for the young clergyman's welfare;
unless, indeed, as often urged by such as felt authorized to do so, he had
selected some one of the many blooming damsels, spiritually devoted to
him, to become his devoted wife. This latter step, however, there was no
present prospect that Arthur Dimmesdale would be prevailed upon to take;
he rejected all suggestions of the kind, as if priestly celibacy were one of his
articles of church-discipline. Doomed by his own choice, therefore, as Mr.
                          The Scarlet Letter -- IX. The Leech                       142

Dimmesdale so evidently was, to eat his unsavory morsel always at
another's board, and endure the life-long chill which must be his lot who
seeks to warm himself only at another's fireside, it truly seemed that this
sagacious, experienced, benevolent, old physician, with his concord of
paternal and reverential love for the young pastor, was the very man, of all
mankind, to be constantly within reach of his voice.
     The new abode of the two friends was with a pious widow, of good
social rank, who dwelt in a house covering pretty nearly the site on which
the venerable structure of King's Chapel has since been built. It had the
grave-yard, originally Isaac Johnson's home-field, on one side, and so was
well adapted to call up serious reflections, suited to their respective
employments, in both minister and man of physic. The motherly care of the
good,widow assigned to Mr. Dimmesdale a front apartment, with a sunny
exposure, and heavy window-curtains to create a noontide shadow, when
desirable. The walls were hung round with tapestry, said to be from the
Gobelin looms, and, at all events, representing the Scriptural story of
David and Bathsheba, and Nathan the Prophet, in colors still unfaded, but
which made the fair woman of the scene almost as grimly picturesque as the
woe-denouncing seer. Here, the pale clergyman piled up his library, rich
with parchment-bound folios of the Fathers, and the lore of Rabbis, and
monkish erudition, of which the Protestant divines, even while they vilified
and decried that class of writers, were yet constrained often to avail
themselves. On the other side of the house, old Roger Chillingworth
arranged his study and laboratory; not such as a modern man of science
                          The Scarlet Letter -- IX. The Leech                       143

would reckon even tolerably complete, but provided with a distilling
apparatus, and the means of compounding drugs and chemicals, which the
practised alchemist knew well how to turn to purpose. With such
commodiousness of situation, these two learned persons sat themselves
down, each in his own domain, yet familiarly passing from one apartment
to the other, and bestowing a mutual and not incurious inspection into one
another's business.
     And the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale's best discerning friends, as we
have intimated, very reasonably imagined that the hand of Providence had
done all this, for the purpose--besought in so many public, and domestic,
and secret prayers--of restoring the young minister to health. But--it must
now be said--another portion of the community had latterly begun to take its
own view of the relation betwixt Mr. Dimmesdale and the mysterious old
physician. When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is
exceedingly apt to be deceived. When, however, it forms its judgment, as it
usually does, on the intuitions of its great and warm heart, the conclusions
thus attained are often so profound and so unerring, as to possess the
character of truths supernaturally revealed. The people, in the case of which
we speak, could justify its prejudice against Roger Chillingworth by no fact
or argument worthy of serious refutation. There was an aged
handicraftsman, it is true, who had been a citizen of London at the period of
Sir Thomas Overbury's murder, now some thirty years agone; he
testified to having seen the physician, under some other name, which the
narrator of the story had now forgotten, in company with Doctor Forman,
                          The Scarlet Letter -- IX. The Leech                       144

the famous old conjurer, who was implicated in the affair of Overbury. Two
or three individuals hinted, that the man of skill, during his Indian captivity,
had enlarged his medical attainments by joining in the incantations of the
savage priests; who were universally acknowledged to be powerful
enchanters, often performing seemingly miraculous cures by their skill in
the black art. A large number--and many of these were persons of such
sober sense and practical observation, that their opinions would have been
valuable, in other matters--affirmed that Roger Chillingworth's aspect had
undergone a remarkable change while he had dwelt in town, and especially
since his abode with Mr. Dimmesdale. At first, his expression had been
calm, meditative, scholar-like. Now, there was something ugly and evil in
his face, which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the
more obvious to sight, the oftener they looked upon him. According to the
vulgar idea, the fire in his laboratory, had been brought from the lower
regions, and was fed with infernal fuel; and so, as might be expected, his
visage was getting sooty with the smoke.
     To sum up the matter, it grew to be a widely diffused opinion, that the
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other personages of especial
sanctity, in all ages of the Christian world, was haunted either by Satan
himself, or Satan's emissary, in the guise of old Roger Chillingworth. This
diabolical agent had the Divine permission, for a season, to burrow into the
clergyman's intimacy, and plot against his soul. No sensible man, it was
confessed, could doubt on which side the victory would turn. The people
looked, with an unshaken hope, to see the minister come forth out of the
                          The Scarlet Letter -- IX. The Leech                       145

conflict, transfigured with the glory which he would unquestionably win.
Meanwhile, nevertheless, it was sad to think of the perchance mortal agony
through which he must struggle towards his triumph.
     Alas, to judge from the gloom and terror in the depths of the poor
minister's eyes, the battle was a sore one, and the victory any thing but
secure!