The Scarlet Letter

 

  XVII.

  THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER.

  Slowly as the minister walked, he had almost gone by, before HesterPrynne could gather voice enough to attract his observation. Atlength, she succeeded.

  "Arthur Dimmesdale!" she said, faintly at first; then louder, buthoarsely. "Arthur Dimmesdale!"

  "Who speaks?" answered the minister.

  Gathering himself quickly up, he stood more erect, like a man taken bysurprise in a mood to which he was reluctant to have witnesses.Throwing his eyes anxiously in the direction of the voice, heindistinctly beheld a form under the trees, clad in garments sosombre, and so little relieved from the gray twilight into which theclouded sky and the heavy foliage had darkened the noontide, that heknew not whether it were a woman or a shadow. It may be, that hispathway through life was haunted thus, by a spectre that had stolenout from among his thoughts.

  He made a step nigher, and discovered the scarlet letter.

  "Hester! Hester Prynne!" said he. "Is it thou? Art thou in life?"

  "Even so!" she answered. "In such life as has been mine these sevenyears past! And thou, Arthur Dimmesdale, dost thou yet live?"

  It was no wonder that they thus questioned one another's actual andbodily existence, and even doubted of their own. So strangely did theymeet, in the dim wood, that it was like the first encounter, in theworld beyond the grave, of two spirits who had been intimatelyconnected in their former life, but now stood coldly shuddering, inmutual dread; as not yet familiar with their state, nor wonted to thecompanionship of disembodied beings. Each a ghost, and awe-stricken atthe other ghost! They were awe-stricken likewise at themselves;because the crisis flung back to them their consciousness, andrevealed to each heart its history and experience, as life never does,except at such breathless epochs. The soul beheld its features in themirror of the passing moment. It was with fear, and tremulously, and,as it were, by a slow, reluctant necessity, that Arthur Dimmesdale putforth his hand, chill as death, and touched the chill hand of HesterPrynne. The grasp, cold as it was, took away what was dreariest in theinterview. They now felt themselves, at least, inhabitants of the samesphere.

  Without a word more spoken,--neither he nor she assuming the guidance,but with an unexpressed consent,--they glided back into the shadow ofthe woods, whence Hester had emerged, and sat down on the heap of mosswhere she and Pearl had before been sitting. When they found voice tospeak, it was, at first, only to utter remarks and inquiries such asany two acquaintance might have made, about the gloomy sky, thethreatening storm, and, next, the health of each. Thus they wentonward, not boldly, but step by step, into the themes that werebrooding deepest in their hearts. So long estranged by fate andcircumstances, they needed something slight and casual to run before,and throw open the doors of intercourse, so that their real thoughtsmight be led across the threshold.

  After a while, the minister fixed his eyes on Hester Prynne's.

  "Hester," said he, "hast thou found peace?"

  She smiled drearily, looking down upon her bosom.

  "Hast thou?" she asked.

  "None!--nothing but despair!" he answered. "What else could I lookfor, being what I am, and leading such a life as mine? Were I anatheist,--a man devoid of conscience,--a wretch with coarse and brutalinstincts,--I might have found peace, long ere now. Nay, I nevershould have lost it! But, as matters stand with my soul, whatever ofgood capacity there originally was in me, all of God's gifts that werethe choicest have become the ministers of spiritual torment. Hester, Iam most miserable!"

  "The people reverence thee," said Hester. "And surely thou workestgood among them! Doth this bring thee no comfort?"

  "More misery, Hester!--only the more misery!" answered the clergyman,with a bitter smile. "As concerns the good which I may appear to do, Ihave no faith in it. It must needs be a delusion. What can a ruinedsoul, like mine, effect towards the redemption of other souls?--or apolluted soul towards their purification? And as for the people'sreverence, would that it were turned to scorn and hatred! Canst thoudeem it, Hester, a consolation, that I must stand up in my pulpit, andmeet so many eyes turned upward to my face, as if the light of heavenwere beaming from it!--must see my flock hungry for the truth, andlistening to my words as if a tongue of Pentecost were speaking!--andthen look inward, and discern the black reality of what they idolize?I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrastbetween what I seem and what I am! And Satan laughs at it!"

  "You wrong yourself in this," said Hester, gently. "You have deeplyand sorely repented. Your sin is left behind you, in the days longpast. Your present life is not less holy, in very truth, than it seemsin people's eyes. Is there no reality in the penitence thus sealed andwitnessed by good works? And wherefore should it not bring you peace?"

  "No, Hester, no!" replied the clergyman. "There is no substance in it!It is cold and dead, and can do nothing for me! Of penance, I have hadenough! Of penitence, there has been none! Else, I should long agohave thrown off these garments of mock holiness, and have shown myselfto mankind as they will see me at the judgment-seat. Happy are you,Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mineburns in secret! Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after thetorment of a seven years' cheat, to look into an eye that recognizesme for what I am! Had I one friend,--or were it my worst enemy!--towhom, when sickened with the praises of all other men, I could dailybetake myself, and be known as the vilest of all sinners, methinks mysoul might keep itself alive thereby. Even thus much of truth wouldsave me! But, now, it is all falsehood!--all emptiness!--all death!"

  Hester Prynne looked into his face, but hesitated to speak. Yet,uttering his long-restrained emotions so vehemently as he did, hiswords here offered her the very point of circumstances in which tointerpose what she came to say. She conquered her fears, and spoke.

  "Such a friend as thou hast even now wished for," said she, "with whomto weep over thy sin, thou hast in me, the partner of it!"--Again shehesitated, but brought out the words with an effort.--"Thou hast longhad such an enemy, and dwellest with him, under the same roof!"

  The minister started to his feet, gasping for breath, and clutching athis heart, as if he would have torn it out of his bosom.

  "Ha! What sayest thou!" cried he. "An enemy! And under mine own roof!What mean you?"

  Hester Prynne was now fully sensible of the deep injury for which shewas responsible to this unhappy man, in permitting him to lie for somany years, or, indeed, for a single moment, at the mercy of one whosepurposes could not be other than malevolent. The very contiguity ofhis enemy, beneath whatever mask the latter might conceal himself, wasenough to disturb the magnetic sphere of a being so sensitive asArthur Dimmesdale. There had been a period when Hester was less aliveto this consideration; or, perhaps, in the misanthropy of her owntrouble, she left the minister to bear what she might picture toherself as a more tolerable doom. But of late, since the night of hisvigil, all her sympathies towards him had been both softened andinvigorated. She now read his heart more accurately. She doubted not,that the continual presence of Roger Chillingworth,--the secret poisonof his malignity, infecting all the air about him,--and his authorizedinterference, as a physician, with the minister's physical andspiritual infirmities,--that these bad opportunities had been turnedto a cruel purpose. By means of them, the sufferer's conscience hadbeen kept in an irritated state, the tendency of which was, not tocure by wholesome pain, but to disorganize and corrupt his spiritualbeing. Its result, on earth, could hardly fail to be insanity, andhereafter, that eternal alienation from the Good and True, of whichmadness is perhaps the earthly type.

  Such was the ruin to which she had brought the man, once,--nay, whyshould we not speak it?--still so passionately loved! Hester felt thatthe sacrifice of the clergyman's good name, and death itself, as shehad already told Roger Chillingworth, would have been infinitelypreferable to the alternative which she had taken upo
n herself tochoose. And now, rather than have had this grievous wrong to confess,she would gladly have lain down on the forest-leaves, and died there,at Arthur Dimmesdale's feet.

  "O Arthur," cried she, "forgive me! In all things else, I have strivento be true! Truth was the one virtue which I might have held fast, anddid hold fast, through all extremity; save when thy good,--thylife,--thy fame,--were put in question! Then I consented to adeception. But a lie is never good, even though death threaten on theother side! Dost thou not see what I would say? That old man!--thephysician!--he whom they call Roger Chillingworth!--he was myhusband!"

  "Wilt thou yet forgive me?"]

  The minister looked at her, for an instant, with all that violence ofpassion, which--intermixed, in more shapes than one, with his higher,purer, softer qualities--was, in fact, the portion of him which theDevil claimed, and through which he sought to win the rest. Never wasthere a blacker or a fiercer frown than Hester now encountered. Forthe brief space that it lasted, it was a dark transfiguration. But hischaracter had been so much enfeebled by suffering, that even itslower energies were incapable of more than a temporary struggle. Hesank down on the ground, and buried his face in his hands.

  "I might have known it," murmured he. "I did know it! Was not thesecret told me, in the natural recoil of my heart, at the first sightof him, and as often as I have seen him since? Why did I notunderstand? O Hester Prynne, thou little, little knowest all thehorror of this thing! And the shame!--the indelicacy!--the horribleugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eyethat would gloat over it! Woman, woman, thou art accountable for this!I cannot forgive thee!"

  "Thou shalt forgive me!" cried Hester, flinging herself on the fallenleaves beside him. "Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive!"

  With sudden and desperate tenderness, she threw her arms around him,and pressed his head against her bosom; little caring though his cheekrested on the scarlet letter. He would have released himself, butstrove in vain to do so. Hester would not set him free, lest he shouldlook her sternly in the face. All the world had frowned on her,--forseven long years had it frowned upon this lonely woman,--and still shebore it all, nor ever once turned away her firm, sad eyes. Heaven,likewise, had frowned upon her, and she had not died. But the frown ofthis pale, weak, sinful, and sorrow-stricken man was what Hester couldnot bear and live!

  "Wilt thou yet forgive me?" she repeated, over and over again. "Wiltthou not frown? Wilt thou forgive?"

  "I do forgive you, Hester," replied the minister, at length, with adeep utterance, out of an abyss of sadness, but no anger. "I freelyforgive you now. May God forgive us both! We are not, Hester, theworst sinners in the world. There is one worse than even the pollutedpriest! That old man's revenge has been blacker than my sin. He hasviolated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart. Thou and I,Hester, never did so!"

  "Never, never!" whispered she. "What we did had a consecration of itsown. We felt it so! We said so to each other! Hast thou forgotten it?"

  "Hush, Hester!" said Arthur Dimmesdale, rising from the ground. "No; Ihave not forgotten!"

  They sat down again, side by side, and hand clasped in hand, on themossy trunk of the fallen tree. Life had never brought them a gloomierhour; it was the point whither their pathway had so long been tending,and darkening ever, as it stole along;--and yet it enclosed a charmthat made them linger upon it, and claim another, and another, and,after all, another moment. The forest was obscure around them, andcreaked with a blast that was passing through it. The boughs weretossing heavily above their heads; while one solemn old tree groaneddolefully to another, as if telling the sad story of the pair that satbeneath, or constrained to forebode evil to come.

  And yet they lingered. How dreary looked the forest-track that ledbackward to the settlement, where Hester Prynne must take up again theburden of her ignominy, and the minister the hollow mockery of hisgood name! So they lingered an instant longer. No golden light hadever been so precious as the gloom of this dark forest. Here, seenonly by his eyes, the scarlet letter need not burn into the bosom ofthe fallen woman! Here, seen only by her eyes, Arthur Dimmesdale,false to God and man, might be, for one moment, true!

  He started at a thought that suddenly occurred to him.

  "Hester," cried he, "here is a new horror! Roger Chillingworth knowsyour purpose to reveal his true character. Will he continue, then, tokeep our secret? What will now be the course of his revenge?"

  "There is a strange secrecy in his nature," replied Hester,thoughtfully; "and it has grown upon him by the hidden practices ofhis revenge. I deem it not likely that he will betray the secret. Hewill doubtless seek other means of satiating his dark passion."

  "And I!--how am I to live longer, breathing the same air with thisdeadly enemy?" exclaimed Arthur Dimmesdale, shrinking within himself,and pressing his hand nervously against his heart,--a gesture that hadgrown involuntary with him.

  "Think for me, Hester! Thou art strong. Resolve for me!"

  "Thou must dwell no longer with this man," said Hester, slowly andfirmly. "Thy heart must be no longer under his evil eye!"

  "It were far worse than death!" replied the minister. "But how toavoid it? What choice remains to me? Shall I lie down again on thesewithered leaves, where I cast myself when thou didst tell me what hewas? Must I sink down there, and die at once?"

  "Alas, what a ruin has befallen thee!" said Hester, with the tearsgushing into her eyes. "Wilt thou die for very weakness? There is noother cause!"

  "The judgment of God is on me," answered the conscience-strickenpriest. "It is too mighty for me to struggle with!"

  "Heaven would show mercy," rejoined Hester, "hadst thou but thestrength to take advantage of it."

  "Be thou strong for me!" answered he. "Advise me what to do."

  "Is the world, then, so narrow?" exclaimed Hester Prynne, fixing herdeep eyes on the minister's, and instinctively exercising a magneticpower over a spirit so shattered and subdued that it could hardly holditself erect. "Doth the universe lie within the compass of yondertown, which only a little time ago was but a leaf-strewn desert, aslonely as this around us? Whither leads yonder forest-track? Backwardto the settlement, thou sayest! Yes; but onward, too. Deeper it goes,and deeper, into the wilderness, less plainly to be seen at everystep; until, some few miles hence, the yellow leaves will show novestige of the white man's tread. There thou art free! So brief ajourney would bring thee from a world where thou hast been mostwretched, to one where thou mayest still be happy! Is there not shadeenough in all this boundless forest to hide thy heart from the gaze ofRoger Chillingworth?"

  "Yes, Hester; but only under the fallen leaves!" replied the minister,with a sad smile.

  "Then there is the broad pathway of the sea!" continued Hester. "Itbrought thee hither. If thou so choose, it will bear thee back again.In our native land, whether in some remote rural village or in vastLondon,--or, surely, in Germany, in France, in pleasant Italy,--thouwouldst be beyond his power and knowledge! And what hast thou to dowith all these iron men, and their opinions? They have kept thy betterpart in bondage too long already!"

  "It cannot be!" answered the minister, listening as if he were calledupon to realize a dream. "I am powerless to go! Wretched and sinful asI am, I have had no other thought than to drag on my earthlyexistence in the sphere where Providence hath placed me. Lost as myown soul is, I would still do what I may for other human souls! I darenot quit my post, though an unfaithful sentinel, whose sure reward isdeath and dishonor, when his dreary watch shall come to an end!"

  "Thou art crushed under this seven years' weight of misery," repliedHester, fervently resolved to buoy him up with her own energy. "Butthou shalt leave it all behind thee! It shall not cumber thy steps, asthou treadest along the forest-path; neither shalt thou freight theship with it, if thou prefer to cross the sea. Leave this wreck andruin here where it hath happened. Meddle no more with it! Begin allanew! Hast thou exhausted possibility in the failure of this onetrial? Not so! The future is yet fu
ll of trial and success. There ishappiness to be enjoyed! There is good to be done! Exchange this falselife of thine for a true one. Be, if thy spirit summon thee to such amission, the teacher and apostle of the red men. Or,--as is more thynature,--be a scholar and a sage among the wisest and the mostrenowned of the cultivated world. Preach! Write! Act! Do anything,save to lie down and die! Give up this name of Arthur Dimmesdale, andmake thyself another, and a high one, such as thou canst wear withoutfear or shame. Why shouldst thou tarry so much as one other day in thetorments that have so gnawed into thy life!--that have made theefeeble to will and to do!--that will leave thee powerless even torepent! Up, and away!"

  "O Hester!" cried Arthur Dimmesdale, in whose eyes a fitful light,kindled by her enthusiasm, flashed up and died away, "thou tellest ofrunning a race to a man whose knees are tottering beneath him! I mustdie here! There is not the strength or courage left me to ventureinto the wide, strange, difficult world, alone!"

  It was the last expression of the despondency of a broken spirit. Helacked energy to grasp the better fortune that seemed within hisreach.

  He repeated the word.

  "Alone, Hester!"

  "Thou shalt not go alone!" answered she, in a deep whisper.

  Then, all was spoken!