Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dream Adio Books presents section seven of The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Chapter four, the interview. 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
(00:21):
frenzied mischief to the poor babe. As Knight 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
(00:41):
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 child, who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom,
seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil,
(01:03):
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
(01:23):
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 offense,
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
(01:45):
Roger Chillingworth. The jailer, after ushering him into the room,
remained a moment marveling 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, Jaila,
(02:08):
you shall briefly have peace in your house. And I
promise you, Mistress Pryne 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
(02:31):
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 demeanor
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
(02:52):
between himself and her. His first care was given to
the child, whose cries, indeed, as she lay writhing on
the trunk, 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 she took from beneath his dress. It appeared to
(03:14):
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 yours, she
(03:36):
is none of mine. Neither will she recognize my voice
or aspect as a father's ad minister this draft. 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
(03:58):
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 child,
yea mine own as well as thine, I could do
no better for it. As she still hesitated, being in
(04:19):
fact in no reasonable state of mind, he took the
infant in his arms and himself administered the draft. 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
(04:42):
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 intense scrutiny. He felt her pulse,
looked into her eyes a gaze that made her heart
shrink and shudder because so familiar and yet so strange
(05:03):
and cold, and finally, satisfied with his investigation, proceeded to
mingle another draft. I know not lethan on a penthee,
remarked he, but I have learned many new secrets in
the wilderness, and here is one of them, a recipe
that an Indian taught me in requital of some lessons
(05:24):
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,
(05:44):
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 thought of death,
said she have wished for it, would even have prayed
(06:05):
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 quiffit.
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? And my purpose is
(06:27):
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 live? Than to give THEE
medicine against all harm and peril of life, so that
this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom. As
he spoke, he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter,
(06:48):
which forthwith seemed to scorch into Hester's breast, as if
it had been read hot. He noticed her involuntary gesture
and smiled, live therefore, and bear about thy doom with
THEE in the eyes of men and women, in the
eyes of him whom thou didst call thy husband, in
the eyes of yonder child, And that thou mayest live,
(07:11):
take off this draft without further epostulation 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.
(07:31):
She could not but tremble at these preparations, for she
felt that, having now done all that humanity or principle,
or if it so were, a refined cruelty, impelled him
to do for the relief of physical suffering, he was
next to treat with her as the man whom she
had most deeply and irreparably injured. Hester said he I
(07:56):
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.
I a man of thought, the bookworm of great libraries,
(08:16):
a man already in decay, having given my best years
to feed the hungry dream of knowledge. What had I
to do with the 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
(08:38):
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
(09:01):
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 Hester, For depressed as she was,
she could not endure this last quiet stab at the
token of her shame. Thou knowest that I was frank
(09:24):
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 wild had been so cheerless. My
heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but
(09:45):
lonely and chill, and without a household, fire I longed
to kindle one. It seemed not so wild a dream,
old as I was, and somber as I was, and
misshapen as I was, that the simple bl liss, which
is scattered far and wide for all mankind to gather up,
might yet be mine. And so Hester, I drew THEE
(10:09):
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
(10:30):
relation with my decay. Therefore, as a man who has
not thought and philosophized 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,
(10:53):
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
(11:16):
sphere of thought. Few things hidden from the man who
devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery.
Thou mayst cover up thy secret from the prying multitude.
Thou mayst 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
(11:38):
a partner on thy pedestal. But as for me, I
come to THEE 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
(12:00):
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 hands over her heart,
dreading lest he should read the secret. There at once,
thou wilt not reveal his name, not the less he
(12:22):
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,
(12:44):
betray him to the gripe of human law. Neither do
thou imagine that I shall contrive what 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 honor. If he may not, the less,
he shall be mine. Thy acts alike mercy, said Hester,
(13:09):
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
(13:31):
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
(13:54):
whether of love or hate, no matter whether of right
or wrong. Thou and thine has Pyne 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
(14:16):
announce thyself openly and cast me off at once? It
may be, he replied, because I will not encounter the
dishonor 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
(14:37):
to the world as one already dead, and of whom
no tidings shall ever come. Recognize 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
(14:59):
be in my hand. 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.
(15:19):
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
(15:42):
haunts the forest round 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.
End of Section seven Dream Audiobooks. Hopes you have enjoyed
(16:02):
this program.
Dream Adio Books presents section seven of The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Chapter four, the interview. 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
(00:21):
frenzied mischief to the poor babe. As Knight 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
(00:41):
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 child, who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom,
seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil,
(01:03):
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
(01:23):
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 offense,
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
(01:45):
Roger Chillingworth. The jailer, after ushering him into the room,
remained a moment marveling 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, Jaila,
(02:08):
you shall briefly have peace in your house. And I
promise you, Mistress Pryne 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
(02:31):
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 demeanor
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
(02:52):
between himself and her. His first care was given to
the child, whose cries, indeed, as she lay writhing on
the trunk, 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 she took from beneath his dress. It appeared to
(03:14):
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 yours, she
(03:36):
is none of mine. Neither will she recognize my voice
or aspect as a father's ad minister this draft. 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
(03:58):
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 child,
yea mine own as well as thine, I could do
no better for it. As she still hesitated, being in
(04:19):
fact in no reasonable state of mind, he took the
infant in his arms and himself administered the draft. 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
(04:42):
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 intense scrutiny. He felt her pulse,
looked into her eyes a gaze that made her heart
shrink and shudder because so familiar and yet so strange
(05:03):
and cold, and finally, satisfied with his investigation, proceeded to
mingle another draft. I know not lethan on a penthee,
remarked he, but I have learned many new secrets in
the wilderness, and here is one of them, a recipe
that an Indian taught me in requital of some lessons
(05:24):
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,
(05:44):
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 thought of death,
said she have wished for it, would even have prayed
(06:05):
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 quiffit.
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? And my purpose is
(06:27):
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 live? Than to give THEE
medicine against all harm and peril of life, so that
this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom. As
he spoke, he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter,
(06:48):
which forthwith seemed to scorch into Hester's breast, as if
it had been read hot. He noticed her involuntary gesture
and smiled, live therefore, and bear about thy doom with
THEE in the eyes of men and women, in the
eyes of him whom thou didst call thy husband, in
the eyes of yonder child, And that thou mayest live,
(07:11):
take off this draft without further epostulation 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.
(07:31):
She could not but tremble at these preparations, for she
felt that, having now done all that humanity or principle,
or if it so were, a refined cruelty, impelled him
to do for the relief of physical suffering, he was
next to treat with her as the man whom she
had most deeply and irreparably injured. Hester said he I
(07:56):
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.
I a man of thought, the bookworm of great libraries,
(08:16):
a man already in decay, having given my best years
to feed the hungry dream of knowledge. What had I
to do with the 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
(08:38):
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
(09:01):
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 Hester, For depressed as she was,
she could not endure this last quiet stab at the
token of her shame. Thou knowest that I was frank
(09:24):
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 wild had been so cheerless. My
heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but
(09:45):
lonely and chill, and without a household, fire I longed
to kindle one. It seemed not so wild a dream,
old as I was, and somber as I was, and
misshapen as I was, that the simple bl liss, which
is scattered far and wide for all mankind to gather up,
might yet be mine. And so Hester, I drew THEE
(10:09):
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
(10:30):
relation with my decay. Therefore, as a man who has
not thought and philosophized 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,
(10:53):
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
(11:16):
sphere of thought. Few things hidden from the man who
devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery.
Thou mayst cover up thy secret from the prying multitude.
Thou mayst 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
(11:38):
a partner on thy pedestal. But as for me, I
come to THEE 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
(12:00):
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 hands over her heart,
dreading lest he should read the secret. There at once,
thou wilt not reveal his name, not the less he
(12:22):
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,
(12:44):
betray him to the gripe of human law. Neither do
thou imagine that I shall contrive what 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 honor. If he may not, the less,
he shall be mine. Thy acts alike mercy, said Hester,
(13:09):
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
(13:31):
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
(13:54):
whether of love or hate, no matter whether of right
or wrong. Thou and thine has Pyne 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
(14:16):
announce thyself openly and cast me off at once? It
may be, he replied, because I will not encounter the
dishonor 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
(14:37):
to the world as one already dead, and of whom
no tidings shall ever come. Recognize 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
(14:59):
be in my hand. 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.
(15:19):
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
(15:42):
haunts the forest round 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.
End of Section seven Dream Audiobooks. Hopes you have enjoyed
(16:02):
this program.
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