The Scarlet Letter: A Romance - Section 20 - The Pastor and His Parishioner

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section twenty of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain, Chapter seventeen. The
pastor and his parishioner slowly as the minister walked. He
had almost gone by before hester Prynne could gather voice
enough to attract his observation. At length she succeeded. Arthur Dimmesdale,

(00:25):
She said, faintly at first, then louder but hoarsely. Arthur Dimmesdale,
who speaks, answered the minister. Gathering himself quickly up, he
stood more erect, like a man taken by surprise, in
a mood to which he was reluctant to have witnesses.

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Throwing his eyes anxiously in the direction of the voice,
he indistinctly beheld a form under the trees, clad in garments,
so somber and so little relieved from the gray twilight
into which the clouded sky and the heavy foliage had
darkened the new tide that he knew not whether it
were a woman or a shadow. It may be that

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his pathway through life was haunted thus by a specter
that had stolen out 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

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mine these seven years past, and thou, Arthur Dimmesdale, dost
thou yet live? It was no wonder that they thus
questioned one another's actual and bodily existence, and even doubted
of their own. So strangely did they meet in the
dim wood that it was like the first encounter in

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the world beyond the grave, of two spirits who had
been intimately connected in their former life, but now stood coldly,
shuddering in mutual dread, as yet not familiar with their state,
nor wanted to the companionship of disembodied beings, each a
ghost and awe stricken at the other ghost. They were

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awe stricken, likewise at themselves, because the crisis flung back
to them their consciousness and revealed to each heart its
history and experience, as life never does, except at such
breathless epochs. The soul beheld its features in the mirror
of the passing moment. It was with fear and tremulously,

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and as it were, by a slow, reluctant necessity, that
Arthur Dimmesdale put forth his hand chill as death, and
touched the chill hand of Hester Prynne. The grasp, cold
as it was, took away what was dreariest in the interview.
They now felt themselves at least inhabitants of the same sphere.

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Without a word more spoken, neither he nor she assumed
the guidance, but with an unexpressed consent, they glided back
into the shadow of the woods. Whence Hester had emerged
and sat down on the heap of mass where she
and Pearl had before been sitting. When they found voice
to speak, it was at first only to utter remarks

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and inquiries, such as any two acquaintance might have made
about the gloomy sky, the threatening storm, and next the
health of each. Thus they went onward, not boldly, but
step by step into the themes that were brooding deepest
in their hearts, so long estranged by fate and circumstances.

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They needed something slight and casual to run before and
throw open the doors of intercourse, so that their real
thoughts might be led across the threshold. After a while,
the minister fixed his eyes on Hester Prynne's. Hester said
he ast thou found peace. She smiled, drearily, looking down

(04:03):
upon her bosom. Hast thou, She asked, none, nothing but despair?
He answered? What else could I look for? Being what
I am and leading such a life as mine. Were
I an atheist, a man devoid of conscience, a wretch
with coarse and brutal instincts, I might have found peace

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long ere. Now Nay, I should never have lost it.
But as matters stand, with my soul, whatever of good
capacity there originally was in me, all of God's gifts
that were the choicest have become the ministers of spiritual torment. Hester,
I am most miserable the people reverence, THEE said, Hester,

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and surely thou workest good 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, I have no
faith in it. It must needs be a delusion. What

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can a ruined soul like mine effect towards the redemption
of other souls or a polluted soul towards their purification?
And as for the people's reverence, would that it were
turned to scorn and hatred? Canst thou deem it, Hester,
a consolation that I must stand up in my pulpit

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and meet so many eyes turned upward to my face,
as if the light of Heaven were beaming from it.
Must see my flock hungry for the truth, and listening
to my words as if a tongue of Pentecost were speaking,
And then look inward and discern the black reality of
what they idolize. I have laughed in bitterness and agony

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of heart at the contrast between what I seem and
what I am, and satans at it. You wrong yourself
in this, said Hester. Gently, you have deeply and sorely repented.
Your sin is left behind you in the day's long past.
Your present life is not less holy in very truth

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than it seems in people's eyes. Is there no reality
in the penitence thus sealed and witnessed 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

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of penance. I have had enough of penitence. There has
been none else. I should long ago have thrown off
these garments of mock holiness, and have shown myself to
mankind as they will see me at the judgment seat.
Happy are you, hester, that where the scarlet letter openly
upon your bosom, mine burns in secret. Thou little knowest

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what a relief it is, after the torment of a
seven years cheat, to look into an eye that recognizes
me for what I am. Had I one friend, or
were it my worst enemy, to whom, when sickened with
the praises of all other men, I could daily betake
myself and be known as the vilest of all sinners.

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Methinks my soul might keep itself alive thereby. Even thus
much of truth would save me. But now it is
all falsehood, all emptiness, all death. Esterbrynne looked into his face,
but hesitated to speak, yet uttering his long restrained emotions

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so vehemently as he did his words. Here offered her
the very point of circumstances in which to interpose what
she came to say. She conquered her fears and spoke
such a friend as thou hast even now wished for,
said she, with whom to weep over thy sin. Thou
hast in me the partner of it again, she hesitated,

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but brought out the words with an effort, thou hast
long had such an enemy, and dwellest with him under
the same roof. The Minister started to his feet, gasping
for breath and clutching at his 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?

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What mean you? Hester? Prynne was now fully sensible of
the deep injury for which she was responsible to this
unhappy man in permitting him to lie for so many years,
or indeed for a single moment, at the mercy of
one whose purposes could not be other than malevolent. The
very contiguity of his enemy beneath whatever mask the latter

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might conceal himself, was enough to disturb the magnetic sphere
of a being so sensitive as Arthur Dimmesday. There had
been a period when Hester was less alive to this consideration,
or perhaps in the misanthropy of her own trouble, she
left the Minister to bear what she might picture to
herself as a more tolerable doom. But of late, since

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the night of his vigil, all her sympathies towards him
had been both softened and invigorated. She now read his
heart more accurately. She doubted not that the continual presence
of Roger Chillingworth, the secret poison of his malignity infecting
all the air about him, and his authorized interference as

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a physician with the Minister's physical and spiritual infirmities, that
these bad opportunities had been turned to a cruel purpose.
By means of them, the sufferer's conscience had been kept
in an irritated state, the tendency of which was not
to cure by wholesome pain, but to disorganize and corrupt

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his spiritual being. Its result on earth could hardly fail
to be insanity. And hereafter that eternal alienation from the
good and true of which madness is perhaps the earthly type.
Such was the ruin to which she had brought the
man once. Nay, why should we not speak of it?

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Still so passionately loved Hester felt that the sacrifice of
the clergyman's good name and death itself, as she had
already told Roger Chillingworth, would have been infinitely preferable to
the alternative which she had taken upon herself to choose,
and now, rather than have had this grievous wrong to confess,

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she would gladly have lain down on the forest leaves
and died there at Arthur Dimmesdale's feet. Oh Arthur, cried
she forgive me. In all things else I have striven
to be true. Truth was the one virtue which I
might have held fast, and did hold fast through all extremity,

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save when thy good, thy life, thy fame were put
in question. Then I consented to a deception. But a
lie is never good, even though death threatened on the
other side. Dost thou not see what I would say?
That old man, the physician, he whom they call Roger Chillingworth,

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he was my husband. The minister looked at her for
an instant, with all that violence of passion, which intermixed
in more shapes than one with his higher, purer, softer qualities,
was in fact the portion of him which the devil
claimed and through which he sought to win the rest.

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Never was there a blacker or a fiercer frown than
Hester now encountered. For the brief space that it lasted.
It was a dark transfiguration, But his character had been
so much enfeebled by suffering that even its lower energies
were incapable of more than a temporary struggle, He sank

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down on the ground and buried his face in his hands.
I might have known it, murmured he I did know
it was not the secret told me in the natural
recoil of my heart at the first sight of him,
And as often as I have seen him since, Why
did I not understand? Oh, Hester, Brynne, thou little little

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knowest all the horror of this thing, and the shame,
the indelicacy, the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a
sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would
gloat over it. Woman, woman, Thou art accountable for this.
I cannot forgive thee thou shalt forgive me, cried Hester,

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flinging herself on the fallen leaves 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 cheek rested on the
scarlet letter. He would have released himself, but strove in

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vain to do so. Hester would not set him free
lest he should look her sternly in the face. All
the world had frowned on her for seven long years
had it frowned upon this lonely woman, and still she
bore it all, nor ever once turned away her firm,
sad eyes. Heaven likewise had frowned upon her, and she

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had not died. But the frown of this pale, weak, sinful,
and sorrow stricken man was what Hester could not bear
and live. Wilt thou yet forgive me, she repeated, over
and over again. Wilt thou not frown, Wilt thou forgive?

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I do forgive you, Hess, replied the minister at length,
with a deep utterance, out of an abyss of sadness,
but no anger. I freely forgive you. Now. May God
forgive us both. We are not Hester the worst sinners
in the world. There is one worse than even the
polluted priest. That old man's revenge has been blacker than

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my sin. He has violated, 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 its own. We felt it, so we said so

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to each other. Hast thou forgotten it, hush, Hester, said
Arthur Dimmesdale, rising from the ground. No, I have not forgotten.
They sat down again, side by side, and hand clasped
in hand on the mossy trunk of the fallen tree.

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Life had never brought them a gloomier hour. It was
the point whither their pathway had so long been tending
and darkening ever as it stole along. And yet it
enclosed a charm that made them linger upon it and
claim another, and another, and after all another moment. The
forest was obscurer around them, and creaked with a blast

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that was passing through it. The boughs were tossing heavily
above their heads, while one solemn old tree groaned dolefully
to another, as if telling the sad story of the
pair that sat beneath, or constrained to forebode evil to come.
And yet they lingered, how dreary looked the forest track

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that led backward to the settlement, where Hester Prynn must
take up again the burden of her ignominy, and the
minister the hollow mockery of his good name. So they
lingered an instant longer. No golden light had ever been
so precious as the gloom of this dark forest, here
seen only by his eyes. The scarlet letter need not

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burn into the bosom of the 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

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is a new horror. Roger Chillingworth knows your purpose to
reveal his true character. Will he continue then to keep
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
of his revenge. I deem it not likely that he

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will betray the secret. He will doubtless seek other means
of satiating his dark passion. And I how am I
to live longer breathing the same air with this deadly enemy,
exclaimed Arthur Dimmesdale, shrinking within himself and pressing his hand
nervously against his heart, a gesture that had grown involuntary

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with him. Think for me, Hester, thou art strong resolve
for me. Thou must dwell no longer with this man,
said Hester, slowly and firmly. Thy heart must be no
longer under his evil eye. It were far worse than death,

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replied the minister. But how to avoid it? What choice
remains to me? Shall I lie down again on these
withered leaves where I cast myself when thou didst tell
me what he was? Must I sink down there and
die at once? Alas what a ruin has befallen thee,
said Hester, with the tears gushing into her eyes. Wilst

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thou die for very weakness, there is no other cause.
The judgment of God is on me, answered the conscience
stricken priest. It is too mighty for me to struggle
with Heaven would show mercy, rejoined Hester, hadst thou, but
the strength to take advantage of it? Be thou strong

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for me? Answered, he advise me? What to do? Is
the world then so narrow? Exclaimed Hester Prynne, fixing her
deep eyes on the ministers and instinctively exercising a magnetic
power over a spirit so shattered and subdued that it
could hardly hold itself erect. Doth the universe lie within

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the compass of Yonder Town, which only a little time
ago was but a leaf strewn desert, as lonely as
this around us, with the leads yonder forest. Track backward
to the settlement, Thou sayest, yes, But onward too deeper
it goes and deeper into the wilderness, less plainly to

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be seen at every step until some miles. Hence the
yellow leaves will show no vestige of the white man's tread.
There thou art free. So brief a journey would bring
THEE from a world where thou hast been most wretched
to one where thou mayest still be happy. Is there

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not shade enough in all this boundless forest to hide
thy heart from the gaze of Roger 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. It brought THEE hither, If thou

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so choose, it will bear THEE back again in our
native land, whether in some remote rural village, or in
vast London, or surely in Germany, in France, in pleasant Italy.
Thou wouldst be beyond his power and knowledge. And what
hast thou to do with all these iron men and
their opinions? They have kept thy better part in bondage

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too long. Already it cannot be answered, the minister, listening
as if he were called upon to realize a dream.
I am powerless to go, wretched and sinful as I am,
I have had no other thought than to drag on
my earthly existence in the sphere where providence hath placed me.

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Lost as my own soul is, I would still do
what I may for other human souls. I dare not
quit my post though an unfaithful sentinel whose sure reward
is death and dishonor when his dreary watch shall come
to an end. Thou art crushed under this seven years
wait of misery, replied Hester, fervently resolved to buoy him

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up with her own energy. But thou shalt leave it
all behind thee. It shall not come by thy steps
as thou treadest along the forest path. Neither shalt thou
freight the ship with it. If thou prefer to cross
the sea, leave this wreck and ruin here where it
hath happened, meddle no more with it begin all anew.

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Hast thou exhausted possibility in the failure of this one trial?
Not so? The future is yet full of trial and success.
There is happiness to be enjoyed. There is good to
be done. Exchange this false life of thine for a
true one. Be if thy spirit summon THEE to such

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a mission, the teacher and apostle of the red men, or,
as is more thy nature, be a scholar and a
sage among the wisest and the most renowned of the
cultivated world. Preach, write, act, do anything save to lie
down and die. Give up this name of Arthur Dimsdey,

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and make thyself another and a high one, such as
thou canst wear without fear or shame. Why shouldst thou
tarry so much as one other day in the torments
that have so gnawed into thy life, that have made
THEE feeble to will, and to do that will leave
THEE powerless even to repent. Up and away, oh Hester,

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cried Arthur Dimmesdale, in whose eyes a fitful light, kindled
by her enthusiasm, flashed up and died away. Thou tellest
of running a race to a man whose knees are
tottering beneath him. I must die here. There is not
the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange,

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difficult world alone It was the last expression of the
despondency of a broken spirit. He lacked energy to grasp
the better fortune that seemed within his reach. He repeated
the word hester, thou shalt not go alone, answered she

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in a deep whisper. Then all was spoken. End of
Section twenty