The Scarlet Letter: A Romance -Section 12 - The Leech

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dream Adio Books presents Section twelve of The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Chapter nine. 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

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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

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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 dishonour, which
would not fail to be distributed in strict accordance and
proportion with the intimacy and sacredness of their previous relationship.

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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

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the lock and key of her silence, he chose to
withdraw his name from the role of mankind, and, as
regarded his former ties and interests, to vanish out of
life as completely as if he indeed lay at the
bottom of the ocean with a rumour had long ago
consigned him this purpose. Once affected, new interests would immediately

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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. 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

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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 chirogical profession were of rare occurrence in the colony.

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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 subtle 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

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enough to comprise all of life within itself. At all events,
the health of the good town of Boston, so far
as medicine had ought 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 he could have produced in the shape

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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

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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 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,

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had quite as large a share of his own confidence
as the European pharmacopia which so many learned doctors had
spent centuries in elaborating. This learned stranger was exemplary as
regarded at least the outward forms of religious life, and
early after his arrival, had chosen for his spiritual guide

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the reverend mister Dimsdale, The young divine whose scholarlike 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

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infancy of the Christian faith. About this period, however, the
health of mister Dimsdale 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 fulfillment of parochial duty, and

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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 mister Dimmesdale were really
going to die, it was cause enough that the world
was not worthy to be any longer trodden by his feet.

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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 difference
of opinion as to the cause of his decline, there
could be no question of the fact his form grew emaciated.

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His voice, though still rich, and 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,

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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.

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He was now known to be a 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,

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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

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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 mister Dimsdale's study. Individuals of wiser faith, indeed,
who knew that Heaven promotes its purposes without aiming at

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the stage effect of what is called miraculous interposition, were
inclined to see a providential hand in Roger Chillingworth's so
opportune a rival. 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

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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 mister Dimsdale's flock were alike importunate

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that he should make trial of the physician's frankly offered skill.
Mister Dimsdale 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

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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 mister Dimsdale by the elder ministers
of Boston and the deacons of his church, who, to
use their own phrase, dealt with him on the sin

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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 mister Dimsdale.
When in fulfillment to this pledge, he requested Old Roger
Chillingworth's professional advice, I could be well content that my labors,

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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,

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marked all his deportment. It is thus that a young
clergyman is apt to speak. Youthful men, not having taken
a deep route, 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,

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putting his hand to his heart, with a flush of
pain flitting over his brow. Were I worthy to walk there,
I could be better content to toil here. Good men
never interpret themselves too meanly, said the physician. In this manner,
the mysterious old Roger Chillingworth became the medical adviser of

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the Reverend mister 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.

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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
tree tops. Often likewise one was the guest of the other.
In his place of study and retirement. There was a
fascination for the minister in the company of the man

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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. Mister Dimsdale was a true priest, a true religionist,

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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

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him within its iron framework. Not the less, however, though
with the 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

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his life was wasting itself away amid lamp light or
obstructed day beams, and the musty fragrance, be it sensual
or moral, that ad sales 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

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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 moral scenery, the novelty
of which might call out something new to the surface

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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

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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 everything with a cautious touch,

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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

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and a nameless something more let us call it intuition.
If he shows no intrusive egotism nor disagreeably prominent characteristics
of his own, If he have the power which must
be borne with him, to bring his mind into such
affinity with his patients, that this last shall unawares have

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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 in inarticulate breath,
and here and there a word to indicate that all
is understood. If to these qualifications for Confidante be joined

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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 into the daylight. Roger
Chillingworth possessed awe or most of the attributes above enumerated. Nevertheless,

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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

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to themselves, and yet no secret such as the physician
fancied must exist there ever, stall out of the minister's
consciousness into his companion's ear. The latter had his suspicions, indeed,
that even the nature of mister Dimsdale's bodily disease had
never fairly been revealed to him. It was a strange reserve.

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After a time, at a hint from Roger Chillingworth, the
friends of mister Dimsdale affected an arrangement by which the
two were lodged in the same house, so that every
ebb and flow of the minister's lifetide might pass under
the eye of his anxious and attached physician. There was
much joy throughout the town when this greatly desirable object

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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,

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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 mister
Dimmesdale so evidently was to eat his unsavory morsel always
at another's board, and endure the lifelong chill which must

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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 concorde 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

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new abode of the two friends was with the 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
graveyard originally Isaac Johnson's home field on one side, and
so was well adapted to call up serious reflections suited

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to their respective employments in both minister and man of physic.
The motherly care of the good widow assigned to mister
Dimsdale a front apartment with a sunny exposure and heavy
window curtains to create a Noontide shadow and desirable. The
walls were hung round with tapestry said to be from
the Goblin looms, and at all events representing the scriptural

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story of David and Bathsheba and Nathan the Prophet, in
colours still unfaded, but which made the fair woman of
the scene almost as grimly picturesque as the woe announcing seer.
Here the pale clergyman piled up his library, rich with
parchments and boundfolios of the fathers, and the law of
rabbis and Monkish erudition, of which the Protestant divines, even

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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 would reckon,
even tolerably complete, but provided with a distilling apparatus and
the means of compounding drugs and chemicals, which the practiced

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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

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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

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community had latterly begun to take its own view of
the relation betwixt mister 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

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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.

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There was an aged handicraftsman, it is true, who had
been a citizen of Love 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 Foreman, the famous old conjurer who was

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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

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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

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with mister Dimmesdale. At first, his expression had been calm, meditative, scholarlike.
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

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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 his special sanctity in all ages of the Christian world,

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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
was confessed could doubt on which side the victory would turn.

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The people looked with an unshaken hope to see the
minister come forth out of the 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 the judge from

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the gloom and terror in the depths of the poor
minister's eyes. The battle was a sore one, and the
victory anything but secure. End of Section twelve, Dream Audio Books.
Hopes you have enjoyed this program.