# The Scarlet Letter: A Romance - Section 23 - The Minister in a Maze

An episode of [The Scarlet Letter: A Romance - Audiobook by Nathaniel Hawthorne](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1771236763), 7 Sep 2024, 26 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/61321488/scarletletter_20_hawthorne_64kb.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Section twenty three of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
[0:04] Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter twenty
[0:09] Speaker 1: The Minister in a maze. As the Minister departed in
[0:15] Speaker 1: advance of Hester, Prynne and little Pearl, he threw a
[0:18] Speaker 1: backward glance, half expecting that he should discover only some
[0:22] Speaker 1: faintly traced features or outline of the mother and the child,
[0:26] Speaker 1: slowly fading into the twilight of the woods. So great
[0:30] Speaker 1: a vicissitude in his life could not at once be
[0:33] Speaker 1: received as real. But there was Hester, clad in her
[0:37] Speaker 1: gray robe, still standing beside the tree trunk which some
[0:40] Speaker 1: blast had overthrown a long antiquity ago, and which time
[0:44] Speaker 1: had ever since been covering with mass, so that these
[0:47] Speaker 1: two fated ones, with Earth's heaviest burden on them, might
[0:51] Speaker 1: there sit down together and find a single hour's rest
[0:55] Speaker 1: and solace. And there was Pearl, too, lightly, dancing from
[1:00] Speaker 1: the margin of the brook, now that the intrusive third
[1:03] Speaker 1: person was gone, and taking her old place by her
[1:06] Speaker 1: mother's side. So the Minister had not fallen asleep and
[1:10] Speaker 1: dreamed in order to free his mind from this indistinctness
[1:15] Speaker 1: and duplicity of impression, which rexed with a strange disquietude.
[1:20] Speaker 1: He recalled and more thoroughly defined the plans which Hester
[1:24] Speaker 1: and himself had sketched for their departure. It had been
[1:28] Speaker 1: determined between them that the old world, with its crowds
[1:32] Speaker 1: and cities, offered them a more eligible shelter and concealment
[1:36] Speaker 1: than the wilds of New England, or All America with
[1:39] Speaker 1: its alternatives of an Indian wigwam, or the few settlements
[1:43] Speaker 1: of Europeans scattered thinly along the seaboard, not to speak
[1:48] Speaker 1: of the clergyman's health, so inadequate to sustain the hardships
[1:52] Speaker 1: of a forest life. His native gifts, his culture, and
[1:56] Speaker 1: his entire development would secure him home only in the
[2:00] Speaker 1: midst of civilization and refinement. The higher the state, the
[2:04] Speaker 1: more delicately adapted to it the man. In furtherance of
[2:08] Speaker 1: this choice, it so happened that a ship lay in
[2:11] Speaker 1: the harbor, one of those questionable cruises frequent at that day, which,
[2:17] Speaker 1: without being absolutely outlaws of the deep, yet roamed over
[2:21] Speaker 1: its surface with a remarkable irresponsibility of character. This vessel
[2:26] Speaker 1: had recently arrived from the Spanish main, and within three
[2:30] Speaker 1: days time would sail for Bristol Hester. Prynne, whose vocation
[2:35] Speaker 1: as a self enlisted sister of charity had brought her
[2:39] Speaker 1: acquainted with the captain and crew, could take upon herself
[2:42] Speaker 1: to secure the passage of two individuals and a child,
[2:45] Speaker 1: with all the secrecy which circumstances rendered more than desirable.
[2:50] Speaker 1: The Minister had inquired of Hester with no little interest
[2:54] Speaker 1: the precise time at which the vessel might be expected
[2:57] Speaker 1: to depart. It would probably be on the fourth day
[3:00] Speaker 1: from the present. That is most fortunate. He had then
[3:05] Speaker 1: said to himself, Now, why the Reverend mister Dimmesdale considered
[3:11] Speaker 1: it so very fortunate, we hesitate to reveal, nevertheless, to
[3:16] Speaker 1: hold nothing back from the reader. It was because on
[3:19] Speaker 1: the third day from the present he was to preach
[3:21] Speaker 1: the election sermon, and as such an occasion formed an
[3:25] Speaker 1: honorable epoch in the life of a New England clergyman.
[3:29] Speaker 1: He could not have chanced upon a more suitable mode
[3:31] Speaker 1: and time of terminating his professional career. At least they
[3:36] Speaker 1: shall say of me, thought this exemplary man, that I
[3:40] Speaker 1: leave no public duty unperformed nor ill performed. Sad indeed,
[3:46] Speaker 1: that an introspection so profound and acute as this poor
[3:49] Speaker 1: minister's should be so miserably deceived. We have had, and
[3:54] Speaker 1: may still have, worse things to tell of him, but
[3:57] Speaker 1: none we apprehend so pitiably wea no evidence at once,
[4:02] Speaker 1: so slight and irrefragible of a subtle disease that had
[4:06] Speaker 1: long since begun to eat into the real substance of
[4:08] Speaker 1: his character. No man, for any considerable period could wear
[4:14] Speaker 1: one face to himself and another to the multitude, without
[4:17] Speaker 1: finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true
[4:22] Speaker 1: The excitement of mister Dimmesdale's feelings as he returned from
[4:26] Speaker 1: his interview with Hester, lent him unaccustomed physical energy, and
[4:30] Speaker 1: hurried him downward at a rapid pace. The pathway among
[4:34] Speaker 1: the woods seemed wilder, more uncouth, with its rude natural obstacles,
[4:39] Speaker 1: and less trodden by the foot of man than he
[4:42] Speaker 1: remembered it on his outward journey. But he leaped across
[4:46] Speaker 1: the plashy places, thrust himself through the clinging underbrush, climbed
[4:51] Speaker 1: the ascent, plunged into the hollow, and overcame in short
[4:56] Speaker 1: all the difficulties of the track with an unweariable activity
[4:59] Speaker 1: that a stop he could not, but recall how feebly
[5:04] Speaker 1: and with what frequent pauses for breath he had toiled
[5:07] Speaker 1: over the same ground only two days before. As he
[5:12] Speaker 1: drew near the town, he took an impression of change
[5:14] Speaker 1: from the series of familiar objects that presented themselves. It
[5:18] Speaker 1: seemed not yesterday, not one nor two, but many days
[5:23] Speaker 1: or even years ago since he had quitted them. There, indeed,
[5:27] Speaker 1: was each former trace of the street as he remembered it,
[5:31] Speaker 1: and all the peculiarities of the houses, with the due
[5:34] Speaker 1: multitude of gable peaks, and a weathercock at every point
[5:37] Speaker 1: where his memory suggested one. Not the less, however, came
[5:41] Speaker 1: this importunately obtrusive sense of change. The same was true
[5:46] Speaker 1: as regarded the acquaintances whom he met, and all the
[5:49] Speaker 1: well known shapes of human life about the little town.
[5:53] Speaker 1: They looked neither older nor younger. Now. The beards of
[5:57] Speaker 1: the aged were no whiter, nor could the creeping baby
[6:00] Speaker 1: of yesterday walk on his feet today. It was impossible
[6:03] Speaker 1: to describe in what respect they differed from the individuals
[6:07] Speaker 1: on whom he had so recently bestowed a parting glance.
[6:11] Speaker 1: And yet the minister's deepest sense seemed to inform him
[6:15] Speaker 1: of their mutability. A similar impression struck him most remarkably
[6:20] Speaker 1: as he passed under the walls of his own church.
[6:23] Speaker 1: The edifice had so very strange and yet so familiar
[6:27] Speaker 1: an aspect that mister Dimmesdale's mind vibrated between two ideas,
[6:32] Speaker 1: either that he had seen it only in a dream hitherto,
[6:35] Speaker 1: or that he was merely dreaming about it. Now, this phenomenon,
[6:40] Speaker 1: in the various shapes which it assumed, indicated no external change,
[6:44] Speaker 1: but so sudden and important a change in the spectator
[6:48] Speaker 1: of the familiar scene, that the intervening space of a
[6:51] Speaker 1: single day had operated on his consciousness like the lapse
[6:54] Speaker 1: of years. The Minister's own will and Hester's will, and
[6:59] Speaker 1: the fate that grew between them, had wrought this transformation.
[7:04] Speaker 1: It was the same town as heretofore, but the same
[7:07] Speaker 1: minister returned not from the forest, he might have said
[7:11] Speaker 1: to the friends who greeted him, I am not the
[7:13] Speaker 1: man for whom you take me. I left him yonder
[7:16] Speaker 1: in the forest, withdrawn into a secret dell by a
[7:19] Speaker 1: mossy tree trunk, and near a melancholy brook. Go seek
[7:24] Speaker 1: your minister and see if his emaciated figure, his thin cheek,
[7:28] Speaker 1: his white, heavy, pain wrinkled brow be not flung down
[7:32] Speaker 1: there like a cast off garment. His friends, no doubt,
[7:36] Speaker 1: would still have insisted with him, thou art thyself the man,
[7:40] Speaker 1: but the error would have been their own, not his.
[7:45] Speaker 1: Before mister Dimmesdale reached home, his inner man gave him
[7:48] Speaker 1: other evidences of a revolution in the sphere of thought
[7:51] Speaker 1: and feeling. In truth, nothing short of a total change
[7:55] Speaker 1: of dynasty and moral code in that interior kingdom was
[7:59] Speaker 1: adequate to account for the impulses now communicated to the
[8:02] Speaker 1: unfortunate and startled minister. At every step he was incited
[8:07] Speaker 1: to do some strange, wild, wicked thing or other, with
[8:12] Speaker 1: a sense that it would be at once involuntary and
[8:14] Speaker 1: intentional in spite of himself, yet growing out of a
[8:18] Speaker 1: still profounder self than that which opposed the impulse. For instance,
[8:24] Speaker 1: he met one of his own deacons, the good old
[8:27] Speaker 1: man addressed him with the paternal affection and patriarchal privilege
[8:31] Speaker 1: which his venerable age, his upright and holy character, and
[8:35] Speaker 1: his station in the church entitled him to use, and
[8:39] Speaker 1: conjoined with this the deep, almost worshiping respect which the
[8:44] Speaker 1: minister's professional and private claims alike demanded. Never was there
[8:49] Speaker 1: a more beautiful example of how the majesty of age
[8:52] Speaker 1: and wisdom may comport with the obeisance and respect and
[8:56] Speaker 1: joined upon it as from a lower social rank and
[8:59] Speaker 1: inferior order of endowment towards Ohia. Now, during a conversation
[9:05] Speaker 1: of some two or three moments between the reverend mister
[9:08] Speaker 1: Dimsdale and this excellent and hoary bearded deacon, it was
[9:13] Speaker 1: only by the most careful self control that the former
[9:16] Speaker 1: could refrain from uttering certain blasphemous suggestions that rose into
[9:19] Speaker 1: his mind respecting the communion's supper. He absolutely trembled and
[9:24] Speaker 1: turned pale as ashes lest his tongue should wag itself
[9:28] Speaker 1: in utterance of these horrible matters, and bleed his own
[9:32] Speaker 1: consent for so doing, without his having fairly given it.
[9:36] Speaker 1: And even with this terror in his heart, he could
[9:40] Speaker 1: hardly avoid laughing. To imagine how the sanctified old patriarchal
[9:44] Speaker 1: deacon would have been petrified by his minister's impiety. Again
[9:50] Speaker 1: another incident of the same nature. Hurrying along the street,
[9:55] Speaker 1: the Reverend mister Dimsdale encountered the eldest female member of
[9:58] Speaker 1: his church, at pious and exemplary old Dame, poor, widowed,
[10:04] Speaker 1: lonely and with a heart as full of reminiscences about
[10:07] Speaker 1: her dead husband and children and her dead friends of
[10:10] Speaker 1: long ago as a burial ground is full of storied gravestones.
[10:16] Speaker 1: Yet all this, which would else have been such heavy sorrow,
[10:20] Speaker 1: was made almost a solemn joy to her devout old
[10:23] Speaker 1: soul by religious consolations and the truths of scripture, wherewith
[10:27] Speaker 1: she had fed herself continually for more than thirty years,
[10:31] Speaker 1: and since mister Dimmesdale had taken her in charge, the
[10:35] Speaker 1: good Grandame's chief earthly comfort, which unless it had likewise
[10:39] Speaker 1: been a heavenly comfort, could have been none at all,
[10:43] Speaker 1: was to meet her pastor, whether casually or of set purpose,
[10:47] Speaker 1: and be refreshed with a word of warm, fragrant heaven,
[10:51] Speaker 1: breathing gospel truth from his beloved lips into her dulled
[10:55] Speaker 1: but rapturously attentive ear. But on this occasion, up to
[11:01] Speaker 1: the moment of putting his lips to the old woman's ear,
[11:04] Speaker 1: mister Dimmesdale, as the great enemy of souls, would have it,
[11:08] Speaker 1: could recall no text of scripture, nor aw telse except
[11:12] Speaker 1: a brief pithy And as it then appeared to him
[11:16] Speaker 1: unanswerable argument against the immortality of the human soul. The
[11:21] Speaker 1: instillment thereof into her mind would probably have caused this
[11:24] Speaker 1: aged sister to drop down dead at once, as by
[11:27] Speaker 1: the effect of an intensely poisonous infusion. What he really
[11:32] Speaker 1: did whisper the minister could never afterwards recollect. There was
[11:36] Speaker 1: perhaps a fortunate disorder in his utterance which failed to
[11:40] Speaker 1: impart any distinct idea to the good widow's comprehension, or
[11:44] Speaker 1: which Providence interpreted after a method of its own assuredly.
[11:50] Speaker 1: As the minister looked back, he beheld an expression of
[11:53] Speaker 1: divine gratitude and ecstasy that seemed like the shine of
[11:56] Speaker 1: the celestial city on her face, so wrinkled and ashy
[12:00] Speaker 1: pale again. A third instance, after parting from the old
[12:06] Speaker 1: church member, he met the youngest sister of them all.
[12:10] Speaker 1: It was a maiden newly one, and one by the
[12:13] Speaker 1: Reverend Dimmesdale's own sermon on the Sabbath after his vigil
[12:18] Speaker 1: to barter the transitory pleasures of the world for the
[12:20] Speaker 1: heavenly hope that was to assume brighter substance as life
[12:24] Speaker 1: grew dark around her, and which would gild the utter
[12:27] Speaker 1: gloom with final glory. She was fair and pure as
[12:31] Speaker 1: a lily that had bloomed in paradise. The minister knew
[12:35] Speaker 1: well that he was himself enshrined within the stainless sanctity
[12:39] Speaker 1: of her heart, which hung its snowy curtains about his image,
[12:43] Speaker 1: imparting to religion, the warmth of love, and to love
[12:46] Speaker 1: a religious purity. Satan that afternoon had surely led the
[12:52] Speaker 1: poor girl away from her mother's side and thrown her
[12:55] Speaker 1: into the pathway of this sorely tempted or shall we
[12:59] Speaker 1: not rather say this lost and desperate man. As she
[13:04] Speaker 1: drew nigh, the arch fiend whispered him to condense into
[13:08] Speaker 1: small compass and drop into her tender bosom, a germ
[13:11] Speaker 1: of evil that would be sure to blossom darkly soon
[13:15] Speaker 1: and bear black fruit betimes. Such was his sense of
[13:19] Speaker 1: power over this virgin soul, trusting him as she did that,
[13:23] Speaker 1: the minister felt potent to blight all the field of
[13:26] Speaker 1: innocence with but one wicked look, and develop all its
[13:30] Speaker 1: opposite with but a word. So, with a mightier struggle
[13:35] Speaker 1: than he had yet sustained, he held his Geneva cloak
[13:38] Speaker 1: before his face, and hurried onward, making no sign of recognition,
[13:43] Speaker 1: and leaving the young sister to digest his rudeness as
[13:45] Speaker 1: she might. She ransacked her conscience, which was full of
[13:50] Speaker 1: harmless little matters, like her pocket or her work book,
[13:53] Speaker 1: and took herself to task poor thing for a thousand
[13:57] Speaker 1: imaginary faults, and went about her house duties with swollen eyelids.
[14:01] Speaker 1: The next morning, before the minister had time to celebrate
[14:06] Speaker 1: his victory over this last temptation, he was conscious of
[14:09] Speaker 1: another impulse, more ludicrous and almost as horrible it was.
[14:15] Speaker 1: We blushed to tell it. It was to stop short
[14:18] Speaker 1: in the road and to teach some very wicked words
[14:20] Speaker 1: to a knot of little Puritan children who were playing
[14:23] Speaker 1: there and had but just begun to talk. Denying himself
[14:28] Speaker 1: this freak as unworthy of his cloth, he met a
[14:30] Speaker 1: drunken seaman, one of the ship's crew from the Spanish main.
[14:35] Speaker 1: And here, since he had so valiantly forborne all other wickedness,
[14:39] Speaker 1: poor mister Dimmesdale longed at least to shake hands with
[14:43] Speaker 1: the tari blagguard and recreate himself with a few improper jests,
[14:47] Speaker 1: such as dissolute sailors. So abound with and volley of good, round, solid, satisfactory,
[14:54] Speaker 1: and heaven defying oaths. It was not so much a
[14:58] Speaker 1: better principle as partly his natural good taste, and still
[15:02] Speaker 1: more his buckroomed habit of clerical decorum, that carried him
[15:05] Speaker 1: safely through the latter crisis. What is it that haunts
[15:10] Speaker 1: and tempts me? Thus cried the minister to himself at length,
[15:14] Speaker 1: pausing in the street, and striking his hand against his forehead.
[15:18] Speaker 1: Am i mad or am I given over utterly to
[15:20] Speaker 1: the fiend? Did I make a contract with him in
[15:23] Speaker 1: the forest and sign it with my blood? And does
[15:26] Speaker 1: he now summon me to its fulfillment by suggesting the
[15:29] Speaker 1: performance of every wickedness which his most foul imagination can conceive.
[15:35] Speaker 1: At the moment when the Reverend mister Dimmesdale thus communed
[15:38] Speaker 1: with himself and struck his forehead with his hand, Old
[15:42] Speaker 1: Mistress Hibbins, the reputed witch lady, is said to have
[15:45] Speaker 1: been passing by. She made a very grand appearance, having
[15:49] Speaker 1: on a high head dress, a rich gown of velvet,
[15:53] Speaker 1: and a ruff done up with the famous yellow starch
[15:56] Speaker 1: of which Anne Turner, her especial friend, had taught her
[15:59] Speaker 1: the seat before this last good lady had been hanged
[16:03] Speaker 1: for Sir Thomas Overbury's murder. Whether the witch had read
[16:07] Speaker 1: the minister's thoughts or no, she came for a full stop,
[16:10] Speaker 1: looked shrewdly into his face, smiled craftily, and, though little
[16:16] Speaker 1: given to converse with clergyman, began a conversation. So, Reverend Sir,
[16:22] Speaker 1: you have made a visit into the forest, observed the
[16:25] Speaker 1: witch lady, nodding her high head dress at him. The
[16:29] Speaker 1: next time, I pray you to allow me only a
[16:31] Speaker 1: fair warning, and I shall be proud to bear you
[16:33] Speaker 1: company without taking over much upon myself. My good word
[16:38] Speaker 1: will go far towards gaining any strange gentleman a fair
[16:41] Speaker 1: reception from yonder potentate. You what of I, profess, Madam,
[16:46] Speaker 1: answered the clergyman, with a grave obeisance such as the
[16:49] Speaker 1: lady's rank demanded, and his own good breeding made imperative.
[16:54] Speaker 1: I profess on my conscience and character that I am
[16:57] Speaker 1: utterly bewildered as touching the purport of your I went
[17:01] Speaker 1: not into the forest to seek a potentate. Neither do
[17:05] Speaker 1: I at any future time design a visit thither with
[17:08] Speaker 1: a view to gaining the favor of such a personage.
[17:12] Speaker 1: My one sufficient object was to greet that pious friend
[17:15] Speaker 1: of mine, the apostle Eliot, and rejoice with him over
[17:18] Speaker 1: the many precious souls he hath won from heathendom Ha
[17:22] Speaker 1: ha ha, cackled the old witch lady, still nodding her
[17:26] Speaker 1: high head dress at the minister. Well, well, we must
[17:30] Speaker 1: needs talk. Thus in the daytime you carry it off
[17:33] Speaker 1: like an old hand. But at midnight and in the
[17:36] Speaker 1: forest we shall have other talk together. She passed on
[17:40] Speaker 1: with her aged stateliness, but often turning back her head
[17:44] Speaker 1: and smiling at him, like one willing to recognize a
[17:47] Speaker 1: secret intimacy of connection. Have I then sold myself, thought
[17:52] Speaker 1: the minister, to the fiend whom, if men say true,
[17:56] Speaker 1: this yellow, starched and velveted old hag has chosen for
[18:00] Speaker 1: her prince and master. The wretched minister he had made
[18:05] Speaker 1: a bargain very like it. Tempted by a dream of happiness,
[18:10] Speaker 1: he had yielded himself with deliberate choice, as he had
[18:13] Speaker 1: never done before, to what he knew was deadly sin.
[18:17] Speaker 1: And the infectious poison of that sin had been thus
[18:20] Speaker 1: rapidly diffused throughout his moral system. It had stupefied all
[18:25] Speaker 1: blessed impulses, and awakened into vivid life the whole brotherhood
[18:29] Speaker 1: of bad ones, scorn, bitterness, unprovoked malignity, gratuitous desire of ill,
[18:38] Speaker 1: ridicule of whatever was good and holy, all awoke to
[18:42] Speaker 1: tempt even while they frightened him. And his encounter with
[18:47] Speaker 1: old Mistress Hibbins, if it were a real incident, did
[18:50] Speaker 1: but show his sympathy and fellowship with wicked mortals and
[18:54] Speaker 1: the world of perverted spirits. He had by this time
[18:58] Speaker 1: reached his dwelling on the edge of the burial ground,
[19:02] Speaker 1: and hastening up the stairs, took refuge in his study.
[19:07] Speaker 1: The minister was glad to have reached the shelter without
[19:10] Speaker 1: first betraying himself to the world by any of those
[19:13] Speaker 1: strange and wicked eccentricities to which he had been continually
[19:17] Speaker 1: impelled while passing through the streets. He entered the accustomed
[19:22] Speaker 1: room and looked around him on its books, its windows,
[19:26] Speaker 1: its fireplace, and the tapestried comfort of the walls, with
[19:30] Speaker 1: the same perception of strangeness that had haunted him throughout
[19:33] Speaker 1: his walk from the forest dell into the town and thitherwood.
[19:37] Speaker 1: Here he had studied and written, here, gone through fast
[19:41] Speaker 1: and vigil and come forth half alive, here striven to pray.
[19:47] Speaker 1: Here borne a hundred thousand agonies. There was the Bible
[19:52] Speaker 1: in its rich old Hebrew, with Moses and the prophets
[19:56] Speaker 1: speaking to him, and God's voice through all. There on
[20:00] Speaker 1: the table, with the incupen beside. It was an unfinished sermon,
[20:05] Speaker 1: with a sentence broken in the midst where his thoughts
[20:08] Speaker 1: had ceased to gush out upon the page. Two days before.
[20:12] Speaker 1: He knew that it was himself, the thin and white
[20:15] Speaker 1: cheeked minister, who had done and suffered these things, and
[20:19] Speaker 1: written thus far into the election sermon. But he seemed
[20:23] Speaker 1: to stand apart, and I this former self with scornful
[20:27] Speaker 1: pitying but half envious curiosity. That self was gone. Another
[20:34] Speaker 1: man had returned out of the forest, a wiser one,
[20:38] Speaker 1: with a knowledge of hidden mysteries which the simplicity of
[20:40] Speaker 1: the former never could have reached, a bitter kind of
[20:44] Speaker 1: knowledge that while occupied with these reflections, a knock came
[20:49] Speaker 1: at the door of the study, and the minister said,
[20:53] Speaker 1: come in, not wholly devoid of an idea that he
[20:56] Speaker 1: might behold an evil spirit, And so he did. It
[21:00] Speaker 1: was old Roger Chillingworth that entered. The minister stood white
[21:04] Speaker 1: and speechless, with one hand on the Hebrew scriptures and
[21:08] Speaker 1: the other spread upon his breast. Welcome home, Reverend, sir,
[21:13] Speaker 1: said the physician. And how found you, that godly man
[21:16] Speaker 1: the Apostle Eliot? But methinks, dear sir, you look pale
[21:21] Speaker 1: as if the travel through the wilderness had been too
[21:23] Speaker 1: sore for you. Will not my aid be requisite to
[21:27] Speaker 1: put you in heart and strength to preach your election? Sermon? Nay?
[21:31] Speaker 1: I think not so, rejoined the Reverend, mister Dimmesdale. My
[21:36] Speaker 1: journey and the sight of the Holy Apostle yonder and
[21:39] Speaker 1: the free air which I have breathed, have done me good.
[21:42] Speaker 1: After so long confinement in my study, I think to
[21:46] Speaker 1: need no more of your drugs, my kind physician, good
[21:49] Speaker 1: though they be, and administered by a friendly hand. All
[21:53] Speaker 1: this time Roger Chillingworth was looking at the minister with
[21:57] Speaker 1: the grave and intent regard of a physician towards his pace.
[22:01] Speaker 1: But in spite of this outward show, the latter was
[22:04] Speaker 1: almost convinced of the old man's knowledge, or at least
[22:07] Speaker 1: his confident suspicion with respect to his own interview with
[22:11] Speaker 1: Hester Prynne. The physician knew then that in the Minister's
[22:15] Speaker 1: regard he was no longer a trusted friend, but his
[22:19] Speaker 1: bitterest enemy. So much being known, it would appear natural
[22:23] Speaker 1: that a part of it should be expressed. It is singular, However,
[22:28] Speaker 1: how long a time often passes before words embody things,
[22:32] Speaker 1: and with what security Two persons who choose to avoid
[22:35] Speaker 1: a certain subject may approach its very verge and retire
[22:40] Speaker 1: without disturbing it. Thus the Minister felt no apprehension that
[22:44] Speaker 1: Roger Chillingworth would touch in express words upon the real
[22:48] Speaker 1: position which they sustained towards one another. Yet did the physician,
[22:54] Speaker 1: in his dark way creep frightfully near the secret? Were
[22:58] Speaker 1: it not better? Said he, that you may use my
[23:02] Speaker 1: poor skill to night. Verily, dear sir, we must make
[23:05] Speaker 1: pains to make you strong and vigorous. For this occasion
[23:08] Speaker 1: of the election discourse, the people look for great things
[23:12] Speaker 1: from you, apprehending that another year may come about and
[23:15] Speaker 1: find their pastor gone. Yea to another world, replied the minister,
[23:21] Speaker 1: with pious resignation. Heaven grant it be a better one,
[23:25] Speaker 1: for in sooth I hardly think to tarry with my
[23:28] Speaker 1: flock through the flitting seasons of another year. But touching
[23:33] Speaker 1: your medicine, kind sir, in my present frame of body,
[23:36] Speaker 1: I need it, not I joy to hear it, answered
[23:40] Speaker 1: the physician. It may be that my remedies, so long
[23:44] Speaker 1: administered in vain, begin now to take due effect. Happy man,
[23:48] Speaker 1: or I and well deserving of New England's gratitude, could
[23:52] Speaker 1: I achieve this cure? I thank you from my heart,
[23:56] Speaker 1: most watchful friend, said the reverend mister Dimmesdale, with a
[23:59] Speaker 1: solemn smile. I thank you, and can but requite your
[24:03] Speaker 1: good deeds with my prayers. A good man's prayers a
[24:07] Speaker 1: golden recompense, rejoined Old Roger Chillingworth as he took his leave. Yea,
[24:13] Speaker 1: they are the current gold coin of the New Jerusalem,
[24:16] Speaker 1: with the King's own mint mark on them. Left alone,
[24:20] Speaker 1: the minister summoned a servant of the house and requested food, which,
[24:25] Speaker 1: being set before him, he ate with ravenous appetite. Then
[24:30] Speaker 1: flinging the already written pages of the election sermon into
[24:33] Speaker 1: the fire, he forthwith began another, which he wrote with
[24:37] Speaker 1: such an impulsive flow of thought and emotion that he
[24:40] Speaker 1: fancied himself inspired, and only wondered that Heaven should see
[24:44] Speaker 1: fit to transmit the grand and solemn music of its
[24:47] Speaker 1: oracles through so foul an organ pipe as he, However,
[24:52] Speaker 1: leaving that mystery to solve itself or go unsolved forever,
[24:56] Speaker 1: he drove his task onward with earnest haste and ecstasy.
[25:01] Speaker 1: Thus the night fled away as if it were a
[25:03] Speaker 1: winged steed, and he careering on it. Morning came and peeped,
[25:08] Speaker 1: blushing through the curtains, and at last sunrise threw a
[25:11] Speaker 1: golden beam into the study and laid it right across
[25:14] Speaker 1: the minister's dazzled eyes. There he was, with a pen
[25:19] Speaker 1: still between his fingers, and a vast, immeasurable tract of
[25:23] Speaker 1: written space behind him. End of Section twenty three

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