THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT So she drew her mother away, skipping, dancing, and frisking fantastically among the hillocks of the dead people, like a creature that had nothing in common with a bygone and buried generation, nor owned herself akin to it. It was as if she had been made afresh out of new elements, and must perforce be permitted to live her own life, and be a law unto herself without her eccentricities being reckoned to her for a crime.
"There goes a woman," resumed Roger Chillingworth, after a pause, "who, be her demerits what they may, hath none of that mystery of hidden sinfulness which you deem so grievous to be borne. Is Hester Prynne the less miserable, think you, for that scarlet letter on her breast?"
"I do verily believe it," answered the clergyman. "Nevertheless, I cannot answer for her. There was a look of pain in her face which I would gladly have been spared the sight of. But still, methinks, it must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it up in his heart."
There was another pause, and the physician began anew to examine and arrange the plants which he had gathered.
"You inquired of me, a little time agone," said he, at length, "my judgment as touching your health."
"I did," answered the clergyman, "and would gladly learn it.
Speak frankly, I pray you, be it for life or death."
"Freely then, and plainly," said the physician, still busy with his plants, but keeping a wary eye on Mr. Dimmesdale, "the disorder is a strange one; not so much in itself nor as outwardly manifested,—in so far, at least as the symptoms have been laid open to my observation. Looking daily at you, my good sir, and watching the tokens of your aspect now for months gone by, I should deem you a man sore sick, it may be, yet not so sick but that an instructed and watchful physician might well hope to cure you. But I know not what to say, the disease is what I seem to know, yet know it not."
"You speak in riddles, learned sir," said the pale minister, glancing aside out of the window. "Then, to speak more plainly," continued the physician, "and I crave pardon, sir, should it seem to require pardon, for this needful plainness of my speech. Let me ask as your friend, as one having charge, under Providence, of your life and physical well being, hath all the operations of this disorder been fairly laid open and recounted to me?" "How can you question it?" asked the minister. "Surely it were child's play to call in a physician and then hide the sore!" "You would tell me, then, that I know all?" said Roger Chillingworth, deliberately, and fixing an eye, bright with intense and concentrated intelligence, on the minister's face. "Be it so! But again! He to whom only the outward and physical evil is laid open, knoweth, oftentimes, but half the evil which he is called upon to cure. A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part. Your pardon once again, good sir, if my speech give the shadow of offence. You, sir, of all men whom I have known, are he whose body is the closest coned, and imbued, and identified, so to speak, with the spirit whereof it is the instrument." "Then I need ask no further," said the clergyman, somewhat hastily rising from his chair. "You deal not, I take it, in medicine for the soul!"
"Thus, a sickness," continued Roger Chillingworth, going on, in an unaltered tone, without heeding the interruption, but standing up and confronting the emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his low, dark, and misshapen figure,—"a sickness, a sore place, if we may so call it, in your spirit hath immediately its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame. Would you, therefore, that your physician heal the bodily evil? How may this be unless you first lay open to him the wound or trouble in your soul?" "No, not to thee! not to an earthly physician!" cried Mr. Dimmesdale, ionately, and turning his eyes, full and bright, and with a kind of fierceness, on old Roger Chillingworth. "Not to thee! But, if it be the soul's disease, then do I commit myself to the one Physician of the soul! He, if it stand with His good pleasure, can cure, or he can kill. Let Him do with me as, in His justice and wisdom, He shall see good. But who art thou, that meddlest in this matter? that dares thrust himself between the sufferer and his God?" With a frantic gesture he rushed out of the room.
"It is as well to have made this step," said Roger Chillingworth to himself, looking after the minister, with a grave smile. "There is nothing lost. We shall be friends again anon. But see, now, how ion takes hold upon this man, and hurrieth him out of himself! As with one ion so with another. He hath done a wild thing ere now, this pious Master Dimmesdale, in the hot ion of his heart." |
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EL MDICO Y SU PACIENTE E hizo partir a su madre, saltando, bailando, retozando fantsticamente entre los tmulos de los muertos, como criatura que nada tuviese de comn con las generaciones all enterradas, ni aun el ms remoto parentesco con ellas. Pareca como si hubiera sido creada de nuevos elementos, debiendo por lo tanto vivir forzosamente una existencia aparte, con leyes propias y especiales, sin que pudieran considerarse un crimen sus excentricidades.
—Ah va una mujer,—prosigui el mdico despus de una pausa,—que sean cuales fueren sus faltas, no tiene nada de esa misteriosa corrupcin oculta que creis debe ser tan dura de llevar. Pensis acaso que Ester Prynne es menos infeliz a causa de esa letra escarlata que ostenta en el seno?
—As lo creo,—replic el ministro. Sin embargo, no puedo responder por ella. Hay en su rostro una expresin de dolor, que hubiera deseado no haber visto. Creo, no obstante, que es mucho mejor para el paciente hallarse en libertad de mostrar su dolor, como acontece con esta pobre Ester, que no llevarlo oculto en su corazn.
Hubo otra pausa; y el mdico empez de nuevo a examinar y a arreglar las plantas que haba recogido.
—Me preguntasteis, no ha mucho, dijo, mi opinin acerca de vuestra salud.
—As lo hice,—respondi Dimmesdale,—y me alegrara conocerla. Os ruego que hablis francamente, sea cul fuere vuestra sentencia.
—Pues bien, con toda franqueza y sin rodeos,—dijo el mdico ocupado aun en el arreglo de sus hierbas, pero observando con circunspeccin al Sr. Dimmesdale,—la enfermedad es muy extraa; no tanto en s misma, o en su manera de manifestarse exteriormente, a lo menos hasta donde puedo juzgar por los sntomas que me ha sido dado observar. Vindoos diariamente, mi buen seor, y habiendo estudiado durante meses los cambios de vuestra fisonoma, podra quizs consideraros un hombre bastante enfermo, aunque no tan enfermo que un mdico instrudo y vigilante no abrigara la esperanza de curar. Pero—no s qu decir,—la enfermedad parece serme conocida, y sin embargo no la conozco.
—Estis hablando en enigmas, mi sabio seor, dijo el plido ministro mirando por la ventana hacia afuera.
—Entonces, para hablar con ms claridad,—continu el mdico, y os pido perdn, si es necesario que se me perdone la franqueza de mi lenguaje,—permitidme que os pregunte,—como amigo vuestro, a cuyo cargo ha puesto la Providencia vuestra vida y bienestar fsico,—si me habis expuesto y referido completamente todos los efectos y sntomas de esta enfermedad.
—Cmo podis hacerme semejante pregunta?—replic el ministro. Sera ciertamente un juego de nios llamar a un mdico y ocultar la llaga.
—Me dais, pues, a entender que lo s todo,—dijo Roger Chillingworth con acento deliberado y fijando en el ministro una mirada perspicaz, llena de intensa y concentrada inteligencia. As ser; pero aquel a quien se le expone solamente el mal fsico y externo, a veces no conoce sino la mitad del mal para cuya curacin se le ha llamado. Una enfermedad del cuerpo, que consideramos un todo completo en s mismo, puede acaso no ser sino el sntoma de alguna perturbacin puramente espiritual. Os pido de nuevo perdn, mi buen amigo, si mi lenguaje os ofende en lo ms mnimo; pero de todos los hombres que he conocido, en ninguno, como en vos, la parte fsica se halla tan completamente amalgamada e identificada, si se me permite la expresin, con la parte espiritual de que aquella es el mero instrumento.
—En ese caso no necesito haceros ms preguntas,—dijo el ministro levantndose un tanto precipitadamente de su asiento. No creo que tengis a vuestro cargo la cura de almas.
—Esto hace,—continu el mdico sin alterar la voz, ni fijarse en la interrupcin, pero ponindose en pie frente al extenuado y plido ministro,—que una enfermedad, que un lugar llagado, si podemos llamarlo as, en vuestro espritu, tenga inmediatamente su manifestacin adecuada en vuestra forma corprea. Quisierais que vuestro mdico curara el mal fsico? Pero cmo podr hacerlo sin que primero le dejis ver la herida o pesadumbre de vuestra alma?
—No!—no a ti!—no a un mdico terrenal!—exclam el Sr. Dimmesdale con la mayor agitacin y fijando sus ojos grandemente abiertos, brillantes, y con una especie de fiereza, en el viejo Roger Chillingworth. No a ti! Pero si fuere una enfermedad del alma la que tengo, entonces me pondr en manos del nico Mdico del alma; l puede curar o puede matar segn juzgue ms conveniente. Haga conmigo en su justicia y sabidura lo que crea bueno. Pero quin eres t, que te mezclas en este asunto? T, que te atreves a interponerte entre el paciente y su Dios?
Y con ademn furioso sali a toda prisa de la habitacin.
—Me alegro de haber dado este paso,—se dijo el mdico para sus adentros, siguiendo con las miradas al ministro y con una grave sonrisa. Nada hay perdido. Seremos amigos de nuevo y pronto. Pero ved cmo la clera se apodera de este hombre y lo pone fuera de s! Y lo mismo que acontece con un sentimiento acontece con otro. Este piadoso Sr. Dimmesdale ha cometido antes de ahora una falta, en un momento de ardiente arrebato. |
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