| HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN Hester bade little Pearl run down to the margin of the water, and play with the shells and tangled sea-weed, until she should have talked awhile with yonder gatherer of herbs. So the child flew away like a bird, and, making bare her small white feet went pattering along the moist margin of the sea. Here and there she came to a full stop, and peeped curiously into a pool, left by the retiring tide as a mirror for Pearl to see her face in. Forth peeped at her, out of the pool, with dark, glistening curls around her head, and an elf-smile in her eyes, the image of a little maid whom Pearl, having no other playmate, invited to take her hand and run a race with her. But the visionary little maid on her part, beckoned likewise, as if to say—"This is a better place; come thou into the pool." And Pearl, stepping in mid-leg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom; while, out of a still lower depth, came the gleam of a kind of fragmentary smile, floating to and fro in the agitated water.
Meanwhile her mother had accosted the physician. "I would speak a word with you," said she—"a word that concerns us much."
"Aha! and is it Mistress Hester that has a word for old Roger Chillingworth?" answered he, raising himself from his stooping posture. "With all my heart! Why, mistress, I hear good tidings of you on all hands! No longer ago than yester-eve, a magistrate, a wise and godly man, was discoursing of your affairs, Mistress Hester, and whispered me that there had been question concerning you in the council. It was debated whether or no, with safety to the commonweal, yonder scarlet letter might be taken off your bosom. On my life, Hester, I made my intreaty to the worshipful magistrate that it might be done forthwith."
"It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off the badge," calmly replied Hester. "Were I worthy to be quit of it, it would fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into something that should speak a different purport." "Nay, then, wear it, if it suit you better," reed he, "A woman must needs follow her own fancy touching the adornment of her person. The letter is gaily embroidered, and shows right bravely on your bosom!"
All this while Hester had been looking steadily at the old man, and was shocked, as well as wonder-smitten, to discern what a change had been wrought upon him within the past seven years. It was not so much that he had grown older; for though the traces of advancing life were visible he bore his age well, and seemed to retain a wiry vigour and alertness. But the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet, which was what she best ed in him, had altogether vanished, and been succeeded by an eager, searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look. It seemed to be his wish and purpose to mask this expression with a smile, but the latter played him false, and flickered over his visage so derisively that the spectator could see his blackness all the better for it. Ever and anon, too, there came a glare of red light out of his eyes, as if the old man's soul were on fire and kept on smouldering duskily within his breast, until by some casual puff of ion it was blown into a momentary flame. This he repressed as speedily as possible, and strove to look as if nothing of the kind had happened. In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office. This unhappy person had effected such a transformation by devoting himself for seven years to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery tortures which he analysed and gloated over. The scarlet letter burned on Hester Prynne's bosom. Here was another ruin, the responsibility of which came partly home to her.
"What see you in my face," asked the physician, "that you look at it so earnestly?"
"Something that would make me weep, if there were any tears bitter enough for it," answered she. "But let it ! It is of yonder miserable man that I would speak." "And what of him?" cried Roger Chillingworth, eagerly, as if he loved the topic, and were glad of an opportunity to discuss it with the only person of whom he could make a confidant. "Not to hide the truth, Mistress Hester, my thoughts happen just now to be busy with the gentleman. So speak freely and I will make answer." "When we last spake together," said Hester, "now seven years ago, it was your pleasure to extort a promise of secrecy as touching the former relation betwixt yourself and me. As the life and good fame of yonder man were in your hands there seemed no choice to me, save to be silent in accordance with your behest. Yet it was not without heavy misgivings that I thus bound myself, for, having cast off all duty towards other human beings, there remained a duty towards him, and something whispered me that I was betraying it in pledging myself to keep your counsel. Since that day no man is so near to him as you. You tread behind his every footstep. You are beside him, sleeping and waking. You search his thoughts. You burrow and rankle in his heart! Your clutch is on his life, and you cause him to die daily a living death, and still he knows you not. In permitting this I have surely acted a false part by the only man to whom the power was left me to be true!" |
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ESTER Y EL MDICO ESTER le dijo a Perla que corretease por la ribera del mar y jugara con las conchas y las algas marinas, mientras ella hablaba un rato con el hombre que estaba recogiendo hierbas a cierta distancia; por consiguiente, la nia parti como un pjaro, y descalzndose los piececitos empez a recorrer la orilla hmeda del mar. Aqu y all se detena junto a un charco de agua dejado por la marea, y se pona a mirarse en l como si fuera un espejo. Reflejbase en el charco la imagen de la niita con brillantes y negros rizos y la sonrisa de un duendecillo, a la que Perla, no teniendo otra compaera con quien jugar, invitaba a que la tomara de la mano y diese una carrera con ella. La imagen repeta la misma seal como diciendo:—"Este es un lugar mejor: ven aqu;"—y Perla, entrando en el agua hasta las rodillas, contemplaba sus piececitos blancos en el fondo mientras, aun ms profundamente, vea una vaga sonrisa flotar en el agua agitada.
Entretanto la madre se haba acercado al mdico.
—Quisiera hablarte una palabra,—dijo Ester,—una palabra que a ambos nos interesa.
—Hola! Es la Sra. Ester la que desea hablar una palabra con el viejo Roger Chillingworth?—respondi el mdico, irguindose lentamente.—Con todo mi corazn, continu; vamos, seora, oigo solamente buenas noticias vuestras en todas partes. Sin ir ms lejos, ayer por la tarde, un magistrado, hombre sabio y temeroso de Dios, estaba discurriendo conmigo acerca de vuestros asuntos, Sra. Ester, y me dijo que se haba estado discutiendo en el Consejo si se podra quitar de vuestro pecho, sin que padeciera la comunidad, esa letra escarlata que ostentis. Os juro por mi vida, Ester, que rogu encarecidamente al digno magistrado que se hiciera eso sin prdida de tiempo.
—No depende de la voluntad de los magistrados quitarme esta insignia,—respondi tranquilamente Ester.—Si yo fuere digna de verme libre de ella, ya se habra cado por s misma, o se habra transformado en algo de una significacin muy diferente.
—Llevadla, pues, si as os place,—replic el mdico.—Una mujer debe seguir su propio capricho en lo que concierne al adorno de su persona. La letra est bellamente bordada, y luce muy bien en vuestro pecho.
Mientras as hablaban, Ester haba estado observando fijamente al anciano mdico, y se qued sorprendida a la vez que espantada, al notar el cambio que en l se haba operado en los ltimos siete aos; no porque hubiera envejecido, pues aunque eran visibles las huellas de la edad, pareca retener aun su vigor y antigua viveza de espritu; pero aquel aspecto de hombre intelectual y estudioso, tranquilo y apacible, que era lo que ella mejor recordaba, haba desaparecido por completo, reemplazndole una expresin ansiosa, escudriadora, casi feroz, aunque reservada. Pareca que su deseo y su propsito eran ocultar esa expresin bajo una sonrisa, pero sta le venda, pues vagaba tan irrisoriamente por su rostro, que el espectador poda, merced a ella, discernir mejor la negrura de su alma. De vez en cuando brillaban sus ojos con siniestro fulgor, como si el alma del anciano fuera presa de un incendio, que se manifestara solo de tarde en tarde por una rpida explosin de clera y momentnea llamarada. Esto lo reprima el mdico tan pronto como le era posible, y trataba entonces de parecer tan tranquilo como si nada hubiera sucedido.
En una palabra, el viejo mdico era un ejemplo de la extraordinaria facultad que tiene el hombre de transformarse en un demonio, si quiere por cierto tiempo desempear el oficio de ste. Transformacin tal se haba operado en el mdico, por haberse dedicado durante siete aos al constante anlisis de un corazn lleno de agona, hallando su placer en esa tarea, y aadiendo, por decirlo as, combustible a las horribles torturas que analizaba y en cuyo anlisis hallaba tan intenso placer.
La letra escarlata abrasaba el seno de Ester Prynne. Aqu haba otra ruina de que ella era en parte responsable.
—Qu veis en mi rostro, que contemplis con tal gravedad de expresin?—pregunt el mdico.
—Algo que me hara llorar, si para ello hubiese en m lgrimas bastante acerbas,—respondi Ester;—pero no hablemos de eso. De aquel infortunado hombre es de quien quisiera hablar.
—Y qu hay con l?—pregunt el mdico con ansiedad, como si el tema fuera muy de su agrado, y se alegrara de hallar una oportunidad de discutirlo con la nica persona con quien pudiera hacerlo.—Para decir la verdad, mi Sra. Ester, precisamente mis pensamientos estaban ahora ocupados en ese caballero: de consiguiente, hablad con toda libertad, que os responder.
—Cuando nos hablamos la ltima vez, dijo Ester, de esto hace unos siete aos, os complacisteis en arrancarme la promesa de que guardara el secreto acerca de las relaciones que en otro tiempo existieron entre nosotros. Como la vida y el buen nombre del ministro estaban en vuestras manos, no me qued otra cosa que hacer sino permanecer en silencio de acuerdo con vuestro deseo. Sin embargo, no sin graves presentimientos, me obligu a ello; porque hallndome desligada de toda obligacin para con los dems seres humanos, no lo estaba para con l; y algo haba que me murmuraba en los odos que al empear mi palabra de que obedecera vuestro mandato, le estaba haciendo traicin. Desde entonces, nadie como vos se halla tan cerca de l: segus cada uno de sus pasos; estis a su lado, despierto o dormido; escudriis sus pensamientos; minis y ulceris su corazn; su vida est en vuestras garras; le estis matando con una muerte lenta, y todava no os conoce, no sabe quin sois. Al permitir yo esto, he procedido con falsedad respecto al nico hombre con quien tena el deber de ser sincera. |
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