Little Inklings 2022

Miranda silva ❜ 26 The Scarlet letter so rich with benefits conferred. Dost thou remember me? Was not, though you might deem cold, nevertheless a man thoughtful of others, craving little for himself–kind, true, just and of constant, if not warm affections? Was I not all this?” “All this and more,” said Hester. “And what am I now?” demanded he, looking into her face, and permitting the whole evil within him to be written on his features. “I have already told thee what I am–a fiend! Who made me so?” “It was myself,” cried Hester, shuddering. “It was I, not less than he. Why hast thou not avenged thyself on me?” “I have left thee to the scarlet letter,” replied Roger Chilling- worth. “If that was not avenged me, I can do no more!” He laid his finger on it with a smile. “It has avenged thee,” answered Hester Prynne. “I judged no less,” said the physician. “And now what wouldst thou with me touching this man?” “I must reveal the secret,” answered Hester, firmly. “He must know not. But this long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin I have been, shall at length be paid. So far as concerns the overthrow or preservation of his fair fame and his earthly state, and perchance his life, he is in my hands. Nor do I-whom the scarlet letter has disciplined to truth, though it be the truth of red-hot iron entering into the soul–nor do I perceive such advantage in his living any longer a life of ghastly emptiness, that I shall stoop to implore thy mercy. Do with him as thou wilt! There is no good for him, no good for me, no good for thee. There is no good for little Pearl. There is no path to guide us out of this dismal maze.” “Woman, I could well-nigh pity thee,” said Roger Chillingworth, unable to restrain a thrill of admiration too, for there was a quality almost majestic in the despair which she had expressed. “Thou hadst great elements. Peradventure, hadst thou met earlier with a better love than mine, this evil had not been. “And I thee,” answered Hester Prynne, “for the hatred that has transformed a wise and just a man to a fiend! Wilt thou yet purge it out of thee, and be once more human? If not for his sake, then doubly for thine own! Forgive and leave his further 61