CAPÍTULO IX continuación - Pag 33

Roger Chillingworth possessed all, or most, of the attributes above enumerated. Nevertheless, 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 to themselves; and yet no secret, such as the physician fancied must exist there, ever stole out of the minister's consciousness into his companion's ear. The latter had his suspicions, indeed, that even the nature of Mr. Dimmesdale's bodily disease had never fairly been revealed to him. It was a strange reserve!
After a time, at a hint from Roger Chillingworth, the friends of Mr. Dimmesdale effected an arrangement by which the two were lodged in the same house; so that every ebb and flow of the minister's life-tide might pass under the eye of his anxious and attached physician. There was much joy throughout the town when this greatly desirable object 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 authorised 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, 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 Mr. Dimmesdale so evidently was, to eat his unsavoury morsel always at another's board, and endure the life-long chill which must 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 concord 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 new abode of the two friends was with a 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 to their respective employments, in both minister and man of physic. The motherly care of the good widow assigned to Mr. Dimmesdale a front apartment, with a sunny exposure, and heavy window-curtains, to create a noontide shadow when desirable. The walls were hung round with tapestry, said to be from the Gobelin looms, and, at all events, representing the Scriptural 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-denouncing seer. Here the pale clergyman piled up his library, rich with parchment-bound folios of the Fathers, and the lore of Rabbis, and monkish erudition, of which the Protestant divines, even 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 practised 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 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 community had latterly begun to take its own view of the relation betwixt Mr. 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 of its great and warm heart, the conclusions thus attained are often so profound and so unerring as to possess the character of truth 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. There was an aged handicraftsman, it is true, who had been a citizen of 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 Dr. Forman, the famous old conjurer, who was 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 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 with Mr. Dimmesdale. At first, his expression had been calm, meditative, scholar-like. 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 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 Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other personages of special sanctity, in all ages of the Christian world, 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, it was confessed, could doubt on which side the victory would turn. 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! to judge from the gloom and terror in the depth of the poor minister's eyes, the battle was a sore one, and the victory anything but secure.

Los amigos más sensatos del Reverendo Arturo Dimmesdale, como ya hemos indicado, se imaginaban, muy fundadamente, que la mano de la Providencia había hecho todo esto con el objeto,—demandado en tantas preces, así públicas como privadas,—de restaurar la salud del joven ministro. Pero es preciso decir también que cierta parte de la comunidad había comenzado últimamente a considerar de un modo distinto las relaciones entre el Sr. Dimmesdale y el misterioso y anciano médico. Cuando una multitud ignorante trata de ver las cosas con sus propios ojos, por su cuenta y riesgo, corre grave peligro de engañarse. Sin embargo, cuando forma su juicio, como acontece comunmente, guiada por las enseñanzas de una gran alma, las conclusiones a que llega son con frecuencia tan profundas y tan exactas, que puede decirse que poseen el carácter de verdades reveladas sobrenaturalmente. El pueblo, en el caso de que tratamos, no podía justificar su prevención contra Roger Chillingworth con razones ningunas dignas de refutarse. Es verdad que un antiguo artesano que había vivido en Londres treinta años antes de los sucesos que narramos, afirmaba haber visto al médico, aunque con un nombre distinto, que no recordaba, en compañía del Doctor Forman, el famoso y viejo mágico implicado en el asunto del asesinato de Sir Tomás Overbury, que ocurrió por aquel entonces y causó lo que hoy se llama gran sensación. Dos o tres individuos decían que el físico, durante su cautiverio entre los indios, había aumentado sus conocimientos médicos tomando parte en los encantamientos o ceremonias mágicas de los sacerdotes salvajes; quienes, como se sabía de fijo, eran hechiceros poderosos que a veces realizaban curas casi milagrosas merced a su pericia en la Magia Negra. Un gran número de individuos,—y muchos de ellos dotados de sensatez, y observadores prácticos, cuyas opiniones en otras materias hubieran sido muy valiosas,—afirmaban que el aspecto externo de Roger Chillingworth había experimentado un notable cambio desde que se había fijado en la población, y especialmente desde que vivía bajo el mismo techo que Dimmesdale. La expresión de su rostro tranquila, meditativa y de hombre dedicado al estudio que le caracterizaba al principio, había sido reemplazada por algo maligno y desagradable, que antes no se notaba, pero cuya intensidad se iba aumentando a medida que se le observaba más de cerca y con más frecuencia. Según la idea vulgar, el fuego que ardía en su laboratorio procedía del infierno, y estaba alimentado con sustancias infernales; y por lo tanto, como era de esperarse, su rostro se iba también ennegreciendo más y más con el humo.
Para resumir diremos, que tomó cuerpo la creencia de que el Reverendo Arturo Dimmesdale, a semejanza de otros muchos personajes de especial santidad en todas las épocas de la religión cristiana, se veía tentado por Satanás mismo, o por un emisario suyo en la persona del viejo Roger Chillingworth. Este diabólico agente tenía el permiso divino de gozar por algún tiempo de la intimidad del joven eclesiástico, y de conspirar contra la salvación de su alma; aunque ningún hombre sensato podía dudar por un momento de qué lado quedaría la victoria. El pueblo esperaba, con fe inquebrantable, ver al ministro salir de aquella lucha transfigurado con la gloria que le proporcionaría su triunfo inevitable. Entretanto, era sin embargo muy triste pensar en la mortal agonía por que tenía que pasar antes de salir vencedor.
¡Ay! a juzgar por la tristeza y terror que se revelaban en las miradas del pobre eclesiástico, la batalla estaba siendo muy ruda sin que pudiera decirse que la victoria fuera segura.