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 remembered 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 passion 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.
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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?"
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