“Then, all was spoken!”
In connection with their proposed departure to Europe, the minister inquired of Hester the time at which the vessel would depart, and learned that it would probably be on the fourth day thereafter. “That is most fortunate!” the clergyman then said to himself. The reason why he considered it fortunate revealed a very subtle phase of human nature.
“It was because, on the third day from the present, he was to preach the Election Sermon; and as such an occasion formed an honorable epoch in the life of a New England clergyman, he could not have chanced upon a more suitable mode and time of terminating his professional career. ‘At least, they shall say of me,’ thought this exemplary man, ‘that I leave no public duty unperformed, nor ill performed.’”
And of this strange feeling the author remarks:
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true one.”
Having resolved upon flight, however, and in the joy of his anticipated release from a dreadful life, a curious change comes over Mr. Dimmesdale, a revolution in his sphere of thought and feeling.
“At every step he was incited to do some strange, wild, wicked thing or other, with a sense that it would be at once involuntary and intentional; in spite of himself, yet growing out of a profounder self than that which opposed the impulse.”
When he met one of his old deacons, it was only by the most careful self-control that he could refrain from certain blasphemous suggestions respecting the communion supper. When he met a pious and exemplary old dame, the eldest of his flock, whom he had often refreshed with warm, fragrant Gospel truths, he could now recall no text of Scripture, nor aught else, except a brief, pithy, and, as it then appeared to him, unanswerable argument against the immortality of the human soul. He was tempted to make certain evil suggestions to one of the young women of his flock, and to teach some very wicked words to a knot of little Puritan children. He had come back from the forest another man.
But when the hour of departure approaches, and amid the preparations for the great Election Sermon, Hester hears that Roger Chillingworth has learned of their intended flight and taken passage by the same ship!
The final climax is reached when Dimmesdale, after preaching his great sermon, which arouses the people to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, comes forth from the church, and recognizes Hester and Pearl. At his earnest entreaty she supports him to the scaffold, where he stands at her side, and, against the protestations of old Chillingworth, confesses his guilt, shows the scarlet letter upon his own breast, and expires. Chillingworth does not long survive him. Hester goes with Pearl across the sea, but after some years returns alone, again resumes the scarlet letter, and takes up her old life in her little cottage near the town.