believes
that the shame of public humiliation is ample punishment for . The scarlet letter she wears is
enough to satisfy him.
When they meet and he gives her a medicinal draught,
she fears he is trying poison and kill her in revenge for her infidelity. He insists this is not
so, saying:
Live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with
thee, in the eyes of men and women,in the eyes of him whom thou didst call thy husband,in the
eyes of yonder child!
Public shame is terrible to
Chillingworth, which is why he wants to keep his marriage to her a secret. He also acknowledges
that he is partly to blame for her state, saying:
It was
my folly, and thy weakness. I,a man of thought,the bookworm of great libraries,a man already in
decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge,what had I to do with
youth and beauty like thine own!
He understands that
Hester would be attracted to a younger and more handsome man.
There is more
than a bit of...
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