Then, indeed, Mr. Dimmesdale shuddered, and slightly stirred.
After a brief pause, the physician turned away.
But with what a wild look of wonder, joy, and horror! With what
a ghastly rapture, as it were, too mighty to be expressed only
by the eye and features, and therefore bursting forth through
the whole ugliness of his figure, and making itself even
riotously manifest by the extravagant gestures with which he
threw up his arms towards the ceiling, and stamped his foot upon
the floor! Had a man seen old Roger Chillingworth, at that
moment of his ecstasy, he would have had no need to ask how
Satan comports himself when a precious human soul is lost to
heaven, and won into his kingdom.
But what distinguished the physician's ecstasy from Satan's was
the trait of wonder in it!
XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART
After the incident last described, the intercourse between the
clergyman and the physician, though externally the same, was
really of another character than it had previously been. The
intellect of Roger Chillingworth had now a sufficiently plain
path before it. It was not, indeed, precisely that which he had
laid out for himself to tread.
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