The Scarlet Letter Chapter Nine: The Leech Summary

We return to Roger Chillingworth in this chapter, with a reminder that he had arrived, hoping to find a home and warmth with his wife, only to discover that she is the symbol of sin for the entire town.
As a physician, he is excellent, combining his knowledge of American Indian herbal medicine and British medicine. He chooses as his spiritual mentor the Reverend Dimmesdale.
Dimmesdale’s health has clearly begun to fail. Most people attribute this to his excessive study and devotion to God. He is thin, tired, and depressed, and often observed to put his hand over his heart, as if he is in pain.
Chillingworth takes a strong interest in Dimmesdale; the congregation takes this as a good sign and hope that he can heal Dimmesdale. But Dimmesdale says he needs no medicine. Eventually, he is persuaded and Chillingworth becomes his personal physician.
They begin to spend many hours together, enjoying their intellectual conversations.
The narrator openly refers to Chillingworth as "the leech."
Chillingworth feels that he cannot help Dimmesdale until he knows what ails him, and so he analyzes him mentally, psychologically, and spiritually as well as physically.
The narrator refers to Dimmesdale’s "secret," suggesting that Chillingworth will ferret it out. The two men develop a kind of intimacy, discussing every topic, even personal ones.
But Dimmesdale never reveals his secret.
Eventually, Chillingworth hints to Dimmesdale’s friends that it would be better if he and Dimmesdale lived together so that he could better assist the minister’s health.
Friends and parishioners arrange for the two men to live in the same house. Since Dimmesdale has shown no interest in getting married, his congregation believes his life must be lonely and cold; living with his physician, then, seems like the perfect solution.
For many, it seems like the hand of God.
But, the narrator wants us to know, there were those in the community who had their doubts about these arrangements because they formed their judgment not on eyesight, but through the "intuitions of the heart" (9.17).
These doubters feel that Chillingworth has changed since he first came to town. At first, he had appeared like scholar, but now there was something "ugly and evil in his face" (9.17).
The townspeople begin to change their opinions of him, fearing that Dimmesdale is being haunted and hunted by Satan himself in the guise of Chillingworth.

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