idden from all others, she could readily infer that, besides the legitimate action of his own conscience, a terrible machinery had been brought to bear, and was still operating, on Mr. Dimmesdale's well being and repose.(146)" Hester realizes that Roger is no longer torturing Dimmesdale for retribution. Dimmesdale is now Roger's fascination. Roger "was still operating on Mr. Dimmesdale", which means he was still eating away at him. Nothing could stop Roger from sucking out Dimmesdale's life. If Roger stopped feeding off him, he would die.The more Roger takes out of Dimmesdale the uglier Roger begins to look and the sicker Dimmesdale becomes. Dimmesdale begins to look very pale and he always has his hand over his heart. Roger sucks the life out of Dimmesdale for revenge. Exacting retribution on a person can be healthy to a certain point. When it goes beyond that point and becomes a fixation, it is unhealthy; Roger is at the point of obsession. His whole body frame changes and he begins to look like Satan. "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.(127)"Roger finds a mark on Dimmesdale's chest proving he is Pearl's father. This was the one major fact that Roger had been looking for in his fascination with Reverend Dimmesdale. Roger gets very excited with this new irrefutable proof and his whole bod...
