"Phase the First: The Maiden\n\n\nI\n\n\nOn an evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking\nhomeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining\nVale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor.  The pair of legs that carried him\nwere rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him\nsomewhat to the left of a straight line.  He occasionally gave a\nsmart nod, as if in confirmation of some opinion, though he was not\nthinking of anything in particular.  An empty egg-basket was slung\nupon his arm, the nap of his hat was ruffled, a patch being quite\nworn away at its brim where his thumb came in taking it off.\nPresently he was met by an elderly parson astride on a gray mare,\nwho, as he rode, hummed a wandering tune.\n\n\"Good night t'ee,\" said the man with the basket.\n\n\"Good night, Sir John,\" said the parson.\n\nThe pedestrian, after another pace or two, halted, and turned round.\n\n\"Now, sir, begging your pardon; we met last market-day on this road\nabout this time, and I said 'Good night,' and you made reply '_Good\nnight, Sir John_,' as now.\"\n\n\"I did,\" said the parson.\n\n\"And once before that--near a month ago.\"\n\n\"I may have.\"\n\n\"Then what might your meaning be in calling me 'Sir John' these\ndifferent times, when I be plain Jack Durbeyfield, the haggler?\"\n\nThe parson rode a step or two nearer.\n\n\"It was only my whim,\" he said; and, after a moment's hesitation: \"It\nwas on account of a discovery I made some little time ago, whilst I\nwas hunting up pedigrees for the new county history.  I am Parson\nTringham, the antiquary, of Stagfoot Lane.  Don't you really know,\nDurbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient\nand knightly family of the d'Urbervilles, who derive their descent\nfrom Sir Pagan d'Urberville, that renowned knight who came from\nNormandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey\nRoll?\"\n\n\"Never heard it before, sir!\"\n\n\"Well it's true.  Throw up your chin a moment, so that I may catch\nthe profile of your face better.  Yes, that's the d'Urberville nose\nand chin--a little debased.  Your ancestor was one of the twelve\nknights who assisted the Lord of Estremavilla in Normandy in his\nconquest of Glamorganshire.  Branches of your family held manors over\nall this part of England; their names appear in the Pipe Rolls in the\ntime of King Stephen.  In the reign of King John one of them was rich\nenough to give a manor to the Knights Hospitallers; and in Edward the\nSecond's time your forefather Brian was summoned to Westminster to\nattend the great Council there.  You declined a little in Oliver\nCromwell's time, but to no serious extent, and in Charles the\nSecond's reign you were made Knights of the Royal Oak for your\nloyalty.  Aye, there have been generations of Sir Johns among\nyou, and if knighthood were hereditary, like a baronetcy, as it\npractically was in old times, when men were knighted from father\nto son, you would be Sir John now.\"\n\n\"Ye don't say so!\"\n\n\"In short,\" concluded the parson, decisively smacking his leg with\nhis switch, \"there's hardly such another family in England.\"\n\n\"Daze my eyes, and isn't there?\" said Durbeyfield.  \"And here have I\nbeen knocking about, year after year, from pillar to post, as if I\nwas no more than the commonest feller in the parish...  And how long\nhev this news about me been knowed, Pa'son Tringham?\"\n\nThe clergyman explained that, as far as he was aware, it had quite\ndied out of knowledge, and could hardly be said to be known at all.\nHis own investigations had begun on a day in the preceding spring\nwhen, having been engaged in tracing the vicissitudes of the\nd'Urberville family, he had observed Durbeyfield's name on his\nwaggon, and had thereupon been led to make inquiries about his\nfather and grandfather till he had no doubt on the subject.\n\n\"At first I resolved not to disturb you with such a useless piece of\ninformation,\" said he.  \"However, our impulses are too strong for our\njudgement sometimes.  I thought you might perhaps know something of\nit all the while.\"\n\n\"Well, I have heard once or twice, 'tis true, that my family had seen\nbetter days afore they came to Blackmoor.  But I took no notice o't,\nthinking it to mean that we had once kept two horses where we now\nkeep only one.  I've got a wold silver spoon, and a wold graven seal\nat home, too; but, Lord, what's a spoon and seal? ...  And to think\nthat I and these noble d'Urbervilles were one flesh all the time.\n'Twas said that my gr't-granfer had secrets, and didn't care to talk\nof where he came from...  And where do we raise our smoke, now,\nparson, if I may make so bold; I mean, where do we d'Urbervilles\nlive?\"\n\n\"You don't live anywhere. You are extinct--as a county family.\"\n\n\"That's bad.\"\n\n\"Yes--what the mendacious family chronicles call extinct in the male\nline--that is, gone down--gone under.\"\n\n\"Then where do we lie?\"\n\n\"At Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill: rows and rows of you in your vaults,\nwith your effigies under Purbeck-marble canopies.\"\n\n\"And where be our family mansions and estates?\"\n\n\"You haven't any.\"\n\n\"Oh?  No lands neither?\"\n\n\"None; though you once had 'em in abundance, as I said, for you\nfamily consisted of numerous branches.  In this county there was a\nseat of yours at Kingsbere, and another at Sherton, and another in\nMillpond, and another at Lullstead, and another at Wellbridge.\"\n\n\"And shall we ever come into our own again?\"\n\n\"Ah--that I can't tell!\"\n\n\"And what had I better do about it, sir?\" asked Durbeyfield, after a\npause.\n\n\"Oh--nothing, nothing; except chasten yourself with the thought of\n'how are the mighty fallen.'  It is a fact of some interest to the\nlocal historian and genealogist, nothing more.  There are several\nfamilies among the cottagers of this county of almost equal lustre.\nGood night.\"\n\n\"But you'll turn back and have a quart of beer wi' me on the strength\no't, Pa'son Tringham?  There's a very pretty brew in tap at The Pure\nDrop--though, to be sure, not so good as at Rolliver's.\"\n\n\"No, thank you--not this evening, Durbeyfield.  You've had enough\nalready.\"  Concluding thus, the parson rode on his way, with doubts\nas to his discretion in retailing this curious bit of lore.\n\nWhen he was gone, Durbeyfield walked a few steps in a profound\nreverie, and then sat down upon the grassy bank by the roadside,\ndepositing his basket before him.  In a few minutes a youth appeared\nin the distance, walking in the same direction as that which had been\npursued by Durbeyfield.  The latter, on seeing him, held up his hand,\nand the lad quickened his pace and came near.\n\n\"Boy, take up that basket!  I want 'ee to go on an errand for me.\"\n\nThe lath-like stripling frowned.  \"Who be you, then, John\nDurbeyfield, to order me about and call me 'boy'?  You know my\nname as well as I know yours!\"\n\n\"Do you, do you?  That's the secret--that's the secret! Now obey my\norders, and take the message I'm going to charge 'ee wi'...  Well,\nFred, I don't mind telling you that the secret is that I'm one of a\nnoble race--it has been just found out by me this present afternoon,\nP.M.\"  And as he made the announcement, Durbeyfield, declining from\nhis sitting position, luxuriously stretched himself out upon the bank\namong the daisies.\n\nThe lad stood before Durbeyfield, and contemplated his length from\ncrown to toe.\n\n\"Sir John d'Urberville--that's who I am,\" continued the prostrate\nman.  \"That is if knights were baronets--which they be.  'Tis\nrecorded in history all about me.  Dost know of such a place, lad,\nas Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill?\"\n\n\"Ees.  I've been there to Greenhill Fair.\"\n\n\"Well, under the church of that city there lie--\"\n\n\"'Tisn't a city, the place I mean; leastwise 'twaddn' when I was\nthere--'twas a little one-eyed, blinking sort o' place.\"\n\n\"Never you mind the place, boy, that's not the question before us.\nUnder the church of that there parish lie my ancestors--hundreds of\n'em--in coats of mail and jewels, in gr't lead coffins weighing tons\nand tons.  There's not a man in the county o' South-Wessex that's\ngot grander and nobler skillentons in his family than I.\"\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"Now take up that basket, and goo on to Marlott, and when you've come\nto The Pure Drop Inn, tell 'em to send a horse and carriage to me\nimmed'ately, to carry me hwome.  And in the bottom o' the carriage\nthey be to put a noggin o' rum in a small bottle, and chalk it up\nto my account.  And when you've done that goo on to my house with\nthe basket, and tell my wife to put away that washing, because she\nneedn't finish it, and wait till I come hwome, as I've news to tell\nher.\"\n\nAs the lad stood in a dubious attitude, Durbeyfield put his hand in\nhis pocket, and produced a shilling, one of the chronically few that\nhe possessed.\n\n\"Here's for your labour, lad.\"\n\nThis made a difference in the young man's estimate of the position.\n\n\"Yes, Sir John.  Thank 'ee.  Anything else I can do for 'ee, Sir\nJohn?\"\n\n\"Tell 'em at hwome that I should like for supper,--well, lamb's fry\nif they can get it; and if they can't, black-pot; and if they can't\nget that, well chitterlings will do.\"\n\n\"Yes, Sir John.\"\n\nThe boy took up the basket, and as he set out the notes of a brass\nband were heard from the direction of the village.\n\n\"What's that?\" said Durbeyfield.  \"Not on account o' I?\"\n\n\"'Tis the women's club-walking, Sir John.  Why, your da'ter is one o'\nthe members.\"\n\n\"To be sure--I'd quite forgot it in my thoughts of greater things!\nWell, vamp on to Marlott, will ye, and order that carriage, and\nmaybe I'll drive round and inspect the club.\"\n\nThe lad departed, and Durbeyfield lay waiting on the grass and\ndaisies in the evening sun.  Not a soul passed that way for a long\nwhile, and the faint notes of the band were the only human sounds\naudible within the rim of blue hills.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nThe village of Marlott lay amid the north-eastern undulations of the\nbeautiful Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor, aforesaid, an engirdled\nand secluded region, for the most part untrodden as yet by tourist or\nlandscape-painter, though within a four hours' journey from London.\n\nIt is a vale whose acquaintance is best made by viewing it from the\nsummits of the hills that surround it--except perhaps during the\ndroughts of summer.  An unguided ramble into its recesses in bad\nweather is apt to engender dissatisfaction with its narrow, tortuous,\nand miry ways.\n\nThis fertile and sheltered tract of country, in which the fields are\nnever brown and the springs never dry, is bounded on the south by the\nbold chalk ridge that embraces the prominences of Hambledon Hill,\nBulbarrow, Nettlecombe-Tout, Dogbury, High Stoy, and Bubb Down.  The\ntraveller from the coast, who, after plodding northward for a score\nof miles over calcareous downs and corn-lands, suddenly reaches\nthe verge of one of these escarpments, is surprised and delighted\nto behold, extended like a map beneath him, a country differing\nabsolutely from that which he has passed through.  Behind him the\nhills are open, the sun blazes down upon fields so large as to give\nan unenclosed character to the landscape, the lanes are white, the\nhedges low and plashed, the atmosphere colourless.  Here, in the\nvalley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more\ndelicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from\nthis height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads\noverspreading the paler green of the grass.  The atmosphere beneath\nis languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the\nmiddle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond\nis of the deepest ultramarine.  Arable lands are few and limited;\nwith but slight exceptions the prospect is a broad rich mass of grass\nand trees, mantling minor hills and dales within the major.  Such is\nthe Vale of Blackmoor.\n\nThe district is of historic, no less than of topographical interest.\nThe Vale was known in former times as the Forest of White Hart, from\na curious legend of King Henry III's reign, in which the killing by\na certain Thomas de la Lynd of a beautiful white hart which the king\nhad run down and spared, was made the occasion of a heavy fine.\nIn those days, and till comparatively recent times, the country was\ndensely wooded.  Even now, traces of its earlier condition are to be\nfound in the old oak copses and irregular belts of timber that yet\nsurvive upon its slopes, and the hollow-trunked trees that shade so\nmany of its pastures.\n\nThe forests have departed, but some old customs of their shades\nremain.  Many, however, linger only in a metamorphosed or disguised\nform.  The May-Day dance, for instance, was to be discerned on\nthe afternoon under notice, in the guise of the club revel, or\n\"club-walking,\" as it was there called.\n\nIt was an interesting event to the younger inhabitants of Marlott,\nthough its real interest was not observed by the participators in the\nceremony.  Its singularity lay less in the retention of a custom of\nwalking in procession and dancing on each anniversary than in the\nmembers being solely women.  In men's clubs such celebrations were,\nthough expiring, less uncommon; but either the natural shyness of the\nsofter sex, or a sarcastic attitude on the part of male relatives,\nhad denuded such women's clubs as remained (if any other did) or this\ntheir glory and consummation.  The club of Marlott alone lived to\nuphold the local Cerealia.  It had walked for hundreds of years, if\nnot as benefit-club, as votive sisterhood of some sort; and it walked\nstill.\n\nThe banded ones were all dressed in white gowns--a gay survival from\nOld Style days, when cheerfulness and May-time were synonyms--days\nbefore the habit of taking long views had reduced emotions to a\nmonotonous average.  Their first exhibition of themselves was in a\nprocessional march of two and two round the parish.  Ideal and real\nclashed slightly as the sun lit up their figures against the green\nhedges and creeper-laced house-fronts; for, though the whole troop\nwore white garments, no two whites were alike among them.  Some\napproached pure blanching; some had a bluish pallor; some worn by the\nolder characters (which had possibly lain by folded for many a year)\ninclined to a cadaverous tint, and to a Georgian style.\n\nIn addition to the distinction of a white frock, every woman and girl\ncarried in her right hand a peeled willow wand, and in her left a\nbunch of white flowers.  The peeling of the former, and the selection\nof the latter, had been an operation of personal care.\n\nThere were a few middle-aged and even elderly women in the train,\ntheir silver-wiry hair and wrinkled faces, scourged by time and\ntrouble, having almost a grotesque, certainly a pathetic, appearance\nin such a jaunty situation.  In a true view, perhaps, there was more\nto be gathered and told of each anxious and experienced one, to whom\nthe years were drawing nigh when she should say, \"I have no pleasure\nin them,\" than of her juvenile comrades.  But let the elder be passed\nover here for those under whose bodices the life throbbed quick and\nwarm.\n\nThe young girls formed, indeed, the majority of the band, and their\nheads of luxuriant hair reflected in the sunshine every tone of gold,\nand black, and brown.  Some had beautiful eyes, others a beautiful\nnose, others a beautiful mouth and figure: few, if any, had all.  A\ndifficulty of arranging their lips in this crude exposure to public\nscrutiny, an inability to balance their heads, and to dissociate\nself-consciousness from their features, was apparent in them, and\nshowed that they were genuine country girls, unaccustomed to many\neyes.\n\nAnd as each and all of them were warmed without by the sun, so each\nhad a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some\naffection, some hobby, at least some remote and distant hope which,\nthough perhaps starving to nothing, still lived on, as hopes will.\nThey were all cheerful, and many of them merry.\n\nThey came round by The Pure Drop Inn, and were turning out of the\nhigh road to pass through a wicket-gate into the meadows, when one of\nthe women said--\n\n\"The Load-a-Lord!  Why, Tess Durbeyfield, if there isn't thy father\nriding hwome in a carriage!\"\n\nA young member of the band turned her head at the exclamation.\nShe was a fine and handsome girl--not handsomer than some others,\npossibly--but her mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes added\neloquence to colour and shape.  She wore a red ribbon in her hair,\nand was the only one of the white company who could boast of such\na pronounced adornment.  As she looked round Durbeyfield was seen\nmoving along the road in a chaise belonging to The Pure Drop, driven\nby a frizzle-headed brawny damsel with her gown-sleeves rolled above\nher elbows.  This was the cheerful servant of that establishment,\nwho, in her part of factotum, turned groom and ostler at times.\nDurbeyfield, leaning back, and with his eyes closed luxuriously, was\nwaving his hand above his head, and singing in a slow recitative--\n\n\"I've-got-a-gr't-family-vault-at-Kingsbere--and\nknighted-forefathers-in-lead-coffins-there!\"\n\nThe clubbists tittered, except the girl called Tess--in whom a slow\nheat seemed to rise at the sense that her father was making himself\nfoolish in their eyes.\n\n\"He's tired, that's all,\" she said hastily, \"and he has got a lift\nhome, because our own horse has to rest to-day.\"\n\n\"Bless thy simplicity, Tess,\" said her companions.  \"He's got his\nmarket-nitch.  Haw-haw!\"\n\n\"Look here; I won't walk another inch with you, if you say any jokes\nabout him!\" Tess cried, and the colour upon her cheeks spread over\nher face and neck.  In a moment her eyes grew moist, and her glance\ndrooped to the ground.  Perceiving that they had really pained her\nthey said no more, and order again prevailed.  Tess's pride would not\nallow her to turn her head again, to learn what her father's meaning\nwas, if he had any; and thus she moved on with the whole body to the\nenclosure where there was to be dancing on the green.  By the time\nthe spot was reached she has recovered her equanimity, and tapped her\nneighbour with her wand and talked as usual.\n\nTess Durbeyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of\nemotion untinctured by experience.  The dialect was on her tongue\nto some extent, despite the village school: the characteristic\nintonation of that dialect for this district being the voicing\napproximately rendered by the syllable UR, probably as rich an\nutterance as any to be found in human speech.  The pouted-up deep red\nmouth to which this syllable was native had hardly as yet settled\ninto its definite shape, and her lower lip had a way of thrusting the\nmiddle of her top one upward, when they closed together after a word.\n\nPhases of her childhood lurked in her aspect still.  As she walked\nalong to-day, for all her bouncing handsome womanliness, you could\nsometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks, or her ninth sparkling\nfrom her eyes; and even her fifth would flit over the curves of her\nmouth now and then.\n\nYet few knew, and still fewer considered this.  A small minority,\nmainly strangers, would look long at her in casually passing by, and\ngrow momentarily fascinated by her freshness, and wonder if they\nwould ever see her again: but to almost everybody she was a fine and\npicturesque country girl, and no more.\n\nNothing was seen or heard further of Durbeyfield in his triumphal\nchariot under the conduct of the ostleress, and the club having\nentered the allotted space, dancing began.  As there were no men in\nthe company, the girls danced at first with each other, but when the\nhour for the close of labour drew on, the masculine inhabitants of\nthe village, together with other idlers and pedestrians, gathered\nround the spot, and appeared inclined to negotiate for a partner.\n\nAmong these on-lookers were three young men of a superior class,\ncarrying small knapsacks strapped to their shoulders, and stout\nsticks in their hands.  Their general likeness to each other, and\ntheir consecutive ages, would almost have suggested that they might\nbe, what in fact they were, brothers.  The eldest wore the white tie,\nhigh waistcoat, and thin-brimmed hat of the regulation curate; the\nsecond was the normal undergraduate; the appearance of the third and\nyoungest would hardly have been sufficient to characterize him; there\nwas an uncribbed, uncabined aspect in his eyes and attire, implying\nthat he had hardly as yet found the entrance to his professional\ngroove.  That he was a desultory tentative student of something and\neverything might only have been predicted of him.\n\nThese three brethren told casual acquaintance that they were spending\ntheir Whitsun holidays in a walking tour through the Vale of\nBlackmoor, their course being south-westerly from the town of Shaston\non the north-east.\n\nThey leant over the gate by the highway, and inquired as to the\nmeaning of the dance and the white-frocked maids.  The two elder of\nthe brothers were plainly not intending to linger more than a moment,\nbut the spectacle of a bevy of girls dancing without male partners\nseemed to amuse the third, and make him in no hurry to move on.  He\nunstrapped his knapsack, put it, with his stick, on the hedge-bank,\nand opened the gate.\n\n\"What are you going to do, Angel?\" asked the eldest.\n\n\"I am inclined to go and have a fling with them.  Why not all of\nus--just for a minute or two--it will not detain us long?\"\n\n\"No--no; nonsense!\" said the first.  \"Dancing in public with a troop\nof country hoydens--suppose we should be seen!  Come along, or it\nwill be dark before we get to Stourcastle, and there's no place we\ncan sleep at nearer than that; besides, we must get through another\nchapter of _A Counterblast to Agnosticism_ before we turn in, now I\nhave taken the trouble to bring the book.\"\n\n\"All right--I'll overtake you and Cuthbert in five minutes; don't\nstop; I give my word that I will, Felix.\"\n\nThe two elder reluctantly left him and walked on, taking their\nbrother's knapsack to relieve him in following, and the youngest\nentered the field.\n\n\"This is a thousand pities,\" he said gallantly, to two or three of\nthe girls nearest him, as soon as there was a pause in the dance.\n\"Where are your partners, my dears?\"\n\n\"They've not left off work yet,\" answered one of the boldest.\n\"They'll be here by and by.  Till then, will you be one, sir?\"\n\n\"Certainly.  But what's one among so many!\"\n\n\"Better than none.  'Tis melancholy work facing and footing it to one\nof your own sort, and no clipsing and colling at all.  Now, pick and\nchoose.\"\n\n\"'Ssh--don't be so for'ard!\" said a shyer girl.\n\nThe young man, thus invited, glanced them over, and attempted some\ndiscrimination; but, as the group were all so new to him, he could\nnot very well exercise it.  He took almost the first that came to\nhand, which was not the speaker, as she had expected; nor did it\nhappen to be Tess Durbeyfield.  Pedigree, ancestral skeletons,\nmonumental record, the d'Urberville lineaments, did not help Tess in\nher life's battle as yet, even to the extent of attracting to her a\ndancing-partner over the heads of the commonest peasantry.  So much\nfor Norman blood unaided by Victorian lucre.\n\nThe name of the eclipsing girl, whatever it was, has not been handed\ndown; but she was envied by all as the first who enjoyed the luxury\nof a masculine partner that evening.  Yet such was the force of\nexample that the village young men, who had not hastened to enter\nthe gate while no intruder was in the way, now dropped in quickly,\nand soon the couples became leavened with rustic youth to a marked\nextent, till at length the plainest woman in the club was no longer\ncompelled to foot it on the masculine side of the figure.\n\nThe church clock struck, when suddenly the student said that he must\nleave--he had been forgetting himself--he had to join his companions.\nAs he fell out of the dance his eyes lighted on Tess Durbeyfield,\nwhose own large orbs wore, to tell the truth, the faintest aspect of\nreproach that he had not chosen her.  He, too, was sorry then that,\nowing to her backwardness, he had not observed her; and with that in\nhis mind he left the pasture.\n\nOn account of his long delay he started in a flying-run down the lane\nwestward, and had soon passed the hollow and mounted the next rise.\nHe had not yet overtaken his brothers, but he paused to get breath,\nand looked back.  He could see the white figures of the girls in the\ngreen enclosure whirling about as they had whirled when he was among\nthem.  They seemed to have quite forgotten him already.\n\nAll of them, except, perhaps, one.  This white shape stood apart\nby the hedge alone.  From her position he knew it to be the pretty\nmaiden with whom he had not danced.  Trifling as the matter was, he\nyet instinctively felt that she was hurt by his oversight.  He wished\nthat he had asked her; he wished that he had inquired her name.  She\nwas so modest, so expressive, she had looked so soft in her thin\nwhite gown that he felt he had acted stupidly.\n\nHowever, it could not be helped, and turning, and bending himself to\na rapid walk, he dismissed the subject from his mind.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nAs for Tess Durbeyfield, she did not so easily dislodge the incident\nfrom her consideration.  She had no spirit to dance again for a long\ntime, though she might have had plenty of partners; but ah! they did\nnot speak so nicely as the strange young man had done.  It was not\ntill the rays of the sun had absorbed the young stranger's retreating\nfigure on the hill that she shook off her temporary sadness and\nanswered her would-be partner in the affirmative.\n\nShe remained with her comrades till dusk, and participated with a\ncertain zest in the dancing; though, being heart-whole as yet, she\nenjoyed treading a measure purely for its own sake; little divining\nwhen she saw \"the soft torments, the bitter sweets, the pleasing\npains, and the agreeable distresses\" of those girls who had been\nwooed and won, what she herself was capable of in that kind.  The\nstruggles and wrangles of the lads for her hand in a jig were an\namusement to her--no more; and when they became fierce she rebuked\nthem.\n\nShe might have stayed even later, but the incident of her father's\nodd appearance and manner returned upon the girl's mind to make her\nanxious, and wondering what had become of him she dropped away from\nthe dancers and bent her steps towards the end of the village at\nwhich the parental cottage lay.\n\nWhile yet many score yards off, other rhythmic sounds than those she\nhad quitted became audible to her; sounds that she knew well--so\nwell.  They were a regular series of thumpings from the interior of\nthe house, occasioned by the violent rocking of a cradle upon a stone\nfloor, to which movement a feminine voice kept time by singing, in a\nvigorous gallopade, the favourite ditty of \"The Spotted Cow\"--\n\n\n   I saw her lie do'-own in yon'-der green gro'-ove;\n        Come, love!' and I'll tell' you where!'\n\n\nThe cradle-rocking and the song would cease simultaneously for a\nmoment, and an exclamation at highest vocal pitch would take the\nplace of the melody.\n\n\"God bless thy diment eyes!  And thy waxen cheeks!  And thy cherry\nmouth!  And thy Cubit's thighs!  And every bit o' thy blessed body!\"\n\nAfter this invocation the rocking and the singing would recommence,\nand the \"Spotted Cow\" proceed as before.  So matters stood when Tess\nopened the door and paused upon the mat within it, surveying the\nscene.\n\nThe interior, in spite of the melody, struck upon the girl's senses\nwith an unspeakable dreariness.  From the holiday gaieties of the\nfield--the white gowns, the nosegays, the willow-wands, the whirling\nmovements on the green, the flash of gentle sentiment towards the\nstranger--to the yellow melancholy of this one-candled spectacle,\nwhat a step!  Besides the jar of contrast there came to her a chill\nself-reproach that she had not returned sooner, to help her mother\nin these domesticities, instead of indulging herself out-of-doors.\n\nThere stood her mother amid the group of children, as Tess had left\nher, hanging over the Monday washing-tub, which had now, as always,\nlingered on to the end of the week.  Out of that tub had come the day\nbefore--Tess felt it with a dreadful sting of remorse--the very white\nfrock upon her back which she had so carelessly greened about the\nskirt on the damping grass--which had been wrung up and ironed by her\nmother's own hands.\n\nAs usual, Mrs Durbeyfield was balanced on one foot beside the tub,\nthe other being engaged in the aforesaid business of rocking her\nyoungest child.  The cradle-rockers had done hard duty for so many\nyears, under the weight of so many children, on that flagstone floor,\nthat they were worn nearly flat, in consequence of which a huge jerk\naccompanied each swing of the cot, flinging the baby from side to\nside like a weaver's shuttle, as Mrs Durbeyfield, excited by her\nsong, trod the rocker with all the spring that was left in her after\na long day's seething in the suds.\n\nNick-knock, nick-knock, went the cradle; the candle-flame stretched\nitself tall, and began jigging up and down; the water dribbled from\nthe matron's elbows, and the song galloped on to the end of the\nverse, Mrs Durbeyfield regarding her daughter the while.  Even now,\nwhen burdened with a young family, Joan Durbeyfield was a passionate\nlover of tune.  No ditty floated into Blackmoor Vale from the outer\nworld but Tess's mother caught up its notation in a week.\n\nThere still faintly beamed from the woman's features something of\nthe freshness, and even the prettiness, of her youth; rendering it\nprobable that the personal charms which Tess could boast of were in\nmain part her mother's gift, and therefore unknightly, unhistorical.\n\n\"I'll rock the cradle for 'ee, mother,\" said the daughter gently.\n\"Or I'll take off my best frock and help you wring up?  I thought you\nhad finished long ago.\"\n\nHer mother bore Tess no ill-will for leaving the housework to her\nsingle-handed efforts for so long; indeed, Joan seldom upbraided\nher thereon at any time, feeling but slightly the lack of Tess's\nassistance whilst her instinctive plan for relieving herself of her\nlabours lay in postponing them.  To-night, however, she was even in a\nblither mood than usual.  There was a dreaminess, a pre-occupation,\nan exaltation, in the maternal look which the girl could not\nunderstand.\n\n\"Well, I'm glad you've come,\" her mother said, as soon as the last\nnote had passed out of her.  \"I want to go and fetch your father;\nbut what's more'n that, I want to tell 'ee what have happened.  Y'll\nbe fess enough, my poppet, when th'st know!\"  (Mrs Durbeyfield\nhabitually spoke the dialect; her daughter, who had passed the Sixth\nStandard in the National School under a London-trained mistress,\nspoke two languages: the dialect at home, more or less; ordinary\nEnglish abroad and to persons of quality.)\n\n\"Since I've been away?\" Tess asked.\n\n\"Ay!\"\n\n\"Had it anything to do with father's making such a mommet of himself\nin thik carriage this afternoon?  Why did 'er?  I felt inclined to\nsink into the ground with shame!\"\n\n\"That wer all a part of the larry!  We've been found to be the\ngreatest gentlefolk in the whole county--reaching all back long\nbefore Oliver Grumble's time--to the days of the Pagan Turks--with\nmonuments, and vaults, and crests, and 'scutcheons, and the Lord\nknows what all.  In Saint Charles's days we was made Knights o' the\nRoyal Oak, our real name being d'Urberville! ...  Don't that make\nyour bosom plim?  'Twas on this account that your father rode home\nin the vlee; not because he'd been drinking, as people supposed.\"\n\n\"I'm glad of that.  Will it do us any good, mother?\"\n\n\"O yes!  'Tis thoughted that great things may come o't.  No doubt a\nmampus of volk of our own rank will be down here in their carriages\nas soon as 'tis known.  Your father learnt it on his way hwome\nfrom Shaston, and he has been telling me the whole pedigree of the\nmatter.\"\n\n\"Where is father now?\" asked Tess suddenly.\n\nHer mother gave irrelevant information by way of answer: \"He called\nto see the doctor to-day in Shaston.  It is not consumption at all,\nit seems.  It is fat round his heart, 'a says.  There, it is like\nthis.\"  Joan Durbeyfield, as she spoke, curved a sodden thumb\nand forefinger to the shape of the letter C, and used the other\nforefinger as a pointer.  \"'At the present moment,' he says to your\nfather, 'your heart is enclosed all round there, and all round\nthere; this space is still open,' 'a says.  'As soon as it do\nmeet, so,'\"--Mrs Durbeyfield closed her fingers into a circle\ncomplete--\"'off you will go like a shadder, Mr Durbeyfield,' 'a says.\n'You mid last ten years; you mid go off in ten months, or ten days.'\"\n\nTess looked alarmed.  Her father possibly to go behind the eternal\ncloud so soon, notwithstanding this sudden greatness!\n\n\"But where IS father?\" she asked again.\n\nHer mother put on a deprecating look.  \"Now don't you be bursting out\nangry!  The poor man--he felt so rafted after his uplifting by the\npa'son's news--that he went up to Rolliver's half an hour ago.  He do\nwant to get up his strength for his journey to-morrow with that load\nof beehives, which must be delivered, family or no.  He'll have to\nstart shortly after twelve to-night, as the distance is so long.\"\n\n\"Get up his strength!\" said Tess impetuously, the tears welling to\nher eyes.  \"O my God!  Go to a public-house to get up his strength!\nAnd you as well agreed as he, mother!\"\n\nHer rebuke and her mood seemed to fill the whole room, and to impart\na cowed look to the furniture, and candle, and children playing\nabout, and to her mother's face.\n\n\"No,\" said the latter touchily, \"I be not agreed.  I have been\nwaiting for 'ee to bide and keep house while I go fetch him.\"\n\n\"I'll go.\"\n\n\"O no, Tess.  You see, it would be no use.\"\n\nTess did not expostulate.  She knew what her mother's objection\nmeant.  Mrs Durbeyfield's jacket and bonnet were already hanging\nslily upon a chair by her side, in readiness for this contemplated\njaunt, the reason for which the matron deplored more than its\nnecessity.\n\n\"And take the _Compleat Fortune-Teller_ to the outhouse,\" Joan\ncontinued, rapidly wiping her hands, and donning the garments.\n\nThe _Compleat Fortune-Teller_ was an old thick volume, which lay on a\ntable at her elbow, so worn by pocketing that the margins had reached\nthe edge of the type.  Tess took it up, and her mother started.\n\nThis going to hunt up her shiftless husband at the inn was one of\nMrs Durbeyfield's still extant enjoyments in the muck and muddle of\nrearing children.  To discover him at Rolliver's, to sit there for\nan hour or two by his side and dismiss all thought and care of the\nchildren during the interval, made her happy.  A sort of halo, an\noccidental glow, came over life then.  Troubles and other realities\ntook on themselves a metaphysical impalpability, sinking to mere\nmental phenomena for serene contemplation, and no longer stood as\npressing concretions which chafed body and soul.  The youngsters,\nnot immediately within sight, seemed rather bright and desirable\nappurtenances than otherwise; the incidents of daily life were not\nwithout humorousness and jollity in their aspect there.  She felt a\nlittle as she had used to feel when she sat by her now wedded husband\nin the same spot during his wooing, shutting her eyes to his defects\nof character, and regarding him only in his ideal presentation as\nlover.\n\nTess, being left alone with the younger children, went first to the\nouthouse with the fortune-telling book, and stuffed it into the\nthatch.  A curious fetishistic fear of this grimy volume on the part\nof her mother prevented her ever allowing it to stay in the house all\nnight, and hither it was brought back whenever it had been consulted.\nBetween the mother, with her fast-perishing lumber of superstitions,\nfolk-lore, dialect, and orally transmitted ballads, and the daughter,\nwith her trained National teachings and Standard knowledge under an\ninfinitely Revised Code, there was a gap of two hundred years as\nordinarily understood.  When they were together the Jacobean and the\nVictorian ages were juxtaposed.\n\nReturning along the garden path Tess mused on what the mother could\nhave wished to ascertain from the book on this particular day.  She\nguessed the recent ancestral discovery to bear upon it, but did not\ndivine that it solely concerned herself.  Dismissing this, however,\nshe busied herself with sprinkling the linen dried during the\nday-time, in company with her nine-year-old brother Abraham, and her\nsister Eliza-Louisa of twelve and a half, called \"'Liza-Lu,\" the\nyoungest ones being put to bed.  There was an interval of four years\nand more between Tess and the next of the family, the two who had\nfilled the gap having died in their infancy, and this lent her a\ndeputy-maternal attitude when she was alone with her juniors.  Next\nin juvenility to Abraham came two more girls, Hope and Modesty; then\na boy of three, and then the baby, who had just completed his first\nyear.\n\nAll these young souls were passengers in the Durbeyfield\nship--entirely dependent on the judgement of the two Durbeyfield\nadults for their pleasures, their necessities, their health, even\ntheir existence.  If the heads of the Durbeyfield household chose\nto sail into difficulty, disaster, starvation, disease, degradation,\ndeath, thither were these half-dozen little captives under hatches\ncompelled to sail with them--six helpless creatures, who had never\nbeen asked if they wished for life on any terms, much less if they\nwished for it on such hard conditions as were involved in being of\nthe shiftless house of Durbeyfield.  Some people would like to know\nwhence the poet whose philosophy is in these days deemed as profound\nand trustworthy as his song is breezy and pure, gets his authority\nfor speaking of \"Nature's holy plan.\"\n\nIt grew later, and neither father nor mother reappeared.  Tess looked\nout of the door, and took a mental journey through Marlott.  The\nvillage was shutting its eyes.  Candles and lamps were being put\nout everywhere: she could inwardly behold the extinguisher and the\nextended hand.\n\nHer mother's fetching simply meant one more to fetch.  Tess began to\nperceive that a man in indifferent health, who proposed to start on a\njourney before one in the morning, ought not to be at an inn at this\nlate hour celebrating his ancient blood.\n\n\"Abraham,\" she said to her little brother, \"do you put on your\nhat--you bain't afraid?--and go up to Rolliver's, and see what has\ngone wi' father and mother.\"\n\nThe boy jumped promptly from his seat, and opened the door, and the\nnight swallowed him up.  Half an hour passed yet again; neither man,\nwoman, nor child returned.  Abraham, like his parents, seemed to have\nbeen limed and caught by the ensnaring inn.\n\n\"I must go myself,\" she said.\n\n'Liza-Lu then went to bed, and Tess, locking them all in, started on\nher way up the dark and crooked lane or street not made for hasty\nprogress; a street laid out before inches of land had value, and when\none-handed clocks sufficiently subdivided the day.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nRolliver's inn, the single alehouse at this end of the long and\nbroken village, could only boast of an off-licence; hence, as\nnobody could legally drink on the premises, the amount of overt\naccommodation for consumers was strictly limited to a little board\nabout six inches wide and two yards long, fixed to the garden palings\nby pieces of wire, so as to form a ledge.  On this board thirsty\nstrangers deposited their cups as they stood in the road and drank,\nand threw the dregs on the dusty ground to the pattern of Polynesia,\nand wished they could have a restful seat inside.\n\nThus the strangers.  But there were also local customers who felt the\nsame wish; and where there's a will there's a way.\n\nIn a large bedroom upstairs, the window of which was thickly\ncurtained with a great woollen shawl lately discarded by the\nlandlady, Mrs Rolliver, were gathered on this evening nearly a dozen\npersons, all seeking beatitude; all old inhabitants of the nearer\nend of Marlott, and frequenters of this retreat. Not only did the\ndistance to the The Pure Drop, the fully-licensed tavern at the\nfurther part of the dispersed village, render its accommodation\npractically unavailable for dwellers at this end; but the far more\nserious question, the quality of the liquor, confirmed the prevalent\nopinion that it was better to drink with Rolliver in a corner of the\nhousetop than with the other landlord in a wide house.\n\nA gaunt four-post bedstead which stood in the room afforded\nsitting-space for several persons gathered round three of its sides;\na couple more men had elevated themselves on a chest of drawers;\nanother rested on the oak-carved \"cwoffer\"; two on the wash-stand;\nanother on the stool; and thus all were, somehow, seated at their\nease.  The stage of mental comfort to which they had arrived at this\nhour was one wherein their souls expanded beyond their skins, and\nspread their personalities warmly through the room.  In this process\nthe chamber and its furniture grew more and more dignified and\nluxurious; the shawl hanging at the window took upon itself the\nrichness of tapestry; the brass handles of the chest of drawers were\nas golden knockers; and the carved bedposts seemed to have some\nkinship with the magnificent pillars of Solomon's temple.\n\nMrs Durbeyfield, having quickly walked hitherward after parting from\nTess, opened the front door, crossed the downstairs room, which was\nin deep gloom, and then unfastened the stair-door like one whose\nfingers knew the tricks of the latches well.  Her ascent of the\ncrooked staircase was a slower process, and her face, as it rose into\nthe light above the last stair, encountered the gaze of all the party\nassembled in the bedroom.\n\n\"--Being a few private friends I've asked in to keep up club-walking\nat my own expense,\" the landlady exclaimed at the sound of footsteps,\nas glibly as a child repeating the Catechism, while she peered over\nthe stairs.  \"Oh, 'tis you, Mrs Durbeyfield--Lard--how you frightened\nme!--I thought it might be some gaffer sent by Gover'ment.\"\n\nMrs Durbeyfield was welcomed with glances and nods by the remainder\nof the conclave, and turned to where her husband sat.  He was humming\nabsently to himself, in a low tone: \"I be as good as some folks here\nand there!  I've got a great family vault at Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill,\nand finer skillentons than any man in Wessex!\"\n\n\"I've something to tell 'ee that's come into my head about that--a\ngrand projick!\" whispered his cheerful wife.  \"Here, John, don't 'ee\nsee me?\"  She nudged him, while he, looking through her as through a\nwindow-pane, went on with his recitative.\n\n\"Hush!  Don't 'ee sing so loud, my good man,\" said the landlady; \"in\ncase any member of the Gover'ment should be passing, and take away my\nlicends.\"\n\n\"He's told 'ee what's happened to us, I suppose?\" asked Mrs\nDurbeyfield.\n\n\"Yes--in a way.  D'ye think there's any money hanging by it?\"\n\n\"Ah, that's the secret,\" said Joan Durbeyfield sagely.  \"However,\n'tis well to be kin to a coach, even if you don't ride in 'en.\"  She\ndropped her public voice, and continued in a low tone to her husband:\n\"I've been thinking since you brought the news that there's a great\nrich lady out by Trantridge, on the edge o' The Chase, of the name of\nd'Urberville.\"\n\n\"Hey--what's that?\" said Sir John.\n\nShe repeated the information.  \"That lady must be our relation,\" she\nsaid.  \"And my projick is to send Tess to claim kin.\"\n\n\"There IS a lady of the name, now you mention it,\" said Durbeyfield.\n\"Pa'son Tringham didn't think of that.  But she's nothing beside\nwe--a junior branch of us, no doubt, hailing long since King Norman's\nday.\"\n\nWhile this question was being discussed neither of the pair noticed,\nin their preoccupation, that little Abraham had crept into the room,\nand was awaiting an opportunity of asking them to return.\n\n\"She is rich, and she'd be sure to take notice o' the maid,\"\ncontinued Mrs Durbeyfield; \"and 'twill be a very good thing.  I don't\nsee why two branches o' one family should not be on visiting terms.\"\n\n\"Yes; and we'll all claim kin!\" said Abraham brightly from under the\nbedstead.  \"And we'll all go and see her when Tess has gone to live\nwith her; and we'll ride in her coach and wear black clothes!\"\n\n\"How do you come here, child?  What nonsense be ye talking!  Go away,\nand play on the stairs till father and mother be ready! ...  Well,\nTess ought to go to this other member of our family.  She'd be sure\nto win the lady--Tess would; and likely enough 'twould lead to some\nnoble gentleman marrying her.  In short, I know it.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"I tried her fate in the _Fortune-Teller_, and it brought out that\nvery thing! ...  You should ha' seen how pretty she looked to-day;\nher skin is as sumple as a duchess'.\"\n\n\"What says the maid herself to going?\"\n\n\"I've not asked her.  She don't know there is any such lady-relation\nyet.  But it would certainly put her in the way of a grand marriage,\nand she won't say nay to going.\"\n\n\"Tess is queer.\"\n\n\"But she's tractable at bottom.  Leave her to me.\"\n\nThough this conversation had been private, sufficient of its import\nreached the understandings of those around to suggest to them that\nthe Durbeyfields had weightier concerns to talk of now than common\nfolks had, and that Tess, their pretty eldest daughter, had fine\nprospects in store.\n\n\"Tess is a fine figure o' fun, as I said to myself to-day when I zeed\nher vamping round parish with the rest,\" observed one of the elderly\nboozers in an undertone.  \"But Joan Durbeyfield must mind that she\ndon't get green malt in floor.\"  It was a local phrase which had a\npeculiar meaning, and there was no reply.\n\nThe conversation became inclusive, and presently other footsteps were\nheard crossing the room below.\n\n\"--Being a few private friends asked in to-night to keep up\nclub-walking at my own expense.\"  The landlady had rapidly re-used\nthe formula she kept on hand for intruders before she recognized that\nthe newcomer was Tess.\n\nEven to her mother's gaze the girl's young features looked sadly\nout of place amid the alcoholic vapours which floated here as\nno unsuitable medium for wrinkled middle-age; and hardly was a\nreproachful flash from Tess's dark eyes needed to make her father\nand mother rise from their seats, hastily finish their ale, and\ndescend the stairs behind her, Mrs Rolliver's caution following\ntheir footsteps.\n\n\"No noise, please, if ye'll be so good, my dears; or I mid lose my\nlicends, and be summons'd, and I don't know what all!  'Night t'ye!\"\n\nThey went home together, Tess holding one arm of her father, and Mrs\nDurbeyfield the other.  He had, in truth, drunk very little--not a\nfourth of the quantity which a systematic tippler could carry to\nchurch on a Sunday afternoon without a hitch in his eastings or\ngenuflections; but the weakness of Sir John's constitution made\nmountains of his petty sins in this kind.  On reaching the fresh\nair he was sufficiently unsteady to incline the row of three at one\nmoment as if they were marching to London, and at another as if they\nwere marching to Bath--which produced a comical effect, frequent\nenough in families on nocturnal homegoings; and, like most comical\neffects, not quite so comic after all.  The two women valiantly\ndisguised these forced excursions and countermarches as well as they\ncould from Durbeyfield, their cause, and from Abraham, and from\nthemselves; and so they approached by degrees their own door, the\nhead of the family bursting suddenly into his former refrain as he\ndrew near, as if to fortify his soul at sight of the smallness of\nhis present residence--\n\n\"I've got a fam--ily vault at Kingsbere!\"\n\n\"Hush--don't be so silly, Jacky,\" said his wife.  \"Yours is not the\nonly family that was of 'count in wold days.  Look at the Anktells,\nand Horseys, and the Tringhams themselves--gone to seed a'most as\nmuch as you--though you was bigger folks than they, that's true.\nThank God, I was never of no family, and have nothing to be ashamed\nof in that way!\"\n\n\"Don't you be so sure o' that.  From you nater 'tis my belief you've\ndisgraced yourselves more than any o' us, and was kings and queens\noutright at one time.\"\n\nTess turned the subject by saying what was far more prominent in her\nown mind at the moment than thoughts of her ancestry--\"I am afraid\nfather won't be able to take the journey with the beehives to-morrow\nso early.\"\n\n\"I? I shall be all right in an hour or two,\" said Durbeyfield.\n\n\nIt was eleven o'clock before the family were all in bed, and\ntwo o'clock next morning was the latest hour for starting with\nthe beehives if they were to be delivered to the retailers in\nCasterbridge before the Saturday market began, the way thither lying\nby bad roads over a distance of between twenty and thirty miles, and\nthe horse and waggon being of the slowest.  At half-past one Mrs\nDurbeyfield came into the large bedroom where Tess and all her\nlittle brothers and sisters slept.\n\n\"The poor man can't go,\" she said to her eldest daughter, whose great\neyes had opened the moment her mother's hand touched the door.\n\nTess sat up in bed, lost in a vague interspace between a dream and\nthis information.\n\n\"But somebody must go,\" she replied.  \"It is late for the hives\nalready.  Swarming will soon be over for the year; and it we put off\ntaking 'em till next week's market the call for 'em will be past, and\nthey'll be thrown on our hands.\"\n\nMrs Durbeyfield looked unequal to the emergency.  \"Some young feller,\nperhaps, would go?  One of them who were so much after dancing with\n'ee yesterday,\" she presently suggested.\n\n\"O no--I wouldn't have it for the world!\" declared Tess proudly.\n\"And letting everybody know the reason--such a thing to be ashamed\nof!  I think _I_ could go if Abraham could go with me to kip me\ncompany.\"\n\nHer mother at length agreed to this arrangement.  Little Abraham was\naroused from his deep sleep in a corner of the same apartment, and\nmade to put on his clothes while still mentally in the other world.\nMeanwhile Tess had hastily dressed herself; and the twain, lighting\na lantern, went out to the stable.  The rickety little waggon was\nalready laden, and the girl led out the horse, Prince, only a degree\nless rickety than the vehicle.\n\nThe poor creature looked wonderingly round at the night, at the\nlantern, at their two figures, as if he could not believe that at\nthat hour, when every living thing was intended to be in shelter and\nat rest, he was called upon to go out and labour.  They put a stock\nof candle-ends into the lantern, hung the latter to the off-side of\nthe load, and directed the horse onward, walking at his shoulder at\nfirst during the uphill parts of the way, in order not to overload\nan animal of so little vigour.  To cheer themselves as well as they\ncould, they made an artificial morning with the lantern, some bread\nand butter, and their own conversation, the real morning being far\nfrom come.  Abraham, as he more fully awoke (for he had moved in a\nsort of trance so far), began to talk of the strange shapes assumed\nby the various dark objects against the sky; of this tree that looked\nlike a raging tiger springing from a lair; of that which resembled a\ngiant's head.\n\nWhen they had passed the little town of Stourcastle, dumbly somnolent\nunder its thick brown thatch, they reached higher ground.  Still\nhigher, on their left, the elevation called Bulbarrow, or Bealbarrow,\nwell-nigh the highest in South Wessex, swelled into the sky,\nengirdled by its earthen trenches.  From hereabout the long road was\nfairly level for some distance onward.  They mounted in front of the\nwaggon, and Abraham grew reflective.\n\n\"Tess!\" he said in a preparatory tone, after a silence.\n\n\"Yes, Abraham.\"\n\n\"Bain't you glad that we've become gentlefolk?\"\n\n\"Not particular glad.\"\n\n\"But you be glad that you 'm going to marry a gentleman?\"\n\n\"What?\" said Tess, lifting her face.\n\n\"That our great relation will help 'ee to marry a gentleman.\"\n\n\"I?  Our great relation?  We have no such relation.  What has put\nthat into your head?\"\n\n\"I heard 'em talking about it up at Rolliver's when I went to find\nfather.  There's a rich lady of our family out at Trantridge, and\nmother said that if you claimed kin with the lady, she'd put 'ee in\nthe way of marrying a gentleman.\"\n\nHis sister became abruptly still, and lapsed into a pondering\nsilence.  Abraham talked on, rather for the pleasure of utterance\nthan for audition, so that his sister's abstraction was of no\naccount.  He leant back against the hives, and with upturned face\nmade observations on the stars, whose cold pulses were beating\namid the black hollows above, in serene dissociation from these two\nwisps of human life.  He asked how far away those twinklers were,\nand whether God was on the other side of them.  But ever and anon\nhis childish prattle recurred to what impressed his imagination\neven more deeply than the wonders of creation.  If Tess were made\nrich by marrying a gentleman, would she have money enough to buy a\nspyglass so large that it would draw the stars as near to her as\nNettlecombe-Tout?\n\nThe renewed subject, which seemed to have impregnated the whole\nfamily, filled Tess with impatience.\n\n\"Never mind that now!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"All like ours?\"\n\n\"I don't know; but I think so.  They sometimes seem to be like the\napples on our stubbard-tree.  Most of them splendid and sound--a few\nblighted.\"\n\n\"Which do we live on--a splendid one or a blighted one?\"\n\n\"A blighted one.\"\n\n\"'Tis very unlucky that we didn't pitch on a sound one, when there\nwere so many more of 'em!\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Is it like that REALLY, Tess?\" said Abraham, turning to her much\nimpressed, on reconsideration of this rare information.  \"How would\nit have been if we had pitched on a sound one?\"\n\n\"Well, father wouldn't have coughed and creeped about as he does,\nand wouldn't have got too tipsy to go on this journey; and mother\nwouldn't have been always washing, and never getting finished.\"\n\n\"And you would have been a rich lady ready-made, and not have had to\nbe made rich by marrying a gentleman?\"\n\n\"O Aby, don't--don't talk of that any more!\"\n\nLeft to his reflections Abraham soon grew drowsy.  Tess was not\nskilful in the management of a horse, but she thought that she could\ntake upon herself the entire conduct of the load for the present and\nallow Abraham to go to sleep if he wished to do so.  She made him a\nsort of nest in front of the hives, in such a manner that he could\nnot fall, and, taking the reins into her own hands, jogged on as\nbefore.\n\nPrince required but slight attention, lacking energy for superfluous\nmovements of any sort.  With no longer a companion to distract her,\nTess fell more deeply into reverie than ever, her back leaning\nagainst the hives.  The mute procession past her shoulders of trees\nand hedges became attached to fantastic scenes outside reality, and\nthe occasional heave of the wind became the sigh of some immense sad\nsoul, conterminous with the universe in space, and with history in\ntime.\n\nThen, examining the mesh of events in her own life, she seemed to see\nthe vanity of her father's pride; the gentlemanly suitor awaiting\nherself in her mother's fancy; to see him as a grimacing personage,\nlaughing at her poverty and her shrouded knightly ancestry.\nEverything grew more and more extravagant, and she no longer knew how\ntime passed.  A sudden jerk shook her in her seat, and Tess awoke\nfrom the sleep into which she, too, had fallen.\n\nThey were a long way further on than when she had lost consciousness,\nand the waggon had stopped.  A hollow groan, unlike anything she had\never heard in her life, came from the front, followed by a shout of\n\"Hoi there!\"\n\nThe lantern hanging at her waggon had gone out, but another was\nshining in her face--much brighter than her own had been.  Something\nterrible had happened.  The harness was entangled with an object\nwhich blocked the way.\n\nIn consternation Tess jumped down, and discovered the dreadful truth.\nThe groan had proceeded from her father's poor horse Prince.  The\nmorning mail-cart, with its two noiseless wheels, speeding along\nthese lanes like an arrow, as it always did, had driven into her slow\nand unlighted equipage.  The pointed shaft of the cart had entered\nthe breast of the unhappy Prince like a sword, and from the wound his\nlife's blood was spouting in a stream, and falling with a hiss into\nthe road.\n\nIn her despair Tess sprang forward and put her hand upon the hole,\nwith the only result that she became splashed from face to skirt with\nthe crimson drops.  Then she stood helplessly looking on.  Prince\nalso stood firm and motionless as long as he could; till he suddenly\nsank down in a heap.\n\nBy this time the mail-cart man had joined her, and began dragging and\nunharnessing the hot form of Prince.  But he was already dead, and,\nseeing that nothing more could be done immediately, the mail-cart man\nreturned to his own animal, which was uninjured.\n\n\"You was on the wrong side,\" he said.  \"I am bound to go on with the\nmail-bags, so that the best thing for you to do is bide here with\nyour load.  I'll send somebody to help you as soon as I can.  It is\ngetting daylight, and you have nothing to fear.\"\n\nHe mounted and sped on his way; while Tess stood and waited.  The\natmosphere turned pale, the birds shook themselves in the hedges,\narose, and twittered; the lane showed all its white features, and\nTess showed hers, still whiter.  The huge pool of blood in front of\nher was already assuming the iridescence of coagulation; and when the\nsun rose a hundred prismatic hues were reflected from it.  Prince lay\nalongside, still and stark; his eyes half open, the hole in his chest\nlooking scarcely large enough to have let out all that had animated\nhim.\n\n\"'Tis all my doing--all mine!\" the girl cried, gazing at the\nspectacle.  \"No excuse for me--none.  What will mother and father\nlive on now?  Aby, Aby!\"  She shook the child, who had slept soundly\nthrough the whole disaster.  \"We can't go on with our load--Prince\nis killed!\"\n\nWhen Abraham realized all, the furrows of fifty years were\nextemporized on his young face.\n\n\"Why, I danced and laughed only yesterday!\" she went on to herself.\n\"To think that I was such a fool!\"\n\n\"'Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isn't\nit, Tess?\" murmured Abraham through his tears.\n\nIn silence they waited through an interval which seemed endless.  At\nlength a sound, and an approaching object, proved to them that the\ndriver of the mail-car had been as good as his word.  A farmer's\nman from near Stourcastle came up, leading a strong cob.  He was\nharnessed to the waggon of beehives in the place of Prince, and the\nload taken on towards Casterbridge.\n\nThe evening of the same day saw the empty waggon reach again the\nspot of the accident.  Prince had lain there in the ditch since the\nmorning; but the place of the blood-pool was still visible in the\nmiddle of the road, though scratched and scraped over by passing\nvehicles.  All that was left of Prince was now hoisted into the\nwaggon he had formerly hauled, and with his hoofs in the air, and his\nshoes shining in the setting sunlight, he retraced the eight or nine\nmiles to Marlott.\n\nTess had gone back earlier.  How to break the news was more than she\ncould think.  It was a relief to her tongue to find from the faces of\nher parents that they already knew of their loss, though this did not\nlessen the self-reproach which she continued to heap upon herself for\nher negligence.\n\nBut the very shiftlessness of the household rendered the misfortune\na less terrifying one to them than it would have been to a thriving\nfamily, though in the present case it meant ruin, and in the other it\nwould only have meant inconvenience.  In the Durbeyfield countenances\nthere was nothing of the red wrath that would have burnt upon the\ngirl from parents more ambitious for her welfare.  Nobody blamed Tess\nas she blamed herself.\n\nWhen it was discovered that the knacker and tanner would give only a\nvery few shillings for Prince's carcase because of his decrepitude,\nDurbeyfield rose to the occasion.\n\n\"No,\" said he stoically, \"I won't sell his old body.  When we\nd'Urbervilles was knights in the land, we didn't sell our chargers\nfor cat's meat.  Let 'em keep their shillings!  He've served me well\nin his lifetime, and I won't part from him now.\"\n\nHe worked harder the next day in digging a grave for Prince in the\ngarden than he had worked for months to grow a crop for his family.\nWhen the hole was ready, Durbeyfield and his wife tied a rope round\nthe horse and dragged him up the path towards it, the children\nfollowing in funeral train.  Abraham and 'Liza-Lu sobbed, Hope and\nModesty discharged their griefs in loud blares which echoed from the\nwalls; and when Prince was tumbled in they gathered round the grave.\nThe bread-winner had been taken away from them; what would they do?\n\n\"Is he gone to heaven?\" asked Abraham, between the sobs.\n\nThen Durbeyfield began to shovel in the earth, and the children cried\nanew.  All except Tess.  Her face was dry and pale, as though she\nregarded herself in the light of a murderess.\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nThe haggling business, which had mainly depended on the horse, became\ndisorganized forthwith.  Distress, if not penury, loomed in the\ndistance.  Durbeyfield was what was locally called a slack-twisted\nfellow; he had good strength to work at times; but the times could\nnot be relied on to coincide with the hours of requirement; and,\nhaving been unaccustomed to the regular toil of the day-labourer,\nhe was not particularly persistent when they did so coincide.\n\nTess, meanwhile, as the one who had dragged her parents into this\nquagmire, was silently wondering what she could do to help them out\nof it; and then her mother broached her scheme.\n\n\"We must take the ups wi' the downs, Tess,\" said she; \"and never\ncould your high blood have been found out at a more called-for\nmoment.  You must try your friends.  Do ye know that there is a very\nrich Mrs d'Urberville living on the outskirts o' The Chase, who must\nbe our relation?  You must go to her and claim kin, and ask for some\nhelp in our trouble.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't care to do that,\" says Tess.  \"If there is such a lady,\n'twould be enough for us if she were friendly--not to expect her to\ngive us help.\"\n\n\"You could win her round to do anything, my dear.  Besides, perhaps\nthere's more in it than you know of. I've heard what I've heard,\ngood-now.\"\n\nThe oppressive sense of the harm she had done led Tess to be more\ndeferential than she might otherwise have been to the maternal\nwish; but she could not understand why her mother should find such\nsatisfaction in contemplating an enterprise of, to her, such doubtful\nprofit.  Her mother might have made inquiries, and have discovered\nthat this Mrs d'Urberville was a lady of unequalled virtues and\ncharity.  But Tess's pride made the part of poor relation one of\nparticular distaste to her.\n\n\"I'd rather try to get work,\" she murmured.\n\n\"Durbeyfield, you can settle it,\" said his wife, turning to where he\nsat in the background.  \"If you say she ought to go, she will go.\"\n\n\"I don't like my children going and making themselves beholden to\nstrange kin,\" murmured he.  \"I'm the head of the noblest branch o'\nthe family, and I ought to live up to it.\"\n\nHis reasons for staying away were worse to Tess than her own\nobjections to going.  \"Well, as I killed the horse, mother,\" she said\nmournfully, \"I suppose I ought to do something.  I don't mind going\nand seeing her, but you must leave it to me about asking for help.\nAnd don't go thinking about her making a match for me--it is silly.\"\n\n\"Very well said, Tess!\" observed her father sententiously.\n\n\"Who said I had such a thought?\" asked Joan.\n\n\"I fancy it is in your mind, mother.  But I'll go.\"\n\nRising early next day she walked to the hill-town called Shaston,\nand there took advantage of a van which twice in the week ran from\nShaston eastward to Chaseborough, passing near Trantridge, the parish\nin which the vague and mysterious Mrs d'Urberville had her residence.\n\nTess Durbeyfield's route on this memorable morning lay amid the\nnorth-eastern undulations of the Vale in which she had been born, and\nin which her life had unfolded.  The Vale of Blackmoor was to her the\nworld, and its inhabitants the races thereof.  From the gates and\nstiles of Marlott she had looked down its length in the wondering\ndays of infancy, and what had been mystery to her then was not\nmuch less than mystery to her now.  She had seen daily from her\nchamber-window towers, villages, faint white mansions; above all,\nthe town of Shaston standing majestically on its height; its windows\nshining like lamps in the evening sun.  She had hardly ever visited\nthe place, only a small tract even of the Vale and its environs being\nknown to her by close inspection.  Much less had she been far outside\nthe valley.  Every contour of the surrounding hills was as personal\nto her as that of her relatives' faces; but for what lay beyond, her\njudgment was dependent on the teaching of the village school, where\nshe had held a leading place at the time of her leaving, a year or\ntwo before this date.\n\nIn those early days she had been much loved by others of her own\nsex and age, and had used to be seen about the village as one of\nthree--all nearly of the same year--walking home from school side\nby side; Tess the middle one--in a pink print pinafore, of a finely\nreticulated pattern, worn over a stuff frock that had lost its\noriginal colour for a nondescript tertiary--marching on upon long\nstalky legs, in tight stockings which had little ladder-like holes\nat the knees, torn by kneeling in the roads and banks in search of\nvegetable and mineral treasures; her then earth-coloured hair hanging\nlike pot-hooks; the arms of the two outside girls resting round the\nwaist of Tess; her arms on the shoulders of the two supporters.\n\nAs Tess grew older, and began to see how matters stood, she felt\nquite a Malthusian towards her mother for thoughtlessly giving her so\nmany little sisters and brothers, when it was such a trouble to nurse\nand provide for them.  Her mother's intelligence was that of a happy\nchild: Joan Durbeyfield was simply an additional one, and that not\nthe eldest, to her own long family of waiters on Providence.\n\nHowever, Tess became humanely beneficent towards the small ones,\nand to help them as much as possible she used, as soon as she left\nschool, to lend a hand at haymaking or harvesting on neighbouring\nfarms; or, by preference, at milking or butter-making processes,\nwhich she had learnt when her father had owned cows; and being\ndeft-fingered it was a kind of work in which she excelled.\n\nEvery day seemed to throw upon her young shoulders more of the\nfamily burdens, and that Tess should be the representative of the\nDurbeyfields at the d'Urberville mansion came as a thing of course.\nIn this instance it must be admitted that the Durbeyfields were\nputting their fairest side outward.\n\nShe alighted from the van at Trantridge Cross, and ascended on foot\na hill in the direction of the district known as The Chase, on the\nborders of which, as she had been informed, Mrs d'Urberville's seat,\nThe Slopes, would be found.  It was not a manorial home in the\nordinary sense, with fields, and pastures, and a grumbling farmer,\nout of whom the owner had to squeeze an income for himself and his\nfamily by hook or by crook.  It was more, far more; a country-house\nbuilt for enjoyment pure and simple, with not an acre of troublesome\nland attached to it beyond what was required for residential\npurposes, and for a little fancy farm kept in hand by the owner, and\ntended by a bailiff.\n\nThe crimson brick lodge came first in sight, up to its eaves in dense\nevergreens.  Tess thought this was the mansion itself till, passing\nthrough the side wicket with some trepidation, and onward to a point\nat which the drive took a turn, the house proper stood in full view.\nIt was of recent erection--indeed almost new--and of the same rich\nred colour that formed such a contrast with the evergreens of the\nlodge.  Far behind the corner of the house--which rose like a\ngeranium bloom against the subdued colours around--stretched the soft\nazure landscape of The Chase--a truly venerable tract of forest land,\none of the few remaining woodlands in England of undoubted primaeval\ndate, wherein Druidical mistletoe was still found on aged oaks, and\nwhere enormous yew-trees, not planted by the hand of man grew as\nthey had grown when they were pollarded for bows.  All this sylvan\nantiquity, however, though visible from The Slopes, was outside the\nimmediate boundaries of the estate.\n\nEverything on this snug property was bright, thriving, and well kept;\nacres of glass-houses stretched down the inclines to the copses at\ntheir feet.  Everything looked like money--like the last coin issued\nfrom the Mint.  The stables, partly screened by Austrian pines\nand evergreen oaks, and fitted with every late appliance, were\nas dignified as Chapels-of-Ease.  On the extensive lawn stood an\nornamental tent, its door being towards her.\n\nSimple Tess Durbeyfield stood at gaze, in a half-alarmed attitude,\non the edge of the gravel sweep.  Her feet had brought her onward to\nthis point before she had quite realized where she was; and now all\nwas contrary to her expectation.\n\n\"I thought we were an old family; but this is all new!\" she said, in\nher artlessness.  She wished that she had not fallen in so readily\nwith her mother's plans for \"claiming kin,\" and had endeavoured to\ngain assistance nearer home.\n\n\nThe d'Urbervilles--or Stoke-d'Urbervilles, as they at first called\nthemselves--who owned all this, were a somewhat unusual family to\nfind in such an old-fashioned part of the country.  Parson Tringham\nhad spoken truly when he said that our shambling John Durbeyfield was\nthe only really lineal representative of the old d'Urberville family\nexisting in the county, or near it; he might have added, what he knew\nvery well, that the Stoke-d'Urbervilles were no more d'Urbervilles of\nthe true tree then he was himself.  Yet it must be admitted that this\nfamily formed a very good stock whereon to regraft a name which sadly\nwanted such renovation.\n\nWhen old Mr Simon Stoke, latterly deceased, had made his fortune as\nan honest merchant (some said money-lender) in the North, he decided\nto settle as a county man in the South of England, out of hail of\nhis business district; and in doing this he felt the necessity of\nrecommencing with a name that would not too readily identify him with\nthe smart tradesman of the past, and that would be less commonplace\nthan the original bald, stark words.  Conning for an hour in the\nBritish Museum the pages of works devoted to extinct, half-extinct,\nobscured, and ruined families appertaining to the quarter of England\nin which he proposed to settle, he considered that _d'Urberville_\nlooked and sounded as well as any of them: and d'Urberville\naccordingly was annexed to his own name for himself and his heirs\neternally.  Yet he was not an extravagant-minded man in this, and in\nconstructing his family tree on the new basis was duly reasonable in\nframing his inter-marriages and aristocratic links, never inserting\na single title above a rank of strict moderation.\n\nOf this work of imagination poor Tess and her parents were naturally\nin ignorance--much to their discomfiture; indeed, the very\npossibility of such annexations was unknown to them; who supposed\nthat, though to be well-favoured might be the gift of fortune, a\nfamily name came by nature.\n\nTess still stood hesitating like a bather about to make his plunge,\nhardly knowing whether to retreat or to persevere, when a figure came\nforth from the dark triangular door of the tent.  It was that of a\ntall young man, smoking.\n\nHe had an almost swarthy complexion, with full lips, badly moulded,\nthough red and smooth, above which was a well-groomed black moustache\nwith curled points, though his age could not be more than three- or\nfour-and-twenty.  Despite the touches of barbarism in his contours,\nthere was a singular force in the gentleman's face, and in his bold\nrolling eye.\n\n\"Well, my Beauty, what can I do for you?\" said he, coming forward.\nAnd perceiving that she stood quite confounded: \"Never mind me. I am\nMr d'Urberville.  Have you come to see me or my mother?\"\n\nThis embodiment of a d'Urberville and a namesake differed even more\nfrom what Tess had expected than the house and grounds had differed.\nShe had dreamed of an aged and dignified face, the sublimation of\nall the d'Urberville lineaments, furrowed with incarnate memories\nrepresenting in hieroglyphic the centuries of her family's and\nEngland's history.  But she screwed herself up to the work in hand,\nsince she could not get out of it, and answered--\n\n\"I came to see your mother, sir.\"\n\n\"I am afraid you cannot see her--she is an invalid,\" replied the\npresent representative of the spurious house; for this was Mr Alec,\nthe only son of the lately deceased gentleman.  \"Cannot I answer your\npurpose? What is the business you wish to see her about?\"\n\n\"It isn't business--it is--I can hardly say what!\"\n\n\"Pleasure?\"\n\n\"Oh no.  Why, sir, if I tell you, it will seem--\"\n\nTess's sense of a certain ludicrousness in her errand was now\nso strong that, notwithstanding her awe of him, and her general\ndiscomfort at being here, her rosy lips curved towards a smile,\nmuch to the attraction of the swarthy Alexander.\n\n\"It is so very foolish,\" she stammered; \"I fear can't tell you!\"\n\n\"Never mind; I like foolish things.  Try again, my dear,\" said he\nkindly.\n\n\"Mother asked me to come,\" Tess continued; \"and, indeed, I was in the\nmind to do so myself likewise.  But I did not think it would be like\nthis.  I came, sir, to tell you that we are of the same family as\nyou.\"\n\n\"Ho!  Poor relations?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Stokes?\"\n\n\"No; d'Urbervilles.\"\n\n\"Ay, ay; I mean d'Urbervilles.\"\n\n\"Our names are worn away to Durbeyfield; but we have several proofs\nthat we are d'Urbervilles.  Antiquarians hold we are,--and--and we\nhave an old seal, marked with a ramping lion on a shield, and a\ncastle over him.  And we have a very old silver spoon, round in the\nbowl like a little ladle, and marked with the same castle.  But it\nis so worn that mother uses it to stir the pea-soup.\"\n\n\"A castle argent is certainly my crest,\" said he blandly.  \"And my\narms a lion rampant.\"\n\n\"And so mother said we ought to make ourselves beknown to you--as\nwe've lost our horse by a bad accident, and are the oldest branch o'\nthe family.\"\n\n\"Very kind of your mother, I'm sure.  And I, for one, don't regret\nher step.\"  Alec looked at Tess as he spoke, in a way that made her\nblush a little.  \"And so, my pretty girl, you've come on a friendly\nvisit to us, as relations?\"\n\n\"I suppose I have,\" faltered Tess, looking uncomfortable again.\n\n\"Well--there's no harm in it.  Where do you live?  What are you?\"\n\nShe gave him brief particulars; and responding to further inquiries\ntold him that she was intending to go back by the same carrier who\nhad brought her.\n\n\"It is a long while before he returns past Trantridge Cross.\nSupposing we walk round the grounds to pass the time, my pretty Coz?\"\n\nTess wished to abridge her visit as much as possible; but the young\nman was pressing, and she consented to accompany him.  He conducted\nher about the lawns, and flower-beds, and conservatories; and thence\nto the fruit-garden and greenhouses, where he asked her if she liked\nstrawberries.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Tess, \"when they come.\"\n\n\"They are already here.\"  D'Urberville began gathering specimens\nof the fruit for her, handing them back to her as he stooped; and,\npresently, selecting a specially fine product of the \"British Queen\"\nvariety, he stood up and held it by the stem to her mouth.\n\n\"No--no!\" she said quickly, putting her fingers between his hand and\nher lips.  \"I would rather take it in my own hand.\"\n\n\"Nonsense!\" he insisted; and in a slight distress she parted her lips\nand took it in.\n\nThey had spent some time wandering desultorily thus, Tess eating in\na half-pleased, half-reluctant state whatever d'Urberville offered\nher.  When she could consume no more of the strawberries he filled\nher little basket with them; and then the two passed round to the\nrose-trees, whence he gathered blossoms and gave her to put in her\nbosom. She obeyed like one in a dream, and when she could affix no\nmore he himself tucked a bud or two into her hat, and heaped her\nbasket with others in the prodigality of his bounty.  At last,\nlooking at his watch, he said, \"Now, by the time you have had\nsomething to eat, it will be time for you to leave, if you want to\ncatch the carrier to Shaston.  Come here, and I'll see what grub I\ncan find.\"\n\nStoke d'Urberville took her back to the lawn and into the tent, where\nhe left her, soon reappearing with a basket of light luncheon, which\nhe put before her himself.  It was evidently the gentleman's wish not\nto be disturbed in this pleasant _tête-à-tête_ by the servantry.\n\n\"Do you mind my smoking?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, not at all, sir.\"\n\nHe watched her pretty and unconscious munching through the skeins of\nsmoke that pervaded the tent, and Tess Durbeyfield did not divine,\nas she innocently looked down at the roses in her bosom, that there\nbehind the blue narcotic haze was potentially the \"tragic mischief\"\nof her drama--one who stood fair to be the blood-red ray in the\nspectrum of her young life.  She had an attribute which amounted\nto a disadvantage just now; and it was this that caused Alec\nd'Urberville's eyes to rivet themselves upon her.  It was a\nluxuriance of aspect, a fulness of growth, which made her appear more\nof a woman than she really was.  She had inherited the feature from\nher mother without the quality it denoted.  It had troubled her mind\noccasionally, till her companions had said that it was a fault which\ntime would cure.\n\nShe soon had finished her lunch.  \"Now I am going home, sir,\" she\nsaid, rising.\n\n\"And what do they call you?\" he asked, as he accompanied her along\nthe drive till they were out of sight of the house.\n\n\"Tess Durbeyfield, down at Marlott.\"\n\n\"And you say your people have lost their horse?\"\n\n\"I--killed him!\" she answered, her eyes filling with tears as she\ngave particulars of Prince's death.  \"And I don't know what to do\nfor father on account of it!\"\n\n\"I must think if I cannot do something.  My mother must find a berth\nfor you.  But, Tess, no nonsense about 'd'Urberville';--'Durbeyfield'\nonly, you know--quite another name.\"\n\n\"I wish for no better, sir,\" said she with something of dignity.\n\nFor a moment--only for a moment--when they were in the turning of the\ndrive, between the tall rhododendrons and conifers, before the lodge\nbecame visible, he inclined his face towards her as if--but, no: he\nthought better of it, and let her go.\n\nThus the thing began.  Had she perceived this meeting's import she\nmight have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day\nby the wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and desired\none in all respects--as nearly as humanity can supply the right\nand desired; yet to him who amongst her acquaintance might have\napproximated to this kind, she was but a transient impression, half\nforgotten.\n\nIn the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the\ncall seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with\nthe hour for loving.  Nature does not often say \"See!\" to her poor\ncreature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing; or reply\n\"Here!\" to a body's cry of \"Where?\" till the hide-and-seek has become\nan irksome, outworn game.  We may wonder whether at the acme and\nsummit of the human progress these anachronisms will be corrected by\na finer intuition, a closer interaction of the social machinery than\nthat which now jolts us round and along; but such completeness is not\nto be prophesied, or even conceived as possible.  Enough that in the\npresent case, as in millions, it was not the two halves of a perfect\nwhole that confronted each other at the perfect moment; a missing\ncounterpart wandered independently about the earth waiting in\ncrass obtuseness till the late time came.  Out of which maladroit\ndelay sprang anxieties, disappointments, shocks, catastrophes, and\npassing-strange destinies.\n\nWhen d'Urberville got back to the tent he sat down astride on a\nchair, reflecting, with a pleased gleam in his face.  Then he broke\ninto a loud laugh.\n\n\"Well, I'm damned!  What a funny thing!  Ha-ha-ha!  And what a crumby\ngirl!\"\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nTess went down the hill to Trantridge Cross, and inattentively waited\nto take her seat in the van returning from Chaseborough to Shaston.\nShe did not know what the other occupants said to her as she entered,\nthough she answered them; and when they had started anew she rode\nalong with an inward and not an outward eye.\n\nOne among her fellow-travellers addressed her more pointedly than\nany had spoken before: \"Why, you be quite a posy!  And such roses in\nearly June!\"\n\nThen she became aware of the spectacle she presented to their\nsurprised vision: roses at her breasts; roses in her hat; roses\nand strawberries in her basket to the brim.  She blushed, and\nsaid confusedly that the flowers had been given to her.  When the\npassengers were not looking she stealthily removed the more prominent\nblooms from her hat and placed them in the basket, where she covered\nthem with her handkerchief.  Then she fell to reflecting again, and\nin looking downwards a thorn of the rose remaining in her breast\naccidentally pricked her chin. Like all the cottagers in Blackmoor\nVale, Tess was steeped in fancies and prefigurative superstitions;\nshe thought this an ill omen--the first she had noticed that day.\n\nThe van travelled only so far as Shaston, and there were several\nmiles of pedestrian descent from that mountain-town into the vale to\nMarlott.  Her mother had advised her to stay here for the night, at\nthe house of a cottage-woman they knew, if she should feel too tired\nto come on; and this Tess did, not descending to her home till the\nfollowing afternoon.\n\nWhen she entered the house she perceived in a moment from her\nmother's triumphant manner that something had occurred in the\ninterim.\n\n\"Oh yes; I know all about it!  I told 'ee it would be all right, and\nnow 'tis proved!\"\n\n\"Since I've been away?  What has?\" said Tess rather wearily.\n\nHer mother surveyed the girl up and down with arch approval, and went\non banteringly: \"So you've brought 'em round!\"\n\n\"How do you know, mother?\"\n\n\"I've had a letter.\"\n\nTess then remembered that there would have been time for this.\n\n\"They say--Mrs d'Urberville says--that she wants you to look after a\nlittle fowl-farm which is her hobby.  But this is only her artful way\nof getting 'ee there without raising your hopes.  She's going to own\n'ee as kin--that's the meaning o't.\"\n\n\"But I didn't see her.\"\n\n\"You zid somebody, I suppose?\"\n\n\"I saw her son.\"\n\n\"And did he own 'ee?\"\n\n\"Well--he called me Coz.\"\n\n\"An' I knew it!  Jacky--he called her Coz!\" cried Joan to her\nhusband.  \"Well, he spoke to his mother, of course, and she do want\n'ee there.\"\n\n\"But I don't know that I am apt at tending fowls,\" said the dubious\nTess.\n\n\"Then I don't know who is apt.  You've be'n born in the business, and\nbrought up in it.  They that be born in a business always know more\nabout it than any 'prentice.  Besides, that's only just a show of\nsomething for you to do, that you midn't feel beholden.\"\n\n\"I don't altogether think I ought to go,\" said Tess thoughtfully.\n\"Who wrote the letter?  Will you let me look at it?\"\n\n\"Mrs d'Urberville wrote it.  Here it is.\"\n\nThe letter was in the third person, and briefly informed Mrs\nDurbeyfield that her daughter's services would be useful to that lady\nin the management of her poultry-farm, that a comfortable room would\nbe provided for her if she could come, and that the wages would be on\na liberal scale if they liked her.\n\n\"Oh--that's all!\" said Tess.\n\n\"You couldn't expect her to throw her arms round 'ee, an' to kiss and\nto coll 'ee all at once.\"\n\nTess looked out of the window.\n\n\"I would rather stay here with father and you,\" she said.\n\n\"But why?\"\n\n\"I'd rather not tell you why, mother; indeed, I don't quite know\nwhy.\"\n\nA week afterwards she came in one evening from an unavailing search\nfor some light occupation in the immediate neighbourhood.  Her idea\nhad been to get together sufficient money during the summer to\npurchase another horse.  Hardly had she crossed the threshold before\none of the children danced across the room, saying, \"The gentleman's\nbeen here!\"\n\nHer mother hastened to explain, smiles breaking from every inch of\nher person.  Mrs d'Urberville's son had called on horseback, having\nbeen riding by chance in the direction of Marlott.  He had wished\nto know, finally, in the name of his mother, if Tess could really\ncome to manage the old lady's fowl-farm or not; the lad who had\nhitherto superintended the birds having proved untrustworthy.  \"Mr\nd'Urberville says you must be a good girl if you are at all as you\nappear; he knows you must be worth your weight in gold.  He is very\nmuch interested in 'ee--truth to tell.\"\n\nTess seemed for the moment really pleased to hear that she had won\nsuch high opinion from a stranger when, in her own esteem, she had\nsunk so low.\n\n\"It is very good of him to think that,\" she murmured; \"and if I was\nquite sure how it would be living there, I would go any-when.\"\n\n\"He is a mighty handsome man!\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" said Tess coldly.\n\n\"Well, there's your chance, whether or no; and I'm sure he wears a\nbeautiful diamond ring!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said little Abraham, brightly, from the window-bench; \"and\nI seed it! and it did twinkle when he put his hand up to his\nmistarshers.  Mother, why did our grand relation keep on putting his\nhand up to his mistarshers?\"\n\n\"Hark at that child!\" cried Mrs Durbeyfield, with parenthetic\nadmiration.\n\n\"Perhaps to show his diamond ring,\" murmured Sir John, dreamily, from\nhis chair.\n\n\"I'll think it over,\" said Tess, leaving the room.\n\n\"Well, she's made a conquest o' the younger branch of us, straight\noff,\" continued the matron to her husband, \"and she's a fool if she\ndon't follow it up.\"\n\n\"I don't quite like my children going away from home,\" said the\nhaggler.  \"As the head of the family, the rest ought to come to me.\"\n\n\"But do let her go, Jacky,\" coaxed his poor witless wife.  \"He's\nstruck wi' her--you can see that. He called her Coz!  He'll marry\nher, most likely, and make a lady of her; and then she'll be what\nher forefathers was.\"\n\nJohn Durbeyfield had more conceit than energy or health, and this\nsupposition was pleasant to him.\n\n\"Well, perhaps that's what young Mr d'Urberville means,\" he admitted;\n\"and sure enough he mid have serious thoughts about improving his\nblood by linking on to the old line.  Tess, the little rogue!  And\nhave she really paid 'em a visit to such an end as this?\"\n\nMeanwhile Tess was walking thoughtfully among the gooseberry-bushes\nin the garden, and over Prince's grave.  When she came in her mother\npursued her advantage.\n\n\"Well, what be you going to do?\" she asked.\n\n\"I wish I had seen Mrs d'Urberville,\" said Tess.\n\n\"I think you mid as well settle it.  Then you'll see her soon\nenough.\"\n\nHer father coughed in his chair.\n\n\"I don't know what to say!\" answered the girl restlessly.  \"It is for\nyou to decide.  I killed the old horse, and I suppose I ought to do\nsomething to get ye a new one.  But--but--I don't quite like Mr\nd'Urberville being there!\"\n\nThe children, who had made use of this idea of Tess being taken up by\ntheir wealthy kinsfolk (which they imagined the other family to be)\nas a species of dolorifuge after the death of the horse, began to cry\nat Tess's reluctance, and teased and reproached her for hesitating.\n\n\"Tess won't go-o-o and be made a la-a-dy of!--no, she says she\nwo-o-on't!\" they wailed, with square mouths.  \"And we shan't have a\nnice new horse, and lots o' golden money to buy fairlings!  And Tess\nwon't look pretty in her best cloze no mo-o-ore!\"\n\nHer mother chimed in to the same tune: a certain way she had of\nmaking her labours in the house seem heavier than they were by\nprolonging them indefinitely, also weighed in the argument.  Her\nfather alone preserved an attitude of neutrality.\n\n\"I will go,\" said Tess at last.\n\nHer mother could not repress her consciousness of the nuptial vision\nconjured up by the girl's consent.\n\n\"That's right!  For such a pretty maid as 'tis, this is a fine\nchance!\"\n\nTess smiled crossly.\n\n\"I hope it is a chance for earning money.  It is no other kind of\nchance.  You had better say nothing of that silly sort about parish.\"\n\nMrs Durbeyfield did not promise.  She was not quite sure that she did\nnot feel proud enough, after the visitor's remarks, to say a good\ndeal.\n\nThus it was arranged; and the young girl wrote, agreeing to be ready\nto set out on any day on which she might be required.  She was duly\ninformed that Mrs d'Urberville was glad of her decision, and that a\nspring-cart should be sent to meet her and her luggage at the top\nof the Vale on the day after the morrow, when she must hold herself\nprepared to start.  Mrs d'Urberville's handwriting seemed rather\nmasculine.\n\n\"A cart?\" murmured Joan Durbeyfield doubtingly.  \"It might have been\na carriage for her own kin!\"\n\nHaving at last taken her course Tess was less restless and\nabstracted, going about her business with some self-assurance in the\nthought of acquiring another horse for her father by an occupation\nwhich would not be onerous.  She had hoped to be a teacher at the\nschool, but the fates seemed to decide otherwise.  Being mentally\nolder than her mother she did not regard Mrs Durbeyfield's\nmatrimonial hopes for her in a serious aspect for a moment.  The\nlight-minded woman had been discovering good matches for her daughter\nalmost from the year of her birth.\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nOn the morning appointed for her departure Tess was awake before\ndawn--at the marginal minute of the dark when the grove is still\nmute, save for one prophetic bird who sings with a clear-voiced\nconviction that he at least knows the correct time of day, the rest\npreserving silence as if equally convinced that he is mistaken.  She\nremained upstairs packing till breakfast-time, and then came down in\nher ordinary week-day clothes, her Sunday apparel being carefully\nfolded in her box.\n\nHer mother expostulated. \"You will never set out to see your folks\nwithout dressing up more the dand than that?\"\n\n\"But I am going to work!\" said Tess.\n\n\"Well, yes,\" said Mrs Durbeyfield; and in a private tone, \"at first\nthere mid be a little pretence o't ...  But I think it will be wiser\nof 'ee to put your best side outward,\" she added.\n\n\"Very well; I suppose you know best,\" replied Tess with calm\nabandonment.\n\nAnd to please her parent the girl put herself quite in Joan's hands,\nsaying serenely--\"Do what you like with me, mother.\"\n\nMrs Durbeyfield was only too delighted at this tractability.\nFirst she fetched a great basin, and washed Tess's hair with such\nthoroughness that when dried and brushed it looked twice as much as\nat other times.  She tied it with a broader pink ribbon than usual.\nThen she put upon her the white frock that Tess had worn at the\nclub-walking, the airy fulness of which, supplementing her enlarged\n_coiffure_, imparted to her developing figure an amplitude which\nbelied her age, and might cause her to be estimated as a woman when\nshe was not much more than a child.\n\n\"I declare there's a hole in my stocking-heel!\" said Tess.\n\n\"Never mind holes in your stockings--they don't speak!  When I was a\nmaid, so long as I had a pretty bonnet the devil might ha' found me\nin heels.\"\n\nHer mother's pride in the girl's appearance led her to step back,\nlike a painter from his easel, and survey her work as a whole.\n\n\"You must zee yourself!\" she cried.  \"It is much better than you was\nt'other day.\"\n\nAs the looking-glass was only large enough to reflect a very small\nportion of Tess's person at one time, Mrs Durbeyfield hung a black\ncloak outside the casement, and so made a large reflector of the\npanes, as it is the wont of bedecking cottagers to do.  After this\nshe went downstairs to her husband, who was sitting in the lower\nroom.\n\n\"I'll tell 'ee what 'tis, Durbeyfield,\" said she exultingly; \"he'll\nnever have the heart not to love her.  But whatever you do, don't zay\ntoo much to Tess of his fancy for her, and this chance she has got.\nShe is such an odd maid that it mid zet her against him, or against\ngoing there, even now.  If all goes well, I shall certainly be for\nmaking some return to pa'son at Stagfoot Lane for telling us--dear,\ngood man!\"\n\nHowever, as the moment for the girl's setting out drew nigh, when the\nfirst excitement of the dressing had passed off, a slight misgiving\nfound place in Joan Durbeyfield's mind.  It prompted the matron to\nsay that she would walk a little way--as far as to the point where\nthe acclivity from the valley began its first steep ascent to\nthe outer world.  At the top Tess was going to be met with the\nspring-cart sent by the Stoke-d'Urbervilles, and her box had already\nbeen wheeled ahead towards this summit by a lad with trucks, to be in\nreadiness.\n\nSeeing their mother put on her bonnet, the younger children clamoured\nto go with her.\n\n\"I do want to walk a little-ways wi' Sissy, now she's going to marry\nour gentleman-cousin, and wear fine cloze!\"\n\n\"Now,\" said Tess, flushing and turning quickly, \"I'll hear no more o'\nthat!  Mother, how could you ever put such stuff into their heads?\"\n\n\"Going to work, my dears, for our rich relation, and help get enough\nmoney for a new horse,\" said Mrs Durbeyfield pacifically.\n\n\"Goodbye, father,\" said Tess, with a lumpy throat.\n\n\"Goodbye, my maid,\" said Sir John, raising his head from his breast\nas he suspended his nap, induced by a slight excess this morning in\nhonour of the occasion.  \"Well, I hope my young friend will like such\na comely sample of his own blood.  And tell'n, Tess, that being sunk,\nquite, from our former grandeur, I'll sell him the title--yes, sell\nit--and at no onreasonable figure.\"\n\n\"Not for less than a thousand pound!\" cried Lady Durbeyfield.\n\n\"Tell'n--I'll take a thousand pound.  Well, I'll take less, when\nI come to think o't.  He'll adorn it better than a poor lammicken\nfeller like myself can.  Tell'n he shall hae it for a hundred.  But\nI won't stand upon trifles--tell'n he shall hae it for fifty--for\ntwenty pound!  Yes, twenty pound--that's the lowest.  Dammy, family\nhonour is family honour, and I won't take a penny less!\"\n\nTess's eyes were too full and her voice too choked to utter the\nsentiments that were in her.  She turned quickly, and went out.\n\nSo the girls and their mother all walked together, a child on each\nside of Tess, holding her hand and looking at her meditatively from\ntime to time, as at one who was about to do great things; her mother\njust behind with the smallest; the group forming a picture of honest\nbeauty flanked by innocence, and backed by simple-souled vanity.\nThey followed the way till they reached the beginning of the ascent,\non the crest of which the vehicle from Trantridge was to receive her,\nthis limit having been fixed to save the horse the labour of the last\nslope.  Far away behind the first hills the cliff-like dwellings\nof Shaston broke the line of the ridge. Nobody was visible in the\nelevated road which skirted the ascent save the lad whom they had\nsent on before them, sitting on the handle of the barrow that\ncontained all Tess's worldly possessions.\n\n\"Bide here a bit, and the cart will soon come, no doubt,\" said Mrs\nDurbeyfield.  \"Yes, I see it yonder!\"\n\nIt had come--appearing suddenly from behind the forehead of the\nnearest upland, and stopping beside the boy with the barrow.  Her\nmother and the children thereupon decided to go no farther, and\nbidding them a hasty goodbye, Tess bent her steps up the hill.\n\nThey saw her white shape draw near to the spring-cart, on which her\nbox was already placed.  But before she had quite reached it another\nvehicle shot out from a clump of trees on the summit, came round the\nbend of the road there, passed the luggage-cart, and halted beside\nTess, who looked up as if in great surprise.\n\nHer mother perceived, for the first time, that the second vehicle was\nnot a humble conveyance like the first, but a spick-and-span gig or\ndog-cart, highly varnished and equipped.  The driver was a young man\nof three- or four-and-twenty, with a cigar between his teeth; wearing\na dandy cap, drab jacket, breeches of the same hue, white neckcloth,\nstick-up collar, and brown driving-gloves--in short, he was the\nhandsome, horsey young buck who had visited Joan a week or two before\nto get her answer about Tess.\n\nMrs Durbeyfield clapped her hands like a child.  Then she looked\ndown, then stared again.  Could she be deceived as to the meaning of\nthis?\n\n\"Is dat the gentleman-kinsman who'll make Sissy a lady?\" asked the\nyoungest child.\n\nMeanwhile the muslined form of Tess could be seen standing still,\nundecided, beside this turn-out, whose owner was talking to her.\nHer seeming indecision was, in fact, more than indecision: it was\nmisgiving.  She would have preferred the humble cart.  The young\nman dismounted, and appeared to urge her to ascend.  She turned her\nface down the hill to her relatives, and regarded the little group.\nSomething seemed to quicken her to a determination; possibly the\nthought that she had killed Prince.  She suddenly stepped up; he\nmounted beside her, and immediately whipped on the horse.  In a\nmoment they had passed the slow cart with the box, and disappeared\nbehind the shoulder of the hill.\n\nDirectly Tess was out of sight, and the interest of the matter as a\ndrama was at an end, the little ones' eyes filled with tears.  The\nyoungest child said, \"I wish poor, poor Tess wasn't gone away to be a\nlady!\" and, lowering the corners of his lips, burst out crying.  The\nnew point of view was infectious, and the next child did likewise,\nand then the next, till the whole three of them wailed loud.\n\nThere were tears also in Joan Durbeyfield's eyes as she turned to\ngo home.  But by the time she had got back to the village she was\npassively trusting to the favour of accident.  However, in bed that\nnight she sighed, and her husband asked her what was the matter.\n\n\"Oh, I don't know exactly,\" she said.  \"I was thinking that perhaps\nit would ha' been better if Tess had not gone.\"\n\n\"Oughtn't ye to have thought of that before?\"\n\n\"Well, 'tis a chance for the maid--Still, if 'twere the doing again,\nI wouldn't let her go till I had found out whether the gentleman\nis really a good-hearted young man and choice over her as his\nkinswoman.\"\n\n\"Yes, you ought, perhaps, to ha' done that,\" snored Sir John.\n\nJoan Durbeyfield always managed to find consolation somewhere: \"Well,\nas one of the genuine stock, she ought to make her way with 'en, if\nshe plays her trump card aright.  And if he don't marry her afore he\nwill after.  For that he's all afire wi' love for her any eye can\nsee.\"\n\n\"What's her trump card?  Her d'Urberville blood, you mean?\"\n\n\"No, stupid; her face--as 'twas mine.\"\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nHaving mounted beside her, Alec d'Urberville drove rapidly along\nthe crest of the first hill, chatting compliments to Tess as they\nwent, the cart with her box being left far behind.  Rising still, an\nimmense landscape stretched around them on every side; behind, the\ngreen valley of her birth, before, a gray country of which she knew\nnothing except from her first brief visit to Trantridge.  Thus they\nreached the verge of an incline down which the road stretched in a\nlong straight descent of nearly a mile.\n\nEver since the accident with her father's horse Tess Durbeyfield,\ncourageous as she naturally was, had been exceedingly timid on\nwheels; the least irregularity of motion startled her.  She began to\nget uneasy at a certain recklessness in her conductor's driving.\n\n\"You will go down slow, sir, I suppose?\" she said with attempted\nunconcern.\n\nD'Urberville looked round upon her, nipped his cigar with the tips of\nhis large white centre-teeth, and allowed his lips to smile slowly of\nthemselves.\n\n\"Why, Tess,\" he answered, after another whiff or two, \"it isn't a\nbrave bouncing girl like you who asks that?  Why, I always go down at\nfull gallop.  There's nothing like it for raising your spirits.\"\n\n\"But perhaps you need not now?\"\n\n\"Ah,\" he said, shaking his head, \"there are two to be reckoned with.\nIt is not me alone.  Tib has to be considered, and she has a very\nqueer temper.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Why, this mare.  I fancy she looked round at me in a very grim way\njust then.  Didn't you notice it?\"\n\n\"Don't try to frighten me, sir,\" said Tess stiffly.\n\n\"Well, I don't.  If any living man can manage this horse I can: I\nwon't say any living man can do it--but if such has the power, I am\nhe.\"\n\n\"Why do you have such a horse?\"\n\n\"Ah, well may you ask it!  It was my fate, I suppose. Tib has killed\none chap; and just after I bought her she nearly killed me.  And\nthen, take my word for it, I nearly killed her.  But she's touchy\nstill, very touchy; and one's life is hardly safe behind her\nsometimes.\"\n\nThey were just beginning to descend; and it was evident that the\nhorse, whether of her own will or of his (the latter being the more\nlikely), knew so well the reckless performance expected of her that\nshe hardly required a hint from behind.\n\nDown, down, they sped, the wheels humming like a top, the dog-cart\nrocking right and left, its axis acquiring a slightly oblique set\nin relation to the line of progress; the figure of the horse rising\nand falling in undulations before them.  Sometimes a wheel was off\nthe ground, it seemed, for many yards; sometimes a stone was sent\nspinning over the hedge, and flinty sparks from the horse's hoofs\noutshone the daylight.  The aspect of the straight road enlarged with\ntheir advance, the two banks dividing like a splitting stick; one\nrushing past at each shoulder.\n\nThe wind blew through Tess's white muslin to her very skin, and her\nwashed hair flew out behind.  She was determined to show no open\nfear, but she clutched d'Urberville's rein-arm.\n\n\"Don't touch my arm!  We shall be thrown out if you do!  Hold on\nround my waist!\"\n\nShe grasped his waist, and so they reached the bottom.\n\n\"Safe, thank God, in spite of your fooling!\" said she, her face on\nfire.\n\n\"Tess--fie! that's temper!\" said d'Urberville.\n\n\"'Tis truth.\"\n\n\"Well, you need not let go your hold of me so thanklessly the moment\nyou feel yourself our of danger.\"\n\nShe had not considered what she had been doing; whether he were man\nor woman, stick or stone, in her involuntary hold on him.  Recovering\nher reserve, she sat without replying, and thus they reached the\nsummit of another declivity.\n\n\"Now then, again!\" said d'Urberville.\n\n\"No, no!\" said Tess.  \"Show more sense, do, please.\"\n\n\"But when people find themselves on one of the highest points in the\ncounty, they must get down again,\" he retorted.\n\nHe loosened rein, and away they went a second time.  D'Urberville\nturned his face to her as they rocked, and said, in playful raillery:\n\"Now then, put your arms round my waist again, as you did before, my\nBeauty.\"\n\n\"Never!\" said Tess independently, holding on as well as she could\nwithout touching him.\n\n\"Let me put one little kiss on those holmberry lips, Tess, or even on\nthat warmed cheek, and I'll stop--on my honour, I will!\"\n\nTess, surprised beyond measure, slid farther back still on her seat,\nat which he urged the horse anew, and rocked her the more.\n\n\"Will nothing else do?\" she cried at length, in desperation, her\nlarge eyes staring at him like those of a wild animal.  This dressing\nher up so prettily by her mother had apparently been to lamentable\npurpose.\n\n\"Nothing, dear Tess,\" he replied.\n\n\"Oh, I don't know--very well; I don't mind!\" she panted miserably.\n\nHe drew rein, and as they slowed he was on the point of imprinting\nthe desired salute, when, as if hardly yet aware of her own modesty,\nshe dodged aside.  His arms being occupied with the reins there was\nleft him no power to prevent her manoeuvre.\n\n\"Now, damn it--I'll break both our necks!\" swore her capriciously\npassionate companion.  \"So you can go from your word like that, you\nyoung witch, can you?\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said Tess, \"I'll not move since you be so determined!\nBut I--thought you would be kind to me, and protect me, as my\nkinsman!\"\n\n\"Kinsman be hanged!  Now!\"\n\n\"But I don't want anybody to kiss me, sir!\" she implored, a big\ntear beginning to roll down her face, and the corners of her mouth\ntrembling in her attempts not to cry.  \"And I wouldn't ha' come if\nI had known!\"\n\nHe was inexorable, and she sat still, and d'Urberville gave her the\nkiss of mastery.  No sooner had he done so than she flushed with\nshame, took out her handkerchief, and wiped the spot on her cheek\nthat had been touched by his lips.  His ardour was nettled at the\nsight, for the act on her part had been unconsciously done.\n\n\"You are mighty sensitive for a cottage girl!\" said the young man.\n\nTess made no reply to this remark, of which, indeed, she did not\nquite comprehend the drift, unheeding the snub she had administered\nby her instinctive rub upon her cheek.  She had, in fact, undone the\nkiss, as far as such a thing was physically possible.  With a dim\nsense that he was vexed she looked steadily ahead as they trotted on\nnear Melbury Down and Wingreen, till she saw, to her consternation,\nthat there was yet another descent to be undergone.\n\n\"You shall be made sorry for that!\" he resumed, his injured tone\nstill remaining, as he flourished the whip anew.  \"Unless, that is,\nyou agree willingly to let me do it again, and no handkerchief.\"\n\nShe sighed. \"Very well, sir!\" she said.  \"Oh--let me get my hat!\"\n\nAt the moment of speaking her hat had blown off into the road, their\npresent speed on the upland being by no means slow.  D'Urberville\npulled up, and said he would get it for her, but Tess was down on the\nother side.\n\nShe turned back and picked up the article.\n\n\"You look prettier with it off, upon my soul, if that's possible,\" he\nsaid, contemplating her over the back of the vehicle.  \"Now then, up\nagain!  What's the matter?\"\n\nThe hat was in place and tied, but Tess had not stepped forward.\n\n\"No, sir,\" she said, revealing the red and ivory of her mouth as her\neye lit in defiant triumph; \"not again, if I know it!\"\n\n\"What--you won't get up beside me?\"\n\n\"No; I shall walk.\"\n\n\"'Tis five or six miles yet to Trantridge.\"\n\n\"I don't care if 'tis dozens.  Besides, the cart is behind.\"\n\n\"You artful hussy!  Now, tell me--didn't you make that hat blow off\non purpose?  I'll swear you did!\"\n\nHer strategic silence confirmed his suspicion.\n\nThen d'Urberville cursed and swore at her, and called her everything\nhe could think of for the trick.  Turning the horse suddenly he tried\nto drive back upon her, and so hem her in between the gig and the\nhedge.  But he could not do this short of injuring her.\n\n\"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for using such wicked words!\"\ncried Tess with spirit, from the top of the hedge into which she had\nscrambled.  \"I don't like 'ee at all!  I hate and detest you!  I'll\ngo back to mother, I will!\"\n\nD'Urberville's bad temper cleared up at sight of hers; and he laughed\nheartily.\n\n\"Well, I like you all the better,\" he said.  \"Come, let there be\npeace.  I'll never do it any more against your will.  My life upon\nit now!\"\n\nStill Tess could not be induced to remount.  She did not, however,\nobject to his keeping his gig alongside her; and in this manner, at\na slow pace, they advanced towards the village of Trantridge.  From\ntime to time d'Urberville exhibited a sort of fierce distress at\nthe sight of the tramping he had driven her to undertake by his\nmisdemeanour.  She might in truth have safely trusted him now; but he\nhad forfeited her confidence for the time, and she kept on the ground\nprogressing thoughtfully, as if wondering whether it would be wiser\nto return home.  Her resolve, however, had been taken, and it seemed\nvacillating even to childishness to abandon it now, unless for graver\nreasons.  How could she face her parents, get back her box, and\ndisconcert the whole scheme for the rehabilitation of her family on\nsuch sentimental grounds?\n\nA few minutes later the chimneys of The Slopes appeared in view, and\nin a snug nook to the right the poultry-farm and cottage of Tess'\ndestination.\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\nThe community of fowls to which Tess had been appointed as\nsupervisor, purveyor, nurse, surgeon, and friend made its\nheadquarters in an old thatched cottage standing in an enclosure that\nhad once been a garden, but was now a trampled and sanded square.\nThe house was overrun with ivy, its chimney being enlarged by the\nboughs of the parasite to the aspect of a ruined tower.  The lower\nrooms were entirely given over to the birds, who walked about them\nwith a proprietary air, as though the place had been built by\nthemselves, and not by certain dusty copyholders who now lay east\nand west in the churchyard.  The descendants of these bygone owners\nfelt it almost as a slight to their family when the house which had\nso much of their affection, had cost so much of their forefathers'\nmoney, and had been in their possession for several generations\nbefore the d'Urbervilles came and built here, was indifferently\nturned into a fowl-house by Mrs Stoke-d'Urberville as soon as the\nproperty fell into hand according to law.  \"'Twas good enough for\nChristians in grandfather's time,\" they said.\n\nThe rooms wherein dozens of infants had wailed at their nursing now\nresounded with the tapping of nascent chicks.  Distracted hens in\ncoops occupied spots where formerly stood chairs supporting sedate\nagriculturists.  The chimney-corner and once-blazing hearth was now\nfilled with inverted beehives, in which the hens laid their eggs;\nwhile out of doors the plots that each succeeding householder had\ncarefully shaped with his spade were torn by the cocks in wildest\nfashion.\n\nThe garden in which the cottage stood was surrounded by a wall, and\ncould only be entered through a door.\n\nWhen Tess had occupied herself about an hour the next morning in\naltering and improving the arrangements, according to her skilled\nideas as the daughter of a professed poulterer, the door in the wall\nopened and a servant in white cap and apron entered.  She had come\nfrom the manor-house.\n\n\"Mrs d'Urberville wants the fowls as usual,\" she said; but perceiving\nthat Tess did not quite understand, she explained, \"Mis'ess is a old\nlady, and blind.\"\n\n\"Blind!\" said Tess.\n\nAlmost before her misgiving at the news could find time to shape\nitself she took, under her companion's direction, two of the\nmost beautiful of the Hamburghs in her arms, and followed the\nmaid-servant, who had likewise taken two, to the adjacent mansion,\nwhich, though ornate and imposing, showed traces everywhere on this\nside that some occupant of its chambers could bend to the love of\ndumb creatures--feathers floating within view of the front, and\nhen-coops standing on the grass.\n\nIn a sitting-room on the ground-floor, ensconced in an armchair with\nher back to the light, was the owner and mistress of the estate, a\nwhite-haired woman of not more than sixty, or even less, wearing a\nlarge cap.  She had the mobile face frequent in those whose sight\nhas decayed by stages, has been laboriously striven after, and\nreluctantly let go, rather than the stagnant mien apparent in persons\nlong sightless or born blind.  Tess walked up to this lady with her\nfeathered charges--one sitting on each arm.\n\n\"Ah, you are the young woman come to look after my birds?\" said Mrs\nd'Urberville, recognizing a new footstep.  \"I hope you will be kind\nto them.  My bailiff tells me you are quite the proper person.\nWell, where are they?  Ah, this is Strut!  But he is hardly so\nlively to-day, is he?  He is alarmed at being handled by a stranger,\nI suppose. And Phena too--yes, they are a little frightened--aren't\nyou, dears? But they will soon get used to you.\"\n\nWhile the old lady had been speaking Tess and the other maid, in\nobedience to her gestures, had placed the fowls severally in her lap,\nand she had felt them over from head to tail, examining their beaks,\ntheir combs, the manes of the cocks, their wings, and their claws.\nHer touch enabled her to recognize them in a moment, and to discover\nif a single feather were crippled or draggled.  She handled their\ncrops, and knew what they had eaten, and if too little or too much;\nher face enacting a vivid pantomime of the criticisms passing in her\nmind.\n\nThe birds that the two girls had brought in were duly returned to the\nyard, and the process was repeated till all the pet cocks and hens\nhad been submitted to the old woman--Hamburghs, Bantams, Cochins,\nBrahmas, Dorkings, and such other sorts as were in fashion just\nthen--her perception of each visitor being seldom at fault as she\nreceived the bird upon her knees.\n\nIt reminded Tess of a Confirmation, in which Mrs d'Urberville was the\nbishop, the fowls the young people presented, and herself and the\nmaid-servant the parson and curate of the parish bringing them up.\nAt the end of the ceremony Mrs d'Urberville abruptly asked Tess,\nwrinkling and twitching her face into undulations, \"Can you whistle?\"\n\n\"Whistle, Ma'am?\"\n\n\"Yes, whistle tunes.\"\n\nTess could whistle like most other country-girls, though the\naccomplishment was one which she did not care to profess in genteel\ncompany.  However, she blandly admitted that such was the fact.\n\n\"Then you will have to practise it every day.  I had a lad who did it\nvery well, but he has left.  I want you to whistle to my bullfinches;\nas I cannot see them, I like to hear them, and we teach 'em airs\nthat way.  Tell her where the cages are, Elizabeth.  You must begin\nto-morrow, or they will go back in their piping. They have been\nneglected these several days.\"\n\n\"Mr d'Urberville whistled to 'em this morning, ma'am,\" said\nElizabeth.\n\n\"He!  Pooh!\"\n\nThe old lady's face creased into furrows of repugnance, and she made\nno further reply.\n\nThus the reception of Tess by her fancied kinswoman terminated, and\nthe birds were taken back to their quarters.  The girl's surprise at\nMrs d'Urberville's manner was not great; for since seeing the size of\nthe house she had expected no more.  But she was far from being aware\nthat the old lady had never heard a word of the so-called kinship.\nShe gathered that no great affection flowed between the blind woman\nand her son.  But in that, too, she was mistaken.  Mrs d'Urberville\nwas not the first mother compelled to love her offspring resentfully,\nand to be bitterly fond.\n\n\nIn spite of the unpleasant initiation of the day before, Tess\ninclined to the freedom and novelty of her new position in the\nmorning when the sun shone, now that she was once installed there;\nand she was curious to test her powers in the unexpected direction\nasked of her, so as to ascertain her chance of retaining her post.\nAs soon as she was alone within the walled garden she sat herself\ndown on a coop, and seriously screwed up her mouth for the\nlong-neglected practice.  She found her former ability to have\ndegenerated to the production of a hollow rush of wind through the\nlips, and no clear note at all.\n\nShe remained fruitlessly blowing and blowing, wondering how she\ncould have so grown out of the art which had come by nature, till\nshe became aware of a movement among the ivy-boughs which cloaked\nthe garden-wall no less then the cottage.  Looking that way she\nbeheld a form springing from the coping to the plot.  It was Alec\nd'Urberville, whom she had not set eyes on since he had conducted\nher the day before to the door of the gardener's cottage where she\nhad lodgings.\n\n\"Upon my honour!\" cried he, \"there was never before such a beautiful\nthing in Nature or Art as you look, 'Cousin' Tess ('Cousin' had a\nfaint ring of mockery).  I have been watching you from over the\nwall--sitting like IM-patience on a monument, and pouting up that\npretty red mouth to whistling shape, and whooing and whooing, and\nprivately swearing, and never being able to produce a note.  Why,\nyou are quite cross because you can't do it.\"\n\n\"I may be cross, but I didn't swear.\"\n\n\"Ah!  I understand why you are trying--those bullies!  My mother\nwants you to carry on their musical education.  How selfish of her!\nAs if attending to these curst cocks and hens here were not enough\nwork for any girl.  I would flatly refuse, if I were you.\"\n\n\"But she wants me particularly to do it, and to be ready by to-morrow\nmorning.\"\n\n\"Does she?  Well then--I'll give you a lesson or two.\"\n\n\"Oh no, you won't!\" said Tess, withdrawing towards the door.\n\n\"Nonsense; I don't want to touch you.  See--I'll stand on this side\nof the wire-netting, and you can keep on the other; so you may feel\nquite safe.  Now, look here; you screw up your lips too harshly.\nThere 'tis--so.\"\n\nHe suited the action to the word, and whistled a line of \"Take, O\ntake those lips away.\"  But the allusion was lost upon Tess.\n\n\"Now try,\" said d'Urberville.\n\nShe attempted to look reserved; her face put on a sculptural\nseverity.  But he persisted in his demand, and at last, to get rid of\nhim, she did put up her lips as directed for producing a clear note;\nlaughing distressfully, however, and then blushing with vexation that\nshe had laughed.\n\nHe encouraged her with \"Try again!\"\n\nTess was quite serious, painfully serious by this time; and she\ntried--ultimately and unexpectedly emitting a real round sound.\nThe momentary pleasure of success got the better of her; her eyes\nenlarged, and she involuntarily smiled in his face.\n\n\"That's it!  Now I have started you--you'll go on beautifully.\nThere--I said I would not come near you; and, in spite of such\ntemptation as never before fell to mortal man, I'll keep my\nword...  Tess, do you think my mother a queer old soul?\"\n\n\"I don't know much of her yet, sir.\"\n\n\"You'll find her so; she must be, to make you learn to whistle to her\nbullfinches.  I am rather out of her books just now, but you will be\nquite in favour if you treat her live-stock well.  Good morning.  If\nyou meet with any difficulties and want help here, don't go to the\nbailiff, come to me.\"\n\n\nIt was in the economy of this _régime_ that Tess Durbeyfield had\nundertaken to fill a place.  Her first day's experiences were fairly\ntypical of those which followed through many succeeding days.  A\nfamiliarity with Alec d'Urberville's presence--which that young man\ncarefully cultivated in her by playful dialogue, and by jestingly\ncalling her his cousin when they were alone--removed much of her\noriginal shyness of him, without, however, implanting any feeling\nwhich could engender shyness of a new and tenderer kind.  But she was\nmore pliable under his hands than a mere companionship would have\nmade her, owing to her unavoidable dependence upon his mother, and,\nthrough that lady's comparative helplessness, upon him.\n\nShe soon found that whistling to the bullfinches in Mrs\nd'Urberville's room was no such onerous business when she had\nregained the art, for she had caught from her musical mother numerous\nairs that suited those songsters admirably.  A far more satisfactory\ntime than when she practised in the garden was this whistling by the\ncages each morning.  Unrestrained by the young man's presence she\nthrew up her mouth, put her lips near the bars, and piped away in\neaseful grace to the attentive listeners.\n\nMrs d'Urberville slept in a large four-post bedstead hung with heavy\ndamask curtains, and the bullfinches occupied the same apartment,\nwhere they flitted about freely at certain hours, and made little\nwhite spots on the furniture and upholstery.  Once while Tess was at\nthe window where the cages were ranged, giving her lesson as usual,\nshe thought she heard a rustling behind the bed.  The old lady was\nnot present, and turning round the girl had an impression that\nthe toes of a pair of boots were visible below the fringe of the\ncurtains.  Thereupon her whistling became so disjointed that the\nlistener, if such there were, must have discovered her suspicion of\nhis presence.  She searched the curtains every morning after that,\nbut never found anybody within them.  Alec d'Urberville had evidently\nthought better of his freak to terrify her by an ambush of that kind.\n\n\n\nX\n\n\nEvery village has its idiosyncrasy, its constitution, often its own\ncode of morality.  The levity of some of the younger women in and\nabout Trantridge was marked, and was perhaps symptomatic of the\nchoice spirit who ruled The Slopes in that vicinity.  The place had\nalso a more abiding defect; it drank hard.  The staple conversation\non the farms around was on the uselessness of saving money; and\nsmock-frocked arithmeticians, leaning on their ploughs or hoes, would\nenter into calculations of great nicety to prove that parish relief\nwas a fuller provision for a man in his old age than any which could\nresult from savings out of their wages during a whole lifetime.\n\nThe chief pleasure of these philosophers lay in going every Saturday\nnight, when work was done, to Chaseborough, a decayed market-town two\nor three miles distant; and, returning in the small hours of the next\nmorning, to spend Sunday in sleeping off the dyspeptic effects of the\ncurious compounds sold to them as beer by the monopolizers of the\nonce-independent inns.\n\nFor a long time Tess did not join in the weekly pilgrimages.  But\nunder pressure from matrons not much older than herself--for a\nfield-man's wages being as high at twenty-one as at forty, marriage\nwas early here--Tess at length consented to go.  Her first experience\nof the journey afforded her more enjoyment than she had expected,\nthe hilariousness of the others being quite contagious after her\nmonotonous attention to the poultry-farm all the week. She went again\nand again.  Being graceful and interesting, standing moreover on the\nmomentary threshold of womanhood, her appearance drew down upon her\nsome sly regards from loungers in the streets of Chaseborough; hence,\nthough sometimes her journey to the town was made independently, she\nalways searched for her fellows at nightfall, to have the protection\nof their companionship homeward.\n\nThis had gone on for a month or two when there came a Saturday in\nSeptember, on which a fair and a market coincided; and the pilgrims\nfrom Trantridge sought double delights at the inns on that account.\nTess's occupations made her late in setting out, so that her comrades\nreached the town long before her.  It was a fine September evening,\njust before sunset, when yellow lights struggle with blue shades in\nhairlike lines, and the atmosphere itself forms a prospect without\naid from more solid objects, except the innumerable winged insects\nthat dance in it.  Through this low-lit mistiness Tess walked\nleisurely along.\n\nShe did not discover the coincidence of the market with the fair till\nshe had reached the place, by which time it was close upon dusk.  Her\nlimited marketing was soon completed; and then as usual she began to\nlook about for some of the Trantridge cottagers.\n\nAt first she could not find them, and she was informed that most of\nthem had gone to what they called a private little jig at the house\nof a hay-trusser and peat-dealer who had transactions with their\nfarm.  He lived in an out-of-the-way nook of the townlet, and in\ntrying to find her course thither her eyes fell upon Mr d'Urberville\nstanding at a street corner.\n\n\"What--my Beauty?  You here so late?\" he said.\n\nShe told him that she was simply waiting for company homeward.\n\n\"I'll see you again,\" said he over her shoulder as she went on down\nthe back lane.\n\nApproaching the hay-trussers, she could hear the fiddled notes of\na reel proceeding from some building in the rear; but no sound of\ndancing was audible--an exceptional state of things for these parts,\nwhere as a rule the stamping drowned the music.  The front door being\nopen she could see straight through the house into the garden at the\nback as far as the shades of night would allow; and nobody appearing\nto her knock, she traversed the dwelling and went up the path to the\nouthouse whence the sound had attracted her.\n\nIt was a windowless erection used for storage, and from the open door\nthere floated into the obscurity a mist of yellow radiance, which at\nfirst Tess thought to be illuminated smoke.  But on drawing nearer\nshe perceived that it was a cloud of dust, lit by candles within the\nouthouse, whose beams upon the haze carried forward the outline of\nthe doorway into the wide night of the garden.\n\nWhen she came close and looked in she beheld indistinct forms\nracing up and down to the figure of the dance, the silence of their\nfootfalls arising from their being overshoe in \"scroff\"--that is\nto say, the powdery residuum from the storage of peat and other\nproducts, the stirring of which by their turbulent feet created the\nnebulosity that involved the scene.  Through this floating, fusty\n_debris_ of peat and hay, mixed with the perspirations and warmth of\nthe dancers, and forming together a sort of vegeto-human pollen, the\nmuted fiddles feebly pushed their notes, in marked contrast to the\nspirit with which the measure was trodden out.  They coughed as\nthey danced, and laughed as they coughed.  Of the rushing couples\nthere could barely be discerned more than the high lights--the\nindistinctness shaping them to satyrs clasping nymphs--a multiplicity\nof Pans whirling a multiplicity of Syrinxes; Lotis attempting to\nelude Priapus, and always failing.\n\nAt intervals a couple would approach the doorway for air, and\nthe haze no longer veiling their features, the demigods resolved\nthemselves into the homely personalities of her own next-door\nneighbours.  Could Trantridge in two or three short hours have\nmetamorphosed itself thus madly!\n\nSome Sileni of the throng sat on benches and hay-trusses by the wall;\nand one of them recognized her.\n\n\"The maids don't think it respectable to dance at The Flower-de-Luce,\"\nhe explained.  \"They don't like to let everybody see which be their\nfancy-men.  Besides, the house sometimes shuts up just when their\njints begin to get greased.  So we come here and send out for\nliquor.\"\n\n\"But when be any of you going home?\" asked Tess with some anxiety.\n\n\"Now--a'most directly.  This is all but the last jig.\"\n\nShe waited.  The reel drew to a close, and some of the party were in\nthe mind of starting.  But others would not, and another dance was\nformed.  This surely would end it, thought Tess.  But it merged in\nyet another.  She became restless and uneasy; yet, having waited so\nlong, it was necessary to wait longer; on account of the fair the\nroads were dotted with roving characters of possibly ill intent; and,\nthough not fearful of measurable dangers, she feared the unknown.\nHad she been near Marlott she would have had less dread.\n\n\"Don't ye be nervous, my dear good soul,\" expostulated, between his\ncoughs, a young man with a wet face and his straw hat so far back\nupon his head that the brim encircled it like the nimbus of a saint.\n\"What's yer hurry?  To-morrow is Sunday, thank God, and we can sleep\nit off in church-time.  Now, have a turn with me?\"\n\nShe did not abhor dancing, but she was not going to dance here.  The\nmovement grew more passionate: the fiddlers behind the luminous\npillar of cloud now and then varied the air by playing on the wrong\nside of the bridge or with the back of the bow.  But it did not\nmatter; the panting shapes spun onwards.\n\nThey did not vary their partners if their inclination were to stick\nto previous ones.  Changing partners simply meant that a satisfactory\nchoice had not as yet been arrived at by one or other of the pair,\nand by this time every couple had been suitably matched.  It was then\nthat the ecstasy and the dream began, in which emotion was the matter\nof the universe, and matter but an adventitious intrusion likely to\nhinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin.\n\nSuddenly there was a dull thump on the ground: a couple had fallen,\nand lay in a mixed heap.  The next couple, unable to check its\nprogress, came toppling over the obstacle.  An inner cloud of dust\nrose around the prostrate figures amid the general one of the room,\nin which a twitching entanglement of arms and legs was discernible.\n\n\"You shall catch it for this, my gentleman, when you get home!\" burst\nin female accents from the human heap--those of the unhappy partner\nof the man whose clumsiness had caused the mishap; she happened\nalso to be his recently married wife, in which assortment there was\nnothing unusual at Trantridge as long as any affection remained\nbetween wedded couples; and, indeed, it was not uncustomary in their\nlater lives, to avoid making odd lots of the single people between\nwhom there might be a warm understanding.\n\nA loud laugh from behind Tess's back, in the shade of the garden,\nunited with the titter within the room.  She looked round, and saw\nthe red coal of a cigar: Alec d'Urberville was standing there alone.\nHe beckoned to her, and she reluctantly retreated towards him.\n\n\"Well, my Beauty, what are you doing here?\"\n\nShe was so tired after her long day and her walk that she confided\nher trouble to him--that she had been waiting ever since he saw her\nto have their company home, because the road at night was strange to\nher.  \"But it seems they will never leave off, and I really think I\nwill wait no longer.\"\n\n\"Certainly do not.  I have only a saddle-horse here to-day; but come\nto The Flower-de-Luce, and I'll hire a trap, and drive you home with\nme.\"\n\nTess, though flattered, had never quite got over her original\nmistrust of him, and, despite their tardiness, she preferred to walk\nhome with the work-folk.  So she answered that she was much obliged\nto him, but would not trouble him.  \"I have said that I will wait for\n'em, and they will expect me to now.\"\n\n\"Very well, Miss Independence.  Please yourself...  Then I shall not\nhurry...  My good Lord, what a kick-up they are having there!\"\n\nHe had not put himself forward into the light, but some of them\nhad perceived him, and his presence led to a slight pause and a\nconsideration of how the time was flying.  As soon as he had re-lit\na cigar and walked away the Trantridge people began to collect\nthemselves from amid those who had come in from other farms, and\nprepared to leave in a body.  Their bundles and baskets were gathered\nup, and half an hour later, when the clock-chime sounded a quarter\npast eleven, they were straggling along the lane which led up the\nhill towards their homes.\n\nIt was a three-mile walk, along a dry white road, made whiter\nto-night by the light of the moon.\n\nTess soon perceived as she walked in the flock, sometimes with this\none, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing\nstaggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too\nfreely; some of the more careless women also were wandering in their\ngait--to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, till\nlately a favourite of d'Urberville's; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed\nthe Queen of Diamonds; and the young married woman who had already\ntumbled down.  Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance\njust now to the mean unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was\ndifferent.  They followed the road with a sensation that they were\nsoaring along in a supporting medium, possessed of original and\nprofound thoughts, themselves and surrounding nature forming\nan organism of which all the parts harmoniously and joyously\ninterpenetrated each other.  They were as sublime as the moon and\nstars above them, and the moon and stars were as ardent as they.\n\nTess, however, had undergone such painful experiences of this kind in\nher father's house that the discovery of their condition spoilt the\npleasure she was beginning to feel in the moonlight journey.  Yet she\nstuck to the party, for reasons above given.\n\nIn the open highway they had progressed in scattered order; but now\ntheir route was through a field-gate, and the foremost finding a\ndifficulty in opening it, they closed up together.\n\nThis leading pedestrian was Car the Queen of Spades, who carried a\nwicker-basket containing her mother's groceries, her own draperies,\nand other purchases for the week.  The basket being large and heavy,\nCar had placed it for convenience of porterage on the top of her\nhead, where it rode on in jeopardized balance as she walked with\narms akimbo.\n\n\"Well--whatever is that a-creeping down thy back, Car Darch?\" said\none of the group suddenly.\n\nAll looked at Car.  Her gown was a light cotton print, and from the\nback of her head a kind of rope could be seen descending to some\ndistance below her waist, like a Chinaman's queue.\n\n\"'Tis her hair falling down,\" said another.\n\nNo; it was not her hair: it was a black stream of something oozing\nfrom her basket, and it glistened like a slimy snake in the cold\nstill rays of the moon.\n\n\"'Tis treacle,\" said an observant matron.\n\nTreacle it was.  Car's poor old grandmother had a weakness for the\nsweet stuff.  Honey she had in plenty out of her own hives, but\ntreacle was what her soul desired, and Car had been about to give her\na treat of surprise.  Hastily lowering the basket the dark girl found\nthat the vessel containing the syrup had been smashed within.\n\nBy this time there had arisen a shout of laughter at the\nextraordinary appearance of Car's back, which irritated the dark\nqueen into getting rid of the disfigurement by the first sudden means\navailable, and independently of the help of the scoffers.  She rushed\nexcitedly into the field they were about to cross, and flinging\nherself flat on her back upon the grass, began to wipe her gown\nas well as she could by spinning horizontally on the herbage and\ndragging herself over it upon her elbows.\n\nThe laughter rang louder; they clung to the gate, to the posts,\nrested on their staves, in the weakness engendered by their\nconvulsions at the spectacle of Car.  Our heroine, who had hitherto\nheld her peace, at this wild moment could not help joining in with\nthe rest.\n\nIt was a misfortune--in more ways than one.  No sooner did the dark\nqueen hear the soberer richer note of Tess among those of the other\nwork-people than a long-smouldering sense of rivalry inflamed her to\nmadness.  She sprang to her feet and closely faced the object of her\ndislike.\n\n\"How darest th' laugh at me, hussy!\" she cried.\n\n\"I couldn't really help it when t'others did,\" apologized Tess,\nstill tittering.\n\n\"Ah, th'st think th' beest everybody, dostn't, because th' beest\nfirst favourite with He just now!  But stop a bit, my lady, stop a\nbit!  I'm as good as two of such! Look here--here's at 'ee!\"\n\nTo Tess's horror the dark queen began stripping off the bodice of\nher gown--which for the added reason of its ridiculed condition she\nwas only too glad to be free of--till she had bared her plump neck,\nshoulders, and arms to the moonshine, under which they looked as\nluminous and beautiful as some Praxitelean creation, in their\npossession of the faultless rotundities of a lusty country-girl.\nShe closed her fists and squared up at Tess.\n\n\"Indeed, then, I shall not fight!\" said the latter majestically; \"and\nif I had know you was of that sort, I wouldn't have so let myself\ndown as to come with such a whorage as this is!\"\n\nThe rather too inclusive speech brought down a torrent of\nvituperation from other quarters upon fair Tess's unlucky head,\nparticularly from the Queen of Diamonds, who having stood in the\nrelations to d'Urberville that Car had also been suspected of, united\nwith the latter against the common enemy.  Several other women also\nchimed in, with an animus which none of them would have been so\nfatuous as to show but for the rollicking evening they had passed.\nThereupon, finding Tess unfairly browbeaten, the husbands and lovers\ntried to make peace by defending her; but the result of that attempt\nwas directly to increase the war.\n\nTess was indignant and ashamed.  She no longer minded the loneliness\nof the way and the lateness of the hour; her one object was to get\naway from the whole crew as soon as possible.  She knew well enough\nthat the better among them would repent of their passion next day.\nThey were all now inside the field, and she was edging back to rush\noff alone when a horseman emerged almost silently from the corner of\nthe hedge that screened the road, and Alec d'Urberville looked round\nupon them.\n\n\"What the devil is all this row about, work-folk?\" he asked.\n\nThe explanation was not readily forthcoming; and, in truth, he did\nnot require any.  Having heard their voices while yet some way off he\nhad ridden creepingly forward, and learnt enough to satisfy himself.\n\nTess was standing apart from the rest, near the gate.  He bent over\ntowards her.  \"Jump up behind me,\" he whispered, \"and we'll get shot\nof the screaming cats in a jiffy!\"\n\nShe felt almost ready to faint, so vivid was her sense of the crisis.\nAt almost any other moment of her life she would have refused such\nproffered aid and company, as she had refused them several times\nbefore; and now the loneliness would not of itself have forced her\nto do otherwise.  But coming as the invitation did at the particular\njuncture when fear and indignation at these adversaries could be\ntransformed by a spring of the foot into a triumph over them, she\nabandoned herself to her impulse, climbed the gate, put her toe upon\nhis instep, and scrambled into the saddle behind him.  The pair were\nspeeding away into the distant gray by the time that the contentious\nrevellers became aware of what had happened.\n\nThe Queen of Spades forgot the stain on her bodice, and stood\nbeside the Queen of Diamonds and the new-married, staggering young\nwoman--all with a gaze of fixity in the direction in which the\nhorse's tramp was diminishing into silence on the road.\n\n\"What be ye looking at?\" asked a man who had not observed the\nincident.\n\n\"Ho-ho-ho!\" laughed dark Car.\n\n\"Hee-hee-hee!\" laughed the tippling bride, as she steadied herself on\nthe arm of her fond husband.\n\n\"Heu-heu-heu!\" laughed dark Car's mother, stroking her moustache as\nshe explained laconically: \"Out of the frying-pan into the fire!\"\n\nThen these children of the open air, whom even excess of alcohol\ncould scarce injure permanently, betook themselves to the field-path;\nand as they went there moved onward with them, around the shadow of\neach one's head, a circle of opalized light, formed by the moon's\nrays upon the glistening sheet of dew.  Each pedestrian could see\nno halo but his or her own, which never deserted the head-shadow,\nwhatever its vulgar unsteadiness might be; but adhered to it, and\npersistently beautified it; till the erratic motions seemed an\ninherent part of the irradiation, and the fumes of their breathing\na component of the night's mist; and the spirit of the scene, and\nof the moonlight, and of Nature, seemed harmoniously to mingle with\nthe spirit of wine.\n\n\n\nXI\n\n\nThe twain cantered along for some time without speech, Tess as she\nclung to him still panting in her triumph, yet in other respects\ndubious.  She had perceived that the horse was not the spirited one\nhe sometimes rose, and felt no alarm on that score, though her seat\nwas precarious enough despite her tight hold of him.  She begged him\nto slow the animal to a walk, which Alec accordingly did.\n\n\"Neatly done, was it not, dear Tess?\" he said by and by.\n\n\"Yes!\" said she.  \"I am sure I ought to be much obliged to you.\"\n\n\"And are you?\"\n\nShe did not reply.\n\n\"Tess, why do you always dislike my kissing you?\"\n\n\"I suppose--because I don't love you.\"\n\n\"You are quite sure?\"\n\n\"I am angry with you sometimes!\"\n\n\"Ah, I half feared as much.\"  Nevertheless, Alec did not object to\nthat confession.  He knew that anything was better then frigidity.\n\"Why haven't you told me when I have made you angry?\"\n\n\"You know very well why.  Because I cannot help myself here.\"\n\n\"I haven't offended you often by love-making?\"\n\n\"You have sometimes.\"\n\n\"How many times?\"\n\n\"You know as well as I--too many times.\"\n\n\"Every time I have tried?\"\n\nShe was silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable\ndistance, till a faint luminous fog, which had hung in the hollows\nall the evening, became general and enveloped them.  It seemed to\nhold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in\nclear air.  Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or\nfrom sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed\nthe point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from the highway,\nand that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track.\n\nShe was inexpressibly weary.  She had risen at five o'clock every\nmorning of that week, had been on foot the whole of each day, and on\nthis evening had in addition walked the three miles to Chaseborough,\nwaited three hours for her neighbours without eating or drinking,\nher impatience to start them preventing either; she had then walked\na mile of the way home, and had undergone the excitement of the\nquarrel, till, with the slow progress of their steed, it was now\nnearly one o'clock.  Only once, however, was she overcome by actual\ndrowsiness.  In that moment of oblivion her head sank gently against\nhim.\n\nD'Urberville stopped the horse, withdrew his feet from the stirrups,\nturned sideways on the saddle, and enclosed her waist with his arm to\nsupport her.\n\nThis immediately put her on the defensive, and with one of those\nsudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable she gave him a\nlittle push from her.  In his ticklish position he nearly lost his\nbalance and only just avoided rolling over into the road, the horse,\nthough a powerful one, being fortunately the quietest he rode.\n\n\"That is devilish unkind!\" he said.  \"I mean no harm--only to keep\nyou from falling.\"\n\nShe pondered suspiciously, till, thinking that this might after all\nbe true, she relented, and said quite humbly, \"I beg your pardon,\nsir.\"\n\n\"I won't pardon you unless you show some confidence in me.  Good\nGod!\" he burst out, \"what am I, to be repulsed so by a mere chit like\nyou?  For near three mortal months have you trifled with my feelings,\neluded me, and snubbed me; and I won't stand it!\"\n\n\"I'll leave you to-morrow, sir.\"\n\n\"No, you will not leave me to-morrow!  Will you, I ask once more,\nshow your belief in me by letting me clasp you with my arm?  Come,\nbetween us two and nobody else, now.  We know each other well; and\nyou know that I love you, and think you the prettiest girl in the\nworld, which you are.  Mayn't I treat you as a lover?\"\n\nShe drew a quick pettish breath of objection, writhing uneasily on\nher seat, looked far ahead, and murmured, \"I don't know--I wish--how\ncan I say yes or no when--\"\n\nHe settled the matter by clasping his arm round her as he desired,\nand Tess expressed no further negative.  Thus they sidled\nslowly onward till it struck her they had been advancing for an\nunconscionable time--far longer than was usually occupied by the\nshort journey from Chaseborough, even at this walking pace, and\nthat they were no longer on hard road, but in a mere trackway.\n\n\"Why, where be we?\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"Passing by a wood.\"\n\n\"A wood--what wood?  Surely we are quite out of the road?\"\n\n\"A bit of The Chase--the oldest wood in England.  It is a lovely\nnight, and why should we not prolong our ride a little?\"\n\n\"How could you be so treacherous!\" said Tess, between archness and\nreal dismay, and getting rid of his arm by pulling open his fingers\none by one, though at the risk of slipping off herself.  \"Just when\nI've been putting such trust in you, and obliging you to please you,\nbecause I thought I had wronged you by that push!  Please set me\ndown, and let me walk home.\"\n\n\"You cannot walk home, darling, even if the air were clear.  We are\nmiles away from Trantridge, if I must tell you, and in this growing\nfog you might wander for hours among these trees.\"\n\n\"Never mind that,\" she coaxed.  \"Put me down, I beg you.  I don't\nmind where it is; only let me get down, sir, please!\"\n\n\"Very well, then, I will--on one condition.  Having brought you\nhere to this out-of-the-way place, I feel myself responsible for\nyour safe-conduct home, whatever you may yourself feel about it.\nAs to your getting to Trantridge without assistance, it is quite\nimpossible; for, to tell the truth, dear, owing to this fog, which so\ndisguises everything, I don't quite know where we are myself.  Now,\nif you will promise to wait beside the horse while I walk through the\nbushes till I come to some road or house, and ascertain exactly our\nwhereabouts, I'll deposit you here willingly.  When I come back I'll\ngive you full directions, and if you insist upon walking you may; or\nyou may ride--at your pleasure.\"\n\nShe accepted these terms, and slid off on the near side, though not\ntill he had stolen a cursory kiss.  He sprang down on the other side.\n\n\"I suppose I must hold the horse?\" said she.\n\n\"Oh no; it's not necessary,\" replied Alec, patting the panting\ncreature.  \"He's had enough of it for to-night.\"\n\nHe turned the horse's head into the bushes, hitched him on to a\nbough, and made a sort of couch or nest for her in the deep mass of\ndead leaves.\n\n\"Now, you sit there,\" he said.  \"The leaves have not got damp as yet.\nJust give an eye to the horse--it will be quite sufficient.\"\n\nHe took a few steps away from her, but, returning, said, \"By the bye,\nTess, your father has a new cob to-day.  Somebody gave it to him.\"\n\n\"Somebody?  You!\"\n\nD'Urberville nodded.\n\n\"O how very good of you that is!\" she exclaimed, with a painful sense\nof the awkwardness of having to thank him just then.\n\n\"And the children have some toys.\"\n\n\"I didn't know--you ever sent them anything!\" she murmured, much\nmoved.  \"I almost wish you had not--yes, I almost wish it!\"\n\n\"Why, dear?\"\n\n\"It--hampers me so.\"\n\n\"Tessy--don't you love me ever so little now?\"\n\n\"I'm grateful,\" she reluctantly admitted.  \"But I fear I do not--\"\nThe sudden vision of his passion for herself as a factor in this\nresult so distressed her that, beginning with one slow tear, and\nthen following with another, she wept outright.\n\n\"Don't cry, dear, dear one!  Now sit down here, and wait till I\ncome.\"  She passively sat down amid the leaves he had heaped, and\nshivered slightly.  \"Are you cold?\" he asked.\n\n\"Not very--a little.\"\n\nHe touched her with his fingers, which sank into her as into down.\n\"You have only that puffy muslin dress on--how's that?\"\n\n\"It's my best summer one.  'Twas very warm when I started, and I\ndidn't know I was going to ride, and that it would be night.\"\n\n\"Nights grow chilly in September.  Let me see.\"  He pulled off a\nlight overcoat that he had worn, and put it round her tenderly.\n\"That's it--now you'll feel warmer,\" he continued.  \"Now, my pretty,\nrest there; I shall soon be back again.\"\n\nHaving buttoned the overcoat round her shoulders he plunged into the\nwebs of vapour which by this time formed veils between the trees.\nShe could hear the rustling of the branches as he ascended the\nadjoining slope, till his movements were no louder than the hopping\nof a bird, and finally died away.  With the setting of the moon the\npale light lessened, and Tess became invisible as she fell into\nreverie upon the leaves where he had left her.\n\nIn the meantime Alec d'Urberville had pushed on up the slope to clear\nhis genuine doubt as to the quarter of The Chase they were in.  He\nhad, in fact, ridden quite at random for over an hour, taking any\nturning that came to hand in order to prolong companionship with her,\nand giving far more attention to Tess's moonlit person than to any\nwayside object.  A little rest for the jaded animal being desirable,\nhe did not hasten his search for landmarks.  A clamber over the\nhill into the adjoining vale brought him to the fence of a highway\nwhose contours he recognized, which settled the question of their\nwhereabouts.  D'Urberville thereupon turned back; but by this time\nthe moon had quite gone down, and partly on account of the fog The\nChase was wrapped in thick darkness, although morning was not far\noff.  He was obliged to advance with outstretched hands to avoid\ncontact with the boughs, and discovered that to hit the exact spot\nfrom which he had started was at first entirely beyond him.  Roaming\nup and down, round and round, he at length heard a slight movement of\nthe horse close at hand; and the sleeve of his overcoat unexpectedly\ncaught his foot.\n\n\"Tess!\" said d'Urberville.\n\nThere was no answer.  The obscurity was now so great that he could\nsee absolutely nothing but a pale nebulousness at his feet, which\nrepresented the white muslin figure he had left upon the dead leaves.\nEverything else was blackness alike.  D'Urberville stooped; and heard\na gentle regular breathing.  He knelt and bent lower, till her breath\nwarmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers.\nShe was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered\ntears.\n\nDarkness and silence ruled everywhere around.  Above them rose the\nprimeval yews and oaks of The Chase, in which there poised gentle\nroosting birds in their last nap; and about them stole the hopping\nrabbits and hares.  But, might some say, where was Tess's guardian\nangel? where was the providence of her simple faith?  Perhaps, like\nthat other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking,\nor he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and\nnot to be awaked.\n\nWhy it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as\ngossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have\nbeen traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why\nso often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the\nwoman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical\nphilosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order.  One may,\nindeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present\ncatastrophe.  Doubtless some of Tess d'Urberville's mailed ancestors\nrollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more\nruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time.  But though to visit\nthe sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good\nenough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it\ntherefore does not mend the matter.\n\nAs Tess's own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying\namong each other in their fatalistic way: \"It was to be.\"  There\nlay the pity of it.  An immeasurable social chasm was to divide our\nheroine's personality thereafter from that previous self of hers\nwho stepped from her mother's door to try her fortune at Trantridge\npoultry-farm.\n\n\nEND OF PHASE THE FIRST\n\n\n\n\n\nPhase the Second: Maiden No More\n\n\n\nXII\n\n\nThe basket was heavy and the bundle was large, but she lugged them\nalong like a person who did not find her especial burden in material\nthings.  Occasionally she stopped to rest in a mechanical way by some\ngate or post; and then, giving the baggage another hitch upon her\nfull round arm, went steadily on again.\n\nIt was a Sunday morning in late October, about four months after Tess\nDurbeyfield's arrival at Trantridge, and some few weeks subsequent to\nthe night ride in The Chase.  The time was not long past daybreak,\nand the yellow luminosity upon the horizon behind her back lighted\nthe ridge towards which her face was set--the barrier of the vale\nwherein she had of late been a stranger--which she would have to\nclimb over to reach her birthplace.  The ascent was gradual on this\nside, and the soil and scenery differed much from those within\nBlakemore Vale.  Even the character and accent of the two peoples\nhad shades of difference, despite the amalgamating effects of a\nroundabout railway; so that, though less than twenty miles from the\nplace of her sojourn at Trantridge, her native village had seemed a\nfar-away spot.  The field-folk shut in there traded northward and\nwestward, travelled, courted, and married northward and westward,\nthought northward and westward; those on this side mainly directed\ntheir energies and attention to the east and south.\n\nThe incline was the same down which d'Urberville had driven her so\nwildly on that day in June.  Tess went up the remainder of its length\nwithout stopping, and on reaching the edge of the escarpment gazed\nover the familiar green world beyond, now half-veiled in mist.  It\nwas always beautiful from here; it was terribly beautiful to Tess\nto-day, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the\nserpent hisses where the sweet birds sing, and her views of life had\nbeen totally changed for her by the lesson.  Verily another girl than\nthe simple one she had been at home was she who, bowed by thought,\nstood still here, and turned to look behind her. She could not bear\nto look forward into the Vale.\n\nAscending by the long white road that Tess herself had just laboured\nup, she saw a two-wheeled vehicle, beside which walked a man, who\nheld up his hand to attract her attention.\n\nShe obeyed the signal to wait for him with unspeculative repose, and\nin a few minutes man and horse stopped beside her.\n\n\"Why did you slip away by stealth like this?\" said d'Urberville, with\nupbraiding breathlessness; \"on a Sunday morning, too, when people\nwere all in bed!  I only discovered it by accident, and I have been\ndriving like the deuce to overtake you.  Just look at the mare.  Why\ngo off like this?  You know that nobody wished to hinder your going.\nAnd how unnecessary it has been for you to toil along on foot, and\nencumber yourself with this heavy load!  I have followed like a\nmadman, simply to drive you the rest of the distance, if you won't\ncome back.\"\n\n\"I shan't come back,\" said she.\n\n\"I thought you wouldn't--I said so!  Well, then, put up your basket,\nand let me help you on.\"\n\nShe listlessly placed her basket and bundle within the dog-cart, and\nstepped up, and they sat side by side.  She had no fear of him now,\nand in the cause of her confidence her sorrow lay.\n\nD'Urberville mechanically lit a cigar, and the journey was continued\nwith broken unemotional conversation on the commonplace objects by\nthe wayside.  He had quite forgotten his struggle to kiss her when,\nin the early summer, they had driven in the opposite direction along\nthe same road.  But she had not, and she sat now, like a puppet,\nreplying to his remarks in monosyllables.  After some miles they came\nin view of the clump of trees beyond which the village of Marlott\nstood.  It was only then that her still face showed the least\nemotion, a tear or two beginning to trickle down.\n\n\"What are you crying for?\" he coldly asked.\n\n\"I was only thinking that I was born over there,\" murmured Tess.\n\n\"Well--we must all be born somewhere.\"\n\n\"I wish I had never been born--there or anywhere else!\"\n\n\"Pooh!  Well, if you didn't wish to come to Trantridge why did you\ncome?\"\n\nShe did not reply.\n\n\"You didn't come for love of me, that I'll swear.\"\n\n\"'Tis quite true.  If I had gone for love o' you, if I had ever\nsincerely loved you, if I loved you still, I should not so loathe and\nhate myself for my weakness as I do now! ...  My eyes were dazed by\nyou for a little, and that was all.\"\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders.  She resumed--\n\n\"I didn't understand your meaning till it was too late.\"\n\n\"That's what every woman says.\"\n\n\"How can you dare to use such words!\" she cried, turning impetuously\nupon him, her eyes flashing as the latent spirit (of which he was to\nsee more some day) awoke in her.  \"My God!  I could knock you out of\nthe gig!  Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says\nsome women may feel?\"\n\n\"Very well,\" he said, laughing; \"I am sorry to wound you.  I did\nwrong--I admit it.\"  He dropped into some little bitterness as he\ncontinued: \"Only you needn't be so everlastingly flinging it in my\nface.  I am ready to pay to the uttermost farthing.  You know you\nneed not work in the fields or the dairies again.  You know you may\nclothe yourself with the best, instead of in the bald plain way you\nhave lately affected, as if you couldn't get a ribbon more than you\nearn.\"\n\nHer lip lifted slightly, though there was little scorn, as a rule,\nin her large and impulsive nature.\n\n\"I have said I will not take anything more from you, and I will\nnot--I cannot!  I SHOULD be your creature to go on doing that, and\nI won't!\"\n\n\"One would think you were a princess from your manner, in addition\nto a true and original d'Urberville--ha! ha!  Well, Tess, dear, I\ncan say no more.  I suppose I am a bad fellow--a damn bad fellow.\nI was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all\nprobability.  But, upon my lost soul, I won't be bad towards you\nagain, Tess.  And if certain circumstances should arise--you\nunderstand--in which you are in the least need, the least difficulty,\nsend me one line, and you shall have by return whatever you require.\nI may not be at Trantridge--I am going to London for a time--I can't\nstand the old woman.  But all letters will be forwarded.\"\n\nShe said that she did not wish him to drive her further, and they\nstopped just under the clump of trees.  D'Urberville alighted, and\nlifted her down bodily in his arms, afterwards placing her articles\non the ground beside her.  She bowed to him slightly, her eye just\nlingering in his; and then she turned to take the parcels for\ndeparture.\n\nAlec d'Urberville removed his cigar, bent towards her, and said--\n\n\"You are not going to turn away like that, dear!  Come!\"\n\n\"If you wish,\" she answered indifferently.  \"See how you've mastered\nme!\"\n\nShe thereupon turned round and lifted her face to his, and remained\nlike a marble term while he imprinted a kiss upon her cheek--half\nperfunctorily, half as if zest had not yet quite died out.  Her eyes\nvaguely rested upon the remotest trees in the lane while the kiss was\ngiven, as though she were nearly unconscious of what he did.\n\n\"Now the other side, for old acquaintance' sake.\"\n\nShe turned her head in the same passive way, as one might turn at the\nrequest of a sketcher or hairdresser, and he kissed the other side,\nhis lips touching cheeks that were damp and smoothly chill as the\nskin of the mushrooms in the fields around.\n\n\"You don't give me your mouth and kiss me back.  You never willingly\ndo that--you'll never love me, I fear.\"\n\n\"I have said so, often.  It is true.  I have never really and truly\nloved you, and I think I never can.\"  She added mournfully, \"Perhaps,\nof all things, a lie on this thing would do the most good to me now;\nbut I have honour enough left, little as 'tis, not to tell that lie.\nIf I did love you, I may have the best o' causes for letting you know\nit.  But I don't.\"\n\nHe emitted a laboured breath, as if the scene were getting rather\noppressive to his heart, or to his conscience, or to his gentility.\n\n\"Well, you are absurdly melancholy, Tess.  I have no\nreason for flattering you now, and I can say plainly\nthat you need not be so sad.  You can hold your own for\nbeauty against any woman of these parts, gentle or\nsimple; I say it to you as a practical man and\nwell-wisher.  If you are wise you will show it to the\nworld more than you do before it fades...  And yet,\nTess, will you come back to me!  Upon my soul, I don't\nlike to let you go like this!\"\n\n\"Never, never!  I made up my mind as soon as I saw--what I ought to\nhave seen sooner; and I won't come.\"\n\n\"Then good morning, my four months' cousin--good-bye!\"\n\nHe leapt up lightly, arranged the reins, and was gone between the\ntall red-berried hedges.\n\nTess did not look after him, but slowly wound along the crooked lane.\nIt was still early, and though the sun's lower limb was just free of\nthe hill, his rays, ungenial and peering, addressed the eye rather\nthan the touch as yet.  There was not a human soul near.  Sad October\nand her sadder self seemed the only two existences haunting that\nlane.\n\nAs she walked, however, some footsteps approached behind her, the\nfootsteps of a man; and owing to the briskness of his advance he was\nclose at her heels and had said \"Good morning\" before she had been\nlong aware of his propinquity.  He appeared to be an artisan of some\nsort, and carried a tin pot of red paint in his hand.  He asked\nin a business-like manner if he should take her basket, which she\npermitted him to do, walking beside him.\n\n\"It is early to be astir this Sabbath morn!\" he said cheerfully.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Tess.\n\n\"When most people are at rest from their week's work.\"\n\nShe also assented to this.\n\n\"Though I do more real work to-day than all the week besides.\"\n\n\"Do you?\"\n\n\"All the week I work for the glory of man, and on Sunday for the\nglory of God.  That's more real than the other--hey?  I have a little\nto do here at this stile.\"  The man turned, as he spoke, to an\nopening at the roadside leading into a pasture.  \"If you'll wait a\nmoment,\" he added, \"I shall not be long.\"\n\nAs he had her basket she could not well do otherwise; and she waited,\nobserving him.  He set down her basket and the tin pot, and stirring\nthe paint with the brush that was in it began painting large square\nletters on the middle board of the three composing the stile, placing\na comma after each word, as if to give pause while that word was\ndriven well home to the reader's heart--\n\n\n      THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH, NOT.\n                         2 Pet. ii. 3.\n\n\nAgainst the peaceful landscape, the pale, decaying tints of the\ncopses, the blue air of the horizon, and the lichened stile-boards,\nthese staring vermilion words shone forth.  They seemed to shout\nthemselves out and make the atmosphere ring.  Some people might have\ncried \"Alas, poor Theology!\" at the hideous defacement--the last\ngrotesque phase of a creed which had served mankind well in its time.\nBut the words entered Tess with accusatory horror.  It was as if this\nman had known her recent history; yet he was a total stranger.\n\nHaving finished his text he picked up her basket, and she\nmechanically resumed her walk beside him.\n\n\"Do you believe what you paint?\" she asked in low tones.\n\n\"Believe that tex?  Do I believe in my own existence!\"\n\n\"But,\" said she tremulously, \"suppose your sin was not of your own\nseeking?\"\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n\"I cannot split hairs on that burning query,\" he said.  \"I have\nwalked hundreds of miles this past summer, painting these texes on\nevery wall, gate, and stile the length and breadth of this district.\nI leave their application to the hearts of the people who read 'em.\"\n\n\"I think they are horrible,\" said Tess.  \"Crushing!  Killing!\"\n\n\"That's what they are meant to be!\" he replied in a trade voice.\n\"But you should read my hottest ones--them I kips for slums and\nseaports.  They'd make ye wriggle!  Not but what this is a very good\ntex for rural districts. ...  Ah--there's a nice bit of blank wall up\nby that barn standing to waste.  I must put one there--one that it\nwill be good for dangerous young females like yerself to heed.  Will\nye wait, missy?\"\n\n\"No,\" said she; and taking her basket Tess trudged on. A little way\nforward she turned her head.  The old gray wall began to advertise\na similar fiery lettering to the first, with a strange and unwonted\nmien, as if distressed at duties it had never before been called upon\nto perform.  It was with a sudden flush that she read and realized\nwhat was to be the inscription he was now halfway through--\n\n\n      THOU, SHALT, NOT, COMMIT--\n\n\nHer cheerful friend saw her looking, stopped his brush, and shouted--\n\n\"If you want to ask for edification on these things of moment,\nthere's a very earnest good man going to preach a charity-sermon\nto-day in the parish you are going to--Mr Clare of Emminster.  I'm\nnot of his persuasion now, but he's a good man, and he'll expound as\nwell as any parson I know.  'Twas he began the work in me.\"\n\nBut Tess did not answer; she throbbingly resumed her walk, her eyes\nfixed on the ground.  \"Pooh--I don't believe God said such things!\"\nshe murmured contemptuously when her flush had died away.\n\nA plume of smoke soared up suddenly from her father's chimney, the\nsight of which made her heart ache.  The aspect of the interior, when\nshe reached it, made her heart ache more.  Her mother, who had just\ncome down stairs, turned to greet her from the fireplace, where she\nwas kindling barked-oak twigs under the breakfast kettle.  The young\nchildren were still above, as was also her father, it being Sunday\nmorning, when he felt justified in lying an additional half-hour.\n\n\"Well!--my dear Tess!\" exclaimed her surprised mother, jumping up and\nkissing the girl. \"How be ye?  I didn't see you till you was in upon\nme!  Have you come home to be married?\"\n\n\"No, I have not come for that, mother.\"\n\n\"Then for a holiday?\"\n\n\"Yes--for a holiday; for a long holiday,\" said Tess.\n\n\"What, isn't your cousin going to do the handsome thing?\"\n\n\"He's not my cousin, and he's not going to marry me.\"\n\nHer mother eyed her narrowly.\n\n\"Come, you have not told me all,\" she said.\n\nThen Tess went up to her mother, put her face upon Joan's neck, and\ntold.\n\n\"And yet th'st not got him to marry 'ee!\" reiterated her mother. \"Any\nwoman would have done it but you, after that!\"\n\n\"Perhaps any woman would except me.\"\n\n\"It would have been something like a story to come back with, if\nyou had!\" continued Mrs Durbeyfield, ready to burst into tears of\nvexation.  \"After all the talk about you and him which has reached\nus here, who would have expected it to end like this!  Why didn't ye\nthink of doing some good for your family instead o' thinking only of\nyourself?  See how I've got to teave and slave, and your poor weak\nfather with his heart clogged like a dripping-pan.  I did hope for\nsomething to come out o' this!  To see what a pretty pair you and he\nmade that day when you drove away together four months ago!  See what\nhe has given us--all, as we thought, because we were his kin.  But if\nhe's not, it must have been done because of his love for 'ee.  And\nyet you've not got him to marry!\"\n\nGet Alec d'Urberville in the mind to marry her!  He marry HER!  On\nmatrimony he had never once said a word.  And what if he had?  How a\nconvulsive snatching at social salvation might have impelled her to\nanswer him she could not say.  But her poor foolish mother little\nknew her present feeling towards this man.  Perhaps it was unusual\nin the circumstances, unlucky, unaccountable; but there it was; and\nthis, as she had said, was what made her detest herself.  She had\nnever wholly cared for him; she did not at all care for him now.  She\nhad dreaded him, winced before him, succumbed to adroit advantages\nhe took of her helplessness; then, temporarily blinded by his ardent\nmanners, had been stirred to confused surrender awhile: had suddenly\ndespised and disliked him, and had run away.  That was all.  Hate him\nshe did not quite; but he was dust and ashes to her, and even for her\nname's sake she scarcely wished to marry him.\n\n\"You ought to have been more careful if you didn't mean to get him to\nmake you his wife!\"\n\n\"O mother, my mother!\" cried the agonized girl, turning passionately\nupon her parent as if her poor heart would break.  \"How could I be\nexpected to know?  I was a child when I left this house four months\nago.  Why didn't you tell me there was danger in men-folk?  Why\ndidn't you warn me?  Ladies know what to fend hands against, because\nthey read novels that tell them of these tricks; but I never had the\nchance o' learning in that way, and you did not help me!\"\n\nHer mother was subdued.\n\n\"I thought if I spoke of his fond feelings and what they might lead\nto, you would be hontish wi' him and lose your chance,\" she murmured,\nwiping her eyes with her apron.  \"Well, we must make the best of it,\nI suppose.  'Tis nater, after all, and what do please God!\"\n\n\n\nXIII\n\n\nThe event of Tess Durbeyfield's return from the manor of her bogus\nkinsfolk was rumoured abroad, if rumour be not too large a word for\na space of a square mile.  In the afternoon several young girls of\nMarlott, former schoolfellows and acquaintances of Tess, called to\nsee her, arriving dressed in their best starched and ironed, as\nbecame visitors to a person who had made a transcendent conquest (as\nthey supposed), and sat round the room looking at her with great\ncuriosity.  For the fact that it was this said thirty-first cousin,\nMr d'Urberville, who had fallen in love with her, a gentleman\nnot altogether local, whose reputation as a reckless gallant and\nheartbreaker was beginning to spread beyond the immediate boundaries\nof Trantridge, lent Tess's supposed position, by its fearsomeness, a\nfar higher fascination that it would have exercised if unhazardous.\n\nTheir interest was so deep that the younger ones whispered when her\nback was turned--\n\n\"How pretty she is; and how that best frock do set her off!  I\nbelieve it cost an immense deal, and that it was a gift from him.\"\n\nTess, who was reaching up to get the tea-things from the\ncorner-cupboard, did not hear these commentaries.  If she had heard\nthem, she might soon have set her friends right on the matter.  But\nher mother heard, and Joan's simple vanity, having been denied the\nhope of a dashing marriage, fed itself as well as it could upon\nthe sensation of a dashing flirtation.  Upon the whole she felt\ngratified, even though such a limited and evanescent triumph should\ninvolve her daughter's reputation; it might end in marriage yet, and\nin the warmth of her responsiveness to their admiration she invited\nher visitors to stay to tea.\n\nTheir chatter, their laughter, their good-humoured innuendoes, above\nall, their flashes and flickerings of envy, revived Tess's spirits\nalso; and, as the evening wore on, she caught the infection of their\nexcitement, and grew almost gay.  The marble hardness left her face,\nshe moved with something of her old bounding step, and flushed in all\nher young beauty.\n\nAt moments, in spite of thought, she would reply to their inquiries\nwith a manner of superiority, as if recognizing that her experiences\nin the field of courtship had, indeed, been slightly enviable.  But\nso far was she from being, in the words of Robert South, \"in love\nwith her own ruin,\" that the illusion was transient as lightning;\ncold reason came back to mock her spasmodic weakness; the ghastliness\nof her momentary pride would convict her, and recall her to reserved\nlistlessness again.\n\nAnd the despondency of the next morning's dawn, when it was no longer\nSunday, but Monday; and no best clothes; and the laughing visitors\nwere gone, and she awoke alone in her old bed, the innocent younger\nchildren breathing softly around her.  In place of the excitement of\nher return, and the interest it had inspired, she saw before her a\nlong and stony highway which she had to tread, without aid, and with\nlittle sympathy.  Her depression was then terrible, and she could\nhave hidden herself in a tomb.\n\nIn the course of a few weeks Tess revived sufficiently to show\nherself so far as was necessary to get to church one Sunday morning.\nShe liked to hear the chanting--such as it was--and the old Psalms,\nand to join in the Morning Hymn.  That innate love of melody, which\nshe had inherited from her ballad-singing mother, gave the simplest\nmusic a power over her which could well-nigh drag her heart out of\nher bosom at times.\n\nTo be as much out of observation as possible for reasons of her own,\nand to escape the gallantries of the young men, she set out before\nthe chiming began, and took a back seat under the gallery, close to\nthe lumber, where only old men and women came, and where the bier\nstood on end among the churchyard tools.\n\nParishioners dropped in by twos and threes, deposited themselves\nin rows before her, rested three-quarters of a minute on their\nforeheads as if they were praying, though they were not; then sat up,\nand looked around. When the chants came on, one of her favourites\nhappened to be chosen among the rest--the old double chant\n\"Langdon\"--but she did not know what it was called, though she would\nmuch have liked to know.  She thought, without exactly wording the\nthought, how strange and god-like was a composer's power, who from\nthe grave could lead through sequences of emotion, which he alone had\nfelt at first, a girl like her who had never heard of his name, and\nnever would have a clue to his personality.\n\nThe people who had turned their heads turned them again as the\nservice proceeded; and at last observing her, they whispered to each\nother.  She knew what their whispers were about, grew sick at heart,\nand felt that she could come to church no more.\n\nThe bedroom which she shared with some of the children formed her\nretreat more continually than ever.  Here, under her few square yards\nof thatch, she watched winds, and snows, and rains, gorgeous sunsets,\nand successive moons at their full.  So close kept she that at length\nalmost everybody thought she had gone away.\n\nThe only exercise that Tess took at this time was after dark; and it\nwas then, when out in the woods, that she seemed least solitary.  She\nknew how to hit to a hair's-breadth that moment of evening when the\nlight and the darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of\nday and the suspense of night neutralize each other, leaving absolute\nmental liberty.  It is then that the plight of being alive becomes\nattenuated to its least possible dimensions.  She had no fear of the\nshadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind--or rather that\ncold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is\nso unformidable, even pitiable, in its units.\n\nOn these lonely hills and dales her quiescent glide was of a piece\nwith the element she moved in.  Her flexuous and stealthy figure\nbecame an integral part of the scene.  At times her whimsical fancy\nwould intensify natural processes around her till they seemed a part\nof her own story.  Rather they became a part of it; for the world is\nonly a psychological phenomenon, and what they seemed they were.  The\nmidnight airs and gusts, moaning amongst the tightly-wrapped buds and\nbark of the winter twigs, were formulae of bitter reproach.  A wet\nday was the expression of irremediable grief at her weakness in the\nmind of some vague ethical being whom she could not class definitely\nas the God of her childhood, and could not comprehend as any other.\n\nBut this encompassment of her own characterization, based on shreds\nof convention, peopled by phantoms and voices antipathetic to her,\nwas a sorry and mistaken creation of Tess's fancy--a cloud of moral\nhobgoblins by which she was terrified without reason.  It was they\nthat were out of harmony with the actual world, not she.  Walking\namong the sleeping birds in the hedges, watching the skipping rabbits\non a moonlit warren, or standing under a pheasant-laden bough, she\nlooked upon herself as a figure of Guilt intruding into the haunts\nof Innocence.  But all the while she was making a distinction where\nthere was no difference.  Feeling herself in antagonism, she was\nquite in accord.  She had been made to break an accepted social law,\nbut no law known to the environment in which she fancied herself such\nan anomaly.\n\n\n\nXIV\n\n\nIt was a hazy sunrise in August.  The denser nocturnal vapours,\nattacked by the warm beams, were dividing and shrinking into isolated\nfleeces within hollows and coverts, where they waited till they\nshould be dried away to nothing.\n\nThe sun, on account of the mist, had a curious sentient, personal\nlook, demanding the masculine pronoun for its adequate expression.\nHis present aspect, coupled with the lack of all human forms in the\nscene, explained the old-time heliolatries in a moment.  One could\nfeel that a saner religion had never prevailed under the sky.  The\nluminary was a golden-haired, beaming, mild-eyed, God-like creature,\ngazing down in the vigour and intentness of youth upon an earth that\nwas brimming with interest for him.\n\nHis light, a little later, broke though chinks of cottage shutters,\nthrowing stripes like red-hot pokers upon cupboards, chests of\ndrawers, and other furniture within; and awakening harvesters who\nwere not already astir.\n\nBut of all ruddy things that morning the brightest were two broad\narms of painted wood, which rose from the margin of yellow cornfield\nhard by Marlott village.  They, with two others below, formed the\nrevolving Maltese cross of the reaping-machine, which had been\nbrought to the field on the previous evening to be ready for\noperations this day.  The paint with which they were smeared,\nintensified in hue by the sunlight, imparted to them a look of\nhaving been dipped in liquid fire.\n\nThe field had already been \"opened\"; that is to say, a lane a few\nfeet wide had been hand-cut through the wheat along the whole\ncircumference of the field for the first passage of the horses and\nmachine.\n\nTwo groups, one of men and lads, the other of women, had come down\nthe lane just at the hour when the shadows of the eastern hedge-top\nstruck the west hedge midway, so that the heads of the groups were\nenjoying sunrise while their feet were still in the dawn.  They\ndisappeared from the lane between the two stone posts which flanked\nthe nearest field-gate.\n\nPresently there arose from within a ticking like the love-making of\nthe grasshopper.  The machine had begun, and a moving concatenation\nof three horses and the aforesaid long rickety machine was visible\nover the gate, a driver sitting  upon one of the hauling horses,\nand an attendant on the seat of the implement.  Along one side of\nthe field the whole wain went, the arms of the mechanical reaper\nrevolving slowly, till it passed down the hill quite out of sight.\nIn a minute it came up on the other side of the field at the same\nequable pace; the glistening brass star in the forehead of the fore\nhorse first catching the eye as it rose into view over the stubble,\nthen the bright arms, and then the whole machine.\n\nThe narrow lane of stubble encompassing the field grew wider with\neach circuit, and the standing corn was reduced to a smaller area as\nthe morning wore on.  Rabbits, hares, snakes, rats, mice, retreated\ninwards as into a fastness, unaware of the ephemeral nature of their\nrefuge, and of the doom that awaited them later in the day when,\ntheir covert shrinking to a more and more horrible narrowness, they\nwere huddled together, friends and foes, till the last few yards of\nupright wheat fell also under the teeth of the unerring reaper, and\nthey were every one put to death by the sticks and stones of the\nharvesters.\n\nThe reaping-machine left the fallen corn behind it in little heaps,\neach heap being of the quantity for a sheaf; and upon these the\nactive binders in the rear laid their hands--mainly women, but some\nof them men in print shirts, and trousers supported round their\nwaists by leather straps, rendering useless the two buttons behind,\nwhich twinkled and bristled with sunbeams at every movement of each\nwearer, as if they were a pair of eyes in the small of his back.\n\nBut those of the other sex were the most interesting of this company\nof binders, by reason of the charm which is acquired by woman when\nshe becomes part and parcel of outdoor nature, and is not merely\nan object set down therein as at ordinary times.  A field-man is a\npersonality afield; a field-woman is a portion of the field; she had\nsomehow lost her own margin, imbibed the essence of her surrounding,\nand assimilated herself with it.\n\nThe women--or rather girls, for they were mostly young--wore drawn\ncotton bonnets with great flapping curtains to keep off the sun, and\ngloves to prevent their hands being wounded by the stubble.  There\nwas one wearing a pale pink jacket, another in a cream-coloured\ntight-sleeved gown, another in a petticoat as red as the arms of the\nreaping-machine; and others, older, in the brown-rough \"wropper\"\nor over-all--the old-established and most appropriate dress of the\nfield-woman, which the young ones were abandoning.  This morning the\neye returns involuntarily to the girl in the pink cotton jacket, she\nbeing the most flexuous and finely-drawn figure of them all.  But\nher bonnet is pulled so far over her brow that none of her face is\ndisclosed while she binds, though her complexion may be guessed from\na stray twine or two of dark brown hair which extends below the\ncurtain of her bonnet.  Perhaps one reason why she seduces casual\nattention is that she never courts it, though the other women often\ngaze around them.\n\nHer binding proceeds with clock-like monotony.  From the sheaf last\nfinished she draws a handful of ears, patting their tips with her\nleft palm to bring them even.  Then, stooping low, she moves forward,\ngathering the corn with both hands against her knees, and pushing\nher left gloved hand under the bundle to meet the right on the other\nside, holding the corn in an embrace like that of a lover.  She\nbrings the ends of the bond together, and kneels on the sheaf while\nshe ties it, beating back her skirts now and then when lifted by the\nbreeze.  A bit of her naked arm is visible between the buff leather\nof the gauntlet and the sleeve of her gown; and as the day wears on\nits feminine smoothness becomes scarified by the stubble and bleeds.\n\nAt intervals she stands up to rest, and to retie her disarranged\napron, or to pull her bonnet straight.  Then one can see the oval\nface of a handsome young woman with deep dark eyes and long heavy\nclinging tresses, which seem to clasp in a beseeching way anything\nthey fall against.  The cheeks are paler, the teeth more regular,\nthe red lips thinner than is usual in a country-bred girl.\n\nIt is Tess Durbeyfield, otherwise d'Urberville, somewhat changed--the\nsame, but not the same; at the present stage of her existence living\nas a stranger and an alien here, though it was no strange land that\nshe was in.  After a long seclusion she had come to a resolve to\nundertake outdoor work in her native village, the busiest season of\nthe year in the agricultural world having arrived, and nothing that\nshe could do within the house being so remunerative for the time as\nharvesting in the fields.\n\nThe movements of the other women were more or less similar to Tess's,\nthe whole bevy of them drawing together like dancers in a quadrille\nat the completion of a sheaf by each, every one placing her sheaf on\nend against those of the rest, till a shock, or \"stitch\" as it was\nhere called, of ten or a dozen was formed.\n\nThey went to breakfast, and came again, and the work proceeded as\nbefore.  As the hour of eleven drew near a person watching her might\nhave noticed that every now and then Tess's glance flitted wistfully\nto the brow of the hill, though she did not pause in her sheafing.\nOn the verge of the hour the heads of a group of children, of ages\nranging from six to fourteen, rose over the stubbly convexity of the\nhill.\n\nThe face of Tess flushed slightly, but still she did not pause.\n\nThe eldest of the comers, a girl who wore a triangular shawl, its\ncorner draggling on the stubble, carried in her arms what at first\nsight seemed to be a doll, but proved to be an infant in long\nclothes.  Another brought some lunch.  The harvesters ceased working,\ntook their provisions, and sat down against one of the shocks.  Here\nthey fell to, the men plying a stone jar freely, and passing round a\ncup.\n\nTess Durbeyfield had been one of the last to suspend her labours.\nShe sat down at the end of the shock, her face turned somewhat away\nfrom her companions.  When she had deposited herself a man in a\nrabbit-skin cap, and with a red handkerchief tucked into his belt,\nheld the cup of ale over the top of the shock for her to drink.  But\nshe did not accept his offer.  As soon as her lunch was spread she\ncalled up the big girl, her sister, and took the baby of her, who,\nglad to be relieved of the burden, went away to the next shock and\njoined the other children playing there.  Tess, with a curiously\nstealthy yet courageous movement, and with a still rising colour,\nunfastened her frock and began suckling the child.\n\nThe men who sat nearest considerately turned their faces towards the\nother end of the field, some of them beginning to smoke; one, with\nabsent-minded fondness, regretfully stroking the jar that would no\nlonger yield a stream.  All the women but Tess fell into animated\ntalk, and adjusted the disarranged knots of their hair.\n\nWhen the infant had taken its fill, the young mother sat it upright\nin her lap, and looking into the far distance, dandled it with a\ngloomy indifference that was almost dislike; then all of a sudden she\nfell to violently kissing it some dozens of times, as if she could\nnever leave off, the child crying at the vehemence of an onset which\nstrangely combined passionateness with contempt.\n\n\"She's fond of that there child, though she mid pretend to hate en,\nand say she wishes the baby and her too were in the churchyard,\"\nobserved the woman in the red petticoat.\n\n\"She'll soon leave off saying that,\" replied the one in buff. \"Lord,\n'tis wonderful what a body can get used to o' that sort in time!\"\n\n\"A little more than persuading had to do wi' the coming o't, I\nreckon.  There were they that heard a sobbing one night last year in\nThe Chase; and it mid ha' gone hard wi' a certain party if folks had\ncome along.\"\n\n\"Well, a little more, or a little less, 'twas a thousand pities that\nit should have happened to she, of all others.  But 'tis always the\ncomeliest!  The plain ones be as safe as churches--hey, Jenny?\"  The\nspeaker turned to one of the group who certainly was not ill-defined\nas plain.\n\nIt was a thousand pities, indeed; it was impossible for even an enemy\nto feel otherwise on looking at Tess as she sat there, with her\nflower-like mouth and large tender eyes, neither black nor blue nor\ngrey nor violet; rather all those shades together, and a hundred\nothers, which could be seen if one looked into their irises--shade\nbehind shade--tint beyond tint--around pupils that had no bottom; an\nalmost standard woman, but for the slight incautiousness of character\ninherited from her race.\n\nA resolution which had surprised herself had brought her into the\nfields this week for the first time during many months.  After\nwearing and wasting her palpitating heart with every engine of regret\nthat lonely inexperience could devise, common sense had illuminated\nher.  She felt that she would do well to be useful again--to taste\nanew sweet independence at any price.  The past was past; whatever\nit had been, it was no more at hand.  Whatever its consequences,\ntime would close over them; they would all in a few years be as if\nthey had never been, and she herself grassed down and forgotten.\nMeanwhile the trees were just as green as before; the birds sang and\nthe sun shone as clearly now as ever.  The familiar surroundings had\nnot darkened because of her grief, nor sickened because of her pain.\n\nShe might have seen that what had bowed her head so profoundly--the\nthought of the world's concern at her situation--was founded on an\nillusion.  She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a\nstructure of sensations, to anybody but herself.  To all humankind\nbesides, Tess was only a passing thought.  Even to friends she was\nno more than a frequently passing thought.  If she made herself\nmiserable the livelong night and day it was only this much to\nthem--\"Ah, she makes herself unhappy.\"  If she tried to be cheerful,\nto dismiss all care, to take pleasure in the daylight, the flowers,\nthe baby, she could only be this idea to them--\"Ah, she bears it\nvery well.\"  Moreover, alone in a desert island would she have been\nwretched at what had happened to her?  Not greatly.  If she could\nhave been but just created, to discover herself as a spouseless\nmother, with no experience of life except as the parent of a nameless\nchild, would the position have caused her to despair?  No, she would\nhave taken it calmly, and found pleasure therein. Most of the misery\nhad been generated by her conventional aspect, and not by her innate\nsensations.\n\nWhatever Tess's reasoning, some spirit had induced her to dress\nherself up neatly as she had formerly done, and come out into the\nfields, harvest-hands being greatly in demand just then.  This was\nwhy she had borne herself with dignity, and had looked people calmly\nin the face at times, even when holding the baby in her arms.\n\nThe harvest-men rose from the shock of corn, and stretched their\nlimbs, and extinguished their pipes.  The horses, which had been\nunharnessed and fed, were again attached to the scarlet machine.\nTess, having quickly eaten her own meal, beckoned to her eldest\nsister to come and take away the baby, fastened her dress, put on\nthe buff gloves again, and stooped anew to draw a bond from the last\ncompleted sheaf for the tying of the next.\n\nIn the afternoon and evening the proceedings of the morning were\ncontinued, Tess staying on till dusk with the body of harvesters.\nThen they all rode home in one of the largest wagons, in the company\nof a broad tarnished moon that had risen from the ground to the\neastwards, its face resembling the outworn gold-leaf halo of some\nworm-eaten Tuscan saint.  Tess's female companions sang songs, and\nshowed themselves very sympathetic and glad at her reappearance out\nof doors, though they could not refrain from mischievously throwing\nin a few verses of the ballad about the maid who went to the merry\ngreen wood and came back a changed state.  There are counterpoises\nand compensations in life; and the event which had made of her a\nsocial warning had also for the moment made her the most interesting\npersonage in the village to many.  Their friendliness won her still\nfarther away from herself, their lively spirits were contagious, and\nshe became almost gay.\n\nBut now that her moral sorrows were passing away a fresh one arose on\nthe natural side of her which knew no social law.  When she reached\nhome it was to learn to her grief that the baby had been suddenly\ntaken ill since the afternoon.  Some such collapse had been probable,\nso tender and puny was its frame; but the event came as a shock\nnevertheless.\n\nThe baby's offence against society in coming into the world was\nforgotten by the girl-mother; her soul's desire was to continue that\noffence by preserving the life of the child.  However, it soon grew\nclear that the hour of emancipation for that little prisoner of the\nflesh was to arrive earlier than her worst misgiving had conjectured.\nAnd when she had discovered this she was plunged into a misery which\ntranscended that of the child's simple loss.  Her baby had not been\nbaptized.\n\nTess had drifted into a frame of mind which accepted passively the\nconsideration that if she should have to burn for what she had done,\nburn she must, and there was an end of it.  Like all village girls,\nshe was well grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and had dutifully\nstudied the histories of Aholah and Aholibah, and knew the inferences\nto be drawn therefrom.  But when the same question arose with regard\nto the baby, it had a very different colour.  Her darling was about\nto die, and no salvation.\n\nIt was nearly bedtime, but she rushed downstairs and asked if she\nmight send for the parson.  The moment happened to be one at which\nher father's sense of the antique nobility of his family was highest,\nand his sensitiveness to the smudge which Tess had set upon that\nnobility most pronounced, for he had just returned from his weekly\nbooze at Rolliver's Inn.  No parson should come inside his door, he\ndeclared, prying into his affairs, just then, when, by her shame, it\nhad become more necessary than ever to hide them.  He locked the door\nand put the key in his pocket.\n\nThe household went to bed, and, distressed beyond measure, Tess\nretired also.  She was continually waking as she lay, and in the\nmiddle of the night found that the baby was still worse.  It was\nobviously dying--quietly and painlessly, but none the less surely.\n\nIn her misery she rocked herself upon the bed.  The clock struck the\nsolemn hour of one, that hour when fancy stalks outside reason, and\nmalignant possibilities stand rock-firm as facts.  She thought of\nthe child consigned to the nethermost corner of hell, as its double\ndoom for lack of baptism and lack of legitimacy; saw the arch-fiend\ntossing it with his three-pronged fork, like the one they used for\nheating the oven on baking days; to which picture she added many\nother quaint and curious details of torment sometimes taught the\nyoung in this Christian country.  The lurid presentment so powerfully\naffected her imagination in the silence of the sleeping house that\nher nightgown became damp with perspiration, and the bedstead shook\nwith each throb of her heart.\n\nThe infant's breathing grew more difficult, and the mother's mental\ntension increased.  It was useless to devour the little thing with\nkisses; she could stay in bed no longer, and walked feverishly about\nthe room.\n\n\"O merciful God, have pity; have pity upon my poor baby!\" she cried.\n\"Heap as much anger as you want to upon me, and welcome; but pity the\nchild!\"\n\nShe leant against the chest of drawers, and murmured incoherent\nsupplications for a long while, till she suddenly started up.\n\n\"Ah! perhaps baby can be saved!  Perhaps it will be just the same!\"\n\nShe spoke so brightly that it seemed as though her face might have\nshone in the gloom surrounding her.  She lit a candle, and went to\na second and a third bed under the wall, where she awoke her young\nsisters and brothers, all of whom occupied the same room.  Pulling\nout the washing-stand so that she could get behind it, she poured\nsome water from a jug, and made them kneel around, putting their\nhands together with fingers exactly vertical.  While the children,\nscarcely awake, awe-stricken at her manner, their eyes growing larger\nand larger, remained in this position, she took the baby from her\nbed--a child's child--so immature as scarce to seem a sufficient\npersonality to endow its producer with the maternal title.  Tess then\nstood erect with the infant on her arm beside the basin; the next\nsister held the Prayer-Book open before her, as the clerk at church\nheld it before the parson; and thus the girl set about baptizing her\nchild.\n\nHer figure looked singularly tall and imposing as she stood in her\nlong white nightgown, a thick cable of twisted dark hair hanging\nstraight down her back to her waist.  The kindly dimness of the weak\ncandle abstracted from her form and features the little blemishes\nwhich sunlight might have revealed--the stubble scratches upon her\nwrists, and the weariness of her eyes--her high enthusiasm having\na transfiguring effect upon the face which had been her undoing,\nshowing it as a thing of immaculate beauty, with a touch of dignity\nwhich was almost regal.  The little ones kneeling round, their sleepy\neyes blinking and red, awaited her preparations full of a suspended\nwonder which their physical heaviness at that hour would not allow to\nbecome active.\n\nThe most impressed of them said:\n\n\"Be you really going to christen him, Tess?\"\n\nThe girl-mother replied in a grave affirmative.\n\n\"What's his name going to be?\"\n\nShe had not thought of that, but a name suggested by a phrase in\nthe book of Genesis came into her head as she proceeded with the\nbaptismal service, and now she pronounced it:\n\n\"SORROW, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son,\nand of the Holy Ghost.\"\n\nShe sprinkled the water, and there was silence.\n\n\"Say 'Amen,' children.\"\n\nThe tiny voices piped in obedient response, \"Amen!\"\n\nTess went on:\n\n\"We receive this child\"--and so forth--\"and do sign him with the sign\nof the Cross.\"\n\nHere she dipped her hand into the basin, and fervently drew an\nimmense cross upon the baby with her forefinger, continuing with\nthe customary sentences as to his manfully fighting against sin,\nthe world, and the devil, and being a faithful soldier and servant\nunto his life's end.  She duly went on with the Lord's Prayer, the\nchildren lisping it after her in a thin gnat-like wail, till, at the\nconclusion, raising their voices to clerk's pitch, they again piped\ninto silence, \"Amen!\"\n\nThen their sister, with much augmented confidence in the efficacy\nof the sacrament, poured forth from the bottom of her heart the\nthanksgiving that follows, uttering it boldly and triumphantly in the\nstopt-diapason note which her voice acquired when her heart was in\nher speech, and which will never be forgotten by those who knew her.\nThe ecstasy of faith almost apotheosized her; it set upon her face a\nglowing irradiation, and brought a red spot into the middle of each\ncheek; while the miniature candle-flame inverted in her eye-pupils\nshone like a diamond.  The children gazed up at her with more and\nmore reverence, and no longer had a will for questioning.  She did\nnot look like Sissy to them now, but as a being large, towering, and\nawful--a divine personage with whom they had nothing in common.\n\nPoor Sorrow's campaign against sin, the world, and the devil was\ndoomed to be of limited brilliancy--luckily perhaps for himself,\nconsidering his beginnings.  In the blue of the morning that fragile\nsoldier and servant breathed his last, and when the other children\nawoke they cried bitterly, and begged Sissy to have another pretty\nbaby.\n\nThe calmness which had possessed Tess since the christening remained\nwith her in the infant's loss.  In the daylight, indeed, she felt her\nterrors about his soul to have been somewhat exaggerated; whether\nwell founded or not, she had no uneasiness now, reasoning that\nif Providence would not ratify such an act of approximation\nshe, for one, did not value the kind of heaven lost by the\nirregularity--either for herself or for her child.\n\nSo passed away Sorrow the Undesired--that intrusive creature, that\nbastard gift of shameless Nature, who respects not the social law;\na waif to whom eternal Time had been a matter of days merely, who\nknew not that such things as years and centuries ever were; to whom\nthe cottage interior was the universe, the week's weather climate,\nnew-born babyhood human existence, and the instinct to suck human\nknowledge.\n\nTess, who mused on the christening a good deal, wondered if it were\ndoctrinally sufficient to secure a Christian burial for the child.\nNobody could tell this but the parson of the parish, and he was a\nnew-comer, and did not know her.  She went to his house after dusk,\nand stood by the gate, but could not summon courage to go in.  The\nenterprise would have been abandoned if she had not by accident met\nhim coming homeward as she turned away.  In the gloom she did not\nmind speaking freely.\n\n\"I should like to ask you something, sir.\"\n\nHe expressed his willingness to listen, and she told the story of the\nbaby's illness and the extemporized ordinance.  \"And now, sir,\" she\nadded earnestly, \"can you tell me this--will it be just the same for\nhim as if you had baptized him?\"\n\nHaving the natural feelings of a tradesman at finding that a job he\nshould have been called in for had been unskilfully botched by his\ncustomers among themselves, he was disposed to say no.  Yet the\ndignity of the girl, the strange tenderness in her voice, combined\nto affect his nobler impulses--or rather those that he had left in\nhim after ten years of endeavour to graft technical belief on actual\nscepticism.  The man and the ecclesiastic fought within him, and the\nvictory fell to the man.\n\n\"My dear girl,\" he said, \"it will be just the same.\"\n\n\"Then will you give him a Christian burial?\" she asked quickly.\n\nThe Vicar felt himself cornered. Hearing of the baby's illness, he\nhad conscientiously gone to the house after nightfall to perform the\nrite, and, unaware that the refusal to admit him had come from Tess's\nfather and not from Tess, he could not allow the plea of necessity\nfor its irregular administration.\n\n\"Ah--that's another matter,\" he said.\n\n\"Another matter--why?\" asked Tess, rather warmly.\n\n\"Well--I would willingly do so if only we two were concerned.  But I\nmust not--for certain reasons.\"\n\n\"Just for once, sir!\"\n\n\"Really I must not.\"\n\n\"O sir!\"  She seized his hand as she spoke.\n\nHe withdrew it, shaking his head.\n\n\"Then I don't like you!\" she burst out, \"and I'll never come to your\nchurch no more!\"\n\n\"Don't talk so rashly.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it will be just the same to him if you don't? ...  Will it\nbe just the same?  Don't for God's sake speak as saint to sinner, but\nas you yourself to me myself--poor me!\"\n\nHow the Vicar reconciled his answer with the strict notions he\nsupposed himself to hold on these subjects it is beyond a layman's\npower to tell, though not to excuse.  Somewhat moved, he said in\nthis case also--\n\n\"It will be just the same.\"\n\nSo the baby was carried in a small deal box, under an ancient woman's\nshawl, to the churchyard that night, and buried by lantern-light,\nat the cost of a shilling and a pint of beer to the sexton, in that\nshabby corner of God's allotment where He lets the nettles grow,\nand where all unbaptized infants, notorious drunkards, suicides,\nand others of the conjecturally damned are laid.  In spite of the\nuntoward surroundings, however, Tess bravely made a little cross of\ntwo laths and a piece of string, and having bound it with flowers,\nshe stuck it up at the head of the grave one evening when she could\nenter the churchyard without being seen, putting at the foot also\na bunch of the same flowers in a little jar of water to keep them\nalive.  What matter was it that on the outside of the jar the eye of\nmere observation noted the words \"Keelwell's Marmalade\"?  The eye of\nmaternal affection did not see them in its vision of higher things.\n\n\n\nXV\n\n\n\"By experience,\" says Roger Ascham, \"we find out a short way by\na long wandering.\"  Not seldom that long wandering unfits us for\nfurther travel, and of what use is our experience to us then?  Tess\nDurbeyfield's experience was of this incapacitating kind.  At last\nshe had learned what to do; but who would now accept her doing?\n\nIf before going to the d'Urbervilles' she had vigorously moved under\nthe guidance of sundry gnomic texts and phrases known to her and to\nthe world in general, no doubt she would never have been imposed on.\nBut it had not been in Tess's power--nor is it in anybody's power--to\nfeel the whole truth of golden opinions while it is possible to\nprofit by them.  She--and how many more--might have ironically said\nto God with Saint Augustine: \"Thou hast counselled a better course\nthan Thou hast permitted.\"\n\nShe remained at her father's house during the winter months, plucking\nfowls, or cramming turkeys and geese, or making clothes for her\nsisters and brothers out of some finery which d'Urberville had given\nher, and she had put by with contempt.  Apply to him she would not.\nBut she would often clasp her hands behind her head and muse when she\nwas supposed to be working hard.\n\nShe philosophically noted dates as they came past in the revolution\nof the year; the disastrous night of her undoing at Trantridge with\nits dark background of The Chase; also the dates of the baby's birth\nand death; also her own birthday; and every other day individualized\nby incidents in which she had taken some share.  She suddenly thought\none afternoon, when looking in the glass at her fairness, that there\nwas yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that\nof her own death, when all these charms would have disappeared; a day\nwhich lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving\nno sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less\nsurely there.  When was it?  Why did she not feel the chill of each\nyearly encounter with such a cold relation?  She had Jeremy Taylor's\nthought that some time in the future those who had known her would\nsay: \"It is the ----th, the day that poor Tess Durbeyfield died\"; and\nthere would be nothing singular to their minds in the statement.  Of\nthat day, doomed to be her terminus in time through all the ages, she\ndid not know the place in month, week, season or year.\n\nAlmost at a leap Tess thus changed from simple girl to complex woman.\nSymbols of reflectiveness passed into her face, and a note of tragedy\nat times into her voice.  Her eyes grew larger and more eloquent.\nShe became what would have been called a fine creature; her aspect\nwas fair and arresting; her soul that of a woman whom the turbulent\nexperiences of the last year or two had quite failed to demoralize.\nBut for the world's opinion those experiences would have been simply\na liberal education.\n\nShe had held so aloof of late that her trouble, never generally\nknown, was nearly forgotten in Marlott.  But it became evident to her\nthat she could never be really comfortable again in a place which\nhad seen the collapse of her family's attempt to \"claim kin\"--and,\nthrough her, even closer union--with the rich d'Urbervilles.  At\nleast she could not be comfortable there till long years should have\nobliterated her keen consciousness of it.  Yet even now Tess felt the\npulse of hopeful life still warm within her; she might be happy in\nsome nook which had no memories.  To escape the past and all that\nappertained thereto was to annihilate it, and to do that she would\nhave to get away.\n\nWas once lost always lost really true of chastity? she would ask\nherself.  She might prove it false if she could veil bygones.  The\nrecuperative power which pervaded organic nature was surely not\ndenied to maidenhood alone.\n\nShe waited a long time without finding opportunity for a new\ndeparture.  A particularly fine spring came round, and the stir of\ngermination was almost audible in the buds; it moved her, as it moved\nthe wild animals, and made her passionate to go.  At last, one day in\nearly May, a letter reached her from a former friend of her mother's,\nto whom she had addressed inquiries long before--a person whom she\nhad never seen--that a skilful milkmaid was required at a dairy-house\nmany miles to the southward, and that the dairyman would be glad to\nhave her for the summer months.\n\nIt was not quite so far off as could have been wished; but it was\nprobably far enough, her radius of movement and repute having been\nso small.  To persons of limited spheres, miles are as geographical\ndegrees, parishes as counties, counties as provinces and kingdoms.\n\nOn one point she was resolved: there should be no more d'Urberville\nair-castles in the dreams and deeds of her new life.  She would be\nthe dairymaid Tess, and nothing more.  Her mother knew Tess's feeling\non this point so well, though no words had passed between them on the\nsubject, that she never alluded to the knightly ancestry now.\n\nYet such is human inconsistency that one of the interests of the\nnew place to her was the accidental virtues of its lying near her\nforefathers' country (for they were not Blakemore men, though her\nmother was Blakemore to the bone).  The dairy called Talbothays,\nfor which she was bound, stood not remotely from some of the former\nestates of the d'Urbervilles, near the great family vaults of her\ngranddames and their powerful husbands.  She would be able to look at\nthem, and think not only that d'Urberville, like Babylon, had fallen,\nbut that the individual innocence of a humble descendant could lapse\nas silently.  All the while she wondered if any strange good thing\nmight come of her being in her ancestral land; and some spirit within\nher rose  automatically as the sap in the twigs.  It was unexpected\nyouth, surging up anew after its temporary check, and bringing with\nit hope, and the invincible instinct towards self-delight.\n\n\nEND OF PHASE THE SECOND\n\n\n\n\n\nPhase the Third: The Rally\n\n\n\nXVI\n\n\nOn a thyme-scented, bird-hatching morning in May, between two and\nthree years after the return from Trantridge--silent, reconstructive\nyears for Tess Durbeyfield--she left her home for the second time.\n\nHaving packed up her luggage so that it could be sent to her later,\nshe started in a hired trap for the little town of Stourcastle,\nthrough which it was necessary to pass on her journey, now in a\ndirection almost opposite to that of her first adventuring.  On the\ncurve of the nearest hill she looked back regretfully at Marlott and\nher father's house, although she had been so anxious to get away.\n\nHer kindred dwelling there would probably continue their daily\nlives as heretofore, with no great diminution of pleasure in their\nconsciousness, although she would be far off, and they deprived of\nher smile.  In a few days the children would engage in their games as\nmerrily as ever, without the sense of any gap left by her departure.\nThis leaving of the younger children she had decided to be for the\nbest; were she to remain they would probably gain less good by her\nprecepts than harm by her example.\n\nShe went through Stourcastle without pausing and onward to a junction\nof highways, where she could await a carrier's van that ran to the\nsouth-west; for the railways which engirdled this interior tract of\ncountry had never yet struck across it.  While waiting, however,\nthere came along a farmer in his spring cart, driving approximately\nin the direction that she wished to pursue.  Though he was a stranger\nto her she accepted his offer of a seat beside him, ignoring that\nits motive was a mere tribute to her countenance.  He was going to\nWeatherbury, and by accompanying him thither she could walk the\nremainder of the distance instead of travelling in the van by way of\nCasterbridge.\n\nTess did not stop at Weatherbury, after this long drive, further than\nto make a slight nondescript meal at noon at a cottage to which the\nfarmer recommended her.  Thence she started on foot, basket in hand,\nto reach the wide upland of heath dividing this district from the\nlow-lying meads of a further valley in which the dairy stood that was\nthe aim and end of her day's pilgrimage.\n\nTess had never before visited this part of the country, and yet she\nfelt akin to the landscape.  Not so very far to the left of her she\ncould discern a dark patch in the scenery, which inquiry confirmed\nher in supposing to be trees marking the environs of Kingsbere--in\nthe church of which parish the bones of her ancestors--her useless\nancestors--lay entombed.\n\nShe had no admiration for them now; she almost hated them for the\ndance they had led her; not a thing of all that had been theirs did\nshe retain but the old seal and spoon.  \"Pooh--I have as much of\nmother as father in me!\" she said.  \"All my prettiness comes from\nher, and she was only a dairymaid.\"\n\nThe journey over the intervening uplands and lowlands of Egdon,\nwhen she reached them, was a more troublesome walk than she had\nanticipated, the distance being actually but a few miles.  It was\ntwo hours, owing to sundry wrong turnings, ere she found herself\non a summit commanding the long-sought-for vale, the Valley of the\nGreat Dairies, the valley in which milk and butter grew to rankness,\nand were produced more profusely, if less delicately, than at her\nhome--the verdant plain so well watered by the river Var or Froom.\n\nIt was intrinsically different from the Vale of Little Dairies,\nBlackmoor Vale, which, save during her disastrous sojourn at\nTrantridge, she had exclusively known till now.  The world was drawn\nto a larger pattern here.  The enclosures numbered fifty acres\ninstead of ten, the farmsteads were more extended, the groups of\ncattle formed tribes hereabout; there only families.  These myriads\nof cows stretching under her eyes from the far east to the far west\noutnumbered any she had ever seen at one glance before. The green\nlea was speckled as thickly with them as a canvas by Van Alsloot\nor Sallaert with burghers.  The ripe hue of the red and dun kine\nabsorbed the evening sunlight, which the white-coated animals\nreturned to the eye in rays almost dazzling, even at the distant\nelevation on which she stood.\n\nThe bird's-eye perspective before her was not so luxuriantly\nbeautiful, perhaps, as that other one which she knew so well; yet it\nwas more cheering.  It lacked the intensely blue atmosphere of the\nrival vale, and its heavy soils and scents; the new air was clear,\nbracing, ethereal.  The river itself, which nourished the grass\nand cows of these renowned dairies, flowed not like the streams in\nBlackmoor.  Those were slow, silent, often turbid; flowing over\nbeds of mud into which the incautious wader might sink and vanish\nunawares.  The Froom waters were clear as the pure River of Life\nshown to the Evangelist, rapid as the shadow of a cloud, with\npebbly shallows that prattled to the sky all day long.  There the\nwater-flower was the lily; the crow-foot here.\n\nEither the change in the quality of the air from heavy to light, or\nthe sense of being amid new scenes where there were no invidious eyes\nupon her, sent up her spirits wonderfully.  Her hopes mingled with\nthe sunshine in an ideal photosphere which surrounded her as she\nbounded along against the soft south wind.  She heard a pleasant\nvoice in every breeze, and in every bird's note seemed to lurk a\njoy.\n\nHer face had latterly changed with changing states of mind,\ncontinually fluctuating between beauty and ordinariness, according as\nthe thoughts were gay or grave.  One day she was pink and flawless;\nanother pale and tragical.  When she was pink she was feeling less\nthan when pale; her more perfect beauty accorded with her less\nelevated mood; her more intense mood with her less perfect beauty.\nIt was her best face physically that was now set against the south\nwind.\n\nThe irresistible, universal, automatic tendency to find sweet\npleasure somewhere, which pervades all life, from the meanest to the\nhighest, had at length mastered Tess.  Being even now only a young\nwoman of twenty, one who mentally and sentimentally had not finished\ngrowing, it was impossible that any event should have left upon her\nan impression that was not in time capable of transmutation.\n\nAnd thus her spirits, and her thankfulness, and her hopes, rose\nhigher and higher.  She tried several ballads, but found them\ninadequate; till, recollecting the psalter that her eyes had so often\nwandered over of a Sunday morning before she had eaten of the tree\nof knowledge, she chanted: \"O ye Sun and Moon ... O ye Stars ... ye\nGreen Things upon the Earth ... ye Fowls of the Air ... Beasts and\nCattle ... Children of Men ... bless ye the Lord, praise Him and\nmagnify Him for ever!\"\n\nShe suddenly stopped and murmured: \"But perhaps I don't quite know\nthe Lord as yet.\"\n\nAnd probably the half-unconscious rhapsody was a Fetishistic\nutterance in a Monotheistic setting; women whose chief companions\nare the forms and forces of outdoor Nature retain in their souls far\nmore of the Pagan fantasy of their remote forefathers than of the\nsystematized religion taught their race at later date.  However, Tess\nfound at least approximate expression for her feelings in the old\n_Benedicite_ that she had lisped from infancy; and it was enough.\nSuch high contentment with such a slight initial performance as that\nof having started towards a means of independent living was a part of\nthe Durbeyfield temperament.  Tess really wished to walk uprightly,\nwhile her father did nothing of the kind; but she resembled him in\nbeing content with immediate and small achievements, and in having no\nmind for laborious effort towards such petty social advancement as\ncould alone be effected by a family so heavily handicapped as the\nonce powerful d'Urbervilles were now.\n\nThere was, it might be said, the energy of her mother's unexpended\nfamily, as well as the natural energy of Tess's years, rekindled\nafter the experience which had so overwhelmed her for the time. Let\nthe truth be told--women do as a rule live through such humiliations,\nand regain their spirits, and again look about them with an\ninterested eye.  While there's life there's hope is a conviction not\nso entirely unknown to the \"betrayed\" as some amiable theorists would\nhave us believe.\n\nTess Durbeyfield, then, in good heart, and full of zest for life,\ndescended the Egdon slopes lower and lower towards the dairy of her\npilgrimage.\n\nThe marked difference, in the final particular, between the rival\nvales now showed itself.  The secret of Blackmoor was best discovered\nfrom the heights around; to read aright the valley before her it was\nnecessary to descend into its midst.  When Tess had accomplished this\nfeat she found herself to be standing on a carpeted level, which\nstretched to the east and west as far as the eye could reach.\n\nThe river had stolen from the higher tracts and brought in particles\nto the vale all this horizontal land; and now, exhausted, aged, and\nattenuated, lay serpentining along through the midst of its former\nspoils.\n\nNot quite sure of her direction, Tess stood still upon the hemmed\nexpanse of verdant flatness, like a fly on a billiard-table of\nindefinite length, and of no more consequence to the surroundings\nthan that fly.  The sole effect of her presence upon the placid\nvalley so far had been to excite the mind of a solitary heron, which,\nafter descending to the ground not far from her path, stood with neck\nerect, looking at her.\n\nSuddenly there arose from all parts of the lowland a prolonged and\nrepeated call--\"Waow! waow! waow!\"\n\nFrom the furthest east to the furthest west the cries spread as if by\ncontagion, accompanied in some cases by the barking of a dog.  It was\nnot the expression of the valley's consciousness that beautiful Tess\nhad arrived, but the ordinary announcement of milking-time--half-past\nfour o'clock, when the dairymen set about getting in the cows.\n\nThe red and white herd nearest at hand, which had been phlegmatically\nwaiting for the call, now trooped towards the steading in the\nbackground, their great bags of milk swinging under them as they\nwalked.  Tess followed slowly in their rear, and entered the barton\nby the open gate through which they had entered before her.  Long\nthatched sheds stretched round the enclosure, their slopes encrusted\nwith vivid green moss, and their eaves supported by wooden posts\nrubbed to a glossy smoothness by the flanks of infinite cows\nand calves of bygone years, now passed to an oblivion almost\ninconceivable in its profundity.  Between the post were ranged\nthe milchers, each exhibiting herself at the present moment to a\nwhimsical eye in the rear as a circle on two stalks, down the centre\nof which a switch moved pendulum-wise; while the sun, lowering itself\nbehind this patient row, threw their shadows accurately inwards upon\nthe wall.  Thus it threw shadows of these obscure and homely figures\nevery evening with as much care over each contour as if it had been\nthe profile of a court beauty on a palace wall; copied them as\ndiligently as it had copied Olympian shapes on marble _façades_ long\nago, or the outline of Alexander, Caesar, and the Pharaohs.\n\nThey were the less restful cows that were stalled.  Those that would\nstand still of their own will were milked in the middle of the yard,\nwhere many of such better behaved ones stood waiting now--all prime\nmilchers, such as were seldom seen out of this valley, and not always\nwithin it; nourished by the succulent feed which the water-meads\nsupplied at this prime season of the year.  Those of them that were\nspotted with white reflected the sunshine in dazzling brilliancy,\nand the polished brass knobs of their horns glittered with something\nof military display.  Their large-veined udders hung ponderous as\nsandbags, the teats sticking out like the legs of a gipsy's crock;\nand as each animal lingered for her turn to arrive the milk oozed\nforth and fell in drops to the ground.\n\n\n\nXVII\n\n\nThe dairymaids and men had flocked down from their cottages and out\nof the dairy-house with the arrival of the cows from the meads; the\nmaids walking in pattens, not on account of the weather, but to keep\ntheir shoes above the mulch of the barton.  Each girl sat down on\nher three-legged stool, her face sideways, her right cheek resting\nagainst the cow, and looked musingly along the animal's flank at Tess\nas she approached.  The male milkers, with hat-brims turned down,\nresting flat on their foreheads and gazing on the ground, did not\nobserve her.\n\nOne of these was a sturdy middle-aged man--whose long white \"pinner\"\nwas somewhat finer and cleaner than the wraps of the others, and\nwhose jacket underneath had a presentable marketing aspect--the\nmaster-dairyman, of whom she was in quest, his double character as\na working milker and butter maker here during six days, and on the\nseventh as a man in shining broad-cloth in his family pew at church,\nbeing so marked as to have inspired a rhyme:\n\n\n             Dairyman Dick\n             All the week:--\n     On Sundays Mister Richard Crick.\n\n\nSeeing Tess standing at gaze he went across to her.\n\nThe majority of dairymen have a cross manner at milking time, but it\nhappened that Mr Crick was glad to get a new hand--for the days were\nbusy ones now--and he received her warmly; inquiring for her mother\nand the rest of the family--(though this as a matter of form merely,\nfor in reality he had not been aware of Mrs Durbeyfield's existence\ntill apprised of the fact by a brief business-letter about Tess).\n\n\"Oh--ay, as a lad I knowed your part o' the country very well,\" he\nsaid terminatively.  \"Though I've never been there since.  And a aged\nwoman of ninety that use to live nigh here, but is dead and gone long\nago, told me that a family of some such name as yours in Blackmoor\nVale came originally from these parts, and that 'twere a old ancient\nrace that had all but perished off the earth--though the new\ngenerations didn't know it.  But, Lord, I took no notice of the old\nwoman's ramblings, not I.\"\n\n\"Oh no--it is nothing,\" said Tess.\n\nThen the talk was of business only.\n\n\"You can milk 'em clean, my maidy? I don't want my cows going azew at\nthis time o' year.\"\n\nShe reassured him on that point, and he surveyed her up and down.\nShe had been staying indoors a good deal, and her complexion had\ngrown delicate.\n\n\"Quite sure you can stand it?  'Tis comfortable enough here for rough\nfolk; but we don't live in a cowcumber frame.\"\n\nShe declared that she could stand it, and her zest and willingness\nseemed to win him over.\n\n\"Well, I suppose you'll want a dish o' tay, or victuals of some sort,\nhey?  Not yet?  Well, do as ye like about it.  But faith, if 'twas I,\nI should be as dry as a kex wi' travelling so far.\"\n\n\"I'll begin milking now, to get my hand in,\" said Tess.\n\nShe drank a little milk as temporary refreshment--to the\nsurprise--indeed, slight contempt--of Dairyman Crick, to whose mind\nit had apparently never occurred that milk was good as a beverage.\n\n\"Oh, if ye can swaller that, be it so,\" he said indifferently, while\nholding up the pail that she sipped from.  \"'Tis what I hain't\ntouched for years--not I.  Rot the stuff; it would lie in my innerds\nlike lead.  You can try your hand upon she,\" he pursued, nodding to\nthe nearest cow.  \"Not but what she do milk rather hard.  We've hard\nones and we've easy ones, like other folks.  However, you'll find out\nthat soon enough.\"\n\nWhen Tess had changed her bonnet for a hood, and was really on her\nstool under the cow, and the milk was squirting from her fists\ninto the pail, she appeared to feel that she really had laid a new\nfoundation for her future.  The conviction bred serenity, her pulse\nslowed, and she was able to look about her.\n\nThe milkers formed quite a little battalion of men and maids, the\nmen operating on the hard-teated animals, the maids on the kindlier\nnatures.  It was a large dairy.  There were nearly a hundred\nmilchers under Crick's management, all told; and of the herd the\nmaster-dairyman milked six or eight with his own hands, unless away\nfrom home.  These were the cows that milked hardest of all; for his\njourney-milkmen being more or less casually hired, he would not\nentrust this half-dozen to their treatment, lest, from indifference,\nthey should not milk them fully; nor to the maids, lest they should\nfail in the same way for lack of finger-grip; with the result that in\ncourse of time the cows would \"go azew\"--that is, dry up.  It was not\nthe loss for the moment that made slack milking so serious, but that\nwith the decline of demand there came decline, and ultimately\ncessation, of supply.\n\nAfter Tess had settled down to her cow there was for a time no talk\nin the barton, and not a sound interfered with the purr of the\nmilk-jets into the numerous pails, except a momentary exclamation\nto one or other of the beasts requesting her to turn round or stand\nstill. The only movements were those of the milkers' hands up and\ndown, and the swing of the cows' tails.  Thus they all worked on,\nencompassed by the vast flat mead which extended to either slope\nof the valley--a level landscape compounded of old landscapes long\nforgotten, and, no doubt, differing in character very greatly from\nthe landscape they composed now.\n\n\"To my thinking,\" said the dairyman, rising suddenly from a cow\nhe had just finished off, snatching up his three-legged stool in\none hand and the pail in the other, and moving on to the next\nhard-yielder in his vicinity, \"to my thinking, the cows don't gie\ndown their milk to-day as usual.  Upon my life, if Winker do begin\nkeeping back like this, she'll not be worth going under by\nmidsummer.\"\n\n\"'Tis because there's a new hand come among us,\" said Jonathan Kail.\n\"I've noticed such things afore.\"\n\n\"To be sure.  It may be so.  I didn't think o't.\"\n\n\"I've been told that it goes up into their horns at such times,\" said\na dairymaid.\n\n\"Well, as to going up into their horns,\" replied Dairyman Crick\ndubiously, as though even witchcraft might be limited by anatomical\npossibilities, \"I couldn't say; I certainly could not.  But as nott\ncows will keep it back as well as the horned ones, I don't quite\nagree to it.  Do ye know that riddle about the nott cows, Jonathan?\nWhy do nott cows give less milk in a year than horned?\"\n\n\"I don't!\" interposed the milkmaid, \"Why do they?\"\n\n\"Because there bain't so many of 'em,\" said the dairyman.\n\"Howsomever, these gam'sters do certainly keep back their milk\nto-day.  Folks, we must lift up a stave or two--that's the only cure\nfor't.\"\n\nSongs were often resorted to in dairies hereabout as an enticement\nto the cows when they showed signs of withholding their usual yield;\nand the band of milkers at this request burst into melody--in purely\nbusiness-like tones, it is true, and with no great spontaneity; the\nresult, according to their own belief, being a decided improvement\nduring the song's continuance.  When they had gone through fourteen\nor fifteen verses of a cheerful ballad about a murderer who was\nafraid to go to bed in the dark because he saw certain brimstone\nflames around him, one of the male milkers said--\n\n\"I wish singing on the stoop didn't use up so much of a man's wind!\nYou should get your harp, sir; not but what a fiddle is best.\"\n\nTess, who had given ear to this, thought the words were addressed to\nthe dairyman, but she was wrong.  A reply, in the shape of \"Why?\"\ncame as it were out of the belly of a dun cow in the stalls; it had\nbeen spoken by a milker behind the animal, whom she had not hitherto\nperceived.\n\n\"Oh yes; there's nothing like a fiddle,\" said the dairyman. \"Though\nI do think that bulls are more moved by a tune than cows--at least\nthat's my experience.  Once there was an old aged man over at\nMellstock--William Dewy by name--one of the family that used to do\na good deal of business as tranters over there--Jonathan, do ye\nmind?--I knowed the man by sight as well as I know my own brother, in\na manner of speaking.  Well, this man was a coming home along from a\nwedding, where he had been playing his fiddle, one fine moonlight\nnight, and for shortness' sake he took a cut across Forty-acres, a\nfield lying that way, where a bull was out to grass.  The bull seed\nWilliam, and took after him, horns aground, begad; and though William\nrunned his best, and hadn't MUCH drink in him (considering 'twas a\nwedding, and the folks well off), he found he'd never reach the fence\nand get over in time to save himself.  Well, as a last thought, he\npulled out his fiddle as he runned, and struck up a jig, turning to\nthe bull, and backing towards the corner.  The bull softened down,\nand stood still, looking hard at William Dewy, who fiddled on and on;\ntill a sort of a smile stole over the bull's face.  But no sooner\ndid William stop his playing and turn to get over hedge than the\nbull would stop his smiling and lower his horns towards the seat of\nWilliam's breeches.  Well, William had to turn about and play on,\nwilly-nilly; and 'twas only three o'clock in the world, and 'a knowed\nthat nobody would come that way for hours, and he so leery and tired\nthat 'a didn't know what to do.  When he had scraped till about four\no'clock he felt that he verily would have to give over soon, and he\nsaid to himself, 'There's only this last tune between me and eternal\nwelfare! Heaven save me, or I'm a done man.'  Well, then he called to\nmind how he'd seen the cattle kneel o' Christmas Eves in the dead o'\nnight.  It was not Christmas Eve then, but it came into his head to\nplay a trick upon the bull.  So he broke into the 'Tivity Hymm, just\nas at Christmas carol-singing; when, lo and behold, down went the\nbull on his bended knees, in his ignorance, just as if 'twere the\ntrue 'Tivity night and hour.  As soon as his horned friend were down,\nWilliam turned, clinked off like a long-dog, and jumped safe over\nhedge, before the praying bull had got on his feet again to take\nafter him.  William used to say that he'd seen a man look a fool\na good many times, but never such a fool as that bull looked when\nhe found his pious feelings had been played upon, and 'twas not\nChristmas Eve. ...  Yes, William Dewy, that was the man's name; and\nI can tell you to a foot where's he a-lying in Mellstock Churchyard\nat this very moment--just between the second yew-tree and the north\naisle.\"\n\n\"It's a curious story; it carries us back to medieval times, when\nfaith was a living thing!\"\n\nThe remark, singular for a dairy-yard, was murmured by the voice\nbehind the dun cow; but as nobody understood the reference, no notice\nwas taken, except that the narrator seemed to think it might imply\nscepticism as to his tale.\n\n\"Well, 'tis quite true, sir, whether or no.  I knowed the man well.\"\n\n\"Oh yes; I have no doubt of it,\" said the person behind the dun cow.\n\nTess's attention was thus attracted to the dairyman's interlocutor,\nof whom she could see but the merest patch, owing to his burying his\nhead so persistently in the flank of the milcher.  She could not\nunderstand why he should be addressed as \"sir\" even by the dairyman\nhimself.  But no explanation was discernible; he remained under the\ncow long enough to have milked three, uttering a private ejaculation\nnow and then, as if he could not get on.\n\n\"Take it gentle, sir; take it gentle,\" said the dairyman.  \"'Tis\nknack, not strength, that does it.\"\n\n\"So I find,\" said the other, standing up at last and stretching his\narms.  \"I think I have finished her, however, though she made my\nfingers ache.\"\n\nTess could then see him at full length.  He wore the ordinary white\npinner and leather leggings of a dairy-farmer when milking, and his\nboots were clogged with the mulch of the yard; but this was all his\nlocal livery.  Beneath it was something educated, reserved, subtle,\nsad, differing.\n\nBut the details of his aspect were temporarily thrust aside by\nthe discovery that he was one whom she had seen before.  Such\nvicissitudes had Tess passed through since that time that for a\nmoment she could not remember where she had met him; and then it\nflashed upon her that he was the pedestrian who had joined in the\nclub-dance at Marlott--the passing stranger who had come she knew\nnot whence, had danced with others but not with her, and slightingly\nleft her, and gone on his way with his friends.\n\nThe flood of memories brought back by this revival of an incident\nanterior to her troubles produced a momentary dismay lest,\nrecognizing her also, he should by some means discover her story.\nBut it passed away when she found no sign of remembrance in him.  She\nsaw by degrees that since their first and only encounter his mobile\nface had grown more thoughtful, and had acquired a young man's\nshapely moustache and beard--the latter of the palest straw colour\nwhere it began upon his cheeks, and deepening to a warm brown farther\nfrom its root.  Under his linen milking-pinner he wore a dark\nvelveteen jacket, cord breeches and gaiters, and a starched white\nshirt.  Without the milking-gear nobody could have guessed what\nhe was.  He might with equal probability have been an eccentric\nlandowner or a gentlemanly ploughman.  That he was but a novice at\ndairy work she had realized in a moment, from the time he had spent\nupon the milking of one cow.\n\nMeanwhile many of the milkmaids had said to one another of the\nnewcomer, \"How pretty she is!\" with something of real generosity and\nadmiration, though with a half hope that the auditors would qualify\nthe assertion--which, strictly speaking, they might have done,\nprettiness being an inexact definition of what struck the eye in\nTess.  When the milking was finished for the evening they straggled\nindoors, where Mrs Crick, the dairyman's wife--who was too\nrespectable to go out milking herself, and wore a hot stuff gown in\nwarm weather because the dairymaids wore prints--was giving an eye\nto the leads and things.\n\nOnly two or three of the maids, Tess learnt, slept in the dairy-house\nbesides herself, most of the helpers going to their homes.  She saw\nnothing at supper-time of the superior milker who had commented on\nthe story, and asked no questions about him, the remainder of the\nevening being occupied in arranging her place in the bed-chamber.\nIt was a large room over the milk-house, some thirty feet long; the\nsleeping-cots of the other three indoor milkmaids being in the same\napartment.  They were blooming young women, and, except one, rather\nolder than herself.  By bedtime Tess was thoroughly tired, and fell\nasleep immediately.\n\nBut one of the girls, who occupied an adjoining bed, was more wakeful\nthan Tess, and would insist upon relating to the latter various\nparticulars of the homestead into which she had just entered.  The\ngirl's whispered words mingled with the shades, and, to Tess's drowsy\nmind, they seemed to be generated by the darkness in which they\nfloated.\n\n\"Mr Angel Clare--he that is learning milking, and that plays\nthe harp--never says much to us.  He is a pa'son's son, and is\ntoo much taken up wi' his own thoughts to notice girls.  He is\nthe dairyman's pupil--learning farming in all its branches.  He\nhas learnt sheep-farming at another place, and he's now mastering\ndairy-work....  Yes, he is quite the gentleman-born.  His father is\nthe Reverent Mr Clare at Emminster--a good many miles from here.\"\n\n\"Oh--I have heard of him,\" said her companion, now awake.  \"A very\nearnest clergyman, is he not?\"\n\n\"Yes--that he is--the earnestest man in all Wessex, they say--the\nlast of the old Low Church sort, they tell me--for all about here be\nwhat they call High.  All his sons, except our Mr Clare, be made\npa'sons too.\"\n\nTess had not at this hour the curiosity to ask why the present Mr\nClare was not made a parson like his brethren, and gradually fell\nasleep again, the words of her informant coming to her along with the\nsmell of the cheeses in the adjoining cheeseloft, and the measured\ndripping of the whey from the wrings downstairs.\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\n\nAngel Clare rises out of the past not altogether as a distinct\nfigure, but as an appreciative voice, a long regard of fixed,\nabstracted eyes, and a mobility of mouth somewhat too small and\ndelicately lined for a man's, though with an unexpectedly firm close\nof the lower lip now and then; enough to do away with any inference\nof indecision.  Nevertheless, something nebulous, preoccupied, vague,\nin his bearing and regard, marked him as one who probably had no very\ndefinite aim or concern about his material future.  Yet as a lad\npeople had said of him that he was one who might do anything if he\ntried.\n\nHe was the youngest son of his father, a poor parson at the other end\nof the county, and had arrived at Talbothays Dairy as a six months'\npupil, after going the round of some other farms, his object being\nto acquire a practical skill in the various processes of farming,\nwith a view either to the Colonies or the tenure of a home-farm, as\ncircumstances might decide.\n\nHis entry into the ranks of the agriculturists and breeders was a\nstep in the young man's career which had been anticipated neither\nby himself nor by others.\n\nMr Clare the elder, whose first wife had died and left him a\ndaughter, married a second late in life.  This lady had somewhat\nunexpectedly brought him three sons, so that between Angel, the\nyoungest, and his father the Vicar there seemed to be almost a\nmissing generation.  Of these boys the aforesaid Angel, the child of\nhis old age, was the only son who had not taken a University degree,\nthough he was the single one of them whose early promise might have\ndone full justice to an academical training.\n\nSome two or three years before Angel's appearance at the Marlott\ndance, on a day when he had left school and was pursuing his studies\nat home, a parcel came to the Vicarage from the local bookseller's,\ndirected to the Reverend James Clare.  The Vicar having opened it and\nfound it to contain a book, read a few pages; whereupon he jumped up\nfrom his seat and went straight to the shop with the book under his\narm.\n\n\"Why has this been sent to my house?\" he asked peremptorily, holding\nup the volume.\n\n\"It was ordered, sir.\"\n\n\"Not by me, or any one belonging to me, I am happy to say.\"\n\nThe shopkeeper looked into his order-book.\n\n\"Oh, it has been misdirected, sir,\" he said.  \"It was ordered by Mr\nAngel Clare, and should have been sent to him.\"\n\nMr Clare winced as if he had been struck.  He went home pale and\ndejected, and called Angel into his study.\n\n\"Look into this book, my boy,\" he said.  \"What do you know about it?\"\n\n\"I ordered it,\" said Angel simply.\n\n\"What for?\"\n\n\"To read.\"\n\n\"How can you think of reading it?\"\n\n\"How can I?  Why--it is a system of philosophy.  There is no more\nmoral, or even religious, work published.\"\n\n\"Yes--moral enough; I don't deny that.  But religious!--and for YOU,\nwho intend to be a minister of the Gospel!\"\n\n\"Since you have alluded to the matter, father,\" said the son, with\nanxious thought upon his face, \"I should like to say, once for\nall, that I should prefer not to take Orders.  I fear I could not\nconscientiously do so.  I love the Church as one loves a parent.\nI shall always have the warmest affection for her.  There is no\ninstitution for whose history I have a deeper admiration; but I\ncannot honestly be ordained her minister, as my brothers are, while\nshe refuses to liberate her mind from an untenable redemptive\ntheolatry.\"\n\nIt had never occurred to the straightforward and simple-minded Vicar\nthat one of his own flesh and blood could come to this!  He was\nstultified, shocked, paralysed.  And if Angel were not going to\nenter the Church, what was the use of sending him to Cambridge?  The\nUniversity as a step to anything but ordination seemed, to this man\nof fixed ideas, a preface without a volume.  He was a man not merely\nreligious, but devout; a firm believer--not as the phrase is now\nelusively construed by theological thimble-riggers in the Church and\nout of it, but in the old and ardent sense of the Evangelical school:\none who could\n\n\n              Indeed opine\n        That the Eternal and Divine\n        Did, eighteen centuries ago\n        In very truth...\n\n\nAngel's father tried argument, persuasion, entreaty.\n\n\"No, father; I cannot underwrite Article Four (leave alone the rest),\ntaking it 'in the literal and grammatical sense' as required by the\nDeclaration; and, therefore, I can't be a parson in the present state\nof affairs,\" said Angel.  \"My whole instinct in matters of religion\nis towards reconstruction; to quote your favorite Epistle to the\nHebrews, 'the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things\nthat are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.'\"\n\nHis father grieved so deeply that it made Angel quite ill to see him.\n\n\"What is the good of your mother and me economizing and stinting\nourselves to give you a University education, if it is not to be used\nfor the honour and glory of God?\" his father repeated.\n\n\"Why, that it may be used for the honour and glory of man, father.\"\n\nPerhaps if Angel had persevered he might have gone to Cambridge like\nhis brothers.  But the Vicar's view of that seat of learning as a\nstepping-stone to Orders alone was quite a family tradition; and so\nrooted was the idea in his mind that perseverance began to appear to\nthe sensitive son akin to an intent to misappropriate a trust, and\nwrong the pious heads of the household, who had been and were, as his\nfather had hinted, compelled to exercise much thrift to carry out\nthis uniform plan of education for the three young men.\n\n\"I will do without Cambridge,\" said Angel at last.  \"I feel that I\nhave no right to go there in the circumstances.\"\n\nThe effects of this decisive debate were not long in showing\nthemselves.  He spent years and years in desultory studies,\nundertakings, and meditations; he began to evince considerable\nindifference to social forms and observances.  The material\ndistinctions of rank and wealth he increasingly despised.  Even the\n\"good old family\" (to use a favourite phrase of a late local worthy)\nhad no aroma for him unless there were good new resolutions in its\nrepresentatives.  As a balance to these austerities, when he went to\nlive in London to see what the world was like, and with a view to\npractising a profession or business there, he was carried off his\nhead, and nearly entrapped by a woman much older than himself, though\nluckily he escaped not greatly the worse for the experience.\n\nEarly association with country solitudes had bred in him an\nunconquerable, and almost unreasonable, aversion to modern town life,\nand shut him out from such success as he might have aspired to by\nfollowing a mundane calling in the impracticability of the spiritual\none.  But something had to be done; he had wasted many valuable\nyears; and having an acquaintance who was starting on a thriving life\nas a Colonial farmer, it occurred to Angel that this might be a lead\nin the right direction.  Farming, either in the Colonies, America, or\nat home--farming, at any rate, after becoming well qualified for the\nbusiness by a careful apprenticeship--that was a vocation which would\nprobably afford an independence without the sacrifice of what he\nvalued even more than a competency--intellectual liberty.\n\nSo we find Angel Clare at six-and-twenty here at Talbothays as a\nstudent of kine, and, as there were no houses near at hand in which\nhe could get a comfortable lodging, a boarder at the dairyman's.\n\nHis room was an immense attic which ran the whole length of the\ndairy-house.  It could only be reached by a ladder from the\ncheese-loft, and had been closed up for a long time till he arrived\nand selected it as his retreat.  Here Clare had plenty of space, and\ncould often be heard by the dairy-folk pacing up and down when the\nhousehold had gone to rest.  A portion was divided off at one end by\na curtain, behind which was his bed, the outer part being furnished\nas a homely sitting-room.\n\nAt first he lived up above entirely, reading a good deal, and\nstrumming upon an old harp which he had bought at a sale, saying when\nin a bitter humour that he might have to get his living by it in the\nstreets some day.  But he soon preferred to read human nature by\ntaking his meals downstairs in the general dining-kitchen, with the\ndairyman and his wife, and the maids and men, who all together formed\na lively assembly; for though but few milking hands slept in the\nhouse, several joined the family at meals.  The longer Clare resided\nhere the less objection had he to his company, and the more did he\nlike to share quarters with them in common.\n\nMuch to his surprise he took, indeed, a real delight in their\ncompanionship.  The conventional farm-folk of his imagination--\npersonified in the newspaper-press by the pitiable dummy known as\nHodge--were obliterated after a few days' residence.  At close\nquarters no Hodge was to be seen.  At first, it is true, when Clare's\nintelligence was fresh from a contrasting society, these friends with\nwhom he now hobnobbed seemed a little strange.  Sitting down as a\nlevel member of the dairyman's household seemed at the outset an\nundignified proceeding.  The ideas, the modes, the surroundings,\nappeared retrogressive and unmeaning.  But with living on there,\nday after day, the acute sojourner became conscious of a new aspect\nin the spectacle.  Without any objective change whatever, variety\nhad taken the place of monotonousness.  His host and his host's\nhousehold, his men and his maids, as they became intimately known to\nClare, began to differentiate themselves as in a chemical process.\nThe thought of Pascal's was brought home to him: \"_A mesure qu'on a\nplus d'esprit, on trouve qu'il y a plus d'hommes originaux.  Les\ngens du commun ne trouvent pas de différence entre les hommes._\"\nThe typical and unvarying Hodge ceased to exist.  He had been\ndisintegrated into a number of varied fellow-creatures--beings of\nmany minds, beings infinite in difference; some happy, many serene, a\nfew depressed, one here and there bright even to genius, some stupid,\nothers wanton, others austere; some mutely Miltonic, some potentially\nCromwellian--into men who had private views of each other, as he had\nof his friends; who could applaud or condemn each other, amuse or\nsadden themselves by the contemplation of each other's foibles or\nvices; men every one of whom walked in his own individual way the\nroad to dusty death.\n\nUnexpectedly he began to like the outdoor life for its own sake,\nand for what it brought, apart from its bearing on his own proposed\ncareer.  Considering his position he became wonderfully free from the\nchronic melancholy which is taking hold of the civilized races with\nthe decline of belief in a beneficent Power.  For the first time of\nlate years he could read as his musings inclined him, without any eye\nto cramming for a profession, since the few farming handbooks which\nhe deemed it desirable to master occupied him but little time.\n\nHe grew away from old associations, and saw something new in life and\nhumanity.  Secondarily, he made close acquaintance with phenomena\nwhich he had before known but darkly--the seasons in their moods,\nmorning and evening, night and noon, winds in their different\ntempers, trees, waters and mists, shades and silences, and the voices\nof inanimate things.\n\n\nThe early mornings were still sufficiently cool to render a fire\nacceptable in the large room wherein they breakfasted; and, by\nMrs Crick's orders, who held that he was too genteel to mess at\ntheir table, it was Angel Clare's custom to sit in the yawning\nchimney-corner during the meal, his cup-and-saucer and plate being\nplaced on a hinged flap at his elbow.  The light from the long, wide,\nmullioned window opposite shone in upon his nook, and, assisted by a\nsecondary light of cold blue quality which shone down the chimney,\nenabled him to read there easily whenever disposed to do so.  Between\nClare and the window was the table at which his companions sat, their\nmunching profiles rising sharp against the panes; while to the side\nwas the milk-house door, through which were visible the rectangular\nleads in rows, full to the brim with the morning's milk.  At the\nfurther end the great churn could be seen revolving, and its\nslip-slopping heard--the moving power being discernible through the\nwindow in the form of a spiritless horse walking in a circle and\ndriven by a boy.\n\nFor several days after Tess's arrival Clare, sitting abstractedly\nreading from some book, periodical, or piece of music just come by\npost, hardly noticed that she was present at table.  She talked so\nlittle, and the other maids talked so much, that the babble did not\nstrike him as possessing a new note, and he was ever in the habit\nof neglecting the particulars of an outward scene for the general\nimpression.  One day, however, when he had been conning one of his\nmusic-scores, and by force of imagination was hearing the tune in\nhis head, he lapsed into listlessness, and the music-sheet rolled\nto the hearth.  He looked at the fire of logs, with its one flame\npirouetting on the top in a dying dance after the breakfast-cooking\nand boiling, and it seemed to jig to his inward tune; also at the two\nchimney crooks dangling down from the cotterel, or cross-bar, plumed\nwith soot, which quivered to the same melody; also at the half-empty\nkettle whining an accompaniment.  The conversation at the table mixed\nin with his phantasmal orchestra till he thought: \"What a fluty voice\none of those milkmaids has!  I suppose it is the new one.\"\n\nClare looked round upon her, seated with the others.\n\nShe was not looking towards him.  Indeed, owing to his long silence,\nhis presence in the room was almost forgotten.\n\n\"I don't know about ghosts,\" she was saying; \"but I do know that our\nsouls can be made to go outside our bodies when we are alive.\"\n\nThe dairyman turned to her with his mouth full, his eyes charged\nwith serious inquiry, and his great knife and fork (breakfasts were\nbreakfasts here) planted erect on the table, like the beginning of\na gallows.\n\n\"What--really now?  And is it so, maidy?\" he said.\n\n\"A very easy way to feel 'em go,\" continued Tess, \"is to lie on the\ngrass at night and look straight up at some big bright star; and, by\nfixing your mind upon it, you will soon find that you are hundreds\nand hundreds o' miles away from your body, which you don't seem to\nwant at all.\"\n\nThe dairyman removed his hard gaze from Tess, and fixed it on his\nwife.\n\n\"Now that's a rum thing, Christianer--hey?  To think o' the miles\nI've vamped o' starlight nights these last thirty year, courting, or\ntrading, or for doctor, or for nurse, and yet never had the least\nnotion o' that till now, or feeled my soul rise so much as an inch\nabove my shirt-collar.\"\n\nThe general attention being drawn to her, including that of the\ndairyman's pupil, Tess flushed, and remarking evasively that it was\nonly a fancy, resumed her breakfast.\n\nClare continued to observe her.  She soon finished her eating, and\nhaving a consciousness that Clare was regarding her, began to trace\nimaginary patterns on the tablecloth with her forefinger with the\nconstraint of a domestic animal that perceives itself to be watched.\n\n\"What a fresh and virginal daughter of Nature that milkmaid is!\" he\nsaid to himself.\n\nAnd then he seemed to discern in her something that was familiar,\nsomething which carried him back into a joyous and unforeseeing past,\nbefore the necessity of taking thought had made the heavens gray.  He\nconcluded that he had beheld her before; where he could not tell.  A\ncasual encounter during some country ramble it certainly had been,\nand he was not greatly curious about it.  But the circumstance was\nsufficient to lead him to select Tess in preference to the other\npretty milkmaids when he wished to contemplate contiguous womankind.\n\n\n\nXIX\n\n\nIn general the cows were milked as they presented themselves, without\nfancy or choice.  But certain cows will show a fondness for a\nparticular pair of hands, sometimes carrying this predilection so far\nas to refuse to stand at all except to their favourite, the pail of a\nstranger being unceremoniously kicked over.\n\nIt was Dairyman Crick's rule to insist on breaking down these\npartialities and aversions by constant interchange, since otherwise,\nin the event of a milkman or maid going away from the dairy, he was\nplaced in a difficulty.  The maids' private aims, however, were the\nreverse of the dairyman's rule, the daily selection by each damsel of\nthe eight or ten cows to which she had grown accustomed rendering the\noperation on their willing udders surprisingly easy and effortless.\n\nTess, like her compeers, soon discovered which of the cows had a\npreference for her style of manipulation, and her fingers having\nbecome delicate from the long domiciliary imprisonments to which\nshe had subjected herself at intervals during the last two or three\nyears, she would have been glad to meet the milchers' views in\nthis respect.  Out of the whole ninety-five there were eight in\nparticular--Dumpling, Fancy, Lofty, Mist, Old Pretty, Young Pretty,\nTidy, and Loud--who, though the teats of one or two were as hard as\ncarrots, gave down to her with a readiness that made her work on them\na mere touch of the fingers.  Knowing, however, the dairyman's wish,\nshe endeavoured conscientiously to take the animals just as they\ncame, excepting the very hard yielders which she could not yet\nmanage.\n\nBut she soon found a curious correspondence between the ostensibly\nchance position of the cows and her wishes in this matter, till she\nfelt that their order could not be the result of accident.  The\ndairyman's pupil had lent a hand in getting the cows together of\nlate, and at the fifth or sixth time she turned her eyes, as she\nrested against the cow, full of sly inquiry upon him.\n\n\"Mr Clare, you have ranged the cows!\" she said, blushing; and in\nmaking the accusation, symptoms of a smile gently lifted her upper\nlip in spite of her, so as to show the tips of her teeth, the lower\nlip remaining severely still.\n\n\"Well, it makes no difference,\" said he.  \"You will always be here to\nmilk them.\"\n\n\"Do you think so?  I HOPE I shall!  But I don't KNOW.\"\n\nShe was angry with herself afterwards, thinking that he, unaware of\nher grave reasons for liking this seclusion, might have mistaken her\nmeaning.  She had spoken so earnestly to him, as if his presence\nwere somehow a factor in her wish.  Her misgiving was such that at\ndusk, when the milking was over, she walked in the garden alone, to\ncontinue her regrets that she had disclosed to him her discovery of\nhis considerateness.\n\nIt was a typical summer evening in June, the atmosphere being in\nsuch delicate equilibrium and so transmissive that inanimate objects\nseemed endowed with two or three senses, if not five.  There was no\ndistinction between the near and the far, and an auditor felt close\nto everything within the horizon.  The soundlessness impressed her as\na positive entity rather than as the mere negation of noise.  It was\nbroken by the strumming of strings.\n\nTess had heard those notes in the attic above her head.  Dim,\nflattened, constrained by their confinement, they had never appealed\nto her as now, when they wandered in the still air with a stark\nquality like that of nudity.  To speak absolutely, both instrument\nand execution were poor; but the relative is all, and as she listened\nTess, like a fascinated bird, could not leave the spot.  Far from\nleaving she drew up towards the performer, keeping behind the hedge\nthat he might not guess her presence.\n\nThe outskirt of the garden in which Tess found herself had been\nleft uncultivated for some years, and was now damp and rank with\njuicy grass which sent up mists of pollen at a touch; and with tall\nblooming weeds emitting offensive smells--weeds whose red and yellow\nand purple hues formed a polychrome as dazzling as that of cultivated\nflowers.  She went stealthily as a cat through this profusion of\ngrowth, gathering cuckoo-spittle on her skirts, cracking snails that\nwere underfoot, staining her hands with thistle-milk and slug-slime,\nand rubbing off upon her naked arms sticky blights which, though\nsnow-white on the apple-tree trunks, made madder stains on her skin;\nthus she drew quite near to Clare, still unobserved of him.\n\nTess was conscious of neither time nor space.  The exaltation which\nshe had described as being producible at will by gazing at a star\ncame now without any determination of hers; she undulated upon the\nthin notes of the second-hand harp, and their harmonies passed like\nbreezes through her, bringing tears into her eyes.  The floating\npollen seemed to be his notes made visible, and the dampness of\nthe garden the weeping of the garden's sensibility.  Though near\nnightfall, the rank-smelling weed-flowers glowed as if they would not\nclose for intentness, and the waves of colour mixed with the waves of\nsound.\n\nThe light which still shone was derived mainly from a large hole in\nthe western bank of cloud; it was like a piece of day left behind\nby accident, dusk having closed in elsewhere.  He concluded his\nplaintive melody, a very simple performance, demanding no great\nskill; and she waited, thinking another might be begun.  But, tired\nof playing, he had desultorily come round the fence, and was rambling\nup behind her.  Tess, her cheeks on fire, moved away furtively, as if\nhardly moving at all.\n\nAngel, however, saw her light summer gown, and he spoke; his low\ntones reaching her, though he was some distance off.\n\n\"What makes you draw off in that way, Tess?\" said he.  \"Are you\nafraid?\"\n\n\"Oh no, sir--not of outdoor things; especially just now when the\napple-blooth is falling, and everything is so green.\"\n\n\"But you have your indoor fears--eh?\"\n\n\"Well--yes, sir.\"\n\n\"What of?\"\n\n\"I couldn't quite say.\"\n\n\"The milk turning sour?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Life in general?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Ah--so have I, very often.  This hobble of being alive is rather\nserious, don't you think so?\"\n\n\"It is--now you put it that way.\"\n\n\"All the same, I shouldn't have expected a young girl like you to see\nit so just yet.  How is it you do?\"\n\nShe maintained a hesitating silence.\n\n\"Come, Tess, tell me in confidence.\"\n\nShe thought that he meant what were the aspects of things to her, and\nreplied shyly--\n\n\"The trees have inquisitive eyes, haven't they?--that is, seem as\nif they had.  And the river says,--'Why do ye trouble me with your\nlooks?'  And you seem to see numbers of to-morrows just all in a\nline, the first of them the biggest and clearest, the others getting\nsmaller and smaller as they stand farther away; but they all seem\nvery fierce and cruel and as if they said, 'I'm coming!  Beware of\nme!  Beware of me!' ...  But YOU, sir, can raise up dreams with your\nmusic, and drive all such horrid fancies away!\"\n\nHe was surprised to find this young woman--who though but a milkmaid\nhad just that touch of rarity about her which might make her the\nenvied of her housemates--shaping such sad imaginings.  She was\nexpressing in her own native phrases--assisted a little by her Sixth\nStandard training--feelings which might almost have been called those\nof the age--the ache of modernism.  The perception arrested him less\nwhen he reflected that what are called advanced ideas are really in\ngreat part but the latest fashion in definition--a more accurate\nexpression, by words in _logy_ and _ism_, of sensations which men and\nwomen have vaguely grasped for centuries.\n\nStill, it was strange that they should have come to her while yet so\nyoung; more than strange; it was impressive, interesting, pathetic.\nNot guessing the cause, there was nothing to remind him that\nexperience is as to intensity, and not as to duration.  Tess's\npassing corporeal blight had been her mental harvest.\n\nTess, on her part, could not understand why a man of clerical family\nand good education, and above physical want, should look upon it as a\nmishap to be alive.  For the unhappy pilgrim herself there was very\ngood reason.  But how could this admirable and poetic man ever have\ndescended into the Valley of Humiliation, have felt with the man of\nUz--as she herself had felt two or three years ago--\"My soul chooseth\nstrangling and death rather than my life.  I loathe it; I would not\nlive alway.\"\n\nIt was true that he was at present out of his class.  But she knew\nthat was only because, like Peter the Great in a shipwright's yard,\nhe was studying what he wanted to know.  He did not milk cows because\nhe was obliged to milk cows, but because he was learning to be a\nrich and prosperous dairyman, landowner, agriculturist, and breeder\nof cattle.  He would become an American or Australian Abraham,\ncommanding like a monarch his flocks and his herds, his spotted\nand his ring-straked, his men-servants and his maids.  At times,\nnevertheless, it did seem unaccountable to her that a decidedly\nbookish, musical, thinking young man should have chosen deliberately\nto be a farmer, and not a clergyman, like his father and brothers.\n\nThus, neither having the clue to the other's secret, they were\nrespectively puzzled at what each revealed, and awaited new knowledge\nof each other's character and mood without attempting to pry into\neach other's history.\n\n\nEvery day, every hour, brought to him one more little stroke of\nher nature, and to her one more of his.  Tess was trying to lead a\nrepressed life, but she little divined the strength of her own\nvitality.\n\nAt first Tess seemed to regard Angel Clare as an intelligence rather\nthan as a man.  As such she compared him with herself; and at every\ndiscovery of the abundance of his illuminations, of the distance\nbetween her own modest mental standpoint and the unmeasurable, Andean\naltitude of his, she became quite dejected, disheartened from all\nfurther effort on her own part whatever.\n\nHe observed her dejection one day, when he had casually mentioned\nsomething to her about pastoral life in ancient Greece.  She was\ngathering the buds called \"lords and ladies\" from the bank while he\nspoke.\n\n\"Why do you look so woebegone all of a sudden?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, 'tis only--about my own self,\" she said, with a frail laugh of\nsadness, fitfully beginning to peel \"a lady\" meanwhile.  \"Just a\nsense of what might have been with me!  My life looks as if it had\nbeen wasted for want of chances!  When I see what you know, what you\nhave read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am!  I'm\nlike the poor Queen of Sheba who lived in the Bible.  There is no\nmore spirit in me.\"\n\n\"Bless my soul, don't go troubling about that!  Why,\" he said with\nsome enthusiasm, \"I should be only too glad, my dear Tess, to help\nyou to anything in the way of history, or any line of reading you\nwould like to take up--\"\n\n\"It is a lady again,\" interrupted she, holding out the bud she had\npeeled.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I meant that there are always more ladies than lords when you come\nto peel them.\"\n\n\"Never mind about the lords and ladies.  Would you like to take up\nany course of study--history, for example?\"\n\n\"Sometimes I feel I don't want to know anything more about it than I\nknow already.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row\nonly--finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody\njust like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me\nsad, that's all.  The best is not to remember that your nature and\nyour past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands', and\nthat your coming life and doings 'll be like thousands's and\nthousands'.\"\n\n\"What, really, then, you don't want to learn anything?\"\n\n\"I shouldn't mind learning why--why the sun do shine on the just and\nthe unjust alike,\" she answered, with a slight quaver in her voice.\n\"But that's what books will not tell me.\"\n\n\"Tess, fie for such bitterness!\"  Of course he spoke with a\nconventional sense of duty only, for that sort of wondering had not\nbeen unknown to himself in bygone days.  And as he looked at the\nunpracticed mouth and lips, he thought that such a daughter of the\nsoil could only have caught up the sentiment by rote.  She went on\npeeling the lords and ladies till Clare, regarding for a moment the\nwave-like curl of her lashes as they dropped with her bent gaze on\nher soft cheek, lingeringly went away.  When he was gone she stood\nawhile, thoughtfully peeling the last bud; and then, awakening\nfrom her reverie, flung it and all the crowd of floral nobility\nimpatiently on the ground, in an ebullition of displeasure with\nherself for her _niaiserie_, and with a quickening warmth in her\nheart of hearts.\n\nHow stupid he must think her!  In an access of hunger for his good\nopinion she bethought herself of what she had latterly endeavoured to\nforget, so unpleasant had been its issues--the identity of her family\nwith that of the knightly d'Urbervilles.  Barren attribute as it was,\ndisastrous as its discovery had been in many ways to her, perhaps\nMr Clare, as a gentleman and a student of history, would respect\nher sufficiently to forget her childish conduct with the lords and\nladies if he knew that those Purbeck-marble and alabaster people in\nKingsbere Church really represented her own lineal forefathers; that\nshe was no spurious d'Urberville, compounded of money and ambition\nlike those at Trantridge, but true d'Urberville to the bone.\n\nBut, before venturing to make the revelation, dubious Tess indirectly\nsounded the dairyman as to its possible effect upon Mr Clare, by\nasking the former if Mr Clare had any great respect for old county\nfamilies when they had lost all their money and land.\n\n\"Mr Clare,\" said the dairyman emphatically, \"is one of the most\nrebellest rozums you ever knowed--not a bit like the rest of his\nfamily; and if there's one thing that he do hate more than another\n'tis the notion of what's called a' old family.  He says that it\nstands to reason that old families have done their spurt of work in\npast days, and can't have anything left in 'em now.  There's the\nBillets and the Drenkhards and the Greys and the St Quintins and\nthe Hardys and the Goulds, who used to own the lands for miles down\nthis valley; you could buy 'em all up now for an old song a'most.\nWhy, our little Retty Priddle here, you know, is one of the\nParidelles--the old family that used to own lots o' the lands out by\nKing's Hintock, now owned by the Earl o' Wessex, afore even he or\nhis was heard of.  Well, Mr Clare found this out, and spoke quite\nscornful to the poor girl for days.  'Ah!' he says to her, 'you'll\nnever make a good dairymaid!  All your skill was used up ages ago\nin Palestine, and you must lie fallow for a thousand years to git\nstrength for more deeds!'  A boy came here t'other day asking for\na job, and said his name was Matt, and when we asked him his surname\nhe said he'd never heard that 'a had any surname, and when we asked\nwhy, he said he supposed his folks hadn't been 'stablished long\nenough.  'Ah! you're the very boy I want!' says Mr Clare, jumping\nup and shaking hands wi'en; 'I've great hopes of you;' and gave him\nhalf-a-crown.  O no! he can't stomach old families!\"\n\nAfter hearing this caricature of Clare's opinion poor Tess was glad\nthat she had not said a word in a weak moment about her family--even\nthough it was so unusually old almost to have gone round the circle\nand become a new one.  Besides, another diary-girl was as good as\nshe, it seemed, in that respect.  She held her tongue about the\nd'Urberville vault and the Knight of the Conqueror whose name she\nbore.  The insight afforded into Clare's character suggested to her\nthat it was largely owing to her supposed untraditional newness that\nshe had won interest in his eyes.\n\n\n\nXX\n\n\nThe season developed and matured.  Another year's instalment of\nflowers, leaves, nightingales, thrushes, finches, and such ephemeral\ncreatures, took up their positions where only a year ago others had\nstood in their place when these were nothing more than germs and\ninorganic particles.  Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and\nstretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams,\nopened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and\nbreathings.\n\nDairyman Crick's household of maids and men lived on comfortably,\nplacidly, even merrily.  Their position was perhaps the happiest of\nall positions in the social scale, being above the line at which\nneediness ends, and below the line at which the _convenances_ begin\nto cramp natural feelings, and the stress of threadbare modishness\nmakes too little of enough.\n\nThus passed the leafy time when arborescence seems to be the one\nthing aimed at out of doors.  Tess and Clare unconsciously studied\neach other, ever balanced on the edge of a passion, yet apparently\nkeeping out of it.  All the while they were converging, under an\nirresistible law, as surely as two streams in one vale.\n\nTess had never in her recent life been so happy as she was now,\npossibly never would be so happy again.  She was, for one thing,\nphysically and mentally suited among these new surroundings.  The\nsapling which had rooted down to a poisonous stratum on the spot of\nits sowing had been transplanted to a deeper soil.  Moreover she, and\nClare also, stood as yet on the debatable land between predilection\nand love; where no profundities have been reached; no reflections\nhave set in, awkwardly inquiring, \"Whither does this new current tend\nto carry me?  What does it mean to my future?  How does it stand\ntowards my past?\"\n\nTess was the merest stray phenomenon to Angel Clare as yet--a rosy,\nwarming apparition which had only just acquired the attribute of\npersistence in his consciousness.  So he allowed his mind to be\noccupied with her, deeming his preoccupation to be no more than a\nphilosopher's regard of an exceedingly novel, fresh, and interesting\nspecimen of womankind.\n\nThey met continually; they could not help it.  They met daily in that\nstrange and solemn interval, the twilight of the morning, in the\nviolet or pink dawn; for it was necessary to rise early, so very\nearly, here.  Milking was done betimes; and before the milking came\nthe skimming, which began at a little past three.  It usually fell\nto the lot of some one or other of them to wake the rest, the first\nbeing aroused by an alarm-clock; and, as Tess was the latest arrival,\nand they soon discovered that she could be depended upon not to sleep\nthough the alarm as others did, this task was thrust most frequently\nupon her.  No sooner had the hour of three struck and whizzed,\nthan she left her room and ran to the dairyman's door; then up the\nladder to Angel's, calling him in a loud whisper; then woke her\nfellow-milkmaids.  By the time that Tess was dressed Clare was\ndownstairs and out in the humid air.  The remaining maids and the\ndairyman usually gave themselves another turn on the pillow, and did\nnot appear till a quarter of an hour later.\n\nThe gray half-tones of daybreak are not the gray half-tones of the\nday's close, though the degree of their shade may be the same.  In\nthe twilight of the morning, light seems active, darkness passive;\nin the twilight of evening it is the darkness which is active and\ncrescent, and the light which is the drowsy reverse.\n\nBeing so often--possibly not always by chance--the first two persons\nto get up at the dairy-house, they seemed to themselves the first\npersons up of all the world.  In these early days of her residence\nhere Tess did not skim, but went out of doors at once after rising,\nwhere he was generally awaiting her.  The spectral, half-compounded,\naqueous light which pervaded the open mead impressed them with\na feeling of isolation, as if they were Adam and Eve.  At this\ndim inceptive stage of the day Tess seemed to Clare to exhibit a\ndignified largeness both of disposition and physique, an almost\nregnant power, possibly because he knew that at that preternatural\ntime hardly any woman so well endowed in person as she was likely to\nbe walking in the open air within the boundaries of his horizon; very\nfew in all England.  Fair women are usually asleep at mid-summer\ndawns.  She was close at hand, and the rest were nowhere.\n\nThe mixed, singular, luminous gloom in which they walked along\ntogether to the spot where the cows lay often made him think of the\nResurrection hour.  He little thought that the Magdalen might be\nat his side.  Whilst all the landscape was in neutral shade his\ncompanion's face, which was the focus of his eyes, rising above the\nmist stratum, seemed to have a sort of phosphorescence upon it.  She\nlooked ghostly, as if she were merely a soul at large.  In reality\nher face, without appearing to do so, had caught the cold gleam of\nday from the north-east; his own face, though he did not think of\nit, wore the same aspect to her.\n\nIt was then, as has been said, that she impressed him most deeply.\nShe was no longer the milkmaid, but a visionary essence of woman--a\nwhole sex condensed into one typical form.  He called her Artemis,\nDemeter, and other fanciful names half teasingly, which she did not\nlike because she did not understand them.\n\n\"Call me Tess,\" she would say askance; and he did.\n\nThen it would grow lighter, and her features would become simply\nfeminine; they had changed from those of a divinity who could confer\nbliss to those of a being who craved it.\n\nAt these non-human hours they could get quite close to the waterfowl.\nHerons came, with a great bold noise as of opening doors and\nshutters, out of the boughs of a plantation which they frequented at\nthe side of the mead; or, if already on the spot, hardily maintained\ntheir standing in the water as the pair walked by, watching them by\nmoving their heads round in a slow, horizontal, passionless wheel,\nlike the turn of puppets by clockwork.\n\nThey could then see the faint summer fogs in layers, woolly, level,\nand apparently no thicker than counterpanes, spread about the meadows\nin detached remnants of small extent.  On the gray moisture of the\ngrass were marks where the cows had lain through the night--dark-green\nislands of dry herbage the size of their carcasses, in the general\nsea of dew. From each island proceeded a serpentine trail, by which\nthe cow had rambled away to feed after getting up, at the end of\nwhich trail they found her; the snoring puff from her nostrils, when\nshe recognized them, making an intenser little fog of her own amid\nthe prevailing one.  Then they drove the animals back to the barton,\nor sat down to milk them on the spot, as the case might require.\n\nOr perhaps the summer fog was more general, and the meadows lay like\na white sea, out of which the scattered trees rose like dangerous\nrocks.  Birds would soar through it into the upper radiance, and\nhang on the wing sunning themselves, or alight on the wet rails\nsubdividing the mead, which now shone like glass rods.  Minute\ndiamonds of moisture from the mist hung, too, upon Tess's eyelashes,\nand drops upon her hair, like seed pearls.  When the day grew quite\nstrong and commonplace these dried off her; moreover, Tess then\nlost her strange and ethereal beauty; her teeth, lips, and eyes\nscintillated in the sunbeams and she was again the dazzlingly fair\ndairymaid only, who had to hold her own against the other women of\nthe world.\n\nAbout this time they would hear Dairyman Crick's voice, lecturing the\nnon-resident milkers for arriving late, and speaking sharply to old\nDeborah Fyander for not washing her hands.\n\n\"For Heaven's sake, pop thy hands under the pump, Deb!  Upon my soul,\nif the London folk only knowed of thee and thy slovenly ways, they'd\nswaller their milk and butter more mincing than they do a'ready; and\nthat's saying a good deal.\"\n\nThe milking progressed, till towards the end Tess and Clare, in\ncommon with the rest, could hear the heavy breakfast table dragged\nout from the wall in the kitchen by Mrs Crick, this being the\ninvariable preliminary to each meal; the same horrible scrape\naccompanying its return journey when the table had been cleared.\n\n\n\nXXI\n\n\nThere was a great stir in the milk-house just after breakfast.  The\nchurn revolved as usual, but the butter would not come.  Whenever\nthis happened the dairy was paralyzed.  Squish, squash echoed the\nmilk in the great cylinder, but never arose the sound they waited\nfor.\n\nDairyman Crick and his wife, the milkmaids Tess, Marian, Retty\nPriddle, Izz Huett, and the married ones from the cottages; also\nMr Clare, Jonathan Kail, old Deborah, and the rest, stood gazing\nhopelessly at the churn; and the boy who kept the horse going outside\nput on moon-like eyes to show his sense of the situation.  Even the\nmelancholy horse himself seemed to look in at the window in inquiring\ndespair at each walk round.\n\n\"'Tis years since I went to Conjuror Trendle's son in Egdon--years!\"\nsaid the dairyman bitterly.  \"And he was nothing to what his father\nhad been.  I have said fifty times, if I have said once, that I DON'T\nbelieve in en; though 'a do cast folks' waters very true.  But I\nshall have to go to 'n if he's alive.  O yes, I shall have to go to\n'n, if this sort of thing continnys!\"\n\nEven Mr Clare began to feel tragical at the dairyman's desperation.\n\n\"Conjuror Fall, t'other side of Casterbridge, that they used to call\n'Wide-O', was a very good man when I was a boy,\" said Jonathan Kail.\n\"But he's rotten as touchwood by now.\"\n\n\"My grandfather used to go to Conjuror Mynterne, out at Owlscombe,\nand a clever man a' were, so I've heard grandf'er say,\" continued Mr\nCrick.  \"But there's no such genuine folk about nowadays!\"\n\nMrs Crick's mind kept nearer to the matter in hand.\n\n\"Perhaps somebody in the house is in love,\" she said tentatively.\n\"I've heard tell in my younger days that that will cause it.  Why,\nCrick--that maid we had years ago, do ye mind, and how the butter\ndidn't come then--\"\n\n\"Ah yes, yes!--but that isn't the rights o't.  It had nothing to do\nwith the love-making.  I can mind all about it--'twas the damage to\nthe churn.\"\n\nHe turned to Clare.\n\n\"Jack Dollop, a 'hore's-bird of a fellow we had here as milker at one\ntime, sir, courted a young woman over at Mellstock, and deceived her\nas he had deceived many afore.  But he had another sort o' woman to\nreckon wi' this time, and it was not the girl herself.  One Holy\nThursday of all days in the almanack, we was here as we mid be now,\nonly there was no churning in hand, when we zid the girl's mother\ncoming up to the door, wi' a great brass-mounted umbrella in her\nhand that would ha' felled an ox, and saying 'Do Jack Dollop work\nhere?--because I want him!  I have a big bone to pick with he, I\ncan assure 'n!'  And some way behind her mother walked Jack's young\nwoman, crying bitterly into her handkercher.  'O Lard, here's a\ntime!' said Jack, looking out o' winder at 'em.  'She'll murder me!\nWhere shall I get--where shall I--?  Don't tell her where I be!'\nAnd with that he scrambled into the churn through the trap-door, and\nshut himself inside, just as the young woman's mother busted into\nthe milk-house.  'The villain--where is he?' says she.  'I'll claw\nhis face for'n, let me only catch him!'  Well, she hunted about\neverywhere, ballyragging Jack by side and by seam, Jack lying\na'most stifled inside the churn, and the poor maid--or young woman\nrather--standing at the door crying her eyes out.  I shall never\nforget it, never! 'Twould have melted a marble stone!  But she\ncouldn't find him nowhere at all.\"\n\nThe dairyman paused, and one or two words of comment came from the\nlisteners.\n\nDairyman Crick's stories often seemed to be ended when they were not\nreally so, and strangers were betrayed into premature interjections\nof finality; though old friends knew better.  The narrator went on--\n\n\"Well, how the old woman should have had the wit to guess it I could\nnever tell, but she found out that he was inside that there churn.\nWithout saying a word she took hold of the winch (it was turned by\nhandpower then), and round she swung him, and Jack began to flop\nabout inside.  'O Lard! stop the churn! let me out!' says he, popping\nout his head.  'I shall be churned into a pummy!'  (He was a cowardly\nchap in his heart, as such men mostly be).  'Not till ye make amends\nfor ravaging her virgin innocence!' says the old woman.  'Stop the\nchurn you old witch!' screams he.  'You call me old witch, do ye, you\ndeceiver!' says she, 'when ye ought to ha' been calling me mother-law\nthese last five months!'  And on went the churn, and Jack's bones\nrattled round again.  Well, none of us ventured to interfere; and at\nlast 'a promised to make it right wi' her.  'Yes--I'll be as good as\nmy word!' he said.  And so it ended that day.\"\n\nWhile the listeners were smiling their comments there was a\nquick movement behind their backs, and they looked round.  Tess,\npale-faced, had gone to the door.\n\n\"How warm 'tis to-day!\" she said, almost inaudibly.\n\nIt was warm, and none of them connected her withdrawal with the\nreminiscences of the dairyman.  He went forward and opened the door\nfor her, saying with tender raillery--\n\n\"Why, maidy\" (he frequently, with unconscious irony, gave her this\npet name), \"the prettiest milker I've got in my dairy; you mustn't\nget so fagged as this at the first breath of summer weather, or we\nshall be finely put to for want of 'ee by dog-days, shan't we, Mr\nClare?\"\n\n\"I was faint--and--I think I am better out o' doors,\" she said\nmechanically; and disappeared outside.\n\nFortunately for her the milk in the revolving churn at that moment\nchanged its squashing for a decided flick-flack.\n\n\"'Tis coming!\" cried Mrs Crick, and the attention of all was called\noff from Tess.\n\nThat fair sufferer soon recovered herself externally; but she\nremained much depressed all the afternoon. When the evening milking\nwas done she did not care to be with the rest of them, and went out\nof doors, wandering along she knew not whither.  She was wretched--O\nso wretched--at the perception that to her companions the dairyman's\nstory had been rather a humorous narration than otherwise; none of\nthem but herself seemed to see the sorrow of it; to a certainty, not\none knew how cruelly it touched the tender place in her experience.\nThe evening sun was now ugly to her, like a great inflamed wound in\nthe sky.  Only a solitary cracked-voice reed-sparrow greeted her from\nthe bushes by the river, in a sad, machine-made tone, resembling that\nof a past friend whose friendship she had outworn.\n\nIn these long June days the milkmaids, and, indeed, most of the\nhousehold, went to bed at sunset or sooner, the morning work before\nmilking being so early and heavy at a time of full pails.  Tess\nusually accompanied her fellows upstairs.  To-night, however, she was\nthe first to go to their common chamber; and she had dozed when the\nother girls came in.  She saw them undressing in the orange light\nof the vanished sun, which flushed their forms with its colour; she\ndozed again, but she was reawakened by their voices, and quietly\nturned her eyes towards them.\n\nNeither of her three chamber-companions had got into bed.  They were\nstanding in a group, in their nightgowns, barefooted, at the window,\nthe last red rays of the west still warming their faces and necks and\nthe walls around them.  All were watching somebody in the garden with\ndeep interest, their three faces close together: a jovial and round\none, a pale one with dark hair, and a fair one whose tresses were\nauburn.\n\n\"Don't push!  You can see as well as I,\" said Retty, the\nauburn-haired and youngest girl, without removing her eyes from the\nwindow.\n\n\"'Tis no use for you to be in love with him any more than me, Retty\nPriddle,\" said jolly-faced Marian, the eldest, slily.  \"His thoughts\nbe of other cheeks than thine!\"\n\nRetty Priddle still looked, and the others looked again.\n\n\"There he is again!\" cried Izz Huett, the pale girl with dark damp\nhair and keenly cut lips.\n\n\"You needn't say anything, Izz,\" answered Retty.  \"For I zid you\nkissing his shade.\"\n\n\"WHAT did you see her doing?\" asked Marian.\n\n\"Why--he was standing over the whey-tub to let off the whey, and the\nshade of his face came upon the wall behind, close to Izz, who was\nstanding there filling a vat.  She put her mouth against the wall and\nkissed the shade of his mouth; I zid her, though he didn't.\"\n\n\"O Izz Huett!\" said Marian.\n\nA rosy spot came into the middle of Izz Huett's cheek.\n\n\"Well, there was no harm in it,\" she declared, with attempted\ncoolness.  \"And if I be in love wi'en, so is Retty, too; and so be\nyou, Marian, come to that.\"\n\nMarian's full face could not blush past its chronic pinkness.\n\n\"I!\" she said.  \"What a tale!  Ah, there he is again!  Dear\neyes--dear face--dear Mr Clare!\"\n\n\"There--you've owned it!\"\n\n\"So have you--so have we all,\" said Marian, with the dry frankness of\ncomplete indifference to opinion.  \"It is silly to pretend otherwise\namongst ourselves, though we need not own it to other folks.  I would\njust marry 'n to-morrow!\"\n\n\"So would I--and more,\" murmured Izz Huett.\n\n\"And I too,\" whispered the more timid Retty.\n\nThe listener grew warm.\n\n\"We can't all marry him,\" said Izz.\n\n\"We shan't, either of us; which is worse still,\" said the eldest.\n\"There he is again!\"\n\nThey all three blew him a silent kiss.\n\n\"Why?\" asked Retty quickly.\n\n\"Because he likes Tess Durbeyfield best,\" said Marian, lowering her\nvoice.  \"I have watched him every day, and have found it out.\"\n\nThere was a reflective silence.\n\n\"But she don't care anything for 'n?\" at length breathed Retty.\n\n\"Well--I sometimes think that too.\"\n\n\"But how silly all this is!\" said Izz Huett impatiently.  \"Of course\nhe won't marry any one of us, or Tess either--a gentleman's son,\nwho's going to be a great landowner and farmer abroad!  More likely\nto ask us to come wi'en as farm-hands at so much a year!\"\n\nOne sighed, and another sighed, and Marian's plump figure sighed\nbiggest of all.  Somebody in bed hard by sighed too.  Tears came into\nthe eyes of Retty Priddle, the pretty red-haired youngest--the last\nbud of the Paridelles, so important in the county annals.  They\nwatched silently a little longer, their three faces still close\ntogether as before, and the triple hues of their hair mingling.  But\nthe unconscious Mr Clare had gone indoors, and they saw him no more;\nand, the shades beginning to deepen, they crept into their beds.\nIn a few minutes they heard him ascend the ladder to his own room.\nMarian was soon snoring, but Izz did not drop into forgetfulness for\na long time.  Retty Priddle cried herself to sleep.\n\nThe deeper-passioned Tess was very far from sleeping even then.  This\nconversation was another of the bitter pills she had been obliged to\nswallow that day.  Scarce the least feeling of jealousy arose in her\nbreast.  For that matter she knew herself to have the preference.\nBeing more finely formed, better educated, and, though the youngest\nexcept Retty, more woman than either, she perceived that only the\nslightest ordinary care was necessary for holding her own in Angel\nClare's heart against these her candid friends.  But the grave\nquestion was, ought she to do this?  There was, to be sure, hardly a\nghost of a chance for either of them, in a serious sense; but there\nwas, or had been, a chance of one or the other inspiring him with a\npassing fancy for her, and enjoying the pleasure of his attentions\nwhile he stayed here.  Such unequal attachments had led to marriage;\nand she had heard from Mrs Crick that Mr Clare had one day asked, in\na laughing way, what would be the use of his marrying a fine lady,\nand all the while ten thousand acres of Colonial pasture to feed,\nand cattle to rear, and corn to reap.  A farm-woman would be the\nonly sensible kind of wife for him.  But whether Mr Clare had spoken\nseriously or not, why should she, who could never conscientiously\nallow any man to marry her now, and who had religiously determined\nthat she never would be tempted to do so, draw off Mr Clare's\nattention from other women, for the brief happiness of sunning\nherself in his eyes while he remained at Talbothays?\n\n\n\nXXII\n\n\nThey came downstairs yawning next morning; but skimming and milking\nwere proceeded with as usual, and they went indoors to breakfast.\nDairyman Crick was discovered stamping about the house.  He had\nreceived a letter, in which a customer had complained that the butter\nhad a twang.\n\n\"And begad, so 't have!\" said the dairyman, who held in his left hand\na wooden slice on which a lump of butter was stuck. \"Yes--taste for\nyourself!\"\n\nSeveral of them gathered round him; and Mr Clare tasted, Tess tasted,\nalso the other indoor milkmaids, one or two of the milking-men, and\nlast of all Mrs Crick, who came out from the waiting breakfast-table.\nThere certainly was a twang.\n\nThe dairyman, who had thrown himself into abstraction to better\nrealize the taste, and so divine the particular species of noxious\nweed to which it appertained, suddenly exclaimed--\n\n\"'Tis garlic! and I thought there wasn't a blade left in that mead!\"\n\nThen all the old hands remembered that a certain dry mead, into which\na few of the cows had been admitted of late, had, in years gone by,\nspoilt the butter in the same way.  The dairyman had not recognized\nthe taste at that time, and thought the butter bewitched.\n\n\"We must overhaul that mead,\" he resumed; \"this mustn't continny!\"\n\nAll having armed themselves with old pointed knives, they went out\ntogether.  As the inimical plant could only be present in very\nmicroscopic dimensions to have escaped ordinary observation, to\nfind it seemed rather a hopeless attempt in the stretch of rich\ngrass before them.  However, they formed themselves into line, all\nassisting, owing to the importance of the search; the dairyman at\nthe upper end with Mr Clare, who had volunteered to help; then\nTess, Marian, Izz Huett, and Retty; then Bill Lewell, Jonathan, and\nthe married dairywomen--Beck Knibbs, with her wooly black hair and\nrolling eyes; and flaxen Frances, consumptive from the winter damps\nof the water-meads--who lived in their respective cottages.\n\nWith eyes fixed upon the ground they crept slowly across a strip of\nthe field, returning a little further down in such a manner that,\nwhen they should have finished, not a single inch of the pasture but\nwould have fallen under the eye of some one of them.  It was a most\ntedious business, not more than half a dozen shoots of garlic being\ndiscoverable in the whole field; yet such was the herb's pungency\nthat probably one bite of it by one cow had been sufficient to season\nthe whole dairy's produce for the day.\n\nDiffering one from another in natures and moods so greatly as they\ndid, they yet formed, bending, a curiously uniform row--automatic,\nnoiseless; and an alien observer passing down the neighbouring lane\nmight well have been excused for massing them as \"Hodge\".  As they\ncrept along, stooping low to discern the plant, a soft yellow gleam\nwas reflected from the buttercups into their shaded faces, giving\nthem an elfish, moonlit aspect, though the sun was pouring upon their\nbacks in all the strength of noon.\n\nAngel Clare, who communistically stuck to his rule of taking part\nwith the rest in everything, glanced up now and then.  It was not,\nof course, by accident that he walked next to Tess.\n\n\"Well, how are you?\" he murmured.\n\n\"Very well, thank you, sir,\" she replied demurely.\n\nAs they had been discussing a score of personal matters only\nhalf-an-hour before, the introductory style seemed a little\nsuperfluous.  But they got no further in speech just then.  They\ncrept and crept, the hem of her petticoat just touching his gaiter,\nand his elbow sometimes brushing hers.  At last the dairyman, who\ncame next, could stand it no longer.\n\n\"Upon my soul and body, this here stooping do fairly make my back\nopen and shut!\" he exclaimed, straightening himself slowly with an\nexcruciated look till quite upright.  \"And you, maidy Tess, you\nwasn't well a day or two ago--this will make your head ache finely!\nDon't do any more, if you feel fainty; leave the rest to finish it.\"\n\nDairyman Crick withdrew, and Tess dropped behind.  Mr Clare also\nstepped out of line, and began privateering about for the weed.  When\nshe found him near her, her very tension at what she had heard the\nnight before made her the first to speak.\n\n\"Don't they look pretty?\" she said.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Izzy Huett and Retty.\"\n\nTess had moodily decided that either of these maidens would make a\ngood farmer's wife, and that she ought to recommend them, and obscure\nher own wretched charms.\n\n\"Pretty?  Well, yes--they are pretty girls--fresh looking.  I have\noften thought so.\"\n\n\"Though, poor dears, prettiness won't last long!\"\n\n\"O no, unfortunately.\"\n\n\"They are excellent dairywomen.\"\n\n\"Yes: though not better than you.\"\n\n\"They skim better than I.\"\n\n\"Do they?\"\n\nClare remained observing them--not without their observing him.\n\n\"She is colouring up,\" continued Tess heroically.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Retty Priddle.\"\n\n\"Oh!  Why it that?\"\n\n\"Because you are looking at her.\"\n\nSelf-sacrificing as her mood might be, Tess could not well go further\nand cry, \"Marry one of them, if you really do want a dairywoman and\nnot a lady; and don't think of marrying me!\"  She followed Dairyman\nCrick, and had the mournful satisfaction of seeing that Clare\nremained behind.\n\nFrom this day she forced herself to take pains to avoid him--never\nallowing herself, as formerly, to remain long in his company, even if\ntheir juxtaposition were purely accidental.  She gave the other three\nevery chance.\n\nTess was woman enough to realize from their avowals to herself that\nAngel Clare had the honour of all the dairymaids in his keeping, and\nher perception of his care to avoid compromising the happiness of\neither in the least degree bred a tender respect in Tess for what she\ndeemed, rightly or wrongly, the self-controlling sense of duty shown\nby him, a quality which she had never expected to find in one of the\nopposite sex, and in the absence of which more than one of the simple\nhearts who were his house-mates might have gone weeping on her\npilgrimage.\n\n\n\nXXIII\n\n\nThe hot weather of July had crept upon them unawares, and the\natmosphere of the flat vale hung heavy as an opiate over the\ndairy-folk, the cows, and the trees.  Hot steaming rains fell\nfrequently, making the grass where the cows fed yet more rank, and\nhindering the late hay-making in the other meads.\n\nIt was Sunday morning; the milking was done; the outdoor milkers\nhad gone home.  Tess and the other three were dressing themselves\nrapidly, the whole bevy having agreed to go together to Mellstock\nChurch, which lay some three or four miles distant from the\ndairy-house.  She had now been two months at Talbothays, and this\nwas her first excursion.\n\nAll the preceding afternoon and night heavy thunderstorms had hissed\ndown upon the meads, and washed some of the hay into the river; but\nthis morning the sun shone out all the more brilliantly for the\ndeluge, and the air was balmy and clear.\n\nThe crooked lane leading from their own parish to Mellstock ran along\nthe lowest levels in a portion of its length, and when the girls\nreached the most depressed spot they found that the result of the\nrain had been to flood the lane over-shoe to a distance of some fifty\nyards.  This would have been no serious hindrance on a week-day; they\nwould have clicked through it in their high pattens and boots quite\nunconcerned; but on this day of vanity, this Sun's-day, when flesh\nwent forth to coquet with flesh while hypocritically affecting\nbusiness with spiritual things; on this occasion for wearing their\nwhite stockings and thin shoes, and their pink, white, and lilac\ngowns, on which every mud spot would be visible, the pool was an\nawkward impediment.  They could hear the church-bell calling--as yet\nnearly a mile off.\n\n\"Who would have expected such a rise in the river in summer-time!\"\nsaid Marian, from the top of the roadside bank on which they had\nclimbed, and were maintaining a precarious footing in the hope of\ncreeping along its slope till they were past the pool.\n\n\"We can't get there anyhow, without walking right through it, or else\ngoing round the Turnpike way; and that would make us so very late!\"\nsaid Retty, pausing hopelessly.\n\n\"And I do colour up so hot, walking into church late, and all the\npeople staring round,\" said Marian, \"that I hardly cool down again\ntill we get into the That-it-may-please-Thees.\"\n\nWhile they stood clinging to the bank they heard a splashing round\nthe bend of the road, and presently appeared Angel Clare, advancing\nalong the lane towards them through the water.\n\nFour hearts gave a big throb simultaneously.\n\nHis aspect was probably as un-Sabbatarian a one as a dogmatic\nparson's son often presented; his attire being his dairy clothes,\nlong wading boots, a cabbage-leaf inside his hat to keep his head\ncool, with a thistle-spud to finish him off.  \"He's not going to\nchurch,\" said Marian.\n\n\"No--I wish he was!\" murmured Tess.\n\nAngel, in fact, rightly or wrongly (to adopt the safe phrase of\nevasive controversialists), preferred sermons in stones to sermons in\nchurches and chapels on fine summer days.  This morning, moreover,\nhe had gone out to see if the damage to the hay by the flood was\nconsiderable or not.  On his walk he observed the girls from a long\ndistance, though they had been so occupied with their difficulties of\npassage as not to notice him.  He knew that the water had risen at\nthat spot, and that it would quite check their progress.  So he had\nhastened on, with a dim idea of how he could help them--one of them\nin particular.\n\nThe rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed quartet looked so charming in their\nlight summer attire, clinging to the roadside bank like pigeons on a\nroof-slope, that he stopped a moment to regard them before coming\nclose.  Their gauzy skirts had brushed up from the grass innumerable\nflies and butterflies which, unable to escape, remained caged in\nthe transparent tissue as in an aviary.  Angel's eye at last fell\nupon Tess, the hindmost of the four; she, being full of suppressed\nlaughter at their dilemma, could not help meeting his glance\nradiantly.\n\nHe came beneath them in the water, which did not rise over his long\nboots; and stood looking at the entrapped flies and butterflies.\n\n\"Are you trying to get to church?\" he said to Marian, who was in\nfront, including the next two in his remark, but avoiding Tess.\n\n\"Yes, sir; and 'tis getting late; and my colour do come up so--\"\n\n\"I'll carry you through the pool--every Jill of you.\"\n\nThe whole four flushed as if one heart beat through them.\n\n\"I think you can't, sir,\" said Marian.\n\n\"It is the only way for you to get past.  Stand still.  Nonsense--you\nare not too heavy!  I'd carry you all four together.  Now, Marian,\nattend,\" he continued, \"and put your arms round my shoulders, so.\nNow!  Hold on. That's well done.\"\n\nMarian had lowered herself upon his arm and shoulder as directed, and\nAngel strode off with her, his slim figure, as viewed from behind,\nlooking like the mere stem to the great nosegay suggested by hers.\nThey disappeared round the curve of the road, and only his sousing\nfootsteps and the top ribbon of Marian's bonnet told where they were.\nIn a few minutes he reappeared.  Izz Huett was the next in order upon\nthe bank.\n\n\"Here he comes,\" she murmured, and they could hear that her lips were\ndry with emotion.  \"And I have to put my arms round his neck and look\ninto his face as Marian did.\"\n\n\"There's nothing in that,\" said Tess quickly.\n\n\"There's a time for everything,\" continued Izz, unheeding.  \"A time\nto embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; the first is now\ngoing to be mine.\"\n\n\"Fie--it is Scripture, Izz!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Izz, \"I've always a' ear at church for pretty verses.\"\n\nAngel Clare, to whom three-quarters of this performance was a\ncommonplace act of kindness, now approached Izz.  She quietly and\ndreamily lowered herself into his arms, and Angel methodically\nmarched off with her.  When he was heard returning for the third time\nRetty's throbbing heart could be almost seen to shake her.  He went\nup to the red-haired girl, and while he was seizing her he glanced at\nTess.  His lips could not have pronounced more plainly, \"It will soon\nbe you and I.\"  Her comprehension appeared in her face; she could not\nhelp it.  There was an understanding between them.\n\nPoor little Retty, though by far the lightest weight, was the most\ntroublesome of Clare's burdens.  Marian had been like a sack of meal,\na dead weight of plumpness under which he has literally staggered.\nIzz had ridden sensibly and calmly.  Retty was a bunch of hysterics.\n\nHowever, he got through with the disquieted creature, deposited her,\nand returned.  Tess could see over the hedge the distant three in a\ngroup, standing as he had placed them on the next rising ground.  It\nwas now her turn.  She was embarrassed to discover that excitement at\nthe proximity of Mr Clare's breath and eyes, which she had contemned\nin her companions, was intensified in herself; and as if fearful of\nbetraying her secret, she paltered with him at the last moment.\n\n\"I may be able to clim' along the bank perhaps--I can clim' better\nthan they.  You must be so tired, Mr Clare!\"\n\n\"No, no, Tess,\" said he quickly.  And almost before she was aware,\nshe was seated in his arms and resting against his shoulder.\n\n\"Three Leahs to get one Rachel,\" he whispered.\n\n\"They are better women than I,\" she replied, magnanimously sticking\nto her resolve.\n\n\"Not to me,\" said Angel.\n\nHe saw her grow warm at this; and they went some steps in silence.\n\n\"I hope I am not too heavy?\" she said timidly.\n\n\"O no.  You should lift Marian!  Such a lump.  You are like an\nundulating billow warmed by the sun.  And all this fluff of muslin\nabout you is the froth.\"\n\n\"It is very pretty--if I seem like that to you.\"\n\n\"Do you know that I have undergone three-quarters of this labour\nentirely for the sake of the fourth quarter?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I did not expect such an event to-day.\"\n\n\"Nor I...  The water came up so sudden.\"\n\nThat the rise in the water was what she understood him to refer to,\nthe state of breathing belied.  Clare stood still and inclinced his\nface towards hers.\n\n\"O Tessy!\" he exclaimed.\n\nThe girl's cheeks burned to the breeze, and she could not look into\nhis eyes for her emotion.  It reminded Angel that he was somewhat\nunfairly taking advantage of an accidental position; and he went no\nfurther with it.  No definite words of love had crossed their lips\nas yet, and suspension at this point was desirable now. However,\nhe walked slowly, to make the remainder of the distance as long as\npossible; but at last they came to the bend, and the rest of their\nprogress was in full view of the other three.  The dry land was\nreached, and he set her down.\n\nHer friends were looking with round thoughtful eyes at her and him,\nand she could see that they had been talking of her.  He hastily bade\nthem farewell, and splashed back along the stretch of submerged road.\n\nThe four moved on together as before, till Marian broke the silence\nby saying--\n\n\"No--in all truth; we have no chance against her!\"  She looked\njoylessly at Tess.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked the latter.\n\n\"He likes 'ee best--the very best!  We could see it as he brought\n'ee.  He would have kissed 'ee, if you had encouraged him to do it,\never so little.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" said she.\n\nThe gaiety with which they had set out had somehow vanished; and\nyet there was no enmity or malice between them.  They were generous\nyoung souls; they had been reared in the lonely country nooks where\nfatalism is a strong sentiment, and they did not blame her.  Such\nsupplanting was to be.\n\nTess's heart ached.  There was no concealing from herself the fact\nthat she loved Angel Clare, perhaps all the more passionately from\nknowing that the others had also lost their hearts to him.  There is\ncontagion in this sentiment, especially among women.  And yet that\nsame hungry nature had fought against this, but too feebly, and the\nnatural result had followed.\n\n\"I will never stand in your way, nor in the way of either of you!\"\nshe declared to Retty that night in the bedroom (her tears running\ndown).  \"I can't help this, my dear!  I don't think marrying is in\nhis mind at all; but if he were ever to ask me I should refuse him,\nas I should refuse any man.\"\n\n\"Oh! would you?  Why?\" said wondering Retty.\n\n\"It cannot be!  But I will be plain.  Putting myself quite on one\nside, I don't think he will choose either of you.\"\n\n\"I have never expected it--thought of it!\" moaned Retty.  \"But O! I\nwish I was dead!\"\n\nThe poor child, torn by a feeling which she hardly understood, turned\nto the other two girls who came upstairs just then.\n\n\"We be friends with her again,\" she said to them.  \"She thinks no\nmore of his choosing her than we do.\"\n\nSo the reserve went off, and they were confiding and warm.\n\n\"I don't seem to care what I do now,\" said Marian, whose mood was\nturned to its lowest bass.  \"I was going to marry a dairyman at\nStickleford, who's asked me twice; but--my soul--I would put an end\nto myself rather'n be his wife now!  Why don't ye speak, Izz?\"\n\n\"To confess, then,\" murmured Izz, \"I made sure to-day that he was\ngoing to kiss me as he held me; and I lay still against his breast,\nhoping and hoping, and never moved at all.  But he did not.  I don't\nlike biding here at Talbothays any longer!  I shall go hwome.\"\n\nThe air of the sleeping-chamber seemed to palpitate with the\nhopeless passion of the girls.  They writhed feverishly under the\noppressiveness of an emotion thrust on them by cruel Nature's law--an\nemotion which they had neither expected nor desired.  The incident\nof the day had fanned the flame that was burning the inside of their\nhearts out, and the torture was almost more than they could endure.\nThe differences which distinguished them as individuals were\nabstracted by this passion, and each was but portion of one organism\ncalled sex.  There was so much frankness and so little jealousy\nbecause there was no hope.  Each one was a girl of fair common sense,\nand she did not delude herself with any vain conceits, or deny her\nlove, or give herself airs, in the idea of outshining the others.\nThe full recognition of the futility of their infatuation, from a\nsocial point of view; its purposeless beginning; its self-bounded\noutlook; its lack of everything to justify its existence in the eye\nof civilization (while lacking nothing in the eye of Nature); the one\nfact that it did exist, ecstasizing them to a killing joy--all this\nimparted to them a resignation, a dignity, which a practical and\nsordid expectation of winning him as a husband would have destroyed.\n\nThey tossed and turned on their little beds, and the cheese-wring\ndripped monotonously downstairs.\n\n\"B' you awake, Tess?\" whispered one, half-an-hour later.\n\nIt was Izz Huett's voice.\n\nTess replied in the affirmative, whereupon also Retty and Marian\nsuddenly flung the bedclothes off them, and sighed--\n\n\"So be we!\"\n\n\"I wonder what she is like--the lady they say his family have looked\nout for him!\"\n\n\"I wonder,\" said Izz.\n\n\"Some lady looked out for him?\" gasped Tess, starting.  \"I have never\nheard o' that!\"\n\n\"O yes--'tis whispered; a young lady of his own rank, chosen by his\nfamily; a Doctor of Divinity's daughter near his father's parish of\nEmminster; he don't much care for her, they say.  But he is sure to\nmarry her.\"\n\nThey had heard so very little of this; yet it was enough to build up\nwretched dolorous dreams upon, there in the shade of the night.  They\npictured all the details of his being won round to consent, of the\nwedding preparations, of the bride's happiness, of her dress and\nveil, of her blissful home with him, when oblivion would have fallen\nupon themselves as far as he and their love were concerned.  Thus\nthey talked, and ached, and wept till sleep charmed their sorrow\naway.\n\nAfter this disclosure Tess nourished no further foolish thought that\nthere lurked any grave and deliberate import in Clare's attentions\nto her.  It was a passing summer love of her face, for love's own\ntemporary sake--nothing more. And the thorny crown of this sad\nconception was that she whom he really did prefer in a cursory way\nto the rest, she who knew herself to be more impassioned in nature,\ncleverer, more beautiful than they, was in the eyes of propriety far\nless worthy of him than the homelier ones whom he ignored.\n\n\n\nXXIV\n\n\nAmid the oozing fatness and warm ferments of the Froom Vale, at a\nseason when the rush of juices could almost be heard below the hiss\nof fertilization, it was impossible that the most fanciful love\nshould not grow passionate.  The ready bosoms existing there were\nimpregnated by their surroundings.\n\nJuly passed over their heads, and the Thermidorean weather which came\nin its wake seemed an effort on the part of Nature to match the state\nof hearts at Talbothays Dairy.  The air of the place, so fresh in the\nspring and early summer, was stagnant and enervating now.  Its heavy\nscents weighed upon them, and at mid-day the landscape seemed lying\nin a swoon. Ethiopic scorchings browned the upper slopes of the\npastures, but there was still bright green herbage here where the\nwatercourses purled.  And as Clare was oppressed by the outward\nheats, so was he burdened inwardly by waxing fervour of passion for\nthe soft and silent Tess.\n\nThe rains having passed, the uplands were dry.  The wheels of the\ndairyman's spring-cart, as he sped home from market, licked up the\npulverized surface of the highway, and were followed by white ribands\nof dust, as if they had set a thin powder-train on fire.  The cows\njumped wildly over the five-barred barton-gate, maddened by the\ngad-fly; Dairyman Crick kept his shirt-sleeves permanently rolled up\nfrom Monday to Saturday; open windows had no effect in ventilation\nwithout open doors, and in the dairy-garden the blackbirds and\nthrushes crept about under the currant-bushes, rather in the manner\nof quadrupeds than of winged creatures.  The flies in the kitchen\nwere lazy, teasing, and familiar, crawling about in the unwonted\nplaces, on the floors, into drawers, and over the backs of the\nmilkmaids' hands. Conversations were concerning sunstroke; while\nbutter-making, and still more butter-keeping, was a despair.\n\nThey milked entirely in the meads for coolness and convenience,\nwithout driving in the cows.  During the day the animals obsequiously\nfollowed the shadow of the smallest tree as it moved round the stem\nwith the diurnal roll; and when the milkers came they could hardly\nstand still for the flies.\n\nOn one of these afternoons four or five unmilked cows chanced to\nstand apart from the general herd, behind the corner of a hedge,\namong them being Dumpling and Old Pretty, who loved Tess's hands\nabove those of any other maid.  When she rose from her stool under a\nfinished cow, Angel Clare, who had been observing her for some time,\nasked her if she would take the aforesaid creatures next.  She\nsilently assented, and with her stool at arm's length, and the pail\nagainst her knee, went round to where they stood.  Soon the sound of\nOld Pretty's milk fizzing into the pail came through the hedge, and\nthen Angel felt inclined to go round the corner also, to finish off a\nhard-yielding milcher who had strayed there, he being now as capable\nof this as the dairyman himself.\n\nAll the men, and some of the women, when milking, dug their foreheads\ninto the cows and gazed into the pail.  But a few--mainly the younger\nones--rested their heads sideways.  This was Tess Durbeyfield's\nhabit, her temple pressing the milcher's flank, her eyes fixed on\nthe far end of the meadow with the quiet of one lost in meditation.\nShe was milking Old Pretty thus, and the sun chancing to be on the\nmilking-side, it shone flat upon her pink-gowned form and her white\ncurtain-bonnet, and upon her profile, rendering it keen as a cameo\ncut from the dun background of the cow.\n\nShe did not know that Clare had followed her round, and that he sat\nunder his cow watching her.  The stillness of her head and features\nwas remarkable: she might have been in a trance, her eyes open, yet\nunseeing.  Nothing in the picture moved but Old Pretty's tail and\nTess's pink hands, the latter so gently as to be a rhythmic pulsation\nonly, as if they were obeying a reflex stimulus, like a beating\nheart.\n\nHow very lovable her face was to him.  Yet there was nothing ethereal\nabout it; all was real vitality, real warmth, real incarnation.  And\nit was in her mouth that this culminated.  Eyes almost as deep and\nspeaking he had seen before, and cheeks perhaps as fair; brows as\narched, a chin and throat almost as shapely; her mouth he had seen\nnothing to equal on the face of the earth.  To a young man with the\nleast fire in him that little upward lift in the middle of her red\ntop lip was distracting, infatuating, maddening.  He had never before\nseen a woman's lips and teeth which forced upon his mind with such\npersistent iteration the old Elizabethan simile of roses filled with\nsnow.  Perfect, he, as a lover, might have called them off-hand.  But\nno--they were not perfect.  And it was the touch of the imperfect\nupon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was\nthat which gave the humanity.\n\nClare had studied the curves of those lips so many times that he\ncould reproduce them mentally with ease: and now, as they again\nconfronted him, clothed with colour and life, they sent an _aura_\nover his flesh, a breeze through his nerves, which well nigh produced\na qualm; and actually produced, by some mysterious physiological\nprocess, a prosaic sneeze.\n\nShe then became conscious that he was observing her; but she would\nnot show it by any change of position, though the curious dream-like\nfixity disappeared, and a close eye might easily have discerned that\nthe rosiness of her face deepened, and then faded till only a tinge\nof it was left.\n\nThe influence that had passed into Clare like an excitation from the\nsky did not die down.  Resolutions, reticences, prudences, fears,\nfell back like a defeated battalion.  He jumped up from his seat,\nand, leaving his pail to be kicked over if the milcher had such a\nmind, went quickly towards the desire of his eyes, and, kneeling down\nbeside her, clasped her in his arms.\n\nTess was taken completely by surprise, and she yielded to his embrace\nwith unreflecting inevitableness.  Having seen that it was really her\nlover who had advanced, and no one else, her lips parted, and she\nsank upon him in her momentary joy, with something very like an\necstatic cry.\n\nHe had been on the point of kissing that too tempting mouth, but he\nchecked himself, for tender conscience' sake.\n\n\"Forgive me, Tess dear!\" he whispered.  \"I ought to have asked.\nI--did not know what I was doing.  I do not mean it as a liberty.\nI am devoted to you, Tessy, dearest, in all sincerity!\"\n\nOld Pretty by this time had looked round, puzzled; and seeing two\npeople crouching under her where, by immemorial custom, there should\nhave been only one, lifted her hind leg crossly.\n\n\"She is angry--she doesn't know what we mean--she'll kick over the\nmilk!\" exclaimed Tess, gently striving to free herself, her eyes\nconcerned with the quadruped's actions, her heart more deeply\nconcerned with herself and Clare.\n\nShe slipped up from her seat, and they stood together, his arm still\nencircling her.  Tess's eyes, fixed on distance, began to fill.\n\n\"Why do you cry, my darling?\" he said.\n\n\"O--I don't know!\" she murmured.\n\nAs she saw and felt more clearly the position she was in she became\nagitated and tried to withdraw.\n\n\"Well, I have betrayed my feeling, Tess, at last,\" said he, with a\ncurious sigh of desperation, signifying unconsciously that his heart\nhad outrun his judgement.  \"That I--love you dearly and truly I need\nnot say.  But I--it shall go no further now--it distresses you--I am\nas surprised as you are.  You will not think I have presumed upon\nyour defencelessness--been too quick and unreflecting, will you?\"\n\n\"N'--I can't tell.\"\n\nHe had allowed her to free herself; and in a minute or two the\nmilking of each was resumed.  Nobody had beheld the gravitation of\nthe two into one; and when the dairyman came round by that screened\nnook a few minutes later, there was not a sign to reveal that\nthe markedly sundered pair were more to each other than mere\nacquaintance.  Yet in the interval since Crick's last view of them\nsomething had occurred which changed the pivot of the universe for\ntheir two natures; something which, had he known its quality, the\ndairyman would have despised, as a practical man; yet which was based\nupon a more stubborn and resistless tendency than a whole heap of\nso-called practicalities.  A veil had been whisked aside; the tract\nof each one's outlook was to have a new horizon thenceforward--for a\nshort time or for a long.\n\n\nEND OF PHASE THE THIRD\n\n\n\n\n\nPhase the Fourth: The Consequence\n\n\n\nXXV\n\n\nClare, restless, went out into the dusk when evening drew on, she who\nhad won him having retired to her chamber.\n\nThe night was as sultry as the day.  There was no coolness after dark\nunless on the grass.  Roads, garden-paths, the house-fronts, the\nbarton-walls were warm as hearths, and reflected the noontime\ntemperature into the noctambulist's face.\n\nHe sat on the east gate of the dairy-yard, and knew not what to think\nof himself.  Feeling had indeed smothered judgement that day.\n\nSince the sudden embrace, three hours before, the twain had kept\napart.  She seemed stilled, almost alarmed, at what had occurred,\nwhile the novelty, unpremeditation, mastery of circumstance\ndisquieted him--palpitating, contemplative being that he was.  He\ncould hardly realize their true relations to each other as yet, and\nwhat their mutual bearing should be before third parties\nthenceforward.\n\nAngel had come as pupil to this dairy in the idea that his temporary\nexistence here was to be the merest episode in his life, soon passed\nthrough and early forgotten; he had come as to a place from which\nas from a screened alcove he could calmly view the absorbing world\nwithout, and, apostrophizing it with Walt Whitman--\n\n\n  Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes,\n  How curious you are to me!--\n\n\nresolve upon a plan for plunging into that world anew.  But behold,\nthe absorbing scene had been imported hither.  What had been the\nengrossing world had dissolved into an uninteresting outer dumb-show;\nwhile here, in this apparently dim and unimpassioned place, novelty\nhad volcanically started up, as it had never, for him, started up\nelsewhere.\n\nEvery window of the house being open, Clare could hear across the\nyard each trivial sound of the retiring household.  The dairy-house,\nso humble, so insignificant, so purely to him a place of constrained\nsojourn that he had never hitherto deemed it of sufficient importance\nto be reconnoitred as an object of any quality whatever in the\nlandscape; what was it now?  The aged and lichened brick gables\nbreathed forth \"Stay!\"  The windows smiled, the door coaxed and\nbeckoned, the creeper blushed confederacy.  A personality within\nit was so far-reaching in her influence as to spread into and make\nthe bricks, mortar, and whole overhanging sky throb with a burning\nsensibility.  Whose was this mighty personality? A milkmaid's.\n\nIt was amazing, indeed, to find how great a matter the life of the\nobscure dairy had become to him.  And though new love was to be held\npartly responsible for this, it was not solely so.  Many besides\nAngel have learnt that the magnitude of lives is not as to their\nexternal displacements, but as to their subjective experiences.  The\nimpressionable peasant leads a larger, fuller, more dramatic life\nthan the pachydermatous king.  Looking at it thus, he found that life\nwas to be seen of the same magnitude here as elsewhere.\n\nDespite his heterodoxy, faults, and weaknesses, Clare was a man with\na conscience.  Tess was no insignificant creature to toy with and\ndismiss; but a woman living her precious life--a life which, to\nherself who endured or enjoyed it, possessed as great a dimension\nas the life of the mightiest to himself.  Upon her sensations\nthe whole world depended to Tess; through her existence all her\nfellow-creatures existed, to her.  The universe itself only came into\nbeing for Tess on the particular day in the particular year in which\nshe was born.\n\nThis consciousness upon which he had intruded was the single\nopportunity of existence ever vouchsafed to Tess by an unsympathetic\nFirst Cause--her all; her every and only chance.  How then should he\nlook upon her as of less consequence than himself; as a pretty trifle\nto caress and grow weary of; and not deal in the greatest seriousness\nwith the affection which he knew that he had awakened in her--so\nfervid and so impressionable as she was under her reserve--in order\nthat it might not agonize and wreck her?\n\nTo encounter her daily in the accustomed manner would be to develop\nwhat had begun.  Living in such close relations, to meet meant to\nfall into endearment; flesh and blood could not resist it; and,\nhaving arrived at no conclusion as to the issue of such a tendency,\nhe decided to hold aloof for the present from occupations in which\nthey would be mutually engaged.  As yet the harm done was small.\n\nBut it was not easy to carry out the resolution never to approach\nher.  He was driven towards her by every heave of his pulse.\n\nHe thought he would go and see his friends.  It might be possible\nto sound them upon this.  In less than five months his term here\nwould have ended, and after a few additional months spent upon other\nfarms he would be fully equipped in agricultural knowledge and in\na position to start on his own account.  Would not a farmer want a\nwife, and should a farmer's wife be a drawing-room wax-figure, or a\nwoman who understood farming?  Notwithstanding the pleasing answer\nreturned to him by the silence, he resolved to go his journey.\n\nOne morning when they sat down to breakfast at Talbothays Dairy some\nmaid observed that she had not seen anything of Mr Clare that day.\n\n\"O no,\" said Dairyman Crick.  \"Mr Clare has gone hwome to Emminster\nto spend a few days wi' his kinsfolk.\"\n\nFor four impassioned ones around that table the sunshine of the\nmorning went out at a stroke, and the birds muffled their song.\nBut neither girl by word or gesture revealed her blankness.  \"He's\ngetting on towards the end of his time wi' me,\" added the dairyman,\nwith a phlegm which unconsciously was brutal; \"and so I suppose he\nis beginning to see about his plans elsewhere.\"\n\n\"How much longer is he to bide here?\" asked Izz Huett, the only\none of the gloom-stricken bevy who could trust her voice with the\nquestion.\n\nThe others waited for the dairyman's answer as if their lives hung\nupon it; Retty, with parted lips, gazing on the tablecloth, Marian\nwith heat added to her redness, Tess throbbing and looking out at\nthe meads.\n\n\"Well, I can't mind the exact day without looking at my\nmemorandum-book,\" replied Crick, with the same intolerable unconcern.\n\"And even that may be altered a bit.  He'll bide to get a little\npractice in the calving out at the straw-yard, for certain.  He'll\nhang on till the end of the year I should say.\"\n\nFour months or so of torturing ecstasy in his society--of \"pleasure\ngirdled about with pain\".  After that the blackness of unutterable\nnight.\n\n\nAt this moment of the morning Angel Clare was riding along a narrow\nlane ten miles distant from the breakfasters, in the direction of\nhis father's Vicarage at Emminster, carrying, as well as he could,\na little basket which contained some black-puddings and a bottle of\nmead, sent by Mrs Crick, with her kind respects, to his parents.  The\nwhite lane stretched before him, and his eyes were upon it; but they\nwere staring into next year, and not at the lane.  He loved her;\nought he to marry her?  Dared he to marry her?  What would his mother\nand his brothers say?  What would he himself say a couple of years\nafter the event?  That would depend upon whether the germs of staunch\ncomradeship underlay the temporary emotion, or whether it were a\nsensuous joy in her form only, with no substratum of everlastingness.\n\nHis father's hill-surrounded little town, the Tudor church-tower of\nred stone, the clump of trees near the Vicarage, came at last into\nview beneath him, and he rode down towards the well-known gate.\nCasting a glance in the direction of the church before entering his\nhome, he beheld standing by the vestry-door a group of girls, of\nages between twelve and sixteen, apparently awaiting the arrival of\nsome other one, who in a moment became visible; a figure somewhat\nolder than the school-girls, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and\nhighly-starched cambric morning-gown, with a couple of books in her\nhand.\n\nClare knew her well.  He could not be sure that she observed him; he\nhoped she did not, so as to render it unnecessary that he should go\nand speak to her, blameless creature that she was.  An overpowering\nreluctance to greet her made him decide that she had not seen him.\nThe young lady was Miss Mercy Chant, the only daughter of his\nfather's neighbour and friend, whom it was his parents' quiet hope\nthat he might wed some day.  She was great at Antinomianism and\nBible-classes, and was plainly going to hold a class now.  Clare's\nmind flew to the impassioned, summer-steeped heathens in the Var\nVale, their rosy faces court-patched with cow-droppings; and to one\nthe most impassioned of them all.\n\nIt was on the impulse of the moment that he had resolved to trot\nover to Emminster, and hence had not written to apprise his mother\nand father, aiming, however, to arrive about the breakfast hour,\nbefore they should have gone out to their parish duties.  He was\na little late, and they had already sat down to the morning meal.\nThe group at the table jumped up to welcome him as soon as he\nentered.  They were his father and mother, his brother the Reverend\nFelix--curate at a town in the adjoining county, home for the inside\nof a fortnight--and his other brother, the Reverend Cuthbert, the\nclassical scholar, and Fellow and Dean of his College, down from\nCambridge for the long vacation.  His mother appeared in a cap and\nsilver spectacles, and his father looked what in fact he was--an\nearnest, God-fearing man, somewhat gaunt, in years about sixty-five,\nhis pale face lined with thought and purpose.  Over their heads hung\nthe picture of Angel's sister, the eldest of the family, sixteen\nyears his senior, who had married a missionary and gone out to\nAfrica.\n\nOld Mr Clare was a clergyman of a type which, within the last twenty\nyears, has well nigh dropped out of contemporary life.  A spiritual\ndescendant in the direct line from Wycliff, Huss, Luther, Calvin; an\nEvangelical of the Evangelicals, a Conversionist, a man of Apostolic\nsimplicity in life and thought, he had in his raw youth made up his\nmind once for all in the deeper questions of existence, and admitted\nno further reasoning on them thenceforward.  He was regarded even by\nthose of his own date and school of thinking as extreme; while, on\nthe other hand, those totally opposed to him were unwillingly won\nto admiration for his thoroughness, and for the remarkable power he\nshowed in dismissing all question as to principles in his energy for\napplying them.  He loved Paul of Tarsus, liked St John, hated St\nJames as much as he dared, and regarded with mixed feelings Timothy,\nTitus, and Philemon.  The New Testament was less a Christiad then a\nPauliad to his intelligence--less an argument than an intoxication.\nHis creed of determinism was such that it almost amounted to a\nvice, and quite amounted, on its negative side, to a renunciative\nphilosophy which had cousinship with that of Schopenhauer and\nLeopardi.  He despised the Canons and Rubric, swore by the Articles,\nand deemed himself consistent through the whole category--which in a\nway he might have been.  One thing he certainly was--sincere.\n\nTo the aesthetic, sensuous, pagan pleasure in natural life and lush\nwomanhood which his son Angel had lately been experiencing in Var\nVale, his temper would have been antipathetic in a high degree, had\nhe either by inquiry or imagination been able to apprehend it.  Once\nupon a time Angel had been so unlucky as to say to his father, in\na moment of irritation, that it might have resulted far better for\nmankind if Greece had been the source of the religion of modern\ncivilization, and not Palestine; and his father's grief was of that\nblank description which could not realize that there might lurk a\nthousandth part of a truth, much less a half truth or a whole truth,\nin such a proposition.  He had simply preached austerely at Angel for\nsome time after.  But the kindness of his heart was such that he\nnever resented anything for long, and welcomed his son to-day with a\nsmile which was as candidly sweet as a child's.\n\nAngel sat down, and the place felt like home; yet he did not so much\nas formerly feel himself one of the family gathered there.  Every\ntime that he returned hither he was conscious of this divergence,\nand since he had last shared in the Vicarage life it had grown even\nmore distinctly foreign to his own than usual.  Its transcendental\naspirations--still unconsciously based on the geocentric view of\nthings, a zenithal paradise, a nadiral hell--were as foreign to his\nown as if they had been the dreams of people on another planet.\nLatterly he had seen only Life, felt only the great passionate pulse\nof existence, unwarped, uncontorted, untrammelled by those creeds\nwhich futilely attempt to check what wisdom would be content to\nregulate.\n\nOn their part they saw a great difference in him, a growing\ndivergence from the Angel Clare of former times.  It was chiefly a\ndifference in his manner that they noticed just now, particularly\nhis brothers.  He was getting to behave like a farmer; he flung his\nlegs about; the muscles of his face had grown more expressive; his\neyes looked as much information as his tongue spoke, and more.  The\nmanner of the scholar had nearly disappeared; still more the manner\nof the drawing-room young man.  A prig would have said that he had\nlost culture, and a prude that he had become coarse.  Such was the\ncontagion of domiciliary fellowship with the Talbothays nymphs and\nswains.\n\nAfter breakfast he walked with his two brothers, non-evangelical,\nwell-educated, hall-marked young men, correct to their remotest\nfibre, such unimpeachable models as are turned out yearly by\nthe lathe of a systematic tuition.  They were both somewhat\nshort-sighted, and when it was the custom to wear a single eyeglass\nand string they wore a single eyeglass and string; when it was the\ncustom to wear a double glass they wore a double glass; when it was\nthe custom to wear spectacles they wore spectacles straightway, all\nwithout reference to the particular variety of defect in their own\nvision.  When Wordsworth was enthroned they carried pocket copies;\nand when Shelley was belittled they allowed him to grow dusty on\ntheir shelves.  When Correggio's Holy Families were admired, they\nadmired Correggio's Holy Families; when he was decried in favour\nof Velasquez, they sedulously followed suit without any personal\nobjection.\n\nIf these two noticed Angel's growing social ineptness, he noticed\ntheir growing mental limitations.  Felix seemed to him all Church;\nCuthbert all College.  His Diocesan Synod and Visitations were the\nmainsprings of the world to the one; Cambridge to the other.  Each\nbrother candidly recognized that there were a few unimportant score\nof millions of outsiders in civilized society, persons who were\nneither University men nor churchmen; but they were to be tolerated\nrather than reckoned with and respected.\n\nThey were both dutiful and attentive sons, and were regular in their\nvisits to their parents.  Felix, though an offshoot from a far more\nrecent point in the devolution of theology than his father, was less\nself-sacrificing and disinterested.  More tolerant than his father of\na contradictory opinion, in its aspect as a danger to its holder, he\nwas less ready than his father to pardon it as a slight to his own\nteaching.  Cuthbert was, upon the whole, the more liberal-minded,\nthough, with greater subtlety, he had not so much heart.\n\nAs they walked along the hillside Angel's former feeling revived\nin him--that whatever their advantages by comparison with himself,\nneither saw or set forth life as it really was lived.  Perhaps, as\nwith many men, their opportunities of observation were not so good\nas their opportunities of expression.  Neither had an adequate\nconception of the complicated forces at work outside the smooth and\ngentle current in which they and their associates floated.  Neither\nsaw the difference between local truth and universal truth; that what\nthe inner world said in their clerical and academic hearing was quite\na different thing from what the outer world was thinking.\n\n\"I suppose it is farming or nothing for you now, my dear fellow,\"\nFelix was saying, among other things, to his youngest brother, as\nhe looked through his spectacles at the distant fields with sad\nausterity.  \"And, therefore, we must make the best of it.  But I do\nentreat you to endeavour to keep as much as possible in touch with\nmoral ideals.  Farming, of course, means roughing it externally; but\nhigh thinking may go with plain living, nevertheless.\"\n\n\"Of course it may,\" said Angel.  \"Was it not proved nineteen hundred\nyears ago--if I may trespass upon your domain a little?  Why should\nyou think, Felix, that I am likely to drop my high thinking and my\nmoral ideals?\"\n\n\"Well, I fancied, from the tone of your letters and our\nconversation--it may be fancy only--that you were somehow losing\nintellectual grasp.  Hasn't it struck you, Cuthbert?\"\n\n\"Now, Felix,\" said Angel drily, \"we are very good friends, you\nknow; each of us treading our allotted circles; but if it comes to\nintellectual grasp, I think you, as a contented dogmatist, had\nbetter leave mine alone, and inquire what has become of yours.\"\n\nThey returned down the hill to dinner, which was fixed at any time at\nwhich their father's and mother's morning work in the parish usually\nconcluded.  Convenience as regarded afternoon callers was the last\nthing to enter into the consideration of unselfish Mr and Mrs Clare;\nthough the three sons were sufficiently in unison on this matter to\nwish that their parents would conform a little to modern notions.\n\nThe walk had made them hungry, Angel in particular, who was now\nan outdoor man, accustomed to the profuse _dapes inemptae_ of the\ndairyman's somewhat coarsely-laden table.  But neither of the old\npeople had arrived, and it was not till the sons were almost tired of\nwaiting that their parents entered.  The self-denying pair had been\noccupied in coaxing the appetites of some of their sick parishioners,\nwhom they, somewhat inconsistently, tried to keep imprisoned in the\nflesh, their own appetites being quite forgotten.\n\nThe family sat down to table, and a frugal meal of cold viands\nwas deposited before them.  Angel looked round for Mrs Crick's\nblack-puddings, which he had directed to be nicely grilled as they\ndid them at the dairy, and of which he wished his father and mother\nto appreciate the marvellous herbal savours as highly as he did\nhimself.\n\n\"Ah! you are looking for the black-puddings, my dear boy,\" observed\nClare's mother.  \"But I am sure you will not mind doing without them\nas I am sure your father and I shall not, when you know the reason.\nI suggested to him that we should take Mrs Crick's kind present to\nthe children of the man who can earn nothing just now because of his\nattacks of delirium tremens; and he agreed that it would be a great\npleasure to them; so we did.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" said Angel cheerfully, looking round for the mead.\n\n\"I found the mead so extremely alcoholic,\" continued his mother,\n\"that it was quite unfit for use as a beverage, but as valuable\nas rum or brandy in an emergency; so I have put it in my\nmedicine-closet.\"\n\n\"We never drink spirits at this table, on principle,\" added his\nfather.\n\n\"But what shall I tell the dairyman's wife?\" said Angel.\n\n\"The truth, of course,\" said his father.\n\n\"I rather wanted to say we enjoyed the mead and the black-puddings\nvery much.  She is a kind, jolly sort of body, and is sure to ask me\ndirectly I return.\"\n\n\"You cannot, if we did not,\" Mr Clare answered lucidly.\n\n\"Ah--no; though that mead was a drop of pretty tipple.\"\n\n\"A what?\" said Cuthbert and Felix both.\n\n\"Oh--'tis an expression they use down at Talbothays,\" replied Angel,\nblushing.  He felt that his parents were right in their practice if\nwrong in their want of sentiment, and said no more.\n\n\n\nXXVI\n\n\nIt was not till the evening, after family prayers, that Angel found\nopportunity of broaching to his father one or two subjects near his\nheart.  He had strung himself up to the purpose while kneeling behind\nhis brothers on the carpet, studying the little nails in the heels of\ntheir walking boots.  When the service was over they went out of the\nroom with their mother, and Mr Clare and himself were left alone.\n\nThe young man first discussed with the elder his plans for the\nattainment of his position as a farmer on an extensive scale--either\nin England or in the Colonies.  His father then told him that, as he\nhad not been put to the expense of sending Angel up to Cambridge, he\nhad felt it his duty to set by a sum of money every year towards the\npurchase or lease of land for him some day, that he might not feel\nhimself unduly slighted.\n\n\"As far as worldly wealth goes,\" continued his father, \"you will no\ndoubt stand far superior to your brothers in a few years.\"\n\nThis considerateness on old Mr Clare's part led Angel onward to the\nother and dearer subject.  He observed to his father that he was\nthen six-and-twenty, and that when he should start in the farming\nbusiness he would require eyes in the back of his head to see to all\nmatters--some one would be necessary to superintend the domestic\nlabours of his establishment whilst he was afield.  Would it not be\nwell, therefore, for him to marry?\n\nHis father seemed to think this idea not unreasonable; and then Angel\nput the question--\n\n\"What kind of wife do you think would be best for me as a thrifty\nhard-working farmer?\"\n\n\"A truly Christian woman, who will be a help and a comfort to you in\nyour goings-out and your comings-in.  Beyond that, it really matters\nlittle.  Such an one can be found; indeed, my earnest-minded friend\nand neighbour, Dr Chant--\"\n\n\"But ought she not primarily to be able to milk cows, churn good\nbutter, make immense cheeses; know how to sit hens and turkeys and\nrear chickens, to direct a field of labourers in an emergency, and\nestimate the value of sheep and calves?\"\n\n\"Yes; a farmer's wife; yes, certainly.  It would be desirable.\"  Mr\nClare, the elder, had plainly never thought of these points before.\n\"I was going to add,\" he said, \"that for a pure and saintly woman you\nwill not find one more to your true advantage, and certainly not more\nto your mother's mind and my own, than your friend Mercy, whom you\nused to show a certain interest in.  It is true that my neighbour\nChant's daughter had lately caught up the fashion of the younger\nclergy round about us for decorating the Communion-table--altar, as I\nwas shocked to hear her call it one day--with flowers and other stuff\non festival occasions.  But her father, who is quite as opposed to\nsuch flummery as I, says that can be cured.  It is a mere girlish\noutbreak which, I am sure, will not be permanent.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes; Mercy is good and devout, I know.  But, father, don't you\nthink that a young woman equally pure and virtuous as Miss Chant,\nbut one who, in place of that lady's ecclesiastical accomplishments,\nunderstands the duties of farm life as well as a farmer himself,\nwould suit me infinitely better?\"\n\nHis father persisted in his conviction that a knowledge of a farmer's\nwife's duties came second to a Pauline view of humanity; and the\nimpulsive Angel, wishing to honour his father's feelings and to\nadvance the cause of his heart at the same time, grew specious.\nHe said that fate or Providence had thrown in his way a woman who\npossessed every qualification to be the helpmate of an agriculturist,\nand was decidedly of a serious turn of mind.  He would not say\nwhether or not she had attached herself to the sound Low Church\nSchool of his father; but she would probably be open to conviction\non that point; she was a regular church-goer of simple faith;\nhonest-hearted, receptive, intelligent, graceful to a degree, chaste\nas a vestal, and, in personal appearance, exceptionally beautiful.\n\n\"Is she of a family such as you would care to marry into--a lady, in\nshort?\" asked his startled mother, who had come softly into the study\nduring the conversation.\n\n\"She is not what in common parlance is called a lady,\" said Angel,\nunflinchingly, \"for she is a cottager's daughter, as I am proud to\nsay.  But she IS a lady, nevertheless--in feeling and nature.\"\n\n\"Mercy Chant is of a very good family.\"\n\n\"Pooh!--what's the advantage of that, mother?\" said Angel quickly.\n\"How is family to avail the wife of a man who has to rough it as I\nhave, and shall have to do?\"\n\n\"Mercy is accomplished.  And accomplishments have their charm,\"\nreturned his mother, looking at him through her silver spectacles.\n\n\"As to external accomplishments, what will be the use of them in the\nlife I am going to lead?--while as to her reading, I can take that\nin hand.  She'll be apt pupil enough, as you would say if you knew\nher. She's brim full of poetry--actualized poetry, if I may use the\nexpression.  She LIVES what paper-poets only write...  And she is an\nunimpeachable Christian, I am sure; perhaps of the very tribe, genus,\nand species you desire to propagate.\"\n\n\"O Angel, you are mocking!\"\n\n\"Mother, I beg pardon.  But as she really does attend Church almost\nevery Sunday morning, and is a good Christian girl, I am sure you\nwill tolerate any social shortcomings for the sake of that quality,\nand feel that I may do worse than choose her.\"  Angel waxed quite\nearnest on that rather automatic orthodoxy in his beloved Tess which\n(never dreaming that it might stand him in such good stead) he had\nbeen prone to slight when observing it practised by her and the other\nmilkmaids, because of its obvious unreality amid beliefs essentially\nnaturalistic.\n\nIn their sad doubts as to whether their son had himself any right\nwhatever to the title he claimed for the unknown young woman, Mr and\nMrs Clare began to feel it as an advantage not to be overlooked that\nshe at least was sound in her views; especially as the conjunction of\nthe pair must have arisen by an act of Providence; for Angel never\nwould have made orthodoxy a condition of his choice.  They said\nfinally that it was better not to act in a hurry, but that they would\nnot object to see her.\n\nAngel therefore refrained from declaring more particulars now.\nHe felt that, single-minded and self-sacrificing as his parents\nwere, there yet existed certain latent prejudices of theirs, as\nmiddle-class people, which it would require some tact to overcome.\nFor though legally at liberty to do as he chose, and though their\ndaughter-in-law's qualifications could make no practical difference\nto their lives, in the probability of her living far away from them,\nhe wished for affection's sake not to wound their sentiment in the\nmost important decision of his life.\n\nHe observed his own inconsistencies in dwelling upon accidents in\nTess's life as if they were vital features.  It was for herself that\nhe loved Tess; her soul, her heart, her substance--not for her skill\nin the dairy, her aptness as his scholar, and certainly not for\nher simple formal faith-professions.  Her unsophisticated open-air\nexistence required no varnish of conventionality to make it palatable\nto him.  He held that education had as yet but little affected the\nbeats of emotion and impulse on which domestic happiness depends.  It\nwas probable that, in the lapse of ages, improved systems of moral\nand intellectual training would appreciably, perhaps considerably,\nelevate the involuntary and even the unconscious instincts of human\nnature; but up to the present day, culture, as far as he could see,\nmight be said to have affected only the mental epiderm of those\nlives which had been brought under its influence.  This belief was\nconfirmed by his experience of women, which, having latterly been\nextended from the cultivated middle-class into the rural community,\nhad taught him how much less was the intrinsic difference between the\ngood and wise woman of one social stratum and the good and wise woman\nof another social stratum, than between the good and bad, the wise\nand the foolish, of the same stratum or class.\n\nIt was the morning of his departure.  His brothers had already left\nthe Vicarage to proceed on a walking tour in the north, whence one\nwas to return to his college, and the other to his curacy.  Angel\nmight have accompanied them, but preferred to rejoin his sweetheart\nat Talbothays.  He would have been an awkward member of the\nparty; for, though the most appreciative humanist, the most ideal\nreligionist, even the best-versed Christologist of the three, there\nwas alienation in the standing consciousness that his squareness\nwould not fit the round hole that had been prepared for him.  To\nneither Felix nor Cuthbert had he ventured to mention Tess.\n\nHis mother made him sandwiches, and his father accompanied him,\non his own mare, a little way along the road.  Having fairly well\nadvanced his own affairs, Angel listened in a willing silence, as\nthey jogged on together through the shady lanes, to his father's\naccount of his parish difficulties, and the coldness of brother\nclergymen whom he loved, because of his strict interpretations of\nthe New Testament by the light of what they deemed a pernicious\nCalvinistic doctrine.\n\n\"Pernicious!\" said Mr Clare, with genial scorn; and he proceeded to\nrecount experiences which would show the absurdity of that idea.\nHe told of wondrous conversions of evil livers of which he had been\nthe instrument, not only amongst the poor, but amongst the rich and\nwell-to-do; and he also candidly admitted many failures.\n\nAs an instance of the latter, he mentioned the case of a young\nupstart squire named d'Urberville, living some forty miles off, in\nthe neighbourhood of Trantridge.\n\n\"Not one of the ancient d'Urbervilles of Kingsbere and other places?\"\nasked his son.  \"That curiously historic worn-out family with its\nghostly legend of the coach-and-four?\"\n\n\"O no.  The original d'Urbervilles decayed and disappeared sixty\nor eighty years ago--at least, I believe so.  This seems to be a\nnew family which had taken the name; for the credit of the former\nknightly line I hope they are spurious, I'm sure.  But it is odd\nto hear you express interest in old families.  I thought you set less\nstore by them even than I.\"\n\n\"You misapprehend me, father; you often do,\" said Angel with a\nlittle impatience.  \"Politically I am sceptical as to the virtue of\ntheir being old.  Some of the wise even among themselves 'exclaim\nagainst their own succession,' as Hamlet puts it; but lyrically,\ndramatically, and even historically, I am tenderly attached to them.\"\n\nThis distinction, though by no means a subtle one, was yet too\nsubtle for Mr Clare the elder, and he went on with the story he had\nbeen about to relate; which was that after the death of the senior\nso-called d'Urberville, the young man developed the most culpable\npassions, though he had a blind mother, whose condition should have\nmade him know better.  A knowledge of his career having come to\nthe ears of Mr Clare, when he was in that part of the country\npreaching missionary sermons, he boldly took occasion to speak to\nthe delinquent on his spiritual state.  Though he was a stranger,\noccupying another's pulpit, he had felt this to be his duty, and\ntook for his text the words from St Luke: \"Thou fool, this night thy\nsoul shall be required of thee!\"  The young man much resented this\ndirectness of attack, and in the war of words which followed when\nthey met he did not scruple publicly to insult Mr Clare, without\nrespect for his gray hairs.\n\nAngel flushed with distress.\n\n\"Dear father,\" he said sadly, \"I wish you would not expose yourself\nto such gratuitous pain from scoundrels!\"\n\n\"Pain?\" said his father, his rugged face shining in the ardour of\nself-abnegation.  \"The only pain to me was pain on his account, poor,\nfoolish young man.  Do you suppose his incensed words could give\nme any pain, or even his blows?  'Being reviled we bless; being\npersecuted we suffer it; being defamed we entreat; we are made as the\nfilth of the world, and as the offscouring of all things unto this\nday.'  Those ancient and noble words to the Corinthians are strictly\ntrue at this present hour.\"\n\n\"Not blows, father?  He did not proceed to blows?\"\n\n\"No, he did not.  Though I have borne blows from men in a mad state\nof intoxication.\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"A dozen times, my boy.  What then?  I have saved them from the guilt\nof murdering their own flesh and blood thereby; and they have lived\nto thank me, and praise God.\"\n\n\"May this young man do the same!\" said Angel fervently.  \"But I fear\notherwise, from what you say.\"\n\n\"We'll hope, nevertheless,\" said Mr Clare.  \"And I continue to pray\nfor him, though on this side of the grave we shall probably never\nmeet again.  But, after all, one of those poor words of mine may\nspring up in his heart as a good seed some day.\"\n\nNow, as always, Clare's father was sanguine as a child; and though\nthe younger could not accept his parent's narrow dogma, he revered\nhis practice and recognized the hero under the pietist.  Perhaps he\nrevered his father's practice even more now than ever, seeing that,\nin the question of making Tessy his wife, his father had not once\nthought of inquiring whether she were well provided or penniless.\nThe same unworldliness was what had necessitated Angel's getting\na living as a farmer, and would probably keep his brothers in the\nposition of poor parsons for the term of their activities; yet Angel\nadmired it none the less.  Indeed, despite his own heterodoxy, Angel\noften felt that he was nearer to his father on the human side than\nwas either of his brethren.\n\n\n\nXXVII\n\n\nAn up-hill and down-hill ride of twenty-odd miles through a garish\nmid-day atmosphere brought him in the afternoon to a detached knoll\na mile or two west of Talbothays, whence he again looked into that\ngreen trough of sappiness and humidity, the valley of the Var or\nFroom.  Immediately he began to descend from the upland to the fat\nalluvial soil below, the atmosphere grew heavier; the languid perfume\nof the summer fruits, the mists, the hay, the flowers, formed therein\na vast pool of odour which at this hour seemed to make the animals,\nthe very bees and butterflies drowsy. Clare was now so familiar with\nthe spot that he knew the individual cows by their names when, a long\ndistance off, he saw them dotted about the meads.  It was with a\nsense of luxury that he recognized his power of viewing life here\nfrom its inner side, in a way that had been quite foreign to him in\nhis student-days; and, much as he loved his parents, he could not\nhelp being aware that to come here, as now, after an experience of\nhome-life, affected him like throwing off splints and bandages; even\nthe one customary curb on the humours of English rural societies\nbeing absent in this place, Talbothays having no resident landlord.\n\nNot a human being was out of doors at the dairy.  The denizens were\nall enjoying the usual afternoon nap of an hour or so which the\nexceedingly early hours kept in summer-time rendered a necessity.\nAt the door the wood-hooped pails, sodden and bleached by infinite\nscrubbings, hung like hats on a stand upon the forked and peeled limb\nof an oak fixed there for that purpose; all of them ready and dry\nfor the evening milking.  Angel entered, and went through the silent\npassages of the house to the back quarters, where he listened for a\nmoment.  Sustained snores came from the cart-house, where some of\nthe men were lying down; the grunt and squeal of sweltering pigs\narose from the still further distance.  The large-leaved rhubarb and\ncabbage plants slept too, their broad limp surfaces hanging in the\nsun like half-closed umbrellas.\n\nHe unbridled and fed his horse, and as he re-entered the house the\nclock struck three.  Three was the afternoon skimming-hour; and, with\nthe stroke, Clare heard the creaking of the floor-boards above, and\nthen the touch of a descending foot on the stairs.  It was Tess's,\nwho in another moment came down before his eyes.\n\nShe had not heard him enter, and hardly realized his presence there.\nShe was yawning, and he saw the red interior of her mouth as if it\nhad been a snake's.  She had stretched one arm so high above her\ncoiled-up cable of hair that he could see its satin delicacy above\nthe sunburn; her face was flushed with sleep, and her eyelids hung\nheavy over their pupils.  The brim-fulness of her nature breathed\nfrom her.  It was a moment when a woman's soul is more incarnate than\nat any other time; when the most spiritual beauty bespeaks itself\nflesh; and sex takes the outside place in the presentation.\n\nThen those eyes flashed brightly through their filmy heaviness,\nbefore the remainder of her face was well awake.  With an oddly\ncompounded look of gladness, shyness, and surprise, she exclaimed--\"O\nMr Clare!  How you frightened me--I--\"\n\nThere had not at first been time for her to think of the changed\nrelations which his declaration had introduced; but the full sense of\nthe matter rose up in her face when she encountered Clare's tender\nlook as he stepped forward to the bottom stair.\n\n\"Dear, darling Tessy!\" he whispered, putting his arm round her, and\nhis face to her flushed cheek.  \"Don't, for Heaven's sake, Mister me\nany more.  I have hastened back so soon because of you!\"\n\nTess's excitable heart beat against his by way of reply; and there\nthey stood upon the red-brick floor of the entry, the sun slanting in\nby the window upon his back, as he held her tightly to his breast;\nupon her inclining face, upon the blue veins of her temple, upon her\nnaked arm, and her neck, and into the depths of her hair.  Having\nbeen lying down in her clothes she was warm as a sunned cat.  At\nfirst she would not look straight up at him, but her eyes soon\nlifted, and his plumbed the deepness of the ever-varying pupils, with\ntheir radiating fibrils of blue, and black, and gray, and violet,\nwhile she regarded him as Eve at her second waking might have\nregarded Adam.\n\n\"I've got to go a-skimming,\" she pleaded, \"and I have on'y old Deb to\nhelp me to-day.  Mrs Crick is gone to market with Mr Crick, and Retty\nis not well, and the others are gone out somewhere, and won't be home\ntill milking.\"\n\nAs they retreated to the milk-house Deborah Fyander appeared on the\nstairs.\n\n\"I have come back, Deborah,\" said Mr Clare, upwards.  \"So I can help\nTess with the skimming; and, as you are very tired, I am sure, you\nneedn't come down till milking-time.\"\n\nPossibly the Talbothays milk was not very thoroughly skimmed that\nafternoon.  Tess was in a dream wherein familiar objects appeared\nas having light and shade and position, but no particular outline.\nEvery time she held the skimmer under the pump to cool it for the\nwork her hand trembled, the ardour of his affection being so palpable\nthat she seemed to flinch under it like a plant in too burning a sun.\n\nThen he pressed her again to his side, and when she had done running\nher forefinger round the leads to cut off the cream-edge, he cleaned\nit in nature's way; for the unconstrained manners of Talbothays dairy\ncame convenient now.\n\n\"I may as well say it now as later, dearest,\" he resumed gently.  \"I\nwish to ask you something of a very practical nature, which I have\nbeen thinking of ever since that day last week in the meads.  I shall\nsoon want to marry, and, being a farmer, you see I shall require for\nmy wife a woman who knows all about the management of farms.  Will\nyou be that woman, Tessy?\"\n\nHe put it that way that she might not think he had yielded to an\nimpulse of which his head would disapprove.\n\nShe turned quite careworn.  She had bowed to the inevitable result of\nproximity, the necessity of loving him; but she had not calculated\nupon this sudden corollary, which, indeed, Clare had put before her\nwithout quite meaning himself to do it so soon.  With pain that was\nlike the bitterness of dissolution she murmured the words of her\nindispensable and sworn answer as an honourable woman.\n\n\"O Mr Clare--I cannot be your wife--I cannot be!\"\n\nThe sound of her own decision seemed to break Tess's very heart, and\nshe bowed her face in her grief.\n\n\"But, Tess!\" he said, amazed at her reply, and holding her still more\ngreedily close.  \"Do you say no?  Surely you love me?\"\n\n\"O yes, yes!  And I would rather be yours than anybody's in the\nworld,\" returned the sweet and honest voice of the distressed girl.\n\"But I CANNOT marry you!\"\n\n\"Tess,\" he said, holding her at arm's length, \"you are engaged to\nmarry some one else!\"\n\n\"No, no!\"\n\n\"Then why do you refuse me?\"\n\n\"I don't want to marry!  I have not thought of doing it.  I cannot!\nI only want to love you.\"\n\n\"But why?\"\n\nDriven to subterfuge, she stammered--\n\n\"Your father is a parson, and your mother wouldn' like you to marry\nsuch as me.  She will want you to marry a lady.\"\n\n\"Nonsense--I have spoken to them both.  That was partly why I went\nhome.\"\n\n\"I feel I cannot--never, never!\" she echoed.\n\n\"Is it too sudden to be asked thus, my Pretty?\"\n\n\"Yes--I did not expect it.\"\n\n\"If you will let it pass, please, Tessy, I will give you time,\" he\nsaid.  \"It was very abrupt to come home and speak to you all at once.\nI'll not allude to it again for a while.\"\n\nShe again took up the shining skimmer, held it beneath the pump, and\nbegan anew.  But she could not, as at other times, hit the exact\nunder-surface of the cream with the delicate dexterity required, try\nas she might; sometimes she was cutting down into the milk, sometimes\nin the air.  She could hardly see, her eyes having filled with two\nblurring tears drawn forth by a grief which, to this her best friend\nand dear advocate, she could never explain.\n\n\"I can't skim--I can't!\" she said, turning away from him.\n\nNot to agitate and hinder her longer, the considerate Clare began\ntalking in a more general way:\n\nYou quite misapprehend my parents.  They are the most simple-mannered\npeople alive, and quite unambitious.  They are two of the few\nremaining Evangelical school.  Tessy, are you an Evangelical?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"You go to church very regularly, and our parson here is not very\nHigh, they tell me.\"\n\nTess's ideas on the views of the parish clergyman, whom she heard\nevery week, seemed to be rather more vague than Clare's, who had\nnever heard him at all.\n\n\"I wish I could fix my mind on what I hear there more firmly than I\ndo,\" she remarked as a safe generality.  \"It is often a great sorrow\nto me.\"\n\nShe spoke so unaffectedly that Angel was sure in his heart that his\nfather could not object to her on religious grounds, even though she\ndid not know whether her principles were High, Low or Broad.  He\nhimself knew that, in reality, the confused beliefs which she held,\napparently imbibed in childhood, were, if anything, Tractarian as to\nphraseology, and Pantheistic as to essence.  Confused or otherwise,\nto disturb them was his last desire:\n\n\n      Leave thou thy sister, when she prays,\n         Her early Heaven, her happy views;\n         Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse\n      A life that leads melodious days.\n\n\nHe had occasionally thought the counsel less honest than musical; but\nhe gladly conformed to it now.\n\nHe spoke further of the incidents of his visit, of his father's mode\nof life, of his zeal for his principles; she grew serener, and the\nundulations disappeared from her skimming; as she finished one lead\nafter another he followed her, and drew the plugs for letting down\nthe milk.\n\n\"I fancied you looked a little downcast when you came in,\" she\nventured to observe, anxious to keep away from the subject of\nherself.\n\n\"Yes--well, my father had been talking a good deal to me of his\ntroubles and difficulties, and the subject always tends to depress\nme.  He is so zealous that he gets many snubs and buffetings from\npeople of a different way of thinking from himself, and I don't\nlike to hear of such humiliations to a man of his age, the more\nparticularly as I don't think earnestness does any good when carried\nso far.  He has been telling me of a very unpleasant scene in\nwhich he took part quite recently.  He went as the deputy of some\nmissionary society to preach in the neighbourhood of Trantridge, a\nplace forty miles from here, and made it his business to expostulate\nwith a lax young cynic he met with somewhere about there--son of some\nlandowner up that way--and who has a mother afflicted with blindness.\nMy father addressed himself to the gentleman point-blank, and there\nwas quite a disturbance.  It was very foolish of my father, I\nmust say, to intrude his conversation upon a stranger when the\nprobabilities were so obvious that it would be useless.  But whatever\nhe thinks to be his duty, that he'll do, in season or out of season;\nand, of course, he makes many enemies, not only among the absolutely\nvicious, but among the easy-going, who hate being bothered.  He says\nhe glories in what happened, and that good may be done indirectly;\nbut I wish he would not wear himself out now he is getting old, and\nwould leave such pigs to their wallowing.\"\n\nTess's look had grown hard and worn, and her ripe mouth tragical; but\nshe no longer showed any tremulousness.  Clare's revived thoughts of\nhis father prevented his noticing her particularly; and so they went\non down the white row of liquid rectangles till they had finished\nand drained them off, when the other maids returned, and took their\npails, and Deb came to scald out the leads for the new milk.  As\nTess withdrew to go afield to the cows he said to her softly--\n\n\"And my question, Tessy?\"\n\n\"O no--no!\" replied she with grave hopelessness, as one who had\nheard anew the turmoil of her own past in the allusion to Alec\nd'Urberville. \"It CAN'T be!\"\n\nShe went out towards the mead, joining the other milkmaids with\na bound, as if trying to make the open air drive away her sad\nconstraint.  All the girls drew onward to the spot where the cows\nwere grazing in the farther mead, the bevy advancing with the bold\ngrace of wild animals--the reckless, unchastened motion of women\naccustomed to unlimited space--in which they abandoned themselves to\nthe air as a swimmer to the wave.  It seemed natural enough to him\nnow that Tess was again in sight to choose a mate from unconstrained\nNature, and not from the abodes of Art.\n\n\n\nXXVIII\n\n\nHer refusal, though unexpected, did not permanently daunt Clare.\nHis experience of women was great enough for him to be aware that\nthe negative often meant nothing more than the preface to the\naffirmative; and it was little enough for him not to know that in\nthe manner of the present negative there lay a great exception to\nthe dallyings of coyness.  That she had already permitted him to\nmake love to her he read as an additional assurance, not fully\ntrowing that in the fields and pastures to \"sigh gratis\" is by no\nmeans deemed waste; love-making being here more often accepted\ninconsiderately and for its own sweet sake than in the carking,\nanxious homes of the ambitious, where a girl's craving for an\nestablishment paralyzes her healthy thought of a passion as an end.\n\n\"Tess, why did you say 'no' in such a positive way?\" he asked her in\nthe course of a few days.\n\nShe started.\n\n\"Don't ask me.  I told you why--partly.  I am not good enough--not\nworthy enough.\"\n\n\"How?  Not fine lady enough?\"\n\n\"Yes--something like that,\" murmured she.  \"Your friends would scorn\nme.\"\n\n\"Indeed, you mistake them--my father and mother.  As for my brothers,\nI don't care--\"  He clasped his fingers behind her back to keep her\nfrom slipping away.  \"Now--you did not mean it, sweet?--I am sure you\ndid not!  You have made me so restless that I cannot read, or play,\nor do anything.  I am in no hurry, Tess, but I want to know--to hear\nfrom your own warm lips--that you will some day be mine--any time you\nmay choose; but some day?\"\n\nShe could only shake her head and look away from him.\n\nClare regarded her attentively, conned the characters of her face as\nif they had been hieroglyphics.  The denial seemed real.\n\n\"Then I ought not to hold you in this way--ought I?  I have no\nright to you--no right to seek out where you are, or walk with you!\nHonestly, Tess, do you love any other man?\"\n\n\"How can you ask?\" she said, with continued self-suppression.\n\n\"I almost know that you do not.  But then, why do you repulse me?\"\n\n\"I don't repulse you.  I like you to--tell me you love me; and you\nmay always tell me so as you go about with me--and never offend me.\"\n\n\"But you will not accept me as a husband?\"\n\n\"Ah--that's different--it is for your good, indeed, my dearest!\nO, believe me, it is only for your sake!  I don't like to give\nmyself the great happiness o' promising to be yours in that\nway--because--because I am SURE I ought not to do it.\"\n\n\"But you will make me happy!\"\n\n\"Ah--you think so, but you don't know!\"\n\nAt such times as this, apprehending the grounds of her refusal to be\nher modest sense of incompetence in matters social and polite, he\nwould say that she was wonderfully well-informed and versatile--which\nwas certainly true, her natural quickness and her admiration for him\nhaving led her to pick up his vocabulary, his accent, and fragments\nof his knowledge, to a surprising extent.  After these tender\ncontests and her victory she would go away by herself under the\nremotest cow, if at milking-time, or into the sedge or into her room,\nif at a leisure interval, and mourn silently, not a minute after an\napparently phlegmatic negative.\n\nThe struggle was so fearful; her own heart was so strongly on the\nside of his--two ardent hearts against one poor little conscience--\nthat she tried to fortify her resolution by every means in her power.\nShe had come to Talbothays with a made-up mind.  On no account could\nshe agree to a step which might afterwards cause bitter rueing to her\nhusband for his blindness in wedding her.  And she held that what her\nconscience had decided for her when her mind was unbiassed ought not\nto be overruled now.\n\n\"Why don't somebody tell him all about me?\" she said.  \"It was only\nforty miles off--why hasn't it reached here?  Somebody must know!\"\n\nYet nobody seemed to know; nobody told him.\n\nFor two or three days no more was said.  She guessed from the sad\ncountenances of her chamber companions that they regarded her not\nonly as the favourite, but as the chosen; but they could see for\nthemselves that she did not put herself in his way.\n\nTess had never before known a time in which the thread of her life\nwas so distinctly twisted of two strands, positive pleasure and\npositive pain.  At the next cheese-making the pair were again left\nalone together.  The dairyman himself had been lending a hand; but\nMr Crick, as well as his wife, seemed latterly to have acquired a\nsuspicion of mutual interest between these two; though they walked\nso circumspectly that suspicion was but of the faintest. Anyhow, the\ndairyman left them to themselves.\n\nThey were breaking up the masses of curd before putting them into\nthe vats.  The operation resembled the act of crumbling bread on a\nlarge scale; and amid the immaculate whiteness of the curds Tess\nDurbeyfield's hands showed themselves of the pinkness of the rose.\nAngel, who was filling the vats with his handful, suddenly ceased,\nand laid his hands flat upon hers.  Her sleeves were rolled far above\nthe elbow, and bending lower he kissed the inside vein of her soft\narm.\n\nAlthough the early September weather was sultry, her arm, from\nher dabbling in the curds, was as cold and damp to his mouth as a\nnew-gathered mushroom, and tasted of the whey.  But she was such\na sheaf of susceptibilities that her pulse was accelerated by the\ntouch, her blood driven to her finder-ends, and the cool arms\nflushed hot.  Then, as though her heart had said, \"Is coyness longer\nnecessary? Truth is truth between man and woman, as between man and\nman,\" she lifted her eyes and they beamed devotedly into his, as her\nlip rose in a tender half-smile.\n\n\"Do you know why I did that, Tess?\" he said.\n\n\"Because you love me very much!\"\n\n\"Yes, and as a preliminary to a new entreaty.\"\n\n\"Not AGAIN!\"\n\nShe looked a sudden fear that her resistance might break down under\nher own desire.\n\n\"O, Tessy!\" he went on, \"I CANNOT think why you are so tantalizing.\nWhy do you disappoint me so?  You seem almost like a coquette, upon\nmy life you do--a coquette of the first urban water!  They blow\nhot and blow cold, just as you do, and it is the very last sort of\nthing to expect to find in a retreat like Talbothays. ...  And yet,\ndearest,\" he quickly added, observing now the remark had cut her, \"I\nknow you to be the most honest, spotless creature that ever lived.\nSo how can I suppose you a flirt?  Tess, why don't you like the idea\nof being my wife, if you love me as you seem to do?\"\n\n\"I have never said I don't like the idea, and I never could say it;\nbecause--it isn't true!\"\n\nThe stress now getting beyond endurance, her lip quivered, and she\nwas obliged to go away.  Clare was so pained and perplexed that he\nran after and caught her in the passage.\n\n\"Tell me, tell me!\" he said, passionately clasping her, in\nforgetfulness of his curdy hands: \"do tell me that you won't belong\nto anybody but me!\"\n\n\"I will, I will tell you!\" she exclaimed.  \"And I will give you a\ncomplete answer, if you will let me go now. I will tell you my\nexperiences--all about myself--all!\"\n\n\"Your experiences, dear; yes, certainly; any number.\"  He expressed\nassent in loving satire, looking into her face.  \"My Tess, no doubt,\nalmost as many experiences as that wild convolvulus out there on the\ngarden hedge, that opened itself this morning for the first time.\nTell me anything, but don't use that wretched expression any more\nabout not being worthy of me.\"\n\n\"I will try--not!  And I'll give you my reasons to-morrow--next\nweek.\"\n\n\"Say on Sunday?\"\n\n\"Yes, on Sunday.\"\n\nAt last she got away, and did not stop in her retreat till she was in\nthe thicket of pollard willows at the lower side of the barton, where\nshe could be quite unseen.  Here Tess flung herself down upon the\nrustling undergrowth of spear-grass, as upon a bed, and remained\ncrouching in palpitating misery broken by momentary shoots of joy,\nwhich her fears about the ending could not altogether suppress.\n\nIn reality, she was drifting into acquiescence.  Every see-saw of her\nbreath, every wave of her blood, every pulse singing in her ears, was\na voice that joined with nature in revolt against her scrupulousness.\nReckless, inconsiderate acceptance of him; to close with him at the\naltar, revealing nothing, and chancing discovery; to snatch ripe\npleasure before the iron teeth of pain could have time to shut upon\nher: that was what love counselled; and in almost a terror of ecstasy\nTess divined that, despite her many months of lonely self-chastisement,\nwrestlings, communings, schemes to lead a future of austere\nisolation, love's counsel would prevail.\n\nThe afternoon advanced, and still she remained among the willows.\nShe heard the rattle of taking down the pails from the forked stands;\nthe \"waow-waow!\" which accompanied the getting together of the cows.\nBut she did not go to the milking.  They would see her agitation;\nand the dairyman, thinking the cause to be love alone, would\ngood-naturedly tease her; and that harassment could not be borne.\n\nHer lover must have guessed her overwrought state, and invented some\nexcuse for her non-appearance, for no inquiries were made or calls\ngiven.  At half-past six the sun settled down upon the levels with\nthe aspect of a great forge in the heavens; and presently a monstrous\npumpkin-like moon arose on the other hand.  The pollard willows,\ntortured out of their natural shape by incessant choppings, became\nspiny-haired monsters as they stood up against it.  She went in and\nupstairs without a light.\n\nIt was now Wednesday.  Thursday came, and Angel looked thoughtfully\nat her from a distance, but intruded in no way upon her.  The indoor\nmilkmaids, Marian and the rest, seemed to guess that something\ndefinite was afoot, for they did not force any remarks upon her in\nthe bedchamber.  Friday passed; Saturday.  To-morrow was the day.\n\n\"I shall give way--I shall say yes--I shall let myself marry\nhim--I cannot help it!\" she jealously panted, with her hot face to\nthe pillow that night, on hearing one of the other girls sigh his\nname in her sleep.  \"I can't bear to let anybody have him but me!\nYet it is a wrong to him, and may kill him when he knows!  O my\nheart--O--O--O!\"\n\n\n\nXXIX\n\n\n\"Now, who mid ye think I've heard news o' this morning?\" said\nDairyman Crick, as he sat down to breakfast next day, with a riddling\ngaze round upon the munching men and maids. \"Now, just who mid ye\nthink?\"\n\nOne guessed, and another guessed.  Mrs Crick did not guess, because\nshe knew already.\n\n\"Well,\" said the dairyman, \"'tis that slack-twisted 'hore's-bird of a\nfeller, Jack Dollop.  He's lately got married to a widow-woman.\"\n\n\"Not Jack Dollop?  A villain--to think o' that!\" said a milker.\n\nThe name entered quickly into Tess Durbeyfield's consciousness, for\nit was the name of the lover who had wronged his sweetheart, and had\nafterwards been so roughly used by the young woman's mother in the\nbutter-churn.\n\n\"And had he married the valiant matron's daughter, as he promised?\"\nasked Angel Clare absently, as he turned over the newspaper he was\nreading at the little table to which he was always banished by Mrs\nCrick, in her sense of his gentility.\n\n\"Not he, sir.  Never meant to,\" replied the dairyman. \"As I say, 'tis\na widow-woman, and she had money, it seems--fifty poun' a year or so;\nand that was all he was after.  They were married in a great hurry;\nand then she told him that by marrying she had lost her fifty poun'\na year.  Just fancy the state o' my gentleman's mind at that news!\nNever such a cat-and-dog life as they've been leading ever since!\nServes him well beright.  But onluckily the poor woman gets the worst\no't.\"\n\n\"Well, the silly body should have told en sooner that the ghost of\nher first man would trouble him,\" said Mrs Crick.\n\n\"Ay, ay,\" responded the dairyman indecisively.  \"Still, you can see\nexactly how 'twas.  She wanted a home, and didn't like to run the\nrisk of losing him.  Don't ye think that was something like it,\nmaidens?\"\n\nHe glanced towards the row of girls.\n\n\"She ought to ha' told him just before they went to church, when he\ncould hardly have backed out,\" exclaimed Marian.\n\n\"Yes, she ought,\" agreed Izz.\n\n\"She must have seen what he was after, and should ha' refused him,\"\ncried Retty spasmodically.\n\n\"And what do you say, my dear?\" asked the dairyman of Tess.\n\n\"I think she ought--to have told him the true state of things--or\nelse refused him--I don't know,\" replied Tess, the bread-and-butter\nchoking her.\n\n\"Be cust if I'd have done either o't,\" said Beck Knibbs, a married\nhelper from one of the cottages.  \"All's fair in love and war.  I'd\nha' married en just as she did, and if he'd said two words to me\nabout not telling him beforehand anything whatsomdever about my first\nchap that I hadn't chose to tell, I'd ha' knocked him down wi' the\nrolling-pin--a scram little feller like he!  Any woman could do it.\"\n\nThe laughter which followed this sally was supplemented only by a\nsorry smile, for form's sake, from Tess.  What was comedy to them was\ntragedy to her; and she could hardly bear their mirth.  She soon rose\nfrom table, and, with an impression that Clare would soon follow her,\nwent along a little wriggling path, now stepping to one side of the\nirrigating channels, and now to the other, till she stood by the main\nstream of the Var.  Men had been cutting the water-weeds higher up\nthe river, and masses of them were floating past her--moving islands\nof green crow-foot, whereon she might almost have ridden; long locks\nof which weed had lodged against the piles driven to keep the cows\nfrom crossing.\n\nYes, there was the pain of it.  This question of a woman telling her\nstory--the heaviest of crosses to herself--seemed but amusement to\nothers.  It was as if people should laugh at martyrdom.\n\n\"Tessy!\" came from behind her, and Clare sprang across the gully,\nalighting beside her feet.  \"My wife--soon!\"\n\n\"No, no; I cannot.  For your sake, O Mr Clare; for your sake, I say\nno!\"\n\n\"Tess!\"\n\n\"Still I say no!\" she repeated.\n\nNot expecting this, he had put his arm lightly round her waist the\nmoment after speaking, beneath her hanging tail of hair.  (The\nyounger dairymaids, including Tess, breakfasted with their hair loose\non Sunday mornings before building it up extra high for attending\nchurch, a style they could not adopt when milking with their heads\nagainst the cows.)  If she had said \"Yes\" instead of \"No\" he\nwould have kissed her; it had evidently been his intention; but\nher determined negative deterred his scrupulous heart.  Their\ncondition of domiciliary comradeship put her, as the woman, to such\ndisadvantage by its enforced intercourse, that he felt it unfair to\nher to exercise any pressure of blandishment which he might have\nhonestly employed had she been better able to avoid him.  He released\nher momentarily-imprisoned waist, and withheld the kiss.\n\nIt all turned on that release.  What had given her strength to refuse\nhim this time was solely the tale of the widow told by the dairyman;\nand that would have been overcome in another moment.  But Angel said\nno more; his face was perplexed; he went away.\n\nDay after day they met--somewhat less constantly than before; and\nthus two or three weeks went by.  The end of September drew near, and\nshe could see in his eye that he might ask her again.\n\nHis plan of procedure was different now--as though he had made up\nhis mind that her negatives were, after all, only coyness and youth\nstartled by the novelty of the proposal.  The fitful evasiveness of\nher manner when the subject was under discussion countenanced the\nidea.  So he played a more coaxing game; and while never going beyond\nwords, or attempting the renewal of caresses, he did his utmost\norally.\n\nIn this way Clare persistently wooed her in undertones like that of\nthe purling milk--at the cow's side, at skimmings, at butter-makings,\nat cheese-makings, among broody poultry, and among farrowing pigs--as\nno milkmaid was ever wooed before by such a man.\n\nTess knew that she must break down.  Neither a religious sense of a\ncertain moral validity in the previous union nor a conscientious wish\nfor candour could hold out against it much longer.  She loved him so\npassionately, and he was so godlike in her eyes; and being, though\nuntrained, instinctively refined, her nature cried for his tutelary\nguidance.  And thus, though Tess kept repeating to herself, \"I can\nnever be his wife,\" the words were vain.  A proof of her weakness lay\nin the very utterance of what calm strength would not have taken the\ntrouble to formulate.  Every sound of his voice beginning on the old\nsubject stirred her with a terrifying bliss, and she coveted the\nrecantation she feared.\n\nHis manner was--what man's is not?--so much that of one who would\nlove and cherish and defend her under any conditions, changes,\ncharges, or revelations, that her gloom lessened as she basked in it.\nThe season meanwhile was drawing onward to the equinox, and though\nit was still fine, the days were much shorter.  The dairy had again\nworked by morning candlelight for a long time; and a fresh renewal\nof Clare's pleading occurred one morning between three and four.\n\nShe had run up in her bedgown to his door to call him as usual;\nthen had gone back to dress and call the others; and in ten minutes\nwas walking to the head of the stairs with the candle in her\nhand.  At the same moment he came down his steps from above in his\nshirt-sleeves and put his arm across the stairway.\n\n\"Now, Miss Flirt, before you go down,\" he said peremptorily. \"It is a\nfortnight since I spoke, and this won't do any longer.  You MUST tell\nme what you mean, or I shall have to leave this house.  My door was\najar just now, and I saw you.  For your own safety I must go.  You\ndon't know.  Well?  Is it to be yes at last?\"\n\n\"I am only just up, Mr Clare, and it is too early to take me to\ntask!\" she pouted.  \"You need not call me Flirt.  'Tis cruel and\nuntrue.  Wait till by and by.  Please wait till by and by!  I will\nreally think seriously about it between now and then.  Let me go\ndownstairs!\"\n\nShe looked a little like what he said she was as, holding the candle\nsideways, she tried to smile away the seriousness of her words.\n\n\"Call me Angel, then, and not Mr Clare.\"\n\n\"Angel.\"\n\n\"Angel dearest--why not?\"\n\n\"'Twould mean that I agree, wouldn't it?\"\n\n\"It would only mean that you love me, even if you cannot marry me;\nand you were so good as to own that long ago.\"\n\n\"Very well, then, 'Angel dearest', if I MUST,\" she murmured, looking\nat her candle, a roguish curl coming upon her mouth, notwithstanding\nher suspense.\n\nClare had resolved never to kiss her until he had obtained her\npromise; but somehow, as Tess stood there in her prettily tucked-up\nmilking gown, her hair carelessly heaped upon her head till there\nshould be leisure to arrange it when skimming and milking were done,\nhe broke his resolve, and brought his lips to her cheek for one\nmoment.  She passed downstairs very quickly, never looking back at\nhim or saying another word.  The other maids were already down,\nand the subject was not pursued.  Except Marian, they all looked\nwistfully and suspiciously at the pair, in the sad yellow rays which\nthe morning candles emitted in contrast with the first cold signals\nof the dawn without.\n\nWhen skimming was done--which, as the milk diminished with the\napproach of autumn, was a lessening process day by day--Retty and\nthe rest went out.  The lovers followed them.\n\n\"Our tremulous lives are so different from theirs, are they not?\" he\nmusingly observed to her, as he regarded the three figures tripping\nbefore him through the frigid pallor of opening day.\n\n\"Not so very different, I think,\" she said.\n\n\"Why do you think that?\"\n\n\"There are very few women's lives that are not--tremulous,\" Tess\nreplied, pausing over the new word as if it impressed her.  \"There's\nmore in those three than you think.\"\n\n\"What is in them?\"\n\n\"Almost either of 'em,\" she began, \"would make--perhaps would\nmake--a properer wife than I.  And perhaps they love you as well\nas I--almost.\"\n\n\"O, Tessy!\"\n\nThere were signs that it was an exquisite relief to her to hear the\nimpatient exclamation, though she had resolved so intrepidly to let\ngenerosity make one bid against herself.  That was now done, and she\nhad not the power to attempt self-immolation a second time then.\nThey were joined by a milker from one of the cottages, and no more\nwas said on that which concerned them so deeply.  But Tess knew that\nthis day would decide it.\n\nIn the afternoon several of the dairyman's household and assistants\nwent down to the meads as usual, a long way from the dairy, where\nmany of the cows were milked without being driven home.  The\nsupply was getting less as the animals advanced in calf, and the\nsupernumerary milkers of the lush green season had been dismissed.\n\nThe work progressed leisurely.  Each pailful was poured into tall\ncans that stood in a large spring-waggon which had been brought\nupon the scene; and when they were milked, the cows trailed away.\nDairyman Crick, who was there with the rest, his wrapper gleaming\nmiraculously white against a leaden evening sky, suddenly looked\nat his heavy watch.\n\n\"Why, 'tis later than I thought,\" he said.  \"Begad!  We shan't be\nsoon enough with this milk at the station, if we don't mind.  There's\nno time to-day to take it home and mix it with the bulk afore sending\noff.  It must go to station straight from here.  Who'll drive it\nacross?\"\n\nMr Clare volunteered to do so, though it was none of his business,\nasking Tess to accompany him.  The evening, though sunless, had\nbeen warm and muggy for the season, and Tess had come out with\nher milking-hood only, naked-armed and jacketless; certainly not\ndressed for a drive.  She therefore replied by glancing over her\nscant habiliments; but Clare gently urged her.  She assented by\nrelinquishing her pail and stool to the dairyman to take home, and\nmounted the spring-waggon beside Clare.\n\n\n\nXXX\n\n\nIn the diminishing daylight they went along the level roadway through\nthe meads, which stretched away into gray miles, and were backed in\nthe extreme edge of distance by the swarthy and abrupt slopes of\nEgdon Heath.  On its summit stood clumps and stretches of fir-trees,\nwhose notched tips appeared like battlemented towers crowning\nblack-fronted castles of enchantment.\n\nThey were so absorbed in the sense of being close to each other that\nthey did not begin talking for a long while, the silence being broken\nonly by the clucking of the milk in the tall cans behind them.\nThe lane they followed was so solitary that the hazel nuts had\nremained on the boughs till they slipped from their shells, and the\nblackberries hung in heavy clusters.  Every now and then Angel would\nfling the lash of his whip round one of these, pluck it off, and give\nit to his companion.\n\nThe dull sky soon began to tell its meaning by sending down\nherald-drops of rain, and the stagnant air of the day changed into\na fitful breeze which played about their faces.  The quick-silvery\nglaze on the rivers and pools vanished; from broad mirrors of light\nthey changed to lustreless sheets of lead, with a surface like a\nrasp.  But that spectacle did not affect her preoccupation.  Her\ncountenance, a natural carnation slightly embrowned by the season,\nhad deepened its tinge with the beating of the rain-drops; and her\nhair, which the pressure of the cows' flanks had, as usual, caused to\ntumble down from its fastenings and stray beyond the curtain of her\ncalico bonnet, was made clammy by the moisture, till it hardly was\nbetter than seaweed.\n\n\"I ought not to have come, I suppose,\" she murmured, looking at the\nsky.\n\n\"I am sorry for the rain,\" said he.  \"But how glad I am to have you\nhere!\"\n\nRemote Egdon disappeared by degree behind the liquid gauze.  The\nevening grew darker, and the roads being crossed by gates, it was\nnot safe to drive faster than at a walking pace.  The air was rather\nchill.\n\n\"I am so afraid you will get cold, with nothing upon your arms and\nshoulders,\" he said.  \"Creep close to me, and perhaps the drizzle\nwon't hurt you much.  I should be sorrier still if I did not think\nthat the rain might be helping me.\"\n\nShe imperceptibly crept closer, and he wrapped round them both a\nlarge piece of sail-cloth, which was sometimes used to keep the sun\noff the milk-cans.  Tess held it from slipping off him as well as\nherself, Clare's hands being occupied.\n\n\"Now we are all right again.  Ah--no we are not!  It runs down into\nmy neck a little, and it must still more into yours.  That's better.\nYour arms are like wet marble, Tess.  Wipe them in the cloth.  Now,\nif you stay quiet, you will not get another drop.  Well, dear--about\nthat question of mine--that long-standing question?\"\n\nThe only reply that he could hear for a little while was the smack of\nthe horse's hoofs on the moistening road, and the cluck of the milk\nin the cans behind them.\n\n\"Do you remember what you said?\"\n\n\"I do,\" she replied.\n\n\"Before we get home, mind.\"\n\n\"I'll try.\"\n\nHe said no more then.  As they drove on, the fragment of an old manor\nhouse of Caroline date rose against the sky, and was in due course\npassed and left behind.\n\n\"That,\" he observed, to entertain her, \"is an interesting old\nplace--one of the several seats which belonged to an ancient Norman\nfamily formerly of great influence in this county, the d'Urbervilles.\nI never pass one of their residences without thinking of them.  There\nis something very sad in the extinction of a family of renown, even\nif it was fierce, domineering, feudal renown.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Tess.\n\nThey crept along towards a point in the expanse of shade just at hand\nat which a feeble light was beginning to assert its presence, a spot\nwhere, by day, a fitful white streak of steam at intervals upon the\ndark green background denoted intermittent moments of contact between\ntheir secluded world and modern life.  Modern life stretched out its\nsteam feeler to this point three or four times a day, touched the\nnative existences, and quickly withdrew its feeler again, as if what\nit touched had been uncongenial.\n\nThey reached the feeble light, which came from the smoky lamp of a\nlittle railway station; a poor enough terrestrial star, yet in one\nsense of more importance to Talbothays Dairy and mankind than the\ncelestial ones to which it stood in such humiliating contrast.  The\ncans of new milk were unladen in the rain, Tess getting a little\nshelter from a neighbouring holly tree.\n\nThen there was the hissing of a train, which drew up almost silently\nupon the wet rails, and the milk was rapidly swung can by can into\nthe truck.  The light of the engine flashed for a second upon Tess\nDurbeyfield's figure, motionless under the great holly tree.  No\nobject could have looked more foreign to the gleaming cranks and\nwheels than this unsophisticated girl, with the round bare arms, the\nrainy face and hair, the suspended attitude of a friendly leopard at\npause, the print gown of no date or fashion, and the cotton bonnet\ndrooping on her brow.\n\nShe mounted again beside her lover, with a mute obedience\ncharacteristic of impassioned natures at times, and when they had\nwrapped themselves up over head and ears in the sailcloth again, they\nplunged back into the now thick night.  Tess was so receptive that\nthe few minutes of contact with the whirl of material progress\nlingered in her thought.\n\n\"Londoners will drink it at their breakfasts to-morrow, won't they?\"\nshe asked.  \"Strange people that we have never seen.\"\n\n\"Yes--I suppose they will.  Though not as we send it.  When its\nstrength has been lowered, so that it may not get up into their\nheads.\"\n\n\"Noble men and noble women, ambassadors and centurions, ladies and\ntradeswomen, and babies who have never seen a cow.\"\n\n\"Well, yes; perhaps; particularly centurions.\"\n\n\"Who don't know anything of us, and where it comes from; or think how\nwe two drove miles across the moor to-night in the rain that it might\nreach 'em in time?\"\n\n\"We did not drive entirely on account of these precious Londoners; we\ndrove a little on our own--on account of that anxious matter which\nyou will, I am sure, set at rest, dear Tess.  Now, permit me to put\nit in this way.  You belong to me already, you know; your heart, I\nmean. Does it not?\"\n\n\"You know as well as I.  O yes--yes!\"\n\n\"Then, if your heart does, why not your hand?\"\n\n\"My only reason was on account of you--on account of a question.  I\nhave something to tell you--\"\n\n\"But suppose it to be entirely for my happiness, and my worldly\nconvenience also?\"\n\n\"O yes; if it is for your happiness and worldly convenience.  But my\nlife before I came here--I want--\"\n\n\"Well, it is for my convenience as well as my happiness.  If I have a\nvery large farm, either English or colonial, you will be invaluable\nas a wife to me; better than a woman out of the largest mansion in\nthe country.  So please--please, dear Tessy, disabuse your mind of\nthe feeling that you will stand in my way.\"\n\n\"But my history.  I want you to know it--you must let me tell\nyou--you will not like me so well!\"\n\n\"Tell it if you wish to, dearest.  This precious history then.  Yes,\nI was born at so and so, Anno Domini--\"\n\n\"I was born at Marlott,\" she said, catching at his words as a help,\nlightly as they were spoken.  \"And I grew up there. And I was in the\nSixth Standard when I left school, and they said I had great aptness,\nand should make a good teacher, so it was settled that I should\nbe one.  But there was trouble in my family; father was not very\nindustrious, and he drank a little.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes.  Poor child!  Nothing new.\"  He pressed her more closely\nto his side.\n\n\"And then--there is something very unusual about it--about me.  I--I\nwas--\"\n\nTess's breath quickened.\n\n\"Yes, dearest.  Never mind.\"\n\n\"I--I--am not a Durbeyfield, but a d'Urberville--a descendant of the\nsame family as those that owned the old house we passed.  And--we are\nall gone to nothing!\"\n\n\"A d'Urberville!--Indeed!  And is that all the trouble, dear Tess?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered faintly.\n\n\"Well--why should I love you less after knowing this?\"\n\n\"I was told by the dairyman that you hated old families.\"\n\nHe laughed.\n\n\"Well, it is true, in one sense.  I do hate the aristocratic\nprinciple of blood before everything, and do think that as reasoners\nthe only pedigrees we ought to respect are those spiritual ones of\nthe wise and virtuous, without regard to corporal paternity.  But\nI am extremely interested in this news--you can have no idea how\ninterested I am!  Are you not interested yourself in being one of\nthat well-known line?\"\n\n\"No.  I have thought it sad--especially since coming here, and\nknowing that many of the hills and fields I see once belonged to\nmy father's people.  But other hills and field belonged to Retty's\npeople, and perhaps others to Marian's, so that I don't value it\nparticularly.\"\n\n\"Yes--it is surprising how many of the present tillers of the soil\nwere once owners of it, and I sometimes wonder that a certain school\nof politicians don't make capital of the circumstance; but they don't\nseem to know it...  I wonder that I did not see the resemblance of\nyour name to d'Urberville, and trace the manifest corruption.  And\nthis was the carking secret!\"\n\nShe had not told.  At the last moment her courage had failed her;\nshe feared his blame for not telling him sooner; and her instinct\nof self-preservation was stronger than her candour.\n\n\"Of course,\" continued the unwitting Clare, \"I should have been glad\nto know you to be descended exclusively from the long-suffering,\ndumb, unrecorded rank and file of the English nation, and not from\nthe self-seeking few who made themselves powerful at the expense of\nthe rest.  But I am corrupted away from that by my affection for you,\nTess (he laughed as he spoke), and made selfish likewise.  For your\nown sake I rejoice in your descent.  Society is hopelessly snobbish,\nand this fact of your extraction may make an appreciable difference\nto its acceptance of you as my wife, after I have made you the\nwell-read woman that I mean to make you.  My mother too, poor soul,\nwill think so much better of you on account of it.  Tess, you must\nspell your name correctly--d'Urberville--from this very day.\"\n\n\"I like the other way rather best.\"\n\n\"But you MUST, dearest!  Good heavens, why dozens of mushroom\nmillionaires would jump at such a possession!  By the bye, there's\none of that kidney who has taken the name--where have I heard of\nhim?--Up in the neighbourhood of The Chase, I think.  Why, he is the\nvery man who had that rumpus with my father I told you of.  What an\nodd coincidence!\"\n\n\"Angel, I think I would rather not take the name!  It is unlucky,\nperhaps!\"\n\nShe was agitated.\n\n\"Now then, Mistress Teresa d'Urberville, I have you.  Take my name,\nand so you will escape yours!  The secret is out, so why should you\nany longer refuse me?\"\n\n\"If it is SURE to make you happy to have me as your wife, and you\nfeel that you do wish to marry me, VERY, VERY much--\"\n\n\"I do, dearest, of course!\"\n\n\"I mean, that it is only your wanting me very much, and being hardly\nable to keep alive without me, whatever my offences, that would make\nme feel I ought to say I will.\"\n\n\"You will--you do say it, I know!  You will be mine for ever and\never.\"\n\nHe clasped her close and kissed her.\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\nShe had no sooner said it than she burst into a dry hard sobbing, so\nviolent that it seemed to rend her.  Tess was not a hysterical girl\nby any means, and he was surprised.\n\n\"Why do you cry, dearest?\"\n\n\"I can't tell--quite!--I am so glad to think--of being yours, and\nmaking you happy!\"\n\n\"But this does not seem very much like gladness, my Tessy!\"\n\n\"I mean--I cry because I have broken down in my vow!  I said I would\ndie unmarried!\"\n\n\"But, if you love me you would like me to be your husband?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, yes!  But O, I sometimes wish I had never been born!\"\n\n\"Now, my dear Tess, if I did not know that you are very much excited,\nand very inexperienced, I should say that remark was not very\ncomplimentary.  How came you to wish that if you care for me?  Do you\ncare for me?  I wish you would prove it in some way.\"\n\n\"How can I prove it more than I have done?\" she cried, in a\ndistraction of tenderness.  \"Will this prove it more?\"\n\nShe clasped his neck, and for the first time Clare learnt what an\nimpassioned woman's kisses were like upon the lips of one whom she\nloved with all her heart and soul, as Tess loved him.\n\n\"There--now do you believe?\" she asked, flushed, and wiping her eyes.\n\n\"Yes. I never really doubted--never, never!\"\n\nSo they drove on through the gloom, forming one bundle inside the\nsail-cloth, the horse going as he would, and the rain driving against\nthem.  She had consented.  She might as well have agreed at first.\nThe \"appetite for joy\" which pervades all creation, that tremendous\nforce which sways humanity to its purpose, as the tide sways the\nhelpless weed, was not to be controlled by vague lucubrations over\nthe social rubric.\n\n\"I must write to my mother,\" she said.  \"You don't mind my doing\nthat?\"\n\n\"Of course not, dear child.  You are a child to me, Tess, not to know\nhow very proper it is to write to your mother at such a time, and how\nwrong it would be in me to object.  Where does she live?\"\n\n\"At the same place--Marlott.  On the further side of Blackmoor Vale.\"\n\n\"Ah, then I HAVE seen you before this summer--\"\n\n\"Yes; at that dance on the green; but you would not dance with me.\nO, I hope that is of no ill-omen for us now!\"\n\n\n\nXXXI\n\n\nTess wrote a most touching and urgent letter to her mother the very\nnext day, and by the end of the week a response to her communication\narrived in Joan Durbeyfield's wandering last-century hand.\n\n\n   DEAR TESS,--\n\n   J write these few lines Hoping they will find you well,\n   as they leave me at Present, thank God for it.  Dear\n   Tess, we are all glad to Hear that you are going really\n   to be married soon.  But with respect to your question,\n   Tess, J say between ourselves, quite private but very\n   strong, that on no account do you say a word of your\n   Bygone Trouble to him.  J did not tell everything\n   to your Father, he being so Proud on account of his\n   Respectability, which, perhaps, your Intended is\n   the same.  Many a woman--some of the Highest in the\n   Land--have had a Trouble in their time; and why should\n   you Trumpet yours when others don't Trumpet theirs?  No\n   girl would be such a Fool, specially as it is so long\n   ago, and not your Fault at all.  J shall answer the\n   same if you ask me fifty times.  Besides, you must bear\n   in mind that, knowing it to be your Childish Nature to\n   tell all that's in your heart--so simple!--J made you\n   promise me never to let it out by Word or Deed, having\n   your Welfare in my Mind; and you most solemnly did\n   promise it going from this Door.  J have not named\n   either that Question or your coming marriage to your\n   Father, as he would blab it everywhere, poor Simple\n   Man.\n\n   Dear Tess, keep up your Spirits, and we mean to send\n   you a Hogshead of Cyder for you Wedding, knowing there\n   is not much in your parts, and thin Sour Stuff what\n   there is.  So no more at present, and with kind love\n   to your Young Man.--From your affectte. Mother,\n\n   J. DURBEYFIELD\n\n\n\"O mother, mother!\" murmured Tess.\n\nShe was recognizing how light was the touch of events the most\noppressive upon Mrs Durbeyfield's elastic spirit.  Her mother did not\nsee life as Tess saw it.  That haunting episode of bygone days was\nto her mother but a passing accident.  But perhaps her mother was\nright as to the course to be followed, whatever she might be in her\nreasons.  Silence seemed, on the face of it, best for her adored\none's happiness: silence it should be.\n\nThus steadied by a command from the only person in the world who had\nany shadow of right to control her action, Tess grew calmer.  The\nresponsibility was shifted, and her heart was lighter than it had\nbeen for weeks.  The days of declining autumn which followed her\nassent, beginning with the month of October, formed a season through\nwhich she lived in spiritual altitudes more nearly approaching\necstasy than any other period of her life.\n\nThere was hardly a touch of earth in her love for Clare.  To her\nsublime trustfulness he was all that goodness could be--knew all that\na guide, philosopher, and friend should know.  She thought every line\nin the contour of his person the perfection of masculine beauty, his\nsoul the soul of a saint, his intellect that of a seer.  The wisdom\nof her love for him, as love, sustained her dignity; she seemed to be\nwearing a crown.  The compassion of his love for her, as she saw it,\nmade her lift up her heart to him in devotion.  He would sometimes\ncatch her large, worshipful eyes, that had no bottom to them looking\nat him from their depths, as if she saw something immortal before\nher.\n\nShe dismissed the past--trod upon it and put it out, as one treads on\na coal that is smouldering and dangerous.\n\nShe had not known that men could be so disinterested, chivalrous,\nprotective, in their love for women as he.  Angel Clare was far from\nall that she thought him in this respect; absurdly far, indeed;\nbut he was, in truth, more spiritual than animal; he had himself\nwell in hand, and was singularly free from grossness.  Though not\ncold-natured, he was rather bright than hot--less Byronic than\nShelleyan; could love desperately, but with a love more especially\ninclined to the imaginative and ethereal; it was a fastidious emotion\nwhich could jealously guard the loved one against his very self.\nThis amazed and enraptured Tess, whose slight experiences had been so\ninfelicitous till now; and in her reaction from indignation against\nthe male sex she swerved to excess of honour for Clare.\n\nThey unaffectedly sought each other's company; in her honest faith\nshe did not disguise her desire to be with him.  The sum of her\ninstincts on this matter, if clearly stated, would have been that the\nelusive quality of her sex which attracts men in general might be\ndistasteful to so perfect a man after an avowal of love, since it\nmust in its very nature carry with it a suspicion of art.\n\nThe country custom of unreserved comradeship out of doors during\nbetrothal was the only custom she knew, and to her it had no\nstrangeness; though it seemed oddly anticipative to Clare till he\nsaw how normal a thing she, in common with all the other dairy-folk,\nregarded it.  Thus, during this October month of wonderful afternoons\nthey roved along the meads by creeping paths which followed the\nbrinks of trickling tributary brooks, hopping across by little wooden\nbridges to the other side, and back again.  They were never out of\nthe sound of some purling weir, whose buzz accompanied their own\nmurmuring, while the beams of the sun, almost as horizontal as the\nmead itself, formed a pollen of radiance over the landscape.  They\nsaw tiny blue fogs in the shadows of trees and hedges, all the time\nthat there was bright sunshine elsewhere.  The sun was so near the\nground, and the sward so flat, that the shadows of Clare and Tess\nwould stretch a quarter of a mile ahead of them, like two long\nfingers pointing afar to where the green alluvial reaches abutted\nagainst the sloping sides of the vale.\n\nMen were at work here and there--for it was the season for \"taking\nup\" the meadows, or digging the little waterways clear for the winter\nirrigation, and mending their banks where trodden down by the cows.\nThe shovelfuls of loam, black as jet, brought there by the river\nwhen it was as wide as the whole valley, were an essence of soils,\npounded champaigns of the past, steeped, refined, and subtilized to\nextraordinary richness, out of which came all the fertility of the\nmead, and of the cattle grazing there.\n\nClare hardily kept his arm round her waist in sight of these\nwatermen, with the air of a man who was accustomed to public\ndalliance, though actually as shy as she who, with lips parted and\neyes askance on the labourers, wore the look of a wary animal the\nwhile.\n\n\"You are not ashamed of owning me as yours before them!\" she said\ngladly.\n\n\"O no!\"\n\n\"But if it should reach the ears of your friends at Emminster that\nyou are walking about like this with me, a milkmaid--\"\n\n\"The most bewitching milkmaid ever seen.\"\n\n\"They might feel it a hurt to their dignity.\"\n\n\"My dear girl--a d'Urberville hurt the dignity of a Clare!  It is a\ngrand card to play--that of your belonging to such a family, and I\nam reserving it for a grand effect when we are married, and have\nthe proofs of your descent from Parson Tringham.  Apart from that,\nmy future is to be totally foreign to my family--it will not affect\neven the surface of their lives.  We shall leave this part of\nEngland--perhaps England itself--and what does it matter how people\nregard us here?  You will like going, will you not?\"\n\nShe could answer no more than a bare affirmative, so great was the\nemotion aroused in her at the thought of going through the world with\nhim as his own familiar friend.  Her feelings almost filled her ears\nlike a babble of waves, and surged up to her eyes.  She put her hand\nin his, and thus they went on, to a place where the reflected sun\nglared up from the river, under a bridge, with a molten-metallic glow\nthat dazzled their eyes, though the sun itself was hidden by the\nbridge.  They stood still, whereupon little furred and feathered\nheads popped up from the smooth surface of the water; but, finding\nthat the disturbing presences had paused, and not passed by, they\ndisappeared again.  Upon this river-brink they lingered till the fog\nbegan to close round them--which was very early in the evening at\nthis time of the year--settling on the lashes of her eyes, where it\nrested like crystals, and on his brows and hair.\n\nThey walked later on Sundays, when it was quite dark.  Some of the\ndairy-people, who were also out of doors on the first Sunday evening\nafter their engagement, heard her impulsive speeches, ecstasized to\nfragments, though they were too far off to hear the words discoursed;\nnoted the spasmodic catch in her remarks, broken into syllables by\nthe leapings of her heart, as she walked leaning on his arm; her\ncontented pauses, the occasional little laugh upon which her soul\nseemed to ride--the laugh of a woman in company with the man she\nloves and has won from all other women--unlike anything else in\nnature.  They marked the buoyancy of her tread, like the skim of a\nbird which has not quite alighted.\n\nHer affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being;\nit enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness\nof her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would\npersist in their attempts to touch her--doubt, fear, moodiness, care,\nshame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the\ncircumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them\nin hungry subjection there.\n\nA spiritual forgetfulness co-existed with an intellectual\nremembrance.  She walked in brightness, but she knew that in the\nbackground those shapes of darkness were always spread.  They might\nbe receding, or they might be approaching, one or the other, a little\nevery day.\n\n\nOne evening Tess and Clare were obliged to sit indoors keeping house,\nall the other occupants of the domicile being away.  As they talked\nshe looked thoughtfully up at him, and met his two appreciative eyes.\n\n\"I am not worthy of you--no, I am not!\" she burst out, jumping up\nfrom her low stool as though appalled at his homage, and the fulness\nof her own joy thereat.\n\nClare, deeming the whole basis of her excitement to be that which was\nonly the smaller part of it, said--\n\n\"I won't have you speak like it, dear Tess!  Distinction does not\nconsist in the facile use of a contemptible set of conventions, but\nin being numbered among those who are true, and honest, and just, and\npure, and lovely, and of good report--as you are, my Tess.\"\n\nShe struggled with the sob in her throat.  How often had that string\nof excellences made her young heart ache in church of late years, and\nhow strange that he should have cited them now.\n\n\"Why didn't you stay and love me when I--was sixteen; living with my\nlittle sisters and brothers, and you danced on the green?  O, why\ndidn't you, why didn't you!\" she said, impetuously clasping her\nhands.\n\nAngel began to comfort and reassure her, thinking to himself, truly\nenough, what a creature of moods she was, and how careful he would\nhave to be of her when she depended for her happiness entirely on\nhim.\n\n\"Ah--why didn't I stay!\" he said.  \"That is just what I feel.  If I\nhad only known!  But you must not be so bitter in your regret--why\nshould you be?\"\n\nWith the woman's instinct to hide she diverged hastily--\n\n\"I should have had four years more of your heart than I can ever have\nnow.  Then I should not have wasted my time as I have done--I should\nhave had so much longer happiness!\"\n\nIt was no mature woman with a long dark vista of intrigue behind her\nwho was tormented thus, but a girl of simple life, not yet one-and\ntwenty, who had been caught during her days of immaturity like a bird\nin a springe.  To calm herself the more completely, she rose from her\nlittle stool and left the room, overturning the stool with her skirts\nas she went.\n\nHe sat on by the cheerful firelight thrown from a bundle of green\nash-sticks laid across the dogs; the sticks snapped pleasantly, and\nhissed out bubbles of sap from their ends.  When she came back she\nwas herself again.\n\n\"Do you not think you are just a wee bit capricious, fitful, Tess?\"\nhe said, good-humouredly, as he spread a cushion for her on the\nstool, and seated himself in the settle beside her.  \"I wanted to\nask you something, and just then you ran away.\"\n\n\"Yes, perhaps I am capricious,\" she murmured.  She suddenly\napproached him, and put a hand upon each of his arms.  \"No, Angel,\nI am not really so--by nature, I mean!\"  The more particularly to\nassure him that she was not, she placed herself close to him in the\nsettle, and allowed her head to find a resting-place against Clare's\nshoulder.  \"What did you want to ask me--I am sure I will answer it,\"\nshe continued humbly.\n\n\"Well, you love me, and have agreed to marry me, and hence there\nfollows a thirdly, 'When shall the day be?'\"\n\n\"I like living like this.\"\n\n\"But I must think of starting in business on my own hook with the\nnew year, or a little later.  And before I get involved in the\nmultifarious details of my new position, I should like to have\nsecured my partner.\"\n\n\"But,\" she timidly answered, \"to talk quite practically, wouldn't it\nbe best not to marry till after all that?--Though I can't bear the\nthought o' your going away and leaving me here!\"\n\n\"Of course you cannot--and it is not best in this case.  I want you\nto help me in many ways in making my start. When shall it be?  Why\nnot a fortnight from now?\"\n\n\"No,\" she said, becoming grave: \"I have so many things to think of\nfirst.\"\n\n\"But--\"\n\nHe drew her gently nearer to him.\n\nThe reality of marriage was startling when it loomed so near.  Before\ndiscussion of the question had proceeded further there walked round\nthe corner of the settle into the full firelight of the apartment Mr\nDairyman Crick, Mrs Crick, and two of the milkmaids.\n\nTess sprang like an elastic ball from his side to her feet, while her\nface flushed and her eyes shone in the firelight.\n\n\"I knew how it would be if I sat so close to him!\" she cried, with\nvexation.  \"I said to myself, they are sure to come and catch us!\nBut I wasn't really sitting on his knee, though it might ha' seemed\nas if I was almost!\"\n\n\"Well--if so be you hadn't told us, I am sure we shouldn't ha'\nnoticed that ye had been sitting anywhere at all in this light,\"\nreplied the dairyman.  He continued to his wife, with the stolid\nmien of a man who understood nothing of the emotions relating to\nmatrimony--\"Now, Christianer, that shows that folks should never\nfancy other folks be supposing things when they bain't.  O no, I\nshould never ha' thought a word of where she was a sitting to, if\nshe hadn't told me--not I.\"\n\n\"We are going to be married soon,\" said Clare, with improvised\nphlegm.\n\n\"Ah--and be ye!  Well, I am truly glad to hear it, sir.  I've\nthought you mid do such a thing for some time.  She's too good for a\ndairymaid--I said so the very first day I zid her--and a prize for\nany man; and what's more, a wonderful woman for a gentleman-farmer's\nwife; he won't be at the mercy of his baily wi' her at his side.\"\n\nSomehow Tess disappeared.  She had been even more struck with the\nlook of the girls who followed Crick than abashed by Crick's blunt\npraise.\n\nAfter supper, when she reached her bedroom, they were all present.  A\nlight was burning, and each damsel was sitting up whitely in her bed,\nawaiting Tess, the whole like a row of avenging ghosts.\n\nBut she saw in a few moments that there was no malice in their mood.\nThey could scarcely feel as a loss what they had never expected to\nhave.  Their condition was objective, contemplative.\n\n\"He's going to marry her!\" murmured Retty, never taking eyes off\nTess.  \"How her face do show it!\"\n\n\"You BE going to marry him?\" asked Marian.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Tess.\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"Some day.\"\n\nThey thought that this was evasiveness only.\n\n\"YES--going to MARRY him--a gentleman!\" repeated Izz Huett.\n\nAnd by a sort of fascination the three girls, one after another,\ncrept out of their beds, and came and stood barefooted round Tess.\nRetty put her hands upon Tess's shoulders, as if to realize her\nfriend's corporeality after such a miracle, and the other two laid\ntheir arms round her waist, all looking into her face.\n\n\"How it do seem!  Almost more than I can think of!\" said Izz Huett.\n\nMarian kissed Tess.  \"Yes,\" she murmured as she withdrew her lips.\n\n\"Was that because of love for her, or because other lips have touched\nthere by now?\" continued Izz drily to Marian.\n\n\"I wasn't thinking o' that,\" said Marian simply.  \"I was on'y feeling\nall the strangeness o't--that she is to be his wife, and nobody else.\nI don't say nay to it, nor either of us, because we did not think\nof it--only loved him.  Still, nobody else is to marry'n in the\nworld--no fine lady, nobody in silks and satins; but she who do live\nlike we.\"\n\n\"Are you sure you don't dislike me for it?\" said Tess in a low voice.\n\nThey hung about her in their white nightgowns before replying, as if\nthey considered their answer might lie in her look.\n\n\"I don't know--I don't know,\" murmured Retty Priddle.  \"I want to\nhate 'ee; but I cannot!\"\n\n\"That's how I feel,\" echoed Izz and Marian.  \"I can't hate her.\nSomehow she hinders me!\"\n\n\"He ought to marry one of you,\" murmured Tess.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"You are all better than I.\"\n\n\"We better than you?\" said the girls in a low, slow whisper.  \"No,\nno, dear Tess!\"\n\n\"You are!\" she contradicted impetuously.  And suddenly tearing away\nfrom their clinging arms she burst into a hysterical fit of tears,\nbowing herself on the chest of drawers and repeating incessantly,\n\"O yes, yes, yes!\"\n\nHaving once given way she could not stop her weeping.\n\n\"He ought to have had one of you!\" she cried.  \"I think I ought to\nmake him even now!  You would be better for him than--I don't know\nwhat I'm saying!  O!  O!\"\n\nThey went up to her and clasped her round, but still her sobs tore\nher.\n\n\"Get some water,\" said Marian,  \"She's upset by us, poor thing, poor\nthing!\"\n\nThey gently led her back to the side of her bed, where they kissed\nher warmly.\n\n\"You are best for'n,\" said Marian.  \"More ladylike, and a better\nscholar than we, especially since he had taught 'ee so much.  But\neven you ought to be proud.  You BE proud, I'm sure!\"\n\n\"Yes, I am,\" she said; \"and I am ashamed at so breaking down.\"\n\nWhen they were all in bed, and the light was out, Marian whispered\nacross to her--\n\n\"You will think of us when you be his wife, Tess, and of how we told\n'ee that we loved him, and how we tried not to hate you, and did not\nhate you, and could not hate you, because you were his choice, and\nwe never hoped to be chose by him.\"\n\nThey were not aware that, at these words, salt, stinging tears\ntrickled down upon Tess's pillow anew, and how she resolved, with a\nbursting heart, to tell all her history to Angel Clare, despite her\nmother's command--to let him for whom she lived and breathed despise\nher if he would, and her mother regard her as a fool, rather then\npreserve a silence which might be deemed a treachery to him, and\nwhich somehow seemed a wrong to these.\n\n\n\nXXXII\n\n\nThis penitential mood kept her from naming the wedding-day. The\nbeginning of November found its date still in abeyance, though he\nasked her at the most tempting times.  But Tess's desire seemed to be\nfor a perpetual betrothal in which everything should remain as it was\nthen.\n\nThe meads were changing now; but it was still warm enough in early\nafternoons before milking to idle there awhile, and the state of\ndairy-work at this time of year allowed a spare hour for idling.\nLooking over the damp sod in the direction of the sun, a glistening\nripple of gossamer webs was visible to their eyes under the luminary,\nlike the track of moonlight on the sea.  Gnats, knowing nothing\nof their brief glorification, wandered across the shimmer of this\npathway, irradiated as if they bore fire within them, then passed out\nof its line, and were quite extinct.  In the presence of these things\nhe would remind her that the date was still the question.\n\nOr he would ask her at night, when he accompanied her on some mission\ninvented by Mrs Crick to give him the opportunity.  This was mostly a\njourney to the farmhouse on the slopes above the vale, to inquire how\nthe advanced cows were getting on in the straw-barton to which they\nwere relegated.  For it was a time of the year that brought great\nchanges to the world of kine.  Batches of the animals were sent away\ndaily to this lying-in hospital, where they lived on straw till their\ncalves were born, after which event, and as soon as the calf could\nwalk, mother and offspring were driven back to the dairy.  In the\ninterval which elapsed before the calves were sold there was, of\ncourse, little milking to be done, but as soon as the calf had been\ntaken away the milkmaids would have to set to work as usual.\n\nReturning from one of these dark walks they reached a great\ngravel-cliff immediately over the levels, where they stood still and\nlistened.  The water was now high in the streams, squirting through\nthe weirs, and tinkling under culverts; the smallest gullies were all\nfull; there was no taking short cuts anywhere, and foot-passengers\nwere compelled to follow the permanent ways.  From the whole extent\nof the invisible vale came a multitudinous intonation; it forced upon\ntheir fancy that a great city lay below them, and that the murmur was\nthe vociferation of its populace.\n\n\"It seems like tens of thousands of them,\" said Tess; \"holding\npublic-meetings in their market-places, arguing, preaching,\nquarrelling, sobbing, groaning, praying, and cursing.\"\n\nClare was not particularly heeding.\n\n\"Did Crick speak to you to-day, dear, about his not wanting much\nassistance during the winter months?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"The cows are going dry rapidly.\"\n\n\"Yes.  Six or seven went to the straw-barton yesterday, and three the\nday before, making nearly twenty in the straw already.  Ah--is it\nthat the farmer don't want my help for the calving?  O, I am not\nwanted here any more!  And I have tried so hard to--\"\n\n\"Crick didn't exactly say that he would no longer require you.  But,\nknowing what our relations were, he said in the most good-natured\nand respectful manner possible that he supposed on my leaving at\nChristmas I should take you with me, and on my asking what he would\ndo without you he merely observed that, as a matter of fact, it was a\ntime of year when he could do with a very little female help.  I am\nafraid I was sinner enough to feel rather glad that he was in this\nway forcing your hand.\"\n\n\"I don't think you ought to have felt glad, Angel.  Because 'tis\nalways mournful not to be wanted, even if at the same time 'tis\nconvenient.\"\n\n\"Well, it is convenient--you have admitted that.\"  He put his finger\nupon her cheek.  \"Ah!\" he said.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I feel the red rising up at her having been caught!  But why should\nI trifle so!  We will not trifle--life is too serious.\"\n\n\"It is.  Perhaps I saw that before you did.\"\n\nShe was seeing it then.  To decline to marry him after all--in\nobedience to her emotion of last night--and leave the dairy, meant\nto go to some strange place, not a dairy; for milkmaids were not in\nrequest now calving-time was coming on; to go to some arable farm\nwhere no divine being like Angel Clare was.  She hated the thought,\nand she hated more the thought of going home.\n\n\"So that, seriously, dearest Tess,\" he continued, \"since you will\nprobably have to leave at Christmas, it is in every way desirable and\nconvenient that I should carry you off then as my property.  Besides,\nif you were not the most uncalculating girl in the world you would\nknow that we could not go on like this for ever.\"\n\n\"I wish we could.  That it would always be summer and autumn, and you\nalways courting me, and always thinking as much of me as you have\ndone through the past summer-time!\"\n\n\"I always shall.\"\n\n\"O, I know you will!\" she cried, with a sudden fervour of faith\nin him.  \"Angel, I will fix the day when I will become yours for\nalways!\"\n\nThus at last it was arranged between them, during that dark walk\nhome, amid the myriads of liquid voices on the right and left.\n\nWhen they reached the dairy Mr and Mrs Crick were promptly told--with\ninjunctions of secrecy; for each of the lovers was desirous that the\nmarriage should be kept as private as possible.  The dairyman, though\nhe had thought of dismissing her soon, now made a great concern about\nlosing her.  What should he do about his skimming?  Who would make\nthe ornamental butter-pats for the Anglebury and Sandbourne ladies?\nMrs Crick congratulated Tess on the shilly-shallying having at last\ncome to an end, and said that directly she set eyes on Tess she\ndivined that she was to be the chosen one of somebody who was no\ncommon outdoor man; Tess had looked so superior as she walked across\nthe barton on that afternoon of her arrival; that she was of a good\nfamily she could have sworn.  In point of fact Mrs Crick did remember\nthinking that Tess was graceful and good-looking as she approached;\nbut the superiority might have been a growth of the imagination aided\nby subsequent knowledge.\n\nTess was now carried along upon the wings of the hours, without the\nsense of a will.  The word had been given; the number of the day\nwritten down.  Her naturally bright intelligence had begun to admit\nthe fatalistic convictions common to field-folk and those who\nassociate more extensively with natural phenomena than with their\nfellow-creatures; and she accordingly drifted into that passive\nresponsiveness to all things her lover suggested, characteristic of\nthe frame of mind.\n\nBut she wrote anew to her mother, ostensibly to notify the\nwedding-day; really to again implore her advice.  It was a gentleman\nwho had chosen her, which perhaps her mother had not sufficiently\nconsidered.  A post-nuptial explanation, which might be accepted with\na light heart by a rougher man, might not be received with the same\nfeeling by him.  But this communication brought no reply from Mrs\nDurbeyfield.\n\nDespite Angel Clare's plausible representation to himself and to Tess\nof the practical need for their immediate marriage, there was in\ntruth an element of precipitancy in the step, as became apparent at a\nlater date.  He loved her dearly, though perhaps rather ideally and\nfancifully than with the impassioned thoroughness of her feeling for\nhim.  He had entertained no notion, when doomed as he had thought to\nan unintellectual bucolic life, that such charms as he beheld in this\nidyllic creature would be found behind the scenes.  Unsophistication\nwas a thing to talk of; but he had not known how it really struck one\nuntil he came here.  Yet he was very far from seeing his future track\nclearly, and it might be a year or two before he would be able to\nconsider himself fairly started in life.  The secret lay in the tinge\nof recklessness imparted to his career and character by the sense\nthat he had been made to miss his true destiny through the prejudices\nof his family.\n\n\"Don't you think 'twould have been better for us to wait till you\nwere quite settled in your midland farm?\" she once asked timidly.\n(A midland farm was the idea just then.)\n\n\"To tell the truth, my Tess, I don't like you to be left anywhere\naway from my protection and sympathy.\"\n\nThe reason was a good one, so far as it went.  His influence over her\nhad been so marked that she had caught his manner and habits, his\nspeech and phrases, his likings and his aversions.  And to leave her\nin farmland would be to let her slip back again out of accord with\nhim.  He wished to have her under his charge for another reason.\nHis parents had naturally desired to see her once at least before he\ncarried her off to a distant settlement, English or colonial; and\nas no opinion of theirs was to be allowed to change his intention,\nhe judged that a couple of months' life with him in lodgings\nwhilst seeking for an advantageous opening would be of some social\nassistance to her at what she might feel to be a trying ordeal--her\npresentation to his mother at the Vicarage.\n\nNext, he wished to see a little of the working of a flour-mill,\nhaving an idea that he might combine the use of one with\ncorn-growing.  The proprietor of a large old water-mill at\nWellbridge--once the mill of an Abbey--had offered him the inspection\nof his time-honoured mode of procedure, and a hand in the operations\nfor a few days, whenever he should choose to come.  Clare paid a\nvisit to the place, some few miles distant, one day at this time,\nto inquire particulars, and returned to Talbothays in the evening.\nShe found him determined to spend a short time at the Wellbridge\nflour-mills. And what had determined him?  Less the opportunity of an\ninsight into grinding and bolting than the casual fact that lodgings\nwere to be obtained in that very farmhouse which, before its\nmutilation, had been the mansion of a branch of the d'Urberville\nfamily.  This was always how Clare settled practical questions; by\na sentiment which had nothing to do with them.  They decided to go\nimmediately after the wedding, and remain for a fortnight, instead\nof journeying to towns and inns.\n\n\"Then we will start off to examine some farms on the other side of\nLondon that I have heard of,\" he said, \"and by March or April we will\npay a visit to my father and mother.\"\n\nQuestions of procedure such as these arose and passed, and the day,\nthe incredible day, on which she was to become his, loomed large in\nthe near future.  The thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, was\nthe date.  His wife, she said to herself.  Could it ever be?  Their\ntwo selves together, nothing to divide them, every incident shared\nby them; why not?  And yet why?\n\nOne Sunday morning Izz Huett returned from church, and spoke\nprivately to Tess.\n\n\"You was not called home this morning.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"It should ha' been the first time of asking to-day,\" she answered,\nlooking quietly at Tess.  \"You meant to be married New Year's Eve,\ndeary?\"\n\nThe other returned a quick affirmative.\n\n\"And there must be three times of asking.  And now there be only two\nSundays left between.\"\n\nTess felt her cheek paling; Izz was right; of course there must be\nthree.  Perhaps he had forgotten!  If so, there must be a week's\npostponement, and that was unlucky.  How could she remind her lover?\nShe who had been so backward was suddenly fired with impatience and\nalarm lest she should lose her dear prize.\n\nA natural incident relieved her anxiety.  Izz mentioned the omission\nof the banns to Mrs Crick, and Mrs Crick assumed a matron's privilege\nof speaking to Angel on the point.\n\n\"Have ye forgot 'em, Mr Clare?  The banns, I mean.\"\n\n\"No, I have not forgot 'em,\" says Clare.\n\nAs soon as he caught Tess alone he assured her:\n\n\"Don't let them tease you about the banns.  A licence will be quieter\nfor us, and I have decided on a licence without consulting you.\nSo if you go to church on Sunday morning you will not hear your own\nname, if you wished to.\"\n\n\"I didn't wish to hear it, dearest,\" she said proudly.\n\nBut to know that things were in train was an immense relief to Tess\nnotwithstanding, who had well-nigh feared that somebody would stand\nup and forbid the banns on the ground of her history.  How events\nwere favouring her!\n\n\"I don't quite feel easy,\" she said to herself.  \"All this good\nfortune may be scourged out of me afterwards by a lot of ill.  That's\nhow Heaven mostly does.  I wish I could have had common banns!\"\n\nBut everything went smoothly.  She wondered whether he would like her\nto be married in her present best white frock, or if she ought to\nbuy a new one.  The question was set at rest by his forethought,\ndisclosed by the arrival of some large packages addressed to her.\nInside them she found a whole stock of clothing, from bonnet to\nshoes, including a perfect morning costume, such as would well suit\nthe simple wedding they planned.  He entered the house shortly after\nthe arrival of the packages, and heard her upstairs undoing them.\n\nA minute later she came down with a flush on her face and tears in\nher eyes.\n\n\"How thoughtful you've been!\" she murmured, her cheek upon his\nshoulder.  \"Even to the gloves and handkerchief!  My own love--how\ngood, how kind!\"\n\n\"No, no, Tess; just an order to a tradeswoman in London--nothing\nmore.\"\n\nAnd to divert her from thinking too highly of him, he told her to go\nupstairs, and take her time, and see if it all fitted; and, if not,\nto get the village sempstress to make a few alterations.\n\nShe did return upstairs, and put on the gown.  Alone, she stood for a\nmoment before the glass looking at the effect of her silk attire; and\nthen there came into her head her mother's ballad of the mystic\nrobe--\n\n\n     That never would become that wife\n       That had once done amiss,\n\n\nwhich Mrs Durbeyfield had used to sing to her as a child, so blithely\nand so archly, her foot on the cradle, which she rocked to the tune.\nSuppose this robe should betray her by changing colour, as her robe\nhad betrayed Queen Guinevere.  Since she had been at the dairy she\nhad not once thought of the lines till now.\n\n\n\nXXXIII\n\n\nAngel felt that he would like to spend a day with her before the\nwedding, somewhere away from the dairy, as a last jaunt in her\ncompany while there were yet mere lover and mistress; a romantic day,\nin circumstances that would never be repeated; with that other and\ngreater day beaming close ahead of them.  During the preceding week,\ntherefore, he suggested making a few purchases in the nearest town,\nand they started together.\n\nClare's life at the dairy had been that of a recluse in respect the\nworld of his own class.  For months he had never gone near a town,\nand, requiring no vehicle, had never kept one, hiring the dairyman's\ncob or gig if he rode or drove.  They went in the gig that day.\n\nAnd then for the first time in their lives they shopped as partners\nin one concern.  It was Christmas Eve, with its loads a holly and\nmistletoe, and the town was very full of strangers who had come in\nfrom all parts of the country on account of the day.  Tess paid the\npenalty of walking about with happiness superadded to beauty on her\ncountenance by being much stared at as she moved amid them on his\narm.\n\nIn the evening they returned to the inn at which they had put up, and\nTess waited in the entry while Angel went to see the horse and gig\nbrought to the door.  The general sitting-room was full of guests,\nwho were continually going in and out.  As the door opened and shut\neach time for the passage of these, the light within the parlour fell\nfull upon Tess's face.  Two men came out and passed by her among the\nrest.  One of them had stared her up and down in surprise, and she\nfancied he was a Trantridge man, though that village lay so many\nmiles off that Trantridge folk were rarities here.\n\n\"A comely maid that,\" said the other.\n\n\"True, comely enough.  But unless I make a great mistake--\"  And he\nnegatived the remainder of the definition forthwith.\n\nClare had just returned from the stable-yard, and, confronting the\nman on the threshold, heard the words, and saw the shrinking of\nTess.  The insult to her stung him to the quick, and before he had\nconsidered anything at all he struck the man on the chin with the\nfull force of his fist, sending him staggering backwards into the\npassage.\n\nThe man recovered himself, and seemed inclined to come on, and Clare,\nstepping outside the door, put himself in a posture of defence.  But\nhis opponent began to think better of the matter.  He looked anew at\nTess as he passed her, and said to Clare--\n\n\"I beg pardon, sir; 'twas a complete mistake.  I thought she was\nanother woman, forty miles from here.\"\n\nClare, feeling then that he had been too hasty, and that he was,\nmoreover, to blame for leaving her standing in an inn-passage, did\nwhat he usually did in such cases, gave the man five shillings to\nplaster the blow; and thus they parted, bidding each other a pacific\ngood night.  As soon as Clare had taken the reins from the ostler,\nand the young couple had driven off, the two men went in the other\ndirection.\n\n\"And was it a mistake?\" said the second one.\n\n\"Not a bit of it.  But I didn't want to hurt the gentleman's\nfeelings--not I.\"\n\nIn the meantime the lovers were driving onward.\n\n\"Could we put off our wedding till a little later?\" Tess asked in a\ndry dull voice.  \"I mean if we wished?\"\n\n\"No, my love.  Calm yourself.  Do you mean that the fellow may have\ntime to summon me for assault?\" he asked good-humouredly.\n\n\"No--I only meant--if it should have to be put off.\"\n\nWhat she meant was not very clear, and he directed her to dismiss\nsuch fancies from her mind, which she obediently did as well as she\ncould.  But she was grave, very grave, all the way home; till she\nthought, \"We shall go away, a very long distance, hundreds of miles\nfrom these parts, and such as this can never happen again, and no\nghost of the past reach there.\"\n\nThey parted tenderly that night on the landing, and Clare ascended to\nhis attic.  Tess sat up getting on with some little requisites, lest\nthe few remaining days should not afford sufficient time.  While she\nsat she heard a noise in Angel's room overhead, a sound of thumping\nand struggling.  Everybody else in the house was asleep, and in her\nanxiety lest Clare should be ill she ran up and knocked at his door,\nand asked him what was the matter.\n\n\"Oh, nothing, dear,\" he said from within.  \"I am so sorry I disturbed\nyou!  But the reason is rather an amusing one: I fell asleep and\ndreamt that I was fighting that fellow again who insulted you,\nand the noise you heard was my pummelling away with my fists at\nmy portmanteau, which I pulled out to-day for packing.  I am\noccasionally liable to these freaks in my sleep. Go to bed and\nthink of it no more.\"\n\nThis was the last drachm required to turn the scale of her\nindecision.  Declare the past to him by word of mouth she could not;\nbut there was another way.  She sat down and wrote on the four pages\nof a note-sheet a succinct narrative of those events of three or four\nyears ago, put it into an envelope, and directed it to Clare.  Then,\nlest the flesh should again be weak, she crept upstairs without any\nshoes and slipped the note under his door.\n\nHer night was a broken one, as it well might be, and she listened for\nthe first faint noise overhead.  It came, as usual; he descended, as\nusual.  She descended.  He met her at the bottom of the stairs and\nkissed her. Surely it was as warmly as ever!\n\nHe looked a little disturbed and worn, she thought.  But he said not\na word to her about her revelation, even when they were alone.  Could\nhe have had it?  Unless he began the subject she felt that she could\nsay nothing.  So the day passed, and it was evident that whatever\nhe thought he meant to keep to himself.  Yet he was frank and\naffectionate as before.  Could it be that her doubts were childish?\nthat he forgave her; that he loved her for what she was, just as she\nwas, and smiled at her disquiet as at a foolish nightmare?  Had he\nreally received her note?  She glanced into his room, and could see\nnothing of it.  It might be that he forgave her.  But even if he had\nnot received it she had a sudden enthusiastic trust that he surely\nwould forgive her.\n\nEvery morning and night he was the same, and thus New Year's Eve\nbroke--the wedding day.\n\nThe lovers did not rise at milking-time, having through the whole of\nthis last week of their sojourn at the dairy been accorded something\nof the position of guests, Tess being honoured with a room of her\nown.  When they arrived downstairs at breakfast-time they were\nsurprised to see what effects had been produced in the large\nkitchen for their glory since they had last beheld it.  At some\nunnatural hour of the morning the dairyman had caused the yawning\nchimney-corner to be whitened, and the brick hearth reddened, and a\nblazing yellow damask blower to be hung across the arch in place of\nthe old grimy blue cotton one with a black sprig pattern which had\nformerly done duty there.  This renovated aspect of what was the\nfocus indeed of the room on a full winter morning threw a smiling\ndemeanour over the whole apartment.\n\n\"I was determined to do summat in honour o't\", said the dairyman.\n\"And as you wouldn't hear of my gieing a rattling good randy wi'\nfiddles and bass-viols complete, as we should ha' done in old times,\nthis was all I could think o' as a noiseless thing.\"\n\nTess's friends lived so far off that none could conveniently have\nbeen present at the ceremony, even had any been asked; but as a fact\nnobody was invited from Marlott.  As for Angel's family, he had\nwritten and duly informed them of the time, and assured them that he\nwould be glad to see one at least of them there for the day if he\nwould like to come.  His brothers had not replied at all, seeming\nto be indignant with him; while his father and mother had written\na rather sad letter, deploring his precipitancy in rushing into\nmarriage, but making the best of the matter by saying that, though\na dairywoman was the last daughter-in-law they could have expected,\ntheir son had arrived at an age which he might be supposed to be the\nbest judge.\n\nThis coolness in his relations distressed Clare less than it would\nhave done had he been without the grand card with which he meant to\nsurprise them ere long.  To produce Tess, fresh from the dairy, as\na d'Urberville and a lady, he had felt to be temerarious and risky;\nhence he had concealed her lineage till such time as, familiarized\nwith worldly ways by a few months' travel and reading with him, he\ncould take her on a visit to his parents and impart the knowledge\nwhile triumphantly producing her as worthy of such an ancient line.\nIt was a pretty lover's dream, if no more.  Perhaps Tess's lineage\nhad more value for himself than for anybody in the world beside.\n\nHer perception that Angel's bearing towards her still remained in no\nwhit altered by her own communication rendered Tess guiltily doubtful\nif he could have received it.  She rose from breakfast before he had\nfinished, and hastened upstairs.  It had occurred to her to look once\nmore into the queer gaunt room which had been Clare's den, or rather\neyrie, for so long, and climbing the ladder she stood at the open\ndoor of the apartment, regarding and pondering.  She stooped to the\nthreshold of the doorway, where she had pushed in the note two or\nthree days earlier in such excitement.  The carpet reached close to\nthe sill, and under the edge of the carpet she discerned the faint\nwhite margin of the envelope containing her letter to him, which he\nobviously had never seen, owing to her having in her haste thrust it\nbeneath the carpet as well as beneath the door.\n\nWith a feeling of faintness she withdrew the letter. There it\nwas--sealed up, just as it had left her hands.  The mountain had\nnot yet been removed.  She could not let him read it now, the house\nbeing in full bustle of preparation; and descending to her own room\nshe destroyed the letter there.\n\nShe was so pale when he saw her again that he felt quite anxious.\nThe incident of the misplaced letter she had jumped at as if it\nprevented a confession; but she knew in her conscience that it need\nnot; there was still time.  Yet everything was in a stir; there\nwas coming and going; all had to dress, the dairyman and Mrs Crick\nhaving been asked to accompany them as witnesses; and reflection or\ndeliberate talk was well-nigh impossible.  The only minute Tess could\nget to be alone with Clare was when they met upon the landing.\n\n\"I am so anxious to talk to you--I want to confess all my faults and\nblunders!\" she said with attempted lightness.\n\n\"No, no--we can't have faults talked of--you must be deemed perfect\nto-day at least, my Sweet!\" he cried.  \"We shall have plenty of time,\nhereafter, I hope, to talk over our failings.  I will confess mine at\nthe same time.\"\n\n\"But it would be better for me to do it now, I think, so that you\ncould not say--\"\n\n\"Well, my quixotic one, you shall tell me anything--say, as soon as\nwe are settled in our lodging; not now.  I, too, will tell you my\nfaults then.  But do not let us spoil the day with them; they will\nbe excellent matter for a dull time.\"\n\n\"Then you don't wish me to, dearest?\"\n\n\"I do not, Tessy, really.\"\n\nThe hurry of dressing and starting left no time for more than this.\nThose words of his seemed to reassure her on further reflection.\nShe was whirled onward through the next couple of critical hours by\nthe mastering tide of her devotion to him, which closed up further\nmeditation.  Her one desire, so long resisted, to make herself his,\nto call him her lord, her own--then, if necessary, to die--had\nat last lifted her up from her plodding reflective pathway.  In\ndressing, she moved about in a mental cloud of many-coloured\nidealities, which eclipsed all sinister contingencies by its\nbrightness.\n\nThe church was a long way off, and they were obliged to drive,\nparticularly as it was winter.  A closed carriage was ordered from\na roadside inn, a vehicle which had been kept there ever since the\nold days of post-chaise travelling.  It had stout wheel-spokes, and\nheavy felloes a great curved bed, immense straps and springs, and a\npole like a battering-ram.  The postilion was a venerable \"boy\" of\nsixty--a martyr to rheumatic gout, the result of excessive exposure\nin youth, counter-acted by strong liquors--who had stood at inn-doors\ndoing nothing for the whole five-and-twenty years that had elapsed\nsince he had no longer been required to ride professionally, as if\nexpecting the old times to come back again.  He had a permanent\nrunning wound on the outside of his right leg, originated by the\nconstant bruisings of aristocratic carriage-poles during the many\nyears that he had been in regular employ at the King's Arms,\nCasterbridge.\n\nInside this cumbrous and creaking structure, and behind this decayed\nconductor, the _partie carrée_ took their seats--the bride and\nbridegroom and Mr and Mrs Crick.  Angel would have liked one at least\nof his brothers to be present as groomsman, but their silence after\nhis gentle hint to that effect by letter had signified that they did\nnot care to come.  They disapproved of the marriage, and could not be\nexpected to countenance it.  Perhaps it was as well that they could\nnot be present. They were not worldly young fellows, but fraternizing\nwith dairy-folk would have struck unpleasantly upon their biased\nniceness, apart from their views of the match.\n\nUpheld by the momentum of the time, Tess knew nothing of this, did\nnot see anything, did not know the road they were taking to the\nchurch.  She knew that Angel was close to her; all the rest was\na luminous mist.  She was a sort of celestial person, who owed\nher being to poetry--one of those classical divinities Clare was\naccustomed to talk to her about when they took their walks together.\n\nThe marriage being by licence there were only a dozen or so of people\nin the church; had there been a thousand they would have produced\nno more effect upon her.  They were at stellar distances from her\npresent world.  In the ecstatic solemnity with which she swore her\nfaith to him the ordinary sensibilities of sex seemed a flippancy.\nAt a pause in the service, while they were kneeling together, she\nunconsciously inclined herself towards him, so that her shoulder\ntouched his arm; she had been frightened by a passing thought, and\nthe movement had been automatic, to assure herself that he was really\nthere, and to fortify her belief that his fidelity would be proof\nagainst all things.\n\nClare knew that she loved him--every curve of her form showed that--\nbut he did not know at that time the full depth of her devotion, its\nsingle-mindedness, its meekness; what long-suffering it guaranteed,\nwhat honesty, what endurance, what good faith.\n\nAs they came out of church the ringers swung the bells off their\nrests, and a modest peal of three notes broke forth--that limited\namount of expression having been deemed sufficient by the church\nbuilders for the joys of such a small parish.  Passing by the tower\nwith her husband on the path to the gate she could feel the vibrant\nair humming round them from the louvred belfry in the circle of\nsound, and it matched the highly-charged mental atmosphere in which\nshe was living.\n\nThis condition of mind, wherein she felt glorified by an irradiation\nnot her own, like the angel whom St John saw in the sun, lasted till\nthe sound of the church bells had died away, and the emotions of the\nwedding-service had calmed down.  Her eyes could dwell upon details\nmore clearly now, and Mr and Mrs Crick having directed their own gig\nto be sent for them, to leave the carriage to the young couple, she\nobserved the build and character of that conveyance for the first\ntime.  Sitting in silence she regarded it long.\n\n\"I fancy you seem oppressed, Tessy,\" said Clare.\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered, putting her hand to her brow.  \"I tremble at\nmany things.  It is all so serious, Angel.  Among other things I seem\nto have seen this carriage before, to be very well acquainted with\nit.  It is very odd--I must have seen it in a dream.\"\n\n\"Oh--you have heard the legend of the d'Urberville Coach--that\nwell-known superstition of this county about your family when they\nwere very popular here; and this lumbering old thing reminds you of\nit.\"\n\n\"I have never heard of it to my knowledge,\" said she.  \"What is the\nlegend--may I know it?\"\n\n\"Well--I would rather not tell it in detail just now.  A certain\nd'Urberville of the sixteenth or seventeenth century committed a\ndreadful crime in his family coach; and since that time members of\nthe family see or hear the old coach whenever--But I'll tell you\nanother day--it is rather gloomy.  Evidently some dim knowledge of\nit has been brought back to your mind by the sight of this venerable\ncaravan.\"\n\n\"I don't remember hearing it before,\" she murmured.  \"Is it when we\nare going to die, Angel, that members of my family see it, or is it\nwhen we have committed a crime?\"\n\n\"Now, Tess!\"\n\nHe silenced her by a kiss.\n\nBy the time they reached home she was contrite and spiritless.  She\nwas Mrs Angel Clare, indeed, but had she any moral right to the name?\nWas she not more truly Mrs Alexander d'Urberville?  Could intensity\nof love justify what might be considered in upright souls as culpable\nreticence?  She knew not what was expected of women in such cases;\nand she had no counsellor.\n\nHowever, when she found herself alone in her room for a few\nminutes--the last day this on which she was ever to enter it--she\nknelt down and prayed.  She tried to pray to God, but it was her\nhusband who really had her supplication.  Her idolatry of this man\nwas such that she herself almost feared it to be ill-omened.  She was\nconscious of the notion expressed by Friar Laurence: \"These violent\ndelights have violent ends.\"  It might be too desperate for human\nconditions--too rank, to wild, too deadly.\n\n\"O my love, why do I love you so!\" she whispered there alone; \"for\nshe you love is not my real self, but one in my image; the one I\nmight have been!\"\n\nAfternoon came, and with it the hour for departure. They had decided\nto fulfil the plan of going for a few days to the lodgings in the old\nfarmhouse near Wellbridge Mill, at which he meant to reside during\nhis investigation of flour processes.  At two o'clock there was\nnothing left to do but to start.  All the servantry of the dairy were\nstanding in the red-brick entry to see them go out, the dairyman and\nhis wife following to the door.  Tess saw her three chamber-mates\nin a row against the wall, pensively inclining their heads.  She\nhad much questioned if they would appear at the parting moment; but\nthere they were, stoical and staunch to the last.  She knew why the\ndelicate Retty looked so fragile, and Izz so tragically sorrowful,\nand Marian so blank; and she forgot her own dogging shadow for a\nmoment in contemplating theirs.\n\nShe impulsively whispered to him--\n\n\"Will you kiss 'em all, once, poor things, for the first and last\ntime?\"\n\nClare had not the least objection to such a farewell formality--which\nwas all that it was to him--and as he passed them he kissed them in\nsuccession where they stood, saying \"Goodbye\" to each as he did so.\nWhen they reached the door Tess femininely glanced back to discern\nthe effect of that kiss of charity; there was no triumph in her\nglance, as there might have been.  If there had it would have\ndisappeared when she saw how moved the girls all were.  The kiss had\nobviously done harm by awakening feelings they were trying to subdue.\n\nOf all this Clare was unconscious.  Passing on to the wicket-gate he\nshook hands with the dairyman and his wife, and expressed his last\nthanks to them for their attentions; after which there was a moment\nof silence before they had moved off.  It was interrupted by the\ncrowing of a cock.  The white one with the rose comb had come and\nsettled on the palings in front of the house, within a few yards of\nthem, and his notes thrilled their ears through, dwindling away like\nechoes down a valley of rocks.\n\n\"Oh?\" said Mrs Crick.  \"An afternoon crow!\"\n\nTwo men were standing by the yard gate, holding it open.\n\n\"That's bad,\" one murmured to the other, not thinking that the words\ncould be heard by the group at the door-wicket.\n\nThe cock crew again--straight towards Clare.\n\n\"Well!\" said the dairyman.\n\n\"I don't like to hear him!\" said Tess to her husband.  \"Tell the man\nto drive on.  Goodbye, goodbye!\"\n\nThe cock crew again.\n\n\"Hoosh!  Just you be off, sir, or I'll twist your neck!\" said the\ndairyman with some irritation, turning to the bird and driving him\naway.  And to his wife as they went indoors: \"Now, to think o' that\njust to-day!  I've not heard his crow of an afternoon all the year\nafore.\"\n\n\"It only means a change in the weather,\" said she; \"not what you\nthink: 'tis impossible!\"\n\n\n\nXXXIV\n\n\nThey drove by the level road along the valley to a distance of a few\nmiles, and, reaching Wellbridge, turned away from the village to the\nleft, and over the great Elizabethan bridge which gives the place\nhalf its name.  Immediately behind it stood the house wherein they\nhad engaged lodgings, whose exterior features are so well known to\nall travellers through the Froom Valley; once portion of a fine\nmanorial residence, and the property and seat of a d'Urberville, but\nsince its partial demolition a farmhouse.\n\n\"Welcome to one of your ancestral mansions!\" said Clare as he handed\nher down.  But he regretted the pleasantry; it was too near a satire.\n\nOn entering they found that, though they had only engaged a couple\nof rooms, the farmer had taken advantage of their proposed presence\nduring the coming days to pay a New Year's visit to some friends,\nleaving a woman from a neighbouring cottage to minister to their\nfew wants.  The absoluteness of possession pleased them, and they\nrealized it as the first moment of their experience under their own\nexclusive roof-tree.\n\nBut he found that the mouldy old habitation somewhat depressed his\nbride.  When the carriage was gone they ascended the stairs to wash\ntheir hands, the charwoman showing the way.  On the landing Tess\nstopped and started.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" said he.\n\n\"Those horrid women!\" she answered with a smile.  \"How they\nfrightened me.\"\n\nHe looked up, and perceived two life-size portraits on panels built\ninto the masonry.  As all visitors to the mansion are aware, these\npaintings represent women of middle age, of a date some two hundred\nyears ago, whose lineaments once seen can never be forgotten.\nThe long pointed features, narrow eye, and smirk of the one, so\nsuggestive of merciless treachery; the bill-hook nose, large\nteeth, and bold eye of the other suggesting arrogance to the point\nof ferocity, haunt the beholder afterwards in his dreams.\n\n\"Whose portraits are those?\" asked Clare of the charwoman.\n\n\"I have been told by old folk that they were ladies of the\nd'Urberville family, the ancient lords of this manor,\" she said,\n\"Owing to their being builded into the wall they can't be moved\naway.\"\n\nThe unpleasantness of the matter was that, in addition to their\neffect upon Tess, her fine features were unquestionably traceable\nin these exaggerated forms.  He said nothing of this, however, and,\nregretting that he had gone out of his way to choose the house for\ntheir bridal time, went on into the adjoining room.  The place having\nbeen rather hastily prepared for them, they washed their hands in one\nbasin.  Clare touched hers under the water.\n\n\"Which are my fingers and which are yours?\" he said, looking up.\n\"They are very much mixed.\"\n\n\"They are all yours,\" said she, very prettily, and endeavoured\nto be gayer than she was.  He had not been displeased with her\nthoughtfulness on such an occasion; it was what every sensible woman\nwould show: but Tess knew that she had been thoughtful to excess,\nand struggled against it.\n\nThe sun was so low on that short last afternoon of the year that it\nshone in through a small opening and formed a golden staff which\nstretched across to her skirt, where it made a spot like a paint-mark\nset upon her.  They went into the ancient parlour to tea, and\nhere they shared their first common meal alone.  Such was their\nchildishness, or rather his, that he found it interesting to use the\nsame bread-and-butter plate as herself, and to brush crumbs from her\nlips with his own.  He wondered a little that she did not enter into\nthese frivolities with his own zest.\n\nLooking at her silently for a long time; \"She is a dear dear Tess,\"\nhe thought to himself, as one deciding on the true construction of\na difficult passage.  \"Do I realize solemnly enough how utterly and\nirretrievably this little womanly thing is the creature of my good\nor bad faith and fortune?  I think not.  I think I could not, unless\nI were a woman myself.  What I am in worldly estate, she is.  What I\nbecome, she must become.  What I cannot be, she cannot be.  And shall\nI ever neglect her, or hurt her, or even forget to consider her?  God\nforbid such a crime!\"\n\nThey sat on over the tea-table waiting for their luggage, which the\ndairyman had promised to send before it grew dark.  But evening began\nto close in, and the luggage did not arrive, and they had brought\nnothing more than they stood in.  With the departure of the sun the\ncalm mood of the winter day changed.  Out of doors there began noises\nas of silk smartly rubbed; the restful dead leaves of the preceding\nautumn were stirred to irritated resurrection, and whirled about\nunwillingly, and tapped against the shutters.  It soon began to rain.\n\n\"That cock knew the weather was going to change,\" said Clare.\n\nThe woman who had attended upon them had gone home for the night, but\nshe had placed candles upon the table, and now they lit them.  Each\ncandle-flame drew towards the fireplace.\n\n\"These old houses are so draughty,\" continued Angel, looking at the\nflames, and at the grease guttering down the sides.  \"I wonder where\nthat luggage is.  We haven't even a brush and comb.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she answered, absent-minded.\n\n\"Tess, you are not a bit cheerful this evening--not at all as you\nused to be.  Those harridans on the panels upstairs have unsettled\nyou.  I am sorry I brought you here.  I wonder if you really love me,\nafter all?\"\n\nHe knew that she did, and the words had no serious intent; but she\nwas surcharged with emotion, and winced like a wounded animal.\nThough she tried not to shed tears, she could not help showing one\nor two.\n\n\"I did not mean it!\" said he, sorry.  \"You are worried at not having\nyour things, I know.  I cannot think why old Jonathan has not come\nwith them.  Why, it is seven o'clock?  Ah, there he is!\"\n\nA knock had come to the door, and, there being nobody else to answer\nit, Clare went out.  He returned to the room with a small package in\nhis hand.\n\n\"It is not Jonathan, after all,\" he said.\n\n\"How vexing!\" said Tess.\n\nThe packet had been brought by a special messenger, who had arrived\nat Talbothays from Emminster Vicarage immediately after the departure\nof the married couple, and had followed them hither, being under\ninjunction to deliver it into nobody's hands but theirs.  Clare\nbrought it to the light.  It was less than a foot long, sewed up in\ncanvas, sealed in red wax with his father's seal, and directed in his\nfather's hand to \"Mrs Angel Clare.\"\n\n\"It is a little wedding-present for you, Tess,\" said he, handing it\nto her.  \"How thoughtful they are!\"\n\nTess looked a little flustered as she took it.\n\n\"I think I would rather have you open it, dearest,\" said she, turning\nover the parcel.  \"I don't like to break those great seals; they look\nso serious.  Please open it for me!\"\n\nHe undid the parcel.  Inside was a case of morocco leather, on the\ntop of which lay a note and a key.\n\nThe note was for Clare, in the following words:\n\n\n   MY DEAR SON--\n\n   Possibly you have forgotten that on the death of your\n   godmother, Mrs Pitney, when you were a lad, she--vain,\n   kind woman that she was--left to me a portion of the\n   contents of her jewel-case in trust for your wife, if\n   you should ever have one, as a mark of her affection\n   for you and whomsoever you should choose.  This trust\n   I have fulfilled, and the diamonds have been locked up\n   at my banker's ever since.  Though I feel it to be a\n   somewhat incongruous act in the circumstances, I am, as\n   you will see, bound to hand over the articles to the\n   woman to whom the use of them for her lifetime will now\n   rightly belong, and they are therefore promptly sent.\n   They become, I believe, heirlooms, strictly speaking,\n   according to the terms of your godmother's will.  The\n   precise words of the clause that refers to this matter\n   are enclosed.\n\n\n\"I do remember,\" said Clare; \"but I had quite forgotten.\"\n\nUnlocking the case, they found it to contain a necklace, with\npendant, bracelets, and ear-rings; and also some other small\nornaments.\n\nTess seemed afraid to touch them at first, but her eyes sparkled for\na moment as much as the stones when Clare spread out the set.\n\n\"Are they mine?\" she asked incredulously.\n\n\"They are, certainly,\" said he.\n\nHe looked into the fire.  He remembered how, when he was a lad of\nfifteen, his godmother, the Squire's wife--the only rich person\nwith whom he had ever come in contact--had pinned her faith to his\nsuccess; had prophesied a wondrous career for him.  There had seemed\nnothing at all out of keeping with such a conjectured career in the\nstoring up of these showy ornaments for his wife and the wives of\nher descendants.  They gleamed somewhat ironically now.  \"Yet why?\"\nhe asked himself.  It was but a question of vanity throughout; and\nif that were admitted into one side of the equation it should be\nadmitted into the other.  His wife was a d'Urberville: whom could\nthey become better than her?\n\nSuddenly he said with enthusiasm--\n\n\"Tess, put them on--put them on!\"  And he turned from the fire to\nhelp her.\n\nBut as if by magic she had already donned them--necklace, ear-rings,\nbracelets, and all.\n\n\"But the gown isn't right, Tess,\" said Clare.  \"It ought to be a low\none for a set of brilliants like that.\"\n\n\"Ought it?\" said Tess.\n\n\"Yes,\" said he.\n\nHe suggested to her how to tuck in the upper edge of her bodice, so\nas to make it roughly approximate to the cut for evening wear; and\nwhen she had done this, and the pendant to the necklace hung isolated\namid the whiteness of her throat, as it was designed to do, he\nstepped back to survey her.\n\n\"My heavens,\" said Clare, \"how beautiful you are!\"\n\nAs everybody knows, fine feathers make fine birds; a peasant girl but\nvery moderately prepossessing to the casual observer in her simple\ncondition and attire will bloom as an amazing beauty if clothed as a\nwoman of fashion with the aids that Art can render; while the beauty\nof the midnight crush would often cut but a sorry figure if placed\ninside the field-woman's wrapper upon a monotonous acreage of\nturnips on a dull day.  He had never till now estimated the artistic\nexcellence of Tess's limbs and features.\n\n\"If you were only to appear in a ball-room!\" he said.  \"But\nno--no, dearest; I think I love you best in the wing-bonnet and\ncotton-frock--yes, better than in this, well as you support these\ndignities.\"\n\nTess's sense of her striking appearance had given her a flush of\nexcitement, which was yet not happiness.\n\n\"I'll take them off,\" she said, \"in case Jonathan should see me.\nThey are not fit for me, are they?  They must be sold, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Let them stay a few minutes longer.  Sell them?  Never. It would be\na breach of faith.\"\n\nInfluenced by a second thought she readily obeyed.  She had something\nto tell, and there might be help in these.  She sat down with the\njewels upon her; and they again indulged in conjectures as to where\nJonathan could possibly be with their baggage.  The ale they had\npoured out for his consumption when he came had gone flat with long\nstanding.\n\nShortly after this they began supper, which was already laid on\na side-table.  Ere they had finished there was a jerk in the\nfire-smoke, the rising skein of which bulged out into the room, as if\nsome giant had laid his hand on the chimney-top for a moment.  It had\nbeen caused by the opening of the outer door.  A heavy step was now\nheard in the passage, and Angel went out.\n\n\"I couldn' make nobody hear at all by knocking,\" apologized Jonathan\nKail, for it was he at last; \"and as't was raining out I opened the\ndoor.  I've brought the things, sir.\"\n\n\"I am very glad to see them.  But you are very late.\"\n\n\"Well, yes, sir.\"\n\nThere was something subdued in Jonathan Kail's tone which had not\nbeen there in the day, and lines of concern were ploughed upon his\nforehead in addition to the lines of years.  He continued--\n\n\"We've all been gallied at the dairy at what might ha' been a most\nterrible affliction since you and your Mis'ess--so to name her\nnow--left us this a'ternoon.  Perhaps you ha'nt forgot the cock's\nafternoon crow?\"\n\n\"Dear me;--what--\"\n\n\"Well, some says it do mane one thing, and some another; but what's\nhappened is that poor little Retty Priddle hev tried to drown\nherself.\"\n\n\"No! Really!  Why, she bade us goodbye with the rest--\"\n\n\"Yes.  Well, sir, when you and your Mis'ess--so to name what she\nlawful is--when you two drove away, as I say, Retty and Marian put on\ntheir bonnets and went out; and as there is not much doing now, being\nNew Year's Eve, and folks mops and brooms from what's inside 'em,\nnobody took much notice.  They went on to Lew-Everard, where they\nhad summut to drink, and then on they vamped to Dree-armed Cross,\nand there they seemed to have parted, Retty striking across the\nwater-meads as if for home, and Marian going on to the next village,\nwhere there's another public-house.  Nothing more was zeed or heard\no' Retty till the waterman, on his way home, noticed something by the\nGreat Pool; 'twas her bonnet and shawl packed up.  In the water he\nfound her.  He and another man brought her home, thinking a' was\ndead; but she fetched round by degrees.\"\n\nAngel, suddenly recollecting that Tess was overhearing this gloomy\ntale, went to shut the door between the passage and the ante-room\nto the inner parlour where she was; but his wife, flinging a shawl\nround her, had come to the outer room and was listening to the man's\nnarrative, her eyes resting absently on the luggage and the drops of\nrain glistening upon it.\n\n\"And, more than this, there's Marian; she's been found dead drunk\nby the withy-bed--a girl who hev never been known to touch anything\nbefore except shilling ale; though, to be sure, 'a was always a good\ntrencher-woman, as her face showed.  It seems as if the maids had\nall gone out o' their minds!\"\n\n\"And Izz?\" asked Tess.\n\n\"Izz is about house as usual; but 'a do say 'a can guess how it\nhappened; and she seems to be very low in mind about it, poor maid,\nas well she mid be.  And so you see, sir, as all this happened just\nwhen we was packing your few traps and your Mis'ess's night-rail and\ndressing things into the cart, why, it belated me.\"\n\n\"Yes.  Well, Jonathan, will you get the trunks upstairs, and drink a\ncup of ale, and hasten back as soon as you can, in case you should be\nwanted?\"\n\nTess had gone back to the inner parlour, and sat down by the fire,\nlooking wistfully into it.  She heard Jonathan Kail's heavy footsteps\nup and down the stairs till he had done placing the luggage, and\nheard him express his thanks for the ale her husband took out to him,\nand for the gratuity he received.  Jonathan's footsteps then died\nfrom the door, and his cart creaked away.\n\nAngel slid forward the massive oak bar which secured the door, and\ncoming in to where she sat over the hearth, pressed her cheeks\nbetween his hands from behind.  He expected her to jump up gaily and\nunpack the toilet-gear that she had been so anxious about, but as she\ndid not rise he sat down with her in the firelight, the candles on\nthe supper-table being too thin and glimmering to interfere with its\nglow.\n\n\"I am so sorry you should have heard this sad story about the girls,\"\nhe said.  \"Still, don't let it depress you.  Retty was naturally\nmorbid, you know.\"\n\n\"Without the least cause,\" said Tess.  \"While they who have cause to\nbe, hide it, and pretend they are not.\"\n\nThis incident had turned the scale for her.  They were simple and\ninnocent girls on whom the unhappiness of unrequited love had fallen;\nthey had deserved better at the hands of Fate.  She had deserved\nworse--yet she was the chosen one.  It was wicked of her to take all\nwithout paying.  She would pay to the uttermost farthing; she would\ntell, there and then.  This final determination she came to when she\nlooked into the fire, he holding her hand.\n\nA steady glare from the now flameless embers painted the sides\nand back of the fireplace with its colour, and the well-polished\nandirons, and the old brass tongs that would not meet.  The underside\nof the mantel-shelf was flushed with the high-coloured light, and\nthe legs of the table nearest the fire.  Tess's face and neck\nreflected the same warmth, which each gem turned into an Aldebaran\nor a Sirius--a constellation of white, red, and green flashes, that\ninterchanged their hues with her every pulsation.\n\n\"Do you remember what we said to each other this morning about\ntelling our faults?\" he asked abruptly, finding that she still\nremained immovable.  \"We spoke lightly perhaps, and you may well\nhave done so.  But for me it was no light promise.  I want to make\na confession to you, Love.\"\n\nThis, from him, so unexpectedly apposite, had the effect upon her of\na Providential interposition.\n\n\"You have to confess something?\" she said quickly, and even with\ngladness and relief.\n\n\"You did not expect it?  Ah--you thought too highly of me.  Now\nlisten.  Put your head there, because I want you to forgive me, and\nnot to be indignant with me for not telling you before, as perhaps\nI ought to have done.\"\n\nHow strange it was!  He seemed to be her double.  She did not speak,\nand Clare went on--\n\n\"I did not mention it because I was afraid of endangering my chance\nof you, darling, the great prize of my life--my Fellowship I call\nyou.  My brother's Fellowship was won at his college, mine at\nTalbothays Dairy.  Well, I would not risk it.  I was going to tell\nyou a month ago--at the time you agreed to be mine, but I could not;\nI thought it might frighten you away from me.  I put it off; then I\nthought I would tell you yesterday, to give you a chance at least of\nescaping me.  But I did not.  And I did not this morning, when you\nproposed our confessing our faults on the landing--the sinner that I\nwas!  But I must, now I see you sitting there so solemnly.  I wonder\nif you will forgive me?\"\n\n\"O yes!  I am sure that--\"\n\n\"Well, I hope so.  But wait a minute.  You don't know. To begin at\nthe beginning.  Though I imagine my poor father fears that I am one\nof the eternally lost for my doctrines, I am of course, a believer in\ngood morals, Tess, as much as you.  I used to wish to be a teacher of\nmen, and it was a great disappointment to me when I found I could not\nenter the Church.  I admired spotlessness, even though I could lay no\nclaim to it, and hated impurity, as I hope I do now.  Whatever one\nmay think of plenary inspiration, one must heartily subscribe to\nthese words of Paul: 'Be thou an example--in word, in conversation,\nin charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.'  It is the only\nsafeguard for us poor human beings.  '_Integer vitae_,' says a Roman\npoet, who is strange company for St Paul--\n\n\n  \"The man of upright life, from frailties free,\n   Stands not in need of Moorish spear or bow.\n\n\n\"Well, a certain place is paved with good intentions, and having felt\nall that so strongly, you will see what a terrible remorse it bred\nin me when, in the midst of my fine aims for other people, I myself\nfell.\"\n\nHe then told her of that time of his life to which allusion has been\nmade when, tossed about by doubts and difficulties in London, like a\ncork on the waves, he plunged into eight-and-forty hours' dissipation\nwith a stranger.\n\n\"Happily I awoke almost immediately to a sense of my folly,\" he\ncontinued.  \"I would have no more to say to her, and I came home.  I\nhave never repeated the offence.  But I felt I should like to treat\nyou with perfect frankness and honour, and I could not do so without\ntelling this.  Do you forgive me?\"\n\nShe pressed his hand tightly for an answer.\n\n\"Then we will dismiss it at once and for ever!--too painful as it is\nfor the occasion--and talk of something lighter.\"\n\n\"O, Angel--I am almost glad--because now YOU can forgive ME!  I have\nnot made my confession.  I have a confession, too--remember, I said\nso.\"\n\n\"Ah, to be sure!  Now then for it, wicked little one.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, although you smile, it is as serious as yours, or more so.\"\n\n\"It can hardly be more serious, dearest.\"\n\n\"It cannot--O no, it cannot!\"  She jumped up joyfully at the hope.\n\"No, it cannot be more serious, certainly,\" she cried, \"because 'tis\njust the same! I will tell you now.\"\n\nShe sat down again.\n\nTheir hands were still joined.  The ashes under the grate were lit\nby the fire vertically, like a torrid waste.  Imagination might have\nbeheld a Last Day luridness in this red-coaled glow, which fell on\nhis face and hand, and on hers, peering into the loose hair about her\nbrow, and firing the delicate skin underneath.  A large shadow of her\nshape rose upon the wall and ceiling.  She bent forward, at which\neach diamond on her neck gave a sinister wink like a toad's; and\npressing her forehead against his temple she entered on her story of\nher acquaintance with Alec d'Urberville and its results, murmuring\nthe words without flinching, and with her eyelids drooping down.\n\n\nEND OF PHASE THE FOURTH\n\n\n\n\n\nPhase the Fifth: The Woman Pays\n\n\n\nXXXV\n\n\nHer narrative ended; even its re-assertions and secondary\nexplanations were done.  Tess's voice throughout had hardly risen\nhigher than its opening tone; there had been no exculpatory phrase of\nany kind, and she had not wept.\n\nBut the complexion even of external things seemed to suffer\ntransmutation as her announcement progressed.  The fire in the grate\nlooked impish--demoniacally funny, as if it did not care in the least\nabout her strait.  The fender grinned idly, as if it too did not\ncare.  The light from the water-bottle was merely engaged in a\nchromatic problem.  All material objects around announced their\nirresponsibility with terrible iteration.  And yet nothing had\nchanged since the moments when he had been kissing her; or rather,\nnothing in the substance of things.  But the essence of things had\nchanged.\n\nWhen she ceased, the auricular impressions from their previous\nendearments seemed to hustle away into the corner of their brains,\nrepeating themselves as echoes from a time of supremely purblind\nfoolishness.\n\nClare performed the irrelevant act of stirring the fire; the\nintelligence had not even yet got to the bottom of him.  After\nstirring the embers he rose to his feet; all the force of her\ndisclosure had imparted itself now.  His face had withered.  In the\nstrenuousness of his concentration he treadled fitfully on the floor.\nHe could not, by any contrivance, think closely enough; that was the\nmeaning of his vague movement.  When he spoke it was in the most\ninadequate, commonplace voice of the many varied tones she had heard\nfrom him.\n\n\"Tess!\"\n\n\"Yes, dearest.\"\n\n\"Am I to believe this?  From your manner I am to take it as true.\nO you cannot be out of your mind!  You ought to be!  Yet you are\nnot...  My wife, my Tess--nothing in you warrants such a supposition\nas that?\"\n\n\"I am not out of my mind,\" she said.\n\n\"And yet--\"  He looked vacantly at her, to resume with dazed senses:\n\"Why didn't you tell me before? Ah, yes, you would have told me, in a\nway--but I hindered you, I remember!\"\n\nThese and other of his words were nothing but the perfunctory babble\nof the surface while the depths remained paralyzed.  He turned away,\nand bent over a chair.  Tess followed him to the middle of the room,\nwhere he was, and stood there staring at him with eyes that did not\nweep.  Presently she slid down upon her knees beside his foot, and\nfrom this position she crouched in a heap.\n\n\"In the name of our love, forgive me!\" she whispered with a dry\nmouth.  \"I have forgiven you for the same!\"\n\nAnd, as he did not answer, she said again--\n\n\"Forgive me as you are forgiven!  _I_ forgive YOU, Angel.\"\n\n\"You--yes, you do.\"\n\n\"But you do not forgive me?\"\n\n\"O Tess, forgiveness does not apply to the case!  You were one\nperson; now you are another.  My God--how can forgiveness meet such\na grotesque--prestidigitation as that!\"\n\nHe paused, contemplating this definition; then suddenly broke into\nhorrible laughter--as unnatural and ghastly as a laugh in hell.\n\n\"Don't--don't!  It kills me quite, that!\" she shrieked.  \"O have\nmercy upon me--have mercy!\"\n\nHe did not answer; and, sickly white, she jumped up.\n\n\"Angel, Angel! what do you mean by that laugh?\" she cried out.  \"Do\nyou know what this is to me?\"\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n\"I have been hoping, longing, praying, to make you happy!  I have\nthought what joy it will be to do it, what an unworthy wife I shall\nbe if I do not!  That's what I have felt, Angel!\"\n\n\"I know that.\"\n\n\"I thought, Angel, that you loved me--me, my very self!  If it is\nI you do love, O how can it be that you look and speak so?  It\nfrightens me!  Having begun to love you, I love you for ever--in all\nchanges, in all disgraces, because you are yourself.  I ask no more.\nThen how can you, O my own husband, stop loving me?\"\n\n\"I repeat, the woman I have been loving is not you.\"\n\n\"But who?\"\n\n\"Another woman in your shape.\"\n\nShe perceived in his words the realization of her own apprehensive\nforeboding in former times.  He looked upon her as a species of\nimposter; a guilty woman in the guise of an innocent one.  Terror was\nupon her white face as she saw it; her cheek was flaccid, and her\nmouth had almost the aspect of a round little hole. The horrible\nsense of his view of her so deadened her that she staggered, and he\nstepped forward, thinking she was going to fall.\n\n\"Sit down, sit down,\" he said gently.  \"You are ill; and it is\nnatural that you should be.\"\n\nShe did sit down, without knowing where she was, that strained look\nstill upon her face, and her eyes such as to make his flesh creep.\n\n\"I don't belong to you any more, then; do I, Angel?\" she asked\nhelplessly.  \"It is not me, but another woman like me that he loved,\nhe says.\"\n\nThe image raised caused her to take pity upon herself as one who was\nill-used.  Her eyes filled as she regarded her position further; she\nturned round and burst into a flood of self-sympathetic tears.\n\nClare was relieved at this change, for the effect on her of what had\nhappened was beginning to be a trouble to him only less than the\nwoe of the disclosure itself.  He waited patiently, apathetically,\ntill the violence of her grief had worn itself out, and her rush of\nweeping had lessened to a catching gasp at intervals.\n\n\"Angel,\" she said suddenly, in her natural tones, the insane, dry\nvoice of terror having left her now.  \"Angel, am I too wicked for\nyou and me to live together?\"\n\n\"I have not been able to think what we can do.\"\n\n\"I shan't ask you to let me live with you, Angel, because I have\nno right to!  I shall not write to mother and sisters to say we be\nmarried, as I said I would do; and I shan't finish the good-hussif'\nI cut out and meant to make while we were in lodgings.\"\n\n\"Shan't you?\"\n\n\"No, I shan't do anything, unless you order me to; and if you go away\nfrom me I shall not follow 'ee; and if you never speak to me any more\nI shall not ask why, unless you tell me I may.\"\n\n\"And if I order you to do anything?\"\n\n\"I will obey you like your wretched slave, even if it is to lie down\nand die.\"\n\n\"You are very good.  But it strikes me that there is a want of\nharmony between your present mood of self-sacrifice and your past\nmood of self-preservation.\"\n\nThese were the first words of antagonism.  To fling elaborate\nsarcasms at Tess, however, was much like flinging them at a dog or\ncat.  The charms of their subtlety passed by her unappreciated, and\nshe only received them as inimical sounds which meant that anger\nruled.  She remained mute, not knowing that he was smothering his\naffection for her.  She hardly observed that a tear descended slowly\nupon his cheek, a tear so large that it magnified the pores of the\nskin over which it rolled, like the object lens of a microscope.\nMeanwhile reillumination as to the terrible and total change that her\nconfession had wrought in his life, in his universe, returned to him,\nand he tried desperately to advance among the new conditions in which\nhe stood.  Some consequent action was necessary; yet what?\n\n\"Tess,\" he said, as gently as he could speak, \"I cannot stay--in this\nroom--just now. I will walk out a little way.\"\n\nHe quietly left the room, and the two glasses of wine that he had\npoured out for their supper--one for her, one for him--remained on\nthe table untasted.  This was what their _agape_ had come to.  At\ntea, two or three hours earlier, they had, in the freakishness of\naffection, drunk from one cup.\n\nThe closing of the door behind him, gently as it had been pulled\nto, roused Tess from her stupor.  He was gone; she could not stay.\nHastily flinging her cloak around her she opened the door and\nfollowed, putting out the candles as if she were never coming back.\nThe rain was over and the night was now clear.\n\nShe was soon close at his heels, for Clare walked slowly and without\npurpose.  His form beside her light gray figure looked black,\nsinister, and forbidding, and she felt as sarcasm the touch of the\njewels of which she had been momentarily so proud.  Clare turned at\nhearing her footsteps, but his recognition of her presence seemed\nto make no difference to him, and he went on over the five yawning\narches of the great bridge in front of the house.\n\nThe cow and horse tracks in the road were full of water, the rain\nhaving been enough to charge them, but not enough to wash them away.\nAcross these minute pools the reflected stars flitted in a quick\ntransit as she passed; she would not have known they were shining\noverhead if she had not seen them there--the vastest things of the\nuniverse imaged in objects so mean.\n\nThe place to which they had travelled to-day was in the same\nvalley as Talbothays, but some miles lower down the river; and the\nsurroundings being open, she kept easily in sight of him.  Away from\nthe house the road wound through the meads, and along these she\nfollowed Clare without any attempt to come up with him or to attract\nhim, but with dumb and vacant fidelity.\n\nAt last, however, her listless walk brought her up alongside him, and\nstill he said nothing.  The cruelty of fooled honesty is often great\nafter enlightenment, and it was mighty in Clare now.  The outdoor air\nhad apparently taken away from him all tendency to act on impulse;\nshe knew that he saw her without irradiation--in all her bareness;\nthat Time was chanting his satiric psalm at her then--\n\n\n   Behold, when thy face is made bare, he that loved thee\n      shall hate;\n   Thy face shall be no more fair at the fall of thy fate.\n   For thy life shall fall as a leaf and be shed as the rain;\n   And the veil of thine head shall be grief, and the crown\n      shall be pain.\n\n\nHe was still intently thinking, and her companionship had now\ninsufficient power to break or divert the strain of thought.  What a\nweak thing her presence must have become to him!  She could not help\naddressing Clare.\n\n\"What have I done--what HAVE I done!  I have not told of anything\nthat interferes with or belies my love for you.  You don't think I\nplanned it, do you?  It is in your own mind what you are angry at,\nAngel; it is not in me.  O, it is not in me, and I am not that\ndeceitful woman you think me!\"\n\n\"H'm--well.  Not deceitful, my wife; but not the same.  No, not the\nsame.  But do not make me reproach you.  I have sworn that I will\nnot; and I will do everything to avoid it.\"\n\nBut she went on pleading in her distraction; and perhaps said things\nthat would have been better left to silence.\n\n\"Angel!--Angel!  I was a child--a child when it happened!  I knew\nnothing of men.\"\n\n\"You were more sinned against than sinning, that I admit.\"\n\n\"Then will you not forgive me?\"\n\n\"I do forgive you, but forgiveness is not all.\"\n\n\"And love me?\"\n\nTo this question he did not answer.\n\n\"O Angel--my mother says that it sometimes happens so!--she knows\nseveral cases where they were worse than I, and the husband has not\nminded it much--has got over it at least.  And yet the woman had not\nloved him as I do you!\"\n\n\"Don't, Tess; don't argue.  Different societies, different manners.\nYou almost make me say you are an unapprehending peasant woman, who\nhave never been initiated into the proportions of social things.\nYou don't know what you say.\"\n\n\"I am only a peasant by position, not by nature!\"\n\nShe spoke with an impulse to anger, but it went as it came.\n\n\"So much the worse for you.  I think that parson who unearthed your\npedigree would have done better if he had held his tongue.  I cannot\nhelp associating your decline as a family with this other fact--of\nyour want of firmness.  Decrepit families imply decrepit wills,\ndecrepit conduct.  Heaven, why did you give me a handle for despising\nyou more by informing me of your descent!  Here was I thinking you a\nnew-sprung child of nature; there were you, the belated seedling of\nan effete aristocracy!\"\n\n\"Lots of families are as bad as mine in that!  Retty's family were\nonce large landowners, and so were Dairyman Billett's.  And the\nDebbyhouses, who now are carters, were once the De Bayeux family.\nYou find such as I everywhere; 'tis a feature of our county, and I\ncan't help it.\"\n\n\"So much the worse for the county.\"\n\nShe took these reproaches in their bulk simply, not in their\nparticulars; he did not love her as he had loved her hitherto, and\nto all else she was indifferent.\n\nThey wandered on again in silence.  It was said afterwards that a\ncottager of Wellbridge, who went out late that night for a doctor,\nmet two lovers in the pastures, walking very slowly, without\nconverse, one behind the other, as in a funeral procession, and the\nglimpse that he obtained of their faces seemed to denote that they\nwere anxious and sad.  Returning later, he passed them again in the\nsame field, progressing just as slowly, and as regardless of the hour\nand of the cheerless night as before.  It was only on account of his\npreoccupation with his own affairs, and the illness in his house,\nthat he did not bear in mind the curious incident, which, however, he\nrecalled a long while after.\n\nDuring the interval of the cottager's going and coming, she had said\nto her husband--\n\n\"I don't see how I can help being the cause of much misery to you all\nyour life.  The river is down there.  I can put an end to myself in\nit.  I am not afraid.\"\n\n\"I don't wish to add murder to my other follies,\" he said.\n\n\"I will leave something to show that I did it myself--on account of\nmy shame.  They will not blame you then.\"\n\n\"Don't speak so absurdly--I wish not to hear it.  It is nonsense\nto have such thoughts in this kind of case, which is rather one\nfor satirical laughter than for tragedy.  You don't in the least\nunderstand the quality of the mishap.  It would be viewed in the\nlight of a joke by nine-tenths of the world if it were known. Please\noblige me by returning to the house, and going to bed.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said she dutifully.\n\nThey had rambled round by a road which led to the well-known ruins of\nthe Cistercian abbey behind the mill, the latter having, in centuries\npast, been attached to the monastic establishment.  The mill still\nworked on, food being a perennial necessity; the abbey had perished,\ncreeds being transient.  One continually sees the ministration of the\ntemporary outlasting the ministration of the eternal.  Their walk\nhaving been circuitous, they were still not far from the house, and\nin obeying his direction she only had to reach the large stone bridge\nacross the main river and follow the road for a few yards.  When she\ngot back, everything remained as she had left it, the fire being\nstill burning.  She did not stay downstairs for more than a minute,\nbut proceeded to her chamber, whither the luggage had been taken.\nHere she sat down on the edge of the bed, looking blankly around,\nand presently began to undress.  In removing the light towards the\nbedstead its rays fell upon the tester of white dimity; something was\nhanging beneath it, and she lifted the candle to see what it was.\nA bough of mistletoe.  Angel had put it there; she knew that in an\ninstant. This was the explanation of that mysterious parcel which it\nhad been so difficult to pack and bring; whose contents he would not\nexplain to her, saying that time would soon show her the purpose\nthereof.  In his zest and his gaiety he had hung it there.  How\nfoolish and inopportune that mistletoe looked now.\n\nHaving nothing more to fear, having scarce anything to hope, for that\nhe would relent there seemed no promise whatever, she lay down dully.\nWhen sorrow ceases to be speculative, sleep sees her opportunity.\nAmong so many happier moods which forbid repose this was a mood which\nwelcomed it, and in a few minutes the lonely Tess forgot existence,\nsurrounded by the aromatic stillness of the chamber that had once,\npossibly, been the bride-chamber of her own ancestry.\n\nLater on that night Clare also retraced his steps to the house.\nEntering softly to the sitting-room he obtained a light, and with the\nmanner of one who had considered his course he spread his rugs upon\nthe old horse-hair sofa which stood there, and roughly shaped it to\na sleeping-couch.  Before lying down he crept shoeless upstairs, and\nlistened at the door of her apartment.  Her measured breathing told\nthat she was sleeping profoundly.\n\n\"Thank God!\" murmured Clare; and yet he was conscious of a pang of\nbitterness at the thought--approximately true, though not wholly\nso--that having shifted the burden of her life to his shoulders, she\nwas now reposing without care.\n\nHe turned away to descend; then, irresolute, faced round to her\ndoor again.  In the act he caught sight of one of the d'Urberville\ndames, whose portrait was immediately over the entrance to Tess's\nbedchamber.  In the candlelight the painting was more than\nunpleasant.  Sinister design lurked in the woman's features, a\nconcentrated purpose of revenge on the other sex--so it seemed to\nhim then.  The Caroline bodice of the portrait was low--precisely as\nTess's had been when he tucked it in to show the necklace; and again\nhe experienced the distressing sensation of a resemblance between\nthem.\n\nThe check was sufficient.  He resumed his retreat and descended.\n\nHis air remained calm and cold, his small compressed mouth indexing\nhis powers of self-control; his face wearing still that terrible\nsterile expression which had spread thereon since her disclosure.\nIt was the face of a man who was no longer passion's slave, yet who\nfound no advantage in his enfranchisement.  He was simply regarding\nthe harrowing contingencies of human experience, the unexpectedness\nof things.  Nothing so pure, so sweet, so virginal as Tess had seemed\npossible all the long while that he had adored her, up to an hour\nago; but\n\n\n       The little less, and what worlds away!\n\n\nHe argued erroneously when he said to himself that her heart was not\nindexed in the honest freshness of her face; but Tess had no advocate\nto set him right.  Could it be possible, he continued, that eyes\nwhich as they gazed never expressed any divergence from what the\ntongue was telling, were yet ever seeing another world behind her\nostensible one, discordant and contrasting?\n\nHe reclined on his couch in the sitting-room, and extinguished the\nlight.  The night came in, and took up its place there, unconcerned\nand indifferent; the night which had already swallowed up his\nhappiness, and was now digesting it listlessly; and was ready to\nswallow up the happiness of a thousand other people with as little\ndisturbance or change of mien.\n\n\n\nXXXVI\n\n\nClare arose in the light of a dawn that was ashy and furtive, as\nthough associated with crime.  The fireplace confronted him with its\nextinct embers; the spread supper-table, whereon stood the two full\nglasses of untasted wine, now flat and filmy; her vacated seat and\nhis own; the other articles of furniture, with their eternal look of\nnot being able to help it, their intolerable inquiry what was to be\ndone?  From above there was no sound; but in a few minutes there came\na knock at the door.  He remembered that it would be the neighbouring\ncottager's wife, who was to minister to their wants while they\nremained here.\n\nThe presence of a third person in the house would be extremely\nawkward just now, and, being already dressed, he opened the window\nand informed her that they could manage to shift for themselves that\nmorning.  She had a milk-can in her hand, which he told her to leave\nat the door.  When the dame had gone away he searched in the back\nquarters of the house for fuel, and speedily lit a fire.  There was\nplenty of eggs, butter, bread, and so on in the larder, and Clare\nsoon had breakfast laid, his experiences at the dairy having rendered\nhim facile in domestic preparations.  The smoke of the kindled wood\nrose from the chimney without like a lotus-headed column; local\npeople who were passing by saw it, and thought of the newly-married\ncouple, and envied their happiness.\n\nAngel cast a final glance round, and then going to the foot of the\nstairs, called in a conventional voice--\n\n\"Breakfast is ready!\"\n\nHe opened the front door, and took a few steps in the morning air.\nWhen, after a short space, he came back she was already in the\nsitting-room mechanically readjusting the breakfast things.  As she\nwas fully attired, and the interval since his calling her had been\nbut two or three minutes, she must have been dressed or nearly so\nbefore he went to summon her.  Her hair was twisted up in a large\nround mass at the back of her head, and she had put on one of the\nnew frocks--a pale blue woollen garment with neck-frillings of\nwhite.  Her hands and face appeared to be cold, and she had possibly\nbeen sitting dressed in the bedroom a long time without any fire.\nThe marked civility of Clare's tone in calling her seemed to have\ninspired her, for the moment, with a new glimmer of hope.  But it\nsoon died when she looked at him.\n\nThe pair were, in truth, but the ashes of their former fires.  To the\nhot sorrow of the previous night had succeeded heaviness; it seemed\nas if nothing could kindle either of them to fervour of sensation any\nmore.\n\nHe spoke gently to her, and she replied with a like\nundemonstrativeness.  At last she came up to him, looking in his\nsharply-defined face as one who had no consciousness that her own\nformed a visible object also.\n\n\"Angel!\" she said, and paused, touching him with her fingers lightly\nas a breeze, as though she could hardly believe to be there in the\nflesh the man who was once her lover.  Her eyes were bright, her pale\ncheek still showed its wonted roundness, though half-dried tears had\nleft glistening traces thereon; and the usually ripe red mouth was\nalmost as pale as her cheek.  Throbbingly alive as she was still,\nunder the stress of her mental grief the life beat so brokenly that\na little further pull upon it would cause real illness, dull her\ncharacteristic eyes, and make her mouth thin.\n\nShe looked absolutely pure.  Nature, in her fantastic trickery, had\nset such a seal of maidenhood upon Tess's countenance that he gazed\nat her with a stupefied air.\n\n\"Tess!  Say it is not true!  No, it is not true!\"\n\n\"It is true.\"\n\n\"Every word?\"\n\n\"Every word.\"\n\nHe looked at her imploringly, as if he would willingly have taken a\nlie from her lips, knowing it to be one, and have made of it, by some\nsort of sophistry, a valid denial. However, she only repeated--\n\n\"It is true.\"\n\n\"Is he living?\" Angel then asked.\n\n\"The baby died.\"\n\n\"But the man?\"\n\n\"He is alive.\"\n\nA last despair passed over Clare's face.\n\n\"Is he in England?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe took a few vague steps.\n\n\"My position--is this,\" he said abruptly.  \"I thought--any man would\nhave thought--that by giving up all ambition to win a wife with\nsocial standing, with fortune, with knowledge of the world, I should\nsecure rustic innocence as surely as I should secure pink cheeks;\nbut--However, I am no man to reproach you, and I will not.\"\n\nTess felt his position so entirely that the remainder had not been\nneeded.  Therein lay just the distress of it; she saw that he had\nlost all round.\n\n\"Angel--I should not have let it go on to marriage with you if I had\nnot known that, after all, there was a last way out of it for you;\nthough I hoped you would never--\"\n\nHer voice grew husky.\n\n\"A last way?\"\n\n\"I mean, to get rid of me.  You CAN get rid of me.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"By divorcing me.\"\n\n\"Good heavens--how can you be so simple!  How can I divorce you?\"\n\n\"Can't you--now I have told you?  I thought my confession would give\nyou grounds for that.\"\n\n\"O Tess--you are too, too--childish--unformed--crude, I suppose!  I\ndon't know what you are.  You don't understand the law--you don't\nunderstand!\"\n\n\"What--you cannot?\"\n\n\"Indeed I cannot.\"\n\nA quick shame mixed with the misery upon his listener's face.\n\n\"I thought--I thought,\" she whispered.  \"O, now I see how wicked I\nseem to you!  Believe me--believe me, on my soul, I never thought but\nthat you could!  I hoped you would not; yet I believed, without a\ndoubt, that you could cast me off if you were determined, and didn't\nlove me at--at--all!\"\n\n\"You were mistaken,\" he said.\n\n\"O, then I ought to have done it, to have done it last night!  But I\nhadn't the courage.  That's just like me!\"\n\n\"The courage to do what?\"\n\nAs she did not answer he took her by the hand.\n\n\"What were you thinking of doing?\" he inquired.\n\n\"Of putting an end to myself.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\nShe writhed under this inquisitorial manner of his.  \"Last night,\"\nshe answered.\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Under your mistletoe.\"\n\n\"My good--!  How?\" he asked sternly.\n\n\"I'll tell you, if you won't be angry with me!\" she said, shrinking.\n\"It was with the cord of my box.  But I could not--do the last thing!\nI was afraid that it might cause a scandal to your name.\"\n\nThe unexpected quality of this confession, wrung from her, and not\nvolunteered, shook him perceptibly.  But he still held her, and,\nletting his glance fall from her face downwards, he said,  \"Now,\nlisten to this.  You must not dare to think of such a horrible thing!\nHow could you!  You will promise me as your husband to attempt that\nno more.\"\n\n\"I am ready to promise.  I saw how wicked it was.\"\n\n\"Wicked!  The idea was unworthy of you beyond description.\"\n\n\"But, Angel,\" she pleaded, enlarging her eyes in calm unconcern upon\nhim, \"it was thought of entirely on your account--to set you free\nwithout the scandal of the divorce that I thought you would have to\nget.  I should never have dreamt of doing it on mine.  However, to\ndo it with my own hand is too good for me, after all.  It is you, my\nruined husband, who ought to strike the blow.  I think I should love\nyou more, if that were possible, if you could bring yourself to do\nit, since there's no other way of escape for 'ee.  I feel I am so\nutterly worthless!  So very greatly in the way!\"\n\n\"Ssh!\"\n\n\"Well, since you say no, I won't.  I have no wish opposed to yours.\"\n\nHe knew this to be true enough.  Since the desperation of the night\nher activities had dropped to zero, and there was no further rashness\nto be feared.\n\nTess tried to busy herself again over the breakfast-table with more\nor less success, and they sat down both on the same side, so that\ntheir glances did not meet.  There was at first something awkward\nin hearing each other eat and drink, but this could not be escaped;\nmoreover, the amount of eating done was small on both sides.\nBreakfast over, he rose, and telling her the hour at which he might\nbe expected to dinner, went off to the miller's in a mechanical\npursuance of the plan of studying that business, which had been his\nonly practical reason for coming here.\n\nWhen he was gone Tess stood at the window, and presently saw his form\ncrossing the great stone bridge which conducted to the mill premises.\nHe sank behind it, crossed the railway beyond, and disappeared.\nThen, without a sigh, she turned her attention to the room, and began\nclearing the table and setting it in order.\n\nThe charwoman soon came.  Her presence was at first a strain upon\nTess, but afterwards an alleviation.  At half-past twelve she\nleft her assistant alone in the kitchen, and, returning to the\nsitting-room, waited for the reappearance of Angel's form behind the\nbridge.\n\nAbout one he showed himself.  Her face flushed, although he was a\nquarter of a mile off.  She ran to the kitchen to get the dinner\nserved by the time he should enter.  He went first to the room where\nthey had washed their hands together the day before, and as he\nentered the sitting-room the dish-covers rose from the dishes as if\nby his own motion.\n\n\"How punctual!\" he said.\n\n\"Yes.  I saw you coming over the bridge,\" said she.\n\nThe meal was passed in commonplace talk of what he had been doing\nduring the morning at the Abbey Mill, of the methods of bolting and\nthe old-fashioned machinery, which he feared would not enlighten him\ngreatly on modern improved methods, some of it seeming to have been\nin use ever since the days it ground for the monks in the adjoining\nconventual buildings--now a heap of ruins.  He left the house again\nin the course of an hour, coming home at dusk, and occupying himself\nthrough the evening with his papers.  She feared she was in the way\nand, when the old woman was gone, retired to the kitchen, where she\nmade herself busy as well as she could for more than an hour.\n\nClare's shape appeared at the door. \"You must not work like this,\" he\nsaid.  \"You are not my servant; you are my wife.\"\n\nShe raised her eyes, and brightened somewhat.  \"I may think myself\nthat--indeed?\" she murmured, in piteous raillery.  \"You mean in name!\nWell, I don't want to be anything more.\"\n\n\"You MAY think so, Tess!  You are.  What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said hastily, with tears in her accents.  \"I\nthought I--because I am not respectable, I mean.  I told you I\nthought I was not respectable enough long ago--and on that account\nI didn't want to marry you, only--only you urged me!\"\n\nShe broke into sobs, and turned her back to him.  It would almost\nhave won round any man but Angel Clare.  Within the remote depths of\nhis constitution, so gentle and affectionate as he was in general,\nthere lay hidden a hard logical deposit, like a vein of metal in a\nsoft loam, which turned the edge of everything that attempted to\ntraverse it.  It had blocked his acceptance of the Church; it blocked\nhis acceptance of Tess.  Moreover, his affection itself was less fire\nthan radiance, and, with regard to the other sex, when he ceased\nto believe he ceased to follow: contrasting in this with many\nimpressionable natures, who remain sensuously infatuated with what\nthey intellectually despise.  He waited till her sobbing ceased.\n\n\"I wish half the women in England were as respectable as you,\" he\nsaid, in an ebullition of bitterness against womankind in general.\n\"It isn't a question of respectability, but one of principle!\"\n\nHe spoke such things as these and more of a kindred sort to her,\nbeing still swayed by the antipathetic wave which warps direct souls\nwith such persistence when once their vision finds itself mocked by\nappearances.  There was, it is true, underneath, a back current of\nsympathy through which a woman of the world might have conquered him.\nBut Tess did not think of this; she took everything as her deserts,\nand hardly opened her mouth.  The firmness of her devotion to him was\nindeed almost pitiful; quick-tempered as she naturally was, nothing\nthat he could say made her unseemly; she sought not her own; was not\nprovoked; thought no evil of his treatment of her.  She might just\nnow have been Apostolic Charity herself returned to a self-seeking\nmodern world.\n\nThis evening, night, and morning were passed precisely as the\npreceding ones had been passed.  On one, and only one, occasion did\nshe--the formerly free and independent Tess--venture to make any\nadvances.  It was on the third occasion of his starting after a meal\nto go out to the flour-mill.  As he was leaving the table he said\n\"Goodbye,\" and she replied in the same words, at the same time\ninclining her mouth in the way of his.  He did not avail himself of\nthe invitation, saying, as he turned hastily aside--\n\n\"I shall be home punctually.\"\n\nTess shrank into herself as if she had been struck.  Often enough had\nhe tried to reach those lips against her consent--often had he said\ngaily that her mouth and breath tasted of the butter and eggs and\nmilk and honey on which she mainly lived, that he drew sustenance\nfrom them, and other follies of that sort.  But he did not care for\nthem now.  He observed her sudden shrinking, and said gently--\n\n\"You know, I have to think of a course.  It was imperative that we\nshould stay together a little while, to avoid the scandal to you that\nwould have resulted from our immediate parting.  But you must see it\nis only for form's sake.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Tess absently.\n\nHe went out, and on his way to the mill stood still, and wished for a\nmoment that he had responded yet more kindly, and kissed her once at\nleast.\n\nThus they lived through this despairing day or two; in the same\nhouse, truly; but more widely apart than before they were lovers.  It\nwas evident to her that he was, as he had said, living with paralyzed\nactivities in his endeavour to think of a plan of procedure.  She\nwas awe-stricken to discover such determination under such apparent\nflexibility.  His consistency was, indeed, too cruel.  She no longer\nexpected forgiveness now.  More than once she thought of going away\nfrom him during his absence at the mill; but she feared that this,\ninstead of benefiting him, might be the means of hampering and\nhumiliating him yet more if it should become known.\n\nMeanwhile Clare was meditating, verily.  His thought had been\nunsuspended; he was becoming ill with thinking; eaten out with\nthinking, withered by thinking; scourged out of all his former\npulsating, flexuous domesticity.  He walked about saying to himself,\n\"What's to be done--what's to be done?\" and by chance she overheard\nhim.  It caused her to break the reserve about their future which had\nhitherto prevailed.\n\n\"I suppose--you are not going to live with me--long, are you, Angel?\"\nshe asked, the sunk corners of her mouth betraying how purely\nmechanical were the means by which she retained that expression of\nchastened calm upon her face.\n\n\"I cannot\" he said, \"without despising myself, and what is worse,\nperhaps, despising you.  I mean, of course, cannot live with you\nin the ordinary sense.  At present, whatever I feel, I do not\ndespise you.  And, let me speak plainly, or you may not see all my\ndifficulties.  How can we live together while that man lives?--he\nbeing your husband in nature, and not I.  If he were dead it might\nbe different...  Besides, that's not all the difficulty; it lies in\nanother consideration--one bearing upon the future of other people\nthan ourselves.  Think of years to come, and children being born to\nus, and this past matter getting known--for it must get known.  There\nis not an uttermost part of the earth but somebody comes from it or\ngoes to it from elsewhere.  Well, think of wretches of our flesh and\nblood growing up under a taunt which they will gradually get to feel\nthe full force of with their expanding years.  What an awakening\nfor them!  What a prospect!  Can you honestly say 'Remain' after\ncontemplating this contingency?  Don't you think we had better\nendure the ills we have than fly to others?\"\n\nHer eyelids, weighted with trouble, continued drooping as before.\n\n\"I cannot say 'Remain,'\" she answered, \"I cannot; I had not thought\nso far.\"\n\nTess's feminine hope--shall we confess it?--had been so obstinately\nrecuperative as to revive in her surreptitious visions of a\ndomiciliary intimacy continued long enough to break down his coldness\neven against his judgement.  Though unsophisticated in the usual\nsense, she was not incomplete; and it would have denoted deficiency\nof womanhood if she had not instinctively known what an argument lies\nin propinquity.  Nothing else would serve her, she knew, if this\nfailed.  It was wrong to hope in what was of the nature of strategy,\nshe said to herself: yet that sort of hope she could not extinguish.\nHis last representation had now been made, and it was, as she said,\na new view.  She had truly never thought so far as that, and his\nlucid picture of possible offspring who would scorn her was one that\nbrought deadly convictions to an honest heart which was humanitarian\nto its centre.  Sheer experience had already taught her that in some\ncircumstances there was one thing better than to lead a good life,\nand that was to be saved from leading any life whatever.  Like all\nwho have been previsioned by suffering, she could, in the words of\nM. Sully-Prudhomme, hear a penal sentence in the fiat, \"You shall be\nborn,\" particularly if addressed to potential issue of hers.\n\nYet such is the vulpine slyness of Dame Nature, that, till now, Tess\nhad been hoodwinked by her love for Clare into forgetting it might\nresult in vitalizations that would inflict upon others what she had\nbewailed as misfortune to herself.\n\nShe therefore could not withstand his argument.  But with the\nself-combating proclivity of the supersensitive, an answer thereto\narose in Clare's own mind, and he almost feared it.  It was based\non her exceptional physical nature; and she might have used it\npromisingly. She might have added besides: \"On an Australian upland\nor Texan plain, who is to know or care about my misfortunes, or to\nreproach me or you?\"  Yet, like the majority of women, she accepted\nthe momentary presentment as if it were the inevitable.  And she\nmay have been right.  The intuitive heart of woman knoweth not only\nits own bitterness, but its husband's, and even if these assumed\nreproaches were not likely to be addressed to him or to his by\nstrangers, they might have reached his ears from his own fastidious\nbrain.\n\nIt was the third day of the estrangement.  Some might risk the odd\nparadox that with more animalism he would have been the nobler man.\nWe do not say it.  Yet Clare's love was doubtless ethereal to a\nfault, imaginative to impracticability.  With these natures, corporal\npresence is something less appealing than corporal absence; the\nlatter creating an ideal presence that conveniently drops the defects\nof the real.  She found that her personality did not plead her cause\nso forcibly as she had anticipated.  The figurative phrase was true:\nshe was another woman than the one who had excited his desire.\n\n\"I have thought over what you say,\" she remarked to him, moving her\nforefinger over the tablecloth, her other hand, which bore the ring\nthat mocked them both, supporting her forehead.  \"It is quite true,\nall of it; it must be.  You must go away from me.\"\n\n\"But what can you do?\"\n\n\"I can go home.\"\n\nClare had not thought of that.\n\n\"Are you sure?\" he inquired.\n\n\"Quite sure.  We ought to part, and we may as well get it past and\ndone.  You once said that I was apt to win men against their better\njudgement; and if I am constantly before your eyes I may cause you\nto change your plans in opposition to your reason and wish; and\nafterwards your repentance and my sorrow will be terrible.\"\n\n\"And you would like to go home?\" he asked.\n\n\"I want to leave you, and go home.\"\n\n\"Then it shall be so.\"\n\nThough she did not look up at him, she started.  There was a\ndifference between the proposition and the covenant, which she had\nfelt only too quickly.\n\n\"I feared it would come to this,\" she murmured, her countenance\nmeekly fixed.  \"I don't complain, Angel, I--I think it best.  What\nyou said has quite convinced me.  Yes, though nobody else should\nreproach me if we should stay together, yet somewhen, years hence,\nyou might get angry with me for any ordinary matter, and knowing what\nyou do of my bygones, you yourself might be tempted to say words, and\nthey might be overheard, perhaps by my own children.  O, what only\nhurts me now would torture and kill me then! I will go--to-morrow.\"\n\n\"And I shall not stay here.  Though I didn't like to initiate it, I\nhave seen that it was advisable we should part--at least for a while,\ntill I can better see the shape that things have taken, and can write\nto you.\"\n\nTess stole a glance at her husband.  He was pale, even tremulous;\nbut, as before, she was appalled by the determination revealed in the\ndepths of this gentle being she had married--the will to subdue the\ngrosser to the subtler emotion, the substance to the conception, the\nflesh to the spirit.  Propensities, tendencies, habits, were as dead\nleaves upon the tyrannous wind of his imaginative ascendency.\n\nHe may have observed her look, for he explained--\n\n\"I think of people more kindly when I am away from them\"; adding\ncynically, \"God knows; perhaps we will shake down together some day,\nfor weariness; thousands have done it!\"\n\nThat day he began to pack up, and she went upstairs and began to pack\nalso.  Both knew that it was in their two minds that they might part\nthe next morning for ever, despite the gloss of assuaging conjectures\nthrown over their proceeding because they were of the sort to whom\nany parting which has an air of finality is a torture.  He knew,\nand she knew, that, though the fascination which each had exercised\nover the other--on her part independently of accomplishments--would\nprobably in the first days of their separation be even more potent\nthan ever, time must attenuate that effect; the practical arguments\nagainst accepting her as a housemate might pronounce themselves more\nstrongly in the boreal light of a remoter view.  Moreover, when two\npeople are once parted--have abandoned a common domicile and a common\nenvironment--new growths insensibly bud upward to fill each vacated\nplace; unforeseen accidents hinder intentions, and old plans are\nforgotten.\n\n\n\nXXXVII\n\n\nMidnight came and passed silently, for there was nothing to announce\nit in the Valley of the Froom.\n\nNot long after one o'clock there was a slight creak in the darkened\nfarmhouse once the mansion of the d'Urbervilles.  Tess, who used the\nupper chamber, heard it and awoke.  It had come from the corner step\nof the staircase, which, as usual, was loosely nailed.  She saw the\ndoor of her bedroom open, and the figure of her husband crossed the\nstream of moonlight with a curiously careful tread.  He was in his\nshirt and trousers only, and her first flush of joy died when she\nperceived that his eyes were fixed in an unnatural stare on vacancy.\nWhen he reached the middle of the room he stood still and murmured in\ntones of indescribable sadness--\n\n\"Dead! dead! dead!\"\n\nUnder the influence of any strongly-disturbing force, Clare would\noccasionally walk in his sleep, and even perform strange feats, such\nas he had done on the night of their return from market just before\ntheir marriage, when he re-enacted in his bedroom his combat with the\nman who had insulted her.  Tess saw that continued mental distress\nhad wrought him into that somnambulistic state now.\n\nHer loyal confidence in him lay so deep down in her heart, that,\nawake or asleep, he inspired her with no sort of personal fear.  If\nhe had entered with a pistol in his hand he would scarcely have\ndisturbed her trust in his protectiveness.\n\nClare came close, and bent over her. \"Dead, dead, dead!\" he murmured.\n\nAfter fixedly regarding her for some moments with the same gaze of\nunmeasurable woe, he bent lower, enclosed her in his arms, and rolled\nher in the sheet as in a shroud.  Then lifting her from the bed with\nas much respect as one would show to a dead body, he carried her\nacross the room, murmuring--\n\n\"My poor, poor Tess--my dearest, darling Tess!  So sweet, so good, so\ntrue!\"\n\nThe words of endearment, withheld so severely in his waking hours,\nwere inexpressibly sweet to her forlorn and hungry heart.  If it had\nbeen to save her weary life she would not, by moving or struggling,\nhave put an end to the position she found herself in.  Thus she lay\nin absolute stillness, scarcely venturing to breathe, and, wondering\nwhat he was going to do with her, suffered herself to be borne out\nupon the landing.\n\n\"My wife--dead, dead!\" he said.\n\nHe paused in his labours for a moment to lean with her against the\nbanister.  Was he going to throw her down?  Self-solicitude was near\nextinction in her, and in the knowledge that he had planned to depart\non the morrow, possibly for always, she lay in his arms in this\nprecarious position with a sense rather of luxury than of terror.  If\nthey could only fall together, and both be dashed to pieces, how fit,\nhow desirable.\n\nHowever, he did not let her fall, but took advantage of the support\nof the handrail to imprint a kiss upon her lips--lips in the day-time\nscorned.  Then he clasped her with a renewed firmness of hold, and\ndescended the staircase.  The creak of the loose stair did not awaken\nhim, and they reached the ground-floor safely.  Freeing one of his\nhands from his grasp of her for a moment, he slid back the door-bar\nand passed out, slightly striking his stockinged toe against the edge\nof the door.  But this he seemed not to mind, and, having room for\nextension in the open air, he lifted her against his shoulder, so\nthat he could carry her with ease, the absence of clothes taking much\nfrom his burden.  Thus he bore her off the premises in the direction\nof the river a few yards distant.\n\nHis ultimate intention, if he had any, she had not yet divined; and\nshe found herself conjecturing on the matter as a third person might\nhave done.  So easefully had she delivered her whole being up to him\nthat it pleased her to think he was regarding her as his absolute\npossession, to dispose of as he should choose.  It was consoling,\nunder the hovering terror of to-morrow's separation, to feel that he\nreally recognized her now as his wife Tess, and did not cast her off,\neven if in that recognition he went so far as to arrogate to himself\nthe right of harming her.\n\nAh! now she knew what he was dreaming of--that Sunday morning when he\nhad borne her along through the water with the other dairymaids, who\nhad loved him nearly as much as she, if that were possible, which\nTess could hardly admit.  Clare did not cross the bridge with her,\nbut proceeding several paces on the same side towards the adjoining\nmill, at length stood still on the brink of the river.\n\nIts waters, in creeping down these miles of meadowland, frequently\ndivided, serpentining in purposeless curves, looping themselves\naround little islands that had no name, returning and re-embodying\nthemselves as a broad main stream further on.  Opposite the spot to\nwhich he had brought her was such a general confluence, and the river\nwas proportionately voluminous and deep.  Across it was a narrow\nfoot-bridge; but now the autumn flood had washed the handrail away,\nleaving the bare plank only, which, lying a few inches above the\nspeeding current, formed a giddy pathway for even steady heads; and\nTess had noticed from the window of the house in the day-time young\nmen walking across upon it as a feat in balancing.  Her husband had\npossibly observed the same performance; anyhow, he now mounted the\nplank, and, sliding one foot forward, advanced along it.\n\nWas he going to drown her?  Probably he was.  The spot was lonely,\nthe river deep and wide enough to make such a purpose easy of\naccomplishment.  He might drown her if he would; it would be better\nthan parting to-morrow to lead severed lives.\n\nThe swift stream raced and gyrated under them, tossing, distorting,\nand splitting the moon's reflected face.  Spots of froth travelled\npast, and intercepted weeds waved behind the piles.  If they could\nboth fall together into the current now, their arms would be so\ntightly clasped together that they could not be saved; they would\ngo out of the world almost painlessly, and there would be no more\nreproach to her, or to him for marrying her.  His last half-hour with\nher would have been a loving one, while if they lived till he awoke,\nhis day-time aversion would return, and this hour would remain to be\ncontemplated only as a transient dream.\n\nThe impulse stirred in her, yet she dared not indulge it, to make a\nmovement that would have precipitated them both into the gulf.  How\nshe valued her own life had been proved; but his--she had no right to\ntamper with it.  He reached the other side with her in safety.\n\nHere they were within a plantation which formed the Abbey grounds,\nand taking a new hold of her he went onward a few steps till they\nreached the ruined choir of the Abbey-church.  Against the north wall\nwas the empty stone coffin of an abbot, in which every tourist with\na turn for grim humour was accustomed to stretch himself.  In this\nClare carefully laid Tess.  Having kissed her lips a second time he\nbreathed deeply, as if a greatly desired end were attained.  Clare\nthen lay down on the ground alongside, when he immediately fell into\nthe deep dead slumber of exhaustion, and remained motionless as a\nlog.  The spurt of mental excitement which had produced the effort\nwas now over.\n\nTess sat up in the coffin.  The night, though dry and mild for the\nseason, was more than sufficiently cold to make it dangerous for him\nto remain here long, in his half-clothed state.  If he were left to\nhimself he would in all probability stay there till the morning, and\nbe chilled to certain death.  She had heard of such deaths after\nsleep-walking.  But how could she dare to awaken him, and let him\nknow what he had been doing, when it would mortify him to discover\nhis folly in respect of her?  Tess, however, stepping out of her\nstone confine, shook him slightly, but was unable to arouse him\nwithout being violent.  It was indispensable to do something, for she\nwas beginning to shiver, the sheet being but a poor protection.  Her\nexcitement had in a measure kept her warm during the few minutes'\nadventure; but that beatific interval was over.\n\nIt suddenly occurred to her to try persuasion; and accordingly she\nwhispered in his ear, with as much firmness and decision as she could\nsummon--\n\n\"Let us walk on, darling,\" at the same time taking him suggestively\nby the arm.  To her relief, he unresistingly acquiesced; her words\nhad apparently thrown him back into his dream, which thenceforward\nseemed to enter on a new phase, wherein he fancied she had risen as a\nspirit, and was leading him to Heaven. Thus she conducted him by the\narm to the stone bridge in front of their residence, crossing which\nthey stood at the manor-house door.  Tess's feet were quite bare, and\nthe stones hurt her, and chilled her to the bone; but Clare was in\nhis woollen stockings, and appeared to feel no discomfort.\n\nThere was no further difficulty.  She induced him to lie down on his\nown sofa bed, and covered him up warmly, lighting a temporary fire of\nwood, to dry any dampness out of him.  The noise of these attentions\nshe thought might awaken him, and secretly wished that they might.\nBut the exhaustion of his mind and body was such that he remained\nundisturbed.\n\nAs soon as they met the next morning Tess divined that Angel knew\nlittle or nothing of how far she had been concerned in the night's\nexcursion, though, as regarded himself, he may have been aware that\nhe had not lain still.  In truth, he had awakened that morning from\na sleep deep as annihilation; and during those first few moments\nin which the brain, like a Samson shaking himself, is trying its\nstrength, he had some dim notion of an unusual nocturnal proceeding.\nBut the realities of his situation soon displaced conjecture on the\nother subject.\n\nHe waited in expectancy to discern some mental pointing; he knew that\nif any intention of his, concluded over-night, did not vanish in the\nlight of morning, it stood on a basis approximating to one of pure\nreason, even if initiated by impulse of feeling; that it was so\nfar, therefore, to be trusted.  He thus beheld in the pale morning\nlight the resolve to separate from her; not as a hot and indignant\ninstinct, but denuded of the passionateness which had made it scorch\nand burn; standing in its bones; nothing but a skeleton, but none the\nless there.  Clare no longer hesitated.\n\nAt breakfast, and while they were packing the few remaining articles,\nhe showed his weariness from the night's effort so unmistakeably that\nTess was on the point of revealing all that had happened; but the\nreflection that it would anger him, grieve him, stultify him, to know\nthat he had instinctively manifested a fondness for her of which his\ncommon-sense did not approve, that his inclination had compromised\nhis dignity when reason slept, again deterred her.  It was too much\nlike laughing at a man when sober for his erratic deeds during\nintoxication.\n\nIt just crossed her mind, too, that he might have a faint\nrecollection of his tender vagary, and was disinclined to allude to\nit from a conviction that she would take amatory advantage of the\nopportunity it gave her of appealing to him anew not to go.\n\nHe had ordered by letter a vehicle from the nearest town, and\nsoon after breakfast it arrived.  She saw in it the beginning of\nthe end--the temporary end, at least, for the revelation of his\ntenderness by the incident of the night raised dreams of a possible\nfuture with him.  The luggage was put on the top, and the man drove\nthem off, the miller and the old waiting-woman expressing some\nsurprise at their precipitate departure, which Clare attributed to\nhis discovery that the mill-work was not of the modern kind which he\nwished to investigate, a statement that was true so far as it went.\nBeyond this there was nothing in the manner of their leaving to\nsuggest a fiasco, or that they were not going together to visit\nfriends.\n\nTheir route lay near the dairy from which they had started with such\nsolemn joy in each other a few days back, and as Clare wished to wind\nup his business with Mr Crick, Tess could hardly avoid paying Mrs\nCrick a call at the same time, unless she would excite suspicion of\ntheir unhappy state.\n\nTo make the call as unobtrusive as possible, they left the carriage\nby the wicket leading down from the high road to the dairy-house, and\ndescended the track on foot, side by side.  The withy-bed had been\ncut, and they could see over the stumps the spot to which Clare had\nfollowed her when he pressed her to be his wife; to the left the\nenclosure in which she had been fascinated by his harp; and far away\nbehind the cow-stalls the mead which had been the scene of their\nfirst embrace.  The gold of the summer picture was now gray, the\ncolours mean, the rich soil mud, and the river cold.\n\nOver the barton-gate the dairyman saw them, and came forward,\nthrowing into his face the kind of jocularity deemed appropriate\nin Talbothays and its vicinity on the re-appearance of the\nnewly-married.  Then Mrs Crick emerged from the house, and several\nothers of their old acquaintance, though Marian and Retty did not\nseem to be there.\n\nTess valiantly bore their sly attacks and friendly humours, which\naffected her far otherwise than they supposed.  In the tacit\nagreement of husband and wife to keep their estrangement a secret\nthey behaved as would have been ordinary.  And then, although she\nwould rather there had been no word spoken on the subject, Tess had\nto hear in detail the story of Marian and Retty.  The later had gone\nhome to her father's, and Marian had left to look for employment\nelsewhere.  They feared she would come to no good.\n\nTo dissipate the sadness of this recital Tess went and bade all her\nfavourite cows goodbye, touching each of them with her hand, and as\nshe and Clare stood side by side at leaving, as if united body and\nsoul, there would have been something peculiarly sorry in their\naspect to one who should have seen it truly; two limbs of one life,\nas they outwardly were, his arm touching hers, her skirts touching\nhim, facing one way, as against all the dairy facing the other,\nspeaking in their adieux as \"we\", and yet sundered like the poles.\nPerhaps something unusually stiff and embarrassed in their attitude,\nsome awkwardness in acting up to their profession of unity, different\nfrom the natural shyness of young couples, may have been apparent,\nfor when they were gone Mrs Crick said to her husband--\n\n\"How onnatural the brightness of her eyes did seem, and how they\nstood like waxen images and talked as if they were in a dream!\nDidn't it strike 'ee that 'twas so?  Tess had always sommat strange\nin her, and she's not now quite like the proud young bride of a\nwell-be-doing man.\"\n\nThey re-entered the vehicle, and were driven along the roads towards\nWeatherbury and Stagfoot Lane, till they reached the Lane inn, where\nClare dismissed the fly and man.  They rested here a while, and\nentering the Vale were next driven onward towards her home by a\nstranger who did not know their relations.  At a midway point, when\nNuttlebury had been passed, and where there were cross-roads, Clare\nstopped the conveyance and said to Tess that if she meant to return\nto her mother's house it was here that he would leave her.  As they\ncould not talk with freedom in the driver's presence he asked her to\naccompany him for a few steps on foot along one of the branch roads;\nshe assented, and directing the man to wait a few minutes they\nstrolled away.\n\n\"Now, let us understand each other,\" he said gently.  \"There is no\nanger between us, though there is that which I cannot endure at\npresent.  I will try to bring myself to endure it.  I will let you\nknow where I go to as soon as I know myself.  And if I can bring\nmyself to bear it--if it is desirable, possible--I will come to you.\nBut until I come to you it will be better that you should not try to\ncome to me.\"\n\nThe severity of the decree seemed deadly to Tess; she saw his view of\nher clearly enough; he could regard her in no other light than that\nof one who had practised gross deceit upon him.  Yet could a woman\nwho had done even what she had done deserve all this?  But she could\ncontest the point with him no further.  She simply repeated after him\nhis own words.\n\n\"Until you come to me I must not try to come to you?\"\n\n\"Just so.\"\n\n\"May I write to you?\"\n\n\"O yes--if you are ill, or want anything at all.  I hope that will\nnot be the case; so that it may happen that I write first to you.\"\n\n\"I agree to the conditions, Angel; because you know best what my\npunishment ought to be; only--only--don't make it more than I can\nbear!\"\n\nThat was all she said on the matter.  If Tess had been artful, had\nshe made a scene, fainted, wept hysterically, in that lonely lane,\nnotwithstanding the fury of fastidiousness with which he was\npossessed, he would probably not have withstood her.  But her mood\nof long-suffering made his way easy for him, and she herself was\nhis best advocate.  Pride, too, entered into her submission--which\nperhaps was a symptom of that reckless acquiescence in chance too\napparent in the whole d'Urberville family--and the many effective\nchords which she could have stirred by an appeal were left untouched.\n\nThe remainder of their discourse was on practical matters only.  He\nnow handed her a packet containing a fairly good sum of money, which\nhe had obtained from his bankers for the purpose.  The brilliants,\nthe interest in which seemed to be Tess's for her life only (if he\nunderstood the wording of the will), he advised her to let him send\nto a bank for safety; and to this she readily agreed.\n\nThese things arranged, he walked with Tess back to the carriage,\nand handed her in.  The coachman was paid and told where to drive\nher.  Taking next his own bag and umbrella--the sole articles he had\nbrought with him hitherwards--he bade her goodbye; and they parted\nthere and then.\n\nThe fly moved creepingly up a hill, and Clare watched it go with an\nunpremeditated hope that Tess would look out of the window for one\nmoment.  But that she never thought of doing, would not have ventured\nto do, lying in a half-dead faint inside.  Thus he beheld her recede,\nand in the anguish of his heart quoted a line from a poet, with\npeculiar emendations of his own--\n\n\n    God's NOT in his heaven:\n    All's WRONG with the world!\n\n\nWhen Tess had passed over the crest of the hill he turned to go his\nown way, and hardly knew that he loved her still.\n\n\n\nXXXVIII\n\n\nAs she drove on through Blackmoor Vale, and the landscape of her\nyouth began to open around her, Tess aroused herself from her stupor.\nHer first thought was how would she be able to face her parents?\n\nShe reached a turnpike-gate which stood upon the highway to the\nvillage.  It was thrown open by a stranger, not by the old man who\nhad kept it for many years, and to whom she had been known; he had\nprobably left on New Year's Day, the date when such changes were\nmade.  Having received no intelligence lately from her home, she\nasked the turnpike-keeper for news.\n\n\"Oh--nothing, miss,\" he answered.  \"Marlott is Marlott still.  Folks\nhave died and that.  John Durbeyfield, too, hev had a daughter\nmarried this week to a gentleman-farmer; not from John's own house,\nyou know; they was married elsewhere; the gentleman being of that\nhigh standing that John's own folk was not considered well-be-doing\nenough to have any part in it, the bridegroom seeming not to know\nhow't have been discovered that John is a old and ancient nobleman\nhimself by blood, with family skillentons in their own vaults to\nthis day, but done out of his property in the time o' the Romans.\nHowever, Sir John, as we call 'n now, kept up the wedding-day as well\nas he could, and stood treat to everybody in the parish; and John's\nwife sung songs at The Pure Drop till past eleven o'clock.\"\n\nHearing this, Tess felt so sick at heart that she could not decide\nto go home publicly in the fly with her luggage and belongings.  She\nasked the turnpike-keeper if she might deposit her things at his\nhouse for a while, and, on his offering no objection, she dismissed\nher carriage, and went on to the village alone by a back lane.\n\nAt sight of her father's chimney she asked herself how she could\npossibly enter the house?  Inside that cottage her relations were\ncalmly supposing her far away on a wedding-tour with a comparatively\nrich man, who was to conduct her to bouncing prosperity; while here\nshe was, friendless, creeping up to the old door quite by herself,\nwith no better place to go to in the world.\n\nShe did not reach the house unobserved.  Just by the garden-hedge she\nwas met by a girl who knew her--one of the two or three with whom she\nhad been intimate at school.  After making a few inquiries as to how\nTess came there, her friend, unheeding her tragic look, interrupted\nwith--\n\n\"But where's thy gentleman, Tess?\"\n\nTess hastily explained that he had been called away on business, and,\nleaving her interlocutor, clambered over the garden-hedge, and thus\nmade her way to the house.\n\nAs she went up the garden-path she heard her mother singing by the\nback door, coming in sight of which she perceived Mrs Durbeyfield on\nthe doorstep in the act of wringing a sheet.  Having performed this\nwithout observing Tess, she went indoors, and her daughter followed\nher.\n\nThe washing-tub stood in the same old place on the same old\nquarter-hogshead, and her mother, having thrown the sheet aside, was\nabout to plunge her arms in anew.\n\n\"Why--Tess!--my chil'--I thought you was married!--married really and\ntruly this time--we sent the cider--\"\n\n\"Yes, mother; so I am.\"\n\n\"Going to be?\"\n\n\"No--I am married.\"\n\n\"Married!  Then where's thy husband?\"\n\n\"Oh, he's gone away for a time.\"\n\n\"Gone away!  When was you married, then?  The day you said?\"\n\n\"Yes, Tuesday, mother.\"\n\n\"And now 'tis on'y Saturday, and he gone away?\"\n\n\"Yes, he's gone.\"\n\n\"What's the meaning o' that?  'Nation seize such husbands as you seem\nto get, say I!\"\n\n\"Mother!\"  Tess went across to Joan Durbeyfield, laid her face upon\nthe matron's bosom, and burst into sobs.  \"I don't know how to tell\n'ee, mother!  You said to me, and wrote to me, that I was not to tell\nhim.  But I did tell him--I couldn't help it--and he went away!\"\n\n\"O you little fool--you little fool!\" burst out Mrs Durbeyfield,\nsplashing Tess and herself in her agitation.  \"My good God! that ever\nI should ha' lived to say it, but I say it again, you little fool!\"\n\nTess was convulsed with weeping, the tension of so many days having\nrelaxed at last.\n\n\"I know it--I know--I know!\" she gasped through her sobs.  \"But,\nO my mother, I could not help it!  He was so good--and I felt\nthe wickedness of trying to blind him as to what had happened!\nIf--if--it were to be done again--I should do the same.  I could\nnot--I dared not--so sin--against him!\"\n\n\"But you sinned enough to marry him first!\"\n\n\"Yes, yes; that's where my misery do lie!  But I thought he could get\nrid o' me by law if he were determined not to overlook it.  And O, if\nyou knew--if you could only half know how I loved him--how anxious I\nwas to have him--and how wrung I was between caring so much for him\nand my wish to be fair to him!\"\n\nTess was so shaken that she could get no further, and sank, a\nhelpless thing, into a chair.\n\n\"Well, well; what's done can't be undone!  I'm sure I don't know why\nchildren o' my bringing forth should all be bigger simpletons than\nother people's--not to know better than to blab such a thing as\nthat, when he couldn't ha' found it out till too late!\"  Here Mrs\nDurbeyfield began shedding tears on her own account as a mother to\nbe pitied.  \"What your father will say I don't know,\" she continued;\n\"for he's been talking about the wedding up at Rolliver's and The\nPure Drop every day since, and about his family getting back to their\nrightful position through you--poor silly man!--and now you've made\nthis mess of it!  The Lord-a-Lord!\"\n\nAs if to bring matters to a focus, Tess's father was heard\napproaching at that moment.  He did not, however, enter immediately,\nand Mrs Durbeyfield said that she would break the bad news to him\nherself, Tess keeping out of sight for the present.  After her first\nburst of disappointment Joan began to take the mishap as she had\ntaken Tess's original trouble, as she would have taken a wet holiday\nor failure in the potato-crop; as a thing which had come upon them\nirrespective of desert or folly; a chance external impingement to be\nborne with; not a lesson.\n\nTess retreated upstairs and beheld casually that the beds had been\nshifted, and new arrangements made.  Her old bed had been adapted for\ntwo younger children.  There was no place here for her now.\n\nThe room below being unceiled she could hear most of what went on\nthere.  Presently her father entered, apparently carrying in a live\nhen.  He was a foot-haggler now, having been obliged to sell his\nsecond horse, and he travelled with his basket on his arm.  The hen\nhad been carried about this morning as it was often carried, to show\npeople that he was in his work, though it had lain, with its legs\ntied, under the table at Rolliver's for more than an hour.\n\n\"We've just had up a story about--\" Durbeyfield began, and thereupon\nrelated in detail to his wife a discussion which had arisen at the\ninn about the clergy, originated by the fact of his daughter having\nmarried into a clerical family. \"They was formerly styled 'sir',\nlike my own ancestry,\" he said, \"though nowadays their true style,\nstrictly speaking, is 'clerk' only.\"  As Tess had wished that no\ngreat publicity should be given to the event, he had mentioned no\nparticulars.  He hoped she would remove that prohibition soon.  He\nproposed that the couple should take Tess's own name, d'Urberville,\nas uncorrupted.  It was better than her husbands's.  He asked if any\nletter had come from her that day.\n\nThen Mrs Durbeyfield informed him that no letter had come, but Tess\nunfortunately had come herself.\n\nWhen at length the collapse was explained to him, a sullen\nmortification, not usual with Durbeyfield, overpowered the influence\nof the cheering glass.  Yet the intrinsic quality of the event moved\nhis touchy sensitiveness less than its conjectured effect upon the\nminds of others.\n\n\"To think, now, that this was to be the end o't!\" said Sir John.\n\"And I with a family vault under that there church of Kingsbere as\nbig as Squire Jollard's ale-cellar, and my folk lying there in sixes\nand sevens, as genuine county bones and marrow as any recorded in\nhistory.  And now to be sure what they fellers at Rolliver's and The\nPure Drop will say to me!  How they'll squint and glane, and say,\n'This is yer mighty match is it; this is yer getting back to the true\nlevel of yer forefathers in King Norman's time!' I feel this is too\nmuch, Joan; I shall put an end to myself, title and all--I can bear\nit no longer! ...  But she can make him keep her if he's married\nher?\"\n\n\"Why, yes. But she won't think o' doing that.\"\n\n\"D'ye think he really have married her?--or is it like the first--\"\n\nPoor Tess, who had heard as far as this, could not bear to hear more.\nThe perception that her word could be doubted even here, in her own\nparental house, set her mind against the spot as nothing else could\nhave done.  How unexpected were the attacks of destiny!  And if her\nfather doubted her a little, would not neighbours and acquaintance\ndoubt her much?  O, she could not live long at home!\n\nA few days, accordingly, were all that she allowed herself here, at\nthe end of which time she received a short note from Clare, informing\nher that he had gone to the North of England to look at a farm.  In\nher craving for the lustre of her true position as his wife, and to\nhide from her parents the vast extent of the division between them,\nshe made use of this letter as her reason for again departing,\nleaving them under the impression that she was setting out to join\nhim.  Still further to screen her husband from any imputation of\nunkindness to her, she took twenty-five of the fifty pounds Clare\nhad given her, and handed the sum over to her mother, as if the wife\nof a man like Angel Clare could well afford it, saying that it was a\nslight return for the trouble and humiliation she had brought upon\nthem in years past.  With this assertion of her dignity she bade them\nfarewell; and after that there were lively doings in the Durbeyfield\nhousehold for some time on the strength of Tess's bounty, her mother\nsaying, and, indeed, believing, that the rupture which had arisen\nbetween the young husband and wife had adjusted itself under their\nstrong feeling that they could not live apart from each other.\n\n\n\nXXXIX\n\n\nIt was three weeks after the marriage that Clare found himself\ndescending the hill which led to the well-known parsonage of his\nfather.  With his downward course the tower of the church rose into\nthe evening sky in a manner of inquiry as to why he had come; and no\nliving person in the twilighted town seemed to notice him, still less\nto expect him.  He was arriving like a ghost, and the sound of his\nown footsteps was almost an encumbrance to be got rid of.\n\nThe picture of life had changed for him.  Before this time he had\nknown it but speculatively; now he thought he knew it as a practical\nman; though perhaps he did not, even yet.  Nevertheless humanity\nstood before him no longer in the pensive sweetness of Italian art,\nbut in the staring and ghastly attitudes of a Wiertz Museum, and with\nthe leer of a study by Van Beers.\n\nHis conduct during these first weeks had been desultory beyond\ndescription.  After mechanically attempting to pursue his\nagricultural plans as though nothing unusual had happened, in\nthe manner recommended by the great and wise men of all ages, he\nconcluded that very few of those great and wise men had ever gone so\nfar outside themselves as to test the feasibility of their counsel.\n\"This is the chief thing: be not perturbed,\" said the Pagan moralist.\nThat was just Clare's own opinion.  But he was perturbed.  \"Let not\nyour heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,\" said the Nazarene.\nClare chimed in cordially; but his heart was troubled all the same.\nHow he would have liked to confront those two great thinkers, and\nearnestly appeal to them as fellow-man to fellow-men, and ask them\nto tell him their method!\n\nHis mood transmuted itself into a dogged indifference till at length\nhe fancied he was looking on his own existence with the passive\ninterest of an outsider.\n\nHe was embittered by the conviction that all this desolation had been\nbrought about by the accident of her being a d'Urberville.  When he\nfound that Tess came of that exhausted ancient line, and was not of\nthe new tribes from below, as he had fondly dreamed, why had he not\nstoically abandoned her in fidelity to his principles?  This was what\nhe had got by apostasy, and his punishment was deserved.\n\nThen he became weary and anxious, and his anxiety increased.  He\nwondered if he had treated her unfairly.  He ate without knowing that\nhe ate, and drank without tasting.  As the hours dropped past, as the\nmotive of each act in the long series of bygone days presented itself\nto his view, he perceived how intimately the notion of having Tess as\na dear possession was mixed up with all his schemes and words and\nways.\n\nIn going hither and thither he observed in the outskirts of a small\ntown a red-and-blue placard setting forth the great advantages of\nthe Empire of Brazil as a field for the emigrating agriculturist.\nLand was offered there on exceptionally advantageous terms.  Brazil\nsomewhat attracted him as a new idea.  Tess could eventually join him\nthere, and perhaps in that country of contrasting scenes and notions\nand habits the conventions would not be so operative which made life\nwith her seem impracticable to him here.  In brief he was strongly\ninclined to try Brazil, especially as the season for going thither\nwas just at hand.\n\nWith this view he was returning to Emminster to disclose his plan\nto his parents, and to make the best explanation he could make of\narriving without Tess, short of revealing what had actually separated\nthem.  As he reached the door the new moon shone upon his face, just\nas the old one had done in the small hours of that morning when he\nhad carried his wife in his arms across the river to the graveyard\nof the monks; but his face was thinner now.\n\nClare had given his parents no warning of his visit, and his arrival\nstirred the atmosphere of the Vicarage as the dive of the kingfisher\nstirs a quiet pool.  His father and mother were both in the\ndrawing-room, but neither of his brothers was now at home.  Angel\nentered, and closed the door quietly behind him.\n\n\"But--where's your wife, dear Angel?\" cried his mother.  \"How you\nsurprise us!\"\n\n\"She is at her mother's--temporarily.  I have come home rather in a\nhurry because I've decided to go to Brazil.\"\n\n\"Brazil!  Why they are all Roman Catholics there surely!\"\n\n\"Are they?  I hadn't thought of that.\"\n\nBut even the novelty and painfulness of his going to a Papistical\nland could not displace for long Mr and Mrs Clare's natural interest\nin their son's marriage.\n\n\"We had your brief note three weeks ago announcing that it had taken\nplace,\" said Mrs Clare, \"and your father sent your godmother's gift\nto her, as you know.  Of course it was best that none of us should be\npresent, especially as you preferred to marry her from the dairy, and\nnot at her home, wherever that may be.  It would have embarrassed\nyou, and given us no pleasure.  Your bothers felt that very strongly.\nNow it is done we do not complain, particularly if she suits you for\nthe business you have chosen to follow instead of the ministry of the\nGospel. ...  Yet I wish I could have seen her first, Angel, or have\nknown a little more about her.  We sent her no present of our own,\nnot knowing what would best give her pleasure, but you must suppose\nit only delayed.  Angel, there is no irritation in my mind or your\nfather's against you for this marriage; but we have thought it much\nbetter to reserve our liking for your wife till we could see her.\nAnd now you have not brought her.  It seems strange.  What has\nhappened?\"\n\nHe replied that it had been thought best by them that she should to\ngo her parents' home for the present, whilst he came there.\n\n\"I don't mind telling you, dear mother,\" he said, \"that I always\nmeant to keep her away from this house till I should feel she could\ncome with credit to you.  But this idea of Brazil is quite a recent\none.  If I do go it will be unadvisable for me to take her on this my\nfirst journey.  She will remain at her mother's till I come back.\"\n\n\"And I shall not see her before you start?\"\n\nHe was afraid they would not.  His original plan had been, as he had\nsaid, to refrain from bringing her there for some little while--not\nto wound their prejudices--feelings--in any way; and for other\nreasons he had adhered to it.  He would have to visit home in the\ncourse of a year, if he went out at once; and it would be possible\nfor them to see her before he started a second time--with her.\n\nA hastily prepared supper was brought in, and Clare made further\nexposition of his plans.  His mother's disappointment at not seeing\nthe bride still remained with her.  Clare's late enthusiasm for Tess\nhad infected her through her maternal sympathies, till she had almost\nfancied that a good thing could come out of Nazareth--a charming\nwoman out of Talbothays Dairy. She watched her son as he ate.\n\n\"Cannot you describe her?  I am sure she is very pretty, Angel.\"\n\n\"Of that there can be no question!\" he said, with a zest which\ncovered its bitterness.\n\n\"And that she is pure and virtuous goes without question?\"\n\n\"Pure and virtuous, of course, she is.\"\n\n\"I can see her quite distinctly.  You said the other day that she was\nfine in figure; roundly built; had deep red lips like Cupid's bow;\ndark eyelashes and brows, an immense rope of hair like a ship's\ncable; and large eyes violety-bluey-blackish.\"\n\n\"I did, mother.\"\n\n\"I quite see her.  And living in such seclusion she naturally had\nscarce ever seen any young man from the world without till she saw\nyou.\"\n\n\"Scarcely.\"\n\n\"You were her first love?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"There are worse wives than these simple, rosy-mouthed, robust girls\nof the farm.  Certainly I could have wished--well, since my son is to\nbe an agriculturist, it is perhaps but proper that his wife should\nhave been accustomed to an outdoor life.\"\n\nHis father was less inquisitive; but when the time came for the\nchapter from the Bible which was always read before evening prayers,\nthe Vicar observed to Mrs Clare--\n\n\"I think, since Angel has come, that it will be more appropriate to\nread the thirty-first of Proverbs than the chapter which we should\nhave had in the usual course of our reading?\"\n\n\"Yes, certainly,\" said Mrs Clare.  \"The words of King Lemuel\" (she\ncould cite chapter and verse as well as her husband).  \"My dear son,\nyour father has decided to read us the chapter in Proverbs in praise\nof a virtuous wife.  We shall not need to be reminded to apply the\nwords to the absent one.  May Heaven shield her in all her ways!\"\n\nA lump rose in Clare's throat.  The portable lectern was taken out\nfrom the corner and set in the middle of the fireplace, the two old\nservants came in, and Angel's father began to read at the tenth verse\nof the aforesaid chapter--\n\n\n   \"Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far\n   above rubies.  She riseth while it is yet night, and\n   giveth meat to her household.  She girdeth her loins\n   with strength and strengtheneth her arms.  She\n   perceiveth that her merchandise is good; her candle\n   goeth not out by night.  She looketh well to the ways\n   of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.\n   Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband\n   also, and he praiseth her.  Many daughters have done\n   virtuously, but thou excellest them all.\"\n\n\nWhen prayers were over, his mother said--\n\n\"I could not help thinking how very aptly that chapter your dear\nfather read applied, in some of its particulars, to the woman you\nhave chosen.  The perfect woman, you see, was a working woman; not an\nidler; not a fine lady; but one who used her hands and her head and\nher heart for the good of others.  'Her children arise up and call\nher blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.  Many daughters\nhave done virtuously, but she excelleth them all.'  Well, I wish I\ncould have seen her, Angel.  Since she is pure and chaste, she would\nhave been refined enough for me.\"\n\nClare could bear this no longer.  His eyes were full of tears, which\nseemed like drops of molten lead.  He bade a quick good night to\nthese sincere and simple souls whom he loved so well; who knew\nneither the world, the flesh, nor the devil in their own hearts, only\nas something vague and external to themselves.  He went to his own\nchamber.\n\nHis mother followed him, and tapped at his door.  Clare opened it to\ndiscover her standing without, with anxious eyes.\n\n\"Angel,\" she asked, \"is there something wrong that you go away so\nsoon?  I am quite sure you are not yourself.\"\n\n\"I am not, quite, mother,\" said he.\n\n\"About her?  Now, my son, I know it is that--I know it is about her!\nHave you quarrelled in these three weeks?\"\n\n\"We have not exactly quarrelled,\" he said.  \"But we have had a\ndifference--\"\n\n\"Angel--is she a young woman whose history will bear investigation?\"\n\nWith a mother's instinct Mrs Clare had put her finger on the kind of\ntrouble that would cause such a disquiet as seemed to agitate her\nson.\n\n\"She is spotless!\" he replied; and felt that if it had sent him to\neternal hell there and then he would have told that lie.\n\n\"Then never mind the rest.  After all, there are few purer things in\nnature then an unsullied country maid. Any crudeness of manner which\nmay offend your more educated sense at first, will, I am sure,\ndisappear under the influence or your companionship and tuition.\"\n\nSuch terrible sarcasm of blind magnanimity brought home to Clare the\nsecondary perception that he had utterly wrecked his career by this\nmarriage, which had not been among his early thoughts after the\ndisclosure.  True, on his own account he cared very little about his\ncareer; but he had wished to make it at least a respectable one on\naccount of his parents and brothers.  And now as he looked into the\ncandle its flame dumbly expressed to him that it was made to shine on\nsensible people, and that it abhorred lighting the face of a dupe and\na failure.\n\nWhen his agitation had cooled he would be at moments incensed with\nhis poor wife for causing a situation in which he was obliged to\npractise deception on his parents.  He almost talked to her in his\nanger, as if she had been in the room.  And then her cooing voice,\nplaintive in expostulation, disturbed the darkness, the velvet touch\nof her lips passed over his brow, and he could distinguish in the air\nthe warmth of her breath.\n\nThis night the woman of his belittling deprecations was thinking how\ngreat and good her husband was.  But over them both there hung a\ndeeper shade than the shade which Angel Clare perceived, namely, the\nshade of his own limitations.  With all his attempted independence of\njudgement this advanced and well-meaning young man, a sample product\nof the last five-and-twenty years, was yet the slave to custom and\nconventionality when surprised back into his early teachings.  No\nprophet had told him, and he was not prophet enough to tell himself,\nthat essentially this young wife of his was as deserving of the\npraise of King Lemuel as any other woman endowed with the same\ndislike of evil, her moral value having to be reckoned not by\nachievement but by tendency.  Moreover, the figure near at hand\nsuffers on such occasion, because it shows up its sorriness without\nshade; while vague figures afar off are honoured, in that their\ndistance makes artistic virtues of their stains.  In considering\nwhat Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the\ndefective can be more than the entire.\n\n\n\nXL\n\n\nAt breakfast Brazil was the topic, and all endeavoured to take a\nhopeful view of Clare's proposed experiment with that country's soil,\nnotwithstanding the discouraging reports of some farm-labourers who\nhad emigrated thither and returned home within the twelve months.\nAfter breakfast Clare went into the little town to wind up such\ntrifling matters as he was concerned with there, and to get from\nthe local bank all the money he possessed.  On his way back he\nencountered Miss Mercy Chant by the church, from whose walls she\nseemed to be a sort of emanation.  She was carrying an armful of\nBibles for her class, and such was her view of life that events which\nproduced heartache in others wrought beatific smiles upon her--an\nenviable result, although, in the opinion of Angel, it was obtained\nby a curiously unnatural sacrifice of humanity to mysticism.\n\nShe had learnt that he was about to leave England, and observed what\nan excellent and promising scheme it seemed to be.\n\n\"Yes; it is a likely scheme enough in a commercial sense, no doubt,\"\nhe replied.  \"But, my dear Mercy, it snaps the continuity of\nexistence.  Perhaps a cloister would be preferable.\"\n\n\"A cloister!  O, Angel Clare!\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Why, you wicked man, a cloister implies a monk, and a monk Roman\nCatholicism.\"\n\n\"And Roman Catholicism sin, and sin damnation.  Thou art in a parlous\nstate, Angel Clare.\"\n\n\"_I_ glory in my Protestantism!\" she said severely.\n\nThen Clare, thrown by sheer misery into one of the demoniacal moods\nin which a man does despite to his true principles, called her close\nto him, and fiendishly whispered in her ear the most heterodox ideas\nhe could think of.  His momentary laughter at the horror which\nappeared on her fair face ceased when it merged in pain and anxiety\nfor his welfare.\n\n\"Dear Mercy,\" he said, \"you must forgive me.  I think I am going\ncrazy!\"\n\nShe thought that he was; and thus the interview ended, and Clare\nre-entered the Vicarage.  With the local banker he deposited the\njewels till happier days should arise.  He also paid into the bank\nthirty pounds--to be sent to Tess in a few months, as she might\nrequire; and wrote to her at her parents' home in Blackmoor Vale to\ninform her of what he had done.  This amount, with the sum he had\nalready placed in her hands--about fifty pounds--he hoped would be\namply sufficient for her wants just at present, particularly as in\nan emergency she had been directed to apply to his father.\n\nHe deemed it best not to put his parents into communication with her\nby informing them of her address; and, being unaware of what had\nreally happened to estrange the two, neither his father nor his\nmother suggested that he should do so.  During the day he left the\nparsonage, for what he had to complete he wished to get done quickly.\n\nAs the last duty before leaving this part of England it was necessary\nfor him to call at the Wellbridge farmhouse, in which he had spent\nwith Tess the first three days of their marriage, the trifle of rent\nhaving to be paid, the key given up of the rooms they had occupied,\nand two or three small articles fetched away that they had left\nbehind.  It was under this roof that the deepest shadow ever thrown\nupon his life had stretched its gloom over him.  Yet when he had\nunlocked the door of the sitting-room and looked into it, the memory\nwhich returned first upon him was that of their happy arrival on a\nsimilar afternoon, the first fresh sense of sharing a habitation\nconjointly, the first meal together, the chatting by the fire with\njoined hands.\n\nThe farmer and his wife were in the field at the moment of his visit,\nand Clare was in the rooms alone for some time.  Inwardly swollen\nwith a renewal of sentiment that he had not quite reckoned with, he\nwent upstairs to her chamber, which had never been his.  The bed\nwas smooth as she had made it with her own hands on the morning of\nleaving.  The mistletoe hung under the tester just as he had placed\nit.  Having been there three or four weeks it was turning colour, and\nthe leaves and berries were wrinkled.  Angel took it down and crushed\nit into the grate.  Standing there, he for the first time doubted\nwhether his course in this conjecture had been a wise, much less\na generous, one.  But had he not been cruelly blinded?  In the\nincoherent multitude of his emotions he knelt down at the bedside\nwet-eyed.  \"O Tess!  If you had only told me sooner, I would have\nforgiven you!\" he mourned.\n\nHearing a footstep below, he rose and went to the top of the stairs.\nAt the bottom of the flight he saw a woman standing, and on her\nturning up her face recognized the pale, dark-eyed Izz Huett.\n\n\"Mr Clare,\" she said, \"I've called to see you and Mrs Clare, and to\ninquire if ye be well.  I thought you might be back here again.\"\n\nThis was a girl whose secret he had guessed, but who had not yet\nguessed his; an honest girl who loved him--one who would have made as\ngood, or nearly as good, a practical farmer's wife as Tess.\n\n\"I am here alone,\" he said; \"we are not living here now.\"  Explaining\nwhy he had come, he asked, \"Which way are you going home, Izz?\"\n\n\"I have no home at Talbothays Dairy now, sir,\" she said.\n\n\"Why is that?\"\n\nIzz looked down.\n\n\"It was so dismal there that I left!  I am staying out this way.\"\nShe pointed in a contrary direction, the direction in which he was\njourneying.\n\n\"Well--are you going there now?  I can take you if you\nwish for a lift.\"\n\nHer olive complexion grew richer in hue.\n\n\"Thank 'ee, Mr Clare,\" she said.\n\nHe soon found the farmer, and settled the account for his rent and\nthe few other items which had to be considered by reason of the\nsudden abandonment of the lodgings.  On Clare's return to his horse\nand gig, Izz jumped up beside him.\n\n\"I am going to leave England, Izz,\" he said, as they drove on.\n\"Going to Brazil.\"\n\n\"And do Mrs Clare like the notion of such a journey?\" she asked.\n\n\"She is not going at present--say for a year or so.  I am going out\nto reconnoitre--to see what life there is like.\"\n\nThey sped along eastward for some considerable distance, Izz making\nno observation.\n\n\"How are the others?\" he inquired.  \"How is Retty?\"\n\n\"She was in a sort of nervous state when I zid her last; and so thin\nand hollow-cheeked that 'a do seem in a decline.  Nobody will ever\nfall in love wi' her any more,\" said Izz absently.\n\n\"And Marian?\"\n\nIzz lowered her voice.\n\n\"Marian drinks.\"\n\n\"Indeed!\"\n\n\"Yes.  The dairyman has got rid of her.\"\n\n\"And you!\"\n\n\"I don't drink, and I bain't in a decline.  But--I am no great things\nat singing afore breakfast now!\"\n\n\"How is that?  Do you remember how neatly you used to turn ''Twas\ndown in Cupid's Gardens' and 'The Tailor's Breeches' at morning\nmilking?\"\n\n\"Ah, yes!  When you first came, sir, that was.  Not when you had been\nthere a bit.\"\n\n\"Why was that falling-off?\"\n\nHer black eyes flashed up to his face for one moment by way of\nanswer.\n\n\"Izz!--how weak of you--for such as I!\" he said, and fell into\nreverie.  \"Then--suppose I had asked YOU to marry me?\"\n\n\"If you had I should have said 'Yes', and you would have married a\nwoman who loved 'ee!\"\n\n\"Really!\"\n\n\"Down to the ground!\" she whispered vehemently.  \"O my God! did you\nnever guess it till now!\"\n\nBy-and-by they reached a branch road to a village.\n\n\"I must get down.  I live out there,\" said Izz abruptly, never having\nspoken since her avowal.\n\nClare slowed the horse.  He was incensed against his fate, bitterly\ndisposed towards social ordinances; for they had cooped him up in a\ncorner, out of which there was no legitimate pathway.  Why not be\nrevenged on society by shaping his future domesticities loosely,\ninstead of kissing the pedagogic rod of convention in this ensnaring\nmanner?\n\n\"I am going to Brazil alone, Izz,\" said he.  \"I have separated from\nmy wife for personal, not voyaging, reasons.  I may never live with\nher again.  I may not be able to love you; but--will you go with me\ninstead of her?\"\n\n\"You truly wish me to go?\"\n\n\"I do.  I have been badly used enough to wish for relief.  And you at\nleast love me disinterestedly.\"\n\n\"Yes--I will go,\" said Izz, after a pause.\n\n\"You will?  You know what it means, Izz?\"\n\n\"It means that I shall live with you for the time you are over\nthere--that's good enough for me.\"\n\n\"Remember, you are not to trust me in morals now.  But I ought\nto remind you that it will be wrong-doing in the eyes of\ncivilization--Western civilization, that is to say.\"\n\n\"I don't mind that; no woman do when it comes to agony-point, and\nthere's no other way!\"\n\n\"Then don't get down, but sit where you are.\"\n\nHe drove past the cross-roads, one mile, two miles, without showing\nany signs of affection.\n\n\"You love me very, very much, Izz?\" he suddenly asked.\n\n\"I do--I have said I do!  I loved you all the time we was at the\ndairy together!\"\n\n\"More than Tess?\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"No,\" she murmured, \"not more than she.\"\n\n\"How's that?\"\n\n\"Because nobody could love 'ee more than Tess did! ...  She would\nhave laid down her life for 'ee.  I could do no more.\"\n\nLike the prophet on the top of Peor, Izz Huett would fain have spoken\nperversely at such a moment, but the fascination exercised over her\nrougher nature by Tess's character compelled her to grace.\n\nClare was silent; his heart had risen at these straightforward words\nfrom such an unexpected unimpeachable quarter.  In his throat was\nsomething as if a sob had solidified there.  His ears repeated, \"SHE\nWOULD HAVE LAID DOWN HER LIFE FOR 'EE.  I COULD DO NO MORE!\"\n\n\"Forget our idle talk, Izz,\" he said, turning the horse's head\nsuddenly.  \"I don't know what I've been saying!  I will now drive\nyou back to where your lane branches off.\"\n\n\"So much for honesty towards 'ee!  O--how can I bear it--how can\nI--how can I!\"\n\nIzz Huett burst into wild tears, and beat her forehead as she saw\nwhat she had done.\n\n\"Do you regret that poor little act of justice to an absent one?\nO, Izz, don't spoil it by regret!\"\n\nShe stilled herself by degrees.\n\n\"Very well, sir.  Perhaps I didn't know what I was saying, either,\nwh--when I agreed to go!  I wish--what cannot be!\"\n\n\"Because I have a loving wife already.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes!  You have!\"\n\nThey reached the corner of the lane which they had passed half an\nhour earlier, and she hopped down.\n\n\"Izz--please, please forget my momentary levity!\" he cried.  \"It was\nso ill-considered, so ill-advised!\"\n\n\"Forget it?  Never, never!  O, it was no levity to me!\"\n\nHe felt how richly he deserved the reproach that the wounded cry\nconveyed, and, in a sorrow that was inexpressible, leapt down and\ntook her hand.\n\n\"Well, but, Izz, we'll part friends, anyhow?  You don't know what\nI've had to bear!\"\n\nShe was a really generous girl, and allowed no further bitterness to\nmar their adieux.\n\n\"I forgive 'ee, sir!\" she said.\n\n\"Now, Izz,\" he said, while she stood beside him there, forcing\nhimself to the mentor's part he was far from feeling; \"I want you to\ntell Marian when you see her that she is to be a good woman, and not\nto give way to folly.  Promise that, and tell Retty that there are\nmore worthy men than I in the world, that for my sake she is to act\nwisely and well--remember the words--wisely and well--for my sake.\nI send this message to them as a dying man to the dying; for I shall\nnever see them again.  And you, Izzy, you have saved me by your\nhonest words about my wife from an incredible impulse towards folly\nand treachery.  Women may be bad, but they are not so bad as men in\nthese things!  On that one account I can never forget you.  Be always\nthe good and sincere girl you have hitherto been; and think of me as\na worthless lover, but a faithful friend.  Promise.\"\n\nShe gave the promise.\n\n\"Heaven bless and keep you, sir.  Goodbye!\"\n\nHe drove on; but no sooner had Izz turned into the lane, and Clare\nwas out of sight, than she flung herself down on the bank in a fit of\nracking anguish; and it was with a strained unnatural face that she\nentered her mother's cottage late that night.  Nobody ever was told\nhow Izz spent the dark hours that intervened between Angel Clare's\nparting from her and her arrival home.\n\nClare, too, after bidding the girl farewell, was wrought to aching\nthoughts and quivering lips.  But his sorrow was not for Izz.  That\nevening he was within a feather-weight's turn of abandoning his road\nto the nearest station, and driving across that elevated dorsal line\nof South Wessex which divided him from his Tess's home.  It was\nneither a contempt for her nature, nor the probable state of her\nheart, which deterred him.\n\nNo; it was a sense that, despite her love, as corroborated by Izz's\nadmission, the facts had not changed.  If he was right at first,\nhe was right now.  And the momentum of the course on which he\nhad embarked tended to keep him going in it, unless diverted by\na stronger, more sustained force than had played upon him this\nafternoon.  He could soon come back to her.  He took the train that\nnight for London, and five days after shook hands in farewell of his\nbrothers at the port of embarkation.\n\n\n\nXLI\n\n\nFrom the foregoing events of the winter-time let us press on to\nan October day, more than eight months subsequent to the parting\nof Clare and Tess.  We discover the latter in changed conditions;\ninstead of a bride with boxes and trunks which others bore, we see\nher a lonely woman with a basket and a bundle in her own porterage,\nas at an earlier time when she was no bride; instead of the ample\nmeans that were projected by her husband for her comfort through\nthis probationary period, she can produce only a flattened purse.\n\nAfter again leaving Marlott, her home, she had got through the\nspring and summer without any great stress upon her physical powers,\nthe time being mainly spent in rendering light irregular service\nat dairy-work near Port-Bredy to the west of the Blackmoor Valley,\nequally remote from her native place and from Talbothays.  She\npreferred this to living on his allowance.  Mentally she remained in\nutter stagnation, a condition which the mechanical occupation rather\nfostered than checked.  Her consciousness was at that other dairy,\nat that other season, in the presence of the tender lover who had\nconfronted her there--he who, the moment she had grasped him to keep\nfor her own, had disappeared like a shape in a vision.\n\nThe dairy-work lasted only till the milk began to lessen, for she\nhad not met with a second regular engagement as at Talbothays, but\nhad done duty as a supernumerary only.  However, as harvest was now\nbeginning, she had simply to remove from the pasture to the stubble\nto find plenty of further occupation, and this continued till harvest\nwas done.\n\nOf the five-and-twenty pounds which had remained to her of Clare's\nallowance, after deducting the other half of the fifty as a\ncontribution to her parents for the trouble and expense to which\nshe had put them, she had as yet spent but little.  But there now\nfollowed an unfortunate interval of wet weather, during which she was\nobliged to fall back upon her sovereigns.\n\nShe could not bear to let them go.  Angel had put them into her hand,\nhad obtained them bright and new from his bank for her; his touch had\nconsecrated them to souvenirs of himself--they appeared to have had\nas yet no other history than such as was created by his and her own\nexperiences--and to disperse them was like giving away relics.  But\nshe had to do it, and one by one they left her hands.\n\nShe had been compelled to send her mother her address from time to\ntime, but she concealed her circumstances.  When her money had almost\ngone a letter from her mother reached her.  Joan stated that they\nwere in dreadful difficulty; the autumn rains had gone through the\nthatch of the house, which required entire renewal; but this could\nnot be done because the previous thatching had never been paid for.\nNew rafters and a new ceiling upstairs also were required, which,\nwith the previous bill, would amount to a sum of twenty pounds.  As\nher husband was a man of means, and had doubtless returned by this\ntime, could she not send them the money?\n\nTess had thirty pounds coming to her almost immediately from Angel's\nbankers, and, the case being so deplorable, as soon as the sum was\nreceived she sent the twenty as requested.  Part of the remainder\nshe was obliged to expend in winter clothing, leaving only a nominal\nsum for the whole inclement season at hand.  When the last pound\nhad gone, a remark of Angel's that whenever she required further\nresources she was to apply to his father, remained to be considered.\n\nBut the more Tess thought of the step, the more reluctant was she to\ntake it.  The same delicacy, pride, false shame, whatever it may be\ncalled, on Clare's account, which had led her to hide from her own\nparents the prolongation of the estrangement, hindered her owning to\nhis that she was in want after the fair allowance he had left her.\nThey probably despised her already; how much more they would despise\nher in the character of a mendicant!  The consequence was that by no\neffort could the parson's daughter-in-law bring herself to let him\nknow her state.\n\nHer reluctance to communicate with her husband's parents might,\nshe thought, lessen with the lapse of time; but with her own the\nreverse obtained.  On her leaving their house after the short visit\nsubsequent to her marriage they were under the impression that she\nwas ultimately going to join her husband; and from that time to the\npresent she had done nothing to disturb their belief that she was\nawaiting his return in comfort, hoping against hope that his journey\nto Brazil would result in a short stay only, after which he would\ncome to fetch her, or that he would write for her to join him; in any\ncase that they would soon present a united front to their families\nand the world.  This hope she still fostered.  To let her parents\nknow that she was a deserted wife, dependent, now that she had\nrelieved their necessities, on her own hands for a living, after the\n_éclat_ of a marriage which was to nullify the collapse of the first\nattempt, would be too much indeed.\n\nThe set of brilliants returned to her mind.  Where Clare had\ndeposited them she did not know, and it mattered little, if it were\ntrue that she could only use and not sell them.  Even were they\nabsolutely hers it would be passing mean to enrich herself by a legal\ntitle to them which was not essentially hers at all.\n\nMeanwhile her husband's days had been by no means free from trial.\nAt this moment he was lying ill of fever in the clay lands near\nCuritiba in Brazil, having been drenched with thunder-storms and\npersecuted by other hardships, in common with all the English farmers\nand farm-labourers who, just at this time, were deluded into going\nthither by the promises of the Brazilian Government, and by the\nbaseless assumption that those frames which, ploughing and sowing on\nEnglish uplands, had resisted all the weathers to whose moods they\nhad been born, could resist equally well all the weathers by which\nthey were surprised on Brazilian plains.\n\nTo return.  Thus it happened that when the last of Tess's sovereigns\nhad been spent she was unprovided with others to take their place,\nwhile on account of the season she found it increasingly difficult\nto get employment.  Not being aware of the rarity of intelligence,\nenergy, health, and willingness in any sphere of life, she refrained\nfrom seeking an indoor occupation; fearing towns, large houses,\npeople of means and social sophistication, and of manners other\nthan rural.  From that direction of gentility Black Care had come.\nSociety might be better than she supposed from her slight experience\nof it.  But she had no proof of this, and her instinct in the\ncircumstances was to avoid its purlieus.\n\nThe small dairies to the west, beyond Port-Bredy, in which she\nhad served as supernumerary milkmaid during the spring and summer\nrequired no further aid.  Room would probably have been made for her\nat Talbothays, if only out of sheer compassion; but comfortable as\nher life had been there, she could not go back.  The anti-climax\nwould be too intolerable; and her return might bring reproach upon\nher idolized husband.  She could not have borne their pity, and their\nwhispered remarks to one another upon her strange situation; though\nshe would almost have faced a knowledge of her circumstances by every\nindividual there, so long as her story had remained isolated in the\nmind of each.  It was the interchange of ideas about her that made\nher sensitiveness wince.  Tess could not account for this\ndistinction; she simply knew that she felt it.\n\nShe was now on her way to an upland farm in the centre of the county,\nto which she had been recommended by a wandering letter which had\nreached her from Marian.  Marian had somehow heard that Tess was\nseparated from her husband--probably through Izz Huett--and the\ngood-natured and now tippling girl, deeming Tess in trouble, had\nhastened to notify to her former friend that she herself had gone to\nthis upland spot after leaving the dairy, and would like to see her\nthere, where there was room for other hands, if it was really true\nthat she worked again as of old.\n\nWith the shortening of the days all hope of obtaining her husband's\nforgiveness began to leave her; and there was something of the\nhabitude of the wild animal in the unreflecting instinct with which\nshe rambled on--disconnecting herself by littles from her eventful\npast at every step, obliterating her identity, giving no thought to\naccidents or contingencies which might make a quick discovery of her\nwhereabouts by others of importance to her own happiness, if not to\ntheirs.\n\nAmong the difficulties of her lonely position not the least was\nthe attention she excited by her appearance, a certain bearing of\ndistinction, which she had caught from Clare, being superadded to her\nnatural attractiveness.  Whilst the clothes lasted which had been\nprepared for her marriage, these casual glances of interest caused\nher no inconvenience, but as soon as she was compelled to don the\nwrapper of a fieldwoman, rude words were addressed to her more than\nonce; but nothing occurred to cause her bodily fear till a particular\nNovember afternoon.\n\nShe had preferred the country west of the River Brit to the upland\nfarm for which she was now bound, because, for one thing, it was\nnearer to the home of her husband's father; and to hover about that\nregion unrecognized, with the notion that she might decide to call at\nthe Vicarage some day, gave her pleasure.  But having once decided to\ntry the higher and drier levels, she pressed back eastward, marching\nafoot towards the village of Chalk-Newton, where she meant to pass\nthe night.\n\nThe lane was long and unvaried, and, owing to the rapid shortening of\nthe days, dusk came upon her before she was aware.  She had reached\nthe top of a hill down which the lane stretched its serpentine length\nin glimpses, when she heard footsteps behind her back, and in a few\nmoments she was overtaken by a man.  He stepped up alongside Tess and\nsaid--\n\n\"Good night, my pretty maid\": to which she civilly replied.\n\nThe light still remaining in the sky lit up her face, though the\nlandscape was nearly dark.  The man turned and stared hard at her.\n\n\"Why, surely, it is the young wench who was at Trantridge awhile--\nyoung Squire d'Urberville's friend?  I was there at that time, though\nI don't live there now.\"\n\nShe recognized in him the well-to-do boor whom Angel had knocked down\nat the inn for addressing her coarsely.  A spasm of anguish shot\nthrough her, and she returned him no answer.\n\n\"Be honest enough to own it, and that what I said in the town was\ntrue, though your fancy-man was so up about it--hey, my sly one?  You\nought to beg my pardon for that blow of his, considering.\"\n\nStill no answer came from Tess.  There seemed only one escape for her\nhunted soul.  She suddenly took to her heels with the speed of the\nwind, and, without looking behind her, ran along the road till she\ncame to a gate which opened directly into a plantation.  Into this\nshe plunged, and did not pause till she was deep enough in its shade\nto be safe against any possibility of discovery.\n\nUnder foot the leaves were dry, and the foliage of some holly bushes\nwhich grew among the deciduous trees was dense enough to keep off\ndraughts.  She scraped together the dead leaves till she had formed\nthem into a large heap, making a sort of nest in the middle.  Into\nthis Tess crept.\n\nSuch sleep as she got was naturally fitful; she fancied she heard\nstrange noises, but persuaded herself that they were caused by the\nbreeze.  She thought of her husband in some vague warm clime on the\nother side of the globe, while she was here in the cold.  Was there\nanother such a wretched being as she in the world?  Tess asked\nherself; and, thinking of her wasted life, said, \"All is vanity.\"\nShe repeated the words mechanically, till she reflected that this\nwas a most inadequate thought for modern days.  Solomon had thought\nas far as that more than two thousand years ago; she herself,\nthough not in the van of thinkers, had got much further.  If all\nwere only vanity, who would mind it?  All was, alas, worse than\nvanity--injustice, punishment, exaction, death.  The wife of Angel\nClare put her hand to her brow, and felt its curve, and the edges of\nher eye-sockets perceptible under the soft skin, and thought as she\ndid so that a time would come when that bone would be bare.  \"I wish\nit were now,\" she said.\n\nIn the midst of these whimsical fancies she heard a new strange sound\namong the leaves.  It might be the wind; yet there was scarcely any\nwind.  Sometimes it was a palpitation, sometimes a flutter; sometimes\nit was a sort of gasp or gurgle.  Soon she was certain that the\nnoises came from wild creatures of some kind, the more so when,\noriginating in the boughs overhead, they were followed by the fall\nof a heavy body upon the ground.  Had she been ensconced here under\nother and more pleasant conditions she would have become alarmed;\nbut, outside humanity, she had at present no fear.\n\nDay at length broke in the sky.  When it had been day aloft for some\nlittle while it became day in the wood.\n\nDirectly the assuring and prosaic light of the world's active hours\nhad grown strong, she crept from under her hillock of leaves, and\nlooked around boldly.  Then she perceived what had been going on to\ndisturb her.  The plantation wherein she had taken shelter ran down\nat this spot into a peak, which ended it hitherward, outside the\nhedge being arable ground.  Under the trees several pheasants lay\nabout, their rich plumage dabbled with blood; some were dead, some\nfeebly twitching a wing, some staring up at the sky, some pulsating\nquickly, some contorted, some stretched out--all of them writhing in\nagony, except the fortunate ones whose tortures had ended during the\nnight by the inability of nature to bear more.\n\nTess guessed at once the meaning of this.  The birds had been driven\ndown into this corner the day before by some shooting-party; and\nwhile those that had dropped dead under the shot, or had died before\nnightfall, had been searched for and carried off, many badly wounded\nbirds had escaped and hidden themselves away, or risen among the\nthick boughs, where they had maintained their position till they grew\nweaker with loss of blood in the night-time, when they had fallen one\nby one as she had heard them.\n\nShe had occasionally caught glimpses of these men in girlhood,\nlooking over hedges, or peeping through bushes, and pointing their\nguns, strangely accoutred, a bloodthirsty light in their eyes.  She\nhad been told that, rough and brutal as they seemed just then, they\nwere not like this all the year round, but were, in fact, quite civil\npersons save during certain weeks of autumn and winter, when, like\nthe inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, they ran amuck, and made\nit their purpose to destroy life--in this case harmless feathered\ncreatures, brought into being by artificial means solely to gratify\nthese propensities--at once so unmannerly and so unchivalrous towards\ntheir weaker fellows in Nature's teeming family.\n\nWith the impulse of a soul who could feel for kindred sufferers as\nmuch as for herself, Tess's first thought was to put the still living\nbirds out of their torture, and to this end with her own hands she\nbroke the necks of as many as she could find, leaving them to lie\nwhere she had found them till the game-keepers should come--as they\nprobably would come--to look for them a second time.\n\n\"Poor darlings--to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth\nin the sight o' such misery as yours!\" she exclaimed, her tears\nrunning down as she killed the birds tenderly.  \"And not a twinge of\nbodily pain about me!  I be not mangled, and I be not bleeding, and\nI have two hands to feed and clothe me.\"  She was ashamed of herself\nfor her gloom of the night, based on nothing more tangible than a\nsense of condemnation under an arbitrary law of society which had no\nfoundation in Nature.\n\n\n\nXLII\n\n\nIt was now broad day, and she started again, emerging cautiously upon\nthe highway.  But there was no need for caution; not a soul was at\nhand, and Tess went onward with fortitude, her recollection of the\nbirds' silent endurance of their night of agony impressing upon her\nthe relativity of sorrows and the tolerable nature of her own, if she\ncould once rise high enough to despise opinion.  But that she could\nnot do so long as it was held by Clare.\n\nShe reached Chalk-Newton, and breakfasted at an inn, where several\nyoung men were troublesomely complimentary to her good looks.\nSomehow she felt hopeful, for was it not possible that her husband\nalso might say these same things to her even yet?  She was bound to\ntake care of herself on the chance of it, and keep off these casual\nlovers.  To this end Tess resolved to run no further risks from her\nappearance.  As soon as she got out of the village she entered a\nthicket and took from her basket one of the oldest field-gowns, which\nshe had never put on even at the dairy--never since she had worked\namong the stubble at Marlott.  She also, by a felicitous thought,\ntook a handkerchief from her bundle and tied it round her face under\nher bonnet, covering her chin and half her cheeks and temples, as if\nshe were suffering from toothache. Then with her little scissors,\nby the aid of a pocket looking-glass, she mercilessly nipped her\neyebrows off, and thus insured against aggressive admiration, she\nwent on her uneven way.\n\n\"What a mommet of a maid!\" said the next man who met her to a\ncompanion.\n\nTears came into her eyes for very pity of herself as she heard him.\n\n\"But I don't care!\" she said.  \"O no--I don't care!  I'll always be\nugly now, because Angel is not here, and I have nobody to take care\nof me.  My husband that was is gone away, and never will love me any\nmore; but I love him just the same, and hate all other men, and like\nto make 'em think scornfully of me!\"\n\nThus Tess walks on; a figure which is part of the landscape; a\nfieldwoman pure and simple, in winter guise; a gray serge cape, a\nred woollen cravat, a stuff skirt covered by a whitey-brown rough\nwrapper, and buff-leather gloves.  Every thread of that old attire\nhas become faded and thin under the stroke of raindrops, the burn of\nsunbeams, and the stress of winds.  There is no sign of young passion\nin her now--\n\n\n     The maiden's mouth is cold\n     . . .\n     Fold over simple fold\n     Binding her head.\n\n\nInside this exterior, over which the eye might have roved as over a\nthing scarcely percipient, almost inorganic, there was the record of\na pulsing life which had learnt too well, for its years, of the dust\nand ashes of things, of the cruelty of lust and the fragility of\nlove.\n\nNext day the weather was bad, but she trudged on, the honesty,\ndirectness, and impartiality of elemental enmity disconcerting her\nbut little.  Her object being a winter's occupation and a winter's\nhome, there was no time to lose.  Her experience of short hirings\nhad been such that she was determined to accept no more.\n\nThus she went forward from farm to farm in the direction of the place\nwhence Marian had written to her, which she determined to make use of\nas a last shift only, its rumoured stringencies being the reverse of\ntempting.  First she inquired for the lighter kinds of employment,\nand, as acceptance in any variety of these grew hopeless, applied\nnext for the less light, till, beginning with the dairy and poultry\ntendance that she liked best, she ended with the heavy and course\npursuits which she liked least--work on arable land: work of such\nroughness, indeed, as she would never have deliberately voluteered\nfor.\n\nTowards the second evening she reached the irregular chalk table-land\nor plateau, bosomed with semi-globular tumuli--as if Cybele the\nMany-breasted were supinely extended there--which stretched between\nthe valley of her birth and the valley of her love.\n\nHere the air was dry and cold, and the long cart-roads were blown\nwhite and dusty within a few hours after rain.  There were few trees,\nor none, those that would have grown in the hedges being mercilessly\nplashed down with the quickset by the tenant-farmers, the natural\nenemies of tree, bush, and brake.  In the middle distance ahead of\nher she could see the summits of Bulbarrow and of Nettlecombe Tout,\nand they seemed friendly.  They had a low and unassuming aspect from\nthis upland, though as approached on the other side from Blackmoor\nin her childhood they were as lofty bastions against the sky.\nSoutherly, at many miles' distance, and over the hills and ridges\ncoastward, she could discern a surface like polished steel: it was\nthe English Channel at a point far out towards France.\n\nBefore her, in a slight depression, were the remains of a village.\nShe had, in fact, reached Flintcomb-Ash, the place of Marian's\nsojourn.  There seemed to be no help for it; hither she was doomed to\ncome.  The stubborn soil around her showed plainly enough that the\nkind of labour in demand here was of the roughest kind; but it was\ntime to rest from searching, and she resolved to stay, particularly\nas it began to rain.  At the entrance to the village was a cottage\nwhose gable jutted into the road, and before applying for a lodging\nshe stood under its shelter, and watched the evening close in.\n\n\"Who would think I was Mrs Angel Clare!\" she said.\n\nThe wall felt warm to her back and shoulders, and she found that\nimmediately within the gable was the cottage fireplace, the heat of\nwhich came through the bricks.  She warmed her hands upon them, and\nalso put her cheek--red and moist with the drizzle--against their\ncomforting surface.  The wall seemed to be the only friend she had.\nShe had so little wish to leave it that she could have stayed there\nall night.\n\nTess could hear the occupants of the cottage--gathered together after\ntheir day's labour--talking to each other within, and the rattle of\ntheir supper-plates was also audible.  But in the village-street she\nhad seen no soul as yet.  The solitude was at last broken by the\napproach of one feminine figure, who, though the evening was cold,\nwore the print gown and the tilt-bonnet of summer time.  Tess\ninstinctively thought it might be Marian, and when she came near\nenough to be distinguishable in the gloom, surely enough it was\nshe.  Marian was even stouter and redder in the face than formerly,\nand decidedly shabbier in attire.  At any previous period of her\nexistence Tess would hardly have cared to renew the acquaintance in\nsuch conditions; but her loneliness was excessive, and she responded\nreadily to Marian's greeting.\n\nMarian was quite respectful in her inquiries, but seemed much moved\nby the fact that Tess should still continue in no better condition\nthan at first; though she had dimly heard of the separation.\n\n\"Tess--Mrs Clare--the dear wife of dear he!  And is it really so bad\nas this, my child?  Why is your cwomely face tied up in such a way?\nAnybody been beating 'ee?  Not HE?\"\n\n\"No, no, no!  I merely did it not to be clipsed or colled, Marian.\"\n\nShe pulled off in disgust a bandage which could suggest such wild\nthoughts.\n\n\"And you've got no collar on\" (Tess had been accustomed to wear a\nlittle white collar at the dairy).\n\n\"I know it, Marian.\"\n\n\"You've lost it travelling.\"\n\n\"I've not lost it.  The truth is, I don't care anything about my\nlooks; and so I didn't put it on.\"\n\n\"And you don't wear your wedding-ring?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do; but not in public.  I wear it round my neck on a ribbon.\nI don't wish people to think who I am by marriage, or that I am\nmarried at all; it would be so awkward while I lead my present life.\"\n\nMarian paused.\n\n\"But you BE a gentleman's wife; and it seems hardly fair that you\nshould live like this!\"\n\n\"O yes it is, quite fair; though I am very unhappy.\"\n\n\"Well, well.  HE married you--and you can be unhappy!\"\n\n\"Wives are unhappy sometimes; from no fault of their husbands--from\ntheir own.\"\n\n\"You've no faults, deary; that I'm sure of.  And he's none.  So it\nmust be something outside ye both.\"\n\n\"Marian, dear Marian, will you do me a good turn without asking\nquestions?  My husband has gone abroad, and somehow I have overrun my\nallowance, so that I have to fall back upon my old work for a time.\nDo not call me Mrs Clare, but Tess, as before.  Do they want a hand\nhere?\"\n\n\"O yes; they'll take one always, because few care to come.  'Tis a\nstarve-acre place.  Corn and swedes are all they grow.  Though I be\nhere myself, I feel 'tis a pity for such as you to come.\"\n\n\"But you used to be as good a dairywoman as I.\"\n\n\"Yes; but I've got out o' that since I took to drink.  Lord, that's\nthe only comfort I've got now!  If you engage, you'll be set\nswede-hacking.  That's what I be doing; but you won't like it.\"\n\n\"O--anything!  Will you speak for me?\"\n\n\"You will do better by speaking for yourself.\"\n\n\"Very well.  Now, Marian, remember--nothing about HIM if I get the\nplace.  I don't wish to bring his name down to the dirt.\"\n\nMarian, who was really a trustworthy girl though of coarser grain\nthan Tess, promised anything she asked.\n\n\"This is pay-night,\" she said, \"and if you were to come with me you\nwould know at once.  I be real sorry that you are not happy; but 'tis\nbecause he's away, I know.  You couldn't be unhappy if he were here,\neven if he gie'd ye no money--even if he used you like a drudge.\"\n\n\"That's true; I could not!\"\n\nThey walked on together and soon reached the farmhouse, which was\nalmost sublime in its dreariness. There was not a tree within sight;\nthere was not, at this season, a green pasture--nothing but fallow\nand turnips everywhere, in large fields divided by hedges plashed to\nunrelieved levels.\n\nTess waited outside the door of the farmhouse till the group of\nworkfolk had received their wages, and then Marian introduced her.\nThe farmer himself, it appeared, was not at home, but his wife, who\nrepresented him this evening, made no objection to hiring Tess, on\nher agreeing to remain till Old Lady-Day.  Female field-labour was\nseldom offered now, and its cheapness made it profitable for tasks\nwhich women could perform as readily as men.\n\nHaving signed the agreement, there was nothing more for Tess to do\nat present than to get a lodging, and she found one in the house at\nwhose gable-wall she had warmed herself.  It was a poor subsistence\nthat she had ensured, but it would afford a shelter for the winter\nat any rate.\n\nThat night she wrote to inform her parents of her new address, in\ncase a letter should arrive at Marlott from her husband.  But she\ndid not tell them of the sorriness of her situation: it might have\nbrought reproach upon him.\n\n\n\nXLIII\n\n\nThere was no exaggeration in Marian's definition of Flintcomb-Ash\nfarm as a starve-acre place.  The single fat thing on the soil was\nMarian herself; and she was an importation.  Of the three classes of\nvillage, the village cared for by its lord, the village cared for by\nitself, and the village uncared for either by itself or by its lord\n(in other words, the village of a resident squires's tenantry, the\nvillage of free- or copy-holders, and the absentee-owner's village,\nfarmed with the land) this place, Flintcomb-Ash, was the third.\n\nBut Tess set to work.  Patience, that blending of moral courage with\nphysical timidity, was now no longer a minor feature in Mrs Angel\nClare; and it sustained her.\n\nThe swede-field in which she and her companion were set hacking was\na stretch of a hundred odd acres in one patch, on the highest ground\nof the farm, rising above stony lanchets or lynchets--the outcrop of\nsiliceous veins in the chalk formation, composed of myriads of loose\nwhite flints in bulbous, cusped, and phallic shapes.  The upper half\nof each turnip had been eaten off by the live-stock, and it was the\nbusiness of the two women to grub up the lower or earthy half of the\nroot with a hooked fork called a hacker, that it might be eaten also.\nEvery leaf of the vegetable having already been consumed, the whole\nfield was in colour a desolate drab; it was a complexion without\nfeatures, as if a face, from chin to brow, should be only an expanse\nof skin.  The sky wore, in another colour, the same likeness; a white\nvacuity of countenance with the lineaments gone.  So these two upper\nand nether visages confronted each other all day long, the white face\nlooking down on the brown face, and the brown face looking up at the\nwhite face, without anything standing between them but the two girls\ncrawling over the surface of the former like flies.\n\nNobody came near them, and their movements showed a mechanical\nregularity; their forms standing enshrouded in Hessian \"wroppers\"--\nsleeved brown pinafores, tied behind to the bottom, to keep their\ngowns from blowing about--scant skirts revealing boots that reached\nhigh up the ankles, and yellow sheepskin gloves with gauntlets.  The\npensive character which the curtained hood lent to their bent heads\nwould have reminded the observer of some early Italian conception of\nthe two Marys.\n\nThey worked on hour after hour, unconscious of the forlorn aspect\nthey bore in the landscape, not thinking of the justice or injustice\nof their lot.  Even in such a position as theirs it was possible\nto exist in a dream.  In the afternoon the rain came on again, and\nMarian said that they need not work any more.  But if they did not\nwork they would not be paid; so they worked on.  It was so high a\nsituation, this field, that the rain had no occasion to fall, but\nraced along horizontally upon the yelling wind, sticking into them\nlike glass splinters till they were wet through.  Tess had not\nknown till now what was really meant by that.  There are degrees of\ndampness, and a very little is called being wet through in common\ntalk.  But to stand working slowly in a field, and feel the creep of\nrain-water, first in legs and shoulders, then on hips and head, then\nat back, front, and sides, and yet to work on till the leaden light\ndiminishes and marks that the sun is down, demands a distinct modicum\nof stoicism, even of valour.\n\nYet they did not feel the wetness so much as might be supposed.  They\nwere both young, and they were talking of the time when they lived\nand loved together at Talbothays Dairy, that happy green tract of\nland where summer had been liberal in her gifts; in substance to\nall, emotionally to these.  Tess would fain not have conversed with\nMarian of the man who was legally, if not actually, her husband;\nbut the irresistible fascination of the subject betrayed her into\nreciprocating Marian's remarks.  And thus, as has been said, though\nthe damp curtains of their bonnets flapped smartly into their faces,\nand their wrappers clung about them to wearisomeness, they lived all\nthis afternoon in memories of green, sunny, romantic Talbothays.\n\n\"You can see a gleam of a hill within a few miles o' Froom Valley\nfrom here when 'tis fine,\" said Marian.\n\n\"Ah!  Can you?\" said Tess, awake to the new value of this locality.\n\nSo the two forces were at work here as everywhere, the inherent will\nto enjoy, and the circumstantial will against enjoyment.  Marian's\nwill had a method of assisting itself by taking from her pocket as\nthe afternoon wore on a pint bottle corked with white rag, from which\nshe invited Tess to drink.  Tess's unassisted power of dreaming,\nhowever, being enough for her sublimation at present, she declined\nexcept the merest sip, and then Marian took a pull from the spirits.\n\n\"I've got used to it,\" she said, \"and can't leave it off now.  'Tis\nmy only comfort--You see I lost him: you didn't; and you can do\nwithout it perhaps.\"\n\nTess thought her loss as great as Marian's, but upheld by the dignity\nof being Angel's wife, in the letter at least, she accepted Marian's\ndifferentiation.\n\nAmid this scene Tess slaved in the morning frosts and in\nthe afternoon rains.  When it was not swede-grubbing it was\nswede-trimming, in which process they sliced off the earth and the\nfibres with a bill-hook before storing the roots for future use.  At\nthis occupation they could shelter themselves by a thatched hurdle if\nit rained; but if it was frosty even their thick leather gloves could\nnot prevent the frozen masses they handled from biting their fingers.\nStill Tess hoped.  She had a conviction that sooner or later the\nmagnanimity which she persisted in reckoning as a chief ingredient\nof Clare's character would lead him to rejoin her.\n\nMarian, primed to a humorous mood, would discover the queer-shaped\nflints aforesaid, and shriek with laughter, Tess remaining severely\nobtuse.  They often looked across the country to where the Var or\nFroom was know to stretch, even though they might not be able to see\nit; and, fixing their eyes on the cloaking gray mist, imagined the\nold times they had spent out there.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Marian, \"how I should like another or two of our old set\nto come here!  Then we could bring up Talbothays every day here\nafield, and talk of he, and of what nice times we had there, and o'\nthe old things we used to know, and make it all come back a'most, in\nseeming!\"  Marian's eyes softened, and her voice grew vague as the\nvisions returned.  \"I'll write to Izz Huett,\" she said.  \"She's\nbiding at home doing nothing now, I know, and I'll tell her we be\nhere, and ask her to come; and perhaps Retty is well enough now.\"\n\nTess had nothing to say against the proposal, and the next she heard\nof this plan for importing old Talbothays' joys was two or three days\nlater, when Marian informed her that Izz had replied to her inquiry,\nand had promised to come if she could.\n\nThere had not been such a winter for years.  It came on in stealthy\nand measured glides, like the moves of a chess-player.  One morning\nthe few lonely trees and the thorns of the hedgerows appeared as if\nthey had put off a vegetable for an animal integument.  Every twig\nwas covered with a white nap as of fur grown from the rind during the\nnight, giving it four times its usual stoutness; the whole bush or\ntree forming a staring sketch in white lines on the mournful gray\nof the sky and horizon.  Cobwebs revealed their presence on sheds\nand walls where none had ever been observed till brought out into\nvisibility by the crystallizing atmosphere, hanging like loops of\nwhite worsted from salient points of the out-houses, posts, and\ngates.\n\nAfter this season of congealed dampness came a spell of dry frost,\nwhen strange birds from behind the North Pole began to arrive\nsilently on the upland of Flintcomb-Ash; gaunt spectral creatures\nwith tragical eyes--eyes which had witnessed scenes of cataclysmal\nhorror in inaccessible polar regions of a magnitude such as no human\nbeing had ever conceived, in curdling temperatures that no man could\nendure; which had beheld the crash of icebergs and the slide of\nsnow-hills by the shooting light of the Aurora; been half blinded\nby the whirl of colossal storms and terraqueous distortions; and\nretained the expression of feature that such scenes had engendered.\nThese nameless birds came quite near to Tess and Marian, but of\nall they had seen which humanity would never see, they brought no\naccount.  The traveller's ambition to tell was not theirs, and, with\ndumb impassivity, they dismissed experiences which they did not\nvalue for the immediate incidents of this homely upland--the trivial\nmovements of the two girls in disturbing the clods with their hackers\nso as to uncover something or other that these visitants relished as\nfood.\n\nThen one day a peculiar quality invaded the air of this open country.\nThere came a moisture which was not of rain, and a cold which was not\nof frost.  It chilled the eyeballs of the twain, made their brows\nache, penetrated to their skeletons, affecting the surface of the\nbody less than its core.  They knew that it meant snow, and in the\nnight the snow came.  Tess, who continued to live at the cottage with\nthe warm gable that cheered any lonely pedestrian who paused beside\nit, awoke in the night, and heard above the thatch noises which\nseemed to signify that the roof had turned itself into a gymnasium\nof all the winds.  When she lit her lamp to get up in the morning\nshe found that the snow had blown through a chink in the casement,\nforming a white cone of the finest powder against the inside, and had\nalso come down the chimney, so that it lay sole-deep upon the floor,\non which her shoes left tracks when she moved about.  Without, the\nstorm drove so fast as to create a snow-mist in the kitchen; but as\nyet it was too dark out-of-doors to see anything.\n\nTess knew that it was impossible to go on with the swedes; and by\nthe time she had finished breakfast beside the solitary little lamp,\nMarian arrived to tell her that they were to join the rest of the\nwomen at reed-drawing in the barn till the weather changed.  As soon,\ntherefore, as the uniform cloak of darkness without began to turn\nto a disordered medley of grays, they blew out the lamp, wrapped\nthemselves up in their thickest pinners, tied their woollen cravats\nround their necks and across their chests, and started for the barn.\nThe snow had followed the birds from the polar basin as a white\npillar of a cloud, and individual flakes could not be seen.  The\nblast smelt of icebergs, arctic seas, whales, and white bears,\ncarrying the snow so that it licked the land but did not deepen on\nit.  They trudged onwards with slanted bodies through the flossy\nfields, keeping as well as they could in the shelter of hedges,\nwhich, however, acted as strainers rather than screens.  The air,\nafflicted to pallor with the hoary multitudes that infested it,\ntwisted and spun them eccentrically, suggesting an achromatic chaos\nof things.  But both the young women were fairly cheerful; such\nweather on a dry upland is not in itself dispiriting.\n\n\"Ha-ha! the cunning northern birds knew this was coming,\" said\nMarian.  \"Depend upon't, they keep just in front o't all the way from\nthe North Star.  Your husband, my dear, is, I make no doubt, having\nscorching weather all this time.  Lord, if he could only see his\npretty wife now!  Not that this weather hurts your beauty at all--in\nfact, it rather does it good.\"\n\n\"You mustn't talk about him to me, Marian,\" said Tess severely.\n\n\"Well, but--surely you care for'n!  Do you?\"\n\nInstead of answering, Tess, with tears in her eyes, impulsively faced\nin the direction in which she imagined South America to lie, and,\nputting up her lips, blew out a passionate kiss upon the snowy wind.\n\n\"Well, well, I know you do.  But 'pon my body, it is a rum life for\na married couple!  There--I won't say another word!  Well, as for\nthe weather, it won't hurt us in the wheat-barn; but reed-drawing is\nfearful hard work--worse than swede-hacking.  I can stand it because\nI'm stout; but you be slimmer than I.  I can't think why maister\nshould have set 'ee at it.\"\n\nThey reached the wheat-barn and entered it.  One end of the long\nstructure was full of corn; the middle was where the reed-drawing was\ncarried on, and there had already been placed in the reed-press the\nevening before as many sheaves of wheat as would be sufficient for\nthe women to draw from during the day.\n\n\"Why, here's Izz!\" said Marian.\n\nIzz it was, and she came forward.  She had walked all the way from\nher mother's home on the previous afternoon, and, not deeming the\ndistance so great, had been belated, arriving, however, just before\nthe snow began, and sleeping at the alehouse.  The farmer had agreed\nwith her mother at market to take her on if she came to-day, and she\nhad been afraid to disappoint him by delay.\n\nIn addition to Tess, Marian, and Izz, there were two women from a\nneighbouring village; two Amazonian sisters, whom Tess with a start\nremembered as Dark Car, the Queen of Spades, and her junior, the\nQueen of Diamonds--those who had tried to fight with her in the\nmidnight quarrel at Trantridge.  They showed no recognition of her,\nand possibly had none, for they had been under the influence of\nliquor on that occasion, and were only temporary sojourners there\nas here.  They did all kinds of men's work by preference, including\nwell-sinking, hedging, ditching, and excavating, without any sense of\nfatigue.  Noted reed-drawers were they too, and looked round upon the\nother three with some superciliousness.\n\nPutting on their gloves, all set to work in a row in front of the\npress, an erection formed of two posts connected by a cross-beam,\nunder which the sheaves to be drawn from were laid ears outward, the\nbeam being pegged down by pins in the uprights, and lowered as the\nsheaves diminished.\n\nThe day hardened in colour, the light coming in at the barndoors\nupwards from the snow instead of downwards from the sky.  The girls\npulled handful after handful from the press; but by reason of the\npresence of the strange women, who were recounting scandals, Marian\nand Izz could not at first talk of old times as they wished to do.\nPresently they heard the muffled tread of a horse, and the farmer\nrode up to the barndoor.  When he had dismounted he came close to\nTess, and remained looking musingly at the side of her face.  She had\nnot turned at first, but his fixed attitude led her to look round,\nwhen she perceived that her employer was the native of Trantridge\nfrom whom she had taken flight on the high-road because of his\nallusion to her history.\n\nHe waited till she had carried the drawn bundles to the pile outside,\nwhen he said, \"So you be the young woman who took my civility in such\nill part?  Be drowned if I didn't think you might be as soon as I\nheard of your being hired!  Well, you thought you had got the better\nof me the first time at the inn with your fancy-man, and the second\ntime on the road, when you bolted; but now I think I've got the\nbetter you.\"  He concluded with a hard laugh.\n\nTess, between the Amazons and the farmer, like a bird caught in a\nclap-net, returned no answer, continuing to pull the straw.  She\ncould read character sufficiently well to know by this time that she\nhad nothing to fear from her employer's gallantry; it was rather the\ntyranny induced by his mortification at Clare's treatment of him.\nUpon the whole she preferred that sentiment in man and felt brave\nenough to endure it.\n\n\"You thought I was in love with 'ee I suppose?  Some women are such\nfools, to take every look as serious earnest.  But there's nothing\nlike a winter afield for taking that nonsense out o' young wenches'\nheads; and you've signed and agreed till Lady-Day.  Now, are you\ngoing to beg my pardon?\"\n\n\"I think you ought to beg mine.\"\n\n\"Very well--as you like.  But we'll see which is master here.  Be\nthey all the sheaves you've done to-day?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"'Tis a very poor show.  Just see what they've done over there\"\n(pointing to the two stalwart women).  \"The rest, too, have done\nbetter than you.\"\n\n\"They've all practised it before, and I have not.  And I thought it\nmade no difference to you as it is task work, and we are only paid\nfor what we do.\"\n\n\"Oh, but it does.  I want the barn cleared.\"\n\n\"I am going to work all the afternoon instead of leaving at two as\nthe others will do.\"\n\nHe looked sullenly at her and went away.  Tess felt that she could\nnot have come to a much worse place; but anything was better than\ngallantry.  When two o'clock arrived the professional reed-drawers\ntossed off the last half-pint in their flagon, put down their hooks,\ntied their last sheaves, and went away.  Marian and Izz would have\ndone likewise, but on hearing that Tess meant to stay, to make up\nby longer hours for her lack of skill, they would not leave her.\nLooking out at the snow, which still fell, Marian exclaimed, \"Now,\nwe've got it all to ourselves.\"  And so at last the conversation\nturned to their old experiences at the dairy; and, of course, the\nincidents of their affection for Angel Clare.\n\n\"Izz and Marian,\" said Mrs Angel Clare, with a dignity which was\nextremely touching, seeing how very little of a wife she was: \"I\ncan't join in talk with you now, as I used to do, about Mr Clare; you\nwill see that I cannot; because, although he is gone away from me for\nthe present, he is my husband.\"\n\nIzz was by nature the sauciest and most caustic of all the four girls\nwho had loved Clare.  \"He was a very splendid lover, no doubt,\" she\nsaid; \"but I don't think he is a too fond husband to go away from you\nso soon.\"\n\n\"He had to go--he was obliged to go, to see about the land over\nthere!\" pleaded Tess.\n\n\"He might have tided 'ee over the winter.\"\n\n\"Ah--that's owing to an accident--a misunderstanding; and we won't\nargue it,\" Tess answered, with tearfulness in her words.  \"Perhaps\nthere's a good deal to be said for him!  He did not go away, like\nsome husbands, without telling me; and I can always find out where\nhe is.\"\n\nAfter this they continued for some long time in a reverie, as they\nwent on seizing the ears of corn, drawing out the straw, gathering\nit under their arms, and cutting off the ears with their bill-hooks,\nnothing sounding in the barn but the swish of the straw and the\ncrunch of the hook.  Then Tess suddenly flagged, and sank down upon\nthe heap of wheat-ears at her feet.\n\n\"I knew you wouldn't be able to stand it!\" cried Marian.  \"It wants\nharder flesh than yours for this work.\"\n\nJust then the farmer entered.  \"Oh, that's how you get on when I am\naway,\" he said to her.\n\n\"But it is my own loss,\" she pleaded.  \"Not yours.\"\n\n\"I want it finished,\" he said doggedly, as he crossed the barn and\nwent out at the other door.\n\n\"Don't 'ee mind him, there's a dear,\" said Marian.  \"I've worked here\nbefore.  Now you go and lie down there, and Izz and I will make up\nyour number.\"\n\n\"I don't like to let you do that.  I'm taller than you, too.\"\n\nHowever, she was so overcome that she consented to lie down awhile,\nand reclined on a heap of pull-tails--the refuse after the straight\nstraw had been drawn--thrown up at the further side of the barn.  Her\nsuccumbing had been as largely owning to agitation at the re-opening\nthe subject of her separation from her husband as to the hard work.\nShe lay in a state of percipience without volition, and the rustle of\nthe straw and the cutting of the ears by the others had the weight of\nbodily touches.\n\nShe could hear from her corner, in addition to these noises, the\nmurmur of their voices.  She felt certain that they were continuing\nthe subject already broached, but their voices were so low that she\ncould not catch the words.  At last Tess grew more and more anxious\nto know what they were saying, and, persuading herself that she felt\nbetter, she got up and resumed work.\n\nThen Izz Huett broke down.  She had walked more than a dozen miles\nthe previous evening, had gone to bed at midnight, and had risen\nagain at five o'clock.  Marian alone, thanks to her bottle of liquor\nand her stoutness of build, stood the strain upon back and arms\nwithout suffering.  Tess urged Izz to leave off, agreeing, as she\nfelt better, to finish the day without her, and make equal division\nof the number of sheaves.\n\nIzz accepted the offer gratefully, and disappeared through the great\ndoor into the snowy track to her lodging.  Marian, as was the case\nevery afternoon at this time on account of the bottle, began to feel\nin a romantic vein.\n\n\"I should not have thought it of him--never!\" she said in a dreamy\ntone.  \"And I loved him so!  I didn't mind his having YOU.  But this\nabout Izz is too bad!\"\n\nTess, in her start at the words, narrowly missed cutting off a finger\nwith the bill-hook.\n\n\"Is it about my husband?\" she stammered.\n\n\"Well, yes.  Izz said, 'Don't 'ee tell her'; but I am sure I can't\nhelp it!  It was what he wanted Izz to do.  He wanted her to go off\nto Brazil with him.\"\n\nTess's face faded as white as the scene without, and its curves\nstraightened.  \"And did Izz refuse to go?\" she asked.\n\n\"I don't know.  Anyhow he changed his mind.\"\n\n\"Pooh--then he didn't mean it!  'Twas just a man's jest!\"\n\n\"Yes he did; for he drove her a good-ways towards the station.\"\n\n\"He didn't take her!\"\n\nThey pulled on in silence till Tess, without any premonitory\nsymptoms, burst out crying.\n\n\"There!\" said Marian.  \"Now I wish I hadn't told 'ee!\"\n\n\"No.  It is a very good thing that you have done!  I have been living\non in a thirtover, lackaday way, and have not seen what it may lead\nto!  I ought to have sent him a letter oftener.  He said I could not\ngo to him, but he didn't say I was not to write as often as I liked.\nI won't dally like this any longer!  I have been very wrong and\nneglectful in leaving everything to be done by him!\"\n\nThe dim light in the barn grew dimmer, and they could see to work no\nlonger.  When Tess had reached home that evening, and had entered\ninto the privacy of her little white-washed chamber, she began\nimpetuously writing a letter to Clare.  But falling into doubt, she\ncould not finish it.  Afterwards she took the ring from the ribbon on\nwhich she wore it next her heart, and retained it on her finger all\nnight, as if to fortify herself in the sensation that she was really\nthe wife of this elusive lover of hers, who could propose that Izz\nshould go with him abroad, so shortly after he had left her.  Knowing\nthat, how could she write entreaties to him, or show that she cared\nfor him any more?\n\n\n\nXLIV\n\n\nBy the disclosure in the barn her thoughts were led anew in the\ndirection which they had taken more than once of late--to the distant\nEmminster Vicarage.  It was through her husband's parents that she\nhad been charged to send a letter to Clare if she desired; and to\nwrite to them direct if in difficulty.  But that sense of her having\nmorally no claim upon him had always led Tess to suspend her impulse\nto send these notes; and to the family at the Vicarage, therefore,\nas to her own parents since her marriage, she was virtually\nnon-existent.  This self-effacement in both directions had been quite\nin consonance with her independent character of desiring nothing\nby way of favour or pity to which she was not entitled on a fair\nconsideration of her deserts.  She had set herself to stand or fall\nby her qualities, and to waive such merely technical claims upon a\nstrange family as had been established for her by the flimsy fact of\na member of that family, in a season of impulse, writing his name in\na church-book beside hers.\n\nBut now that she was stung to a fever by Izz's tale, there was a\nlimit to her powers of renunciation.  Why had her husband not written\nto her?  He had distinctly implied that he would at least let her\nknow of the locality to which he had journeyed; but he had not sent a\nline to notify his address.  Was he really indifferent?  But was he\nill?  Was it for her to make some advance?  Surely she might summon\nthe courage of solicitude, call at the Vicarage for intelligence, and\nexpress her grief at his silence.  If Angel's father were the good\nman she had heard him represented to be, he would be able to enter\ninto her heart-starved situation.  Her social hardships she could\nconceal.\n\nTo leave the farm on a week-day was not in her power; Sunday was\nthe only possible opportunity.  Flintcomb-Ash being in the middle\nof the cretaceous tableland over which no railway had climbed as\nyet, it would be necessary to walk.  And the distance being fifteen\nmiles each way she would have to allow herself a long day for the\nundertaking by rising early.\n\nA fortnight later, when the snow had gone, and had been followed by\na hard black frost, she took advantage of the state of the roads to\ntry the experiment.  At four o'clock that Sunday morning she came\ndownstairs and stepped out into the starlight.  The weather was still\nfavourable, the ground ringing under her feet like an anvil.\n\nMarian and Izz were much interested in her excursion, knowing that\nthe journey concerned her husband.  Their lodgings were in a cottage\na little further along the lane, but they came and assisted Tess\nin her departure, and argued that she should dress up in her very\nprettiest guise to captivate the hearts of her parents-in-law; though\nshe, knowing of the austere and Calvinistic tenets of old Mr Clare,\nwas indifferent, and even doubtful.  A year had now elapsed since\nher sad marriage, but she had preserved sufficient draperies from\nthe wreck of her then full wardrobe to clothe her very charmingly as\na simple country girl with no pretensions to recent fashion; a soft\ngray woollen gown, with white crape quilling against the pink skin of\nher face and neck, and a black velvet jacket and hat.\n\n\"'Tis a thousand pities your husband can't see 'ee now--you do look\na real beauty!\" said Izz Huett, regarding Tess as she stood on\nthe threshold between the steely starlight without and the yellow\ncandlelight within.  Izz spoke with a magnanimous abandonment of\nherself to the situation; she could not be--no woman with a heart\nbigger than a hazel-nut could be--antagonistic to Tess in her\npresence, the influence which she exercised over those of her own sex\nbeing of a warmth and strength quite unusual, curiously overpowering\nthe less worthy feminine feelings of spite and rivalry.\n\nWith a final tug and touch here, and a slight brush there, they let\nher go; and she was absorbed into the pearly air of the fore-dawn.\nThey heard her footsteps tap along the hard road as she stepped out\nto her full pace.  Even Izz hoped she would win, and, though without\nany particular respect for her own virtue, felt glad that she had\nbeen prevented wronging her friend when momentarily tempted by Clare.\n\nIt was a year ago, all but a day, that Clare had married Tess, and\nonly a few days less than a year that he had been absent from her.\nStill, to start on a brisk walk, and on such an errand as hers, on a\ndry clear wintry morning, through the rarefied air of these chalky\nhogs'-backs, was not depressing; and there is no doubt that her dream\nat starting was to win the heart of her mother-in-law, tell her whole\nhistory to that lady, enlist her on her side, and so gain back the\ntruant.\n\nIn time she reached the edge of the vast escarpment below which\nstretched the loamy Vale of Blackmoor, now lying misty and still\nin the dawn.  Instead of the colourless air of the uplands, the\natmosphere down there was a deep blue.  Instead of the great\nenclosures of a hundred acres in which she was now accustomed to\ntoil, there were little fields below her of less than half-a-dozen\nacres, so numerous that they looked from this height like the meshes\nof a net.  Here the landscape was whitey-brown; down there, as in\nFroom Valley, it was always green.  Yet it was in that vale that her\nsorrow had taken shape, and she did not love it as formerly.  Beauty\nto her, as to all who have felt, lay not in the thing, but in what\nthe thing symbolized.\n\nKeeping the Vale on her right, she steered steadily westward; passing\nabove the Hintocks, crossing at right-angles the high-road from\nSherton-Abbas to Casterbridge, and skirting Dogbury Hill and\nHigh-Stoy, with the dell between them called \"The Devil's Kitchen\".\nStill following the elevated way she reached Cross-in-Hand, where\nthe stone pillar stands desolate and silent, to mark the site of a\nmiracle, or murder, or both.  Three miles further she cut across the\nstraight and deserted Roman road called Long-Ash Lane; leaving which\nas soon as she reached it she dipped down a hill by a transverse lane\ninto the small town or village of Evershead, being now about halfway\nover the distance.  She made a halt here, and breakfasted a second\ntime, heartily enough--not at the Sow-and-Acorn, for she avoided\ninns, but at a cottage by the church.\n\nThe second half of her journey was through a more gentle country, by\nway of Benvill Lane.  But as the mileage lessened between her and the\nspot of her pilgrimage, so did Tess's confidence decrease, and her\nenterprise loom out more formidably.  She saw her purpose in such\nstaring lines, and the landscape so faintly, that she was sometimes\nin danger of losing her way.  However, about noon she paused by a\ngate on the edge of the basin in which Emminster and its Vicarage\nlay.\n\nThe square tower, beneath which she knew that at that moment the\nVicar and his congregation were gathered, had a severe look in\nher eyes.  She wished that she had somehow contrived to come on a\nweek-day.  Such a good man might be prejudiced against a woman who\nhad chosen Sunday, never realizing the necessities of her case.\nBut it was incumbent upon her to go on now.  She took off the thick\nboots in which she had walked thus far, put on her pretty thin ones\nof patent leather, and, stuffing the former into the hedge by the\ngatepost where she might readily find them again, descended the hill;\nthe freshness of colour she had derived from the keen air thinning\naway in spite of her as she drew near the parsonage.\n\nTess hoped for some accident that might favour her, but nothing\nfavoured her.  The shrubs on the Vicarage lawn rustled uncomfortably\nin the frosty breeze; she could not feel by any stretch of\nimagination, dressed to her highest as she was, that the house was\nthe residence of near relations; and yet nothing essential, in nature\nor emotion, divided her from them: in pains, pleasures, thoughts,\nbirth, death, and after-death, they were the same.\n\nShe nerved herself by an effort, entered the swing-gate, and rang\nthe door-bell.  The thing was done; there could be no retreat.  No;\nthe thing was not done.  Nobody answered to her ringing.  The effort\nhad to be risen to and made again.  She rang a second time, and the\nagitation of the act, coupled with her weariness after the fifteen\nmiles' walk, led her to support herself while she waited by resting\nher hand on her hip and her elbow against the wall of the porch. The\nwind was so nipping that the ivy-leaves had become wizened and gray,\neach tapping incessantly upon its neighbour with a disquieting stir\nof her nerves.  A piece of blood-stained paper, caught up from some\nmeat-buyer's dust-heap, beat up and down the road without the gate;\ntoo flimsy to rest, too heavy to fly away; and a few straws kept it\ncompany.\n\nThe second peal had been louder, and still nobody came.  Then she\nwalked out of the porch, opened the gate, and passed through.  And\nthough she looked dubiously at the house-front as if inclined to\nreturn, it was with a breath of relied that she closed the gate.  A\nfeeling haunted her that she might have been recognized (though how\nshe could not tell), and orders been given not to admit her.\n\nTess went as far as the corner.  She had done all she could do; but\ndetermined not to escape present trepidation at the expense of future\ndistress, she walked back again quite past the house, looking up at\nall the windows.\n\nAh--the explanation was that they were all at church, every one.  She\nremembered her husband saying that his father always insisted upon\nthe household, servants included, going to morning-service, and,\nas a consequence, eating cold food when they came home.  It was,\ntherefore, only necessary to wait till the service was over.  She\nwould not make herself conspicuous by waiting on the spot, and she\nstarted to get past the church into the lane.  But as she reached the\nchurchyard-gate the people began pouring out, and Tess found herself\nin the midst of them.\n\nThe Emminster congregation looked at her as only a congregation of\nsmall country-townsfolk walking home at its leisure can look at a\nwoman out of the common whom it perceives to be a stranger.  She\nquickened her pace, and ascended the road by which she had come,\nto find a retreat between its hedges till the Vicar's family should\nhave lunched, and it might be convenient for them to receive her.\nShe soon distanced the churchgoers, except two youngish men, who,\nlinked arm-in-arm, were beating up behind her at a quick step.\n\nAs they drew nearer she could hear their voices engaged in earnest\ndiscourse, and, with the natural quickness of a woman in her\nsituation, did not fail to recognize in those noises the quality\nof her husband's tones.  The pedestrians were his two brothers.\nForgetting all her plans, Tess's one dread was lest they should\novertake her now, in her disorganized condition, before she was\nprepared to confront them; for though she felt that they could not\nidentify her, she instinctively dreaded their scrutiny.  The more\nbriskly they walked, the more briskly walked she.  They were plainly\nbent upon taking a short quick stroll before going indoors to lunch\nor dinner, to restore warmth to limbs chilled with sitting through a\nlong service.\n\nOnly one person had preceded Tess up the hill--a ladylike young\nwoman, somewhat interesting, though, perhaps, a trifle _guindée_\nand prudish.  Tess had nearly overtaken her when the speed of her\nbrothers-in-law brought them so nearly behind her back that she could\nhear every word of their conversation.  They said nothing, however,\nwhich particularly interested her till, observing the young lady\nstill further in front, one of them remarked, \"There is Mercy Chant.\nLet us overtake her.\"\n\nTess knew the name.  It was the woman who had been destined for\nAngel's life-companion by his and her parents, and whom he probably\nwould have married but for her intrusive self.  She would have known\nas much without previous information if she had waited a moment, for\none of the brothers proceeded to say: \"Ah! poor Angel, poor Angel!\nI never see that nice girl without more and more regretting his\nprecipitancy in throwing himself away upon a dairymaid, or whatever\nshe may be.  It is a queer business, apparently.  Whether she has\njoined him yet or not I don't know; but she had not done so some\nmonths ago when I heard from him.\"\n\n\"I can't say.  He never tells me anything nowadays.  His\nill-considered marriage seems to have completed that estrangement\nfrom me which was begun by his extraordinary opinions.\"\n\nTess beat up the long hill still faster; but she could not outwalk\nthem without exciting notice.  At last they outsped her altogether,\nand passed her by.  The young lady still further ahead heard their\nfootsteps and turned.  Then there was a greeting and a shaking of\nhands, and the three went on together.\n\nThey soon reached the summit of the hill, and, evidently intending\nthis point to be the limit of their promenade, slackened pace and\nturned all three aside to the gate whereat Tess had paused an hour\nbefore that time to reconnoitre the town before descending into it.\nDuring their discourse one of the clerical brothers probed the hedge\ncarefully with his umbrella, and dragged something to light.\n\n\"Here's a pair of old boots,\" he said.  \"Thrown away, I suppose, by\nsome tramp or other.\"\n\n\"Some imposter who wished to come into the town barefoot, perhaps,\nand so excite our sympathies,\" said Miss Chant.  \"Yes, it must have\nbeen, for they are excellent walking-boots--by no means worn out.\nWhat a wicked thing to do!  I'll carry them home for some poor\nperson.\"\n\nCuthbert Clare, who had been the one to find them, picked them up for\nher with the crook of his stick; and Tess's boots were appropriated.\n\nShe, who had heard this, walked past under the screen of her woollen\nveil till, presently looking back, she perceived that the church\nparty had left the gate with her boots and retreated down the hill.\n\nThereupon our heroine resumed her walk.  Tears, blinding tears, were\nrunning down her face.  She knew that it was all sentiment, all\nbaseless impressibility, which had caused her to read the scene as\nher own condemnation; nevertheless she could not get over it; she\ncould not contravene in her own defenceless person all those untoward\nomens.  It was impossible to think of returning to the Vicarage.\nAngel's wife felt almost as if she had been hounded up that hill like\na scorned thing by those--to her--superfine clerics.  Innocently\nas the slight had been inflicted, it was somewhat unfortunate that\nshe had encountered the sons and not the father, who, despite his\nnarrowness, was far less starched and ironed than they, and had to\nthe full the gift of charity.  As she again thought of her dusty\nboots she almost pitied those habiliments for the quizzing to which\nthey had been subjected, and felt how hopeless life was for their\nowner.\n\n\"Ah!\" she said, still sighing in pity of herself, \"THEY didn't know\nthat I wore those over the roughest part of the road to save these\npretty ones HE bought for me--no--they did not know it!  And they\ndidn't think that HE chose the colour o' my pretty frock--no--how\ncould they?  If they had known perhaps they would not have cared,\nfor they don't care much for him, poor thing!\"\n\nThen she grieved for the beloved man whose conventional standard of\njudgement had caused her all these latter sorrows; and she went her\nway without knowing that the greatest misfortune of her life was this\nfeminine loss of courage at the last and critical moment through her\nestimating her father-in-law by his sons.  Her present condition was\nprecisely one which would have enlisted the sympathies of old Mr and\nMrs Clare.  Their hearts went out of them at a bound towards extreme\ncases, when the subtle mental troubles of the less desperate among\nmankind failed to win their interest or regard.  In jumping at\nPublicans and Sinners they would forget that a word might be said for\nthe worries of Scribes and Pharisees; and this defect or limitation\nmight have recommended their own daughter-in-law to them at this\nmoment as a fairly choice sort of lost person for their love.\n\nThereupon she began to plod back along the road by which she had come\nnot altogether full of hope, but full of a conviction that a crisis\nin her life was approaching.  No crisis, apparently, had supervened;\nand there was nothing left for her to do but to continue upon that\nstarve-acre farm till she could again summon courage to face the\nVicarage.  She did, indeed, take sufficient interest in herself to\nthrow up her veil on this return journey, as if to let the world see\nthat she could at least exhibit a face such as Mercy Chant could\nnot show.  But it was done with a sorry shake of the head. \"It is\nnothing--it is nothing!\" she said.  \"Nobody loves it; nobody sees it.\nWho cares about the looks of a castaway like me!\"\n\nHer journey back was rather a meander than a march.  It had no\nsprightliness, no purpose; only a tendency.  Along the tedious length\nof Benvill Lane she began to grow tired, and she leant upon gates and\npaused by milestones.\n\nShe did not enter any house till, at the seventh or eighth mile, she\ndescended the steep long hill below which lay the village or townlet\nof Evershead, where in the morning she had breakfasted with such\ncontrasting expectations.  The cottage by the church, in which she\nagain sat down, was almost the first at that end of the village, and\nwhile the woman fetched her some milk from the pantry, Tess, looking\ndown the street, perceived that the place seemed quite deserted.\n\n\"The people are gone to afternoon service, I suppose?\" she said.\n\n\"No, my dear,\" said the old woman.  \"'Tis too soon for that; the\nbells hain't strook out yet.  They be all gone to hear the preaching\nin yonder barn.  A ranter preaches there between the services--an\nexcellent, fiery, Christian man, they say.  But, Lord, I don't go to\nhear'n!  What comes in the regular way over the pulpit is hot enough\nfor I.\"\n\nTess soon went onward into the village, her footsteps echoing against\nthe houses as though it were a place of the dead.  Nearing the\ncentral part, her echoes were intruded on by other sounds; and seeing\nthe barn not far off the road, she guessed these to be the utterances\nof the preacher.\n\nHis voice became so distinct in the still clear air that she could\nsoon catch his sentences, though she was on the closed side of\nthe barn.  The sermon, as might be expected, was of the extremest\nantinomian type; on justification by faith, as expounded in the\ntheology of St Paul.  This fixed idea of the rhapsodist was delivered\nwith animated enthusiasm, in a manner entirely declamatory, for he\nhad plainly no skill as a dialectician.  Although Tess had not heard\nthe beginning of the address, she learnt what the text had been from\nits constant iteration--\n\n\n   \"O foolish galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye\n   should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ\n   hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?\"\n\n\nTess was all the more interested, as she stood listening behind, in\nfinding that the preacher's doctrine was a vehement form of the view\nof Angel's father, and her interest intensified when the speaker\nbegan to detail his own spiritual experiences of how he had come by\nthose views.  He had, he said, been the greatest of sinners.  He had\nscoffed; he had wantonly associated with the reckless and the lewd.\nBut a day of awakening had come, and, in a human sense, it had been\nbrought about mainly by the influence of a certain clergyman, whom he\nhad at first grossly insulted; but whose parting words had sunk into\nhis heart, and had remained there, till by the grace of Heaven they\nhad worked this change in him, and made him what they saw him.\n\nBut more startling to Tess than the doctrine had been the voice,\nwhich, impossible as it seemed, was precisely that of Alec\nd'Urberville.  Her face fixed in painful suspense, she came round\nto the front of the barn, and passed before it.  The low winter sun\nbeamed directly upon the great double-doored entrance on this side;\none of the doors being open, so that the rays stretched far in over\nthe threshing-floor to the preacher and his audience, all snugly\nsheltered from the northern breeze.  The listeners were entirely\nvillagers, among them being the man whom she had seen carrying the\nred paint-pot on a former memorable occasion.  But her attention\nwas given to the central figure, who stood upon some sacks of corn,\nfacing the people and the door.  The three o'clock sun shone full\nupon him, and the strange enervating conviction that her seducer\nconfronted her, which had been gaining ground in Tess ever since she\nhad heard his words distinctly, was at last established as a fact\nindeed.\n\n\nEND OF PHASE THE FIFTH\n\n\n\n\n\nPhase the Sixth: The Convert\n\n\n\nXLV\n\n\nTill this moment she had never seen or heard from d'Urberville since\nher departure from Trantridge.\n\nThe rencounter came at a heavy moment, one of all moments calculated\nto permit its impact with the least emotional shock.  But such was\nunreasoning memory that, though he stood there openly and palpably a\nconverted man, who was sorrowing for his past irregularities, a fear\novercame her, paralyzing her movement so that she neither retreated\nnor advanced.\n\nTo think of what emanated from that countenance when she saw it last,\nand to behold it now! ...  There was the same handsome unpleasantness\nof mien, but now he wore neatly trimmed, old-fashioned whiskers, the\nsable moustache having disappeared; and his dress was half-clerical,\na modification which had changed his expression sufficiently to\nabstract the dandyism from his features, and to hinder for a second\nher belief in his identity.\n\nTo Tess's sense there was, just at first, a ghastly _bizarrerie_,\na grim incongruity, in the march of these solemn words of Scripture\nout of such a mouth.  This too familiar intonation, less than four\nyears earlier, had brought to her ears expressions of such divergent\npurpose that her heart became quite sick at the irony of the\ncontrast.\n\nIt was less a reform than a transfiguration.  The former curves of\nsensuousness were now modulated to lines of devotional passion.\nThe lip-shapes that had meant seductiveness were now made to\nexpress supplication; the glow on the cheek that yesterday could be\ntranslated as riotousness was evangelized to-day into the splendour\nof pious rhetoric; animalism had become fanaticism; Paganism,\nPaulinism; the bold rolling eye that had flashed upon her form in\nthe old time with such mastery now beamed with the rude energy of a\ntheolatry that was almost ferocious.  Those black angularities which\nhis face had used to put on when his wishes were thwarted now did\nduty in picturing the incorrigible backslider who would insist upon\nturning again to his wallowing in the mire.\n\nThe lineaments, as such, seemed to complain.  They had been diverted\nfrom their hereditary connotation to signify impressions for which\nNature did not intend them.  Strange that their very elevation was a\nmisapplication, that to raise seemed to falsify.\n\nYet could it be so?  She would admit the ungenerous sentiment no\nlonger.  D'Urberville was not the first wicked man who had turned\naway from his wickedness to save his soul alive, and why should she\ndeem it unnatural in him?  It was but the usage of thought which had\nbeen jarred in her at hearing good new words in bad old notes.  The\ngreater the sinner, the greater the saint; it was not necessary to\ndive far into Christian history to discover that.\n\nSuch impressions as these moved her vaguely, and without strict\ndefiniteness.  As soon as the nerveless pause of her surprise would\nallow her to stir, her impulse was to pass on out of his sight.  He\nhad obviously not discerned her yet in her position against the sun.\n\nBut the moment that she moved again he recognized her.  The effect\nupon her old lover was electric, far stronger than the effect of his\npresence upon her.  His fire, the tumultuous ring of his eloquence,\nseemed to go out of him.  His lip struggled and trembled under the\nwords that lay upon it; but deliver them it could not as long as she\nfaced him.  His eyes, after their first glance upon her face, hung\nconfusedly in every other direction but hers, but came back in a\ndesperate leap every few seconds.  This paralysis lasted, however,\nbut a short time; for Tess's energies returned with the atrophy of\nhis, and she walked as fast as she was able past the barn and onward.\n\nAs soon as she could reflect, it appalled her, this change in their\nrelative platforms.  He who had wrought her undoing was now on the\nside of the Spirit, while she remained unregenerate.  And, as in the\nlegend, it had resulted that her Cyprian image had suddenly appeared\nupon his altar, whereby the fire of the priest had been well nigh\nextinguished.\n\nShe went on without turning her head.  Her back seemed to be endowed\nwith a sensitiveness to ocular beams--even her clothing--so alive\nwas she to a fancied gaze which might be resting upon her from the\noutside of that barn.  All the way along to this point her heart\nhad been heavy with an inactive sorrow; now there was a change in\nthe quality of its trouble.  That hunger for affection too long\nwithheld was for the time displaced by an almost physical sense\nof an implacable past which still engirdled her.  It intensified\nher consciousness of error to a practical despair; the break of\ncontinuity between her earlier and present existence, which she had\nhoped for, had not, after all, taken place.  Bygones would never be\ncomplete bygones till she was a bygone herself.\n\nThus absorbed, she recrossed the northern part of Long-Ash Lane at\nright angles, and presently saw before her the road ascending whitely\nto the upland along whose margin the remainder of her journey lay.\nIts dry pale surface stretched severely onward, unbroken by a single\nfigure, vehicle, or mark, save some occasional brown horse-droppings\nwhich dotted its cold aridity here and there.  While slowly breasting\nthis ascent Tess became conscious of footsteps behind her, and\nturning she saw approaching that well-known form--so strangely\naccoutred as the Methodist--the one personage in all the world she\nwished not to encounter alone on this side of the grave.\n\nThere was not much time, however, for thought or elusion, and she\nyielded as calmly as she could to the necessity of letting him\novertake her.  She saw that he was excited, less by the speed of his\nwalk than by the feelings within him.\n\n\"Tess!\" he said.\n\nShe slackened speed without looking round.\n\n\"Tess!\" he repeated.  \"It is I--Alec d'Urberville.\"\n\nShe then looked back at him, and he came up.\n\n\"I see it is,\" she answered coldly.\n\n\"Well--is that all?  Yet I deserve no more!  Of course,\" he added,\nwith a slight laugh, \"there is something of the ridiculous to your\neyes in seeing me like this.  But--I must put up with that. ...  I\nheard you had gone away; nobody knew where.  Tess, you wonder why I\nhave followed you?\"\n\n\"I do, rather; and I would that you had not, with all my heart!\"\n\n\"Yes--you may well say it,\" he returned grimly, as they moved onward\ntogether, she with unwilling tread.  \"But don't mistake me; I beg\nthis because you may have been led to do so in noticing--if you did\nnotice it--how your sudden appearance unnerved me down there.  It was\nbut a momentary faltering; and considering what you have been to me,\nit was natural enough.  But will helped me through it--though perhaps\nyou think me a humbug for saying it--and immediately afterwards I\nfelt that of all persons in the world whom it was my duty and desire\nto save from the wrath to come--sneer if you like--the woman whom I\nhad so grievously wronged was that person.  I have come with that\nsole purpose in view--nothing more.\"\n\nThere was the smallest vein of scorn in her words of rejoinder: \"Have\nyou saved yourself?  Charity begins at home, they say.\"\n\n\"_I_ have done nothing!\" said he indifferently. \"Heaven, as I have\nbeen telling my hearers, has done all.  No amount of contempt that\nyou can pour upon me, Tess, will equal what I have poured upon\nmyself--the old Adam of my former years!  Well, it is a strange\nstory; believe it or not; but I can tell you the means by which my\nconversion was brought about, and I hope you will be interested\nenough at least to listen.  Have you ever heard the name of the\nparson of Emminster--you must have done do?--old Mr Clare; one of the\nmost earnest of his school; one of the few intense men left in the\nChurch; not so intense as the extreme wing of Christian believers\nwith which I have thrown in my lot, but quite an exception among the\nEstablished clergy, the younger of whom are gradually attenuating the\ntrue doctrines by their sophistries, till they are but the shadow of\nwhat they were.  I only differ from him on the question of Church and\nState--the interpretation of the text, 'Come out from among them and\nbe ye separate, saith the Lord'--that's all.  He is one who, I firmly\nbelieve, has been the humble means of saving more souls in this\ncountry than any other man you can name.  You have heard of him?\"\n\n\"I have,\" she said.\n\n\"He came to Trantridge two or three years ago to preach on behalf of\nsome missionary society; and I, wretched fellow that I was, insulted\nhim when, in his disinterestedness, he tried to reason with me and\nshow me the way.  He did not resent my conduct, he simply said that\nsome day I should receive the first-fruits of the Spirit--that those\nwho came to scoff sometimes remained to pray.  There was a strange\nmagic in his words.  They sank into my mind.  But the loss of my\nmother hit me most; and by degrees I was brought to see daylight.\nSince then my one desire has been to hand on the true view to others,\nand that is what I was trying to do to-day; though it is only lately\nthat I have preached hereabout.  The first months of my ministry have\nbeen spent in the North of England among strangers, where I preferred\nto make my earliest clumsy attempts, so as to acquire courage before\nundergoing that severest of all tests of one's sincerity, addressing\nthose who have known one, and have been one's companions in the days\nof darkness.  If you could only know, Tess, the pleasure of having a\ngood slap at yourself, I am sure--\"\n\n\"Don't go on with it!\" she cried passionately, as she turned away\nfrom him to a stile by the wayside, on which she bent herself.  \"I\ncan't believe in such sudden things!  I feel indignant with you for\ntalking to me like this, when you know--when you know what harm\nyou've done me!  You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure\non earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with\nsorrow; and then it is a fine thing, when you have had enough of\nthat, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming\nconverted!  Out upon such--I don't believe in you--I hate it!\"\n\n\"Tess,\" he insisted; \"don't speak so!  It came to me like a jolly new\nidea!  And you don't believe me?  What don't you believe?\"\n\n\"Your conversion.  Your scheme of religion.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nShe dropped her voice.  \"Because a better man than you does not\nbelieve in such.\"\n\n\"What a woman's reason!  Who is this better man?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell you.\"\n\n\"Well,\" he declared, a resentment beneath his words seeming ready to\nspring out at a moment's notice, \"God forbid that I should say I am\na good man--and you know I don't say any such thing.  I am new to\ngoodness, truly; but newcomers see furthest sometimes.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she replied sadly.  \"But I cannot believe in your conversion\nto a new spirit.  Such flashes as you feel, Alec, I fear don't last!\"\n\nThus speaking she turned from the stile over which she had been\nleaning, and faced him; whereupon his eyes, falling casually upon\nthe familiar countenance and form, remained contemplating her.  The\ninferior man was quiet in him now; but it was surely not extracted,\nnor even entirely subdued.\n\n\"Don't look at me like that!\" he said abruptly.\n\nTess, who had been quite unconscious of her action and mien,\ninstantly withdrew the large dark gaze of her eyes, stammering with\na flush, \"I beg your pardon!\"  And there was revived in her the\nwretched sentiment which had often come to her before, that in\ninhabiting the fleshly tabernacle with which Nature had endowed her\nshe was somehow doing wrong.\n\n\"No, no!  Don't beg my pardon.  But since you wear a veil to hide\nyour good looks, why don't you keep it down?\"\n\nShe pulled down the veil, saying hastily, \"It was mostly to keep off\nthe wind.\"\n\n\"It may seem harsh of me to dictate like this,\" he went on; \"but\nit is better that I should not look too often on you.  It might be\ndangerous.\"\n\n\"Ssh!\" said Tess.\n\n\"Well, women's faces have had too much power over me already for me\nnot to fear them!  An evangelist has nothing to do with such as they;\nand it reminds me of the old times that I would forget!\"\n\nAfter this their conversation dwindled to a casual remark now and\nthen as they rambled onward, Tess inwardly wondering how far he was\ngoing with her, and not liking to send him back by positive mandate.\nFrequently when they came to a gate or stile they found painted\nthereon in red or blue letters some text of Scripture, and she\nasked him if he knew who had been at the pains to blazon these\nannouncements.  He told her that the man was employed by himself and\nothers who were working with him in that district, to paint these\nreminders that no means might be left untried which might move the\nhearts of a wicked generation.\n\nAt length the road touched the spot called \"Cross-in-Hand.\"  Of all\nspots on the bleached and desolate upland this was the most forlorn.\nIt was so far removed from the charm which is sought in landscape by\nartists and view-lovers as to reach a new kind of beauty, a negative\nbeauty of tragic tone.  The place took its name from a stone pillar\nwhich stood there, a strange rude monolith, from a stratum unknown\nin any local quarry, on which was roughly carved a human hand.\nDiffering accounts were given of its history and purport.  Some\nauthorities stated that a devotional cross had once formed the\ncomplete erection thereon, of which the present relic was but the\nstump; others that the stone as it stood was entire, and that it had\nbeen fixed there to mark a boundary or place of meeting.  Anyhow,\nwhatever the origin of the relic, there was and is something\nsinister, or solemn, according to mood, in the scene amid which it\nstands; something tending to impress the most phlegmatic passer-by.\n\n\"I think I must leave you now,\" he remarked, as they drew near to\nthis spot.  \"I have to preach at Abbot's-Cernel at six this evening,\nand my way lies across to the right from here.  And you upset me\nsomewhat too, Tessy--I cannot, will not, say why.  I must go away and\nget strength. ...  How is it that you speak so fluently now?  Who has\ntaught you such good English?\"\n\n\"I have learnt things in my troubles,\" she said evasively.\n\n\"What troubles have you had?\"\n\nShe told him of the first one--the only one that related to him.\n\nD'Urberville was struck mute.  \"I knew nothing of this till now!\"\nhe next murmured.  \"Why didn't you write to me when you felt your\ntrouble coming on?\"\n\nShe did not reply; and he broke the silence by adding: \"Well--you\nwill see me again.\"\n\n\"No,\" she answered.  \"Do not again come near me!\"\n\n\"I will think.  But before we part come here.\"  He stepped up to the\npillar.  \"This was once a Holy Cross. Relics are not in my creed; but\nI fear you at moments--far more than you need fear me at present; and\nto lessen my fear, put your hand upon that stone hand, and swear that\nyou will never tempt me--by your charms or ways.\"\n\n\"Good God--how can you ask what is so unnecessary!  All that is\nfurthest from my thought!\"\n\n\"Yes--but swear it.\"\n\nTess, half frightened, gave way to his importunity; placed her hand\nupon the stone and swore.\n\n\"I am sorry you are not a believer,\" he continued; \"that some\nunbeliever should have got hold of you and unsettled your mind.  But\nno more now.  At home at least I can pray for you; and I will; and\nwho knows what may not happen?  I'm off. Goodbye!\"\n\nHe turned to a hunting-gate in the hedge and, without letting his\neyes again rest upon her, leapt over and struck out across the down\nin the direction of Abbot's-Cernel.  As he walked his pace showed\nperturbation, and by-and-by, as if instigated by a former thought,\nhe drew from his pocket a small book, between the leaves of which\nwas folded a letter, worn and soiled, as from much re-reading.\nD'Urberville opened the letter.  It was dated several months before\nthis time, and was signed by Parson Clare.\n\nThe letter began by expressing the writer's unfeigned joy at\nd'Urberville's conversion, and thanked him for his kindness in\ncommunicating with the parson on the subject.  It expressed Mr\nClare's warm assurance of forgiveness for d'Urberville's former\nconduct and his interest in the young man's plans for the future.\nHe, Mr Clare, would much have liked to see d'Urberville in the Church\nto whose ministry he had devoted so many years of his own life, and\nwould have helped him to enter a theological college to that end; but\nsince his correspondent had possibly not cared to do this on account\nof the delay it would have entailed, he was not the man to insist\nupon its paramount importance.  Every man must work as he could best\nwork, and in the method towards which he felt impelled by the Spirit.\n\nD'Urberville read and re-read this letter, and seemed to quiz himself\ncynically.  He also read some passages from memoranda as he walked\ntill his face assumed a calm, and apparently the image of Tess no\nlonger troubled his mind.\n\nShe meanwhile had kept along the edge of the hill by which lay her\nnearest way home.  Within the distance of a mile she met a solitary\nshepherd.\n\n\"What is the meaning of that old stone I have passed?\" she asked of\nhim.  \"Was it ever a Holy Cross?\"\n\n\"Cross--no; 'twer not a cross!  'Tis a thing of ill-omen, Miss.  It\nwas put up in wuld times by the relations of a malefactor who was\ntortured there by nailing his hand to a post and afterwards hung.\nThe bones lie underneath.  They say he sold his soul to the devil,\nand that he walks at times.\"\n\nShe felt the _petite mort_ at this unexpectedly gruesome information,\nand left the solitary man behind her.  It was dusk when she drew near\nto Flintcomb-Ash, and in the lane at the entrance to the hamlet she\napproached a girl and her lover without their observing her.  They\nwere talking no secrets, and the clear unconcerned voice of the young\nwoman, in response to the warmer accents of the man, spread into the\nchilly air as the one soothing thing within the dusky horizon, full\nof a stagnant obscurity upon which nothing else intruded.  For a\nmoment the voices cheered the heart of Tess, till she reasoned that\nthis interview had its origin, on one side or the other, in the same\nattraction which had been the prelude to her own tribulation.  When\nshe came close, the girl turned serenely and recognized her, the\nyoung man walking off in embarrassment.  The woman was Izz Huett,\nwhose interest in Tess's excursion immediately superseded her own\nproceedings.  Tess did not explain very clearly its results, and Izz,\nwho was a girl of tact, began to speak of her own little affair, a\nphase of which Tess had just witnessed.\n\n\"He is Amby Seedling, the chap who used to sometimes come and help at\nTalbothays,\" she explained indifferently.  \"He actually inquired and\nfound out that I had come here, and has followed me.  He says he's\nbeen in love wi' me these two years.  But I've hardly answered him.\"\n\n\n\nXLVI\n\n\nSeveral days had passed since her futile journey, and Tess was\nafield.  The dry winter wind still blew, but a screen of thatched\nhurdles erected in the eye of the blast kept its force away from her.\nOn the sheltered side was a turnip-slicing machine, whose bright blue\nhue of new paint seemed almost vocal in the otherwise subdued scene.\nOpposite its front was a long mound or \"grave\", in which the roots\nhad been preserved since early winter.  Tess was standing at the\nuncovered end, chopping off with a bill-hook the fibres and earth\nfrom each root, and throwing it after the operation into the slicer.\nA man was turning the handle of the machine, and from its trough\ncame the newly-cut swedes, the fresh smell of whose yellow chips\nwas accompanied by the sounds of the snuffling wind, the smart swish\nof the slicing-blades, and the choppings of the hook in Tess's\nleather-gloved hand.\n\nThe wide acreage of blank agricultural brownness, apparent where\nthe swedes had been pulled, was beginning to be striped in wales of\ndarker brown, gradually broadening to ribands.  Along the edge of\neach of these something crept upon ten legs, moving without haste\nand without rest up and down the whole length of the field; it was\ntwo horses and a man, the plough going between them, turning up the\ncleared ground for a spring sowing.\n\nFor hours nothing relieved the joyless monotony of things. Then, far\nbeyond the ploughing-teams, a black speck was seen.  It had come from\nthe corner of a fence, where there was a gap, and its tendency was\nup the incline, towards the swede-cutters.  From the proportions of\na mere point it advanced to the shape of a ninepin, and was soon\nperceived to be a man in black, arriving from the direction of\nFlintcomb-Ash.  The man at the slicer, having nothing else to do with\nhis eyes, continually observed the comer, but Tess, who was occupied,\ndid not perceive him till her companion directed her attention to his\napproach.\n\nIt was not her hard taskmaster, Farmer Groby; it was one in a\nsemi-clerical costume, who now represented what had once been the\nfree-and-easy Alec d'Urberville.  Not being hot at his preaching\nthere was less enthusiasm about him now, and the presence of the\ngrinder seemed to embarrass him.  A pale distress was already on\nTess's face, and she pulled her curtained hood further over it.\n\nD'Urberville came up and said quietly--\n\n\"I want to speak to you, Tess.\"\n\n\"You have refused my last request, not to come near me!\" said she.\n\n\"Yes, but I have a good reason.\"\n\n\"Well, tell it.\"\n\n\"It is more serious than you may think.\"\n\nHe glanced round to see if he were overheard.  They were at some\ndistance from the man who turned the slicer, and the movement of the\nmachine, too, sufficiently prevented Alec's words reaching other\nears.  D'Urberville placed himself so as to screen Tess from the\nlabourer, turning his back to the latter.\n\n\"It is this,\" he continued, with capricious compunction.  \"In\nthinking of your soul and mine when we last met, I neglected to\ninquire as to your worldly condition.  You were well dressed, and I\ndid not think of it.  But I see now that it is hard--harder than it\nused to be when I--knew you--harder than you deserve.  Perhaps a good\ndeal of it is owning to me!\"\n\nShe did not answer, and he watched her inquiringly, as, with bent\nhead, her face completely screened by the hood, she resumed her\ntrimming of the swedes.  By going on with her work she felt better\nable to keep him outside her emotions.\n\n\"Tess,\" he added, with a sigh of discontent,--\"yours was the very\nworst case I ever was concerned in!  I had no idea of what had\nresulted till you told me.  Scamp that I was to foul that innocent\nlife!  The whole blame was mine--the whole unconventional business\nof our time at Trantridge.  You, too, the real blood of which I am\nbut the base imitation, what a blind young thing you were as to\npossibilities!  I say in all earnestness that it is a shame for\nparents to bring up their girls in such dangerous ignorance of the\ngins and nets that the wicked may set for them, whether their motive\nbe a good one or the result of simple indifference.\"\n\nTess still did no more than listen, throwing down one globular root\nand taking up another with automatic regularity, the pensive contour\nof the mere fieldwoman alone marking her.\n\n\"But it is not that I came to say,\" d'Urberville went on.  \"My\ncircumstances are these.  I have lost my mother since you were at\nTrantridge, and the place is my own.  But I intend to sell it, and\ndevote myself to missionary work in Africa.  A devil of a poor hand\nI shall make at the trade, no doubt.  However, what I want to ask\nyou is, will you put it in my power to do my duty--to make the only\nreparation I can make for the trick played you: that is, will you be\nmy wife, and go with me? ...  I have already obtained this precious\ndocument.  It was my old mother's dying wish.\"\n\nHe drew a piece of parchment from his pocket, with a slight fumbling\nof embarrassment.\n\n\"What is it?\" said she.\n\n\"A marriage licence.\"\n\n\"O no, sir--no!\" she said quickly, starting back.\n\n\"You will not?  Why is that?\"\n\nAnd as he asked the question a disappointment which was not entirely\nthe disappointment of thwarted duty crossed d'Urberville's face.  It\nwas unmistakably a symptom that something of his old passion for her\nhad been revived; duty and desire ran hand-in-hand.\n\n\"Surely,\" he began again, in more impetuous tones, and then looked\nround at the labourer who turned the slicer.\n\nTess, too, felt that the argument could not be ended there.\nInforming the man that a gentleman had come to see her, with whom she\nwished to walk a little way, she moved off with d'Urberville across\nthe zebra-striped field.  When they reached the first newly-ploughed\nsection he held out his hand to help her over it; but she stepped\nforward on the summits of the earth-rolls as if she did not see him.\n\n\"You will not marry me, Tess, and make me a self-respecting man?\" he\nrepeated, as soon as they were over the furrows.\n\n\"I cannot.\"\n\n\"But why?\"\n\n\"You know I have no affection for you.\"\n\n\"But you would get to feel that in time, perhaps--as soon as you\nreally could forgive me?\"\n\n\"Never!\"\n\n\"Why so positive?\"\n\n\"I love somebody else.\"\n\nThe words seemed to astonish him.\n\n\"You do?\" he cried.  \"Somebody else?  But has not a sense of what is\nmorally right and proper any weight with you?\"\n\n\"No, no, no--don't say that!\"\n\n\"Anyhow, then, your love for this other man may be only a passing\nfeeling which you will overcome--\"\n\n\"No--no.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes!  Why not?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell you.\"\n\n\"You must in honour!\"\n\n\"Well then ... I have married him.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" he exclaimed; and he stopped dead and gazed at\nher.\n\n\"I did not wish to tell--I did not mean to!\" she pleaded.  \"It is a\nsecret here, or at any rate but dimly known.  So will you, PLEASE\nwill you, keep from questioning me?  You must remember that we are\nnow strangers.\"\n\n\"Strangers--are we?  Strangers!\"\n\nFor a moment a flash of his old irony marked his face; but he\ndeterminedly chastened it down.\n\n\"Is that man your husband?\" he asked mechanically, denoting by a sign\nthe labourer who turned the machine.\n\n\"That man!\" she said proudly.  \"I should think not!\"\n\n\"Who, then?\"\n\n\"Do not ask what I do not wish to tell!\" she begged, and flashed her\nappeal to him from her upturned face and lash-shadowed eyes.\n\nD'Urberville was disturbed.\n\n\"But I only asked for your sake!\" he retorted hotly.  \"Angels of\nheaven!--God forgive me for such an expression--I came here, I swear,\nas I thought for your good.  Tess--don't look at me so--I cannot\nstand your looks!  There never were such eyes, surely, before\nChristianity or since!  There--I won't lose my head; I dare not.\nI own that the sight of you had waked up my love for you, which, I\nbelieved, was extinguished with all such feelings.  But I thought\nthat our marriage might be a sanctification for us both.  'The\nunbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving\nwife is sanctified by the husband,' I said to myself.  But my plan\nis dashed from me; and I must bear the disappointment!\"\n\nHe moodily reflected with his eyes on the ground.\n\n\"Married.  Married! ...  Well, that being so,\" he added, quite\ncalmly, tearing the licence slowly into halves and putting them in\nhis pocket; \"that being prevented, I should like to do some good to\nyou and your husband, whoever he may be.  There are many questions\nthat I am tempted to ask, but I will not do so, of course, in\nopposition to your wishes.  Though, if I could know your husband, I\nmight more easily benefit him and you.  Is he on this farm?\"\n\n\"No,\" she murmured.  \"He is far away.\"\n\n\"Far away?  From YOU?  What sort of husband can he be?\"\n\n\"O, do not speak against him!  It was through you!  He found out--\"\n\n\"Ah, is it so! ...  That's sad, Tess!\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But to stay away from you--to leave you to work like this!\"\n\n\"He does not leave me to work!\" she cried, springing to the defence\nof the absent one with all her fervour.  \"He don't know it!  It is by\nmy own arrangement.\"\n\n\"Then, does he write?\"\n\n\"I--I cannot tell you.  There are things which are private to\nourselves.\"\n\n\"Of course that means that he does not.  You are a deserted wife, my\nfair Tess--\"\n\nIn an impulse he turned suddenly to take her hand; the buff-glove was\non it, and he seized only the rough leather fingers which did not\nexpress the life or shape of those within.\n\n\"You must not--you must not!\" she cried fearfully, slipping her hand\nfrom the glove as from a pocket, and leaving it in his grasp.  \"O,\nwill you go away--for the sake of me and my husband--go, in the name\nof your own Christianity!\"\n\n\"Yes, yes; I will,\" he said abruptly, and thrusting the glove back to\nher he turned to leave.  Facing round, however, he said, \"Tess, as\nGod is my judge, I meant no humbug in taking your hand!\"\n\nA pattering of hoofs on the soil of the field, which they had not\nnoticed in their preoccupation, ceased close behind them; and a voice\nreached her ear:\n\n\"What the devil are you doing away from your work at this time o'\nday?\"\n\nFarmer Groby had espied the two figures from the distance, and had\ninquisitively ridden across, to learn what was their business in his\nfield.\n\n\"Don't speak like that to her!\" said d'Urberville, his face\nblackening with something that was not Christianity.\n\n\"Indeed, Mister!  And what mid Methodist pa'sons have to do with\nshe?\"\n\n\"Who is the fellow?\" asked d'Urberville, turning to Tess.\n\nShe went close up to him.\n\n\"Go--I do beg you!\" she said.\n\n\"What!  And leave you to that tyrant?  I can see in his face what a\nchurl he is.\"\n\n\"He won't hurt me.  HE'S not in love with me.  I can leave at\nLady-Day.\"\n\n\"Well, I have no right but to obey, I suppose.  But--well, goodbye!\"\n\nHer defender, whom she dreaded more than her assailant, having\nreluctantly disappeared, the farmer continued his reprimand, which\nTess took with the greatest coolness, that sort of attack being\nindependent of sex.  To have as a master this man of stone, who would\nhave cuffed her if he had dared, was almost a relief after her former\nexperiences.  She silently walked back towards the summit of the\nfield that was the scene of her labour, so absorbed in the interview\nwhich had just taken place that she was hardly aware that the nose of\nGroby's horse almost touched her shoulders.\n\n\"If so be you make an agreement to work for me till Lady-Day, I'll\nsee that you carry it out,\" he growled.  \"'Od rot the women--now\n'tis one thing, and then 'tis another.  But I'll put up with it no\nlonger!\"\n\nKnowing very well that he did not harass the other women of the\nfarm as he harassed her out of spite for the flooring he had once\nreceived, she did for one moment picture what might have been the\nresult if she had been free to accept the offer just made her of\nbeing the monied Alec's wife.  It would have lifted her completely\nout of subjection, not only to her present oppressive employer, but\nto a whole world who seemed to despise her.  \"But no, no!\" she said\nbreathlessly; \"I could not have married him now!  He is so unpleasant\nto me.\"\n\nThat very night she began an appealing letter to Clare, concealing\nfrom him her hardships, and assuring him of her undying affection.\nAny one who had been in a position to read between the lines would\nhave seen that at the back of her great love was some monstrous\nfear--almost a desperation--as to some secret contingencies which\nwere not disclosed.  But again she did not finish her effusion; he\nhad asked Izz to go with him, and perhaps he did not care for her at\nall.  She put the letter in her box, and wondered if it would ever\nreach Angel's hands.\n\nAfter this her daily tasks were gone through heavily enough, and\nbrought on the day which was of great import to agriculturists--the\nday of the Candlemas Fair.  It was at this fair that new engagements\nwere entered into for the twelve months following the ensuing\nLady-Day, and those of the farming population who thought of changing\ntheir places duly attended at the county-town where the fair was\nheld.  Nearly all the labourers on Flintcomb-Ash farm intended\nflight, and early in the morning there was a general exodus in the\ndirection of the town, which lay at a distance of from ten to a dozen\nmiles over hilly country.  Though Tess also meant to leave at the\nquarter-day, she was one of the few who did not go to the fair,\nhaving a vaguely-shaped hope that something would happen to render\nanother outdoor engagement unnecessary.\n\nIt was a peaceful February day, of wonderful softness for the time,\nand one would almost have thought that winter was over.  She had\nhardly finished her dinner when d'Urberville's figure darkened the\nwindow of the cottage wherein she was a lodger, which she had all to\nherself to-day.\n\nTess jumped up, but her visitor had knocked at the door, and she\ncould hardly in reason run away.  D'Urberville's knock, his walk up\nto the door, had some indescribable quality of difference from his\nair when she last saw him.  They seemed to be acts of which the doer\nwas ashamed.  She thought that she would not open the door; but, as\nthere was no sense in that either, she arose, and having lifted the\nlatch stepped back quickly.  He came in, saw her, and flung himself\ndown into a chair before speaking.\n\n\"Tess--I couldn't help it!\" he began desperately, as he wiped his\nheated face, which had also a superimposed flush of excitement.  \"I\nfelt that I must call at least to ask how you are.  I assure you I\nhad not been thinking of you at all till I saw you that Sunday; now I\ncannot get rid of your image, try how I may!  It is hard that a good\nwoman should do harm to a bad man; yet so it is.  If you would only\npray for me, Tess!\"\n\nThe suppressed discontent of his manner was almost pitiable, and yet\nTess did not pity him.\n\n\"How can I pray for you,\" she said, \"when I am forbidden to believe\nthat the great Power who moves the world would alter His plans on my\naccount?\"\n\n\"You really think that?\"\n\n\"Yes.  I have been cured of the presumption of thinking otherwise.\"\n\n\"Cured?  By whom?\"\n\n\"By my husband, if I must tell.\"\n\n\"Ah--your husband--your husband!  How strange it seems!  I remember\nyou hinted something of the sort the other day.  What do you really\nbelieve in these matters, Tess?\" he asked.  \"You seem to have no\nreligion--perhaps owing to me.\"\n\n\"But I have.  Though I don't believe in anything supernatural.\"\n\nD'Urberville looked at her with misgiving.\n\n\"Then do you think that the line I take is all wrong?\"\n\n\"A good deal of it.\"\n\n\"H'm--and yet I've felt so sure about it,\" he said uneasily.\n\n\"I believe in the SPIRIT of the Sermon on the Mount, and so did my\ndear husband...  But I don't believe--\"\n\nHere she gave her negations.\n\n\"The fact is,\" said d'Urberville drily, \"whatever your dear husband\nbelieved you accept, and whatever he rejected you reject, without the\nleast inquiry or reasoning on your own part.  That's just like you\nwomen.  Your mind is enslaved to his.\"\n\n\"Ah, because he knew everything!\" said she, with a triumphant\nsimplicity of faith in Angel Clare that the most perfect man could\nhardly have deserved, much less her husband.\n\n\"Yes, but you should not take negative opinions wholesale from\nanother person like that.  A pretty fellow he must be to teach you\nsuch scepticism!\"\n\n\"He never forced my judgement!  He would never argue on the subject\nwith me!  But I looked at it in this way; what he believed, after\ninquiring deep into doctrines, was much more likely to be right than\nwhat I might believe, who hadn't looked into doctrines at all.\"\n\n\"What used he to say?  He must have said something?\"\n\nShe reflected; and with her acute memory for the letter of Angel\nClare's remarks, even when she did not comprehend their spirit, she\nrecalled a merciless polemical syllogism that she had heard him\nuse when, as it occasionally happened, he indulged in a species of\nthinking aloud with her at his side.  In delivering it she gave also\nClare's accent and manner with reverential faithfulness.\n\n\"Say that again,\" asked d'Urberville, who had listened with the\ngreatest attention.\n\nShe repeated the argument, and d'Urberville thoughtfully murmured the\nwords after her.\n\n\"Anything else?\" he presently asked.\n\n\"He said at another time something like this\"; and she gave another,\nwhich might possibly have been paralleled in many a work of the\npedigree ranging from the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_ to Huxley's\n_Essays_.\n\n\"Ah--ha!  How do you remember them?\"\n\n\"I wanted to believe what he believed, though he didn't wish me to;\nand I managed to coax him to tell me a few of his thoughts.  I can't\nsay I quite understand that one; but I know it is right.\"\n\n\"H'm.  Fancy your being able to teach me what you don't know\nyourself!\"\n\nHe fell into thought.\n\n\"And so I threw in my spiritual lot with his,\" she resumed.  \"I\ndidn't wish it to be different.  What's good enough for him is good\nenough for me.\"\n\n\"Does he know that you are as big an infidel as he?\"\n\n\"No--I never told him--if I am an infidel.\"\n\n\"Well--you are better off to-day that I am, Tess, after all!  You\ndon't believe that you ought to preach my doctrine, and, therefore,\ndo no despite to your conscience in abstaining.  I do believe I ought\nto preach it, but, like the devils, I believe and tremble, for I\nsuddenly leave off preaching it, and give way to my passion for you.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Why,\" he said aridly; \"I have come all the way here to see you\nto-day!  But I started from home to go to Casterbridge Fair, where\nI have undertaken to preach the Word from a waggon at half-past two\nthis afternoon, and where all the brethren are expecting me this\nminute.  Here's the announcement.\"\n\nHe drew from his breast-pocket a poster whereon was printed the day,\nhour, and place of meeting, at which he, d'Urberville, would preach\nthe Gospel as aforesaid.\n\n\"But how can you get there?\" said Tess, looking at the clock.\n\n\"I cannot get there!  I have come here.\"\n\n\"What, you have really arranged to preach, and--\"\n\n\"I have arranged to preach, and I shall not be there--by reason of my\nburning desire to see a woman whom I once despised!--No, by my word\nand truth, I never despised you; if I had I should not love you now!\nWhy I did not despise you was on account of your being unsmirched in\nspite of all; you withdrew yourself from me so quickly and resolutely\nwhen you saw the situation; you did not remain at my pleasure; so\nthere was one petticoat in the world for whom I had no contempt,\nand you are she.  But you may well despise me now!  I thought I\nworshipped on the mountains, but I find I still serve in the groves!\nHa! ha!\"\n\n\"O Alec d'Urberville! what does this mean?  What have I done!\"\n\n\"Done?\" he said, with a soulless sneer in the word.  \"Nothing\nintentionally.  But you have been the means--the innocent means--of\nmy backsliding, as they call it.  I ask myself, am I, indeed, one of\nthose 'servants of corruption' who, 'after they have escaped the\npollutions of the world, are again entangled therein and overcome'--\nwhose latter end is worse than their beginning?\"  He laid his hand on\nher shoulder.  \"Tess, my girl, I was on the way to, at least, social\nsalvation till I saw you again!\" he said freakishly shaking her, as\nif she were a child.  \"And why then have you tempted me?  I was firm\nas a man could be till I saw those eyes and that mouth again--surely\nthere never was such a maddening mouth since Eve's!\"  His voice sank,\nand a hot archness shot from his own black eyes.  \"You temptress,\nTess; you dear damned witch of Babylon--I could not resist you as\nsoon as I met you again!\"\n\n\"I couldn't help your seeing me again!\" said Tess, recoiling.\n\n\"I know it--I repeat that I do not blame you.  But the fact remains.\nWhen I saw you ill-used on the farm that day I was nearly mad to\nthink that I had no legal right to protect you--that I could not have\nit; whilst he who has it seems to neglect you utterly!\"\n\n\"Don't speak against him--he is absent!\" she cried in much\nexcitement.  \"Treat him honourably--he has never wronged you!  O\nleave his wife before any scandal spreads that may do harm to his\nhonest name!\"\n\n\"I will--I will,\" he said, like a man awakening from a luring dream.\n\"I have broken my engagement to preach to those poor drunken boobies\nat the fair--it is the first time I have played such a practical\njoke.  A month ago I should have been horrified at such a\npossibility.  I'll go away--to swear--and--ah, can I! to keep away.\"\nThen, suddenly: \"One clasp, Tessy--one!  Only for old friendship--\"\n\n\"I am without defence. Alec!  A good man's honour is in my keeping--\nthink--be ashamed!\"\n\n\"Pooh!  Well, yes--yes!\"\n\nHe clenched his lips, mortified with himself for his weakness.  His\neyes were equally barren of worldly and religious faith.  The corpses\nof those old fitful passions which had lain inanimate amid the lines\nof his face ever since his reformation seemed to wake and come\ntogether as in a resurrection.  He went out indeterminately.\n\nThough d'Urberville had declared that this breach of his engagement\nto-day was the simple backsliding of a believer, Tess's words, as\nechoed from Angel Clare, had made a deep impression upon him, and\ncontinued to do so after he had left her.  He moved on in silence, as\nif his energies were benumbed by the hitherto undreamt-of possibility\nthat his position was untenable.  Reason had had nothing to do with\nhis whimsical conversion, which was perhaps the mere freak of a\ncareless man in search of a new sensation, and temporarily impressed\nby his mother's death.\n\nThe drops of logic Tess had let fall into the sea of his enthusiasm\nserved to chill its effervescence to stagnation.  He said to himself,\nas he pondered again and again over the crystallized phrases that she\nhad handed on to him, \"That clever fellow little thought that, by\ntelling her those things, he might be paving my way back to her!\"\n\n\n\nXLVII\n\n\nIt is the threshing of the last wheat-rick at Flintcomb-Ash farm. The\ndawn of the March morning is singularly inexpressive, and there is\nnothing to show where the eastern horizon lies.  Against the twilight\nrises the trapezoidal top of the stack, which has stood forlornly\nhere through the washing and bleaching of the wintry weather.\n\nWhen Izz Huett and Tess arrived at the scene of operations only a\nrustling denoted that others had preceded them; to which, as the\nlight increased, there were presently added the silhouettes of two\nmen on the summit.  They were busily \"unhaling\" the rick, that\nis, stripping off the thatch before beginning to throw down the\nsheaves; and while this was in progress Izz and Tess, with the\nother women-workers, in their whitey-brown pinners, stood waiting\nand shivering, Farmer Groby having insisted upon their being on\nthe spot thus early to get the job over if possible by the end of\nthe day.  Close under the eaves of the stack, and as yet barely\nvisible, was the red tyrant that the women had come to serve--a\ntimber-framed construction, with straps and wheels appertaining--\nthe threshing-machine which, whilst it was going, kept up a\ndespotic demand upon the endurance of their muscles and nerves.\n\nA little way off there was another indistinct figure; this one black,\nwith a sustained hiss that spoke of strength very much in reserve.\nThe long chimney running up beside an ash-tree, and the warmth which\nradiated from the spot, explained without the necessity of much\ndaylight that here was the engine which was to act as the _primum\nmobile_ of this little world.  By the engine stood a dark, motionless\nbeing, a sooty and grimy embodiment of tallness, in a sort of trance,\nwith a heap of coals by his side: it was the engine-man.  The\nisolation of his manner and colour lent him the appearance of a\ncreature from Tophet, who had strayed into the pellucid smokelessness\nof this region of yellow grain and pale soil, with which he had\nnothing in common, to amaze and to discompose its aborigines.\n\nWhat he looked he felt.  He was in the agricultural world, but not of\nit.  He served fire and smoke; these denizens of the fields served\nvegetation, weather, frost, and sun.  He travelled with his engine\nfrom farm to farm, from county to county, for as yet the steam\nthreshing-machine was itinerant in this part of Wessex.  He spoke in\na strange northern accent; his thoughts being turned inwards upon\nhimself, his eye on his iron charge, hardly perceiving the scenes\naround him, and caring for them not at all: holding only strictly\nnecessary intercourse with the natives, as if some ancient doom\ncompelled him to wander here against his will in the service of his\nPlutonic master.  The long strap which ran from the driving-wheel of\nhis engine to the red thresher under the rick was the sole tie-line\nbetween agriculture and him.\n\nWhile they uncovered the sheaves he stood apathetic beside his\nportable repository of force, round whose hot blackness the morning\nair quivered.  He had nothing to do with preparatory labour.  His\nfire was waiting incandescent, his steam was at high pressure, in\na few seconds he could make the long strap move at an invisible\nvelocity.  Beyond its extent the environment might be corn, straw,\nor chaos; it was all the same to him.  If any of the autochthonous\nidlers asked him what he called himself, he replied shortly, \"an\nengineer.\"\n\nThe rick was unhaled by full daylight; the men then took their\nplaces, the women mounted, and the work began.  Farmer Groby--or, as\nthey called him, \"he\"--had arrived ere this, and by his orders Tess\nwas placed on the platform of the machine, close to the man who fed\nit, her business being to untie every sheaf of corn handed on to her\nby Izz Huett, who stood next, but on the rick; so that the feeder\ncould seize it and spread it over the revolving drum, which whisked\nout every grain in one moment.\n\nThey were soon in full progress, after a preparatory hitch or two,\nwhich rejoiced the hearts of those who hated machinery.  The work\nsped on till breakfast time, when the thresher was stopped for half\nan hour; and on starting again after the meal the whole supplementary\nstrength of the farm was thrown into the labour of constructing the\nstraw-rick, which began to grow beside the stack of corn.  A hasty\nlunch was eaten as they stood, without leaving their positions, and\nthen another couple of hours brought them near to dinner-time; the\ninexorable wheel continuing to spin, and the penetrating hum of the\nthresher to thrill to the very marrow all who were near the revolving\nwire-cage.\n\nThe old men on the rising straw-rick talked of the past days\nwhen they had been accustomed to thresh with flails on the oaken\nbarn-floor; when everything, even to winnowing, was effected by\nhand-labour, which, to their thinking, though slow, produced better\nresults.  Those, too, on the corn-rick talked a little; but the\nperspiring ones at the machine, including Tess, could not lighten\ntheir duties by the exchange of many words.  It was the ceaselessness\nof the work which tried her so severely, and began to make her\nwish that she had never some to Flintcomb-Ash.  The women on the\ncorn-rick--Marian, who was one of them, in particular--could stop to\ndrink ale or cold tea from the flagon now and then, or to exchange\na few gossiping remarks while they wiped their faces or cleared the\nfragments of straw and husk from their clothing; but for Tess there\nwas no respite; for, as the drum never stopped, the man who fed\nit could not stop, and she, who had to supply the man with untied\nsheaves, could not stop either, unless Marian changed places with\nher, which she sometimes did for half an hour in spite of Groby's\nobjections that she was too slow-handed for a feeder.\n\nFor some probably economical reason it was usually a woman who was\nchosen for this particular duty, and Groby gave as his motive in\nselecting Tess that she was one of those who best combined strength\nwith quickness in untying, and both with staying power, and this may\nhave been true.  The hum of the thresher, which prevented speech,\nincreased to a raving whenever the supply of corn fell short of the\nregular quantity.  As Tess and the man who fed could never turn their\nheads she did not know that just before the dinner-hour a person had\ncome silently into the field by the gate, and had been standing under\na second rick watching the scene and Tess in particular.  He was\ndressed in a tweed suit of fashionable pattern, and he twirled a gay\nwalking-cane.\n\n\"Who is that?\" said Izz Huett to Marian.  She had at first addressed\nthe inquiry to Tess, but the latter could not hear it.\n\n\"Somebody's fancy-man, I s'pose,\" said Marian laconically.\n\n\"I'll lay a guinea he's after Tess.\"\n\n\"O no.  'Tis a ranter pa'son who's been sniffing after her lately;\nnot a dandy like this.\"\n\n\"Well--this is the same man.\"\n\n\"The same man as the preacher?  But he's quite different!\"\n\n\"He hev left off his black coat and white neckercher, and hev cut off\nhis whiskers; but he's the same man for all that.\"\n\n\"D'ye really think so?  Then I'll tell her,\" said Marian.\n\n\"Don't.  She'll see him soon enough, good-now.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't think it at all right for him to join his preaching to\ncourting a married woman, even though her husband mid be abroad, and\nshe, in a sense, a widow.\"\n\n\"Oh--he can do her no harm,\" said Izz drily.  \"Her mind can no more\nbe heaved from that one place where it do bide than a stooded waggon\nfrom the hole he's in.  Lord love 'ee, neither court-paying, nor\npreaching, nor the seven thunders themselves, can wean a woman when\n'twould be better for her that she should be weaned.\"\n\nDinner-time came, and the whirling ceased; whereupon Tess left her\npost, her knees trembling so wretchedly with the shaking of the\nmachine that she could scarcely walk.\n\n\"You ought to het a quart o' drink into 'ee, as I've done,\" said\nMarian.  \"You wouldn't look so white then.  Why, souls above us,\nyour face is as if you'd been hagrode!\"\n\nIt occurred to the good-natured Marian that, as Tess was so tired,\nher discovery of her visitor's presence might have the bad effect of\ntaking away her appetite; and Marian was thinking of inducing Tess\nto descend by a ladder on the further side of the stack when the\ngentleman came forward and looked up.\n\nTess uttered a short little \"Oh!\"  And a moment after she said,\nquickly, \"I shall eat my dinner here--right on the rick.\"\n\nSometimes, when they were so far from their cottages, they all did\nthis; but as there was rather a keen wind going to-day, Marian and\nthe rest descended, and sat under the straw-stack.\n\nThe newcomer was, indeed, Alec d'Urberville, the late Evangelist,\ndespite his changed attire and aspect.  It was obvious at a glance\nthat the original _Weltlust_ had come back; that he had restored\nhimself, as nearly as a man could do who had grown three or four\nyears older, to the old jaunty, slapdash guise under which Tess\nhad first known her admirer, and cousin so-called.  Having decided\nto remain where she was, Tess sat down among the bundles, out of\nsight of the ground, and began her meal; till, by-and-by, she heard\nfootsteps on the ladder, and immediately after Alec appeared upon the\nstack--now an oblong and level platform of sheaves.  He strode across\nthem, and sat down opposite of her without a word.\n\nTess continued to eat her modest dinner, a slice of thick pancake\nwhich she had brought with her.  The other workfolk were by this\ntime all gathered under the rick, where the loose straw formed a\ncomfortable retreat.\n\n\"I am here again, as you see,\" said d'Urberville.\n\n\"Why do you trouble me so!\" she cried, reproach flashing from her\nvery finger-ends.\n\n\"I trouble YOU?  I think I may ask, why do you trouble me?\"\n\n\"Sure, I don't trouble you any-when!\"\n\n\"You say you don't?  But you do!  You haunt me.  Those very eyes that\nyou turned upon me with such a bitter flash a moment ago, they come\nto me just as you showed them then, in the night and in the day!\nTess, ever since you told me of that child of ours, it is just as if\nmy feelings, which have been flowing in a strong puritanical stream,\nhad suddenly found a way open in the direction of you, and had all at\nonce gushed through.  The religious channel is left dry forthwith;\nand it is you who have done it!\"\n\nShe gazed in silence.\n\n\"What--you have given up your preaching entirely?\" she asked.  She\nhad gathered from Angel sufficient of the incredulity of modern\nthought to despise flash enthusiasm; but, as a woman, she was\nsomewhat appalled.\n\nIn affected severity d'Urberville continued--\n\n\"Entirely.  I have broken every engagement since that afternoon I was\nto address the drunkards at Casterbridge Fair.  The deuce only knows\nwhat I am thought of by the brethren.  Ah-ha!  The brethren!  No\ndoubt they pray for me--weep for me; for they are kind people in\ntheir way.  But what do I care?  How could I go on with the thing\nwhen I had lost my faith in it?--it would have been hypocrisy of\nthe basest kind!  Among them I should have stood like Hymenaeus and\nAlexander, who were delivered over to Satan that they might learn\nnot to blaspheme.  What a grand revenge you have taken!  I saw you\ninnocent, and I deceived you.  Four years after, you find me a\nChristian enthusiast; you then work upon me, perhaps to my complete\nperdition!  But Tess, my coz, as I used to call you, this is only\nmy way of talking, and you must not look so horribly concerned.\nOf course you have done nothing except retain your pretty face and\nshapely figure.  I saw it on the rick before you saw me--that tight\npinafore-thing sets it off, and that wing-bonnet--you field-girls\nshould never wear those bonnets if you wish to keep out of danger.\"\nHe regarded her silently for a few moments, and with a short cynical\nlaugh resumed: \"I believe that if the bachelor-apostle, whose deputy\nI thought I was, had been tempted by such a pretty face, he would\nhave let go the plough for her sake as I do!\"\n\nTess attempted to expostulate, but at this juncture all her fluency\nfailed her, and without heeding he added:\n\n\"Well, this paradise that you supply is perhaps as good as any other,\nafter all.  But to speak seriously, Tess.\"  D'Urberville rose and\ncame nearer, reclining sideways amid the sheaves, and resting upon\nhis elbow.  \"Since I last saw you, I have been thinking of what\nyou said that HE said.  I have come to the conclusion that there\ndoes seem rather a want of common-sense in these threadbare old\npropositions; how I could have been so fired by poor Parson Clare's\nenthusiasm, and have gone so madly to work, transcending even him, I\ncannot make out!  As for what you said last time, on the strength of\nyour wonderful husband's intelligence--whose name you have never told\nme--about having what they call an ethical system without any dogma,\nI don't see my way to that at all.\"\n\n\"Why, you can have the religion of loving-kindness and purity at\nleast, if you can't have--what do you call it--dogma.\"\n\n\"O no!  I'm a different sort of fellow from that!  If there's nobody\nto say, 'Do this, and it will be a good thing for you after you are\ndead; do that, and if will be a bad thing for you,' I can't warm up.\nHang it, I am not going to feel responsible for my deeds and passions\nif there's nobody to be responsible to; and if I were you, my dear,\nI wouldn't either!\"\n\nShe tried to argue, and tell him that he had mixed in his dull\nbrain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days\nof mankind had been quite distinct.  But owing to Angel Clare's\nreticence, to her absolute want of training, and to her being a\nvessel of emotions rather than reasons, she could not get on.\n\n\"Well, never mind,\" he resumed.  \"Here I am, my love, as in the old\ntimes!\"\n\n\"Not as then--never as then--'tis different!\" she entreated.  \"And\nthere was never warmth with me!  O why didn't you keep your faith,\nif the loss of it has brought you to speak to me like this!\"\n\n\"Because you've knocked it out of me; so the evil be upon your sweet\nhead!  Your husband little thought how his teaching would recoil upon\nhim!  Ha-ha--I'm awfully glad you have made an apostate of me all the\nsame!  Tess, I am more taken with you than ever, and I pity you too.\nFor all your closeness, I see you are in a bad way--neglected by one\nwho ought to cherish you.\"\n\nShe could not get her morsels of food down her throat; her lips\nwere dry, and she was ready to choke.  The voices and laughs of the\nworkfolk eating and drinking under the rick came to her as if they\nwere a quarter of a mile off.\n\n\"It is cruelty to me!\" she said.  \"How--how can you treat me to this\ntalk, if you care ever so little for me?\"\n\n\"True, true,\" he said, wincing a little.  \"I did not come to reproach\nyou for my deeds.  I came Tess, to say that I don't like you to be\nworking like this, and I have come on purpose for you.  You say you\nhave a husband who is not I.  Well, perhaps you have; but I've never\nseen him, and you've not told me his name; and altogether he seems\nrather a mythological personage.  However, even if you have one, I\nthink I am nearer to you than he is.  I, at any rate, try to help you\nout of trouble, but he does not, bless his invisible face!  The words\nof the stern prophet Hosea that I used to read come back to me.\nDon't you know them, Tess?--'And she shall follow after her lover,\nbut she shall not overtake him; and she shall seek him, but shall\nnot find him; then shall she say, I will go and return to my first\nhusband; for then was it better with me than now!' ...  Tess, my trap\nis waiting just under the hill, and--darling mine, not his!--you know\nthe rest.\"\n\nHer face had been rising to a dull crimson fire while he spoke; but\nshe did not answer.\n\n\"You have been the cause of my backsliding,\" he continued, stretching\nhis arm towards her waist; \"you should be willing to share it, and\nleave that mule you call husband for ever.\"\n\nOne of her leather gloves, which she had taken off to eat her\nskimmer-cake, lay in her lap, and without the slightest warning she\npassionately swung the glove by the gauntlet directly in his face.\nIt was heavy and thick as a warrior's, and it struck him flat on the\nmouth.  Fancy might have regarded the act as the recrudescence of\na trick in which her armed progenitors were not unpractised.  Alec\nfiercely started up from his reclining position.  A scarlet oozing\nappeared where her blow had alighted, and in a moment the blood began\ndropping from his mouth upon the straw.  But he soon controlled\nhimself, calmly drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and mopped\nhis bleeding lips.\n\nShe too had sprung up, but she sank down again. \"Now, punish me!\" she\nsaid, turning up her eyes to him with the hopeless defiance of the\nsparrow's gaze before its captor twists its neck.  \"Whip me, crush\nme; you need not mind those people under the rick!  I shall not cry\nout.  Once victim, always victim--that's the law!\"\n\n\"O no, no, Tess,\" he said blandly.  \"I can make full allowance for\nthis.  Yet you most unjustly forget one thing, that I would have\nmarried you if you had not put it out of my power to do so.  Did I\nnot ask you flatly to be my wife--hey?  Answer me.\"\n\n\"You did.\"\n\n\"And you cannot be.  But remember one thing!\"  His voice hardened\nas his temper got the better of him with the recollection of his\nsincerity in asking her and her present ingratitude, and he stepped\nacross to her side and held her by the shoulders, so that she shook\nunder his grasp.  \"Remember, my lady, I was your master once!  I will\nbe your master again.  If you are any man's wife you are mine!\"\n\nThe threshers now began to stir below.\n\n\"So much for our quarrel,\" he said, letting her go.  \"Now I shall\nleave you, and shall come again for your answer during the afternoon.\nYou don't know me yet!  But I know you.\"\n\nShe had not spoken again, remaining as if stunned.  D'Urberville\nretreated over the sheaves, and descended the ladder, while the\nworkers below rose and stretched their arms, and shook down the beer\nthey had drunk.  Then the threshing-machine started afresh; and amid\nthe renewed rustle of the straw Tess resumed her position by the\nbuzzing drum as one in a dream, untying sheaf after sheaf in endless\nsuccession.\n\n\n\nXLVIII\n\n\nIn the afternoon the farmer made it known that the rick was to be\nfinished that night, since there was a moon by which they could see\nto work, and the man with the engine was engaged for another farm on\nthe morrow.  Hence the twanging and humming and rustling proceeded\nwith even less intermission than usual.\n\nIt was not till \"nammet\"-time, about three o-clock, that Tess raised\nher eyes and gave a momentary glance round.  She felt but little\nsurprise at seeing that Alec d'Urberville had come back, and was\nstanding under the hedge by the gate.  He had seen her lift her\neyes, and waved his hand urbanely to her, while he blew her a kiss.\nIt meant that their quarrel was over.  Tess looked down again, and\ncarefully abstained from gazing in that direction.\n\nThus the afternoon dragged on.  The wheat-rick shrank lower, and the\nstraw-rick grew higher, and the corn-sacks were carted away.  At six\no'clock the wheat-rick was about shoulder-high from the ground.  But\nthe unthreshed sheaves remaining untouched seemed countless still,\nnotwithstanding the enormous numbers that had been gulped down by\nthe insatiable swallower, fed by the man and Tess, through whose two\nyoung hands the greater part of them had passed.  And the immense\nstack of straw where in the morning there had been nothing, appeared\nas the faeces of the same buzzing red glutton.  From the west sky\na wrathful shine--all that wild March could afford in the way of\nsunset--had burst forth after the cloudy day, flooding the tired and\nsticky faces of the threshers, and dyeing them with a coppery light,\nas also the flapping garments of the women, which clung to them like\ndull flames.\n\nA panting ache ran through the rick.  The man who fed was weary, and\nTess could see that the red nape of his neck was encrusted with dirt\nand husks.  She still stood at her post, her flushed and perspiring\nface coated with the corndust, and her white bonnet embrowned by it.\nShe was the only woman whose place was upon the machine so as to be\nshaken bodily by its spinning, and the decrease of the stack now\nseparated her from Marian and Izz, and prevented their changing\nduties with her as they had done.  The incessant quivering, in\nwhich every fibre of her frame participated, had thrown her into a\nstupefied reverie in which her arms worked on independently of her\nconsciousness.  She hardly knew where she was, and did not hear Izz\nHuett tell her from below that her hair was tumbling down.\n\nBy degrees the freshest among them began to grow cadaverous and\nsaucer-eyed.  Whenever Tess lifted her head she beheld always the\ngreat upgrown straw-stack, with the men in shirt-sleeves upon it,\nagainst the gray north sky; in front of it the long red elevator\nlike a Jacob's ladder, on which a perpetual stream of threshed straw\nascended, a yellow river running uphill, and spouting out on the top\nof the rick.\n\nShe knew that Alec d'Urberville was still on the scene, observing\nher from some point or other, though she could not say where.  There\nwas an excuse for his remaining, for when the threshed rick drew\nnear its final sheaves a little ratting was always done, and men\nunconnected with the threshing sometimes dropped in for that\nperformance--sporting characters of all descriptions, gents with\nterriers and facetious pipes, roughs with sticks and stones.\n\nBut there was another hour's work before the layer of live rats at\nthe base of the stack would be reached; and as the evening light in\nthe direction of the Giant's Hill by Abbot's-Cernel dissolved away,\nthe white-faced moon of the season arose from the horizon that lay\ntowards Middleton Abbey and Shottsford on the other side.  For the\nlast hour or two Marian had felt uneasy about Tess, whom she could\nnot get near enough to speak to, the other women having kept up their\nstrength by drinking ale, and Tess having done without it through\ntraditionary dread, owing to its results at her home in childhood.\nBut Tess still kept going: if she could not fill her part she would\nhave to leave; and this contingency, which she would have regarded\nwith equanimity and even with relief a month or two earlier, had\nbecome a terror since d'Urberville had begun to hover round her.\n\nThe sheaf-pitchers and feeders had now worked the rick so low that\npeople on the ground could talk to them.  To Tess's surprise Farmer\nGroby came up on the machine to her, and said that if she desired to\njoin her friend he did not wish her to keep on any longer, and would\nsend somebody else to take her place.  The \"friend\" was d'Urberville,\nshe knew, and also that this concession had been granted in obedience\nto the request of that friend, or enemy.  She shook her head and\ntoiled on.\n\nThe time for the rat-catching arrived at last, and the hunt began.\nThe creatures had crept downwards with the subsidence of the rick\ntill they were all together at the bottom, and being now uncovered\nfrom their last refuge, they ran across the open ground in all\ndirections, a loud shriek from the by-this-time half-tipsy Marian\ninforming her companions that one of the rats had invaded her\nperson--a terror which the rest of the women had guarded against by\nvarious schemes of skirt-tucking and self-elevation.  The rat was\nat last dislodged, and, amid the barking of dogs, masculine shouts,\nfeminine screams, oaths, stampings, and confusion as of Pandemonium,\nTess untied her last sheaf; the drum slowed, the whizzing ceased,\nand she stepped from the machine to the ground.\n\nHer lover, who had only looked on at the rat-catching, was promptly\nat her side.\n\n\"What--after all--my insulting slap, too!\" said she in an\nunderbreath.  She was so utterly exhausted that she had not strength\nto speak louder.\n\n\"I should indeed be foolish to feel offended at anything you say or\ndo,\" he answered, in the seductive voice of the Trantridge time.\n\"How the little limbs tremble!  You are as weak as a bled calf, you\nknow you are; and yet you need have done nothing since I arrived.\nHow could you be so obstinate?  However, I have told the farmer that\nhe has no right to employ women at steam-threshing.  It is not proper\nwork for them; and on all the better class of farms it has been given\nup, as he knows very well.  I will walk with you as far as your\nhome.\"\n\n\"O yes,\" she answered with a jaded gait.  \"Walk wi' me if you will!\nI do bear in mind that you came to marry me before you knew o' my\nstate.  Perhaps--perhaps you are a little better and kinder than I\nhave been thinking you were.  Whatever is meant as kindness I am\ngrateful for; whatever is meant in any other way I am angered at.\nI cannot sense your meaning sometimes.\"\n\n\"If I cannot legitimize our former relations at least I can assist\nyou.  And I will do it with much more regard for your feelings than\nI formerly showed.  My religious mania, or whatever it was, is over.\nBut I retain a little good nature; I hope I do.  Now, Tess, by\nall that's tender and strong between man and woman, trust me!  I\nhave enough and more than enough to put you out of anxiety, both\nfor yourself and your parents and sisters.  I can make them all\ncomfortable if you will only show confidence in me.\"\n\n\"Have you seen 'em lately?\" she quickly inquired.\n\n\"Yes.  They didn't know where you were.  It was only by chance that I\nfound you here.\"\n\nThe cold moon looked aslant upon Tess's fagged face between the twigs\nof the garden-hedge as she paused outside the cottage which was her\ntemporary home, d'Urberville pausing beside her.\n\n\"Don't mention my little brothers and sisters--don't make me break\ndown quite!\" she said.  \"If you want to help them--God knows they\nneed it--do it without telling me.  But no, no!\" she cried.  \"I will\ntake nothing from you, either for them or for me!\"\n\nHe did not accompany her further, since, as she lived with the\nhousehold, all was public indoors.  No sooner had she herself\nentered, laved herself in a washing-tub, and shared supper with the\nfamily than she fell into thought, and withdrawing to the table under\nthe wall, by the light of her own little lamp wrote in a passionate\nmood--\n\n\n   MY OWN HUSBAND,--\n\n   Let me call you so--I must--even if it makes you angry to\n   think of such an unworthy wife as I.  I must cry to you\n   in my trouble--I have no one else!  I am so exposed to\n   temptation, Angel.  I fear to say who it is, and I do not\n   like to write about it at all.  But I cling to you in a way\n   you cannot think!  Can you not come to me now, at once,\n   before anything terrible happens?  O, I know you cannot,\n   because you are so far away!  I think I must die if you do\n   not come soon, or tell me to come to you.  The punishment\n   you have measured out to me is deserved--I do know that--\n   well deserved--and you are right and just to be angry with\n   me.  But, Angel, please, please, not to be just--only a\n   little kind to me, even if I do not deserve it, and come to\n   me!  If you would come, I could die in your arms!  I would\n   be well content to do that if so be you had forgiven me!\n\n   Angel, I live entirely for you.  I love you too much to\n   blame you for going away, and I know it was necessary you\n   should find a farm.  Do not think I shall say a word of\n   sting or bitterness.  Only come back to me.  I am desolate\n   without you, my darling, O, so desolate! I do not mind\n   having to work: but if you will send me one little line,\n   and say, \"I am coming soon,\" I will bide on, Angel--O, so\n   cheerfully!\n\n   It has been so much my religion ever since we were married\n   to be faithful to you in every thought and look, that even\n   when a man speaks a compliment to me before I am aware, it\n   seems wronging you.  Have you never felt one little bit of\n   what you used to feel when we were at the dairy?  If you\n   have, how can you keep away from me?  I am the same women,\n   Angel, as you fell in love with; yes, the very same!--not\n   the one you disliked but never saw.  What was the past to me\n   as soon as I met you?  It was a dead thing altogether.  I\n   became another woman, filled full of new life from you.  How\n   could I be the early one?  Why do you not see this?  Dear,\n   if you would only be a little more conceited, and believe\n   in yourself so far as to see that you were strong enough to\n   work this change in me, you would perhaps be in a mind to\n   come to me, your poor wife.\n\n   How silly I was in my happiness when I thought I could trust\n   you always to love me!  I ought to have known that such as\n   that was not for poor me.  But I am sick at heart, not only\n   for old times, but for the present.  Think--think how it do\n   hurt my heart not to see you ever--ever!  Ah, if I could\n   only make your dear heart ache one little minute of each day\n   as mine does every day and all day long, it might lead you\n   to show pity to your poor lonely one.\n\n   People still say that I am rather pretty, Angel (handsome is\n   the word they use, since I wish to be truthful).  Perhaps I\n   am what they say.  But I do not value my good looks; I only\n   like to have them because they belong to you, my dear, and\n   that there may be at least one thing about me worth your\n   having.  So much have I felt this, that when I met with\n   annoyance on account of the same, I tied up my face in a\n   bandage as long as people would believe in it.  O Angel, I\n   tell you all this not from vanity--you will certainly know\n   I do not--but only that you may come to me!\n\n   If you really cannot come to me, will you let me come to\n   you?  I am, as I say, worried, pressed to do what I will\n   not do.  It cannot be that I shall yield one inch, yet I am\n   in terror as to what an accident might lead to, and I so\n   defenceless on account of my first error. I cannot say more\n   about this--it makes me too miserable.  But if I break down\n   by falling into some fearful snare, my last state will be\n   worse than my first.  O God, I cannot think of it!  Let me\n   come at once, or at once come to me!\n\n   I would be content, ay, glad, to live with you as your\n   servant, if I may not as your wife; so that I could only be\n   near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you as mine.\n\n   The daylight has nothing to show me, since you are not here,\n   and I don't like to see the rooks and starlings in the\n   field, because I grieve and grieve to miss you who used to\n   see them with me.  I long for only one thing in heaven or\n   earth or under the earth, to meet you, my own dear!  Come\n   to me--come to me, and save me from what threatens me!--\n\n   Your faithful heartbroken\n\n   TESS\n\n\n\nXLIX\n\n\nThe appeal duly found its way to the breakfast-table of the quiet\nVicarage to the westward, in that valley where the air is so soft and\nthe soil so rich that the effort of growth requires but superficial\naid by comparison with the tillage at Flintcomb-Ash, and where to\nTess the human world seemed so different (though it was much the\nsame).  It was purely for security that she had been requested by\nAngel to send her communications through his father, whom he kept\npretty well informed of his changing addresses in the country he\nhad gone to exploit for himself with a heavy heart.\n\n\"Now,\" said old Mr Clare to his wife, when he had read the envelope,\n\"if Angel proposes leaving Rio for a visit home at the end of next\nmonth, as he told us that he hoped to do, I think this may hasten his\nplans; for I believe it to be from his wife.\"  He breathed deeply at\nthe thought of her; and the letter was redirected to be promptly sent\non to Angel.\n\n\"Dear fellow, I hope he will get home safely,\" murmured Mrs Clare.\n\"To my dying day I shall feel that he has been ill-used.  You should\nhave sent him to Cambridge in spite of his want of faith and given\nhim the same chance as the other boys had.  He would have grown out\nof it under proper influence, and perhaps would have taken Orders\nafter all.  Church or no Church, it would have been fairer to him.\"\n\nThis was the only wail with which Mrs Clare ever disturbed her\nhusband's peace in respect to their sons.  And she did not vent this\noften; for she was as considerate as she was devout, and knew that\nhis mind too was troubled by doubts as to his justice in this matter.\nOnly too often had she heard him lying awake at night, stifling sighs\nfor Angel with prayers.  But the uncompromising Evangelical did not\neven now hold that he would have been justified in giving his son,\nan unbeliever, the same academic advantages that he had given to the\ntwo others, when it was possible, if not probable, that those very\nadvantages might have been used to decry the doctrines which he had\nmade it his life's mission and desire to propagate, and the mission\nof his ordained sons likewise.  To put with one hand a pedestal\nunder the feet of the two faithful ones, and with the other to exalt\nthe unfaithful by the same artificial means, he deemed to be alike\ninconsistent with his convictions, his position, and his hopes.\nNevertheless, he loved his misnamed Angel, and in secret mourned\nover this treatment of him as Abraham might have mourned over the\ndoomed Isaac while they went up the hill together.  His silent\nself-generated regrets were far bitterer than the reproaches which\nhis wife rendered audible.\n\nThey blamed themselves for this unlucky marriage.  If Angel had never\nbeen destined for a farmer he would never have been thrown with\nagricultural girls.  They did not distinctly know what had separated\nhim and his wife, nor the date on which the separation had taken\nplace.  At first they had supposed it must be something of the nature\nof a serious aversion.  But in his later letters he occasionally\nalluded to the intention of coming home to fetch her; from which\nexpressions they hoped the division might not owe its origin to\nanything so hopelessly permanent as that.  He had told them that she\nwas with her relatives, and in their doubts they had decided not to\nintrude into a situation which they knew no way of bettering.\n\nThe eyes for which Tess's letter was intended were gazing at this\ntime on a limitless expanse of country from the back of a mule which\nwas bearing him from the interior of the South-American Continent\ntowards the coast.  His experiences of this strange land had been\nsad.  The severe illness from which he had suffered shortly after\nhis arrival had never wholly left him, and he had by degrees almost\ndecided to relinquish his hope of farming here, though, as long as\nthe bare possibility existed of his remaining, he kept this change\nof view a secret from his parents.\n\nThe crowds of agricultural labourers who had come out to the country\nin his wake, dazzled by representations of easy independence, had\nsuffered, died, and wasted away.  He would see mothers from English\nfarms trudging along with their infants in their arms, when the child\nwould be stricken with fever and would die; the mother would pause\nto dig a hole in the loose earth with her bare hands, would bury the\nbabe therein with the same natural grave-tools, shed one tear, and\nagain trudge on.\n\nAngel's original intention had not been emigration to Brazil but a\nnorthern or eastern farm in his own country.  He had come to this\nplace in a fit of desperation, the Brazil movement among the English\nagriculturists having by chance coincided with his desire to escape\nfrom his past existence.\n\nDuring this time of absence he had mentally aged a dozen years.\nWhat arrested him now as of value in life was less its beauty than\nits pathos.  Having long discredited the old systems of mysticism,\nhe now began to discredit the old appraisements of morality.  He\nthought they wanted readjusting.  Who was the moral man?  Still more\npertinently, who was the moral woman?  The beauty or ugliness of\na character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and\nimpulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among\nthings willed.\n\nHow, then, about Tess?\n\nViewing her in these lights, a regret for his hasty judgement began\nto oppress him.  Did he reject her eternally, or did he not?  He\ncould no longer say that he would always reject her, and not to say\nthat was in spirit to accept her now.\n\nThis growing fondness for her memory coincided in point of time\nwith her residence at Flintcomb-Ash, but it was before she had felt\nherself at liberty to trouble him with a word about her circumstances\nor her feelings.  He was greatly perplexed; and in his perplexity as\nto her motives in withholding intelligence, he did not inquire.  Thus\nher silence of docility was misinterpreted.  How much it really said\nif he had understood!--that she adhered with literal exactness to\norders which he had given and forgotten; that despite her natural\nfearlessness she asserted no rights, admitted his judgement to be in\nevery respect the true one, and bent her head dumbly thereto.\n\nIn the before-mentioned journey by mules through the interior of the\ncountry, another man rode beside him. Angel's companion was also an\nEnglishman, bent on the same errand, though he came from another part\nof the island.  They were both in a state of mental depression, and\nthey spoke of home affairs.  Confidence begat confidence.  With that\ncurious tendency evinced by men, more especially when in distant\nlands, to entrust to strangers details of their lives which they\nwould on no account mention to friends, Angel admitted to this man\nas they rode along the sorrowful facts of his marriage.\n\nThe stranger had sojourned in many more lands and among many more\npeoples than Angel; to his cosmopolitan mind such deviations from the\nsocial norm, so immense to domesticity, were no more than are the\nirregularities of vale and mountain-chain to the whole terrestrial\ncurve.  He viewed the matter in quite a different light from Angel;\nthought that what Tess had been was of no importance beside what she\nwould be, and plainly told Clare that he was wrong in coming away\nfrom her.\n\nThe next day they were drenched in a thunder-storm. Angel's companion\nwas struck down with fever, and died by the week's end.  Clare waited\na few hours to bury him, and then went on his way.\n\nThe cursory remarks of the large-minded stranger, of whom he knew\nabsolutely nothing beyond a commonplace name, were sublimed by his\ndeath, and influenced Clare more than all the reasoned ethics of the\nphilosophers.  His own parochialism made him ashamed by its contrast.\nHis inconsistencies rushed upon him in a flood.  He had persistently\nelevated Hellenic Paganism at the expense of Christianity; yet in\nthat civilization an illegal surrender was not certain disesteem.\nSurely then he might have regarded that abhorrence of the un-intact\nstate, which he had inherited with the creed of mysticism, as at\nleast open to correction when the result was due to treachery.  A\nremorse struck into him.  The words of Izz Huett, never quite stilled\nin his memory, came back to him.  He had asked Izz if she loved him,\nand she had replied in the affirmative.  Did she love him more than\nTess did?  No, she had replied; Tess would lay down her life for him,\nand she herself could do no more.\n\nHe thought of Tess as she had appeared on the day of the wedding.\nHow her eyes had lingered upon him; how she had hung upon his words\nas if they were a god's!  And during the terrible evening over the\nhearth, when her simple soul uncovered itself to his, how pitiful her\nface had looked by the rays of the fire, in her inability to realize\nthat his love and protection could possibly be withdrawn.\n\nThus from being her critic he grew to be her advocate.  Cynical\nthings he had uttered to himself about her; but no man can be always\na cynic and live; and he withdrew them.  The mistake of expressing\nthem had arisen from his allowing himself to be influenced by general\nprinciples to the disregard of the particular instance.\n\nBut the reasoning is somewhat musty; lovers and husbands have gone\nover the ground before to-day.  Clare had been harsh towards her;\nthere is no doubt of it.  Men are too often harsh with women they\nlove or have loved; women with men.  And yet these harshnesses are\ntenderness itself when compared with the universal harshness out\nof which they grow; the harshness of the position towards the\ntemperament, of the means towards the aims, of to-day towards\nyesterday, of hereafter towards to-day.\n\nThe historic interest of her family--that masterful line of\nd'Urbervilles--whom he had despised as a spent force, touched his\nsentiments now.  Why had he not known the difference between the\npolitical value and the imaginative value of these things?  In\nthe latter aspect her d'Urberville descent was a fact of great\ndimensions; worthless to economics, it was a most useful ingredient\nto the dreamer, to the moralizer on declines and falls.  It was a\nfact that would soon be forgotten--that bit of distinction in poor\nTess's blood and name, and oblivion would fall upon her hereditary\nlink with the marble monuments and leaded skeletons at Kingsbere.  So\ndoes Time ruthlessly destroy his own romances.  In recalling her face\nagain and again, he thought now that he could see therein a flash of\nthe dignity which must have graced her grand-dames; and the vision\nsent that _aura_ through his veins which he had formerly felt, and\nwhich left behind it a sense of sickness.\n\nDespite her not-inviolate past, what still abode in such a woman as\nTess outvalued the freshness of her fellows.  Was not the gleaning\nof the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?\n\nSo spoke love renascent, preparing the way for Tess's devoted\noutpouring, which was then just being forwarded to him by his father;\nthough owing to his distance inland it was to be a long time in\nreaching him.\n\nMeanwhile the writer's expectation that Angel would come in response\nto the entreaty was alternately great and small.  What lessened it\nwas that the facts of her life which had led to the parting had\nnot changed--could never change; and that, if her presence had not\nattenuated them, her absence could not.  Nevertheless she addressed\nher mind to the tender question of what she could do to please him\nbest if he should arrive.  Sighs were expended on the wish that she\nhad taken more notice of the tunes he played on his harp, that she\nhad inquired more curiously of him which were his favourite ballads\namong those the country-girls sang.  She indirectly inquired of Amby\nSeedling, who had followed Izz from Talbothays, and by chance Amby\nremembered that, amongst the snatches of melody in which they had\nindulged at the dairyman's, to induce the cows to let down their\nmilk, Clare had seemed to like \"Cupid's Gardens\", \"I have parks, I\nhave hounds\", and \"The break o' the day\"; and had seemed not to care\nfor \"The Tailor's Breeches\" and \"Such a beauty I did grow\", excellent\nditties as they were.\n\nTo perfect the ballads was now her whimsical desire. She practised\nthem privately at odd moments, especially \"The break o' the day\":\n\n\n   Arise, arise, arise!\n   And pick your love a posy,\n   All o' the sweetest flowers\n   That in the garden grow.\n   The turtle doves and sma' birds\n   In every bough a-building,\n   So early in the May-time\n   At the break o' the day!\n\n\nIt would have melted the heart of a stone to hear her singing these\nditties whenever she worked apart from the rest of the girls in this\ncold dry time; the tears running down her cheeks all the while at the\nthought that perhaps he would not, after all, come to hear her, and\nthe simple silly words of the songs resounding in painful mockery of\nthe aching heart of the singer.\n\nTess was so wrapt up in this fanciful dream that she seemed not to\nknow how the season was advancing; that the days had lengthened, that\nLady-Day was at hand, and would soon be followed by Old Lady-Day, the\nend of her term here.\n\nBut before the quarter-day had quite come, something happened which\nmade Tess think of far different matters.  She was at her lodging as\nusual one evening, sitting in the downstairs room with the rest of\nthe family, when somebody knocked at the door and inquired for Tess.\nThrough the doorway she saw against the declining light a figure\nwith the height of a woman and the breadth of a child, a tall, thin,\ngirlish creature whom she did not recognize in the twilight till the\ngirl said \"Tess!\"\n\n\"What--is it 'Liza-Lu?\" asked Tess, in startled accents.  Her sister,\nwhom a little over a year ago she had left at home as a child, had\nsprung up by a sudden shoot to a form of this presentation, of which\nas yet Lu seemed herself scarce able to understand the meaning.\nHer thin legs, visible below her once-long frock, now short by her\ngrowing, and her uncomfortable hands and arms revealed her youth and\ninexperience.\n\n\"Yes, I have been traipsing about all day, Tess,\" said Lu, with\nunemotional gravity, \"a-trying to find 'ee; and I'm very tired.\"\n\n\"What is the matter at home?\"\n\n\"Mother is took very bad, and the doctor says she's dying, and as\nfather is not very well neither, and says 'tis wrong for a man of\nsuch a high family as his to slave and drave at common labouring\nwork, we don't know what to do.\"\n\nTess stood in reverie a long time before she thought of asking\n'Liza-Lu to come in and sit down.  When she had done so, and 'Liza-Lu\nwas having some tea, she came to a decision.  It was imperative that\nshe should go home.  Her agreement did not end till Old Lady-Day, the\nsixth of April, but as the interval thereto was not a long one she\nresolved to run the risk of starting at once.\n\nTo go that night would be a gain of twelve-hours; but her sister\nwas too tired to undertake such a distance till the morrow.  Tess\nran down to where Marian and Izz lived, informed them of what had\nhappened, and begged them to make the best of her case to the farmer.\nReturning, she got Lu a supper, and after that, having tucked the\nyounger into her own bed, packed up as many of her belongings as\nwould go into a withy basket, and started, directing Lu to follow\nher next morning.\n\n\n\nL\n\n\nShe plunged into the chilly equinoctial darkness as the clock struck\nten, for her fifteen miles' walk under the steely stars.  In lonely\ndistricts night is a protection rather than a danger to a noiseless\npedestrian, and knowing this, Tess pursued the nearest course along\nby-lanes that she would almost have feared in the day-time; but\nmarauders were wanting now, and spectral fears were driven out of\nher mind by thoughts of her mother.  Thus she proceeded mile after\nmile, ascending and descending till she came to Bulbarrow, and about\nmidnight looked from that height into the abyss of chaotic shade\nwhich was all that revealed itself of the vale on whose further side\nshe was born.  Having already traversed about five miles on the\nupland, she had now some ten or eleven in the lowland before her\njourney would be finished.  The winding road downwards became just\nvisible to her under the wan starlight as she followed it, and\nsoon she paced a soil so contrasting with that above it that the\ndifference was perceptible to the tread and to the smell.  It was the\nheavy clay land of Blackmoor Vale, and a part of the Vale to which\nturnpike-roads had never penetrated.  Superstitions linger longest on\nthese heavy soils.  Having once been forest, at this shadowy time it\nseemed to assert something of its old character, the far and the near\nbeing blended, and every tree and tall hedge making the most of its\npresence.  The harts that had been hunted here, the witches that had\nbeen pricked and ducked, the green-spangled fairies that \"whickered\"\nat you as you passed;--the place teemed with beliefs in them still,\nand they formed an impish multitude now.\n\nAt Nuttlebury she passed the village inn, whose sign creaked in\nresponse to the greeting of her footsteps, which not a human soul\nheard but herself.  Under the thatched roofs her mind's eye beheld\nrelaxed tendons and flaccid muscles, spread out in the darkness\nbeneath coverlets made of little purple patchwork squares, and\nundergoing a bracing process at the hands of sleep for renewed labour\non the morrow, as soon as a hint of pink nebulosity appeared on\nHambledon Hill.\n\nAt three she turned the last corner of the maze of lanes she had\nthreaded, and entered Marlott, passing the field in which as a\nclub-girl she had first seen Angel Clare, when he had not danced\nwith her; the sense of disappointment remained with her yet.  In the\ndirection of her mother's house she saw a light.  It came from the\nbedroom window, and a branch waved in front of it and made it wink at\nher.  As soon as she could discern the outline of the house--newly\nthatched with her money--it had all its old effect upon Tess's\nimagination.  Part of her body and life it ever seemed to be; the\nslope of its dormers, the finish of its gables, the broken courses of\nbrick which topped the chimney, all had something in common with her\npersonal character.  A stupefaction had come into these features, to\nher regard; it meant the illness of her mother.\n\nShe opened the door so softly as to disturb nobody; the lower room\nwas vacant, but the neighbour who was sitting up with her mother came\nto the top of the stairs, and whispered that Mrs Durbeyfield was no\nbetter, though she was sleeping just then.  Tess prepared herself a\nbreakfast, and then took her place as nurse in her mother's chamber.\n\nIn the morning, when she contemplated the children, they had all a\ncuriously elongated look; although she had been away little more than\na year, their growth was astounding; and the necessity of applying\nherself heart and soul to their needs took her out of her own cares.\n\nHer father's ill-health was the same indefinite kind, and he sat in\nhis chair as usual.  But the day after her arrival he was unusually\nbright.  He had a rational scheme for living, and Tess asked him what\nit was.\n\n\"I'm thinking of sending round to all the old antiqueerians in this\npart of England,\" he said, \"asking them to subscribe to a fund to\nmaintain me.  I'm sure they'd see it as a romantical, artistical,\nand proper thing to do.  They spend lots o' money in keeping up old\nruins, and finding the bones o' things, and such like; and living\nremains must be more interesting to 'em still, if they only knowed\nof me.  Would that somebody would go round and tell 'em what there\nis living among 'em, and they thinking nothing of him!  If Pa'son\nTringham, who discovered me, had lived, he'd ha' done it, I'm sure.\"\n\nTess postponed her arguments on this high project till she had\ngrappled with pressing matters in hand, which seemed little improved\nby her remittances.  When indoor necessities had been eased, she\nturned her attention to external things.  It was now the season for\nplanting and sowing; many gardens and allotments of the villagers\nhad already received their spring tillage; but the garden and the\nallotment of the Durbeyfields were behindhand.  She found, to her\ndismay, that this was owing to their having eaten all the seed\npotatoes,--that last lapse of the improvident.  At the earliest\nmoment she obtained what others she could procure, and in a few\ndays her father was well enough to see to the garden, under Tess's\npersuasive efforts: while she herself undertook the allotment-plot\nwhich they rented in a field a couple of hundred yards out of the\nvillage.\n\nShe liked doing it after the confinement of the sick chamber, where\nshe was not now required by reason of her mother's improvement.\nViolent motion relieved thought.  The plot of ground was in a high,\ndry, open enclosure, where there were forty or fifty such pieces,\nand where labour was at its briskest when the hired labour of the\nday had ended.  Digging began usually at six o'clock and extended\nindefinitely into the dusk or moonlight.  Just now heaps of dead\nweeds and refuse were burning on many of the plots, the dry weather\nfavouring their combustion.\n\nOne fine day Tess and 'Liza-Lu worked on here with their neighbours\ntill the last rays of the sun smote flat upon the white pegs that\ndivided the plots.  As soon as twilight succeeded to sunset the flare\nof the couch-grass and cabbage-stalk fires began to light up the\nallotments fitfully, their outlines appearing and disappearing under\nthe dense smoke as wafted by the wind.  When a fire glowed, banks\nof smoke, blown level along the ground, would themselves become\nilluminated to an opaque lustre, screening the workpeople from one\nanother; and the meaning of the \"pillar of a cloud\", which was a wall\nby day and a light by night, could be understood.\n\nAs evening thickened, some of the gardening men and women gave over\nfor the night, but the greater number remained to get their planting\ndone, Tess being among them, though she sent her sister home.  It was\non one of the couch-burning plots that she laboured with her fork,\nits four shining prongs resounding against the stones and dry clods\nin little clicks.  Sometimes she was completely involved in the smoke\nof her fire; then it would leave her figure free, irradiated by the\nbrassy glare from the heap.  She was oddly dressed to-night, and\npresented a somewhat staring aspect, her attire being a gown bleached\nby many washings, with a short black jacket over it, the effect of\nthe whole being that of a wedding and funeral guest in one.  The\nwomen further back wore white aprons, which, with their pale faces,\nwere all that could be seen of them in the gloom, except when at\nmoments they caught a flash from the flames.\n\nWestward, the wiry boughs of the bare thorn hedge which formed the\nboundary of the field rose against the pale opalescence of the lower\nsky.  Above, Jupiter hung like a full-blown jonquil, so bright\nas almost to throw a shade.  A few small nondescript stars were\nappearing elsewhere.  In the distance a dog barked, and wheels\noccasionally rattled along the dry road.\n\nStill the prongs continued to click assiduously, for it was not late;\nand though the air was fresh and keen there was a whisper of spring\nin it that cheered the workers on.  Something in the place, the\nhours, the crackling fires, the fantastic mysteries of light and\nshade, made others as well as Tess enjoy being there. Nightfall,\nwhich in the frost of winter comes as a fiend and in the warmth of\nsummer as a lover, came as a tranquillizer on this March day.\n\nNobody looked at his or her companions.  The eyes of all were on the\nsoil as its turned surface was revealed by the fires.  Hence as Tess\nstirred the clods and sang her foolish little songs with scarce\nnow a hope that Clare would ever hear them, she did not for a long\ntime notice the person who worked nearest to her--a man in a long\nsmockfrock who, she found, was forking the same plot as herself, and\nwhom she supposed her father had sent there to advance the work.\nShe became more conscious of him when the direction of his digging\nbrought him closer.  Sometimes the smoke divided them; then it\nswerved, and the two were visible to each other but divided from all\nthe rest.\n\nTess did not speak to her fellow-worker, nor did he speak to her.\nNor did she think of him further than to recollect that he had not\nbeen there when it was broad daylight, and that she did not know\nhim as any one of the Marlott labourers, which was no wonder, her\nabsences having been so long and frequent of late years.  By-and-by\nhe dug so close to her that the fire-beams were reflected as\ndistinctly from the steel prongs of his fork as from her own.  On\ngoing up to the fire to throw a pitch of dead weeds upon it, she\nfound that he did the same on the other side. The fire flared up,\nand she beheld the face of d'Urberville.\n\nThe unexpectedness of his presence, the grotesqueness of his\nappearance in a gathered smockfrock, such as was now worn only by the\nmost old-fashioned of the labourers, had a ghastly comicality that\nchilled her as to its bearing.  D'Urberville emitted a low, long\nlaugh.\n\n\"If I were inclined to joke, I should say, How much this seems like\nParadise!\" he remarked whimsically, looking at her with an inclined\nhead.\n\n\"What do you say?\" she weakly asked.\n\n\"A jester might say this is just like Paradise.  You are Eve, and I\nam the old Other One come to tempt you in the disguise of an inferior\nanimal.  I used to be quite up in that scene of Milton's when I was\ntheological.  Some of it goes--\n\n\n   \"'Empress, the way is ready, and not long,\n   Beyond a row of myrtles...\n   ... If thou accept\n   My conduct, I can bring thee thither soon.'\n   'Lead then,' said Eve.\n\n\n\"And so on.  My dear Tess, I am only putting this to you as a thing\nthat you might have supposed or said quite untruly, because you think\nso badly of me.\"\n\n\"I never said you were Satan, or thought it.  I don't think of you in\nthat way at all.  My thoughts of you are quite cold, except when you\naffront me.  What, did you come digging here entirely because of me?\"\n\n\"Entirely.  To see you; nothing more.  The smockfrock, which I\nsaw hanging for sale as I came along, was an afterthought, that I\nmightn't be noticed.  I come to protest against your working like\nthis.\"\n\n\"But I like doing it--it is for my father.\"\n\n\"Your engagement at the other place is ended?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Where are you going to next?  To join your dear husband?\"\n\nShe could not bear the humiliating reminder.\n\n\"O--I don't know!\" she said bitterly.  \"I have no husband!\"\n\n\"It is quite true--in the sense you mean.  But you have a friend, and\nI have determined that you shall be comfortable in spite of yourself.\nWhen you get down to your house you will see what I have sent there\nfor you.\"\n\n\"O, Alec, I wish you wouldn't give me anything at all!  I cannot take\nit from you!  I don't like--it is not right!\"\n\n\"It IS right!\" he cried lightly.  \"I am not going to see a woman whom\nI feel so tenderly for as I do for you in trouble without trying to\nhelp her.\"\n\n\"But I am very well off!  I am only in trouble about--about--not\nabout living at all!\"\n\nShe turned, and desperately resumed her digging, tears dripping upon\nthe fork-handle and upon the clods.\n\n\"About the children--your brothers and sisters,\" he resumed. \"I've\nbeen thinking of them.\"\n\nTess's heart quivered--he was touching her in a weak place.  He had\ndivined her chief anxiety.  Since returning home her soul had gone\nout to those children with an affection that was passionate.\n\n\"If your mother does not recover, somebody ought to do something for\nthem; since your father will not be able to do much, I suppose?\"\n\n\"He can with my assistance.  He must!\"\n\n\"And with mine.\"\n\n\"No, sir!\"\n\n\"How damned foolish this is!\" burst out d'Urberville.  \"Why, he\nthinks we are the same family; and will be quite satisfied!\"\n\n\"He don't.  I've undeceived him.\"\n\n\"The more fool you!\"\n\nD'Urberville in anger retreated from her to the hedge, where he\npulled off the long smockfrock which had disguised him; and rolling\nit up and pushing it into the couch-fire, went away.\n\nTess could not get on with her digging after this; she felt restless;\nshe wondered if he had gone back to her father's house; and taking\nthe fork in her hand proceeded homewards.\n\nSome twenty yards from the house she was met by one of her sisters.\n\n\"O, Tessy--what do you think!  'Liza-Lu is a-crying, and there's a\nlot of folk in the house, and mother is a good deal better, but they\nthink father is dead!\"\n\nThe child realized the grandeur of the news; but not as yet its\nsadness, and stood looking at Tess with round-eyed importance till,\nbeholding the effect produced upon her, she said--\n\n\"What, Tess, shan't we talk to father never no more?\"\n\n\"But father was only a little bit ill!\" exclaimed Tess distractedly.\n\n'Liza-Lu came up.\n\n\"He dropped down just now, and the doctor who was there for mother\nsaid there was no chance for him, because his heart was growed in.\"\n\nYes; the Durbeyfield couple had changed places; the dying one was\nout of danger, and the indisposed one was dead.  The news meant even\nmore than it sounded.  Her father's life had a value apart from his\npersonal achievements, or perhaps it would not have had much. It\nwas the last of the three lives for whose duration the house and\npremises were held under a lease; and it had long been coveted by the\ntenant-farmer for his regular labourers, who were stinted in cottage\naccommodation.  Moreover, \"liviers\" were disapproved of in villages\nalmost as much as little freeholders, because of their independence\nof manner, and when a lease determined it was never renewed.\n\nThus the Durbeyfields, once d'Urbervilles, saw descending upon them\nthe destiny which, no doubt, when they were among the Olympians of\nthe county, they had caused to descend many a time, and severely\nenough, upon the heads of such landless ones as they themselves were\nnow.  So do flux and reflux--the rhythm of change--alternate and\npersist in everything under the sky.\n\n\n\nLI\n\n\nAt length it was the eve of Old Lady-Day, and the agricultural world\nwas in a fever of mobility such as only occurs at that particular\ndate of the year.  It is a day of fulfilment; agreements for outdoor\nservice during the ensuing year, entered into at Candlemas, are to\nbe now carried out.  The labourers--or \"work-folk\", as they used to\ncall themselves immemorially till the other word was introduced from\nwithout--who wish to remain no longer in old places are removing to\nthe new farms.\n\nThese annual migrations from farm to farm were on the increase here.\nWhen Tess's mother was a child the majority of the field-folk about\nMarlott had remained all their lives on one farm, which had been the\nhome also of their fathers and grandfathers; but latterly the desire\nfor yearly removal had risen to a high pitch.  With the younger\nfamilies it was a pleasant excitement which might possibly be an\nadvantage.  The Egypt of one family was the Land of Promise to the\nfamily who saw it from a distance, till by residence there it became\nit turn their Egypt also; and so they changed and changed.\n\nHowever, all the mutations so increasingly discernible in village\nlife did not originate entirely in the agricultural unrest.  A\ndepopulation was also going on.  The village had formerly contained,\nside by side with the argicultural labourers, an interesting and\nbetter-informed class, ranking distinctly above the former--the class\nto which Tess's father and mother had belonged--and including the\ncarpenter, the smith, the shoemaker, the huckster, together with\nnondescript workers other than farm-labourers; a set of people\nwho owed a certain stability of aim and conduct to the fact of\ntheir being lifeholders like Tess's father, or copyholders, or\noccasionally, small freeholders.  But as the long holdings fell\nin, they were seldom again let to similar tenants, and were mostly\npulled down, if not absolutely required by the farmer for his hands.\nCottagers who were not directly employed on the land were looked\nupon with disfavour, and the banishment of some starved the trade of\nothers, who were thus obliged to follow.  These families, who had\nformed the backbone of the village life in the past, who were the\ndepositaries of the village traditions, had to seek refuge in the\nlarge centres; the process, humorously designated by statisticians as\n\"the tendency of the rural population towards the large towns\", being\nreally the tendency of water to flow uphill when forced by machinery.\n\nThe cottage accommodation at Marlott having been in this manner\nconsiderably curtailed by demolitions, every house which remained\nstanding was required by the agriculturist for his work-people.  Ever\nsince the occurrence of the event which had cast such a shadow over\nTess's life, the Durbeyfield family (whose descent was not credited)\nhad been tacitly looked on as one which would have to go when their\nlease ended, if only in the interests of morality.  It was, indeed,\nquite true that the household had not been shining examples either of\ntemperance, soberness, or chastity.  The father, and even the mother,\nhad got drunk at times, the younger children seldom had gone to\nchurch, and the eldest daughter had made queer unions.  By some means\nthe village had to be kept pure.  So on this, the first Lady-Day\non which the Durbeyfields were expellable, the house, being roomy,\nwas required for a carter with a large family; and Widow Joan,\nher daughters Tess and 'Liza-Lu, the boy Abraham, and the younger\nchildren had to go elsewhere.\n\nOn the evening preceding their removal it was getting dark betimes by\nreason of a drizzling rain which blurred the sky.  As it was the last\nnight they would spend in the village which had been their home and\nbirthplace, Mrs Durbeyfield, 'Liza-Lu, and Abraham had gone out to\nbid some friends goodbye, and Tess was keeping house till they should\nreturn.\n\nShe was kneeling in the window-bench, her face close to the casement,\nwhere an outer pane of rain-water was sliding down the inner pane of\nglass.  Her eyes rested on the web of a spider, probably starved long\nago, which had been mistakenly placed in a corner where no flies\never came, and shivered in the slight draught through the casement.\nTess was reflecting on the position of the household, in which she\nperceived her own evil influence.  Had she not come home, her mother\nand the children might probably have been allowed to stay on as\nweekly tenants.  But she had been observed almost immediately on her\nreturn by some people of scrupulous character and great influence:\nthey had seen her idling in the churchyard, restoring as well as she\ncould with a little trowel a baby's obliterated grave.  By this means\nthey had found that she was living here again; her mother was scolded\nfor \"harbouring\" her; sharp retorts had ensued from Joan, who had\nindependently offered to leave at once; she had been taken at her\nword; and here was the result.\n\n\"I ought never to have come home,\" said Tess to herself, bitterly.\n\nShe was so intent upon these thoughts that she hardly at first took\nnote of a man in a white mackintosh whom she saw riding down the\nstreet.  Possibly it was owing to her face being near to the pane\nthat he saw her so quickly, and directed his horse so close to the\ncottage-front that his hoofs were almost upon the narrow border for\nplants growing under the wall.  It was not till he touched the window\nwith his riding-crop that she observed him.  The rain had nearly\nceased, and she opened the casement in obedience to his gesture.\n\n\"Didn't you see me?\" asked d'Urberville.\n\n\"I was not attending,\" she said.  \"I heard you, I believe, though I\nfancied it was a carriage and horses. I was in a sort of dream.\"\n\n\"Ah! you heard the d'Urberville Coach, perhaps.  You know the legend,\nI suppose?\"\n\n\"No.  My--somebody was going to tell it me once, but didn't.\"\n\n\"If you are a genuine d'Urberville I ought not to tell you either,\nI suppose.  As for me, I'm a sham one, so it doesn't matter.  It is\nrather dismal.  It is that this sound of a non-existent coach can\nonly be heard by one of d'Urberville blood, and it is held to be\nof ill-omen to the one who hears it.  It has to do with a murder,\ncommitted by one of the family, centuries ago.\"\n\n\"Now you have begun it, finish it.\"\n\n\"Very well.  One of the family is said to have abducted some\nbeautiful woman, who tried to escape from the coach in which he was\ncarrying her off, and in the struggle he killed her--or she killed\nhim--I forget which.  Such is one version of the tale...  I see that\nyour tubs and buckets are packed.  Going away, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, to-morrow--Old Lady Day.\"\n\n\"I heard you were, but could hardly believe it; it seems so sudden.\nWhy is it?\"\n\n\"Father's was the last life on the property, and when that dropped we\nhad no further right to stay.  Though we might, perhaps, have stayed\nas weekly tenants--if it had not been for me.\"\n\n\"What about you?\"\n\n\"I am not a--proper woman.\"\n\nD'Urberville's face flushed.\n\n\"What a blasted shame!  Miserable snobs!  May their dirty souls\nbe burnt to cinders!\" he exclaimed in tones of ironic resentment.\n\"That's why you are going, is it?  Turned out?\"\n\n\"We are not turned out exactly; but as they said we should have to go\nsoon, it was best to go now everybody was moving, because there are\nbetter chances.\"\n\n\"Where are you going to?\"\n\n\"Kingsbere.  We have taken rooms there.  Mother is so foolish about\nfather's people that she will go there.\"\n\n\"But your mother's family are not fit for lodgings, and in a little\nhole of a town like that.  Now why not come to my garden-house at\nTrantridge?  There are hardly any poultry now, since my mother's\ndeath; but there's the house, as you know it, and the garden.  It\ncan be whitewashed in a day, and your mother can live there quite\ncomfortably; and I will put the children to a good school.  Really\nI ought to do something for you!\"\n\n\"But we have already taken the rooms at Kingsbere!\" she declared.\n\"And we can wait there--\"\n\n\"Wait--what for?  For that nice husband, no doubt.  Now look here,\nTess, I know what men are, and, bearing in mind the _grounds_ of\nyour separation, I am quite positive he will never make it up with\nyou.  Now, though I have been your enemy, I am your friend, even\nif you won't believe it.  Come to this cottage of mine. We'll get\nup a regular colony of fowls, and your mother can attend to them\nexcellently; and the children can go to school.\"\n\nTess breathed more and more quickly, and at length she said--\n\n\"How do I know that you would do all this?  Your views may\nchange--and then--we should be--my mother would be--homeless\nagain.\"\n\n\"O no--no.  I would guarantee you against such as that in writing, if\nnecessary.  Think it over.\"\n\nTess shook her head.  But d'Urberville persisted; she had seldom seen\nhim so determined; he would not take a negative.\n\n\"Please just tell your mother,\" he said, in emphatic tones.  \"It is\nher business to judge--not yours.  I shall get the house swept out\nand whitened to-morrow morning, and fires lit; and it will be dry by\nthe evening, so that you can come straight there.  Now mind, I shall\nexpect you.\"\n\nTess again shook her head, her throat swelling with complicated\nemotion.  She could not look up at d'Urberville.\n\n\"I owe you something for the past, you know,\" he resumed.  \"And you\ncured me, too, of that craze; so I am glad--\"\n\n\"I would rather you had kept the craze, so that you had kept the\npractice which went with it!\"\n\n\"I am glad of this opportunity of repaying you a little.  To-morrow I\nshall expect to hear your mother's goods unloading...  Give me your\nhand on it now--dear, beautiful Tess!\"\n\nWith the last sentence he had dropped his voice to a murmur, and put\nhis hand in at the half-open casement.  With stormy eyes she pulled\nthe stay-bar quickly, and, in doing so, caught his arm between the\ncasement and the stone mullion.\n\n\"Damnation--you are very cruel!\" he said, snatching out his arm.\n\"No, no!--I know you didn't do it on purpose.  Well I shall expect\nyou, or your mother and children at least.\"\n\n\"I shall not come--I have plenty of money!\" she cried.\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"At my father-in-law's, if I ask for it.\"\n\n\"IF you ask for it.  But you won't, Tess; I know you; you'll never\nask for it--you'll starve first!\"\n\nWith these words he rode off.  Just at the corner of the street he\nmet the man with the paint-pot, who asked him if he had deserted the\nbrethren.\n\n\"You go to the devil!\" said d'Urberville.\n\nTess remained where she was a long while, till a sudden rebellious\nsense of injustice caused the region of her eyes to swell with the\nrush of hot tears thither.  Her husband, Angel Clare himself, had,\nlike others, dealt out hard measure to her; surely he had!  She had\nnever before admitted such a thought; but he had surely!  Never\nin her life--she could swear it from the bottom of her soul--had\nshe ever intended to do wrong; yet these hard judgements had\ncome.  Whatever her sins, they were not sins of intention, but of\ninadvertence, and why should she have been punished so persistently?\n\nShe passionately seized the first piece of paper that came to hand,\nand scribbled the following lines:\n\n\n   O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do\n   not deserve it.  I have thought it all over carefully,\n   and I can never, never forgive you!  You know that I\n   did not intend to wrong you--why have you so wronged\n   me?  You are cruel, cruel indeed!  I will try to forget\n   you.  It is all injustice I have received at your\n   hands!\n                                  T.\n\nShe watched till the postman passed by, ran out to him with\nher epistle, and then again took her listless place inside the\nwindow-panes.\n\nIt was just as well to write like that as to write tenderly.  How\ncould he give way to entreaty?  The facts had not changed: there was\nno new event to alter his opinion.\n\nIt grew darker, the fire-light shining over the room.  The two\nbiggest of the younger children had gone out with their mother; the\nfour smallest, their ages ranging from three-and-a-half years to\neleven, all in black frocks, were gathered round the hearth babbling\ntheir own little subjects.  Tess at length joined them, without\nlighting a candle.\n\n\"This is the last night that we shall sleep here, dears, in the house\nwhere we were born,\" she said quickly.  \"We ought to think of it,\noughtn't we?\"\n\nThey all became silent; with the impressibility of their age they\nwere ready to burst into tears at the picture of finality she had\nconjured up, though all the day hitherto they had been rejoicing in\nthe idea of a new place.  Tess changed the subject.\n\n\"Sing to me, dears,\" she said.\n\n\"What shall we sing?\"\n\n\"Anything you know; I don't mind.\"\n\nThere was a momentary pause; it was broken, first, in one little\ntentative note; then a second voice strengthened it, and a third\nand a fourth chimed in unison, with words they had learnt at the\nSunday-school--\n\n\n     Here we suffer grief and pain,\n     Here we meet to part again;\n       In Heaven we part no more.\n\n\nThe four sang on with the phlegmatic passivity of persons who had\nlong ago settled the question, and there being no mistake about it,\nfelt that further thought was not required.  With features strained\nhard to enunciate the syllables they continued to regard the centre\nof the flickering fire, the notes of the youngest straying over into\nthe pauses of the rest.\n\nTess turned from them, and went to the window again.  Darkness had\nnow fallen without, but she put her face to the pane as though to\npeer into the gloom.  It was really to hide her tears.  If she could\nonly believe what the children were singing; if she were only sure,\nhow different all would now be; how confidently she would leave them\nto Providence and their future kingdom!  But, in default of that, it\nbehoved her to do something; to be their Providence; for to Tess,\nas to not a few millions of others, there was ghastly satire in the\npoet's lines--\n\n\n                      Not in utter nakedness\n     But trailing clouds of glory do we come.\n\n\nTo her and her like, birth itself was an ordeal of degrading personal\ncompulsion, whose gratuitousness nothing in the result seemed to\njustify, and at best could only palliate.\n\nIn the shades of the wet road she soon discerned her mother with tall\n'Liza-Lu and Abraham.  Mrs Durbeyfield's pattens clicked up to the\ndoor, and Tess opened it.\n\n\"I see the tracks of a horse outside the window,\" said Joan.  \"Hev\nsomebody called?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Tess.\n\nThe children by the fire looked gravely at her, and one murmured--\n\n\"Why, Tess, the gentleman a-horseback!\"\n\n\"He didn't call,\" said Tess.  \"He spoke to me in passing.\"\n\n\"Who was the gentleman?\" asked the mother.  \"Your husband?\"\n\n\"No.  He'll never, never come,\" answered Tess in stony hopelessness.\n\n\"Then who was it?\"\n\n\"Oh, you needn't ask.  You've seen him before, and so have I.\"\n\n\"Ah!  What did he say?\" said Joan curiously.\n\n\"I will tell you when we are settled in our lodging at Kingsbere\nto-morrow--every word.\"\n\nIt was not her husband, she had said.  Yet a consciousness that in a\nphysical sense this man alone was her husband seemed to weigh on her\nmore and more.\n\n\n\nLII\n\n\nDuring the small hours of the next morning, while it was still dark,\ndwellers near the highways were conscious of a disturbance of their\nnight's rest by rumbling noises, intermittently continuing till\ndaylight--noises as certain to recur in this particular first week of\nthe month as the voice of the cuckoo in the third week of the same.\nThey were the preliminaries of the general removal, the passing of\nthe empty waggons and teams to fetch the goods of the migrating\nfamilies; for it was always by the vehicle of the farmer who required\nhis services that the hired man was conveyed to his destination.\nThat this might be accomplished within the day was the explanation\nof the reverberation occurring so soon after midnight, the aim of\nthe carters being to reach the door of the outgoing households by\nsix o'clock, when the loading of their movables at once began.\n\nBut to Tess and her mother's household no such anxious farmer sent\nhis team.  They were only women; they were not regular labourers;\nthey were not particularly required anywhere; hence they had to hire\na waggon at their own expense, and got nothing sent gratuitously.\n\nIt was a relief to Tess, when she looked out of the window that\nmorning, to find that though the weather was windy and louring, it\ndid not rain, and that the waggon had come.  A wet Lady-Day was a\nspectre which removing families never forgot; damp furniture, damp\nbedding, damp clothing accompanied it, and left a train of ills.\n\nHer mother, 'Liza-Lu, and Abraham were also awake, but the younger\nchildren were let sleep on.  The four breakfasted by the thin light,\nand the \"house-ridding\" was taken in hand.\n\nIt proceeded with some cheerfulness, a friendly neighbour or two\nassisting.  When the large articles of furniture had been packed in\nposition, a circular nest was made of the beds and bedding, in which\nJoan Durbeyfield and the young children were to sit through the\njourney.  After loading there was a long delay before the horses were\nbrought, these having been unharnessed during the ridding; but at\nlength, about two o'clock, the whole was under way, the cooking-pot\nswinging from the axle of the waggon, Mrs Durbeyfield and family\nat the top, the matron having in her lap, to prevent injury to its\nworks, the head of the clock, which, at any exceptional lurch of the\nwaggon, struck one, or one-and-a-half, in hurt tones.  Tess and the\nnext eldest girl walked alongside till they were out of the village.\n\nThey had called on a few neighbours that morning and the previous\nevening, and some came to see them off, all wishing them well,\nthough, in their secret hearts, hardly expecting welfare possible\nto such a family, harmless as the Durbeyfields were to all except\nthemselves.  Soon the equipage began to ascend to higher ground,\nand the wind grew keener with the change of level and soil.\n\nThe day being the sixth of April, the Durbeyfield waggon met many\nother waggons with families on the summit of the load, which was\nbuilt on a wellnigh unvarying principle, as peculiar, probably, to\nthe rural labourer as the hexagon to the bee.  The groundwork of the\narrangement was the family dresser, which, with its shining handles,\nand finger-marks, and domestic evidences thick upon it, stood\nimportantly in front, over the tails of the shaft-horses, in its\nerect and natural position, like some Ark of the Covenant that they\nwere bound to carry reverently.\n\nSome of the households were lively, some mournful; some were stopping\nat the doors of wayside inns; where, in due time, the Durbeyfield\nmenagerie also drew up to bait horses and refresh the travellers.\n\nDuring the halt Tess's eyes fell upon a three-pint blue mug, which\nwas ascending and descending through the air to and from the feminine\nsection of a household, sitting on the summit of a load that had also\ndrawn up at a little distance from the same inn.  She followed one of\nthe mug's journeys upward, and perceived it to be clasped by hands\nwhose owner she well knew.  Tess went towards the waggon.\n\n\"Marian and Izz!\" she cried to the girls, for it was they, sitting\nwith the moving family at whose house they had lodged.  \"Are you\nhouse-ridding to-day, like everybody else?\"\n\nThey were, they said.  It had been too rough a life for them at\nFlintcomb-Ash, and they had come away, almost without notice,\nleaving Groby to prosecute them if he chose.  They told Tess their\ndestination, and Tess told them hers.\n\nMarian leant over the load, and lowered her voice.  \"Do you know that\nthe gentleman who follows 'ee--you'll guess who I mean--came to ask\nfor 'ee at Flintcomb after you had gone?  We didn't tell'n where you\nwas, knowing you wouldn't wish to see him.\"\n\n\"Ah--but I did see him!\" Tess murmured.  \"He found me.\"\n\n\"And do he know where you be going?\"\n\n\"I think so.\"\n\n\"Husband come back?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nShe bade her acquaintance goodbye--for the respective carters had now\ncome out from the inn--and the two waggons resumed their journey in\nopposite directions; the vehicle whereon sat Marian, Izz, and the\nploughman's family with whom they had thrown in their lot, being\nbrightly painted, and drawn by three powerful horses with shining\nbrass ornaments on their harness; while the waggon on which Mrs\nDurbeyfield and her family rode was a creaking erection that would\nscarcely bear the weight of the superincumbent load; one which had\nknown no paint since it was made, and drawn by two horses only.\nThe contrast well marked the difference between being fetched by a\nthriving farmer and conveying oneself whither no hirer waited one's\ncoming.\n\nThe distance was great--too great for a day's journey--and it was\nwith the utmost difficulty that the horses performed it.  Though they\nhad started so early, it was quite late in the afternoon when they\nturned the flank of an eminence which formed part of the upland\ncalled Greenhill.  While the horses stood to stale and breathe\nthemselves Tess looked around.  Under the hill, and just ahead of\nthem, was the half-dead townlet of their pilgrimage, Kingsbere,\nwhere lay those ancestors of whom her father had spoken and sung to\npainfulness: Kingsbere, the spot of all spots in the world which\ncould be considered the d'Urbervilles' home, since they had resided\nthere for full five hundred years.\n\nA man could be seen advancing from the outskirts towards them, and\nwhen he beheld the nature of their waggon-load he quickened his\nsteps.\n\n\"You be the woman they call Mrs Durbeyfield, I reckon?\" he said to\nTess's mother, who had descended to walk the remainder of the way.\n\nShe nodded.  \"Though widow of the late Sir John d'Urberville, poor\nnobleman, if I cared for my rights; and returning to the domain of\nhis forefathers.\"\n\n\"Oh?  Well, I know nothing about that; but if you be Mrs Durbeyfield,\nI am sent to tell 'ee that the rooms you wanted be let.  We didn't\nknow that you was coming till we got your letter this morning--when\n'twas too late.  But no doubt you can get other lodgings somewhere.\"\n\nThe man had noticed the face of Tess, which had become ash-pale at\nhis intelligence.  Her mother looked hopelessly at fault.  \"What\nshall we do now, Tess?\" she said bitterly.  \"Here's a welcome to\nyour ancestors' lands!  However, let's try further.\"\n\nThey moved on into the town, and tried with all their might, Tess\nremaining with the waggon to take care of the children whilst her\nmother and 'Liza-Lu made inquiries.  At the last return of Joan to\nthe vehicle, an hour later, when her search for accommodation had\nstill been fruitless, the driver of the waggon said the goods must be\nunloaded, as the horses were half-dead, and he was bound to return\npart of the way at least that night.\n\n\"Very well--unload it here,\" said Joan recklessly.  \"I'll get shelter\nsomewhere.\"\n\nThe waggon had drawn up under the churchyard wall, in a spot screened\nfrom view, and the driver, nothing loth, soon hauled down the poor\nheap of household goods.  This done, she paid him, reducing herself\nto almost her last shilling thereby, and he moved off and left them,\nonly too glad to get out of further dealings with such a family.  It\nwas a dry night, and he guessed that they would come to no harm.\n\nTess gazed desperately at the pile of furniture.  The cold sunlight\nof this spring evening peered invidiously upon the crocks and\nkettles, upon the bunches of dried herbs shivering in the breeze,\nupon the brass handles of the dresser, upon the wicker-cradle they\nhad all been rocked in, and upon the well-rubbed clock-case, all of\nwhich gave out the reproachful gleam of indoor articles abandoned to\nthe vicissitudes of a roofless exposure for which they were never\nmade.  Round about were deparked hills and slopes--now cut up\ninto little paddocks--and the green foundations that showed where\nthe d'Urberville mansion once had stood; also an outlying stretch\nof Egdon Heath that had always belonged to the estate.  Hard by,\nthe aisle of the church called the d'Urberville Aisle looked on\nimperturbably.\n\n\"Isn't your family vault your own freehold?\" said Tess's mother, as\nshe returned from a reconnoitre of the church and graveyard.  \"Why,\nof course 'tis, and that's where we will camp, girls, till the place\nof your ancestors finds us a roof!  Now, Tess and 'Liza and Abraham,\nyou help me.  We'll make a nest for these children, and then we'll\nhave another look round.\"\n\nTess listlessly lent a hand, and in a quarter of an hour the old\nfour-post bedstead was dissociated from the heap of goods, and\nerected under the south wall of the church, the part of the building\nknown as the d'Urberville Aisle, beneath which the huge vaults lay.\nOver the tester of the bedstead was a beautiful traceried window, of\nmany lights, its date being the fifteenth century.  It was called\nthe d'Urberville Window, and in the upper part could be discerned\nheraldic emblems like those on Durbeyfield's old seal and spoon.\n\nJoan drew the curtains round the bed so as to make an excellent tent\nof it, and put the smaller children inside.  \"If it comes to the\nworst we can sleep there too, for one night,\" she said.  \"But let us\ntry further on, and get something for the dears to eat!  O, Tess,\nwhat's the use of your playing at marrying gentlemen, if it leaves\nus like this!\"\n\nAccompanied by 'Liza-Lu and the boy, she again ascended the little\nlane which secluded the church from the townlet.  As soon as they got\ninto the street they beheld a man on horseback gazing up and down.\n\"Ah--I'm looking for you!\" he said, riding up to them.  \"This is\nindeed a family gathering on the historic spot!\"\n\nIt was Alec d'Urberville.  \"Where is Tess?\" he asked.\n\nPersonally Joan had no liking for Alec.  She cursorily signified the\ndirection of the church, and went on, d'Urberville saying that he\nwould see them again, in case they should be still unsuccessful in\ntheir search for shelter, of which he had just heard.  When they had\ngone, d'Urberville rode to the inn, and shortly after came out on\nfoot.\n\nIn the interim Tess, left with the children inside the bedstead,\nremained talking with them awhile, till, seeing that no more could\nbe done to make them comfortable just then, she walked about the\nchurchyard, now beginning to be embrowned by the shades of nightfall.\nThe door of the church was unfastened, and she entered it for the\nfirst time in her life.\n\nWithin the window under which the bedstead stood were the tombs of\nthe family, covering in their dates several centuries.  They were\ncanopied, altar-shaped, and plain; their carvings being defaced\nand broken; their brasses torn from the matrices, the rivet-holes\nremaining like martin-holes in a sandcliff.  Of all the reminders\nthat she had ever received that her people were socially extinct,\nthere was none so forcible as this spoliation.\n\nShe drew near to a dark stone on which was inscribed:\n\n\n   OSTIUM SEPULCHRI ANTIQUAE FAMILIAE D'URBERVILLE\n\n\nTess did not read Church-Latin like a Cardinal, but she knew that\nthis was the door of her ancestral sepulchre, and that the tall\nknights of whom her father had chanted in his cups lay inside.\n\nShe musingly turned to withdraw, passing near an altar-tomb, the\noldest of them all, on which was a recumbent figure.  In the dusk she\nhad not noticed it before, and would hardly have noticed it now but\nfor an odd fancy that the effigy moved.  As soon as she drew close\nto it she discovered all in a moment that the figure was a living\nperson; and the shock to her sense of not having been alone was so\nviolent that she was quite overcome, and sank down nigh to fainting,\nnot, however, till she had recognized Alec d'Urberville in the form.\n\nHe leapt off the slab and supported her.\n\n\"I saw you come in,\" he said smiling, \"and got up there not to\ninterrupt your meditations.  A family gathering, is it not, with\nthese old fellows under us here?  Listen.\"\n\nHe stamped with his heel heavily on the floor; whereupon there arose\na hollow echo from below.\n\n\"That shook them a bit, I'll warrant!\" he continued.  \"And you\nthought I was the mere stone reproduction of one of them.  But no.\nThe old order changeth.  The little finger of the sham d'Urberville\ncan do more for you than the whole dynasty of the real underneath...\nNow command me.  What shall I do?\"\n\n\"Go away!\" she murmured.\n\n\"I will--I'll look for your mother,\" said he blandly.  But in passing\nher he whispered: \"Mind this; you'll be civil yet!\"\n\nWhen he was gone she bent down upon the entrance to the vaults, and\nsaid--\n\n\"Why am I on the wrong side of this door!\"\n\n\nIn the meantime Marian and Izz Huett had journeyed onward with the\nchattels of the ploughman in the direction of their land of Canaan--\nthe Egypt of some other family who had left it only that morning.\nBut the girls did not for a long time think of where they were going.\nTheir talk was of Angel Clare and Tess, and Tess's persistent lover,\nwhose connection with her previous history they had partly heard and\npartly guessed ere this.\n\n\"'Tisn't as though she had never known him afore,\" said Marian.  \"His\nhaving won her once makes all the difference in the world.  'Twould\nbe a thousand pities if he were to tole her away again.  Mr Clare can\nnever be anything to us, Izz; and why should we grudge him to her,\nand not try to mend this quarrel?  If he could on'y know what straits\nshe's put to, and what's hovering round, he might come to take care\nof his own.\"\n\n\"Could we let him know?\"\n\nThey thought of this all the way to their destination; but the bustle\nof re-establishment in their new place took up all their attention\nthen.  But when they were settled, a month later, they heard of\nClare's approaching return, though they had learnt nothing more of\nTess.  Upon that, agitated anew by their attachment to him, yet\nhonourably disposed to her, Marian uncorked the penny ink-bottle they\nshared, and a few lines were concocted between the two girls.\n\n\n   HONOUR'D SIR--\n\n   Look to your Wife if you do love her as much as she do\n   love you.  For she is sore put to by an Enemy in the shape\n   of a Friend.  Sir, there is one near her who ought to be\n   Away.  A woman should not be try'd beyond her Strength,\n   and continual dropping will wear away a Stone--ay,\n   more--a Diamond.\n\n   FROM TWO WELL-WISHERS\n\n\nThis was addressed to Angel Clare at the only place they had ever\nheard him to be connected with, Emminster Vicarage; after which they\ncontinued in a mood of emotional exaltation at their own generosity,\nwhich made them sing in hysterical snatches and weep at the same\ntime.\n\n\nEND OF PHASE THE SIXTH\n\n\n\n\n\nPhase the Seventh: Fulfilment\n\n\n\nLIII\n\n\nIt was evening at Emminster Vicarage.  The two customary candles were\nburning under their green shades in the Vicar's study, but he had not\nbeen sitting there.  Occasionally he came in, stirred the small fire\nwhich sufficed for the increasing mildness of the spring, and went\nout again; sometimes pausing at the front door, going on to the\ndrawing-room, then returning again to the front door.\n\nIt faced westward, and though gloom prevailed inside, there was still\nlight enough without to see with distinctness.  Mrs Clare, who had\nbeen sitting in the drawing-room, followed him hither.\n\n\"Plenty of time yet,\" said the Vicar.  \"He doesn't reach Chalk-Newton\ntill six, even if the train should be punctual, and ten miles of\ncountry-road, five of them in Crimmercrock Lane, are not jogged over\nin a hurry by our old horse.\"\n\n\"But he has done it in an hour with us, my dear.\"\n\n\"Years ago.\"\n\nThus they passed the minutes, each well knowing that this was only\nwaste of breath, the one essential being simply to wait.\n\nAt length there was a slight noise in the lane, and the old\npony-chaise appeared indeed outside the railings.  They saw alight\ntherefrom a form which they affected to recognize, but would actually\nhave passed by in the street without identifying had he not got out\nof their carriage at the particular moment when a particular person\nwas due.\n\nMrs Clare rushed through the dark passage to the door, and her\nhusband came more slowly after her.\n\nThe new arrival, who was just about to enter, saw their anxious faces\nin the doorway and the gleam of the west in their spectacles because\nthey confronted the last rays of day; but they could only see his\nshape against the light.\n\n\"O, my boy, my boy--home again at last!\" cried Mrs Clare, who cared\nno more at that moment for the stains of heterodoxy which had caused\nall this separation than for the dust upon his clothes.  What woman,\nindeed, among the most faithful adherents of the truth, believes the\npromises and threats of the Word in the sense in which she believes\nin her own children, or would not throw her theology to the wind if\nweighed against their happiness?  As soon as they reached the room\nwhere the candles were lighted she looked at his face.\n\n\"O, it is not Angel--not my son--the Angel who went away!\" she cried\nin all the irony of sorrow, as she turned herself aside.\n\nHis father, too, was shocked to see him, so reduced was that figure\nfrom its former contours by worry and the bad season that Clare had\nexperienced, in the climate to which he had so rashly hurried in his\nfirst aversion to the mockery of events at home.  You could see the\nskeleton behind the man, and almost the ghost behind the skeleton.\nHe matched Crivelli's dead _Christus_.  His sunken eye-pits were of\nmorbid hue, and the light in his eyes had waned.  The angular hollows\nand lines of his aged ancestors had succeeded to their reign in his\nface twenty years before their time.\n\n\"I was ill over there, you know,\" he said.  \"I am all right now.\"\n\nAs if, however, to falsify this assertion, his legs seemed to give\nway, and he suddenly sat down to save himself from falling.  It was\nonly a slight attack of faintness, resulting from the tedious day's\njourney, and the excitement of arrival.\n\n\"Has any letter come for me lately?\" he asked.  \"I received the\nlast you sent on by the merest chance, and after considerable delay\nthrough being inland; or I might have come sooner.\"\n\n\"It was from your wife, we supposed?\"\n\n\"It was.\"\n\nOnly one other had recently come.  They had not sent it on to him,\nknowing he would start for home so soon.\n\nHe hastily opened the letter produced, and was much disturbed to read\nin Tess's handwriting the sentiments expressed in her last hurried\nscrawl to him.\n\n\n   O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do\n   not deserve it.  I have thought it all over carefully,\n   and I can never, never forgive you!  You know that I\n   did not intend to wrong you--why have you so wronged\n   me?  You are cruel, cruel indeed!  I will try to forget\n   you.  It is all injustice I have received at your\n   hands!\n                                  T.\n\n\"It is quite true!\" said Angel, throwing down the letter.  \"Perhaps\nshe will never be reconciled to me!\"\n\n\"Don't, Angel, be so anxious about a mere child of the soil!\" said\nhis mother.\n\n\"Child of the soil!  Well, we all are children of the soil.  I wish\nshe were so in the sense you mean; but let me now explain to you what\nI have never explained before, that her father is a descendant in the\nmale line of one of the oldest Norman houses, like a good many others\nwho lead obscure agricultural lives in our villages, and are dubbed\n'sons of the soil.'\"\n\nHe soon retired to bed; and the next morning, feeling exceedingly\nunwell, he remained in his room pondering.  The circumstances amid\nwhich he had left Tess were such that though, while on the south of\nthe Equator and just in receipt of her loving epistle, it had seemed\nthe easiest thing in the world to rush back into her arms the moment\nhe chose to forgive her, now that he had arrived it was not so easy\nas it had seemed.  She was passionate, and her present letter,\nshowing that her estimate of him had changed under his delay--too\njustly changed, he sadly owned,--made him ask himself if it would\nbe wise to confront her unannounced in the presence of her parents.\nSupposing that her love had indeed turned to dislike during the last\nweeks of separation, a sudden meeting might lead to bitter words.\n\nClare therefore thought it would be best to prepare Tess and her\nfamily by sending a line to Marlott announcing his return, and his\nhope that she was still living with them there, as he had arranged\nfor her to do when he left England.  He despatched the inquiry that\nvery day, and before the week was out there came a short reply from\nMrs Durbeyfield which did not remove his embarrassment, for it bore\nno address, though to his surprise it was not written from Marlott.\n\n\n   SIR,\n\n   J write these few lines to say that my Daughter is away\n   from me at present, and J am not sure when she will\n   return, but J will let you know as Soon as she do.\n   J do not feel at liberty to tell you Where she is\n   temperly biding.  J should say that me and my Family\n   have left Marlott for some Time.--\n\n   Yours,\n\n   J. DURBEYFIELD\n\n\nIt was such a relief to Clare to learn that Tess was at least\napparently well that her mother's stiff reticence as to her\nwhereabouts did not long distress him.  They were all angry with him,\nevidently.  He would wait till Mrs Durbeyfield could inform him of\nTess's return, which her letter implied to be soon.  He deserved no\nmore.  His had been a love \"which alters when it alteration finds\".\nHe had undergone some strange experiences in his absence; he had seen\nthe virtual Faustina in the literal Cornelia, a spiritual Lucretia in\na corporeal Phryne; he had thought of the woman taken and set in the\nmidst as one deserving to be stoned, and of the wife of Uriah being\nmade a queen; and he had asked himself why he had not judged Tess\nconstructively rather than biographically, by the will rather than\nby the deed?\n\nA day or two passed while he waited at his father's house for the\npromised second note from Joan Durbeyfield, and indirectly to recover\na little more strength.  The strength showed signs of coming back,\nbut there was no sign of Joan's letter.  Then he hunted up the\nold letter sent on to him in Brazil, which Tess had written from\nFlintcomb-Ash, and re-read it.  The sentences touched him now as\nmuch as when he had first perused them.\n\n\n   ... I must cry to you in my trouble--I have no one\n   else! ...  I think I must die if you do not come\n   soon, or tell me to come to you... please, please,\n   not to be just--only a little kind to me ...  If\n   you would come, I could die in your arms!  I would\n   be well content to do that if so be you had forgiven\n   me! ... if you will send me one little line, and say,\n   \"I am coming soon,\" I will bide on, Angel--O, so\n   cheerfully! ... think how it do hurt my heart not to\n   see you ever--ever!  Ah, if I could only make your\n   dear heart ache one little minute of each day as mine\n   does every day and all day long, it might lead you to\n   show pity to your poor lonely one. ...  I would be\n   content, ay, glad, to live with you as your servant,\n   if I may not as your wife; so that I could only be\n   near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you\n   as mine. ...  I long for only one thing in heaven\n   or earth or under the earth, to meet you, my own\n   dear!  Come to me--come to me, and save me from what\n   threatens me!\n\n\nClare determined that he would no longer believe in her more recent\nand severer regard of him, but would go and find her immediately.  He\nasked his father if she had applied for any money during his absence.\nHis father returned a negative, and then for the first time it\noccurred to Angel that her pride had stood in her way, and that she\nhad suffered privation.  From his remarks his parents now gathered\nthe real reason of the separation; and their Christianity was such\nthat, reprobates being their especial care, the tenderness towards\nTess which her blood, her simplicity, even her poverty, had not\nengendered, was instantly excited by her sin.\n\nWhilst he was hastily packing together a few articles for his journey\nhe glanced over a poor plain missive also lately come to hand--the\none from Marian and Izz Huett, beginning--\n\n\"Honour'd Sir, Look to your Wife if you do love her as much as she do\nlove you,\" and signed, \"From Two Well-Wishers.\"\n\n\n\nLIV\n\n\nIn a quarter of an hour Clare was leaving the house, whence his\nmother watched his thin figure as it disappeared into the street.\nHe had declined to borrow his father's old mare, well knowing of\nits necessity to the household.  He went to the inn, where he hired\na trap, and could hardly wait during the harnessing.  In a very few\nminutes after, he was driving up the hill out of the town which,\nthree or four months earlier in the year, Tess had descended with\nsuch hopes and ascended with such shattered purposes.\n\nBenvill Lane soon stretched before him, its hedges and trees purple\nwith buds; but he was looking at other things, and only recalled\nhimself to the scene sufficiently to enable him to keep the way.  In\nsomething less than an hour-and-a-half he had skirted the south of\nthe King's Hintock estates and ascended to the untoward solitude of\nCross-in-Hand, the unholy stone whereon Tess had been compelled by\nAlec d'Urberville, in his whim of reformation, to swear the strange\noath that she would never wilfully tempt him again.  The pale and\nblasted nettle-stems of the preceding year even now lingered nakedly\nin the banks, young green nettles of the present spring growing from\ntheir roots.\n\nThence he went along the verge of the upland overhanging the other\nHintocks, and, turning to the right, plunged into the bracing\ncalcareous region of Flintcomb-Ash, the address from which she had\nwritten to him in one of the letters, and which he supposed to be\nthe place of sojourn referred to by her mother.  Here, of course, he\ndid not find her; and what added to his depression was the discovery\nthat no \"Mrs Clare\" had ever been heard of by the cottagers or by\nthe farmer himself, though Tess was remembered well enough by her\nChristian name.  His name she had obviously never used during their\nseparation, and her dignified sense of their total severance was\nshown not much less by this abstention than by the hardships she had\nchosen to undergo (of which he now learnt for the first time) rather\nthan apply to his father for more funds.\n\nFrom this place they told him Tess Durbeyfield had gone, without due\nnotice, to the home of her parents on the other side of Blackmoor,\nand it therefore became necessary to find Mrs Durbeyfield.  She had\ntold him she was not now at Marlott, but had been curiously reticent\nas to her actual address, and the only course was to go to Marlott\nand inquire for it.  The farmer who had been so churlish with Tess\nwas quite smooth-tongued to Clare, and lent him a horse and man to\ndrive him towards Marlott, the gig he had arrived in being sent back\nto Emminster; for the limit of a day's journey with that horse was\nreached.\n\nClare would not accept the loan of the farmer's vehicle for a further\ndistance than to the outskirts of the Vale, and, sending it back with\nthe man who had driven him, he put up at an inn, and next day entered\non foot the region wherein was the spot of his dear Tess's birth.\nIt was as yet too early in the year for much colour to appear in the\ngardens and foliage; the so-called spring was but winter overlaid\nwith a thin coat of greenness, and it was of a parcel with his\nexpectations.\n\nThe house in which Tess had passed the years of her childhood was\nnow inhabited by another family who had never known her.  The new\nresidents were in the garden, taking as much interest in their own\ndoings as if the homestead had never passed its primal time in\nconjunction with the histories of others, beside which the histories\nof these were but as a tale told by an idiot.  They walked about the\ngarden paths with thoughts of their own concerns entirely uppermost,\nbringing their actions at every moment in jarring collision with the\ndim ghosts behind them, talking as though the time when Tess lived\nthere were not one whit intenser in story than now.  Even the spring\nbirds sang over their heads as if they thought there was nobody\nmissing in particular.\n\nOn inquiry of these precious innocents, to whom even the name of\ntheir predecessors was a failing memory, Clare learned that John\nDurbeyfield was dead; that his widow and children had left Marlott,\ndeclaring that they were going to live at Kingsbere, but instead of\ndoing so had gone on to another place they mentioned.  By this time\nClare abhorred the house for ceasing to contain Tess, and hastened\naway from its hated presence without once looking back.\n\nHis way was by the field in which he had first beheld her at the\ndance.  It was as bad as the house--even worse.  He passed on through\nthe churchyard, where, amongst the new headstones, he saw one of a\nsomewhat superior design to the rest.  The inscription ran thus:\n\n\n  In memory of John Durbeyfield, rightly d'Urberville, of\n  the once powerful family of that Name, and Direct\n  Descendant through an illustrious Line from Sir Pagan\n  d'Urberville, one of the Knights of the Conqueror.  Died\n  March 10th, 18--\n\n                HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN.\n\n\nSome man, apparently the sexton, had observed Clare standing there,\nand drew nigh.  \"Ah, sir, now that's a man who didn't want to lie\nhere, but wished to be carried to Kingsbere, where his ancestors be.\"\n\n\"And why didn't they respect his wish?\"\n\n\"Oh--no money.  Bless your soul, sir, why--there, I wouldn't wish to\nsay it everywhere, but--even this headstone, for all the flourish\nwrote upon en, is not paid for.\"\n\n\"Ah, who put it up?\"\n\nThe man told the name of a mason in the village, and, on leaving the\nchurchyard, Clare called at the mason's house.  He found that the\nstatement was true, and paid the bill.  This done, he turned in the\ndirection of the migrants.\n\nThe distance was too long for a walk, but Clare felt such a strong\ndesire for isolation that at first he would neither hire a conveyance\nnor go to a circuitous line of railway by which he might eventually\nreach the place.  At Shaston, however, he found he must hire; but\nthe way was such that he did not enter Joan's place till about seven\no'clock in the evening, having traversed a distance of over twenty\nmiles since leaving Marlott.\n\nThe village being small he had little difficulty in finding Mrs\nDurbeyfield's tenement, which was a house in a walled garden,\nremote from the main road, where she had stowed away her clumsy old\nfurniture as best she could.  It was plain that for some reason or\nother she had not wished him to visit her, and he felt his call to\nbe somewhat of an intrusion.  She came to the door herself, and the\nlight from the evening sky fell upon her face.\n\nThis was the first time that Clare had ever met her, but he was too\npreoccupied to observe more than that she was still a handsome woman,\nin the garb of a respectable widow.  He was obliged to explain that\nhe was Tess's husband, and his object in coming there, and he did it\nawkwardly enough.  \"I want to see her at once,\" he added.  \"You said\nyou would write to me again, but you have not done so.\"\n\n\"Because she've not come home,\" said Joan.\n\n\"Do you know if she is well?\"\n\n\"I don't.  But you ought to, sir,\" said she.\n\n\"I admit it.  Where is she staying?\"\n\nFrom the beginning of the interview Joan had disclosed her\nembarrassment by keeping her hand to the side of her cheek.\n\n\"I--don't know exactly where she is staying,\" she answered. \"She\nwas--but--\"\n\n\"Where was she?\"\n\n\"Well, she is not there now.\"\n\nIn her evasiveness she paused again, and the younger children had by\nthis time crept to the door, where, pulling at his mother's skirts,\nthe youngest murmured--\n\n\"Is this the gentleman who is going to marry Tess?\"\n\n\"He has married her,\" Joan whispered.  \"Go inside.\"\n\nClare saw her efforts for reticence, and asked--\n\n\"Do you think Tess would wish me to try and find her?  If not, of\ncourse--\"\n\n\"I don't think she would.\"\n\n\"Are you sure?\"\n\n\"I am sure she wouldn't.\"\n\nHe was turning away; and then he thought of Tess's tender letter.\n\n\"I am sure she would!\" he retorted passionately.  \"I know her better\nthan you do.\"\n\n\"That's very likely, sir; for I have never really known her.\"\n\n\"Please tell me her address, Mrs Durbeyfield, in kindness to a lonely\nwretched man!\"  Tess's mother again restlessly swept her cheek with\nher vertical hand, and seeing that he suffered, she at last said, is\na low voice--\n\n\"She is at Sandbourne.\"\n\n\"Ah--where there?  Sandbourne has become a large place, they say.\"\n\n\"I don't know more particularly than I have said--Sandbourne.  For\nmyself, I was never there.\"\n\nIt was apparent that Joan spoke the truth in this, and he pressed her\nno further.\n\n\"Are you in want of anything?\" he said gently.\n\n\"No, sir,\" she replied.  \"We are fairly well provided for.\"\n\nWithout entering the house Clare turned away.  There was a station\nthree miles ahead, and paying off his coachman, he walked thither.\nThe last train to Sandbourne left shortly after, and it bore Clare\non its wheels.\n\n\n\nLV\n\n\nAt eleven o'clock that night, having secured a bed at one of the\nhotels and telegraphed his address to his father immediately on his\narrival, he walked out into the streets of Sandbourne.  It was too\nlate to call on or inquire for any one, and he reluctantly postponed\nhis purpose till the morning.  But he could not retire to rest just\nyet.\n\nThis fashionable watering-place, with its eastern and its western\nstations, its piers, its groves of pines, its promenades, and its\ncovered gardens, was, to Angel Clare, like a fairy place suddenly\ncreated by the stroke of a wand, and allowed to get a little dusty.\nAn outlying eastern tract of the enormous Egdon Waste was close at\nhand, yet on the very verge of that tawny piece of antiquity such a\nglittering novelty as this pleasure city had chosen to spring up.\nWithin the space of a mile from its outskirts every irregularity\nof the soil was prehistoric, every channel an undisturbed British\ntrackway; not a sod having been turned there since the days of the\nCaesars.  Yet the exotic had grown here, suddenly as the prophet's\ngourd; and had drawn hither Tess.\n\nBy the midnight lamps he went up and down the winding way of this new\nworld in an old one, and could discern between the trees and against\nthe stars the lofty roofs, chimneys, gazebos, and towers of the\nnumerous fanciful residences of which the place was composed. It\nwas a city of detached mansions; a Mediterranean lounging-place on\nthe English Channel; and as seen now by night it seemed even more\nimposing than it was.\n\nThe sea was near at hand, but not intrusive; it murmured, and he\nthought it was the pines; the pines murmured in precisely the same\ntones, and he thought they were the sea.\n\nWhere could Tess possibly be, a cottage-girl, his young wife, amidst\nall this wealth and fashion?  The more he pondered, the more was he\npuzzled.  Were there any cows to milk here?  There certainly were\nno fields to till. She was most probably engaged to do something in\none of these large houses; and he sauntered along, looking at the\nchamber-windows and their lights going out one by one, and wondered\nwhich of them might be hers.\n\nConjecture was useless, and just after twelve o'clock he entered\nand went to bed.   Before putting out his light he re-read Tess's\nimpassioned letter.  Sleep, however, he could not--so near her, yet\nso far from her--and he continually lifted the window-blind and\nregarded the backs of the opposite houses, and wondered behind which\nof the sashes she reposed at that moment.\n\nHe might almost as well have sat up all night.  In the morning he\narose at seven, and shortly after went out, taking the direction of\nthe chief post-office.  At the door he met an intelligent postman\ncoming out with letters for the morning delivery.\n\n\"Do you know the address of a Mrs Clare?\" asked Angel.  The postman\nshook his head.\n\nThen, remembering that she would have been likely to continue the use\nof her maiden name, Clare said--\n\n\"Of a Miss Durbeyfield?\"\n\n\"Durbeyfield?\"\n\nThis also was strange to the postman addressed.\n\n\"There's visitors coming and going every day, as you know, sir,\" he\nsaid; \"and without the name of the house 'tis impossible to find\n'em.\"\n\nOne of his comrades hastening out at that moment, the name was\nrepeated to him.\n\n\"I know no name of Durbeyfield; but there is the name of d'Urberville\nat The Herons,\" said the second.\n\n\"That's it!\" cried Clare, pleased to think that she had reverted to\nthe real pronunciation.  \"What place is The Herons?\"\n\n\"A stylish lodging-house.  'Tis all lodging-houses here, bless 'ee.\"\n\nClare received directions how to find the house, and hastened\nthither, arriving with the milkman.  The Herons, though an ordinary\nvilla, stood in its own grounds, and was certainly the last place\nin which one would have expected to find lodgings, so private was\nits appearance.  If poor Tess was a servant here, as he feared, she\nwould go to the back-door to that milkman, and he was inclined to go\nthither also.  However, in his doubts he turned to the front, and\nrang.\n\nThe hour being early, the landlady herself opened the door.  Clare\ninquired for Teresa d'Urberville or Durbeyfield.\n\n\"Mrs d'Urberville?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nTess, then, passed as a married woman, and he felt glad, even though\nshe had not adopted his name.\n\n\"Will you kindly tell her that a relative is anxious to see her?\"\n\n\"It is rather early.  What name shall I give, sir?\"\n\n\"Angel.\"\n\n\"Mr Angel?\"\n\n\"No; Angel.  It is my Christian name.  She'll understand.\"\n\n\"I'll see if she is awake.\"\n\nHe was shown into the front room--the dining-room--and looked out\nthrough the spring curtains at the little lawn, and the rhododendrons\nand other shrubs upon it.  Obviously her position was by no means so\nbad as he had feared, and it crossed his mind that she must somehow\nhave claimed and sold the jewels to attain it.  He did not blame her\nfor one moment.  Soon his sharpened ear detected footsteps upon the\nstairs, at which his heart thumped so painfully that he could hardly\nstand firm.  \"Dear me! what will she think of me, so altered as I\nam!\" he said to himself; and the door opened.\n\nTess appeared on the threshold--not at all as he had expected to\nsee her--bewilderingly otherwise, indeed.  Her great natural beauty\nwas, if not heightened, rendered more obvious by her attire.  She\nwas loosely wrapped in a cashmere dressing-gown of gray-white,\nembroidered in half-mourning tints, and she wore slippers of the same\nhue.  Her neck rose out of a frill of down, and her well-remembered\ncable of dark-brown hair was partially coiled up in a mass at the\nback of her head and partly hanging on her shoulder--the evident\nresult of haste.\n\nHe had held out his arms, but they had fallen again to his side;\nfor she had not come forward, remaining still in the opening of the\ndoorway.  Mere yellow skeleton that he was now, he felt the contrast\nbetween them, and thought his appearance distasteful to her.\n\n\"Tess!\" he said huskily, \"can you forgive me for going away?  Can't\nyou--come to me?  How do you get to be--like this?\"\n\n\"It is too late,\" said she, her voice sounding hard through the room,\nher eyes shining unnaturally.\n\n\"I did not think rightly of you--I did not see you as you were!\" he\ncontinued to plead.  \"I have learnt to since, dearest Tessy mine!\"\n\n\"Too late, too late!\" she said, waving her hand in the impatience of\na person whose tortures cause every instant to seem an hour.  \"Don't\ncome close to me, Angel!  No--you must not.  Keep away.\"\n\n\"But don't you love me, my dear wife, because I have been so pulled\ndown by illness?  You are not so fickle--I am come on purpose for\nyou--my mother and father will welcome you now!\"\n\n\"Yes--O, yes, yes!  But I say, I say it is too late.\"\n\nShe seemed to feel like a fugitive in a dream, who tries to move\naway, but cannot.  \"Don't you know all--don't you know it?  Yet how\ndo you come here if you do not know?\"\n\n\"I inquired here and there, and I found the way.\"\n\n\"I waited and waited for you,\" she went on, her tones suddenly\nresuming their old fluty pathos.  \"But you did not come!  And I wrote\nto you, and you did not come! He kept on saying you would never come\nany more, and that I was a foolish woman.  He was very kind to me,\nand to mother, and to all of us after father's death. He--\"\n\n\"I don't understand.\"\n\n\"He has won me back to him.\"\n\nClare looked at her keenly, then, gathering her meaning, flagged\nlike one plague-stricken, and his glance sank; it fell on her hands,\nwhich, once rosy, were now white and more delicate.\n\nShe continued--\n\n\"He is upstairs.  I hate him now, because he told me a lie--that you\nwould not come again; and you HAVE come!  These clothes are what he's\nput upon me: I didn't care what he did wi' me!  But--will you go\naway, Angel, please, and never come any more?\"\n\nThey stood fixed, their baffled hearts looking out of their eyes with\na joylessness pitiful to see.  Both seemed to implore something to\nshelter them from reality.\n\n\"Ah--it is my fault!\" said Clare.\n\nBut he could not get on.  Speech was as inexpressive as silence.  But\nhe had a vague consciousness of one thing, though it was not clear\nto him till later; that his original Tess had spiritually ceased to\nrecognize the body before him as hers--allowing it to drift, like a\ncorpse upon the current, in a direction dissociated from its living\nwill.\n\nA few instants passed, and he found that Tess was gone.  His face\ngrew colder and more shrunken as he stood concentrated on the moment,\nand a minute or two after, he found himself in the street, walking\nalong he did not know whither.\n\n\n\nLVI\n\n\nMrs Brooks, the lady who was the householder at The Herons and owner\nof all the handsome furniture, was not a person of an unusually\ncurious turn of mind. She was too deeply materialized, poor woman,\nby her long and enforced bondage to that arithmetical demon\nProfit-and-Loss, to retain much curiousity for its own sake, and\napart from possible lodgers' pockets.  Nevertheless, the visit of\nAngel Clare to her well-paying tenants, Mr and Mrs d'Urberville, as\nshe deemed them, was sufficiently exceptional in point of time and\nmanner to reinvigorate the feminine proclivity which had been stifled\ndown as useless save in its bearings to the letting trade.\n\nTess had spoken to her husband from the doorway, without entering\nthe dining-room, and Mrs Brooks, who stood within the partly-closed\ndoor of her own sitting-room at the back of the passage, could\nhear fragments of the conversation--if conversation it could be\ncalled--between those two wretched souls.  She heard Tess re-ascend\nthe stairs to the first floor, and the departure of Clare, and the\nclosing of the front door behind him.  Then the door of the room\nabove was shut, and Mrs Brooks knew that Tess had re-entered her\napartment.  As the young lady was not fully dressed, Mrs Brooks knew\nthat she would not emerge again for some time.\n\nShe accordingly ascended the stairs softly, and stood at the door of\nthe front room--a drawing-room, connected with the room immediately\nbehind it (which was a bedroom) by folding-doors in the common\nmanner.  This first floor, containing Mrs Brooks's best apartments,\nhad been taken by the week by the d'Urbervilles.  The back room was\nnow in silence; but from the drawing-room there came sounds.\n\nAll that she could at first distinguish of them was one syllable,\ncontinually repeated in a low note of moaning, as if it came from a\nsoul bound to some Ixionian wheel--\n\n\"O--O--O!\"\n\nThen a silence, then a heavy sigh, and again--\n\n\"O--O--O!\"\n\nThe landlady looked through the keyhole.  Only a small space of the\nroom inside was visible, but within that space came a corner of the\nbreakfast table, which was already spread for the meal, and also a\nchair beside.  Over the seat of the chair Tess's face was bowed, her\nposture being a kneeling one in front of it; her hands were clasped\nover her head, the skirts of her dressing-gown and the embroidery of\nher night-gown flowed upon the floor behind her, and her stockingless\nfeet, from which the slippers had fallen, protruded upon the carpet.\nIt was from her lips that came the murmur of unspeakable despair.\n\nThen a man's voice from the adjoining bedroom--\n\n\"What's the matter?\"\n\nShe did not answer, but went on, in a tone which was a soliloquy\nrather than an exclamation, and a dirge rather than a soliloquy.\nMrs Brooks could only catch a portion:\n\n\"And then my dear, dear husband came home to me ... and I did not\nknow it! ...  And you had used your cruel persuasion upon me ... you\ndid not stop using it--no--you did not stop! My little sisters and\nbrothers and my mother's needs--they were the things you moved me\nby ... and you said my husband would never come back--never; and you\ntaunted me, and said what a simpleton I was to expect him! ...  And\nat last I believed you and gave way! ...  And then he came back!\nNow he is gone.  Gone a second time, and I have lost him now\nfor ever ... and he will not love me the littlest bit ever any\nmore--only hate me! ... O yes, I have lost him now--again because\nof--you!\"  In writhing, with her head on the chair, she turned her\nface towards the door, and Mrs Brooks could see the pain upon it,\nand that her lips were bleeding from the clench of her teeth upon\nthem, and that the long lashes of her closed eyes stuck in wet tags\nto her cheeks.  She continued: \"And he is dying--he looks as if he\nis dying! ...  And my sin will kill him and not kill me! ...  O, you\nhave torn my life all to pieces ... made me be what I prayed you in\npity not to make me be again! ...  My own true husband will never,\nnever--O God--I can't bear this!--I cannot!\"\n\nThere were more and sharper words from the man; then a sudden rustle;\nshe had sprung to her feet.  Mrs Brooks, thinking that the speaker\nwas coming to rush out of the door, hastily retreated down the\nstairs.\n\nShe need not have done so, however, for the door of the sitting-room\nwas not opened.  But Mrs Brooks felt it unsafe to watch on the\nlanding again, and entered her own parlour below.\n\nShe could hear nothing through the floor, although she listened\nintently, and thereupon went to the kitchen to finish her interrupted\nbreakfast.  Coming up presently to the front room on the ground floor\nshe took up some sewing, waiting for her lodgers to ring that she\nmight take away the breakfast, which she meant to do herself, to\ndiscover what was the matter if possible.  Overhead, as she sat, she\ncould now hear the floorboards slightly creak, as if some one were\nwalking about, and presently the movement was explained by the rustle\nof garments against the banisters, the opening and the closing of\nthe front door, and the form of Tess passing to the gate on her way\ninto the street.  She was fully dressed now in the walking costume\nof a well-to-do young lady in which she had arrived, with the sole\naddition that over her hat and black feathers a veil was drawn.\n\nMrs Brooks had not been able to catch any word of farewell, temporary\nor otherwise, between her tenants at the door above.  They might have\nquarrelled, or Mr d'Urberville might still be asleep, for he was not\nan early riser.\n\nShe went into the back room, which was more especially her own\napartment, and continued her sewing there.  The lady lodger did not\nreturn, nor did the gentleman ring his bell.  Mrs Brooks pondered on\nthe delay, and on what probable relation the visitor who had called\nso early bore to the couple upstairs.  In reflecting she leant back\nin her chair.\n\nAs she did so her eyes glanced casually over the ceiling till they\nwere arrested by a spot in the middle of its white surface which she\nhad never noticed there before.  It was about the size of a wafer\nwhen she first observed it, but it speedily grew as large as the palm\nof her hand, and then she could perceive that it was red.  The oblong\nwhite ceiling, with this scarlet blot in the midst, had the\nappearance of a gigantic ace of hearts.\n\nMrs Brooks had strange qualms of misgiving.  She got upon the table,\nand touched the spot in the ceiling with her fingers. It was damp,\nand she fancied that it was a blood stain.\n\nDescending from the table, she left the parlour, and went upstairs,\nintending to enter the room overhead, which was the bedchamber at\nthe back of the drawing-room.  But, nerveless woman as she had now\nbecome, she could not bring herself to attempt the handle.  She\nlistened.  The dead silence within was broken only by a regular beat.\n\nDrip, drip, drip.\n\nMrs Brooks hastened downstairs, opened the front door, and ran into\nthe street.  A man she knew, one of the workmen employed at an\nadjoining villa, was passing by, and she begged him to come in and go\nupstairs with her; she feared something had happened to one of her\nlodgers.  The workman assented, and followed her to the landing.\n\nShe opened the door of the drawing-room, and stood back for him\nto pass in, entering herself behind him.  The room was empty; the\nbreakfast--a substantial repast of coffee, eggs, and a cold ham--lay\nspread upon the table untouched, as when she had taken it up,\nexcepting that the carving-knife was missing.  She asked the man to\ngo through the folding-doors into the adjoining room.\n\nHe opened the doors, entered a step or two, and came back almost\ninstantly with a rigid face.  \"My good God, the gentleman in bed is\ndead!  I think he has been hurt with a knife--a lot of blood had run\ndown upon the floor!\"\n\nThe alarm was soon given, and the house which had lately been so\nquiet resounded with the tramp of many footsteps, a surgeon among the\nrest.  The wound was small, but the point of the blade had touched\nthe heart of the victim, who lay on his back, pale, fixed, dead, as\nif he had scarcely moved after the infliction of the blow.  In a\nquarter of an hour the news that a gentleman who was a temporary\nvisitor to the town had been stabbed in his bed, spread through every\nstreet and villa of the popular watering-place.\n\n\n\nLVII\n\n\nMeanwhile Angel Clare had walked automatically along the way by which\nhe had come, and, entering his hotel, sat down over the breakfast,\nstaring at nothingness.  He went on eating and drinking unconsciously\ntill on a sudden he demanded his bill; having paid which, he took his\ndressing-bag in his hand, the only luggage he had brought with him,\nand went out.\n\nAt the moment of his departure a telegram was handed to him--a few\nwords from his mother, stating that they were glad to know his\naddress, and informing him that his brother Cuthbert had proposed to\nand been accepted by Mercy Chant.\n\nClare crumpled up the paper and followed the route to the station;\nreaching it, he found that there would be no train leaving for an\nhour and more.  He sat down to wait, and having waited a quarter of\nan hour felt that he could wait there no longer.  Broken in heart and\nnumbed, he had nothing to hurry for; but he wished to get out of a\ntown which had been the scene of such an experience, and turned to\nwalk to the first station onward, and let the train pick him up\nthere.\n\nThe highway that he followed was open, and at a little distance\ndipped into a valley, across which it could be seen running from edge\nto edge.  He had traversed the greater part of this depression, and\nwas climbing the western acclivity when, pausing for breath, he\nunconsciously looked back.  Why he did so he could not say, but\nsomething seemed to impel him to the act.  The tape-like surface of\nthe road diminished in his rear as far as he could see, and as he\ngazed a moving spot intruded on the white vacuity of its perspective.\n\nIt was a human figure running.  Clare waited, with a dim sense that\nsomebody was trying to overtake him.\n\nThe form descending the incline was a woman's, yet so entirely was\nhis mind blinded to the idea of his wife's following him that even\nwhen she came nearer he did not recognize her under the totally\nchanged attire in which he now beheld her.  It was not till she was\nquite close that he could believe her to be Tess.\n\n\"I saw you--turn away from the station--just before I got there--and\nI have been following you all this way!\"\n\nShe was so pale, so breathless, so quivering in every muscle, that he\ndid not ask her a single question, but seizing her hand, and pulling\nit within his arm, he led her along.  To avoid meeting any possible\nwayfarers he left the high road and took a footpath under some\nfir-trees.  When they were deep among the moaning boughs he stopped\nand looked at her inquiringly.\n\n\"Angel,\" she said, as if waiting for this, \"do you know what I have\nbeen running after you for?  To tell you that I have killed him!\"\nA pitiful white smile lit her face as she spoke.\n\n\"What!\" said he, thinking from the strangeness of her manner that she\nwas in some delirium.\n\n\"I have done it--I don't know how,\" she continued.  \"Still, I owed it\nto you, and to myself, Angel.  I feared long ago, when I struck him\non the mouth with my glove, that I might do it some day for the trap\nhe set for me in my simple youth, and his wrong to you through me.\nHe has come between us and ruined us, and now he can never do it any\nmore.  I never loved him at all, Angel, as I loved you.  You know it,\ndon't you?  You believe it?  You didn't come back to me, and I was\nobliged to go back to him.  Why did you go away--why did you--when I\nloved you so?  I can't think why you did it.  But I don't blame you;\nonly, Angel, will you forgive me my sin against you, now I have\nkilled him?  I thought as I ran along that you would be sure to\nforgive me now I have done that.  It came to me as a shining light\nthat I should get you back that way.  I could not bear the loss of\nyou any longer--you don't know how entirely I was unable to bear your\nnot loving me!  Say you do now, dear, dear husband; say you do, now I\nhave killed him!\"\n\n\"I do love you, Tess--O, I do--it is all come back!\" he said,\ntightening his arms round her with fervid pressure.  \"But how do you\nmean--you have killed him?\"\n\n\"I mean that I have,\" she murmured in a reverie.\n\n\"What, bodily?  Is he dead?\"\n\n\"Yes.  He heard me crying about you, and he bitterly taunted me; and\ncalled you by a foul name; and then I did it.  My heart could not\nbear it.  He had nagged me about you before.  And then I dressed\nmyself and came away to find you.\"\n\nBy degrees he was inclined to believe that she had faintly attempted,\nat least, what she said she had done; and his horror at her impulse\nwas mixed with amazement at the strength of her affection for\nhimself, and at the strangeness of its quality, which had apparently\nextinguished her moral sense altogether.  Unable to realize the\ngravity of her conduct, she seemed at last content; and he looked\nat her as she lay upon his shoulder, weeping with happiness, and\nwondered what obscure strain in the d'Urberville blood had led to\nthis aberration--if it were an aberration.  There momentarily flashed\nthrough his mind that the family tradition of the coach and murder\nmight have arisen because the d'Urbervilles had been known to do\nthese things.  As well as his confused and excited ideas could\nreason, he supposed that in the moment of mad grief of which she\nspoke, her mind had lost its balance, and plunged her into this\nabyss.\n\nIt was very terrible if true; if a temporary hallucination, sad.  But,\nanyhow, here was this deserted wife of his, this passionately-fond\nwoman, clinging to him without a suspicion that he would be anything\nto her but a protector.  He saw that for him to be otherwise was\nnot, in her mind, within the region of the possible.  Tenderness was\nabsolutely dominant in Clare at last.  He kissed her endlessly with\nhis white lips, and held her hand, and said--\n\n\"I will not desert you!  I will protect you by every means in my\npower, dearest love, whatever you may have done or not have done!\"\n\nThey then walked on under the trees, Tess turning her head every now\nand then to look at him.  Worn and unhandsome as he had become, it\nwas plain that she did not discern the least fault in his appearance.\nTo her he was, as of old, all that was perfection, personally and\nmentally.  He was still her Antinous, her Apollo even; his sickly\nface was beautiful as the morning to her affectionate regard on\nthis day no less than when she first beheld him; for was it not the\nface of the one man on earth who had loved her purely, and who had\nbelieved in her as pure!\n\nWith an instinct as to possibilities, he did not now, as he had\nintended, make for the first station beyond the town, but plunged\nstill farther under the firs, which here abounded for miles.  Each\nclasping the other round the waist they promenaded over the dry bed\nof fir-needles, thrown into a vague intoxicating atmosphere at the\nconsciousness of being together at last, with no living soul between\nthem; ignoring that there was a corpse.  Thus they proceeded for\nseveral miles till Tess, arousing herself, looked about her, and\nsaid, timidly--\n\n\"Are we going anywhere in particular?\"\n\n\"I don't know, dearest.  Why?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Well, we might walk a few miles further, and when it is evening find\nlodgings somewhere or other--in a lonely cottage, perhaps.  Can you\nwalk well, Tessy?\"\n\n\"O yes!  I could walk for ever and ever with your arm round me!\"\n\nUpon the whole it seemed a good thing to do.  Thereupon they\nquickened their pace, avoiding high roads, and following obscure\npaths tending more or less northward.  But there was an unpractical\nvagueness in their movements throughout the day; neither one of them\nseemed to consider any question of effectual escape, disguise, or\nlong concealment.  Their every idea was temporary and unforefending,\nlike the plans of two children.\n\nAt mid-day they drew near to a roadside inn, and Tess would have\nentered it with him to get something to eat, but he persuaded\nher to remain among the trees and bushes of this half-woodland,\nhalf-moorland part of the country till he should come back.  Her\nclothes were of recent fashion; even the ivory-handled parasol that\nshe carried was of a shape unknown in the retired spot to which they\nhad now wandered; and the cut of such articles would have attracted\nattention in the settle of a tavern.  He soon returned, with food\nenough for half-a-dozen people and two bottles of wine--enough to\nlast them for a day or more, should any emergency arise.\n\nThey sat down upon some dead boughs and shared their meal.  Between\none and two o'clock they packed up the remainder and went on again.\n\n\"I feel strong enough to walk any distance,\" said she.\n\n\"I think we may as well steer in a general way towards the interior\nof the country, where we can hide for a time, and are less likely to\nbe looked for than anywhere near the coast,\" Clare remarked.  \"Later\non, when they have forgotten us, we can make for some port.\"\n\nShe made no reply to this beyond that of grasping him more tightly,\nand straight inland they went.  Though the season was an English May,\nthe weather was serenely bright, and during the afternoon it was\nquite warm.  Through the latter miles of their walk their footpath\nhad taken them into the depths of the New Forest, and towards\nevening, turning the corner of a lane, they perceived behind a brook\nand bridge a large board on which was painted in white letters, \"This\ndesirable Mansion to be Let Furnished\"; particulars following, with\ndirections to apply to some London agents.  Passing through the gate\nthey could see the house, an old brick building of regular design and\nlarge accommodation.\n\n\"I know it,\" said Clare.  \"It is Bramshurst Court.  You can see that\nit is shut up, and grass is growing on the drive.\"\n\n\"Some of the windows are open,\" said Tess.\n\n\"Just to air the rooms, I suppose.\"\n\n\"All these rooms empty, and we without a roof to our heads!\"\n\n\"You are getting tired, my Tess!\" he said.  \"We'll stop soon.\"  And\nkissing her sad mouth, he again led her onwards.\n\nHe was growing weary likewise, for they had wandered a dozen or\nfifteen miles, and it became necessary to consider what they should\ndo for rest.  They looked from afar at isolated cottages and little\ninns, and were inclined to approach one of the latter, when their\nhearts failed them, and they sheered off.  At length their gait\ndragged, and they stood still.\n\n\"Could we sleep under the trees?\" she asked.\n\nHe thought the season insufficiently advanced.\n\n\"I have been thinking of that empty mansion we passed,\" he said.\n\"Let us go back towards it again.\"\n\nThey retraced their steps, but it was half an hour before they stood\nwithout the entrance-gate as earlier.  He then requested her to stay\nwhere she was, whilst he went to see who was within.\n\nShe sat down among the bushes within the gate, and Clare crept\ntowards the house.  His absence lasted some considerable time, and\nwhen he returned Tess was wildly anxious, not for herself, but for\nhim.  He had found out from a boy that there was only an old woman in\ncharge as caretaker, and she only came there on fine days, from the\nhamlet near, to open and shut the windows.  She would come to shut\nthem at sunset.  \"Now, we can get in through one of the lower\nwindows, and rest there,\" said he.\n\nUnder his escort she went tardily forward to the main front, whose\nshuttered windows, like sightless eyeballs, excluded the possibility\nof watchers.  The door was reached a few steps further, and one of\nthe windows beside it was open. Clare clambered in, and pulled Tess\nin after him.\n\nExcept the hall, the rooms were all in darkness, and they ascended\nthe staircase.  Up here also the shutters were tightly closed,\nthe ventilation being perfunctorily done, for this day at least,\nby opening the hall-window in front and an upper window behind.\nClare unlatched the door of a large chamber, felt his way across\nit, and parted the shutters to the width of two or three inches.\nA shaft of dazzling sunlight glanced into the room, revealing heavy,\nold-fashioned furniture, crimson damask hangings, and an enormous\nfour-post bedstead, along the head of which were carved running\nfigures, apparently Atalanta's race.\n\n\"Rest at last!\" said he, setting down his bag and the parcel of\nviands.\n\nThey remained in great quietness till the caretaker should have come\nto shut the windows: as a precaution, putting themselves in total\ndarkness by barring the shutters as before, lest the woman should\nopen the door of their chamber for any casual reason.  Between six\nand seven o'clock she came, but did not approach the wing they\nwere in.  They heard her close the windows, fasten them, lock the\ndoor, and go away.  Then Clare again stole a chink of light from\nthe window, and they shared another meal, till by-and-by they\nwere enveloped in the shades of night which they had no candle to\ndisperse.\n\n\n\nLVIII\n\n\nThe night was strangely solemn and still.  In the small hours she\nwhispered to him the whole story of how he had walked in his sleep\nwith her in his arms across the Froom stream, at the imminent risk of\nboth their lives, and laid her down in the stone coffin at the ruined\nabbey.  He had never known of that till now.\n\n\"Why didn't you tell me next day?\" he said.  \"It might have prevented\nmuch misunderstanding and woe.\"\n\n\"Don't think of what's past!\" said she.  \"I am not going to think\noutside of now.  Why should we!  Who knows what to-morrow has in\nstore?\"\n\nBut it apparently had no sorrow.  The morning was wet and foggy, and\nClare, rightly informed that the caretaker only opened the windows\non fine days, ventured to creep out of their chamber and explore the\nhouse, leaving Tess asleep.  There was no food on the premises, but\nthere was water, and he took advantage of the fog to emerge from the\nmansion and fetch tea, bread, and butter from a shop in a little\nplace two miles beyond, as also a small tin kettle and spirit-lamp,\nthat they might get fire without smoke.  His re-entry awoke her; and\nthey breakfasted on what he had brought.\n\nThey were indisposed to stir abroad, and the day passed, and the\nnight following, and the next, and next; till, almost without their\nbeing aware, five days had slipped by in absolute seclusion, not a\nsight or sound of a human being disturbing their peacefulness, such\nas it was.  The changes of the weather were their only events, the\nbirds of the New Forest their only company.  By tacit consent they\nhardly once spoke of any incident of the past subsequent to their\nwedding-day.  The gloomy intervening time seemed to sink into chaos,\nover which the present and prior times closed as if it never had\nbeen.  Whenever he suggested that they should leave their shelter,\nand go forwards towards Southampton or London, she showed a strange\nunwillingness to move.\n\n\"Why should we put an end to all that's sweet and lovely!\" she\ndeprecated.  \"What must come will come.\"  And, looking through the\nshutter-chink: \"All is trouble outside there; inside here content.\"\n\nHe peeped out also.  It was quite true; within was affection, union,\nerror forgiven: outside was the inexorable.\n\n\"And--and,\" she said, pressing her cheek against his, \"I fear that\nwhat you think of me now may not last.  I do not wish to outlive your\npresent feeling for me. I would rather not.  I would rather be dead\nand buried when the time comes for you to despise me, so that it may\nnever be known to me that you despised me.\"\n\n\"I cannot ever despise you.\"\n\n\"I also hope that.  But considering what my life has been, I cannot\nsee why any man should, sooner or later, be able to help despising\nme....  How wickedly mad I was!  Yet formerly I never could bear to\nhurt a fly or a worm, and the sight of a bird in a cage used often to\nmake me cry.\"\n\nThey remained yet another day.  In the night the dull sky cleared,\nand the result was that the old caretaker at the cottage awoke early.\nThe brilliant sunrise made her unusually brisk; she decided to open\nthe contiguous mansion immediately, and to air it thoroughly on such\na day.  Thus it occurred that, having arrived and opened the lower\nrooms before six o'clock, she ascended to the bedchambers, and was\nabout to turn the handle of the one wherein they lay.  At that moment\nshe fancied she could hear the breathing of persons within.  Her\nslippers and her antiquity had rendered her progress a noiseless one\nso far, and she made for instant retreat; then, deeming that her\nhearing might have deceived her, she turned anew to the door and\nsoftly tried the handle.  The lock was out of order, but a piece of\nfurniture had been moved forward on the inside, which prevented her\nopening the door more than an inch or two.  A stream of morning light\nthrough the shutter-chink fell upon the faces of the pair, wrapped in\nprofound slumber, Tess's lips being parted like a half-opened flower\nnear his cheek.  The caretaker was so struck with their innocent\nappearance, and with the elegance of Tess's gown hanging across a\nchair, her silk stockings beside it, the pretty parasol, and the\nother habits in which she had arrived because she had none else, that\nher first indignation at the effrontery of tramps and vagabonds gave\nway to a momentary sentimentality over this genteel elopement, as it\nseemed.  She closed the door, and withdrew as softly as she had come,\nto go and consult with her neighbours on the odd discovery.\n\nNot more than a minute had elapsed after her withdrawal when Tess\nwoke, and then Clare.  Both had a sense that something had disturbed\nthem, though they could not say what; and the uneasy feeling which\nit engendered grew stronger.  As soon as he was dressed he narrowly\nscanned the lawn through the two or three inches of shutter-chink.\n\n\"I think we will leave at once,\" said he.  \"It is a fine day. And I\ncannot help fancying somebody is about the house.  At any rate, the\nwoman will be sure to come to-day.\"\n\nShe passively assented, and putting the room in order, they took up\nthe few articles that belonged to them, and departed noiselessly.\nWhen they had got into the Forest she turned to take a last look at\nthe house.\n\n\"Ah, happy house--goodbye!\" she said.  \"My life can only be a\nquestion of a few weeks.  Why should we not have stayed there?\"\n\n\"Don't say it, Tess!  We shall soon get out of this district\naltogether.  We'll continue our course as we've begun it, and keep\nstraight north.  Nobody will think of looking for us there.  We shall\nbe looked for at the Wessex ports if we are sought at all.  When we\nare in the north we will get to a port and away.\"\n\nHaving thus persuaded her, the plan was pursued, and they kept a\nbee-line northward.  Their long repose at the manor-house lent them\nwalking power now; and towards mid-day they found that they were\napproaching the steepled city of Melchester, which lay directly in\ntheir way.  He decided to rest her in a clump of trees during the\nafternoon, and push onward under cover of darkness.  At dusk Clare\npurchased food as usual, and their night march began, the boundary\nbetween Upper and Mid-Wessex being crossed about eight o'clock.\n\nTo walk across country without much regard to roads was not new\nto Tess, and she showed her old agility in the performance.  The\nintercepting city, ancient Melchester, they were obliged to pass\nthrough in order to take advantage of the town bridge for crossing a\nlarge river that obstructed them.  It was about midnight when they\nwent along the deserted streets, lighted fitfully by the few lamps,\nkeeping off the pavement that it might not echo their footsteps.\nThe graceful pile of cathedral architecture rose dimly on their left\nhand, but it was lost upon them now.  Once out of the town they\nfollowed the turnpike-road, which after a few miles plunged across an\nopen plain.\n\nThough the sky was dense with cloud, a diffused light from some\nfragment of a moon had hitherto helped them a little.  But the moon\nhad now sunk, the clouds seemed to settle almost on their heads, and\nthe night grew as dark as a cave.  However, they found their way\nalong, keeping as much on the turf as possible that their tread might\nnot resound, which it was easy to do, there being no hedge or fence\nof any kind.  All around was open loneliness and black solitude, over\nwhich a stiff breeze blew.\n\nThey had proceeded thus gropingly two or three miles further when\non a sudden Clare became conscious of some vast erection close in\nhis front, rising sheer from the grass.  They had almost struck\nthemselves against it.\n\n\"What monstrous place is this?\" said Angel.\n\n\"It hums,\" said she.  \"Hearken!\"\n\nHe listened.  The wind, playing upon the edifice, produced a booming\ntune, like the note of some gigantic one-stringed harp.  No other\nsound came from it, and lifting his hand and advancing a step or\ntwo, Clare felt the vertical surface of the structure.  It seemed to\nbe of solid stone, without joint or moulding.  Carrying his fingers\nonward he found that what he had come in contact with was a colossal\nrectangular pillar; by stretching out his left hand he could feel a\nsimilar one adjoining.  At an indefinite height overhead something\nmade the black sky blacker, which had the semblance of a vast\narchitrave uniting the pillars horizontally.  They carefully entered\nbeneath and between; the surfaces echoed their soft rustle; but they\nseemed to be still out of doors.  The place was roofless.  Tess drew\nher breath fearfully, and Angel, perplexed, said--\n\n\"What can it be?\"\n\nFeeling sideways they encountered another tower-like pillar, square\nand uncompromising as the first; beyond it another and another.  The\nplace was all doors and pillars, some connected above by continuous\narchitraves.\n\n\"A very Temple of the Winds,\" he said.\n\nThe next pillar was isolated; others composed a trilithon; others\nwere prostrate, their flanks forming a causeway wide enough for a\ncarriage; and it was soon obvious that they made up a forest of\nmonoliths grouped upon the grassy expanse of the plain.  The couple\nadvanced further into this pavilion of the night till they stood in\nits midst.\n\n\"It is Stonehenge!\" said Clare.\n\n\"The heathen temple, you mean?\"\n\n\"Yes.  Older than the centuries; older than the d'Urbervilles!  Well,\nwhat shall we do, darling?  We may find shelter further on.\"\n\nBut Tess, really tired by this time, flung herself upon an oblong\nslab that lay close at hand, and was sheltered from the wind by a\npillar.  Owing to the action of the sun during the preceding day, the\nstone was warm and dry, in comforting contrast to the rough and chill\ngrass around, which had damped her skirts and shoes.\n\n\"I don't want to go any further, Angel,\" she said, stretching out her\nhand for his.  \"Can't we bide here?\"\n\n\"I fear not.  This spot is visible for miles by day, although it does\nnot seem so now.\"\n\n\"One of my mother's people was a shepherd hereabouts, now I think of\nit.  And you used to say at Talbothays that I was a heathen.  So now\nI am at home.\"\n\nHe knelt down beside her outstretched form, and put his lips upon\nhers.\n\n\"Sleepy are you, dear?  I think you are lying on an altar.\"\n\n\"I like very much to be here,\" she murmured.  \"It is so solemn and\nlonely--after my great happiness--with nothing but the sky above my\nface.  It seems as if there were no folk in the world but we two;\nand I wish there were not--except 'Liza-Lu.\"\n\nClare though she might as well rest here till it should get a little\nlighter, and he flung his overcoat upon her, and sat down by her\nside.\n\n\"Angel, if anything happens to me, will you watch over 'Liza-Lu for\nmy sake?\" she asked, when they had listened a long time to the wind\namong the pillars.\n\n\"I will.\"\n\n\"She is so good and simple and pure.  O, Angel--I wish you would\nmarry her if you lose me, as you will do shortly.  O, if you would!\"\n\n\"If I lose you I lose all!  And she is my sister-in-law.\"\n\n\"That's nothing, dearest.  People marry sister-laws continually about\nMarlott; and 'Liza-Lu is so gentle and sweet, and she is growing\nso beautiful.  O, I could share you with her willingly when we are\nspirits!  If you would train her and teach her, Angel, and bring her\nup for your own self! ...  She had all the best of me without the bad\nof me; and if she were to become yours it would almost seem as if\ndeath had not divided us...  Well, I have said it.  I won't mention\nit again.\"\n\nShe ceased, and he fell into thought.  In the far north-east sky he\ncould see between the pillars a level streak of light.  The uniform\nconcavity of black cloud was lifting bodily like the lid of a pot,\nletting in at the earth's edge the coming day, against which the\ntowering monoliths and trilithons began to be blackly defined.\n\n\"Did they sacrifice to God here?\" asked she.\n\n\"No,\" said he.\n\n\"Who to?\"\n\n\"I believe to the sun.  That lofty stone set away by itself is in the\ndirection of the sun, which will presently rise behind it.\"\n\n\"This reminds me, dear,\" she said.  \"You remember you never would\ninterfere with any belief of mine before we were married?  But I knew\nyour mind all the same, and I thought as you thought--not from any\nreasons of my own, but because you thought so.  Tell me now, Angel,\ndo you think we shall meet again after we are dead?  I want to know.\"\n\nHe kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time.\n\n\"O, Angel--I fear that means no!\" said she, with a suppressed sob.\n\"And I wanted so to see you again--so much, so much!  What--not even\nyou and I, Angel, who love each other so well?\"\n\nLike a greater than himself, to the critical question at the critical\ntime he did not answer; and they were again silent.  In a minute or\ntwo her breathing became more regular, her clasp of his hand relaxed,\nand she fell asleep.  The band of silver paleness along the east\nhorizon made even the distant parts of the Great Plain appear dark\nand near; and the whole enormous landscape bore that impress of\nreserve, taciturnity, and hesitation which is usual just before day.\nThe eastward pillars and their architraves stood up blackly against\nthe light, and the great flame-shaped Sun-stone beyond them; and the\nStone of Sacrifice midway.  Presently the night wind died out, and\nthe quivering little pools in the cup-like hollows of the stones lay\nstill.  At the same time something seemed to move on the verge of the\ndip eastward--a mere dot.  It was the head of a man approaching them\nfrom the hollow beyond the Sun-stone.  Clare wished they had gone\nonward, but in the circumstances decided to remain quiet.  The figure\ncame straight towards the circle of pillars in which they were.\n\nHe heard something behind him, the brush of feet.  Turning, he saw\nover the prostrate columns another figure; then before he was aware,\nanother was at hand on the right, under a trilithon, and another on\nthe left.  The dawn shone full on the front of the man westward, and\nClare could discern from this that he was tall, and walked as if\ntrained.  They all closed in with evident purpose.  Her story then\nwas true!  Springing to his feet, he looked around for a weapon,\nloose stone, means of escape, anything.  By this time the nearest\nman was upon him.\n\n\"It is no use, sir,\" he said.  \"There are sixteen of us on the Plain,\nand the whole country is reared.\"\n\n\"Let her finish her sleep!\" he implored in a whisper of the men as\nthey gathered round.\n\nWhen they saw where she lay, which they had not done till then, they\nshowed no objection, and stood watching her, as still as the pillars\naround.  He went to the stone and bent over her, holding one poor\nlittle hand; her breathing now was quick and small, like that of a\nlesser creature than a woman.  All waited in the growing light, their\nfaces and hands as if they were silvered, the remainder of their\nfigures dark, the stones glistening green-gray, the Plain still a\nmass of shade.  Soon the light was strong, and a ray shone upon her\nunconscious form, peering under her eyelids and waking her.\n\n\"What is it, Angel?\" she said, starting up.  \"Have they come for me?\"\n\n\"Yes, dearest,\" he said.  \"They have come.\"\n\n\"It is as it should be,\" she murmured.  \"Angel, I am almost glad--yes,\nglad!  This happiness could not have lasted.  It was too much.  I\nhave had enough; and now I shall not live for you to despise me!\"\n\nShe stood up, shook herself, and went forward, neither of the men\nhaving moved.\n\n\"I am ready,\" she said quietly.\n\n\n\nLIX\n\n\nThe city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime capital\nof Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave downlands in all the\nbrightness and warmth of a July morning.  The gabled brick, tile, and\nfreestone houses had almost dried off for the season their integument\nof lichen, the streams in the meadows were low, and in the sloping\nHigh Street, from the West Gateway to the mediæval cross, and from\nthe mediæval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping\nwas in progress which usually ushers in an old-fashioned market-day.\n\nFrom the western gate aforesaid the highway, as every Wintoncestrian\nknows, ascends a long and regular incline of the exact length of a\nmeasured mile, leaving the houses gradually behind.  Up this road\nfrom the precincts of the city two persons were walking rapidly,\nas if unconscious of the trying ascent--unconscious through\npreoccupation and not through buoyancy.  They had emerged upon this\nroad through a narrow, barred wicket in a high wall a little lower\ndown.  They seemed anxious to get out of the sight of the houses and\nof their kind, and this road appeared to offer the quickest means\nof doing so.  Though they were young, they walked with bowed heads,\nwhich gait of grief the sun's rays smiled on pitilessly.\n\nOne of the pair was Angel Clare, the other a tall budding\ncreature--half girl, half woman--a spiritualized image of Tess,\nslighter than she, but with the same beautiful eyes--Clare's\nsister-in-law, 'Liza-Lu.  Their pale faces seemed to have shrunk\nto half their natural size.  They moved on hand in hand, and never\nspoke a word, the drooping of their heads being that of Giotto's\n\"Two Apostles\".\n\nWhen they had nearly reached the top of the great West Hill the\nclocks in the town struck eight.  Each gave a start at the notes,\nand, walking onward yet a few steps, they reached the first\nmilestone, standing whitely on the green margin of the grass, and\nbacked by the down, which here was open to the road.  They entered\nupon the turf, and, impelled by a force that seemed to overrule their\nwill, suddenly stood still, turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense\nbeside the stone.\n\nThe prospect from this summit was almost unlimited.  In the valley\nbeneath lay the city they had just left, its more prominent buildings\nshowing as in an isometric drawing--among them the broad cathedral\ntower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave,\nthe spires of St Thomas's, the pinnacled tower of the College, and,\nmore to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice,\nwhere to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale.\nBehind the city swept the rotund upland of St Catherine's Hill;\nfurther off, landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was lost\nin the radiance of the sun hanging above it.\n\nAgainst these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other\ncity edifices, a large red-brick building, with level gray roofs,\nand rows of short barred windows bespeaking captivity, the whole\ncontrasting greatly by its formalism with the quaint irregularities\nof the Gothic erections.  It was somewhat disguised from the road in\npassing it by yews and evergreen oaks, but it was visible enough up\nhere.  The wicket from which the pair had lately emerged was in the\nwall of this structure.  From the middle of the building an ugly\nflat-topped octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and\nviewed from this spot, on its shady side and against the light, it\nseemed the one blot on the city's beauty.  Yet it was with this blot,\nand not with the beauty, that the two gazers were concerned.\n\nUpon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed.  Their eyes\nwere riveted on it.  A few minutes after the hour had struck\nsomething moved slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the\nbreeze.  It was a black flag.\n\n\"Justice\" was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean\nphrase, had ended his sport with Tess.  And the d'Urberville knights\nand dames slept on in their tombs unknowing.  The two speechless\ngazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and\nremained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued\nto wave silently.  As soon as they had strength, they arose, joined\nhands again, and went on."