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 "selecting a specially fine product of the 'BRITISH QUEEN ' TAUIETY, 
 HE STOOD UP AND HELD IT DY THE STEM TO HER MOUTH." 
 
TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES 
 
 A PUKE WOMAN 
 
 Faithfully Presented 
 
 By THOMAS HARDY 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES " " THE AVOODLANDERS " ETC. 
 
 ^^ Poor wozmded name! my bosom, as a bed. 
 Shall lodge thee.'" 
 
 W. Shakespeare. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW AXD COMPLETELY REVISED EDITIOS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 
 1893 
 
Copyright, 1891, by Harper «S: Brothers. 
 Coi3yright, 1892, by Harper & Brothers. 
 
 Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Brothers. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 p[)a5c tl)e i^irst. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE MAIDEN, I.-XI 1 
 
 lase tl)e Scconb. 
 
 MAIDEN NO MORE, XII.-XV 81 
 
 THE RALLY, XYI.-XXIV 112 
 
 THE CONSEQUENCE, XXV.-XXXIV 172 
 
 pi)asc l\]c i'iftli. 
 
 THE WOMAN PAYS, XXXV.-XLIV 258 
 
 THE CONVERT, XLV.-LII 348 
 
 FULFILMENT, LIII.-LIX 420 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 " SELECTING A SPECIALLY FINE PRODUCT OF THE * BRITISH QUEEN ' 
 VARIETY, HE STOOD UP AND HELD IT BY THE STEM TO HER 
 
 MOUTH " Frontispiece 
 
 " so MATTERS STOOD WHEN TESS OPENED THE DOOR AND PAUSED 
 
 UPON THE MAT WITHIN IT, SURVEYING THE SCENE" . . . FuceS p. 16 
 
 "TESS followed slowly IN THEIR REAR, AND ENTERED THE 
 BARTON BY THE OPEN GATE THROUGH WHICH THEY HAD EN- 
 TERED BEFORE her" " 118 
 
 " ' WHAT MAKES YOU DRAW OFF IN THAT WAY, TESS ?' SAID HE, 
 
 'ARE YOU AFRAID?'" " 138 
 
 "he WENT QUICKLY TOWARDS THE DESIRE OF HIS EYES " . . . " 170 
 
 "SHE FLUNG HERSELF DOWN UPON THE RUSTLING UNDERGROWTH 
 
 OF SPEAR-GRASS AS UPON A BED " " 202 
 
 "they hung ABOUT HER IN THEIR FLOWING WHITE NIGHT- 
 GOWNS" " 226 
 
 " * IN THE NAME OP HEAVEN, FORGIVE ME !' SHE WHISPERED " . . " 260 
 
 "his father and MOTHER WERE BOTH IN THE DRAWING-ROOM " " 298 
 
 " THE PREACHER WAS ALEC d'uRBERVILLE " " 348 
 
 "'what shall we do NOW, TESS?'" " 416 
 
EXPLANATOEY NOTE TO THE FIEST 
 
 EDITION. 
 
 The main portion of tlie following story appeared — with 
 slight modifications — in the GrapMc newspaper and Har- 
 pei^s Bazar ; other chapters, more especially addressed to 
 adnlt readers, in the Fortnightly Review and the Kational 
 Ohserver, as episodic sketches. My thanks are tendered to 
 the editors and proprietors of those periodicals for enabhng 
 me now to piece the trnnk and hmbs of the novel together, 
 and print it complete, as originally written two years ago. 
 
 I will just add that the story is sent out in all sincerity 
 of purpose, as an attempt to give artistic form to a true 
 sequence of things ; and in respect of the book's opinions I 
 would ask any too genteel reader who cannot endnre to 
 have said what everybody nowadays thinks and feels, to 
 remember a weU-worn sentence of St. Jerome's : ''If an 
 offence come out of the truth, better is it that the offence 
 come than that the truth be concealed." 
 
 T. H. 
 
 November, 1891. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH (ENGLISH) 
 
 EDITION.* 
 
 This novel being one wherein the great campaign of the 
 heroine begins after an event in her experience wliich has 
 usually been treated as extinguishing her, in the aspect of 
 protagonist at least, and as the virtual ending of her career 
 and hopes, it was quite contrary to avowed conventions that 
 the public should welcome the book, and agree with me in 
 holding that there was something more to be said in fiction 
 than had been said about the shaded side of a well-known 
 catastrophe. But the responsive spirit in w^hich Tess of the 
 J>' UrherviUes has been received by the readers of England 
 and America would seem to prove that the plan of laying 
 down a story on the lines of tacit opinion, instead of mak- 
 ing it to square with, the merely vocal formulae of society, 
 is not altogether a wTong one, even when exemplified in so 
 unequal and partial an achievement as the present. For 
 this responsiveness I cannot refrain from expressing my 
 thanks ; and my regfet is that, in a world where one so 
 often hungers in vain for friendship, where even not to be 
 wilfuUy misunderstood is felt as a kindness, I shall never 
 meet in person these appreciative readers, male and female, 
 and shake them by the hand. 
 
 I include amongst them the reviewers — by far the ma- 
 jority — who have so generously welcomed the tale. Their 
 w^ords show that they, Uke the others, have only too largely 
 repaired my defects of narration by their own imaginative 
 intuition. 
 
 Nevertheless, though the novel was intended to be neither 
 
 * Eighth American Edition. 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 didactic nor aggressive, but in the scenic parts to be repre- 
 sentative simply, and in the contemplative to be oftener 
 charged with impressions than with opinions, there have 
 been objectors both to the matter and to the rendering. 
 
 Some of these maintain a conscientions difference of 
 sentiment concerning, among other things, subjects fit for 
 art, and reveal an inability to associate the idea of the title- 
 adjective with any bnt the hcensed and derivative meaning 
 which has resulted to it from the ordinances of civilization. 
 They thus ignore, not only all Nature's claims, all aesthetic 
 claims on the word, but even the spiritual interpretation 
 afforded by the finest side of Christianity ; and drag in, as a 
 vital point, the acts of a woman in her last dtiys of despera- 
 tion, when all her doings he outside her normal character. 
 Others dissent on grounds which are intrinsically no more 
 than an assertion that the novel embodies the views of life 
 prevalent at the end of the nineteenth century, and not 
 those of an earlier and simpler generation — an assertion 
 which I can only hope may be well founded. Let me repeat 
 that a novel is an impression, not an argument ; and there 
 the matter must rest; as one is reminded by a passage 
 which occurs in the letters of Schiller to Goethe on judges 
 of this class : " They are those w^ho seek only their own ideas 
 in a representation, and prize that which should be as 
 higher than what is. The cause of the dispute, therefore, 
 lies in the ver}^ fij'st principles, and it would be utterly im- 
 possil)le to come to an understanding with them." And 
 again : '' As soon as I observe that any one, when judging 
 of poetical representations, considers anything more im- 
 portant than the inner Necessity and Truth, I have done 
 with him." 
 
 In the introductory words to the fii'st edition I suggested 
 the possible advent of the genteel person who would not be 
 able to endure the tone of these pages. That person duly 
 appeared, mostly mixed up with the aforesaid objectors. 
 In another of his forms he felt upset that it was not possi- 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 ble for liim to read the book tlirougli tliree times, owing to 
 my not having made that critical effort which " alone can 
 prove the salvation of such an one/^ In another, he objected 
 to such vnlgar articles as the devil's pitchfork, a lodging- 
 honse carving-knife, and a shame-bought parasol appearing 
 in a respectable story. In another place he was a gentle- 
 man who tiu'ned Christian for half an hour the better to 
 express his grief that a disrespectful phrase about the Im- 
 mortals shoidd have been used ; though the same innate 
 gentility compelled him to excuse the author in w^ords of 
 pity that one cannot be too thankfid for : " He does but give 
 us of his best." I can assui'e this great critic that to exclaim 
 iUogically against the gods, singular or plural, is not such 
 an original sin of mine as he seems to imagine. True, it 
 may have some local originahty ; though if Shakespeare 
 were an authority on history, which perhaps he is not, I 
 could show that the sin was introduced into Wessex as early 
 as the Heptarchy itself. Says Glo'ster to Lear, otherwise 
 Ina, king of that country : 
 
 It 
 
 As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods ; 
 Tliey Idll us for their sport." 
 
 The remaining tw^o or three manipulators of Tess were 
 of the sort whom most winters and readers would gladly 
 forget : professed hterary boxers, who put on their convic- 
 tions for the occasion ; modern '^ Hammers of Heretics '^ ; 
 sworn discoui'agers of effort, ever on the watch to prevent 
 the tentative half-success from becoming the whole success ; 
 W'ho pervert plain meanings, and grow^ personal under the 
 name of practising the great historical method. However, 
 they may have causes to advance, pri^dleges to guard, tra- 
 ditions to keep going; some of w^hich a mere tale-teller, 
 who writes down how the things of the world strike him, 
 without any ulterior intentions whatever, has overlooked, 
 and may by pure inadvertence have run foul of when in 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 the least aggressive mood. Perhaps some passing percep- 
 tiorij the outcome of a dream-hour, would, if generally acted 
 on^ cause such an assailant considerable inconvenience 
 with respect to position, interests, family, servant, ox, ass, 
 neighbor, or neighbor's wife. He therefore valiantly hides 
 his personality behind a publisher's shutters, and cries 
 "Shame ! " So densely is the world thronged that any shift- 
 ing of positions, even the best warranted advance, hurts 
 somebody's heels. Such shiftings of teix begin in sentiment, 
 and such sentiment sometimes begins in a novel. 
 
 T. H. 
 
 July, 1892. 
 
TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 THE MAIDEN. 
 
 I. 
 
 On ail evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged 
 man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village 
 of Mario tt, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore or Black- 
 moor. The i^air of legs that carried him were rickety, and 
 there was a bias in his gait that inclined him somewhat to 
 the left of a straight line. He occasionally gave a smart 
 nod, as if in confii*mation of some opinion, though he was 
 not thinking of anything in particular. An empty egg- 
 basket was slung upon his arm, the nap of his hat was 
 ruffled, a patch being quite worn away at its brim where 
 his thumb came in taking it off. Presently he was met by 
 an elderly parson astride of a gray mare, who, as he rode, 
 hummed a wandering tune. 
 
 " Good-night t'ye," said the man with the basket. 
 
 " Good-night, Sir John,'^ said the parson. 
 
 The pedestrian, after another pace or two, halted, and 
 
 turned round. 
 1 
 
2 TESS OF THE D'URBEm^LLES. 
 
 ''Now, sir, begging your pardon, we met last market-day 
 on this road about this time, and I said ' Good-night,' and 
 you made reply, '■ Good-night, Sir John,' as now." 
 
 " I did," said the parson, 
 
 '^ And once before that — near a month ago." 
 
 '' I mav have." 
 
 '' Then what might your meaning be in calling me ' Sir 
 John ' these different times, when I be plain Jack Durbey^ 
 field, the haggler ? " 
 
 The parson rode a step or two nearer. 
 
 " It was only my whim," he said : and, after a moment's 
 hesitation : " It was on account of a discovery I made some 
 little time ago, whilst I was hunting up pedigrees for the 
 new county history. I am Parson Tringham, the antiquary, 
 of Stagfoot Lane. Don't you really know, Durbeyfield, 
 that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and 
 knightly family of the D'Urbervilles, who derive their 
 descent from Sir Pagan D'Urberville, that renoT^aied knight 
 who came from Normandy mtli WiUiam the Conqueror, 
 as appears by Battle Abbey Roll ? " 
 
 '' Never heard it before, sir." 
 
 " WeU, it's true. Throw up your chin a moment, so that 
 I may catch the profile of yom' face better. Yes, that's the 
 D'Urberville nose and chin — a little debased. Your ances- 
 tor was one of the twelve knights who assisted the Lord of 
 Estremavilla in Normandy in his conquest of Glamorgan- 
 shire. Branches of vom* familv held manors over all this 
 part of England ; their names appear in the Pipe Rolls in 
 the time of King Stephen. In the reign of King John one 
 of them was rich enough to give a manor to the Knights 
 Hospitallers ; and in Edward the Second's time your fore- 
 father Brian was summoned to Westminster to attend the 
 great Council there. You declined a little in Oliver Crom- 
 well's time, but to no serious extent, and in Charles the 
 Second's reign yoii were made Knights of the Royal O^k 
 for your loyalty. Aye, there have been generations of 
 
THE MAIDEN. 3 
 
 Sir Johns among you, and if kuigiitliood were hereditary, 
 like a baronetcy, as it practically was in old times, when 
 men were knighted from father to son, you would be Sir 
 John now." 
 
 ^' You don't say so ! " 
 
 ^'In short," concluded the parson, decisively smacking 
 his leg with his switch, " there's hardly such another family 
 in England ! " 
 
 '^ Daze my eyes, and isn't there ? " said Durbeyfield. 
 " And here have I been knocking about, year after year, 
 from pillar to post, as if I was no more than the common- 
 est feller in the parish. . . . And how long hev this news 
 about me been knowed, Pa'son Tringham "? " 
 
 The clergyman explained that, as far as he was aware, 
 it had quite died out of knowledge, and could hardly be 
 said to be known at all. His own investigations had begun 
 on a day in the preceding spring when, having been en- 
 gaged in tracing the ^dcissitudes of the D'Urberville family, 
 he had observed Dm-beyfiekVs name on his wagon, and had 
 thereupon been led to make inquiiies al)Out his father and 
 grandfather, till he had no doubt on the subject. "At first 
 I resolved not to distiu'b you with such a useless piece of 
 information," said he. "However, our impulses are too 
 strong for oiu* judgment sometimes. I thought you might 
 perhaps know something of it all the while." 
 
 "Well, I have heard once or twice, 'tis true, that my 
 family had seen better days before they came to Black- 
 moor. But I took no notice o't, thinking it to mean that 
 we had once kept two horses where we now keep only one. 
 I've got a wold silver spoon at home, too ; and likewise a 
 gi-aven seal; but. Lord, what's a spoon and seal? . . . 
 And to think that I and these noble D'Urbervilles was one 
 flesh. 'Twas said that my grandfer had secrets, and didn't 
 care to talk of where he came from. . . . And where do 
 we raise our smoke, now, parson, make so bold ; I mean, 
 where do we D'Urber\dlles live ? " 
 
4 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ^' You don't live anywhere. You are extinct— as a county 
 family." 
 
 '^ That's bad." 
 
 "Yes — what the mendacious family chronicles call ex- 
 tinct in the male line — that is, gone down — gone under." 
 
 " And Avhere do we he f " 
 
 "At Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill : rows and rows of you 
 in your vaults, with yoiu^ effigies under Purbeck-marble 
 canopies." 
 
 " And where be our famil}^ mansions and estates ? " 
 
 " You haven't anv." 
 
 " O ! No lands neither ? " 
 
 " None ; though you once had 'em in abundance, as I 
 said, for jouv family consisted of numerous branches. In 
 this county there was a seat of yours at Kingsbere, and 
 another at Sherton, and another at Millpond, and another 
 at Lullstead, and another at Wellbridge." 
 
 " And shall we ever come into our own again ? " 
 
 " Ah, that I can't teU." 
 
 " And what had I better do about it, sir ? '' asked Durbey- 
 field, after a pause. 
 
 "O — nothing, nothing; except chasten yourself Avith 
 the thought of 'how are the mighty fallen.' It is a fact 
 of some interest to the local historian and genealogist, 
 nothing more. There are several families among the 
 cottagers of this county of almost equal lustre. Good- 
 night." 
 
 " But you'll turn back and have a quart of beer wi' me 
 on the strength o't, Pa'son Tringham ? There's a very 
 pretty brew in tap at The Pure Drop — though, to be sure, 
 not so good as at Rolliver's." 
 
 " No, thank you — not this evening, Durbeyfield. You've 
 had enough already." Concluding thus, the parson rode 
 on liis way, with doubts as to his discretion in retailing this 
 curious bit of lore. 
 
 When he was gone Durbeyfield walked a few steps in a 
 
THE INIAIDEX. 5 
 
 profound reverie, and then sat down npon the gi'assy bank 
 by the roadside, depositing his basket before liini. In a 
 few niinntes a yonth appeared in the distance, walking 
 in the same direction as that which had been pnrsned by 
 Dnrbeyfield. The latter, on seeing him, held np his hand, 
 and the lad qnickened his pace and came near. 
 
 ^' Boy, take np that basket ! I want 'ee to go on an 
 errand for me." 
 
 The lath-like stripling frowned. "Who be yon, then, 
 John Diu'be^^eld, that order me abont and call me bov? 
 Yon know my name as well as I know yours ! " 
 
 " Do you — do you ? That's the secret — that's the secret ! 
 Now o])ey my orders, and take the message I'm going to 
 charge 'ee wi'. . . . Well, Fred, I don't mind telling you 
 that the secret is that I'm one of a noble race — it has been 
 just found out by me this present afternoon, p.m." And 
 as he made the announcement, Dnrbeyfield, dechning from 
 his sitting position, luxuriously stretched himself out upon 
 the bank among the daisies. 
 
 The lad stood before Dnrbeyfield, and contemplated his 
 length from crown to toe. 
 
 " Sir John D'Urberville — that's who I be," continued the 
 prostrate man. " That is if knights were baronets — which 
 they be. 'Tis recorded in history aU about me. Dost 
 know of such a place, lad, as Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill ? " 
 
 " Ees. I've been there to Greenhill Fair." 
 
 "Well, under the church of that city there lie " 
 
 "'Tisn't a city, the place I mean; leastwise 'twasn't 
 when I was there — 'twas a little one-eyed, blinking sort o' 
 place." 
 
 ^' Never you mind the place, boy ; that's not the questioii 
 l^efore us. Under the church of that parish lie my ances- 
 tors — hundreds of 'em — in coats of mail and jewels, in 
 great lead coffins weighing tons and tons. There's not a 
 man in the county o' Wessex that's got grander and nobler 
 skellingtons in his family than I." 
 
6 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 ''Now take uj) that basket, and go on to Marlott, and 
 wlien you come to The Pure Drop Inn, tell 'em to send a 
 horse and carriage to me immediately, to carry me home. 
 And in the bottom o' the carriage they be to put a noggin 
 o' rum in a small bottle, and chalk it uj) to my account. 
 And when youVe done that, go on to my house with the 
 basket, and tell my wife to put away that washing, because 
 she needn't finish it, and wait till I come home, as I have 
 news to tell her." 
 
 As the lad stood in a dul3ious attitude, Diu'beyfield put 
 his hand in his pocket and produced a shilling, one of the 
 comparatively few that he possessed. ''Here's for your 
 labor, lad." 
 
 This made a real diiference in the young man's apprecia- 
 tion of the position. "Yes, Sir John. Thank you. Any- 
 thing else I can do for 'ee. Sir John ? " 
 
 " Tell 'em at home that I should like for supper — well, 
 lamb's fry if they can get it ; and if they can't, black-pot ; 
 and if they can't get that — well, chitterlings will do." 
 
 "Yes, Sir John." 
 
 The boy took up the basket, and as he set out the notes 
 of a brass band were heard from the dii'ection of the \dllage. 
 " What's that ? " said Durbevfield. " Not on account o' I ? " 
 
 "'Tis the women's club-wall^ing, Sii' John. Why, your 
 daughter is one o' the members." 
 
 "To be sure ; I'd quite forgot it in my thoughts of 
 greater things. Well, vamp on to Marlott, will 'ee, and 
 order that carriage, and maybe I'll drive round and inspect 
 the club." 
 
 The lad departed, and Durbeyfield lay waiting on the 
 grass and daisies in the evening sun. Not a soul passed 
 that way for a long while, and the faint notes of the band 
 were the only human sounds audible Tvithin the rim of 
 blue hills. 
 
THE 3IAIDEX. 
 
 II. 
 
 The village of Marlott lay amid tlie nortlieastern undu- 
 lations of the beautiful Vale of Blakemore or Blackmoor 
 aforesaid, an engii'dled and secluded region, for the most 
 part untrodden as yet by toui-ist or landscape-painter, 
 though within a four hours' journey from London. 
 
 It is a yale whose acquaintance is best made by ^dewing 
 it from the summits of the hills that surround it — except 
 perhaps during the droughts of summer. An unguided 
 ramble into its recesses in bad weather is apt to engender 
 dissatisfaction with its narrow, tortuous, and miry ways. 
 
 This fertile and sheltered tract of country, in which the 
 fields are neyer brown and the springs neyer dry, is 
 bounded on the south by the bold chalk ridge that embraces 
 the prominences of Hambledon Hill, Bulbarrow, Nettle- 
 combe-Tout, Dogbury, High Stoy, and Bubb DoTvm. The 
 trayeller from the coast, who, after plodding for a score 
 of miles oyer calcareous downs and corn-lands, suddenly 
 reaches the yerge of one of these escarpments, is surj^rised 
 and delighted to behold, extended Like a map beneath him, 
 a country differing absolutely from that which he has 
 passed through. Behind him the hiUs are open, the sun 
 blazes do^yn upon fields so large as to giye an unenclosed 
 character to the landscape, the lanes are white, the hedges 
 low and plashed, the atmosphere colorless. Here, in the 
 yalley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller 
 and more delicate scale ; the fields are mere paddocks, so 
 reduced that from this height their hedge-rows appear a 
 net-work of dark green threads overspreading the paler 
 green of the grass. The atmosphere beneath is languorous, 
 and is so tinged mth azure that what artists call the mid- 
 dle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon 
 
8 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 beyond is of the cleej)est ultramarine. Arable lands are 
 few and limited ; with but slight exceptions the prospect is 
 a broad rich mass of grass and trees, mantling minor hills 
 and dales within the major. Such is the Vale of Blackmoor. 
 
 The district is of historic^ no less than of topographical 
 interest. The vale was known in former times as the 
 Forest of White Hart, from a curious legend of King 
 Henry the Third's reign, in which the killing by a certain 
 Thomas de la L^md of a beautiful white hart which the 
 King had run down and spared, was made the occasion of 
 a hea^y fine. In those days, and till comparatively recent 
 times, the countrv was densely wooded. Even now traces 
 of its earlier condition are to be found in the old oak copses 
 and irregular belts of timber that yet survive upon its 
 slopes, and the hollo w-trunked trees that shade so many of 
 its pastures. 
 
 The forests have departed, but some old customs of their 
 shades remain. Many, however, linger only in a metamor- 
 phosed or disguised form. The May-day dance, for in- 
 stance, was to be discerned on the afternoon under notice, 
 in the guise of the club revel, or ''club- walking," as it Avas 
 there called. 
 
 It was an interesting event to the younger inhabitants of 
 Marlott, though the real interest was not observed b}^ the 
 participators in the ceremony. Its singularity lay less in 
 the fact that there was still retained a custom of walking 
 in procession and dancing on each anniversary than that 
 the members were solely women. In men's clubs such 
 celebrations were, though expiring, less uncommon ; but 
 either the natural shyness of the softer sex, or a sarcastic 
 attitude on the part of male relatives, had denuded such 
 women's clubs as remained (if any other did) of this their 
 glory and consummation. Tlie club of Marlott alone lived 
 to uphold the local Cerealia. It liad walked for hundreds 
 of years, if not as benefit-club, as votive sisterhood of some 
 soi-t ; and it walked still. 
 
 The banded ones were all dressed in white c:owns — a G'f^v 
 
THE MAIDEN. 9 
 
 survival from Old Style clays, when cheerfulness and May- 
 time were sjTionyms — days before the habit of taking long 
 views had reduced emotions to a monotonous average. 
 Theii- fii'st exhibition of themselves was in a processional 
 march of two and two round the parish. Ideal and real 
 clashed shghtly as the sun lit up their figures against the 
 gTeen hedges and creeper-laced house-fronts ; f or, though the 
 whole troop wore white garments, no two whites were ahke 
 among them. Some gowns were purely blanched; some 
 had a bluish pallor; some worn by the older characters 
 (which had possibly lain by folded for many a year) in- 
 clined to a cadaverous tint, and to Georgian style. 
 
 In addition to the distinction of a white frock, every 
 woman and gii4 carried in her right hand a peeled willow 
 wand, and in her left a bunch of white flowers. The peel- 
 ing of the former, and the selection of the latter, had been 
 an operation of personal care. 
 
 There were a few middle-aged and even elderly women in 
 the train, theii' silver mry hair and -^Tinkled faces, scoiu-ged 
 by time and trouble, ha\ing almost a grotesque, certainly a 
 pathetic, appearance in such a jaunty situation. In a true 
 ^'iew, perhaps, there was more to be gathered and told of 
 these anxious and experienced ones, to whom the years 
 were drawing nigh when each should say, "I have no 
 pleasure in them," than of the juvenile members. But let 
 the elder be passed over here for those under whose bodices 
 the life throbbed quick and warm. 
 
 The young gu-ls formed, indeed, the majority of the 
 band, and their heads of luxuriant hair reflected in the 
 sunshine every tone of gold and black and brown. Some 
 had beautiful eves, others a beautiful nose, others a beauti- 
 f ul mouth and figure ; few, if any, had all. A difficulty of 
 arranging their lips in this crude exposure to public 
 scrutiny, an inability to balance their heads and to disasso- 
 ciate self -consciousness from their features, were apparent 
 in them, and showed that they were genuine country girls, 
 unaccustomed to manv eves. 
 
10 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 And as each and all of tliem were warmed witliout by 
 the sun, so each had a private little sun for her soulto 
 Ijask in— ^some dream, some affection, some hobby, at least 
 some remote and distant hope, which, though perhaps 
 star\dng to nothing, still hved on, as hopes will. Thus 
 they were all cheerful, and many of them merry. 
 
 They came round by The Piu'e Drop Inn, and were 
 turning out of the high-road to pass through a mcket-gate 
 into the meadows, when one of the women said : 
 
 " The Lord-a-Lord ! Whv, Tess Durbeyfield, if there 
 isn't thy father riding home in a carriage ! '' 
 
 A young member of the band turned her head at the 
 exclamation. She was a fine, handsome gii'l — not hand- 
 somer than some others, certainly — but her mobile jDCony 
 mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to color 
 and shape. She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the 
 only one of the white company who could boast of such a 
 pronounced adornment. As she looked round, Dm-be^^eld 
 was seen mo\ing along the road in a chaise belonging 
 to The Pure Drop, diiven by a frizzle-headed, Ijrawny 
 damsel, with her gown, sleeves rolled above her elbows. 
 This was the cheerful servant of that estabhshment, who, 
 in her part of factotum, turned groom and ostler at times. 
 Durbeyfield, leaning back, and with his eyes closed lux- 
 uriously, was waving his hand above his head, and sing- 
 ing, in a slow recitative : 
 
 ^' Pve got a great family vault at Kingsbere, and knighted 
 forefathers in lead coffins there ! " 
 
 The clubbists tittered, except the girl called Tess — in 
 whom a slow heat seemed to rise at the sense that her 
 father was making himself foohsh in their eyes. 
 
 " He's tired, that's all," she said, hastily, " and he has got 
 a lift home, because our own horse has to rest to-dav." 
 
 ''Bless thy simplicity, Tess," said her companions 
 " He's got his market-nitch. Haw-haw ! " 
 
 '' Look here j I won't walk another inch ^s^dth ye if you 
 
THE iVIAIDEN. 11 
 
 say any jokes about him ! " Tess cried^ and tlie color upon 
 lier cheeks spread over her face and neck. In a moment 
 her eyes grew moist, and her glance dropped to the 
 ground. Perceiving that they had really pained her, they 
 said no more, and order again prevailed. Tess's pride 
 would not allow her to turn her head again, to learn what 
 her father's meaning was, if he had any; and thus she 
 moved on mtli the whole bodv to the enclosure where 
 there was to be dancing on the green. By the time the 
 spot was reached she had recovered her equanimity, and 
 tapped her neighbor with her wand and talked as usual. 
 
 Tess Durbey field at this time of her life was a mere 
 vessel of emotion, untinctured by experience. The dialect 
 was on her tongue to some extent, despite the \dllage 
 school : the characteristic intonation of that dialect for this 
 district being the voicing approximately rendered by the 
 syllable ur — probably as rich an utterance as any to be 
 found in human speech. The pouted-up deep red mouth 
 to which this syllable was native had hardly as yet settled 
 into its definite shape, and her lower lip had a way of 
 thrusting the middle of her top one uj)ward, when they 
 closed together after a word. 
 
 Phases of her childhood lui^ked in her aspect still. As 
 she walked along to-day, for all her bouncing handsome 
 womanliness, you could sometimes see her twelfth year in 
 her cheeks, or her ninth sparkling from her eyes ; and 
 even her fifth would flit over the curves of her mouth now 
 and then. 
 
 Yet few knew, and still fewer considered, this. A small 
 minority, mainly strangers, would look long at her in casually 
 passing by, and grow momentarily fascinated by her fresh- 
 ness, and wonder if they would ever see her again ; but to 
 almost everybody she was a fijie and picturesque countiy 
 gii'l, and no more. 
 
 Nothing was seen or heard further of Durbeyfield in his 
 triumphal chariot under the conduct of the ostleress, and 
 
12 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 the clul) lia\dng entered tlie allotted space, dancing began. 
 As there were no men in the company, the gh-ls danced at 
 first mth each other, but when the horn* for the close of 
 labor drew on, the masculine inha})itants of the village, to- 
 gether with other idlers and pedestrians, gathered roimd 
 the spot, and appeared inclined to negotiate for a partner. 
 
 Among these lookers-on were three young men of a 
 superior class, carrying small knapsacks strapped to their 
 shoulders, and stout sticks in theu' hands. Their general 
 likeness to each other and their consecutive ages would al- 
 most have suggested that they might be, what in fact they 
 were, brothers. The eldest wore the white tie, high waist- 
 coat, and thin-brimmed hat of the regulation curate ; the 
 second was the normal undergraduate ; the appearance of 
 the third and youngest would hardly have been sufficient 
 to characterize him ; there w^as an uncribbed, uncabined 
 aspect in his eyes and attire, implying that he had hardly 
 as yet found the entrance to his professional groove. That 
 he was a desultory, tentative student of something and 
 everything might only have been predicated of him. 
 
 These three brethren told casual acquaintance that they 
 were spending theii' Whitsun hohdays in a walking tour 
 through the Yale of Blackmoor, their course being south- 
 westerly from the town of Shaston on the northeast. 
 
 They leant over the gate by the highway, and inquired 
 as to the meaning of the dance and the white-frocked 
 maids. The two elder of the brothers were plainly not in- 
 tending to linger more than a moment, but the spectacle 
 of a bevy of girls dancing without male partners seemed to 
 amuse the third, and make him in no hurry to move on. 
 He unstrapped his knapsack, put it, Avith liis stick, on the 
 hedge-bank, and opened the gate. 
 
 ^^ What are you going to do. Angel?" asked the eldest. 
 
 "I am inclined to go and have a fling with them. Why 
 not all of us — just for a minute or two ] it will not detain 
 us long ? " 
 
THE MAIDEN. 13 
 
 " No — no ; nonsense ! " said the first. " Dancing in 
 public with a troop of country hoydens! Suppose we 
 should be seen ! Come along, or it Tvill be dark before 
 we get to Stourcastle, and there's no place we can sleep at 
 nearer than that ; besides, we must get through another 
 chapter of A Counterhlast to Agnosticism before we turn in, 
 now I have taken the trouble to bring the book." 
 
 "All right; I'll overtake you and Cuthbert in five 
 minutes ; don't stop ; I give my word that I will, Felix." 
 
 The two elder reluctantly left him and walked on, taking 
 their brother's knapsack to relieve him in following, and 
 the 3^oungest entered the field. 
 
 " This is a thousand pities," he said, gallantly, to two or 
 three of the girls nearest him, as soon as there was a pause 
 in the dance. " \^Tiere are your partners, my dears ? " 
 
 ii Thev've not left off work vet," answered one of the 
 boldest. " They'll be here by-and-by. Till then ^dll you 
 be one, sirf" 
 
 '^ Certainly. But what's one among so many?" 
 
 "Better than none. 'Tis melancholy work facing and 
 footing it to one of your own sort, and no clipsing and 
 colling at all. Now, pick and choose." 
 
 " S-sh ! Don't be so forward ! " said a shver 2:irl. 
 
 The young man, thus invited, glanced them over, and 
 attempted some discrimination ; but as the group were all 
 so new to him, he could not very well exercise it. He took 
 almost the first that came to hand, which was not the 
 speaker, as she had expected ; nor did it happen to be Tess 
 Durbeyfield. Pedigree, ancestral skeletons, monumental 
 record, the D'Urberville lineaments, did not help Tess in 
 her life's battle as yet, even to the extent of attracting to 
 her a dancing partner over the heads of the commonest 
 peasantry. So much for Norman blood unaided b}^ Vic- 
 torian lucre. 
 
 The name of the echpsing girl, whatever it was, has not 
 been handed down 5 but she was envied by all as the fii-st 
 
14 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 who enjoyed the luxury of a masculine partner that even- 
 ing. Yet such was the force of example that the village 
 young men, who had not hastened to enter the gate while 
 no intruder was in the way, now dropped in quickly, and 
 soon the couples became leavened with rustic youths to a 
 marked extent, till at length the j)lainest woman in the club 
 was no longer compelled to foot it on the masculine side of 
 the figure. 
 
 The church clock struck, when suddenlv the student said 
 that he must leave — he had been forgetting himself — he 
 had to join his companions. As he fell out of the dance 
 his eyes lighted on Tess Durbeyfield, whose own large orbs 
 wore, to tell the truth, the faintest aspect of reproach that 
 he had not chosen her. He, too, was sorry then that, omng 
 to her backwardness, he had not observed her ; and, with 
 that in his mind, he left the pastm*e. 
 
 On account of his long delay he started in a flying run 
 down the lane westward, and had soon passed the hollow 
 and mounted the next rise. He had not yet overtaken his 
 brothers, l)ut he paused to take breath, and looked back. 
 He could see the white figures of the girls in the green en- 
 closure whirling about as they had whirled when he was 
 among them. They seemed to have quite forgotten him 
 alreadv. 
 
 All of them, except, perhaps, one. This white figure stood 
 apart by the hedge alone. From her position he knew it 
 to be the pretty maiden mth whom he had not danced. 
 Trifling as the matter was, he yet instinctively felt that 
 she was hurt by his oversight. He wished that he had 
 asked her ; he wished that he had inquired her name. She 
 was so modest, so expressive, she had looked so soft in her 
 thin white gown that he felt he had acted stupidly. 
 
 However, it could not be helped, and turning, and bend- 
 ing himself to a rapid walk, he dismissed the subject from 
 his mind. 
 
THE MAIDEN. 15 
 
 III. 
 
 As for Tess Durbeyfield, she did not so easily dislodge 
 the incident from her consideration. She had no spmt to 
 dance again for a long time, thongh she might have had 
 plenty of partners ; but, ah ! they did not speak so nicely as 
 the strange yonng man had done. It was not till the rays 
 of the sun had absorbed the young strangei^'s retreating 
 figure on the hill that she shook off her temporary sadness, 
 and answered her would-be partner in the affii-mative. 
 
 She remained with her comrades till dusk, and partici- 
 pated with a certain zest in the dancing; though, being 
 heart-whole as yet, she enjoyed treading a measure pm-ely 
 for its own sake ; little divining when she saw " the soft 
 torments, the bitter sweets, the pleasing pains, and the 
 agTceable distresses" of those girls who had been wooed 
 and won, v\diat she herself was capable of experiencing in 
 that kind. The struggles and ^Tangles of the lads for her 
 hand in a jig were an amusement to her, no more ; and 
 when thev became fierce she rebuked them. 
 
 She might have stayed even later, but the incident of her 
 father's odd appearance and manner retui'ued upon the 
 girl's mind to make her anxious, and wondering what had 
 become of him she dropped away from the dancers and 
 bent her steps towards the end of the village at which the 
 parental cottage lay. While yet many score yards off, 
 other rhythmic sounds than those she had quitted became 
 audible to her ; sounds that she knew well — so well. They 
 were a regular series of thumpings from the interior of the 
 house, occasioned by the \iolent rocking of a cradle upon 
 a stone floor, to which movement a feminine voice kept 
 time by singing, in a vigorous gallopade, the favorite ditty 
 of " The Spotted Cow " : 
 
16 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 I saw her lie do — own in yon — der green gro — ve ; 
 Come, love, and I'll tell you where. 
 
 The cradle-rocking and the song would cease for a mo- 
 ment simultaneously, and an exclamation at highest vocal 
 pitch would take the place of the melody. 
 
 ^' God bless thy diment eyes ! And thy waxen cheeks ! 
 And thy cherry mouth ! And thy Cubit's lags ! And 
 every bit o' thy blessed body !" 
 
 After this invocation the rocking and the singing would 
 recommence, and '' The Spotted Cow " proceed as before. 
 So matters stood when Tess opened the door and paused 
 upon the mat "within it, siu'veying the scene. 
 
 The interior, in spite of the melody, struck upon the 
 girPs senses with an unspeakable dreariness. From the 
 holiday gayeties of the day — the white gowns, the nose- 
 gays, the willow wands, the whirling movements on the 
 green, the flash of gentle sentiment towards the stranger — 
 to the yellow melancholy of this one-candled spectacle, 
 what a step ! Besides the jar of contrast, there came to 
 her a chill feeling of self-reproach that she had not re- 
 turned sooner, before the dancing began, to help her 
 mother in these domesticities, instead of indulging herself 
 out-of-doors. 
 
 There stood her mother amid the group of childi'en, as 
 Tess had left her, hanging over the Monday washing-tub, 
 which had now, as always, lingered on to the end of the 
 week. Out of that tub had come the day before — Tess felt 
 it with a dreadful sting of remorse — the very white frock 
 upon her back, which she had so carelessly greened about 
 the skirt on the damping grass ; which had been wrung up 
 and ironed by her mother's own hands. 
 
 As usual, Mrs. Durbevfield was l)alanced on one foot 
 l)eside the tub, the other being engaged in the aforesaid 
 business of rocking her youngest child. The cradle rockers 
 liad done hard duty for so many years, under the weight 
 
o 
 
 t> 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 ss 
 
 U) 
 
 CO 
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 o 
 o 
 o 
 
 s! 
 
 H 
 H 
 M 
 
 o 
 
 2 
 
 a 
 
 O 
 
 o 
 
 > 
 Si 
 
 a 
 
 ":) 
 t> 
 cl 
 
 CO 
 
 O 
 
 a 
 
 O 
 
 z 
 
 s 
 
 
 so 
 
 --I 
 t— t 
 2 
 CJ 
 
 H 
 
 K 
 
 ts 
 
 Cfi 
 
 o 
 
 IS 
 
 z 
 
 IS 
 
THE 3IAIDEN. 17 
 
 of SO many cliildren, on that flag-stone floor, that they 
 were worn nearly flat; in consequence of which a huge 
 jerk accompanied each swing of the cot, flinging the baby 
 from side to side like a weaver's shuttle, as Mrs. Durbey- 
 field, excited by her song, trod the rocker with all the 
 spring that was left in her after a long day's seething in 
 the suds. 
 
 Nick-knock, nick-knock went the cradle; the candle- 
 flame stretched itself tall, and began jigging up and 
 do^Ti ; the water dribbled from her mother's eb30ws, and 
 the song galloped on to the end of the verse, Mrs. Dm-bey- 
 field regarding her daughter the while. Even now, when 
 biu'dened with a young family, Joan Durbe;yfield was a 
 passionate lover of tune. No ditty floated into Black- 
 moor Vale from the outer world but Tess's mother caught 
 up its notation in a week. 
 
 There still faintly beamed from the woman's features 
 something of the freshness and even the prettiness of her 
 youth, rendering it evident that the personal charms which 
 Tess could boast of were in main part her mother's gift, 
 and therefore unknightly, unhistorical. 
 
 " I'll rock the cradle for 'ee, mother," said the daughter, 
 gently ; "or I'll take off my best frock and help you ^vi'ing 
 up 1 1 thought you had finished long ago." 
 
 Her mother bore Tess no ill-will for leaving the house- 
 work to her single-handed efforts for so long ; and indeed 
 she seldom upbraided her thereon at any time, feeling the 
 lack of Tess's assistance but slightly, whilst her chief plan 
 for relieving herself of her diurnal labors lay in postpon- 
 ing them. To-night, however, she was even in a blither 
 mood than usual. There was a dreaminess, a preposses- 
 sion, an exaltation, in the maternal look which the gii'l 
 could not understand. 
 
 '' Well, I'm glad you've come," her mother said, as soon 
 as the last note had passed out of her. " I want to go and 
 fetch youi* father. But what's mox'e'n that, I want to tell 
 
18 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 'ee what have happened. You'll be fess enough, my pop- 
 pet, when you know ! " 
 
 (Mrs. Dui'beylield still habitually spoke the dialect ; her 
 daughter, who had passed the Sixth Standard in the Na- 
 tional School, under a London-trained mistress, spoke two 
 languages; the dialect at home, more or less; ordinary 
 English abroad and to persons of quality.) 
 
 " Since I've been away ? " Tess asked. 
 
 "Ay!" 
 
 "Had it anything to do with father's making such a 
 mommet of himself in the carriage this afternoon ? Why 
 did he ? I felt inclined to sink into the ground ! " 
 
 " That was all a part of the larry. We've been found to be 
 the gi'eatest gentlefolk in the w^hole county, reaching all back 
 long before Oliver Grumble's time, to the days of the pagan 
 Turks, mth monuments and vaults and crests and scutch- 
 eons, and the Lord knows what all ! In Saint Charles's 
 days we was made Knights of the Royal Oak, our real 
 name being D'Urber\dlle. . . . Don't that make your bosom 
 swell ? 'TAvas on tliis account that voui' father rode home 
 in the carriage ; not because he'd been drinking, as people 
 supposed." 
 
 "I'm glad of that. WiU it do us any good, mother!" 
 
 " Oh yes. 'Tis thoughted that great things may come 
 o't. No doubt a string of folk of our own rank wiU be 
 down here in their carriages as soon as 'tis knoT\Ti. Your 
 father learnt it on his way home from Stourcastle, and has 
 been telling me the whole pedigree of the matter." 
 
 " Where is father now .? " asked Tess, suddenly. 
 
 Her mother gave irrelevant information by way of answer. 
 " He called to see the doctor to-day in Stourcastle. It is 
 not consumption at all, it seems. It is fat around his 
 heart, he says. There, it is like this." Joan Durbeyfield, 
 as she spoke, curved a sodden thumb and forefinger to the 
 shape of the letter C, and used the other forefinger as a 
 pointer. " ' At the present moment,' he says to youi' 
 
THE 3IAIDEN, 19 
 
 father, 'your heart is enclosed all round there, and all 
 round there ; this space is still open/ he says. ^ As soon 
 as it meets, so ' — Mrs. Durbeyfield closed her fingers into a 
 circle complete — ' off 3'on ^nW go like a shadder, Mr. Durbey- 
 field,' he says. ^ You mid last ten years 5 you mid go off 
 in ten months, or ten days.' " 
 
 Tess looked alarmed. Her father possibly to go behind 
 the eternal cloud so soon, notwithstanding this sudden 
 greatness ! " But where is father ? " she asked again. 
 
 Her mother put on a deprecating look. "Now don't 
 you be bursting out angry. The poor man — he felt so weak 
 after his excitement at the news — that he went up to Rolli- 
 ver's half an hour ago. He do want to get up his strength 
 for his journey to-morrow wdth that load of beehives, 
 which must be delivered, family or no. He'll have to start 
 shortly after twelve to-night, as the distance is so long." 
 
 " G-et up his strength ! " said Tess, impetuously, the tears 
 welling to her eyes. " O, my heavens ! go to a pubhc 
 house to get up his strength ! And you as well agreed as 
 he, mother ! " 
 
 Her rebuke and her mood seemed to fill the whole room, 
 and to impart a cowled look to the furniture and candle, 
 and children plajdng about, and to her mothei^'s face. 
 
 "No," said the latter, touchily, "I am not agreed. I 
 have been waiting for 'ee to bide and keep house while I 
 go to fetch him." 
 
 " I'll go." 
 
 " Oh no, Tess. You see, it would be no use." 
 
 Tess did not expostulate. She knew what her mother's 
 objection meant. Moreover, Mrs. Durbeyfield's jacket and 
 bonnet were already hanging slyly upon a chair by her 
 side, in readiness for this contemplated jaunt, the reason 
 for which the matron deplored more than its necessity. 
 
 "x\nd take the CompJeat Fortune-teller to the out-house," 
 she continued, rapidly wiping her hands and donning the 
 garments. 
 
20 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 The Compleat Fortune-teller was an old thick volume, 
 which lay on a table at her elbow, so worn by pocketing 
 that the margins had reached the edge of the type. Tess 
 took it np, and her mother started. 
 
 This going to hunt up her shiftless husband at the inn 
 was one of Mrs. Durbeyfield's still extant enjojTuents in 
 the muck and muddle of rearing children. To discover 
 him at Rolliver's, to sit there for an hour or two by his 
 side, and dismiss all thought and care of the children dur- 
 ing the interval, made her happy. A sort of halo, an Oc- 
 cidental glow, came over life then. Troubles and other 
 realities took on themselves a metaphysical impalpability, 
 sinking to mere cerebral phenomena for quiet contempla- 
 tion, and no longer stood as pressing concretions which 
 chafe body and soul. The youngsters, not immediately 
 within sight, seemed rather bright and desirable appur- 
 tenances than otherwise ; the incidents of daily life were 
 not without humorousness and jollity in their aspect there. 
 She felt a little as she had used to feel when she sat by her 
 now husband in the same spot during his wooing, shutting 
 her eyes to his defects of character, and regarding him 
 only in his ideal presentation as a lover. 
 
 Tess, being left alone with the younger children, went 
 first to the out-house with the fortune-telling book, and 
 stuffed it into the thatch. A curious fetishistic fear of this 
 grimy volume on the part of her mother prevented her 
 ever allowing it to stay in the house all night, and hither 
 it was brought back whenever it had been consulted. Be- 
 tween the mother, with her fast-perishing lumber of super- 
 stitions, folk-lore, dialect, aud orally transmitted ballads, 
 and the daughter, with her trained National teachings and 
 Sixth Standard knowledge under an infinitely Revised 
 Code, there was a gap of two hundred years as ordinarily 
 understood. When they were together the Ehzabethan 
 and the Victorian ages stood juxtaposed. 
 
 Returning along the garden path, Tess mused on what 
 
THE MAIDEN. 21 
 
 the mother could have wished to ascertain from the book 
 on this particular day, and readily guessed it to bear upon 
 the recent discovery. Dismissing this, however, she busied 
 herself with sprinkling the linen di'ied during the da}i:ime, 
 in company wdth her nine-year-old brother Abraham and 
 her sister Eliza Louisa of twelve, called "■ 'Liza Lu,-' the 
 youngest ones being put to bed. There was an interval of 
 four vears between Tess and the next of the familv, the 
 two who had filled the gap having died in their infancy, 
 and this lent her a deputy-maternal attitude when she was 
 alone with her juniors. Next in juvenility to Abraham came 
 two more girls, Hope and Modesty ; then a boy of three ; 
 and then the baby, who had just completed his first year. 
 
 All these young souls wei'^ passengers in the Durbey- 
 field ship — entirely dependent on the judgment of the two 
 Durbe}^eld adults for their pleasures, their necessities, 
 their health, even their existence. If the heads of the 
 Durbevfield household chose to sail into difflcultv, disaster, 
 starvation, disease, degradation, death, thither w^re these 
 half-dozen little captives under hatches compelled to sail 
 with them — six helpless creatures, who had never been 
 asked if thev wished for hfe on anv terms, much less if 
 thev wished for it on such hard conditions as were involved 
 in being of the shiftless house of Dm-beyfield. Some peo- 
 ple would like to know whence the poet whose philosophy is 
 in these days deemed as profound and trustworthy as his 
 song is sweet and pure, gets his authority for speaking of 
 '' Nature's holy plan." 
 
 It grew later, and neither father nor mother appeared. 
 Tess looked out of the door occasionallv, and took a men- 
 tal journey through Marlott. The village was shutting its 
 eyes. Candles and lamps were being put out everywhere ; 
 she could mentally behold the extinguisher and the ex- 
 tended hand. 
 
 Her mother's fetching simply meant one more to fetch. 
 Tess began to perceive that a man in indifferent healthy 
 
22 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 who proposed to start on a journey before one in the morn- 
 ing, ought not to be at an inn at this late hour celebrating 
 his ancient blood. 
 
 "Abraham/' she said, presently, to her little brother, 
 " do you put on youi* hat — you bain't afraid ? — and go up 
 to Rolliver's, and see what has become of father and 
 mother." 
 
 The boy jumped promptly from his seat and opened the 
 door, and the night swallowed him up. Half an hour 
 passed yet again ; neither man, woman, nor child returned. 
 Abraham, like liis parents, seemed to have been limed and 
 caught by the ensnaring inn. 
 
 " I must go mj^self," she said. 
 
 'Liza Lu then went to bed, and Tess, locking them all in, 
 started on her way up the dark and crooked lane or street, 
 not made for hasty progress ; a street laid out before 
 inches of land had value, and when one-handed clocks suf- 
 ficiently subdivided the day. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Rolliver's inn, the single ale-house at tliis end of the 
 long and broken village, could boast of only an off -license ; 
 hence, as nobody could legalh^ drink on the premises, the 
 amount of overt accommodation for consumers was strictly 
 limited to a little board about six inches wide and two vards 
 long, fixed to the garden palings by j^ieces of ^m^e, so as to 
 form a ledge. On this board thirsty strangers deposited 
 their cujds as they stood in the road and drank, and threw 
 the dregs on the dusty ground to the pattern of Polynesia, 
 and wished they could have a restful seat inside. 
 
 Thus the strangers. But there were also local customers 
 who felt the same wish j and where there's a will there's a 
 way. 
 
THE INIAIDEN. 23 
 
 In a large bedroom upstairs, the window of which was 
 thickly curtained \Wth a great woollen shawl, lately dis- 
 carded by the landlady, Mrs. Rolliver, were gathered on 
 this evening nearly a dozen persons, all seeking beatitude ; 
 all old inhabitants of the nearer end of Marlott, and fre- 
 quenters of this retreat. Not only did the distance to The 
 Pure Drop, the fully licensed tavern at the further -part of 
 the dispersed village, render its accommodation practically 
 unavailable for dwellers at this end, but the far more 
 serious question, the quality of the liquor, confirmed the 
 opinion prevalent that it was better to drink with Rolliver 
 in a corner of the house-top than with the other landlord 
 in a wide house. 
 
 A gaunt four-post bedstead which stood in the room af- 
 forded sitting space for several persons gathered round three 
 of its sides; a couple more men had elevated themselves 
 on a chest of drawers; another rested on the carved-oak 
 " cwoffer " ; another on the stool ; and thus all were, some- 
 how, seated at their ease. The stage of mental comfort to 
 which thev had arrived at this hour was one wherein their 
 souls seemed to expand beyond their skins, spreading their 
 personalities warmly through the room. In this process 
 the chamber and its fm^niture grew more and more digni- 
 fied and luxurious ; the shawl hanging at the window took 
 upon itself the richness of tapestry; the brass handles of 
 the chest of drawers were as golden knockers; and the 
 carved bedposts seemed to have some kinship mth the 
 magnificent pillars of Solomon's temple. 
 
 Mrs. Durbeyfield, having quickly walked hitherward 
 after parting from Tess, opened the front door, crossed the 
 downstaii's room, which was in deep gloom, and then un- 
 fastened the stair door like one whose fingers knew the 
 tricks of the latches well. Her ascent of the crooked stair- 
 case was a slower process, and her face, as it rose into the 
 light above the last stair, encountered the gaze of all the 
 party assembled in the bedroom. 
 
24 TESS OF THE D'URBER^^LLES. 
 
 " — Being a few private friends IVe asked in to keep up 
 elnb-walking at my own expense," tlie landlady exclaimed, 
 at the sound of footsteps, as glibly as a cliild repeating the 
 Catechism, while she peered over the staii'S. " O, 'tis you, 
 Mrs. Durbey field ! Lard, how you frightened me ! I thought 
 it mid be some gaffer sent by Gover'ment." 
 
 Mrs. Durbeyfleld was welcomed with glances and nods 
 by the remainder of the conclave, and turned to where her 
 husband sat. He was humming absently to himself, in a 
 low tone : " I be as good as some folks here and there ! 
 I've got a great family vault at Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill, 
 and finer skellingtons than any man in the county o' 
 Wessex ! " 
 
 "I've somethino^ to tell 'ee that's come into mv head 
 about that — a grand project ! " whispered his cheerful wife. 
 "Here, John, don't 'ee see me?" She nudged him, while 
 he, looking through her as through a mndow-pane, went 
 on Tvdth his recitative. 
 
 " Hush ! Don't 'ee sing so loud, my good man," said the 
 landlady ; " in case any member of the Gover'ment should 
 be passing, and take away my licends." 
 
 " He's told 'ee what's happened to us, I suppose ? " asked 
 Mrs. Durbeyfield. 
 
 "Yes — in a way. D'ye think there's any money hanging 
 by it ? " 
 
 "Ah, that's the secret," said Joan Durbeyfield, sagely. 
 " But 'tis weU to be kin to a coach, even if you don't ride 
 in en." She dropped her public voice, and continued in a 
 low tone to her husband : " I've been thinking since you 
 brought the news that there's a great rich lady out by 
 Trantridge, on the edge o' The Chase, of the name of 
 D'UrberviUe." 
 
 "Hey — what's that?" said Sir John. 
 
 She repeated the information. " Tliat lady must be our 
 relation," she said. "And my project is to send Tess to 
 claim kin." 
 
THE IMAIDEN. 25 
 
 a There is a lady of the name, now you mention it," said 
 Durbeyfield. " Pa'son Tringham didn't think of that. 
 But she's nothing beside we — a jurnior branch of us, no 
 doubt, long since King Norman's day." 
 
 While this question was being discussed, neither of the 
 pair noticed, in theii' preoccupation, that little Abraham 
 had crept into the room, and was awaiting an opportunity 
 of asking them to return. 
 
 '' She is rich, and she'd be sure to take notice o' the 
 maid," continued Mrs. Durbeyfield; "and 'twill be a very 
 good thing. I don't see why two branches of one family 
 should not be on visiting terms." 
 
 " Yes ; and we'll all claim kin ! " said Abraham, brightly, 
 from under the bedstead. "And v\^e'll all go and see her 
 when Tess has gone to live with her ; and we'll ride in her 
 coach, and v/ear black clothes ! " 
 
 "How do you come here, child? What nonsense be ye 
 talking ! Go away, and play on the staii-s till father and 
 mother be ready. . . . Well, Tess ought to go to this other 
 member of our family. She'd be sure to win the lady, 
 Tess would ; and likely enough 'twould lead to some noble 
 gentleman marrying her. In short, I know it." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " I tried her fate in the FortKne-felJer, and it brought out 
 that very thing. . . . You should ha' seen how pretty she 
 looked to-day ; her skin is as sumple as a duchess's." 
 
 "What says the maid herself to it?" 
 
 " I've not asked her. She don't know there is any such 
 lady relation yet. But it would certainly put her in the way 
 of a grand marriage, and she won't say nay to going." 
 
 " Tess is queer." 
 
 " But she is tractable at bottom. Leave her to me." 
 
 Though this conversation had been private, sufficient of 
 its import reached the understandings of those around to 
 suggest to them that the Durbeyfields had weightier con- 
 cerns to talk of now than common folks had, and that 
 
26 TESS OF THE Da^RBERVILLES. 
 
 Tess, their pretty eldest daughter, had fine prospects in 
 store. 
 
 '^ Tess is a fine figure o' fun, as I said to mj^self to-day 
 when I zeed her vamping round parish with the rest," ob- 
 served one of the elderly boozers in an undertone. " But 
 Joan Diu'beyfield must mind that she don't get green malt 
 in floor.'' It was a local phrase which had a peculiar 
 meaning, and there was no reply. 
 
 The conversation became inclusive, and presently other 
 footsteps were heard crossing the room below. 
 
 '' — Being a few private friends asked in to-night to keej) 
 up club- walking at my own expense." The landlady had 
 rapidly reused the formula she kept on hand for intruders 
 l^efore she recognized that the new-comer was Tess. 
 
 Even to her m.other's gaze the girl's young features 
 looked sadly out of place amid the alcoholic vapors which 
 floated here as no unsuitable medium for wrinkled middle 
 age ; and hardly was a reproachful flash from Tess's dark 
 eves needed to make her father and mother rise from their 
 seats, hastily finish their ale, and descend the stairs behind 
 her, Mrs. Rolliver's caution following their footsteps : 
 
 ''No noise, please, if ye'll be so good, my dears- or I 
 mid lose my licends, and be summonsed, and I don't know 
 what all ! 'Night t'ye ! " 
 
 They went home together, Tess holding one arm of her 
 father, and Mrs. Durbeyfield the other. He had, in truth, 
 drunk very little — not a fourth of the quantity which a 
 systematic tipj)ler could carry to church on a Sunday 
 morning Avithout a hitch in his eastings or his genuflec- 
 tions; but the weakness of Sir John's constitution made 
 mountains of his petty sins in this kind. On reaching the 
 fresh air he was sufficiently unsteady to incline the row of 
 three at one moment as if they were marching to London, 
 and at another as if they were marching to Bath, which 
 produced a comical efi'ect, frequent enough in families on 
 nocturnal home-goings ; and, like most comical effects, not 
 
THE 1\IAIDEN. 27 
 
 quite so comic, after all. The two women valiantly dis- 
 guised these forced excursions and countermarches as weU 
 as they could from Durbeyfleld, their cause, and from Abra- 
 ham, and from themselves ; and so they approached by 
 degrees their otvti door, the head of the family bursting 
 suddenly into his former refrain as he drew near, as if to 
 fortify his soul at sight of the smallness of his present 
 residence : 
 
 '^ I've got a fam — ily vault at Kingsbere ! " 
 
 Tess tm*ned the subject by saying what was far more 
 prominent in her own mind at the moment than thoughts 
 of her ancestry : 
 
 "I am afraid father won't be able to take the journey 
 with the beehives to-morrow so earlv." 
 
 " I ? I shall be all right in an hour or two," said Dm^- 
 beyfleld. 
 
 It was eleven o'clock before the Durbeyfields were all in 
 bed, and two o'clock next morning was the latest hour for 
 starting Vvdth the beehives, if they were to be dehvered to 
 the retailers in Casterbrido^e before the Saturday market 
 began, the way thither lying by bad roads over a distance 
 of between twenty and thirty miles, and the horse and 
 wagon being of the slowest. At half -past one Mrs. Dur- 
 beyfield came into the large bedroom where Tess and all 
 her little sisters slept. 
 
 " The poor man can't go," she said to her eldest daugh- 
 ter, whose great eyes had opened the moment her mother's 
 hand touched the door. 
 
 Tess sat up in bed, lost in a vague world between a 
 dream she had just been having and this information. 
 
 "But somebody must go," she replied to her mother. 
 "It is late for the hives already. Swarming will soon be 
 over for the year ; and if we put off taking 'em till next 
 week's market, the call for 'em tvoLL be past, and they'U be 
 tlu'own on our hands." 
 
28 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Mrs. Durbe3^field looked unequal to the emergency. 
 '■ Some young feller, perhaps, would go ? One of them 
 who were so much after dancing with 'ee yesterday," she 
 presently suggested. 
 
 '' Oh no ; I wouldn't have it for the world ! " declared 
 Tess, proudly. " And letting everybody know the reason 
 — -such a thing to be ashamed of ! I think I could go if 
 Abraham could go with me to keep me company." 
 
 Her mother at length agreed to this arrangement. Little 
 Abraham was aroused from his deep sleep in a corner of 
 the same apartment, and made to put on his clothes while 
 still mentally in the other world. Meanwhile Tess had 
 hastily dressed herself; and the twain, lighting a lantern, 
 went out to the stable. The rickety Httle wagon was al- 
 ready laden, and the girl led out the horse Prince, only a 
 degree less rickety than the vehicle. 
 
 The poor creature looked wonderingly round at the night, 
 at the lantern, at their two figures, as if he could not 
 l)elieve that at that hour, when every li^dng thing was in- 
 tended to be at shelter and at rest, he was called upon to 
 go out and labor. They put a stock of candle-ends into 
 the lantern, hung the latter to the off side of the road, and 
 directed the horse onward, walking at his shoulder at fii'st 
 dui'ing the up-hill portion of the way, in order not to over- 
 load an animal by no means vigorous. To cheer them- 
 selves as well as they could, they made an artificial morn- 
 ing with the lantern, some bread and butter, and their 
 own conversation, the real morning being far from come. 
 Abraham, as he more fully awoke (for he had moved in a 
 sort of trance so far), began to talk of the strange shapes 
 assumed by the various dark objects against the sky ; of 
 this tree that looked like a raging tiger springing from a 
 lair; of that which resembled a giant's head. 
 
 When they had passed the little town of Stourcastle, 
 dumbly somnolent under its thick brown thatch, they 
 reached higher gi-ound. Still higher, on their left, the ele- 
 
THE MAIDEN. 29 
 
 vatiou called Bnlbarrow, or Bealbarrow, swelled into the 
 sky, engii'dled by its eartlieii trendies. From liereal)out 
 the long road declined gently for a great distance onward. 
 They monnted in front of the wagon, and Abraham grew 
 reflective. 
 
 " Tess ! " he said, in a preparatory tone, after a silence. 
 
 " Yes, Abraham," said she. 
 
 ^' Bain't yon glad that we've become gentlefolk ? " 
 
 " Not particnlar glad." 
 
 " Bnt yon be glad that yon are going to marry a gentle- 
 man f " 
 
 "What?" said Tess. 
 
 " That our great relation will help 'ee to marry a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 " I ? Our great relation ? We have no snch relation. 
 What has put that into your head ? " 
 
 "I heard 'em talking abont it np at RoUivei^'s when I 
 w^ent to find father. There's a rich lady of om* family out 
 at Trantrids^e, and mother said that if von claimed kin with 
 the lady, she'd put 'ee in the way of marrying a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 His sister became abruptly still, and lapsed into a pon- 
 dering silence. Abraham talked on, rather for the pleasure 
 of expression than for audience, so that his sister's ab- 
 straction was of no account. He leant back against the 
 hives, and with upturned face made observations on the 
 stars, w^hose cold pulses were beating amid the black hol- 
 lows above, in serene dissociation from these two wisps of 
 human life. He asked how far awav those twinklers were, 
 and wdiether God was on the other side of them. But 
 ever and anon his childish prattle recurred to what im- 
 pressed his imagination even more deeply than the won- 
 ders of creation. If Tess were made rich bv marr\dng a 
 gentleman, would she have money enough to buy a s^Dy- 
 glass, so large that it woidd draw stars as near to her as 
 Nettlecombe-Tout f 
 
30 TESS OF THE D'URBER\aLLES. 
 
 The renewed subject, wliich seemed to have impregnated 
 the whole family, filled Tess with impatience. 
 
 " Never mind that now ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess ? " 
 
 '^ Yes." 
 
 " All like ours f " 
 
 " I don't know ; but I think so. They sometimes seem 
 to be like the apples on our stubbard tree. Most of them 
 splendid and sound — a few blighted." 
 
 ^' Which do we live on — a splendid one or a blighted 
 one?" 
 
 '' A blighted one." 
 
 '^ 'Tis very unlucky that we didn't pitch on a sound one, 
 when there were so many more of 'em ! " 
 
 '' Yes." 
 
 ^^ Is it like that really, Tess ? " said Abraham, turning to 
 her, much impressed, on reconsideration of this rare infor- 
 mation. " How would it have been if we had pitched on a 
 sound one ? " 
 
 " Well, father wouldn't have coughed and creeped about 
 as he does, and wouldn't have got too tipsy to go this 
 journey ; and mother wouldn't have been always washing, 
 and never getting finished." 
 
 " And you would have been a rich lady ready-made, and 
 not have to be made rich by marrying a gentleman ? " 
 
 ^^ Oh, Aby, don't — don't talk of that any more ! " 
 
 Left to his reflections, Abraham soon grew drowsy. 
 Tess was not skilful in the management of a horse, but she 
 thought that she could take upon herself the entire conduct 
 of the load for the present, and allow Abraham to go to 
 sleep, if he A\dshed to do so. She made him a sort of nest 
 in front of the hives, in such a manner that he could not 
 fall, and, taking the rope reins into her own hands, jogged 
 on as before. 
 
 Prince requii'ed but slight attention, lacking energy for 
 superfluous movements of any sort. Having no longer a 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
THE MAIDEN. 31 
 
 companion to distract her, Tess fell more deeply into reverie 
 than ever, her back leaning against the hives. The mute 
 procession of trees and hedges became attached to fantastic 
 scenes, ontside reality, and the occasional heave of the wind 
 became the sigh of some immense sad sonl, conterminons 
 with the universe in space, and vdth. liistory in time. 
 
 Then examining the mesh of events in her own life, she 
 seemed to see the vanity of her father's views ; the gentle- 
 manly match of her mothei^s fancy ; to see him as a grimac- 
 ing personage, laughing at her poverty and her shrouded 
 knightly ancestry. Everything grew more and more ex- 
 travagant, and she no longer knew how time passed. A 
 sudden jerk shook her in her seat, and Tess awoke from 
 the sleep into which she, too, had fallen. 
 
 They were a long way further on than when she had 
 lost consciousness, and the wagon had stopped. A hollow 
 groan, unlike anything she had ever heard in her life, came 
 from the front, followed by a shout of " Hoi, there ! " 
 
 The lantern hanging at her wagon had gone out, but 
 another was shining in her face — much brighter than her 
 own had been. Something terrible had happened. The 
 harness was entangled with an object which blocked the 
 way. 
 
 In consternation Tess jimiped down, and discovered the 
 di'eadful truth. The groan had proceeded from her father's 
 poor horse Prince. The morning mail-cart, with its two 
 noiseless wheels, sjDceding along these lanes like an arrow, 
 as it always did, had driven into her slow and unhghted 
 equipage. The pointed shaft of the cart had entered the 
 breast of the unhappy Prince like a SAVord, and from the 
 wound his life's blood was spouting in a stream, and fall- 
 ing with a hiss into the road. 
 
 In her despau' Tess sprang forward and put her hand 
 upon the hole, with the only result that she became splashed 
 from face to skirt with the crimson drops. Then she stood 
 helplessly looking on. Prince also stood firm and motion- 
 
32 TESS OIT THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 less as long as he coiild, till lie suddenly sank down in a 
 heap. 
 
 By this time the mail-cart man had joined her, and be- 
 gan di'agging and unharnessing the hot form of Prince. 
 But he was already dead, and seeing that nothing more 
 could be done immediately, the mail-cart man returned to 
 his own animal, which was uninjured. 
 
 ^^ I am bound to go on with the mail-bags," he said, '^ so 
 that the best thing for you to do is to bide here with your 
 load. I'll send somebody to help you as soon as I can. It 
 mil soon be dayhght, and you have nothing to fear." 
 
 He mounted, and sped on his way, while Tess stood and 
 waited. The atmosphere turned pale ; the birds shook 
 themselves in the hedges, arose, and t^dtteredj the lane 
 showed all its white features, and Tess showed hers, still 
 whiter. The huge pool of blood in front of her was akeady 
 assuming the iridescence of coagulation ; and when the 
 sun rose, a million prismatic hues were reflected from it. 
 Prince lay alongside still and stark, his eyes half open, the 
 hole in his chest looking scarcely large enough to have let 
 out all that had animated him. 
 
 ^' 'Tis all my doing — all mine ! " the distressed girl mur- 
 mured, gazing intently at the spectacle. "No excuse for 
 me — none. Wliat will father and mother live on now? 
 Aby, Aby ! " She shook the child, who had slept soundly 
 through the whole disaster. "We can't go on vdtli our 
 load — Prince is killed ! " 
 
 When Abraham realized all, the furrows of fifty years 
 w^re extemporized on his young face. 
 
 " Why, I danced and laughed only yesterday ! " she went 
 on to herself. " To think that I was such a fool ! " 
 
 " 'Tis because we be on a T)lighted star, and not a sound 
 one, isn't it, Tess ? " murmured Abraham, through his tears. 
 
 In stagnant blankness they waited thi'ough an interval 
 which seemed endless. At length a sound and an ap- 
 proaching object proved to them that the di'iver of the mail- 
 
THE IMAIDEN. 33 
 
 cart had "been as good as his word. A farmer's man from 
 near Stourcastle came up, leading a strong cob. He was 
 harnessed to the wagon of beehives in the place of Prince, 
 and the load taken on towards Casterbriclge. 
 
 The evening of the same day saw the empty wagon 
 reach again the spot of the accident. Prince had lain there 
 in the ditch since the morning 5 bnt the place of the blood 
 pool was still visible in the middle of the road, though 
 scratched and scraped over by passing vehicles. All that 
 was left of Prince was now hoisted into the wagon he had 
 formerly hauled, and with his hoofs in the air, and his 
 shoes shining in the setting snnhght, he retraced the road 
 to Marlott. 
 
 Tess had gone in front. How to break the news was 
 more than she conld think. It was a relief to her tongne 
 to find from the faces of her parents that they already 
 knew of their loss, thongh this did not lessen the self-re- 
 proach which she continued to heap npon herself for her 
 negligence in falling asleep. 
 
 Bnt the very shiftlessness of the household rendered the 
 misfortune a less terrifying one to them than it would have 
 been to a striving family, though in the present case it 
 meant ruin, and in the other it would only have meant in- 
 convenience. In the Durbevfield countenances there was 
 nothing of the red wrath that would have burnt upon the 
 girl from parents more ambitious for her welfare. Nobody 
 blamed Tess as she blamed herself. 
 
 When it was discovered that the knacker and tanner 
 would give only a very few shillings for Prince's carcass 
 because of his decrepitude, Durbej^eld rose to the occasion. 
 
 "No," said he, stoically, "I won't sell his old body. 
 When we D'Urbervilles was knights in the land, we didn't 
 sell our chargers for cat's meat. Let 'em keep theu' shil- 
 lings ! He has served me well in his hf etime, and I won't 
 part from him now." 
 
 He worked harder the next day in digging a grave for 
 
34 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Prince in the garden than he had worked for months to 
 grow a crop for his family. When the hole was ready, 
 Diii'beyfield and his wife tied a roj)e round the horse and 
 dragged him np the path towards it, the children following. 
 Abraham and 'Liza Lu sobbed, Hope and Modesty dis- 
 charged then' gTiefs in loud blares, which echoed from the 
 walls; and when Prince was tumbled in they gathered 
 round the grave. The bread-winner had been taken away 
 from them ; what would they do ? 
 
 '' Is he gone to heaven ? " asked Abraham, between the 
 sobs. 
 
 Then Durbe}^eld began to shovel in the earth, and the 
 children cried anew. All except Tess. Her face was dry 
 and pale, as though she regarded herself in the light of a 
 murderess. 
 
 V. 
 
 The higgling business, which had mainly depended on 
 the horse, became disorganized forthwith. Distress, if not 
 penury, loomed in the distance. Dui'bej^eld was what 
 was locally called a slack-twisted fellow; he had good 
 strength to work at times ; but the times could not be reUed 
 on to coincide with the hours of requirement ; and having 
 been unaccustomed to the regular toil of the day-laborer, 
 he was not particularly persistent when they did so co- 
 incide. 
 
 Tess, meanwhile, as the one who had di'agged them into 
 this quagmire, was silently wondering what she could do to 
 help them out of it; and then her mother broached her 
 scheme. 
 
 " We must take the ups wi' the downs, Tess," said she, ; 
 ''and never could your high blood have been found out 
 at a more called-for moment. You must try your friends. 
 
THE MAIDEN. 35 
 
 Do you know that there is a very rich Mrs. D'Urberville 
 living out on the edge of The Chase, who must be our 
 relation ? You must go to her and claim kin, and ask for 
 some help in our trouble."' 
 
 " I shouldn't care to do that/' says Tess. '^ If there is 
 such a lady, 'twould be enough for us if she were friendly 
 — not to expect her to give us help." 
 
 "You could win her round to do anything, my dear. 
 Besides, perhaps there's more in it than you know of. I've 
 heard what I've heard, good-now." 
 
 The oppressive sense of the harm she had done led Tess 
 to be more deferential than she might otherwise have been 
 to the maternal wish ; but she could not understand why 
 her mother should find such satisfaction in contemplating 
 an enterprise of, to her, such doubtful profit. Her mother 
 might have made inquiries, and have discovered that this 
 Mrs. D'Urberville was a lady of unequalled vu'tues and 
 charity. But Tess's pride made the part of poor relation 
 one of particular distaste to her. 
 
 " I'd rather try to get work," she murmured. 
 
 " Durbeyfleld, you can settle it," said his wife, turning to 
 where he sat in the background. " If you say she ought to 
 go, she wdll go." 
 
 " I don't like my children going and making themselves 
 beholden to strange kin," miu'mui'ed he. " I'm the head of 
 the noblest branch of the family, and I ought to hve up 
 to it." 
 
 His reasons for staying away were worse to Tess than 
 her owTi objection to going. " WeU, as I killed the horse, 
 mother," she said, mom'nfully, "I suppose I ought to do 
 something. I don't mind going and seeing her, but you 
 must leave it to me about asking for help. And don't go 
 thinking about her making a match for me — it is silly." 
 
 " Very well said, Tess," observed her father, sententiously. 
 
 " Who said I had such a thought f " asked Joan. 
 
 " I fancy it is in your mind, mother. But I'U go." 
 
36 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Rising early next day, slie walked to the hill town called 
 Shaston, and there took advantage of a van which twice 
 in the week ran from Shaston eastward to Chaseborongh, 
 passing near Trantridge, the parish in w^hich the vague 
 and mvsterious Mrs. D'Url^erville had her residence. 
 
 Tess Dnrbeyfield's ronte on this memorable morning lay 
 amid the northeastern nndulations of the vale in which she 
 had been l^orn, and in which her hfe had unfolded. The 
 Vale of Blackmoor was to her the world, and its inhabitants 
 the races thereof. From the gates and stiles of Marlott 
 she had looked do^vn its length in the wondering days of 
 infancy, and what had been mystery to her then w^as not 
 much less than mystery to her now. She had seen daily 
 from her chamber window towers, villages, faint wliite 
 mansions ; above all, the town of Shaston standing ma- 
 jestically on its height ; its windows shining like lamps in 
 the evening sun. She had hardly ever visited it, only a 
 small tract even of the vale and its envii'ons being known 
 to her by close inspection. Much less had she been far 
 outside the vallev. Every contour of the surrounding hills 
 was as personal to her as that of her relatives' faces ; but 
 for what lay beyond, her judgment was dependent on the 
 teaching of the village school, where she had held a leading 
 place in a high standard at the time of her leaving, a year 
 or two before this date. 
 
 In those early days she had been much loved by others 
 of her own sex and age, and had used to be seen about the 
 village as one of three, all nearly of the same year, walking 
 home from school side by side, Tess being the middle one 
 — in a pink print j)inafore of a finely reticulated pattern, 
 worn over a stuff frock that had lost its original color for a 
 nondescript tertiary — marching on upon long stalky legs, 
 in tight stockings which had little ladder-like holes at the 
 knees, torn by kneeling in the roads and banks in search 
 of vegetable and mineral treasures ; her then earth-colored 
 hair hanging like pot-hooks ; the arms of the two outside 
 
THE MAIDEN. 37 
 
 girls resting round the waist of Tess; her arms on the 
 slioiilders of the two supporters. 
 
 As Tess grew older, and l)egan to see how matters stood, 
 she felt quite a Malthusian towards her mother for thought- 
 lessly giving her so many little sisters and brothers. Her 
 mother's intelligence was that of a happy child : Joan Dur- 
 beyfield was simply an additional one, and that not the 
 eldest, to her own long family of waiters on Providence. 
 
 Tess became humanely beneficent towards the small ones, 
 and to help them as much as possible, she used, as soon as 
 she left school, to lend a hand at hay-making or harvesting 
 on neighboring farms; or, by preference, at milking or 
 butter-making processes, which she had learnt when her 
 father had owned cows ; and, being deft-fingered, it was a 
 kind of work at which she excelled. 
 
 Every day seemed to throw upon her young shoulders 
 more of the family burdens, and that Tess should be the 
 representative of the Durbeyfields at the D'Urberville man- 
 sion came as a thing of course. In this instance it must be 
 admitted that the Durbe^-fields were putting their fairest 
 side outward. 
 
 She alighted from the van at Trantridge Cross, and as- 
 cended on foot a hill in the direction of the district known 
 as The Chase, on the borders of which, as she had been 
 informed, Mrs. D'Urberville's seat. The Slopes, would be 
 found. It was not a manorial home in the ordinarv sense, 
 with fields and pastures, and a grumbling farmer, out of 
 which a living had to be di^agged by the owner and his 
 family by hook or crook. It was more, far more, a country 
 house, built for enjopnent pure and simple, with not an 
 acre of troublesome land attached to it beyond what was 
 required for residential purposes, and a little fancy farm 
 kept in hand by the owner, and tended by a bailiff. 
 
 The warm red-brick lodge came first in sight, up to its 
 eaves in dense evergreens. Tess thought this was the 
 mansion itself, till, passing through the side ^dcket with 
 
38 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 some trepidation, and onward to a point at whicli the drive 
 took a turn, the house proper stood in full view. It was 
 of recent erection — indeed almost new — and of the same 
 rich crimson color that formed such a contrast with the 
 evergreens of the lodge. Far behind the bright-hued cor- 
 ner of the house, which rose like a red geranium against 
 the subdued colors around, stretched the soft azure land- 
 scape of The Chase, a truly venerable tract of forest-land, 
 one of the few remaining woodlands in England, of almost 
 primeval date, wherein Druidical mistletoe was still found 
 on aged oaks, and where enormous yew-trees, not planted 
 by the hand of man, grew as they had gro^m when they 
 were pollarded for bows. All this sylvan antiquity, how- 
 ever, though visible from The Slopes, was outside the im- 
 mediate boundaries of the estate. 
 
 Everything on this snug property was bright, thri\dng, 
 and well kept; acres of glass houses stretched down the 
 inclines to the copses at their feet. Everything looked hke 
 money — like the last coin issued from the Mint. The stables, 
 partly screened by Austrian pines and evergi^een oaks, and 
 fitted mth every late appliance, were as dignified as chapels- 
 of-ease, and on the extensive lawn stood an ornamental tent, 
 its door being towards her. 
 
 Simple Tess Durbeyfield stood at gaze, in a half-paralj'zed 
 attitude, on the edge of the gravel sweep. Her feet had 
 brought her onward to this point l^efore she had quite 
 realized where she was ; and now all was contrary to her 
 expectation. 
 
 ''I thought we were an old family, but this is all new!" 
 she said, in her girlish artlessness. She mshed that she 
 had not fallen in so readily with her mother's plans for 
 "claiming kin," and had endeavored to gain assistance 
 nearer home. 
 
 The D'Urbervilles — or Stoke-D'Urbervilles, as they some- 
 times called themselves — who owned all this, were a some- 
 what unusual family to find in this old-fashioned part of 
 
THE MAIDEN. 39 
 
 the country. Parson Tringham had spoken truly Avhen 
 he said that our shambling John Durbeyfield was the only 
 really lineal representative of the old D'Urberville family 
 existing in the county, or near it ; he might have added, 
 what he knew very well, that the Stoke-D'Urbervilles were 
 no more D'Urbervilles of the true tree than he was him- 
 self. Yet it must be admitted that this familv formed a 
 very good stock whereon to regraft a name which sadly 
 wanted such renovation. 
 
 When old Mr. Simon Stoke, latterly deceased, had made 
 his fortune as an honest merchant (some said money-lender) 
 in the north, he decided to settle as a county man in the 
 south of England, out of hail of his business district; and 
 in doing this he felt the necessity of recommencing with 
 a name that would not too readily identify him with the 
 smart tradesman of the past, and that would be less com- 
 monplace than the original bald stark words. Conning 
 for an hour in the British Museum the pages of works de- 
 voted to extinct, half-extinct, obscui-ed, and lost families 
 appertaining to the quarter of England in which he pro- 
 posed to settle, he considered that D' UrherviUe looked and 
 sounded as well as any of them ; and D'Urberville accord- 
 ingly was annexed to his own for himself and his heirs 
 eternally. Yet he was not an extravagant-minded man in 
 this, and in constructing his family tree on the new basis 
 was duly reasonable in framing his intermarriages and 
 aristocratic links, never inserting a single title above a 
 r;ink of strict moderation. 
 
 Of this work of imagination poor Tess and her parents 
 Vv^re naturally in ignorance — much to their ovtd. discom- 
 fiture; indeed, the very possibility of such annexations 
 was unknown to them, who supposed that though to be 
 well favored might be the gift of fortune, a family name 
 came bv nature. 
 
 Tess still stood hesitating, like a bather about to make 
 his plunge, hardly knowing whether to retreat or to per- 
 
40 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 severe, when a figiu'e came forth from the dark triangular 
 door of the tent. It was that of a tall yonng man, smoking. 
 
 He had an almost swarthy complexion, with full lips, 
 badly moulded, though red and smooth, above which w^as 
 a well-groomed black mustache with curled points, though 
 his age could not be more than three- or foiu'-and-twent3\ 
 Yet, despite the touches of barbarism in his contours, there 
 was a singular force in the gentleman's face, and in his 
 bold rolling eye. 
 
 "Well, my big beauty, what can I do for you?" said he, 
 airily, coming forward. And, perceiving that she stood 
 quite confounded: "Never mind me. I am Mr. Stoke- 
 D'Urberville. Have you come to see me or my mother ? " 
 
 This embodiment of a Stoke-D'Urberville and a name- 
 sake differed even more from what Tess had expected than 
 the house and grounds had differed. She had dreamed 
 of an aged and dignified face, the sublimation of all dis- 
 tinctive D'Urberville lineaments, fiuTowed with incarnate 
 memories, representing in hieroglyphic the centuries of her 
 family and England's history. But she screwed herself up 
 to the work in hand, since she could not get out of it, and 
 answered : 
 
 " I came to see your mother, sir." 
 
 " I am afraid you cannot see her — she is an invalid," re- 
 plied the present representative of the spurious house ; for 
 he was Mr. Alec, the only son of the lately deceased gen- 
 tleman. " Cannot I answer your purpose 1 What is the 
 business you wish to see her about ? " 
 
 " It isn't business ; it is — I can hardly say what ! " 
 
 "Pleasure?" 
 
 " Oh no. Wliy, sir, if I tell you, it vnll seem " 
 
 Tess's sense of the extreme silliness of her errand was 
 now so strong that, notwithstanding her awe of him and 
 her general discomfort at being here, her rosy lips curved 
 towards a smile, much to the attraction of the swarthy 
 Alexander. 
 
THE MAIDEN, 41 
 
 ^'It is SO very foolisli/' she stammered; ^'I fear I can't 
 teU 'ee ! '' 
 
 "Never mind; I like foolish things. Try again, my 
 dear/' said he, kindly. 
 
 " Mother asked me to come/' Tess continued ; " and, in- 
 deed, I was inclined to do so myself, likewise. But I did 
 not think it would be like this. I came, sii^, to tell you 
 that we be of the same family as you.'' 
 
 " Ho ! Poor relations ! " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Stokes ? " 
 
 "No; D'Urbervilles." 
 
 " Ay, ay ; I mean D'Urbervilles." 
 
 " Our names are corrupted to Durbeyfield ; but we have 
 several proofs that we be D'Urber\alles. Antiquarians say 
 we are — and — and we have a very old silver spoon, round 
 in the bowl, hke a httle ladle, with a ramping lion on the 
 handle, and a castle over Mm. But it is so old that mother 
 uses it to stir the pea soup." 
 
 " A castle argent is certainly my crest," said he, blandly. 
 
 "And so mother said we ought to make ourselves be- 
 known to you, as we've lost oiu- horse by a bad accident, 
 and are the oldest branch o' the family." 
 
 "Very kind of yom* mother, Tm sure. And I, for one, 
 don't regret her step." Alec looked at Tess as he spoke 
 in a way that made her blush a little. "And so, my 
 pretty gu4, you've come on a friendly \dsit to us, as rela- 
 tions ! " 
 
 " I suppose I have," faltered Tess, looking round at the 
 mansion. 
 
 "Well — there's no harm in it. Where do you live? 
 What are you f " 
 
 She gave him brief particulars ; and, after further in- 
 quiries, told him that she was intending to go back by the 
 same carrier who had brought her. 
 
 "It is a long while before he returns past Trantridge 
 
42 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Cross. Supposing we walk round the grounds to pass the 
 thne, my pretty coz ? '' 
 
 Tess wished to abrid-ge her \dsit as much as possible, but 
 the young man was pressing, and she consented to accom- 
 pany him. He conducted her about the lawns and flower- 
 beds and conservatories, and thence to the fruit-garden, 
 where he asked her if she liked strawberries. 
 
 ^' Yes," said Tess, " when they come." 
 
 '^ They are already here." D'Urberville began gathering 
 specimens of the fruit for her, handing them back to her as 
 he stooped ; and presently, selecting a specially fine prod- 
 uct of the " British Queen " variety, he stood up, and held 
 it bv the stem to her mouth. 
 
 "No, no ! " she said, quickly, putting her fingers between 
 his hand and her lips. " I would rather take it, sir, in my 
 own hand." 
 
 "Nonsense!" he insisted; and, in a shght distress, she 
 parted her hps and took it in. 
 
 They had spent some time wandering desultorily thus, 
 Tess eating, in a half -pleased, half -reluctant state, whatever 
 D'Urber^dlle offered her. When she could consume no 
 more of the strawberries, he filled her little basket with 
 them ; and then the two passed round to the rose-trees, 
 whence he gathered blossoms, and gave her to put in her 
 bosom. She obeyed like one in a dream, and when she 
 could affix no more he himself tucked a bud or two into 
 her hat, and heaped her basket with them, in the prodi- 
 gality of his bounty. At last, looking at his watch, he said : 
 " Now, by the time you have had something to eat, it mil 
 be time for vou to leave, if vou want to catch the carrier 
 to Shaston. Come here, and I'll see what grub I can find." 
 
 Stoke-D'Urberville took her back to the lawn and into 
 the tent, where he left her, soon reappearing with a basket 
 of light luncheon, which he put before her himself. It 
 was evidently the young gentleman's wish not to be dis- 
 turbed in this pleasant tete-d-tete by the servantry. 
 
THE IVIAIDEX. 43 
 
 " Do you mind my smoking ? '' he asked. 
 
 " Oh, not at all, si." 
 
 He watched her pretty and nnconscious mnnehing 
 through the skeins of smoke that pervaded the tent, and 
 Tess Durbevfield did not divine, as she innocent! v looked 
 down at the roses in her bosom, that there, behind the blue 
 narcotic haze, was potentially the 'Hragic mischief" of her 
 drama — one who stood fair to be the blood-red ray in the 
 spectrum of her young life. She had an attribute which 
 amounted to a disadvantage just now ; and it was tliis that 
 caused Alec D'Urberville's eyes to rivet themselves upon 
 her. It was a luxuriance of aspect, a fulness of growth, 
 which made her appear more of a woman than she really 
 was. She had inherited the feature from her mother, 
 without the quality it denoted. It had troubled her mind 
 occasionally, till her companions had said that it was a fault 
 which time would cure. 
 
 She soon had finished her lunch. ^'Now I am going 
 home, sir," she said, rising. 
 
 "And what do thev call vou?" he asked, as he accom- 
 panied her along the drive till they were out of sight of the 
 house. 
 
 " Tess Durbeyfield do^vn at Marlott, sir." 
 
 '^ And you say your people have lost their horse ? " 
 
 " I — killed him ! " she answered, her eyes filling with 
 tears as she gave particulars of Prince's death. "And I 
 don't know what to do for father on account of it ! '^ 
 
 " I must think if I cannot do something. My mother 
 must find a berth for you. But, Tess, no nonsense about 
 
 t/' 7 7 
 
 ' D'UrberviUe ' ; 'Durbeyfield' only, you know — quite an- 
 other name." 
 
 " I wish for no better, sir," said she, calming herself 
 well-nigh to dignity. 
 
 For a moment — only for a moment — when they were in 
 the turning of the drive, between the tall rhododendrons 
 and laurestines, before the lodge became visible, he inclined 
 
44 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 his face towards her as if — But, no ! he thought better 
 of it, and let her go. 
 
 Thus the thing began. Had she perceived this meeting's 
 import, she might have asked why she was doomed to be 
 seen and marked and coveted that day by the ^^T:'ong man, 
 and not by a certain other man, the right and desired one 
 in all respects — as nearly as humauity can supply the right 
 and desii^ed; yet to Mm who amongst her acquaintance 
 might have approximated to this kind she was but a tran- 
 sient impression, half -forgotten. 
 
 In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of 
 things, the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love 
 rarely coincides with the hour for loving. Nature does not 
 often say ^' See ! '' to a poor creature at a time when see- 
 ing can lead to happy doing ; or reply "■ Here ! " to a body's 
 cry of ""^^Tiere?" till the hide-and-seek has become an 
 irksome, outworn game. We may wonder whether at the 
 acme and summit of the human progress these anachro- 
 nisms "v^dll become corrected by a finer intuition, a closer 
 interaction of the social machinery than that which now 
 jolts us round and along ; but such completeness is not to 
 be prophesied, or even conceived as possible. Enough that 
 in the present case, as in millions, the two halves of an ap- 
 proximately perfect whole did not confront each other at 
 the perfect moment; part and counterpart wandered inde- 
 pendently about the earth in the stupidest manner for a 
 while, till the late time came. Out of which maladroit de- 
 lay sprang anxieties, disappointments, shocks, catastrophes 
 — and what Avas called a strauge destiny. 
 
 When D'Urberville got back to the tent, he sat down 
 astride on a chair, reflecting, with a pleased gleam in his 
 face. Then he broke into a loud lauah. 
 
 ''Well, Pm damned! What a funny thing! Ha-ha-ha! 
 And what a charming giii ! '' 
 
THE MAIDEN. 45 
 
 VI. 
 
 Tess went down the liill to Trantriclge Cross, and auto- 
 matical! v waited to take her seat in the van retnrnine: from 
 Chaseborough to Shaston. She did not know what the 
 other occupants said to her as she entered, though she an- 
 swered them ; and when they had started anew she rode 
 along with an inward and not an outward eye. 
 
 One among her fellow-travellers addressed her more 
 pointedly than any had spoken before : '' Why, you be 
 quite a posy ! And such roses in early June ! " 
 
 Then she became aAvare of the spectacle she presented to 
 their surprised vision ; roses at her breast ; roses in her 
 hat ; roses and strawberries in her basket to the brim. 
 She blushed, and said, confusedly, that the flowers had been 
 given to her ; when the passengers were not looking, she 
 stealthily removed the more prominent blooms from her 
 hat and placed them in the basket, where she covered them 
 wdth her handkerchief. Then she fell to reflecting again, 
 and in looking downwards a thorn of the rose remaining 
 in her breast accidentally pricked her chin. Like all the 
 cottagers of Blackmoor Vale, Tess was steeped in fancies 
 and prefigurative superstitions ; she thought this an ill 
 omen — the first she had noticed that day. 
 
 The van travelled only so far as Shaston, and there were 
 several miles of pedestrian descent from that mountain 
 town into the vale to Marlott. Her mother had advised 
 her to stay here for the night, at the house of a cottage 
 woman thev knew, if she felt too tii'ed to come on : and 
 this Tess did, not descending to her home till the f ollo^\T.ng 
 afternoon. 
 
 When she entered the house she perceived in a moment 
 from her mother's triumphant manner that something had 
 occurred in the interim. 
 
46 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 " Oh yes ; I know all about it ! I told you it would be 
 all right, and now 'tis proved." 
 
 ''Since I've been away? What has?" said Tess, rather 
 wearily. 
 
 Her mother surveyed the gu-1 up and down with arch 
 approval, and went on, banteringly, " So you've brought 
 'em round ! " 
 
 '' How do you know, mother ? " 
 
 '' I've had a letter." 
 
 Tess then remembered that there would have been just 
 time for this. 
 
 " They say — Mrs. D'Urberville says — that she wants you 
 to look after a little poultry farm which is her hobby. 
 But this is only her artful way of getting you there with- 
 out raising j^our hopes. She's going to acknowledge 'ee as 
 kin — that's the meaning o't." 
 
 " But I didn't see her." 
 
 "You zeed somebody, I suppose?" 
 
 " I saw her son." 
 
 '' And did he acknowledge 'ee ? " 
 
 " Well — he called me coz." 
 
 '' An' I knew it ! Jackv, he called her coz ! " cried Joan 
 to her husband. " WeU, he spoke to his mother, of course, 
 and she do want 'ee there." 
 
 "But I don't know that I am apt at managing fowls," 
 said the dubious Tess. 
 
 " Then I don't know who is apt. You've ben born in 
 the business, and brought up in it. Them thet's born in a 
 business always know more about it than any 'prentice. 
 Besides, that's only just a show of something for you to 
 do, that you midn't feel dependent." 
 
 "I don't altogether think I ought to go," said Tess, 
 thoughtfully. "Whowi'ote the letter? Will you let me 
 look at it ? '' 
 
 " Mrs. D'Urberville wrote it. Here it is." 
 
 The letter was in the third person, and briefly informed 
 
THE ]\IAIDEN. 47 
 
 Mrs. Dnrbeyfield that her daughter's services would be 
 useful to that lady in the management of her poultry farm, 
 that a comfortable room would be provided for her if she 
 could come, and that the emolument would be on a liberal 
 scale if they liked her. 
 
 ''O— that's all," said Tess. 
 
 " You couldn't expect her to throw her arms round 'ee, 
 an' to kiss and to coll 'ee all at once." 
 
 Tess looked out of the window. ''I would rather stay 
 here with father and you/' she said. 
 
 " But whv I " 
 
 "I'd rather not tell you why, mother- indeed, I don't 
 quite know why." 
 
 A week afterwards she came in one evening from an un- 
 availing search for some light occupation in the immediate 
 neighborhood. Her idea had been to get together sufficient 
 money during the summer to pui'chase another horse. 
 Hardly had she crossed the threshold before one of the 
 children danced across the room, saying, " The gentleman 
 has been here ! " 
 
 Her mother hastened to explain, smiles breaking from 
 every inch of her person. Mrs. D'Ui*ber\dlle's son had 
 called on horseback, having been riding by chance in the 
 direction of Marlott. He had mslied to know, finally, in 
 the name of his mother, if Tess could really come to man- 
 age the old lady's fowl farm or not, the lad who had 
 hitherto superintended the birds having proved untrust- 
 worthy. " Mr. D'Urberville says you must be a good girl 
 if you are at all as you appear ; he knows you must be 
 worth your iveight in gold. He is very much interested in 
 'ee — truth to tell." 
 
 Tess seemed for the moment really pleased to hear that 
 she had won such high opinion from a stranger when, in 
 her own esteem, she had sunk so low. " It is veiy good of 
 him to think that," she murmured ; " and if I was quite 
 sure how it would be h\ing there I would go any- when." 
 
48 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 ^' He is a mighty handsome man." 
 
 '' I don't think so," said Tess, coldly. 
 
 " Well, there's your chance, whether or no ; and I'm sure 
 he wears a beautiful diamond ring ! " 
 
 "Yes," said little Abraham, brightly, from the window 
 bench ; " and I seed it ! and it did twinkle when he put his 
 hand up to his mistarshers. Mother, why did our noble 
 relation keep on putting his hand wp to his mistarshers?" 
 
 " Hark at that child ! " cried Mrs. Durbeyfleld, with par- 
 enthetic admiration. 
 
 ''Perhaps to show his diamond ring," murmured Sir 
 John, dreamily, from his chau\ 
 
 '' I'll think it over," said Tess, leaving the room. 
 
 '' Well, she's made a conquest o' the junior branch of us, 
 straight off," continued the matron to her husband, " and 
 she's a fool if she don't follow it up." 
 
 " I don't quite like my children going away from home," 
 said the higgler. ''As the head of the family, the rest 
 ought to come to me." 
 
 " But do let her go, Jacky," coaxed his poor "witless wife. 
 " He's struck wi' her — vou can see that. He called her coz ! 
 He'U marry her, most likely, and make a lady of her ; and 
 then she'll be what her forefathers was." 
 
 John Durbeyfield had more conceit than energy or 
 health, and this supposition was pleasant to him. " Well, 
 perhaps that's what young Mr. D'Urber\alle means," he ad- 
 mitted, " and he reaUy may have serious thoughts about 
 improving his blood by linking on to the old line. Tess, 
 the little rogue ! And have she really paid 'em a ^dsit to 
 such an end as this ? " 
 
 Meanwhile Tess was walking thoughtfully among the 
 gooseberry-bushes in the garden, and over Prince's grave. 
 When she came in, her mother pursued her advantage. 
 " Well, what be you going to do ? " she asked. 
 
 " I wish I had seen Mrs. D'Urberville," said Tess. 
 
THE ]\L\IDEN. 49 
 
 ^^ I tliink you mid as well settle it. Then you'll see her 
 soon enough." 
 
 Her father coughed in his chair. 
 
 " I don't know what to say/' answered the gii*l, restlessly. 
 " It is for you to decide. I killed the old horse, and I sup- 
 pose I ought to do something to get ye a new one. But — 
 I )ut— I don't quite like Mr. D'Urber\dlle ! " 
 
 The children, who had made use of this idea of Tess 
 being taken up by their wealthy kinsfolk (as they imagined 
 the other family to be) as a species of dolorifuge after the 
 death of the horse, began to cry at Tess's reluctance^ and 
 teased and reproached her for hesitating. 
 
 '^ Tess won't go and be made a la — a — dy of ! No, she 
 says she wo — o — on't ! " they wailed, with square mouths. 
 ''And we shan't have a nice new horse, and lots o' golden 
 money to buy fairlings ! And Tess won't look pretty in 
 her best cloze no mo — o — ore ! " 
 
 Her mother chimed in to the same tune ; a certain way 
 she had of making her labors in the house seem heavier 
 than thev were bv prolonHno^ them indefinitely also weio'hed 
 in the argument. Her father alone preserved an attitude 
 of neutrality. 
 
 " I ^yill go," said Tess at last. 
 
 Her mother could not repress her consciousness of the 
 nuptial Vision conjured up by the girl's consent. " That's 
 right ! For such a pretty gii'l, it is a fine chance ! " 
 
 '' I hope it is a chance for earning money. It is no other 
 kind of chance. You had better say nothing of that sULy 
 sort about parish." 
 
 Mrs. Durbeyfield did not promise. She was not quite 
 sure that she did not feel proud enough, after the visitoi'^s 
 remarks, to say a good deal. 
 
 Thus it was arranged ; and the young girl "^vi'ote, agree- 
 ing to be ready to set out on any day on which she might 
 be required. She was duly informed that Mrs. D'Urber- 
 
 4 
 
50 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ville was glad of her decision, and that a spring cart should 
 be sent to meet her and her luggage at the top of the Vale 
 on the day after the morrow, when she must hold herself 
 prepared to start. Mrs. D'Urberville's handwriting seemed 
 rather masculine. 
 
 " A cart ? ^' murmui'ed Joan Dui'beyfield, doubtingty. 
 
 HaAdng at last taken her coui'se, Tess was less restless 
 and abstracted, going about her business with some self- 
 assurance in the thought of acquiring another horse for her 
 father by an occupation which would not be onerous. She 
 had hoped to be a teacher at the school, but the fates seemed 
 to decide otherwise. Being mentally older than her mother, 
 she did not regard Mrs. Durbej^eld's matrimonial hopes for 
 her in a serious aspect for a moment. The light-minded 
 woman had beeii discovering good matches for her daughter 
 almost from the year of her birth. 
 
 VII. 
 
 On the morning appointed for her departure Tess w^as 
 awake before dawn — at the marginal minute of the dark 
 when the grove is still mute save for one prophetic bird, who 
 sings with a clear-voiced conviction that he at least knows 
 the correct time of day, the rest preserving silence, as if 
 equally convinced that he is mistaken. She remained up- 
 stairs packing tiU breakfast-time, and then came down in 
 her ordinaiy working-clothes, her Sunday apparel being 
 carefully folded in her box. 
 
 Her mother expostulated. " You wiU never set out to 
 see your folks without dressing up more the dand than 
 that ? " 
 
 " But I am going to work ! " said Tess. 
 
 " Well, yes," said Mrs. Durbeyfield ; adding, in a private 
 
THE MAIDEN. 51 
 
 tone, '^ at first there may be a little pretence o't. . . . But I 
 think it will be wiser of 'ee to put your best side outward," 
 she said. 
 
 " Very weYl ; I suppose you know best," replied Tess, with 
 calm indifference. And to please her parent the girl put 
 herself quite in Joan's hands, saying, serenely, "Do what 
 you like with me, mother." 
 
 Mrs. Durbeyfield was only too delighted at this tracta- 
 bility. First she fetched a great basin, and washed Tess's 
 hair with such thoroughness that when dried and brushed it 
 looked twice as much as at other times. She tied it with a 
 broader red ribbon than usual. Then she put upon her the 
 white frock that Tess had worn at the club-walking, the 
 airy fulness of wliich, supplementing her enlarged coiffure, 
 imparted to her developing flgui'e an amphtude which be- 
 lied her age, and might cause her to be addressed as a 
 woman when she was not much more than a child. 
 
 " I declare, there's a hole in my stocking heel ! " said 
 Tess. 
 
 " Never mind holes in your stockings — they don't speak ! 
 When I was a maid, so long as I had a pretty bonnet, the 
 devil might ha' found me in heels." 
 
 Her mother's pride in the girl's appearance led her to step 
 back, like a painter from his easel, and siu'vey her work as a 
 whole. " You must see yourself," she cried. " It is much 
 better than you was t'other day." 
 
 As the looking-glass was only large enough to reflect a 
 very small portion of Tess's person at one time, Mrs. Dur- 
 beyfield hung a black cloak outside the casement, and so 
 made a large reflector of the panes, as it is the wont of be- 
 decking cottagers to do. After this she went downstairs 
 to her husband, who was sitting in the lower room. 
 
 " I'll tell 'ee what 'tis, Durbeyfield," said she, exultingly, 
 " he'll never have the heart not to love her. But whatever 
 you do, don't say too much to Tess of his fancy for her and 
 this chance she has got. She is such an odd maid that it 
 
52 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 mid set her against liim, or against going there even now. 
 If all goes well, I shall certainly be for making some return 
 to that pa'son at Stagfoot Lane for telling ns — dear good 
 man ! " 
 
 However, as the moment for the girl's setting out drew 
 nigh, when the first excitement of the di*essing had passed 
 off, a slight misgiving found place in Joan Durbeyfield's 
 mind. It prompted the matron to say that she wonld walk 
 a little way — as far as to the point where the acchvity from 
 the valley began its first steep ascent to the outer world. 
 At the top Tess was going to be met with the spring cart 
 sent by the D'Urbervilles, and her box had already been 
 wheeled ahead towards this summit by a lad with trucks, 
 to be in readiness. 
 
 Seeing their mother put on her bonnet, the younger 
 children clamored to go with her. " I do want to walk a 
 little ways wi' Sissy, now she's going to marry our gentle- 
 man cousin, and wear fine cloze ! '^ 
 
 " Now," said Tess, flushing and turning quickly, ^' I'll hear 
 no more o' that ! Mother, how could you ever put such 
 stuff into their heads 1 " 
 
 ^' Going to work, my dears, for our rich relation, and help 
 get enough money for a new horse," said Mrs. Durbeyfield, 
 pacifically. 
 
 " Good-by, father," said Tess, with a lumpy throat. 
 
 '^ Good-by, my maid," said Sir John, raising his head from 
 his breast, as he suspended his nap, induced by a slight 
 excess this morning in honor of the occasion. "Well, I 
 hope my young friend will like such a comely sample of 
 his own blood. And teU'n, Tess, that being reduced quite 
 from our former grandeur, I'll sell him the title — yes, sell 
 it — and at no onreasonable figure." 
 
 ^^ Not for less than a thousand poimd ! " cried Lady Dur- 
 beyfield. 
 
 " Tell'n — I'll take a thousand pound. Well, I'll take less, 
 when I come to think o't. He'U adorn it better than a 
 
THE MAIDEN. 53 
 
 poor broken-down feller like myself can. TelPn lie shall 
 hae it for a hundred. But I won't stand upon trifles — 
 tell'n he shall hae it for fifty — for twenty pound ! Yes, 
 twenty pound — that's the lowest. Damniy, family honor 
 is family honor^ and I won't take a penny less ! '' 
 
 Tess's eyes were too full and her voice too choked to 
 utter the bitter reproaches that were in her. She turned 
 quickly and went out. 
 
 So the girls and theii* mother all walked together — a 
 child on each side of Tess, holding her hand, and looking 
 at her meditatively from time to time, as at one who was 
 about to do great things ; her mother just behind — the 
 group forming a picture of honest beauty flanked by inno- 
 cence and backed by simple-souled vanity. They followed 
 the way till they reached the beginning of the ascent, on 
 the crest of which the vehicle from Trantridge was to re- 
 ceive her, this limit having been fixed to save the horse 
 the labor of the slope. Far away behind the first hills the 
 clifli-like dwellings of Shaston broke the line of the ridge. 
 Nobody was visible in the elevated road that sku'ted the 
 ascent saA^e the lad whom they had sent on before them, 
 sitting on the handle of the barrow that contained all Tess's 
 worldly possessions. 
 
 ^^ Bide here a bit, and the cart will soon come, no doubt," 
 said Mrs. Dm-bevfield. " Yes ; I see it vonder ! " 
 
 It had come, appearing suddenly from behind the fore- 
 head of the nearest upland, and stopping beside the boy 
 mth the barrow. Her mother and the children thereupon 
 decided to go no farther, and bidding them a hasty good- 
 by, Tess bent her steps up the hiU. 
 
 They saw her white shape draw near to the spring cart, 
 on which her box was already placed. But before she had 
 quite reached it, another vehicle shot out from a clump 
 of trees on the summit, came round the bend of the road 
 there, passed the cart, and halted beside Tess, who turned 
 as if in great surprise. 
 
54 TESS OF THE D"URBERVILLES. 
 
 Her mother perceived, for the fii'st time, that the second 
 vehicle was not an humble conveyance like the fii'st, but 
 a spick-and-span gig or dog-cart, higlily varnished and 
 equipped. The driver was a young man of one- or two-and- 
 twenty, mth a cigar between his teeth ; wearing a dandy 
 cap, drab jacket, breeches of the same hue, white neckcloth, 
 stick-uj) collar, and bro^svn diiving-gloves — in short, he was 
 the handsome, horsey young buck who had visited her a 
 week or two before to get her answer about Tess. 
 
 Mrs. Durbeyfield clapped her hands like a child. Then 
 she looked do^ra and stared again. Could she be deceived 
 as to the meaning of this f 
 
 ^' Is dat the gentleman kinsman who'll make Sissy a 
 lady ? " asked the youngest child. 
 
 Meanw^hile the muslined form of Tess could be seen 
 standing still, undecided, beside this turnout, whose owner 
 was talking to her. Her seeming indecision was, in fact, 
 more than indecision ; it was misgiving. She would have 
 preferred the humble cart. The young man dismounted^ 
 and appeared to urge her to ascend. She turned her face 
 down the hill to her relatives, and regarded the little group. 
 Something seemed to quicken her to a determination ; pos- 
 sibly the thought that she had killed Prince. She suddenly 
 stepped up; he mounted beside her, and immediately 
 whipped on the horse. In a moment they had passed the 
 slow cart with the box, and disappeared behind the shoulder 
 of the hiU. 
 
 Dii-ectly Tess was out of sight, and the interest of the 
 matter as a drama was at an end, the little one's eyes filled 
 with tears. The youngest child said, ^'I wish poor Tess 
 wasn't gone away to be a lady ! " and, lowering the corners 
 of her lips, burst out crying. The new point of view was 
 infectious, and the next child did likewise, and then the 
 next, till the whole row of them wailed loud. 
 
 There were tears also in Joan Durbeyfield's eyes as she 
 turned to go home. But by the time she had got back to 
 
THE 3L\IDEN. 55 
 
 tlie tillage she was passively trusting to the favor of acci- 
 dent. However, in bed that night she sighed, and her hus- 
 band asked her what was the matter. 
 
 "O, I don't know exactly," she said. '^I was thinldng 
 that perhaps it would ha' been better if Tess had not gone." 
 
 " Oughtn't ye to have thought of that before ? " 
 
 ^' Well, 'tis a chance for the maid — Still, if 'twere the 
 doing again, I wouldn't let her go till I had found out 
 whether the gentleman is really a good-hearted young man, 
 and interested in her as his kinswoman." 
 
 "Yes, you ought, perhaps, to ha' done that," snored Sir 
 John. 
 
 Joan Durbeyfield always managed to find consolation 
 somewhere. 
 
 '' Well, as one of the genuine stock, she ought to make 
 her way with en, if she plays her trump card aright. And 
 if he don't marry her afore he will after. For that he's all 
 afire wi' love for her any eye can see." 
 
 " What's her trump card ? Her D'Urberville blood, you 
 mean ? " 
 
 "No, stupid; her face — as 'twas mine." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Haying mounted beside her, Alec D'Urberville drove 
 rapidly along by the crest of the hill, chatting compliments 
 to Tess as they went, the cart mth her box being left far 
 behind. An immense landscape stretched around them on 
 every side ; behind, the green valley of her birth ; before, a 
 gray country of which she knew nothing except from her 
 fii'st brief visit to Trantridge. Thus thej^ reached the 
 verge of an incline down which the road stretched in a 
 long straight descent of nearly a mile. 
 
56 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Ever since the accident with her father's horse, Tess 
 Durbeyfield, courageous as she naturally was, had been 
 exceedingly timid on wheels ; the least iiTcgularity of mo- 
 tion startled her. She began to get uneasy at a certain 
 recklessness in her conductors driving. 
 
 "You will go down slowly, sir, I suppose?" she said, 
 with attempted unconcern. 
 
 D'Urberville looked round upon her, nipped his cigar 
 vrith the tips of his large white centre-teeth, and allowed 
 his hps to sinile slowly of themselves. 
 
 " Why, Tess," he answered, after another whiff or two, 
 ''it isn't a brave, bouncing girl like you who asks that? 
 Why, I alwa3^s go down at full gallop. There's nothing 
 hke it for raising youi* spmts." 
 
 " But perhaps you need not now?" 
 
 "Ah," he said, shaking his head, "there are two to be 
 reckoned with. It is not me alone. Tib has to be consid- 
 ered, and she has a very queer temper." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Why, this mare. I fancy she looked round at me in a 
 verv 2Tim wav iust then. Didn't voit notice it ? " 
 
 " Don't try to frighten me, sir," said Tess, stiffly. 
 
 "Well, I don't. If any li\Hng man can manage this 
 horse I can — I won't say any H\ing man can do it — but if 
 such has the power, I am he." 
 
 " Why do you have such a horse?" 
 
 " Ah, weU may you ask it ! It was my fate, I suppose. 
 Tib has killed one chap : and just after I bought her she 
 nearly killed me. And then, take my word for it, I nearly 
 killed her. But she's queer still, very queer; and one's 
 life is hardlv safe behind her sometimes." 
 
 They were just beginning to descend ; and it was e\ddent 
 that the horse, whether of her own will or of his (the latter 
 being the more likely) knew so well the reckless perform- 
 ance expected of her, that she hardly required a liint from 
 behind. 
 
THE MAIDEN. 57 
 
 Down, down, they sped, the wheels humming Kke a top, 
 the dog-cart rocking right and left, its axis acquiring a 
 slightly obUque set in relation to the line of progress ; the 
 figure of the horse rising and falling in undulations before 
 them. Sometimes a wheel was off the ground, it seemed 
 for many yards ; sometimes a stone was sent spinning over 
 the hedge, and flinty sparks from the horse's hoofs outshone 
 the daylight. The fore part of the straight road enlarged 
 with theii' advance, the two banks dividing like a splitting 
 stick ; and one rushed past at each shoulder. 
 
 The wind blew through Tess's white muslin to her very 
 skin, and her washed liaii* flew out behind. She was deter- 
 mined to show no open fear, but she clutched D'Urberville's 
 rein-arm. 
 
 " Don't touch mv arm ! We shall be thrown out if you 
 do ! Hold on round my w^aist ! " 
 
 She grasped his waist, and so they reached the bottom. 
 " Safe, thank Grod, in spite of your folly ! " said she, her 
 face on fire. 
 
 '• Tess— ^fie ! that's temper ! " said D'Urber\aQe. 
 
 '"Tis truth." 
 
 " Well, 3'ou need not let go your hold of me so thank- 
 lessly the moment you feel yom'self out of danger." 
 
 She had not considered what she had been doing ; whether 
 he were man or woman, stick or stone, in her involuntary 
 hold on him. Kecovering her reserve, she sat without 
 replying, and thus they reached the summit of another 
 dech\dty. '' Now then, again ! " said D'Urberville. 
 
 "No, no," said Tess. "Show more sense, do, please, 
 sir." 
 
 " But when people find themselves on the highest point 
 in the county, they must get down again," he retorted. He 
 loosened rein, and awav thev went a second time. D'Urber- 
 ville turned his face to her as they rocked, and said, in play- 
 ful raillery, "Now then, put your arms round my waist 
 again, as you did before, my beauty ! " 
 
58 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 " Never ! " said Tess, independently, holding on as well 
 as she could without touching him. 
 
 " Let me put one little kiss on those holmberry lips, Tess ; 
 or even on that Avarmed cheek, and Pll stop — on my honor, 
 I wiU!" 
 
 Tess, surprised beyond measm-e, slid fui^ther back still 
 on her seat, at which he urged the horse anew, and rocked 
 her the more. 
 
 "Will nothing else do?" she cried at length, in despera- 
 tion, her large eyes staring at him like those of a wild ani- 
 mal. This dressing her up so prettily by her mother had 
 apparently been to lamentable purpose. 
 
 " Nothing, dear Tess," he repHed. 
 
 " 0, 1 don't know^ — very well ; I don't mind ! " she panted, 
 miserably. 
 
 He drew rein, and as they slowed he was on the point 
 of imprinting the desired salute, when, as if hardly yet 
 aware of her own modesty, she dodged aside. His arms 
 being occupied with the reins, there was left him no power 
 to prevent her manoeu\Te. 
 
 "Now, damn it — I'll break both our necks ! " swore her 
 capriciously passionate companion. " So you can go from 
 your word like that, you young wdtch, can you ? " 
 
 "Very well," said poor Tess, "I'll not move since you be 
 so determined ! But I — thought you would be kind to me^ 
 and protect me, as my kinsman ! " 
 
 " Kinsman be hanged ! Now ! " 
 
 " But I don't want anybody to kiss me, sii' ! " she im- 
 plored, a big tear beginning to roll down her face, and the 
 corners of her mouth trembling in her attempts not to cry. 
 " And I wouldn't ha' come if I had known ! " 
 
 He was inexorable, and she sat still, and D'Urberville 
 gave her the kiss of mastery. No sooner had he done so 
 than she flushed with shame, took out her handkerchief, 
 and wiped the spot on her cheek that had been touched by 
 
THE MAIDEN. 59 
 
 liis lips. His ardor was nettled at the sight, for the act on 
 her part had been unconsciously done. 
 
 '^ You are mighty sensitive for a farm girl ! " said the 
 young man. 
 
 Tess made no reply to this remark, of which, indeed, she 
 did not quite comprehend the drift, unheeding the snub she 
 had administered by her automatic rub upon her cheek. 
 She had, in fact, undone the kiss, as far as such a thing 
 Avas physically possible. With a dim sense that he was 
 vexed, she looked steadily ahead as they trotted on, till she 
 saw, to her consternation, that there was vet another descent 
 to be undergone. 
 
 " You shall be made sony for that ! " he resumed, his in- 
 jured tone still remaining, as he flourished the whip anew. 
 " Unless, that is, you agree willingly to let me do it again, 
 and no handkerchief." 
 
 She sighed. " Very well, sir ! " she said. " — let me 
 get my hat ! " 
 
 At the moment of speaking, her hat had blown off into 
 the road, their present speed on the upland being by no 
 means slow. D'UrberviUe pulled up, and said he would get 
 it for her, but Tess was down on the other side. 
 
 She turned back and picked up the article. " You look 
 prettier with it off, upon my soul, if that's possible," he said, 
 contemplating her over the back of the vehicle. "Now 
 then, up again ! What's the matter ? " 
 
 The hat was in place and tied, but Tess had not stepped 
 forward. " No, sii"," she said, revealing the red and ivory 
 of her mouth in defiant triumph ; " not again, if I know it ! " 
 
 " Wliat — you won't get up beside me ? " 
 
 '^ No ; I shaU walk." 
 
 '' 'Tis five or six miles yet to Trantridge." 
 
 " I don't care if 'tis dozens. Besides, the cart is behind." 
 
 " You artful hussy ! Now, tell me — didn't you make that 
 hat blow off on purpose ? I'll swear you did ! " 
 
60 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Her guarded silence confirmed his suspicion. 
 
 Then D'Urberville cui'sed and swore at her, and called 
 her everything he could think of for the trick. Turning 
 the horse suddenly, he tried to di'ive back upon her, and so 
 hem her in between the gig and the hedge. But he could 
 not do this short of injui'ing her. 
 
 ^^ You ought to be ashamed of yourself for using such 
 wicked words ! '' cried Tess, with spirit, from the top of the 
 hedge into which she had scrambled. ^' I don't like you 
 at all ! I hate and detest you ! I'll go back to mother, I 
 wiU ! " 
 
 D'Urbendlle's bad temper cleared up at sight of hers; 
 and he laughed heartily. ^* Well, I like you all the better," 
 he said. '• Come, let there be peace. I'll never do it again 
 against youi' will. My life upon it noAv ! " 
 
 Still Tess could not be induced to remount. She did not, 
 however, object to his keeping his gig alongside her ; and, 
 in this manner, at a slow pace, they advanced toAvards the 
 village of Trantridge. From time to time D'Urberville ex- 
 hibited a sort of fierce distress at the sight of the tramping 
 he had di*iven her to l)v his misdemeanor. She mioiit, in 
 truth, have safely trusted him now ; but he had forfeited 
 her confidence for the time, and she kept on the ground, 
 progressing thoughtfully, as if wondering whether it would 
 be wiser to return home. Her resolve, however, had been 
 taken, and it seemed vacillating even to childishness to 
 abandon it now, unless for graver reasons. How could she 
 face her parents, get back her box, and disconcert the whole 
 scheme for the rehabilitation of her family on such senti- 
 mental gi'ounds ! 
 
 A few minutes later the chimneys of The Slopes appeared 
 in vie'\^, and in a snug nook to the right the poultry-farm 
 and cottage of Tess's destination. 
 
THE iMAIDEN. 61 
 
 IX. 
 
 The community of fo^ls to which Tess had been ap- 
 pointed as supervisor, purveyor, nurse, surgeon, and friend 
 made theii" headquarters in an old thatched cottage stand- 
 ing in an enclosure that had once been a garden, but was 
 now a trampled and sanded square. The house was over- 
 run with ivj, its chimney being enlarged l^y the boughs of 
 the parasite to the aspect of a ruined tower. The lower 
 rooms were entirely given over to the birds, who walked 
 about them mtli a proprietary air, as though the place had 
 been built by and for themselves, and not by and for cer- 
 tain dusty copyholders who now lay east and west in the 
 churchvard. The descendants of these bverone owners felt 
 it almost as a slif^ht to their familv when the house which 
 had so much of their affection, had cost so much of their 
 forefathers' money, and had been in their possession for 
 several generations before the D'Urber^^lles came and built 
 here, was indifferentlv turned into a fowl-house bv Mrs. 
 Stoke-D'Urberville as soon as the property fell into hand 
 according to law. '- 'Twas good enough for Christians in 
 grandfather's time,'' they said. 
 
 The rooms in which dozens of infants had wailed at theii* 
 nursing now resounded with the tapping of nascent chicks. 
 Distracted hens in coops occupied s];)ots where formerly 
 stood chairs supporting sedate agriculturists. The chimney 
 corner and once blazing hearth was now filled with inverted 
 beehives, in which the hens laid their eggs ; while out-of- 
 doors the plots that each succeeding householder had care- 
 fully shaped mth his spade were torn by the cocks in ^^ildest 
 fashion. 
 
 The garden in which the cottage stood was suiTOunded 
 by a wall, and could only be entered through a door. 
 
62 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Wlien Tess had occupied herself about an hour iu alter- 
 ing and improving the arrangements, according to her 
 skilled ideas as the daughter of a professed poulterer, the 
 door in the wall opened and a servant in white cap and 
 apron entered. She had come from the manor-house. 
 
 " Mrs. D'Urberville wants the fowls as usual," she said ; 
 but perceivmg that Tess did not quite understand, she ex- 
 plained, " Mis'ess is a old lady, and blind." 
 
 " Blind ! " said Tess. 
 
 Almost before her misgiving at the news could find time 
 to shape itself, she took, under her companion's direction, 
 two of the most beautiful of the Hamburghs in her arms, 
 and followed the maid-servant, who had likemse taken two, 
 to the adjacent mansion, which, though ornate and impos- 
 ing, showed marks on this side which bore out the surmise 
 that some occupant of its chambers could bend to the love 
 of dumb creatures — feathers floating within view of the 
 front, and hen-coops standing on the grass. 
 
 In a sitting-room on the ground-floor, ensconced in an 
 arm-chair with her back to the light, was the owner and 
 mistress of the estate, a white-haired woman of not more 
 than sixty, or even less, wearing a large cap. She had the 
 mobile face frequent in those whose sight has decayed by 
 stages, has been laboriously striven after and reluctantly 
 let go, rather than the stagnant mien apparent in persons 
 long sightless or born blind. Tess walked up to this lady 
 with her feathered charges — one sitting on each arm. 
 
 " Ah, you are the young woman come to look after my 
 birds ? " said Mrs. D'Urberville, recognizing a new f ootstej:). 
 " I hope you will be kind to them. My bailiff tells me you 
 are quite the proper person. Well, where are they ? Ah, 
 this is Strut ! But he is hardly so lively to-day, is he ? He 
 is alarmed at being handled by a stranger, I suppose. And 
 Phena too — yes, they are a little frightened — aren't you, 
 dears ? But they will soon get used to you." 
 
 While the old lady had been speaking Tess and the other 
 
THE :MAIDEN. 63 
 
 maid, in obedience to her gestures, liad placed the foAvls 
 severally in her lap, and she had felt them over from head 
 to tail, examining theu^ beaks, their combs, the manes of 
 the cocks, their wings, and their claws. Her touch enabled 
 her to recognize them in a moment, and to discover if a 
 single feather were crippled or draggled. She handled 
 theii' crops, and knew what they had eaten, and if too little 
 or too much ; her face enacting a vivid 23antomime of the 
 criticisms j)assing in her mind. 
 
 The bii'ds that the two girls had brought in were duly 
 returned to the yard, and the process was repeated till all 
 the pet cocks and hens had been submitted to the old 
 woman — Hamburghs, Bantams, Cochins, Brahmas, Dor- 
 kings, and such other sorts as were in fashion just then — 
 her perception of each \dsitor being seldom at fault as she 
 received the bird upon her knees. 
 
 It reminded Tess of a Confirmation, in which Mrs. D'Ur- 
 ber\T.lle was the bishop, the fowls the young people pre- 
 sented, and herself and the maid-servant the parson and 
 curate of the parish bringing them up. At the end of the 
 ceremony Mrs. D'Urber\Tlle abruptly asked Tess, wrink- 
 ling and twitching her face into undulations^ "Can you 
 whistle?" 
 
 Whistle, ma'am ? " 
 Yes, whistle tunes.'^ 
 
 Tess could whistle, like most other country girls, though 
 the accomplishment was one which she did not care to pro- 
 fess in genteel company. However, she blandly admitted 
 that such was the fact. 
 
 '' Then you will have to practise it every day. I had a 
 lad who did it very wtII, but he has left. I want you to 
 whistle to mv bullfinches : as I cannot see them I lil^e to 
 hear them, and we teach 'em airs that way. Tell her where 
 the cages are, Elizabeth. You must begin to-morrow, or 
 they will go back in their piping. They have been neg- 
 lected these several days." 
 
 a 
 
64 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 '' Mr. D'Urberville whistled to 'em tMs morning, ma'am/'' 
 said Elizabeth. 
 
 ^' He ! Pooh ! " 
 
 The old lady's face creased into fmTows of repugnance, 
 and she made no further reply. 
 
 Thus the reception of Tess by her fancied kinswoman 
 terminated, and the bii'ds were taken back to their quarters. 
 The girl's surprise at Mrs. Stoke-D'Urberville's manner was 
 not great : for since seeing the size of the house she had 
 expected no more. But she was far from being aware that 
 the old lady had never heard a word of the so-called kin- 
 ship. She gathered that no great affection flowed between 
 the bhnd woman and her son. But in that, too, she was 
 mistaken. Mrs. D'Urber^dlle was not the fii'st mother 
 compelled to love her offs]3ring scornfully, and to aversely 
 yearn. 
 
 In spite of the unpleasant initiation of the day before, 
 Tess inclined to the freedom and novelty of her new posi- 
 tion in the morning when the sun shone, now that she was 
 once installed there ; and she was ciu'ious to test her powers 
 in the unexpected direction asked of her, so as to ascei-tain 
 her chance of retaining her post. Accordingly, so soon as 
 she was alone within the walled garden, she sat herseK 
 down on a coop, and seriously screwed uj) her mouth for 
 the long-neglected practice. It w^as with a dismal face that 
 she found her former ability to have degenerated to the 
 production of a hollow sepulchral rush of wind through the 
 lips, and no clear note at all. 
 
 She remained fruitlessly bloT\dng and blowing, uttering 
 impatient expletives, and wondering how she could have so 
 grown out of the art which had come by nature, till she be- 
 came aware of a movement among the i\y-boughs which 
 cloaked the garden wall no less than the cottage. Looking 
 that way, she beheld a form springing from the coping 
 to the plot. It was Alec D'Urber\alle, whom she had 
 
THE MAIDEN. 65 
 
 not set eyes on since be had conducted her the day before 
 to the door of the gardener's cottage where she had lodg- 
 ings. 
 
 " Upon my carcass ! " cried he, '^ there was never before 
 such a beautiful thing in Nature or Art as you look, 
 'Cousin' Tess. [''Cousin" had a faint ring of mockery.] 
 I have been watching you from over the wall — sitting like 
 J/y^patience on a monument, and pouting up that pretty red 
 mouth to whistling shape, and whooing and whooing, and 
 privately swearing, and never being able to produce a note. 
 Why, you are quite cross because you can't do it." 
 
 '^ I am not cross, and I didn't swear." 
 
 "Ah ! I understand why you are trying — those bullies ! 
 My mother wants you to carry on theii* musical education. 
 How selfish of her ." As if attending to these curst cocks 
 and hens here were not enough work for any girl, I would 
 flatlv refuse, if I were vou." 
 
 '' But she wants me particularly to do it, and to be ready 
 by to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Does she ? Well then — I'll give you a lesson or two." 
 
 ^' Oh no, you won't," said Tess, withdrawing towards the 
 door. 
 
 '' Nonsense; I don't want to touch you. See — I'll stand 
 on this side of the wire-netting, and you can keep on the 
 other ; so you may feel quite safe. Now, look here ; you 
 screw up your lips too harshly. There 'tis — so." 
 
 He sinted the action to the word, and whistled a line of 
 '' Take, take those lips away." But the allusion was lost 
 upon Tess. 
 
 " Now try," said D'Urberville. 
 
 She attempted to look reserved; her face put on its ut- 
 most phase of sculptural severity. But how much could 
 she be expected to accom])hsh of that sort in such cii'cum- 
 stances ? He persisted in his demand, and at last, to get 
 rid of him, she did put up her lips as directed, laughing 
 distressfully, however, before she could succeed in produc- 
 
66 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ing a clear note, and then blushing with vexation that she 
 had laughed. 
 
 He encoiu'aged her with '- Try again ! '' 
 
 Tess was quite serious, painfully serious b}^ this time -, 
 and she tried — ultimately and unexpectedly emitting a real 
 round sound. The momentary pleasure of success got the 
 better of her; her eyes enlarged, and she involuntarily 
 smiled in his face. 
 
 " That's it ! Now I have started you — you'll go on beau- 
 tifully. There — I said I would not come near you ; and, in 
 spite of such temptation as never before fell to mortal man, 
 I'll keep my word. I say, Tessie, isn't my mother a queer 
 old soul?" 
 
 " I don't know much of her yet, sir." 
 
 " You'll find her so ; she must be, to make you learn to 
 whistle to her bullfinches. I am rather out of her books 
 just now, but you Avill be quite in favor if you treat her 
 live-stock well. Good-morning. If you meet with any 
 difficulties and want help here, don't go to the bailiff, come 
 to me." 
 
 It was in the economy of this regime that Tess Dm-bey- 
 field had undertaken to fill a place. Her fii'st day's expe- 
 riences were fairly typical of those which followed tlii'ough 
 many succeeding days. A familiarity with Alec D'Urber- 
 ville's presence — which that young man carefully cultivated 
 in her by playful dialogue, and by jestingly calling her his 
 cousin when they were alone — removed most of her original 
 shyness of him, without, however, implanting any feeling 
 which could engender shyness of a new and tenderer kind. 
 But she was more pliable under his hands than a mere com- 
 panionship would have made her, owing to her inevitable 
 dependence upon his mother, and, through her comparative 
 helplessness, upon him. 
 
 She soon found that whistling to the bullfinches in Mrs. 
 D'Urberville's room was no such onerous business when 
 
THE IVIAIDEN. 67 
 
 she had regained the art, for she had caught from her 
 musical mother numerous airs that suited those songsters 
 admirably. A far more satisfactory time than when she 
 practised in the garden was this whisthng by the cages 
 each morning. Unrestrained by the young man's presence, 
 she threw up her mouth, put her lips near the bars, and 
 piped away in easeful grace to the attentive listeners. 
 
 Mrs. D'UrberviUe slept in a large four-post bedstead hung 
 with hea\'y damask curtains, and the bullfinches occupied 
 the same apartment, where they flitted about freely at cer- 
 tain hours, and made little spots on the furniture. Once 
 while Tess was at the mndow where the cages were ranged, 
 gi\dng her lesson as usual, she thought she heard a rustling 
 behind the bed. The old lady was not present, and turning 
 round the gii'l had an impression that the toes of a pair of 
 boots were visible below the fringe of the ciu^tains. There- 
 upon her whistling became so disjointed that the listener, if 
 such there were, must have discovered her suspicion of his 
 presence. She searched the curtains every morning after 
 that, but never found anybody within them. Alec D'Urber- 
 viUe had e\ddently thought better of his freak to temfy 
 her by an ambush of that kind. 
 
 X. 
 
 E\t:ry \'illage has its idiosyncrasy, its constitution, its 
 own code of morality. The levity of some of the younger 
 women in and about Trantridge was marked, and was per- 
 haps symptomatic of the choice spu-it who ruled The vSlopes 
 in that vicinity. The place had also a more abiding defect ; 
 it drank hard. The staple conversation on the farms 
 around was on the uselessness of sa\dng money; and 
 smockfrocked arithmeticians, leaning on their ploughs or 
 hoes, would enter into calculations of great nicety to prove 
 
68 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 that parish relief was a fuller provision for a man in his 
 old age than any which could result from savings out of 
 their wages duiing a whole lifetime. 
 
 The chief pleasure of these philosophers lay in going 
 every Saturday night, when work was done, to Chase- 
 borough, a decayed market-towTi two or tliree miles dis- 
 tant ; and, returning in the small houi's of the next morn- 
 ing, to sj)end Sunda}" in sleeping off the dyspeptic effects 
 of the curious compounds sold to them as beer by the mo- 
 nopolizers of the once independent inns. 
 
 For a long time Tess did not join in the weekly pilgrim- 
 ages. But under pressure from matrons not much older 
 than herself — for marriage before means was the rule here 
 as elsewhere — Tess at length consented to go. Her first 
 experience of the joui'ney afforded her more enjoyment 
 than she had expected, the hilariousness of the others be- 
 ing quite contagious after her monotonous attention to 
 the poultry-farm all the week. She went again and again. 
 Being graceful and interesting, standing moreover on the 
 momentary threshold of womanhood, her appearance drew 
 down upon her some sly regards from loungers in the streets 
 of Chaseborough ; hence, though sometimes her journey to 
 the to^Ti was made independently, she always searched for 
 her fellows at nightfall, to have the protection of their 
 companionsliip homeward. 
 
 This had gone on for a month or two, when a Satui-day 
 came in early September on which a fau* and a market 
 coincided ; and the pilgrims from Trantridge sought double 
 delights at the inns on that account. It was long past 
 sunset, and Tess waited for the troop till she was quite 
 wesiry. "Wliile she stood at a corner by the tavern in which 
 they sat she heard a footstep, and looking round saw the 
 red coal of a cigar. D'Urberville was standing there also. 
 He beckoned to her, and she reluctantly went to him. 
 
 '^My Pretty, what are you doing here at this time of 
 night ? " 
 
THE lilAIDEN. 69 
 
 She was so tired after lier long day and her walk that 
 she confided her trouble to him. 
 
 "I have been waiting ever so long, sii', to have their 
 company home, because the road is rather strange to me at 
 night. Bnt I really think I will wait no longer." 
 
 ''Do not. I have only a saddle-horse here to-day; but 
 come to the Flower-de-Luce, and I'll hire a trap, and drive 
 you home with me." 
 
 Tess had never quite got over her original mistrust of 
 him, and, with all their tardiness, she preferred to walk 
 home with the work-folk. So she answered that she was 
 much obliged to him but on second thoughts would not 
 trouble liim. "I have said that I will wait for 'em, and 
 they will expect me to now." 
 
 ''Very well, silly ! Please yourself." 
 
 As soon as he had re-lit a cigar and walked away the 
 Trantridge villagers within began also to recollect how time 
 was flpng, and prepared to leave in a body. Their bundles 
 and baskets were gathered up, and half an hour later, 
 when the clock-chime sounded a quarter past eleven, they 
 were straggling along the lane which led up the hill towards 
 their homes. 
 
 It was a three-mile walk, along a dry white road, made 
 whiter to-night by the Ught of the moon. 
 
 Tess soon perceived as she walked in the flock, some- 
 times mth this one, sometimes with that, that the fresh 
 night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses 
 among the men who had partaken too freely ; some of the 
 more careless women also were wandering in their gait — 
 to wit, a dark \T.rago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, 
 till lately a favorite of D'Urberville's ; Nancy, her sister, 
 nicknamed the Queen of Diamonds ; and a young married 
 woman who had akeady tumbled down. Yet however ter- 
 restrial and lumpy their appearance just now to the mean 
 unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was diiferent. 
 
70 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 They followed the road with a knowledge that they were 
 soaring along in a supporting medium, possessed of origi- 
 nal and profound thoughts, themselves and surrounding 
 nature forming an organism of which all the parts har- 
 moniously and joyously interpenetrated each other. They 
 were as sublime as the moon and stars above them, and the 
 moon and stars were as ardent as they. 
 
 Tess, however, had undergone such painful experiences 
 in tliis kind in her father's house that the discovery of 
 their condition spoiled the pleasure she was beginning to 
 feel in the moonhght journey. Yet she stuck to the party, 
 for reasons above given. 
 
 In the open highway they had progressed in scattered 
 order; but now theu* route was through a field-gate, and 
 the foremost finding a difficulty in opening it, they closed 
 up together. 
 
 This leading pedestrian was Car the Queen of Spades, 
 who carried a wicker-basket containing her mother's 
 gi'oceries, her own draperies, and other purchases for the 
 week. The basket being large and heavy. Car had placed 
 it for convenience of porterage on the top of her head, 
 where it rode on in jeopardized balance as she walked with 
 arms akimbo. 
 
 " Well — whatever is that a-creeping down thy back. Car 
 Darch ? " said one of the group suddenly. 
 
 All looked at Car. Her gown was a light cotton print, 
 and from the back of her head a kind of rope could be 
 seen descending to some distance below her waist like a 
 Chinaman's queue. 
 
 '^ 'Tis her hair falling down," said another. 
 
 No ; it was not her hair : it was a black stream of some- 
 thing oozing from her basket, and it glistened like a slimy 
 snake in the cold still rays of the moon. 
 
 " 'Tis treacle," said an observant matron. 
 
 Treacle it was. Car's poor old grandmother had a weak- 
 ness for the sweet stuff. Honey she had in plenty out of 
 
THE MAIDEN. 71 
 
 her own hives, but treacle was what her soul desired, and 
 Car had been about to give her a treat of surprise. Hastily 
 lowering- the basket, the dark girl found that the vessel con- 
 taining the liquid had been smashed within. 
 
 By this time there had arisen a shout of laughter at the 
 extraordinary appearance of Car's back, which irritated the 
 dark queen into getting rid of the disfigurement by the fii'st 
 sudden means available, and independently of the help of 
 the scoffers. She rushed excitedly into the field they were 
 about to cross, and flinging herself flat on her back upon 
 the grass, began to wipe her go^vn as well as she could by 
 gyrating horizontally on the herbage and dragging herself 
 over it upon her elbows. 
 
 The laughter rang louder ; they clung to the gate, to the 
 posts, rested on then- staves, in the weakness engendered 
 by theii' convulsions at the spectacle of Car. Our heroine, 
 who had hitherto held her peace, at this wHd moment 
 could not help joining in with the rest. 
 
 It was a misfortune — in more ways than one. No sooner 
 did the dark queen hear the soberer, richer note of Tess 
 among those of the other work-people than a long smolder- 
 ing sense of rivalry inflamed her to madness. She sprang 
 to her feet and closely faced the object of her dislike. 
 
 ^' How darest tli' laugh at me, hussy ! " she cried. 
 
 '^ I couldn't really help it when t'others did," apologized 
 Tess, still tittering. 
 
 " Ah, th'st think th' beest everybody, dostn't, because th' 
 beest fii'st favorite with He just now ! But stop a bit, my 
 lady, stop a bit ! I'm as good as two of such ! Look here 
 — here's at 'ee.'^ 
 
 To Tess's horror the dark queen began stripping off the 
 bodice of her gown — which for the added reason of its 
 ridiculed condition she was only too glad to be free of — 
 till she had bared her plump neck, shoulders, and arms to 
 the moonshine, under which they looked as luminous and 
 beautiful as some Praxitelean creation, in their possession 
 
72 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 of the faultless rotundities of a lusty country gii-1. She 
 closed her fists and squared up at Tess. 
 
 " Indeed, then, I shall not fight ! " said the latter, majes- 
 tically 5 "and if I had known you was of that sort, I 
 wouldn't have so let myself doT\Ti as to come with such a 
 whorage as this is ! " 
 
 The rather too inclusive speech brought down a torrent 
 of vituperation from other quarters upon fair Tess's un- 
 lucky head, particularly from the Queen of Diamonds, 
 who, having stood in the relations to D'Urberville that Car 
 had also been suspected of, united with the latter against 
 the common enemy. Several other women also chimed in, 
 with an animus which none of them would have been so 
 fatuous as to show but for the rollicking evening they had 
 passed. Thereupon, finding Tess unfairly browbeaten, the 
 husbands and lovers tried to make peace by defending her ; 
 but the result of that attempt was directly to increase the 
 war. 
 
 Tess was indignant and ashamed. She no longer 
 minded the loneliness of the way and the lateness of the 
 hour j her one object was to get away from the whole crew 
 as soon as possible. She knew well enough that the better 
 among them would repent of theii* passion next day. They 
 were all now inside the field, and she was edging about to 
 rush off alone when a horseman emerged almost silently 
 from the corner of the hedge that screened the road, and 
 Alec D'Urberville looked round upon them. 
 
 " What the devil is all tliis row about, work-folk ? '^ he 
 asked. 
 
 The explanation was not readily forthcoming j and, in 
 truth, he did not require any. Ha\'ing heard their voices 
 while yet some way off, he had ridden creepingly forward, 
 and learned enough to satisfy himself. 
 
 Tess was standing apart from the rest, near the gate. He 
 bent over towards her. " Jump up behind me," he whis- 
 pered, " and we'll get shot of the screaming cats in a jiffy ! " 
 
THE IMAIDEN. 73 
 
 She felt almost ready to faint, so vivid was her sense of 
 the crisis. At almost any other moment of her life she 
 would have refused such proffered aid and company, as she 
 had refused them several times before ; and now the loneli- 
 ness would not of itself have forced her to do otherwise. 
 But coming as the invitation did at the particular juncture 
 when fear and indignation at these adversaries coidd be 
 transformed by a spring of the foot into a triumph over 
 them, she abandoned herseK to her impulse, put her toe 
 upon his instep, and leaped into the saddle behind liim. 
 The pair were speeding away into the distant gray by the 
 time that the contentious revellers became aware of what 
 had happened. 
 
 The Queen of Spades forgot the stain on her bodice, and 
 stood beside the Queen of Diamonds and the new-married, 
 staggering young woman — all with a gaze of fixity in the 
 direction in which the horse's tramp was diminishing into 
 silence on the road. 
 
 ^'What be ye looking at?" asked a man who had not 
 observed the incident. 
 
 " Ho-ho-ho ! '' laughed dark Car. 
 
 '^ Hee-hee-hee ! '' laughed the tippling bride, as she 
 steadied herself on the arm of her fond husband. 
 
 " Heu-heu-heu ! '' laughed dark Car's mother, stroking 
 her mustache as she explained laconically: '^Out of the 
 frying-pan into the fire ! '' 
 
 And then these children of the open aii', whom even 
 excess of alcohol could scarce injiu'e permanently, betook 
 themselves to the field-path ; and as they went there moved 
 onward with them, around the shadow of each one's head, 
 a circle of opalized light, formed by the moon's rays upon 
 the glistening sheet of dew. Each pedestrian could see no 
 halo but his or her own, which never deserted the head- 
 shadow, whatever its vulgar unsteadiness might be; but 
 adhered to it, and persistently beautified it ; till the erratic 
 motions seemed an inherent part of the ii-radiation, and the 
 
74 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 fumes of their breathing a component of the night's mist ; 
 and the spirit of the scene, and of the moonhght, and of 
 Nature, seemed harmoniously to mingle mth the spirit of 
 wine. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The twain cantered along for some time without speech, 
 Tess as she clung to him still panting in her triumph, yet 
 in other respects dubious. She had perceived that the 
 horse was not the spirited one he sometimes rode, and felt 
 no alarm on that score, though her seat was precarious 
 enough. She asked him to slow the animal to a walk, 
 which Alec accordingly did. 
 
 '' Neatly done, was it not, dear Tess ? " he said by-and-by. 
 
 " Yes ! " said she. " I am sure I ought to be much obliged 
 to you." 
 
 " And are you ? " 
 
 She did not reply. 
 
 ^' Tess, why do you always dislike my kissing you ? " 
 
 ^' I suppose — because I don't love you." 
 
 " You are quite sui-e ? " 
 
 " I am angry with you sometimes ! " 
 
 "Ah, I half feared as much." Nevertheless, Alec did 
 not object to that confession. He knew that anything was 
 better than frigidity. '' Why haven't you told me when I 
 have made you angiy ? " 
 
 " You know very well why. Because I cannot help my- 
 self here." 
 
 " I haven't offended you often by love-making." 
 
 " You have sometimes." 
 
 " How many times ? " 
 
 " You know as well as I — too manv times." 
 
 "Every time I have tried?" 
 
THE INIAIDEN. 75 
 
 She was silent, and tlie liorse ambled along for a consid- 
 erable distance, till a faint Inminous fog, wliicli bad Imng 
 in the liollows all the evening, became general and envel- 
 oped them. It seemed to hold the moonlight in suspension, 
 rendering it more pervasive than in clear air. Whether 
 on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or from sleepi- 
 ness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed 
 the point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from 
 the hio'liwav, and that her conductor had not taken the 
 Trantridge track. 
 
 She was inexpressibly weary. She had risen at five 
 o'clock every morning of that week, had been on foot the 
 whole of each day, and on this evening had in addition 
 walked the tlu*ee miles to Chaseborough, waited three hours 
 for her neighbors without eating or drinking, her impatience 
 to start them preventing either; she had then walked a 
 mile of the way home, and had undergone the excitement 
 of the quarrel, till it was now nearly one o'clock. Only 
 once, however, was she overcome by actual di'owsiness. In 
 that moment of oblivion she sank gently against him. 
 
 D'Urberville withdrew his feet from the stirrups, tiu'ned 
 sideways on the saddle, and enclosed her waist with his 
 arm to support her. 
 
 This immediately put her on the defensive, and with one 
 of those sudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable 
 she gave him a little push from her. In his ticklish position 
 he nearly lost his balance and only just avoided rolling 
 over into the road, the horse, though a powerf id one^ being 
 fortunately the quietest he rode. 
 
 '' That is devihsh unkind ! " he said. '^ I mean no harm 
 — only to keep you from falling." 
 
 She pondered suspiciously ; till, thinking that this might 
 after all be true, she relented, and said quite humbly, "I 
 beg your pardon, sir." 
 
 "I won't pardon you unless you show some confidence 
 in me. Good God ! " he bui^st out, '' what am I, to be re- 
 
76 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 pulsed SO by a mere ckLt like you ? For near three mortal 
 m.onths have you trifled with my feelings, eluded me, and 
 snubbed me ; and I won't stand it ! " 
 
 ^' I'll leave you to-morrow, sii\" 
 
 " No, you will not leave me to-morrow ! Will you, I ask 
 once more, show yom^ belief in me by letting me encircle 
 you with my arm? Come, between us two and nobody 
 else, now. We know each other well ; and you know that 
 I love you, and think you are the prettiest giii in the 
 world, wliich you are. May I treat you as a lover ? " 
 
 She drew a quick pettish breath of objection, T\Tithing 
 uneasily on her seat, looked far ahead, and murmured, " I 
 don't know — I wish — how can I say yes or no when " 
 
 He settled the matter by clapping his arm round her as 
 he desu^ed, and Tess expressed no further negative. Thus 
 they sidled onward till it struck her they had been advanc- 
 ing for an unconscionable time — far longer than was 
 usually occupied by the short journey from Chaseborough, 
 even at this walking pace, and that they were no longer on 
 hard road, but in a mere trackway. 
 
 " AVhy, where be we ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 ^' Passing by a wood." 
 
 ^'A w^ood — what wood? Surely we are quite out of the 
 road f " 
 
 ^'A bit of The Chase — the oldest wood in England. It 
 is a lovely night, and why should we not prolong our ride 
 a little ? " 
 
 " How could you be so treacherous ! " said Tess, between 
 archness and real dismay, and getting rid of his arm by 
 pulling open his fingers one by one, though at the risk of 
 slipping off herself. "Just when I've been putting such 
 trust in you, and obhging you to please you, because I 
 thought I had wronged you by that push ! Please set me 
 down, and let me walk home." 
 
 "You cannot walk home, even if the air were clear. 
 We are miles away from Trantridge, if I must teU you, and 
 
THE MAIDEN. 77 
 
 in this growing fog you might wander for hours among 
 these trees." 
 
 " Never mind that/' she coaxed. '• Put me down, I beg 
 5'ou. I don't mind where it is ; only let me get down, sir, 
 please ! " 
 
 ''Very well, then, I will — on one condition. Having 
 brought you here to this out-of-the-way place, I feel myself 
 responsible for your safe conduct home, whatever you may 
 yourself feel about it. As to your getting to Trantridge 
 without assistance, it is quite impossible ; for, to tell the 
 truth, o\mig to this fog, which so disguises everj^thing, I 
 don't quite know where we are myseK. Now, if you will 
 promise to wait beside the horse while I walk through the 
 bushes till I come to some road or house and ascertain 
 exactly our whereabouts, I'll deposit you here willingly. 
 Wlien I come back I'll give you full directions, and if you 
 insist upon walking you ma}^ ; or you may ride — at your 
 pleasui^e." 
 
 She accepted these terms, and sKd off on the near side, 
 though not till he had stolen a cursory kiss. He sprang 
 down on the other side. 
 
 "I suppose I must hold the horse?" said she. 
 
 " Oh no ; it's not necessary," replied Alec, patting the 
 panting creature. " He's had enough of it for to-night." 
 
 He turned the horse's head into the bushes, hitched him 
 on to a bough, and made a sort of couch or nest for her in 
 the deep mass of dead leaves. 
 
 " Now, you sit there," he said. " That ^yi]l keep away 
 the damp. Just give an eye to the horse — it will be quite 
 sufficient." 
 
 He took a few steps away from her, but, returning, 
 said, " By the by, Tess, your father has a new cob to-day. 
 Somebody gave it to him." 
 
 " Somebody f You ! " 
 
 D'Urberville nodded. 
 
 " Oh, how very good of you that is ! " she exclaimed, 
 
78 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 with a painful sense of the awkwardness of having to thank 
 him just then. 
 
 " And the children have some toys." 
 
 " I didn't know — you ever sent them anything ! " she 
 murmui'ed, much moved. ^' I almost wish you had not — 
 yes, I almost Tvish it ! " 
 
 '' Why, dear ? '' 
 
 " It — champers me so." 
 
 " Tessie — don't you love me ever so little now ? " 
 
 ^' I'm grateful," she reluctantly admitted. ^' But I fear I 
 
 do not " The sudden vision of his passion for herself 
 
 as a factor in this result so distressed her that, beginning 
 mth one slow tear, and then following with another, she 
 wept outright. 
 
 " Don't cry, dear, dear one ! Now sit down here, and 
 wait till I come." She passively sat down amid the leaves 
 that he had heaped, and shivered slightly. "Are you 
 cold ? " he asked. 
 
 " Not very — a little." 
 
 He touched her with his fingers, which sank into her as 
 into a billow. " You have only that puffy muslin dress on 
 —how's that?" 
 
 "It's my best summer one. 'Twas very warm when I 
 started, and I didn't know I was going to ride, and that it 
 would be night." 
 
 "Nights grow chiU}^ in September. Let me see." He 
 pulled off a light overcoat that he had worn, and put it 
 round her tenderly. "That's it — now you feel w^armer," 
 he continued. " Now, my Pretty, rest there ; I shall soon 
 be back again." 
 
 Having buttoned the overcoat round her shoulders, he 
 plunged into the webs of vapor Avhich by this time formed 
 veils between the trees. She could hear the rustling of the 
 branches as he ascended the adjoining slope, till his move- 
 ments were no louder than the hopping of a bird, and 
 finally died away. With the setting of the moon the pale 
 
THE INIAIDEN. 79 
 
 light lessened, and Tess became invisil3le as she fell into 
 reverie upon the leaves where he had left her. 
 
 In the meantime Alec D'Urber\dlle had pushed on np 
 the slope to clear his genuine doubt as to the quarter of 
 The Chase they were in. He had, in fact, ridden quite at 
 random for over an houi', taking any turning that came to 
 hand in order to prolong companionship with her, and giv- 
 ing far more attention to Tess's moonlit person than to any 
 wayside object. A little rest for the jaded animal being 
 desirable, he did not hasten his search for landmarks. A 
 clamber over the hill into the adjoining vale brought him 
 to the fence of a highway whose aspect he recognized, 
 which settled the question of their whereabouts. D'Ur- 
 berville thereupon turned back j but by this time the moon 
 had quite gone down, and partly on account of the fog 
 The Chase was wrapped in thick darkness, although morn- 
 ing was not far off. He was obliged to advance with 
 outstretched hands to avoid contact with the boughs, and 
 discovered that to hit the exact spot from which he had 
 started was at first entirely beyond him. Roaming up and 
 down, round and round, he at length heard a slight move- 
 ment of the horse close at hand; and the sleeve of his 
 overcoat unexpectedly caught his foot. 
 
 '' Tess ! '' said D'Urberville. 
 
 There was no answer. The obscurity was now so great 
 that he could see absolutely nothing but a pale nebulous- 
 ness at his feet, which represented the white musUn figure 
 he had left upon the dead leaves. Everything else was 
 blackness alike. D'Urberville stooped, and heard a gentle 
 regular breathing. He knelt and bent lower, till her breath 
 warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in con- 
 tact mth hers. She was sleeping soundly, and upon her 
 eyelashes there lingered tears. 
 
 Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around. Above 
 them rose the primeval yews and oaks of The Chase, in 
 which were poised gentle roosting birds in their last nap ; 
 
80 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 and around tliem the hopping rabbits and liares. But 
 where was Tess's guardian angel? where was the Provi- 
 dence of her simple faith ? Perhaps, like that other god 
 of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he 
 was pursuing, or he was in a joiu^ney, or peradventure he 
 was sleeping and was not to be awaked. 
 
 Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, 
 sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, 
 there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it 
 was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appro- 
 priates the finer thus, many thousand 3'ears of anal}i:ieal 
 philosojDhy have failed to explain to om^ sense of order. 
 One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution 
 liu'king in the catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess D'Ur- 
 berville's mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had 
 dealt the same ^Tong even more ruthlessty upon peasant 
 girls of their time. But though to \nsit the sins of the 
 fathers upon the children may be a morahty good enough 
 for di^dnities, it is scorned by average human nature ; and 
 it therefore does not mend the matter. 
 
 As Tess's own people down in those retreats are never 
 tired of sapng among each other in their fatalistic way : 
 " It was to be." There lay the pity of it. An immeasura- 
 ble social chasm was. to divide our heroine's personality 
 thereafter from that pre^dous self of hers who stepj^ed from 
 her mother's door to try her fortune at Trantridge poultry- 
 farm. 
 
MAIDEN NO MORE. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The basket was heavy and the bundle was large, but she 
 lugged them along like a person w^ho did not find any espe- 
 cial biu'den in material things. Occasionally she stopped 
 to rest in a mechanical way by some gate or post; and 
 then, giving the baggage another hitch npon her full round 
 arm, went steadily on again. 
 
 It was a Sunday morning in late October, about four 
 months after Tess Durbejiield's arrival at Trantridge, and 
 some few weeks subsequent to the night ride in The Chase. 
 The time was not long past daybreak, and the yellow lumi- 
 nosity upon the horizon behind her back lighted the ridge 
 towards which her face was set — the barrier of the vale 
 wherein she had of late been a stranger — which she would 
 have to climb over to reach her birthplace. The ascent 
 was gi^adual on this side, and the soil and scenery differed 
 much fi'om those within Blakemore Yale. Even the char- 
 acter and accent of the two peoples had shades of difference, 
 despite the amalgamating effects of a roundabout railway ; 
 so that, though less than twenty miles from the place of 
 her sojourn at Trantridge, her native village had seemed a 
 far-away spot. The field-folk shut in there traded north- 
 ward and westward, travelled, courted, and married north- . 
 ward and westward, thought northward and westward; 
 
 
82 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 those on this side mainly directed their energies and at- 
 tention to the east and sonth. 
 
 The incline was the same down which D'Urberville had 
 diiveu with her so ^^dldl}^ on that day in Jnne. Tess went 
 up the remainder of its length without stopping, and on 
 reaching the edge of the escarpment gazed over the familiar 
 gi'een world beyond, now half veiled in mist. It was al- 
 ways beautiful from here ; it was terribly beautiful to Tess 
 to-day, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learned 
 that the serpent hisses where sweet bii'ds sing, and her 
 views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson. 
 Verily another girl than the simple one she had been at 
 home was she who, bowed by the thought, stood still here, 
 and turned to look behind her. She could not bear to look 
 forward into the Vale. 
 
 Ascending by the long white road that Tess hers^ 
 had just labored up she saw a two-wheeled vehicle, beside 
 wiiich walked a man, who held up his hand to attract her 
 attention. 
 
 She obeyed the signal to wait for liim with unspeculative 
 repose, and in a few minutes man and horse stopped beside 
 her. 
 
 ^'Why did you slip away by stealth like this?" said 
 D'Urberville, mth upbraiding breathlessness 5 '^ on a Sun- 
 day morning, too, when people were all in bed ! I only 
 discovered it by accident, and I have been dri\dng like the 
 deuce to overtake you. Just look at the mare. Why go 
 off like this? You know that nobody wished to hinder 
 your going. And how unnecessary it has been for you to 
 toil along on foot, and encumber yourself with this heavy 
 load ! I have followed like a madnian, simply to drive you 
 the rest of the distance, if vou won't come back." 
 
 ^' I shan't come back," said she. 
 
 " I thought you wouldn't — I said so. Wei], then, put up 
 your baskets, and let me help you on." 
 
 She listlessly placed her basket and bundle within the 
 
MAIDEX NO MORE. 83 
 
 dog-cart, and stepped up, and they sat side by side. She 
 had no fear of him now, and in the cause of her confidence 
 her sorrow lay. 
 
 D'Urberville mechanically lit a cigar, and the journey 
 was continued with broken unemotional conversation on 
 the commonplace objects by the wayside. He had quite 
 forgotten his struggle to kiss her when, in the early sum- 
 mer, they had driven in the opposite direction along the 
 same road. But she had not, and she sat now like a puppet, 
 replying to his remarks in monosyllables. After a space 
 they came in view of the clump of trees beyond which the 
 village of Marlott stood. It was only then that her face 
 still showed the least emotion, a tear or two beginning to 
 trickle do^Ti. 
 
 '^ What are you crying for?" he coldly asked. 
 
 " I was only thinking that I was born over there," mur- 
 mured Tess. 
 
 "' Well — w^e must all be born somewhere." 
 
 ^'I wish I had never been born — there or anj^where 
 else ! " 
 
 ^' Pooh ! Well, if you didn't wish to come to Trantridge 
 why did you come ? " 
 
 She did not reply. 
 
 " You didn't come for love of me, that I'll swear." 
 
 ^' 'Tis quite true. If I had gone for love o' you, if I had 
 ever sincerely loved 'ee, if I loved you still, I should not so 
 loathe and hate myself for my weakness as I do now ! . . . 
 My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was aU." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. She resumed : 
 
 "I didn't understand your meaning till it was too 
 late." 
 
 '^ That's what every woman says." 
 
 " How can you dare to use such words ! " she cried, turn- 
 ing impetuously upon him, her eyes flashing as the latent 
 spirit (of which he was to see more some day) awoke in 
 her. ^^ My God ! I could knock you out of the gig ! Did 
 
84 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 it never strike your mind that what every woman says 
 some women may feel ? " 
 
 ^'Very well/' he said, laughing; "I am sorry to wound 
 you. I did wrong — I admit it." He dropped into some 
 little bitterness as he continued : " Only you needn't be so 
 everlastingly flinging it in my face. I am ready to pay to 
 the uttermost farthing. You know you need not work in 
 the fields or the dairies again. You know you may clothe 
 yourself mth the best, instead of in the bald plain way you 
 have lately affected, as if you couldn't get a ribbon more 
 than vou earn." 
 
 Her lip lifted slightly, though there was little scorn, as a 
 rule, in her large and impulsive nature. 
 
 ''I have said I ^yi]l not take an^i:liine' more from vou, 
 and I will not — I cannot ! I slio'uM be your creature to go 
 on doing that, and I won't ! " 
 
 " One would think you were a princess from your man- 
 ner, in addition to a true and original D'Urberville — ha ! ha ! 
 Well, Tess, dear, I can say no more. I suppose I am a bad 
 fellow — a damn bad fellow. I was born bad, and I have 
 lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probabihty. But, upon 
 my lost soul, I won't be bad towards you again, Tess. And 
 if certain circumstances should arise — vou understand — in 
 which 5^ou are in the least need, the least difficulty, send 
 me one line, and vou shall have bv return whatever vou 
 require. I may not be at Trantridge — I am going to Lon- 
 don for a time — I can't stand the old woman. But all 
 letters i^oll be forwarded." 
 
 She said that she did not wish him to drive her farther, 
 and they stopped just under the clump of trees. D'Url^er- 
 ville alighted, and lifted her down bodily in his arms, after- 
 wards placing her articles on the ground beside her. She 
 bowed to him slightly, her eye just lingering in his ; and 
 then she turned to take the parcels for departure. 
 
 Alec D'Urberville removed his cigar, bent towards her, 
 and said : 
 
MAIDEN NO MORE. 85 
 
 ^'You are not going to tm-n away like tliat, dear? 
 Come ! " 
 
 ^'If you wish," she answered, indifferently. "See how 
 you've mastered me ! " 
 
 She thereupon turned round and lifted her face to his, 
 and remained like a marble term while he imprinted a kiss 
 upon her cheek — half perfunctorily, liaK as if zest had not 
 yet quite died out. Her eyes vaguely rested upon the re- 
 motest trees in the lane w^hile the kiss was given, as though 
 she were nearly unconscious of what he did. 
 
 " Now the other side, for old acquaintance' sake.'' 
 
 She tm-ned her head in the same passive way, as one 
 might turn at the request of a sketcher or hairdresser, and 
 he kissed the other side, liis Hps touching cheeks that were 
 damp and smoothly chill as the skin of the mushrooms 
 growing around them. 
 
 " You don't give me youi' mouth and kiss me back. You 
 never willingly do that — you'll never love me, I fear." 
 
 " I have said so, often. It is true. I have never really 
 and truly loved you, and I think I never can." She added 
 moui-nfully, ^' Perhaps, of all things, a lie on this thing 
 would do the most good to me now 5 but I have honor 
 enough left, little as 'tis, not to tell that lie. If I did love 
 you I may have the best o' causes for letting you know it. 
 But I don't." 
 
 He emitted a labored breath, as if the scene were getting 
 rather oppressive to his heart, or to his conscience, or to 
 his gentility. 
 
 "Well, you *e absurdly melancholy, Tess. I have no 
 reason for flattering you now, and I can say plainly that 
 you need not be so sad. You can hold your own for 
 beauty against any woman of these pai'ts, gentle or simple ; 
 I say it to you as a practical man and well-msher. If you 
 are wise you will show it to the world more than you do 
 before it fades. . . . And yet, Tess, will you come back to 
 me ? Upon my soul I don't like to let you go like this ! " 
 
86 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ^^ Never, never ! I made up my mind as soon as I saw — 
 what I ought to have seen sooner ; and I won't come." 
 
 ''Then good-morning, my fom- months' cousin — good- 
 by!'^ 
 
 He leapt up hghtly, arranged the reins, and was gone 
 between the tall red-berried hedges. 
 
 Tess did not look after him, but slowly wound along the 
 crooked lane. It was stiU early, and though the sun's lower 
 limb was just free of the hill, his rays, ungenial and peer- 
 ing, addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet. There 
 was not a human soul near. Sad October and her sadder 
 seK seemed the only two existences haunting that lane. 
 
 As she walked, however, some footsteps approached be- 
 hind her, the footsteps of a man ; and owing to the brisk- 
 ness of his advance he was close at her heels and had said 
 " Good-morning " before she had been long aware of his 
 propinquity. He appeared to be an artisan of some sort, 
 and carried a tin j)ot of red paint in his hand. He asked 
 in a business-like manner if he should take her basket, 
 wliich she permitted him to do, walking beside him. 
 
 ^'It is early to be astir this Sabbath morn," he said, 
 cheerfully. 
 
 " Yes," said Tess. 
 
 ^' When most people are at rest from theii' week's work." 
 
 She also assented to this. 
 
 *' Though I do more real work to-day than all the week 
 besides." 
 
 <^ Do you ? " 
 
 '^ All the week I work for the glory of m^n, and on Sun- 
 day for the glory of God. That's more real than the other 
 — hey ! I have a little to do here at this stile." The man 
 turned as he spoke to an opening at the roadside leading 
 into a pasture. " If you'll wait a moment," he added, ^' I 
 shall not be long." 
 
 As he had her basket she could not weU do otherwise ; 
 and she waited, observing him. He set down her basket 
 
MAIDEN NO MORE. 87 
 
 and the tin pot, and stirring the paint with the brush that 
 was in it began painting large square letters on the middle 
 board of the three composing the stile, placing a comma 
 between each word, as if to give pause wliile that word was 
 driven well home to the reader's heart — 
 
 THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH, NOT. 
 
 2 Pet. ii. 3. 
 
 Against the peaceful landscape, the pale, decaying tints 
 of the copses, the blue air of the horizon, and the lichen ed 
 stile boards, these staring vermilion words shone forth. 
 They seemed to shout themselves out and make the atmos- 
 phere ring. Some people might have cried, "Alas, poor 
 Theology ! '^ at the hideous defacement — the last grotesque 
 phase of a creed which had served mankind well in its 
 time. But the words entered Tess with accusatory horror. 
 It was as if tliis man had known her recent history ; yet he 
 was a total stranger. 
 
 Having finished his text he picked up her basket, and 
 she mechanically resumed her walk beside him. 
 
 ''Do you believe what you paint?" she asked in low 
 tones. 
 
 '' Believe that tex ? Do I beUeve in my own existence ! " 
 
 " But,'' said she, tremulously, " suppose your sin was not 
 of your own seeking ? '' 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " I cannot split hairs on that burning query,'' he said, 
 " I have walked hundi'eds of miles during this past sum- 
 mer, painting these texes on every wall, gate, and stile in 
 the length and breadth of this district. I leave their 
 application to the hearts of the people who read 'em." 
 
 " I think they are horrible," said Tess. '' Crusliing ! 
 killing ! " 
 
 " That's what they are meant to be ! " he replied, in a 
 trade voice. '' But you should read my hottest ones — them 
 
88 TESS OF THE D'URBER^TLLES. 
 
 I kips for slums and seaports. They'd make ye wriggle ! 
 Not but what this is a very good tex for the riu-al districts. 
 . . . Ah — there's a nice bit of blank wall up by that barn 
 standing to waste. I must put one there — one that will be 
 good for dangerous young females like yourself to heed. 
 Will you wait, missy ? " 
 
 '' No/' said she ; and taking her basket Tess trudged on. 
 A little way forward she turned her head. The old gray 
 wall began to advertise a similar fiery lettering to the first, 
 with a strange and unwonted mien, as if distressed at duties 
 it had never before been called upon to perform. It was 
 with a sudden flash that she read and realized what was to 
 be the inscription he was now half-way tlii'ough — 
 
 THOU, SHALT, NOT, COMMIT 
 
 Her cheerful friend saw her looking, stopped his brush, 
 and shouted : 
 
 '' If you want to ask anything of the sort we was talking 
 about, there's a very earnest good man going to preach a 
 charity-sermon to-day in the parish you are going to — Mr. 
 Clare, of Emminster. I'm not of his persuasion now, but 
 he is a good man, and he'll explain as weU as any parson I 
 know. 'Twas he began the work in me." 
 
 But Tess did not answer ; she throbbingly resumed her 
 walk, her eyes fixed on the ground. '^ Pooh — I don't be- 
 lieve God said such things ! " she murmured contemptu- 
 ously when her flush had died away. 
 
 A plume of smoke soared up suddenly from her father's 
 chimnev, the sij2fht of which made her heart ache. The 
 aspect of the interior, when she reached it, made her heart 
 ache more. Her mother, who had just come do\\Tistairs, 
 turned to greet her from the fireplace, where she was Idnd- 
 ling barked-oak twigs under the breakfast kettle. The 
 young children were still above, as was also her father, it 
 being Sunday morning, when he felt justified in l}ing an 
 additional half -hour. 
 
MAIDEN NO MORE. 89 
 
 '^ Well ! — my dear Tess ! " exclaimed her sm^rised mother, 
 jumping up and kissing the girl. '■^ How be ye ? I didn't 
 see you till you was in upon me ! Have you come home to 
 be married f " 
 
 '^ No, I have not come for that, mother.'^ 
 
 " Then for a holiday ? " 
 
 '•'• Yes — for a holiday ; for a long holiday/' said Tess. 
 
 '^What, isn't your cousin going to do the handsome 
 thing f " 
 
 ^^ He's not my cousin, and he's not going to marry me." 
 
 Her mother ej^ed her narrowly. 
 
 '' Come, you have not told me all," she said. 
 
 Then Tess went up to her mother, put her face upon 
 Joan's neck, and told. 
 
 '^ And yet th'st not got him to marry 'ee ! " reiterated her 
 mother. '' Any woman would have done it but you ! " 
 
 "Perhaps any woman would except me." 
 
 " It would have been something like a stoiy to come back 
 with, if you had ! " continued Mrs. Durbeyfield, ready to 
 burst into tears of vexation. " After all the talk about you 
 and him which has reached us here, who would have ex- 
 pected it to end like this ! Why didn't ye think of doing 
 some good for j^our family instead o' thinking only of your- 
 self ? See how I've got to teave and slave, and your poor 
 weak father with his heart clogged like a dripping-pan. I 
 did hope for something to come out o' this ! To see what 
 a pretty pair you and he made that day when you di'ove 
 away together fom' months ago ! See what he has given 
 us — aU, as we thought, because we were his kin. But if 
 he's not, it must have been done because of his love for 'ee. 
 And yet you've not got him to marry ! " 
 
 Get Alec D'Urberville in the mind to marrv her ! He 
 marry lier ! On matrimony he had never once said a word. 
 And what if he had? How she might have been impelled 
 to answer him by a convulsive snatching at social salvation 
 she coidd not say. But her poor foolish mother little knew 
 
90 TESS OF THE D^URBERVILLES. 
 
 her present feeling towards this man. Perhaps it was nn- 
 nsnal in the circumstances^ unnatural, unaccountable ; but 
 there it was ; and this, as she had said, was what made her 
 detest herself. She had never cared for him, she did not 
 care for him now. She had dreaded him, mnced before 
 him, succumbed to a cruel advantage he took of her help- 
 lessness 5 then, temporarily blinded by his flash manners, 
 had been stirred to confused surrender awhile ; had sud- 
 denly despised and disliked him, and had run away. That 
 was all. Hate him she did not quite ; but he was dust and 
 ashes to her, and even for her name's sake she scarcely 
 wished to marrv him. 
 
 ''You ought to have been more careful if you didn't 
 mean to get him to make you his wife ! " 
 
 " O mother, my mother ! " cried the agonized girl, turn- 
 ing passionately upon her parent as if her poor heart 
 would break. "How could I be expected to know? I 
 was a child when I left this house four months ago. Why 
 didn't you tell me there was danger in men-folk ? Wliy 
 didn't you warn me ? Ladies know what to fend hands 
 against, because they read novels that tell them of these 
 tricks ; but I never had the chance o' learning in that way, 
 and 3'Ou did not helj) me ! '' 
 
 Her mother was subdued. 
 
 " I thought if I spoke of his fond feelings and what they 
 might lead to, you would be hontish wi' him and lose your 
 chance," she mm^mured, wiping her eyes with her apron. 
 " Well, we must make the best of it, I suppose. 'Tis nater, 
 after all, and w^hat do please God." 
 
 xni. 
 
 The event of Tess Durbeyiield's return from the house 
 of her rich kinsfolk was rumored abroad, if rumor be not 
 
:maidex no more. 91 
 
 too large a word for a space of a square mile. In the after- 
 noon several young girls of Marlott, former schoolfellows 
 and acquaintances of Tess, called to see her, arriving dressed 
 in then* best starched and u'oned, as became visitors to a 
 person who had made a transcendent conquest (as they 
 supposed), and sat round the room looking at her "with 
 great curiosity. For the fact that it was this said thirty- 
 first cousin, Mr. D'Url^erville, who had fallen in love with 
 her, a gentleman not altogether local, whose reputation as a 
 reckless gallant and heart-breaker was beginning to spread 
 beyond the immediate boundaries of Trantridge, lent Tess's 
 supposed position, by its f earsomeness, a far higher fascina- 
 tion than it would have exercised if unhazardous. 
 
 Their interest was so deep that the younger ones whis- 
 pered when her back was turned : 
 
 " How pretty she is ; and how that best frock do set her 
 oft* ! I believe it cost an immense deal, and that it was a 
 gift from him.'' 
 
 Tess, who was reaching up to get the tea-things from the 
 corner cupboard, did not hear these commentaries. If she 
 had heard them, she might soon have set her friends right 
 on the matter. But her mother heard, and Joan's simple 
 vanity, having been denied the hope of a dashing marriage, 
 fed itself as well as it could upon the sensation of a dash- 
 ing flirtation. Upon the whole she felt gratified, even 
 though such a limited and meretricious trimnph should 
 involve her daughter's reputation ; it might end in mar- 
 riage yet, and in the warmth of her responsiveness to theh' 
 admiration she invited her \dsitors to stay to tea. 
 
 Theu' chatter, their laughter, then' good-humored innuen- 
 does, above all, theii* flashes and flickerings of env}^, revived 
 Tess's spirits also ; and, as the evening wore on, she caught 
 the infection of their excitement, and grew almost gay. 
 The marble hardness left her face, she moved mth some- 
 thing of her old bounding step, and flushed in all her young 
 beauty. 
 
92 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 At moments^ in spite of tliouglit, she would reply to their 
 inquiries with a manner of superiority, as if recognizing 
 that her experiences in the field of coui'tship had, indeed, 
 been shghtly enviable. But so far was she from being, in 
 the words of Robert South, " in love with her own ruin," 
 that the illusion was transient as lightning ; cold reason 
 came back to mock her spasmodic weakness -, the ghastli- 
 ness of her momentary pride would convict her, and recall 
 her to reserved listlessness again. 
 
 And the despondency of the next morning's dawn, when 
 it was no longer Sunday, but Monday ; and no best clothes ; 
 and the laughing visitors were gone, and she awoke alone 
 in her old bed, the innocent younger cliildren breathing 
 softly around her. In place of the excitement of her re- 
 tm'n, and the interest it had inspired, she saw before her 
 a long and stony highway which she had to tread, without 
 aid, and with little sympathy. Her depression was then 
 terrible, and she could have hidden herself in a tomb. 
 
 In the course of a few weeks Tess revived sufficiently to 
 show herself so far as was necessary to get to church one 
 Sunday morning. She liked to hear the chanting — such 
 as it was — and the old Psalms, and to join in the Morning 
 H}Tnn. That innate love of melody, which she had in- 
 herited from her ballad-singing mother, gave the simplest 
 music a power over her which could well-nigh di'ag her 
 heart out of her bosom at times. 
 
 To be as much out of observation as possible for reasons 
 of her own, and to escape the gallantries of the young men, 
 she set out before the chiming began, and took a back seat 
 under the gallery, close to the lumber, where only old men 
 and women came, and where the bier stood on end among 
 the churchyard tools. 
 
 Parishioners dropped in by twos and threes, deposited 
 themselves in rows before her, rested three-quarters of a 
 minute on their foreheads as if they were prajdng, though 
 they were not, then sat up, and looked around. "V\nien the 
 
JMAIDEN NO MORE. 93 
 
 chants came on, one of her favorites happened to be chosen 
 among the rest — the double chant "Langdon" — but she 
 did not know what it was called, though she would much 
 have liked to know. She thought, without exactly wording 
 the thought, how strange and godhke was a composer's 
 power, who from the grave could lead through sequences 
 of emotion, which he alone had felt at first, a gii4 like her 
 who had never heard of his name, and never would have a 
 clue to his personality. 
 
 The people who had turned their heads turned them 
 again as the service proceeded ; and at last obser\dng her, 
 they whispered to each other. She knew what their whis- 
 pers were about, grew sick at heart, and felt that she could 
 come to church no more. 
 
 The bedi'oom which she shared with some of the children 
 formed her retreat more continuallv than ever. Here, 
 under her few square yards of thatch, she watched mnds, 
 and snows, and rains, gorgeous sunsets, and successive 
 moons at their full. So close kept she that at length ahnost 
 everybody thought she had gone away. 
 
 The onlv exercise that Tess took at this time was after 
 dark ; and it was then, when out in the woods, that she 
 seemed least solitarv. She knew how to hit to a hair's- 
 breadth that moment of evening when the light and the 
 darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of dav 
 and the suspense of night neutralize each other, leaving 
 absolute mental hberty. It is then that the pKght of being 
 alive becomes attenuated to its least possible dimensions. 
 She had no fear of the shadows ; her sole idea seemed to 
 be to shun mankind — or rather that cold accretion caUed 
 the world, which, so terril^le in the mass, is so unformida- 
 ble, even pitiable, in its units. 
 
 On these lonely hills and dales her quiescent glide was 
 of a piece with the element she moved in. Her flexuous 
 and stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene. 
 At times her whimsical fancy would intensify natural pro- 
 
94 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 cesses around lier till tliey seemed a part of her own story. 
 Eatlier tliey became a part of it; for the world is only 
 a psychological phenomenon, and what they seemed they 
 were. The midnight aii's and gusts, moaning among the 
 tightly ^Tapped buds and bark of the winter twigs, were 
 formulas of bitter reproach. A wet day was the expression 
 of iiTcmediable grief at her weakness in the mind of some 
 vague ethical being whom she could not class definitely as 
 the God of her childhood, and could not comprehend as 
 an}^ other. 
 
 But this encompassment of her own characterization, 
 based on shreds of convention, peopled by phantoms and 
 voices antipathetic to her, was a sorry and mistaken crea- 
 tion of Tess's fancy — a cloud of moral hobgobhns by which 
 she was terrified mthout reason. It was they that were 
 out of harmony with the actual world, not she. Walking 
 among the sleeping birds in the hedges, watching the skip- 
 ping rabbits on a moonlit warren, or standing under a 
 pheasant-laden bough, she looked upon herself as a figure 
 of Guilt intruding into the haunts of Innocence. But aU 
 the while she was making a distinction where there was no 
 difference. Feeling herself in antagonism, she was quite 
 in accord. She had been made to break an accepted social 
 law, but no law known to the environment in which she 
 fancied herseK such an anomaly. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 It was a hazy sunrise in August. The denser nocturnal 
 vapors, attacked by the warm beams, were dividing and 
 shrinking into isolated fleeces within hollows and coverts, 
 where they waited tiU they should be dried away to nothing. 
 
 The sun, on account of the mist, had a curious sentient, 
 
MAIDEN NO MORE. 95 
 
 personal look, demanding the masenline pronoun for its 
 adequate expression. His present aspect, coupled with the 
 lack of aU human forms in the scene, explained the old- 
 time heliolatries in a moment. One could feel that a saner 
 reUgion had never prevailed under the sky. The lumi- 
 nary was a golden-haired, beaming-faced, mild-eyed, god- 
 like creature, gazing down in the vigor and intentness of 
 youth upon an earth that was brimming with interest for 
 him. 
 
 His light, a little later, broke through chinks of cottage 
 shutters, thi^omng stripes like red-hot pokers upon cup- 
 boards, chests of drawers, and other furnitui'e mthin, and 
 awakening harvesters who were not already astir. 
 
 But of aU ruddy things that morning the brightest were 
 two broad arms of painted wood, which rose from the mar- 
 gin of a yellow corn-field hard by Marlott village. They, 
 with two others below, formed the revolving Maltese cross 
 of the reaping-machine, which had been brought to the field 
 on the previous evening to be ready for operations this day. 
 The paint with which they were smeared, intensified in hue 
 by the sunlight, imparted to them a look of ha\ing been 
 dipped in liquid fire. 
 
 The field had already been " opened " ; that is to say, a 
 lane a few feet wide had been hand-cut through the wheat 
 along the whole circumference of the field for the first 
 passage of the horses and machine. 
 
 Two groups, one of men and lads, the other of women, 
 had come down the lane just at the houi* when the shadows 
 of the eastern hedge-top struck the west hedge midway, so 
 that the heads of the groups were enjoying sunrise while 
 their feet were still in the dawn. They disappeared from 
 the lane between the two stone posts which flanked the 
 nearest field-gate. 
 
 Presently there arose from -^dthin a ticking like the love- 
 making of the grasshopper. The machine had begun, and 
 a moving concatenation was visible over the gate, a driver 
 
96 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 sitting upon one of tlie hauling horses, and an attendant 
 on the seat of the implement. Along one side of the field 
 the whole wain went, the arms of the mechanical reaper 
 revohing slowly, till it passed down the hill quite out of 
 sight. In a minute it came up on the other side of the field 
 at the .same equable pace, the gUstening brass star in the 
 forehead of the fore horse catching the eye as it rose into 
 \dew over the stubble, then the bright arms, and then the 
 whole machine. 
 
 The narrow lane of stubble encompassing the field grew 
 wider with each circuit, and the standing corn was reduced 
 to smaller area as the morning wore on. Rabbits, hares, 
 snakes, rats, mice, retreated inward as into a fastness, un- 
 aware of the ephemeral nature of their refuge, and of the 
 doom that awaited them later in the dav when, their covert 
 shrinking to a more and more horrible narro^vness, they 
 were huddled together, friends and foes, till the last few 
 yards of upright wheat fell also under the teeth of the un- 
 erring reaper, and they were every one put to death by the 
 sticks and stones of the harvesters. 
 
 The reaping-machine left the fallen corn behind it in lit- 
 tle heaps, each heap being of the quantity for a sheaf ; and 
 upon these the active binders in the rear laid their hands — 
 mainly women, but some of them men in print shirts, and 
 trousers supported around theii' waists by leather straps, 
 rendering useless the two buttons behind, which twinkled 
 and bristled vnth sunbeams at every movement of each 
 wearer, as if they were a pair of eyes in the small of Ms 
 back. 
 
 But those of the other sex were the most interesting of 
 this company of binders, by reason of the charm which is 
 acquired by woman when she becomes part and parcel of 
 outdoor nature, and is not merely an object set down therein 
 as at ordinary times. A field-man is a personality afield ; 
 a field- woman is a portion of the field j she has somehow 
 
IMAIDEN NO MORE. 97 
 
 lost lier owii margin, imbibed the essence of her surround- 
 ing", and assimilated herself mth it. 
 
 The women — or rather girls, for they were mostly young 
 — wore di'awn cotton bonnets with great flapping curtains 
 to keep off the sun, and gloves to prevent their hands be- 
 ing wounded by the stubble. There was one wearing a 
 pale- pink jacket ; another in a cream-colored, tight-sleeved 
 gown ; another in a petticoat as red as the arms of the 
 reaping-machine ; and others, older, in the brown-rough 
 "wi'opper'^ or over-all — the old-established and most ap- 
 propriate di'ess of the field- woman, which the young ones 
 were abandoning. This morning the eye retiu*ns involun- 
 tarily to the girl in the pink cotton jacket, she being the 
 most flexuous and finely drawn figure of them all. But 
 her bonnet is pulled so far over her brow that none of her 
 face is disclosed while she binds, though her complexion 
 may be guessed from a stray twine or tw^o of dark-bro^Ti 
 hair which extends below the cm-tain of her bonnet. Per- 
 haps one reason why she seduces casual attention is that 
 she never courts it, though the other women often gaze 
 around them. 
 
 Her binding proceeds with clock-like monotony. From 
 the sheaf last finished she di-aws a handful of ears, patting 
 theii- tips vnth her left palm to bring them even. Then, 
 stooping low, she moves forward, gathering the corn with 
 both hands against her knees, and pushing her left gloved 
 hand under the bundle to meet the right on the other side, 
 holding the corn in an embrace like that of a lover. She 
 brings the ends of the bond together, and kneels on the 
 sheaf while she ties it, beating back her skirts now and 
 then when lifted bv the breeze. A bit of her naked arm is 
 visible between the buff leather of the gauntlet and the 
 sleeve of her gown ; and as the day wears on its feminine 
 smoothness becomes scarified by the stubble, and bleeds. 
 
 At intervals she stands up to rest, and to re-tie her dis- 
 
98 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 arranged apron, or to pull her bonnet straight. Then one 
 can see the oval face of a handsome young woman, with 
 deep, dark eyes, and long, hea\'y^, clinging tresses, which 
 seem to clasp in a beseeching way anything they fall 
 against. The cheeks are paler, the teeth more regular, the 
 red lips thinner than is usual in a countr^^-bred girl. 
 
 It is Tess Dui'beyfield, otherwise D'Urberville, somewhat 
 changed — the same, but not the same ; at the present stage 
 of her existence li^dng as a stranger and an alien here, 
 though it was no strange land that she was in. After a 
 long seclusion she had come to a resolve, during the week 
 under notice, to undertake outdoor work in her native \dl- 
 lage, the busiest season of the year in the agricultural world 
 having arrived, and nothing that she could do within the 
 house being so remunerative for the time as harvesting in 
 the fields. 
 
 The movements of the other women were more or less 
 similar to Tess's, the whole bevy of them drawing together 
 like dancers in a quadrille at the completion of a sheaf by 
 each, every one placing her sheaf on end against those of 
 the rest, tiU a shock, or "stitch" as it was here called, of 
 ten or a dozen was formed. 
 
 They went to breakfast, and came again, and the work 
 proceeded as before. As the hour of eleven drew near a 
 person watching her might have noticed that Tess's glance 
 flitted wdstfully to the brow of the hill every now and then, 
 though she did not pause in her sheafing. On the verge of 
 the hoiu* the heads of a gi'oup of children, of ages ranging 
 from six to fourteen, rose above the stubbly convexity of 
 the hill. 
 
 The face of Tess flushed slightly, but still she did not 
 pause. 
 
 The eldest of the comers, a girl who wore a triangular 
 shawl, its corner draggling on the stubble, carried in her 
 arms what at first sight seemed to be a doll, but proved to 
 be an infant in long clothes. Another brought some lunch. 
 
MAIDEN NO MORE. 99 
 
 The harvesters ceased working, took their provisions, and 
 sat down against one of the shocks. Here they feU to, the 
 men plying a stone jar freely, and passing round a cup. 
 
 Tess Durbeyfield had been one of the last to suspend her 
 labors. She sat down at the end of the shock, her face 
 turned somewhat away from her companions. When she 
 had deposited herself a man in a rabbit-skin cap and with 
 a red handkerchief tucked into his belt held the cup of ale 
 over the top of the shock for her to drink. But she did not 
 accept his offer. As soon as her lunch was spread she 
 called up the big gii'l, her sister, and took the baby of her, 
 who, glad to be relieved of the burden, went away to the 
 next shock and joined the other childi-en playing there. 
 Tess, with a curiously stealthy yet courageous movement, 
 and "v\dth a still rising color, unfastened her frock and be- 
 gan suckling the child. 
 
 The men who sat nearest considerately turned their faces 
 towards the other end of the field, some of them beginning 
 to smoke; one, with absent-minded fondness, regretfully 
 stroking the jar that would no longer yield a stream. All 
 the women but Tess fell into animated talk, and adjusted 
 the disarranged knots of theii' hair. 
 
 When the infant had taken its fill the young mother sat 
 it upright in her lap, and, looking into the far distance, 
 dandled it with a gloomy indifference that was almost dis- 
 like ; then all of a sudden she fell to violently kissing it 
 some dozens of times, as if she could never leave off, the 
 child crying at the vehemence of an onset which strangely 
 combined passionateness with- contempt. 
 
 '^ She's fond of that there child, though she mid pretend 
 not to be, and say she wishes the baby and her too were in 
 the churchyard," observed the woman in the red petticoat. 
 
 '' She'll soon leave off saying that," replied the one in 
 buff. '' Lord, 'tis wonderful what a body can get used to 
 o' that sort in time ! " 
 
 " A little more than persuading had to do wi' the coming 
 
100 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 o't, I reckon. There were they that heard a sobbing one 
 night last year in The Chase j and it mid ha' gone hard m' 
 a certain party if folks had come along." 
 
 '' Well, a httle more or a little less, 'twas a thonsand 
 pities that it shonld have happened to she, of all others. 
 Bnt 'tis always the comeliest ! The plain ones be as safe 
 as chui'ches — hey, Jenny ? '' The speaker tni'ned to one of 
 the gronp, who certainly was not ill-defined as plain. 
 
 It was a thonsand pities, indeed ; it was impossible for 
 even an enemy to feel othermse on looking at Tess as she 
 sat there, Avith her flower-like mouth and large, tender eyes, 
 neither black nor blue nor gray nor violet ; rather all those 
 shades together, and a hundred others, which could be seen 
 if one looked into theu' irises — shade behmd shade — tint 
 beyond tint — round depths that had no bottom 5 an almost 
 typical woman, but for the slight incautiousness of charac- 
 ter inherited from her race. 
 
 A resolution which had sm^rised herseK had brought 
 her into the fields this week for the fii'st time during many 
 months. After wearing and wasting her palpitating heart 
 with every engine of regret that lonely inexperience could 
 devise, common-sense had illumined her. She felt that 
 she would do well to be usefid again — to taste anew sweet 
 independence at any price. The past was past ; whatever 
 it had been, it was no more at hand. Wliatever its conse- 
 quences, time would close over them ; they would all in a 
 few years be as if they had never been, and she herself 
 grassed down and forgotten. Meanwhile the trees were 
 just as gi'een as before ; the birds sang and the sun shone 
 as clearly now as ever. The familiar surroundings had not 
 darkened because of her grief, nor sickened because of her 
 pain. 
 
 She might have seen that what had bowed her head so 
 profoundly — the thought of the world's concern at her situ- 
 ation — was founded on an illusion. She was not an exist- 
 ence, an experience, a passion, a structiu'c of sensations, to 
 
IMAIDEN NO MORE. lUl 
 
 anybody but herself. To all Immankind besides, Tess was 
 only a passing tlionglit. If she made herself miserable the 
 livelong night and day it was only this nincli to them — 
 ''Ah, she makes herself nnhappy." If she tried to be cheer- 
 ful, to dismiss all care, to take pleasure in the dayhght, 
 the flowers, the baby, she could only be this idea to them — 
 ''All, she bears it very w^ell." Alone in a desert island 
 would she have been wretched at what had happened to 
 her? Not greatly. If she could have been but just cre- 
 ated, to discover herself as a spouseless mother, with no 
 experience of life except as the parent of a nameless child, 
 would the position have caused her to despair? No, she 
 would have taken it calmly, and found pleasures therein. 
 Most of the misery had been generated by her conventional 
 aspect, and not by her innate sensations. 
 
 Whatever Tess's reasoning, some spirit had induced her 
 to dress herself up neatly as she had formerly done, and 
 come out into the fields, harvest-hands being greatly in de- 
 mand just then. This was why she had borne herself with 
 dignity, and had looked people calmly in the face at times, 
 even when holding the baby in her arms. 
 
 The harvest-men rose from the shock of corn, and 
 stretched their limbs, and extinguished theu' pipes. The 
 horses, which had been unharnessed and fed, were again at- 
 tached to the scarlet machine. Tess, having quickly eaten 
 her own meal, beckoned to her eldest sister to come and 
 take aw^ay the baby, fastened her dress, put on the buff 
 gloves again, and stooped anew to draw a bond from the 
 last completed sheaf for the tying of the next. 
 
 In the afternoon and evening the proceedings of the 
 morning were continued, Tess staying on till dusk with 
 the body of harvesters. Then they all rode home in one of 
 the largest wagons, in the company of a broad tarnished 
 moon that had risen from the ground to the eastwards, its 
 face resembling the outworn gold-leaf halo of some worm- 
 eaten Tuscan saint. Tess's female companions sang songs, 
 
102 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 and sliowed themselves very sympathetic and glad at her 
 reappearance out-of-doors, though they could not refrain 
 from mischievously throwing in a few verses of the ballad 
 about the maid who went to the merry green wood and 
 came back a changed person. There are counterpoises and 
 compensations in life 5 and the event w^hich had made of 
 her a social warning had also for the moment made her the 
 most interesting personage in the ^nllage to many. Their 
 friendliness won her still further away from herself, their 
 lively spirits were contagious, and she became almost gay. 
 
 But now that her moral sorrows were passing away a 
 fresh one arose on the natural side of her which knew^ no 
 social law. When she reached home it was to learn to her 
 grief that the baby had been suddenly taken ill since the 
 afternoon. Some such collapse had been probable, so ten- 
 der and puny was its fi'ame ; but the event came as a shock 
 nevertheless. 
 
 The baby's offence against society in coming into the 
 world was forgotten by the girl-mother; her soul's desire 
 was to continue that offence by preserving the life of the 
 child. However, it soon gi^ew clear that the hour of eman- 
 cipation for that little prisoner of the flesh was to arrive 
 earlier than her worst misgivings had Conjectured. And 
 when she had discovered this she was plunged into a misery 
 which transcended that of the child's simple loss. Her 
 baby had not been baptized. 
 
 Tess had di^if ted into a frame of mind which accepted 
 passively the consideration that if she should have to burn 
 for what she had done, burn she must, and there was an 
 end of it. Like all \dllage girls, she was well grounded in 
 the Holy Scriptures, and had dutifully studied the histories 
 of Aholah and Aholibah, and knew the inferences to be 
 dra-vvn therefrom. But when the same question arose with 
 regard to the baby, it had a very different color. Her dar- 
 ling was about to die, and no salvation. 
 
 It was nearly bedtime, but she rushed downstairs and 
 
MAIDEN NO MORE. 103 
 
 asked if she might send for the parson. The moment hap- 
 pened to be one at which her father's sense of the antique 
 nobility of his family was highest, and his sensitiveness to 
 the smudge which Tess had set upon that nobility most 
 pronounced, for he had just returned from his evening 
 booze at Rolliver's Inn. No parson should come inside his 
 door, he declared, prying into his affairs just then, when, 
 by her shame, it had become more necessary than ever 
 to liide them. He locked the door and put the key in his 
 pocket. 
 
 The household went to bed, and, distressed beyond 
 measure, Tess retired also. She was continually waking 
 as she lay, and in the middle of the night found that the 
 baby was still worse. It was ob\dously dying — quietly and 
 painlessly, but none the less surely. 
 
 In her misery she rocked herself upon the bed. The 
 clock struck the solemn hour of one, that horn." when 
 thought stalks outside reason, and malignant possibilities 
 stand rock-firm as facts. She thought of the child con- 
 signed to the nethermost corner of hell, as its double doom 
 for lack of baptism and lack of legitimacy 5 saw the arch- 
 fiend tossing it ^^dth his three-pronged fork, like the one 
 they used for heating the oven on baking days 5 to which 
 pictm'e she added many other quaint and curious details 
 of torment taught the young in this Christian country. 
 The lurid presentment so powerfully affected her imagina- 
 tion in the silence of the sleeping house, that her night- 
 gown became damp with perspu'ation, and the bedstead 
 shook with each throb of her heart. 
 
 The infant's breathing grew more difficult, and the 
 mother's mental tension increased. It was useless to 
 devour the little thing with kisses ; she could stay in bed 
 no longer, and walked feverishly about the room. 
 
 " merciful God, have pity 5 have pity upon my poor 
 baby ! " she cried. ^' Heap as much anger as you want to 
 upon me, and welcome ; but pity the child ! '^ 
 
104 TESS OF THE D'URBER^^LLES. 
 
 Slie leant against the cliest of drawers, and mnrmnred 
 incoherent sujDplications for a long while, till she suddenly 
 started up. 
 
 " Ah ! perhaps baby can be saved ! Perhaps it will be 
 just the same ! " 
 
 She spoke so brightly that it seemed as though her face 
 might have shone in the gloom surrounding her. 
 
 She ht a candle, and went to a second and a third bed 
 under the wall, where she awoke her little sisters and 
 brothers, all of whom occupied the same room. Pulling 
 out the washing-stand so that she could get behind it, she 
 poured some water from a jug, and made them kneel 
 around, putting their hands together with fingers exactly 
 vertical. Wliile the children, scarcely awake, awe-stricken 
 at her manner, their eyes growing larger and larger, re- 
 mained in this position, she took the baby from her bed — a 
 child's child — so immature as scarce to seem a sufiicient 
 personahty to endow its producer with the maternal title. 
 Tess then stood erect with the infant on her arm beside the 
 basin, the next sister held the Prayer-Book open before her, 
 as the clerk at church held it before the parson ; and thus 
 the emotional girl set about'baptizing her child. 
 
 Her figure looked singularly tall and imposing as she 
 stood in her long white nightgown, a thick cable of twisted 
 dark hair hanging straight down her back to her waist. 
 The kindly dimness of the weak candle abstracted from 
 her form and features the little blemishes which sunlight 
 might have revealed — the stubble scratches upon her wrists, 
 and the weariness of her eyes — her high enthusiasm lia^dng 
 a transfiguring effect upon the face w^hich had been her 
 undoing, showing it as a thing of immaculate beauty, with 
 an impress of dignity which was almost regal. The little 
 ones kneeling round, their sleepy eyes blinking and red, 
 awaited her preparations full of a suspended wonder which 
 their physical heaviness at that hour would not allow to 
 become active. 
 
MAIDEN NO MORE. 105 
 
 Tlie eldest of tliem said : 
 
 " Be you really going to eliristen him, Tess ? " 
 
 The gii'l-mother replied in a grave affirmative. 
 
 " What^s his name going to be ? " 
 
 She had not thought of that, but a name came into her 
 head as she proceeded with the baptismal ser\dce, and now 
 she pronounced it : 
 
 " Sorrow, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and 
 of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 She sprinkled the water, and there was silence. 
 
 " Say 'Amen,' children." 
 
 The tiny voices piped in obedient response : " Amen ! " 
 
 Tess went on : 
 
 "We receive this child" — and so forth — "and do sign 
 him mth the sign of the Cross." 
 
 Here she dij^ped her hand into the basin, and fervently 
 drew an immense cross upon the baby with her forefinger, 
 continuing with the customary sentences as to his manfully 
 fighting against sin, the world, and the devil, and being a 
 faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end. She duly 
 went on with the Lord's Prayer, the children lisping it after 
 her in a thin, gnat-like wail, till, at the conclusion, raising 
 then* voices to clerk's pitch, they again piped into the 
 silence, " Amen ! " 
 
 Then their sister, with much augmented confidence in 
 the efficacy of this sacrament, poirred forth from the bottom 
 of her heart the thanksgi\dng that follows, uttering it 
 boldly and triumphantly in the stopt-diapason note which 
 her voice acquired when her heart was in her speech, and 
 which will never be forgotten by those who knew her. The 
 ecstasy of faith almost apotheosized her ; it set upon her 
 face a glowing irradiation, and brought a red spot into the 
 middle of each cheek ; while the miniature candle-flame in- 
 verted in her eye-pupils shone like a diamond. The children 
 gazed up at her with more and more reverence, and no 
 longer had a will for questioning. She did not look like 
 
106 ' TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Sissy to them now, but as a being large, towering, and 
 awful — a divine personage -with, whom they had nothing in 
 common. 
 
 Poor Sorrow's campaign against sin, the world, and the 
 devil was doomed to be of limited brilliancy — luckily per- 
 haps for himself, considering his beginnings. In the blue 
 of the morning that fragile soldier and servant breathed 
 his last, and when the other children awoke they cried 
 bitterly, and begged Sissy to have another pretty baby. 
 
 The calmness which had j^ossessed Tess since the christen- 
 ing remained Tvith her in the infant's loss. In the daj'light, 
 indeed, she felt her terrors about his soul to have been 
 somewhat exaggerated ; whether well founded or not, she 
 had no uneasiness now, reasoning that if Providence woidd 
 not ratify such an act of approximation she, for one, did 
 not value the kind of heaven lost by the irregularity — either 
 for herself or for her child. 
 
 So passed away Sorrow the Undesired — that intrusive 
 creature, that bastard gift of shameless Nature who respects 
 not the ci^oL law ; a waif to whom eternal Time had been a 
 matter of days merely, who knew not that such things as 
 years and centuries ever were ; to whom the cottage interior 
 was the universe, the week's weather climate, new-born 
 babyhood human existence, and the instinct to suck human 
 knowledge. 
 
 Tess, who mused on the christening a good deal, won- 
 dered if it were doctrinally sufficient to secure a Christian 
 burial for the child. Nobody could tell this but the parson 
 of the parish, and he was a new-comer, and a very reserved 
 man. She went to his house after dusk, and stood bv the 
 gate, but could not summon courage to go in. The enter- 
 prise would have been abandoned if she had not by accident 
 met him coming homeward as she turned away. In the 
 gloom she did not mind speaking freely. 
 
 " I should like to ask you something, sir." 
 
 He expressed his \\illingness to listen^ and she told the 
 
IMAIDEN NO MORE. 107 
 
 story of the baby's illness and the extemporized ordi- 
 nance. 
 
 "And now, sir/' she added, earnestly, "can you tell me 
 this — will it be just the same for him as if you had baptized 
 him ? " 
 
 Having the natural feelings of a tradesman at finding 
 that a job he should have been called in for had been un- 
 skilfully botched by his customers among themselves, he 
 was disposed to say no. Yet the dignity of the girl, the 
 strange tenderness in her voice, combined to affect his 
 nobler impulses — or rather those that he had left in him 
 after ten years of endeavor to graft technical belief on 
 actual scepticism. The man and the ecclesiastic fought 
 within him, and the \'ictorv fell to the man. 
 
 " My dear girl," he said, " it mil be just the same." 
 
 " Then will you give him a Christian burial ? " she asked, 
 quickly. 
 
 The vicar felt himself cornered. Hearing of the baby's 
 illness, he had conscientiously come to the house after 
 nightfall to perform the rite, and, unaware that the refusal 
 to admit him had come from Tess's father and not from 
 Tess, he could not allow the plea of necessity. 
 
 " Ah — that's another matter," he said. 
 
 " Another matter — why ? " asked Tess, rather warmly. 
 
 " Well — I would williufflv do so if onlv we two were con- 
 cerned. But I must not — for liturgical reasons." 
 
 " Just for once, sir ! " 
 
 " Reallv, I m.ust not ! " 
 
 " O sir, for pity's sake ! " She seized his hand as she 
 spoke. 
 
 He -^dthdi'ew it, shaking his head. 
 
 " Then I don't like you ! " she burst out, " and I'll never 
 come to your church no more ! " 
 
 " Don't talk so rashly, Tess.'^ 
 Perhaps it will be just the same to him if you don't ? 
 . Will it be just the same ? Don't, for God's sake, speak 
 
 u 
 
108 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 as saint to sinner, but as yon yom\self to me myself — poor 
 me ! " 
 
 How tlie vicar reconciled his answer with the strict no- 
 tions he snpposed himself to hold on these subjects it is 
 beyond a layman's power to tell, though not to excuse. 
 Somewhat moved, he said in this case also ; 
 
 "It will be just the same." 
 
 So the baby was carried in a small deal box, under an 
 ancient woman's shawl, to the churchyard that night, and 
 buried by lantern-hght, at the cost of a shilling and a pint 
 of beer to the sexton, in that shabby corner of God's allot- 
 ment where He lets the nettles grow, and where all unbap- 
 tized infants, notorious drunkards, suicides, and others of 
 the conjecturally damned are laid. In spite of the untoward 
 surroundings, however, Tess bravely made a httle cross of 
 two laths and a piece of string, and having bound it mth 
 flowers, she stuck it up at the head of the gi\ave one even- 
 ing when she could enter the churchyard without being 
 seen, putting at the foot also a bunch of the same flowers 
 in a little jar of water to keep them ahve. What matter 
 was it that on the outside of the jar the eye of mere ob- 
 servation noted the words "Keelwell's Marmalade"? The 
 eye of maternal affection did not see them in its vision of 
 higher things. 
 
 XV. 
 
 "By experience," says Roger Ascham, "we find out a 
 short way by a long wandering." Not seldom that long 
 wandering unfits us for further travel, and of what use is 
 our experience to us then ? Tess Durbeyfield's experience 
 was of this incapacitating kind. At last she had learned 
 what to do ; but who would noAV accept her doing ? 
 
 If before going to the D'Urbervilles' she had rigorously 
 
MAIDEN NO MORE. 109 
 
 moved under the guidance of sundiy gnomic texts and 
 phrases known to her and to the world in general, no 
 doubt she would never have been imposed on. But it had 
 not been in Tess's power — nor is it in anybody's power — to 
 feel the whole truth of golden opinions when it is possible 
 to profit by them. She — and how many more — might have 
 ironically said to God with Saint Augustine, " Thou hast 
 counselled a better course than Thou hast permitted." 
 
 She remained in her father's house during the winter 
 months, plucking fowls, or cramming turkeys and geese, or 
 making clothes for her sisters and brothers out of some 
 finery which D'Urberville had given her, and which she had 
 put by with contempt. Apply to him she would not. But 
 she would often clasp her hands behind her head and muse 
 when she was supposed to be working hard. 
 
 She philosophically noted dates as they came past in the 
 revolution of the year ; the disastrous night of her undo- 
 ing at Trantridge, mth its dark background of The Chase ; 
 also the dates of the baby's bu^tli and death ; also her own 
 birthday ; and every other day individualized by incidents 
 in which she had taken some share. She suddenly thought 
 one afternoon, w^lien looking in the glass at her fairness, 
 that there was yet another date, of greater importance to 
 her than those : that of her own death, when all these 
 charms would have disappeared ; a day which lay sly and 
 unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no 
 sign or sound w^lien she annually passed over it ; but not 
 the less surely there. When was it? Wliy did she not 
 feel the chill of each yearly encounter with such a cold re- 
 lation ? She had Jeremy Tayloi^s thought that some time 
 in the future those who had known her would say, " It is 
 the — th, the day that poor Tess Durbeyfield died " ; and 
 there would be nothing singular to their minds in the 
 statement. Of that dav, doomed to be her terminus in 
 time through all the ages, she did not know the place in 
 month, Aveek, season, or year. 
 
110 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Almost at a leap Tess thus changed from simple girl to 
 complex woman. Symbols of reflectiveness passed into her 
 face, and a note of tragedy at times into her voice. Her 
 eyes grew larger and more eloquent. She became what 
 would have been called a fine creature ; her aspect was fair 
 and arresting ; her soul that of a woman whom the turbu- 
 lent experiences of the last year or two had quite failed to 
 demoralize. But for the world's opinion those experiences 
 would have been simply a liberal education. 
 
 She had held so aloof of late that her trouble, never gen- 
 erally known, was nearly forgotten in Marlott. But it be- 
 came e\ddent to her that she could never be really comfort- 
 able again in a place which had seen the collapse of her 
 family's attempt to "claim kin" — and, through her, even 
 closer union — with the i-ich D'Urbervilles. At least she 
 could not be comfortable there till long years should have 
 obliterated her keen consciousness of it. Yet even now 
 Tess felt the pulse of hopeful life still warm within her j 
 she might be happy in some nook which had no memories. 
 To escape the past and all that appertained thereto was to 
 annihilate it, and to do that she would have to get away. 
 
 Was once lost always lost really true of chastity? she 
 would ask lierseK. She might prove it false if she could 
 veil bygones. The recuperative power which pervaded or- 
 ganic nature was surely not denied to maidenhood alone. 
 
 She waited a long time without finding opportunity for 
 a new departure. A particularly fine spring came round, 
 and the stir of germination was almost audible in the buds ; 
 it moved her, as it moved the wild animals, and made her 
 passionate to go. At last, one day in early May, a letter 
 reached her from an old friend of her mother's, to whom 
 she had addressed inquiries long before — a dairyman whom 
 she had never seen — that a skilful milkmaid was required 
 at his dairj^-house, and that he would be glad to have her 
 for the summer months, if she had found nothing to do in 
 the interim. 
 
IVIAIDEN NO MORE. Ill 
 
 It was not quite so far off as could have been wished ; 
 but it was probably far enough, her radius of movement 
 and repute having been so small. To persons of limited 
 spheres, miles are as geographical degrees, parishes as 
 counties, counties as provinces and kingdoms. 
 
 On one point she was resolved : there should be no more 
 D'Urberville air-castles in the di-eams and deeds of her new 
 life. She would be the dairymaid Tess, and nothing more. 
 Her mother knew Tess's feeling on this point so weU, 
 though no words had passed between them on the subject, 
 that she never alluded to the knightly ancestry now. 
 
 Yet such is human inconsistency that one of the interests 
 of the new place to her was the accidental virtue of its lying 
 near her forefathers' country (for they were not Blakemore 
 men, though her mother was Blakemore to the bone). 
 The dairy called Talbothays, for which she was bound, 
 stood not remotelv from some of the former estates of the 
 D'Urber\dlles, near the great family vaults of her grand- 
 dames and their powerful husbands. She would be able to 
 look at them, and think not only that D'Urber\alle, like 
 Babylon, had fallen, but that the indi\ddual innocence of a 
 humble descendant could lapse as silently. All the while 
 she wondered if any strange good thing might come of her 
 being in her ancestral land ; and some spirit within her rose 
 automatically as the sap in the twigs. It was unexpended 
 youth, sm'ging up anew after its temporary check, and 
 bringing with it hope, and the invincible instinct towards 
 self -delight. 
 
n^5t tbe %Mvn. 
 THE RALLY. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 On a thyme-scented, bird-singing morning in May, be- 
 tween two and three years after the retnrn from Trantridge 
 — two silent reconstructive years for Tess Dnrbeyfield — 
 she left her home for the second time. 
 
 Having packed up her luggage so that it could be sent 
 to her later, she started in a hired trap for the little town 
 of Stourcastle, through w^hich it was necessary to pass on 
 her jom^ney, noAV in a direction almost opposite to that of 
 her first adventuring. On the curve of the nearest hill she 
 looked back regretfully at Marlott and her father's house, 
 although she had been so anxious to get away. 
 
 Her kindred dwelling there would probably continue 
 their daily lives as heretofore, with no great diminution of 
 pleasure in their consciousness, although she would be far 
 off, and they deprived of her smile. In a few days the 
 children would engage in their games as merrily as ever, 
 without the sense of any gap left by her departure. This 
 leaving of the younger childi'en she had decided was for 
 the best; were she to remain they would probably gain 
 less good by her precepts than harm by her example. 
 
 She went through Stourcastle without pausing, and on- 
 ward to a junction of highwaj^s, where she could await a 
 carrier's van that ran to the southwest ; for the railways 
 which engirdled this interior tract of country had never 
 
THE RALLY. 113 
 
 yet struck across it. While waiting, however, there came 
 along a farmer in his spring cart, driving approximately in 
 the dii-ection that she mshed to pursue ; though he was a 
 stranger to her she accepted his offer of a seat beside him, 
 ignoring that its motive was a mere tribute to her counte- 
 nance. He was going to Weatherbury, and by accompany- 
 ing him thither she could walk the remainder of the dis- 
 tance instead of travelling in the van by way of Casterbridge. 
 
 Tess did not stop at Weatherbury, after this long drive, 
 further than to make a slight nondescript meal at noon at 
 a cottage to which the farmer recommended her. Thence 
 she started on foot, basket in hand, to reach the wide up- 
 land of heath di\dding this district from the low-hdng 
 meads of a farther valley in which the dairy stood that 
 was the aim and end of her day's pilgrimage. 
 
 Tess had never before visited this part of the country, 
 and yet she felt akin to the landscape. Not so very far to 
 the left of her she could discern a dark patch in the scenery, 
 which inquiry confii-med her in supposing to be trees, mark- 
 ing the environs of Kingsbere — in the church of wliicli par- 
 ish the bones of her ancestors — her useless ancestors — lay 
 entombed. 
 
 She had no admiration for them now ; she almost hated 
 them for the dance they had led her ; not a thing of all 
 that had been theu's did she retain but the old seal and 
 spoon. "Pooh — I have as much of mother as father in 
 me ! " she said. '• All my prettiness comes from her, and 
 she was onlv a dairvmaid." 
 
 The journey over the intervening uplands and lowlands 
 of Egdon, when she reached them, was a more troublesome 
 walk than she had anticipated, the distance being actually 
 but a fev*" miles. In two hours, after sundry wi'ong turn- 
 ings, she found herself on a summit commanding the long- 
 sought-for vale, the valley of the Great Dailies, the valley 
 in which milk and butter grew to rankness, and were pro- 
 duced more profusely, if less delicately, than at her home 
 
 8 
 
114 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ' — the verdaut plain so well watered by the river Var or 
 Froom. 
 
 It was intrinsically different from the Vale of Little 
 Dailies, Blackmoor Vale, which, save duiing her disastrous 
 sojourn at Trantridge, she had exclusively known till now. 
 The world was di'a^vn to a larger pattern here. The en- 
 closures numbered fifty acres instead of ten, the farmsteads 
 were more extended, the groups of cattle formed tribes 
 hereabout; there only families. These myriads of cows 
 stretching under her eyes from the far east to the far west 
 outnumbered any she had ever seen at one glance before. 
 The green lea was speckled as thickly with them as a canvas 
 by Van Alsloot or Sallaert with bm-ghers. The rij^e hue 
 of the red and dun kine absorbed the evening sunlight, 
 which the white-coated anmials returned to the eye in rays 
 ahnost jiazzhng, even at the distant elevation on which she 
 stood. 
 
 The bird's-eye perspective before her was not so luxuri- 
 antly beautiful, perhaps, as that other one which she knew 
 so well ; yet it was more cheering. It lacked the intensely 
 blue atmosphere of the rival vale, and its heavy soils and 
 scents ; the new air was clearer, more ethereal, buoyant, 
 bracing. The river itself, which noui'ished the grass and 
 cows of these renowned dames, flowed not like the streams 
 in Blackmoor. Those were slow, silent, tinged, flowing over 
 beds of mud into which the incautious wader might sink 
 and vanish unawares. The Froom waters were clear as 
 the piu'e River of Life shown to the Evangelist, rapid as 
 the shadow of a cloud, with pebbly shallows that prattled 
 to the sky all day long. There the water-flower was the 
 lilv ; the crowfoot here. 
 
 Either the change in the quality of the au' from heavy 
 to light, or the sense of being amid new scenes where 
 there were no invidious eyes upon her, sent up her spirits 
 wonderfully. Her hopes mingled with the sunshine in an 
 ideal photosphere which surrounded her as she bounded 
 
THE RALLY. 115 
 
 along against the soft south wind. She heard a pleasant 
 voice in every breeze, and in every bird's note seemed to 
 lurk a joy. 
 
 Her face had latterly changed with, changing states of 
 mind. It might have been said to be continually fluctu- 
 ating between beauty and ordinariness, according as the 
 thoughts were gay or grave. One day she was pink and 
 flawless; another she was pale and tragical. When she 
 was i^ink she was feeling less than when she was pale; 
 her more j)erfect beauty accorded with her less elevated 
 mood ; her more intense mood with her less perfect beauty. 
 It was her best face, ph^'sically, that was now set against 
 the south wdnd. 
 
 The irresistible, universal, automatic tendency to find 
 enjoyment, which pervades all h±e, from the meanest to 
 the highest, had at length mastered her, no longer counter- 
 acted by external pressures. Being even now only a young 
 and immature woman, one who mentally and sentimentally 
 had not finished growing, it was impossible that any event 
 should have left upon Tess an impression that was not at 
 least capable of transmutation. 
 
 And thus her spirits and her thankfulness and her hopes 
 rose higher and higher. She tried several baUads, but 
 found them inadequate ; till, recollecting the book that her 
 eyes had so often wandered over of a Sunday morning be- 
 fore she had eaten of the tree of knowledge, she hummed, 
 " O ye Sun and Moon ; O ye Stars ; ye Green Things upon 
 the Earth ; ye Fowls of the Au- ; Beasts and Cattle ; O all 
 ye Children of Men; bless ye the Lord, praise Him and 
 magnify Him forever." 
 
 She suddenly stopped and murmm'ed, ''But perhaps I 
 don't quite know the Lord as yet." 
 
 And probably the half -unconscious rhapsody was a Pan- 
 theistic utterance in a Monotheistic falsetto ; women, whose 
 chief com^Danions are the forms and forces of outdoor Na- 
 ture, retain in their souls far more of the Pagan instincts 
 
116 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 of their remoter forefathers than of the systematized relig- 
 ions taught their race at later date. However, Tess found 
 at least approximate expression for her feelings in the old 
 Benedicite that she had lisped from infancy; and it was 
 enough. Such high contentment with such a shght and in- 
 itial performance as that of having started towards a means 
 of independent living was a part of the Durbeyfield tem^ 
 perament. Tess really wished to walk uprightly ; to seek 
 out whatsoever things were true and honest, and of good 
 report, wdiile her father did nothing of the kind ; but she 
 resembled him with being content with immediate and 
 small achievements, and in having no mind for laborious 
 effort towards such petty monetary and social advancement 
 as could alone be effected by a family so hea\dly handi- 
 capped as the once knightly D'Urber\illes were now. 
 
 There was, of course, the energy of her mother's unex- 
 pended family, as well as the natural energy of Tess's years 
 and frame, rekindled after the experience which had so 
 overwhelmed her for the time. Let the truth be toJd — 
 women do as a rule live through such humiliations, and 
 regain their spirits, and again look about them mth an in- 
 terested eye. Wliile there's life there's hope, is a conviction 
 not so entirelv unkno^wn to the "deceived "as some amiable 
 theorists would have us believe. 
 
 Tess Durbeyfield, in good heart, and full of zest for life, 
 descended the Egdon slopes lower and lower towards the 
 dairy of her pilgrimage. 
 
 The marked difference, in the final particular, between 
 the rival vales now showed itself. The secret of Black- 
 moor was best discovered from the heights around ; to read 
 aright the valley before her it was absolutely necessary to 
 descend into its midst. Wlien Tess had accomplished this 
 feat she found herself to be standing on a carpeted level, 
 which stretched to the east and west as far as the eye could 
 reach. 
 
 The river had stolen from the higher tracts and brought 
 
THE RALLY. 117 
 
 in particles to the vale all this horizontal landj and now, 
 exhausted, aged, and attenuated, lay serpentining along 
 through the midst of its former spoils. 
 
 Not quite sure of her direction, Tess stood still upon the 
 hemmed expanse of verdant flatness, like a fly on a billiard- 
 table of indefinite length, and of no more consequence to 
 the situation than that fly. The sole effect of her presence 
 upon the placid valley so far had been to excite the mind 
 of a solitary heron, which, after descending to the ground 
 not far from her path, stood, ^Yith. neck erect, looking at 
 her. 
 
 But suddenly there arose from all parts of the lowland a 
 prolonged and repeated call — 
 
 " Waow ! waow ! waow ! '^ 
 
 From the farthest east to the farthest west the cries 
 spread as if by contagion, accompanied in some cases by 
 the barking of a dog. It was not the expression of the 
 valley's consciousness that beautiful Tess had arrived, but 
 the ordinary announcement of milking-time — haK-past 
 four o'clock, when the dairjanen set about getting in the 
 cows. 
 
 The red and white herd nearest at hand, which had been 
 phlegmatically w^aiting for the call, now trooped towards 
 the steading in the background, their gi-eat bags of milk 
 swinging under them as they walked. Tess followed slowly 
 in their rear, and entered the barton by the open gate 
 through which they had entered before her. Long, thatched 
 sheds stretched round the enclosure, their slopes encrusted 
 with vivid green moss, and their eaves supported by wooden 
 posts rubbed to a glassy smoothness by the flanks of in- 
 finite cows and calves of bygone years, now passed to an 
 obli\don almost inconceivable in its profundity. Between 
 the posts were ranged the milkers, each exhibiting herself 
 at the present moment to an eye in the rear as a circle on 
 two stalks, down the centre of which a smtch moved pend- 
 ulum- w4se j while the sun, lowering itself behind this pa- 
 
118 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 tient row, threw their shadows accurately iiiv/ards upon the 
 wall. There and thus it threw shadows of these obscure 
 and unstudied figures every evening with as much care 
 over each contour as if it had been the profile of a Court 
 beauty on a palace wall; copied them as diligently as it 
 had copied Olympian shapes on marble facades long ago, 
 or the outlines of Alexander, Caesar, and the Pharaohs. 
 
 They were the less restful cows that were stalled. Those 
 that would stand still of their own free \\dll were milked in 
 the middle of the yard, where many of such better-behaved 
 ones stood waiting now — all prime milchers, such as were 
 seldom seen out of this vallev, and not alwavs within it ; 
 nourished by the succulent feed which the w^ater-meads 
 supplied at this prime season of the year. Those of them 
 that were spotted with white reflected the sunshine in daz- 
 zling brilliancy, and the ]3olished brass knobs on their horns 
 glittered with something of military displaj^ Their large- 
 veined udders hung ponderous as sand-bags, the teats stick- 
 ing out like the legs of a gipsy's crock ; and, as each animal 
 lingered for her tm-n to arrive, the milk fell in drops to the 
 ground. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The dairymaids and men had flocked down from their 
 cottages and out of the dairy-house mth the arrival of the 
 cows from the meads ; the maids walking in pattens, not 
 on account of the weather, but to keep their shoes above 
 the mulch of the barton. Each gui sat down on her three- 
 legged stool, her face sideways, her right cheek resting 
 against the cow, and looked musingly along the animal's 
 flank at Tess as she approached. The male milkers, with 
 hat-brims turned doAvn, resting on their foreheads and gaz- 
 ing on the ground, did not observe her. 
 
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THE RALLY. HO 
 
 One of these was a sturdy middle-aged man — whose long 
 Avliite "pinner" was somewhat finer and cleaner than the 
 wi'aps of the others, and whose jacket underneath had 
 a presentable marketing aspect — the master-dair}^nan, of 
 whom she was in quest, his double character as a working 
 milker and butter-maker here diuing six days, and on the 
 seventh as a man in shining broadcloth in his family pew 
 at church, being so marked as to have inspired a rhyme : 
 
 DairjTnaii Dick 
 
 All the week — 
 
 On Sundays Mr. Richard Crick. 
 
 Seeing Tess standing at gaze, he went across to her. 
 
 The maioritv of dairvmen have a cross manner at milk- 
 ing-time, but it happened that Mr. Crick was glad to get a 
 new hand — for the days were busy ones now — and he re- 
 ceived her warmly ; inquiring for her mother and the rest 
 of the family (though this as a matter of form mainly, for 
 he really had quite forgotten Mrs. Durbeyfleld's existence till 
 reminded of the fact by her daughter's letter). 
 
 " O — ay, as a lad I knowed your mother very well," he 
 said, terminatively. " And I heard of her marriage, though 
 I've never heard of her since. And a aged woman of 
 ninety that used to live nigh here, but is dead and gone 
 long ago, once told me that the family yer mother married 
 into in Blackmoor Yale came originally from these parts, 
 and that 'twere a old ancient race that had all but perished 
 oif the earth — though the new generations didn't know it. 
 But, Lord, T took no notice of the old woman's rambhngs, 
 not I." 
 
 " Oh no — it is nothing," said Tess. 
 
 Then the talk was of business only. 
 
 "You can milk 'em clean, mv maidv? I don't want mv 
 cows going azew at this time o' ye'ar." 
 
 She reassured Mm on that point, and he surveyed her up 
 
120 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 and dowu. She had been staying indoors since the autumn, 
 and her complexion had grown delicate. 
 
 '' Quite sure you can stand it? 'Tis comfortable enough 
 here for rough folkj but we don't hve in a cowcumber 
 frame." 
 
 She declared that she could stand it, and her zest and 
 willingness seemed to win him over. 
 
 ''Well, I suppose you'll want a dish o' tay, or victuals of 
 some sort, hey ? Not yet ? Well, do as you like about it. 
 But faith, if 'twas I, I should be as dry as a kex wi' travel- 
 ling so far." 
 
 '' I'll begin milking now, to get my hand in," said Tess. 
 
 She di-ank a little milk as temporary refreshment, to the 
 surprise — indeed, shght contempt — of Daii'3'man Crick, to 
 whose mind it had apparent^ never occurred that milk 
 was good as a beverage. " Oh, if ye can swaller that, be 
 it so," he said, indifferently, while holding up the pail that 
 she sipped from. " 'Tis what I hain't touched for years — 
 not I. Rot the stuff ; it would lie in my innerds like lead. 
 You can try your hand upon she," he pursued, nodding to 
 the nearest cow. " Not but what she do milk rather hard. 
 We've hard ones and w^'ve easv ones, like other folks. 
 However, you'll find out that soon enough." 
 
 When Tess had changed her bonnet for a hood, and was 
 really on her stool under the cow, and the milk was squirt- 
 ing from her fists into the pail, she appeared to feel that 
 she really had laid a new foundation for her future. Tlie 
 conviction bred serenity, her pulse slowed, and she was able 
 to look about her. 
 
 The milkers formed quite a little battalion of men and 
 maids, the men operating on the hard-teated animals, the 
 maids on the kindlier natures. It was a larsre dairv. 
 There were more than a Imndred milchers under Crick's 
 management, all told ; and of the herd the master-dairy- 
 man milked six or eight with his own hands, unless away 
 from home. These were the cows that milked hardest of 
 
THE RALLY. 121 
 
 all; for his journey-milkmen being more or less casually 
 hired, he would not entrust this half-dozen to their treat- 
 ment, lest, from indifference, they should not milk them 
 clean ; nor to the maids, lest they should fail in the same 
 way for lack of finger-grip ; with the result that in course 
 of time the cows would ''go azew" — that is, dry up. It 
 was not the loss for the moment that made slack milking 
 so serious, but that with the decline of demand there came 
 decline, and idtimately cessation, of supply. 
 
 After Tess had settled down to her cow there was for a 
 time no talk in the barton, and not a sound interfered with 
 the puiT of the mi Ik- jets into the numerous pails, except a 
 momentary exclamation to one or other of the beasts request- 
 ing her to turn round or stand still. The only movements 
 were those of the milkers' hands up and down and the 
 swing of the cows' tails. Thus they all worked on, encom- 
 passed by the vast flat mead which extended to either slope 
 of the valley — a level landscape compounded of old land- 
 scapes long forgotten, and, no doubt, differing in character 
 very gi*eatly from the landscape they composed now. 
 
 " To my thinking," said the dairyman, rising suddenly 
 from a cow he had just finished off, and snatching uj) his 
 three-legged stool in one hand and the pail in the other, 
 moving on to the next hard-yielder in his \dcinity ; "to my 
 thinking, the cows don't gie down their milk to-day as 
 usual. Upon my Ufe, if Winker do begin keeping back 
 hke this, she'll not be worth going under by midsummer ! " 
 
 '''Tis because there's a new hand come among us," said 
 Jonathan Kail. '' I've noticed such things afore." 
 
 " To be sui*e. It may be so. I didn't think o't." 
 
 " I've been told that it goes up into their horns at such 
 times," said a dairvmaid. 
 
 '' Well, as to going up into their horns," replied Dairy- 
 man Crick, dubiously, as though even witchcraft might be 
 limited by anatomical possibihties, " I couldn't say ; I cer- 
 tainly could not. But as nott cows will keep it back as 
 
122 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 well as the horned ones, I don't quite agree to it. Do ye 
 knoAY that riddle about the nott cows, Jonathan f Why 
 do nott cows give less milk in a year than horned 1 " 
 
 " I don't ! " interposed the milkmaid. " Why do they ? " 
 
 " Because there hain't so many of 'em," said the dairy- 
 man. "Howsomever, these gam'sters do certainly keep 
 back their milk to-day. Folks, we must lift up a stave or 
 two — that's the only cui'e for't." 
 
 Songs were often resorted to in dairies hereabout as an 
 enticement to the cows when they showed signs of with- 
 holding their usual }ield ; and the band of milkers at tliis 
 request burst into melody — in purely business-like tones, it 
 is true, and with no great spontaneity ; the result, accord- 
 ing to their own belief, being a decided improvement dnr- 
 ing the song's continuance. When they had gone through 
 fourteen or fifteen verses of a cheerful ballad about a mur- 
 derer who was afraid to go to bed in the dark l^ecause he 
 saw certain brimstone flames around him, one of the male 
 milkers said : "I msh singing on the stoop didn't use up 
 so much of a man's mnd ! You should get your harp, sir 5 
 not but what a fiddle is best." 
 
 Tess, who had given ear to this, thought the word* were 
 addressed to the dairyman, but she was wrong. A reph^, 
 in the shape of " Why ? " came, as it were, out of the belly 
 of a dun cow in the stalls ; it had been spoken by a milker 
 behind the animal, whom she had not hitherto perceived. 
 
 " Oh yes ; there's nothing like a fiddle," said the dairy- 
 man. '' Though I do think that bulls are more moved by 
 a tune than cows — at least, that's my experience. Once 
 there was a old man over at Mellstock — William Dewj by 
 name — one of the family that used to do a good deal of 
 business as tranters over there, Jonathan, do ye mind ? — 
 I knowed the man })y sight as well as I know my own 
 brother, in a manner of speaking. Well, this man was a- 
 coming home along from a wedding where he had been 
 playing his fiddle, one fine moonlight night, and for sliort- 
 
THE RALLY. 123 
 
 ness' sake lie took a cut across Forty-acres, a field lying tliat 
 way, where a bull was out to gi'ass. The bull seed William 
 and took after liiin, liorns aground, begad ; and though 
 William runned his best, and hadn't much drink in him 
 (considering 'twas a wedding, and the folks well off), he 
 found he'd never reach the fence and get over in time to 
 save himself. Well, as a last thought, he pulled out his 
 fiddle as he runned, and struck up a jig, tui^ning to the bull 
 as he played, and backing towards the corner. The bull 
 softened down, and stood still, looking hard at WilHam 
 Dewy, who fiddled on and on ; till a sort of a smile stole 
 over the bull's face. But no sooner did WiUiam stop 
 his playing and turn to get over hedge, than the bull 
 would stop his smiling, and low^er his horns and step for- 
 rard. Well, William had to turn about and play on, willy- 
 nilly 5 and 'twas only three o'clock in the world and 'a 
 knowed that nobody would come that way for hours, and 
 he so leery and tired that 'a didn't know what to do. Wlien 
 he'd scraped tiU about four o'clock he felt that he verily 
 would have to give over soon, and he said to himself, 
 ' There's only this last tune between me and eternal welfare. 
 Heaven save me, or I'm a done man.' Well, then he called 
 to mind how he'd seed the cattle kneel o' Christmas Eves in 
 the dead o' the night. It was not Christmas Eve then, but 
 it came into his head to play a trick upon the buU. So he 
 broke into the 'Ti\dty Hymn, just as at Christmas carol- 
 singing; when, lo and behold, down went the bull on his 
 bended knees, in his ignorance, just as if 'twere the true 
 'TivitvniMit and hour. As soon as his horned friend were 
 down, William tm^ned, clinked off like a long-dog, and 
 jumped safe over hedge, before the praying bull had got 
 on his feet again to take after him. William used to 
 say that he'd seen a man look a fool a good many times, 
 but never such a fool as that buU looked when he found 
 his pious feelings had been played upon, and 'twas not 
 Christmas Eve — Yes, WiUiam De^vy, that was the man's 
 
124 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 name; and I can tell ye to a foot where he's a-lying in 
 Mellstock Churchyard at this very moment — just between 
 the second yew-tree and the north aisle.'' 
 
 "It's a cmious story; it carries us back to mediaeval 
 times, w^ien faith was a living thing.'' The remark, singu- 
 lar for a dairy-yard, was murmured by the voice behind the 
 dun cow : but as nobodv understood the reference no notice 
 was taken, except that the narrator seemed to think it 
 might imply scepticism as to his tale. 
 
 " Well, 'tis quite true, sir, whether or no. I knowed the 
 man well." 
 
 "Oh yes; I have no doubt of it," said the person be- 
 hind the dun cow. 
 
 Tess's attention was thus attracted to the daiiyman's in- 
 terlocutor, of whom she could see but the merest jiatch, 
 owing to his burning his head so persistently in the flank 
 of the milcher. She could not understand why he should 
 be addressed as " Sir " even by the dairyman himself. But 
 no explanation was discernible ; he remained under the dun 
 cow long enough to have milked three, uttering a private 
 ejaculation now and then, as if he could not get on. 
 
 "Take it gentle, sir; take it gentle," said the dairjTnan. 
 " 'Tis knack, not strength, that does it." 
 
 "So I find," said the other, standing up at last and 
 stretching his arms. "I think I have finished her, how- 
 ever, though she made my fingers ache." 
 
 Tess could then see him at full length. He wore the 
 ordinary white pinner and leather leggings of a dairy-farmer 
 when milking, and his boots were clogged with the mulch 
 of the yard ; but this was all his local livery. Beneath it 
 was something educated, reserved, subtle, sad, differing. 
 
 But the details of his corporeal aspect she could not 
 readily observe, so much was her mind arrested by the 
 discovery that he was one whom she had seen before. 
 Such vicissitudes had Tess passed through since that time 
 that for a moment she could not remember where she had 
 
THE RALLY. 125 
 
 seen liimj and tlien it flashed upon her that he was the 
 pedestrian who had joined in the club-dance at Mario tt — 
 the passing stranger who had come she knew not whence, 
 had danced with others but not with her, had shghtingly 
 left her and gone on his way mth his friends. 
 
 The flood of memories brought back by this revival of 
 an incident dating from a tune anterior to her troubles 
 produced a momentary dismay lest, recognizing her also, 
 he should by some means discover her stoiy. But it passed 
 away when she found no sign of remembrance in him. She 
 saw by degrees that since their first and only encounter 
 his mobile face had gro\^m more thoughtful, and had ac- 
 quired a young man's shapely mustache and beard — the 
 latter of the palest straw-color where it began upon his 
 cheeks, and deepening to a warm bro^\^l farther from its 
 root. Under his milking-pinner and leggings he wore a 
 dark velveteen jacket, woollen trousers, and a starched 
 white shirt. Without the milking-gear, nobody could have 
 guessed what he was. He might mth equal probability 
 have been an eccentric landowner or a gentlemanly plough- 
 man. That he was but a novice at dairy-work she had 
 realized in a moment, from the time he had spent upon the 
 milldng of one cow. 
 
 Meanwhile, many of the milkmaids had said to one an- 
 other, " How pretty she is ! " with something of real gen- 
 erosity and admu'ation, though with a half hope that the 
 auditors would deny the assertion — which, strictly speaking, 
 they might have done, prettiness being but an inexact defi- 
 nition of what struck the eye in Tess. When the milking 
 was finished for the evening they straggled indoors, where 
 Mrs. Crick, the dairyman's mfe — who was too respectable 
 to go out milking herself, and wore a hot stuff go"wn in 
 warm weather because the dairymaids wore prints — was 
 giving an eye to the leads and things. Only two or three 
 of the maids, Tess learnt, slept in the dairy-house besides 
 herself, most of the helpers going to then' homes. She 
 
126 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 saw nothing at suj^per-tinie of the superior milker who had 
 commented on the story, and asked no questions about him, 
 the remainder of the evening being occupied in arranging 
 her place in the bed-chamber. It was a large room over the 
 milk-house, some thii-ty feet long ; the sleeping cots of the 
 other three indoor milkmaids being in the same apartment. 
 They were blooming young women, and, except one, rather 
 older than herself. By bedtime Tess was thoroughly tu-ed, 
 and fell asleep inmiediately. 
 
 But one of the gii'ls who occupied an adjoining bed was 
 more wakeful than Tess, and would insist upon relating to 
 the latter various particulars of the homestead into which 
 she had just entered. The gii'ls whispered words mingled 
 mth the shades, and, to Tess's drowsy mind, they seemed 
 to be generated by the darkness in which they floated. 
 
 ^' Mr. Angel Clare — he that is learning milking, and that 
 plays the harp — never says much to us. He is a pa'son's 
 son, and is too much taken up wi' his own thoughts to notice 
 girls. He is the dairyman's pupil — learning farming in 
 aU its branches. He has learnt sheep-farming at another 
 place, and he's now mastering dairy-w^ork. . . . Yes, he is 
 quite the gentleman-born. His father is the Reverent Mr. 
 Clare at Emminster — a good many miles from here." 
 
 "O — I have heard of him," said her companion, noAV 
 awake. " A very earnest clergyman, is he not ? " 
 
 ^' Yes, that he is — the earnestest man in all Wessex, they 
 say — the last of the old Low Church sort, they tell me — for 
 all about here be what they call High. All his sons, except 
 oiu' Mr. Clare, be made pa'sons too." 
 
 Tess had not at this hour the curiositv to ask whv the 
 present Mr. Clare was not made a parson like his brethren, 
 and gi'adually fell asleep again, the words of her informant 
 coming to her along with the smell of the cheeses in the 
 adjoining cheese-loft, and the dripping of the whey from 
 the wrings downstau'S. 
 
THE RALLY, 127 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Angel Clare rises out of the past not altogether as a 
 distinct figure, but as an appreciative voice, a long regard 
 of fixed, abstracted eyes, and a mobility of mouth somewhat 
 too small and delicately lined for a man's, though mth an 
 unexpectedly firm close of the lower hp now" and then; 
 enough to do away with any suggestion of indecision. 
 Nevertheless, something nebulous, preoccupied, vague, in his 
 bearing and regard, marked him as one who probably had 
 no very definite aim or concern about his material future. 
 Yet as a lad people had said of him that he was one who 
 might do anything if he tried. 
 
 He was the A^oungest son of his father, a poor parson at 
 the other end of the county, and had arrived at Talbothays 
 Dairy as a six months' pupil, after going the romid of some 
 other farms, his object being to acquu^e a practical skill in 
 the various processes of farming, with a view either to the 
 Colonies or the tenm*e of a home-farm, as circmnstances 
 might decide. 
 
 His entry into the ranks of the agricidturists and breeders 
 was a step in the young man's career wliich had been an- 
 ticipated neither by hhnseK nor by others. 
 
 Mr. Clare the elder, whose first wife had died and left 
 him a daughter, married a second late in life. Tliis lady 
 had somewhat unexpectedly brought him three sons, so 
 that between Angel, the youngest, and his father the \T.car, 
 there seemed to be almost a missing generation. Of these 
 boys the aforesaid Angel, the child of his old age, was the 
 only son who had not taken a University degree, though 
 he was the single one of them whose early promise might 
 have done full justice to an academical training. 
 
 Some year or so before Angel's appearance at the Marlott 
 dance, on a day when he had left school and was pm-suing 
 
128 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 his studies at home, a parcel came to the \dcarage from tho 
 local bookseller's, directed to the Reverend James Clare. 
 The vicar having opened it and found it to contain a book, 
 read a few pages ; whereupon he jumped up from his seat 
 and went straight to the shop with the book under his arm. 
 
 "Wliy has this been sent to my house?" he asked, 
 peremptorily, holding up the volume. 
 
 '' It was ordered, sir." 
 
 '^ Not by me, or any one belongmg to me, I am happy to 
 sav." 
 
 The shopkeeper looked into his order-book. ^' Oh, it has 
 been misdirected, su-," he said. ^' It was ordered by Mr. 
 Angel Clare, and should have been sent to him." 
 
 Mr. Clare winced as if he had been struck. He went 
 home pale and dejected, and called Angel into his study. 
 " Look into this book, my boy," he said. " What do you 
 know about it ? " 
 
 ^' I ordered it," said Angel, simply. 
 
 ''What for?" 
 
 " To read." 
 
 " How can you think of reading it?" 
 
 " How can I f Why, it is a system of philosophy. There 
 is no more moral, or even religious, work published." 
 
 " Yes — moral enough ; I don't deny that. But reUgious ! 
 — and for yoUj who intend to be a minister of the Gos- 
 pel ! " 
 
 " Since you have alluded to the matter, father," said the 
 son, with anxious thought upon his face, " I should hke to 
 say, once for aU, that I should prefer not to take Orders in 
 the Church. I fear I could not conscientiouslv do so. I 
 love the Church as one loves a parent. I shall always have 
 the warmest affection for her. There is no institution for 
 wliose history I have a deeper admiration ; but I cannot 
 honestly be ordained her minister, as my brothers are, 
 while she refuses to liberate her mind from an untenable 
 redemptive theolatry." 
 
THE RALLY. 129 
 
 It had never occurred to the straightforward and simple- 
 minded vicar that one of his own flesh and blood could 
 come to this. He was stultified, shocked, paralyzed. And 
 if Angel were not going to enter the Church, what was the 
 use of sending him to Cambridge f The University as a 
 step to anything but ordination seemed, to this man of fixed 
 ideas, a preface without a volume. He was a man not merely 
 religious, but devout 5 a fii'm believer — not as the phrase is 
 now elusively construed by theological thimble-riggers in 
 the Chui-ch and out of it, but in the old and ardent sense 
 of the Evangelical school ] one who could 
 
 Indeed opine 
 That the Eternal and Divine 
 Did, eighteen centuries ago 
 In very truth . . . 
 
 Angel's father tried argument, persuasion, entreaty. 
 
 "No, father; I cannot under^^Tite Article Four (leave 
 alone the rest), taking it 4n the literal and grammatical 
 sense' as required by the Declaration; and therefore I can't 
 be a parson," said Angel. " My whole instinct in matters 
 of religion is towards reconstruction ; to quote your favorite 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, ^ the removing of those things that 
 are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things 
 which cannot be shaken mav remain.' " 
 
 His father grieved so deeply that it made Angel quite 
 ill to see him. "What is the good of your mother and 
 me economizing and stinting ourselves to give you a Uni- 
 versity education, if it is not to be used for the honor and 
 glory of God ? " his father repeated. 
 
 "Why, that I may put it to other uses, father," pleaded 
 Angel. 
 
 Perhaps if Angel had persevered he might have gone to 
 Cambridge like his brothers. But the vicar's Adew of that 
 seat of learning as a stepping-stone to Orders alone was 
 quite a family tradition ; and so rooted was the idea in his 
 
130 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 mind that perseverance began to appear to the sensitive 
 son akin to an intent to misappropriate a trust, and wi'ong 
 the pious heads of the household, who had been and were 
 in truth, as his father had hinted, compelled to exercise 
 much thi'if t to carry out this uniform plan of education for 
 the tliree young men. 
 
 " I will do without Cambridge," said Angel at last. " I 
 feel that I have no right to go there in the cii'cumstances." 
 
 The effects of this decisive debate were not long in show- 
 ing themselves. He spent two or three years in desultory 
 studies, undertakings, and meditations ; he began to e\dnce 
 considerable indifference to social forms and observances. 
 The material distinctions of rank and wealth he commend- 
 ably despised. Even the " good old family '' (to use a favorite 
 phrase of a late local worthy) had no aroma for him unless 
 there were good new resolutions in its rei3resentatives. As 
 a balance to these austerities, when he w^ent to London to 
 see what the world was like he was earned off his head, 
 and nearly entrapped by a woman much older than himself, 
 though luckily he retui-ned not greatly the worse for the 
 experience. 
 
 Early association with country solitudes had bred in him 
 an unconquerable and almost unreasonable aversion to 
 modern town life, and shut him out from such success as 
 he might have aspired to by entering a mundane jorof ession 
 in the impracticability of the spiiitual one. But something 
 had to be done ; and having an acquaintance who was 
 starting on a thridng life as a Colonial farmer, it occurred 
 to Angel that this might be a lead in the right dii-ection. 
 Farming — either in the Colonies, America, or at home — 
 farming, at any rate, after becoming well qualified for the 
 business by a careful apprenticeship — that was a vocation 
 which would probably afford an independence without the 
 sacrifice of what he valued even more than a competency — 
 intellectual liberty. 
 
 So w^e find Angel Clare at six-and-twenty here at Tal- 
 
THE RALLY. 131 
 
 bothays as a student of kine, and, as there were no houses 
 near at hand in which he could get a comfortable lodging, 
 a boarder at the dair\Tnan's. 
 
 His room was an immense attic which ran the whole 
 length of the dauy -house. It could only be reached by a 
 ladder from the cheese-loft, and had been closed up for a 
 long time till he arrived and selected it as his retreat. 
 Here Clare had plenty of space, and could often be heard 
 by the dairy-folk pacing up and down when the household 
 had gone to rest. A portion was divided off at one end by 
 a curtain, behind which was his bed, the outer part being 
 furnished as a homely sitting-room. 
 
 At fii'st he lived up above entirely, reading a good deal, 
 and strumming upon an old harp which he had bought at a 
 sale, sa}T.ng when in a bitter humor that he might have 
 to get a Uving by it in the streets some day. But he soon 
 preferred to read human nature by takmg his meals down- 
 stairs in the general dining-kitchen, mth the daiiyman and 
 his wife, and the maids and men, who all together formed 
 a lively assembly -, for though but few milking hands slept 
 in the house, several joined the family at meals. The 
 longer Clare resided here the less objection had he to his 
 company, and the more did he like to share quarters with 
 them in common. 
 
 Much to his surprise, he took, indeed, a real delight in 
 theu' companionship. The conventional farm-folk of his 
 imagination — personified by the pitiable dummy known as 
 Hodge — were obliterated after a few days' residence. At 
 close quarters no Hodge was to be seen. At first, it is true, 
 when Clare's intelligence was fresh from a contrasting 
 society, these friends with whom he now hobnobbed seemed 
 a little strange. Sitting doT^^l as a level member of the 
 dairyman's household seemed at the outset an undignified 
 proceeding. The ideas, the modes, the surroundings, ap- 
 peared retrogressive and unmeaning. But with li\T-ng on 
 there, day after day, the acute sojourner became conscious 
 
132 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 of a new aspect in the spectacle. Without any objective 
 change whatever, variety had taken the place of monoto- 
 nousness. His host and his host's household, his men and 
 his maids, as they became intimately known to Clare, be- 
 gan to differentiate themselves as in a chemical process. 
 The thought of Pascal's was brought home to him: ^'A 
 mesure qu'on a plus d'esprit, on trouve qu'il y a plus 
 d'hommes originaux. Les gens du commun ne trouvent 
 pas de difference entre les hommes." The t^^ical and un- 
 varying Hodge ceased to exist. He had been disintegrated 
 into a number of varied fellow-creatures — beings of many 
 minds, beings infinite in difference ; some happ}^, many 
 serene, a few depressed, one here and there bright even to 
 genius, some stupid, others wanton, others austere ; some 
 mutely Miltonic, some potentially Cromwellian ; into men 
 who had private views of each other, as he had of his 
 friends ; who could applaud or condemn each other, amuse 
 or sadden themselves by the contemplation of each othei-'s 
 foibles or ^dces; men every one of whom walked in his 
 o^Yn indi^ddual way the road to dusty death. 
 
 Unexpected^ he began to like the outdoor life for its 
 own sake, and for what it brought, apart from its bearing 
 on his own proposed career. Considering his position, he be- 
 came wonderfullv free from the chronic melancholv which 
 is taking hold of the civilized races ivith the decline of be- 
 lief in a beneficent power. For the first time of late years 
 he could read as his musings inclined him, without any eye 
 to cramming for a profession, since the few farming hand- 
 books which he deemed it desirable to master occupied him 
 but little time. 
 
 He grew away from old associations, and saw something 
 new in life and humanity. Secondarily, he made close ac- 
 quaintance witli phenomena which he had before known 
 but darkly — the seasons in their moods, morning and even- 
 ing, niglit and noon in their temperaments, winds in their 
 several dispositions, trees, waters and clouds, shades and 
 
THE RALLY. 133 
 
 silences, ignes-fatui, constellations, and the voices of inani- 
 mate tilings. 
 
 The early mornings were still sufficiently cool to render 
 a fire acceptable in the large room wherein they break- 
 fasted ; and by Mrs. Crick's orders, who held that he was 
 too genteel to mess at tlieii- table, it was Angel Clare's 
 custom to sit in the yawning chimney-corner dming the 
 meal, his cup and saucer and plate being placed on a hinged 
 bracket at his elbow. The hght fi-om the long, mde, 
 mullioned window opposite shone in upon his nook, and, 
 assisted by a secondary hght of cold blue quality which 
 shone down the chimney, enabled him to read there easily 
 whenever disposed to do so. Between Clare and the win- 
 dow was the table at which his companions sat, their 
 munching profiles rising sharp against the panes ; while to 
 the rear was the milk-house door, tlu'ough which were visi- 
 ble the rectangular leads in rows, full to the brim mth the. 
 morning's milk. At the farther end the great churn could 
 be seen revolving and its shp-slopping heard — the mo^dng 
 power being discernible through the window in the form of 
 a spu'itless horse walking in a circle and driven by a boy. 
 
 For several days after Tess's arrival Clare, sitting ab- 
 stractedly reading from some book, periodical, or piece of 
 music just come by post, hardly noticed that she was present 
 at table. She talked so little, and the other maids talked 
 so much, that the babble did not strike him as possessing 
 a new note, and he was ever in the habit of neglecting the 
 particulars of an outward scene for the general impression. 
 One day, however, when he had been conning one of his 
 music scores, and by force of imagination was hearing the 
 tune in his head, he lapsed into listlessness, and the music- 
 sheet rolled to the hearth. He looked at the fii^e of logs, 
 mtli its one flame pirouetting on the top in a dpng dance 
 after the breakfast cooking and boihng ; and it seemed to 
 jig to his inward tune 5 also at the two chimney crocks 
 danghng down from the cross-bar, plumed with soot which 
 
134 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 quivered to the same melody ; also at the half -empty kettle 
 whining an accompaniment. The conversation at the table 
 mixed in with his phantasmal orchestra till he thought, 
 ^'' What a fluty voice one of those milkmaids has ! I suj)- 
 pose it is the new one.'' Clare looked round upon her, 
 seated with the others. 
 
 She was not looking towards him. Indeed, owing to his 
 long silence, his presence in the room was almost forgotten. 
 
 " I don't know about ghosts," she was saying ; " but I do 
 know that our souls can be made to go outside om* bodies 
 when we are alive." 
 
 The dairyman turned to her with his mouth full, his eyes 
 charged with serious inquiry, and his great knife and fork 
 (breakfasts were breakfasts here) planted erect on the table, 
 lilie the beginning of a gallows. ^^What — really now? 
 And is it so, maidy f " he said. 
 
 '^ A very easy way to feel 'em go," continued Tess, "is to 
 lie on the grass at night and look straight up at some big 
 bright star; and, by fixing your mind upon it, you mil 
 soon find that you are hundreds and hundreds o' miles 
 away from your body, which you don't seem to want at all." 
 
 The daii'jTiian removed his hard gaze from Tess, and 
 fixed it on his wife. 
 
 '^Now that's arum thing, Christianner — hey? To think 
 o' the miles I've vamped o' nights these last thirty year, 
 com^ting, or trading, or for doctor, or for nurse, and yet 
 never had the least notion o' that till now, or f eeled my soul 
 rise so much as an inch above my shirt-collar." 
 
 The general attention being drawn to her, including that 
 of the dairjmian's pupil, Tess flushed, and remarking indif- 
 ferently that it was onl}^ a fancy, resumed her breakfast. 
 
 Clare continued to obsei've her. She soon finished her 
 eating, and having a consciousness that Clare was regard- 
 ing her, began to trace imaginary patterns on the table- 
 cloth with her forefinger with the constraint of a domestic 
 animal that perceives itself to be watched. 
 
THE RALLY. 135 
 
 '^ What a fresh and virgin daughter of Nature that milk- 
 maid is ! " he said to himself. 
 
 And then he seemed to discern in her something that 
 was familiar, something which carried him back into a 
 joyous and unforeseeing past, before the necessity of tak- 
 ing thought had made the heavens gray. He concluded 
 that he had beheld her before ; where, he could not tell. 
 A casual encounter during some country ramble it certainly 
 had been, and he was not greatly curious about it. But 
 the circumstance was sufficient to lead him to select Tess 
 in preference to the other pretty milkmaids when he "wished 
 to contemplate contiguous womankind. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 In general the cows were milked as they presented them- 
 selves, ^dthout fancy or choice. But certain cows wiR 
 show a fondness for a particular pair of hands, sometimes 
 carrying this predilection so far as to refuse to stand at all 
 except to their favorite,' the pail of a stranger being un- 
 ceremoniously kicked over. 
 
 It was Dairyman Crick's rule to insist on breaking down 
 these partialities and aversions by constant interchange, 
 since, in the event of a milkman or maid going away from 
 the daily, he was other^vise placed in a difficulty. The 
 maids' private aims, however, were the reverse of the dairy- 
 man's rule, the daily selection by each damsel of the eight 
 or ten cows to which she had grown accustomed rendering 
 the operation on theii* ^villing udders surprisingly easy and 
 effortless. 
 
 Tess, like her compeers, soon discovered which of the 
 cows had a predilection for her style of manipulation, and 
 her fingers ha\'ing become delicate from the long domiciliary 
 
136 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 imprisonments to which she had subjected herself at inter- 
 vals during the last two or three years, she would have 
 been glad to meet the milchers' views in this resj^ect. Out 
 of the whole hundi^ed and five there were eight in particu- 
 lar — Dumpling, Fancy, Lofty, Mist, Old Pretty, Young 
 Prett}^, Tidy, and Loud — who, though the teats of one or two 
 were as hard as carrots, gave down to her with a readiness 
 that made her work on them a mere touch of the fingers. 
 Knowing, however, the dauyman's wish, she endeavored 
 conscientiously to take the animals just as they came, ex- 
 cepting the very hard fielders, which she could not yet 
 manage. 
 
 But she soon found a cui'ious correspondence between 
 the ostensibly chance position of the cows and her wishes 
 in this matter, till at length she felt that theii' order could 
 not be the result of accident. The daiiyman's pupil had 
 lent a hand in getting the cows together of late, and at the 
 fifth or sixth time she turned her face, as it rested against 
 the cow, full of sedate inquiry upon him. 
 
 " Mr. Clare, you have ranged the cows ! '' she said, blush- 
 ing ; and in making the accusation symptoms of a smile 
 lifted her upper Up gently in the middle in spite of her, so 
 as to show the tips of her teeth, the lower lip remaining 
 severely still. 
 
 ''Well — it makes no difference," said he. ''You will al- 
 wavs be here to milk them." 
 
 '' Do you think so ? I hope I shall. But I don't l-nowP 
 
 She was angry ^\ith herself afterwards, thinking that he, 
 not aware of her gi'ave reasons for liking this seclusion, 
 might have mistaken her meaning. She had spoken so 
 earnestly to him, as if his presence were somehow a factor 
 in her wish. Her misgiving was such that at dusk, when 
 the milking was over, she walked in the garden alone, re- 
 gretting that she had disclosed to him her discovery of his 
 considerateness. 
 
 It was a tyj)ical summer evening in June, the atmos- 
 
THE RALLY. 137 
 
 pliere being in such delicate equilibrium and so transmis- 
 sive that inanimate objects seemed endowed with two or 
 three senses, if not five. There was no distinction between 
 the near and the far, and an auditor felt close to every- 
 thing within the horizon. The soundlessness impressed 
 her as a positive entity rather than as the mere negation of 
 noise. It was broken by the strumming of strings. 
 
 Tess had heard those notes in the attic above her head. 
 Dim, flattened, constrained by their confinement, they had 
 never appealed to her as now, when they wandered in the 
 still air with a stark quality like that of nudity. To speak 
 absolutely, both instrument and execution were poor ; but 
 the relative is all, and as she listened, Tess, like a fasci- 
 nated bii'd, could not leave the spot. Far from leaving, she 
 drew uj) towards the performer, keeping behmd the hedge 
 that he niight not guess her presence. 
 
 The outskii't of the garden in which Tess found herself 
 had been left uncultivated for some years, and was now 
 damp and rank with juicy gi*ass which sent up mists of 
 pollen ; and tall blooming weeds, emitting offensive smells 
 — weeds whose red and yellow and purple hues formed a 
 polychrome as dazzKng as that of cultivated flowers. She 
 went stealthily as a cat through tliis profusion of growth, 
 gathering cuckoo-spittle on her skirts, brushing off snails 
 that were chmbing the apple-tree stems, staining her hands 
 with thistle-milk and slug-slime, and rubbing off upon her 
 naked arms sticky blights that, though snow-white on the 
 tree-trunks, made blood-red stains on her skin ; thus she 
 drew quite near to Clare, though still unobserved of him. 
 
 Tess was conscious of neither time nor space. The exal- 
 tation which she had described as being i3roducible at will 
 by gazing at a star, came now without any determination 
 of hers 5 she undulated upon the thin notes as upon billows, 
 and theu' harmonies passed like breezes through her, bring- 
 ing tears into her eyes. The floating pollen seemed to be 
 his notes made visible, and the dampness of the garden, 
 
138 TESS OF THE D'UEBERVILLES. 
 
 the weeping of the garden's sensibility. Though near 
 nightfall, the rank-smelling weed-flowers glowed as if they 
 would not close for intentness, and the waves of color mixed 
 with the waves of sound. 
 
 The light which still shone was derived entkely from a 
 large hole in the western bank of cloud ; it was like a piece 
 of the day left behind by accident, dusk having closed 
 in elsewhere. He concluded his plaintive melody, a very 
 simple performance, demanding no great skill; and she 
 waited, thinking another might be begun. But, tired of 
 plajdng, he had desultorily come round the fence, and was 
 rambling up behind her. Tess, her cheeks on fire, moved 
 away fui^tively, as if hardly moving at all. 
 
 Angel, however, saw her hght summer gOT\Ti, and he 
 spoke ; his low tones quite reaching her, though he was 
 some distance off. 
 
 "What makes vou draw off in that wav, Tess?" said he. 
 " Ai'e you afraid ? " 
 
 "Oh no, sir. . . . That is, not of outdoor things, es- 
 pecially just now, when the apple-blooth is falling, and 
 everything so green." 
 
 " But you have your indoor fears — eh ? " 
 
 " WeU— yes, sii\" 
 
 "What of?" 
 
 " I couldn't quite say." 
 
 " The milk turning sour ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Life in general ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir.'' 
 
 " Ah — so have I, very often. This hobble of being alive 
 is rather serious, don't you think so ? " 
 
 " It is — now you put it that way, sir." 
 
 " All the same, I shouldn't have expected a young girl 
 like you to see it so just yet. How is it you do ? " 
 
 She maintained a hesitating silence. 
 
 " Come, Tess, tell me in confidence." 
 
*'*WHAT MAKES YOU DRAW OFF IN THAT WAY, TESS ?' SAID HE. 'ARE 
 
 YOU AFRAID?' " 
 
THE RALLY. 139 
 
 She thought that he meant what were the aspects of 
 things to her, and replied shyly : " The trees have inquisi- 
 tive eyes, haven't they? — that is, seem as if they had. 
 And the river says, 'Why do ye trouble me with your 
 looks ? ' And you seem to see numbers of to-morrows just 
 all in a line, the first of 'em the biggest and clearest, the 
 others getting smaller and smaller as they stand farther 
 away ; but they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they 
 said, '■ I'm coming ! Beware o' me ! Beware o' me ! ' . . . 
 But you, sir — //o?f," she exclaimed, mth almost bitter envy ; 
 "you can raise up dreams with j^our music, and drive all 
 such hoiTid fancies awav ! " 
 
 He was siu'prised to find this young woman — who, though 
 but a milkmaid, had just that touch of rarity about her 
 which might make her the envied of her housemates — shap- 
 ing such sad imaginings. But he was more surprised when 
 he considered that she was expressing in her own native 
 phrases — assisted a little by her Sixth Standard training — 
 feelings which might almost have been called those of the 
 age, the ache of modernism. The perception aiTcsted him 
 less when he reflected that what are called advanced ideas 
 are really in great part but the latest fashion in definition 
 — a more accurate expression, by words in logy and ism, of 
 sensations which men and w^omen have vaguely grasped for 
 centuries. 
 
 Still, it was strange that they should have come to her 
 while yet so young ; more than strange — it was impressive, 
 mteresting, pathetic. Not guessing the cause, there was 
 nothing to remind him that experience is as to intensity, 
 and not as to duration. He did not know that Tess's pass- 
 ing corporeal blight had been her mental harvest. 
 
 Tess, on her part, could not understand why a man of 
 clerical family and good education, and above physical 
 want, should look upon it as a mishap to be alive. For 
 the unhappy pilgrim herself there was very good reason. 
 But how could this admirable and poetic man ever have 
 
140 TESS OP THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 descended into the Valley of Hiuniliation^ have felt with 
 the man of Uz — as she herself had felt two or tliree years 
 ago — " My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than 
 my life. I loathe it j I would not live alway." 
 
 It was true that he was at present out of his class. But 
 she knew that was only because, like Peter the Great in a 
 ship\\Tighf s yard, he was stud}dng what he wanted to know. 
 He did not milk cows because he was obliged to milk cows, 
 but because he was learning how to be a rich and prosperous 
 dairyman, landowner, agricultimst, and breeder of cattle. 
 He would become an American or Australian Abraham, 
 commanding like a monarch his flocks and his herds, liis 
 spotted and his ring-straked, his men-servants and his 
 maids. At times, nevertheless, it did seem unaccountable 
 to her that a decidedly bookish, musical, thinking young 
 man should have chosen deliberately to be a farmer, and 
 not a clergyman, like his father and brothers. 
 
 Thus, neither ha^dng the clue to the other's secret, they 
 w^ere mutually puzzled at what each revealed, and awaited 
 new knowledge of each other's character and moods with- 
 out attempting to pry into each other's history. 
 
 Every day, every horn*, brought to him one more httle 
 stroke of her natiu-e, and to her one more of his. Tess 
 was trying to lead a repressed life, but she httle recked the 
 intensitv of her own vitalitv. 
 
 At first Tess seemed to regard Angel Clare as an intelli- 
 gence rather than as a man. And as such she compared 
 him with herself ; and at every discovery of the abundance 
 of his illuminations, of the immense distance between her 
 own poor mental standpoint and the unmeasurable, Andean 
 altitude of his, she became quite dejected, humiUated, dis- 
 heartened from all further effort on her own part whatever. 
 
 He observed her dejection one day, when he had casually 
 mentioned something to her about the pastoral life in an- 
 
THE RALLY. 141 
 
 eient Greece. She was gathering the buds called " lords and 
 ladies " from the bank wMle he spoke. 
 
 "Why do you look so woebegone all of a sudden?" he 
 asked. 
 
 '' Oh, 'tis only — about my o\^ti self," she said, with a frail 
 laugh of sadness, fitfully beginning to peel " a lady " mean- 
 while. " Just a flash of a sense of what might have been 
 with me ! My life looks as if it had been wasted for want 
 of chances ! When I see what you know, what you have 
 read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am ! 
 I'm like the poor Queen of Sheba w^ho lived in the Bible. 
 There is no more spirit in me." 
 
 " Bless my soul, don't go troubling about that ! Why," 
 he said, with some enthusiasm, "I should be only too glad, 
 my dear Tess, to help you to anything in the way of history, 
 or any line of reading you would hke to take up " 
 
 " It is a lady again," interrupted she, holding out the bud 
 she had peeled. 
 
 "AVliat?" 
 
 '' I meant that there are always more ladies than lords 
 when you come to peel them." 
 
 "Never mind about the lords and ladies. Would you 
 like to take up any line of study — history, for example ! " 
 
 " Well, sometimes I feel I don't want to know anything 
 more about it than I know ah'eady." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a 
 long row only — finding out that there is set down in some 
 old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall 
 only act her part ; making me sad, that's aU. The best is 
 not to remember that your nature and your past doings 
 have been just like thousands and thousands, and that 
 your coming life and doings '11 be like thousands and 
 thousands." 
 
 " Wliat, really, then, you don't want to learn anything ? " 
 
142 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ^' I shouldn't mind learnino' why — why the sun shmes on 
 the jnst and on the unjust alike/' she answered, mth a slight 
 quaver in her yoice. "But that is what books will not 
 teU me ! " 
 
 '' Tess, fie for such bitterness ! " Of com-se he spoke with 
 a conventional sense of duty only, for that sort of wonder- 
 ing had not been unkno^\ai to himself in bygone days. 
 And as he looked at the unpractised mouth and lips, he 
 thought that such a dew^-fresh daughter of the soil could 
 only have caught up the sentiment by rote. She w^ent on 
 peeling the lords and ladies till Clare, regarding for a mo- 
 ment the wave-like curl of her lashes as they drooped with 
 her bent gaze, lingeringly went away. When he was gone 
 she stood awhile, thoughtfiLQy peehng the last bud ; and 
 then, awakening from her reverie, flung it, and all the 
 crowd of floral nobility, impatiently on the ground, in an 
 ebullition of displeasiu-e mth herself for her niaiseries, and 
 with a quickening warmth in her heart of hearts. 
 
 How stupid he must think her ! In an access of hunger 
 for his good opinion she bethought herself of what she had 
 latterly endeavored to forget, so unpleasant had been its 
 issues : the identity of her family with that of the knightly 
 D'Urbervilles. Barren attribute as it was, disastrous as its 
 discovery had been in many ways to her, perhaps Mr. Clare, 
 as a gentleman and a student of history, would respect her 
 sufficiently to forget her childish conduct with the lords 
 and ladies if he knew that those Purbeck-marble and ala- 
 baster jDCople in Kingsbere church really represented her 
 own lineal forefathers ; that she was no spurious D'Urber- 
 ville, compounded of money and ambition like those at 
 Trantridge, but true D'Urberville to the bone. 
 
 But before venturing to make the revelation poor Tess 
 indirectly sounded the dairyman as to its possible effect 
 upon Mr. Clare, by asking the former if Mr. Clare had any 
 gi-eat respect for old county f amihes when they had lost all 
 their money and land. 
 
THE RALLY. 143 
 
 ^^Mr. Clare/' said the dairyman, emphatically, ^4s oue of 
 the most rebellest rozums you ever knowed — not a bit like 
 the rest of his family ; and if there's one thing that he do 
 hate more than another 'tis the notion of what's called an 
 old family. He says that it stands to reason that old fam- 
 ihes have done their spurt of work in past days, and can't 
 have anything left in 'em now. There's the Billetts, and 
 the Drenkhards, and the Greys, and the St. Quintins, and 
 the Hardys, and the Goulds, who used to own the lands for 
 miles down this valley ; you could buy 'em all up now for 
 an old song almost. Why, our little Retty Priddle here, 
 you know, is one of the Paridelles — the old family that 
 used to own lots o' the lands out by King's-Hintock now 
 owned by the Earl o' Wessex, afore even he and his was 
 heard of. Well, Mr. Clare found this out, and spoke quite 
 scornful to the poor girl for days. ^Ah ! ' he says to her, 
 '■ you'll never make a good dairymaid ! All your skill was 
 used up ages ago in Palestine, and you must lie fallow for 
 a thousand years to git strength for more deeds ! ' A boy 
 came here t'other day asking for a job, and said his name 
 was Matt, and when we asked him his surname, he said 
 he'd never heard that 'a had any surname, and when we 
 asked why, he said he supposed his folks hadn't been 'stab- 
 Hshed long enough. ^Ali ! you're the very boy I want ! ' 
 says Mr. Clare, jumping up and shaking hands wi' en; 
 '■ I've great hopes of you ; ' and gave him half-a-crowu. Oh 
 no, he can't stomach old families ! " 
 
 After hearing this caricature of Clare's opinions, poor 
 Tess was glad that she had not said a word in a weak mo- 
 ment — even though her family w^as so unusually old as 
 almost to have gone round the circle and become a new 
 one. Besides, another dairy-girl was as good as she, it 
 seemed, in that respect. She held her tongue about the 
 D'Urberville vault, and the Knights of the Conqueror, one 
 of whose names she bore. A flash of insight into Clare's 
 character suggested to her that it was largely owing to her 
 
144 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 supposed untraditioual newness that she liad won mterest 
 in his eyes. 
 
 The season developed and matured. Another yeai^'s in- 
 stahnent of flowers, leaves, nightingales, thi'ushes, finches, 
 and other creatures, took up their positions where only a 
 year ago others had stood in their place, and they were 
 nothing more than germs and inorganic particles. Rays 
 straight from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched 
 them into long stalks, hfted up sap in noiseless streams, 
 opened petals, and brought out scents in in\dsible jets and 
 breathings. 
 
 Dairyman Crick's household of maids and men lived on 
 comfortably, placidly, even merrily. Theii* position was 
 perhaps the happiest of all positions in the social scale, that 
 is to say. above the line at which neediness ends, and below 
 the line at which the convenances begin to cramp natural 
 feeling, and the stress of threadbare modishness makes too 
 little of enough. 
 
 Thus passed the leafy time, when arborescence seems to 
 be the one thing auned at out-of-doors. Tess and Clare 
 unconsciously studied each other, ever balanced on the 
 edge of a passion, yet apparently keeping out of it. All 
 the while they were none the less converging, under the 
 force of iiTCsistible law, as surely as two streams in one 
 vale. 
 
 Tess had never in her recent life been so generally happy 
 as she was now, probably never would be so happy again. 
 She was, for one thing, physically and socially at ease 
 among these new surroundings. The sapling which had 
 rooted down to a poisonous stratum on the spot of its sow- 
 ing had been transplanted to a deeper sod. Moreover she. 
 
THE RALLY. 145 
 
 and Clare also, stood as yet on the debatable land between 
 predilection and love, where no profundities have been 
 reached, no reflections have set in, awkwardly inquiring 
 " Wliither does this new current tend to carry me t what 
 does it mean to my future ? how does it stand towards my 
 past ? '' 
 
 Tess was the merest ideal phenomenon to Angel Clare 
 as 3^et — a rosy, warming apparition, which had hardly ac- 
 quh'ed the attribute of persistence in his consciousness. So 
 he allowed his mind to be occupied with her, yet would 
 not own his preoccupation to be more than a philosopher's 
 regard of an exceedingly novel, fresh, and interesting speci- 
 men of womankind. 
 
 They met continually; they could not help it. They 
 met daily in that strange and solemn interval of time, the 
 twilight of the morning, in the violet or pink dawn ; for 
 it was necessary to rise early, so very early, here. Milking 
 was done betimes ; and before the milking came the skim- 
 ming, which began at a little past three. It usually fell to 
 the lot of some one or other of them to wake the rest, the 
 fii'st one being aroused by an alarm-clock ; and as Tess was 
 the latest arrival, and they soon discovered that she could 
 be depended upon not to sleep through the alarm as the 
 others did, this task was thrust most frequently upon her. 
 No sooner had the hour of three struck and whizzed than 
 she left her room and ran to the daiiyman's door ; then up 
 the ladder to Angel's, calling liim in a loud whisper ; then 
 woke her fellow-milkmaids. Bv the time that Tess was 
 di'essed, Clare was downstairs and out in the humid air ; 
 the remaining maids and the dairymen usually gave them- 
 selves another turn on the pillow, and did not appear till a 
 quarter of an hour later. 
 
 The gray half-tones of daybreak are not the gray haK- 
 
 tones of the day's close, though the degTce of their shade 
 
 may be the same. In the twilight of the morning Hght 
 
 seems active, darkness passive ; in the t'^^light of evening 
 10 
 
146 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 it is the darkness wliicli is active and crescent, and tlie light 
 which is the drowsy reverse. 
 
 Being so often — possibly not always by chance — the iii'st 
 two persons to get np at the dairy-honse, they seemed to 
 themselves the first persons np of all the world. In these 
 early days of her residence here Tess did not skim, but 
 went out-of-doors at once after rising, where he was gener- 
 ally awaiting her. The spectral, half -compounded, aqueous 
 light which pervaded the open mead impressed them with 
 a feehng of isolation, as if they were Adam and Eve. At 
 this dim, inceptive stage of the day, Tess seemed to Clare 
 to exhibit a dignified largeness, both of disposition and 
 physique, and ahnost regnant power — possibly because he 
 knew that at that preternatural time hardly any woman so 
 well endowed in person as she was hkely to be walking in 
 the open air mthin the boundaries of his horizon 5 very 
 few in all England. Fail' v»^omen are usually asleep at mid- 
 summer da^^ais. She was close at hand, and the rest were 
 nowhere. 
 
 The mixed, singular, luminous gloom in which they 
 walked along together to the spot where the cows lay often 
 made him think of the ResuiTCction hour. He httle thought 
 that the Magdalen might be at his side. Whilst aU the 
 landscape was in neutral shade, his companion's face, which 
 w^as the focus of his eyes, rising above the mist stratum, 
 seemed to have a sort of phosphorescence upon it. She 
 looked ghostly, as if she were merely a soul at large. In 
 reality her face, without appearing to do so, had caught the 
 cold gleam of day from the northeast ; his own face, though 
 he did not think of it, wore the same aspect to her. 
 
 It was then, as has been said, that she impressed him 
 most deeply. She was no longer the milkmaid, but a vis- 
 ionary essence of woman — a whole sex condensed into one 
 typical form. He called her Artemis, Demeter, and other 
 fanciful names, half-teasingly, which she did not like be- 
 cause she did not understand them. 
 
THE RALLY. 147 
 
 " Call me Tess," slie would say, askance ; and lie did. 
 
 Then it would grow lighter, and her featiu'es would be- 
 come simply feminine ; they had changed from those of 
 a divinity who could confer bliss to those of a being who 
 craved it. 
 
 At these non-human houi'S they could get quite close to 
 the water-fowl. Herons came, with a great bold noise as 
 of opening doors and shutters, out of the boughs of a plan- 
 tation which they frequented at the side of the mead ; or, 
 if already on the spot, maintained theu' standing in the 
 water as the pair walked by, merely watching them by 
 moving their heads round in a slow, horizontal, passionless 
 wheel, like the turn of puppets by clockwork. 
 
 They could then see the faint summer fogs in layers, 
 woolly, level, and apparently no tliicker than counterpanes, 
 spread about the meadows in detached remnants of small 
 extent. On the gi'ay moistm'C of the gi^ass w^ere marks 
 where the cows had lain through the night — dark islands 
 of diy herbage the size of their carcasses in the general sea 
 of dew. From each island proceeded a serpentine trail, by 
 w^hich the cow had rambled away to feed after getting up, 
 at the end of which trail they found herj the snoring 
 breath from her nostrils, when she recognized them, mak- 
 ing an intenser little fog of her o\\ti amid the prevailing 
 one. Then they di'ove the animals back to the barton, or 
 sat down to milk them on the sj)ot, as the case might re- 
 quire. 
 
 Or perhaps the summer fog was more general, and the 
 meadows lay like a white sea, out of which the scattered 
 trees rose like dangerous rocks. Bu'ds would rise through 
 it into the upper radiance, and hang on the \^dng sunning 
 themselves, or alight on the wet rails subdividing the 
 meads, which now shone like glass rods. Minute diamonds 
 of moisture from the mist hung, too, upon Tess's eyelashes, 
 and di'ops upon her haii* like seed pearls. When the day 
 grew quite strong and commonplace these dried off herj 
 
148 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 moreover, Tess then lost lier isolated and ethereal beauty, 
 and was again the dazzlingiy fair dairynlaid only, who had 
 to hold her own against the other women of the world. 
 
 Al)ont this time they would hear Dairyman Crick's voice, 
 lecturing the non-resident milkers for arriving late, and 
 speaking sharply to old Del)orah Fyander for not washing 
 her hands. 
 
 ^^ For Heaven's sake, pop th}^ hands under the pump, 
 Deb ! Upon my soul, if the London folk only knowed of 
 thee and thy slovenly ways, they'd swaller their milk and 
 butter more mincing than they do a'ready ; and that's say- 
 ing a good deal." 
 
 The milking progi^essed till, towards the end, Tess and 
 Clare, in common with the rest, could hear the hea\y break- 
 fast-table dragged out from the wall in the kitchen by Mrs. 
 Crick, this being the invariable preliminary to each meal ; 
 the same horrible scrape accompanying its return joui'ney 
 when the table had been cleared. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 There was a great stir in the milk-house just after break- 
 fast. The churn revolved as usual, but the butter would 
 not come. Whenever this happened the dairy was para- 
 lyzed. ^' Squish ! squash ! " echoed the milk in the great 
 cylinder, but never arose the sound they waited for. 
 
 Dairj^man Crick and his wife, the milkmaids Tess, Mar- 
 ian, Retty Priddle, Izz Haett, and the married ones from 
 the cottages, also Mr. Clare, Jonathan Kail, old Deborah, 
 and the rest, stood gazing hopelessly at the churn; and 
 the boy who kept the horse going outside put on moon-like 
 eyes to show his sense of the situation. Even the melan- 
 choly horse himself seemed to look in at the window in 
 inquiring despair at each walk round. 
 
TiiE Rally. 14§ 
 
 '^'Tis years siiice I went to Conjuror Trendle's son in 
 Egdon — years," said the dairyman, bitterly. "And he was 
 nothing to what his father had been. I have said fifty 
 times, if I have said once, that I don't believe in him. And 
 I don't believe in him. But I shall have to go to 'n. Oh 
 yes, I shall have to go to 'n, if this sort of thing continnys ! '' 
 
 Even Mr. Clare began to feel tragical at the dail*}^nan's 
 desperation. 
 
 " Conjm^or Fall, 'tother side of Casterbridge, that they 
 nsed to call ^ Wide-0,' was a very good man when I was a 
 boy," said Jonathan Kail. " But he's rotten as touchwood 
 by now." 
 
 " My grandfather used to go to Conjuror M}Titerne, out 
 at Owlscombe, and a clever man 'a were, so I've heard 
 grandfer say," continued Mr. Crick. " But there's no such 
 genuine folk about nowadays ! " 
 
 Mrs. Crick's mind kept nearer to the matter in hand. 
 '' Perhaps somebody in the house is in love," she said, ten- 
 tatively. '' I've heard tell in my younger days that that will 
 cause it. Why, Crick — that maid we knew years ago, do 
 ye mind, and how the butter didn't come then " 
 
 "Ah yes, yes! — but that isn't the rights o't. It had 
 nothing to do with the love-making. I remember all about 
 it — 'twas the damage to the chiu'u." He turned to Clare. 
 "Jack Dollop, a 'hore's-bird of a feUow we had here as 
 milker at one time, sir, coui'ted a j^oung woman over at 
 Mellstock, and deceived her as he had deceived many afore. 
 But he had another sort o' woman to reckon mth this time, 
 and it was not the girl herself. One Holy Thursday, of all 
 days in the almanac, we was here as we mid be now, only 
 there was no chui'uing in hand, when we saw the girl's 
 mother coming up to the door, vdth a great brass-mounted 
 umbrella in her hand that would have feUed an ox, and 
 saying, ' Do Jack DoUop work here ? — because I want him ! 
 I have a big bone to pick with he, I can assirre 'n ! ' And 
 some way behind her mother walked Jack's young woman, 
 
150 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 crying bitterly into her handkerclier. ^ O Lard ! here's a 
 time ! ^ said Jack, looking out o' winder at ^em. ' She'll 
 murder me! Where shall I get — where shall I — Don't 
 teU her where I be ! ' and with that he scrambled into the 
 churn through the trap-door, and shut himself inside, just 
 as the young woman's mother busted into the milk-house. 
 ' The villain — where is he ? ' says she ; ^ I'll claw his face 
 for 'n, let me only catch him ! ' Well, she hunted about 
 everywhere, baU}T:*agging Jack by side and by seam. Jack 
 lying a'most stifled inside the churn, and the poor maid 
 standing at the door crying her eyes out. I shall never 
 forget it, never ! 'Twould have melted a marble stone. 
 But she couldn't find him nowhere at all ! " 
 
 The dairyman paused, and one or two words of comment 
 came from the listeners. 
 
 But Dairyman Crick's stories often seemed to be ended 
 when they were not really so, and strangers were betrayed 
 into premature interjections of finality, though old friends 
 knew better. The narrator went on : 
 
 " Well, how the woman should have had the wit to guess it 
 I could never tell, but she found out that he was inside that 
 there churn. Without saying a word she took hold of the 
 winch (it was turned by hand-power then), and round she 
 swung him, and Jack began to flop about inside. ' O Lard ! 
 stop the churn ! let me out ! ' says he, popping out his head -, 
 ^ I shall be churned into a pummy ! ' (He was a cowardly 
 chap in his heart, as such men mostly be.) ^Not till j^ou 
 make amends for ravaging her trustful innocence ! ^ says 
 the old woman. '■ Stop the churn, you old w^tch ! ' screams 
 he. ' You call me old witch, do ye, you deceiver,' says she, 
 ' when ye ought to ha' been calling me mother-in-law these 
 last five months ! ' And on went the churn, and Jack's 
 bones rattled round again. Well, none of us ventured to 
 interfere ; and at last 'a promised to make it right by mar- 
 lying her. ' Yes — I'll be as good as my word ! ' he said. 
 And so it ended that day.'' 
 
THE RALLY. 151 
 
 "Wliile the listeners were smiling their comments there 
 was a quick movement behind theii* backs, and they looked 
 round. Tess, pale-faced, had gone to the door. 
 
 " How warm it is to-day ! " she said, almost inaudibly. 
 
 It was warm, and none of them connected her withdrawal 
 with the reminiscences of the dairyman. He went forward 
 and opened the door for her, saying vMi tender railler}^, 
 '' Why, maidy " (he frequently, with unconscious irony, gave 
 her this pet name), ''the prettiest milker I've got in my 
 dairy ; you mustn't get so fagged as this at the first breath 
 of summer weather, or we shall be finely put to for want of 
 'ee by dog-days ; shan't we, Mr. Clare ? " 
 
 ''I was faint — and — I think I am better out-of-doors," 
 she said, mechanically, and disappeared outside. Fortu- 
 nately for her, the milk in the revohdng churn at that mo- 
 ment changed its squashing for a decided flick-flack. 
 
 "'Tis coming ! " cried Mrs. Crick, and the attention of all 
 was called oif from Tess. 
 
 That fair sufferer soon recovered herseK externally ; but 
 she remained much depressed all the afternoon. When the 
 evening milking was done she did not care to be with, the 
 rest of them, and went out-of-doors, wandering along she 
 knew not whither. She was ^\Tetclied — oh, so ^\Tetched — 
 at the perception that to her companions the dairyman's 
 story had been rather a humorous narration than other- 
 wise ; that none of them but herself seemed to see the sor- 
 row of it ; to a certaintv, not one knew how cruellv it 
 touched the tender place in her experience. The evening- 
 sun was now ugly to her, like a great inflamed wound in 
 the sky. Only a solitary cracked-voiced reed-sparrow 
 greeted her from the bushes by the river, in a sad, machine- 
 like tone, resembling that of a past friend whose friend- 
 ship she had now outworn. 
 
 In these long June days the milkmaids, and indeed most 
 of the household, went to bed at sunset, or sooner, the 
 morning work before milking being so early and hea\y at 
 
1S2 TESS OF THE D*URBERYiLLES. 
 
 this time of full pails. Tess usually accompanied her fel- 
 lows upstairs. To-night, however, she was the first to go 
 to their common chamber j and she had dozed when the 
 other girls came in. She saw them undressing in the orange 
 light of the vanished sun, which flushed theii' forms with 
 its color ; she dozed again, but she was reawakened by their 
 voices, and quietly turned her eyes towards them. 
 
 Neither of her thi^ee chamber companions had got into 
 bed. They were standing in a group, in their nightgowns, 
 barefooted, at the window, the last red rays of the west still 
 warming theii' faces and necks, and the walls around them. 
 All were watching somebody in the garden with deep in- 
 terest, theii- three faces close together : a jovial and round 
 one, a -psle one with dark haii", and a fair one whose tresses 
 were auburn. 
 
 " Don't push ! You can see as well as I," said Retty, the 
 auburn-haii'ed and youngest girl, Avithout remo^dng her eyes 
 from the mndow. 
 
 '''Tis no use for you to be in love with him any more 
 than me, Retty Priddle," said jolly-faced Marian, the eldest, 
 slyly. "■ His thoughts be of other cheeks than thine." 
 
 Rettv Priddle still looked, and the others looked asfain. 
 
 " There he is again ! " cried Izz Huett, the pale girl, with 
 dark, damp haii', and keenly cut lips. 
 
 "You needn't say anji^hing, Izz,'' answ^ered Retty. "For 
 I seed you kissing his shade." 
 
 " What did you see her doing?" asked Marian. 
 
 " Wliy, he w^as standing over the whey-tub to let off the 
 whey, and the shade of his face came upon the w^all behind, 
 close to Izz, who was standing there filling a vat. She put 
 her mouth against the wall and kissed the shade of his 
 mouth ; I seed her, though he didn't." 
 
 " O Izz Huett ! " said Marian. 
 
 A rosy spot came into the middle of Izz Iluett's cheek. 
 
 " Well, there was no harm in it," she declared, with at- 
 
THE RALLY. 153 
 
 / 
 
 tempted coolness. ''And if I be in love with him, so is 
 Ketty, too ; and so be yon, Marian, come to that.'' 
 
 Marian's full face conld not blnsh past its chronic pink- 
 ness. '^ I ! " she said. ''■ What a tale ! Ah, there he is again ! 
 Dear eyes — dear face — dear Mr. Clare ! " 
 
 '^ There — ^^^on've owned it ! " 
 
 " So have yon — so have we aU," said Marian, with the 
 dry frankness of complete indifference to opinion. '' It is 
 siUy to pretend other\^dse amongst onrselves, thongh w^e 
 need not own it to other folks. I wonld jnst marry 'n to- 
 morrow ! " 
 
 " So wonld I," miu'miu^ed Izz Hnett, slowly. 
 
 " And I, too," whispered the more timid Ketty. 
 
 The hstener grew warm. 
 
 " We can't aU have him," said Izz. 
 
 '^ We shan't, either of ns, which is worse still," said the 
 eldest. " There he is again ! " They all three blew him a 
 silent kiss. 
 
 ''Why?" asked Retty, qnickly. 
 
 " Because he likes Tess Dnrbeyfield best," said Marian, 
 lowering her voice. " I have watched him every day, and 
 have found it ont." 
 
 There was a reflective silence. 
 
 "But she don't care an}i:hing for him?" at length 
 breathed Retty. 
 
 " Well, I sometimes think that, too." 
 
 " But how silly aU this is ! " said Izz Huett, impatiently. 
 " Of coiu'se he wouldn't marry any one of us, or either — 
 a gentleman's son, who's going to be a great landowner 
 and farmer abroad ! More likely to ask us to come wi' en 
 as farm-hands at so much a vear ! " 
 
 One sighed, and another sighed, and Marian's plump 
 figure sighed most of aU. Somebody in bed hard by sighed 
 too. Tears came into the eyes of Retty Priddle, the pretty 
 red-haired youngest — the last bud of the Paridelles, so im- 
 
154 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 portant in the county history. They watched silently a 
 little longer, their three faces still close together as before, 
 and the triple hues of their hair mingUng. But the uncon- 
 scious Mr. Clare had gone indoors, and they saw him no 
 more ; and, the shades beginning to deepen, they crept into 
 then' beds. In a few minutes they heard him ascend the 
 ladder to his own room. Marian was soon snoring, but Izz 
 did not drop into forgetfulness for a long time. Retty 
 Priddle cried herseK to sleep. 
 
 The deeper-passioned Tess was very far from sleeping 
 even then. This conversation was another of the bitter 
 piUs she had been obliged to swallow that day. Scarce the 
 least feeling of jealousy arose in her breast. For that 
 matter, she knew herself to have the preference. Being 
 more finely formed, better educated, more woman than 
 either, she perceived that only the shghtest ordinary care 
 was necessary for holding her own in Angel Clare's heart 
 against these her candid friends. But the gi'ave question 
 was, ought she to do this ? There was, to be sure, hardly a 
 ghost of a chance for either of them, in a serious sense ; 
 but there was, or had been, a chance of one or the other 
 inspiring him mth a passing fancy for her, and enjoying 
 the pleas m'e of his attentions while he stayed here. Such 
 imequal attachments had led to marriage; and she had 
 heard from Mrs. Crick that Mr. Clare had one day asked, 
 in a laughing way, what would be the use of his marrying 
 a fine lady, and all the while a thousand acres of Colonial 
 pasture to feed, and cattle to rear, and corn to reap. A 
 farm- woman would be the onlv sensible kind of wife for 
 him. But whether Mr. Clare had spoken seriously or not, 
 why slioidd she, who could never conscientiously allow any 
 man to marry her now, and who had religiously deter- 
 mined that she never would be tempted to do so, draw off 
 Mr. Clare's attention from other women, for the brief hap- 
 piness of sunning herself in his eyes while he remained at 
 Talbothaysf 
 
THE RALLY. 155 
 
 XXII. 
 
 They came downstairs yawning next morning; but 
 skimming and milking were proceeded wdth as usual, and 
 they went indoors to breakfast. Dairyman Crick was dis- 
 covered stamping about the house. He had received a 
 letter, in which a customer had complained that the butter 
 had a twang. 
 
 '^ And begad, so't have ! '' said the daiiyman, who held in 
 his left hand a wooden slice, on which a lump of butter 
 was stuck. " Yes — taste for yourself ! " 
 
 Several of them gathered round him ; and Mr. Clare 
 tasted, Tess tasted, also the other indoor milkmaids, one 
 or two of the milking-men, and last of ah Mrs. Crick, who 
 came out from the waiting breakfast table. There certainly 
 was a twang. 
 
 The dairyman who had thrown himself into abstraction 
 to better realize the taste, and so di\ine the particidar s]3e- 
 cies of noxious weed to which it appertained, suddenly ex- 
 claimed, " 'Tis garlic 1 and I thought there wasn't a blade 
 left in that mead ! " 
 
 Then aU the old hands rememl^ered that a certain dry 
 mead, into which a few of the cows had been admitted of 
 late, had in years gone by spoilt the butter in the same 
 way. The dair3'man had not recognized the taste at that 
 time, and thought the butter bewitched. 
 
 "We must examine that mead," he resinned; 'Hliis 
 mustn't continny." 
 
 All having armed themselves with old pointed knives, 
 they went out together. As the inimical plant could only 
 be present in very microscopic dimensions to have escaped 
 ordinary observation, it seemed rather a hopeless attempt 
 to find it in the stretch of rich grass before them. How- 
 ever, they formed themselves into line, aU assisting, owing 
 
156 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 to the importance of tlie search ; tlie daiiyman at the upper 
 end with Mr. Clare, who had vohmteered to help ; then 
 Tess, Marian, Izz Hnett, and Rettv; then Bill Lewell, Jon- 
 athan, and the married daiiywomen — namely, Beck Knibbs, 
 with her woolly black haii' and roUing eyes, and flaxen 
 Frances, consumptive from the winter damps of the water 
 meads — who lived in their respective cottages. 
 
 With eyes fixed upon the ground, they crept slowly 
 across a strip of the field, returning a little f mother down 
 in such a manner that, when they should have finished, 
 not a single inch of the pasture but would have fallen 
 under the eye of some one of them. It was a most tedious 
 business, not more than half a dozen shoots of garhc being 
 discoverable in the whole field 5 yet such was the herb's 
 pungency that probably one bite of it by one cow had been 
 sufficient to season the whole dairy's produce for the day. 
 
 Differing one from another in natures and moods so 
 greatly as they did, they yet formed a curiously uniform 
 row — automatic, noiseless ; and an alien observer passing 
 down the neighboring lane might well have been excused 
 for massing them as ^' Hodge." As they crept along, stoop- 
 ing low to discern the plant, a soft, yellow gleam was re- 
 flected from the buttercups into their shaded faces, giving 
 them an elfish, moonlit aspect, though the sun was pouring 
 upon their backs in all the strength of noon. 
 
 Angel Clare, who communistically stuck to his rule of 
 taking part with the rest in everything, glanced up now 
 and then. It was not, of course, by accident that he walked 
 next to Tess. 
 
 ^^ Well, how are vou ? " he murmured. 
 
 '^ Very weU, thank you, su^ she replied, demiu-ely. 
 
 As they had been discussing a score of personal matters 
 only half an hour before, the introductory st}^e seemed a 
 little superfluous. But they got no further in speech just 
 then. They crept and crept, the hem of her petticoat just 
 touching his foot, and his elbow sometimes brushing hers, 
 
THE RALLY. 157 
 
 At last tlie daii'yman, wlio came next, could stand it no 
 longer. 
 
 '' Upon my soul and body, this here stooping do fairly 
 malvc my back open and shut ! " he exclaimed, straightening 
 himself slowly with an excruciated look till quite upright. 
 ^'And you, maidy Tess, you wasn't well a day or two ago — 
 this will make yom' head ache finely. Don't do any more, 
 if you feel fainty ; leave the rest to finish it.'' 
 
 Dairyman Crick withdi'ew, and Tess dropped behind. 
 Mr. Clare also stepped out of line, and began privateering 
 about for the weed. When she found him near her, her 
 very tension at what she had heard the night before made 
 her the first to speak. 
 
 ''■ Don't they look pretty ? " she said. 
 
 ^^Whof" 
 
 " Izzy Huett and Retty." 
 
 Tess had moodilv decided that either of these maidens 
 would make a good farmer's wife, and that she ought to 
 recommend them, and obsciu'e her own wretched charms. 
 
 '' Pretty ? Well, yes, they are pretty girls — fresh-looking. 
 I have often thought so.'^ 
 
 " Though, poor things, prettiness won't last long." 
 
 ^' Oh no, unfortunately." 
 
 ^' Thev be excelleut dair^-women." 
 
 '^ Yes ; though not better than you." 
 
 ^' They skim better than I." 
 
 ^' Do they?" 
 
 Clare remained observing them — not Tvdthout theii' ob- 
 serving him. 
 
 " She is coloring up," continued Tess, heroically. 
 
 ''Who?" 
 
 " Retty Priddle." 
 
 ''O! Whvisthat?" 
 
 '*' Because you are looking at her." 
 
 SeK-sacrificing as her mood might be, Tess could not 
 well go fui-ther and say, '' Marry one of them, if you really 
 
158 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 do want a dairywoman and not a lady ; and don't tliink of 
 marrying me." She followed Dairyman Crick, and had the 
 mournful satisfaction of seeing that Clare remained behind. 
 
 From this day she forced herself to take pains to avoid 
 him — never allomng herself, as formerly, to remain long 
 in his company, even if their juxtaposition was purely ac- 
 cidental. She gave the other three every chance. 
 
 Tess was woman enough to realize from their avowals to 
 herself that Angel Clare had the honor of all the dairy- 
 maids in his keeping, and her perception of his care to 
 avoid compromising the happiness of either in the least 
 degree bred a tender respect in Tess for what she deemed, 
 rightly or wrongly, the self -controlling sense of duty shown 
 by him, a quality which she had never expected to find in 
 one of the opposite sex, and in the absence of which more 
 than one of the simple hearts who were his housemates 
 might have gone weeping on her pilgrimage. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The hot weather of July had crept onward upon them 
 unawares, and the atmosphere of the flat vale hung heavy 
 as an opiate over the daiiy folk, the cows, and the trees. 
 Hot steaming rains fell frequently, making the grass where 
 the cows fed yet more rank, and hindering the late ha}"- 
 making in the other meads. 
 
 It was Sunday morning ; the milking was done ; the 
 outdoor milkers had gone home. Tess and the other three 
 were dressing themselves rapidly, the whole four having 
 agreed to go together to Mellstock Church, which lay sonu^ 
 three miles distant from the dairy-house. She had now 
 been two months at Talbothays, and this was her first ex- 
 cursion. 
 
THE RALLY. 159 
 
 All the preceding afternoon and niglit liea\^ thnnder- 
 storms had hissed down upon the meads, and washed some 
 of the hay into the river ; but this morning the sun shone 
 out all the more brilliantly for the deluge, and the air was 
 balmy and clear. 
 
 The crooked lane leading from their otvtl parish to Mell- 
 stock ran along the lowest levels in a portion of its length, 
 and when the girls reached the most depressed spot they 
 found that the result of the rain had been to flood the lane 
 over shoe to a distance of some fifty yards. Tliis would 
 have been no serious hindrance on a w^eek-day ; they woidd 
 have clicked through it in tlieii* liigh pattens and boots 
 quite unconcerned ; but on this day of vanity, this Sun's- 
 day, when flesh went forth to coquet with flesh while hypo- 
 critically affecting business with spiritual things ; on this 
 occasion for wearing their white stockings and thin shoes, 
 and their pink, white, and lilac gowns, on which every 
 mud-spot would be \dsible, the pool was an awkward im- 
 pediment. They could hear the chm-ch-bell calling — as yet 
 nearly a mile off. 
 
 " Who would have expected such a rise in the river in 
 summer-time ! " said Marian, from the top of the roadside 
 bank on which they had climbed, and were maintaining a 
 precarious footing in the hope of creeping along its slope 
 till they were past the pool. 
 
 ^^We can't get there anyhow, mthout walking right 
 thi'ough it, or else going round Stone Bridge way; and 
 that would make us so very late ! " said Retty, pausing 
 hopelessly. 
 
 '^ And I do color up so hot, walking into church late, and all 
 the people staring round," said Marian, " that I hardly cool 
 down again till we get into the ' That-it-may-please-Thees.' " 
 
 While they stood clinging to the bank they heard a 
 splashing round the bend of the road, and presently ap- 
 peared Angel Clare, advancing along the lane toAvards them 
 through the water. 
 
160 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 Four hearts gave a big thi'ol) simultaneously. 
 
 His aspect was probably as un-Sabbatarian a one as a 
 dogmatic parson's son often presented, being attii'ed in his 
 dairy clothes and long wading boots, with a thistle-spud to 
 finish him off. 
 
 "He's not going to church/' said Marian. 
 
 " No — I wish he was/' murmured Tess. 
 
 Angel, in fact, rightly or wrongly (to adopt the safe 
 phrase of evasive controversialists), preferred sermons in 
 ' stones to sermons in churches and chapels on fine simimer 
 days. This morning, moreover, he had gone out to see if 
 the damage to the hay by the flood was considerable or not. 
 On his walk he observed the girls from a long distance, 
 though they had been so occupied with their difficulties of 
 passage as not to notice him. He knew that the water had 
 risen at that spot, and that it would quite check their prog- 
 ress. So he had hastened on, -with a dim idea of how he 
 could help them — one of them in particular. 
 
 The rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed quartet looked so charm- 
 ing in their light summer attire, clinging to the roadside 
 bank like pigeons on a pent-roof, that he stopped a moment 
 to regard them before coming close. Their gauzy skii'ts 
 had brushed up from the gi'ass dimng their promenade 
 innumerable flies and butterflies which, unable to escape, 
 remained caged in the transparent tissue as in an a^dary. 
 Angel's eye at last fell upon Tess, the hindmost of the four ; 
 and, being full of suppressed laughter at their dilemma, she 
 could not help meeting his glance radiantly. 
 
 He came beneath them in the water, which did not rise 
 over his long boots, and stood looking at the entrapped 
 flies and butterflies. 
 
 " Are you trying to get to church ? " he said to Marian, 
 who was in front, including the next two in his remark, 
 but avoidhig Tess. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and 'tis getting late ; and my colors do come 
 up so " 
 
THE EALLY. 161 
 
 ^^ I'll carry you tlu'ough the pool — every Jill of you." 
 
 The whole foui* flushed as if one heart beat through 
 them. 
 
 '■^ I think you can't, sir/' said Marian. 
 
 ^^ It is the only way for you to get past. Stand still. 
 Nonsense, you are not too hea\'y ! I'd carry you all four 
 together." 
 
 ''Now, Marian, attend," he continued, "and put your 
 arms round my shoulders, so. Now! Hold on. That's 
 well done." 
 
 Marian had lowered herself upon his arm and shoulder 
 as du'ected, and Angel strode off with her, his slim figure, 
 as viewed from behind, looking like the mere stem to the 
 great nosegay suggested by hers. They disappeared round 
 the curve of the road, and only his sousing footsteps and 
 the top ribbon of Marian's bonnet told where they were. 
 In a few minutes he reappeared. Izz Huett was the next 
 in order upon the bank. 
 
 ''Here he comes/' she murmured, and they could hear 
 that her Hps were dry mth emotion, " and I have to put 
 my arms round his neck and look into his face as Marian 
 did." 
 
 There's nothing in that," said Tess, quickly. 
 There's a time for ever}i:hing," continued Izz, unheed- 
 ing. " A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from em- 
 bracing ; the first is now going to be mine." 
 
 " Fie — it is Scripture, Izz ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Izz, " I've always a' ear at church for good 
 verses." 
 
 Angel Clare, to whom three-quarters of this performance 
 was a commonplace act of kindness, now approached Izz ; 
 she quietly and dreamily lowered herself into his arms, and 
 Angel methodically marched off with her. Wlien he was 
 heard returning for the third time, Retty's throbbing heart 
 could be almost seen to shake her. He went up to the red- 
 haired girl, and, while he was seizing her he glanced at 
 11 
 
 
162 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Tess. His lips could not have pronounced more plainly, 
 '^ It will soon be you and I." Her comprehension appeared 
 in her face ; she could not help it. There was an under- 
 standing between them. 
 
 Poor little Retty, though by far the lightest weight, was 
 the most troublesome of Clare's burdens. Marian had been 
 like a sack of meal, or dead weight of plumpness under 
 which he had literally staggered. Izz had ridden sensibly 
 and calmly. Retty was a bunch of hysterics. 
 
 However, he got through with the disquieted creature, 
 deposited her, and returned. Tess could see over the hedge 
 the distant three in a gToup, standing as he had placed 
 them on the next rising ground. It was now her turn. 
 She was embarrassed to discover that the excitement. at the 
 proximity of Mr. Clare's breath and eyes, which she had 
 contemned in her companions, was intensified in herself ; 
 and as if fearful of betraying her secret, she paltered with 
 him at the last moment. 
 
 ^^ I may be able to clim' along the bank, perhaps, sir — I can 
 dim' better than they. You must be so tii-ed, Mr. Clare ! " 
 
 ^' No, no, Tess ! " said he, quickly. And almost before she 
 was aware she was seated in his arms and resting against 
 his shoulder. 
 
 '^ Three Leahs to get one Rachel," he whispered. 
 
 " They are better women than I," she replied, magnani- 
 mously sticking to her resolve. 
 
 ^' Not to me," said Angel. 
 
 He felt her grow warm at this ; and they went some 
 steps in silence. 
 
 ^^ I hope I am not too heavy," she said, timidly. 
 
 " Oh no. You should lift Marian ! Such a lump ! You 
 are like an undulating billow warmed by the sun. And aU 
 this fluff of muslin about you is the froth." 
 
 " It is very pretty — if I seem like that to you." 
 
 '^ Do you know that I have undergone three quarters of 
 this labor entirely for the sake of the fourth quarter ? " 
 
THE RALLY. 163 
 
 " No.'' 
 
 ^^ I did not expect such an event to-day." 
 
 " Nor I. . . . The water came up so sudden." 
 
 That the rise in the water was what she understood him 
 to refer to, the state of her breathing behed. Clare stood 
 still, and inclined his face towards hers. 
 
 " O Tessie ! " he said, pressing close against her. 
 
 The gii-l's cheeks biu-ned to the breeze, and she could not 
 look into his eyes for her emotion. It reminded Angel that 
 he was somewhat unfairly taking advantage of an acci- 
 dental position, and he went no further T\ith it. No definite 
 words of love had crossed then- lips as yet, and suspension 
 at this point was desirable now. However, he walked 
 slowly, to make the remainder of the distance as long as 
 possible ; but at last they came to the bend, and the rest 
 of theu^ progress was in full view of the other three. The 
 dry land was reached, and he set her down. 
 
 Her friends were looking with round, thoughtful eyes at 
 her and him, and she could see that they had been talking 
 of her. He hastily bade them farewell, and splashed back 
 along the stretch of submerged road. 
 
 The four moved on together as before, till Marian broke 
 the silence by saying, " No — in all truth, we have no chance 
 against her ! " She looked joylessly at Tess. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked the latter. 
 
 '^ He likes 'ee best — the very best ! We could see it as 
 he brought 'ee. He would have kissed 'ee if you had en- 
 couraged him to do it, ever so little." 
 
 " No, no," said she. 
 
 The gaiety with which they had set out had somehow 
 vanished ; and yet there was no enmity or mahce between 
 them. They were generous young souls; they had been 
 reared in the lonely country nooks where fatalism is a 
 strong sentiment, and they did not blame her. Such sup- 
 planting was to be. 
 
 Tess's heart ached. There was no concealing from her- 
 
164 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 self the fact that she loved Angel Clare, perhaps all the 
 more passionately from knowing that the others had also 
 lost their hearts to him. There is contagion in this senti- 
 ment, especially among women. And yet that same hnngry 
 heart of hers compassionated her friends. Tess's honest 
 nature had fought against this, but too feebly, and the 
 natural result had followed. 
 
 ^'I will never stand in your way, nor in the way of 
 either of 'ee ! " she declared to Retty that night in the bed- 
 room (her tears running down). ^^ I can't help this, my 
 dear ! I don't think marrying is in his mind at all ; but if 
 he were even to ask me I should refuse him, as I should 
 refuse any man." 
 
 " O ! would you ? Why ? " said wondering Retty. 
 
 "It cannot be. But I mil be lA-din. Putting myself 
 quite on one side, I don't think he will choose either of you." 
 
 " I have never expected it — thought of it ! " moaned 
 Rettv. " But O ! I wish I was dead ! " 
 
 The poor child, torn by a feeling which she hardly under- 
 stood, turned to the two other girls who came upstairs just 
 then. 
 
 " We be friends with her again," she said to them. " She 
 thinks no more of his choosing her than we do." So the 
 reserve went oif, and they were confiding and warm. 
 
 " I don't seem to care what I do now," said Marian, whose 
 mood was tuned to its lowest bass. " I was going to marry 
 a dairyman at Sticklef ord, who's asked me twice ; but — my 
 word — I would put an end to myself rather'n be his wife 
 now ! Why don't ye speak, Izz ? " 
 
 " To confess, then," said Izz, " I made sure to-day that 
 he was going to kiss me as he held me ; and I stayed still 
 against his shoulder, hoping and hoping, and never moved 
 at all. But he did not. I don't like biding here at Talbo- 
 thays any longer. I shall go home." 
 
 The air of the sleeping-chamber seemed to palpitate with 
 the hopeless passion of the girls. They writhed feverishly 
 
THE RALLY. 165 
 
 under the oppressiveness of an emotion tlirust on them by 
 cruel Nature's h\w — an emotion which they had neither 
 expected nor denied. The incident of the day had fanned 
 the flame that was biu'ning the inside of theii' hearts out, 
 and the torture was ahnost more than they could endiu-e. 
 The differences which distinguished them as individuals 
 were abstracted by this passion^ and each was but portion 
 of one organism called sex. There was so much frankness 
 and so little jealousy because there was no hope. Each one 
 was a girl of fail' common sense, and she did not delude 
 herseK with any vain conceits, or deny her love, or give 
 herself aii's, in the idea of outshining the others. The full 
 recognition of the futility of their infatuation, from a social 
 point of \dew ; its purposeless beginning ; its seK-bounded 
 outlook J its lack of everything to justify its existence in 
 the eye of civihzation (while lacking nothing in the eye of 
 Nature) ; the one fact that it did exist ecstasizing them to a 
 killing joy — all this imparted to them a resignation, a dig- 
 nity, which a practical and sordid expectation of mnning 
 him as a husband would have destroyed. 
 
 They tossed and turned on their little beds, and the 
 cheese-A\Ting dripped monotonously downstairs. 
 
 '' B' you awake, Tess ? " whispered one, half an houi- later. 
 It was Izz Huett's voice. 
 
 Tess replied in the affirmative; whereupon also Retty 
 and Marian suddenly flung the bedclothes off them, and 
 sighed, " So be we ! " 
 
 '^ I wonder what she is like — the lady they say his family 
 have looked out for him." 
 
 '' I wonder," said Izz. 
 
 '^ Some lady looked out for him?" gasped Tess, starting. 
 ^' I have never heard o' that ! " 
 
 ^^ Oh yes, ^tis whispered a young lady of his own rank, 
 chosen by his family, a Doctor of Di^dnity's daughter near 
 his father's parish of Emminster ; he don't much care for 
 her, they say. But he is sure to marry her/^ 
 
166 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Tliey had heard so very little of this, yet it was enough 
 to build up wretched dolorous dreams upon, there in the 
 shade of the night. They pictured all the details of his 
 being won round to consent, of the wedding preparations, 
 of the bride's happiness, of her dress and veil, of her bliss- 
 ful home with him, when obli\don would have fallen upon 
 themselves as far as he and their love were concerned. 
 Thus they talked, and ached, and wept till sleep charmed 
 their sorrow away. 
 
 After this disclosure Tess nourished no further foolish 
 thought that there lurked any grave and deliberate import 
 in Clare's attentions to her. It was a passing summer love 
 of her face, for love's own temporary sake — nothing more. 
 And the thorny crown of this sad conclusion was that she 
 whom he really did prefer in a cursory way to the rest, she 
 who knew herseK to be more impassioned in nature, clev- 
 erer, more beautiful than they, was in the eyes of society 
 far less worthy of him than the homelier ones whom he 
 ignored. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Amid the oozing fatness and warm ferments of the Var 
 Vale, at a season when the rush of juices could almost be 
 heard below the hiss of fertilization, it was impossible that 
 the most fanciful love should not grow passionate. The 
 ready hearts existing there were impregnated by their siu'- 
 roundings. 
 
 July passed over their heads, and the Thermidorean 
 weather which came in its wake seemed an effort on the 
 part of Nature to match the state of hearts at Talbothays 
 Dairy. The air of the place, so fresh in the spring and 
 early summer, was stagnant and enervating now. Its 
 heavy scents weighed upon them, and at midday the land- 
 
THE RALLY. 167 
 
 scape seemed lying in a swoon. Ethiopic scorchings 
 browned the upper slopes of the pastures, but there was 
 still bright green herbage here where the water-courses 
 purled. And as Clare was oppressed by the outward heats, 
 so was he burdened inwardly by a waxing fervor of passion 
 for the soft and silent Tess. 
 
 The rains having passed, the uplands were dry. The 
 wheels of the daiiyman's spring cart, as he sped home from 
 market, licked up the pulverized surface of the highway, 
 and were followed by white ribands of dust, as if they had 
 set a thin powder-train on fire. The cows jumped wildly 
 over the five-barred barton-gate, maddened by the gadfly ; 
 Dairyman Crick kept his sliirt-sleeves permanently rolled 
 up past his elbows from Monday till Saturday ; open win- 
 dows produced no effect in ventilation without open doors, 
 and in the dairy-garden the blackbirds and tkrushes crept 
 about under the currant-bushes, rather in the manner of 
 quadrupeds than of winged creatures. The flies in the 
 kitchen were lazy, teasing, and familiar, crawling about in 
 unwonted places, on the floor, into drawers, and over the 
 backs of the milkmaids' hands. Conversations were con- 
 cerning sunstroke, while butter-making, and still more, 
 butter-keeping, was a despair. 
 
 They milked entirely in the meads for coolness and con- 
 venience, without driving in the cows. During the day 
 the animals obsequiously followed the shadow of the small- 
 est tree at hand, as it moved round the stem with the diur- 
 nal roll; and when the milkers came they could hardly 
 stand still for the flies. 
 
 On one of these afternoons four or five unmilked cows 
 chanced to stand apart fi-om the general herd, behind the 
 corner of a hedge, among them being Dumpling and Old 
 Pretty, who loved Tess's hands above those of any other 
 maid. When she rose from her stool under a finished 
 cow, Angel Clare, who had been musingly observing her 
 for some time as she milked, asked her if she would take 
 
168 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 the aforesaid creatures next. She silently assented, and 
 with, her stool at arm's length, and the pail against her 
 knee, she went round to where they stood. Soon the sound 
 of Old Pretty's milk fizzing into the pail came through the 
 hedge, and then Angel felt inclined to go round the corner 
 also, to finish off a hard-pelding milcher who had strayed 
 there, he being now as capable of this as the dairyman 
 himself. 
 
 All the men, and some of the women, when milking, dug 
 their foreheads into the cows and gazed into the pail. But 
 a few — mainly the younger ones — rested their heads side- 
 ways. This was Tess Dui'beyfield's habit, her temple press- 
 ing the milcher's flank, her eyes fixed on the far end of the 
 meadow with the gaze of one lost in meditation. She was 
 milking Old Pretty thus, and the sun chancing to be on the 
 milking side, it shone flat upon her pink-gowned form, and 
 her white curtain-bonnet, and upon her profile, rendering 
 it dazzlingly keen, as a cameo cut from the dun background 
 of the cow. 
 
 She did not know that Clare had followed her round, 
 and that he sat under his cow watching her. The abso- 
 lute stillness of her head and features was remarkable -, she 
 might have been in a trance, her eyes open, yet unseeing. 
 Nothing in the picture m.oved but Old Pretty's tail and 
 Tess's pink hands, the latter so gently as to be a rhythmic 
 pulsation only, conveying the fancy that they were obejdng 
 a merely reflex stimulus, like a beating heart. 
 
 How very lovable her face was to him ! There was 
 nothing ethereal about it ; all was real Adtality, real warmth, 
 real incarnation. Yet when all was thought and felt that 
 could be thought and felt about her features in general, it 
 was her mouth which turned out to be the magnetic pole 
 thereof. Eyes almost as deep and si^eaking he had seen 
 before, and cheeks perhaps as fair ; brows as arched, a chin 
 and throat almost as shapely; her mouth he had seen 
 nothing at all to equal on the face of the earth. To a 
 
THE RALLY. 169 
 
 young man with the least fire in him, that little upward 
 lift in the middle of her top lip was distracting, infatuating, 
 maddening. He had never before seen a woman's lips and 
 teeth which forced upon his mind, with such persistent 
 iteration, the old Elizabethan simile of roses filled with 
 snow. Perfect, he, as a lover, might have called them off- 
 hand. But no ; they were not perfect. And it was the 
 touch of the imperfect upon the intended perfect that gave 
 the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity. 
 
 Clare had studied the curves of those lips so many hours 
 that he could reproduce them mentally with comparative 
 ease 5 and now, as they again confronted him, clothed ^dth 
 color and life, they sent an amxt over his flesh, a cold 
 breeze through his nerves, which well-nigh produced a 
 qualm ; and actually produced, by some mysterious physi- 
 ological process, a prosaic sneeze. 
 
 She then became conscious that he was obser\dng her 5 
 but she would not show it by any change of position, though 
 the curious dream-like fixity disappeared, and a close eye 
 might easily have discerned that the rosiness of her face 
 slowly deepened, and then faded till only a tinge of it was 
 left. 
 
 The stimulus that had passed into Clare like an annun- 
 ciation from the sky did not die doTMi, Resolutions, reti- 
 cences, prudences, fears, fell back like a defeated battalion. 
 He jumped up from his seat, and, leaving his pail to be 
 kicked over if the milcher had such a mind, went quickly 
 towards the desii-e of his eyes, and, kneeUng down beside 
 her, clasped her in his arms. 
 
 Tess was taken completely by surprise, and she jdelded 
 to his embrace with unreflecting inevitableness. Ha\'ing 
 seen that it was really her lover who had advanced, and no 
 one else, her lips parted, and she sank upon him in her mo- 
 mentary joy, wdtli something very like an ecstatic cry. 
 
 He had been on the point of kissing that too tempting 
 mouth of hers, but he checked himself, even for tender con- 
 
170 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 science' sake. ^^ Forgive me, Tess dear/' he whispered. " I 
 ought to have asked. I — did not know what I was doing. 
 I do not mean it as a hberty at all — I — am devoted to you, 
 Tessie, dearest, ^Yith all my soul." 
 
 Old Pretty by this time had looked round, puzzled ; and 
 seeing two people crouching under her where, according 
 to immemorial custom, there should have been only one, 
 hfted her hind leg crossly. 
 
 " She is angry — she doesn't know what we mean — she'll 
 kick over the milk ! " exclaimed Tess, gently striving to free 
 herself, her eyes concerned with the quadruped's actions, 
 her heart more deeply concerned with herself and Clare. 
 
 " Let me lift you up — lean upon me." 
 
 He raised her from her seat, and they stood together, his 
 arm still encircling her. Tess's eyes, fixed on distance, be- 
 gan to fill. 
 
 ^' Why do you cry, my darling ? " he said. 
 
 " O — I don't know ! " she murmured regretfully. As she 
 saw and felt more clearly the position she was in, she be- 
 came agitated, and tried to withdraw. 
 
 ''Well, I have betrayed my feeling, Tess, at last," said 
 he, with a cimous sigh of desperation, signifying, uncon- 
 sciously, that his heart had outrun his judgment. " That 
 I love you dearly and truly I need not say. But I — it shall 
 go no further now — it distresses you — I am as surprised as 
 you are. You mil not think I have presumed upon your 
 defencelessness — been too quick and unreflecting, ^vill you ?" 
 
 "I don't know! " 
 
 He had reluctantly allowed her to free herself ; and in a 
 minute or two the milking of each was resumed. Nobody 
 had beheld the unpremeditated gravitation of the two into 
 one ; and when the dairyman came round by that screened 
 nook a few minutes later there was not a sign to reveal 
 that the markedly sundered pair were more to each other 
 than mere acquaintance. Yet, in the interval since Crick's 
 last view of them, something had occurred which changed 
 
THE RALLY. 171 
 
 the pivot of the universe for theii* two natures — whilst it 
 should last -, something which, had he known its quahty, 
 the dairjTiian would have despised, as a practical man, yet 
 which was based upon a more stubborn and resistless ten- 
 dency than a whole heap of so-called practicalities. A veil 
 had been whisked aside ; the tract of each one's outlook 
 was to have a new horizon thenceforward — for a short 
 time or for a long. 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Clare, restless, went out into the dusk as soon as even- 
 ing drew on, she who had won him having retired to her 
 chamber. 
 
 The night was as sultry as the day. There was no cool- 
 ness after dark unless on the grass. Roads, garden paths, 
 the house fronts, the barton walls were warm as hearths, 
 and reflected the noontide temperature into the noctam- 
 buhst's face. 
 
 He sat on the east gate of the dairy-yard, and knew not 
 what to think of himself. Feehng had indeed smothered 
 judgment that day. 
 
 Since the sudden embrace, three hours before, the twain 
 had kept apart. She seemed fevered, almost alarmed, at 
 what had occurred, while the novelty, unpremeditation, 
 mastery of cii'cumstances disquieted him — palpitating, con- 
 templative being that he was. He could hardly reaUze 
 their true relations to each other as yet, and what their 
 mutual bearing should be before thu'd parties thencefor- 
 ward. 
 
 Angel Clare had come as pupil to this dairy in the idea 
 that his temporary existence here was to be the merest 
 episode in his life, soon passed through and early forgotten ; 
 he had come as to a place from which as from a screened 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 173 
 
 alcove he could calmly \dew the absorbing world surging 
 mthout, and, apostrophizing it with Walt Whitman — 
 
 Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, 
 How curious you are to me ! — 
 
 resolve upon a plan for plunging into that world anew. 
 But, behold, the absorbing scene had been imported hither, 
 and what had been the engrossing world had dissolved 
 into an uninteresting, outer dumb show ; while here, in this 
 apparently dim and unimpassioned place, novelty had vol- 
 canically started up, as it had never, for hiin, started up 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Every \\indow of the house being open, Clare could hear 
 across the yard each faint and tri^dal sound of the retmng 
 household. That dairy-house, so humble, so insignificant, 
 so piu-ely, to him, a place of constrained sojourn that he 
 had never hitherto deemed it of sufficient importance to be 
 reconnoitred as an object of any quality whatever in the 
 landscape — what was it. now ? The aged and lichened brick 
 gables breathed forth " Stay ! " The windows smiled, the 
 door coaxed and beckoned, the creeper blushed confederacy. 
 A personality within it was so far-reaching in her influence 
 as to spread into and make the bricks, mortar, and whole 
 overhanging sky throb with a burning sensil^iHty. Whose 
 was this mighty personality ! A milkmaid's. 
 
 It was amazing, indeed, to find how great a matter the 
 life of the obscure daiiy had become to him. And though 
 new love was to be held partly responsible for this, it was 
 not solely so. Many besides Angel Clare have learnt that 
 the magnitude of Hves is not as to their external displace- 
 ments, but as to their subjective experiences. The impres- 
 sionable peasant leads a larger, fuller, more dramatic life 
 than the pachydermatous king. Looking at it thus, he 
 found that life had much the same magnitude here as else- 
 where. 
 
174 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Despite his heterodoxy, faults, and weaknesses, Clare 
 was a man with a conscience. Tess was no insignificant 
 creature to toy with and dismiss j but a woman living her 
 precious life — a life which to herself, who endured or en- 
 joyed it, possessed as great a dimension as the life of the 
 mightiest to himself. Upon her sensations the whole world 
 depended to Tess; through her existence all her fellow- 
 creatures existed, to her. The universe itself only came 
 into being for Tess on the particular day in the particular 
 year in which she was born. 
 
 This consciousness upon which he had intruded was the 
 single opportunity of existence ever vouchsafed to Tess by 
 an unsympathetic First Cause — her all 5 her every and only 
 chance. How then should he look upon her as of less con- 
 sequence than himself ; as a pretty trifle to patronizingly 
 caress and grow weary of; and not deal in the greatest 
 seriousness mth the affection which he knew that he had 
 awakened in her — so fervid and so impressionable as she 
 was under her reserve ; in order that it might not agonize 
 and wreck her ? 
 
 To encounter her daily in the accustomed manner would 
 be to develop what had begun. Living in such close rela- 
 tions, to meet meant to fall into endearment ; flesh and 
 blood could not resist it 5 and, ha\dng arrived at no conclu- 
 sion as to the issue of such a tendency, he decided to hold 
 aloof for the present fiom occupations in which they would 
 be mutually engaged. As yet the harm done was small. 
 
 But it was not easy to carry out the resolution never to 
 approach her. He was continually burning to be with her ; 
 driven towards her by every impulse within him. 
 
 He thought he would go and see his friends. It might 
 be possible to sound them upon this. In less than five 
 months his term here would have ended, and, after a few 
 additional months spent upon other farms, he would be 
 fully equipped in agricultural knowledge, and in a position 
 to start on his own account. Would not a farmer want a 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 175 
 
 wife, and slioiild a farmer's wnfe be a drawing-room wax 
 figure, or a woman who understood farming? Notwith- 
 standing the pleasing answer returned to him by the silence, 
 he resolved to go his journey. 
 
 One morning when they sat down to breakfast at Tal- 
 bothays Dauy, some maid observed that she had not seen 
 anything of Mr. Clare that day. 
 
 ''Oh no," said Dairyman Crick. "Mr. Clare has gone 
 home to Emminster to spend a few days wi' his relations." 
 
 For four impassioned ones around that table the sun- 
 shine of the morning went out at a stroke, and the birds 
 muffled their song. But neither girl, by word or gestui*e, 
 revealed her inner blankness. 
 
 " He's getting on towards the end of his time wi' me," 
 added the dairyman, with a phlegm which unconsciously 
 was brutal ; " and so I suppose he is beginning to see about 
 his plans elsewhere." 
 
 " How much longer is he to stay here ? " asked Izz Huett, 
 the only one of the gloom-stricken bevy who could trust her 
 voice with the question. 
 
 The others waited for the daiiyman's answer as if their 
 lives hung upon it ; Eetty, with parted lips, gazing on the 
 table-cloth, Marian with heat added to her redness, Tess 
 throbbing and looking out at the meads. 
 
 " Well, I can't mind the exact day mthout looking at my 
 memorandum-book," replied Crick,'* mth the same intoler- 
 able unconcern. "And even that mav be altered a bit. 
 He'll bide to get a little practice in the calving, out at the 
 straw-yard, for certain. He'll hang on to the end of the 
 year, I should say." 
 
 Four months or so of torturing ecstasy in his society — 
 of "pleasure girdled about with pain." After that the 
 blackness of unutterable night. 
 
 At this moment of the morning Angel Clare was riding 
 along a narrow lane ten miles distant from the breakf asters. 
 
176 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 in the dii'ection of his father's vicarage at Emminster, car- 
 Tjing as well as he could a httle basket which contained 
 some black puddings and a bottle of mead, sent by Mrs. 
 Crick, with her kind respects, to his parents. The white 
 lane stretched before him, and his eyes were nj)on it ; but 
 they were staring into next year, and not at the lane. He 
 loved her ; ought he to marry her ? Dared he to marry 
 her ? "Wliat would his parents and his brothers say ? What 
 would he himself say a couple of years after the event? 
 That would depend upon whether the germs of staunch 
 comradeship (without which no marriage should be made) 
 underlay the temporary emotion, or whether it were a sen- 
 suous joy in her form only, with no substratum of ever- 
 lastingness. 
 
 His f athei^s hill-surrounded httle town, the Tudor church- 
 tower of red stone, the clump of trees near the vicarage, 
 came at last into view beneath him, and he rode down to- 
 wards the well-known gate. Casting a glance in the direc- 
 tion of the church before entering his home, he beheld 
 standing by the vestry-door a group of girls, of ages be- 
 tween twelve and sixteen, apparently awaiting the arrival 
 of some other one, who in a moment became visible in the 
 shape of a figure, somewhat older than the schoolgirls, wear- 
 ing a broad-brimmed hat and highly starched cambric morn- 
 ing-gown, with a couple of books in her hand. 
 
 Clare knew her well. He could not be sure that she ob- 
 served him ; he hoped she did not, so as to render it un- 
 necessary that he should go and speak to her, blameless 
 creature that she was. An overpowering reluctance to 
 greet her made him decide that she had not seen him. The 
 young lady was Miss Mercy Chant, the only daughter of 
 his father's neighbor and friend, whom it was his parents^ 
 quiet hope that he might wed some day. She was great at 
 Antinomianism and Bible-classes, and was plainly going to 
 hold a class now in the vestrv. Clare's mind for a moment 
 flew back to the impassioned, sun-flushed, summer-satui-ated 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 177 
 
 heatliens in Yar Vale, and to the most li\dng, tenderest, in- 
 tensest of tliem all. 
 
 It was on the impulse of the moment that he had resolved 
 to trot over to Emminster, and hence had not wiitten to 
 apprise his mother and father, aiming, however, to arrive 
 about the breakfast hour, before they should have gone out 
 to their parish duties. He was a little late, and they had 
 abeady sat down to the morning meal. The group at table 
 jumped up to welcome him as soon as he entered. They 
 were his father and mother, his brother, the Reverend Felix 
 — curate at a town in the adjoining county, home for the 
 inside of a fortnight — and his other brother, the Reverend 
 Cuthbert, the classical scholar, and Fellow and Dean of his 
 college, down from Cambridge for the long vacation. His 
 mother appeared in a cap and silver spectacles, and his 
 father looked what in fact he was — an earnest, God-fearing 
 man, somewhat gaunt, in years about sixty-five, his pale 
 face lined with thought and purpose. Over then* heads 
 hung the picture of Angel's half-sister, the eldest of the 
 f amity, sixteen years his senior, who had married a mission- 
 ary and gone out to Africa. 
 
 Old Mr. Clare was a clerg-jonan of a type which, within 
 the last twenty years, has dropped out of contemporary 
 Hfe with well-nigh startling suddenness. A spiritual de- 
 scendant in the direct line from Wycliff, Huss, Luther, Cal- 
 vin ; an Evangelical of the Evangelicals, a Conversionist, 
 a man of Apostolic simplicity in life and thought, he had 
 in his youth made up his mind once for all on the deeper 
 questions of existence, and admitted no fm^ther reasoning 
 on them thenceforward. He was regarded even by those 
 of his o^Ti date and school of thinking as extreme ; while, 
 on the other hand, those totally opposed to him were un- 
 willingly won to admiration for his thoroughness, and for 
 the remarkable power he showed in dismissing all question- 
 ing as to principles in his energy for applying them. He 
 loved Paul of Tarsus, liked Saint John, hated Saint James 
 
 12 
 
178 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 as mucli as he dared, and regarded with mixed feelings 
 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. The New Testament was 
 less a Cliiistiad than a Pauliad to his intelligence — less an 
 argument than an intoxication. His creed of determinism 
 was such that it almost amounted to a vice, and quite 
 amounted, on its negative side, to a renunciative philosophy 
 which had cousinship with that of Schopenhauer and Leo- 
 pard!. He despised the Canons and Rubric, swore by the 
 Articles, and deemed himself consistent with the whole cate- 
 gory — which in a way he might have been. One thing he 
 certainly was — sincere. 
 
 To the aesthetic, sensuous, pagan pleasm'e in natural life 
 and womanhood which his son Angel had lately been experi- 
 encing in Var Vale, his temper would have been antipathetic 
 in a high degi'ee had he either by inquiiy or imagination been 
 able to apprehend it. Once upon a time Angel had been 
 so unlucky as to say to his father, in a moment of irritation, 
 that it might have resulted far better for mankind if Greece 
 had been the source of the religion of modern civilization, 
 and not Palestine ; and his father's gi'ief was of that blank 
 description which could not realize that there might lurk a 
 thousandth part of a truth, much less a half truth, or a 
 whole truth, in such a proposition. He had simply preached 
 austerely at Angel for a long time after. But the kindness 
 of his heart was such that he never resented anything for 
 long, and welcomed his son to-day with a smile which was 
 as candidly sweet as a child's. 
 
 Angel sat down, and the place felt like home ; yet he did 
 not so much as formerlv feel himself one of the familv 
 gathered there. Every time that he returned thither he 
 was conscious of this divergence, and smce he had last 
 shared in the \dcarage life it had gro^vn even more dis- 
 tinctly foreign to his own than usual. Its transcendental 
 aspirations — still unconsciously based on the geocentric 
 view of things, a zenithal paradise, a nadiral hell — were as 
 remote from his own as if they had been the dreams of 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 179 
 
 people on another planet. Latterly lie had seen only Life, 
 felt only the great passionate pnlse of existence, un warped, 
 uncontorted, untrammelled by those creeds which futilely 
 attempt to check what wisdom would be content to disci- 
 pline. 
 
 On their part they saw a great difference in him, a grow- 
 ing divergence from the Angel Clare of former tunes. It 
 was chiefl}^ a difference in his manner that they noticed just 
 now, particularly his brothers. He was getting to behave 
 like a farmer ; he flung his legs about ; the muscles of his 
 face had gro^^Ti more expressive ; his eyes looked as much 
 information as his tongue spoke, and more. The manner 
 of the scholar had nearly disappeared ; still more, the man- 
 ner of the drawing-room young man. A prig would have 
 said that he had lost culture, and a prude that he had be- 
 come coarse. Such was the contagion of domiciliary fel- 
 lowship with the Talbothays nymphs and swains. 
 
 After breakfast he walked with his two brothers, non- 
 Evangelical, well-educated, hall-marked young men, correct 
 to their remotest fibre 5 such unimpeachable models as are 
 turned out yearly by the lathe of a systematic tuition. They 
 were both somewhat short-sighted, and when it was the cus- 
 tom to wear a single eyeglass and string they wore a single 
 eyeglass and string ; when it was the custom to wear a dou- 
 ble glass they wore a double glass ; when it was the custom 
 to wear spectacles they wore spectacles straightway, all 
 without reference to the particular variety of defect in their 
 own vision. When Wordsworth was enthroned they carried 
 pocket copies ; and when Shelley was belittled they allowed 
 him to grow dusty on their shelves. When Correggio's 
 Holy Families were admired they admired Correggio's Holy 
 Families ; when he was decried in favor of Velasquez they 
 sedulously followed suit without any personal objection. 
 
 If these two noticed Angel's growing social ineptness, he 
 noticed their growing mental limitations. FeUx seemed to 
 him all Church ; Cuthbert all College. His Diocesan Synod 
 
180 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 and Visitations were the mainsprings of the world to the 
 one ) Cambridge to the other. Each brother candidly recog- 
 nized that there were a few unimportant scores of millions 
 of outsiders in civilized society, i3ersons who were neither 
 University men nor Chui'chmen j but they were to be pitied 
 and tolerated rather than reckoned with and respected. 
 
 They were both dutiful and attentive sons, and were reg- 
 ular in their visits to their parents. Felix, though an off- 
 shoot from a far more recent iDoint in the devolution of 
 theology than his father, was less self-sacrificing and disin- 
 terested. More tolerant than his father of a contradictorv 
 opinion, in its aspect as a danger to its holder, he was less 
 ready than his father to pardon it as a slight to his own 
 teaching. Cuthbert was, upon the whole, the more liberal- 
 minded, though, with greater subtlety, he had not so much 
 heart. 
 
 As they walked along the hill-side. Angel's former feeling 
 revived in liim — namely, that whatever their advantages by 
 comparison with himself, neither saw or set forth life as it 
 really was lived. Perhaps, as with many men, their oppor- 
 tunities of observation were not so good as their opportuni- 
 ties of expression. Neither had an adequate conception of 
 the complicated forces at work outside the smooth and 
 gentle current in which they and their associates floated. 
 Neither saw the difference between local truth and univer- 
 sal truth ; that what the inner world said in their clerical 
 and academic hearing was quite a different thing from 
 what the outer world was thinking. 
 
 " I suppose it is farming or nothing for you now, my 
 dear fellow," Felix was sajdng, among other things, to his 
 youngest brother, as he looked through his spectacles at 
 the distant fields with sad austerity. " And, therefore, we 
 must make the best of it. But I do entreat you to endeavor 
 to keep as much as possible in touch with moral ideals. 
 Farming, of course, means roughing it literally ; but high 
 thinking may go with plain li\dng, nevertheless." 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 181 
 
 ^^ Of course it may/' said Angel. ^' Was it not proved 
 nineteen hundred years ago — if I may trespass upon your 
 domain a little ? Why should you tliink, Felix, that I am 
 likely to drop my high- thinking and moral ideals ? " 
 
 " Well, I fancied, from the tone of your letters and our 
 conversation — it may be fancy only — that you were some- 
 how losing intellectual grasp. Hasn't it struck you, Cuth- 
 bert ? " 
 
 ^'Now, Felix," said Angel, dryly, ^^we are very good 
 friends, you know, each of us treading our allotted cii'cles ; 
 but if it comes to intellectual grasp, I think you, as a con- 
 tented theologian, had better leave mine alone, and inquire 
 what has become of yoiu'S." 
 
 They retui-ned down the hill to dinner, which was fixed 
 at any time at which their father's and mother's morning 
 work in the parish usually concluded. Convenience as re- 
 garded afternoon callers was the last thing to enter into 
 the consideration of unselfish Mr. and Mrs. Clare ; though 
 the three sons were sufftciently in unison on this matter to 
 wish that their parents would conform a little to modern 
 notions. 
 
 The walk had made them hungiy, Angel in particular, 
 who was now an outdoor man, accustomed to the profuse 
 dapes memptce of the dairyman's somewhat coarsely laden 
 table. But neither of the old people had arrived, and it 
 was not till the sons were almost tired of waiting that their 
 parents entered. The self-denying pair had been occupied 
 in coaxing the appetites of some of their sick parishioners, 
 whom they, somewhat inconsistently, tried to keep impris- 
 oned in the flesh, and had totally forgotten their o^vn. 
 
 The family sat down to table, and a frugal meal of cold 
 viands was deposited before them. Angel looked round for 
 Mrs. Crick's black puddings, which he had directed to be 
 nicely grilled, as they did them at the daiiy, and of which 
 he wished his father and mother to appreciate the marvel- 
 lous herbal savors as highly as he did himself. 
 
182 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ^^ All ! you are looking for the black puddings, my dear 
 boy/' observed Clare's mother. '^ But I am sure you will 
 not mind doing without them, as I am sure your father and 
 I shall not, when you know the reason. I suggested to 
 him that we should take Mrs. Crick's kind present to the 
 children of the man who can earn nothing just now because 
 of his attacks of delii'ium tremens ; and he agreed that it 
 would be a great pleasure to them ; so we did." 
 
 ^' Of course/' said Angel, cheerfully, looking round for 
 the mead. 
 
 '^ I found the mead so extremely alcoholic/' continued his 
 mother, ''that it was quite unfit for use as a beverage, but 
 as valuable as rum or brandy in an emergency j so I have 
 put it in my medicine-chest." 
 
 ^' We never drink spirits at this table, on principle," added 
 his father. 
 
 '' But what shaU I tell the dairyman's mfe ? " said Angel. 
 
 " The truth, of course," said his father. 
 
 '' I rather wanted to say we enjoyed the mead and the 
 black puddings very much. She is a kind, jolly sort of 
 body, and is sure to ask me dii'ectly I return." 
 
 " You cannot if we did not," Mr. Clare answered, lucidly. 
 
 " Ah — no ; though that mead was a drop of pretty tipple." 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 "O — 'tis an expression they use down at Talbothays," 
 replied Angel, blushing. He felt that his parents were right 
 in their practice if wrong in their want of sentiment, and 
 said no more. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 It was not till the evening, after family prayers, that 
 Angel found opportunity of broaching to his father one 
 or two subjects near his heart. He had strung himself up 
 to the purpose while kneeling behind his brothers on the 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 183 
 
 carpet, regarding the soles of theii' walking-boots and the 
 little nails in their heels. When the service was over they 
 went out of the room with their mother, and Mr. Clare and 
 himself w^ere left alone. 
 
 The young man first discussed with the elder his plan 
 for the attainment of his position as a farmer on an exten- 
 sive scale — either in England or in the Colonies. His 
 father then told him that, as he had not been put to the ex- 
 pense of sending Angel up to Cambridge, he had felt it his 
 duty to set by a sum of money every year towards the pur- 
 chase or lease of land for him some day, that he might not 
 feel himself unduly slighted. ^^As far as worldly wealth 
 goes," continued his father, ^'you will no doubt stand far 
 superior to your brothers in a few years." 
 
 This considerateness on old Mr. Clare's part led Angel 
 onward to the other and dearer subject. He observed to 
 his father that he was then six-and-twentv, and that when 
 he should start in the farming business he would require 
 eyes in the back of his head to see to all matters — some 
 one would be necessary to superintend the domestic labors 
 of his establishment wliilst he was afield. Would it not be 
 well, therefore, for him to marry ? 
 
 His father seemed to think this idea not unreasonable ; 
 and then Angel put the question : " What kind of wife do 
 you think would be best for me as a thrifty, hard-working 
 farmer ? " 
 
 "A truly Cliristian woman, who will be a help and a 
 comfort to you in your goings-out and youi' comings-in. 
 Beyond that, it really matters little. Such an one can be 
 found ; indeed, my earnest-minded friend and neighbor, 
 Dr. Chant " 
 
 '^ But ought she not primarily to be able to milk cows, 
 churn good butter, make immense cheeses; know how to 
 set hens and tui^keys and rear chickens, to direct a field of 
 laborers in an emergency, and estimate the value of sheep 
 and calves?" 
 
184 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 " Yes ; a farmer's wife ; yes, certainly. It would be de- 
 sii'able." Mr. Clare, the elder, had plainly never thought 
 of these points before. "I was going to add," he said, 
 '' that, for a pure and saintly woman, you will not find one 
 more to your true advantage, and certainly not more to 
 your mother's mind and my own, than your friend Mercy, 
 whom you used to show a certain interest in. It is true 
 that my neighbor Chant's daughter has lately caught up 
 the fashion of the younger clergy round about us for dec- 
 orating the Communion-table — altar, as I was shocked to 
 hear her call it one dav — with flowers and other stuff on 
 festival occasions. But her father, who is quite as opposed 
 to such flummery as I, says that can be cured. It is a 
 mere giiiish outbreak which, I am siu'e, will not be per- 
 manent." 
 
 ^' Yes, yes : Mercy is good and devout, I know. But, 
 father, don't you think that a young woman equally pure 
 and virtuous as Miss Chant, but one who, in place of that 
 lady's ecclesiastical accomplishments, understands the duties 
 of farm Ufe as well as a farmer himself, would suit me in- 
 flnitelv better?" 
 
 His father persisted in his conviction that a knowledge 
 of a farmer's wife's duties came second to a Pauline view 
 of humanity ; and the impulsive Angel, wishing to honor 
 his father's feelings and to advance the cause of his heart 
 at the same time, grew specious. He said that fate or 
 Providence had thrown in his way a woman who possessed 
 every qualification to be the helpmate of an agriculturist, 
 and was decidedlv of a serious turn of mind. He would 
 not say whether or not she had attached herself to tlie 
 sound Low Church Scliool of his father; but she would 
 probably be open to con\dction on that point ; she was a 
 regular church-goer of simple faith ; honest-hearted, recep- 
 tive, intelligent, graceful to a degree, chaste as a vestal, 
 and, in personal appearance, exceptionally beautiful. 
 
 " Is she of a family such as you would care to marry into 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 185 
 
 — a lady, in short ?" asked his startled mother, who had 
 come softly into the study during the conversation. 
 
 " She is not what in common parlance is called a lady," 
 said Angel, unflinchingly, ^^ for she is a cottager's daughter, 
 as I am proud to say. But she is a lady, nevertheless — in 
 feehng and nature." 
 
 " Mercy Chant is of a very good family." 
 
 "Pooh! — what's the advantage of that, mother?" said 
 Clare, quickly. " How is family to avail the wife of a man 
 who has to rough it as I have, and shall have to do?" 
 
 "Mercy is accomplished. And accomplishments have 
 their charm," retui-ned his mother, looking at him through 
 her silver spectacles. 
 
 "As to external accomplishments, what will be the use 
 of them in the life I am going to lead? — while as to her 
 reading, I can take that in hand. She'll be apt pupil 
 enough, as you would say if you knew her. She's brimful 
 of poetry — actualized poetry, if I may use the expression. 
 She lives what paper-poets only write. . . . And she is an 
 unimpeachable Christian, I am sure ; perhaps of the very 
 tribe, genus, and species you desire to propagate." 
 
 " O Angel, you are mocking ! " 
 
 " Mother, I beg pardon. But as she really does attend 
 church almost every Sunday morning, and is a good 
 Christian girl, I am sure you ^Yl\l tolerate any social short- 
 comings for the sake of that quality, and feel that I may do 
 worse than choose her." Angel almost unconsciously waxed 
 enthusiastic on that rather automatic orthodoxy in his be- 
 loved Tess, which (never di'eaming that it might stand him 
 in such good stead) he had been prone to slight when ob- 
 serving it practised by her and the other milkmaids — less 
 on account of his ot\ti scepticism than because of its obvious 
 unrealitv in lives essentiallv natiu*ahstic. 
 
 In their sad doubts as to Avhether their son had himself 
 any right whatever to the title he claimed for the unknown 
 young woman, Mr. and Mrs. Clare began to feel it as an 
 
186 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 advantage not to be overlooked that she at least was sound 
 in her views ; especially as the conjunction of the pair must 
 have arisen by chance or Providence ; for Angel never 
 would have made orthodoxy a condition of his choice. 
 They said finally that it was better not to act in a hurry, 
 but that they would not object to see her. 
 
 Angel therefore refrained from declaring more particu- 
 lars now. He felt that, single-minded and self-sacrificing 
 as his parents were, there yet existed certain latent prej- 
 udices of theirs, as middle-class people, which would re- 
 quire some tact to overcome. For though legally at liberty 
 to do as he chose, and though their daughter-in-law's quali- 
 fications could make no practical difference to theii' lives, 
 in the probability of her li^dng far away fi'om them, he 
 wished for affection's sake not to wound their sentiment in 
 the most important decision of his life. 
 
 He observed his own inconsistencies in dwelling upon 
 accidents in Tess's life as if thev were vital features. It was 
 for herseK that he loved Tess ; her soul, her heart, her sub- 
 stance — not for her skiU in the daily, her aptness as his 
 scholar, and certainly not for her simple, formal faith-pro- 
 fession. Her unsophisticated, open-air existence required 
 no varnish of conventionality to make it palatable to him. 
 He held that education had as yet but little affected the 
 beats of emotion and impulse on which domestic happiness 
 depends. It was probable that, in the lapse of ages, im- 
 proved systems of moral and intellectual training would 
 appreciably, perhaps considerably, elevate the involuntary, 
 and even the unconscious, instincts of human nature ; but 
 up to the present day, cultiu-e, as far as he could see, might 
 be said to have affected only the mental epiderm of those 
 lives wliich had been brought under its influence. This 
 belief was confirmed by his experience of women, which, 
 having latterly been extended from the cultivated middle- 
 class into the rural community, had taught him how much 
 less was the intrinsic difference between the good and wise 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 187 
 
 woman of one social stratum, and the good and wise wo- 
 man of another social stratum, than between the good and 
 bad, the wise and the foolish, of the same stratum or class. 
 
 It was the morning of his departure. His brothers had 
 already left the \dcarage to proceed on a walking tour in 
 the north, whence one was to return to his college, and the 
 other to his curacy. Angel might have accompanied them, 
 but preferred to rejoin his sweetheart at Talbothays. He 
 would have been an awkward member of the party; for, 
 though the most appreciative humanist, the most ideal re- 
 Hgionist, even the finest theologian and Christologist of the 
 three, there was alienation in the standing consciousness 
 that his squareness would not fit the round hole that had 
 been prepared for him. To neither Felix nor Cuthbert had 
 he ventui'ed to mention Tess. 
 
 His mother made him sandwiches, and his father accom- 
 panied him, on his own mare, a little way along the road. 
 Having fau'ly well advanced his own affairs, Angel listened 
 in a willing silence, as they jogged on together through the 
 shady lanes, to his father's account of liis parish difficulties, 
 and the coldness of brother clergymen whom he loved, be- 
 cause of his strict interpretations of the New Testament 
 by the light of what they deemed a pernicious Calvinistic 
 doctrine. " Pernicious ! " said Mr. Clare, with genial scorn j 
 and he proceeded to recount experiences which would show 
 the absurdity of that idea. He told of w^ondrous conver- 
 sions of evil livers of which he had been the instrument, 
 not only amongst the poor, but amongst the rich and well- 
 to-do ; and he also candidly admitted many failures. 
 
 As an instance of the latter, he mentioned the case of a 
 young upstart squire named D'Urberville, living some forty 
 miles off, in the neighborhood of Trantridge. 
 
 " Not one of the ancient D'Urbervilles of Kingsbere and 
 other places?" asked his son. ^'That curiously historic, 
 worn-out family, with its ghostly legend of the coach-and- 
 f our ? " 
 
188 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ^' Oil no. The original D'Urbervilles decayed and disap- 
 peared sixty or eighty years ago — at least, I believe so. 
 This seems to be a new family which has taken the name ; 
 for the credit of the former knightly line, I hope they are 
 spiu'ious, I'm sure. But it is odd to hear you exj)ress in- 
 terest in old families. I thought you set less store by them 
 even than I." 
 
 "You misapprehend me, father; you often do/' said 
 Angel, with a little impatience. " Politically I am sceptical 
 as to the virtue of theii- being old. Some of the wise even 
 among themselves ^ exclaim against their own succession,' 
 as Hamlet puts it ; but lyrically, di'amatically, and even his- 
 torically, I am tenderly attached to them." 
 
 This distinction, though by no means a subtle one, was 
 yet too subtle for Mr. Clare the elder, and he went on with 
 the story he had been about to relate ; wliich was that after 
 the death of the senior so-called D'Urberville the young 
 man developed the most reckless passions, though he had 
 an afflicted mother whose condition should have made him 
 know better. A knowledge of his career having come to 
 the ears of Mr. Clare, when he was in that part of the 
 country preaching missionary sermons, he boldly took oc- 
 casion to speak to him point-blank on his spii'itual state. 
 Though he was a stranger, occupying another's pnlpit, he 
 had felt this to be his dnty, and took for his text the 
 words from St. LiLke, " Thou fool, this night thy soul shall 
 be required of thee." The young man much resented this 
 directness of attack, and in the war of words which followed 
 when they met he did not scruple to publicly insult Mr. 
 Clare, without respect for his gray hau^s. 
 
 Angel flushed with distress. "Dear father," he said, 
 sadly, "I wish you wonld not expose youi-seK to such 
 gratuitous pain from sconndrels ! " 
 
 " Pain ? " said his father, his rugged face shining in the 
 ardor of self-abnegation. " The only pain to me was pain 
 on his account, poor, foolish young man. Do you suppose 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 189 
 
 Ms incensed words could give me any pain, or even his 
 blows ? ' Being reviled we bless 5 being persecuted we suf- 
 fer it ; being defamed we entreat j we are made as the filth 
 of the world, and as the off scorning of all things unto this 
 day.' Those ancient and noble words to the Corinthians 
 are strictly true at this present hour." 
 
 " Not blows, father f He did not proceed to blows ? " 
 " No, he did not. Though I have borne blows from men 
 in a mad state of intoxication." 
 
 " A dozen times, my boy. What then ? I have saved 
 them from the guilt of murdering their own flesh and blood 
 thereby ; and they have lived to thank me, and praise God." 
 
 " May this young man do the same ! " said Angel, fer- 
 vently. " But I fear othermse, from what you say." 
 
 " We'll hope, nevertheless," said Mr. Clare. '^ And I con- 
 tinue to pray for him, though on this side of the grave we 
 shall probably never meet again. But, after all, one of 
 those poor words of mine may spring ivp in his heart as a 
 good seed some day." 
 
 Now, as always, Clare's father was sanguine as a child • 
 and though the younger could not accept his parent's narrow 
 dogma, he revered his practice, and recognized the hero 
 under the pietist. Perhaps he revered his father's practice 
 even more now than ever, seeing that, in the question of 
 making Tess his wife, his father had not once thought of 
 inquii'ing whether she were well provided or penniless. 
 The same unworldliness was what had necessitated Angel's 
 getting a living as a farmer, and would probably keep his 
 brothers in the position of poor parsons for the term of 
 their activities ; yet Angel admired it none the less. In- 
 deed, despite his own heterodoxy. Angel often felt that he 
 was nearer to his father on the human side than either of 
 his brethren. 
 
190 TESS OF THE D'URBEEVILLES. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 An up-liiU and down-dale ride of twenty-odd miles 
 through a clear, garish midday atmosphere brought him in 
 the afternoon to a detached knoll a mile or two west of 
 Talbothays, whence he again looked into that green trough 
 of sappiness and humidity, the valley of the River Var. 
 Immediately he began to descend from the upland to the 
 fat allu\dal soil below the atmosphere gi'ew heavier, the 
 languid perfume of the summer fruits, the mists, the hay, 
 the flowers, formed therein a vast pool of odor which at 
 this hour seemed to make the animals, the very bees and 
 butterflies, di'owsy. Clare was now so familiar with the 
 spot that he knew the individual cows by their names when, 
 a long distance off, he saw them dotted about the meads. 
 It was with a sense of luxurv that he was conscious of his 
 recently acquired power of viewing hf e here from its inner 
 side, in a way that had been quite foreign to him in his 
 student-days ; and, much as he loved liis parents, he could 
 not help being aware that to come here, as now, after an 
 experience of home-life, affected him like throwing off sphnts 
 and bandages ; even the one customary curb on the humors 
 of English rural societies being absent in this place, Tal- 
 bothays having no resident landlord. 
 
 Not a human being was out-of-doors at the dairy. The 
 denizens were all enjoying the usual afternoon nap of an 
 horn- or so which the exceedingly early hours kept in sum- 
 mer-tmie rendered a necessity to those engaged in the 
 butter-making trades. At the door the wood-hooped pails, 
 sodden and bleached by infinite scrubbings, hung like hats 
 on a stand upon the forked and peeled limb of the oak 
 fixed there for that purpose ; aU of them ready and dry for 
 the evening milking. Angel entered, and went through the 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 191 
 
 silent passages of the house to the back quarters, where he 
 hstened for a moment. Sustained snores came from the 
 cart-house, where some of the men were lying down ; the 
 grunt and squeal of sweltering pigs arose from the still 
 farther distance. The large-leaved rhubarb and cabbage 
 plants slept too, their broad limp sm'faces hanging in the 
 sun like haK-closed umbrellas. 
 
 He unbridled and fed his horse, and as he re-entered the 
 house the clock struck three. Three was the afternoon 
 skimming-hour ; and, shortly after the stroke, Clare heard 
 the creaking of the floor-boards above, and then the touch 
 of a descending foot on the staii's. It was Tessas, who in 
 another moment came dowTi before his eyes. 
 
 She had not heard him enter, and hardly realized his pres- 
 ence there. She was yawning, and he saw the red interior 
 of her mouth as if it had been a snake's. She had stretched 
 one arm so high above her coiled-up cable of hair, that he 
 could see its dehcacy above the sunburn; her face was 
 flushed with sleep, and her eyehds hung hea\'y over their 
 pupils. The brim-fulness of her nature breathed from her. 
 It was a moment wlien a woman's soul is more incarnate 
 than at any other time ; when the most spiritual beauty in- 
 clines to the corporeal 5 and sex takes the outside place in 
 her presentation. 
 
 Then those eyes flashed brightly through their filmy 
 heaviness, before the remainder of her face was well awake. 
 With an oddly compounded look of gladness, shyness, and 
 surprise, she exclaimed, " Mr. Clare, how you frightened 
 me — I " 
 
 There had not at first been time for her to think of the 
 changed relations which his declaration had introduced; 
 but the f uU sense of the matter rose up in her face when 
 she encountered Clare's tender look as he stepped forward 
 to the bottom stau*. 
 
 " Dear, darling Tessie ! " he whispered, putting his arm 
 round her, and his face to hers, " Don't, for Heaven's sake, 
 
192 TESS OF THE D'URBER\^LLES. 
 
 Mister me any more. I have hastened back so soon be- 
 cause of you ! " 
 
 Tess's excitable heart beat against his by way of reply ; 
 and there they stood upon the red-brick floor of the entry, 
 the sun slanting in by the window of the front room and 
 through the doorway upon his back, as he held her tiglitly 
 to his breast, upon her declining face, upon the blue veins 
 of her temple, upon her arm, and her neck, and into the 
 depths of her hair. Having been lying down in her clothes, 
 she was warm as a sunned cat. 
 
 At first she would not look straight up at him, but her 
 eyes soon lifted, and his met their violet-black deepness, 
 while she regarded him as Eve at her second waking might 
 have regarded Adam. 
 
 '' I have to go skimming," she pleaded, " and I have on'y 
 old Deb to help me to-day. Mrs. Crick is gone to market 
 wi' Mr. Crick, and Retty is not well, and the others are 
 gone out somewhere, and won't be home till milking." 
 
 As they retreated to the milk-house, Deborah Fyander 
 appeared on the stairs. 
 
 " I have come back, Deborah," said Mr. Clare, upwards. 
 " So I can help Tess with the skimming ; and, as you are 
 tired, I am sure, you needn't come down till milking-time." 
 
 Possibly the Talbothays milk was not very thorouglily 
 skimmed that afternoon. Tess was in a dream, wherein 
 famihar objects appeared as having light and shade and 
 position, but no particular outline. Every time she held 
 the skimmer under the pump to cool it for the work her 
 hand trembled, the ardor of his affection being so palpable 
 that she seemed to flinch under it like a plant in too burn- 
 ing a sun. 
 
 Then he pressed her again to his side, and when she had 
 done running her forefinger round the leads to cut off the 
 cream-edge, he cleaned it in nature's way, for the uncon- 
 strained manners of Talbothays Dairy came convenient 
 now. 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE, 193 
 
 " I may as well say it now as later, dearest," lie resiimed, 
 gently. '' I w^sli to ask you something of a very practical 
 natui'e, wliicli I have been thinking of ever since that day 
 last week in the meads. I shall soon want to marry, and, 
 being a farmer, you see I shall require for my wife a wo- 
 man who knows all about the management of farms. Will 
 you be that woman, Tessie ? " He put it in that way that 
 she might not think he had yielded to an impulse of which 
 his head would disapprove. 
 
 She turned quite careworn. She had bowled to the in- 
 evitable result of proximity, the necessity of loving liim ; 
 but she had not calculated upon this sudden corollary, 
 which, indeed, Clare had put before her without quite mean- 
 ing himself to do it so soon. With pain that was like the 
 bitterness of dissolution, she murmured the words of her 
 indispensable and sworn answer — her indispensable and 
 sworn answer as an honorable woman. " O Mr. Clare — I 
 cannot be your wife — I cannot be ! " The sound of her own 
 decision seemed to break Tess's very heart, and she bowed 
 her face in her gTief. 
 
 "But, Tess ! " he said, amazed at her reply, and holding 
 her still more gTcedily close. "Do you say nof Surely 
 you love me ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, yes ! And I would rather be yours than any- 
 body's in the world," returned the sweet, honest voice of 
 the distressed girl. " But I cannot marry you." 
 
 "Tess," he said, holding her at arm's length, "you are 
 engaged to marry some one else ! " 
 
 " No, no ! " 
 
 " Then why do you refuse me ? " 
 
 " I don't want to marry. I have not thought o' doing it. 
 I cannot. I only want to love you." 
 
 " But why ? " 
 
 Driven to subterfuge, she stammered : " Your father is a 
 parson, and your mother wouldn't like you to marry such 
 as me. She will want you to many a lady." 
 
 13 
 
194 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 '•Nonsense — I have spoken to tliem both. That was 
 partly why I went home." 
 
 " I feel I cannot — never, never ! " she echoed. 
 
 " Is it too sndden to be asked thus^ my Pretty ? " 
 
 " Yes — I did not expect it." 
 
 "If you mil let it pass, please, Tessie, I ^^t11 give you 
 time/' he said. "It was very abrupt to come home and 
 speak to you all at once. I'll not allude to it again for a 
 while." She again took up the shining skimmer, held it 
 beneath the pump, and began anew. But she could not, 
 as at other times, hit the exact under-surface of the cream 
 with the dehcate dexterity requii^d, try as she might; 
 sometimes she was cutting down into the milk, sometimes 
 in the air. She could hardly see, her eyes having filled 
 with two blurring tears drawn forth by a grief which, to 
 this her best friend and dear advocate, she could never 
 explain. 
 
 " I can't skim — I can't ! " she said, tm-ning away from 
 him. 
 
 Not to agitate and hinder her any longer, the gentle 
 Clare began talking in a more general way. " You quite 
 misapprehend my parents. They are the most simple- 
 mannered people alive, and quite unambitious. They are 
 two of the few remaining Evangelical school. Tessie, are 
 you an Evangelical ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " You go to church very regularly, and our parson here 
 is not very High, they teU me." 
 
 Tess's ideas on the views of the parish clergyman, whom 
 she heard every w^eek, seemed to be rather more vague than 
 Clare's, who had never heard him at all. " I ynsh I could 
 fix my mind on what I hear more firmly than I do," she re- 
 marked. " It is often a great sorrow to me." 
 
 She spoke so unaffectedly that Angel was sure in his 
 heart that his father could not object to lier on rehgious 
 grounds, even though she did not know whether her priu- 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 195 
 
 ciples were Higli, Low, or Broad. He himself knew that, 
 in reality, the confused beliefs which she held, apparently 
 imbibed in childhood, were, if anything, Tractarian as to 
 phraseology, and Pantheistic as to essence. Confused or 
 otherwise, to disturb them was his last desire. 
 
 Leave thou thy sister, when she prays, 
 Her early Pleaven, her happy views ; 
 Nor thou with shadow'd hiut confuse 
 
 A life that leads melodious days. 
 
 He had occasionally thought the counsel less honest than 
 musical ; but he gladly conformed to it now. 
 
 He spoke further of the incidents of his visit, of his 
 father's mode of life, of his zeal for his principles 5 she 
 grew serener, and the undulations disappeared from her 
 skimming; as she finished one lead after another, he fol- 
 lowed her, and di'ew the plugs for letting down the milk. 
 
 " I fancied you looked a little downcast when you came 
 in," she ventured to observe, anxious to keep away from 
 the subject of herseK. 
 
 " Yes — well, my father has been talking a good deal to 
 me of his troubles and difficulties, and the subject always 
 tends to depress me. He is so zealous that he gets many 
 snubs and buifetings from people of a different way of 
 thinking from himself, and I don't like to hear of such 
 humiliations to a man of his age, the more particularly as 
 I don't think earnestness does any good when carried so 
 far. He has been telhng me of a very unpleasant scene in 
 which he took part cjuite recently. He went as the deputy 
 of some missionary society to preach in the neighborhood 
 of Trantridge, a place forty miles from here, and made it 
 his business to expostulate with a j^oung rake-hell he met 
 with somewhere about there — son of some landowner up 
 that way, who has an afflicted mother. My father ad- 
 di'essed himself to the gentleman point-blank, and there was 
 quite a disturbance. It was very foolish of my father, I 
 
196 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 must say, to intrude Ms conversation upon a stranger wlien 
 the probabilities were so obvious that it would be useless. 
 But whatever he thinks to be his duty, that he'll do, in 
 season or out of season ; and, of course, he makes many 
 enemies not only among the absolutely vicious, but among 
 the easy-going, who hate being bothered. He says he 
 glories in what happened, and that good may be done in- 
 dii-ectlv ; but I wish he would not so wear himself out now 
 that he is getting old, and would leave such pigs to their 
 wallowing." 
 
 Tess's look had grown hard and worn, and her ripe 
 mouth tragical ; but she no longer showed any tremulous- 
 ness. Clare's revived thoughts of his father prevented him 
 noticing her particularly ; and so they went on do^^m the 
 white row of liquid rectangles till they had finished and 
 drained them off, when the other maids returned, and took 
 the pails, and Deb came to scald out the leads for the new 
 milk. As Tess withdrew, to go a-field to the cows, he said 
 to her softly, "And my question, Tessie?" 
 
 " Oh no — no ! " replied she, with grave firmness, as one 
 who heard anew the moaning and turmoil of her own past 
 in the allusion to Alec D'Urber\'ille. " It canH be ! " 
 
 She went out towards the mead, joining the other milk- 
 maids with a bound, as if trying to make the open air drive 
 away her sad constraint. All the girls drew onward to the 
 spot where the cows were gi^azing in the farther mead, the 
 bevy advancing mth the bold grace of wild animals — the 
 reckless un chastened motion of women accustomed to un- 
 hmited space — in which they abandoned themselves to the 
 air as a swdmmer to the wave. It seemed natural enough 
 to him now that Tess was again in sight to choose a mate 
 from unconstrained Nature, and not from the abodes of 
 Ai-t. 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 197 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Her refusal, tliougli unexpected, did not permanently 
 daunt Clare. His experience of women was great enough 
 for Mm to be aware that the negative often meant nothing 
 more than the preface to the affirmative ; and it was little 
 enough for him not to know that in the manner of the pres- 
 ent negative there lay a great exception to the dallyings of 
 co}Tiess. That she had already permitted him to make love 
 to her he read as an additional assurance, not fully trow- 
 ing that in the fields and pastures to "sigh gratis" is by no 
 means disesteemed ; lov^e-making being here more often ac- 
 cepted inconsiderately and for its own sweet sake than in 
 the carking, airxious homes of the ambitious, where a girl's 
 craving for an establishment paralyzes her natural thought 
 of a passion as an end. 
 
 " Tess, why did you say ' no ' in such a positive way ? " he 
 asked her in the course of a few davs. 
 
 She started. " Don't ask me. I told you — partly. I am 
 not good enough — not worthy enough." 
 
 ^^ How ? Not fine lady enough ? " 
 
 '^^Yes — something like that," murmured she. "Your 
 friends would scorn me." 
 
 " Indeed, vou mistake them — mv father and mother. As 
 
 for my brothers, I don't care " He clasped his fingers 
 
 behind her back to keep her from slipping away. " Now — 
 you did not mean it. Sweet ? — I am sui'e you did not ! You 
 have made me so restless that I cannot read, or play, or do 
 anji^hing. I am in no hurry, Tess, but I want to know — 
 to hear from your o^vn warm lips — that you will some day 
 be mine — any time you may choose ; but some day ? " 
 
 She could only shake her head and look away from him. 
 
 Clare regarded her attentively, conned the characters of 
 
198 TESS OF THE D'URBER'V ILLES. 
 
 her face as if they had been hieroglyphics. The denial 
 seemed real. ^' Then I ought not to hold you in this way — 
 ought I ? I have no right to you — no right to seek out 
 where you are, or walk with you ! Honestly, Tess, do you 
 love any other man ? " 
 
 "How can you ask!'' she said, with continued self -sup- 
 pression. 
 
 " I almost know that you do not. But then, why do you 
 repulse me ? '' 
 
 '' I don't repulse you. I like you to — tell me you love 
 me : and you may always tell me as you go about with me 
 • — oh yes, you may — and never offend me ! " 
 " But you mil not accept me as a husband ? " 
 ''Ah, that's different — it is for 3^our good, indeed, my 
 dearest ! O, believe me, it is only for your sake ! I don't 
 like to give myseK the great happiness o' promising to be 
 yours in that way, because — because I am sure I ought not 
 to do it." 
 
 '' But you will make me happy ! " 
 " Ah — ^you think so, but you don't know ! " 
 At such times as this, apprehending the gi^ounds of her 
 refusal to be her sense of incompetence for the position 
 proper to the wife of a man like himself, he would then say 
 that she was wonderfully well informed and versatile — 
 which was certainly true, her natural quickness, and her ad- 
 miration for him, having led her to pick up his vocabulary, 
 his accent, and fragments of his knowledge, to a surjorising 
 extent. After these tender contests, as they may be called, 
 and her victory, she would go away by herself under the 
 remotest cow, if at milking-time, or into the sedge, or into 
 her room, if at a leisure interval, and mourn silentty, not a 
 minute after an apparently phlegmatic negative. 
 
 The struggle was so fearful : her own heart was so 
 strongly on the side of his — two ardent hearts against one 
 poor little conscience — that she tried to fortify her resolu- 
 tion by eveiy means in her power. She had come to Tal- 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 199 
 
 bothays wdth a made-up mind. On no account could she 
 agree to a step wliicli, by reason of her history, might cause 
 bitter rueing to her husband for liis blindness in Avedding 
 her. And she held that what her conscience had decided 
 for her when her mind w^as unbiassed ought not to be over- 
 rided now. 
 
 For two or three days no more was said. She guessed 
 from the sad countenances of her chamber companions 
 that they regarded her not only as the favorite, but as the 
 chosen ; but they could see for themselves that she did not 
 put herself in his way. 
 
 Tess had never before known a time in which the thread 
 of her life was so distinctly twisted of two strands, positive 
 pleasure and positive pain. At the next cheese-making the 
 pair were again left alone together. The dair}anan him- 
 self had been lending a hand ; but Mr. Crick, as w^ell as his 
 w^if e, seemed latterly to have acquired a suspicion of mutual 
 interest between these tw^o, though they walked so circum- 
 spectly that suspicion was but of the faintest. Anyhow, 
 the dairyman left them to themselves. 
 
 They were breaking up the masses of curd before putting 
 them into the vats. The operation resembled the act of 
 crumbhng bread on a large scale ; and amid the immacu- 
 late whiteness of the curds Tess Durbevfield's hands showed 
 themselves of the pinkness of the rose. Angel, w^ho was 
 filling the vats with his handfuls, suddenly ceased, and laid 
 his hands flat upon hers. Bending lower, he kissed the in- 
 side vein of her soft, bare arm. 
 
 Although the early September weather was sultry, her 
 arm, from dabbling in the curds, was as cold and damp to 
 his mouth as a new^-gathered mushroom, and tasted of the 
 "whey. But she was such a sheaf of susceptibilities that her 
 pulse was accelerated by the touch, her blood was driven to 
 her finger-ends, and the cool arms flushed hot. Then, as 
 though her heart had said, " Is coyness longer necessar}^ ? 
 Truth is truth between man and woman^ as between man 
 
200 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 and man/' she turned up lier eyes, and they beamed de- 
 Yotedl}^ into his as her hp rose in a tender half -smile. 
 
 ^' Do yon know why I did that, Tess ? " he said. 
 
 '^ Because you love me very much," she replied. 
 
 " Yes, and as a preliminary to a new entreaty." 
 
 '' Not again ! " She looked a sudden fear that her resist- 
 ance might break dow^i under her o\^^l desire. 
 
 " Tess ! " he went on, '' I cannot think why you are so 
 tantalizing. Why do you disappoint me so? You seem 
 almost like a coquette, upon my life you do — a coquette of 
 the fii^st ui'ban water ! The}' blow hot and blow cold, just 
 as you do 5 and it is the very last sort of thing to expect 
 to find in a retreat like Talbothays. . . . And yet, dearest," 
 he quickly added, obser\T.ng how the remark had cut her, 
 '' I know you to be the most honest, spotless creature that 
 ever hved. So how can I suppose you a flirt ? Tess, why 
 don't you like the idea of being my wife, if you love me as 
 you seem to do f " 
 
 " I have never said I don't like the idea, and I never could 
 say it ; because — it isn't true ! " The stress now getting be- 
 yond endm-ance, her lip quivered, and she was obhged to 
 go away. 
 
 Clare was so pained and perplexed that he ran after and 
 caught her in the passage. " Tell me, teU me ! " he said, 
 passionately clasping her, in forgetfulness of his curdy 
 hands, " do tell me that you won't belong to anybody but 
 me ! " 
 
 ^^ I will, I will tell vou ! " she exclaimed. " And I wiU 
 give you a complete answer, if you wiU. let me go now, Mr. 
 Clare. I will tell you my experiences — all about myself — 
 all ! " 
 
 " Your experiences, dear ; yes, certainly ; any number." 
 He expressed the assent in loving satire, looking into her 
 face. '' My Tess has, no doubt, almost as many experiences 
 as that wild convolvulus out there on the garden hedge, 
 that opened itself this morning for the fii'st time. TeU me 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 201 
 
 anything, but don't use that wretched expression anj^ more 
 about not being worthy of me." 
 
 '' I TVT.11 not. And I'll give you my reasons to-morrow — 
 next week " 
 
 " Say on Sunday ? " 
 
 "Yes, on Sunday." 
 
 At last she got away, and did not stop in her retreat till 
 she was in the thicket of pollard willows at the lower side 
 of the barton, where she could be quite unseen. Here Tess 
 flung herself down upon the rusthng undergroT\i:h of spear- 
 grass, as upon a bed, and remained crouching in palpitating 
 misery broken by momentary shoots of joy, wliich her fears 
 about the ending could not altogether suppress. 
 
 In reality, she was drifting into acquiescence. Every 
 see-saw of her breath, every wave of her blood, every pulse 
 singing in her ears, was a voice that joined with Nature in 
 revolt against her scrupulousness. Reckless, inconsiderate 
 acceptance of him ; to close with him at the altar, reveahng 
 nothing, and chancing discovery at that first act in her 
 drama; to snatch ripe pleasure before the iron teeth of 
 pain could have time to shut upon her ; that was what love 
 counselled ; and in almost a terror of ecstasy Tess confusedly 
 divined that, despite her many months of lonely self -chas- 
 tisement, wrestlings, communings, schemes to lead a future 
 of austere isolation, love's counsel would prevail. 
 
 The afternoon advanced, and still she remained among 
 the willows. She heard the rattle of the pails when taken 
 down from the forked stands ; the '^ waow-waow ! " which 
 accompanied the getting together of the cows. But she did 
 not go to the milking. They would see her agitation ; and 
 the dairyman, thinking the cause to be love alone, would 
 good-naturedly tease her ; and that harassment could not 
 be borne. 
 
 Her lover must have guessed her overwrought state, and 
 invented some excuse for her non-appearance, for no in- 
 quiiies were made or caUs given. At half -past six the sun 
 
202 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 settled down upon the levels^ with the aspect of a gi-eat 
 forge in the heavens, and presently a monstrous j)umpkin- 
 like moon arose on the other hand. The pollard willows, 
 tortured out of their natural shape by incessant choppings, 
 became spiny-haired monsters as they stood up against it. 
 She went in — and upstairs — without a light. 
 
 It was now Wednesday. Thursday came, aud Angel 
 looked thoughtfully at her from a distance, but intruded in 
 no way upon her. The indoor milkmaids, Marian and the 
 rest, seemed to guess that something definite was afoot, for 
 they did not force any remarks upon her in the bed-cham- 
 ber. Friday passed ; Saturday. To-morrow was the day. 
 
 ''I shall gie way — I shall say yes — I shall let myself 
 marry him — I cannot help it ! " she suddenly whispered, 
 with her hot face to the pillow that night, on hearing one 
 of the other gMs sigh his name in her sleep. "I can't 
 bear to let anybody have him but me ! Yet it is a "WTong 
 to him, and may kill liim when he knows I my heart — 
 0—0—0 ! " 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 '^ Now, who mid ye think I've heard news o' this morn- 
 ing?" said Dairyman Crick, as he sat down to breakfast 
 next day, with a riddling gaze round upon the munching 
 men and maids. "Now just who mid ye think?" 
 
 One guessed, and another guessed. Mrs. Crick did not 
 guess, because she knew already. 
 
 " Well," said the dairyman, "'tis that slack-twisted %ore's- 
 bird of a feller. Jack Dollop. He's lately got married to a 
 widow- woman." 
 
 " Not Jack Dollop ? A ^^llain ?— to think o' that ! " said 
 a. milker. 
 
 Tlie name entered quickly into Tess Durbeyfield's con- 
 

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 \J1 
 
 3 
 O 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 2 
 
 z 
 
 2 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 ?3 
 
 O 
 
 d 
 
 ■a 
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 2 
 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 203 
 
 scioiisness, for it was the name of the lover who had wronged 
 his sweetheart, and had afterwards been so roughly used 
 by the young woman's mother in the butter-chui'n. 
 
 ''And has he married the valiant matron's daughter, as 
 he promised ? " asked Angel Clare, absently, as he turned 
 over the newspaper he was reading at the little table to 
 which he was always banished l^y Mrs. Crick in her sense 
 of his gentility. 
 
 ''Not he, su'. Never meant to," replied the daii'yman. 
 "As I say, 'tis a widow- woman, and she had money, it seems 
 — fifty i^ounds a year or so ; and that was all he was after. 
 They were married in a gi^eat hurry; and then she told 
 him that by marrying she had lost her fifty pounds a year. 
 Just fancy the state o' my gentleman's mind at that news ! 
 Never such a cat-and-dog life as they've been leading ever 
 since ! Serves him well beright. But onluckily the poor 
 woman gets the w^orst o't." 
 
 " Well, the silly body should have told him sooner that 
 the ghost of her first man would trouble him," said Mrs. 
 Crick. 
 
 " Ay, ay," responded the dairjTiian, indecisively. " Still, 
 you can see exactly how it was. She wanted a home, and 
 didn't hke to run the risk of losing him. Don't ye think 
 that was something like it, maidens ? " He glanced towards 
 the row of gu4s. 
 
 " She ought to ha' told him just before they went to 
 church, when he could hardly have backed out," exclaimed 
 Marian. 
 
 "Yes, she ought," agreed Izz. 
 
 " She must have seen what he was after, and should ha' 
 refused him ! " cried Retty, spasmodically. 
 
 " And what do you say, my dear ? " asked the dairjinan 
 of Tess. " Ought women to tell everything at such times ? " 
 
 "I think she ought — to have told him the true state of 
 things — or else refused him — I don't know," replied Tess, 
 the bread-and-butter choking her. 
 
204 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 u 
 
 Be cnst if I'd have done either o't," said Beck Knibbs, 
 a married helper from one of the cottages. "All's fair in 
 love and war. I'd ha' married en just as she did, and if 
 he'd said two words to me about not telling him beforehand 
 an}i:hing whatsomdever about my first chap that I hadn't 
 chose to tell, I'd ha' knocked him down m' the rolhng-pin — 
 a scram little fellow like he ! Any woman could do it." 
 
 The laughter which followed tliis sally was supplemented 
 only by a sorry smile, for form's sake, from Tess. Wliat 
 was comedy to them was tragedy to her ; and she could 
 hardly bear their mirth. She soon rose from table, and, with 
 an impression that Clare would foUow her, she went along 
 a little TNTigghng path, now stepping to one side of the ir- 
 rigating channels, and now to the other, till she stood by 
 the main stream of the Var. Men had been * cutting the 
 water-weeds higlier up the river, and masses of them were 
 floating past her — moving islands of green crowfoot, on 
 which she might almost have ridden ; long locks of which 
 weed had lodged against the piles driven to keep the cows 
 from crossing. 
 
 Yes, there was the pain of it. This question of a woman 
 telling her story — the heaviest of crosses to herself — seemed 
 but amusement to others. It was as if people should laugh 
 at mart}T:'dom. 
 
 " Tess ! " came from behind her, and Clare sprang across 
 the gully, alighting beside her feet. " My mfe — soon ! " 
 
 " No, no ; I cannot. For your sake, dear Mr. Clare j for 
 your sake, I say no." 
 
 " Tess ! " 
 
 " Still I say no ! " she repeated. 
 
 Not expecting this, he had put his arm lightly round her 
 waist the moment, after speaking, beneath her hanging tail 
 of hair. (The younger daiiymaids, including Tess, break- 
 fasted wdth their hair loose on Sunday mornings, before 
 building it up extra high for attending church, a style they 
 could not adopt when milking, because of butting their 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 205 
 
 heads against the cows.) If she had said ^^Yes" instead 
 of "No" he would have kissed her; it had evidently been 
 his intention ; but her determined negative deterred his 
 scrupulous heart. Theu' condition of domiciliary comrade- 
 ship put her, as the woman, to such disadvantage by its 
 enforced intercourse, that he felt it to be unfair to her 
 to exercise any pressure of blandishment which he might 
 have honestly employed had she been better able to avoid 
 him. He released her momentarily imprisoned waist, and 
 withheld the kiss. 
 
 It aU tui-ned on that release of her. What had given her 
 strength to refuse him this time was solely the tale of the 
 mdow told by the dairyman ; and that would have been 
 overcome in another moment. But Angel said no more ; 
 his face was perplexed ; he went away. 
 
 Day after day they met — somewhat less constantly than 
 before, and thus two or three weeks went by. The end of 
 September drew near, and she could see in his eye that he 
 meant to ask her again. 
 
 His plan of procedure was different now. It seemed as 
 though he had made up his mind that her negatives were, 
 after all, only the result of coyness and youth, startled 
 by the novelty of the proposal. The fitful evasiveness of 
 her manner when the subject was under discussion counte- 
 nanced the idea. So he played a more coaxing game ; and 
 while never going beyond words, or attempting the renewal 
 of caresses, he did his utmost orally. 
 
 In this way Clare persistently wooed her — with quiet, 
 never-ceasing pressure — in undertones Like that of the purl- 
 ing milk, gently yet firmly — at the cow's side, at skimmings, 
 at butter-makings, at cheese-makings, among broody poul- 
 try, and among farrowing pigs — as no milkmaid was ever 
 wooed before by such a sort of man. 
 
 Tess knew that she must break down. Neither convic- 
 tions on the moral validity of the previous union, nor a 
 sense of fairness to Clare, could hold out against it much 
 
206 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 longer. She loved hiin so passionateljj and he was so god- 
 Hke in her eyes ; and being, though untrained, instinctively 
 refined, her natiu^e cried for his tutelary guidance. And 
 thus, though Tess kept repeating to herself, ''' I can never 
 be his wife,-' the words were vain. A proof of her weakness 
 lay in the very utterance of what calm strength would not 
 have taken the trouble to formulate. Every sound of his 
 voice beginning on the old subject stirred her with a terri- 
 fying bhss, and she coveted the recantation she feared. 
 
 His manner was — what man's is not ? — so much that of 
 one who would love her, and cherish her, and defend her, 
 under any conditions, changes, charges, or revelations, that 
 her gloom lessened as she basked in it. The season mean- 
 while was drawing onward to the equinox, and though it 
 was still fine, the days were much shorter. The daiiy had 
 again worked by morning candle-light for a long time 5 
 and a fresh renewal of Clare's pleading occui'red one morn- 
 ing between three and four. 
 
 She had run up in her bedgown to his door to call him 
 as usual 5 then had gone back to di'ess and call the others ; 
 and, in ten minutes, was walking to the head of the stairs 
 with the candle in her hand. At the same moment, he 
 came do\Mi his steps from the landing above in his shirt- 
 sleeves, without any shoes, and put his arm across the 
 staii'way. 
 
 " Now, Miss Flirt, before you go down," he said, peremp- 
 torily. '^ It is a fortnight since I spoke, and this won't do 
 any longer. You nmst tell me what you mean, or I shall 
 have to leave this house. My door was ajar just now, and 
 I saw you. For your own safety I must go. You don't 
 know. Well ? Is it to be yes at last ? " 
 
 "I am only just up, Mr. Clare, and — it is too early to 
 take me to task," she pouted. " You need not call me Flirt. 
 'Tis cruel and untrue. Wait till by and by. Please wait 
 till by and by ! I will really think seriously about it be- 
 tween now and then. Let me go downstairs ! " 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 207 
 
 Slie looked a little like v,4iat lie said she was, as, holding 
 the caudle sideways, she tried to smile away the seriousness 
 of her words. 
 
 " Call me Angel, then, and not Mr. Clare." 
 " Angel." 
 
 " Angel, dearest — why not ? " 
 a 'T would mean that I agree, wouldn't it ? " 
 '^ It would only mean that 3'ou love me, even if you can- 
 not marry me ; and you were so good as to own that long 
 
 ago." 
 
 "Very well, then, ^Angel, dearest,' if I must,''^ she mur- 
 mured, looking at her candle, a roguish curl coming upon 
 her mouth, notwithstanding her suspense. 
 
 Clare had resolved never to kiss her until he had ob- 
 tained her promise ; but somehow, as Tess stood there in 
 her prettily tucked-up milking-gown, her hair carelessly 
 heaped upon her head till there should be leism-e to arrange 
 it when skimming and milking were done, he broke his re- 
 solve, and brought his lips to her cheek for one moment. 
 She passed downstau-s very quickly, never looking back 
 at him, or saving another word. The other maids were 
 alread}' down, and the subject was not pm-sued. Except 
 Marian, they all looked wistfully and suspiciously at the 
 pau', in the sad yellow rays which the morning candles 
 emitted in contrast with the fii'st cold signals of the dawn 
 without. 
 
 TMien skimming was done — which, as the milk dimin- 
 ished with the approach of autumn, was a lessening process 
 day by day — Retty and the rest went out. The lovers fol- 
 lowed them. 
 
 "Our tremulous lives are so different from theii's, are 
 they not?" he musingly observed to her, as he regarded 
 the tliree figm-es tripping before him through the frigid 
 pallor of opening da}^ 
 
 " Not so very different, I think," she said. 
 
 " Why do you think that ? " 
 
208 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ^' There be very few women's lives that are not — tremu- 
 lous/' Tess replied, pausing over the new w^ord as if it im- 
 pressed her. " There's more in those three than you tliink." 
 
 ''What is in them?" 
 
 ''Almost — either of 'em/' she began huskily, "would 
 make — perhaps would make — a properer wife than I. And 
 perhaps they love you as well as I — almost." 
 
 " O Tessie ! " 
 
 There were signs that it was an exquisite relief to her to 
 hear the impatient exclamation, though she had resolved 
 so intrepidly to let generosity make one bid against her- 
 self. That was now done, and she had not the power to 
 attempt self-immolation a second time then. They w^ere 
 joined by a milker from one of the cottages, and no more 
 was said on that which concerned them so deeply. But 
 Tess knew that this day would decide it. 
 
 In the afternoon several of the dairyman's household and 
 assistants went doT\m to the meads as usual, a long way 
 from the dairy, where many of the cows were milked with- 
 out being driven home. The supply was getting less, as 
 the animals were advancing in calf, and the supernumerary 
 milkers of the lush green season had been dismissed. 
 
 The work progressed leisurely. Each pailful was poured 
 into tall cans that stood in a large spring wagon which had 
 been brought upon the scene ; and when they were milked 
 the cows trailed awa}^ 
 
 Dairyman Crick, who was there with the rest, his wi'ap- 
 per gleaming miraculously white against the leaden evening 
 sky, suddenly looked at his heav}- watch. 
 
 " Why, 'tis later than I thought," he said. " Begad ! We 
 shan't be soon enough with this milk at the station, if we 
 don't mind. There's no time to-day to take it home and 
 mix it with the T^ulk afore sending off. It must go to sta- 
 tion straight from here. Who'll drive it across ? " 
 
 Mr. Clare volunteered to do so, though it was none of 
 his business, asking Tess to accompany liim. The evening, 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 209 
 
 tlioiigli sunless, had been warm and muggy for the season, 
 and Tess had come out mth her milking-hood only, and 
 naked-armed and jacketless ; certainly not dressed for a 
 drive. She therefore replied by glancing over her scant 
 habiliments ; but Clare gently urged her. She assented by 
 silently relinquishing her pail and stool to the dairyman to 
 take home ; and mounted the spring wagon beside Clare. 
 
 In the diminishing daylight they went along the level 
 roadway through the meads, which stretched away into 
 grayness, and were backed in the extreme mist of distance 
 by the swarthy and abrupt slopes of Egdon Heath. On its 
 summit stood clumps and stretches of fii'-trees, whose tips 
 formed in some spots a saw-notched line upon the sky, and 
 in others appeared like battlemented towers cro^vning black- 
 fronted castles of enchantment. 
 
 They were so absorbed in the sense of being close to each 
 other that they did not begin talking for a long while, the 
 silence being broken only by the clucking of the milk in 
 the tall cans behind them. The lane they followed was so 
 solitar}^ that the hazel-nuts had remained on the boughs 
 till they slipped from theii- shells, and the blackberries hung 
 in heav^^ clusters. Every now and then Angel would fling 
 the lash of his whip round one of these, pluck it off, and 
 give it to his companion. 
 
 The dull sky soon began to tell its meaning by sending 
 
 down herald drops of rain, and the stagnant air of the day 
 
 changed into a fitful breeze which played about theh^ faces. 
 
 The quicksilvery glaze on the rivers and pools vanished ; 
 
 from broad m^irrors of light they changed to lustreless 
 
 sheets of lead, with a surface like a rasp. But that specta- 
 14 
 
210 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 cle did not affect her preoccupation. Her countenance^ a 
 natui'al carnation slightly embrowned by the season, had 
 deepened its tinge with the beating of the rain-di-ops, and 
 a portion of her hair, which the pressure of the cows' flanks 
 had, as usual, caused to tumble down from its fastenings, 
 hung below the curtain of her calico bonnet ; and the rain 
 began to make it clammy, till it hardly was better than sea- 
 weed. 
 
 '^ I ought not to have come, I suppose," she murmured, 
 looking at the sky. 
 
 " I am Sony for the rain," said he. " But how glad I am 
 to have you here ! " 
 
 Remote Egdon disappeared by degrees behind the liquid 
 gauze. The evening grew darker, and the road being crossed 
 by gates, it was not safe to drive faster than at a walking 
 pace. The air was rather chill. 
 
 '' I am so afraid you will get cold, with nothing upon your 
 arms and shoulders," he said, surveying her. '' Creep close 
 to me, and perhaps it won't hurt you much. I should be 
 sorrier still if I did not think that the rain might be helping 
 me." 
 
 She imperceptibly crept closer, and he wi*apped round 
 them both a large piece of sail-cloth which was sometimes 
 used to keep the sun off the milk-cans. Tess held it from 
 slipping off him as well as herself, Clare's hands being oc- 
 cupied. 
 
 " Now we are all right again. Ah — no, we are not ! It 
 runs down into my neck a little, and it must still more into 
 yours. That's better. Your arms are like wet marble, Tess. 
 Wipe them in the cloth. Now, if you stay quiet, you will 
 not get another drop. Well, dear — about that question of 
 mine — that long-standing question ? " 
 
 Tlie only reply that he could hear for a while was the 
 smack of the horse's hoofs on the moistening road and the 
 cluck of the milk in the cans behind them. 
 
 "Do you remember what you said f " 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 211 
 
 " I do/' she replied. 
 
 '^ Before we get home, miiid." 
 
 " I'll trv." 
 
 He said no more then. As they drove the fragment of 
 an old manor-house of Caroline date rose against the sky, 
 and was in due course passed and left behind. 
 
 " That," he observed, to entertain her, " is an interesting 
 old place — one of the several seats which belonged to an 
 ancient Norman family, formerly of great influence in this 
 county — the D'Urbervilles. I never pass one of their resi- 
 dences without thinking of them. There is something very 
 sad in the extinction of a family of renown, even if it is 
 fierce, domineering, feudal renown." 
 
 "Yes," said Tess. 
 
 They crept along towards a point in the expanse of shade 
 before them at which a feeble light was beginning to assert 
 its presence, a spot where, by day, a fitful white streak of 
 steam at intervals upon the dark green background denoted 
 intermittent moments of contact between their secluded 
 world and modern life. Modern life stretched out its steam 
 feeler to this point three or fom' times a day, touched the 
 native existences, and quickly withdrew its feeler again, as 
 if what it touched had been uncongenial. 
 
 They reached the feeble light which came from the smoky 
 lamp of a httle railway station ; a poor enough terrestrial 
 star, yet in one sense of more importance to Talbothays 
 Dairv and mankind than the celestial ones to which it stood 
 in such humiliating contrast. The cans of new milk were 
 unladen in the rain, Tess getting a little shelter from' a 
 neighboring holly-tree. 
 
 Then there was the hissing of a train, which drew up 
 almost silently upon the wet rails, and the milk was rapidly 
 lifted into the van. The hght of the engine flashed for a 
 second upon Tess Durbeyfield's figure, motionless mider 
 the great holly-tree. No object could have looked more 
 foreign to the gleaming cranks and wheels than this un- 
 
212 TESS OF THE D'URBER^TI.LES. 
 
 sophisticated gii'l, with the round bare arms, the rainy face 
 and hair, the suspended attitude of a friendly leopard at 
 pause, the cotton gown of no date or fashion, and the wing- 
 bonnet drooping on her brow. 
 
 She mounted again beside her lover, mth a mute obe- 
 dience characteristic of impassioned natures at times, and 
 when they had wrapped themselves up over head and ears 
 in sail-cloth again, they plunged back into the now thick 
 night. Tess was so receptive that the few minutes of con- 
 tact with the whirl of material progress lingered in her 
 thoughts. 
 
 '^ Londoners will drink it at their breakfasts to-morrow, 
 won't they?" she asked. "Strange people that we have 
 never seen." 
 
 " Yes — I suppose they will. Though not as we send it. 
 When its strength has been lowered, so that it may not get 
 up into their heads." 
 
 '^ Noble men and noble women, ambassadors and centu- 
 rions, ladies and tradeswomen, and babies who have never 
 seen a cow." 
 
 " Well, 3^es ; perhaps ; particularly centui'ions." 
 
 "T\'T:io don't know anything of us, and where it comes 
 from ; or think how we two drive miles across the moor 
 to-night in the rain that it might reach 'em in time ? " 
 
 " We did not drive entirely on account of these precious 
 Londoners ; we drove a httle on our o^Y^l — on account of 
 that anxious matter which you -v^dll, I am sure, set at rest, 
 dear Tess. Now, permit me to put it in this way. You 
 belong to me already, you know; your heart, I mean. 
 Does it not?" 
 
 " You know as well as I. Oh yes — yes ! " 
 
 " Then, if your heart does, why not your hand ? " 
 
 " My only reason was on account of you — on account of 
 a question. I have something to teU you " 
 
 " But suppose it to be entirely for my happiness, and my 
 worldly convenience also ? " 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 213 
 
 " Oh yes ; if it is for your happiness and worldly con- 
 venience. But my life afore I came here — I want " 
 
 " Well, it is for my convenience as well as my happiness. 
 If I have a very large farm, either English or Colonial, you 
 will be invaluable as a wife to me ; better than a woman 
 out of the largest mansion in the country. So please — 
 please, dear Tess — disabuse yom^ mind of the feehng that 
 you '^tlII stand in my way." 
 
 " But my history. I want you to know it — you must let 
 me tell you — vou will not like me so well ! " 
 
 " Tell it if you wish to, dearest. This precious history, 
 then. Yes, I was born at so-and-so. Anno Domini " 
 
 " I was born at Marlott," she said, catching at his words 
 as a help, lightly as they were spoken. "And I grew up 
 there. And I was in the Sixth Standard when I left school, 
 and they said I had great aptness, and should make a good 
 teacher, so it was settled that I should be one. But there 
 was trouble in my family ; my father was not very indus- 
 trious, and he drank a httle." 
 
 '' Yes, yes. Poor child ! Nothing new." He pressed her 
 more closely to his side. 
 
 " And then — there is something very unusual about it — 
 about me." Tess's breath cpuckened. 
 
 " Yes, dearest. Never mind." 
 
 '^ I — I . . . am not a Durbevfield, but a D'Urberville — 
 a descendant of the old family that owned the house we 
 passed. And — we be all gone to nothing ! " 
 
 " A D'Urberville ! . . . Indeed ! And is that aU the 
 trouble, dear Tess ? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered, faintly. 
 
 " Well, why should I love you less after knowing this ? " 
 
 " I was told by the dairyman that you hated old families." 
 
 He laughed. " Well, it is true, in one sense. I do hate 
 the aristocratic principle of blood before everji^hing, and do 
 think that the only pedigTees we ought to resjject as reason- 
 ers are those spiritual ones of the wise and virtuous, with- 
 
214 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 out regard to corporeal paternity. But I am extremely in- 
 terested in this news — yon can have no idea how interested 
 I am. Ai'e not you interested youi'self in being one of 
 that well-known Hne ? " 
 
 " I have thought it interesting — once or twice, especially" 
 since coming here, and knowing that many of the liills and 
 fields I see once belonged to my father's people. But other 
 hills and fields belonged to Retty's people, and perhaps 
 others to Marian's, so that I don't value it iDarticularly." 
 
 " Yes — it is surprising how many of the present tillers of 
 the soil were once owners of it, and I sometimes wonder 
 that a certain school of jDohticians don't make capital of 
 the circumstance ; but they don't seem to know it. ... I 
 wonder that I did not see the resemblance of your name to 
 D'Urber\dlle, and trace the manifest conniption. And this 
 was the carking secret ! " 
 
 At the last moment her courage had failed her, she feared 
 his blame for not telling him sooner ; and her instinct of 
 self-preservation was stronger than her candor. 
 
 "Of coui'se," continued the imwitting Clare, "I should 
 have been glad to know you to be descended exclusively 
 from the long-suffering, dumb, unrecorded rank and file of 
 the English nation, and not from the self-seeking few who 
 made themselves powerful at the expense of the rest. But 
 I am corrupted away from that by my affection for you, 
 Tess [he laughed as he spoke], and made selfish likewise. 
 For your own sake I rejoice in your descent. Society is 
 hopelessly snobbish, and this fact of your extraction may 
 make an appreciable difference to its acceptance of you as 
 my wife, after I have made you the w^ell-read woman that 
 I mean to make you. My mother, too, poor soul, will think 
 so much better of you on account of it. Tess, joii must 
 spell your name correctly — D'Urberville — from this very 
 day." 
 
 " I like the other way rather best." 
 
 " But you must, dearest ! Good heavens ! why, dozens of 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 215 
 
 mushroom millionaires would jump at such a possession ! 
 By the by, there's one of that kidney who has taken the 
 name — where ha\'e I heard of him ? — up in the neighbor- 
 hood of The Chase, I think. Why, he is the very man who 
 had that rumpus with my father I told you of. What an 
 odd coincidence ! " 
 
 " Angel, I think I would rather not take the name ! It 
 is unlucky, perhaps." She was agitated. 
 
 "Now then, ^Mistress Tess D'Urberville, I have you. 
 Take my name, and so you will escape youi's ! The secret 
 is out, so whv should vou anv lono-er refuse me?" 
 
 ^' If it is sure to make you happy to have me as your 
 wife, and you feel that you do wish to marry me, very, very 
 much '' 
 
 " I do, dearest, of com'se ! " 
 
 " I mean, that it is only youi' wanting me very much, and 
 being hardly able to keep alive without me, whatever my 
 offence is, that would make me feel I ought to say I will." 
 
 '' You will — vou do sav it, I know. You ^dU be mine 
 forever and ever." He clasped her close and kissed her. 
 
 " Yes." She had no sooner said it than she burst into a 
 dry, hard sobbing, so violent that it seemed to rend her. 
 Tess was not a hysterical giii by any means, and he was 
 surprised. 
 
 '' Why do you cry, dearest ? " 
 
 " I can't tell — quite ! — I am so glad to think — of being 
 yours, and making you happy." 
 
 '• But this doesn^t seem very much like gladness, my 
 Tessie." 
 
 " I mean — I cry because I have broken down in my vow ! 
 I said I would die unmarried." 
 
 '' But, if you love me, you would Hke me to be your hus- 
 band ? " 
 
 '^ Yes, yes, yes ! But 0, I sometimes wish I had never 
 been born ! " 
 
 " Xow, my dear Tess, if I did not know that you are 
 
216 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 very much excited, and very inexperienced, I should say 
 that remark was not very comj)limentary. How came you 
 to wish that if you care for me ? Do you care for me ? I 
 wish you would prove it in some way." 
 
 "How can I prove it more than I have done?" she cried, 
 in a distraction of tenderness. " Will this prove it more ? " 
 She clasped his neck, and for the first time Clare learnt 
 what an impassioned woman's kisses were like upon the 
 lips of one whom she loved with all her heart and soul, as 
 Tess loved him. " There — now do you beheve ? " she asked, 
 wiping her eyes. 
 
 " Yes. I never i*eally doubted — never, never ! " 
 
 So they di-ove on tlirough the gloom, forming one bundle 
 inside the sail-cloth, the horse going as he would, and the 
 rain di'iving against them. She had consented. She might 
 as well have agreed at first. The " appetite for joy," which 
 stimulates all creation ; that tremendous force which sways 
 humanity to its purpose, as the tide sways the helpless 
 weed, was not to be controlled by vague lucubrations over 
 the social rubric. 
 
 " I must write to my mother," she said. " You don't 
 mind my doing that ? " 
 
 " Of course not, dear, dear child. You are a child to me, 
 Tess, not to know how very proper it is to ^VYite to your 
 mother at such a time, and how wrong it would be in me to 
 object. Where does she live ? " 
 
 '^At the same place — Marlott. On the farther side of 
 Blackmoor Vale." 
 
 " Ah, then I have seen you before this summer " 
 
 " Yes ; at that dance on the green. But you would not 
 dance with me. O, I hope that is of no ill-omen for us 
 now ! " 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE, 217 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Tess "wrote a most toucliing and urgent letter to her 
 niotlier the very next day, and by the end of the week a re- 
 sponse to her communication arrived in Joan Durbeyfield's 
 wandering, last-century hand. 
 
 "Dear Tess, — 
 
 " J write these few lines hoping they will find you well, 
 as they leave me at present, thank God for it. Dear Tess, 
 we are all glad to hear that you are really going to be mar- 
 ried soon. But with respect to your question, Tess, J say 
 between ourselves, quite private but very strong, that on 
 no account do you say a word of your bygone trouble to 
 him. J did not tell everything to youi- father, he being so 
 proud on account of his respectability, which, perhaps, your 
 Jntended is the same. Many a woman — some of the High- 
 est in the Land — have had a Trouble in their time 5 and 
 why should you Trumpet yours when others don't Trumpet 
 theirs ? No girl would be such a fool, especially as it is so 
 long ago, and not your Fault at all. J shall answer the 
 same if you ask me Fifty Times. Besides, you must bear 
 in mind that, knowing it to be your childish nature to tell 
 all that's in your heart — so simple ! — J made you promise 
 me never to let it out by Word or Deed, having your Wel- 
 fare in my Mind ; and you solemnly did promise going 
 from this Door. J have not mentioned either that question 
 or your combing marriage to your father, as he would blab 
 it everywhere, poor Simple Man. 
 
 " Dear Tess, keep up your Spirits, and we mean to send 
 you a Hogshead of Cider for your wedding, knowing there 
 is not much in your parts, and thin Sour Staff what there 
 
218 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 is. So no more at present, and with kind love to your 
 Young Man, 
 
 ^' From voiu* affectionate Motlier, 
 
 "J. DURBEYFIELD." 
 
 " O mother, mother ! " mui-mured Tess. 
 
 She was recognizing how light was the touch of events 
 the most oppressive upon Mrs. Diu'beyfield's elastic spirit. 
 
 Her mother did not see life as Tess saw it. That haunt- 
 ing experience of the past, of which the scar still remained 
 upon her soul, concealed as it might be by overgrowi:hs, 
 was to her mother but a passing accident. But perhaps 
 her mother was right as to the course to l)e f ollow^ed, what- 
 ever she might be in her reasons. Silence seemed, on the 
 face of it, best for her adored one's happiness : silence it 
 should be. 
 
 Thus steadied hj sl command from the only person in the 
 world who had any shadow of right to control her action, 
 Tess grew calmer. The responsibility was shifted, and her 
 heart was lighter than it had been for weeks. The days of 
 declining autumn which followed her assent, beginning mth 
 the month of October, formed a season through which she 
 lived in spiritual altitudes more nearly approaching ecstasy. 
 than any other period of her life. 
 
 There was hardly a touch of earth in her love for Clare. 
 To her sublime trustfulness he was all that goodness could 
 be — knew all that a guide, philosopher, and friend should 
 know. She thought every Une in the contour of his person 
 the perfection of masculine beauty, his soul the soul of a 
 saint, his intellect that of a seer. The wisdom of her love 
 for him, as love, sustained her dignity ; she seemed to be 
 wearing a cro\\ai. The compassion of his love for her, as 
 she saw it, made her lift up her heart to him in devotion. 
 He would sometimes catch her large, worshipful eyes, that 
 had no l)ottom to them, looking at him from their depths, 
 as if she saw something immortal before her. 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 219 
 
 She dismissed the past — trod upon it and put it out, as 
 one treads on a coal that is smouldering and dangerous. 
 
 She had not known that men coidd be so disinterested, 
 chivalrous, protective, in theu' love for women as he. 
 Angel Clare was far from all that she thought him in this 
 respect j but he was, in truth, more spiritual than animal ; 
 he had himself well in hand, and was singularly free from 
 grossness. Though not cold-natured, he was rather bright 
 than hot — less Byronic than Shelleyan ; could love desper- 
 ately, but his love more especially inchned to the imagina- 
 tive and ethereal ; it was a fastidious emotion which could 
 jealously guard the loved one against his very self. This 
 amazed and enraptured Tess, whose slight ej^periences had 
 been so inf ehcitous till now ] and in her reaction from in- 
 dignation against the male sex she swerved to excess of 
 honor for Clare. 
 
 They unaffectedly sought each other's company ; in her 
 honest faith she did not disguise her desii'e to be with him. 
 The sum of her instincts on tliis matter, if clearly stated, 
 would have been that the elusive quality in her sex which 
 attracts men in general must be distasteful to so perfect a 
 man after an avowal of love, since it must in its verv nature 
 carry with it a suspicion of art. 
 
 The country custom of unreserved comradeship out-of- 
 doors dimng betrothal was the only custom she knew, and 
 to her it had no strangeness ; though it seemed oddly an- 
 ticipative to Clare till he saw how normal a thing she, in 
 common with all the other dairy-folk, regarded it. Thus, 
 during this October month of wonderful afternoons they 
 roved along the meads b}^ creeping paths which followed 
 the brinks of trickling tributary brooks, hopping across by 
 little wooden bridges to the other side, and back again. 
 They were never out of the sound of some purling weii', 
 whose buzz accompanied their own murmuring, while the 
 beams of the sun, almost as horizontal as the mead itself, 
 formed a pollen of radiance over the landscape. They saw 
 
220 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 tiny blue fogs in the shadows of trees and hedges all the 
 time that there was bright sunshine elsewhere. The sun 
 was so near the ground, and the sward so flat, that the 
 shadows of Clare and Tess would stretch a quarter of a 
 mile ahead of them, like two long fingers pointing afar to 
 where the green alluvial reaches abutted against the sloping 
 sides of the vale. 
 
 Men were at work here and there — for it was the season 
 for " taking up " the meadows, or digging the little water- 
 ways clear for the mnter irrigation, and mending their 
 banks where trodden down by the cov/s. The shovelfuls 
 of loam, black as jet, brought there by the river when it 
 was as wide as the whole valley, wxre an essence of soils, 
 pounded champaigns of the past, steej)ed, refined, and sub- 
 tilized to extraordinarv richness, out of which came all the 
 fertility of the mead, and of the cattle grazing there. 
 
 Clare hardily kept his arm round her waist in sight of 
 these watermen, with the air of a man who was accustomed 
 to pubUc dalliance, though actually as shy as she who, with 
 lips parted and eyes askance on the laborers, wore the look 
 of a wary animal the while. 
 
 "You are not ashamed of owning me as yours before 
 them ? " she said, gladly. 
 
 " Oh no— no ! " 
 
 " But if it should reach the ears of your friends at Em- 
 minster that you be walking about like this mth me, a 
 milkmaid " 
 
 " The most bewitching milkmaid ever seen." 
 
 " They might feel it a hurt to their dignity." 
 
 "My dear girl — a D'Urber\ille hurt the dignity of a 
 Clare ! It is a grand card to play — that of your belonging 
 to such a family, and I am reser\dng it for a grand effect 
 when we are married, and have the proofs of your descent 
 from Parson Tringham. Apart from that, my future is to 
 be totally foreign to my family's — it will not affect even the 
 surface of their lives. We shall leave this part of England 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 221 
 
 — perhaps England itself — and what does it matter how 
 people regai'd us here ? You will like going, will you not ? " 
 
 She could answer no more than a bare affirmative, so 
 great was the emotion aroused in her at the thought of go- 
 ing through the world with him as his own familiar friend. 
 Her feelings ahnost filled her ears like a babble of waves, 
 and sm'ged up to her eyes. She put her hand in his, and 
 thus they went on, to a place where the reflected sun glared 
 up from the river, under a bridge, with a molten-metallic 
 glow that dazzled their eyes, though the sun itself was 
 hidden by the bridge. They stood still, whereupon little 
 furred and feathered heads popped uj) from the smooth 
 surface of the water ; but, finding that the disturbing pres- 
 ences had paused and not passed by, they disappeared 
 again. Upon this river-brink they lingered till the fog 
 began to close round them — which was very early in the 
 evening at this time of the year — settling on the lashes of 
 her eyes, where it rested like crystals, and on his brows 
 and hair. 
 
 They walked later on Sundays, when it was. quite dark. 
 Some of the daiiy-people, who were also out-of-doors on 
 the fii'st Sunday evening after their engagement was sus- 
 pected, heard her impulsive speeches, ecstasized to frag- 
 ments, though they were too far off' to hear the words dis- 
 coursed ; heard the spasmodic catch in her remarks, broken 
 into syllables by the leapings of her heart between joy and 
 fear, as she walked leaning on his arm ; noted her con- 
 tented pauses, the occasional httle laugh, upon which her 
 soul seemed to ride — the laugh of a woman in company 
 with the man she loves and has won from all other women 
 — unlike anything else in civilization. They saw the buoy- 
 ancv of her tread, like the skim of a bird which has not 
 quite alighted. 
 
 Her affection for him was now the breath and life of 
 Tess's being ; it enveloped her as a photosphere, ii-radiated 
 her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back 
 
222 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to 
 touch her — doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew 
 that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circum- 
 scribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep 
 them in hungry subjection there. 
 
 A spu'ituai forgetfulness coexisted with an intellectual 
 remembrance. She walked in bi'ightness, but she knew that 
 in the background those shapes of darkness were always 
 spread. They might be receding, or they might be ap- 
 proaching, one or the other, a little every day. 
 
 One evening Tess and Clare were obliged to sit indoors 
 keeping house, all the other occupants of the domicile being 
 away. As they talked she looked admiringly up at him, 
 and met his two appreciative eyes. 
 
 " I am not worth}^ of you — no, I am not ! " she bui'st out, 
 jumping up from her low stool with ^\ald suddenness, as 
 though appalled at liis homage, and the fulness of her o^ti 
 joy thereat. 
 
 Clare, deeming the whole basis of her excitement to be 
 that which was only the smaller part of it, said, '' I won't 
 have you speak like it, dear Tess ! Distinction does not 
 consist in the facile use of a contemptible set of conven- 
 tions, but in being numbered among those who are true, 
 and honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good re- 
 port — as you are, my Tess." 
 
 She struggled with the sob in her throat. How often 
 had that string of excellences made her young heart ache 
 in church of late years, and how strange that he should 
 have cited them now. 
 
 " Wliy didn't you stay and love me when I — was sixteen ; 
 living with my little sisters and brothers, and you danced 
 on the green ? 0, why didn't you, why didn't you ! " she 
 cried, impetuously clasping her hands. 
 
 Angel began to soothe and reassure her, thinking to 
 himself, truly enough, what a creature of moods and im- 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 223 
 
 pulses slie was, and hoAv careful he would have to be of 
 her when she depended for her happiness entu*ely on 
 him. 
 
 '' Ah — why didn't I come ! " he said, sentimentally. ^' That 
 is just what I feel. If I had only known ! But you must 
 not be so bitter in your regret — why should you be ? " 
 
 With the woman's instinct to hide compromising events, 
 she answered hastily : 
 
 " I should have had three vears more of vour heart than 
 I can ever have now. Then I should not have wasted my 
 time as I have done — I should have had so much longer 
 happiness." 
 
 It was no mature woman with a long dark vista of in- 
 trigue l^ehind her who was tormented thus by her past ; but 
 a girl of simple life, not yet one-and-twenty, who had been 
 caught during her days of immaturity like a bird in a 
 springe. To calm herself the more completely, she arose 
 from her little stool and left the room, overturning the 
 stool with her skirts as she went. 
 
 He sat on by the cheerful fii-elight thrown from a bundle 
 of green ash-sticks laid across the dogs ; the sticks snapped 
 pleasantly, and hissed out bubbles of sap from theii* ends. 
 When she came back she was herself again. 
 
 ^^ Do you not think you are just a wee bit capricious, fit- 
 ful, Tess ? " he said, good-humoredly, as he spread a cushion 
 for her on the stool, and seated himself in the settle beside 
 her. "I wanted to ask you something, and just then you 
 ran awav." 
 
 ^'Yes, perhaps I am capricious," she murmui'ed. She 
 suddenly approached him, and put a hand upon each of his 
 arms. '' No, Angel, I bain't really so — by nature, I mean ! " 
 The more particularly to assure him that she was not, 
 she placed herself close to him in the settle, and allowed 
 her head to find a resting-place against Clare's shoulder. 
 '' What did 3'ou want to ask me — I am sure I T\aQ answer 
 it," she continued, humblv. 
 
224 TESS OF THE D'UKBERVILLES. 
 
 li 
 
 Well, you love me, and have agreed to many me, and 
 hence there follows a thirdly, ^ When shall the day be ? ' " 
 
 '^ I like living like this." 
 
 ^^Bnt I must think of starting in business on my own 
 hook with the new year, or a little later. And before I get 
 involved in the multifarious details of my new position, I 
 should like to have secured my partner." 
 
 '^ But," she timidly answered, " to speak quite practically, 
 wouldn't it be best not to marry tiU after all that ? — though 
 I can't bear the thought o' youi' going away and leaving 
 me here ! " 
 
 " Of course you cannot — and it is not best in this case. 
 I want you to help me in many waj^s in making my start. 
 When shall it be ? Why not a fortnight from now ? " 
 
 " No," she said, becoming grave ; " I have so many things 
 to think of first." 
 
 " But " He drew her gently nearer to him. 
 
 The reality of marriage was startling now that it loomed 
 so near. Before discussion of the question had proceeded 
 further, there walked round the corner of the settle into the 
 full firelight of the apartment Mr. Dauyman Crick, Mrs. 
 Crick, and two of the milkmaids. 
 
 Tess sprang like an elastic ball from his side to her feet, 
 while her face flushed, and her eyes shone in the fireliglit. 
 
 '^ I knew how it would be if I sat so close to him ! " she 
 cried, with vexation. "I said to myself, they are sure to 
 come and catch us ! But I wasn't really sitting on his knee, 
 though it might have seemed as if I was almost ! " 
 
 "Well — if so be you hadn't told us, I am sure we 
 shouldn' ha' noticed that you had been sitting anywhere at 
 aU, in this light," replied the dairyman. He continued to 
 his wife, with the mien of a man who understood nothing 
 of the emotions relating to matrimony : '' Now, Christian- 
 ner, that shows that folk should never fancy other folks 
 be supposing things when they bain't. Oh no, I should 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 225 
 
 never ha' tlioiight of her sitting on his knee if she hadn't 
 told me — not I/' 
 
 '' We are going to be married soon/' said Clare, with im- 
 provised phlegm. 
 
 " Ah — and be ye ! Well, I am truly glad to hear it, sir. 
 I've thonght yon mid do such a thing for some time. She's 
 too good for a dairjonaid — I said so the very iii'st day I saw 
 her — and a prize for any man ; and what's more, a wonder- 
 ful woman for a gentleman-farmer's wife ; he w^on't be at 
 the mercy of his baily wi' her at his side." 
 
 Somehow Tess disappeared. She had been even more 
 struck with the look of the girls who followed Crick than 
 abashed by Crick's blunt praise. 
 
 After supper, when she reached her bedroom, they were 
 all present. A light was burning, and each girl was sit- 
 ting up in her bed, awaiting Tess, the whole like a row of 
 avenging ghosts. 
 
 But she saw in a few moments that there was no malice 
 in theh^ mood. They could scarcely feel as a loss what they 
 had never expected to have. Their condition was objective, 
 contemplative. 
 
 ^' He's going to marry her ! " mui'miu-ed Retty, never tak- 
 ino' her eves off Tess. " How her face do show it ! " 
 
 ''You he going to marry liim?" asked Marian. 
 
 " Yes," said Tess. 
 
 '' When ? " 
 
 " Some day, perhaps." 
 
 They thought that this was evasiveness only. "Yes — go- 
 ing to marry him — a gentleman ! " repeated Izz Huett. And 
 by a sort of fascination the three girls, one after another, 
 crept out of theii* beds, and came and stood barefooted 
 round Tess. Retty put her hands upon Tess's shoulders, as 
 if to realize her friend's corporeality after such a miracle, 
 and the other two laid their arms round her waist, all look- 
 ing into her face. 
 
 15 
 
226 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ''' How it do seem ! Almost more than I can think of ! " 
 said Izz Huett. 
 
 Marian kissed Tess. ^' Yes," she murmured. 
 
 " Was that because of h)ve for her, or because other lips 
 touched there b}^ now ? " continued Izz, diyly, to Marian. 
 
 ^' I wasn't thinking o' that," said Marian, sinijDly. •' I was 
 on'y feeling all the strangeness o't — that she is to be his 
 wife, and nobody else. I don't say nay to it^ nor either of 
 us, because we did not think of it — only loved him. Still, 
 nobody else is to maiTy him in the world — no fine lady, 
 nobody in jewels and gold, in silks and satins j but she 
 who, do live like w^e." 
 
 "Are you sure you don't dislike me for it?" said Tess, in 
 a low voice. 
 
 They hung about her in their flowing white nightgowns 
 before replying, as if they considered their answer might 
 lie in her look. " I don't know — I don't know/' murmured 
 Retty Priddle. " I want to hate 'ee ) but I cannot ! " 
 
 "That's how I feel," echoed Izz and Marian. "I can't 
 hate her. Somehow she do hinder me ! " 
 
 " He ought to marry one of you," murmured Tess. 
 
 ■" Why ? " 
 
 " You are aU better than I." 
 
 "We better than you?" said the gii'ls, in a low, slow 
 whisper. " No, no, dear Tess ! " 
 
 " You are ! " she contradicted, impetuously. And sud- 
 denly tearing away from their clinging arms, she burst 
 into- a hysterical fit of tears, bowing herself on the chest of 
 dra^^ers, and repeating incessantly, " Oh yes, yes, 3^es ! " 
 
 Haying once given way, she could not stop her weeping. 
 
 "He -ought to have had one of you ! I think I ought to 
 make hiin even now ! You would be better for him than 
 — I don't know what I am saying. O ! O ! " 
 
 They went up to her and clasped her round, but still her 
 sobs tore her. "Get some water," said Marian. "She's 
 upset by us, poor thing, poor thing ! " They gentty led her 
 
"they hcxg about hkr in their flowing white nightgowns." 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 227 
 
 back to the side of her bed, where they kissed her warmly. 
 " You are best for'n/' said Marian. '' More ladylike, and a 
 better scholar than we, especially since he has taught 'ee 
 so much. But even you ought to be proud. You he proud, 
 I'm sui'e ! '^ 
 
 " Yes, I am," she said -, " and I am ashamed at so break- 
 ing down ! " 
 
 When they were all in bed, and the light was out, Marian 
 whispered across to her, " You will think of us when you 
 be his wife, Tess, and of how we told 'ee that we loved him, 
 and how we tried not to hate you, and did not hate you, 
 and could not hate you, because you were his choice, and 
 we never hoped to be chose by him." 
 
 They were not aware that, at these words, salt, stinging 
 tears trickled down upon Tess's pillow anew, and how she 
 resolved, with a bui'sting heart, to tell all her history to 
 Angel Clare, despite her mother's command — to let him for 
 whom she lived and breathed despise her if he would, and 
 her mother regard her as a fool, rather than preserve a 
 silence which might be deemed a treachery to him, and 
 which somehow seemed a wrong to these. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 This penitential mood kept her from naming the wedding- 
 day. The beginning of November found its date still in 
 abeyance, though he asked her at the most tempting times. 
 But Tess's desh'e seemed to be for a perpetual betrothal, in 
 which everything should remain as it was then. 
 
 The meads were changing now ; but it was still warm 
 enough in early afternoons before milking to idle there 
 awhile, and the state of daiiy-work at this time of year al- 
 lowed a spare hour for idhng. Looking over the damp sod 
 
228 TESS OF THE D'UKBERVILLES. 
 
 in the direction of the sun, a ghstening ripple of gossamer- 
 webs was visible to their eyes under the luminary, hke the 
 track of moonlight on the sea. Gnats, knowing nothing of 
 their brief glorification, wandered across the air above this 
 pathway, irradiated as if they bore fire within them, then 
 passed out of its hue, and were quite extinct. In the pres- 
 ence of these things he would remind her that the date 
 was stni the question. 
 
 Or he would ask her at night, when he accompanied her 
 on some mission invented by Mrs. Crick to give him the 
 opportunity. This was mostly a jom^ney to the farmhouse 
 on the slopes above the vale, to inquire how the advanced 
 cows were getting on in the straw-barton to which they 
 were relegated. For it was a time of the year that brought 
 gi'eat changes to the world of kine. Batches of the animals 
 were sent away daily to this lying-in hospital, where they 
 lived on straw till their calves were born, after which event, 
 and as soon as the calf could walk, mother and offspring 
 were driven back to the dairy. In the interval which elapsed 
 before the calves were sold there was, of course, little milk- 
 ing to be done, but as soon as the calf had been taken away 
 the milkmaids would have to set to work as usual. 
 
 Returning from one of these dark walks, they reached a 
 gi^eat gravel-cM immediately over the levels, where they 
 stood still and listened. The water was now high in the 
 streams, squu'ting through the weirs, and tinkling under 
 culverts ; the smallest gulleys were all full ; there was no 
 taking short cuts anj'wdiere, and foot-passengers were com- 
 pelled to foUow the permanent ways. From the whole ex- 
 tent of the invisible vale came a multitudinous intonation 5 
 it forced upon the fancy that a gi'eat city lay below them, 
 and that the murmur was the vociferation of its populace. 
 
 " It seems like tens of thousands of them," said Tess ; 
 " holding public meetings in their market-places, arguing, 
 preaching, quarrelling, sobbing, groaning, praying, and 
 cursing," 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 229 
 
 Clare was not particularly heeding. ^^Did Crick speak 
 to you to-day, dear, about his not wanting much assistance 
 during the winter months ? '' 
 
 ^'No." 
 
 " The cows are going diy rapidly." 
 
 " Yes/' she answered. " Six or seven went to the straw- 
 barton yesterday, and three the day before, making near 
 twenty in the straw already. Ah — is it that the farmer 
 don't want my help for the cahdng ? O, I am not wanted 
 here any more ! And I have tried so hard to " 
 
 "Crick didn't exactly say that he would no longer re- 
 quire you. But, knowing what oiu* relations were, he said, 
 in the most good-natured and respectful manner possible, 
 that he supposed, on my leaving at Christmas, I should take 
 you with me, and on my asking what he would do without 
 you, he merely observed that, as a matter of fact, it was a 
 time of year when he could do with a very little female 
 help. I am afraid I was sinner enough to feel rather glad 
 that he was in this way forcing your hand." 
 
 " I don't think you ought to have felt glad. Angel. Be- 
 cause 'tis always mournful not to be wanted, even if at the 
 same time 'tis convenient." 
 
 "Well, it is convenient — you have admitted that." He 
 put his finger upon her cheek. " Ah ! " he said. 
 
 "Wliat?" 
 
 " I feel the red rising up at her having been caught ! 
 But why should I trifle so ! We will not trifle — life is too 
 seiious." 
 
 " It is — I saw that before you did." 
 
 She was seeing it then. To dechne to many him after 
 all — in obedience to her emotion of last night — and leave 
 the dairy, meant to go to some strange place, not a daiiy ; 
 for milkmaids were not in request now calving-time was 
 coming on ; to go to some arable farm, where no divine being 
 like Angel Clare was. She hated the thought, and she 
 hated more the thought of going home. 
 
230 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 "So that, seriously, dearest Tess," he continued, "since 
 you will probably have to leave at Christmas, it is in every 
 way desii-able and convenient that I should carry you off 
 then as my property. Besides, if you were not the most 
 uncalculating girl in the world you would know that we 
 could not go on like this forever." 
 
 " I wish we could. That it would always be summer and 
 autumn, and you always courting me, and always thinking 
 as much of me as you have done through the past summer- 
 time ! " 
 
 " I always shall." 
 
 " O, I know you will ! " she cried, with a sudden fervor of 
 faith in him. " Angel, I will fix the day when I will be- 
 come yours for always." Thus at last it was aiTanged be- 
 tween them, during that dark walk home, amid the myriads 
 of liquid voices on the right and left. 
 
 When they reached the dairy Mr. and Mrs. Crick were 
 promptly told — with injunctions to secrecy ; for each of the 
 lovers was desirous that the marriage should be kept as 
 private as possible. The dairyman, though he had thought 
 of dismissing her soon, now made a great concern about 
 losing her. What should he do about his skimming ? Who 
 would make the ornamental butter-pats for the Melchester 
 and Sandboui'ne ladies? Mrs. Crick congratulated Tess 
 on the shilly-shallying having at last come to an end, and 
 said that directly she set eyes on Tess she di\dned that she 
 was to be the chosen one of somebody who was no common 
 outdoor man ; Tess had looked so genteel and superior as 
 she walked across the barton on that afternoon of her ar- 
 rival ; that she was of a good family she could have sworn. 
 In point of fact, Mrs. Crick did distinctly remember think- 
 ing that Tess was unusually gi'aceful and pretty as she ap- 
 proached ; as for the gentility and superiority, they might 
 have been a growth of the imagination aided by subsequent 
 knowledge. 
 
 Tess was now carried along upon the wings of the hours, 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 231 
 
 wdtlioiit the sense of a will. The word had been given; 
 the number of the day written down. Her naturally bright 
 intelligence had begun to admit the fatalistic convictions 
 common to field-folk and those who associate more exten- 
 sively with natm-al phenomena than with their fellow- 
 creatures; and she accordingly drifted into that passive 
 responsiveness to all things her lover suggested^ character- 
 istic of the frame of mind. 
 
 But she wrote anew to her mother^ ostensibly to notify 
 the wedding-day; really to again implore her advice. It 
 was a gentleman who had chosen her, which perhaps her 
 mother had not sufficiently considered. A post-nuptial ex- 
 planation, which might be accepted with a light heart by a 
 rougher man, might not be received with the same feeling 
 by him. But this communication brought no reply from 
 Mrs. Durbeyfield. 
 
 Despite Angel Clare's plausible representations to himself 
 and to Tess of the practical need for theii' immediate mar- 
 riage, there was, in truth, an element of precipitancy in the 
 step, as became apparent at a later date. He loved her 
 dearly, though perhaps rather ideally and fancifully than 
 with the impassioned thoroughness of her feeling for him. 
 He had entertained no notion, w^hen doomed, as he had 
 thought, to an unintellectual bucolic life, that such charms 
 as he beheld in this idvllic creature w^ould be found behind 
 the scenes. Unsophistication was a thing to talk of ; but 
 he had not known how it really struck one until he came 
 here. But he was very far from seeing his future track 
 clearly, and it might be a year or two before he would be 
 able to consider himself fairlv started in life. The secret 
 lay in the tinge of recklessness imparted to his career and 
 character by the sense that he had been made to miss his 
 true destiny through the prejudices of his family. 
 
 '' Don't vou think 'twould ha' been better for us to wait 
 till you w^ere quite settled in your midland farm ! " she once 
 asked timidly. (A midland farm was the idea just then.) 
 
232 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ^'To tell tlie truth, my Tess, I don't like you to be left 
 anywhere away from my influence and sympathy." 
 
 The reason was a good one, so far as it went. His in- 
 fluence over her had been so marked that she had caught 
 his manner and habits, his speech and phrases, his likings 
 and his aversions. And to leave her in farm-land would 
 be to let her slip back again out of accord with him. He 
 wished to have her under his charge for another reason. 
 His parents had naturally desired to see her once at least 
 before he carried her off to a distant settlement, English or 
 Colonial; and as no opinion of theirs w^as to be allowed to 
 change his intention, he judged that a couple of months' 
 life with him in lodgings whilst seeking for an advantageous 
 opening would be of some social assistance to her at what 
 she might feel to be a trying ordeal — her presentation to 
 his mother at the vicarage. 
 
 Next, he wished to see a little of the working of a flour- 
 mill, ha\ing an idea that he might combine the use of one 
 with corn-growing. The proprietor of a large old water- 
 mill at Wellbridge — once the mill of an abbey — had offered 
 him the inspection of his time-honored mode of procedure, 
 and a hand in the operations for a few days, whenever he 
 should choose to come. Clare paid a \dsit to the place, 
 some few miles distant, one day at this time, to inquire par- 
 ticulars, and retui'ued to Talbothays in the evening. She 
 found him determined to spend a short time at the Well- 
 bridge flour-mills ; and what had determined him ? Less 
 the opportunity of an insight into grinding and bolting 
 than the casual fact that lodgings were to be obtained in 
 that very farmhouse which, before its mutilation, had been 
 the mansion of a branch of the D'Urberville family. This 
 was always how Clare settled practical questions; by a 
 sentiment which had nothing to do with them. They de- 
 cided to go immediately after the wedding, and remain 
 for a fortnight, instead of journeying to towns and inns. 
 "Then we will start off to examine some farms on the 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 233 
 
 other side of London that I have heard of," he said, " and 
 by March or April we will pay a visit to my father and 
 mother.'^ 
 
 Questions of procedure such as these arose and passed, 
 and the day, the incredible day, on w^hich she was to become 
 his, loomed large in the near futui'e. The thirty-first of 
 December, New Year's Eve, was the date. His wife, she 
 said to herself. Could it ever be? Their two selves to- 
 gether, nothing to di\dde them, every incident shared by 
 tliem : why not ? And yet why ? 
 
 One Sunday morning Izz Huett returned from churchy 
 and spoke privately to Tess. 
 
 ^' You was not called home * this morning." 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " It should ha' been the first time of asking to-day," she 
 answered, looking quietly at Tess. "You meant to be 
 married New Yeai-'s Eve, deary ! " 
 
 The other returned a quick affirmative. 
 
 '^ And there must be three times of asking. And now 
 there be only two Sundays left between." 
 
 Tess felt her cheek pahng. Izz was right ; of course 
 there must be tliree. Perhaps he had forgotten. If so, 
 there must be a week's postponement, and that was un- 
 luckv. 
 
 How could she remind her lover ? She who had been so 
 backward was suddenly fired with impatience and alarm 
 lest she should lose her dear prize. 
 
 A natural incident relieved her anxietv. Izz mentioned 
 the omission of the banns to Mrs. Crick, and Mrs. Crick 
 took a matron's privilege of speaking to Angel on the point. 
 
 " Have ye forgot 'em, Mr. Clare. The banns, I mean.'' 
 
 " No, I have not forgot 'em," said Clare. 
 
 As soon as he caught Tess alone he assured her. ''Don't 
 let them tease you about the banns. A hcense ^ill be 
 quieter for us, and I have decided on a Hcense without con- 
 
 * "Called home" — local phrase for publication of banns. 
 
234 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 suiting you. So if you go to church on Sunday morning 
 you will not hear your own name, if you wished to.'^ 
 
 '^ I didn't wish to hear it, dearest/' she said, proudly. 
 
 But to know that things were in train was an immense 
 relief to Tess notwithstanding, who had weU-nigh feared 
 that somebody would stand up and forbid the banns on the 
 ground of her history. How events were favoring her ! 
 
 " I don't feel quite easy," she said to herself. " All this 
 good fortune may be scourged out o' me afterwards by a 
 lot of ill. That's how G-od mostly does. I wish I could 
 have had common banns ! " 
 
 But everything went smoothly. She wondered whether 
 he would like her to be married in her present best white 
 frock, or if she ought to buy a new one. The question was 
 set at rest by his forethought, disclosed by the arrival of 
 some large packages addressed to her. Inside them she 
 found a whole stock of clothing, from bonnet to shoes, in- 
 cluding a perfect morning costume, such as would well suit 
 the simple wedding they planned. He entered the house 
 shortly after the arrival of the packages, and heard her up- 
 stairs undoing them. 
 
 A minute later she came down with a flush on her face 
 and tears in her eyes. 
 
 "How thoughtful you've been ! " she murmured, her cheek 
 upon his shoulder. " Even to the gloves and handkerchief ! 
 My own love — how good, how kind ! " 
 
 "No, no, Tessie; just an order to a tradeswoman in 
 London — nothing more," said he ; and to divert her from 
 thinking too highly of him he told her to go upstairs, and 
 take her time, and see if it all fitted ; and, if not, to get the 
 village seamstress to make a few alterations. 
 
 She did return upstairs, and put on the gown. Alone, 
 she stood for a moment before the glass looking at the effect 
 of her silk attune ; and then there came into her head her 
 mother's ballad of the mystic robe, 
 
 That never would become that wife 
 That had once done amiss, 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 235 
 
 which Mrs. Durbeyfield had used to sing to her as a child, 
 so blithely and so archly, her foot on the cradle, which she 
 rocked to the tune. Suppose this robe should betray her 
 condition by its changing color, as her robe had betrayed 
 Queen Guenever. Since she had been at the dairy she had 
 not once thought of the lines tiU now. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Angel felt that he would like to spend a day mth her 
 before the wedding somewhere away from the dairy, as a 
 last jaunt in her company while they were yet mere lover 
 and mistress ; a romantic day, in circumstances that would 
 never be repeated ; mth that other and greater day beam- 
 ing close ahead of them. During the preceding week, 
 therefore, he suggested making a few pm^chases in the 
 nearest town, and they started together. 
 
 Clare's life at the dairy had been that of a recluse in re- 
 spect to the world of his own class. For months he had 
 never gone near a town, and, requii^ing no vehicle, had 
 never kept one, hiring the dairyman's cob or gig if he rode 
 or 'di'ove. They went in the gig that day. 
 
 And then for the first time in their lives they shopped 
 as partners in one concern, that of theii' future domicile. 
 It was Christmas Eve, with its loads of holly and mistletoe, 
 and the town was very full of strangers who had come in 
 from all parts of the country on account of the day. Tess 
 paid the penalty of walking about with happiness super- 
 added to beauty on her countenance by being much stared 
 at as she moved amid them on his arm. 
 
 In the evening they returned to the inn at which they 
 had put up, and Tess waited in the entry while Angel went 
 to see the horse and gig brought to the door. The general 
 
236 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 sitting-room was full of guests, who were continually going 
 in and out. As the door opened and shut each tune for 
 the passage of these, the light within the parlor fell full 
 upon Tess's face. Two men came out and passed by her 
 among the rest. One of them had stared her up and down 
 in surprise, and she fancied he was a Trantridge man, 
 though that ^nllage lay so many miles off that Trantridge 
 folk w^ere rarities here. 
 
 " A comely maid that," said the other. 
 
 ^^ True, comely enough. But unless I make a gi*eat mis- 
 take " And he negatived the remainder of the remark 
 
 forthwith. 
 
 Clare had just returned from the stable-yard, and, con- 
 fronting the man on the threshold, heard the words, and 
 saw the shrinking of Tess. The insult to her stung him to 
 the quick, and, before he had considered anything at all, he 
 struck the man on the chin with the full force of his fist, 
 sending him staggering backwards into the passage. 
 
 The man recovered himself, and seemed incUned to come 
 on, and Clare, stepping outside the door, put himself in a 
 posture of defence. But his opponent began to think bet- 
 ter of the matter. He looked anew at Tess as he passed 
 her, and said to Clare, " I beg pardon, su^ 5 'twas a complete 
 mistake, I thought she was another woman, forty miles 
 from here." 
 
 Clare, feeling then that he had been too hasty, and that 
 he was, moreover, to blame for leaving her standing in an 
 inn passage, did what he usually did in such cases, gave 
 the man five shillings to plaster the blow ; and thus they 
 parted, bidding each other a pacific good-night. As soon 
 as Clare had taken the reins from the ostler, and the young 
 couple had driven off, the two men went in the other 
 direction. 
 
 " And was it a mistake ? " said the second one. 
 
 " Not a bit of it. But I didn't want to hurt the gentle- 
 man's feelings — not I." 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 237 
 
 In the meantime the Livers were ch-mng onward. " Could 
 we i)iit off our wedding till a little later ? " Tess a§ked, in a 
 di'v, dull voice. "I mean, if we wished?'' 
 
 •• Xo. mv love. Calm vourself Do vou mean that the 
 
 fc «. •- 
 
 fellow mav have time to summon me for assaidt ? " he 
 asked, good-humoredly. 
 
 ••Xo — I only meant — if it should have to be pnt off." 
 
 TVhat she meant was not verv clear, and he dii-ected her 
 to dismiss such fancies fi'om her mind, which she obedi- 
 entlv did as well as she coidd. But she was oTave. verv 
 o-rave. all the wav home : till she thouo-ht, '* We shall o-o 
 awav. a verv lonij distance, hundi'cds of miles from these 
 parts, and such as this can never happen again, and no 
 ghost of the past reach there." Even now, this Trantridge 
 man was the lii*st she had seen in this part of the country 
 diu'ing her residence here. 
 
 They parted tenderly that night on the landing, and 
 Clare ascended to his attic. Tess sat up finishing some 
 little requisites, lest the few remaining days shoidd not 
 afford sufficient time, and. wlide she sat, she heai'd a noise 
 in Angel's room overhead, a sound of thumping and strug- 
 ghng. Eveiybody else in the house was asleep, and, in her 
 anxiety lest Clare should be ill. she ran up and knocked at 
 his door, and asked him what was the matter. 
 
 '• Oh. nothing, dear." he said fi-om within. "I am so sorry 
 I distui'bed vou ! But the reason is rather an amusina- 
 one : I fell asleep and di-eamed that I was fighting that 
 fellow aeain who insulted vou. and the noise vou heard 
 was my pummelling away with my fists at my portmanteau, 
 which I piilled out to-day for packing. I am occasionally 
 liable to these fi-eaks in my sleep. Go to bed, and think 
 of it no more." 
 
 This was the last drachm requu'ed to tm-n the scale of 
 her indecision. Declare the past to him by word of mouth 
 she could not : but there was another wav. She sat do^\'n 
 and wrote on the fotu' pages of a note-sheet a succinct nar- 
 
238 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 rative of those events of three or four years ago; put it 
 into an envelope and directed it to Clare. Then, lest the 
 flesh should again be weak, she crept upstairs without any 
 shoes and sHpped the note under his door. 
 
 Her night was a broken one, as it well might be, and she 
 listened for the first faint noise overhead. It came, as 
 usual; he descended, as usual. She descended. He met 
 her at the bottom of the staii's and kissed her. Surely it 
 was as warmly as ever. 
 
 He looked a little distm'bed and worn, she thought. 
 But he said not a word to her about her revelation, even 
 when they were alone. Could he have had it ? Unless he 
 began the subject, she felt that she could say nothing. So 
 the day passed, and it was evident that whatever he thought 
 he meant to keep to himself. Yet he was frank and affec- 
 tionate as before. Could it be that her doubts were child- 
 ish °? that he forgave her ? that he loved her for what she 
 was, just as she was, and smiled at her disquiet as at a 
 foolish nightmare ? Had he received her note ? She glanced 
 into his room, and could see nothing of it. It might be 
 that he forgave her. But even if he had not received it she 
 had a sudden enthusiastic trust that he surely would forgive 
 her. 
 
 Every morning and night he was the same, and thus New 
 Year's Eve broke — the wedding-day. 
 
 The lovers did not rise at milking-time, having through 
 the whole of this last week of their sojourn at the dahy 
 been accorded something of the position of guests, Tess 
 being honored with a room of her own. When they ar- 
 rived downstairs at breakfast-time they were surprised to 
 see what effects had been produced in the large kitchen to 
 their glory since they had last beheld it. At some unnatural 
 hour of the morning the dairyman had caused the yawning 
 chimney-corner to be whitened, and the brick hearth red- 
 dened, and a blazing yellow damask blower to be hung 
 across the arch in the place of the old grimy blue cotton 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 239 
 
 one mth a black sprig pattern which had formerly done 
 duty here. This renovated aspect of what was the focus 
 indeed of the room on a dull winter morning threw a smil- 
 ing demeanor over the whole apartment. 
 
 " I was determined to do summat in honor o't/' said the 
 daily man. "And as you wouldn't hear of my gieing a 
 rattling good randy i' fiddles and bass-\dols complete, as we 
 should ha' done in old times, this was all I could think o' 
 as a noiseless thing." 
 
 Tess's friends lived so far off that none could conven- 
 iently have been present at the ceremony, even had any 
 been asked ; but as a fact nobody was in\dted from Marlott. 
 As for Angel's family, he had written and duly informed 
 them of the time, and assured them that he would be glad 
 to see one at least of them there for the day if he would hke 
 to come. His brothers had not replied at all, seeming to 
 be indignant with him ; while his father and mother had 
 written a rather sad letter, deploring his precipitancy in 
 rushing into marriage, but making the best of the matter 
 by saying that, though a dairywoman was the last daugh- 
 ter-in-law they could have expected, their son had arrived at 
 an age at which he might be supposed to be the best judge. 
 
 This coolness in his relations distressed Clare less than it 
 would have done had he been without the grand card with 
 which he meant to surprise them ere long. To produce 
 Tess, fresh from the dairy, as a D'Urberville and a lady, 
 he had felt to be temerarious and risky; hence he had 
 concealed her lineage till such time as, familiarized vdth 
 worldly ways by a few months' travel and reading with 
 him, he could take her on a visit to his parents, and im- 
 part the knowledge while triumphant^ producing her as 
 worthy of such an ancient line. It was a pretty lover s 
 dream, if no more. Perhaps Tess's lineage had more value 
 for liimseK than for anybody in the world besides. 
 
 Her perception that Angel's bearing towards her still re- 
 mained in no whit altered by her own communication ren- 
 
240 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 dered Tess guiltily doubtful if lie could have received it. 
 She rose from breakfast bef oi:e he had finished, and hastened 
 upstairs. It occui-red to her to look once more into the 
 queer, gaunt room which had been Clare's den, or rather 
 e}Tie, for so long, and chmbing the ladder, she stood at the 
 open door of the apartment, regarding and pondering. She 
 stooped to the threshold of the doorway, where she had 
 pushed in the note two or three days earlier in such excite- 
 ment. The carpet reached close to the sill, and under the 
 edge of the carpet she discerned the faint white margin of 
 the envelope containing her letter to him, which he ob^dously 
 had never seen, owing to her ha\dng in her haste thrust it 
 beneath the carpet as well as beneath the door. 
 
 With a feeling of faintness she mthdrew the letter. 
 There it was — sealed up, just as it had left her hands. 
 The mountain had not yet been removed. She could not 
 let him read it now, the house being in full bustle of prep- 
 aration ; and descending to her own room, she destroyed 
 the letter there. 
 
 She was so pale when he saw her again that he felt quite 
 anxious. The incident of the misplaced letter, though she 
 had guessed that it might be so, overwhelmed her; what 
 could she do at this late moment? Everything was in a 
 stir; there was coming and going; all had to di'ess, the 
 dairyman and Mrs. Crick having been asked to accompany 
 them as witnesses; and reflection or deliberate talk was 
 well-nigh impossible. The only moment Tess could get to 
 be alone with Clare was when they met upon the landing. 
 
 " I am so anxious to talk to vou — I want to confess all 
 my faults and blunders," she said, mth attempted Hghtness. 
 
 " No, no — we can't have faults talked of — you must be 
 deemed perfect to-day at least, Sweet," he cried. "We 
 shall have i)lcnty of time hereafter, I hope, to talk over our 
 failings. I will confess mine at the same time." 
 
 " But it would be better for me to do it now^ I think^ so 
 that you could not say— 
 
 7? 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 241 
 
 "Well, you shall tell me any tiling — say, as soon as we 
 are settled in our lodging ; not now. I, too, will tell you 
 my faults then. But do not let us spoil the day with them ; 
 they will be excellent matter for a dull time." 
 
 " Then you don't wish me to, dearest ? " 
 
 " I do not, Tess, really." 
 
 The hmTy of dressing and starting left no time for more 
 than this. Those words of his seemed to reassui-e her on 
 further reflection, especially that the subject was one on 
 which he would not have liked to speak to her. She was 
 Avhirled onward through the next couple of critical hom's 
 by the mastering tide of her devotion to him, which closed 
 up fm'ther meditation. Her one desii'e, so long resisted, to 
 make herself his, to call him her lord, her own — then, if 
 necessary, to die — had at last lifted her up from her plod- 
 ding reflective pathway. In dressing, she moved about in 
 a mental cloud of many-colored idealities, which eclipsed 
 all sinister contingencies by its brightness. 
 
 The church was a long way off, and they were obliged to 
 di'ive, particularly as it was "^\'inter. A close carriage was 
 ordered from a roadside inn, a vehicle which had been kept 
 there ever since the old days of post-chaise travelling. It 
 had stout wheel-spokes and heavy felloes, a great curved 
 bed, immense straps and springs, and a pole hke a batter- 
 ing-ram. The postihon was a venerable "boy" of sixty — 
 a martyr to rheumatic gout, the result of excessive exposure 
 in youth, counteracted by strong liquors — who had stood 
 at inn-doors, doiiig nothing, for the whole five-and-twenty 
 years that had elapsed since he had no longer been required 
 to ride professionally, as if expecting the old times to come 
 back again. He had a permanent running wound on the 
 outside of his right leg, originated by the constant bruis- 
 ings of aristocratic carriage-poles during the many years 
 that he had been in regular employ at the Golden Crown, 
 Casterbridge. 
 
 Inside this cumbrous and creaking structure, and behind 
 16 
 
242 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 this decayed conductor, the partie carree took their seats — 
 the bride and bridegroom and Mr. and Mrs. Crick. Angel 
 would have liked one at least of his brothers to be present 
 as groomsman, but their silence after liis gentle hint to that 
 effect by letter had signified that they did not care to come. 
 They disapproved of the marriage, and could not be ex- 
 pected to countenance it. PerhajDS it was well that they 
 could not be present ; they were not worldly young fellows, 
 but fraternizing with dairy-folk would have struck unpleas- 
 antly upon their biassed niceness, apart from their views of 
 the match. 
 
 Upheld by the momentum of the time, Tess knew noth- 
 ing of this ; did not see it ; did not know the road they were 
 taking to the church. She knew that Angel was close to 
 her ; all the rest was a luminous mist. She was a sort of 
 celestial person, who owed her being to poetry — one of 
 those classical divinities Clare was accustomed to talk to 
 her about when they took their walks together. 
 
 The marriage being by hcense, there were only a dozen 
 or so of people in the chui-ch ; had there been a thousand 
 they would have produced no more effect upon her. They 
 were at stellar distances from her present world. In the 
 ecstatic solemnity wdth which she swore her faith to him, 
 the ordinary sensibilities of sex seemed a flippancy. At a 
 pause in the service, while they were kneeling together, she 
 unconsciously inclined herself towards him, so that her 
 shoulder touched his arm ; she had been frightened by a 
 passing thought, and the movement had been automatic, to 
 assure herself that he was really there, and to fortify her 
 belief that his fidelity would be proof against all things. 
 
 Clare knew that she loved him — every curve of her foi-m 
 showed that — but he did not know at that time the full 
 depth of her devotion, its single-mindedness, its meekness ; 
 what long-suffering it guaranteed — what honesty, what en- 
 durance, what good faith. 
 
 As they came out of church the ringers swung the bells 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 243 
 
 off tlieir rests, and a modest peal of three notes broke forth 
 — that Umited amount of expression having been deemed 
 suificient for the Joys of such a small parish. Passing by 
 the tower with her husband on the path to the gate, she 
 could feel the \dbrant air humming round them from 
 the lou\Ted belfry in a circle of sound, and it matched 
 the highly charged mental atmosphere in which she was 
 li\dng. 
 
 Tills condition of mind wherein she felt glorified by an 
 iiTadiation not her own, like the Angel whom St. John saw 
 in the sun, lasted till the sound of the church-bells had died 
 away, and the emotions of the wedding ser\dce had calmed 
 down. 
 
 Her eyes could dwell upon details more clearly now, and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Crick ha^dng du'ected their own gig to be 
 sent for them, to leave the carriage to the young couple, 
 she observed the build and character of that conveyance 
 for the first time. Sitting in silence, she regarded it long. 
 
 '^ I fancy you seem oppressed, Tessie ! " said Clare. 
 
 " Yes," she answered, putting her hand to her brow. ^' I 
 tremble at many tilings. It is all so serious. Angel. Among 
 other things I seem to have seen this carriage before, to be 
 very ^^'ell acquainted with it. It is very odd — I must have 
 seen it in a dream." 
 
 "0 — you have heard the legend of the D'Urberville 
 Coach — that well-known superstition of this county about 
 your family when they were very popular here ; and this 
 lumbering old thing reminds you of it." 
 
 ^' I have never heard of it to my knowledge," said she. 
 "What is the legend — may I know it?" 
 
 " Well — I would rather not tell it in detail just now. A 
 certain D'UrberviUe of the sixteenth or seventeenth century 
 committed a dreadful crime in his family coach ; and since 
 that time members of the family see or hear this old coach 
 
 whenever But I'll teU you another day — it is rather 
 
 gloomy. E^ddently some dim knowledge of it has been 
 
244 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 brought back to your mind by tlie sight of this venerable 
 caravan." 
 
 ^^I don't remember hearing it before/' she murmured. 
 " Is it when we are going to die, Angel, that members of 
 my family see it, or is it when we have committed a crime ? " 
 
 " Now, Tess ! " He silenced her by a kiss. 
 
 By the time they reached home she was contrite and 
 spiritless. She was Mrs. Angel Clare, indeed, but had she 
 any moral right to the name ? Was she not more truly 
 Mrs. Alexander D'UrberviUe ? Could intensity of love jus- 
 tify what might be considered in upright souls as culj^able 
 reticence ? She knew not what was expected of women in 
 such cases ; and she had no counsellor. 
 
 However, when she found herself alone in her room for 
 a few minutes — the last day this on which she was ever to 
 enter it — she knelt do^\Ti and prayed. She tried to pray to 
 God, but it was her husband who really had her suppHca- 
 tion. Her idolatry of this man was such that she herself 
 almost feared it to be ill-omened. She was conscious of 
 the notion expressed by Friar Laui'ence : ^' These ^dolent 
 delights have violent ends." It might be too desperate for 
 human conditions — too rank, too ^^dld, too deadly. " O my 
 love, my love, why do I love you so ! " she whispered there 
 alone ; " for she you love is not my real self, but one in my 
 image ; the one I might have been." 
 
 Afternoon came, and mth it the hour for departure. 
 They had decided to fulfil the plan of going for a few days 
 to the lodgings in the old farmhouse near Wellbridge Mill, 
 at which he meant to reside dui'ing his investigation of 
 flour-processes. At two o'clock there was nothing left to 
 do but start. All the servantry of the daiiy were standing 
 in the red-brick entry to see them go out, the dairjanan and 
 his wife follomng to the door. Tess saw her three cham- 
 ber-mates in a row against the wall, pensively inclining 
 their heads. She had much questioned if they would ap- 
 pear at the parting moment ; but there they were, stoical 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 245 
 
 and staunch to the last. She knew why the dehcate Retty 
 looked so fragile, and Izz so tragically sorrowful, and Mar- 
 ian so blank ; and she forgot her own dogging shadow for 
 a moment in contemplating theii's. 
 
 She impulsively whispered to him: "Will you kiss 'em 
 all, once, poor things, for the first and last time ? " 
 
 Clare had not the least objection to such a farewell for- 
 mahty — which was all that it was to him — and as he passed 
 them he kissed them in succession where they stood, saying 
 " Good-by " to each as he did so. When they reached the 
 door Tess femininely glanced back to discern the effect of 
 that kiss of charity ; there was no triumph in her glance, 
 as there might have been. If there had it would have dis- 
 appeared when she saw how moved the girls all were. The 
 kiss had obviously done harm by awakening feelings they 
 were tr\dng to subdue. 
 
 Of all this Clare was unconscious. Passing on to the 
 wicket-gate he shook hands with the dairyman and his 
 wife, and expressed his last thanks to them for their atten- 
 tions ; after which there was a moment of silence before 
 they had moved off. It was interrupted by the crowing of 
 a cock. The white one A^dth the rose comb had come and 
 settled on the palings in front of the house, within a few 
 yards of them, and his notes thrilled their ears through, 
 dwindling away hke echoes down a vaUey of rocks. 
 
 '' O ? " said Mrs. Crick. " An afternoon crow ? " 
 
 Two men were standing by the yard-gate, holding it 
 open. 
 
 " That's bad," one murmm^ed to the other, not thinking 
 that the words could be heard by the group at the door- 
 wicket. 
 
 The cock crew again — straight towards Clare. 
 
 '' Well ! " said the dairyTuan. 
 
 "I don't like to hear him ! " said Tess to her husband. 
 *^ Tell the man to drive on. Good-by, good-by ! " 
 
 The cock crew again. 
 
246 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 " Hoosh ! Just you be off, sir, or I'll twist your neck ! " 
 said the dairyman with some irritation, turning to the bird 
 and driving him away. And to his wife as they went in- 
 doors : " Now, to think o' that just to-day ! Pve not heard 
 his crow of an afternoon all the year afore." 
 
 ^' It only means a change in the weather/' said she j " not 
 what you think : 'tis impossible ! " 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 They drove by the level road along the valley to a dis- 
 tance of a few miles, and, reaching Wellbridge, tm-ned away 
 from the village to the left, and over the great Ehzabethan 
 bridge Avhich gave the place half its name. Immediately 
 behind it stood the house in which they had engaged lodg- 
 ings, whose exterior is so well known to aU travellers 
 through the Froom VaUey 5 once portion of a fine manorial 
 residence, the property and home of a D'Urberville, but 
 since its partial demoUtion a farmhouse ; an adaptation by 
 no means singular in this district, where there are few old 
 farm homesteads which have not, at some time or other, 
 before ten estates were merged in one, been the seat of a 
 lando^Tier. 
 
 " Welcome to one of your ancestral mansions ! " said 
 Clare as he handed her down. But he repented the pleas- 
 antry ; it was too near a satii-e. 
 
 On entering they found that, though they had only en- 
 gaged a couple of rooms, the farmer had taken advantage 
 of their proposed presence during the few coming days to 
 pay a New Year's visit to some friends, lea\dng a Avoman 
 from a neighboring cottage to minister to their few wants. 
 The absoluteness of possession pleased them, and they real- 
 ized it as the first moment of their experience under their 
 own exclusive roof -tree. 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 247 
 
 But he found that the mouldy old habitation somewhat 
 depressed his bride. When the carriage was gone they 
 ascended the stands to wash theii* hands, the charwoman 
 showing the way. On the landing Tess stopped and started. 
 
 " What's the matter 1 " said he. 
 
 " Those horrid women ! " she answered, with a smile. 
 " How they frightened me ! " 
 
 He looked up and perceived two life-size portraits on 
 panels built into the masonry. As all \dsitors to the man- 
 sion are aware, these paintings represent women of middle 
 age, of a date some two hundred years ago, whose linea- 
 ments once seen can never be forgotten. The long, pointed 
 features, narrow eye, and smirk of the one, so suggestive 
 of merciless treachery, the bilhhook nose, large teeth and 
 bold eye of the other, suggesting arrogance to the point of 
 ferocitv, haunt the beholder afterwards in his dreams. 
 
 '^ Wliose portraits are those ? '' asked Clare of the char- 
 woman. 
 
 " I've been told by the old folk that they were ladies of 
 the D'Urberville family, the ancient lords of this manor," 
 she said. '' Owing to their being builded into the wall they 
 can't be removed." 
 
 The unpleasantness of the matter was that, in addition 
 to their effect upon Tess, her fine features were unquestion- 
 ably traceable in theh' exaggerated forms. He said nothing 
 of this, however 5 and regretting that his romantic plan of 
 choosing this house for their bridal time was proving to 
 be a mistake, went on into the adjoining room. The place 
 having been rather hastily prepared for them, they washed 
 their hands in one basin. Clare touched hers under the 
 water. 
 
 ^' Wliich are my fingers and w^hich are yours?" he said, 
 looking up. " They are very much mixed." 
 
 ^' They are all yours," said she, very prettily, and endeav- 
 ored to be gayer than she was. He had not been displeased 
 ■with her thoughtf ulness on such an occasion 5 it was what 
 
248 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 every sensible woman wonld show 5 but Tess knew that she 
 had been thoughtful to excess, and struggled against it. 
 
 The sun was so low on that short last afternoon of the 
 year that it shone in thi'ough a small opening and formed 
 a golden staff which stretched across to her skirt, whero it 
 made a spot like a paint-mark set upon her. They went 
 down to the ancient parlor to tea, and here they shared 
 their first common meal alone. Such was their childish- 
 ness, or rather his, that he found it interesting to use the 
 same bread-and-butter plate as herself, and to brush crumbs 
 from her lips with his own. He wondered a little that she 
 did not enter into these frivolities with his own zest. 
 
 Looking at her silently for a long time, " She is a dear, 
 dear Tess," he thought to himself, as one deciding on the 
 true construction of a difficult passage. "Do I realize 
 solemnly enough how utterly and irretrievably this little 
 womanly thing is the creatm^e of my good or bad faith and 
 fortune ? I think not. I think I could not, unless I were a 
 woman mvself. What I am, she is. "What I become she 
 must become. What I cannot be she cannot be. And shall 
 I ever neglect her, or hurt her, or even forget to consider 
 her ? God forbid such a crime ! " 
 
 They sat on over the tea-table, waiting for their luggage, 
 w^hich the dairyman had promised to send before it grew 
 dark. But evening began to close in, and the luggage did 
 not arrive, and they had brought nothing more than they 
 stood in. With the departure of the sun the calm mood of 
 the winter day changed. Out-of-doors there began noises 
 as of silk smartly rul)bed ; the restful dead leaves of the 
 preceding autumn were stirred to irksome resurrection, and 
 whirled about unwillingly, and tapped against the shutters. 
 It soon began to rain. 
 
 " That cock knew the weather was going to change," said 
 Clare. 
 
 The woman who had attended upon them had gone home 
 for the night, but she had placed candles upon the table, 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 249 
 
 and now they lit them. Each candle-flame drew towards 
 the fireplace. 
 
 " These old houses are so draughty," continued Angel, 
 looking at the flames, and at the grease guttering doTvn the 
 sides. " I wonder where that luggage is f We haven't even 
 a brush and comb." 
 
 " I dont know," she answered, absent-minded. 
 
 " Tess, you are not a bit cheerful this evening — not at all 
 as you used to be. Those harridans upstairs have unsettled 
 you. I am sorry I brought you here. I wonder if you really 
 love me, after all ? " 
 
 He knew that she did, and the words had no serious in- 
 tent; but she was surcharged with emotion, and winced 
 hke a wounded animal. Though she tried not to shed tears, 
 she could not help showing one or two. 
 
 " I did not mean it," said he, sorry. " You are worried 
 at not ha\dng your things, I know. I cannot think why 
 old Jonathan has not come mth them, ^^ly, it is seven 
 O'clock ! Ah, there he is ! " 
 
 A knock had come to the door, and, there being nobody 
 else to answer it, Clare went out. He returned to the room 
 T\dth a small package in his hand. 
 
 " It is not Jonathan, after all," he said. 
 
 '' How vexing ! " said Tess. 
 
 The packet had been brought by a special messenger, who 
 had anived at Talbothays from Emminster Vicarage im- 
 mediately after the departm-e of the married couple, and 
 had followed them hither, being under injunction to deliver 
 it into nobodv's hands but theirs. Clare brought it to the 
 light. It was less than a foot long, sewed up in canvas, 
 sealed in red wax with his fathei-'s seal, and directed in his 
 father's hand to " Mrs. Angel Clare." 
 
 " It is a little wedding-present for you, Tess," said he, 
 handing it to her. " How thoughtful they are ! " 
 
 Tess looked a little flustered as she took it. 
 
 " I think I would rather have you open it, dearest," said 
 
250 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 she, after examining the parcel. "I don't like to break 
 those great seals j they look so serious. Please open it for 
 me ! " 
 
 He undid the parcel. Inside was a case of morocco 
 leather, on the top of which lay a note and a key. 
 
 The note was for Clare, in the following words : 
 
 '^My dear Son, — 
 
 " Possibly you have forgotten that on the death of your 
 godmother, Mrs. Pitney, when you were a lad, she — vain, 
 kind woman that she was — left to me a portion of the con- 
 tents of her jewel-case in trust for your wife, if you should 
 ever have one, as a mark of her affection for you and whom- 
 soever you should choose. This trust I have fulfilled, and 
 the diamonds have been locked up at my banker's ever since. 
 Though I feel it to be a somewhat incongruous act in the 
 cu'cumstances, I am, as you will see, bound to hand over the 
 articles to the woman to whom they will now rightly belong, 
 and they are therefore promptly sent. They become, I be- 
 lieve, heirlooms, strictly speaking, according to the terms of 
 your godmother's will, the precise words of which that refer 
 to this matter are enclosed." 
 
 "I do remember," said Clare; "but I had quite forgot- 
 ten." 
 
 Unlocking the case, they found it to contain a necklace, 
 with pendant, bracelets, and ear-rings ; and also some other 
 small ornaments. 
 
 Tess seemed afraid to touch them at first, but her eyes 
 sparkled for a moment as much as the stones when Clare 
 spread out the set. 
 
 " Ai'e they mine ? " she asked, incredulously. 
 
 " They are, certainly," said he. 
 
 He turned to the fire. He remembered how, when he 
 was a lad of fifteen, his godmother, the Squire's wife — the 
 only rich person AAdth whom he had ever come in contact — 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 251 
 
 had pinned her f aitli to his success ; had prophesied a won- 
 drous career for him. There had seemed nothing at all out 
 of keeping with such a conjectured career in the storing 
 up of these show^ ornaments for his wife, and the wives of 
 her descendants. They gleamed somewhat ironically now. 
 " Yet why f " he asked himself. It was but a question of 
 vanity throughout ; and if that were admitted into one side 
 of the equation it should be admitted into the other. His 
 wife was a D'Urberville : whom could they become better 
 than her ? 
 
 Suddenly he said with enthusiasm, " Tess, put them on — 
 put them on ! " And he tm^ned from the fire to help her. 
 
 As if by magic she had already donned them — necklace, 
 ear-rings, bracelets, and all. 
 
 " But the gown isn't right, Tess," said Clare. " It ought 
 to be a low one for a set of brilliants hke that." 
 
 " Ought it ? " said Tess. 
 
 " Yes," said he. He suggested to her how to tuck in the 
 upper edge of her bodice, so as to make it roughly approx- 
 imate to the cut for evening wear ; and when she had done 
 this, and the pendant to the necklace hung isolated amid 
 the whiteness of her throat, as it was designed to do, he 
 stepped back to survey her. 
 
 " My heavens," said Clare, '^ how beautiful you are ! " 
 
 She astonished him. As evervbodv knows, fine feathers 
 make fine birds : a peasant gu4 but very moderateh^ pre- 
 possessing to the casual observer in her simple condition 
 and attire will bloom as an amazing beauty if clothed as a 
 woman of fashion with the aids that Art can render ; while 
 the beauty of the midnight crush would often cut but a 
 sorry figure if placed inside the field-woman's ^\Tapper 
 upon a monotonous acreage of turnips on a dull day. He 
 had never till now realized the artistic excellence of Tess's 
 limbs and features. 
 
 '' If you were only to appear in a ballroom ! " he said. 
 " But no — no, dearest ; I think I love you best in the wing- 
 
252 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 bonnet and cotton frock — yes, better than in this, well as 
 you support these dignities." 
 
 Tess's sense of her striking appearance had given her a 
 flush of excitement, which was yet not happiness. 
 
 '^ril take them off/' she said, "in case Jonathan should 
 see me. They are not fit for me, are they ? They must be 
 sold, I suppose 1 " 
 
 " Let them stay a few minutes longer. Sell them ? 
 Never. It would be a breach of faith." 
 
 Influenced by a second thought, she readily obeyed : she 
 had something to tell, and there might be help in these. 
 She sat down with the jewels upon her; and they again 
 indulged in conjectures as to where Jonathan could possi- 
 bl}^ be with their baggage. The ale they had j)oured out 
 for his consumption when he came had gone flat with long 
 standing. 
 
 Shortly after this they began supper, which was already 
 laid on a side-table. Before they had finished there was a 
 jerk in the fire-smoke, the rising skein of which bulged out 
 into the room, as if some giant had laid his hand on the 
 chimney-top for a moment. It had been caused by the 
 opening of the outer door. A hea^^^ step was now heard 
 in the passage, and Angel went out. 
 
 " I couldn' make nobody hear at all by knocking," apolo- 
 gized Jonathan Kail, for it was he at last ; " and as 'twas 
 raining out I opened the door. I've brought the things, 
 sir." 
 
 " I am ver}^ glad to see them. But you are very late." 
 
 " Well, yes, sir." There was something subdued in Jona- 
 than Kail's tone which had not been there in the day, and 
 lines of concern were ploughed upon his forehead in addi- 
 tion to the lines of years. He continued : "We've aU been 
 gallied at the dairy at what might ha' been a most terrible 
 affliction since you and vour mis'ess — so to name her now 
 — left us this a'ternoon. Perhaps you ha'nt forgot the 
 cock's afternoon crow?" 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 253 
 
 ^' Dear me ; — wliat- 
 
 ?7 
 
 "Well, some says it do mane one thing, and some an- 
 other ; but what's happened is that poor little Retty Priddle 
 hev tried to drown herself." 
 
 " No ! Really ! Why, she bade us good-by with the 
 rest " 
 
 " Yes. Well, sir, when you and your mis'ess — so to name 
 what she lawful is — when you two di'ove away, as I say, 
 Retty and Marian put on their bonnets and went out 5 and 
 as there is not much doing now, being New Year's Eve, 
 and folks mops and brooms from what's inside 'em, nobody 
 took much notice. They went on to Lew-Everard, w^here 
 they had some'at to drink, and then on they vamped to 
 Dree-armed Cross, and there they seem to have parted, 
 Retty striking across the water-meads as if for home, and 
 Marian going on to the next village, where there's another 
 public-house. Nothing more was seed or heard o' Retty 
 till the waterman, on his way home, noticed some'at by the 
 Great Pool, and 'twas her bonnet and shawl packed up. In 
 the water he found her. He and another man brought her 
 home, thinking 'a was dead ; but she came round by de- 
 grees." 
 
 Angel, suddenly recollecting that Tess was overhearing 
 this gloomy tale, went to shut the door between the passage 
 and the ante-room to the inner parlor where she was ; but 
 his "vvife, flinging a shawl round her, had approached and 
 was listening to the man's narrative, her eyes resting ab- 
 sently on the luggage and the drops of rain glistening 
 upon it. 
 
 " And, more than this, there's Marian ; she's been found 
 dead di'unk by the ^\dthy-bed — a girl who hev never been 
 kno^vn to touch an}i;hing before except shilling ale ; though 
 to be sure, 'a was always a good trencher- woman, as her 
 face showed. It seems as if the maids had all gone out o' 
 their minds ! " 
 
 " And Izz ? " asked Tess. 
 
254 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 " Izz is about house as usual ; but 'a do say 'a can guess 
 how it happened ] and she seems to be very low in mind 
 about it, poor maid, as well she mid be. And so you see, 
 sir, as all this happened just when we was packing your few 
 traps and your mis'ess's night-rail and di'essing things into 
 the cart, why, it belated me." 
 
 ^^ Yes. Well, Jonathan, will you get the trunks upstairs, 
 and drink a cup of ale, and hasten back as soon as you 
 can, in case you should be wanted ? " 
 
 Tess had gone back to the inner parlor, and sat down 
 by the fire, looking wistfully into it. She heard Jonathan 
 Kail's hea\y footsteps up and down the stairs till he had 
 done placing the luggage, and heard him express his thanks 
 for the ale her husband took out to him, and for the gratu- 
 ity he received. Jonathan's footsteps then died from the 
 door, and his cart creaked awav. 
 
 Angel slid forward the massive oak bar which fastened 
 the door, and coming in to where she sat over the hearth, 
 pressed her cheeks between his hands from behind. He 
 expected her to jump up gaily and unpack the toilet gear 
 that she had been so anxious about, but as she did not rise, 
 he sat down with her in the firelight, the candles on the 
 supper-table being too thin and glimmering to interfere 
 wdth its glow. 
 
 " I am so sorry you should have heard this sad story," he 
 said. ^' Still, don't let it depress you. Retty was natm*aUy 
 morbid, you know." 
 
 " Without the least cause," said Tess. " While they who 
 have cause to be, hide it, and pretend they are not." 
 
 This incident had turned the scale for her. They were 
 simple and innocent girls on whom the unhappiness of un- 
 requited love had fallen ; they had deserved better at the 
 hands of Fate. She had deserved worse, yet she Avas the 
 chosen one. It was wicked of her to take all without pay- 
 ing. She would pay to the uttermost farthing ; she would 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE, 255 
 
 tell, there and then. This final determination she came to 
 when she looked into the fii'e, he holding her hand. 
 
 A steady crimson glare from the now flameless embers 
 painted the sides and back of the fii'eplace with its color, 
 and the well-pohshed andii'ons, and the old brass tongs that 
 wonld not meet. The underside of the mantel-shelf was 
 flushed with the unwavering blood-colored light, and the 
 legs of the table nearest the fii'e. Tess's face and neck re- 
 flected the same warmth 5 which each diamond tiu'ned into 
 an Aldebaran or a Sirius — a constellation of white, red, and 
 green flashes, that interchanged theii* hues with her every 
 pulsation. 
 
 " Do you remember what we said to each other this 
 morning about telhng our faults T' he asked, abruptly, find- 
 ing that she still remained immovable. " We spoke lightly, 
 perhaps, and you may well have done so. But for me it 
 was no Hght promise. I want to make a confession to you, 
 love." 
 
 This, from him, so unexpectedly apposite, had the effect 
 upon her of a Providential interposition. 
 
 " You have to confess something f " she said, quickly, and 
 even with gladness and relief. 
 
 " You did not expect it f Ah — you thought too highly 
 of me. Now, listen. Put your head there, because I want 
 you to forgive me, and not to be indignant with me for not 
 telHng you before, as perhaps I ought to have done.*' 
 
 How strange it was ! He seemed to be her double. She 
 did not speak, and Clare went on : 
 
 " But, darling, I did not mention it because I was afraid 
 of endangering ni}^ chance of you, the great prize of my 
 life — my fellowship I call you. My brother's fellowship 
 was won at his college, mine at Talbothays Dauy. Well, I 
 would not risk it. I was going to tell you a month ago — 
 at the time you agi'eed to be mine, but I could not ; I 
 thought it might frighten you away from me. I put it off ; 
 
256 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 then I thought I would tell you yesterday, to give you a 
 chance at least of escaping me. But I did not. And I did 
 not this morning, when you proposed oui' confessing our 
 faults on the landing: — the sinner that I was ! But I must, 
 now I see you sitting there so solemnly. I wonder if you 
 will forgive me ? '^ 
 
 '' Oh ves ! I am sure that " 
 
 '' Well, I hope so. But wait a minute. You don't know. 
 To begin at the beginning. Though I believe my poor 
 father fears that I am one of the eternally lost for my doc- 
 trines, I am of course a believer in good morals, Tess, as 
 much as you. I used to wish to be a teacher of men, and 
 it was a great disappointment to me when I foimd I could 
 not enter the Church. I loved spotlessness, even though I 
 could lay no claim to it, and hated impmity, as I hope I do 
 now. Whatever one may think of plenary inspiration, one 
 must heartily subscribe to these words of Paul : ' Be thou 
 an example — in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, 
 in faith, in purity.' It is the only safeguard for us poor 
 human beings. ' Integer ^dtae,' says a Roman poet, who is 
 strange company for St. Paul : 
 
 The man of upright life, from frailties free, 
 O Fuscus, needs no Moorish spear and bow. 
 
 Well, a certain place is paved with good intentions, and 
 having felt all that so strongly, you will see what a terrible 
 remorse it bred in me when, in the midst of my high aims 
 for other people, I myself feU." 
 
 He then told her of that time of his hf e to which allusion 
 has been made when, tossed about by doubts and difficulties 
 like a cork on the waves, he went to London and plunged 
 into eight-and-forty hours' dissipation with a stranger. 
 
 " Happily I awoke almost immediately to a sense of my 
 foUy," he continued. " I would have no more to say to her, 
 and I came home. I have never repeated the offence. But 
 
THE CONSEQUENCE. 257 
 
 I felt I should like to treat you mtli perfect frankness and 
 honor, and I could not do so without telling this. Do you 
 forgive me ? '^ 
 
 She pressed his hand tightly for an answer. 
 
 " Then we will dismiss it at once and forever — too pain- 
 ful as it is for the occasion — and talk of something lighter.'' 
 
 '' Angel — I am almost glad — because now you can for- 
 give me ! I have not made my confession. I have a con- 
 fession, too — remember, I said so." 
 
 " Ah, to be sm^e ! Now then for it, wicked little one." 
 
 u Perhaps, although you smile, it is as serious as youi's, 
 or more so." 
 
 " It can hardly be more serious, dearest." 
 
 " It cannot — oh no, it cannot ! " She jumped up at the 
 hope. " No, it cannot be more serious, certainly," she cried, 
 " because 'tis just the same ! I vd\l tell you now." 
 
 Then* hands Avere still joined. The ashes under the grate 
 were lit by the fire vertically, like a torrid waste. Imagina- 
 tion might have beheld a Last-Day luridness in this red- 
 coaled glow, which stiU. fell on his face and hand, and on 
 hers, peering into the loose hair about her brow, and firing 
 the delicate skin underneath. A large shadow of her shape 
 rose upon the wall and ceiling. She bent forward, at which 
 each diamond on her neck gave a sinister wink like a toad's, 
 and pressing her forehead against his temple she entered 
 on the story of her acquaintance with Alec D'Urber\ille 
 and its resiilts, murmuring the words without flinching, 
 and with her eyeHds drooping down. 
 11 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Her narrative ended ; even its re-assertions and second- 
 ary explanations were done. Tess's voice throngliont had 
 liardlj' risen higher than its opening tone ; there had been 
 no exculpatory phrase of any kind, and she had not wept. 
 
 But the complexion even of external things seemed to 
 suffer transmutation as her announcement progressed. The 
 fire in the grate looked impish — demoniacally funny, as if 
 it did not care in the least about her strait. The fender 
 grinned idly, as if it, too, did not care. The light from 
 the water-bottle was merely engaged in a chromatic prob- 
 lem. All material objects around announced their irre- 
 sponsibility ^^^th terrible iteration. And yet nothing had 
 changed since the moments when he had been kissing her ; 
 or rather, nothing in the substance of things. But the 
 essence of things had changed. When she ceased, the 
 auricular impressions from their pre^dous endeai-ments 
 seemed to hustle away into the corners of their brains, re- 
 peating themselves as echoes from a time of supremely 
 purblind foolishness. 
 
 Clare performed the irrelevant act of stirring the fire ; 
 the intelligence had not even yet got to the bottom of him. 
 After stirring the embers he rose to his feet -, all the force 
 of her disclosure had imparted itself now. His face lind 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 259 
 
 withered. In the streniiousuess of his concentration he 
 treadled fitfully on the floor. He could not, by any con- 
 trivance, think closely enough ; that was the meaning of 
 his vague movement. Wlien he spoke it was in the most 
 inadequate, commonplace voice of the many varied tones 
 she had heard from him. 
 
 '' Tess ! " 
 
 "Yes, dearest." 
 
 " Am I to believe this ? From vour manner I am to take 
 
 ft/ 
 
 it as true. O, you cannot be out of yom* mind ! You ought 
 to be ! Yet you are not. . . . My wife, my own Tess ! — 
 nothing in you warrants such a supposition as that ? " 
 
 " I am not out of my mind," she said. 
 
 " And yet " He looked vacantly at her, to resume 
 
 with dazed senses : " Why didn't you tell me before ? Ah 
 yes, you would have told me, in a way — but I hindered you, 
 I remember ! " 
 
 These and other of liis words were nothing but the per- 
 functory babble of the surface while the depths remained 
 paralyzed. He tiu'ned away, and bent over a chair. Tess 
 followed him to the middle of the room where he was, and 
 stood there staring at him with eyes that did not weep. 
 Presently she slid down upon her knees beside his foot, 
 and from this position she crouched in a heap. 
 
 "In the name of our love, forgive me ! " she whispered 
 with a diy mouth, " I have forgiven you for the same." 
 And, as he did not answer, she said again, "Forgive me 
 as you are forgiven." 
 
 " I have no such hope," said he. 
 
 " I forgive you, Angel." 
 
 " You — yes, you do." 
 
 " But you do not forgive me ?" 
 
 '^ O Tess, forgiveness does not apply to the case ! You 
 were one person ; now you are another. My God — how 
 can forgiveness meet such a grotesque — prestidigitation as 
 that ! " 
 
260 TESS OF THE D'URBER^^LLES. 
 
 He paused, contemplating tliis idea ; then suddenly broke 
 into horrible laughter — as unnatural and ghastly as a laugh 
 in hell. Sickly white, she jumped up. 
 
 " Don't — don't ! It kills me quite, that ! " she shrieked. 
 " O, have mercy upon me — have mercy ! . . . Angel ! An- 
 gel ! what do you mean by that laugh ? " she cried out. 
 " Do you know what this is to me ? " 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "I have been hoping, longing, praying, to make you 
 hajDpy. I have thought what joy it will be to do it, what 
 an unworthv mf e I shall be if I do not ! That's what I 
 have felt, Angel ! " 
 
 " I know that." 
 
 " I thought, Angel, that you loved me — me, my very self ! 
 If it is I you do love, O, how can it be that you look and 
 sj)eak so ? It frightens me ! Having begun to love 'ee, 
 I love ^ee forever — in all changes, in all disgraces, because 
 you are yourself. I ask no more. Then how can you, 
 my own husband, stop loving me ? " 
 
 " I repeat, the woman I have been loving is not you." 
 
 " But who ? " 
 
 "Another woman in your shape." 
 
 She perceived in his words the realization of her own 
 apprehensive foreboding in former times. He looked upon 
 her as a species of impostor ; a guilty woman in the guise 
 of an innocent one. Terror was upon her white face as 
 she saw it ; her cheek was flaccid, and her mouth had almost 
 the aspect of a round little hole. The horrible sense of his 
 view of her so deadened her appearance that he stepped 
 forward, thinking she was going to fall. 
 
 " Sit down, sit down," he said, gently. " You are ill ; and 
 it is natural that you should be." 
 
 She did sit down, without knowing where she was, that 
 strained look still upon her face, and her eyes such as to 
 make his flesh creep. 
 
 " T don't belong to you any more, then ; do I, Angel ? " 
 
(( ( 
 
 IN THE NAME OF HEAVEN, FORGIVE ME !' SHE WHISPERED." 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 261 
 
 she asked, lielplessty. " It is not me, but another woman 
 like me that he loved, he says." 
 
 By a momentary power of introspection, she seemed to 
 take pity upon herseK as one who was ill-used. Her eyes 
 filled as she regarded her position further; she turned 
 round and burst into a flood of self-sympathetic tears. 
 
 Angel Clare was reheved at this change, for the effect on 
 her of what had happened was beginning to be a trouble 
 to him only less than the woe of the disclosure itself. He 
 waited patiently, apathetically, till the violence of her gTief 
 had worn itself out, and her rush of weeping had lessened 
 to a catching gasp at intervals. 
 
 " Angel," she said, suddenly, in her natural tones, the in- 
 sane, di'y voice of terror having left her now ; " Angel, am 
 I too mcked for you and me to live together f " 
 
 '^ I have not been able to think what we can do." 
 
 " I shan't ask you to let me Hve mtli you, Angel, because 
 I have no right to. I shall not write to mother and sisters 
 to say we be married, as I said I would do ; and I shan't 
 finish the good-hussif' I cut out and meant to make while 
 we were in lodgings." 
 
 '^ Shan't you?" 
 
 '' No, I shan't do anything, unless you order me to ; and 
 if you go away from me I shall not follow 'ee ; and if you 
 never speak to me any more I shall not ask why, unless 
 you tell me I may." 
 
 " And if I do order you to do anything ? " 
 
 " I will obey you like your perfect slave, even if it is to 
 lie down and die." 
 
 "You are very good. But it strikes me that there is a 
 want of harmony between yom^ present mood of self-sacri- 
 fice and your past mood of self-preservation." 
 
 These were the first words of antagonism. To fling elab- 
 orate sarcasms at Tess, however, was much like flinging 
 them at a dog or cat. The charms of their subtlety passed 
 by her unappreciated, and she only received them as inimical 
 
262 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 sounds wliich meant that anger ruled. She remained mute, 
 not knowing that he was desperately smothering his affec- 
 tion for her. She hardly observed that a tear descended 
 slowly upon his cheek, so large that it magnified the pores 
 of the skin over which it roUed, like the object-lens of a mi- 
 croscope. Meanwhile re-iUumination as to the terrible and 
 total change that her confession had wrought in his life, in 
 his universe, returned to him, and he tried desperately to ad- 
 vance among the new conditions in which he stood. Some 
 consequent action was necessary : yet what ? 
 
 " Tess," he said, as gently as he could speak, " I cannot 
 stay — ^in this room — ^just now. "I wjR walk out a httle 
 way." He quietly left the room, and the two glasses of 
 wine that he had poured out for their supper — one for her, 
 one for him — remained on the table untasted. This was 
 what then' supper — their Agape — had come to. At tea, two 
 or three hours earlier, the}^ had, in the freakishness of affec- 
 tion, drunk from one cup. 
 
 The closing of the door behind him, gently as it had been 
 pulled to, roused Tess from her stupor. He was gone ] she 
 could not stay. Hastily flinging her cloak round her, she 
 opened the door and followed, putting out the candles as if 
 she were never coming back. The rain was over, and the 
 night was now clear. 
 
 She was soon close at his heels, for Clare walked slowly, 
 and without purpose. His form beside her hght gray fig- 
 ui'e looked black, sinister, and forbidding, and she felt as 
 sarcasm the touch of the jewels of which she had been mo- 
 mentarily so proud. Clare turned at hearing her footsteps, 
 but his recognition of her presence seemed to make no 
 difference in him, and he went on over the five yawning 
 arches of the gi^eat bridge in front of the house. 
 
 The cow and horse tracks in the road were full of water, 
 the rain having been enough to charge them, but not 
 enough to wash them away. Across these minute pools 
 the reflected stars flitted in a quick transit as she passed ; 
 
THE WOIMAN PAYS. 263 
 
 she would not have known they were shining overhead if 
 she had not seen them there — the vastest things of the uni- 
 verse imaged in objects so mean. 
 
 The place to which they had travelled to-day was in the 
 same valley as Talbothays, but some miles lower down the 
 river- and the surroundings being open she kept easily 
 in sight of him. Away from the house the road wound 
 through the meads, and along these she followed Clare 
 without any attempt to come up with him or to attract liim^ 
 but with dumb and vacant fidelitv. 
 
 At last, however, her listless walk bought her up along- 
 side him, and still he said nothing. The cruelty of fooled 
 honesty is often gi'eat after enlightenment, and it was gi'eat 
 in Clare now. The outdoor air had apparently taken away 
 from him all tendency to act on impulse : he saw her with- 
 out irradiation — in all her bareness. She knew that Time 
 was chanting his satiric psahn at her then : 
 
 Behold, when thy face is made bare, he that loved thee shall hate ; 
 
 Thy face shall be no more fair at the fall of thy fate. 
 
 For thy life shall fall as a leaf and be shed as the rain ; 
 
 And the veil of thine head shall be grief, and the crown shall be pain. 
 
 He was still intently thinking, and her companionship 
 had now insufficient power to break or divert the strain of 
 thought. What a weak thing her presence must have be- 
 come to him ! She could not help addi'essing Clare. 
 
 "What have I done — what have I done ? I have not told 
 of anything that interferes with or beUes my love for you. 
 You don't think I planned it, do you ? It is in yoiu* own 
 mind what you are angry at, Angel 5 it is not in me. O, 
 it is not in me, and I am not that deceitful woman vou 
 think me ! " 
 
 " H'm — well. Not deceitful, my wife ; but not the same. 
 No, not the same. But do not make me reproach you ! 
 I have sworn that I will not; and I do everything to 
 avoid it." 
 
264 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 But she went on pleading in her distraction j and per- 
 haps said things that would have been }3etter left to silence. 
 ''O Angel — Angel: I was a cliild — a child when it hap- 
 pened ! I knew nothing of men." 
 
 "You were more sinned against than sinning^ that I ad- 
 mit." 
 
 " Then will you not forgive me ? " 
 
 " I do forgive you. But forgiveness is not all." 
 
 " And love me ? " 
 
 To this question he did not answer. 
 
 " Angel — my mother says that it sometimes happens 
 so — she knows several cases where thev were worse than I, 
 and the husband has not minded it much — has forgiven her 
 at least. And yet the woman has not loved him as I do 
 you." 
 
 "Don't, Tess, don^t argue. Different societies, different 
 manners. You seem like an unappreciative peasant woman , 
 who has never been initiated into the proportions of things. 
 You don't know what you say." 
 
 " I am only a peasant by position, not by natm^e." She 
 spoke with an impulse to anger, but it went as it came. 
 
 " So much the worse for you. I think that parson who 
 unearthed your pedigree would have done better if he had 
 held his tongue. I cannot help associating your decline as 
 a family with this other fact — of your want of firmness. 
 Decrepit families imply decrepit wills, decrepit conduct. 
 God, why did you give me a handle for despising you more 
 by informing me of your descent ! Here was I thinking 
 you a new-sprung child of Nature ; there were you, the ex- 
 hausted seed of an effete aristocracv ! " 
 
 " Lots o' families are as bad as mine in that. Ketty's 
 family were once large landowners, and so were Dairyman 
 Billet's. And the Debbyhouses, who now be carters, were 
 once the De Bayeux family. You find such as I every- 
 where ; 'tis a feature of our county, and I can't help it." 
 
 " So much the worse for the countv." 
 
THE W03L\N PAYS. 2G5 
 
 She took these reproaches in their biilk siniply, not in 
 their particulars j he did not love her as he had loved her 
 hitherto, and to all else she was indifferent. 
 
 They wandered on again in silence. It w^as said after- 
 wards that a cottager of "Wellbridge, who went out late 
 that night for a doctor, met two lovers in the pastiu'es, 
 walking very slowly, without converse, one beliind the other, 
 as in a funeral procession, and the glimpse that he ol)- 
 tained of their faces seemed to denote that they were 
 anxious and sad. Betui*ning later, he passed them again 
 in the same field, progressing just as slowly, and as regard- 
 less of the hour and of the cheerless night as before. It 
 was only on account of his preoccupation with his own 
 affaii's, and the illness in his house, that he did not bear in 
 mind the curious incident, which, however, he recalled a 
 long while after. 
 
 During the interval of the cottager's going and coming, 
 she had said to her husband, " I don't see how I can help 
 being the cause of much misery to you aU youi' Life. The 
 river is down there. I can put an end to myself in it. I 
 am not afraid.'^ 
 
 ''I don't wish to add miu'der to my other follies," he 
 said. 
 
 " I will leave something to show that I did it myself — on 
 account of my shame. They "woU not blame you then." 
 
 " Don't speak so — I don't want to hear it ! It is absiu'd 
 to have such thoughts in this kind of case, which is rather 
 one for satirical laughter than for tragedy. You don't in 
 the least understand the quality of the mishap. It would 
 be viewed in the light of a joke by nine-tenths of the world, 
 if it were known. Please oblige me by returning to the 
 house, and going to bed." 
 
 " I will," said she, dutifully. 
 
 They had rambled round by a road which led to the weU- 
 knoT\TL ruins of the Cistercian Abbev behind the mill, the 
 latter having, in centuries past, been attached to the monas- 
 
266 TESS OP THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 tic establisliment. The mill still worked on, food being a 
 perennial necessity j the abbey had perished, creeds being 
 transient. One continnally sees the ministration of the 
 temporary outlasting the ministration of the eternal. 
 Their walk having been circuitons, they were still not far 
 from the house, and in obeying his direction she only had 
 to reach the large stone bridge across the main river, 
 and follow the road for a few yards. When she got back 
 everything remained as she had left it, the fire being still 
 burning. She did not stay downstairs for more than a 
 few moments, but proceeded to her chamber, whither the 
 luggage had been taken. Here she sat down on the edge 
 of the bed, looking vacantly around, and presently began to 
 undress. In remo^dng the light towards the bedstead its 
 rays fell upon the tester of white dimity ; something was 
 hanging beneath it, and she lifted the candle to see what it 
 was. A bough of mistletoe. Angel had put it there ; she 
 knew that in an instant. This was the explanation of that 
 mysterious parcel which it had been so difficult to pack and 
 bring ; whose contents he would not explain to her, saying 
 that time would soon show her the purpose thereof. In 
 his zest and his gaiety he had hung it there. How foolish 
 and inopportune that mistletoe looked now ! 
 
 Having nothing more to fear, having scarce anything to 
 hope, for that he would relent there seemed no promise 
 whatever, she lay down dully. Wlien sorrow ceases to be 
 speculative sleep sees her opportunity. Among so many 
 happier moods which forbid repose this was a mood that 
 welcomed it, and in a few minutes the lonely Tess forgot 
 existence, surrounded by the aromatic stillness of the cham- 
 ber that had once, possibly, been the bride-chamber of her 
 own ancestry. 
 
 Later on that night Clare also retraced his steps to the 
 house. Entering softly to the sitting-room he obtained a 
 light, and with the manner of one who had considered his 
 course, he spread his rugs upon the old horsehair sofa 
 
THE WOJklAN PAYS. 267 
 
 which stood there, and roughly shaped it to a sleeping-couch. 
 Before l}dng down he crept shoeless upstaii's, and listened 
 at the door of her apartment. Her measured breathing 
 told that she was sleeping profoundly. 
 
 " Thank God ! " murmm^ed Clare ; and yet he was con- 
 scious of a pang of bitterness at the thought — approxi- 
 mately true, thouo^h not wholly so — that hayinsf shifted the 
 burden of her life to his shoulders, she was now reposing 
 without care. 
 
 He tui'ued away to descend ; then, irresolute, faced round 
 to her door again. In the act he caught sight of one of the 
 D'Urberville dames, whose portrait was immediately oyer 
 the entrance to Tess's bed-chamber. In the candle-light 
 the painting was more than unpleasant. Sinister design 
 hu'ked in its features, a concentrated i3urpose of reyenge 
 on the other sex — so it seemed to him then. The Carohne 
 bodice of the portrait was low, precisely as Tess's had been 
 when he tucked it in to show the necklace ; and again he 
 experienced the distressing sensation of a resemblance be- 
 tween them. 
 
 The check was sufficient. He resumed his retreat, and 
 descended. 
 
 His au' remained calm and cold, his small, compressed 
 mouth indexing his powers of self-control; his face wear- 
 ing still that terribly sterile expression wliich had spread 
 thereon since her disclosure. It was the face of a man who 
 was no longer passion's slaye, yet who found no adyantage 
 in his enfi'anchisement. He was simply regarding the har- 
 rowing contingencies of human experience, the unexpected- 
 ness of things. Nothing so pure, so sweet, so truthful as 
 Tess had seemed possible all the long while that he had 
 adored her, up to an hour ago ; but 
 
 The little less, and what worlds away ! 
 
 He argued erroneously when he said to himseK that her 
 heart was not indexed in the honest freshness of her face j 
 
268 TESS OF THE D^URBERAaLLES. 
 
 but Tess had no advocate to set liim right. Could it be 
 possible, he continued, that eyes which as they gazed never 
 expressed any divergence from what the tongue was telling, 
 were yet ever seeing another world behind her apparent 
 one, discordant and contrasting ? 
 
 He reclined on his couch in the sitting-room, and extin- 
 guished the light. The night came in, and took up its place 
 there, unconcerned and indifferent; the night which had 
 ah-eady swallowed up his happiness, and was now digesting 
 it listlessly ; and was ready to swallow up the happiness of 
 a thousand other people with as little disturbance or change 
 of mien. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Clare arose in the light of a dawn that was ashy and 
 furtive, as though associated with crime. The fii-eplace 
 confronted him mth its extinct embers ; the spread supper- 
 table, whereon stood the two full glasses of untasted wine, 
 now flat and filmv; her vacated seat and his own: the 
 other articles of furniture, with theii- eternal look of not 
 being able to help it, their intolerable inquiiy what was 
 to be done? From above there was no sound; but in a 
 few minutes there came a knock at the door. He remem- 
 bered that it would be the neighboring cottager s \\if e, who 
 was to minister to their wants while they remained here. 
 
 The presence of a third person in the house would be ex- 
 tremely awkward just now, and, being already di-essed, he 
 opened the window, and informed her that they could man- 
 age to shift for themselves that morning. She had a milk- 
 can in her hand, which he told her to leave at the door. 
 When the dame had gone away he searched in the back 
 quarters of the house for fuel, and speedily lit a fire. 
 There was plenty of eggs, butter, bread, and so on in the 
 
THE W0:MAN pays. 269 
 
 larder, and Clare soon had breakfast laid, his experiences at 
 the daily having rendered him facile in domestic prepara- 
 tions. The smoke of the kindled wood rose from the 
 chimney without like a lotus-headed column • local people 
 who were passing by saw it, and thought of the newly 
 married couple, and envied theii" happiness. 
 
 Angel cast a final glance round, and then, going to the 
 foot of the stairs, said, " Breakfast is ready." 
 
 He opened the front door, and took a few steps in the 
 morning air. When, after a short space, he came back, she 
 was already in the sitting-room, mechanically readjusting 
 the breakfast things. As she was fully attired, and the 
 interval since his calling her had been but two or three 
 minutes, she must have been di'essed, or nearly so, before he 
 went to summon her. Her hair was twisted up in a large 
 round mass at the back of her head, and she had put on one 
 of the new frocks — a pale blue woollen garment with neck- 
 frillings of white. Her hands and face appeared to be 
 cold, and she had possil^ty been sitting dressed in the bed- 
 room a long time without anv fire. The extreme civilitv 
 of Clare's tone in calling her seemed to have inspired her, 
 for the moment, witli a new glimmer of hope. But it soon 
 died when she looked at him. 
 
 The pair were, in truth, but the ashes of their former fires. 
 To the hot sorrow of the previous night had succeeded 
 heaviness 5 it seemed as if nothing coidd kindle either of 
 them to fervor of sensation any more. 
 
 He spoke gently to her, and she replied with a hke un- 
 demonstrativeness. At last she came wp to him, looking 
 in his sharply defined face as one who had no conscious- 
 ness that her own formed a visible object also. 
 
 ^' Angel ! " she said, and paused, touching him with her 
 fingers lightly as a breeze, as though she could hardly be- 
 lieve to be there in the flesh the man who was once her lover. 
 Her eyes were bright, her cheek, though pale, still showed 
 its wonted roundness, though dried tears had left a \itrified 
 
270 TESS OF THE D'URBERA^LLES. 
 
 glistening thereon ; and tlie usually ripe red mouth was 
 almost as pale as her cheek. But she was stilL throbbingly 
 alive, notwithstanding that under the stress of her mental 
 grief the hf e beat so brokenly that a little f miher pull upon 
 it might cause real illness, render her eyes didl, uncharac- 
 teristic, and her mouth thin. 
 
 But she looked absolutely pure. Natm'e, in her fantas- 
 tic trickery, had set such a seal of gu'hshness upon Tess's 
 countenance that he gazed at her with a stupefied air. 
 
 '^ Tess ! Say it is not true ! No, it is not true ! " 
 
 " It is true.''^ 
 
 " Every word ? " 
 
 " Every word." 
 
 He looked at her imploringly, as if he would willingly 
 have taken a lie from her li^^s, knowing it to be one, and 
 have made of it, by some sort of sophistry, a vahd denial. 
 However, she only repeated, '' It is true." 
 
 " Is he Hving ? " Angel then asked. 
 
 " The baby died." 
 
 "But the man?" 
 
 " He is alive." 
 
 A last despau- passed over Clare's face. ''Is he in Eng- 
 land ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He took a few steps vaguely. " My position — is this," he 
 said, abruptly. " I thought — any man would have thought 
 — that by giving up aU ambition to win a wife mth social 
 standing, with fortune, with knowledge of the workl, I 
 should secure rustic innocence as surely as I shoidd secui-e 
 
 pink cheeks ; but However, I am no man to reproach 
 
 you, and I will not." 
 
 Tess felt his position so entu-ely that the remainder had 
 not been needed. Therein lay just the distress of it ; she 
 saw that he had lost aU round. 
 
 "Angel — I should not have let it go on to marriage 
 with 'ee if I had not known that, after aU, there was a last 
 
THE W0:MAN pays. 271 
 
 way out of it for yoii ; though I hoped you would never " 
 
 Her voice gi'ew husky. 
 
 <'A last way?" 
 
 ^' I mean, to get rid of me. You can get rid of me." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 '^ By divorcing me." 
 
 " Good heavens — how can you be so simple ! How can I 
 divorce you f " 
 
 " Can't you — now I have told you this ? I thought my 
 confession woidd give you grounds for that." 
 
 " O Tess — you are too, too — childish — unformed — crude, 
 I suppose ! I don't know what you are. You don't under- 
 stand the law — vou don't understand ! " 
 
 " What — vou caimot ? " 
 
 "For what happened before our marriage! Indeed I 
 cannot." 
 
 A quick shame mixed with the misery upon his listener's 
 face. " I thought — I thought," she whispered. " O, now I 
 see how wicked I seem to you. Believe me — beUeve me, 
 on my soul, I never thought but that you could ! I hoped 
 you would not ; yet I believed, without a doubt, that you 
 could cast me off if you were determined, and didn't love 
 me at — at — all ! " 
 
 '^ You were mistaken," he said. 
 
 '' O, then I ought to have done it, to have done it last 
 night ! But I hadn't the courage. That's just like me ! " 
 
 " The courage to do what ? " 
 
 As she did not answer he took her by the hand. "' What 
 were you thinking of doing ? " he inquu*ed. 
 
 " Of putting an end to myself." 
 
 " When ? " 
 
 She writhed under this inquisitorial manner. ''Last 
 night," she answered. 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " Under your mistletoe." 
 
 "My good God! — how?" he asked, sternly. 
 
272 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 " I'll tell you, sii', if yon won't be angry with me ! " she 
 said, shrinking. " It was with the cord of my box. Bnt I 
 could not — do the last tiling ! I was afraid that it might 
 cause a scandal to your name." 
 
 The unexpected quality of this confession, T\Tung from 
 her, and not volunteered, shook him indescribably. But 
 he still held her, and, letting his glance fall from her face 
 do^ATi wards, he said tremulously, " Now, Usten to this. You 
 must not dare to think of such a horrible thing! How 
 could you ! You will promise me as your husband to 
 attempt that no more." 
 
 " I am ready to promise. I saw how Tvicked it was.'^ 
 
 " Wicked ! The idea was unworthy of you beyond de- 
 scription." 
 
 "But, Angel," she pleaded, enlarging her eyes in calm 
 unconcern upon him, " it was thought of entirely on your 
 account — to set you free without the scandal of the divorce 
 that I thought you would have to get. I should never 
 have di^eamed of doing it on mine. However, to do it with 
 my own hand is too good for me, after all. It is you, my 
 ruined husband, who ought to strike the blow. I think I 
 should love you more, if that were possible, if you could 
 bring yourself to do it, since there's no other way of escape 
 for 'ee. I feel I am so utterly wortliless. So very greatly 
 in the way ! " 
 
 " Ssh ! " 
 
 " Well, since you say so, I won't. I have no wish opposed 
 to vours." 
 
 He knew this to be true enough. Since the desperation 
 of the night her activities had dropped to zero, and there 
 was no further rashness to be feared. 
 
 Tess tried to busy herself again over the breakfast-table 
 with more or less success, and thev sat down both on the 
 same side, so that their glances did not meet. There was 
 at first something awkward in hearing each other eat and 
 drink, but this could not be escaped ; moreover, the amount 
 
THE WOIVIAN PAYS. 273 
 
 of eating done was small on both sides. Breakfast over, 
 he rose, and, teUing her the houi' at which he might be ex- 
 pected to diimer, went off to the miller's in a mechanical 
 pursuance of the plan of studying that business, which had 
 been his only practical reason for coming here. 
 
 When he was gone Tess stood at the mndow, and pres- 
 ently saw his form crossing the great stone bridge which 
 conducted to the mill premises. He sank behind it, crossed 
 the railway be^^ond, and disappeared. Then, without a sigh, 
 she tm-ned her attention to the room, and began clearing 
 the table and setting it in order. 
 
 The charwoman soon came. Her presence was at first a 
 strain upon Tess, but afterwards an alleviation. At half- 
 past twelve she left her assistant alone in the kitchen, and, 
 returning to the sitting-room, waited for the reappearance 
 of Angel's form behind the bridge. 
 
 About one he showed himself. Her face flushed, although 
 he was a quarter of a mile off. She ran to the kitchen to 
 get the dinner served by the time he shoidd enter. He 
 went fii-st to the room where they had washed their hands 
 together the day before, and as he entered the sitting-room 
 the dish-covers rose from the dishes as if by his oivn motion. 
 
 " How j)nnctual ! " he said. 
 
 " Yes. I saw you coming over the bridge," said she. 
 
 The meal was passed in commonplace talk of what he had 
 been doing during the morning at the Abbey Mill, of the 
 methods of bolting and the old-fashioned machinery, which 
 he feared would not enlighten him greatly on modern im- 
 proved methods, some of it seeming to have been in use 
 ever since the days it ground for the monks in the adjoin- 
 ing conventual buildings — now a heap of ruins. He left 
 the house again in the com-se of an hour, coming home at 
 dusk, and occupying himself through the evening mth his 
 papers. She feared she was in the way, and, when the old 
 woman was gone, retired to the kitchen, where she made 
 
 herself busy as well as she could for more than an hour. 
 18 
 
274 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Clare's shape appeared at the door. '^Yon must not 
 work like this/' he said. " Yoii are not my servant, you 
 know ; you are my wife." 
 
 Her face brightened. ''I may tliink myself that — in- 
 deed?'' she murmured in piteous raiUer}^ "You mean in 
 name ! Well, I don't want to be anytliing more." 
 
 " You may think so, Tess ! You are. What do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 ^' I don't know," she said, hastily, with tears in her eyes. 
 "I thought I — because I am not respectable, I mean. I 
 told you I thought I was not respectable enough long 
 ago — and I didn't want to marry you, on that account — 
 only you ui'ged me ! " 
 
 She broke into sobs, and turned her back to him. It 
 would almost have won round any man but Angel Clare. 
 Within the remote depths of his constitution, so gentle and 
 affectionate as he was in general, there lay hidden a hard 
 logical deposit, like a vein of metal in a soft loam, which 
 tui-ned the edge of everything that attempted to traverse it. 
 It had blocked his way with the Chiu'ch; it blocked his 
 way mth Tess. Moreover, his affection itself was less fii'e 
 than radiance, and, with regard to the other sex, when he 
 ceased to believe he ceased to follow; contrasting in this 
 with many impressionable natures, who remain sensuously 
 infatuated with what they intellectually despise. When 
 put upon his mettle his power of seK-mastery was appalling 
 — almost inhuman. He waited till her sobbing ceased. 
 
 ^' I wish half the women in England were as respectable 
 as you," he said, in an ebullition of bitterness against wom- 
 ankind in general. " It isn't a question of respectability, 
 but one of principle." 
 
 He spoke such things as these and more of a kindred 
 sort to her, being still swayed by the antipathetic wave 
 which warps direct souls with such persistence when once 
 their vision finds itself mocked by appearances. There 
 was, it is true, underneath, a back current of sympathy 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 275 
 
 througli which a woman of the world might have conquered 
 him. But Tess did not think of this ; she took everything 
 as her deserts, and hardly opened her mouth. The firmness 
 of her devotion to him was indeed almost pitiful ; quick- 
 tempered as she naturally was, nothing that he could say 
 made her unseemly; she sought not her own; was not 
 provoked ; thought no evil of his treatment of her. She 
 might just now have been Apostolic Charity herseK returned 
 to a self-seeking modern world. 
 
 This evening, night, and morning were passed precisely 
 as the preceding ones had been passed. On one, and only 
 one, occasion did she — the formerly free and independent 
 Tess — ventiu'e to make any advances. It was on the tliird 
 occasion of his starting after a meal to go out to the flour- 
 mill. As he was leaving the table he said '' Good-by," and 
 she replied in the same words, at the same time inclining 
 her mouth in the way of his. He did not avail liimself of 
 the invitation, sapng, as he turned hastily aside, "I shall 
 be home punctually." 
 
 Tess shrank into herself as if she had been struck. Often 
 enough had he tried to reach those lips against her consent 
 — often had he said gaily that her mouth and breath tasted 
 of butter and eggs and milk and honey, on which she mainly 
 Kved, that he drew sustenance from them, and other follies 
 of that sort. But he did not care for them now. He ob- 
 served her sudden shrinking, and said gently, " You know, 
 I have to think of a course. It was imperative that we 
 should stay together a little while, to avoid the scandal to 
 you that would have resulted from our immediate parting. 
 But you must see it is only for form's sake." 
 
 ^' Yes," said Tess, absently. 
 
 He went out, and on his way to the mill stood still, and, 
 faint as his love for her had waned, mshed for a moment 
 that he had resj^onded yet more kindly, and kissed her once 
 at least. 
 
 Thus they lived through this despairing day or two ; in 
 
276 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 the same house, truly ; hut more widely apart than hef ore 
 they were lovers. It was evident to her that he was, as he 
 had said, li\dng with paralyzed activities, in his endeavor 
 to think of a plan of procedure. She was awe-stricken to 
 discover such determination under such apparent flexibility. 
 She no longer expected forgiveness now. More than once 
 she thought of going away from him during his absence at 
 the mill 5 but she feared that this, instead of benefiting him, 
 might be the means of hampering and humiliating him yet 
 more, if it should become known. 
 
 Meanwhile Clare was meditating verily. His thought 
 had been unsuspended ; he was becoming ill with thinking ; 
 eaten out with thinking, mthered by thinking; scourged 
 out of all his former pulsating, flexuous domesticity. He 
 walked about saying to himself, ^^ What's to be done — what's 
 to be done ? " and by chance she overheard him. It caused 
 her to break the reserve about their f utm^e which had hith- 
 erto prevailed. 
 
 " I suppose — you are not going to live wi' me — long, are 
 you. Angel ? " she asked, the sunk corners of her mouth be- 
 traying how purely mechanical were the means by which 
 she retained that expression of chastened calm upon her 
 face. 
 
 ^•I cannot," he said, "without despising myself, and what 
 is worse, perhaps, despising you. I mean, of course, can- 
 not live with you in the ordinary sense. At present, what- 
 ever I feel, I do not despise you. And, since we have begun 
 to speak, Tess, let me speak plainly, otherwise you may 
 not perceive aU my difficulties. How can we hve together 
 while that man lives, he being your husband in the sight of 
 Nature, if not really ? Now I put it to you. Don't think 
 of me or of yourself, my feelings or your feehngs. That's 
 not all the difficulty ; it lies in another consideration — one 
 bearing upon the future of other people than ourselves. 
 Tliink of years to come, and children born to us, and this 
 past matter getting known — for it must get known. Black- 
 
' ^HE W03IAN PAYS. 277 
 
 moor Vale and The Chase, even the vonder side of it, are 
 not such uttermost parts of the earth that nobody ever 
 comes from or goes to them from elsewhere. Well, think 
 of these Avretches of our flesh and blood growing up under 
 doubts which they will gradually get to feel the full force 
 of with then' expanding years. What an awakening for 
 them ! What a prospect ! Can you honestly say Remain, 
 after contemplating this contingency? Don't you think 
 we had better endure the ills we have than flv to others f " 
 
 She did not lift her eyelids, weighted with trouble. 
 
 " I cannot sav Remain,'^ she answered. " I cannot ; I had 
 not thought so far.'' 
 
 Tess's feminine hope — shall we confess it — had been so 
 obstinately recuperative as to revive in her surreptitious 
 visions of a domiciliary intimacy continued long enough 
 to break down his coldness even against his judgment. 
 Though unsophisticated in the usual sense, she was not in- 
 complete ; and it Avould have denoted deficiency of woman- 
 hood if she had not instinctively knowm what an argument 
 lies in propinquity. Nothing else would serve her, she 
 knew, if tliis failed. It was "v\Tong to hope in what was of 
 the natm'e of strategy, she said to herseK : yet that sort of 
 hope she could not extinguish. His last representation had 
 now been made, and it was, as sne said, a new view. She 
 had truly never thought so far as that, and his lucid picture 
 of possible offspring who would scorn her was one that 
 brought deadly conviction to an honest heart which was 
 humanitarian to its centre. Sheer experience had already 
 taught her, that, in some circumstances, there was one 
 thing better than to lead a good life, and that was to be 
 saved from leading any life whatever. Like aU w^ho had 
 been pre\dsioned by suffering, she could, in the words of 
 M. Sully-Prudhomme, hear a penal sentence in the fiat, 
 ^' You shall be born." 
 
 Yet such is the vulpine slyness of Dame Natm-e, that, till 
 now, Tess had been hoodwinked bv her love for Clare into 
 
278 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 forgetting it might result in vitalizations that v/oiild inflict 
 npon others what she had bewailed as a misfortune to her- 
 self. 
 
 She therefore could not withstand his argument. But 
 with the self -combating proclivity of the supersensitive, an 
 answer thereto arose in Clare's own mind^ and he almost 
 feared it. It was based on her exceptional physical nature ; 
 and she might have used it promisingly. Moreover, she 
 might have added: "On an Australian upland or Texan 
 plain, who is to know or care about my misfortunes, or to 
 reproach me or you?" Yet, like the majority of women, 
 she accepted the momentary presentment as if it were the 
 inevitable. And she may have been right. The heart of 
 woman knoweth not only its own bitterness, but its hus- 
 band's, and who should say that, even if these assumed re- 
 proaches were not likely to be addressed to him or to his 
 by strangers, they might not have reached his ears from 
 liis own fastidious brain. 
 
 It was the third day of the estrangement. Some might 
 risk the odd paradox that with more animalism he would 
 have been the nobler man. We do not say it. Yet Clare's 
 love was ethereal to a fault, imaginative to impracticability. 
 With these natures, corporeal presence is sometimes less 
 appealing than corporeal absence; the latter creating an 
 ideal presence that conveniently drops the defects of the 
 real. She found that her personality did not plead her 
 cause so forcibly as she had anticipated. The figurative 
 phrase was true : she was another woman than the one 
 who had excited his desire. 
 
 " I have thought over what you say," she remarked to 
 him, moving her forefinger over the table-cloth, her other 
 hand, which bore the ring that mocked them both, support- 
 ing her forehead. " It is quite true, all of it j it must be. 
 You must go away from me." 
 
 " But what can you do ? " 
 
 " I can go home." 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 279 
 
 Clare had not thought of that. " Ai'e yon sure ? " he said. 
 
 " Quite siu-e. We ought to part, and we may as well get 
 it past and done. You once said that I was apt to win 
 men against their better judgment 5 and if I am constantly 
 before yoiu' eyes I may cause you to change your plans in 
 opposition to your reason and wish ; and afterwards your 
 repentance and my sorrow will be terrible." 
 
 He was silent. "And you would like to go home?'' he 
 asked. 
 
 " I want to leave you, and go home." 
 
 " Then it shall be so." 
 
 Though she did not look up at him, she started. There 
 was a difference between the proposition and the covenant, 
 which she had felt only too quickly. 
 
 " I feared it would come to this," she mui'mured, her coun- 
 tenance meekly fixed. ''I don't complain, Angel. I — I 
 tliink it best. What you said has quite convinced me. 
 Yes — though nobody else should reproach me, if we should 
 stay together, yet somewhen, years hence, you might get 
 angry with me for any ordinary matter, and knowing what 
 you do of my bygones, you yourself might be tempted to 
 say words, and they might be overheard, perhaps by my 
 own children. 0, what only hurts me now would torture 
 and kill me then ! I will go — to-morrow." 
 
 " And I shall not stay here. Though I did not like to 
 intimate it, I have seen that it was advisable we should 
 part — at least for a while, till I can better see the shape that 
 things have taken, and can write to you." 
 
 Tess stole a glance at her husband. He was pale, even 
 tremulous ; but, as before, she was appalled by the deter- 
 mination revealed in the depths of this gentle being she had 
 married — the will to subdue the grosser emotion to the sub- 
 tler emotion, the substance to the conception, the flesh to 
 the spirit. Propensities, tendencies, habits, were as dead 
 leaves upon the tyrannous wind of his imaginative ascend- 
 ency. 
 
^80 TESS OP THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 He may have observed lier look, for lie explained : "I 
 think of people more kindly when I am away from them ; " 
 adding cynically, "God knows; perhaps we shall shake 
 down together some day, for weariness; thousands have 
 done it ! " 
 
 That day he began to pack up, and she went upstairs 
 and began to pack also. Both knew that it was in their 
 two minds that they might part the next morning forever, 
 despite the gloss of assuaging conjectm'es thrown over their 
 proceeding by reason of their being of the sort to whom 
 any parting which has an air of finality about it is a tor- 
 ture. He knew, and she knew, that, though the fascination 
 which each had exercised over the other — on her part in- 
 dependently of accomplishments — would probably in the 
 first days of their separation be even more potent than 
 ever, time must attenuate that effect ; the practical argu- 
 ments against accepting her as a housemate would pro- 
 nounce themselves more strongly in the boreal light of a 
 remoter time. Moreover, when two people are once parted 
 — have abandoned a common domicile and a common en- 
 wonment — new growths insensibly bud upward to fill 
 each vacated place ; unforeseen accidents hinder intentions, 
 and old plans are forgotten. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Midnight came and passed silently, for there was noth- 
 ing to announce it in the Valley of the Var. 
 
 Not long after one o'clock there was a slight creak in the 
 darkened old farmhouse once the mansion of the D'Urber- 
 villes. Tess, who used the upper chamber, heard it and 
 awoke. It had come from the three-cornered step of the 
 stau'case, which, as usual, was loosely nailed. She saw the 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 281 
 
 door of her bedi'oom open, and the figure of her husband 
 crossed the stream of moonlight with a cmiously careful 
 tread. He was in his shii^t and trousers only, and her first 
 flush of joy died when she perceived that his eyes were fixed 
 in an unnatural stare on vacancy. When he reached the 
 middle of the room he stood still and murmured, in tones 
 of indescribable sadness, " Dead ! dead ! dead ! " 
 
 Under the influence of any strongly distui'bing force 
 Clare woidd occasionally walk in his sleep, and even per- 
 form strange feats, such as he had done on the night of 
 theii' return from market just before their marriage, when 
 he re-enacted in his bedroom his combat with the man who 
 had insulted her. Tess saw that continued mental distress 
 had T\Tought that somnambulistic state in him now. 
 
 Her loyal confidence in him lay so deep down in her 
 heart that, awake or asleep, he inspired her with no sort of 
 personal fear. If he had entered with a pistol in liis hand 
 he would scarcely have disturbed her trust in his protec- 
 tiveness. 
 
 Clare came close, and bent over her. " Dead, dead, dead ! " 
 he mui'mured. 
 
 After fixedly regarding her for some moments with the 
 same gaze of unmeasiu-able woe he bent lower, enclosed 
 her in his arms, and rolled her in the sheet as in a shroud. 
 Then lifting her from the bed with as much respect as one 
 would show to a dead bodv in such cii'cumstances, he car- 
 ried her across the room, murmuring, ^' My poor, poor Tess 
 — my dearest, darling Tess ! So sweet, so good, so true ! " 
 
 The words of endearment, withheld so severely in his 
 waking hours, were inexpressibly sweet to her forlorn and 
 hungry heart. If it had been to save her weary life she 
 would not, by mo\ing or struggling, have put an end to 
 the position she found herself in. Thus she lay in absolute 
 stdlness, scarcely venturing to breathe, and, wondering what 
 he was going to do with her, suffered herself to be borne 
 out upon the landing. 
 
282 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 " Mv mfe — dead, dead ! " he said. 
 
 He paused in his labors for a moment to lean with her 
 against the banister. Was he going to thi'ow her down ? 
 Self -solicitude was near extinction in her, and in the knowl- 
 edge that he had planned to depart from her on the mor- 
 row, possibly for always, she lay in his arms in this pre- 
 carious position mtli rather a sense of luxury than a sense 
 of terror. If they coidd only fall together, and both be 
 dashed to pieces, how fit, how desirable ! 
 
 However, he did not let her fall, but took advantage of 
 the support of the handrail to imprint a kiss upon her lips 
 — lips in the daytime scorned. Then he clasped her with 
 a renewed fii^mness of hold, and descended the staircase. 
 The creak of the corner stair did not awaken him, and they 
 reached the ground-floor safely. Freeing one of his hands 
 from its grasp of her for a moment, he sHd back the door- 
 bar and passed out, slightly striking his stockinged toe 
 against the edge of the door. But this he seemed not to 
 mind, and, having room for extension in the open aii', he 
 got her upon his shoulder, so that he could carry her ^xiih. 
 more ease, the absence of clothes taking much from his 
 burden. Thus he bore her off the premises, in the direction 
 of the river, a few vards distant. 
 
 His ultimate intention, if he had any, she had not yet 
 di\dned ; and she found herself conjecturing on the matter 
 as a third person might have done. So easefully had she 
 delivered her whole being up to liim that it pleased her to 
 think he was regarding her as his absolute possession, to 
 dispose of as he sliould choose. It was consoling, under 
 the hovering terror of to-morrow's separation, to feel that 
 he really recognized her now as his wife Tess, and did not 
 cast her off, even if in that recognition he went so far as to 
 arrogate to himself the right of harming her. 
 
 Ah ! now she knew he was dreaming of — that Sunday 
 morning when he had borne her along through the water 
 with the other dairymaids, who had loved him nearly as 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 283 
 
 much as she, if tliat were possible, wliich Tess coiild liardly 
 admit. Clare did not cross the bridge with her, but pro- 
 ceeding several paces on the same side towards the adjoin- 
 ing mill, at length stood still on the brink of the Froom. 
 
 Its waters, in creeping dowTi these miles of meadow-land, 
 frequently divided, serpentining in purposeless ciuwes, loop- 
 ing themselves around little islands that had no name, re- 
 turning, and re-embodying themselves as a broad main 
 stream farther on. Opposite the spot to which he had 
 brought her was such a general confluence, and the river 
 was proportionately voluminous and deep. Across it was 
 a narrow foot-bridge; but now the autumn rains had 
 washed the handrail away, leaving the bare plank only, 
 which, lying a few inches above the speeding current, 
 formed a giddy pathway for even steady heads ; and Tess 
 had noticed from the window of the house in the daytime 
 young men trying to cross upon it as a feat in balancing. 
 Her husband had possibly observed the same performance ; 
 anyhow, he now mounted the bridge, and, shding one foot 
 forward, advanced along it. 
 
 Was he going to drown her? Probably he was. The 
 spot was lonely, the river deep and wide enough to make 
 such a purpose easy of accomplishment. He might drown 
 her if he would ; it would be better than parting to-morrow 
 to lead severed lives. 
 
 The swift stream raced and gyrated under them, tossing, 
 distorting, and splitting the moon's reflected face. Spots of 
 froth travelled past, and intercepted weeds waved behind 
 the piles. If they could both fall together into the cui'rent 
 now, their arms would be so tightly clasped together that 
 they could not be saved ; they would go out of the world 
 almost painlessly, and there would be no more reproach to 
 her, or to him for marrying her. His last half -hour with 
 her would have been a loving one, while if they lived till 
 he awoke his daytime aversion would return, and this hour 
 would remain to be contemplated only as a transient dream. 
 
284 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 The impulse stirred in lier, yet she dared not indulge it, 
 to make a movement that would have precipitated them 
 both into the gulf. How she valued her own life had been 
 proved ; but his — she had no right to tamper with it. He 
 reached the other side with her in safetv. 
 
 Here they were witliin a plantation which formed the 
 Abbey grounds, and taking a new hold of her, he went on- 
 ward a few steps tiU they reached the ruined choir of the 
 Abbey church. Against the north wall was the empty 
 stone coffin of an abbot, without a lid, in which every tour- 
 ist mth a turn for grim humor was accustomed to stretch 
 himself. In this Clare carefulty laid Tess. Having kissed 
 her lips a second time, he breathed deeply, as if a gTcatly 
 desired end were attained. Clare then laid do^\Ti beside 
 her, when he immediately fell into the deep dead slumber 
 of exhaustion, and remained motionless as a log. Tlie 
 spurt of mental excitement which had produced the effort 
 was now over. 
 
 Tess sat up in the coffin. The night, though dry and 
 mild for the season, was more than sufficientlv cold to 
 make it dangerous for him to remain here long, in liis half- 
 clothed state. If he were left to himself, he would in all 
 probability stay there till the moi'ning, and be chilled to 
 certain death. She had heard of such deaths after sleej)- 
 walking. But how could she dare to awaken him, and let 
 him know what he had been doing, when it would mortif}" 
 him to discover his folly in respect of her ? Tess, however, 
 stepping out of her stone confine, shook liim slightly^ but 
 was unable to arouse him without being violent. It was 
 indispensable to do something, for she was beginning to 
 shiver, the sheet being but a poor protection. Her excite- 
 ment had in a measure kept her warm during the advent- 
 ure ; but that beatific interval was over. 
 
 It suddenly occurred to her to try persuasion ; and ac- 
 cordingl}^ she whispered in his ear, with as much firmness 
 and decision as she could summon, " Let us walk on, dar- 
 
THE W03IAN PAYS. 285 
 
 liiig/' at tlie same time taking liim suggestively by the arm. 
 To her relief, he unresistingly acquiesced ; her words had 
 apparently thrown him back into his di'eam, which thence- 
 forward seemed to enter on a new phase, wherein he fancied 
 she had risen as a spirit, and was leading him to Heaven. 
 Thus she conducted him by the arm to the stone bridge in 
 front of theii^ residence, crossing which they stood at the 
 manor-house door. Tess's feet were quite bare, and the 
 stones hurt her, and chilled her to the bone ; but Clare was 
 in his woollen stockings, and appeared to feel no discomfort. 
 
 There was no further difficulty. She induced him to he 
 down on his own sofa-bed, and covered him up warmly, 
 lighting a temporary fire of wood, to dry any dampness 
 out of him. The noise of these attentions she thought 
 might awaken him, and secretly wished that they might. 
 But the exhaustion of his mind and body was such that he 
 remained undisturbed. 
 
 As soon as they met the next morning, Tess divined that 
 Angel knew little or nothing of how far she had been con- 
 cerned in the night's excursion, though as regarded himself 
 he may have had an inkling that he had not lain still. In 
 truth, he had awakened that morning from a sleep deep as 
 anniliilation ; and dui'ing those fii'st few moments in which 
 the brain, like a Samson shaking himself, is trying its 
 strength, he had some dim notion of an unusual nocturnal 
 proceeding. But the realities of his situation soon dis- 
 placed conjecture on the other subject. 
 
 He waited in expectancy to discern some mental point- 
 ing ; he knew that if any intention of his, concluded over- 
 night, did not vanish in the light of morning, it stood on a 
 basis approximating to one of pure reason, even if initiated 
 by impulse of feeling 5 that it was so far, therefore, to be 
 trusted. 
 
 He thus beheld in the pale morning light the resolve to 
 separate from her ; not as a hot and indignant instinct, but 
 denuded of the passionateness which had made it scorch 
 
286 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 and burn ; standing in its bones ; nothing but a skeleton, 
 but none the less there. Clare no longer hesitated. 
 
 At breakfast, and while they were packing the few re- 
 maining articles, he showed his weariness from the night's 
 effort so unmistakably that Tess was on the point of speak- 
 ing and revealmg all that had happened ; but the reflection 
 that it would anger him, grieve him, stultify him, by letting 
 him know that he had instinctively manifested a fondness 
 for her of which his common-sense did not approve j that 
 his inclination had compromised his dignity when reason 
 slept, again deterred her. It was too much hke laughing at 
 a man when sol.^er for his erratic deeds during intoxication. 
 
 It just crossed her mind, too, that he might have a faint 
 recollection of his tender vagary, and was disinchned to 
 allude to it from a con^dction that she would take advan- 
 tage of the undoubted oj^portunity it gave her of appealing 
 to him anew not to go. 
 
 He had ordered by letter a vehicle from the nearest 
 town, and soon after breakfast it arrived. She saw in it 
 the beginning of the end — the temporary end, at least, for 
 the revelation of his tenderness by the incident of the 
 night led her to think of a possible future mth him. The 
 luggage was put on the top, and the man di'ove them off, 
 the miller and the old waiting- woman expressing some sur- 
 prise at theii' precipitate departm^e, which Clare attributed 
 to his discovery that the mill- work was not of the modern 
 kind which he wished to investigate, a statement that was 
 true so far as it went. Beyond this there was nothing in 
 the manner of their lea^dng to suggest ^fiasco, or that they 
 were not going together to visit friends. 
 
 Their route lay near the dairy from which they had 
 started with such solemn joy in each other a few days back, 
 and as Clare wished to wind up his business with Mr. Crick, 
 Tess could hardly avoid paying Mrs. Crick a call at the 
 same time, unless she would excite suspicion of their un- 
 happy state. 
 
THE WOiVIAN PAYS. 287 
 
 To make the call as unobtrusive as possible tliey left tlie 
 carriage at the end of the short lane leading down from 
 the high road to the dairy-house, and descended the track 
 on foot, side by side. The withy-bed had been cut, and 
 they could see over the stumps the spot on wliich Clare had 
 followed her when he pressed her to be his wife ; to the 
 left the enclosure in w^hich she had been fascinated by his 
 harp ; and far away over the roofs of the cowstaUs, the 
 mead which had been the scene of their first embrace. The 
 gold of the summer picture was now gi'ay, the colors mean, 
 the rich soil mud, and the river cold. 
 
 Over the barton-gate the dauyman saw them, and came 
 forward, tlu^owing into liis face the kind of joviality deemed 
 appropriate in Talbothays and its vicinity on the reappear- 
 ance of the newly married. Then Mrs. Crick emerged from 
 the house, and several others of their old acquaintance, 
 though Marian and Retty did not appear to be there. 
 
 Tess valiantly bore their sly attacks and friendly humors, 
 which affected her far otherwise than they supposed. In 
 the tacit agTcement of husband and wife to keep their 
 estrangement a secret they behaved as would have been 
 ordinary. And then, although she would rather there had 
 been no word spoken on the subject, Tess had to hear in 
 detail the story of Marian and Retty. The latter had gone 
 home to her father's, and Marian had left to look for em- 
 plojonent elsewhere. They feared she would come to no 
 good. 
 
 To dissipate the sadness of this recital Tess went and 
 bade all her favorite cows good-by, touching each of them 
 with her hand, and as she and Clare stood side by side at 
 leaving as if united body and soul, there would have been 
 something peculiarly sorry in their aspect to one who 
 should have seen it truly : two limbs of one life, as they 
 outwardly were, his arm touching hers, her sku'ts touching 
 him, facing one way, as against all the dairy facing the 
 other, speaking in theu* adieux as " we," and yet sundered 
 
288 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 like the poles. Perhaps something unusually stiff and em- 
 barrassed in their attitude, some awkwardness in acting up 
 to theii' profession of unity, different from the natural shy- 
 ness of young couples, may have been apparent, for when 
 they were gone Mrs. Crick said to her husband, " How on- 
 natural the brightness of her eyes did seem, and how the 
 pair stood like waxen images and talked as if they were 
 in a dream ! Didn't it strike 'ee that 'twas so ? Tess had 
 always sommat strange in her, and she's not now quite Hke 
 the proud young bride of a well-be-doing man." 
 
 They re-entered the vehicle, and were driven along the 
 roads through Weatherbury and Stagfoot Lane, till they 
 reached Nuzzlebury, where Clare dismissed the fly and man. 
 They rested here awhile, and entering the Vale w^ere next 
 diiven onward towards her home by a stranger who did 
 not know their new relationship. At a midway point, 
 when many miles had been passed over, and where there 
 were cross-roads, Clare stopped the man, and said to Tess 
 that if she meant to return to her mother's house it was 
 here that he would leave her. As they could not talk with 
 freedom in the driver's presence, he asked her to accompany 
 him for a few steps on foot along one of the branch roads ; 
 she assented, and directing the man to wait a few minutes, 
 they strolled away. 
 
 ^^Now, let us understand each other," he said, gently. 
 " There is no anger between us, though there is that which 
 I cannot endure at present. I will try to bring myself to 
 endure it. I will let you know where I go to as soon as I 
 know myself. And if I can bring myself to bear it — if it 
 is desirable, possible — I will come to you. But until I come 
 to you it will be better that you should not try to come to 
 me." 
 
 The severity of the decree seemed deadly to Tess ; she 
 saw his view of her clearly enough ; he could regard her in 
 no other light than that of one who had practised gross de- 
 ceit upon him. Yet could a woman who had done even 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 289 
 
 what slie had done deserve all this ? But she could contest 
 the point with him no fui'ther. She simply repeated after 
 him his own words. 
 
 " Until you come to me I must not try to come to you?" 
 
 ^^ Just so." 
 
 '' May I write to you ? " 
 
 " Oh yes — if you are ill^ or want anything at all. I hope 
 that will not be the case ; so that it may happen that I 
 write fii'st to you." 
 
 "I agree to the conditions, Angel; because you know 
 best what my punishment ought to be ; only — only — don't 
 'ee make it more than I can bear ! " 
 
 That was all she said on the matter. If Tess had been 
 artful, had she made a scene, fainted, wept hysterically, in 
 that lonely lane, notwithstanding the fury of fastidiousness 
 with which he was possessed, he would probably not have 
 withstood her. But her mood of long-suffering made his 
 way easy for him, and she herself was his best advocate. 
 In her submission — which perhaps was a symptom of that 
 reckless acquiescence in chance too apparent in the whole 
 D'Urberville family — the many effective chords which she 
 could have stirred by an appeal were left untouched. 
 
 The remainder of their discourse was on practical matters 
 only. He now handed her a packet containing a fairly 
 good sum of money, which he had obtained from his bank- 
 ers for the purpose. The brilliants, the interest in which 
 seemed to be Tess's for her life only (if he understood the 
 wording of the will), he advised her to let him send to a 
 bank for safetv ; and to this she readilv asreed. 
 
 These things arranged, he walked with Tess back to the 
 carriage, and handed her in. He jDaid the coachman, and 
 told him where to di'ive her. Taking then his own bag 
 and umbrella — the sole articles he had brought with him 
 hitherwards — he bade her good-])y ; and they parted there 
 and then. 
 
 The fly mo^ed creepingly up the hill, and Clare watched 
 
 19 
 
290 TESS OP THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 it go with an unpremeditated liope that Tess wonld look 
 out of the window for one moment. But that she never 
 thought of doing, would not have ventured to do, lying in 
 a half-dead faint inside. Thus he watched her out of sight, 
 and in the anguish of his heart quoted a hue of a poet 
 with a few improvements of his own : 
 
 God's not in His heaven : all's icrong with the world ! 
 
 When Tess had passed over the crest of the hill he tmmed 
 to go his own way, and did not know that he loved her still. 
 
 XXXYIII. 
 
 As she drove on through Blackmoor Vale, and the land- 
 scape of her youth began to open around her, Tess aroused 
 herself from her stupor. Her fii'st thought was how would 
 she be able to face her parents ? 
 
 She reached the turnpike gate which stood near the en- 
 trance to the village. It was thrown open by a stranger, 
 not by the old man who had kept it for many years, and 
 to whom she had been kno\\Ti ; he had probal^ly left on 
 New Yeai^s Dav, the date when such chano^es were made. 
 Having received no intelligence lately from her home, she 
 asked the turnpike-keeper the news. 
 
 " O — nothing, miss," he answered. " Mario tt is Marlott 
 still. Folks have died, and that. John Durbeyfield, too, 
 hev had a daughter married this week to a gentleman- 
 farmer ; not from John's own house, you know ; they was 
 married elsewhere ; the gentleman being of that high 
 standing that John's own folk was not considered well-be- 
 doing enough to have any part in it, the bridegroom seem- 
 ingly not knowing liow't have l)een discovered that John 
 is a old and ancient nobleman himself l)y blood, with family 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 291 
 
 skellingtoiis in tlieii' own vaults to this day, but done out 
 of liis pro23erty in the time o' the Romans. However, Sir 
 John, as we call 'n now, kept up the wedding-day as well 
 as he could, and stood treat to everybody in the parish ; and 
 John's wife sung songs at The Pure Drop till past eleven 
 o'clock." 
 
 Hearing this, Tess felt so sick at heart that she could not 
 decide to go home publicly in this fly with her luggage and 
 belongings. She asked the turnpike-keeper if she might 
 deposit her things at his house for a while, and, on his 
 offering no objection, she dismissed her carriage, and went 
 on to the village alone by a back lane. 
 
 At sight of her fathei^s chimney she asked herself how 
 she coidd possibly enter the house? Inside that cottage 
 her relations were calmly supposing her far away on a 
 wedding tour mth a comparatively rich man, who was to 
 conduct her to bouncing prosperity 5 while here she was, 
 friendless, creeping up to the old door quite by herself, 
 with no better place to go to in the world. 
 
 She did not reach the house unobserved. Just by the 
 garden-hedge she was met by a girl who knew her — one 
 of the two or tlu^ee with whom she had been intimate at 
 school. After making a few inquiries as to how Tess came 
 there, her friend, unheeding her tragic look, interrupted 
 with, "But where's thy gentleman, Tess?" 
 
 Tess hastily explained that he had been called away on 
 business, and, leaving her interlocutor, clambered over the 
 garden-hedge, and thus made her way to the house. 
 
 As she went up the garden-path she heard her mother 
 singing by the back door, coming in sight of which she 
 perceived Mrs. Durbej^eld on the doorstep in the act of 
 wringing a sheet. Ha^dng performed this mthout observ- 
 ing Tess, she went indoors, and her daughter followed her. 
 
 The washing-tub stood in the same old place on the same 
 old quarter-hogshead, and her mother, having thrown the 
 sheet aside, was about to plunge her arms in anew. 
 
292 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 " Wliy — Tess ! — my chil' — I thouglit you was going to be 
 married — some days ago — really and truly this time — we 
 sent the cider " 
 
 '' YeSj mother ; so I am." 
 
 "Going to be?" 
 
 " I mean — I am married." 
 
 " Married ! Then where's thy husband ! " 
 
 '^ 0, he's gone away for a time." 
 
 '' Gone away ! When was you married, then ? The day 
 vou said ? " 
 
 " Yes, Tuesday, mother." 
 
 "And now 'tis on'y Saturday, and he gone away?" 
 
 "Yes; he's gone." 
 
 " What's the meaning o' that ? 'Nation seize such hus- 
 bands as you seem to get, say I ! " 
 
 " Mother ! " — Tess went across to Joan Durbeyfield, laid 
 her face upon the matron's bosom, and burst into sobs — 
 " I don't know how to tell 'ee, mother ! You said to me, 
 and wrote to me, that I was not to tell him. But I did tell 
 him — I couldn't help it — and he went away ! " 
 
 " O you little fool — 3^ou little fool ! " burst out Mrs. Dur- 
 beyfield. " My good God ! that ever I should ha' lived to 
 say it, but I say it again, you little fool ! " 
 
 Tess was con^-ulsed with weepmg, the tension of so many 
 days having relaxed at last. "I know it — I know — I 
 know ! " she gasped through her sobs. " But, O my mother, 
 I could not help it ; he was so good^ — and I felt the wicked- 
 ness of trying to blind him as to what had happened ! If 
 — ^if — it were to be done again — I should do the same. I 
 could not — I dared not — so sin — against him ! " 
 
 ^' But you sinned enough to marry him first ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; that's where my misery do lie. But I thought 
 he could get rid of me by law if he were determined not to 
 overlook it. And 0, if you knew — if you could only half 
 know how I loved him — how anxious I was to have him — 
 and how wrung I was between caring so much for him and 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 293 
 
 my wish to be fair to liim ! '' Tess was so shaken that she 
 could get no fui^ther, and sunk a helpless thing into a chair. 
 
 '* Well, well ; what's done can't be undone ! I'm sure I 
 don't know why children o' my bringing forth should all be 
 bigger simpletons than other people's — not to know better 
 than to blab such a thing as that, when he couldn't ha' found 
 it out till too late ! " Here Mrs. Durbeyfield began shed- 
 ding tears on her own account as a mother to be pitied. 
 ^' What your father will say I don't know/' she continued ; 
 " for he's been talking about the wedding up at Rolliver's 
 and The Pure Drop every day since, and about his family 
 getting back to their rightful position through you — poor 
 silly man ! — and now you've made this mess of it. The 
 Lord-a-Lord ! " 
 
 As if to bring matters to a focus, Tess's father was heard 
 approaching at that moment. He did not, however, enter 
 immediatelv, and Mrs. Diu'bevfield said that she would 
 break the bad news to him herself, Tess keeping out of 
 sight for the present. Joan began to take the mishap as 
 she took all such mishaps after her first burst of disap- 
 pointment, as she had taken Tess's original trouble, as she 
 would have taken a wet holiday or a failure in the potato 
 crop — as a thing which had come upon them irrespective 
 of will, or law, or desert, or folly j a chance external im- 
 pingement to be borne mth ; not a lesson. 
 
 Tess retreated upstairs, and beheld casually that the beds 
 had been shifted, and new arrangements made. Her old 
 bed had been adapted for two younger children. There 
 was no place here for her now. 
 
 The room below being unceiled, she could hear most of 
 wliat went on there. Presently her father entered, appar- 
 ently carrying a live hen. He was a foot-higgler now, hav- 
 ing been obliged to sell his second horse, and he travelled 
 with his basket on his arm. The hen had been carried "wdth 
 liim this morning as it was often carried, to show people 
 that he was in his work, though the bird had reaUy lain, 
 
294: TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 mth its legs tied, iinder tlie table at Rolliver^s for more 
 than an hour. 
 
 " We've just had up a story about " Dm-beyfield be- 
 gan, and thereupon related in detail to his wife a discussion 
 which had arisen at the inn about the clerg}^, oiiginated 
 by the fact of his daughter having married into a clerical 
 family. "They was formerly styled ^sir/ hke my own an- 
 cestry," he said, "though nowadays their true style, strictly 
 speaking, is 'clerk' onty." As Tess had wished that no 
 great publicity should be given to the event, he had men- 
 tioned no particulars. He hoped she would remove that 
 prohibition soon. He proposed that the couple should take 
 Tess's own name, D'Urber^dlle, as uncorrupted. It was bet- 
 ter than her husband's. He asked if any letter had come 
 from her that day. 
 
 Then Mrs. Durbe^^field informed him that no letter had 
 come, but Tess unfortunately had come herself. 
 
 When at length the collapse was explained to him a sul- 
 len mortification, not usual with Durbeyfield, overpowered 
 the effect of the cheering glass. Yet the intrinsic quality 
 of the event affected his touchy sensitiveness less than its 
 conjectured effect upon the minds of others. 
 
 "To think, now, that this was to be the end o't," said 
 Sir John. " And I with a familv vault under that there 
 church of Kingsbere as big as Squire JoUard's ale-ceUar, 
 and my follv lying there in sixes and sevens, as genuine 
 county bones and marrow as any recorded in histor}^ And 
 now to be sure what thev fellers at Rolliver's and The Pure 
 Drop will say to me ; how they'll squint and glance, and 
 say, 'This is yer mighty grand match is it; this is yer 
 getting back to the true family level of yer forefathers in 
 King Norman's time ! ' I feel this is too much, Joan ; I 
 shall put an end to myself, title and all — I can bear it no 
 longer ! . . . But she can make him keep her if he's mar- 
 ried her ? " 
 
 "Why, yes. But she won't think o' doing that." 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 295 
 
 " D'ye think he really have married her. Or is it with 
 him as mth t'other ? " 
 
 Poor Tess, who had heard as far as this, could not bear 
 to hear more. The perception that her word could be 
 doubted even here, in her own parental house, set her mind 
 against the spot as nothing else could have done. How 
 unexpected were the attacks of destiny ! And if her father 
 doubted her a little, would not neighbors and acquaintance 
 doubt her much f O, she could not live long at home ! 
 
 A few days, accordingly, were all that she allowed her- 
 self here, at the end of which time she received a short note 
 from Clare, informing her that he had gone to the North 
 of England to look at a farm. In her craving for the dig- 
 nity of her true position as his wife, and to hide from her 
 parents the vast extent of the division between them, she 
 made use of this letter as her reason for again departing, 
 leaving them under the impression that she was setting out 
 to join him. Still fm'ther to screen her husband from any 
 imi)utation of unkindness to her, she took twenty-five of 
 the fifty pounds Clare had given her, and handed the sum 
 over to her mother, as if the wife of a man like Angel Clare 
 could well afford it, saying that it was a slight retm^n for 
 the trouble and humiliation she had brought upon them in 
 years past. With this assertion of her dignity she bade 
 them farewell ; and after that there were liveh^ doings in 
 the Durbeyfield household for some time on the strength 
 of Tess's bounty, her mother saying, and indeed believing, 
 that the quarrel which had arisen between the young hus- 
 band and wife had adjusted itself under their strong feeling 
 that they could not live ajDart from each other. 
 
296 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 It was three weeks after the marriage that Clare found 
 himself descending on foot the hiil wliich led to the well- 
 known parsonage of his father. With his downward course 
 the square tower of the church rose into the still evening 
 sky in a manner of inquiiy as to why he had come ; and no 
 li^dng person in the twihghted town seemed to notice him, 
 still less to expect him. He w^as arriving hke a ghost, and 
 the sound of his OT\m footsteps was almost an encumbrance 
 to be got rid of. 
 
 The picture of life had changed for Clare. Before this 
 time he had known it speculatively only ; now he thought 
 he knew it as a practical man ; though perhaps he did not, 
 even yet. Nevertheless, humanity stood before him no 
 longer in the pensive sweetness of Italian art, but in the 
 staring and ghastly attitudes of a Wiertz Museum, and 
 with the hideous leer of a Yan Beers. 
 
 His conduct during these first weeks had been desultory 
 beyond description. After mechanically attempting to 
 pursue his agricultural plans as though nothing unusual 
 had happened, in the manner recommended by the great 
 and wdse men of all ages, he concluded that very few of 
 those great and Avise men had ever gone so far outside 
 themselves as to test the feasibility of their counsel. " This 
 is the chief thing : be not perturbed," said the Pagan mor- 
 alist. That was just Clare's owm opinion. But he was 
 perturbed. " Let not youi' heart be troubled, neither let it 
 be afraid," said the Nazarene. Clare chimed in cordially ; 
 but his heart was troubled all the same. How he would 
 have liked to confront those two great thinkers, and ear- 
 nestly appeal to them as fellow-man to fellow-men, and ask 
 them to tell him their method ! 
 
THE W03L\N PAYS. 097 
 
 His mood transmuted itself into a dogged indifference 
 till at length he fancied he was looking on his own existence 
 wdth the passive interest of an outsider. 
 
 He was embittered by the conviction that all this desola- 
 tion had been brought about by the accident of her being 
 a D'Urberville. When he found that Tess came of that 
 exhausted ancient Une, and was not of the new tribes from 
 below, as he had fondly dreamed, why had he not stoically 
 abandoned her, in fidelity to his principles? This was 
 what he had got b}^ apostas}^, and his punishment was de- 
 served. 
 
 Then he became weary and anxious, and his anxiety in- 
 creased. He wondered if he had treated her unfairly. He 
 ate without knowing that he ate, and drank without tasting. 
 As the houi's dropped past, as the motive of each act in the 
 long series of bygone days presented itself to his view, he 
 perceived how^ intimately the notion of having Tess as a 
 dear possession was mixed up with all schemes, and words, 
 and ways. 
 
 In going hither and thither he observed in the outskirts 
 of a small town a red-and-blue placard setting forth the 
 great advantages of the Empire of Brazil as a field for the 
 emigrating agrieultuiist. Land was offered there on ex- 
 ceptionally advantageous terms. Brazil somewhat attracted 
 him as a new idea. Tess could eventually join him there, 
 and perhaps in that country of contrasting scenes, and 
 notions, and habits, the conventions would not be so opera- 
 tive wliich made hfe with her seem impracticable to him 
 here. In l)rief, he was strongty inclined to try Brazil, espe- 
 cially as the season for going thither was just at hand. 
 
 With this view he was returning to Eniminster to disclose 
 his plan to his parents, and to make the best explanation 
 he could make of arriving without Tess short of revealing 
 what had actually separated them. As he reached the door 
 the new moon shone upon his face, just as the old one had 
 done in the small hours of that morning when he had car- 
 
298 TESS OF THE D'URBERAaLLES. 
 
 ried liis wife in his arms across the river to the graveyard 
 of the monks ; bnt his face was thinner now. 
 
 Clare had given his parents no warning of his visit, and 
 his arrival stirred the atmosphere of the vicarage as the 
 dive of the kingfisher stirs a quiet pool. His father and 
 mother were both in the drawing-room, but neither of his 
 brothers was now at home. Angel entered, and closed the 
 door quietly behind him. 
 
 " But — where's jonr wife, dear Angel ? " cried his mother. 
 " How 5^ou surprise us ! " 
 
 ^' She is at her mothei^'s — temporarily. I have come home 
 rather in a hurry because I've decided to go to Brazil." 
 
 " Brazil ! Wliy, they are all Catholics there, surely ! " 
 
 " Are they ? I hadn't thought of that." 
 
 But even the novelty and painfulness of his going, par- 
 ticularly to a Papistical land, could not displace for long 
 Mr. and Mrs. Clare's natural interest in their son's marriage. 
 
 " We had your brief note three weeks ago announcing 
 that it had taken place," said Mrs. Clare, " and your father 
 sent your godmother's gift to her, as you know. Of course 
 it was best that none of us should be present, especially as 
 you preferred to marry her from the dairy, and not at her 
 home, wherever that may be. It would have embarrassed 
 you, and given us no pleasui'e. Your brothers felt that 
 very strongly. Of course, now it is done we do not com- 
 plain, particularly if she suits you for the business you 
 have chosen to follow instead of the ministry of the Gos- 
 pel. . . . Yet I wish I could have seen her first, Angel, or 
 have known a little more about her. We sent her no pres- 
 ent of our own, not knowing what would best give her 
 pleasure, but you must supjDOse it only delayed. Angel, 
 there is no irritation in my mind or your father's against 
 you for this marriage ; but we have thought it much better 
 to reserve our liking for your wife till we could see her. 
 And now you have not brought her. It seems strange. 
 What has ha|)})ened ? " 
 
 He replied that it had been thought best by them that 
 
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THE WOI\IAN PAYS. 299 
 
 she should go to lier pai'ents' home for the present, whilst 
 he came there. 
 
 " I don't mind telling you, dear mother/' he said, " that 
 I always meant to keep her away from this house till I 
 should feel she could come with credit to you. But this 
 idea of Brazil is quite a recent one. If I do go it wiU be 
 unadvisable for me to take her on this my first journey. 
 She ^\dll remain at her mother's till I come back." 
 
 "And I shall not see her before you start?" 
 
 He was afraid they would not. His original plan had 
 been, as he had said, to refrain from bringing her there for 
 some little while — not to wound their prejudices — feelings 
 — in any way ; and for other reasons he had adhered to it. 
 He would have to visit home in the course of a vear, if he 
 went out at once ; and it would be possible for them to see 
 her before he started a second time — with her. 
 
 A hastily prepared supper was brought in, and Clare 
 gave further explanation of his plans. His mother's dis- 
 appointment at not seeing the bride still remained with 
 her. Clare's late enthusiasm for Tess had infected her 
 through her maternal sympathies, till she had almost fan- 
 cied that a good thing could come out of Nazareth — a 
 charming woman out of Talbothays Dairy. She watched 
 her son as he ate. 
 
 " Cannot you describe her f I am sui*e she is very pretty. 
 Angel." 
 
 " Of that there can be no question ! " said he, with a zest 
 which covered its bitterness. 
 
 " And that she is pure and virtuous goes without ques- 
 tion?" 
 
 " Pure and vii'tuous, of coiu'se, she is." 
 
 " I can see her quite distinctly. You said the other day 
 that she was fine in figure ; roundty built ; had deep red 
 lips like Cupid's bow ; dark eyelashes and brows, an im- 
 mense rope of hair like a ship's cable ; and large eyes vio- 
 ^ lety-bluey-blackish." 
 
 "I did, mother." 
 
300 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 ^' I quite see her. And Imng in such seclusion she natu- 
 rally had scarce ever seen any young man from the world 
 without till she saw you." 
 
 " Scarcely." 
 
 '' You were her first love 1 " 
 
 '^Yes." 
 
 ^' There are worse wives than these simple, rosy-moutlied, 
 robust girls of the farm. Certainly I could have wished — 
 well, since my son is to be an agiiculturist, it is perhaps 
 but proper that his wife should have been accustomed to 
 an outdoor life." 
 
 His father was less inquisitive ; but when the time came 
 for the chapter from the Bible which was always read be- 
 fore evening prayers, the \dcar observed to Mrs. Clare, " I 
 think, since Angel has come, that it will be more appropri- 
 ate to read the thirty-first of Proverbs than the chapter 
 which we should have had in the usual course of our read- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Yes, certainly," said Mrs Clare. '' The words of King 
 Lemuel " (she could cite chapter and verse as w^ell as her 
 husband). " My dear son, your father has decided to read 
 us the chapter in Proverl^s in praise of a virtuous wife. 
 We shall not need to be reminded to apply the words to 
 the absent one. Maj^ Heaven shield her in all her ways ! " 
 
 A lump rose in Clare's throat. The domestic lectern was 
 taken out from the corner and set in the middle of the fii^e- 
 place, the Bible opened upon it ; the two old servants came 
 in, and Angel's father began to read at the tenth verse of 
 the aforesaid chapter : 
 
 " '■ Wlio can find a virtuous woman ? for her price is far 
 above rul^ies. She riseth while it is yet night, and giveth 
 meat to her household. She girdeth her loins with strength, 
 and strengtheneth her arms. She perceiveth that her mer- 
 chandise is good ; her candle goeth not out by night. She 
 looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not 
 the bread of idleness. Her children arise up and call her 
 
THE W03L\N PAYS. 301 
 
 blessed ; lier Imsbaud also, and lie praiseth her. Many 
 daughters have done virtuously, but thou exeellest them 
 aU.' " 
 
 When prayers were over, his mother said : '' I could not 
 help thinking how very aptly that chapter your dear father 
 read applied, in some of its particulars, to the woman you 
 have chosen. The perfect woman, you see, was a working 
 woman ; not an idler, not a fine lady, but one who used 
 her hands and her head and her heart for the good of 
 others. 'Her children arise up and call her blessed; her 
 husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have 
 done virtuouslv, but she excelleth them all.' Well, I wish 
 I could have seen her. Angel. Since she is pm-e and chaste 
 she would have been refined enough for me." 
 
 Clare could bear this no longer. His eyes were full of 
 tears, which seemed like drops of molten lead. He bade a 
 quick good-night to these sincere and simple souls whom 
 he loved so well ; who knew neither the world, the flesh, 
 nor the devil in their own hearts ; only as something vague 
 and external to themselves. He went to his own chamber. 
 
 His mother followed him, and tapped at his door. Clare 
 opened it to discover her standing without, with anxious eyes. 
 
 " Angel," she asked, '' is there something wrong that you 
 go away so soon ? I am quite sure you are not yourself." 
 
 " I am not quite, mother," said he. 
 
 ^' About her ? Now, my son, I know^ it is that — I know 
 it is about her. Have you quarrelled in these three weeks ? " 
 
 "We have not exactly quarrelled," he said. "But we 
 have had a difference " 
 
 " Angel — ^is she a young woman whose history will bear 
 investigation?" With a mother's instinct Mrs. Clare had 
 put her finger on the kind of trouble that would cause such 
 a disquiet as seemed to agitate her son. 
 
 " She is spotless ! " he replied, and felt that if it had sent 
 him to eternal hell there and then he would have told that 
 lie. 
 
302 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 "Then never mind the rest. After all, there are few 
 sweeter things in nature than an unsullied country maid. 
 Any crudeness of manner which may offend youi' more 
 educated sense at first wiJl, I am sure, disappear under the 
 influence of your companionship and tuition/' 
 
 Such terrible sarcasm of blind magnanimity brought 
 home to Clare the gloomy perception that he had utterly 
 wrecked his career by this marriage, which had not been 
 among his early thoughts after the disclosure. True, on 
 his own account he cared very little about his career ; but 
 he had wished to make it at least a resjDCctable one on ac- 
 count of his parents and brothers. And now, as he looked 
 into the candle, its flame dumbly expressed to hmi that it 
 was made to shine on sensible people, and that it abhorred 
 lighting the face of a dupe and a failure. 
 
 When his agitation had cooled, he would be at moments 
 incensed with his poor wife for causing a situation in which 
 he was obliged to practise deception on his parents. He 
 almost talked to her in his anger, as if she had been in the 
 room. And then her cooing voice, plaintive in expostula- 
 tion, disturbed the darkness, the velvet touch of her lips 
 passed over his brow, and he could distinguish in the air 
 the warmth of her breath. 
 
 This night the woman of his belitthng deprecations was 
 thinking how great and good her husband was. Wliile 
 over them both there hung a deeper shade than the shade 
 which Angel Clare perceived, namely, the shade of his 
 own limitations. With all his attempted independence of 
 judgment, this advanced and well-meaning young man — a 
 sample product of the last five-and-twenty years — was yet 
 the slave to custom and conventionality when surprised 
 back into his early teachings. No prophet had told him, 
 and he was not proj^het enough to tell himself, that essen- 
 tially this young wife of his was as deserving of the praise 
 of King Lemuel as any other woman endowed with the 
 same dislike of evil, her moral value having to be reckoned 
 
THE WOIMAN PAYS. 303 
 
 not by acliievement but by tendency. Moreover, tlie figure 
 near at hand suffers on such occasions, because it shows up 
 its sorriness without shade ; while vague figures afar off 
 are honored, in that theii- distance makes artistic virtues 
 of their stains. In considering what Tess was not, he over- 
 looked what she was, and forgot that the deficient can be 
 more than the entire. 
 
 XL. 
 
 At breakfast Brazil was the topic, and all endeavored to 
 take a hopeful view of Clare's proposed experiment with that 
 country's soil, notwithstanding the discouraging reports of 
 some farm-laborers who had emigi'ated thither and returned 
 home within the twelve months. After breakfast Clare 
 went into the little town to wind up such trifling matters 
 as he was concerned with there, and to get from the local 
 bank all the money he possessed. On his way back he 
 encountered Miss Mercy Chant by the church, from whose 
 walls she seemed to be a sort of emanation. She was carry- 
 ing an armful of Bibles for her class, and such was her 
 view of life that events which produced heartache in others 
 wi'ought beatific smiles upon her — an enviable result, al- 
 though, in the opinion of Angel Clare, it was obtained by 
 a curiously unnatural sacrifice of humanity to mysticism. 
 
 She had learnt that he was about to leave England, and 
 observed what an excellent and promising scheme it seemed 
 to be. 
 
 "Yes; it is a hkely scheme enough in a commercial 
 sense, no doubt," he replied. "But, my dear Mercy, it 
 snaps the continuity of existence. Perhaps a cloister would 
 be preferable." 
 
 " A cloister ! Angel Clare ! " 
 
304 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 "Why, you wdcked man, a cloister implies a monk, and 
 a monk Catholicism ! " 
 
 "And Catholicism sin, and sin damnation. Thou art in 
 a parlous state, Angel Clare ! " 
 
 " I glory in my Protestantism,'' said she, severely. 
 
 Then Clare, thrown by sheer misery into one of the de- 
 moniacal moods in which a man does despite to his true 
 principles, called her close to him, and fiendishly whispered 
 in her ear the most heterodox ideas he could think of. His 
 momentary laughter at the horror which appeared on her 
 fail* face ceased when it merged in pain and anxiety for his 
 welfare. "Dear Mercy," he said, "you must forgive me. 
 I think I am going crazy ! " 
 
 She thought that he was ; and thus the interview ended, 
 and Clare re-entered the ^dcarage. With the local banker 
 he deposited the jewels till happier days should arise. He 
 also paid into the bank thirty pounds — to be sent to Tess 
 in a few months, as she might require ; and ^^Tote to her at 
 her parents' home in Blackmoor Vale to inform her of 
 what he had done. This amount, with the sum he had al- 
 ready placed in her hands — about fifty pounds — he hoped 
 would be amply sufficient for her wants just at present, 
 particulai'ly as in an emergency she had been du'ected to 
 apply to his father. 
 
 He deemed it best not to put his parents into communi- 
 cation with her by informing them of her address ; and, 
 being unaware of what had really happened to estrange 
 the two, neither his father nor his mother suggested that 
 he should do so. During the day he left the parsonage, 
 for what he had to complete he wished to get done quickly. 
 
 As the last duty before leaving this part of England it 
 was necessary for liim to call at the Weill bridge farmhouse, 
 in which lie luid spent with Tess the first three days of 
 their marriage, the trifle of rent having to be paid, the key 
 given up of the rooms they had occupied, and two or three 
 
THE WO:\IAN PAYS. 30-5 
 
 small articles fetched away that they had left behind. It 
 was under this roof that the deepest shadow ever thrown 
 upon his hf e had stretched its gloom over him. Yet when he 
 had unlocked the door of the sitting-room and looked into 
 it, the memory wliich returned first upon him was that of 
 their happy arrival on a similar afternoon, the fii'st fresh 
 sense of sharing a habitation conjointly, the fu*st meal to- 
 gether, the chatting by the fire with joined hands. 
 
 The farmer and his wile were in the fields at the moment 
 of his visit, and Clare was in the rooms alone for some time. 
 Inwardly swollen with a renewal of sentiments that he had 
 not quite reckoned with, he went upstairs to her chamber, 
 which had never been his. The bed was smooth as she 
 had made it ^Yith her own hands on the morning of lea\dng. 
 
 The mistletoe hung under the tester just as he had placed 
 it. Ha\dng been there three or four weeks, it was turning 
 color, and the leaves and berries were wi^nkled. Angel 
 took it down and crushed it into the grate. Standing 
 there, he for the first time doubted whether his course in this 
 conjunctm'e had been a mse, much less a generous, one. But 
 had he not been cruellv blinded ? In the incoherent multi- 
 tude of his emotions he knelt down at the bedside wet-eyed. 
 " O Tess ! If vou had onlv told me sooner, I would have 
 forgiven you ! " he mourned. 
 
 Hearing a footstep below, he rose and went to the top of 
 the stairs. At the bottom of the flight he saw a woman 
 standing, and on her turning up her face recognized the 
 pale, dark-eyed Izz Huett. 
 
 "Mr. Clare,^' said she, "I've called to see you and Mrs. 
 Clare, and to inquire if ye be well. I thought you would 
 be back." 
 
 This was a girl whose secret he had guessed, but who 
 had not yet guessed his ; an honest girl who loved him — 
 one who would have made as good, or nearly as good, a 
 practical farmer's wife as Tess. 
 
 "I am here alone," he said; "we are not hving hei'e 
 
 20 
 
306 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 now." Ex2:)laiiniig why he had come, he asked, "Which 
 way are you going home, Izz ? " 
 
 " I have no home at Talbothays Daiiy now, su'," she said. 
 
 ^'Whyis that?" 
 
 Izz looked down. " It was so dismal there that I left. 
 I am staying out this way."' She pointed in a contrary 
 direction — the dii'ection in which he was journeying. 
 
 '^ Well — are you going there now? I can take j^ou if you 
 wish for a lift." 
 
 Her olive com]3lexion grew richer in hue. " Thank 'ee, 
 Mr. Clare," she said. 
 
 He soon found the farmer, and settled the account for 
 his rent and the few other items which had to be considered 
 by reason of the sudden abandonment of the lodgings. On 
 Clare's return to his horse and gig Izz jumped up beside 
 him. 
 
 " I am going to leave England, Izz," he said, as they drove 
 on. " Going to Brazil." 
 
 "And do Mrs. Clare like the notion of such a jom-ney f " 
 she asked. 
 
 " She is not going at present — say for a year or so. I am 
 going out to reconnoitre — to see what life there is hke." 
 
 They sped along eastward for some considerable distance, 
 Izz making no observation. "How are the others?" he in- 
 quired. " How is Retty ? " 
 
 " She is in a sort of nervous state ; and so thin and hol- 
 low-cheeked that 'a do seem in a decline. Nobody wUl ever 
 fall in love wi' her any more," said Izz, absently. 
 
 " And Marian ? " 
 
 Izz lowered her voice. " Marian di'inks." 
 
 " Indeed ! " 
 
 " Yes. The dairyman has got rid of her." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " I don't drink, and I baiiit in a decline. But — I am no 
 gi^eat things at singing afore breakfast now ! " 
 
 " How is that ! Do you remember how neatly you used 
 
THE WO:\L\N PAYS. 307 
 
 to turn ^'Twas down in Cupid's Gardens' and ^Tlie Tailor's 
 Breeches' at moruing milking?" 
 
 ^^ Ah yes ! When you first came, sii", that was. Not 
 when you had been there a bit." 
 
 '' Why was that f aUing-off 1 " 
 
 Her black eyes flashed up to his face for one moment by 
 w^ay of answer. 
 
 '' Izz — how weak of you — for such as I ! '' he said, and fell 
 into reverie. " Then — suppose I had asked you to marry 
 me I " 
 
 "If you had I should have said ^Yes/ and you would 
 have married a woman who loved 'ee." 
 
 " ReaUv ! " 
 
 " Down to the ground ! " she whispered. " my God ! 
 did you never guess it till now ! " 
 
 By and by they reached a branch road to the \allage. 
 " I must get down. I live out there," said Izz, abruptly, 
 never having spoken since her avowal. 
 
 Clare slowed the horse. He was incensed against his 
 fate, bitterly disposed towards social ordinances ; for they 
 had cooped him up in a corner, out of which there was no 
 legitimate pathway. Why not be revenged on society by 
 ruling his future domesticities himself, instead of kissing 
 the pedagogic rod of convention in this lonely manner ? 
 
 "I am going to Brazil alone, Izz," said he. "I have 
 separated from my wife for personal, not voj^aging, reasons. 
 I may never live with her again. I may not be able to love 
 you ; but — will you go mth me instead of her f " 
 
 "Do you truly msh me to go ? " 
 
 " I do. I have been badly used enough to wish for re- 
 hef . And you at least love me disinterestedly." 
 
 " Yes — I will go," said Izz, after a pause. 
 
 " You will ? You know what it means, Izz ? " 
 
 " It means that I shall live with you for the time you are 
 over there — that's good enough for me." 
 
 "Remember, you are not to trust me in morals now. 
 
308 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 But I ought to remind you that it will be wi'ong-doing in 
 the eyes of civilization — Western ci\alization, that is to 
 say." 
 
 '^I don't mind that; no woman do when it comes to 
 agony-point, and there's no other way." 
 
 " Then don't get down, but sit where you are." 
 
 He di^ove past the cross-roads, one mile, two miles, with- 
 out showing any signs of affection. 
 
 " You love me very, very much, Izz ? " he suddenh^ asked. 
 
 " I do — I have said I do. I loved you all the time we 
 was at the dauy together." 
 
 "More than Tessf" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " No," she mm'mured, " not more than she." 
 
 " How's that ? " 
 
 " Because nobody could love 'ee more than Tess did ! 
 . . . She would have laid down her life for 'ee. I could do 
 no more ! " 
 
 Like the prophet on the top of Peor, Izz Huett would fain 
 have spoken perversely at such a moment, but the fascina- 
 tion exercised over her rougher nature by Tess's character 
 compelled her to grace. • 
 
 Clare was silent; his heart had risen at these straight- 
 forward words from such an unexpected, unimpeachable 
 quarter. In his throat was something as if a sob had solidi- 
 fied there. His ears repeated, " She would have laid down 
 her life for ^ee. I could do no more ! " 
 
 "Forget our idle talk, Izz," he said, turning his horse's 
 head suddenlv. "I don't know what I've been savin i>! I 
 will now drive you back to where your lane branches off." 
 
 " So much for honesty towards 'ee ! — how can I bear 
 it — how can I — how can If" Izz Huett burst into wild 
 tears, and beat her forehead as she saw what she had done. 
 
 " Do you regret that poor little act of justice to an ab- 
 sent one ? Izz, don't spoil it by regret ! " 
 
 She stilled herself by degrees. 
 
THE WOIMAN PAYS. 309 
 
 '^ Very well, sir. Perliaps I didn't know what I was say- 
 ing either, when I agreed to go. I msh — what cannot be." 
 
 '^ Because I have a loving wife already." 
 
 " Yes, yes ! You have." 
 
 They reached the corner of the lane which they had 
 passed half an hour earlier, and she hopped down. 
 
 "You vnR forget my momentary levity?" he said. "It 
 was ill-considered, ill-advised." 
 
 " Forget it ? Never, never ! O, it was no levity to me ! " 
 
 He felt how richly he deserved the reproach that the 
 wounded cry conveyed, and, in a sorrow that was inexpres- 
 sible, leaped doT\Ti and took her hand. "Well, but, Izz, 
 we'll part friends, anyhow? You don't know what I've 
 had to bear ! " 
 
 She was a really generous gii'l, and allowed no further 
 bitterness to mar their adieux. " I forgive 'ee, sir," she said. 
 
 " Now, Izz," he said, solemnly, while she stood beside him 
 there, forcing liiraseK to the mentor's part he was far from 
 feeling 5 "I want you to tell Marian when you see her that 
 she is to be a good woman, and not to give way to folly. 
 Promise that, and tell Retty that there are more worthy 
 men than I in the world, that for mv sake she is to act 
 wisely and well — remember the words — wisely and well — 
 for my sake. I send this message to them as a dying man 
 to the dying ; for I shall never see them again. And you, 
 Izz}^, 3'ou have saved me by your honest words about my 
 wife from an incredible piece of folly and treachery. Wom- 
 en may be bad, but they are not so bad as men in these 
 things. On that one account I can never forget you. Be 
 always the good and sincere girl you have hitherto been ; 
 and think of me as a worthless lover, but a faithful friend. 
 Promise." 
 
 She gave the promise gravely. " Heaven bless and keep 
 you, sir. Good-by ! " 
 
 He drove on; but no sooner had Izz turned into the 
 lane, and Clare was out of sight, than she flung herself 
 
310 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 down ou tlie bank in a fit of racking anguish ; and it was 
 with a strained, nnnatiu*al face that she entered her mother's 
 cottage late that night. Nobody ever knew how Izz spent 
 the dark houi's that intervened between Angel Clare's part- 
 ing from her and her arrival home. 
 
 Clare, too, after bidding the girl farewell, was wrought 
 to aching thoughts and quivering lips. But his sorrow was 
 not for Izz. That evening he was within a feather-weight's 
 turn of abandoning his road to the nearest station, and 
 driving across that elevated dorsal line of South Wessex 
 which divided him from his Tess's home. It was neither a 
 contempt for her nature, nor the probable state of her heart, 
 which deterred him. 
 
 No ; it was a sense that, despite her love, as corroborated 
 by Izz's admission, the facts had not changed. If he was 
 right at first, he was right now. And the momentum of 
 the course on which he had embarked tended to keep him 
 going in it, unless diverted by a stronger, more sustained 
 force than had played upon him this afternoon. He could 
 soon come back to her. He took the train that night for 
 London, and five days after shook hands in fareweU of his 
 brothers at the port of embarkation. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 i*ROM the foregoing events of the mnter-time let us press 
 on to an October da}", more than eight months subsequent 
 to the parting of Clare and Tess. We discover the latter 
 in changed conditions ] instead of a bride with boxes and 
 trunks which others bore, we see her a lonely woman with a 
 basket and a bundle in her own porterage, as at an earlier 
 time, when she was no bride ; instead of the ample means 
 tliat were anticipated by her husband for her comfort 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 311 
 
 througli tliis probationary period, she can produce only a 
 flattened purse. 
 
 After again leading Marlott, lier liome, sheliad got through 
 the spring and summer without au}^ great stress upon her 
 physical powers, the time being mainly spent in rendering 
 light, ii'regular ser\dce at dairy- work near Port Bredy, to 
 the west of the Blackmoor Valley, equally remote from her 
 native place and from Tall.)othays. She preferred this to liv- 
 ing on his allowance. Mentally she remained in utter stag- 
 nation, a condition which the mechanical occupation rather 
 fostered than checked. Her consciousness was at that 
 other daily, at that other season, in the presence of the 
 tender lover who had confronted her there — he who, the 
 moment she had grasped him to keep him for her own, had 
 disappeared like a shape in a \dsion. 
 
 The dairy- work lasted only till the milk began to lessen, 
 for she had not met with a second regular engagement as 
 at Talbothays, but had done duty as a supernumerary only. 
 However, as harvest was now beginning, she had simply 
 to remove from the pastiu'e to the stubble to find plenty of 
 further occupation, and this continued till harvest was done. 
 
 Of the five-and-twenty pounds which had remained to 
 her of Clare's allowance, after deducting the other half of 
 the fifty as a contribution to her parents for the trouble 
 and expense to which she had put them, she had as yet 
 spent but httle. But there now followed an unfortunate 
 interval of wet weather, during which she was obliged to 
 fall back upon her sovereigns. 
 
 She could not bear to let them go. Angel had put them 
 into her hand, had obtained them bright and new from his 
 bank for her ; his touch had consecrated them to souvenirs 
 of himself — the}" appeared to have had as yet no other his- 
 tory than such as was created by his and her own experi- 
 ence — and to disperse them was like giving aAvay rehcs. 
 But she had to do it, and one by one they left her hands. 
 
 She had been compelled to send her mother her address 
 
312 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 from time to time, but she concealed her circumstances. 
 When her money had abnost gone a letter from her mother 
 reached her. Joan stated that they were in di-eadful 
 difficulty ; the autumn rains had gone through the thatch 
 of the house, which required entire renewal ; but this could 
 not be done because the previous thatching had never been 
 paid for. New rafters and a new ceiling upstaii's also were 
 requii*ed, wliich, with the previous bill, would amount to a 
 sum of twenty pounds. As her husband was a man of 
 means, and had doubtless returned by this time, could she 
 not send them the monev? 
 
 Tess had thirty pounds coming to her abnost immediately 
 from Angel's bankers, and, the case being so deplorable, 
 as soon as the sum was received she sent the twenty as re- 
 quested. 
 
 Part of the remainder she was obHged to expend m win- 
 ter clotliing, lea\dng only a nominal sum for the whole in- 
 clement season at hand. When the last pound had gone, a 
 remark of Angel's that whenever she required further re- 
 soiu'ces she was to apply to his father, remained to be con- 
 sidered. 
 
 But the more Tess thought of the step the more reluctant 
 was she to take it. The same delicacy, pride, false shame, 
 whatever it may be called, on Clare's account, which had 
 led her to hide from her own parents the prolongation of 
 the estrangement, hindered her in owning to his that she 
 was in want after the fair allowance he had left her. They 
 probably despised her already ; how much more would they 
 despise her in the character of a mendicant? The conse- 
 quence was that by no effort could the parson's daughter- 
 in-law bring herself to let him know her state. 
 
 Her reluctance to communicate with her husband's par- 
 ents might, she thought, lessen ^vith. the lapse of time ; but 
 with her own the reverse obtained. On her leaving their 
 house after the short visit subsequent to her marriage they 
 were under the impression that she was ultimately going 
 
THE WOJIAN PAYS. 313 
 
 to join her husband ; and from that time to the present she 
 had done nothing to distiu'b their erroneous belief that she 
 was awaiting his retui^n in comfort, hoping against hope 
 that his journey to Brazil would result in a short stay only, 
 after which he would come to fetch her, or that he would 
 write for her to join him ; in any case that they would soon 
 present a united front to then* families and the world. This 
 hope she still fostered. To let her parents know that she 
 was a deserted wife, dependent, now that she had relieved 
 theii* necessities, on her o^m hands for a living, after the 
 triumph of a marriage which was to nullify the collapse of 
 the first attempt, would be too much indeed. 
 
 The set of brilliants returned to her mind. Where Clare 
 had deposited them she did not know, and it mattered 
 httle, if it were tiiie that she could only use and not sell 
 them. Even had they been absolutely hers, it would be 
 passing mean to enrich herseK by a legal title to them which 
 was not essentially hers at all. 
 
 Meanwhile, her husband's days had been by no means 
 free from trial. At this moment he was l}"ing ill of fever 
 in the clay lands near Curitiba in Brazil, ha\dng been 
 drenched with thunder-stoj'ms and persecuted by other hard- 
 ships, in common "\vith all the English farmers and farm 
 laborers who, just at this time, were deluded into going 
 thither by the promises of the Brazilian Government, and by 
 the baseless assumption that those frames which, plough- 
 ing and sowdng on English uplands, had resisted all the 
 weathers to whose moods they had been born, could resist 
 equally well all the weathers by which they were sui^prised 
 on Brazilian plains. 
 
 To retm*n. Thus it happened that when the last of Tess's 
 sovereigns had been spent she was unprovided with others 
 to take their place, while, on account of the season, she 
 found it increasingly difficult to get employment. Not 
 being aware of the rarity of intelligence, energy, health, and 
 willingness in any sphere of life, she refrained from seeking 
 
314 TESS OF THE D'URBEmaLLES. 
 
 an indoor occupation ; fearing towns, large houses, people 
 of means and social sopliistication, and of manners other 
 than rural. From that direction of gentility Black Care 
 had come — all the troubles she had ever kno^^Ti. To indoor 
 work, indeed, Tess had never taken kindly. Mantua-mak- 
 ing she hated, so far as she knew anything of it ; she could 
 not stitch gloves with rapidity sufficient to earn a mainte- 
 nance, as some gii-ls in the district were wont to do 5 and 
 upon the whole, the work she was compelled to seek was the 
 work she preferred — that which involved living in the open 
 air. Of the winter wind she knew the worst, and of the 
 bitter sky. Society might be better than she supposed 
 from her slight experience of it. But she had no proof of 
 this, and her instinct in the cii-cumstances was to avoid it. 
 
 The small dairies in which she had served as supernumer- 
 ary milkmaid during the spring and summer required no 
 further aid. Room would probably have been made for 
 her at Talbothays, if only out of sheer compassion; but 
 comfortable as her life had been there, she could not go 
 back. The anti-climax woidd be too intolerable ; and her 
 return might bring reproach upon her idolized husband. 
 She could not have borne theii' i^ity, and tlieii* whispered 
 remarks to one another upon her strange situation ; though, 
 oddly enough, she would almost have faced a knowledge 
 of her circumstances by every individual there, so long as 
 her story had remained isolated in the mind of each. It 
 was the interchange of ideas about her that made her sen- 
 sitiveness wince. Tess could not account for this distinc- 
 tion ; she simply knew that she felt it. 
 
 Slie was now on her way to an upland farm in the centre 
 of the county, to which she had been recommended by a 
 wandering letter which had reached her from Marian. 
 Marian had somehow heard that Tess was separated from 
 her husT)aiul — prol)ably through Tzz Huett — and the good- 
 natured and now ti])pling gii'l, deeming Tess in trouble, 
 liad hastened to inform her former friend that she herself 
 
THE WO^IAN PAYS. 315 
 
 had gone to this uphiiid spot after leaving' the dairy, and 
 would like to see her there, where there was room for other 
 hands, if it was really true that she worked again as of oldo 
 
 With the shortening of the days all hope of obtaining 
 her husband's forgiveness began to leave her; and there 
 w^as something of the habitude of the wild animal in the 
 unreflecting automatism with which she rambled on — dis- 
 connecting herself by littles from her eventful past at every 
 step, obliterating her identit}^, giving no thought to accidents 
 or contingencies which might make a quick discovery of 
 her whereabouts l^y others of importance to her o\\ti happi- 
 ness, if not to theii's. 
 
 Among the difficulties of her lonely position, not the least 
 was the attention she excited by her appearance, a certain 
 bearing of distinction, which she had caught from Clare, 
 being superadded to her natural attractiveness. Whilst the 
 clothes lasted which had been prepared for her marriage, 
 these casual glances of interest caused her no inconvenience, 
 but as soon as she was compelled to don the wi'apper of a 
 field- woman, rude words were addressed to her more than 
 once ; but nothing occurred to cause her bodily fear till a 
 particular November afternoon. 
 
 She had preferred the fertile country of the southwest to 
 the upland farm for which she was now bound, because, for 
 one thing, it was nearer to the home of her husband's father ; 
 and to hover about that region unrecognized, with the 
 notion that she might decide to caU at the \dcarage some 
 day, gave her pleasm'e. But having once decided to try 
 the higher and dryer levels, she pressed on, marching afoot 
 towards the village of Chalk-Newton, where she meant to 
 pass the night. 
 
 The lane was long and unvaiied, and, owing to the rapid 
 shortening of the days, dusk came upon her before she was 
 aware. She had reached the top of a hill down which the 
 lane stretched its serpentine length in glimpses, when she 
 heard footsteps behind her back, and in a few moments 
 
316 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 she was overtaken by a man. He stepped up alongside 
 Tess and said, '*' Good-nighty my pretty maid/' to which she 
 civilly rephed. 
 
 The light still remaining in the sky lit up her face, though 
 the landscape was nearly dark. The man tui^ned and stared 
 hard at her. 
 
 " Why, surely, it is the young wencli who was at Trant- 
 ridge awhile — young Squire D'Urber^dlle's fancy? I was 
 there at that time, though I don't live there now." 
 
 She recognized in him the well-to-do boor whom Angel 
 had knocked down at the inn for addressing her coarsely, 
 when they Avent shopping together before theu' marriage. 
 A spasm of anguish shot through her, and she retm'ned him 
 no answer. 
 
 " Be honest enough to own it, and that what I said at the 
 pubhc-house was true, though your fancy-man was so up 
 about it — hey, my sly one f You ought to beg ni}' pardon 
 for that blow of his, considering." 
 
 Still no answer came from Tess. There seemed only one 
 escape for her hunted soul. She suddenly took to her heels 
 with the speed of the wind, and, without looking behind 
 her, ran along the road till she came to a gate which opened 
 dii-ectly into a plantation. Into this she plunged, and did 
 not pause till she was deep enough in its shade to be safe 
 against any possibility of discovery. 
 
 Under foot the leaves were dry, and the fohage of some 
 holly bushes which grew among the deciduous trees was 
 dsnse enough to keep off draughts. She scraped together 
 the dead leaves till she had formed them into a large heap, 
 making a sort of nest in the middle. Into this Tess crept. 
 
 Such sleep as she got was naturally fitful ; she fancied 
 she heard strange noises, but persuaded herself that they 
 were caused by the breeze. She thought of her husband 
 in some vague, warm clime on the other side of the globe, 
 while she was here in the cold. Was there another such 
 wretched being as she in the world ? Tess asked herseK ; 
 
THE W03L\X PAYS. 317 
 
 and, tliinking of her wasted life, said, " iUl is vanity." She 
 repeated the words mechanically, till she reflected that this 
 was a most inadequate thought for modern days. Solomon 
 had thought as far as that more than two thousand years 
 ago ; she herself, though not in the van of thinkers, had 
 got much further. If all were only vanity, who would 
 mind it ? All w^as, alas, worse than vanity ! The ^^df e of 
 Angel Clare put her hand to her brow, and felt its curve, 
 and edges of her eye-sockets as perceptible under the soft 
 skin, and thought as she did so that there would be a time 
 when that bone would be bare. " I wish it were now," she 
 said. 
 
 In the midst of these whimsical fancies she heard a new 
 strange sound among the leaves. It might be the wind ; 
 yet there was scarcely any wind. Sometimes it was a pal- 
 pitation, sometimes a flutter; sometimes it was a sort of 
 gasp or gurgle. Soon she was certain that the noises came 
 from wild creatures of some kind, the more so when, origi- 
 nating in the boughs overhead, they were followed by the 
 fall of a heav}^ body upon the ground. Had she been en- 
 sconced here under other and more pleasant conditions, she 
 would have become alarmed; but, outside humanity, she 
 had at present no fear. 
 
 Day at length broke in the sky. When it had been day 
 aloft for some little while it became day in the wood. 
 
 Directly the assiuing and prosaic light of the world's 
 active hom'S had grown strong, she crept from under her 
 hillock of leaves, and looked around boldly. Then she per- 
 ceived what had been going on to disturb her. The plan- 
 tation wherein she had taken shelter ran down at this spot 
 into a peak, which ended it hitherward, outside the hedge 
 being arable ground. Under the trees several pheasants 
 lay about, their rich plumage dabbled with blood; some 
 were dead, some feebly moving their wings, some staring 
 up at the sk}", some pulsating feebly, some contorted, some 
 stretched out — all of them writhing in agony, except the 
 
318 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 fortunate ones wliose tortui'es liad ended dm*ing tlie niglit 
 by the inability of Nature to bear more. 
 
 Tess guessed at once the meaning of this. The birds had 
 been driven down into this comer the day before by some 
 shooting party; and while those that had dropped dead 
 under the shot, or had died before nightfall, had been 
 searched for and carried off, the slightly wounded bii'ds had 
 escaped and hidden themselves away, or risen among the 
 thick boughs, where they had maintained their position till 
 they grew weaker with loss of blood in the night-time, 
 when they had fallen one by one as she had heard them. 
 
 She had occasionally caught glimpses of these men in 
 girlliood, looking over hedges or peering through bushes, 
 and pointing their guns, strangely accoutred, a bloodthirsty 
 light in their eyes. She had been told that, rough and 
 brutal as they seemed just then, they were not like this all 
 the year round, but were, in fact, quite ci\al persons, save 
 during certain weeks of autumn and \\inter, when, like the 
 inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, they ran amuck, and 
 made it their purpose to destroy life — in this case harmless 
 feathered creatures, brought into being by artificial means 
 solely to gratify these propensities — conduct at once so un- 
 mannerly and so unchivalrous towards their weaker fellows 
 in Nature's teeming family. 
 
 With the impulse of a soul who could feel for kindred 
 sufferers as much as for herseK, Tess's first thought was to 
 put the still living birds out of their torture, and to this 
 end mth her own trembling hands she broke the necks of 
 as many as she could find, leaving them to lie where she 
 had found them till the gamekeei)ers should come — as they 
 probably would come — to look for them a second time. 
 
 '^ Poor darlings — to suppose myself the most miserable 
 being on earth in the sight of such misery as yours ! " 
 she exclaimed. " And not a tmnge of bodily pain about 
 me ! I be not mangled, and I be not bleeding, and I have 
 two hands to feed and clothe me." She was ashamed of 
 
THE W0:MAN pays. 319 
 
 herself for her gloom of the uight, based on nothmg more 
 tangible than a sense of condemnation under an arbitrary 
 law of society which had no foundation in natui'e. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 It was now broad day, and she started again, emerging 
 cautiously upon the highwa}^ But there was no need for 
 caution ; not a soul was at hand, and Tess went onward 
 with fortitude, her recollection of the birds silently endur- 
 ing theu' night of agony impressing upon her the relati\dty 
 of sorrows and the tolerable nature of her own, if she could 
 rise high enough to despise opinion. But that she coidd 
 not do so long as it was held by Glare. 
 
 She reached Chalk-Newton, and breakfasted at an inn, 
 where several young men were troublesomely compliment- 
 ary to her good looks. Somehow she felt hopeful, for was 
 it not possible that her husband also might say these same 
 things to her even yet ? Sm'ely she was bound to take care 
 of herseK on the chance of it. To this end Tess resolved 
 to run no further risks from her appearance. As soon as 
 she got out of the village she entered a thicket and took 
 from her basket one of the old field-gowns which she had 
 never put on even at the dairy — never since she had worked 
 among the stubble at Marlott. She also, by a felicitous 
 thought, took a handkerchief from her bundle and tied it 
 round her face under her bonnet, covering her chin and 
 half her cheeks and her temples, as if she were suffering 
 from toothache. Then with her little scissors, bv the aid of 
 a pocket looking-glass, she mercilessly snipped her eyebrows 
 off, and thus insured against aggi^essive admiration she 
 went on her uneven way. 
 
 " What a mommet of a maid ! " said the next man who 
 met her to a companion. 
 
320 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Tears came into her eyes for very pity of herseK as sl:c 
 heard him. 
 
 '' But I don't care ! " said she. '^ Oh no — I don't care ! 
 I'll always be ugly now, because Angel is not here, and I 
 have nobody to take care of me. My husband that was is 
 gone away, and never will love me any more; but I love 
 him just the same, and hate all other men, and like to make 
 'em think scornful o' me ! " 
 
 Thus Tess walks on ; a figure which is part of the land- 
 scape 5 a field- worn an pure and simple, in winter guise : a 
 gTay serge cape, a red woollen cravat, a stuff skirt covered 
 by a w^hite^^-brown rough "vsTapper, and buff -leather gloves. 
 Every thread of that old attire has become wire-dra^^Ti and 
 thin under the stroke of rain-drops, the burn of sunbeams, 
 and the stress of winds. There is no sign of young passion 
 
 in her now : 
 
 The maiden's mouth is cold, 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 Her hair mere brown or gold, 
 Fold over simple fold 
 Binding her head. 
 
 Inside this exterior, over which the eye might have roved 
 as over a thing scarcely percipient, almost inorganic, there 
 was the record of a pulsing life, of responsive spells, thi'ough 
 months of pleasure, and through months of sighing; a 
 heart which had learnt of the dust and ashes of thmgs, 
 of the cruelty of lust and the fragility of love. 
 
 Next da}^ the weather was bad, but she trudged on, the 
 honesty, directness, and impartiality of elemental enmity 
 disconcerting her but little. Her object being a wintei^'s 
 occupation and a mnter's home, there was no time to lose. 
 Her experience of short hirings had been such that she de- 
 termined to accept no more. 
 
 Thus she went forward from farm to farm in the du-ection 
 of the place whence Marian had written to her, which she 
 determined to make use of as a last shift only, its rumored 
 
THE \V0:\1AN PAYS. 321 
 
 stringencies being the reverse of tempting. First she in- 
 quired for the lighter kinds of employment, and, as accept- 
 ance in any variety of these grew hopeless, applied next for 
 the less hght, till, beginning with the dahy and poultry 
 tendance that she hked best, she ended with the heavy and 
 coarse piu'suits that she liked least — work on arable land : 
 work of such roughness, indeed, as she would never have 
 deliberately volunteered for. 
 
 Towards the second evening she reached the irregular 
 chalk table-land or plateau, bosomed with prehistoric semi- 
 globidar tumuli — as if Cybele the Many-breasted were su- 
 pinely extended there — which stretched between the valley 
 of her birth and the valley of her love. 
 
 Here the air was dry and cold, and the long cart-roads 
 w^ere blown white and dusty again within a few hours after 
 rain. There were few" trees or none, those that Tvould have 
 grown in the hedges being mercilessly plashed down with 
 the quickset by the tenant-farmers, the natm'al enemies of 
 tree, bush, and brake. In the middle distance ahead of her 
 she could see the summits of Bulbarrow and of Xettle- 
 combe-Tout, and they seemed friendly. They had a low 
 and unassuming aspect from this upland, though as seen 
 on the other side from Blackmoor in her childhood they 
 were as lofty bastions against the sky. Southerly, at many 
 miles' distance, and over the hills and ridges coastward, she 
 coidd discern a surface hke polished steel : it was the Eng- 
 lish Channel at a point far out towards France. 
 
 Before her, in a slight depression, were the remains of a 
 \allage. She had, in fact, reached Flintcomb-Ash, the place 
 of Marian's sojourn. There seemed to be no help for it; 
 hither she was doomed to come. The stubborn soil around 
 her showed plainly enough that the kind of labor in demand 
 here was of the roughest kind ; but it was time to rest from 
 searcliing, and here she resolved to stay, particularly as it 
 began to rain. At the entrance to the village was a cottage 
 whose gable jutted into the road^ and before applying for 
 
 21 
 
322 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 a lodging she stood under its sTielter, and watched the 
 evening close in. 
 
 " Who would think I was Mrs. Angel Clare ! '' she said. 
 
 The wall felt warm to her back and shoulders, and she 
 found that immediately within the gable was the cottage 
 fireplace, the heat of which came through the bricks. She 
 warmed her hands ujdou them, and also put her cheek — red 
 and moist with the drizzle — against their comforting sur- 
 face. The wall seemed to be the only friend she had. She 
 had so httle wish to leave it that she could have stayed 
 there all night. 
 
 Tess could hear the occupants of the cottage — gathered 
 together after then* day's labor — talking to each other with- 
 in, and the rattle of their supper-2:)lates was also audible. 
 But in the village street she had seen no soul as yet. The 
 soHtude was at last broken by the approach of one femi- 
 nine figui'e, who, though the evening was cold, wore the 
 print gown and the tilt-bonnet of summer-time. Tess in- 
 stinctively thought it might be Marian, and when she came 
 near enough to be distinguishable in the gloom sui^ely 
 enough it was she. Marian was even stouter and redder 
 in the face than formerly, and decided^ shabbier in attire. 
 At any j)revious period of her existence Tess would hardly 
 have cared to renew the acquaintance in such conditions ; 
 but her loneliness was excessive, and she responded readily 
 to Marian's greeting. 
 
 Marian was quite respectful in her inquiries, but seemed 
 much moved by the fact that Tess should still continue in 
 no better condition than at first; though she had dimly 
 heard of the separation. 
 
 " Tess — Mrs. Clare — the dear wife of dear he ! And is it 
 really so bad as this, my child ? Why is your comely face 
 tied up in such a way ? Anybody been beating 'ee ? Not 
 he ! " 
 
 '^No, no, no ! I merely did it to keep off clipsing and 
 colling, Marian." She luilled (^ff in disgust a banda.ge 
 which could suggest such wild thoughts. 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 323 
 
 '^And youVe got no collar on." (Tess had been accus- 
 tomed to wear a little white collar at the dairy.) 
 
 '' I know it, Marian." 
 
 '^ You've lost it travelling f " 
 
 '^ I've not lost it. The truth is, I don't care anything 
 about my appearance ; and so I didn't put it on." 
 
 '^ And you don't wear your wedding-ring ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do ; but not publicly. I wear it round my neck 
 on a ribbon. I don't wish people to think who I am by 
 marriage, or that I am married at all ; it would be so awk- 
 ward while I lead my present life." 
 
 Marian paused. " But you he a gentleman's wife ; and 
 it seems hardly fair that you should live like this ! " 
 
 " Oh yes it is, quite fair ; though I am very unhappy." 
 
 '^ Well, well. He married you — and you can be unhappy ! " 
 
 '^ Wives are unhappy sometimes ; from no fault of their 
 husbands — from their own." 
 
 "You've no faults, deary; that I'm sure of. And he's 
 none. So it must be something outside ye both." 
 
 " Marian, dear Marian, will you do me a good turn with- 
 out asking questions ? My husband has gone abroad, and 
 somehow I have overrun my allowance, so that I have to 
 fall back upon my old work for a time. Do not call me 
 Mrs. Clare, but Tess, as before. Do thc}^ want a hand 
 here?" 
 
 " Oh yes ; they'll take one always, because few care to 
 come. 'Tis a starve-acre place. Corn and swedes are all 
 they groAV. Though I be here myself, I feel 'tis a pity for 
 such as you to come." 
 
 " But you used to be as good a dair^^voman as I." 
 
 "Yes; but IVe got out o' that since I took to drink. 
 Lord, that's the only happiness I've got now ! If you en- 
 gage, you'll be set swede-hacking. That's what I be doing ; 
 but you won't like it." 
 
 " O — anything ! Will you speak for me ? " 
 
 " You will do better by speaking for yoiu'self ." 
 
324 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 him, if I get the place. I don't wish to bring his name 
 down to the dirt." 
 
 Marian, who was really a trustworthy girl, though of 
 coarser grain than Tess, promised anything she asked. 
 " This is pay-night/' she said, " and if you were to come 
 with me you would know at once. I be real sorry that 
 you are not happy ; but 'tis because he's away, I know. 
 You couldn't be unhappy if he were here, even if he gave 
 you no money — even if he used you like a drudge." 
 
 ^^ That's true ; I could not ! " 
 
 They walked on together, and soon reached the farm- 
 house, which was almost sublime in its dreariness. There 
 was not a tree mthin sight ; there was not, at this season, 
 a green pasture — nothing but fallow and turnips every- 
 where ; in large fields divided by hedges monotonously 
 plashed to unrelieved levels. 
 
 Tess waited outside the door of the farmhouse till the 
 group of work-folk had received their wages, and then 
 Marian introduced her. The farmer himself, it appeared, 
 was not at home, but his wife, who represented him this 
 evening, made no objection to hiring Tess, on her agreeing 
 to remain till Old Ladv-Dav. Female field-labor was sel- 
 dom offered now, and its cheapness made it profitable for 
 tasks which women could perform as readily as men. 
 
 Having signed the agreement, there was nothing more 
 for Tess to do at present than to get a lodging, and she 
 found one in the house at whose gable-Avall she had warmed 
 herself. It was a poor subsistence that she had ensured, 
 but it would afford a shelter for the winter at anv rate. 
 
 That night she wrote to inform her parents of her new 
 address, in case a letter should arrive at Marlott from her 
 husband. But she did not tell them of the sorriness of her 
 situation : it might have brought reproach upon him. 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 325 
 
 XLIIL 
 
 There was no exaggeration in Marian's definition of 
 Flintcomb-Ash farm as a starve-acre place. The single fat 
 thing on the soil was Marian herself : and she was an im- 
 portation. Of the three classes of village, the \dllage cared 
 for by its lord, the village cared for by itself, and the village 
 uncared for either b}' itself or by its lord — (in other words, 
 the village of a resident squire's tenantry, the \dllage of 
 free or copyholders, and the absentee-owner's village, farmed 
 with the land) — tliis place, Flintcomb-Ash, was the third. 
 
 But Tess set to work. Patience, that blending of moral 
 courage with physical timidity, was now no longer a minor 
 feature in Mrs. Angel Clare ; and it sustained her. 
 
 The swede-field, in which she and her companion w^ere 
 set hacking, was a stretch of a hundred odd acres, in one 
 patch, on the highest ground of the farm, rising above 
 stony lanchets or lynchets — the outcrop of silicious veins 
 in the chalk formation, composed of myriads of loose white 
 flints in bulbous, cusped, and phallic shapes. The upper 
 half of each turnip had been eaten off by the live-stock, 
 and it was the business of the two women to grub out the 
 lower or earthy half of the root with a hooked fork called 
 a hacker, that this might be eaten also. Every leaf of the 
 vegetable ha^dng previously been consumed, the whole field 
 was in color a desolate drab ; it was a complexion without 
 features, as if a face, from chin to brow, should be only an 
 expanse of skin. The sky wore, in another color, the same 
 likeness; a white vacuitv of countenance with the linea- 
 ments gone. So these two upper and nether \dsages con- 
 fronted each other all day long, the white face looking 
 down on the brown face, and the brown face looking up at 
 the white face, without anything standing between them 
 
326 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 but the two girls crawling over the surface of the former 
 like flies. 
 
 Nobody came near them, and their movements showed a 
 mechanical regularity; theu^ forms enshrouded in rough 
 Hessian " v\^'oppers " — sleeved brown pinafores, tied behind 
 to the bottom, to keep their gowns from blowing about — 
 short skirts revealing " skitty boots" that reached high up 
 the ankles, and yellow sheepskin gloves with gauntlets. 
 The pensive character which the curtained hood lent to 
 their bent heads would have reminded the observer of some 
 early Italian conception of the two Marys. 
 
 They worked on hour after hour, unconscious of the 
 forlorn aspect they bore in the landscape, not thinking of 
 the justice or injustice of their lot. Even in such a posi- 
 tion as theirs it was possible to exist in a dream. In the 
 afternoon the rain came on again, and Marian said that 
 they need not work any more, though if they did not w^ork 
 they would not be paid ; so they w^orked on. It was so 
 high a situation, this field, that the rain had no occasion to 
 fall, but raced along horizontally upon the yelling TNdnd, 
 sticking into them like glass splinters, till by degrees they 
 were wet through. Tess had not known till now — indeed, 
 few people of either sex know — what is really meant by 
 that. There are degi^ees of dampness, and a very little is 
 called being wTt through in common talk. But to stand 
 w^orking slowly in a field, and feel the creep of rain-water, 
 first in legs and shoulders, then on hips and head, then at 
 back, front, and sides, and yet to work on till the leaden 
 light diminishes and marks that the sun is dowTi, demands 
 a distinct modicum of stoicism, even of valor. 
 
 Yet they did not feel the witness so much as might be 
 supposed. Tliey were both young, and they were talking 
 of the time when they lived and loved together at Talbo- 
 thays Dairy, that happy green tract of land where summer 
 had been liberal in her gifts ; in substance to all, emotion- 
 ally to these. Tess would fain not have conversed with 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 327 
 
 Marian of the man who was legally, if not obvionsly, her 
 hnsbancl ; but the iiTesistible fascination of the subject be- 
 trayed her into reciprocating Marian's remarks. And thus, 
 as has been said, though the damp curtains of their bonnets 
 flapped smartly into their faces, and their wrappers clung 
 about them to wearisomeness, they liyed all this afternoon 
 in memories of green, sunny, romantic Talbothays. 
 
 '^ You can see a gleam of a hill within a few miles of 
 Froom Valley from here when it is fine," said Marian. 
 
 '^ Ah ! Can you ? " said Tess, awake to the new yalue of 
 the locality. 
 
 So the two forces were at work here as eyerywhere, the 
 inherent ^Yi]l to enjoy, and the circumstantial will against 
 enjoyment. Marian's ^dll had a method of assisting itself 
 by taking from her pocket, as the afternoon wore on, a pint 
 bottle corked ^yith a white rag, from which she in\dted Tess 
 to drink. Tess's unassisted power of dreaming, howeyer, 
 being enough for her sublimation at present, she declined 
 except the merest sip, and then Marian took a pull herself 
 from the bottle. 
 
 ^' I'ye got used to it," she said, " and can't leaye it off 
 
 now. 'Tis my only comfort You see I lost him : you 
 
 didn't ; and you can do without it perhaps." 
 
 Tess thought her loss as great as Marian's, but upheld 
 by the dignity of being Angel's wife, in the letter at least, 
 she accepted Marian's differentiation. 
 
 Amid this scene Tess slayed in the morning frosts and in 
 the afternoon rains. When it was not swede-hacking it 
 was swede-trimming, in which process they sliced off the 
 earth and the fibres with a l^ill-hook before storing the 
 roots for future use. At this occupation they could shelter 
 themselyes by a thatched hurdle if it rained ; but if it was 
 frosty, eyen their thick leather gloyes could not preyent 
 the frozen masses they handled from biting their fingers. 
 Still Tess hoped. She had a conyiction that sooner or later 
 the magnanimity which she persisted in reckoning as a 
 
328 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 chief ingredient of Clare's character would lead him to 
 rejoin herj and what would a winter of swede-trimming 
 matter if it resulted in such a consummation ? 
 
 They often looked across the country to where Froom 
 Valley was known to stretch, even though they might not 
 be able to see itj and, fixing their eyes on the cloaking 
 gray mist, imagined the old times they had spent out there. 
 
 "All," said Marian, "howl should like another or two 
 of our old set to come here ! Then we could bring up 
 Talbothays ever}^ day here afield, and talk of he, and of 
 what nice times we had there, and o' the old things we used 
 to know, and make it all come back again a'most, in seem- 
 ing ! " Marian's eyes softened, and her voice grew vague 
 as the visions returned. " I'll T\Tite to Izz Huett," she said. 
 " She's biding at home doing nothing now, I. know, and I'll 
 tell her we be here, and ask her to come ; and perhaps Retty 
 is well enough now.'^ 
 
 Tess had nothing to say against the proposal, and the 
 next she heard of this plan for importing old Talbothays' 
 joys was two or three days later, w^hen Marian informed 
 her that Izz had replied to her inquiry, and had promised 
 to come if she could. 
 
 There had not been such a winter for years. It came on 
 in stealthy and measured glides, like the moves of a chess- 
 player. One morning the few lonely trees and the thorns 
 of the hedgerows appeared as if they had put off a vegeta- 
 ble for an animal integument. Every twig was covered 
 wdth a white nap as of fur grown from the rind during the 
 night, giving it four times its usual dimensions ; the whole 
 bush or tree forming a startling sketch in white lines on the 
 mournful gi^ay of the sky and horizon. Cobwebs revealed 
 their presence on sheds and walls where none had ever 
 been observed till brought out into visibilitv by the crvs- 
 tallizing atmosplicre, hanging like loops of white worsted 
 from salient points of the outhouses, posts, and gates. 
 
 After this season of congealed dampness came a spell of 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 329 
 
 dry frost, when strange bii'ds from behind the North Pole 
 began to arrive silently on the upland of Flintcomb-Ash ; 
 gannt spectral creatures with tragical eyes — eyes which 
 had witnessed scenes of cataclysmal hoiTor in inaccessible 
 polar regions, of a magnitude such as no human being had 
 ever conceived, in curdling temperatures that no man could 
 endure ; wliich had beheld the crash of icebergs and the 
 slide of snow-hills by the shooting light of the Aurora ; 
 been half blinded by the whirl of colossal storms and ter- 
 raqueous distortions ; and retained the expression of fea- 
 ture that such scenes had engendered. These nameless 
 birds came quite near to Tess and Marian, but of all they 
 had seen which humanitv would never see thev broug^ht 
 no account. The traveller's ambition to tell was not theirs, 
 and, T\dth dumb impassivity, they dismissed experiences 
 which thev did not value for the immediate incidents of 
 this upland — the trivial movements of the two girls in 
 disturbing the clods with their fragile hackers so as to un- 
 cover something or other that these \dsitants relished as 
 food. 
 
 Then one day a peculiar quality invaded the air of this 
 open country. There came a moisture which was not the 
 moisture of rain, and a cold which was not the cold of frost. 
 It chilled the eyeballs of the twain, made their brows ache, 
 penetrated to their skeletons, affecting tlie^ surface of the 
 body less than its core. They knew that it meant snow, 
 and in the night the snow came. Tess, who continued to 
 live at the cottage with the warm gable that cheered the 
 lonely pedestrian who paused beside it, awoke in the night, 
 and heard above the thatch noises which seemed to signify 
 that the roof had turned itseK into a gymnasium of all the 
 "wdnds. Wlien she lit her lamp to get up in the morning, 
 she found that the snow had blown through a chink in the 
 casement, forming a white cone of the finest powder against 
 the inside, and had also come down the chimney, so that it 
 lay sole-deep upon the floor, on which her shoes left tracks 
 
330 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 when she moved about. Without, the storm drove so fast 
 as to create a snow-mist in the kitchen ; but as yet it was 
 too dark out-of-doors to see an;v"thing. 
 
 Tess knew that it was impossible to go on with the 
 swedes ; and by the time she had finished breakfast by the 
 hght of the solitary little lamp, Marian arrived to tell her 
 that they were to join the rest of the women at reed-draw- 
 ing in the barn till the weather changed. As soon, there- 
 fore, as the uniform cloak of darkness without began to 
 turn to a disordered medley of feeble grays, they blew out 
 the lamp, -s^^-apped themselves up in their thickest pinners, 
 tied their woollen cravats round their necks and across 
 their chests, and started for the barn. The snow had fol- 
 lowed the birds from the polar loasin as a white pillar of a 
 cloud, and individual flakes coidd not be seen. The blast 
 smelt of icebergs, arctic seas, whales, and "vvhite bears, carr}^- 
 ing the snow so that it licked the land but did not he on it. 
 They trudged onwards with slanted bodies through the 
 flossy fields, keeping as well as they could in the shelter 
 of hedges, which, however, acted as strainers rather than 
 screens. The air, afflicted to pallor with the hoar}^ multi- 
 tudes that infested it, twisted and spun them eccentrically, 
 suggesting an achromatic chaos of things. But both the 
 young women were fairly cheerful ; such weather on a dry 
 upland is not in itself dispiriting. 
 
 "The cunning northern birds knew this was coming," 
 said Marian. " Depend upon 't, they kept just in front of 
 it all the w^ay from the North Star. Your husband, my 
 dear, is, I make no doubt, having scorching weather all 
 this time. Lord, if he could only see his pretty wife now ! 
 Not that this weather hurts your beauty at all — in fact, it 
 rather does it good." 
 
 " You mustn't talk about him to me, Marian," said Tess, 
 severely. 
 
 " Well, but — surely you care for him. Do you ? " 
 
 Instead of answering, Tess, with tears in her eyes, im- 
 
THE WO:\IAN PAYS. 331 
 
 pulsively faced in the clii'ection in which she imagined 
 South America to lie, and, putting up her hps, blew out a 
 passionate kiss upon the snowy wind. 
 
 ^' Well, well, I know you do. But 'j^on my body, it is a 
 rum life for a married couple ! There — I won't say another 
 word ! Well, as for the weather, it won't hurt us in the 
 wheat-barn ; but reed-drawing is fearful hard work — worse 
 than swede-hacking. I can stand it because I'm stout ; but 
 you be slimmer than I. I can't think why maister should 
 have set 'ee at it." 
 
 They reached the wheat-loarn and entered it. One end 
 of the long structm-e was full of corn ; the midtUe was 
 where the reed-drawing was carried on, and there had al- 
 ready been placed in the reed-press the evening before as 
 many sheaves of w^heat as would be sufficient for the women 
 to draw from during the day. 
 
 " Why, here's Izz ! " said Marian. 
 
 Izz it was, and she came forward. She had walked aU 
 the way from her mother's home on the previous afternoon, 
 and not deeming the distance so great had been belated, 
 arriving, however, just before the snow began, and sleeping 
 at the ale-house. The farmer had agreed with her mother 
 at market to take her on if she came to-dav, and she had 
 been afraid to disappoint him by delay. 
 
 In addition to Tess, Marian, and Izz, there were two 
 women from a neighboring \allage 5 two Amazonian sis- 
 ters, whom Tess with a start remembered as Dark Car the 
 Queen of Spades, and her junior the Queen of Diamonds — 
 those who had tried to fight with her in the midnight quar- 
 rel at Trantridge. They showed no recognition of her, and 
 possibly had none. They did all kinds of men's work by 
 preference, including well-sinking, hedging, ditching, and 
 excavating, T\dthout any sense of fatigue. Xoted reed-draw- 
 ers were they too, and looked round upon the other three 
 "vvith some superciliousness. 
 
 Putting on their gloves, they aU set to work, standing in 
 
332 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 a row in front of the press. That erection was formed of 
 two upright posts connected by a cross-beam, under which 
 the sheaves to be drawn from were laid ears outward, the 
 beam being pegged down by pins in the uprights, and 
 lowered as the sheaves diminished. Each woman seized a 
 handful of the ears, and drew out the stalks thereby, gath- 
 ering the straw so draT\Ti — now straight, and called reed — 
 under her left arm, where, when a large armful was gath- 
 ered, she cut off the ears with a bill-hook. 
 
 The day hardened in color, the Ught coming in at the 
 barn-doors upwards from the ground instead of downwards 
 from the sky. The girls pulled handful after handful from 
 the press; but by reason of the presence of the strange 
 women, who were recounting local scandals, Marian and 
 Izz could not at first talk of old times as they wished to do. 
 Presently they heard the muffled tread of a horse, and the 
 farmer rode up to the barn-door, ^lien he had dismounted 
 and entered he came close to Tess, and remained looking 
 musingly at the side of her face. She had not turned at 
 first, but his fixed attitude led her to look round, when she 
 perceived that her employer was the native of Trantridge 
 from whom she had taken flight on the high-road because 
 of his allusion to her history. 
 
 He waited till she had carried the dra^Ti bundles to the 
 pile outside, when he said, " So you be the young woman 
 who took my civility in such ill part ? Be drowned if I 
 didn't think you might be as soon as I heard of your being 
 hired. Well, you thought you had got the better of me the 
 first time at the inn with your fancy-man, and the second 
 time on the road, when you bolted ; but now I think I've 
 got the better of you." He concluded with a hard laugh. 
 
 Tess, between the Amazonians and the farmer, like a bird 
 caught in a springe clap-net, returned no answer, continu- 
 ing to pull the straw. She could read character sufficiently 
 well to know by this time that she had nothing to fear from 
 her employei-'s gallantry j it was rather the tyranny iiiduced 
 
THE WOIMAN PAYS. 333 
 
 by Hs mortification at Clare's treatment of him. Upon the 
 whole, she preferred that sentiment in man, and felt brave 
 enough to endm-e it. 
 
 " You thought I was in love with 'ee, I suppose 1 Some 
 women are such fools, to take every look as serious earnest. 
 But there's nothing like a A^dnter afield for taking that non- 
 sense out o' yoimg women's heads ; and you've signed and 
 agreed till Lady-Day. Now, are you going to beg my par- 
 don ? " 
 
 " I think you ought to beg mine." 
 
 ^^ Very well — as you Uke. But we'll see which is master 
 here. Be they aU the sheaves you've done to-day ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " 'Tis a very poor show. Just see what they've done over 
 there" (pointing to the two stalwart women). "The rest, 
 too, have done better than vou." 
 
 " They've all practised it before, and I have not. And I 
 thought it made no difference to you as it is task work, and 
 we are only paid for what we do." 
 
 " 0, but it does. I want the barn cleared." 
 
 " I am going to work all the afternoon instead of lea\ing 
 at two as the others will do." 
 
 He looked sullenly at her and went away. Tess felt that 
 she could not have come to a much worse place ; but any- 
 thing was better than gallantry, in her unprotected state. 
 When two o'clock arrived the professional reed-draAvers 
 tossed off the last half -pint in their flagon, put down their 
 hooks, tied their last sheaves, and went away. Marian and 
 Izz would have done likewise, but on hearing that Tess 
 meant to stay, to make up by longer hours for her lack of 
 skill, they would not leave her. Looking out at the snow, 
 which still fell, Marian exclaimed, "Now we've got it all to 
 ourselves." And so at last the conversation turned to their 
 old experiences at the daiiy ; and, of course, the incidents 
 of their affection for Angel Clare. 
 
 " Izz and Marian," said Mrs. Angel Clare, ^dth a dignity 
 
334 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 wHch was extremely pretty and touching, seeing how very 
 little of a wife she was : " I can't join in talk with you now, 
 as I used to do, about Mr. Clare ; you will see that I can- 
 not ; because, although he is gone away from me for the 
 present, he is my husband." 
 
 Izz was by natm^e the sauciest and most caustic of all the 
 four girls who had loved Clare. " He was a very splendid 
 lover, no doubt," she said ; " but I don't think he is a very 
 good husband to go away from you so soon." 
 
 " He had to go — he was obhged to go, to see about the 
 land over there," pleaded Tess. 
 
 " He might have tided 'ee over the winter." 
 
 ^' Ah — that's owing to an accident — a misunderstanding, 
 and we won't argue it," Tess answered, with tearfulness in 
 her words. " Perhaps there's a good deal to be said for 
 him ! He did not go away, like some husbands, without 
 tellino" me : and I can alwavs find out where he is." 
 
 After this, they continued to seize, pull, and cut off the 
 ears for some long time in a reverie, nothing sounding in 
 the barn but the swish of the drawn straw and the crunch 
 of the hook. Then Tess suddenly flagged, and sank down 
 upon the heap of wheat ears at her feet. 
 
 " I knew 3^ou wouldn't be able to stand it ! " cried Marian. 
 " It wants harder flesh than yours for this work." 
 
 Just then the farmer entered. ''O, that's how you get 
 on when I am away," he said to her. 
 
 ^' But it is my own loss," she pleaded. ^'Not yours." 
 
 " I want it finished," he said, doggedly, as he crossed the 
 barn, and went out at the other door. 
 
 '' Don't 'ee mind him, there's a dear," said Marian. " I've 
 worked here before. Now you go and lie down there, and 
 Izz and I will make up your number." 
 
 '' I don't like to let you do that. I'm taller than you, too." 
 
 However, she was so overcome that she consented to lie 
 down awhile, and reclined on a heap of pull-tails — the ref- 
 use after the straight straw had been drawn — which had 
 
THE W031AN PAYS. 335 
 
 been tlu'own np at the fartlier side of the barn. Her snc- 
 eumbing had been as largely owing to agitation at reopen- 
 ing the subject of her separation from her husband as to 
 the hard work. She lay in a state of percipience without 
 voHtion, and the rustle of the straw and the cutting of the 
 ears had the weight of bodily touches. 
 
 She could hear from her corner, in addition to these 
 noises, the murmur of their voices. She felt certain that 
 they were continuing the subject already broached, but their 
 voices were so low that she could not catch the words. At 
 last Tess grew more and more anxious to know what they 
 were saying, and, persuading herself that she felt better, 
 she got up and resumed work. 
 
 Then Izz Huett broke do^^Ti. She had walked more than 
 a dozen miles the previous evening, had gone to bed at 
 midnight well-nigh supperless, and had risen again at five 
 o'clock. Marian alone, thanks to the bottle of hquor and 
 her stoutness of build, stood the strain upon back and arms 
 without suffering. Tess urged Izz to leave off, agreeing, as 
 she felt better, to finish the day without her, and make 
 equal division of the number of sheaves. 
 
 Izz accepted the offer gratefully, and disappeared through 
 the great door into the snowy track to her lodging. Marian, 
 as was the case every afternoon at this time, on account of 
 the bottle she had emptied, began to feel in a romantic vein. 
 
 " I should not have thought it of him — never ! " she said 
 in a dreamv tone. "And I loved him so ! I didn't mind his 
 lia^dng you. But this about Izz is too bad ! '^ 
 
 Tess, in her start at the words, narrowly missed cutting 
 off a finger with the bill-hook. 
 
 " Is it about my husband ? " she stammered. 
 
 " Well, yes. Izz said, ^ Don't 'ee tell her ' ; but I am sm*e 
 I can't help it ! It was what he wanted Izz to do. He 
 wanted her to go off to Brazil with him." 
 
 Tess's face faded as white as the scene without, and its 
 curves straightened, "And did Izz refuse to go ? " she asked. 
 
336 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ^' I don't know. Anyhow, he changed his mind." 
 
 '-Pooh — then he didn't mean it! 'Twas just a man's 
 jest ! " 
 
 '' Yes, he did ; for he drove her a good way towards the 
 station." 
 
 '' Anyhow, he didn't take her ! " 
 
 They pulled on in silence till Tess, without any premoni- 
 tory symptoms, bm^st out crying. 
 
 " There ! " said Marian. '' Now I wish I hadn't told 'ee ! " 
 
 " No. It is a very good thing that you have done ! I 
 have been livmg on in a thirtover, lackadaisical way, and 
 have not seen Avhat it may lead to ! I ought to have sent 
 him a letter oftener. He said I coidd not go to him, but 
 he didn't say I was not to write as often as I hked. I won't 
 stay like this any longer ! I have been very wrong and 
 neglectful in leaving everything to be done by him ! " 
 
 The dim light in the barn grew dimmer, and they could 
 see to work no longer. When Tess had reached home that 
 evening, and had entered into the privacy of her httle 
 whitewashed chamber, she began impetuously "VNTiting a 
 letter to Clare. But faUing into doubt, she could not finish 
 it. Afterwards she took the ring from the ribbon on which 
 she wore it next her heart, and retained it on her finger all 
 night, as if to fortify herself in the sensation that she was 
 really the wife of this elusive lover of hers, who could pro- 
 pose that Izz should go with him abroad, so shortly after he 
 had left her. Knowing that, how could she wiite entreaties 
 to him, or show that she cared for him any more f 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 By the disclosure in the barn her thoughts were led anew 
 in the direction which they had taken more than once of 
 late — to the distant Emminster Vicarage. It was thi'ough 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 337 
 
 lier husband's parents tliat she had been charged to send a 
 letter to Clare if she desu*ed ; and to write to them direct 
 if in difficulty. But that sense of her having morally no 
 claim upon him had always led Tess to suspend her im- 
 pulses to send these notes j and to the family at the \dcar- 
 age, therefore, as to her own parents since her marriage, 
 she was vu'tuallv non-existent. This self-effacement in both 
 directions had been quite in consonance with her inde- 
 pendent character of desiring nothing b}^ way of favor or 
 pity to which she was not entitled on a fair consideration 
 of her deserts. She wished to stand or fall by her qualities, 
 and to waive such merely nominal claims upon a strange 
 family as she had established by the flimsy fact of a mem- 
 ber of that family having, in a moment of impulse, written 
 his name in a church-book beside hers. 
 
 But now that she was stung to a fever by Izz's tale there 
 was a limit to her powers of renunciation. Wliy had her 
 husband not written to her? He had distinctly imphed 
 that he would at least let her know of the locality- to Adiich 
 he had journeyed • but he had not sent a line to notify his 
 addi'ess. Was he really indifferent ? But was he ill? Was 
 he waiting for her to make some advance? Surely she 
 might summon the courage of solicitude, call at the \dcar- 
 age for intelligence, make herself known, and express her 
 grief at his silence. If Angel's father were the good man 
 she had heard him represented to be, he would be able to 
 enter into her heart-starved situation. Her social hard- 
 ships she could conceal. 
 
 To leave the farm on a week-day was not in her power ; 
 Sunday was the only possible opportunity. Flintcomb-Ash 
 being in the middle of the cretaceous table-land over which 
 no railwav had climbed as vet, it would be necessarv to 
 Avalk. And the distance being fifteen miles each way it 
 would be necessary to allow herself a long day for the un- 
 dertaking, b}^ rising early. 
 
 A fortnight later, when the snow had gone, and had been 
 %% 
 
338 TESS OF THE D'UKBERVILLES. 
 
 followed T)y a hard, black frost, she resolved to take advan- 
 tage of the state of the roads to try the experiment. At 
 thi'ee o'clock that Snnday morning she came downstairs 
 and stepped ont into the starlight. The weather was 
 still favorable, the gTonnd ringing nnder her feet like an 
 anvil. 
 
 Marian and Izz were mnch interested in her excnrsion, 
 knowing that the jom^ney concerned her hnsband. Their 
 lodgings were in a cottage a little farther along the lane, 
 bnt they came and assisted Tess in her departnre, and 
 argned that she should dress up in her very prettiest guise 
 to captivate the hearts of her parents-in-laAV ; though she, 
 knowing of the austere and Calvinistic tenets of ohl Mr. 
 Clare, was indifferent, and even doubtful. A year had now 
 elapsed since her sad marriage, but she had preserved suf- 
 ficient draperies from the WTeck of her then full wardrobe 
 to clothe her very charmingly as a sim^^le country girl with 
 no pretensions to recent fashion ; a soft gray woollen gown, 
 with white crape quilling against the pink skin of her face 
 and neck, and a black velvet jacket and hat. 
 
 ^' 'Tis a thousand pities your husband can't see 'ee now — 
 you do look a real beauty ! " said Izz Huett, regarding Tess 
 as she stood on the threshold, between the steely starlight 
 without and the yellow candle-light within. Izz si)oke with 
 a magnanimous abandonment of herself to the situation ; 
 she could not be — no woman with a heart bigger than a 
 hazel-nut could be — antagonistic to Tess in her presence, 
 the influence which she exercised over those of her ovm sex 
 being of a warmth and strength quite unusual, curiously 
 overpowering the less worthy feminine feelings of spite 
 and rivah-y. 
 
 With a final tug and touch liere, and a slight brush there, 
 they let her go ; and she was absorbed into the pearly air 
 of tlie fore-dawn. They heard lier footsteps tap along the 
 hard road as she stepped out to her full pace. Even Izz 
 hoped she would win, and, though without any particular 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 339 
 
 res^Dect for lier owni vii'tiie, felt glad tliat she had been pre- 
 vented wronging her friend when momentarily tempted by 
 Clare. 
 
 It was a year ago, all but a day, that Clare had married 
 Tess, and only a few days less than a year that he had been 
 absent from her. Still, to start on a bidsk walli, and on 
 such an errand as hers, on a diy, clear winter morning, 
 through the rarefied air of these chalky hogs'-backs, was 
 not depressing ; and there is no doubt that her dream at 
 starting was to win the heart of her mother-in-law, tell her 
 whole liistoiy to that matron, enlist her on her side, and so 
 gain back the truant. 
 
 She soon reached the edge of the vast escarpment below 
 which stretched the wide and loamy Vale of Blackmoor, 
 Ipng now misty and still in the dawn. Instead of the 
 colorless air of the uplands, the atmosphere down there was 
 a deep blue. Instead of the great enclosures of fifty to a 
 hundi'ed acres in which she was now accustomed to toil, 
 there were little fields below her of less than half-a-dozen 
 acres, so numerous that they looked from this height like 
 the meshes of a net. Here the landscape was whitey-brown ; 
 down there, as in Froom Valley, it was always green. Yet 
 it was in that vale that her sorrow had taken shape, and 
 she did not love it as formerly. Beauty to her, as to all 
 who have felt, lay not in the thing, but in what the thing 
 symbolized. 
 
 Keeping the Vale on her right, she steered steadily west- 
 ward ; passing above the Hintocks, crossing at right angles 
 the high-road from Sherton-Abbas to Casterbridge, and 
 skirting Dogbury HiU and High-Stoy, with the dell l^etween 
 them called "The Devil's Kitchen." Still following the 
 elevated way, she reached Cross-in -Hand, where the stone 
 pillar stands desolate and silent, to mark the site of a mira- 
 cle, or murder, or both. Three miles farther she cut across 
 the straight and deserted Roman road called Long-Ash 
 Lane ; leaving which as soon as she reached it, she dipped 
 
340 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 down the hill by a transverse lane into the small town or 
 village of Evershead, being now about half-way over the 
 distance. She made a halt here, and breakfasted a second 
 time, heartily enough — not at the Sow and Acorn, for she 
 avoided inns, but at a cottage by the church. 
 
 The second half of her journey was through a more gen- 
 tle country, by way of Benvill Lane. But as the mileage 
 lessened between her and the spot of her pilgrimage, so did 
 Tess's confidence decrease, and her enterprise loom out more 
 formidably. She saw her pur]30se in such staring lines, and 
 the landscape so faintly, that she was sometimes in danger 
 of losing her way. However, about noon she stood on the 
 edge of the basin in which Emminster and its vicarage lay. 
 
 Mounting upon a gate by the wayside, she sat there con- 
 templating the scene. The square tower, beneath which 
 she knew that at that moment the vicar and his household 
 and congregation were gathered, had a severe look in her 
 eyes. She wished that she had somehow contrived to come 
 on a week-day. Such a good man might be prejudiced 
 against a woman who had chosen Sunday, never realizing 
 the necessities of her case. But it was incumbent upon her 
 to go on now. She took off the thick boots in which she 
 had walked thus far, put on her pretty thin ones of j)atent 
 leather, and, stuffing the former into the hedge where she 
 might readily find them again, descended the hill ; the fresh- 
 ness of color she had derived from the keen air thinning 
 away in spite of her as she di'ew near the parsonage. 
 
 Tess hoped for some accident that might favor her, but 
 nothing favored her. The shrubs on the vicarage lawn 
 rustled nncomf ortabh' in the frosty breeze ; she could not 
 feel, by any stretch of imagination, dressed to her highest 
 as she was, that the house was the residence of near rela- 
 tions; and yet nothing essential, in nature or emotion, 
 divided her from them : in pains, pleasures, thoughts, birth, 
 death, and after-death, thev were the same. 
 
 She nerved herself l)y an effort, entered the swing- gate, 
 
THE WOMAN PAYS. 341 
 
 and rang the door-bell. The thing was done ; there could 
 be no retreat. No ; the thing was not done. Nobody an- 
 swered to her ringing. The effort had to be risen to and 
 made again. She rang a second time, and the agitation of 
 the act, coupled with her weariness after the fourteen miles' 
 walk, led her to support herself while she waited by resting 
 her hand on her hi]3, and her elbow against the wall of the 
 porch. The ^dnd was so diying that the ivy-leaves had 
 become ^dzened and gray, each tapping incessantly upon 
 its neighbor with a disquieting stu^ of her nerves. A piece 
 of blood-stained paper, caught up from some meat-buyer's 
 dust-heap, beat up and do^vn the road mthout the gate 5 
 too flimsy to rest, too heavy to fly away j and a few straws 
 kept it company. 
 
 The second peal had been louder, and still nobod}' came. 
 Then she walked out of the porch, opened the gate, and 
 passed tlu'ough. And though, when she had half -closed it, 
 she retained it in her hand, looking dubiously at the house- 
 front as if inclined to return, it was with a breath of relief 
 that she closed the gate. A feeling haunted her that she 
 might have been observed, and recognized (though how she 
 could not tell), and that orders had been given not to admit 
 her. 
 
 Tess went as far as the corner mth a sense that she had 
 done all she could do ; but determined not to escape present 
 trepidation at the expense of future distress, she walked 
 back again quite past the house, looking up at all the win- 
 dows. 
 
 Ah — the explanation was that they were all at church, 
 every one. She remembered her husband saying that his 
 father always insisted upon the household, servants in- 
 cluded, going to morning service, and, as a consequence, 
 eating cold food when they came home. It was therefore 
 only necessary to wait till the service was over. She would 
 not make herseK conspicuous by waiting on the spot, and 
 she started to get past the ct^urch into the lane. But as 
 
342 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 she reached the chiu'chyard gate the people began pouring 
 out, and Tess found herself in the midst of them. 
 
 The Emminster congregation looked at her as only the 
 congregation of small country townsfolk walking home at 
 its leisure can look at a woman whom it perceives to be a 
 stranger. She quickened her pace, and ascended the road 
 by which she had come, to find a retreat between its hedges 
 till the ^acai^'s family should have lunched, and it might be 
 convenient for them to receive her. She soon distanced the 
 church-goers, except two youngish men, who had come out 
 in the rear of the majority, and, linked arm-in-arm, were 
 beating up behind her at a quick step. 
 
 As they drew nearer she could hear theii' voices engaged 
 in earnest discourse, and, with the natural quickness of a 
 woman in her situation, did not fail to recognize in those 
 voices the quality of her husband's tones. The pedestrians 
 were his two brothers, obviously. Forgetting all her plans, 
 Tess's one dread was lest they should overtake her now, in 
 her disorganized condition, before she was prepared to con^ 
 front them; for, though she knew that they could not 
 identify her, she instinctively di'eaded their scrutiny. The 
 more briskly they walked the more briskly walked she. 
 They were plainly bent upon taking a short, quick stroll 
 before going indoors to lunch or dinner, to restore warmth 
 to limbs chilled mth sitting through a long ser^dce. 
 
 Only one person had preceded Tess i\]) the hill — a lady- 
 like young woman, somewhat interesting, though, perhaps, 
 a trifle guindee and prudish. Tess had nearly overtaken 
 her when the speed of her brothers-in-law brought them so 
 nearly behind her back that she could hear every word of 
 their conversation. They said nothing, however, which par- 
 ticularly interested her till, observing the young lady still 
 farther in front, one of them remarked, "There is Mercy 
 Chant. Let us overtake her." 
 
 Tess knew the name. It was \he woman wlio had been 
 destined for Angel's life-companion by his and her parents, 
 
THE W03L\X PAYS. 343 
 
 and wlioiii lie probably would have married 1>ut for her 
 intrusive self. She would have known as much without 
 previous information if she had waited a moment^ for one 
 of the brothers proceeded to say : ^^ All ! jDoor Angel, poor 
 Angel ! I never see that nice girl without more and more 
 regretting Ms precipitancy in throwing liimseK away upon 
 a dairymaid, or w^hatever she may be. It is a queer busi- 
 ness, apparently. Wliether she has joined him yet or not 
 I don't know ; but she had not done so some months ago 
 w^heii I heard from him." 
 
 ^'I can't say. He never tells me anything nowadays. 
 His ill-considered marriage seems to have completed that 
 estrangement from me which was begun by his extraordi- 
 nary opinions." 
 
 Tess beat up the long hill still faster 5 but she coidd not 
 outwalk them without exciting notice. At last they out- 
 sped her altogether, and passed her by. The young lady 
 still farther ahead heard their footsteps and turned. Then 
 there was a greeting and a shaking of hands, and the three 
 went on together. 
 
 They soon reached the summit of the hill, and, evidently 
 intending this point to be the limit of their promenade, 
 they slackened pace and turned all three aside to the 
 gate whereon Tess had paused an hour before that time to 
 reconnoitre the town before descending the hill. During 
 their discourse one of the clerical brothers probed the hedge 
 carefully with his umbrella, and dragged something to 
 
 light. 
 
 " Here's a pair of old boots,'' he said. '' Thrown away, I 
 suppose, by some tramp or other." 
 
 " Some impostor who wished to come into the town bare- 
 foot, perhaps, and so excite our sympathies," said Miss 
 Chant. "Yes, it must have been, for they are excellent 
 walking-boots — by no means worn out. What a wicked 
 thing to do ! I'll carry them home for some poor person." 
 
 Outhbert Clare, who had been the one to find them, 
 
344 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 picked them up for lier with the crook of his stick ; and 
 Tess's boots were appropriated. 
 
 She, who had heard this, walked past under the screen of 
 her woollen veil, till, presently looking back, she perceived 
 that the chui'ch 23arty had left the gate with her boots and 
 retreated down the hill. 
 
 Thereupon our heroine resumed her walk. Tears, blind- 
 ing tears, were running down her face. She knew that it 
 was all sentiment, all baseless impressibihty, which had 
 caused her to read the scene as her own condemnation ; 
 nevertheless, she could not get over it ; she could not con- 
 travene in her own defenceless person all these untoward 
 omens. It was impossible to think of returning to the 
 vicarage. Angel's wife felt almost as if she had been 
 hounded up that hill like a scorned thing by those — to her 
 — superfine clerics. Innocently as the slight had been 
 inflicted, it was somewhat unfortunate that she had encoun- 
 tered the sons and not the father, who, despite his narrow- 
 ness, was far less starched and ii'oned than they, and had 
 to the full the gift of charity. As she again thought of her 
 dusty boots, she almost pitied those habiliments for the 
 quizzing to which they had been subjected, and felt how 
 hopeless life was for their owner. 
 
 ^' Ah ! " she said, still weeping in pity of herself, '^ they 
 didn't know that I wore those over the roughest part of the 
 road to save these pretty ones he bought for me — no — they 
 did not know it ! And they didn't think that he chose 
 the color o' my pretty frock — no — how could they ? If they 
 had known perhaps they would not have cared, for they 
 don't care much for him, poor thing ! " 
 
 Then she wept for the beloved man whose conventional 
 standard of judgment had caused her aU these latter sor- 
 rows; and she went her way without knowing that the 
 greatest misfortune of her life was this feminine loss of 
 courage at the last and critical moment through her esti- 
 mating her father-in-law by his sons. Her present con- 
 
THE WO]MAN PAYS. 345 
 
 ditioii was precisely one wliicli would have enlisted tlie 
 sympatliies of old Mr. and Mrs. Clare. Theii* hearts went 
 out of them at a bound towards extreme cases, when the 
 subtle mental troubles of the less desperate among man- 
 kind failed to win their interest or regard. In jumping 
 at Publicans and Sinners they would forget that a word 
 might be said for the worries of Scribes and Pharisees; 
 and this defect or limitation might have recommended their 
 own daughter-in-law to them at this moment as a fairly 
 choice sort of lost person for their love. 
 
 Thereupon she began to plod back along the road by 
 which she had come not altogether full of hope, but fidl of 
 a con^dction that a crisis in her life was approaching. No 
 crisis, apparenth', had come ; and there was nothing left 
 for her to do but to continue for the remainder of the win- 
 ter upon that starve-acre farm. She did, indeed, take suf- 
 ficient interest in herself to throw up her veil on this retui*n 
 journey, as if to let the world see that she could at least ex- 
 hibit a face such as Mercy Chant could not show. But it 
 was done with a sorry shake of the head. ^' It is nothing — 
 it is notliing!" she said. '' Nobody loves it; nobody sees 
 it. Wlio cares about the looks of a castaway like me ! '' 
 
 Her journey back was rather a meander than a march. 
 It had no sprightliness ; no purj^ose ; only a tendency. 
 Along the tedious length of Benvill Lane she began to 
 grow tu-ed, and she leaned upon gates and paused by mile- 
 stones. 
 
 She did not enter any house till, at the seventh or eighth 
 mile, she descended the steep long hill below wliich lay the 
 village or townlet of Evershead, where in the morning she 
 had breakfasted with such contrasting expectations. The 
 cottage by the church, in which she again sat do"v\Ti, was 
 almost the fii'st at that end of the village, and while the 
 woman fetched her some milk from the pantry, Tess, look- 
 ing down the street, perceived that the place seemed quite 
 deserted. 
 
346 TESS OF THE D'URBER\^LLES. 
 
 " The people are gone to afternoon service, I suppose ? " 
 she said. 
 
 ''No, mv dear/' said the old woman. "'Tis too soon for 
 that ; the bells haint strook out yet. They be all gone to 
 hear the preacliing in Spring Barn. A ranter preaches 
 there between the services — a excellent, fiery, Christian 
 man, they say. But, Lord, I don't go to heai-'n ! " What 
 comes in the regular way over the pulpit is hot enough 
 for I." 
 
 Tess soon went onward into the village, her footsteps 
 echoing against the houses as though it were a place of the 
 dead. Nearing the central part, her echoes were intruded 
 on by other sounds; and seeing the barn before her, she 
 guessed these to be the utterances of the preacher. 
 
 His voice became so distinct in the still, clear air, that 
 she could soon catch his sentences, though she was on the 
 closed side of the barn. The sermon, as might be expected, 
 was the extremest antinomian type; on justification by 
 faith, as expounded in the theology of St. Paul. This fixed 
 idea of the rhapsodist was delivered with animated enthusi- 
 asm, in a manner entirely declamatory, for he had plainly 
 no skill as a dialectician. Although Tess had not heard the 
 beginning of the address, she learned what the text had 
 been from its constant iteration : 
 
 " foolish Galatians, ivlio JiafJi heivitclied you, tliai ye 
 should not obey the truth, before ivhose eyes Jesus Christ hatJt 
 been evidently set forth, crucified among you f " 
 
 Tess was all the more interested, as she stood Hstening 
 behin^l, in finding that the preachei^s doctrine was a vehe- 
 ment form of the views of Angel's father, and her interest 
 intensified when the speaker began to detail his own sj^ir- 
 itual experiences of how he had come by those views. He 
 had, he said, been the greatest of sinners. He had scoffed; 
 he bad wantonlv associated with the reckless and the lewd. 
 But a day of awakening had come, and, in a human sense, 
 it had been brought about mainly by the influence of a 
 
THE WO^IAN PAYS. 347 
 
 certain clergyman, whom lie liad at fii'st grossly insulted j 
 but Avhose parting words had sunk into his heart, and had 
 remained there, till by the grace of Heaven they had worked 
 this change in him, and made him what they saw him. 
 
 But more startling to Tess than the doctrine had been 
 the voice, wliich, impossible as it seemed, had been precisely 
 like that of Alec D'Urber\alle. Her face fixed in painful 
 suspense, she came round to the front of the barn, and 
 passed before it. The low winter sun shone directly upon 
 the great double-doored entrance on this side ; one of the 
 doors being open, so that the rays stretched far in over the 
 threshing-floor to the preacher and his audience, all snugly 
 sheltered from the northern breeze. The listeners were en- 
 tirely villagers, among them being the man whom she had 
 seen carrying the paint-pot on a former memorable occasion. 
 But her attention was given to the central figui'e, who stood 
 upon some sacks of corn, facing the people and the door. 
 The thi'ee o'clock sun shone full upon him, and the strange 
 enervating conviction that her seducer confronted her, 
 which had been gaining ground in Tess ever since she had 
 heard his words distinctl}^, was at last established as a fact 
 indeed. 
 
THE CONVERT. 
 
 XLY. 
 
 Till this moment she had never seen or heard from 
 D'Urberville since her departure from Trantridge. 
 
 The rencounter came at a hea\y moment, which of all 
 moments was calculated to permit its impact with the least 
 emotional shock. But such was the influence of unreason- 
 ing memory that, though he stood there openly and palpably 
 a converted man, who was sorrowing for his past irregular- 
 ities, a sense of fear overcame her, paralyzing her movement 
 so that she neither retreated nor advanced. 
 
 To think of what emanated from that countenance when 
 she saw it last, and to behold it now ! 
 
 There was the same handsome unpleasantness of mien, 
 but now he wore dark, neatlv trimmed, old-fashioned whis- 
 kers, the sable mustache having disappeared ; and his dress 
 was half -clerical ; a modification which had changed his 
 expression sufficiently to abstract the dandyism from his 
 features, and to hinder for a second her belief in his identity. 
 
 To Tess's sense there was, just at first, a ghastly bi- 
 zarrerie, a grim incongruity, in the march of these solemn 
 words of Scripture out of such a mouth. This too-familiar 
 intonation, less than four years earlier, had brought to her 
 ears expressions of such divergent purpose that her heart 
 became quite sick at the mere irony of the contrast. Yet 
 he was in earnest, unmistakably. 
 
THK PREACHER WAS ALEC D URBERVILLE. 
 
THE CONVERT. 349 
 
 It was less a reform tlian a transfiguration. The former 
 curves of sensnousness were now modulated to lines of de- 
 votional passion. The lip-shapes that had meant seductive- 
 ness were now made to express divine supplication ; the 
 glow on the cheek that yesterday could be translated as 
 riotousness was evangelized to-day into the splendor of 
 pious enthusiasm ; animalism had become fanaticism ; Pa- 
 ganism, Paulinism ; the bold, rolling eye that had flashed 
 upon her shrinking form in the old time with such gross mas- 
 tery now beamed with the rude energy of a theolatry that 
 was almost ferocious. Those hard, black angularities which 
 his face had used to put on when his wishes were thwarted 
 by her modesty now did duty in picturing the incorrigil)le 
 backslider who would insist upon tiu-ning again to his wal- 
 lowing in the mire. 
 
 The lineaments, as such, seemed to complain. They had 
 been diverted from theii* hereditary connotation to signify 
 impressions for which nature did not intend them. Strange 
 that their very elevation was a misapplication, that to raise 
 seemed to falsify. 
 
 Yet could it be so? Was she not wrong in this? She 
 would admit the ungenerous sentiment no longer. D'Ur- 
 berville was not the fii'st wicked man who had turned away 
 from his wickedness to save liis soul alive, and why should 
 she deem it unnatural in him ? It was but the usage of 
 thought which had been jarred in her at hearing good new 
 words in bad old notes. The greater the sinner the greater 
 the saint ; it was not necessary to dive far into Christian 
 history to discover that. 
 
 Such impressions as these moved her vaguely, and mth- 
 out strict deflniteness. As soon as the nerveless pause of 
 her surprise would allow her to stir, her impulse was to pass 
 on out of his sight. He had obviously not discerned her 
 yet in her position against the sun. But the moment that 
 she moved again he recognized her. 
 
 The effect upon her old lover was electric, far stronger 
 
350 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 than the effect of his presence npon her. His fire, the 
 tumnltnons ring of his eloquence, seemed to go out of him. 
 His lip struggled and trembled under the words that lay 
 upon it ; but deliver them it could not as long as she faced 
 him. His eyes, after their first glance upon her face, hung 
 determinedly in every other direction but hers, but came 
 back in a desperate leap ever}- few seconds. This paralysis 
 lasted, however, but a short time ; for Tess's energies re- 
 tiumed with the atrophy of liis, and she walked as fast as 
 she could do past the barn and onward. 
 
 As soon as she could reflect it appalled her, this change 
 in their relative platforms. , He who had wrought her un- 
 doing was now on the side of the Spmt, while she remained 
 unregenerate ; and, as in the legend, it had resulted that 
 her Cyx^rian image had suddenly appeared u]3on his altar, 
 and the fii'e of the priest had been well-nigh extinguished. 
 
 She went on without turning her head. Her back seemed 
 to be endowed with a sensitiveness to ocular beams — even 
 her clothing — so alive was she to a fancied gaze which 
 might be resting upon her from the outside of that barn. 
 All the way along to this point her heart had been heavy 
 with an inactive sorrow; now there was a change in the 
 quality of its troul)le. That hunger for affection too long 
 withheld was for the time displaced by an almost physical 
 sense of an implacable past which still engu-dled her. It 
 intensified her consciousness of error to a practical despair ; 
 the break of continuity between her past and present exist- 
 ence, which she had hoped for, had not, after all, taken 
 place. Bygones would never be complete bygones tiU she 
 was a bygone herself. 
 
 Thus absorbed, she recrossed the northern half of Long- 
 Ash Lane at right angles, and presently saw before her the 
 road ascending whitely to the upland along whose margin 
 the remainder of her journey lay. Its dry, pale surface 
 stretched severely onward, unbroken by a single figure, 
 vehicle, or mark, save some occasional horse-drop])ings which 
 
THE CONVERT. 351 
 
 dotted its cold aridity here and there. While sh:>wly breast- 
 ing this ascent Tess became conscious of footsteps behind 
 her, andj turning quickly, she saw approaching that well- 
 known form, so strangely accoutred as a minister — the one 
 personage in all the world she wished not to encounter alone 
 on this side of the grave. 
 
 There was not much time, however, for thought or elusion, 
 and she yielded as calndy as she could to the necessity of 
 letting him overtake her. She saw that he was excited, 
 less by the speed of his walk than by the feelings within 
 him. 
 
 ^' Tess ! " he said. 
 
 She slackened speed without looking round. 
 
 " Tess ! " he repeated. '' It is I— ^Vlec ! " 
 
 She then looked back at him, and he came up. ^^ I see it 
 is," she answered, coldly. 
 
 " Well — is that all ! Yet I deserve no more. Of course," 
 he added, with a slight laugh, ^Hhere is sometliing of the 
 ridiculous to your eyes in seeing me like this. But — I 
 must put up with that. ... I heard you had gone away, 
 nobod}" knew where. Tess, do you wonder why I have fol- 
 lowed you 1 " 
 
 " I do, rather ; and I would that you had not, with all 
 my heart ! " 
 
 "Yes — you may well say it," he returned, gravely, as 
 the}' moved onward together, she with unwilling tread. 
 " But don't mistake me ; and I ask this because you may 
 have been led to do so in noticing — if you did notice it — 
 how your sudden appearance unnerved me down there. It 
 was but a momentary spasm ; and considering what you 
 had been to me, it Avas natural enough. But Heaven 
 helped me through it — though perhaps you think me a 
 humbug for sajdng it — and immediately afterwards I felt 
 that, of all persons in the world whom it was my duty and 
 desire to save from the wrath to come — sneer if you like — 
 the woman whom I had so grievously wronged was that 
 
352 TESS OF THE D'URBERATLLES. 
 
 person. I have come with that sole purpose in view — 
 nothing more." 
 
 There was the smallest vein of scorn in her words of 
 rejoinder : ^' Have yon saved yourself ? Charity begins at 
 home, they say." 
 
 '' I have done nothing ! " said he, impetuously. " Heaven, 
 as I have been telling my hearers, has done all. No amount 
 of contempt that you can poiu' upon me, Tess, will equal 
 what I have poured upon myself — the old Adam of my 
 former years. Well, it is a strange story 5 believe it or not. 
 But I can tell you the means by w^hich my conversion w^as 
 brought about, and I hope you will be interested enough in 
 me to listen. Have you ever heard the name of the parson 
 of Emminster — you must have done so ? — old Mr. Clare ; 
 one of the most earnest of his school ; one of the few in- 
 tense men left in the Church ; not so intense as the ex- 
 treme wing of Christian believers to which I belong, but 
 quite an exception among the established clergy, the younger 
 of whom are gradually attenuating the true doctrines by 
 their sophistries, till they are but the shadow of what they 
 were. He is one who, I firmly believe, has been the humble 
 means of sa^dng more souls in this country than any other 
 man you can name. You have heard of him f " 
 
 '' I have," she said. 
 
 " He came to Trantridge two or three years ago to preach 
 on behalf of some missionarv societv ; and I, wretched fel- 
 low that I was, insulted him when, in his disinterestedness, 
 he tried to reason with me and show me the wav. He did 
 not resent m}'- conduct, he simply said that some day I 
 should receive the first-fruits of the Si)irit — that those who 
 came to scoff sometimes remained to pray. There was a 
 strange magic in his words. They sank into my mind, 
 though I did not know it at the time, nor did he ; and by 
 degrees I was brought to the light. Since then my one de- 
 sire has been to hand on the good news to others, and that 
 is what I w^as trying to do to-day 5 though it is only lately 
 
THE CONVERT. 353 
 
 that I have preached hereabout : the first months of my 
 ministry have been spent in the North of England among 
 strangers, where I preferred to make my earhest clnmsy 
 attempts, so as to acquire courage before undergoing that 
 severest of all tests of one's sincerity, addressing those who 
 have known one, and have been one's companions in the 
 days of darkness. If you could only know, Tess, the sense 
 of secui'ity, the certainty, you would, I am siu'e " 
 
 " Don't go on with it ! " she cried, passionately, as she 
 turned away from him to a stile by the wayside, on which 
 she bowed her face. "I can't believe in such sudden 
 things ! I feel indignant with you for talking to me like 
 this, when you know — when you know what harm you've 
 done me ! You, and those Hke you, take your fill of pleasure 
 on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black 
 with sorrow j and then it is a fine thing, when you have 
 had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in 
 heaven hj becoming converted. Out upon such — I don't 
 iDclieve in vou — I hate it ! " 
 
 ^^ Tess," he insisted ; " don't speak so ! It came to me 
 like a shining light ! And you don't believe me ? What 
 don't vou beheve?" 
 
 " Your conversion." 
 
 U Why f " 
 
 She di'opped her voice. '^ Because a better man than you 
 does not believe in such." 
 
 ^' What a woman's reason ! Who is this better man ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell vou." 
 
 "Well," he declared, a resentment beneath his words 
 seeming ready to spring out at a moment's notice ; " God 
 forbid that I should say I am a good man — and you know 
 I don't say any such thing. I am new to goodness, truly 5 
 but new-comers see farthest sometimes." 
 
 '' Yes," she replied. " But I cannot believe in your con- 
 
 vei'sion to a new spirit. Such flashes as you feel, Alec, I 
 
 fear don't last ! " 
 2a 
 
354 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Thus speaking, she turned from the stile over which she 
 had been leaning, and faced him ; whereupon his eyes, fall- 
 ing accidentally upon the familiar countenance and form, 
 remained contemplating her. The inferior man was cer- 
 tainly quiet in him now ; but it was surely not extracted, 
 nor even entirely subdued. 
 
 " Don't look at me like that ! " he said, abruptly. 
 
 Tess, who had been quite unconscious of her action and 
 mien, instantly withdrew^ the large, dark gaze of her eyes, 
 stammering, with a flush, " I beg yoiu- pardon." And there 
 was revived in her the wi'etched sentiment which had often 
 come to her before, that in inhabiting the fleshy tal^ernacle 
 with which natm-e had endowed her she was somehow doing 
 wrong. 
 
 " No, no. Don't beg nn^ pardon. But since you wear a 
 veil to hide your good looks, why don't you keep it down f " 
 
 She pulled down the veil, saying hastily, '^ It was to keep 
 off the wind." 
 
 " It may seem harsh and imperious of me to dictate hke 
 this," he went on. '' But it is better that I should not look 
 too often on j^ou. It might be dangerous for both." 
 
 " Ssh ! " said Tess. 
 
 ''Well, women's faces have had too much power over me 
 already for me not to fear them. An evangelist has nothing 
 to do with such as that j and it reminds me of the old times 
 that I would forget." 
 
 After this their conversation dwindled to a casual renipa-k 
 now and then as they rambled onward, Tess inwardly 
 w^ondering how far he w^as going with her, and not liking 
 to send him back b}- positive mandate. Frequently when 
 they came to a gate or stile they found painted thereon in 
 red letters some text of Scripture, and she asked him if he 
 knew who had been at the pains to blazon these announce- 
 ments. He told her that the man was employed by him- 
 self and others who were working with him in that district, 
 to paint these i-eminders, that no means might be left un- 
 
THE CONVERT. 355 
 
 tried wliicli might move the hearts of a wicked genera- 
 tion. 
 
 At length the road touched the spot called " Cross-in- 
 Hand." Of all spots on this bleached and desolate upland 
 this was the most forlorn. It was so far removed from the 
 charm which is sought in landscape by artists and \dew- 
 seekers as to reach a new kind of beauty, a negative beauty 
 of tragical blankness. The place took its name from a 
 stone pillar which stood there, a strange, rude monolith, 
 from a stratum unknown in any local quarry, on which 
 was rudely carved a human hand. Differing accounts 
 were given of its history and purport. Some authorities 
 stated that a devotional cross had once formed the complete 
 erection there, of which the present relic was but the stump ; 
 others tliat the stone as it stood was entii-e, and that it had 
 been placed there to mark a boundary or a place of meet- 
 ing. Anyhow, whatever the origin of the relic, there was 
 and is something sinister, or solemn, according to mood, 
 in the scene amid which it stands ; something tending to 
 impress the most phlegmatic passer-by. 
 
 '' I think I must leave you now," he remarked, as they 
 drev/ near to this place. "I have to preach at Abbot's 
 Cernel at six this evening, and my way lies across to the 
 right from here. And you upset me somewhat too, Tessie 
 — I cannot, wUl not, say why. I must go away and get 
 strength. . . . How is it that you speak so fluently now? 
 ^Vho has taught you such good Enghsh ? " 
 
 ^' I have learnt things in my troubles," she said, evasively. 
 
 " What troubles have you had f " 
 
 She told him of the fii'st one — the onlv one that related 
 to him. 
 
 D'Urber\dlle was struck mute. " I knew nothing of this 
 till now!" he murmured. "Wby didn't you write to me 
 when you felt your trouble coming on ? " 
 
 She did not reply, and he broke the silence by adding, 
 ^' Well — you will see me again." 
 
356 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 " No," she answered. " Do not again come near me ! " 
 
 ''I will tliink. But before we part, come here." He 
 stepped np to the pillar. " This was once a Holy Cross. 
 ReUcs are not in my creed ; but I fear you at moments — 
 far more than you need fear me 5 and to lessen my fear^ 
 put your hand upon that stone hand, and swear that you 
 will never tempt me — by your charms or w^ays." 
 
 " Good God — how can you ask what is so unnecessary ! 
 All that is furthest from my thought ! " 
 
 ^' Yes — ^but swear it, swear it ! " he pleaded. 
 
 Tess, half frightened, gave way to his importunity, placed 
 her hand upon the stone and swore. 
 
 "I am sorry you are not a believer," he continued; 
 'nhat some unl^eliever should have got hold of you and 
 unsettled your mind. But no more now. At home at 
 least I can pray for you ; and I will ; and who knows what 
 may not happen "? I'm off. Good-by ! " 
 
 He turned to a gap in the hedge, and without letting his 
 eyes again rest upon her, leaped over, and struck out across 
 the down in the du^ection of Abbot's Cernel. As he walked 
 his pace showed perturbation, and by and by, as if instigated 
 by a bracing thought, he drew from his pocket a small 
 Bible, between the leaves of which was folded a letter, worn 
 and soiled, as from much re-reading. D'Urberville opened 
 the letter. It was dated several months before this time, 
 and was signed by Parson Clare. 
 
 Tlie letter began ))y expressing the winter's unfeigned 
 joy at D'UrberviUe's conversion, and thanked him for his 
 kindness in communicating with the parson on the subject. 
 It expressed Mr. Clare's warm assurance of forgiveness for 
 D'UrberviUe's former conduct, and his interest in the young 
 man's plans for the future. He, Mr. Clare, would much 
 have liked to see D'Urberville in the Church to whose min- 
 istry he had devoted so many years of his own life, and 
 would have helped him to enter a theological college to that 
 end ; but since his correspondent had not cared to do this 
 
THE CONVERT. 357 
 
 oil account of tlie delay it would have entailed, he was not 
 the man to insist upon its paramount importance. Every 
 man must Avork as he could best work, and in the method 
 towards which he felt unpelled by the Spii*it. 
 
 D'Urberville read and re-read this letter, and seemed to 
 fortify himself thereby. He also read some passages from 
 his Bible as he walked; till his face assumed a calm, and 
 apparently the image of Tess no longer troubled his mind. 
 
 She meanwhile had kej^t along the edge of the hill by 
 which lay her nearest way home. Within this distance of 
 a mile she met a solitary shepherd. 
 
 "What is the meaning of that old stone I have passed? " 
 she asked of him. " Was it ever a Holv Cross ? " 
 
 '^ Cross — no ; 'twere not a cross ! 'Tis a thing of ill-omen, 
 miss. It was put up in wuld times by the relations of a 
 malefactor who was tortured there by nailing his hand to 
 a post, and afterwards hung. The bones he underneath. 
 They say he sold his soul to the devil, and that he walks at 
 times." 
 
 She felt the petite mort at the unexpectedly gruesome 
 information, and left the solitary man behind her. It was 
 dusk when she drew near to Flintcomb-Ash, and in the lane 
 at the entrance to the hamlet she approached a girl and 
 her lover without their observing her. They were talking 
 no secrets, and the clear, unconcerned voice of the young 
 woman, in response to the warmer accents of the man, 
 spread into the chilly air as the one soothing thing within 
 the dusky horizon, f idl of a stagnant obscimty upon which 
 nothing else intruded. For a moment the voices cheered 
 the heart of Tess, till she reasoned that this interview had 
 its origin, on one side or the other, in the same attraction 
 which had been the prelude to her owti tribulation. When 
 she came close the girl turned serenely and recognized her, 
 the young man walking off in embarrassment. The woman 
 was Izz Huett, whose interest in Tess's excursion immedi- 
 ately superseded her own proceedings. Tess did not ex- 
 
358 TESS OF THE DXTRBERTILLES. 
 
 plain very clearly its results, and Izz, who was a girl of tact, 
 began to speak of her own little affair, a phase of which 
 Tess had just witnessed. 
 
 " He is Amby Seedling, the chap who used to sometimes 
 come and help at Talbothays," she explained, indifferently. 
 " He actually inquired and found out that I had come here, 
 and has followed me. He says he's been in love wi' me 
 these two year. But I've hardly answered him." 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 Se\^ral days had passed since her futile journey, and 
 Tess was afield. The dry winter wind still blew, but a 
 screen of thatched hurdles erected in the eye of the blast 
 kept its force away from her. On this sheltered side was a 
 turnip-slicing machine, whose bright blue hue of new j^aint 
 seemed almost vocal in the othermse colorless scene. Oj)- 
 posite its front was a long mound or '• grave," in which the 
 roots had been preserved since early winter. Tess was 
 standing at the uncovered end, chopping off with a bill- 
 hook the fibres and earth from each root, and throwing it 
 after the operation into the slicer. A man was turning the 
 handle of the machine, and from its trough came the newly 
 cut swedes, the fresh smell of whose yellow chips was ac- 
 companied by the sounds of the snuffling wind, the smart 
 swish of the slicing-blades, and the choppings of the hook 
 in Tess's leather-gloved hand. 
 
 The wide acreage of blank agricultural brownness, ap- 
 parent where the swedes had been pulled, was beginning to 
 be striped in wales of darker broAvn, gradually broadening 
 to ribands. Along the edge of each of these something 
 crept upon ten legs, moving without haste and without rest 
 up and down the whole length of the field; eight of the 
 
THE CO^m]RT. 359 
 
 legs being tliose of horses, two those of the man, the plow 
 going between them, turning up the cleared gromid for a 
 spring sowing. 
 
 For hours nothing reheved the Joyless monotony of 
 things. Then, far beyond the ploughing-teams, a black 
 speck was seen. It had come from the corner of a fence, 
 where there was a gap, and its tendency was up the incline, 
 towards the swede-cutters. From the proportions of a mere 
 point, it advanced to the shape of a ninepiu, and could 
 soon be perceived to be a man in black, arriving from the 
 direction of Flintcomb-Ash. The man at the slicer, ha^dng 
 nothing else to do with his eyes, continually observed the 
 comer, l)ut Tess, who was occupied, did not perceive him 
 till he was quite near, when her companion directed her at- 
 tention to his approach. 
 
 It was not her hard taskmaster. Farmer Groby 5 it was 
 one in a semi-cleric costume, who now represented what had 
 once been the dare-devil Alec D'Urberville. He had e\d- 
 dentl}^ been hoping to find her there alone, and the sight of 
 the grinder seemed to embarrass him. Not being caught 
 in the midst of his preaching, there was less enthusiasm 
 about him now. A pale distress was already on Tess's face, 
 and she pulled her curtained hood further over it. D'Ur- 
 berville came up and said quietly, '^ I want to speak to you, 
 Tess 
 
 r. ?? 
 
 "You have refused my last request," said she, "not to 
 
 come near me." 
 
 " Yes, but I have a good reason." 
 
 " Well, tell it." 
 
 "It is more serious than you may think." He glanced 
 round to see if he were overheard. They were at some 
 distance from the man who turned the slicer, and the move- 
 ment of the machine, too, sufficiently prevented Alec's words 
 reaching other ears. However, D'Urber\dlle placed himself 
 so as to screen Tess from the laborer, turning his back to 
 the latter. "It is this," he continued, with impetuous 
 
300 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 gravity : "in thinking of your soul and mine wlien we last 
 met, I neglected to inquii*e as to youi* worldly condition. 
 You were well dressed, and I did not tliink of it. But I 
 see now that it is hard — harder than it used to be when I — 
 knew you — harder than you deserve. Perhaps a good deal 
 of it is owing to me." 
 
 She did not answer, and there they stood, he watching 
 her inquiringly, she, with bent head, her face completely 
 screened by the hood, resuming her trimming of the swedes. 
 By going on with her work she felt better able to keep him 
 outside her emotions. 
 
 " Tess," he added, with a sigh that verged on a cry, 
 "yours was the very worst case I ever was concerned in. 
 Wretch that I was to foul that innocent life ! The whole 
 blame was mine — the whole blackness of the sin, the awful, 
 awful iniquity. You, too, the real blood of which I am but 
 the imitation, what a blind young thing you were as to 
 possibilities ! I say in all earnestness that it is a sinful 
 shame for parents to bring up their girls in such dangerous 
 ignorance of the gins and nets that the wicked may set for 
 them, whether their motive be a good one or the result of 
 simple indifference." 
 
 Tess still did no more than listen, tin-owing doT\"n one 
 globular root and taking another with automatic regular- 
 ity, the pensive contour of the mere field-woman alone 
 marking her. 
 
 " But it is not that I came to say," D'UrberviUe went on. 
 " My cu'cumstances are these. I have lost my mother since 
 you were at Trantridge, and the place is my own. But I 
 intend to sell it, and devote myself to missionary work in 
 Africa, either as an ordained deacon or as an outside worker 
 — I care very little which. Now, what I want to ask you is, 
 will you put it in my power to do my duty — to make the 
 only reparation I can make for the wrong I did you : that 
 is, will you be my wife, and go with me ? I have already 
 obtained this to save time." He drew a piece of parch- 
 
THE CONVERT. 3C1 
 
 iiieut from his pocket, with a slight fumbling of embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 " What is it ? " said she. 
 
 " A marriage license." 
 
 '' Oh no, su' — no ! " she said, quickly. 
 
 " You will not ? Why is that ? '' And as he asked the 
 question a strange Avretcliedness, which was not entirely 
 the wi'etchedness of thwarted duty, crossed D'Urberyille's 
 face. It was unmistakably a symptom that something of 
 his old passion for her had been reyiyed ; duty and desire 
 ran hand-in-hand. " Surely," he began again, in more im- 
 petuous tones, and then looked round at the laborer who 
 turned the slicer. 
 
 Tess, too, felt that the argument could not be ended 
 there. Informing the man that a friend had come to see 
 her, with whom she wished to walk a little way, she moyed 
 off \vitli D'Urberyille across the zebra-striped field. When 
 they reached the first newly ploughed section he hekl out 
 his hand to help her over it; but she stepped forward on 
 the summits of the earth-rolls as if she did not see him. 
 
 " You will not marry me, Tess ? " he repeated, as soon as 
 they were over the fm-rows. 
 
 " I cannot." 
 
 " But why ? " 
 
 " I have no affection for you." 
 
 " But you would get to feel that in time, perhaps — as 
 soon as you really could forgive me f " 
 
 '' Never ! " 
 
 '^ Why so positive ? " 
 
 '' I love somebody else." 
 
 The words seemed to astonish him. " You do ? " he said. 
 '■'■ Somebody else ? But has not a sense of what is morally 
 right and proper any weight with you ? " 
 
 " No, no, no — don't say that ! " 
 
 "Anyhow, then, yom' love for this other man may be 
 only a passing feeling which you wiU overcome " 
 
3G2 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ^' No — no ; for ... I have married him." 
 
 '^ All ! " he exchiimed 5 and he stopped dead and gazed 
 at her. 
 
 " I did not wish to tell — I did not mean to ! '' she went 
 on, rapidly. " It is a secret here, or at any rate but dimly 
 known. So will you, please will you, keep from questioning 
 me ? You must remember that we are now strangers." 
 
 " Strangers — are we ? Strangers ! " For a moment a 
 flash of his old irony marked his face ; but he determinedly 
 chastened it down. "Is that man your husband F' he 
 asked, mechanically, denoting by a sign the laborer who 
 turned the machine. 
 
 " That man ! " she said, proudly. " I should tliink not ! " 
 
 " Who then "l " 
 
 " Do not ask what I do not wish to tell ! " she begged, 
 and in her eagerness flashed an appeal to him from her up- 
 turned face and lash-shadowed eyes. 
 
 D'Urberville was disturbed. " But I only asked for your 
 sake ! " he pleadly, hotly. " Thunder of heaven, I came 
 here, I swear, as I thought for your good. Tess — don't look 
 at me so — I cannot stand your looks ! There never were 
 such eyes, surely, before Christianity or since ! There — I 
 won't lose my head ; I dare not. I own that the sight of 
 you has revived my love for you, which, I believed, was 
 extinguished wdth aU. such feelings. But I thought that 
 our marriage might be a sanctification for us both. ' The 
 unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the un- 
 believing Avife is sanctified by the husband,' I said to my- 
 self. But my plan is prevented ; and I must bear the dis- 
 appointment." He reflected with his eyes on the ground. 
 " Married — married ! Well, that being so," he added, quite 
 calmly, tearing the license slowly into halves, and putting 
 them in his pocket ; " that being prevented, I should like 
 to do some good to you and your husband, whoever he 
 may be. There are many questions that I am tempted to 
 
THE COm^RT. 363 
 
 ask, but I will not do so, of course, iu opposition to your 
 wishes. Tlioug'li, if I could know your husband, I might 
 more easily benefit him and you. Is he on this farm ? " 
 
 " No," she murmured. '^ He is far away.'^ 
 
 " Far aw^ay 1 From you f What sort of husband can 
 he be!" 
 
 " O, do not speak against him ! It was through you " 
 
 " Ah, is it so ? . . . That's bad, Tess ! " 
 
 ''Yes." 
 
 " But to stay away from you — to leave you to work like 
 this ! " 
 
 " He does not leave me to work ! " she cried, springing 
 to the defence of the absent one wdth aU her fervor. " He 
 don't know it. It is by my own arrangement." 
 
 " Then, does he write ? " 
 
 "I — I cannot teU you. There are things which are 
 private to ourselves." 
 
 '' Of coui'se that means that he does not. You are a de- 
 serted ^^df e, my poor Tess ! " In an impulse, he tm-ned sud- 
 denly to take her hand ; the buft'-glove was on it, and he 
 seized only the rough leather fingers which did not express 
 the life or shape of those within. 
 
 " You must not — you must not ! " she cried, fearfully, 
 slipping her hand from the glove as from a pocket, and 
 lea^'ing it in his grasp. "O, mil you go away — for the 
 sake of me — my husband — go, in the name of your own 
 Christianity ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; I will," he said, hastily, and thrusting the 
 glove back to her turned to leave. Facing round, however, 
 he said, '^ Tess, as God is my judge, I meant no sin in tak- 
 ing your hand ! " 
 
 A pattering of hoofs on the soil of the field, which they 
 had not noticed in their preoccupation, ceased close behind 
 them ; and a voice reached her ear : " What the devil are 
 ye doing away from your work at this time o' day ? " 
 
3G4 TESS OF THE DTTRBERVILLES. 
 
 Farmer Groliy had espied the two figures from the dis- 
 tance, and had inquisitively ridden across, to learn what 
 was theii" bnsiness in his field. 
 
 '' Don't speak like that to her ! " said D'Urberville, his 
 face blackening- mth something that was not Christianity. 
 
 " Indeed, Mister ! And what mid Methodist pa'sons have 
 to do with she ? " 
 
 "^^^10 is the fellow?" asked D'Urberville, tm-ning to 
 Tess. 
 
 She went close np to him. " Go — I do beg yon ! " she 
 said. 
 
 "What? And leave yon to that t^Tant? I can see in 
 his face what a chnrl he is." 
 
 ^'He won't hnrt me. He's not in love with me. I can 
 leave at Lady-Day." 
 
 "Well, I have no right but to obey, I suppose. But — 
 well, good-by," 
 
 Her defender, whom she dreaded more than her assailant, 
 ha\dng reluctantly disappeared, the farmer continued his 
 reprimand, wliich Tess took with the greatness coolness, 
 that sort of attack being independent of sex. To have 
 as a master this man of stone, who would have cuffed her 
 if he had dared, was almost a relief, after her former ex- 
 periences. She silently walked back towards the summit 
 of the field that was the scene of her labor, so absorbed in 
 the inter\dew which had just taken place that she was hardly 
 aware that the nose of Grobv's horse almost touched her 
 shoulders. " If so be you make an agreement to work for 
 me till Lady-Day, I'll see that you carry it out," he growled. 
 " 'Od rot the women — now 'tis one thing, and then 'tis an- 
 other ! But I'll put up with it no longer ! " 
 
 Knowing very well that he did not harass the other 
 women of the farm as he harassed her, out of spite for the 
 flooring lie had once received, she did for one moment pic- 
 ture what might have been the result if she had been free 
 to accept the offer just made to her^ of being Alec's wife. 
 
THE CONVERT. 365 
 
 It would liave lifted lier comj^letely out of subjection, not 
 onh' to lier oppressive emplo^'er, but to a wliole world who 
 seemed to despise her. " But no, no I '' she said, breath- 
 lessly. ^' I could not have married him now. He is so un- 
 pleasant to me ! " 
 
 That very night she began an appeahng letter to Clare, 
 concealing from liim her hardshiiDs, and assuring him of 
 her undying affection. Any one who had been in a position 
 to read between the lines would have seen that at the back 
 of her great love was some monstrous fear — almost a des- 
 peration — as to some secret cii'cumstances which were not 
 disclosed. But again she did not finish her effusion : he 
 had asked Izz to go with him, and perhaps he did not care 
 for her at all. She put the letter in her box, and wondered 
 if it would ever reach Angel's hands. 
 
 After this her daily tasks were gone tlu'ough hea\Tly 
 enough, and brought on the day which was of great import 
 to agriculturists — the day of the Candlemas Fail'. It was 
 at this fail* that new engagements were entered into for the 
 twelve months following the ensuing Lady-Day, and those 
 of the farming population who thought of changing their 
 phices duly attended at the county-to^\ni where the fau* was 
 held. Nearlv all the laborers on Flintcomb-Ash Farm in- 
 tended flight, and early in the morning there was a general 
 exodus in the direction of the town, which lav at a distance 
 of from ten to a dozen miles over hillv countrv. Though 
 Tess also meant to leave at the quarter-day, she was one of 
 the few who did not go to the fair, ha\dng a vaguely shaped 
 hope that something would happen to render another out- 
 door engagement unnecessary. 
 
 It was a peaceful February day, of wonderfid softness 
 for the time, and one would almost have thought that win- 
 ter was over. She had hardlv finished her dinner when 
 D'Urberville's fio-ure darkened the windows of the cottao-e 
 wherein she was a lodger^ which she had all to herself to- 
 day. 
 
366 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Tess instantly jiunped up, but her visitor had knocked 
 at the door, and she could hardly in reason run away. 
 D'Urberville's knock, his walk uj^ to the door, had some in- 
 describable quality of diJBference from his air when she last 
 saw him. They seemed to be performed as acts of which 
 the doer is ashamed. At first she thought that she would 
 not open the door; but, as there was no sense in that 
 either, she arose, and, having lifted the latch, stepped back 
 quickl}^ He came in, saw her before him, and flung him- 
 self down in a chair before speaking. 
 
 " Tess — I couldn't help it," he began, desperately, as he 
 wiped his heated face, which had also a superimposed flush 
 of excitement. ^' I felt that I must call to at least ask how 
 you are. I assui'e you I had not been thinking of you at 
 all till I saw you that Sunday : now I cannot get rid of your 
 image, try how I may ! It is hard that a good woman 
 should do harm to a bad man ; yet so it is. If you w^ould 
 only pray for me, Tess ! " 
 
 The distraction of his manner was almost pitiable, and 
 yet Tess did not pity him. '' How can I pray for you," she 
 said, " when I am forbidden to beheve that the great Power 
 who moves the world would alter His ]3lans on my account ? " 
 
 '' You reaUy think that ? " 
 
 " Yes. I have been cured of the presumption of think- 
 ing otherwise." 
 
 ^' Cured? By whom?" 
 
 " By my husband, if I must tell." 
 
 ''Ah — your husband — your husband. How strange it 
 seems ! I remember you hinted something of the sort the 
 other day. What do you really believe in these matters, 
 Tess?" he asked. "You seem to have no religion — per- 
 haps owing to me." 
 
 '' But I have." 
 
 D'Urberville looked at her with misgiving. "Do you 
 think that the line T take is aU wrong?" 
 
 " A good deal of it." 
 
THE COm'ERT. 367 
 
 " H'm— and yet I've felt so sure about it," he said, un- 
 easily. 
 
 '^ I believe in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, and 
 
 so did my dear husband. But I don't beUeve " Here 
 
 she gave her negations. 
 
 " The fact is/' said D'Urberville, dryly, " whatever your 
 dear husband beheved you accept, and whatever he re- 
 jected you reject, without the least inquiiy or reasoning 
 on your own part. That's just hke you women. Your 
 mind is enslaved to his." 
 
 " Ah, because he knew everything ! " said she, with a 
 triumphant simplicity of faith in Angel Clare that the 
 most perfect man could hardly have deserved, much less 
 her husband. 
 
 ^' Yes, but you should not take opinions wholesale from 
 another person hke that. A pretty fellow he must be, to 
 teach you such scepticism ! " 
 
 '' He never forced my judgment ! He would never argue 
 on the subject wi' me. But I looked at it in this way; 
 what he believed, after inquuing deep into doctrines, was 
 much more likely to be right than what I might believe, 
 who hadn't looked into the doctrines at all." 
 
 ^' What used he to say? He must have said something." 
 
 She reflected ; and with her acute memory for the letter 
 of Angel Clare's remarks, even when she did not compre- 
 hend their spirit, she recalled a merciless polemical syllo- 
 gism that she had heard him use when, as it occasionally 
 happened, he indulged in a species of thinking aloud with 
 her at his side. In delivering it she gave also Clare's accent 
 and manner with reverential fidelitv. 
 
 '^ Say that again," asked D'Urber\TlLe, who had hstened 
 with the greatest attention. 
 
 She repeated the argument, and D'Urberville murmured 
 the words after her, '^ Anything else ? " he presently asked. 
 
 ^' He said at another time something lil^e this ; " and she 
 gave another, which might possibly have been paralleled 
 
368 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 in many a work of tlie pedigree ranging from the Bidion- 
 naire FhilosophiqHe to Huxley's Essays. 
 
 '' Ah — ha ! How do you remember them ? " 
 ^'- 1 wanted to beheve what he believed, though he didn't 
 wish me to ; and I managed to coax liim to tell me a few 
 of his thoughts. I can't say I quite understand that one ; 
 but I know it is right ! " 
 
 ''H'm. Fancy your being able to teach me what you 
 don't knoAv yourself." 
 He fell into thought. 
 
 ^^And so I threw in my spiritual lot wi' his/' she resumed. 
 '' I didn't wish it to be different. What's good enough for 
 him is good enough for me." 
 
 ''Does he know that you are as big an infidel as he?" 
 '' No — I never told him — if I am an infidel." 
 '' Well — you are better off to-day than I am, Tess, after 
 all. You don't believe that you ought to preach my doc- 
 trine, and, therefore, do no despite to your conscience in 
 abstaining. I do believe I ought to preach it, but like the 
 devils I beheve and treml^le, for I suddenly leave off preach- 
 ing it, and give way to my passion for you." 
 ''How?" 
 
 " Wliy," he said, wearily, "I have come all the way here 
 to see you to-day. But I started from home to go to Cas- 
 terbridge Fau*, where I have undertaken to preach the 
 Word from a wagon at haK-past two this afternoon, and 
 where all the brethren are expecting me this minute. 
 Here's the announcement." 
 
 He drew from his breast-pocket a poster whereon was 
 printed the day, hour, and place of meeting, at which he, 
 D'Urberville, would preach as aforesaid. 
 
 "But how can you get tliere?" said Tess, looking at the 
 chx'k. 
 
 " I cannot get there. I have come here." 
 
 " Wliat — you have really arranged to preach " 
 
 " I have arranged to preach and I shall not be there — by 
 
THE CONVERT. 369 
 
 reason of my biu'iiing desire to see a woman whom I once 
 despised ! — No, by my word and truth, I never despised 
 you 5 if I had I should not love you now. Why I did not 
 despise you was on account of your intrinsic puiity in spite 
 of all ; you withdrew youi'self from me so quickly and res- 
 olutely when you saw the situation • you did not remain 
 at my pleasure ; so there was one victim in the world for 
 whom I had no contempt, and you are she. But you may 
 well despise me now. I thought I worshipped on the moun- 
 tains, but I find I still serve in the groves. Ha ! ha ! " 
 
 '' O Alec D'Urberville ! what does this mean ? Wliat have 
 I done ? " 
 
 "Done!" he said, with a soidless sneer at himself. 
 " Nothing intentionally. But you have been the means — 
 the innocent means — of my backsliding, as they caU it. I 
 ask myself, am I, indeed, one of those ^ servants of corrup- 
 tion' who, ^ after ^ they have escaped the pollutions of the 
 world, are again entangled therein and overcome ' — whose 
 latter end is worse than their beginning?" He laid his 
 hand on her shoulder. " Tess, Tess, I was on the way to, 
 at least, social salvation till I saw you again," he said, shak- 
 ing her as if she were a child, temper and mood showing 
 warm in him. " And why, then, have you tempted me ! I 
 was fii'ui as a man could be till I saw that mouth again — 
 surely there never was such a maddening mouth since Eve's." 
 His voice sank, and a hot archness shot from his black eyes. 
 ^' You temptress, Tess ; you dear damned witch of Babylon 
 — I coidd not resist you as soon as I met you again ! " 
 
 " I coiddn't help your seeing me again ! " said Tess, re- 
 coihng. 
 
 '• I know it — I repeat that I do not blame you. But the 
 fact remains. Wlien I saw you ill-used on the farm that 
 day I was nearly mad to think that I had no legal right to 
 protect you — that I coidd not have it ; whilst he who has it 
 seems to neglect you utterly." 
 
 '' Don't speak against him — he is absent ! " she cried; ex- 
 
 24 
 
370 TESS OP THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 citedly. "Treat him honorable — ^lie has never wronged 
 you ! Leave his wife, before any scandal spreads that may 
 do grievous harm to his honest name ! '' 
 
 " I Avill — I will/' he said, like a man awakening from a 
 lui'id dream. "I have broken my engagement to preach 
 the Gospel to those poor sinners — it is the fii-st time I have 
 done such a monstrous thing ! A month ago I should have 
 been horrified at such a possibility. I'll go away — to hide 
 — and — ah, can I ! — pray." Then, suddenly : " One clasp, 
 Tessie — one ! Only for old friendship " 
 
 " I am without defence, Alec — a good man's honor is in 
 my keeping — think — think ! " 
 
 " Oh yes — yes ! My God ! " He clenched his lips, morti- 
 fied with hhnself for his weakness. His eyes were equally 
 barren of amatory and religious hope. The corpses of those 
 old black passions which had lain inanimate amid the lines 
 of Ms face ever since his conversion seemed to wake and 
 come together as in a resurrection. He went out indeter- 
 minately, hardly responsil)le for his acts. 
 
 Though D'Urberville had declared that this breach of his 
 engagement to-day was the simple backsliding of a believer, 
 Tess's words, as echoed from Angel Clare, had made a deep 
 impression upon him, and continued to do so after he had 
 left her. He moved on in silence, as if his energies were 
 l)enumbed by the hitherto undreamt-of possil-)ility that his 
 faith was vain. Reason had had nothing to do with his 
 conversion, and the drops of logic that Tess had let fall into 
 the sea of his enthusiasm served to chill its effervescence 
 to stagnation. He said to himself, as he pondered again 
 and again over the crystallized i)hrases that she had handed 
 on to him, "That fellow little thought that, by telling her 
 those things, he might be paving my way back to her ! " 
 
THE CONVERT. 371 
 
 XLYII. 
 
 It is the threshing of the last wheat-rick at Flintcomb- 
 Ash Farm. The dawn of tlie March morning is singularly 
 inexpressive, and there is nothing to show where the east- 
 ern horizon lies. Against the twilight rises the trapezoidal 
 summit of the stack, Avhich has stood forlornly here through 
 the washing and bleaching of the winter weather. 
 
 Wlien Izz Huett and Tess arrived at the scene of opera- 
 tions only a rustling denoted that others had preceded 
 them ; to which, as the light increased, there were presently 
 added the silhouettes of two men on the summit. 
 
 They were busily '^ unhahng " the rick, that is, stripping 
 oif the thatch before beginning to throw down the sheaves ; 
 and while this was in progress Izz and Tess, with the other 
 women-workers, in theii' whitey-brovTi pinners, stood wait- 
 ing and shivering, Farmer Groby having insisted upon their 
 being on the spot thus early to get the job over if possible 
 by the end of the day. Close under the shadow of the 
 stack, and as yet barely visible, was the red tyrant that the 
 women had come to serve — a timber-framed construction, 
 with straps and wheels appertaining — the thresliing-ma- 
 chine, which, whilst it was going, kept up a despotic de- 
 mand upon the endurance of their muscles and nerves. 
 
 A little way off there was another indistinct figaire ; this 
 one black, with a sustained hiss that spoke of strength very 
 much in reserve. The long chimney running up beside 
 an ash-tree, and the warmth which radiated from the spot, 
 explained Avithout the necessity of much daylight that here 
 was the engine which was to act as the primum mohUe of 
 tins little world. By the engine stood a dark, motionless 
 being, % sooty and grim}^ embodiment of tallness, in a sort 
 of trance, with a heap of coals by his side : it was the engine- 
 
372 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 man. The isolation of liis manner and color lent liim the 
 appearance of a creature from Tophet^ who had strayed into 
 the pellucid smokelessness of this region of yelloAv grain 
 and pale soil, with which he had nothing in common, to 
 amaze and to discompose its aborigines. 
 
 What he looked he felt. He was in the agricultm-al 
 world, but not of it. He served fire and smoke; these 
 denizens of the fields served vegetation, weather, frost, and 
 sun. He travelled with this engine from farm to farm, 
 from county to county, for as yet the steam-threshing 
 machine was itinerant in Wessex. He spoke in a strange 
 northern accent, his thoughts turned inwards ujjon him- 
 self, his eye on his ii'on charge, hardly perceiving the scenes 
 around him, and caring for them not at all : holding only 
 strictly necessary intercoui'se with the natives, as if some 
 ancient doom compelled him to wander here against his 
 will in the service of his Plutonic master. The long strap 
 which ran from the di'iving- wheel of his engine to the red 
 thresher under the rick was the sole tie-line between agri- 
 culture and him. 
 
 While they uncovered the sheaves he stood apathetic 
 beside his portable repository of force, round whose hot 
 blaclmess the morning air quivered. He had nothing to 
 do with preparatory labor. His fire was waiting incandes- 
 cent, liis steam was at high pressure, in a few seconds he 
 could make the long strap move at an invisible velocity. 
 Beyond its extent the environment might be corn, straw, 
 or chaos ; it was all the same to him. If any of the native 
 idlers asked him what he called himself, he replied, shortly, 
 ''an engineer." 
 
 The rick was unhaled by full daylight; the men then 
 took their places, the women mounted, and the work began. ' 
 Farmer Groby — or, as they called him, '' he " — had arrived 
 ere this, and by his orders Tess was placed on the platfoi-m 
 of the machine, close to the man who fed it, her business 
 l)eing to untie every sheaf of corn handed on to her by Izz 
 
THE CONVERT. 373 
 
 Hiiett, who stood next, but on the rick ; so that the feeder 
 could seize it and spread it over the revolving drum which 
 whisked out every grain in one moment. 
 
 They were soon in full progress, after a preparatory hitch 
 or two, which rejoiced the hearts of those who hated ma- 
 chinery. The work sped on till breakfast-time, when the 
 thresher was stopped for half an hour; and on starting 
 again after the meal the whole supplementaiy strength of 
 the farm was thrown into the labor of constructing the 
 straw-stack, which began to grow beside the stack of corn. 
 A hasty lunch was eaten as they stood, mthout leaving their 
 positions, and then another couple of hours brought them 
 near to dinner-time ; the inexorable wheels continuing to 
 spin, and the penetrating hum of the thresher to thrill to 
 the very marrow all who were near the revolving T\di'e cage. 
 
 The old men on the rising straw-rick talked of the past 
 davs when thev had been accustomed to thresh with flails 
 on the oaken barn floor 5 when everything, even to mnnow- 
 ing, was effected by hand labor, which, to their thinking, 
 though slow, produced better results. Those, too, on the 
 corn-rick talked a little; but the persi^iring ones at the 
 machine, including Tess, could not lighten their duties by 
 the exchange of many words. It was the ceaselessness of 
 the work which tried her so severely, and began to make 
 her msh that she had never come to Flintcomb-Ash. The 
 women on the corn-rick — Marian, who was one of them, in 
 particular — could stop to drink ale or cold tea from the 
 flagon now and then, or to exchange a few gossiping re- 
 marks while they wiped their faces or cleared the frag- 
 ments of straw and husk from their clothing ; but for Tess 
 there was no respite ; for, as the drum never stopped, the 
 man who fed it could not stop, and she, who had to supply 
 the man with untied sheaves, could not stop either, except 
 at those intervals of relief which were absolutely necessary. 
 
 For some probably economical reason it was usually a 
 woman who was chosen for this particular duty, and Groby 
 
374 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 gave as Lis motive in selecting Tess that she was one of those 
 who best combined strength with quickness in nntj'ing, and 
 both with staying power, and this may have been true. 
 The hum of the thresher, which prevented speech, increased 
 to a raving whenever the suj^ply of corn was in excess of 
 the regular quantity. As Tess and the man who fed could 
 never tmm their heads, she did not know that just before 
 the dinner-hour a person had come silently into the field by 
 the gate, and had been standing under a second rick watch- 
 ing the scene, and Tess in particular. He w^as in a tweed 
 suit of fashionable pattern, and he twii'led a gay walking- 
 cane. 
 
 " Who is that ? '' said Izz Huett to Marian. She had at 
 fii'st addressed the inquiry to Tess, but the latter could not 
 hear it. 
 
 ^' Somebody's fancy-man, I s'pose," said Marian, lacon- 
 icallv. 
 
 '^ I'll lay a guinea he's after Tess." 
 
 '' Oh no. 'Tis a ranter pa'son who's been sniffing after 
 her lately, not a dandy like this." 
 
 ^' Well — this is the same man." 
 
 " The same man as the preacher ? But he's quite differ- 
 ent." 
 
 ''He hev left off his black coat and white neckercher, and 
 hev cut off his whiskers ; but he's the same man for all that." 
 
 " D'ye really think so ? Then I'll teU her," said Marian. 
 
 '' Don't. She'll see him soon enough." 
 
 ''Well, I don't think it at all right for him to join his 
 preaching to courting a married woman, even though her 
 husband mid be abroad, and she, in a sense, a widow." 
 
 " O — he can do her no harm," said Izz, drvlv. " Her 
 mind can no more be heaved from that one place where it 
 do bide than a stooded wagon from the hole he's in. Lord 
 love 'ee, neither court-paying, nor preaching, nor the seven 
 thunders themselves, can wean a woman when 'twould be 
 better for her that she should be weaned." 
 
THE CONVERT. 375 
 
 Dinner- time came, and tlie whirling ceased, wherenpon 
 Tess left lier post^ her knees trembling so wretchedly with 
 the shaking of the machine that she could scarcely walk. 
 
 '^ You ought to het a quart o' drink into 'ee, as I've done/' 
 said Marian. "You wouldn't look so white then. Why, 
 souls above us, yom* face is as if you'd been hag-rode ! " 
 
 It occurred to the good-natured Marian that, as Tess was 
 so tired, her discovery of her visitor's presence might have 
 the bad eifect of taking aw^ay her appetite; and Marian 
 was thinking of inducing Tess to descend by a ladder on 
 the f mother side of the stack, when the gentleman came for- 
 ward and looked up. 
 
 Tess uttered a short little '^ O ! " and a moment after 
 she said, quickly, " I shall eat my dinner here — right on the 
 rick." 
 
 Sometimes, when they were so far from their cottages, 
 they all did this ; but as there was rather a keen wind going 
 to-day, Marian and the rest descended, and sat under the 
 gTOT\T.ng stack of straw. 
 
 The new-comer was, indeed. Alec D'Urberville, the late 
 EvangeMst, despite his changed attire and aspect. It was 
 obvious at a glance that the original WeltJusf had come 
 back : that he had restored himself, as nearlv as a man could 
 do who had gTOwn three years older, to the old jaunty, slap- 
 dash guise under which Tess had first known her adndrer, 
 and cousin so-called. Having decided to remain v>^here she 
 was, Tess sat down among the bundles out of sight on the 
 ground, and began her meal ; till, by and by, she heard 
 footsteps on the ladder, and immediately after Alec ap- 
 peared upon the stack — now an oblong and level platform 
 of sheaves. He strode across them, and sat down opposite 
 to her mthout a word. 
 
 Tess continued to eat her modest dinner, a slice of thick 
 pancake which she had brought with her. The other work- 
 folk were by this time all gathered under the rick, where 
 the loose straw formed a comfortable nest. 
 
376 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ^^ I am here again, as yon see/' at length said D'Urberville. 
 
 '' Why do you tronble me so ! " she cried, reproach flash- 
 ing from her very finger-ends. 
 
 " I trouble ijou f I think I may ask, why do you trouble 
 me?" 
 
 ^' Indeed I don't trouble you ! " 
 
 " You say you don't ? But yon do ! You haunt me. 
 Those very eyes that you turned upon me with such a bitter 
 flash a moment ago, they come to me just as you showed 
 them then, in the night and in the day. Tess, it is just as 
 if my emotions, which have been flowing in a strong stream 
 heavenward, had suddenly found a sluice open in the direc- 
 tion of 3^ou, which they have at once gushed through. The 
 gospel channel is left diy forthwith j and it is you who 
 have done it — you ! " 
 
 She gazed with parted lips. " Wliat — you have given up 
 yom- preaching entirely?" she asked. She had gathered 
 from Angel sufficient of the incredulity of modern thought 
 to despise flash enthusiasms; but, as the woman, she was 
 somewhat appalled. 
 
 In affected lightness D'Urberville continued : " Entirely. 
 I have broken every engagement since that afternoon I was 
 to address the drunkards at Casterbridge Fair„ The deuce 
 onlv knows what I am thought of bv the brethren. Ali-ha ! 
 The brethren ! No doubt they pray for me — weej) for me ; 
 for they are kind people in theii- way. But what do I care ? 
 How could I go on with the thing when I had lost my faith 
 — it would liave been h^-pocrisy of the l)asest kind ! Among 
 them I should have stood like HvmeutTus and Alexander, 
 who were delivered over to Satan that thevniii>lit learn not 
 to blasj)lieme. What a grand revenge you have taken ! I 
 saw vou innocent, and I deceived vou. Four vears after 
 you find me a Christian enthusiast ; you then work upon 
 me, perhaps to my complete perdition. But Tess, my coz, 
 as I used to call you, this is only my way of talking, and 
 you must not look so horribly concerned. Of course you 
 
THE CONA^ERT. 377 
 
 liave done notliing except retain your pretty face and 
 shapely fignre. I saw it on the rick before you saw me — 
 that tight pinafore-thing sets it off^ and that tilt-bonnet — 
 you field-girls should never wear those bonnets if you wish 
 to keep out of danger." 
 
 He regarded her silently for a few moments, and, with a 
 short cynical laugh, resumed : ''I beheve that if the bach- 
 elor-apostle, whose deputy I thought I was, had been 
 tempted l^y such a pretty face he would have let go the 
 plough for her sake as I do." 
 
 Tess attempted to expostulate, but at this juncture all her 
 fluency failed her, and without heeding he added: ''Well, 
 this Paradise that you supply is perhaps as good as any * 
 other, after all. But to speak seriously, Tess." D'Url)er- 
 viUe rose and came nearer, reclining sideways amid the 
 sheaves, and resting upon his elbow. "Since I last saw 
 you, I have been thinking of what you said that lie said 
 about religion. I have come to the conclusion that there 
 does seem rather a want of common sense in the propitia- 
 tory scheme ; how I could have been so filled b}^ poor old 
 Clare's enthusiasm, and have gone so madly to work, trans- 
 cending even him, I cannot make out. As for what you 
 said last time, on the strength of your wonderful husband's 
 intelligence — whose name you have never told me — about 
 having what they call an ethical system without any dogma, 
 I don't see my way to that at all." 
 
 " Wliy, you can have the rehgion of loving-kindness and 
 purity at least, if you can't have more." 
 
 " Oh no. I'm a different sort of fellow from that ! If 
 there's no Power to say, ' Do this, and it will be a good 
 thing for you after you are dead ; do that, and it will be a 
 bad thing for you,' I can't warm up. Hang it, I am not 
 going to feel responsible for my deeds and passions any 
 more, if there's nobody to be responsible to 5 and if I were 
 you, my dear, I wouldn't either." 
 
 She tried to argue and tell him that he had mixed in his 
 
378 TESS OF THE B'URBERVILLES. 
 
 dull brain two distinct matters, tlieolog}' and morals, wliicli 
 in the primitive days of mankind had been quite distinct, 
 and had nothing in common bnt long association. But 
 owing to Angel Clare's reticence, to her absolute want of 
 training in polemics, and to her being a vessel of emotions 
 rather than reasons, she could not get on. 
 
 "Well, never mind," he resumed, "here I am, my love, 
 as in the old times ! " 
 
 " Not as then — never as then — it is different ! " she cried. 
 " And there was never warmth with me. 0, whv didn't vou 
 keep 3^our faith, if the loss of it have brought 'ee to speak 
 to me hke this ! " 
 
 " Because vou've knocked it out of me ; so the e^dl 
 be upon your sweet head. Your husband httle thought 
 how his teacliing woidd recoil upon him ! Ha-ha — I'm 
 a^^ully glad you have made an apostate of me, all the 
 same. Tess, I am more taken with vou than ever, and I 
 pity you, too. For all your closeness, I see you are in a 
 bad way — neglected by one w^ho ought to cherish you. 
 The words of the stern prophet that I used to read come 
 back to me. Don't vou know them, Tess ? — ' And she shall 
 follow after her lover, but she shall not overtake him ; 
 and she shaU seek him, but shall not find him : then shall 
 she say, I will go and return to my first husband ; for then 
 was it better with me than now.' " 
 
 She could not get her morsels of food dowm her throat ; 
 her Hps were dry, and she was ready to choke. The voices 
 and laughs of the work-folk eating and drinking under the 
 rick came to her as if they were a quarter of a mile off. 
 
 " It is cruelty to me ! " she said. " How — how can you 
 treat me to this talk, if vou care ever so little for me ? " 
 
 " True, true," he said, wincing a httle. " I did not come 
 to reproach you for my fall. I came, Tess, to say that I don't 
 like you to be Avorking like this, and I have come on pur- 
 pose for yoii. You say you have a husband who is not I. 
 "Well, perhaps you have ; but I've never seen him, and you've 
 
THE CONA^ERT. 379 
 
 not told me Ids name ; and altogether he seems rather a 
 mythological personage. However, even if you have one, I 
 think I am nearer to you than he is. I, at any rate, try to 
 help you out of trouble, but he does not, bless his invisible 
 face ! Tess, my trap is waiting just under the hill, and — 
 darhno' mine, not his ! — vou know the rest." 
 
 Her face had been rising to a dull crimson fii*e wliile he 
 spoke ; but she did not answer. 
 
 " You have been the cause of my backshding," he con- 
 tinued, stretching his arms towards her waist. "You 
 should be willing to share it, and leave that mule you call 
 husband forever." 
 
 One of her leather gloves, which she had taken off to eat 
 her skimmer-cake, lay in her lap, and without the slightest 
 warning she passionately swung the glove by the gauntlet 
 directly in his face. It was heavy and thick as a warrior's, 
 and it struck him flat on the mouth. Fancy might have 
 regarded the act as the recrudescence of a trick in which 
 her mailed progenitors were not unpractised. Alec fiercely 
 started up from liis reclining position ; a scarlet oozing 
 appeared where her blow had alighted, and in a moment 
 the blood began dropping from his mouth upon the straw. 
 But he soon controlled himself, cahnlv drew his handker- 
 chief from his pocket, and mopped his bleeding lips. 
 
 She too had sprung up, but she sank dowTi again. 
 
 " Now punish me ! " she said, turning up her eyes to his 
 with the hopeless defiance of the sparrow's gaze before its 
 captor twdsts its neck. "' Whip me, crush me ; you need not 
 mind those people under the rick. I shall not cry out. 
 Once victim, alwavs victim — that's the law." 
 
 " Oh no, no, Tess," he said, blandly. " I can make full al- 
 lowance for this. Yet you most unjustly forget one thing, 
 that I would have married vou if vou had not put it out of 
 my power to do so. Did I not ask you flatly to be my wife 
 — hey ? Answer me." 
 
 " You did." 
 
380 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 "And you cannot be. But remember one thing." His 
 voice hardened as his temper got the better of him with the 
 recollection of his sincerity in asking her and her present 
 ingratitude, and he stepped across to her side and held her 
 by the shoulders, so that she shook under his gi^asp. " Re- 
 member, my lady, I was once your master. I will be your 
 master again. If you are any man's wife you are mine ! " 
 
 The threshers now began to stir below. " So much for 
 our quarrel," he said, letting her go. "Now I shall leave 
 you, and shall come again for your answer during the 
 afternoon. You don't know me yet. But I know you.'' 
 
 She had not spoken again, remaining as if stunned. 
 D'Urlierville retreated over the sheaves, and descended the 
 ladder, while the workers l^elow rose and stretched their 
 arms, and shook down the beer they had drunk. Then the 
 threshing-macliine started afresh ; and amid the renew^ed 
 rustle of the straw Tess resumed her position by the buzz- 
 ing drum, untying sheaf after sheaf in endless succession. 
 
 XLYIII. 
 
 In the afternoon the farmer made it known that the rick 
 was to be finished that night, since there was a moon by 
 which they could see to work, and the man with the engine 
 was engaged for another farm on the morrow. Hence the 
 twanging and humming and rustling proceeded with even 
 less intermission than was usual. 
 
 It was not till ' nammet ' time, about three o'clock, that 
 Tess raised her eyes and gave a momentary glance round. 
 She felt but little surprise at seeing that Alec D'Urberville 
 had come back, and was standing under the hedge by the 
 gate. He had seen her lift her eyes, and waved his hand 
 urbanely to her, while he blew her a kiss. Tess looked 
 
THE CONVERT. 381 
 
 down again, and carefully abstained from gazing in that 
 direction. 
 
 Thus the afternoon dragged on. The wheat-rick shi-ank 
 low^er, and the straw-rick grew higher, and the corn-sacks 
 were carted away. At six o'clock the wheat-rick was about 
 shoulder-high from the ground. But the unthreshed sheaves 
 remaining untouched seemed countless still, notwithstand- 
 ing the enormous numbers that had been gulped dowm by 
 the insatiable swallower, fed by the man and Tess, tlu'ough 
 whose two young hands the greater part of them had 
 passed; and the enormous stack of straw, where in the 
 morning there had been nothing, appeared as the fceces of 
 the same l^uzzing red glutton. From the west sky a i^^ath- 
 ful sliine — all that wild Mjirch could afford in the way of 
 sunset — had bm-st forth after the cloudy day, flooding the 
 tired and sticky faces of the thi'eshers and dyeing them 
 with a copper}^ liglit, as also the flapping garments of the 
 women, which clung to them like didl flames. 
 
 A panting ache ran through the rick. The man who fed 
 was wear}^, and Tess could see that the red nape of his neck 
 was covered with dirt husks. She still stood at her post, 
 her flushed and perspiring face coated with the corn-dust, 
 and her white bonnet embrowned by it. She was the only 
 woman whose place was upon the machine, so as to be 
 shaken bodily l)y its spinning, and this incessant whiri-ing 
 and quivering, in which every fibre of her body participated, 
 had thro^^m her into a stupefied reverie, in which her arms 
 worked on independently of her consciousness. She hardly 
 knew where she was, and did not hear Izz Huett — who, with 
 the sinking of the rick, had necessarily moved further down 
 from her side — offer to change places with her. 
 
 B}^ degTees the freshest among them began to grow cadav- 
 erous and saucer-eyed. Whenever Tess lifted her head she 
 beheld always the great upgrown straw-stack, with the men 
 in shh't- sleeves upon it, against the gray north sky ; in front 
 of it the long, straight elevator like a Jacob's ladder, on 
 
382 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 which a perpetual stream of threshed straw ascended, a yel- 
 low river ruuniug up-hill, and spouting out on the top of 
 the rick. 
 
 She knew that Alec D'Urberville was still on the scene, 
 observing her from some point or other, though she could 
 not say where. There was an excuse for his remaining, for, 
 when the threshed rick drew near its final sheaves, a little 
 ratting was always done, and men unconnected with the 
 threshing sometimes dropped in for that performance — 
 sporting characters of all descriptions, gents with terriers 
 and facetious pipes, roughs with sticks and stones. 
 
 But there was another hour's work l^efore the layer of 
 live rats at the base of the stack would be reached ] and as 
 the evening light in the dii'ection of the Giant's Hill by 
 Abbot's Cernel dissolved away, the white-faced moon of 
 the season arose from the horizon that lav towards Middle- 
 ton and Shottsf ord on the other side. For the last hour or 
 two Marian had felt uneasy about Tess, whom she could 
 not get near enough to speak to, the other women having 
 kept up theii' strength by di'inking ale, and Tess having 
 done without it through traditionary di^ead, owing to its 
 results at her home in childhood. But Tess still kept going : 
 if she could not fill her part she would have to leave ; and 
 this contingency, which she would have regarded with 
 equanimity, and even w^ith relief, a month or two earher, 
 had become a terror since D'Urberville had begun to hover 
 round her. 
 
 The sheaf -pitchers and feeders had now worked the rick 
 so low that people on the ground could talk to them. To 
 Tess's surprise, Farmer Groby came up on the machine to 
 her, and said that if she desired to join her friend he did 
 not wish her to keep on any longer, and woidd send some- 
 body else to take her place. The ^'friend" was D'Urber- 
 ville, she knew, and also that this concession had been 
 granted in obedience to the request of that friend, or ene- 
 my. She shook her head and toiled on. 
 
THE CONVERT. 383 
 
 The time for tlie rat-catchiug arrived at last, and the 
 hunt began. The creatures had crept downwards with the 
 subsidence of the rick till they were all together at the 
 bottom, and, being now nncovered from their last refuge, 
 they ran across the open ground in all directions, a loud 
 shriek from the l^y this time half -tipsy Marian informing 
 her companions that one of the rats had invaded her per- 
 son — a terror which the rest of the women had guarded 
 against by various schemes of skirt-tucking and self-eleva- 
 tion. The rat was at last dislodged, and, amid the bark- 
 ing of the dogs, mascnline shouts, feminine screams, oaths, 
 stampings, and confusion as of Pandemonium, Tess untied 
 her last sheaf ; the di'uni slowed, the whizzing ceased, and 
 she stepped from the platform of the machine to the gronnd. 
 
 Her lover, who had only looked on at the rat-catching, 
 was promptly at her side. 
 
 " What — after all — my insulting slap, too ! " said she in 
 an nnUerbreath. She was so ntterlv exhausted that she 
 
 ft/ 
 
 had not strength to speak londer. 
 
 ^' I should indeed be foolish to feel offended at anything 
 yon sav or do," he answered, in the seductive voice of the 
 Trantridge time. " How the little limbs tremble ! You are 
 as weak as a bled calf, you know you are ; and yet you 
 need have done nothing since I arrived. How could you 
 be so obstinate ? However, I have told the farmer that he 
 has no right to employ women at steam-threshing. It is 
 not proper work for them ; and on all the better class of 
 farms it has been given up, as he knows very well. I will 
 walk with you as far as your home." 
 
 " Oh yes," she answered, with a jaded gait. '^ Walk with 
 me if you will ! I do bear in mind that you came to marry 
 me before you knew of my state. Perhaps — perhaps you 
 be a little better and kinder than I have been thinking you 
 were. Whatever is meant as kindness I am gratef id for ; 
 whatever is meant in any other way I am angry at. I can- 
 not sense your meanings sometimes." 
 
}84 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 4- 
 
 " If I cannot legitimize our former relationship, at lea 
 I can assist you. And I will do it with much more regard 
 for 3^our feelings than I formerly showed. My rehgious 
 mania, or whatever it was, is over. But I retain a little 
 good natui'e ; I hope I do. Now, Tess, by aU that's tender 
 and strong between man and woman, trust me. I have 
 enough, and more than enough, to put you out of anxiety, 
 both for youi'self and your parents and sisters. I can 
 make them all comfortable if you will only show confidence 
 
 in me." 
 
 " Have you seen them lately ? " she quickly inquired. 
 
 ^' Yes. They didn't know where you were. It was only 
 by chance that I found you here." 
 
 The cold moon looked aslant upon Tess's fagged face be- 
 tween the twigs of the garden-hedge, as she paused outside 
 the cottage which was her temporary home, D'Urberville 
 pausing beside her. " Don't mention my httle brothers 
 and sisters — don't make me break down quite ! " she said. 
 " If you want to help them — God knows they need it — do 
 it mthout teUing me. But no, no ! " she cried. '^ I will 
 accept nothing from you, either for them or for me." 
 
 He did not accompany her further, since, as she lived 
 mth the household, aU was public indoors. No sooner 
 had she herself entered, laved herself in a wasliing-tub, and 
 mechanically shared supper with the family, than she fell 
 into thought, and, mthdrawing to the table under the wall 
 by the light of her oavu little lamp, wrote in a passionate 
 mood : 
 
 "My own Husband, — 
 
 ^' Let me call you so — I must — even if it makes you an- 
 giy to think of such an unworthy wife as I. I must cry to 
 you in my trouble — I have no one else. I am so exposed 
 to temptation, Angel. I fear to say who it is, and I do not 
 like to write about it at all. But I cling to you in a way 
 you cannot think I Can you not come to me now, at once, 
 
THE CONVERT. 385 
 
 before anything terrible happens ? 0, I know you cannot, 
 because you are so far away. I think I must die if you do 
 not come soon, or tell me to come to you. The punishment 
 you have measured out to me is deserved, indeed — I do 
 know that — well deserved — and you are right and just to 
 be angry with me. But, Angel, please, please not to be just 
 — only a little kind to me, even if I do not deserve it, and 
 come to me ! If you would come, I could die in your arms ! 
 I would be well content to do that if you had forgiven me. 
 " Angel, I live entirely for you. I love you too much to 
 blame you for going away, and I know it was necessary 
 you should find a farm. Do not think I shall say a word 
 of sting or bitterness. Only come back to me. I am deso- 
 late without you, my darling, O, so desolate ! I do not mind 
 having to work ; but if you will send me one little line, and 
 say, T (U)i coming soon,'' I will bide on. Angel — O, so cheer- 
 fully ! 
 
 " It have been so much my rehgion ever since w^e were 
 married to be faithful to you in every thought and look, 
 that even when a man speaks a compliment to me before I 
 am aware, it seems wronging you. Have you never felt 
 one little bit of what vou used to feel when we were at the 
 daily ! If you have, how can you keep away from me ? I 
 am the same woman. Angel, as she you fell in love with ; 
 yes, the very same ! — not the one you disliked but never 
 saw. What was the past to me as soon as I met you? 
 It was a dead thing altogether. I became another woman, 
 Med full of new life from you. How could I be the early 
 one ? Why do you not see this ? Dear, if you would only 
 be a Little more conceited, arhd believe in youi'self so far as 
 to see that you was strong enough to work this change in 
 me, you would perhaps be in a mind to come to me, your 
 poor wife. 
 
 • "How silly I was in my happiness when I thought I 
 could trust you always to love me ! I ought to have 
 known that such as that was not for poor me, But I am 
 
 ^0 
 
386 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 sick at heart, not only for old times, bnt for tlie present. 
 Think — tliink how it do hnrt my heart not to see you ever 
 — ever ! Ah, if I could only make your dear heart ache 
 one little minute of each day as mine does every day and 
 all day long, it might lead you to show pity to yom* poor 
 lonely one. 
 
 " People still sa}^ that I am rather pretty, Angel (hand- 
 some is the Avord they use, since I msh to be truthful). 
 Perhaps I am what they say. But I do not value my good 
 looks : I only like to have them because they belong to you, 
 my dear, and that there may be at least one thing about 
 me worth your having. So much have I felt this, that when 
 I met mth annoyance on account of the same I tied up 
 my face in a bandage as long as people would believe in it. 
 O Angel, I tell you all this not from vanity — you will cer- 
 tainly know I do not — but only that you may come to me. 
 
 " If you really cannot come to me will you let me come 
 to you ? I am, as I say, harried, pressed to do what I will 
 not do. It cannot be that I shall yield one inch, yet I am 
 in terror as to what an accident might lead to, and I so 
 defenceless on account of mv fii'st error. I cannot sav 
 more about this — it makes me too miserable. But if I 
 break do"v\m by falling into some fearful snare, my last 
 state will be worse than my first. Heaven, I cannot 
 think of it ! Let me come at once, or at once come to me ! 
 
 ^^ I would be content, ay, glad, to hve ^^dth you as your ser- 
 vant, if I may not as your wife ; so that I could only be near 
 you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you as mine. 
 
 " The daylight has nothing to show me, since you be not 
 here, and I don't like to see the rooks and starlings in the 
 fields, because I grieve and grieve to miss you who used to 
 see them with me. I long for only one thing in heaven or 
 earth or under earth, to meet you, my own dear ! Come to 
 me — come to me^ and save me from what threatens me ! 
 
 '^ Your faithful, heartbroken 
 
 '' Tess/' 
 
THE CONVERT. 387 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 The appeal duly found its way to the breakfast- table of 
 the quiet vicarage to the westward, iu that valley where the 
 air is so soft and the soil is so rich that the effort of growth 
 requires but superficial aid by comparison with the tillage 
 of Flintcomb-Ash, and where to Tess the human world 
 seemed so different (though it was much the same). It 
 was purely for security that she had been requested by 
 Angel to send her conmiunications tlirough his father, 
 whom he kept pretty well informed of his changing ad- 
 dresses in the country he had gone to exploit for himself 
 vdth a heavy heart. 
 
 ''Now/' said old Mr. Clare to his wife, when he had read 
 the envelope, "if Angel proposes leaving Rio for a visit 
 home at the end of next month, as he told us that he hoped 
 to do, I think this may hasten his plans, for I believe it to 
 be from his wife." He breathed deeply at the thought of 
 her, and the letter was redii'ected, to be promptly sent on to 
 Angel. 
 
 " Dear fellow, I hope he will get home safely," murmured 
 Mrs. Clare. " To my dying day I shall feel that he has been 
 ill-used. You should have sent him to Cambridge in spite 
 of his heterodoxy, and given him the same chance as the 
 other boys had. He would have grown out of it under 
 proper influence, and perhaps would have taken Orders 
 after all. Church or no Church, it would have been f au^er 
 to him." 
 
 This was the only wail with which Mrs. Clare ever dis- 
 turbed her husband's peace in respect of their sons. And 
 she did not vent this often ; for she was as considerate as 
 she was devout, and knew that his mind too was troubled 
 by doubts as to his justice in this matter. Only too ofteii 
 
388 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 had she heard him, lying awake at night, stifling sighs for 
 Angel with prayers. But the uncompromising Evangehcal 
 did not even now hold that he would have been justified in 
 giving his son, an unbeliever, the same academic advan- 
 tages that he had given to the two brothers, when it was 
 possible, if not probable, that those very advantages might 
 have been used to decry the doctrines which he had made 
 it his life's mission and desii'e to propagate, and the mission 
 of his ordamed sons likemse. To put with one hand a ped- 
 estal under the feet of the two faithful ones, and with the 
 other to elevate the unfaithful by the same artificial means, 
 he deemed to be alike inconsistent with his convictions, liis 
 position, and his hopes. Nevertheless, he loved his mis- 
 named Angel, and in secret mourned over this treatment 
 of him as Abraham might have moulded over the doomed 
 Isaac while they went up the hill together. His silent self- 
 generated regrets were far bilterer than the rej^roaches 
 which his wife rendered audible. 
 
 They blamed themselves for this unlucky marriage. If 
 Angel had never been destined for a farmer he would never 
 have been thrown with agricultural ghls. They did not 
 distinctly know what had separated him and his wife, nor 
 the date on which the separation had taken place. At first 
 they had supposed it must be something of the natui^e of 
 a serious aversion. But in his later letters he occasionally 
 alluded to the intention of coming home to fetch her ; from 
 which expressions they hoped the division might not owe 
 its origin to anything so hopelessl}^ permanent as that. He 
 had told them that she was with her relatives, and in then* 
 doubts they had decided not to intrude into a situation 
 which they knew no way of bettering. 
 
 The eyes for which Tess's letter had been intended were 
 gazing at this time on a limitless expanse of country from 
 the back of a mule, which was bearing him from the inte- 
 rior of the South- American Continent towards the coast, 
 
THE CONVERT. 389 
 
 His experiences of this strange land liad been sad. The 
 severe illness from which he had snffered shortly after his 
 arrival had never wholly left him^ and he had by degrees 
 almost decided to relinqnish his hope of farming here, 
 though, as long as the bare possibility existed of his re- 
 maining, he kept this change of view a secret from his 
 parents. 
 
 The crowds of agricultural laborers who had come out to 
 the country in his wake, dazzled by representations of easy 
 independence, had suffered, died, and wasted awa}^ He 
 saw mothers from English farms trudging along T\dth their 
 infants in their arms, when the child would be stricken 
 with fever and would die ; the mother would pause to dig a 
 hole in the loose earth with her bare hands, would burv the 
 infant therein with the same natural grave-tools, shed one 
 tear, and again trudge on. 
 
 AngePs original intention had not been emigration to 
 Brazil, but a northern or eastern farm in his own countrv. 
 He had come to this place in a fit of desperation, the Brazil 
 movemotit among the English agriculturists having by 
 chance coincided with his desii'e to . escape from his past 
 existence. 
 
 Dming this time of his absence he had mentally aged a 
 dozen years. What arrested him now as of value in life 
 was less its beauty than its pathos. Having long discred- 
 ited the old systems of mysticism, he now began to dis- 
 credit the old appraisements of morality. He thought they 
 wanted readjusting. Who was the moral man ? Still more 
 pertinent^, who was the moral woman? The beauty or 
 ugliness of a character lay, not only in its achievements, 
 but in its aims and impulses ; its true liistory lay, not 
 among things done, but among things willed. 
 
 How, then, about Tess ? 
 
 Viewing her in these lights, a regi'et for his hasty judg- 
 ment began to oppress him. Did he reject her eternally, 
 
390 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 or did lie not? He could no longer say that he would 
 always reject her, and not to say that was, in spirit, to 
 accept her now. 
 
 This growing fondness for her memory coincided in point 
 of time with her residence at Flintcomb-Ash ; but it was 
 before she had felt herself at liberty to trouble him about 
 her circumstances or her feelings. He was greatly per- 
 plexed 5 and in his perplexity as to her motives in with- 
 holding intelligence he did not inquire. Thus her silence 
 of docihty was misinterpreted. How much it really said, 
 if he had understood ! That she adhered with literal exact- 
 ness to orders which he had given and forgotten ; that, 
 despite her natural fearlessness of natui^e, she asserted no 
 rights, made no claim, admitted his judgment to be in every 
 respect the true one, and bent her head dumbly thereto. 
 
 In the before-mentioned jom'ney by mules thi'ough the 
 interior of the country another man rode beside him. An- 
 gel's companion was also an Englishman, bent on the same 
 errand, though he came from another part of the island. 
 They were both in a state of mental depression, and they 
 spoke of home affaii's. Confidence begat confidence. With 
 that cm^ious tendency e\dnced by men, more especially when 
 in distant lands, to entrust to strangers details of their lives 
 which they would on no account mention to friends, Angel 
 admitted to this man as they rode along the sorrowf id facts 
 of his marriage. 
 
 The stranger had sojourned in many more lands and 
 among many more peoples than Angel j to his cosmopolitan 
 mind such deviations from the social norm, so immense to 
 domesticity, were no more than are the irregularities of 
 vale and mountain-chain to the whole terrestrial curve. 
 He viewed the matter in quite a different light from Angel ; 
 thought that what Tess had been was of no importance be- 
 side what she would be, and plainly told Clare that he was 
 "WTong in coming away from her. 
 
 The next day they were di'enched in a thunderstorm. 
 
THE C0N\T:RT. 391 
 
 Angel's companion was struck down with fever, and died 
 by the week's end. Clare waited a few hours to buiy him, 
 and then went on his way. 
 
 The cursory remarks of tlie large-minded stranger, of 
 whom he knew absolutely nothing beyond a commonplace 
 name, were sublimed by his death, and influenced Clare 
 more than all the reasoned ethics of the philosophers. His 
 own parocliiahsm made him ashamed by its contrast. His 
 inconsistencies rushed upon him in a flood. He had per- 
 sistently elevated Hellenic Paganism at the expense of 
 Christianity; yet in that civilization an illegal surrender 
 was not certain disesteem. Surely then he might have 
 regarded that abhorrence of the un-intact state, which he 
 had inherited with the creed of mysticism, as at least open 
 to correction when the result was due to treachery. A 
 remorse struck into him. The words of Izz Huett, never 
 quite stilled in his memory, came back to him. He had 
 asked Izz if she loved him, and she had replied in the 
 affirmative. Did she love him more than Tess did ? No, 
 she had replied ; Tess would lay doTVTi her life for him ; 
 and she herself coidd do no more. 
 
 He thought of Tess as she had appeared on the day of 
 the wedding. How her eyes had lingered upon him ; how 
 she had hung upon his words as if they wxre a god's. And 
 during the terrible evening over the hearth, when her 
 simple soul uncovered itself to his, how pitiful her face had 
 looked in the rays of the fiiT, in her inability to realize that 
 his love and protection could possibly be withdrawn. 
 
 Thus from being her critic he grew to be her advocate. 
 Cynical things he had uttered to himself about her ; but no 
 man can be a cvnic and live ; and he withdrew them. The 
 mistake of expressing them had arisen from his allowing 
 himself to be influenced b}" general principles, to the disre- 
 gard of the particular instance. 
 
 But the reasoning is somewhat musty ; lovers and hus- 
 bands have gone over the ground before to-day. Clare had 
 
392 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 been liarsli towards her ) there is no doubt of it. Men are 
 too often harsh with w^omen they love or have loved; 
 women with men. And yet these harshnesses are tender- 
 ness itself when compared with the universal harshness 
 out of which they grow; the harshness of the position 
 towards the temperament, of the means towards the aims, 
 of to-day towards yesterday, of hereafter towards to-day. 
 
 The historic interest of her family — that ancient and 
 masterful line of D'Urber\T.Ues — whom he had despised as 
 a spent force, touched his sentiments now. Why had he 
 not known the difference between the political value and 
 the imaginative value of these things ? In the latter quality 
 her D'Urberville descent was a fact of great dimensions ; 
 w^orthless to economics, it was a most useful ingredient to 
 the dreamer^ to the moralizer on declines and falls. It was 
 a fact that would soon be forgotten — that bit of distinction 
 in poor Tess's blood and name, and obli\don would fall upon 
 her hereditarv link with the marble monuments and leaded 
 skeletons at Kingsbere. So does Time ruthlessly destroy 
 his own romances. In recalling her face again and again, 
 he thought now that he could see therein a flash of the dig- 
 nity which must have graced her grand-dames ; and the 
 vision sent that aura through his veins which he had for- 
 merly felt, and which left behind it a sense of sickness. 
 
 Despite her not in\'iolate past, what still abode in such 
 a woman as Tess outvalued the freshness of her fellows. 
 Was not the gleaning of the grapes of Epliraim better than 
 the vintage of Abi-ezcr ? 
 
 So spoke Love renascent preparing the way for Tess's 
 devoted outpoui-ing which was then just being forw^arded 
 to him by his father, though owing to his distance inland 
 it was to be a long time in reaching him. 
 
 Meanwhile the ^vidter's expectation that Angel would 
 come soon in response to the entreaty was alternately 
 gi-eat and small. What lessened it was that the facts of 
 her life which had led to the parting had not changed — 
 
THE COXVERT. 393 
 
 could never cliange ; and that, if her presence had not 
 attenuated them, her absence could not. Nevertheless she 
 addressed her mind to the tender question of what she 
 could do to please him best if he should arrive. 
 
 Sighs were expended on the wish that she had taken 
 more notice of the tunes he played on his harp, that she 
 had inquii-ed more curiously of him which were his favorite 
 ballads among those the country girls sang. She indirectly 
 inquired of Amby Seedling, who had followed Izz from 
 Talbothays, and by chance Ambv remembered that, among 
 the snatches of melody hi which they had indulged at the 
 dairyman's, to induce the cows to let do^\^l their milk, Clare 
 had seemed to lilvc " Cupid's Gardens," " I have parks, I 
 have hounds," and " The break o' the day " ; and had seemed 
 not to care for " The Tailor's Breeches," and " Such a 
 beauty I did grow," excellent ditties as they were. 
 
 To perfect the baUads was her whimsical desire; she 
 practiced them privately at odd moments, especially " The 
 break o' the day " : 
 
 Arise, arise, arise ! 
 And pick your love a posy, 
 All of the sweetest flowers 
 That in the garden grow. 
 The turtle doves and small birds 
 In every bough a building, 
 So early in the spring-time, 
 At the break o' the day ! 
 
 It would have melted the heart of a stone to hear her 
 singing these ditties, whenever she worked apart from the 
 rest of the gii'ls in this cold, dry time ; the tears running 
 dovni her cheeks all the while at the thought that perhaps 
 he would not, after all, come to hear her, and the simple, 
 silly words of the songs resounding in painful mockery of 
 the aching heart of the singer. 
 
 Tess was so wrapt up in this fanciful di^eam that she 
 seemed not to know how the season was advancing; that 
 
394 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 the days had leugthened, that Lady-Day was at hand, and 
 would soon be followed by Old Lady-Day, the end of her 
 term here. 
 
 But before the quarter-day had quite come somethmg 
 happened which made Tess think of far different matters. 
 She w^as at her lodging as usual one evening, sitting in the 
 downstau's room with the rest of the familv, when some- 
 body knocked at the door and inquired for Tess. Through 
 the doorway she saw against the declining light a figm'e 
 ^\ith the height of a woman and the breadth of a child, a 
 tall, thin, girhsh creature whom she did not recognize in 
 the twiliglit tiU the gu4 said " Tess ! " 
 
 ^' What — is it 'Liza Lu 1 " asked Tess, in startled accents. 
 Her sister, whom a little over a year ago she had left at 
 home as a child, had sprung up by a sudden shoot to a 
 form of this presentation, of which as yet Lu seemed her- 
 self scarce able to understand the meaning. Her thin legs, 
 visible below her once long frock, now short by her grow- 
 ing, and her uncomfortable hands and arms, revealed her 
 youth and inexperience. 
 
 " Yes, I have been traipsing about all day, Tess," said Lu, 
 with unemotional gravity, " a trying to find 'ee ; and I'm 
 very tired." 
 
 " What is the matter at home ? " 
 
 '^ Mother is took very bad, and the doctor says she's dy- 
 ing ; and as father is not very well neither, and says 'tis 
 wrong for a man of such a high family as his to slave and 
 drave at common laboring work, we don't know wdiat to 
 do." 
 
 Tess stood in reverie a long time before she thought of 
 asking 'Liza Lu to come in and sit down. When she had 
 done so, and 'Liza Lu was having some tea, she came to a 
 decision. It was imperative that she should go home. Her 
 agreement did not end till Old Lady-Day, the sixth of 
 April, but as the interval thereto was not a long one, she 
 resolved to run the risk of starting at once. 
 
THE CON^T]RT. 395 
 
 To go that niglit would be a gain of twelve hours ; but 
 her sister was too tired to undertake such a distance till 
 the morrow. Tess ran down to where Marian and Izz lived, 
 informed them of what had happened, and begged them to 
 make the best of her case to the farmer. Returning, she 
 got Lu a supper, and after that, having tucked the younger 
 into her own bed, packed up as many of her belongings as 
 would go into a mthy basket, and started, directing Lu 
 to follow her next morning. 
 
 L. 
 
 She plunged into the chilly equinoctial darkness as the 
 clock struck ten, for her fifteen miles' walk under the steely 
 stars. In lonely districts night is a protection rather than 
 a danger to a noiseless pedestrian, and knowing this from 
 experience, Tess pursued the nearest coui-se along by-lanes 
 that she would almost have feared in the da}i:ime; but 
 marauders were lacking now, and spectral fears were driven 
 out of her mind by thoughts of her mother. Thus she pro- 
 ceeded mile after mile, ascending and descending till she 
 came to Bulbarrow, and about midnight looked from that 
 height into the abyss of chaotic shade which was all that 
 revealed itself of the vale on whose farther side she was 
 born. Haidng already traversed about five miles on the 
 upland, she had now some ten or eleven in the lowland 
 l^efore her jom'uey would be finished. The winding road 
 downwards became just visible to her under the wan star- 
 light as she followed it, and soon she paced a soil so con- 
 trasting -v^dth that above it that the difference was percep- 
 tible to the tread and to the smell. It was the heavy clay 
 land of Blackmoor Vale, and a part of the Vale to which 
 turnpike roads had never penetrated. Superstitions linger 
 
396 TESS OF THE D^URBERVILLES. 
 
 longest on these liea\^ soils. Having once been forest, at 
 this shadowy time it seemed to assert something of its old 
 character, the far and the near being blended, and every 
 tree and tall hedge making the most of its presence. The 
 harts that had been hnnted here ; the ^^dtches that had been 
 pricked and dncked ; the gi^een-spangled fairies that " whick- 
 ered " at you as j^ou passed — the place teemed with, beliefs 
 in them still, and they formed an impish multitude now. 
 
 At Nuzzlebury she passed the village inn, whose sign 
 creaked in response to the greeting of her footsteps, which 
 not a human soul heard but herself. Under the thatched 
 roofs her mind's eye beheld relaxed tendons and flaccid 
 muscles, spread out in the darkness beneath coverlets made 
 of little pm^ple patchwork squares, and undergoing a bracing 
 process at the hands of sleep for renewed labor on the mor- 
 To^f, as soon as a hint of pink nebulosity appeared on Ham- 
 bledon Hill. 
 
 At three she turned the last corner of the maze of lanes 
 she had threaded, and entered Marlott, passing the field in 
 which, as a club-girl, she had fii'st seen Angel Clare, when 
 he had not danced with her 5 the sense of disappointment 
 remained T\dth her yet. In the dii'ection of her mother's 
 house she saw a light. It came from the bedroom "v^-indow, 
 and a branch waved in front of it and made it wink at her. 
 As soon as she could discern the outline of the house — 
 newlv thatched with her monev — it had all its old effect 
 upon Tess's imagination. Part of her body and hfe it ever 
 seemed to l)e ; the slope of its dormers, the finish of its 
 gables, the broken courses of brick which topped the chim- 
 ney, all had something in common with her personal char- 
 acter. A stupefaction had come into these features, to her 
 regard ; it meant the illness of her mother. 
 
 She opened the door so softly as to disturb nobody; the 
 lower room was vacant, but the neighbor who was sitting 
 up with her mother came to the top of the stairs, and whis- 
 pered that Mrs. Durbej^eld was no better, though she was 
 
THE CONVERT. 397 
 
 sleeping just then. Tess prepared herself a breakfast, and 
 then took her place as nurse in her mother's chamber. 
 
 In the morning, when she contemplated the cliildren, they 
 had all a cm'iously elongated look 5 although she had been 
 away little more than a year, their growth was astounding ; 
 and the necessity of applying herseK heart and soul to 
 their needs took her out of her own cares. 
 
 Her father's ill-health was of the same indefinite kind, 
 and he sat in his chair as usual. But the day after her ar- 
 rival he was unusually bright. He had a rational scheme 
 for living, and Tess asked him what it was. 
 
 ^^ I'm thinking of sending round to all the old antiqueer- 
 uns in this part of England," he said, ^' asking them to sub- 
 scribe to a fund to maintain me. I'm sure they'd see it as 
 a romantical, artistical, and proper thing to do. They spend 
 lots o' money in keeping up old ruins, and fijiding the bones 
 o' things, and such like ; and living remains must be more 
 interesting to 'em still, if they only knowed o' me. Woidd 
 that somebody would go round and teU 'em what there is 
 living among 'em, and they thinldn^- nothing of him ! If 
 Pa'son Tringham, who discovered me, had hved, he'd ha' 
 done it, I'm sure." 
 
 Tess postponed her arguments on this high project till 
 she had gTappled with pressing matters in hand, which 
 seemed little improved by her remittances. When indoor 
 necessities had been eased, she turned her attention to ex- 
 ternal things. It was now the season for planting and sow- 
 ing; many gardens and allotments of the \dllagers had 
 already received their spring tillage ; but the garden and 
 the allotment of the Durbeyflelds were behindhand. She 
 found to her dismay that this was owing to their having 
 eaten aU the seed potatoes — that last lapse of the improvi- 
 dent. With her slender means she obtained what others 
 she coidd procuiT, and in a few days her father was well 
 enough to see to the garden under Tess's persuasive eiforts : 
 while she herseK undertook the allotment-plot which they 
 
398 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 rented in a field a conple of hnndred yards out of the vil- 
 lage. 
 
 She liked doing it after the confinement of the sick cham- 
 ber, where she was not now requu'ed by reason of her moth- 
 er's improvement. Violent motion relieved thought. The 
 plot of gTOund was in a high, dry, open enclosure, where 
 there were forty or fifty such pieces, and where labor was 
 at its briskest when the hii'ed labor of the day had ended. 
 Digging began usually at six o'clock, and extended indefi- 
 nitely into the dusk or moonlight. Just now heaps of dead 
 weeds and refuse were burning on many of the plots, the 
 dry weather favoring their combustion. 
 
 One fine day Tess and 'Liza Lu worked on here with their 
 neighbors till the last rays of the sun smote flat upon the 
 white pegs that divided the plots. As soon as twilight suc- 
 ceeded to sunset, the flare of the couch-grass and cabbage- 
 stalk fires began to light up the allotment fitfully, theii' out- 
 lines appearing and disappearing under the dense smoke as 
 wafted by the wind. When a fire glowed, banks of smoke, 
 blown level along the ^Tound, w^ould themselves become 
 illuminated to an opaque lustre, screening the work-people 
 from one another; and the meaning of the "pillar of a 
 cloud," which was a wall by day and a light by night, could 
 be understood. 
 
 As evening thickened, some of the gardening men and 
 women gave over for the night, but the greater number 
 remained to get their planting done, Tess being among 
 them, though she sent her sister home. It was on one of 
 the couch-burning plots that she labored with her fork, its 
 four shining prongs resounding against the stones and dry 
 clods in little cHcks. Sometimes she was completely in- 
 volved in the smoke of her fire ; then it would leave her 
 figure free, irradiated by the brassy glare from the heap. 
 She was oddly dressed to-night, and presented a somewhat 
 staring aspect, her attire being a gown bleached by many 
 washings, with a short black jacket over it, the effect of the 
 
THE CONVERT. 399 
 
 whole being that of a wedding and funeral gnest in one. 
 The women farther back wore white aprons, which, ^\dth 
 their pale faces, were all that could be seen of them in the 
 gloom, except when at moments they caught a flash from 
 the flames. 
 
 Westward, the Ynry boughs of the bare thorn hedge which 
 formed the boundary of the field rose against the pale 
 opalescence of the lower sky that deepened upward to blue- 
 black, where Jupiter hung like a full-blown jonquil, so 
 bright as almost to throw a shade. A few small nonde- 
 script stars were appearing elsewhere. In the distance a 
 dog barked, and wheels occasionally rattled along the dry 
 road. 
 
 Still the prongs continued to click busily, for it was not 
 late, and though the air was fresh and keen there was a 
 whisper of spring in it that cheered the workers on. Some- 
 thing in the place, the hour, the crackling fires, the fantastic 
 mysteries of light and shade, made others as well as Tess 
 enjoy being there. Nightfall, which in the fi'ost of winter 
 comes as a fiend, and in the warmth of summer as a lover, 
 came as a tranquillizer on this March day. 
 
 Nobody looked at his or her companions. The eyes of 
 all were on the soil as its tinned surface was revealed by 
 the fii-es. Hence, as Tess stirred the clods, and sang her 
 foolish little songs with scarce now a hope that Clare would 
 ever hear them, she did not for a long time notice the per- 
 son who worked nearest to her — a man in a long smock- 
 frock who, she found, was forking the same plot as herself, 
 and whom she supposed her father had sent there to ad- 
 vance the work. She became more conscious of him when 
 the direction of his digging brought him closer to her. 
 Sometimes the smoke divided them ; then it swerved, and 
 the two were visible to each other, but divided from all the 
 rest. 
 
 Tess did not speak to her fellow- worker, nor did he speak 
 to her. Nor did she think of him fiu'ther than to recollect 
 
400 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 that he had not been there when it was broad daylight, and 
 that she did not know him as any one of the Mario tt labor- 
 ers, which was no wonder, her absences having been so long 
 and frequent of late years. B}^ and by he dug so close to 
 her that the fii-e-beams w^ere reflected as distinctly from 
 the steel prongs of his fork as from her own. On going 
 up to the fire to throw a pitch of dead w^eeds upon it, she 
 found that he did the same on the other side. The fire 
 flared up, and she beheld the face of D'Urber\TlLe. 
 
 The unexpectedness of his presence, the grotesqueness 
 of his appearance in a gathered smock-frock, such as was 
 now worn only by the most old-fashioned of the laborers, 
 had a ghastly comicality that chilled her as to its bearing. 
 D'Urber^dlle emitted a low, long laugh. 
 
 '' If I were inclined to joke I should say. How much this 
 seems like Paradise ! " he remarked, whimsically looking 
 at her with an inclined head. 
 
 " What do you say ? " she weakly asked. 
 
 "A jester might say this is just like Paradise. You are 
 Eve, and I am the old Other One come to tempt you in the 
 disguise of an inferior animal. I used to be quite up in 
 that scene of Milton's when I was theological. Some of it 
 goes — 
 
 " ' Empress, the way is ready, and not long. 
 
 . . . If thou accept 
 My conduct, I can bring thee thither soon.' 
 'Lead then,' said Eve. 
 
 And so on. My dear, dear Tess, I am only putting this to 
 yon as a thing that you might have supposed or said quite 
 untruly, because jou think so badly of me." 
 
 " I never said you were Satan, or thought it. I don't 
 think of you in that way at all. My thoughts of you are 
 quite cold, except when you affront me. Wliat, did j^ou 
 come digging here in such a dress entirel}'' because of me ? " 
 
 "Entirely. To see you; nothing more. The smock- 
 
THE C0N\T:RT. 401 
 
 frock, wliicli I saw lianging for sale as I came along, was 
 an after-tliought, that I mightn't be noticed. I come to 
 protest against your working like tliis." 
 
 " But I like doing it — it is for my father." 
 
 " Your engagement at the other place is ended ? " 
 
 '' Yes." 
 
 '^ Wliere are you going to next ? To join your dear hus- 
 band ? " 
 
 She could not bear the humiliating reminder. "O — I 
 don't know," she said, bitterly. " I have no husl^and ! " 
 
 '' It is quite true — in the sense you mean. But you have 
 a friend, and I have determined that you shall be comfort- 
 able in spite of yourself. When you get down to your 
 house you mil see what I have sent there for you." 
 
 "O Alec, I wish you wouldn't give me anything at 
 all ! I cannot take it from you ! I don't like — it is not 
 right ! " 
 
 " It is right ! " he cried, firmly. " I am not going to see 
 a woman Vv hom I feel so tenderly for as I do for you in 
 trouble without trjdng to help her." 
 
 " But I am very well off ! I am only in trouble about — 
 about — not about living at aU ! " She turned, and desper- 
 ately resumed her digging, tears dripping upon the fork- 
 handle and upon the clods. 
 
 ''About the children — voui' brothers and sisters," he re- 
 sumed. " I've been thinking of them." 
 
 Tess's heart quivered — he was touching her in a weak 
 place. He had divined her chief anxiety. Since returning 
 home her soul had gone out to those children with an affec- 
 tion that was passionate. 
 
 " If yoiu' mother does not recover, somebody ought to do 
 something for them ; since your father will not be able to 
 do much, I suppose." 
 
 " He can with my assistance. He must ! " 
 
 " And with mine." 
 
 " No, sir ! " 
 
 26 
 
402 TESS OF THE D'URBER\^LLES. 
 
 '^ How damned foolish this is ! " burst out D'Urberville. 
 " Why, he thinks we are the same family ; and wUl be quite 
 satisfied." 
 
 '^ He don't. I've undeceived him." 
 
 ^' The more fool you ! " D'Urber\dlle in anger went away 
 from her to the hedge, where he pulled oif the long smock- 
 frock which had disguised him j and rolling it up and push- 
 ing it into the couch-fire, went away. 
 
 Tess could not get on with her digging after this ; she 
 felt restless; she wondered if he had gone back to her 
 father's house ; and, taking the fork in her hand, proceeded 
 homewards. 
 
 Some twenty yards from the house she was met by one 
 of her sisters. '' O Tess — what do you think ! 'Liza Lu is 
 a-cr}dng, and there's a lot of folk in the house, and mother 
 is a good deal better, but they think father is dead ! " 
 
 The child realized the grandem* of the news, but not as 
 yet its sadness, and stood looking at Tess with round-eyed 
 importance, till, beholding the effect it produced upon her, 
 she said, " What, Tess, shan't we talk to father never no 
 more 1 '^ 
 
 " But father was only a Httle bit ill ! " exclaimed Tess, 
 distractedlv. 
 
 'Liza Lu came up. " He di^opped down just now, and 
 the doctor who was there for mother said there was no 
 chance for him, because his heart was growed in." 
 
 Yes; the Durbeyfield couple had changed places; the 
 dying one was out of danger, and the indisposed one was 
 dead. The news meant even more than it sounded. Her 
 father's life had a value apart from his personal achieve- 
 ments, or perhaps it Avould not have had nnich. It was the 
 last of the three lives for whose duration the house and 
 premises were held under a lease ; and it had long been 
 coveted by the tenant-farmer for his regular laborers, who 
 were stinted in cottage accommodation. Moreover, '4i\d- 
 ers" were disapproved of in villages almost as much as 
 
THE CONl^RT. 403 
 
 little freeliolders, because of tlieir independence of manner, 
 and when a lease determined it was never renewed. 
 
 Thus the Diu'bevfields, once D'Urbervilles, saw descend- 
 ing upon them the destiny which, no doubt, when they were 
 among the Olympians of the county, they had caused to 
 descend man}^ a time, and severely enough, upon the heads 
 of such landless ones as they themselves were now. So do 
 flux and reflux — the rhythm of change — alternate and per- 
 sist in everything under the sky. 
 
 LI. 
 
 At length it was the eve of Old Lady-Day, and the agri- 
 cultural world was in a fever of mobility such as only oc- 
 curs at that 2:»articular date of the year. It is a day of 
 fulfilment ; agreements for outdoor ser\dce during the en- 
 suing year, entered into at Candlemas, are to be now car- 
 ried out. The laborers — or "workfolk," as they used to 
 call themselves immemoriallv, till the other word was intro- 
 duced from without — who wish to remain no longer in old 
 places are removing to the new farms. 
 
 These annual migrations from farm to farm were on the 
 increase here. When Tess's mother was a child, the major- 
 ity of the field-folk about Marlott had remained all their 
 lives on one farm, which had been the home also of their 
 fathers and gi-andfathers ; but latterly the desire for yearly 
 removal had risen to a high pitch. With the younger fam- 
 ilies it was a pleasant excitement which might possibly be 
 an advantage. The Eg;yTt of one family was the Land of 
 Promise to the family who saw it from a distance, till by 
 residence there it became in turn theii' Egypt also ; and so 
 they changed and changed. 
 
 However, aU the mutations so increasingly discernible 
 
404 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 in tillage life did not originate entirely in the agricnltural 
 unrest. A depoj)ulation was also going on. The \illage 
 had formerly contained, side by side mth the agricnltm-al 
 laborers, an interesting and better-informed class, ranking 
 distinctly above the former — the class to which Tess's father 
 and mother had belonged — and including the carpenter, the 
 smith, the shoemaker, the huckster, together ^yith. nonde- 
 script workers other than farm-laborers ; a set of peoj)le 
 who owed a certain stability of aim and conduct to the fact 
 of their being life-holders like Tess's father, or copyholders, 
 or, occasionally, small freeholders. But as the long hold- 
 ings fell in they were seldom again let to similar tenants, 
 and were mostly pulled do^v^ai, if not absolutely required by 
 the farmer for his hands. Cottagers who were not directly 
 employed on the land were looked upon with disfavor as a 
 rule, and the banishment of some starved the trade of others, 
 who were thus obhged to follow. These families, who had 
 formed the backbone of the \Tllage life in the past, who 
 were the depositaries of the village traditions, had to seek 
 refuge in the large centres ; the process, hnmorously desig- 
 nated by statisticians as " the tendency of the rural popula- 
 tion towards the large to^Tis," being really the tendency of 
 water to flow up-hill when forced by machinery. The cot- 
 tage accommodation at Marlott having been in this manner 
 considerably curtailed by demolitions, every house which 
 remained standing was required by the agriculturist for his 
 work-people. Ever since the occurrence of the event whicli 
 had cast such a shadow over Tess's life, the Durbevfield 
 family (whose descent was not credited) had been tacitly 
 looked on as one which would have to go when their lease 
 ended, if only in the interests of morality. It was, indeed, 
 quite true that this household had not been shining exam- 
 ples, either of temperance, soberness, or chastity. The 
 father, and even the mother, had got drunk at times, the 
 younger children seldom had gone to church, and the eldest 
 daughter had made queer uui<uis. By some means the vil- 
 
THE CONVERT. 405 
 
 lage had to be kept pure. So, on tliis tlie first Lady-Day 
 on which the Dui'beyfiekls were expellable, the house, being 
 roomy, was required for a carter wdth a large family ; and 
 Widow Joan, her daughters Tess and 'Liza Lu, the boy 
 Abraham (now the representative of the D'Urberville male 
 line), and the younger children, had to go elsewhere. 
 
 On the evening preceding their removal it was getting 
 dark betimes, by reason of a drizzling rain which blurred 
 the sky. As it was the last night they would spend in the 
 village which had been their home and birthplace, Mrs. 
 Durbe^^field, 'Liza Lu, and Abraham had gone out to bid 
 some friends good-by, and Tess v/as keeping house till they 
 should return. 
 
 She was kneeling in the window-bench, her face close to 
 the casement, where an outer pane of rain-water was sliding 
 dow^i the inner pane of glass. Her eyes rested on the web 
 of a spider, probably starved long ago, which had been 
 mistakenly placed in a corner where no flies ever came, and 
 sliivered in the slight draught through the casement. Tess 
 was reflecting on the position of the household, in which 
 she perceived her own evil influence. Had she not come 
 home, her mother and the children might probably have 
 been allowed to stay on as weekly tenants. But she had 
 been seen almost immediately on her return by some people 
 of scrupulous character and great influence : they had seen 
 her idling in the churchyard, restoring as well as she could 
 a baby's grave. By this means they had found that she 
 was living here again ; her mother was scolded for " har- 
 boring " her ; sharp words had ensued from Joan, who had 
 independently offered to leave at once ; she had been taken 
 at her word ; and here was the result. 
 
 " I ought never to have come home," said Tess to herself, 
 bitterly. 
 
 She was so intent upon these thoughts that she hardly at 
 first took note of a man in a white mackintosh whom she 
 saw riding down the street. Possibly it was omng to her 
 
406 • TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 face being near to the pane that he saw her so quicklj' , and 
 directed his horse so close to the cottage front that his 
 hoofs were almost upon the narrow border for plants grow- 
 ing under the wall. It was not till he touched the window 
 mth his riding- whip that she observed him. The rain had 
 nearly ceased, and she opened the casement in obedience 
 to his gesture. 
 
 "Didn't you see me?" asked D'Urber^dlle. 
 
 " I was not attending/' she said. " I heard you, I beheve, 
 though I fancied it was a carriage and horses. I was in a 
 sort of dream." 
 
 "Ah ! you heard the D'Urberville Coach, perhaps. You 
 know the legend, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No. My — somebody was going to tell it me once, but 
 didn't." 
 
 " If you are a genuine D'Urberville I ought not to tell 
 you either, I suppose. As for me, I'm a sham one, so it 
 doesn't matter. It is rather dismal. It is that this sound 
 of a non-existent coach can only be heard by one of D'Ur- 
 berville blood, and it is held to be of ill-omen to the one 
 who hears it. It has to do with a mui^der, committed by 
 one of the famil}^ centuries ago." 
 
 "Now you have begun it, finish it." 
 
 "Very weU. One of the family is said to have abducted 
 some beautiful woman, who tried to escape from the coach 
 in which he was carrying her off, and in the struggle he 
 killed her — or she killed him — I forget which. Such is the 
 tale. I see that your tubs and buckets are packed together. 
 Going away, aren't you ? " 
 
 "Yes, to-morrow — Old Lad,y-Day." 
 
 " I heard vou were, but could hardlv believe it : it seems 
 SO sudden. Why is it ? " 
 
 "Father's was the last life on the property, and when 
 that dropped we had no further right to bide. Though we 
 might, perhaps, have stayed as weekly tenants — if it had 
 not been for me." 
 
 "What about 3^ou?" 
 
THE CONVERT. 407 
 
 '' I am not a — l^riglit example." 
 
 D'Urberville's face flushed. 
 
 " What a blasted shame ! Miserable snobs ! May theh^ 
 dii^ty souls be burned to cinders/' he exclaimed in tones 
 of fierce resentment. ^^ That's why you are going, is it ? 
 Tui-ned out ? " 
 
 ''We are not turned out exactly; but as they said we 
 should have to go soon, it was best to go now everybody 
 was moving, because there are better chances.'' 
 
 " Where are you going to ? " 
 
 " Kingsbere. We have taken rooms there. Mother is so 
 foolish about father's people that she will go there." 
 
 '' But your mother's family are not fit for lodgings, and 
 in a little hole of a town like that ! Now, why not come to 
 my garden-house at Trantridge? There are hardly any 
 poultry now since my mother's death ; but there's the house, 
 as you know it, and the garden. It can be whitewashed in 
 a da}^, and your mother can live there quite comfortably ; 
 and I mil put the children to a good school. Really I ought 
 to do something for you ! " 
 
 " But we have already taken the rooms at Kingsbere ! " 
 she declared. " And we can wait there " 
 
 "Wait, what for? For that nice husband, no doubt. 
 Now look here, Tess. I know what men are, and bearing 
 in mind the grounds of your separation, I am quite positive 
 he will never make it up with you. Now, though I have 
 been your enemy, I am your friend, even if joii won't be- 
 lieve it. Come to this cottage of mine. We'll get up a regu- 
 lar colony of fowls, and your mother can attend to them 
 excellently ; and the children can go to school." 
 
 Tess breathed more and more quickly, and at length she 
 said, " How do I know that you would do all this ? Your 
 views mav change — and then — we should be — mv mother 
 would be — homeless again." 
 
 "Oh no — no. I would guarantee you against such as 
 that in A\i'iting, if necessary. Think it over." 
 
 Tess sliook her head. But D'Urbervdlle persisted; she 
 
408 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 had seldom seen hiin so determined ; lie would not take a 
 negative. " Please just tell your motlier," he said, in em- 
 phatic tones. ^' It is her business to judge — not yours. 1 
 shall get the house swept out and whitened to-morrow 
 morning, and fli'es ht ; and it will be dry by the evening, 
 so that you can come straight there. Now mind, I shall 
 expect you." 
 
 Tess again shook her head, her tlu^oat swelling with com- 
 plicated emotion. She could not look up at D'Urberville. 
 
 " I owe you something for the past, you know," he re- 
 sumed. ^'And you cui^ed me, too, of that craze j so I am 
 glad " 
 
 " I would rather you had kept the craze, so that you had 
 kept the practice which went with it ! " 
 
 " I am glad of this opportunity of repaying you a little. 
 To-morrow I shall expect to hear your mother's goods un- 
 loading. . . . Give me your hand on it now — dear, beauti- 
 ful Tess ! " 
 
 With the last sentence he had di'opped his voice to a mur- 
 mur, and put his hand in at the liaK-opened casement. She 
 pulled the stay-bar quickly, and, in doing so, caught his 
 arm between the casement and the stone muUion. 
 
 "Damnation — you are very cruel!" he said, snatching 
 out his arm. "No, no ! — I know you didn't do it on pur- 
 pose. Well, I shall expect you, or your mother and the 
 children, at least." 
 
 " I shall not come — I have plenty of money ! " she cried. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " At my father-in-law's, if I ask for it. 
 
 "//"you ask for it. But you won't, Tess; I know you 5 
 you'll never ask for it — you'll starve first ! " 
 
 With these words he rode off. Just at the corner of the 
 street he met the man witli the paint-pot, who asked him 
 if he had deserted the brethren. 
 
 " You go to the devil ! " said D'Urberville. 
 
 Tess remained where she was a long while, till a sudden 
 
THE CONVERT. 409 
 
 rebellious sense of injustice caused tlie region of lier eyes 
 to swell with tlie rush of hot tears thither. Her husband, 
 Angel Clare hiniseK, had, like others, dealt out hard meas- 
 ui*e to her ; surely he had ! She had never before admitted 
 such a thought ; but he had surely ! Never in her life — 
 she could swear it from the bottom of her soul — had she 
 intended to do wrong ; yet these hard judgments had come. 
 Whatever her sins, they were not sins of intention, but of 
 inadvertence, and why should she have been punished so 
 persistently ? 
 
 She passionately seized the fii'st piece of paper that came 
 to hand, and scribbled the following lines : 
 
 '^ O, wh}^ have you treated me so monstrously. Angel ! I 
 do not deserve it. I have thought it all over carefully, and 
 I can never, never forgive you ! You know that I did not 
 intend to wi'ong you — why have you so wronged me ! You 
 are cmel, cruel indeed ! I will try to forget you. It is all 
 injustice I have received at yoiu' hands ! — T." 
 
 She watched till the postman passed by, ran out to him 
 ^\'ith her epistle, and then again took her listless place in- 
 side the T\dndow-panes. 
 
 It was just as weU to write Like that as to ^Tite tenderly. 
 How could he give way to entreaty ? The facts had not 
 changed : there was no new event to alter his opinion. 
 
 It grew darker, the fire-light shining over the room. The 
 two biggest of the younger children had gone out with their 
 mother ; the four smallest, their ages ranging from three 
 and a half years to eleven, all in black frocks, were gathered 
 round the hearth babbling their own little subjects. Tess 
 at length joined them, without lighting a candle. 
 
 '' This is the last night that we shall sleep here, dears, in 
 the house where we were born," she said, quickly. '^We 
 ought to think of it, oughtn't we ? " 
 
 They all became silent ; with the impressibility of their 
 
410 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 age, they were ready to burst into tears at tlie ]3ictnre of 
 finality she had conjnred np, though all the day hitherto 
 they had been rejoicing in the idea of a new place. Tess 
 changed the subject. 
 
 ^' Sing to me, dears/' she said. 
 
 " What shall we sing ? " 
 
 " Anything you know ; I don't mind what." 
 
 There was a momentary pause ; it was broken, fii'st, by 
 one little tentatiye note ; then a second yoice strengthened 
 it, and a thii'd and a fourth chimed in in unison, with words 
 they had learnt at the Sunday-school : 
 
 Here we suffer grief and pain, 
 Here we meet to part again ; 
 In heaven we part no more. 
 
 The four sang on with the phlegmatic passiyity of per- 
 sons who had settled the question a long time ago, and, 
 there being no mistake about it, felt that fm-ther thought 
 was not required. With features strained hard to enunciate 
 the syllables, they continued to regard the centre of the 
 flickering fii'e, the notes of the youngest straying oyer into 
 the pauses of the rest. 
 
 Tess tiu'ned from them, and went to the window again. 
 Darkness had now fallen mthout, but she put her face to 
 the pane as though to peer into the gloom. It was really 
 to hide her tears. If she could only belieye what the chil- 
 dren were singing ; if she were only sure, how different all 
 would now be ; how confidently she would leaye them to 
 Proyidence and their future kingdom ! But, in default of 
 that, it behooyed her to do something ; to be their Pro\d- 
 dence -, for to Tess, as to some few millions of others, there 
 was ghastly satire in the poet's lines ; 
 
 Not in utter nakedness 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come. 
 
THE CONVERT. 411 
 
 To her and her like, birth itself was an ordeal of degi'ading 
 personal compulsion, whose gratuitousness nothing in the 
 result seemed to justify, and at best could only palliate. 
 
 In the shades of the wet road she soon discerned her 
 mother with 'Liza Lu and Abraham. Mrs. Durl)eyfield's 
 pattens clicked up to the door, and Tess opened it. 
 
 " I see the tracks of a horse outside the window," said 
 Joan. ^' Hev somebody called ? " 
 
 " No," said Tess. 
 
 The children by the fire looked gi^avely at her, and one 
 murmured, "Why, Tess, the gentleman a-horseback! " 
 
 " He didn't call," said Tess. " He spoke to me in passing.'^ 
 
 "T\Tio was the gentleman?" asked her mother. " Yoiu' 
 husband ? " 
 
 " No, no ; he will never, never come," answered Tess, in 
 stony hopelessness. 
 
 " Then who was it ? " 
 
 " 0, you needn't ask. YouVe seen him before, and so 
 have I." 
 
 " All ! What did he say ? " said Joan, curiously. 
 
 " I will tell you when we are settled in our lodgings at 
 Kingsbere to-morrow — eveiy word." 
 
 LH. 
 
 During the small hours of the next morning, while it 
 was still dark, dwellers near the highways were conscious 
 of a disturbance of their night's rest by rumbling noises, 
 intermittently continuing till dayHght — noises as certain to 
 recur in this particular first week of the month as the voice 
 of the cuckoo in the third week of the same. They were 
 the preliminaries of the general removal, the passing of the 
 empty wagons and teams to fetch the goods of the migrat- 
 
412 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 ing families ; for it was always by tlie vehicle of tlie farmer 
 who required his services that the hired man was conveyed 
 to his destination. That this might be accomphshed within 
 the day was the explanation of the reverberation occurring 
 so soon after midnight, the aim of the carters being to reach 
 the door of the outgoing households by six o'clock, when 
 the loading of theii* movables at once began. 
 
 But to Tess and her mother's household no such anxious 
 farmer sent his team. They were only women, they were 
 not regular laborers ; they were not particularly required 
 anywhere ; hence they had to hire a wagon at theii' own 
 expense, and got nothing sent gratuitously. 
 
 It was a relief to Tess, when she looked out of the win- 
 dow that morning, to find that, though the weather was 
 windy and lowering, it did not rain, and that the w^agon 
 had come. A wet Lady-Day was a spectre which removing 
 families never forgot ; damp furniture, damp bedding, damp 
 clothing accompanied it, and left a train of ills. 
 
 Her mother, 'Liza Lu, and Abraham were also awake, 
 but the younger children were let sleep on. The four 
 breakfasted by the thin light, and the "house-ridding" 
 was taken in hand. 
 
 It proceeded mth some cheerfulness, a friendly neighbor 
 or two assisting. When the large articles of furniture had 
 been packed in 2)osition a ciix'ular nest was made of the 
 beds and bedding, in which Joan Durbeyfield and the young 
 children were to sit through the journey. After loading 
 there was a long delay before the horses were brought, these 
 having been unharnessed during the ridding ; but at length, 
 about two o'clock, the whole was under way, the cooking- 
 pot swinging from the axle of the wagon, Mrs. Durbeyfield 
 and family at the top, the matron having in her lap, to pre- 
 vent injury to its works, the head of the clock, which, at 
 any exceptional lui'cli of the wagon, struck one, or one and 
 a half, in tliin tones. Tess and the next eldest girl walked 
 alongside till they were out of the village. 
 
THE CONVERT. 413 
 
 Tliey had called on a few neighbors that morning and the 
 previous evening, and some came to see them off, all wish- 
 ing them well, though, in their secret hearts, hardly expect- 
 ing welfare possible to such a family, harmless people as 
 the Durbeyfields were to all except themselves. Soon the 
 equipage began to ascend to higher ground, and the wind 
 grew keener ^^itli the change of level and soil. 
 
 The day being the sixth of April, the Diu-bey field wagon 
 met many other wagons "with families on the summit of the 
 load, which was built on a well-nigh unvarying principle, 
 as peculiar, prol3al)ly, to the rural laborer as the hexagon 
 to the bee. The groundwork of the arrangement was the 
 position of the family di'esser, which, with its shining han- 
 dles, and finger marks, and domestic e\ddences thick upon 
 it, stood importantly in front, over the tails of the shaft- 
 horses, in its erect and natural position, like some Ark of 
 the Covenant which must not be carried slio^htingiv. 
 
 Some of the households were lively, some mournful ; some 
 were stopping at the doors of wayside inns ; where, in due 
 time, the house of Durbej^eld also drew up to bait horses 
 and refresh the travellers. 
 
 During the halt Tess's eyes fell upon a three-pint blue 
 mug, which was ascending and descending through the air 
 to and from the feminine section of a household, sitting on 
 the summit of a load that had also drawm up at a little dis- 
 tance from the same inn. She followed one of the mug-'s 
 journeys upward, and perceived it to be clasped by hands 
 whose owners she well knew. Tess went towards the wac^on. 
 
 ^^ Marian and Izz I " she cried to the ffirls, for it was tliev, 
 sitting- vdih the movins^ familv at whose house thev had 
 lodged. ^'Ai-e you house-ridding to-day, like everybody 
 else f '^ 
 
 The}^ were, they said. It had been too rough a life for 
 them at Flintcomb-Ash, and thev had come awav, almost 
 mthout notice, leaving Groby to prosecute them if he chose. 
 They told Tess their destination, and Tess told them hers. 
 
414 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Marian leaned over the load, and lowered her voice. " Do 
 ye know that the gentleman who follows 'ee — you'll guess 
 who I mean — came to ask for 'ee at Fhntcomb after you 
 had gone ? We didn't tell'n where you was, knowmg you 
 wouldn't wish to see him."' 
 
 " Ah — but I did see him," Tess murmured. '^ He found 
 me." 
 
 " And do he know where you be going ? " 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 " Husband come back ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 She bade her acquaintance good-by — for the respective 
 carters had now^ come out from the inn — and the two 
 wagons resumed then* journey in opposite directions; the 
 vehicle whereon sat Marian, Izz, and the ploughman's fam- 
 ily with whom they had thrown in their lot, being brightly 
 painted, and drawn by three powerful horses with shining 
 brass ornaments on their harness; while the wagon on 
 w^hich Mrs. Durbeyfield and her family rode was a creaking 
 erection that w^ould scarcely bear the weight of the super- 
 incumbent load ; one which had known no paint since it 
 was made, and drawn by two horses only. The contrast 
 well marked the difference between being fetched by a 
 thri\dng farmer and conveying one's self whither no hii-er 
 waited one's coming. 
 
 The distance was great, and though they had stai-ted so 
 early it was quite late in the day when they tmiied the 
 flank of an eminence which formed part of the upland called 
 Greenhill. While the horses stood to stale and breathe 
 themselves Tess looked around. Under the hill, and just 
 ahead of them, was the half-dead townlet of their pilgrim- 
 age, Kingsbere, where lay those ancestors of whom her 
 father had spoken and sung to painfulness : Kingsbere, the 
 spot of aU spots in the world which could be considered the 
 D'Urbervilles' home, since they had resided there full five 
 hundred years. 
 
THE CONVERT. 415 
 
 A man could be seen advancing from the outskirts to- 
 wards them, and when he beheld the nature of theu' wagon- 
 load he quickened his steps. 
 
 ^' You be the woman they call Mrs. Durbe^^field, I reckon ? '^ 
 he said to Tess's mother, who had descended to walk the 
 remainder of the way. 
 
 She nodded. " Though widow of the late Sir John D'Ur- 
 berville, poor nobleman, if I cared for my rights ; and re- 
 tui-ning to the domain of m}^ knight's forefathers.'^ 
 
 " O ? "Well, I know nothing about that j but if you be 
 Mrs. Durbey field, I am sent to tell 'ee that the rooms you 
 wanted be let. We didn't know you was coming till we 
 got youi* letter this morning — when 'twas too late. But no 
 doubt you can get other lodgings somewhere." 
 
 The man had noticed the face of Tess, which had become 
 ash-pale at his intelligence. Her mother looked hopelessly 
 at fault. "What shall we do now, Tess?" she said, bitterly. 
 ^' Here's a welcome to your ancestors' lands ! However, 
 let's try farther." 
 
 They moved on into the town, and tried with all their 
 might, Tess remaining with the wagon to take care of the 
 childi*en whilst her mother and 'Liza Lu made inquiries. 
 At the last return of Joan to the vehicle, an lioui* later, 
 when her search for acconnnodation had still been fruitless, 
 the driver of the wagon said the goods must be unloaded, 
 as he was bound to return part of the way that night. 
 
 «■ Very well — unload it here," said Joan, recklessly. " I'll 
 get shelter somewhere.'' 
 
 The wagon had drawn up under the churchyard wall, in 
 a spot screened from view, and the driver, nothing loth, 
 soon hauled down the poor battered heap of household 
 goods. She paid him with ahnost her last shilling, and he 
 moved off and left them, only too glad to get out of further 
 dealings with such a famih\ It was a diy night, and he 
 guessed that they would come to no harm. 
 
 Tess gazed desperately at the pile of furniture. The cold 
 
416 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 sunlight of tliis spring evening peered invidiously npon tl.c 
 crocks and kettles, upon the bunches of di'ied herbs shiver- 
 ing in the breeze, uj)on the brass handles of the dresser, 
 npon the wicker-cradle they had all been rocked in, and 
 npon the well-rubbed clock-case, all of which gave out the 
 reproachful gleam of indoor articles exposed to the vicissi- 
 tudes of a roofless exposure for which they w^re never made. 
 Eound about were deparked hills and slopes — now cut up 
 into little paddocks — and the gi^een foundations that showed 
 where the D'Urberville mansion once had stood ; also an 
 outlying stretch of Egdon Heath that had always belonged 
 to the estate. Hard by, the aisle of the church called the 
 D'Urber^dlle Aisle looked on imperturbably. 
 
 '' Isn't your family vault your own freehold ?i' said Tess's 
 mother, as she returned from a reconnoitre of the church 
 and graveyard. " Why, of course 'tis, and that's where we 
 will camp, girls, till the place of your ancestors finds us a 
 roof ! Now, Tess and 'Liza and Abraham, you help me. 
 We'll make a nest for these children, and then we'll have 
 another look round." 
 
 Tess listlessly lent a hand, and in a quarter of an hour 
 the old four-post bedstead was dissociated from the heap of 
 goods, and erected under the south wall of the church, the 
 part of the l)uilding known as the D'Urberville Aisle, be- 
 neath which the huge vaults lay. Over the tester of the 
 bedstead was a beautifully traceried window, of many lights, 
 its date being the fifteenth century. It was called the D'Ur- 
 berville Window, and in the upper part could be discerned 
 heraldic emblems like those on Durl^ey field's old seal and 
 spoon. 
 
 Joan drew the curtains round the bed so as to make an 
 excellent tent of it, and put the smaller childi'en inside. 
 " If it comes to the worst we can sleep there too, for one 
 night," she said. " But let us try farther on, and get some- 
 thing for the dears to eat ! O Tess, what's the use of your 
 playing at marrying gentlemen, if it leaves us like this ! " 
 
"'what shall "WE DO NOW, TESS ?'" 
 
THE CONVERT. 417 
 
 Accompanied by 'Liza Lii and tlie boy, slie again ascended 
 the little lane wliich secluded the clmrch from the townlet. 
 As soon as they got into the street they beheld a man on 
 horseback gazing up and do\\Ti. 'Ah — I'm looking for 
 you," he said, riding up to them. " This is indeed a family 
 gathering on the liistoric spot ! " 
 
 It was Alec D'Urberville. " Where is Tess ? '^ he asked. 
 
 Personally Joan had no liking for Alec. She cui'sorily 
 signified the direction of the chui'ch, and went on, D'Urber- 
 ville saying that he would see them again, in case they 
 should be again unsuccessful in their search for a house, of 
 which he had just heard. When they had gone D'Urber- 
 ville rode to the inn, and shortly after came out on foot. 
 
 In the interim Tess, left A\dth the children inside the bed- 
 stead, remained talking with them a while, till, seeing that 
 no more could be done to make them comfortable just then, 
 she walked about the chureh^^ard, now beginning to be em- 
 browned by the shades of nightfall. The door of the church 
 was unfastened, and she entered it for the first time in her 
 life. 
 
 Within the windoAv under which the bedstead stood were 
 the tombs of the family, covering in their dates several cen- 
 turies. They were canopied, altar-shaped, and plain ; their 
 carvings being defaced and broken ; their brasses torn from 
 the matrices, the rivet-holes remaining like inarten-holes in 
 a sand-cliff. Of all the reminders that she had ever received 
 that her people were socially extinct there was none so 
 forcible as this spoliation. 
 
 She drew near to a dark stone on which was inscribed : 
 
 €);5tinm 0tpulcf)ri anticiua^ familiar £>'(^vhtvMt. 
 
 Tess did not read Church-Latin like a Cardinal, but she 
 knew that this was the door of her ancestral sepulchre, and 
 that the tall knights of whom her father had chanted in hiis 
 cups lay inside. 
 27 
 
418 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 She musingly turned to mtlidi'aw, passing near an altar- 
 tomb, the oldest of them all, on which was a recumbent 
 figm^e. In the dusk she had not noticed it before, and would 
 hardly have noticed it now but for an odd fanc}^ that the 
 effigy moved. As soon as she drew close to it she discov- 
 ered all in a moment that the figure was a li\dng person ; 
 and the shock to her sense of not having been alone was so 
 violent that she was quite overcome, and sank down nigh 
 to fainting, not, however, till she had recognized Alec D'Ur- 
 berville in the form. 
 
 He leapt off the slab and supported her. 
 
 " I saw you come in," he said, smiling, " and would not 
 interrupt your meditations. A family gatheiing, is it not, 
 with these old fellows under us here ? Listen." 
 
 He stamped with his heel heavily on the floor, whereupon 
 there arose a hollow echo from below. 
 
 " That shook them a bit, I'll warrant ! " he continued. 
 ''And you thought I was the mere stone reproduction of 
 one of them. But no. The old order changeth. The little 
 finger of the sham D'Urber\iUe can do more for you than 
 the whole djmasty of the real underneath. . . . Now com- 
 mand me. What shall I do ? " 
 
 '' Go away ! " she murmured. 
 
 " I will — I'U look for your mother," said he, blandly. But 
 in passing her he whispered : " Mind this ; you'll be civil 
 vet ! " 
 
 ^Tien he was gone she bent down upon the entrance to 
 the vaults, and said : 
 
 " Wliy am I on the ■\\Tong side of this door ! '^ 
 
 In the meantime Marian and Izz Huett had journeyed 
 onward with the chattels of the ploughman in the direction 
 of their land of Canaan — the Egypt of some other family 
 who had left it only that morning. But the girls did not 
 for a long time think of where they were going. Their 
 talk was of Angel Clare and Tess, and her persistent lover, 
 
THE CONVERT. 419 
 
 whose connection with Tess's previous history they had 
 partly heard and partly guessed ere this. 
 
 " 'Tisn't as though she had never known him afore/' said 
 Marian. " His having won her once makes all the differ- 
 ence in the world. 'Twould be a thousand pities if he were 
 to tole her away again. Mr. Clare can never be anything 
 to uSj Izz ; and why should we grudge him to her, and not 
 try to mend this quarrel? If he could on'y know what 
 straits she's put to, and what's hovering round, he might 
 come to take care of his own." 
 
 " Could we let him know ? " 
 
 They thought of this all the way to their destination ; 
 but the bustle of re-establishment in their new place took 
 up all their attention then. But when they were settled, a 
 month later, they heard of Clare's approaching return, 
 though they had learnt nothing more of Tess. Upon that, 
 agitated anew by theii' attacliment to him, yet honorably 
 disposed to her, Marian uncorked the penny ink-bottle they 
 shared, and a few lines wxre concocted between the two 
 gii'ls. 
 
 " Hoxor'd Sir, — 
 
 " Look to your Wife if you do love her as much as she 
 do love you. For she is sore put to by an Enemy in the 
 shape of a Friend. Sir, there is one near her who ought to 
 be Away. A woman should not be try'd beyond her 
 Strength, and continual dropping ^dll wear ^way a Stone 
 — ay, more — a Diamond. 
 
 ^^ From Two Well- Wishers." 
 
 This they addressed to Angel Clare at the only place they 
 had ever heard him to be connected ^\dth, Emminster Vicar- 
 age ; after which they continued in a mood of emotional 
 exaltation at their own generosity, which made them sing 
 in hysterical snatches and weep at the same time, 
 
FULFILMENT. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 It was evening at Emminster Vicarage. The two cus- 
 tomary shaded candles were burning in the vicar's study, 
 but he had not been sitting there. Occasionally he came 
 in, stirred the small fire which sufficed for the increasing 
 mildness of spring, and went out again ; sometimes pausing 
 at the front door, going on to the di'avvdng-room, then re- 
 turning again to the front door. 
 
 It faced westward, and though gloom i3revailed indoors, 
 there was stiU light enough without to see with distinctness. 
 Mrs. Clare, who had been sitting in the di'awing-room, fol- 
 lowed him hither. 
 
 " Plenty of time yet," said the vicar. ^' He doesn't reach 
 Chahv-Newton till six, even if the train should be punctual, 
 and ten mile« of country road, five of them in Crimmer- 
 crock Lane, are not jogged over in a hurry by our old 
 horse." 
 
 " But he has done it in an hour with us, my dear." 
 
 " Years ago." 
 
 Thus they passed the minutes, each weU knowing that 
 this was only waste of breath, the one essential being sim- 
 ply to wait. 
 
 At length there was a slight noise in the lane, and the 
 old pony-chaise appeared indeed outside the railings. They 
 
FULFIL3IEXT. ' 421 
 
 saw alight therefrom a foriii a\ liich they affected to recog- 
 nize, but would actually have passed by in the street with- 
 out identifying had he not got out of their carriage at the 
 particular moment when a particular person was due. 
 
 Mrs. Clare rushed through the dark passage to the door, 
 and her husband came more slowly after. The new arrival, 
 who was just about to enter, saw their anxious faces in the 
 doorway and the gleam of the west in their spectacles be- 
 cause they confronted the last rays of day, but they could 
 only see his shape against the light. 
 
 " O my boy, my boy — home again at last ! " cried Mrs. 
 Clare, who cared no more at that moment for the stains of 
 heterodoxy which had caused all this sei)aration than for 
 the dust upon his clothes. What woman, indeed, among 
 the most faithful adherents to the truth, believes in the 
 promises and threats of the Word in the sense in which 
 she believes in her own childi^en, or would not throw her 
 theology to the wind if weighed against their happiness f 
 As soon as they reached the room where the candles were 
 lighted she looked at his face. 
 
 " O, it is not Angel — not my son — the Angel who went 
 away ! " she cried, in all the irony of sorrow, as she tiu'ned 
 herself away. 
 
 His father, too, was shocked to see him, so reduced was 
 that figure from its former contom's by worry and the bad 
 season which Clare had experienced, in the climate to which 
 he had so rashly hurried in his first aversion to the mockery 
 of events at home. You could see the skeleton behind the 
 man, and almost the ghost behind the skeleton. His sunken 
 ej^e-pits were of morbid hue, and the hght in his eyes had 
 waned. The angular hollows and fines of his aged ances- 
 tors had succeeded to their reign in his face twenty years 
 before their time. 
 
 " I was ill over there, you know," he said. " I am all 
 right now." 
 
 As if, however, to falsify this assertion, his legs seemed 
 
422 .TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 to give way, and he suddenly sat down to save himself from 
 falling. It was only a slight attack of faintness, resulting 
 from the tedious day's journey and the excitement of arrival. 
 
 '■^ Has any letter come for me lately ? " he asked. ^' I re- 
 ceived the last you sent on by the merest chance, and after 
 considerable delay through being inland, or I might have 
 come sooner." 
 
 ''It was from your wife, we supposed?" 
 
 " It was." 
 
 Only one other had recently come. They had not sent 
 it on to him, knowing he would start for home so soon. 
 
 He hastily opened the letter produced, and was much 
 disturbed to read in Tess's handwriting the sentiments ex- 
 pressed in her last hurried scrawl to him. 
 
 " O, why have you treated me so monstrously. Angel ! 
 I do not deserve it. I have thought it all over carefully, 
 and I can never, never forgive you ! You know that I did 
 not intend to wrong 3'ou — why have you so wronged me ? 
 You are cruel, cruel indeed ! I ^Yi\\. try to forget you. It 
 is aU injustice I have received at your hands ! — T." 
 
 " It is quite true ! " said Angel, throwing down the letter. 
 '' Perhaps she will never be reconciled to me ! " 
 
 "Don't, Angel, be so anxious about a mere child of the 
 soil ! " said his mother. 
 
 " Child of the soil ! Well, we are all children of the 
 soil ; but let me now explain to you what I have never ex- 
 plained before, that her father is a descendant in the male 
 line of one of the oldest Norman houses, like a good many 
 others who lead obscure agricultural lives in our villages, 
 and are dubbed ' sons of the soil.' " 
 
 He soon retired to bed ; and the next moruing, feeliug 
 exceedingly unwell, he remained in his room pondering. The 
 circumstances amid which he had left Tess were such that 
 though, while on the south of the equator and just in re- 
 
FULFILLMENT. 423 
 
 ceipt of her loving epistle, it had seemed the easiest thing 
 in the woi-ld to rush back into her arms ; now that he had 
 ai'rived it was not so easy as it had seemed. She was pas- 
 sionate^ and her present letter, showing that her estimate of 
 liim had changed nnder his delay — too justly changed, he 
 sadly owned, made him ask himself if it would be mse to 
 confront her unannounced in the presence of her parents. 
 Supposing that her love had indeed turned to dislike dur- 
 ing the separation, a sudden meeting might lead to bitter 
 words. 
 
 Clare therefore thought it would be best to prepare Tess 
 and her family by sending a line to Marlott announcing 
 his return, and his hope that she was still li\4ng ^Yith. them 
 there, as he had arranged for her to do when he left Eng- 
 land. He despatched the inquiry that very day, and before 
 the week was out there came a short reply from Mrs. Dur- 
 beyfield, which did not remove his embarrassment, for it 
 bore no address, though it was not written from Marlott. 
 
 '^ Sir,— 
 
 " J \\Tote these few lines to say that my Daughter is away 
 from home at present, and J am not sure when she \\dll re- 
 turn, but J will let vou know as Soon as she do. J do not 
 feel at liberty to tell you Where she is staying. J should 
 say that me and my Family have left Marlott for some Time. 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 '^ J. DURBEYFIELD." 
 
 It was such a relief to Clare to learn that Tess was at 
 least still alive that her mother's reticence as to her where- 
 abouts did not long distress him. He would wait till Mrs. 
 Durbeyfield could inform him of Tess's return, which her 
 letter implied to be soon. He deserved no more. His had 
 been a love " wdiich alters when it alteration finds." He 
 had undergone some strange experiences in his absence ; 
 he had seen the \drtual Faustina in the literal Cornelia, a 
 
424 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 spiiitual Liicretia in a corporeal Phiyne ; lie Lad tliouglit 
 of the woman taken and set in the midst as one deserving 
 to be stoned, and of the wife of Uriah being made a queen ; 
 and he had asked himself wh}^ had he not judged Tess con- 
 structively rather than biographic ally, by the will rather 
 than by the deed ? 
 
 Day after day jDassed wliile he waited at his father's 
 house for the promised second letter from Joan Durbeyfleld, 
 and indirectly to recover a Httle more strength. The 
 strength showed signs of coming back, but there was no 
 sign of the letter. Then he hunted up the old letter sent 
 on to him in Brazil, which Tess had ^^itten from Flint- 
 comb- Ash, and which had brought him back. He re-read 
 it. The sentences touched him as much as when he had 
 first perused them. 
 
 '^ I must cry to you in my trouble — I have no one else. 
 ... I think I must die if you do not come soon, or tell me 
 to come to you. . . . Please, please not to be just — only a 
 little kind to me. ... If vou woidd come, I could die in 
 your arms ! I would be weU content to do that if so be 
 you had forgiven me. ... If you will send me one little 
 line, and say, 'J am coming soon/ I will bide on. Angel — O, so 
 cheerfullv ! . . . Think how it do hm^t mv heart not to see 
 you ever — ever ! Ah, if I coidd only make joiiv dear heart 
 ache one httle minute of each day as mine does every day 
 and all day long, it might lead you to show pity to your 
 poor lonely one. ... I would be content, ay, glad, to live 
 with you as yom- servant, if I may not as yoiu* wife 5 so 
 that I could only be near you, and get glimpses of you, and 
 tliink of you as mine. ... I long for only one thing in 
 heaven or earth or under the earth, to meet you, my own 
 dear ! Come to me, come to me, and save me from what 
 threatens me ! " 
 
 Clare determined he would no longer believe in her more 
 
FULFILMENT. 425 
 
 recent and severer regard of him ; but would go and find 
 her immediately. He asked his father if she had apphed 
 for any money during his absence. His father retm'ned a 
 negative, and then for the fii^st time it occurred to Angel 
 that her pride had stood in her way, and that she had suf- 
 fered privation. From his remarks his parents now gath- 
 ered the real reason of the separation ; and their Christian- 
 ity was such that, reprobates being their especial care, the 
 tenderness towards Tess which her blood, her simplicity, 
 even her poverty, had not engendered, was instantly excited 
 by her sin. 
 
 Wliilst he was hastily packing together a few articles for 
 his journey he glanced over a poor, plain missive lately 
 come to hand, the one from Marian and Izz Huett, begin- 
 ning : 
 
 "Honor'd Sir, — 
 
 '' Look to vour Wife if von do love her as much as she 
 do love you," and signed, 
 
 "From Two Well- Wishers." 
 
 LIV. 
 
 In a quarter of an hour Clare was leaving the house, 
 whence his mother watched his thin figure as it disappeared 
 into the street. He had declined to borrow his father's old 
 mare, well knowing of its necessity to the household. He 
 went to the inn, where he hii^ed a trap, and coidd hardly 
 wait during the harnessing. In a very few minutes after 
 he was driving up the hill out of the town, which, three or 
 four months earlier in the year, Tess had descended mth 
 such hopes, and ascended with such shattered purposes. 
 
 Benvill Lane soon stretched before him, its hedges and 
 trees pm-ple with buds ; but he was looking at other things, 
 
426 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 and only recalled himself to tlie scene sufficiently to enable 
 Mm to keep the way. In something less than an h6uY and 
 a half he had skii-ted the south of the King's Hintock estates 
 and ascended to the untoward solitude of Cross-in-Hand, 
 the unholy stone whereon Tess had been compelled by Alec 
 D'Urberville, in his converted character, to swear the strange 
 oath that she would never wiKully tempt him again. The 
 pale and blasted nettle-stems of the preceding year even 
 now lingered nakedly in the banks, young green nettles of 
 the present spring grooving from their roots. 
 
 Thence he went along the verge of the upland overhang- 
 ing the other Hintocks, and, turning to the right, plunged 
 into the bracing calcareous region of Flintcomb-Ash, the 
 addi'ess from which she had written to him in one of the 
 letters, and which he supposed to be the place of sojom^n 
 referred to by her mother. Here, of course, he did not find 
 her now J and what added to his depression was the dis- 
 covery that no '^ Mrs. Clare " had ever been heard of by the 
 cottagers or by the farmer himself, though Tess was re- 
 membered well enough by her Christian name. His name 
 she had obviously never used during their separation, and 
 her dignified sense of their total severance was shown not 
 much less by this abstention than by the hardships she had 
 chosen to undergo (of which he now learned for the fii'st 
 time) rather than apply to his father for more funds. 
 
 From this place they told him Tess Diu'beyfield had gone, 
 without due notice, to the home of her parents on the other 
 side of Blackmoor, and it therefore became necessary to find 
 Mrs. Durbevfiold. She had told him she was not now at 
 Marlott, but had been curiouslv reticent as to her actual ad- 
 dress, and the only course w^as to go to Marlott and inquire 
 for it. The farmer who had been so churlish mth Tess 
 was quite smooth-tongued to Clare, and lent him a horse 
 and man to drive him to Marlott, the gig he had arrived in 
 being sent back to Emminster; for the limits of a day's 
 jom-ney with that horse was reached. 
 
FULFIL3IENT. 427 
 
 Clare Tvould not accept the loan of the farmer's vehicle 
 for a farther distance than to the outskirts of the Vale, and, 
 sending it back with the man who had driven him, he put 
 up at an inn, and next day entered on foot the region 
 wherein was the spot of his dear Tess's birth. It was as 
 yet too early in the year for much color to appear in the 
 gardens and foliage ; the scene was but muter overlaid 
 with a thin coat of green, and it was of a jDarcel with his 
 expectations. 
 
 The house in which Tess had passed the years of her 
 childhood was now inhabited by another family who had 
 never knoT\Ti her. The new residents were in the garden, 
 taking as much interest in theii' own doings as if the home- 
 stead had never passed its primal time in conjunction ^vith. 
 the histories of others, beside which the histories of these 
 would be but as a tale that is told. They walked about the 
 garden paths with thoughts of their owti concerns entii^ely 
 uppermost, bringing their actions at every moment into 
 jarring collision with the dim figures behind them, talking 
 as though the time when Tess lived there were not one whit 
 intenser in story than now. Even the S23ring bu'ds sang 
 over their heads as if they thought there was nobody miss- 
 ing in particular. 
 
 On inquiiy of these precious innocents, to whom even 
 the name of their predecessors was a fading memory, Clare 
 learned that John Durbeyfield was dead ; that his widow 
 and children had left Marlott, declaring they were going to 
 live at Kingsbere, but instead of doing so they had gone 
 on to a place near Chaseborough. B3' this time Clare ab- 
 horred the house for ceasing to contain Tess, and hastened 
 away from its hated presence Avithout once looking back. 
 
 His way was by the field in which he had first beheld her 
 at the dance. It was as bad as the house — even worse. He 
 passed on through the churchyard, where, amoug the new 
 headstones, he saw one of a somewhat superior design to the 
 rest. The inscription ran thus : 
 
428 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 ''In Memory of John Durbeyfield, rightly D'Urberville, 
 of the once Powerful Family of that Name, and Du'ect 
 Descendant through an Illustrious Line from Sir Bryan 
 D'Urberville, one of the Knights of the Conqueror. Died 
 March 10th, 18—. 
 
 "How ARE THE MiGHTY FALLEN." 
 
 Some man, apparently the sexton, had observed Clare 
 standing there, and drew nigh. "Ah, sii^, now that's a man 
 who didn't want to lie here, but wished to be carried to 
 Kingsbere, where his ancestors be." 
 
 " And why didn't they respect his wish ? " 
 
 "O — no money. Bless your soul, sir, why — there, I 
 wouldn't wish to say it ever^^where, but — even this, head- 
 stone, for all the flourish wrote upon en, is not paid for." 
 
 " Ah — who put it up ? " 
 
 The man told the name of a mason in the village, and, 
 on leaving the chm-chyard, Clare called at the mason's 
 house. He found that the statement was true, and paid 
 the bill. This done, he turned in the direction of Chase- 
 borough. 
 
 The distance was too long for a walk, but Clare felt such 
 a strong desii-e for isolation that at first he would neither 
 hire a conveyance nor go to a circuitous line of railway by 
 which he might eventually reach the place. At Shaston, 
 however, he found he must hu*e ; but the way was such that 
 he did not approach Joan's retreat till about seven o'clock 
 in the evening, having traversed a distance of over twenty 
 miles since leaving Marlott. 
 
 The village being small, he had little difficulty in finding 
 Mrs. Durbeyfield's tenement, which was a house in a waUed 
 garden remote from the main street, where she had stowed 
 away her awkward old furniture as best she could. It was 
 plain that for some reason or other she had not wislied him 
 to visit her, and he felt his call to be somewht^t of an intru- 
 
FULFILMENT. 429 
 
 sion. She came to the door herseK, and the light from the 
 evening sky fell upon her face. 
 
 This was the fii'st time that Clare had ever met her, but 
 he was too preoccupied to observe more than that she was 
 still a handsome woman, in the garb of a 3:espectable widow. 
 He was obliged to explain that he was Tess's husband, and 
 his object in coming there, and he did it awkwardly enough. 
 "I want to see her at once," he added. '^You said you 
 would write to me again, but you have not done so." 
 
 " Because shelve not come home," said Joan. 
 
 " Do you know if she is well ? " 
 
 " I don't. But you ought to, su^," said she. 
 
 '' I admit it. Where is she stajdng f " 
 
 From the beginning of the interview Joan had disclosed 
 her embarrassment by keeping her hand to the side of her 
 cheek. " I — don't know exactly where she is stajdng," she 
 answered. '' She was — but " 
 
 ^' Where was she ? " 
 
 ^' Well, she is not there noAv." In her evasiveness she 
 paused again, and the younger childi'en had by this time 
 crept to the door, where, pulling at his mother's skii'ts, the 
 youngest murmured, " Is this the gentleman who is going 
 to marry Tess ? " 
 
 " He has married her," Joan whispered. " Go inside." 
 
 Clare saw her efforts for reticence, and asked, " Do you 
 think Tess would wish me to try and find her ? If not, of 
 com'se " 
 
 " I don't think she would." 
 
 '^ Are vou sure ? " 
 
 ^'I am sure she woiddn't." 
 
 He was turning away ; and then he thought of Tess's 
 tender letter. " I am sure she would ! " he retorted, passion- 
 ately. " I know her better than you do." 
 
 " That's veiy likely, sir ; for I have never reaUy known 
 her." 
 
430 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 " Please tell me her address, Mrs. Dnrbey field, in kindness 
 to a lonely, wretched man." 
 
 Tess's mother again restlessly swept her cheek with her 
 vertical hand, and seeing that he suffered, she at last said, 
 in a low voice, ^' She is at Sandbourne." 
 
 "All — where there? Sandboiirne has become a large 
 place, they say." 
 
 " I don't know more particularly than I have said — Sand- 
 bourne. For myself, I was never there." 
 
 It was apparent that Joan spoke the truth in this, and 
 he pressed her no further. 
 
 " Are you in want of anything ? " he said, gently. 
 
 " No, su'," she replied. " We are fairly well provided for." 
 
 Without entering the house, Clare turned away. There 
 was a station tliree miles ahead, and pa}dng off his coach- 
 man, he walked thither. The last train to Sandbourne left 
 shortly after, and it bore Clare on its wheels. 
 
 LV. 
 
 At eleven o'clock that night, having secured a bed at one 
 of the hotels and telegraphed his address to his father im- 
 mediatelv on his arrival, he walked out into the streets of 
 Sandbourne. It was too late to call on or inquire for any 
 one, and he reluctantly postponed his purpose tiU the morn- 
 ing. But he could not retire to rest just yet. 
 
 This fashionable watering-place, with its eastern and its 
 w^estern stations, its piers, its gi'oves of pines, its prome- 
 nades, and its covered gardens, was, to Angel Clare, like a 
 fairy place suddenly created by the stroke of a wand, and 
 allowed to get a little dusty. An outlpng easternmost 
 tract of the enormous Egdon Waste was close at hand, yet 
 on the very verge of that tawny piece of antiquity such a 
 
fulfil:\ient. 431 
 
 glittering novelty as this pleasure-city had chosen to spring 
 up. Within the space of a mile from its outskirts every 
 iiTegularity of the soil was prehistoric, every ravine an un- 
 distiu'bed British trackway, not a sod having been turned 
 since the days of the Caesars. Yet the exotic had grown 
 here, suddenly as the prophet's gourd j and had drawn 
 hither Tess. 
 
 By the midnight lamps he went up and down the mnd- 
 ing ways of tliis new world in an old one, and could discern 
 between the trees and against the stars the lofty roofs, chim- 
 neys, gazebos, and towers of the numerous fanciful resi- 
 dences of which the place was composed. It was a city of 
 detached mansions ; a Mediterranean lounging-place on the 
 Enghsh Channel ; and as seen now by night, it seemed even 
 more imposing than it was. 
 
 The sea was near at hand, but not intrusive j it murmured, 
 and he thought it was the pines ; the pines murmui'ed in 
 precisely the same tones, and he thought they were the sea. 
 
 Where could Tess possibly be, a cottage gu4, his young 
 w^ife, amidst all this wealth and fashion? The more he 
 pondered the more was he puzzled. Were there any cows 
 to milk here ? There certainly were no fields to till. She 
 was most probably engaged to do something in one of these 
 large houses ; and he sauntered along, looking at the cham- 
 ber-windows, and theii" lights going out one by one, and 
 wondered which of them might be hers. 
 
 Conjecture was useless, and just after twelve o'clock he 
 entered and went to bed. Before putting out his Hght, he 
 re-read Tess's impassioned letter. Sleep, however, he could 
 not — so near her, yet so far from her — and he continually 
 lifted the i\dndow-blind and regarded the backs of opposite 
 houses, and wondered behind which of the sashes she re- 
 posed at that moment. 
 
 He might almost as well have sat up all night. In the 
 morning he arose at seven, and shorth^ after went out, tak- 
 ing the dii'ection of the chief post-office. At the door he 
 
432 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 met an intelligent postman coming out witli letters for the 
 morning delivery. 
 
 '^Do yon know the addi'ess of a Mrs. Clare?" asked 
 Angel. 
 
 The postman shook his head. Then, remembering that 
 she wonld have been likely to continue the nse of her 
 maiden name, Clare said, "Or a Miss Dm-beyfield f " 
 
 " Dnrbeyfleld ?" This also was strange to the postman 
 addressed. " There's visitors coming and going every day, 
 as yon know, sir," he said ; '' and without the name of the 
 honse 'tis impossible to find 'em." 
 
 One of his comrades hastening out at that moment, the 
 name was repeated to him. 
 
 " I know no name of Durbevfield ; but there is the name 
 of D'Urberville at The Herons," said the second. 
 
 " That's it," cried Clare, pleased to think that she had re- 
 verted to the real word. " Wliat place is The Herons?" 
 
 "A stylish lodging-honse. 'Tis all lodging-honses here, 
 bless 'ee." 
 
 Clare received directions how to find the honse, and 
 hastened thither, arri\dng mth the milkman. The Herons, 
 though an ordinary \dlla, stood in its own grounds, and was 
 certainly the last place in which one would have expected to 
 find lodgings, so private was its appearance. If poor Tess 
 were a servant here, as he feared, she would go to the back 
 door to that milkman, and he was inclined to go thither 
 also. However, in his doubts he turned to the front, and 
 rang. 
 
 The hour being earty, the landlady herself opened the 
 door. Clare inquired for Teresa D'Urberville or Durbev- 
 field. 
 
 " Mrs. D'UrberviUe ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Tess, then, passed as a married woman, and he felt glad, 
 even though she had not adopted his name. "Will you 
 kindly tell her that a relative is anxious to see her?" 
 
FULFILIMENT. 433 
 
 " It is rather early- What name shall I give, sir ? " 
 
 " Angel." 
 
 " Mr. Angel ? " 
 
 "No 5 Angel. It is my Christian name. She'll nnderstancl." 
 
 "I'U see if she is awake." 
 
 He was shown into the front room — the dining-room — 
 and looked ont throngh the spring ciirtains at the little 
 lawn, and the rhododendrons and other shrnbs npon it. 
 Obvionsly, her position was by no means so bad as he had 
 feared, and it crossed his mind that she mnst somehow have 
 claimed and sold the jewels to attain it. He did not blame 
 her for one moment. Soon his sharpened ear detected 
 footsteps npon the stands, at which his heart thumped so 
 painfully that he could hardl}^ stand fii-m. " Dear me ! 
 what wiU she think of me, so altered as I am ! " he said to 
 himself ; and the door opened. 
 
 Tess appeared on the threshold — not at all as he had ex- 
 pected to see her — bewilderingly otherwise, indeed. Her 
 great natui-al beauty w^as, if not heightened, rendered more 
 obvious by her attu'e. She was loosely wrapped in a gray- 
 white cashmere dressing-gown embroidered in half -mourn- 
 ing tmts, and she wore shppers of the same hue. Her neck 
 rose out of a friU. of do^\Ti, and her well-remembered cable 
 of dark-broA\Ti hair was partially coiled up in a mass at the 
 back of her head and partly hanging on her shoulder — the 
 evident result of haste. 
 
 He held out his arms, but they had fallen again to his 
 side ; for she had not come forward, remaining stiU in the 
 opening of the doorway. Mere yellow skeleton that he was 
 now, he felt the contrast between them, and thought his 
 appearance distasteful to her. 
 
 " Tessie ! " he said, huskily, '^ can you forgive me for 
 going away ? Can't you — come to me ? How do you get 
 tobe— hke this?" 
 
 "It is too late ! " said she, her voice sounding hard 
 through the room, and her eyes shining unnaturally. 
 
 28 
 
434 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 "I did not think rightly of you — I did not see you as 
 you were/' he continued to ]3lead. " I have learnt to since, 
 dearest Tessie mine ! " 
 
 " Too late, too late ! " she said, waving her hand in the 
 impatience of a person whose tortures cause every instant 
 to feel an hour. ^' Don't come close to me, Angel ! No — 
 you must not. Keep away ! " 
 
 ^' But don't vou love me, mv dear wife, because I have 
 been so pulled down by illness f You are not so fickle — I 
 am come on purpose for you — my mother and father A\dll 
 welcome you now." 
 
 '' Yes — oh yes, yes ! But I say, I say, it is too late ! " she 
 almost shrieked. She seemed like a fugitive in a dream, 
 who tried to move away, but could not. '' Don't you know 
 all — don't you know it ? Yet how do you come here if you 
 do not know?" 
 
 " I inquired here and there, and I found the way." 
 
 '^ I waited and waited for you ! " she went on, her tones 
 suddenly resuming their old fluty pathos. " But you did 
 not come, and I wrote to you, and you did not come ! He 
 kept on saying you would never come any more, and that I 
 was a foolish woman. He was very kind to me, and mother, 
 and to all of us after father's death. He " 
 
 ^' I don't imderstand." 
 
 '^ He has won me — back to him." 
 
 Clare looked at her keenly, then, gathering her meaning, 
 flagged like one plague-stricken, and his glance sank; it 
 fell on her hands, which, once rosy, were now white and 
 delicate. 
 
 She continued: "He is upstairs. ... I hate him uoav, 
 because he told me a lie — that you would not come again ; 
 and you have come. These clothes are what he has put 
 upon me : I didn't care what he did wi' me. But "wdU you 
 go away. Angel, please, and never come any more ! " 
 
 They stood fixed, their baffled hearts looking out of their 
 
FULFILMENT. 435 
 
 eyes witli a joylessness pitiM to see. Both seemed to im- 
 plore something to shelter them from reahty. 
 
 ^^ Ah — it is my fault ! " said Clare. But he could not get 
 on. Speech was as inexpressive as silence. But he had 
 a vague consciousness of one thing, though it was not clear 
 to him till later ; that his original Tess had spiritually ceased 
 to recognize the body before him as hers — allowing it to 
 drift, like a corpse upon the current, in a direction dissoci- 
 ated from its living will. 
 
 A few instants passed, and he found that Tess was gone. 
 His face grew colder and more shrunken as he stood, con- 
 centrated on the moment, and a minute or two after he 
 found himself in the street, walking along, he did not know 
 whither. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Mrs. Brooks, the lady who was the householder at The 
 Herons, and owner of all the handsome furniture, was not 
 a person of an unusually curious tui^n of mind. She was 
 too deeply materialized, poor woman, by her long and en- 
 forced bondage to that arithmetical demon, Profit-and-Loss, 
 to retain much curiosity for its own sake, and apart from 
 possible lodgers' pockets. Nevertheless, the visit of Angel 
 Clare to her well-paying tenants, Mr. and Mrs. D'Urberville, 
 was sufficiently exceptional in point of time and manner to 
 rein^'igorate the feminine proclivity which had been stifled 
 down as useless, save in its bearing on the letting trade. 
 
 Tess had spoken to her husband from the doorway, with- 
 out entering the dining-room, and Mrs. Brooks, who stood 
 within the partly closed door of her own sitting-room at 
 the back of the passage, could hear fragments of the con- 
 versation — if conversation it could be called — between those 
 
436 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 two wretched soiils. She heard Tess reascend the stairs to 
 the fii'st floor, and the departure of Clare, and the closing 
 of the front door behind him. Then the door of the room 
 above was shut, and Mrs. Brooks knew that Tess had re- 
 entered her apartment. As the young lady was not fully 
 di'cssed, Mrs. Brooks knew that she would not emerge again 
 for some time. 
 
 She accordingly ascended the stairs softly and stood at 
 the door of the front room — a di-awing-room, connected 
 with the room immediately behind it (which was a bedi-oom) 
 by folding-doors in the common manner. This first floor, 
 containing Mrs. Brooks's best apartments, had been taken 
 by the week by the D'Urbervilles. The back room was now 
 in silence ; but from the drawing-room there came sounds. 
 
 All that she could at first distinguish of them was one 
 syllable, continually repeated in a low note of moaning, as 
 if it came from a soul bound to some Ixionian wheel — 
 
 " 0, O, O ! " 
 
 Then a silence, then a hea^y sigh, and again — 
 
 " 0, 0, O ! " 
 
 The landlady looked through the keyhole. Only a small 
 space of the room inside was visible, but within that space 
 came a corner of the breakfast-table, w^hicli was already 
 spread for the meal, and also a chair beside. Over the seat of 
 the chair Tess's face was bowled, her posture being a kneeling 
 one in front of it ; her hands were clasped over her head, 
 the skirts of her dressing-gown and the embroidery of her 
 nightgown flowed upon the floor behind her and upon the 
 chaii-, and her stockingless feet, from which the slippers had 
 fallen, protmded upon the carpet. It was from her lips 
 that came the murmur of unspeakable despair. 
 
 Then a man's voice from the adjoining bedroom, " Wliat's 
 the matter ? " 
 
 She did not answer, but went on in a tone which was a 
 soliloquy rather than an exchimation, and a dirge rather 
 than a soliloquy. Mrs. Brooks could only catch a portion : 
 
FULFILMENT. 437 
 
 " And then my dear, dear husband came home to me . . . 
 and I did not know it ! . . . And you had used your cruel 
 persuasion upon me . . . you did not stop using it — no — 
 you did not stop ! My little sisters and brothers and my 
 mother's needs — they were the things you moved me by 
 . . . and you said my husband woidd never come back — 
 never ; and you taunted me, and said what a simpleton I 
 was to expect him. . . . And at last I beheved you and 
 gave way ! . . . And then he came back ! Now he is gone. 
 Gone a second time, and I have lost him now forever . . . 
 and he will not love me the littlest bit ever anymore — only 
 hate me ! » . . Oh yes, I have lost him now — again because 
 of — you ! " 
 
 In writhing, with her head on the chau-, she turned her 
 face towards the door, and Mrs. Brooks coidd see the pain 
 upon it ; and that her lips were bleeding from the clench 
 of her teeth upon them, and that the long lashes of her 
 closed eyes stuck in wet tags to her cheeks. She con- 
 tinued: "And he is dying — he looks as if he is dying! 
 . . . And my sin will kill him and not kill me ! . . . O, 
 you have torn my life all to pieces . . . made me a victmi, 
 a caged wretch ! . . . My own true husband will never, 
 never — O Heaven — I can't bear this ! — I cannot ! " 
 
 There were more and sharper words from the man ; then 
 a sudden rustle ; she had sprung to her feet. Mrs. Brooks, 
 thinking that the speaker w^as coming to rush out of the 
 door, hastily retreated do^^oi the stairs. 
 
 She need not have done so, however, for the door of the 
 sitting-room was not opened. Mrs. Brooks felt it unsafe 
 to listen on the landing again, and entered her own parlor 
 below. She could hear nothing tlu-ough the floor, although 
 she listened intently, and thereupon went to the kitchen to 
 finish her interrupted breakfast. Coming up presently to 
 the front room on the gi'ound floor, she took up some sew- 
 ing, waiting for her lodgers to ring, that she might take 
 away the breakfast, which she meant to do herself, to dis- 
 
438 TESS OF THE D'URBERYILLES. 
 
 cover wliat was the matter, if possible. Overhead, as she 
 sat, she could now hear the floor-boards sUghtly creak, as if 
 some one were walking about, and presently the movement 
 was explained by the rustle of garments against the banis- 
 ters, the opening and the closing of the front door, and the 
 form of Tess passing to the gate on her way into the street. 
 She was fidly dressed now in the walking-costume of a well- 
 to-do young lady, in which she had arrived, with the sole 
 addition that over her hat and black feather a veil was 
 drawn. Mrs. Brooks had not been able to catch any word 
 of farewell, temporary or otherwise, between the tenants 
 of the rooms above. They might have quarrelled, or Mr. 
 D'Urberville might still be asleep, for he was not an early 
 riser. 
 
 She went into the back room which was more especially 
 her own apartment, and continued her sewing there. The 
 lady lodger did not return, nor did the gentleman ring his 
 bell. Mrs. Brooks pondered on the delay, and on what 
 probal)le relation the visitor who had called so early stood 
 to the couple upstairs. In reflecting she leant back in her 
 chair. 
 
 As she did so her eyes glanced casually over the ceiling 
 till they were arrested by a spot in the middle of its white 
 surface which she had never noticed there before. It was 
 about the size of a wafer when she first observed it, but it 
 speedily grew as large as the palm of her hand, and then 
 she could perceive that it was red. The oblong Avhite ceil- 
 ing, vnth its scarlet blot in the midst, had the appearance 
 of a gigantic ace of hearts. 
 
 Mrs. Brooks had strange quahns of misgiving. She got 
 upon the table, and touched the spot in the ceiling with her 
 fingers. It was damp, and she fancied that it was a blood 
 stain. 
 
 Descending from the tal)le, she left the parlor, and went 
 upstairs, intending to enter the room overhead, which was 
 the chamber at the back of the di-amng-room. But, nerve- 
 
FULFIKMENT. 439 
 
 less woman as she had now become, she conld not bring 
 herself to attempt the handle. She listened. The dead 
 silence within was broken only by a regular beat. 
 
 Drip, drip, di'ip. 
 
 Mrs. Brooks hastened downstairs, opened the front door, 
 and ran into the street. A man she knew, one of the work- 
 men emploj^ed at an adjoining villa, was passing by, and 
 she begged him to come in and go upstairs with her ; she 
 feared something had happened to one of her lodgers. The 
 workman assented, and followed her to the landing. 
 
 She opened the door of the drawing-room, and stood back 
 for him to pass in, entering herself behind him. The room 
 was empty ; the breakfast — a substantial repast of coffee, 
 eggs, and a cold ham — lay spread upon the table untouched, 
 as when she had taken it up, excepting that the carving- 
 knife was missing. She asked the man to go through the 
 folding-doors into the adjoining room. 
 
 He opened the door, entered a step or two, and came 
 
 back almost instantly, with a rigid face. " My good , 
 
 the gentleman in bed is dead! I think he has been hui-t 
 with a knife — a lot of blood has run down upon the floor ! " 
 
 The alarm was soon given, and the house which had lately 
 been so quiet resounded with the tramp of many footsteps, 
 a surgeon among the rest. The wound was deep ; the point 
 of the blade had touched the lieart of the victim, who lav 
 on his back, pale, fixed, dead, as if he had scarcely moved 
 after the infliction of the blow. In a quarter of an hour 
 the news that a gentleman who was a temporary visitor to 
 the town had been stabl)ed to the heart in his bed, spread 
 through every street and villa of the popular watering- 
 place. 
 
/ 
 
 440 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 LYII. 
 
 Meanwhile Angel Clare had walked automatically along 
 the way by which he had come, and entering his hotel, sat 
 down over the breakfast, staring at nothingness. He went 
 on eating and drinking unconsciously, till on a sudden he 
 demanded his bill ; having paid which, he took his dressing- 
 bag in his hand, the onl}" luggage he had brought with him, 
 and went out. 
 
 At the moment of his departure a telegram was handed 
 to him — a few words from his mother, stating that they 
 were glad to know his addi'ess, and informing him that his 
 brother Cuthbert had i3roposed to and been accepted by 
 Mercy Chant. 
 
 Clare crumpled uj) the paper, and followed the route to 
 the station ; reaching it, he found that there woidd be no 
 train leaving for an hoiu' and more. He sat down to wait, 
 and having waited a quarter of an hour, felt that he could 
 wait there no longer. Broken in heart and numbed, he had 
 nothing to Inu'ry for, but he wished to get out of a town 
 which had been the scene of such an experience, and turned 
 to walk to the first station onward, and let the train pick 
 him up there. 
 
 The highway that he followed was open, and at a little 
 distance dipped into a valley, across which it could be seen 
 running from edge to edge. He had traversed the greater 
 part of this depression, and was climbing the western 
 acclivity, when, pausing for breath, he unconsciously looked 
 back. Why he did so he could not say, but something 
 seemed to impel the act. The tape-like surface of the road 
 diminished in his rear as far as he could see, and as he gazed 
 a moving spot intruded on the white vacuity of its per- 
 spective. 
 
FULFILMENT. 441 
 
 It was a human figure, runniug. Clare waited, with a 
 dim sense that somebody was trying to overtake him. 
 
 The form descending the incline was a woman's, yet so 
 entii-ely was his mind blinded to the idea of his wife's fol- 
 lowing him that, even when she came nearer, he did not 
 recognize her under the totally changed attire in which he 
 now beheld her. It was not till she was quite close that he 
 could believe her to be Tess. 
 
 ^' I saw you — turn away from the station — just before I 
 got there — and I have been following you all this way ! " 
 
 She was so pale, so breathless, so quivering in every 
 muscle, that he did not ask her a single question, but seiz- 
 ing her hand, and pidling it within his arm, he led her along. 
 To avoid meeting any possible wayfarers, he left the high- 
 road, and took a footpath under some fii'-trees. When they 
 were deep among the moaning boughs he stopped, and 
 looked at her inquiringly. 
 
 "Angel," she said, as if waiting for this, "do you know 
 what I have been running after you for ? To tell you that 
 I have kiUed him ! " A pitiful white smile lit her face as 
 she spoke. 
 
 " What ! " said he, thinking from the strangeness of her 
 manner that she was in some delirium. 
 
 "I have done it — I don't know how," she continued. 
 " Still, I owed it to 'ee, and to myself. Angel. I feared long 
 ago, when I struck him on the mouth with my glove, that 
 I might do it some day for the wi'ong he did to me in my 
 simple youth, and to you through me. He has come be- 
 tween us and ruined us, and now he can never do it any 
 more. I never loved liim at all, Angel, as I loved you. 
 You know it, don't you ? You believe it ? You didn't come 
 back to me, and I was obUged to go back to him, or sell 
 what was not mine to sell, the heir-things of your family. 
 Why did you go away; — why did you — when I loved you 
 so ? I can't think why you did it. But I don't blame you ; 
 only. Angel, will you forgive me my sin against you, now 
 
442 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 I have killed him? I thought as I ran along that you 
 would he sure to forgive me now I have done that. It 
 came to me as a shining hght that I should get you back 
 that way. I could not bear the loss of 'ee any longer — you 
 don't know how entirely I was unable to bear your not lov- 
 ing me. Say you do now, dear, dear husband: say you 
 do, now I have killed him ! " 
 
 " I do love you, Tess — O, I do — it is all come back ! " he 
 said, tightening his arms round her with fevered pressiu-e. 
 '' But how do you mean — you have killed him!" 
 
 " I mean that I have," she murmured in a reverie. 
 
 '' What, bodily ? Is he dead ? " 
 
 '^ Yes. He heard me crying about you, and he bitterly 
 taunted me ; and called you by a foul name ; and then I 
 did it. Mv heart could not bear it. He had taunted me 
 about you before. And then I di'essed myself and came 
 awav to find you." 
 
 By degrees he was inclined to believe that she had faintly 
 attempted, at least, what she said she had done ; and his hor- 
 ror at her impulse was mixed with amazement at the strength 
 of her affection for himself, and at the strangeness of its 
 (juality, which had apparently extinguished her moral sense 
 altogether. Unal)le to reahze the gravity of her conduct, 
 she seemed at last content ; and he looked at her as she lay 
 upon his shoidder, weeping with happiness, and wondered 
 what o))scure strain in the D'Urberville blood had led to 
 this aberration — if it were an aberi'ation. There momen- 
 tarily flashed through his mind that the family tradition 
 might have arisen because the D'UrberviUes had been 
 known to do these things. As well as his confused and 
 excited ideas could reason, he supposed that in the mo- 
 ment of mad grief of which she spoke her mind had 
 lost its balance, and plunged her into this abyss. It was 
 very teiTible if true ; if a temporary hallucination, sad. 
 But, anyhow, here was this deserted wife of his, this jias- 
 sionately fond woman, clinging to him without a suspicion 
 
FULFILMENT. 443 
 
 that lie would be any tiling to lier but a protector. He saw 
 that for him to be otherwise was not, in her mind, within 
 the region of the possible. Tenderness was absolutely 
 dominant in Clare at last. He kissed her endlessly with 
 his white lips, and held her hand, and said, '^ I will not de- 
 sert you ! I will iDrotect you by every means in my power, 
 dearest love, whatever you may have done or not have 
 done ! " 
 
 They then walked on under the trees, Tess turning her 
 head every now and then to look at him. Worn and un- 
 handsome as he had become, it was plain that she did not 
 discern the least fault in his appearance. To her he was, 
 as of old, all that was perfection, personally and mentally. 
 He was still her Antinous, her Apollo even ; his sickly face 
 was beautiful as the morning to her affectionate regard on 
 this day no less than when she first beheld him ; for was it 
 not the face of the one man on earth who had loved her 
 purely, and who had l^elieved in her as pure ? 
 
 With an instinct as to possibilities, he did not now, as 
 he had intended, make for the first station beyond the 
 town, but plunged still farther under the firs, which here 
 abounded for miles. Each clasping the other round the 
 waist, they promenaded over the dry bed of fir-needles, 
 throAvn into a vague, intoxicating atmosphere at the con- 
 sciousness of being together at last, with no li\dng soul be- 
 tween them, ignoring that there was a corpse. Thus they 
 proceeded for several miles till Tess, arousing herself, looked 
 about her, and said, timidly, "Are we going anywhere in 
 particular ! " 
 
 " I don't know, dearest. Why ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 '' Well, we might walk a few miles farther, and when it 
 is evening find lodgings somewhere or other — in a lonely 
 cottage, perhaps. Can jou walk well, Tessie ? " 
 
 '^ Oh yes ! I could walk for ever and ever with youi* arm 
 round me ! " 
 
444 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Upon the whole it seemed a good thing to do. There- 
 iij)on the}' quickened their pace, avoiding high-roads, and 
 following obscnre paths tending more or less northward. 
 But there was an unpractical vagueness in their movements 
 throughout the day : neither one of them seemed to con- 
 sider any question of effectual escape, disguise, or long con- 
 cealment. Their every idea was temporar}^ and unforef end- 
 ing, like the plans of two children. 
 
 At midday they drew near to a roadside inn, and Tess 
 would have entered it with him to get something to eat, 
 but he persuaded her to remain among the trees and bushes 
 of this half -woodland, half -moorland part of the country 
 till he should come back. Her clothes were of recent 
 fashion- even the ivory-handled parasol that she carried 
 was of a shape unknown in the retired sj^ot to which they 
 had now wandered ; and the cu.t of such articles would have 
 attracted attention in the settle of a tavern. He soon re- 
 turned, with food enough for half a dozen people, and two 
 bottles of wine — enough to last them for a day or more, 
 should any emergency arise. 
 
 They sat down upon some dead boughs and shared their 
 meal. Between one and two o'clock they packed up the re- 
 mainder and went on again. 
 
 '' I feel strong enough to walk any distance," said she. 
 
 '' I think we may as well steer in a general way towards 
 the interior of the countrv, where we can hide for a time, 
 and are less likely to be looked for than anywhere near the 
 coast," Clare remarked. ^^ Later on, when they have for- 
 gotten us, we can make for some port." 
 
 She made no reply to this beyond that of clas2)ing him 
 more tightly, and straight inland they went. Though the 
 season was an English May, the weather was serenely 
 bright, and during the afternoon it was quite warm. 
 Through the latter miles of their walk' their footpath had 
 taken them into the deptlis of the New Forest, and, towards 
 evening, turning the corner of a lane, they perceived be- 
 
FULFIKMENT. 445 
 
 hind au ornamental gate a large board on which was painted 
 in white letters, '^ This desirable Mansion to be Let Fiu*- 
 nished " j particnlars following, with du'ections to appty to 
 some London agents. Passing through the gate they could 
 see the house, a dignified building, of regular design and 
 large accommodation. 
 
 '' I know it," said Clare. ^' It is Bramshui^st Manor- 
 house. You can see that it is shut up, and grass is growing 
 on the drive." 
 
 '^ Some of the mndows are open," said Tess. 
 
 ^' Just to ail' the rooms, I suppose." 
 
 "All these rooms empty, and we without a roof to our 
 heads ! " 
 
 " You are getting tii-ed, my Tess," he said. '' We'll stop 
 soon." And Idssing her sad mouth, he again led her on- 
 wards. 
 
 He was growing weary likewise, for they had walked not 
 less than twenty miles, and it became necessary to consider 
 what they should do for rest. They looked from afar at 
 isolated cottages and little inns, and were inchned to ap- 
 proach one of the latter, when their hearts failed them, and 
 they sheered off. At length their gait dragged, and they 
 stood still. 
 
 " Could we sleep under the trees?" she asked. 
 
 He thought the season insufficiently advanced. " I have 
 been thinking of that empty mansion we passed," he said. 
 " Let us go back towards it again." 
 
 They retraced their steps, but it was half an hour before 
 they stood without the entrance-gate as earlier. He then 
 requested her to stay where she was, whilst he went to see 
 who was within. 
 
 She sat down among the bushes within the gate, and 
 Clare crept towards the house. His absence lasted some 
 considerable time, and Tess was wildly anxious, not for 
 herself, but for him. He had found out from a boj^ that 
 there was only an old woman in charge as care-taker, and 
 
446 TESS OF THE D'URBER\T:LLES. 
 
 she only came tliere on fine days, from the liamlet near, to 
 open and shut the mndows. She would come to shut them 
 at sunset. '^ Now, we can get in through one of the lower 
 windows, and rest there," said he. 
 
 Under his escort she went tardily forward to the main 
 front, whose shuttered ^\dndows, like sightless eyeballs, ex- 
 cluded the possibility of watchers. The door was reached 
 by a flight of steps, and one of the ^vindows beside it was 
 open. Clare clambered in, and pulled Tess in after him. 
 
 Except the hall, the rooms were all in darkness, and they 
 ascended the staircase. Up here also the shutters were 
 tightly closed, the ventilation being perfunctorily done, for 
 the day at least, by opening the hall mndow in front and 
 an upper window behind. Clare unlatched the door of a 
 large chamber, felt his way across it, and parted the shut- 
 ters to the width of two or three inches. A shaft of daz- 
 zling sunlight glanced into the room, revealing heavy, old- 
 fashioned furniture, crimson damask hangings, and an 
 enormous four-post bedstead, along the head of which were 
 carved running figures, apparently Atalanta's race. 
 
 " Rest at last ! " said he, setting down his bag and the 
 parcel of viands. 
 
 They remained in gi'cat quietness till the care-taker should 
 have come to shut the windows ; as a precaution, putting 
 themselves in total darkness bv barrina: the shutters as be- 
 fore, lest the woman should open the door of their chamber 
 for any casual reason. Between six and seven o'clock she 
 came, but did not approach the wing they were in. They 
 heard her close the windows, fasten them, lock the door, 
 and go away. Then Clare again stole a chink of light from 
 the window, and they shared another meal, till by and by 
 they were enveloped in the shades of night, which they had 
 no candle to disperse. 
 
FULFIL3IENT. 447 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 The night was strangely solemn and still. In the small 
 hours she whispered to him the whole story of how he had 
 walked in his sleep with, her in his arms across the Froom 
 stream, at the imminent risk of both their hves, and laid 
 her doA\Ti in the stone coffin at the ruined abbey. He had 
 never known of that till now. 
 
 ^' Why didn't you tell me next day ? " he said. ^' It might 
 have prevented much misunderstanding and woe." 
 
 " Don't think of what's past ! " said she. " I am not 
 going to think outside of now. Why should we? Who 
 knows what to-morrow has in store ? ^' 
 
 But it apparently had no sorrow. The morning was wet 
 and foggy, and Clare, rightly informed that the care-taker 
 only opened the windows on fine days, ventured to creep 
 out of then- chamber and explore the house, leavmg Tess 
 asleep. There was no food on the premises, but there was 
 water, and he took advantage of the fog to emerge from 
 the mansion, and fetch tea, bread, and butter from a shop 
 in the little town two miles beyond, as also a small tin ket- 
 tle and spirit-lamp, that they might get fii*e mthout smoke. 
 His re-entry awoke her ; and they breakfasted on what he 
 had brought. 
 
 They were indisposed to stir abroad, and the day passed, 
 and the night following, and the next, and the next; tiU, 
 almost mthout their ])eing aware, five days had slipped by 
 in absolute seclusion, not a sight or sound of a human 
 being disturbing their peacefulness, such as it was. The 
 changes of the weather were their only events, the birds of 
 the New Forest their only company. By tacit consent they 
 hardly once spoke of any incident of the past subsequent 
 to their wedding-day. The gloomy intervening time seemed 
 
448 TESS OP THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 to sink into eliaos, over which the present and prior time;-; 
 closed as if it never had been. Whenever he snggested 
 that they should leave theii- shelter Y.nd go forward to- 
 wards Southampton or London, she showed a strange un- 
 willingness to move. "Why should we put an end to all 
 that's sweet and lovely ! " she deprecated. " What must 
 come wiU come." And, looking through the shutter-chink, 
 "■ All is trouble outside there ; inside here content ! " 
 
 He peeped out also. It was quite true ; mthin was af- 
 fection, union, error forgiven ; outside was the inexorable. 
 
 "And — and," she said, pressing her cheek against his, "I 
 fear what you think o' me now may not last. I do not 
 wish to outlive youi' present feeling for me. I would rather 
 not. I would rather be dead and buried when the time 
 comes for you to despise me, so that it may never be known 
 to me that you despised me." 
 
 " I cannot ever despise you." 
 
 "I also hope that. But considering what my life has 
 been, I cannot see why any man should, sooner or later, 
 be able to heljD despising me. . . . How mckedly mad I 
 was ! Yet formerly I never could bear to hurt a fly or a 
 worm, and the sight of a bird in a cage used often to make 
 
 me crv." 
 
 They remained yet another day. In the night the duU 
 sky cleared, and the result was that the old care-taker at 
 the cottage awoke early. The brilliant sunrise made her 
 unusually l)risk, and she decided to open the contiguous 
 mansion immediate^, and to air it thoroughly on such a 
 day. Thus it occurred that, having arrived and opened the 
 lowers rooms before six o'clock, she ascended to the bed- 
 chaml)ers, and was about to turn the handle of the one 
 wherein the}^ lay. At that moment she fancied she could 
 hear the l^reathiug of persons within. Her slippers and 
 her antiquity had rendered her progress a noiseless one so 
 far, and she made for instant retreat; then, deeming tliat 
 her hearing might have deceived her, she turned anew to 
 
FULFILIMENT. 449 
 
 the door, and softly tried the handle. The lock was ont 
 of order, bnt a piece of f urnitnre had been moved forward 
 on the inside, which prevented her opening the door more 
 than an inch or two. A stream of morning light through 
 the shutter-chink fell upon the faces of the pair, ^^i-apped 
 in profound slumber, Tess's lips being parted like a half- 
 open flower near his cheek. The care-taker was so struck 
 ^vith their innocent appearance, and with the elegance of 
 Tess's gown hanging across a chair, her silk stockings be- 
 side it, and the other hal)its in which she had arrived, be- 
 cause she had none else, that her first indignation of the 
 effrontery of tramps and vagabonds gave way to a momen- 
 tary sentimentality over this genteel elopement, as it seemed. 
 She closed the door, and withdrew as softly as she had come, 
 to go and consult with her neighliors on the odd discovery. 
 
 Not more than a minute had elapsed after her withdi'awal 
 when Tess woke, and then Clare. Both had a sense that 
 something had disturbed them, though they could not say 
 what J and the uneasy feehng which it engendered grew 
 stronger. As soon as he was dressed he narrowly scanned 
 the lawn through the two or three inches of shutter-chink. 
 
 ^' I think we -will leave at once," said he. ^' It is a fine day. 
 And I cannot help fancying somebody is al)out the house. 
 At any rate, the woman will be sure to come to-da3^" 
 
 She passively assented, and, putting the room in order, 
 they took up the few articles that belonged to them, and 
 departed noiselessly. When they had got into the forest she 
 turned to take a last look at the house. "Ah, happy house 
 — good-by ! " she said. " My life can only be a question 
 of a few weeks. Why should we not have stayed there ! " 
 
 '• Don't say it, Tess ! We shall soon get out of this dis- 
 trict altogether. We'll continue our course as we have 
 begun it, and keep straight north. Nobody will think of 
 looking for us that way. We shall be looked for at the 
 Wessex ports if we are sought at all. When we are in the 
 north we will get to a port and away." 
 
 29 
 
450 TESS OP THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 Having thus persuaded her the plan was pursued, and 
 they kept a bee-line northward. Theii^ long repose at the 
 manor-house lent them walking power now ; and towards 
 midday they approached the steepled city of Melchester, 
 which lay directly in their way. He decided to rest her in 
 a clump of trees during the afternoon, and push onward 
 under cover of darkness. At dusk Clare purchased food as 
 usual, and their night march began, the boundary between 
 Upper and Mid-Wessex being crossed about eight o'clock. 
 
 To walk across country without much regard to roads 
 was not new to Tess, and she showed her old agility in 
 the performance. The intercepting city, ancient Melchester, 
 they were obliged to pass through in order to take advan- 
 tage of the town bridge for crossing a large river that ob- 
 structed them. It was about midnight when they went 
 along the deserted street, lighted fitfully by their few lamps, 
 keeping off the pavement that it might not echo their foot- 
 steps. The graceful pile of cathedral architecture rose on 
 then- right hand, but it was lost upon them now. Once out 
 of the to'v\Ti they followed the turnpike road, which plunged 
 across an open plain. 
 
 Though the sky was dense with cloud, a diffused light 
 from some fragment of a moon had hitherto helped them a 
 little. But the moon had now sunk, the clouds seemed to 
 settle almost on their heads, and the night grew as dark as 
 a cave. However, they found their way along, keeping as 
 much on the turf as possible, that their tread might not 
 resound, which it was easy to do, there being no hedge or 
 fence of any kind. ^1 around was open loneliness and 
 black solitude, over which a stiff breeze blew. 
 
 They had proceeded thus gropingly several miles when 
 on a sudden Clare became conscious of some vast erection 
 close in his front, rising sheer from the grass. They had 
 almost struck themselves against it. 
 
 " What monstrous place is this ? " said Angel. 
 
 '' It hums," said she. '' Hearken ! '' 
 
rULFIL.^IENT. 451 
 
 He listened. Tlie wind, playing upon tlie edifice, pro- 
 duced a booming tune, like the note of some gigantic one- 
 stringed harp. No other sound came from it, and lifting 
 his hand and advancing a step or two, Clare felt the vertical 
 surface of the wall. It seemed to be of solid stone, without 
 joint or moulding. Carrying his fingers onward, he found 
 that what he had come in contact with was a colossal rect- 
 angular pillar; by stretching out his left hand he could 
 feel a similar one adjoining. At an indefinite height over- 
 head something made the black sky blacker, which had the 
 semblance of a vast architrave uniting the pillars horizon- 
 taUv. They carefully entered beneath and between ; the sur- 
 faces echoed their soft rustle ; but they seemed to be still 
 out-of-doors. The place was roofless. Tess drew her breath 
 fearfully, and Angel, perplexed, said, "What can it be?" 
 
 Feelino; sideways, they encountered another tower-like 
 pillar, square and uncompromising as the first ; beyond it 
 another and another. The place was all doors and pillars, 
 some connected above by continuous arcliitraves. 
 
 " A very Temple of the Winds," he said. 
 
 The next pillar was isolated ; others composed a trilithon ; 
 others were prostrate, their flanks forming a causeway wide 
 enough for a carriage ; and it was soon obvious that they 
 made up a forest of monoliths grouped upon the grassy 
 expanse of the plain. The couple advanced farther into 
 tills pa^dhon of the night, till they stood in its midst. 
 
 " It is Stonehenge ! " said Clare. 
 
 '^' The heathen temple, you mean ? " 
 
 " Yes. Older than the centuries ; older than the D'Ur- 
 berviUes. WeU, what shall we do, darling ? We may find 
 shelter farther on." 
 
 But Tess, really tired by this time, flung herself upon an 
 oblong slab that lay close at hand, and was sheltered from 
 the ^vind by a piUar. Owing to the action of the sun dur- 
 ing the preceding day the stone was warm and dry, in 
 comforting contrast to the rough and chill grass around, 
 
452 TESS OF THE D'UKBERVILLES. 
 
 which had damped her skirts and shoes. ^' I don^t want to 
 go any farther, Angel/^ she said, stretching out her hand 
 for his. '^ Can't we bide here ? '^ 
 
 " I fear not. This spot is visible for miles by day, al- 
 though it does not seem so now.'' 
 
 '^ One of my mother's people was a shepherd hereabouts, 
 now I think of it. And you used to say at Talbothays that 
 I was a heathen. So now I am at home." 
 
 He knelt down beside her outstretched form, and put his 
 lips upon hers. ^' Sleepy are you, dear ? I thuik you are 
 lying on an altar." 
 
 ^' I hke very much to be here," she murmured. "It is so 
 solemn and lonely — after my great happiness — with nothing 
 but the sky above my face. It seems as if there were no 
 folk in the world but we two ; and I wish there were not — 
 except 'Liza Lu." 
 
 Clare thought she might as well rest here tiU it should 
 get a little hghter, and he flung his overcoat uj^on her, and 
 sat down by her side. 
 
 " Angel, if anything happens to me, will you watch over 
 'Liza Lu for my sake ? " she asked, when they had hstened 
 a long time to the mud among the pillars. 
 
 " I wiU." 
 
 " She is so good and simple and pm'e. O Angel — I wish 
 you would marry her if you lose me, as you will do shortly. 
 O, if you would ! " 
 
 " If I lose you I lose aU ! And she is my sister-in-law." 
 
 " That's nothing, dearest. People marry sister-laws con- 
 tinually about Marlott ; and 'Liza Lu is so gentle and 
 sweet. O, I could share you with her willingly when we 
 are spirits ! If you woidd train her. Angel, and bring her 
 up for your own self ! She has aU the best of me without 
 the l)ad of me, and if she were to become yours it would 
 almost seem as if death had not divided us. WeU, I 
 have said it. I won't mention it again. How could I ex- 
 pect it ! " She ceased, and he fell into thought. In the 
 
FULFILMENT. 453 
 
 far northeast sky lie could see between the pillars a level 
 streak of light. The uniform concavity of black cloud was 
 hf ting bodily like the lid of a pot, letting in at the earth's 
 edge the coming day, against which the towering monolitlis 
 and trilithons began to be blackly defined. 
 
 '' Did they sacrifice to God here ? " asked she. 
 
 " No," said he. 
 
 ^^ Who to?" 
 
 ^' I believe to the sun. That lofty stone set away by itself 
 is in the dii-ection of the sun, which ^vill presently rise be- 
 hind it." 
 
 " This reminds me, dear," she said. ^' You remember you 
 never would interfere with any behef o' mine before we 
 were married ? But I knew your mind all the same, and I 
 thought as you thought — not from any reasons o' my own, 
 but because you thought so. Tell me now, Angel, do you 
 think we shall meet again after we are dead ? I want to 
 know." 
 
 He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time. 
 
 " O Angel — I fear that means no ! " said she, "vvith a sup- 
 pressed sob. ''And I wanted so to see you again — so 
 much, so much ! What — not even you and I, Angel, who 
 love each other so well ? " 
 
 Like a greater than himself, to the critical question at 
 the critical time he did not answer ; and they were again 
 silent. In a minute or two her breathing became more 
 regular, her clasp of his hand relaxed, and she fell asleep. 
 The band of silver paleness along the east horizon made 
 even the distant parts of the Great Plain appear dark and 
 near ; and the whole enormous landscape bore that impress 
 of reserve, taciturnity, and hesitation which is usual just 
 before day. The eastward pillars and their architraves 
 stood up blackly against the light, and the great flame- 
 shaped Sun-stone beyond them ; and the stone of sacrifice 
 midway. Presently the night wind died out, and the quiv- 
 ering little pools in the cup-hke hollows of the stones lay 
 
454 TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 still. At the same time something seemed to move on the 
 verge of the dip eastward — a mere dot. It was the head 
 of a man approaching them from the hollow beyond the 
 Sun-stone. Clare wished they had gone onward, but in the 
 circumstances decided to remain quiet. The figure came 
 straight towards the circle of pillars in which they were. 
 
 He heard something behind him, the brush of feet. 
 Turning, he saw over the prostrate column another figure ; 
 then, before he was aware, another was at hand on the 
 right, under a trilithon, and another on the left. The dawn 
 shone full on the front of the man westward, and Clare 
 could discern from this that he was tall, and walked as if 
 trained. They all closed in with evident pui'pose. Her 
 story then was true ! Springing to his feet, he looked 
 around for a weapon, means of escape, anything. By this 
 time the nearest man was upon him. 
 
 '^ It is no use, sir," he said. " There are sixteen of us on 
 the Plain, and the whole country is reared." 
 
 ^^Let her finish her sleep ! " he implored in a whisper of 
 the men as they gathered round. 
 
 AYlien they saw where she lay, which they had not done 
 till then, they showed no objection, and stood watching 
 her, as still as the pillars around. He went to the stone, 
 and bent over her, holding one poor little hand ; her breath- 
 ing now was quick and smaU, like that of a lesser creature 
 than a woman. All waited in the growing light, their faces 
 and hands as if they were silvered, the remainder of their 
 figures dark, the stones glistening a green-gi^ay, the Plain 
 stin a mass of shade. Soon the light was strong, and a 
 ray shone upon her unconscious form, peering under her 
 eyelids and Avaking her. 
 
 '^ AVIiat is it, Angel ? " she said, starting up. ^^ Have they 
 come for me ? " 
 
 ^' Yes, dearest," he said. " They have come." 
 
 ^' It is as it should be," she murmured. ^' Angel, I am 
 almost glad — yes, glad ! This happiness could not have 
 
FULFIOIENT. 455 
 
 lasted. It was too niucli. I have had enough ; and now I 
 shall not live for you to despise me ! " 
 
 She stood np, shook herself, and went forward, neither 
 of the men having moved. 
 
 " I am ready," she said, quietly. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 The city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime 
 capital of Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave down- 
 lands in all the brightness and warmth of a July morning. 
 The gabled brick-and-tile and freestone houses had almost 
 dried off for the season their integiiment of hchen, the 
 streams in the meadows were low, and in the sloping High 
 Street, from the West Gateway to the mediaeval cross, and 
 from the mediaeval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dust- 
 ing and sweeping was in progress which usually ushers in 
 an old-fashioned market-day. 
 
 From the western gate aforesaid the highway, as every 
 Wintoncestrian knows, ascends a long and regular incline 
 of the exact length of a measured mile, leaving the houses 
 graduall}^ behind. Up this road from the precincts of the 
 city two persons were walking rapidly, as if unconscious of 
 the tr^dng ascent — unconscious through preoccupation, and 
 not through buoyancy. They had emerged upon this road 
 through a narrow barred wicket in a high wall a little lower 
 down. They seemed anxious to get out of the sight of the 
 houses and of their kind, and this road appeared to offer 
 the quickest means of doing so. Though they were young, 
 they walked with bowed heads, which gait of grief the sun's 
 rays smiled on pitilessly. 
 
 One of the paii^ was Angel Clare, the other a tall, slim, 
 budding creature — half girl, half woman — a spiritualized 
 
456 TESS OP THE D'URBERVILLES. 
 
 image of Tess, slighter than she, but with the same beauti- 
 ful eyes — Clare's sister-in-law, 'Liza Lu. Their pale faces 
 seemed to have slu-unk to haK their natural size. They moved 
 on hand in hand, and never spoke a w^ord, the drooping of 
 their heads being that of Giotto's " Two Apostles." 
 
 Wlien they had nearly reached the top of the great West 
 Hill the clocks in the town struck eight. Each gave a start 
 at the notes, and, walking onward yet a few steps, they 
 rea(3hed the fii^st mile-stone, standing whitely on the gi-een 
 margin of the grass, and backed by the down, which here 
 was open to the road. Thej^ entered upon the tiu'f, and, 
 impelled by a force which seemed to overrule their will, sud- 
 denly stood still, turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense 
 behind the stone. 
 
 The j)rospect from this summit was almost unlimited. 
 In the valley beneath lay the city they had just left, its 
 more prominent buildings showing as in an isometric 
 drawing — among them the broad cathedral tower, with its 
 Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave, 
 the spires of St. Thomas's, the pinnacled tower of the Col- 
 lege, and, more to the right, the tower and gables of the 
 ancient hospice, where to this day the pilgrim may receive 
 his dole of bread and ale. Behind the city swept the rotund 
 upland of St. Catherine's Hill 5 farther off, landscape be- 
 yond landscape, till the horizon was lost in the radiance of 
 the sun hanging above it. 
 
 Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of 
 the other city edifices, a large red-brick building, with level 
 gray roofs, and rows of short barred windows bespeaking 
 captivity, the whole contrasting greatly by its formalism 
 with the quaint irregularities of the Gothic erections. It 
 was somewhat disguised from the road in passing it by 
 yews and evergreen oaks, but it was visible enough up here. 
 The wicket from which the pair had lately emerged was in 
 the waU of this structure. From the middle of the l)uil(l- 
 ing an ugly flat-toj^ped octagonal tower ascended against 
 
FULFILTHENT. 457 
 
 the east horizon, and viewed from this spot, on its shady 
 side and against the light, it seemed the one blot on the 
 city's beauty. Yet it was with this blot, and not with the 
 beauty, that the two gazers were concerned. 
 
 Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. 
 Their eyes were riveted on it. A few minutes after the 
 hour had struck something moved slowly up the staff, and 
 extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag. 
 
 "Justice" was done, and the President of the Immortals 
 (in ^schylean phrase) had ended his sport mth Tess. And 
 the D'Urver\dlle knights and dames slept on in their tombs 
 unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves 
 down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a 
 long time, absolutely motionless; the flag continued to 
 wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, 
 
 joined hands again, and went on. 
 
 80 
 
 THE END. 
 
^'^TOO^S!? 
 
 
*'• S. SMITH & CO., 
 oks and Pictures, 
 I '54 Broad w a V.