 CHAPTER 43 There was no exaggeration in Marian's definition of flintcom ash farm as a starvaker place. The single fat thing on the soil was Marian herself, and she was an importation. Of the three classes of village, the village cared for by its lord, the village cared for by itself, and the village uncared for either by itself or by its lord. In other words, the village of a resident squire's tenetry, the village of free or copy-holders, and the absentee owner's village farmed with land, this place, flintcom ash, was the third. The test set to work. Patience, that blending of moral courage and 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 were set hacking was a stretch of a hundred odd acres in one patch on the highest ground of the farm, rising above stony lunch-its or lynch-its, the outcrop of silica 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 livestock, and it was the business of the two women to grub up the lower or earthy half of the root with a hooked fork called a hacker, that it might be eaten also. Every leaf of the vegetable having already been consumed, the whole field was in colour 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 colour, the same likeness, a white vacuity of countenance with the lineaments gone. So these two upper and nether visages confronted 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 but the two girls crawling over the surface of the former like flies. They came near them, and their movements showed a mechanical regularity. Their forms standing in shrouded in hessian wrappers, sleeved brown pinafores tied behind to the bottom to keep their gowns from blowing about, scant skirts revealing 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 on the landscape, not thinking of the justice or injustice of their lot. Even in such a position 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, but if they did not work they would not get paid, so they worked on. It was so high a situation, this field, that the rain had on no occasion to fall, but raced along horizontally upon the yelling wind, sticking into them like glass splinters till they were wet through. Tess had not known till now what was really meant by that. There are degrees of dampness, and very little is cold being wet through in common talk, but to stand working slowly in a field and feel the creep of rain water, first on 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 down, demands a distinct modicum of stoicism, even of valour. Yet they did not feel the wetness so much as might be supposed. They were both young, and they were talking of the time when they lived and loved together at Talberthoy's Dairy, that happy green tract of land where summer had been liberal in her gifts, in substance to all, emotionally to these. Tess would feign not have conversed with Marion of the man who was legally, if not actually, her husband, but the irresistible fascination of the subject betrayed her into reciprocating Marion's remarks. And thus, as it has been said, though the damp curtains of their bonnets flapped smartly into their faces, and their wrappers clung about them to wearisomeness, they lived all this afternoon in memories of green, sunny, romantic Talberthoy's. You can see a gleam of a hill within a few miles of Froome Valley from here went his feign, said Marion. Ah, can you? said Tess, awake to the new value of this locality. So the two forces were at work here as everywhere, the inherent will to enjoy, and the circumstantial will against enjoyment. Marion's will had a method of assisting itself by taking from her pocket, as the afternoon wore on, a pint bottle corked with a white rag, from which she invited Tess to drink. Tess's unassisted power of dreaming, however, being enough for her sublimation at present, she declined, except the merest sip, and then Marion took a pull herself from the spirits. I've got used to it, she said, and can't leave it off now, it is 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 Marion's, but upheld by the dignity of being Angel's wife, in the letter at least, she accepted Marion's differentiation. Amid this scene, Tess slaved in the morning frosts, and in the afternoon rains. When it was not sweet-grubbing, it was sweet-trimming, in which process they sliced off the earth and the fibres with a bill-hook, before storing the roots for future use. At this occupation they could shelter themselves by a thatched hurdle if it rained, but if it was frosty, then their thick leather gloves could not prevent the frozen masses they handled from biting their fingers. Still Tess hoped. She had a conviction that sooner or later the magnanimity which she persisted in reckoning as a chief ingredient of Claire's character would lead him to rejoin her. Marion, primed to a humorous mood, would discover the queer-shaped flints aforesaid and shriek with laughter, Tess remaining severely obtuse. They often looked across the country to where the va or frume was known to stretch. Even though they might not be able to see it, and fixing their eyes on the cloaking grey mist, imagined the old times that they had spent out there. Ah, said Marion, how I should like another or two of our oaths set to come here, when we could bring up Talbothay's every day I hear a field, and talk of he, of what nice times we had there, and all the things we used to know, and make it all come back again amost in semen. Marion's eyes softened, and her voice grew vague as the visions returned. I'll write to Ishewit, she said. She's bowed not 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 this proposal, and the next she heard of the plan for importing old Talbothay's joys, was two or three days later, when Marion informed her that Ishewit 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 steadily, and it measured glides, like the moves of a chess-player. One morning the few lonely trees and the thorns of the hedge-rows appeared as if they had put off a vegetable for an animal-integument. Every twig was covered with a white nap as a fir grown from the rind during the night, giving it four or five times its usual stoutness, the whole bush or tree forming a staring sketch in white lines on the morning full grey of the sky and horizon. Cobwebs revealed their presence on sheds and walls where none had been observed till brought out into visibility by the crystallizing atmosphere hanging like loops of white-wisted from salient points of the outhouses, posts, and gates. After this season of congealed dampness came a spell of dry frost, when strange birds from behind the north pole began to arrive silently on the upland of flint-coumache, gaunt spectral creatures with tragical eyes, eyes which had witnessed scenes of cataclysmal horror in inaccessible polar regions of a magnitude such as no human being has ever conceived in curdling temperatures that no man could endure, which 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 terracuous distortions and retained the expression of feature such scenes had engendered. These nameless birds came quite near to Tess and Marion, but of all they had seen which humanity would never see they brought no account. The traveller's ambition to tell was not theirs, and with dumb impassivity they dismissed experiences which they did not value for the immediate incidents of this homely upland, the trivial movements of the two girls in disturbing the clods with their hackers so as to uncover something or other that these visitants relished as food. Then one day a peculiar quality invaded the air of this open country. There came a moisture which was not of rain, and a cold which was not of frost. It chilled the eyeballs of the twain, made their brows ache, penetrated to their skeletons, affecting the 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 any 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 itself into a gymnasium of all the winds. When she lit her lamp to get up in the morning, she found that the snow had been 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 soul-deep upon the floor on which her shoes left tracks 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 anything. Tess knew that it was impossible to go on with the Swedes, and by the time she had finished breakfast beside the solitary little lamp, Marian arrived to tell her that they were to join the rest of the women at re-drawing in the barn till the weather changed. As soon, therefore, as the uniform cloak of darkness without began to turn into a disordered medley of grays, they blew out the lamp, wrapped 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 followed the birds from the polar basin as a white pillar of a cloud and individual flakes could not be seen. The blast smelt of icebergs, Arctic seas, whales, and white bears, carrying the snow so that it licked the land, but did not deepen 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 hoary multitudes 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. Ha! the cunning northern birds knew this was a coming, said Marian. Dependant! They keep just in front on't all the way from the north star. Your husband, my dear is, I make no doubt having scorched in 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 her, and do you? Instead of answering, Tess, with tears in her eyes, impulsively faced in the direction in which she had imagined South America to lie, and putting up her lips, blew out a passionate kiss upon the snowy wind. Well, well, I know you do, but, my buddy, 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 redraw in his fearful hard work. Worse than sweet hacking. I can stand it because I am stout, but you be slimmer than I. I can't think why Maester should have set me at it. They reached the wheat barn and entered it. One end of the low structure was full of corn. The middle was where the reed-drawing was carried on, and there had already been placed in the reed-press the evening before as many sheaves of wheat as would be sufficient for the women to draw from during the day. Why, here's is, said Marion. Is it was, and she came forward. She had walked all 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 today, and she had been afraid to disappoint him by delay. In addition to Tess, Marion, and Is, there were two women from a neighbouring village, two Amazonian sisters, whom Tess, with a start, remembered as Dark Carr, the Queen of Spades, and her junior, the Queen of Diamonds, those who had tried to fight with her in the midnight quarrel at Trantridge. They showed no recognition of her and possibly had none, for they had been under the influence of liquor on that occasion, and were only temporary sojourners there as here. They did all kinds of men's work by preference, including well-sinking, hedging, ditching, and excavating, without any sense of fatigue. Noted redrawers they were too, and looked round upon the other three with some superciliousness. Putting on their gloves all set to work in a row in front of the press, an erection formed of two 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. The day hardened in colour, the night coming in at the barn doors upwards from the snow, instead of downwards from the sky. The girls pulled handful after handful from the press, but by reasons of the presence of the strange women who were recounting scandals, Marian and Ise 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. When he had dismounted he came close to Tess, and remained looking amusingly at the side of her face. She had not turned at first, but his fixed attitude led her to look around, 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 drawn bundles to the piles 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 Amazons and the farmer like a bird caught in a clap net, returned no answer, continuing to pull the straw. She could read the character sufficiently well to know by this time that she had nothing to fear from her employer's gallantry. It was rather the tyranny induced by his mortification at Clare's treatment of him. Upon the whole she preferred that sentiment in man, and was brave enough to endure it. You thought I was in love with you, I suppose. Some women are such fools to take every look as serious earnest, but there's nothing like a winter of feel for taking that nonsense out of the young wench's heads, and you signed on and agreed till Lady Day. Now, are you going to beg my pardon? I think you ought to be mine. Very well as you like it, and we'll see which is master here. Be they all the sheaves you've done today? Yes, sir. It is 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 you. 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. Oh, but it does. I want the barn cleared. I'm going to work all afternoon instead of leaving it to as the others will do. He looked solidly at her, and went away. Tess felt that she could not have come to a much worse place, but anything was better than gallantry. When two o'clock arrived, the professional redrawers tossed off their last half-pint in their flagon, put down their hooks, tied their last sheaves, and went away. Mary and Inears would have done likewise, but on hearing that Tess meant to stay, to make up by longer hours for a lack of skill, they would not leave her. Looking out at the snow which still fell, Marion exclaimed, No, we've got it all to ourselves. And so at last the conversation turned to their old experiences at the dairy, and, of course, the incidents of their affection for Angel Clare. Is and Marion said Mrs. Angel Clare with the dignity which was extremely 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 cannot, because, though he has gone away from me for the present, he is my husband. Is was, by nature, the socious and most caustic of all the four girls who had loved Clare. He was a splendid lover, no doubt, she said, but I don't think he's too fond of husband to go away from you so soon. He had to go. He was obliged to go to see about the land over there, pleaded Tess. He might have tidied he over the winter. Ah, that's all into 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 telling me, and I can always find out where he is. After this they continued for some long time in a reverie, as they went on seizing the ears of corn, drawing out the straw, gathering it under their arms, and cutting off the ears with their bill-hooks, nothing sounding in the barn but the swish of the 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 you would be able to stand it, cried Marion. It once had a flesh than yours for this work. Just then the farmer entered. Oh, that's how you get on while I'm 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 you mind him, there's a deer, said Marion. I've worked here before. Now you go and lie down there, and this 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 a while and reclined on a heap of pull-tails. The refuse after the straight straw had been drawn, thrown up at the further side of the barn. Her succumbing had been as largely owing to agitation at reopening the subject of her separation from her husband as to the hard work. She lay in a state of percipience without volition, and the rustle of the straw and the cutting of the ears by the others 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 Iz Hewitt broke down. She had walked more than a dozen miles the previous evening, had gone to bed at midnight, and had risen again at five o'clock. Marion alone, thanks to her bottle of liquor and her stoutness of build, stood the strain upon back and arms without suffering. Tess urged Iz to leave off, agreeing as she felt better to finish the day without her, and make equal division of the number of sheaves. Iz accepted the offer gratefully, and disappeared through the great door into the snowy tract to her lodging. Marion, as was the case every afternoon at this time on account of the bottle, began to feel in a romantic vein. I should not have thought it of him, never, she said in a dreamy tone, and I loved him so. I didn't mind his having you, but this about Iz 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. Iz said, don't eat teller, but I'm sure I can't help her. It was what he wanted Iz 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 Iz refuse to go? she asked. I don't know. Anyhow, we changed his mind. Poo! Then he didn't mean it. It was just a man's jest. Yes, he did, for he drove her a good ways toward the station. He didn't take her. They pulled on in silence till Tess, without any premonitory symptoms, burst out crying. There, said Marion, now I wish I hadn't told him. No, it is a very good thing that you have done. I have been living on in a third-over, lackaday way, and have not seen what it might lead to. I ought to have sent him a letter oftener. He said I could not go to him, but he didn't say I was not to write as often as I liked. I won't dally 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 little whitewashed chamber, she began impetuously writing a letter to Claire. But falling into doubt, she could not finish it. Afterward she took the ring from the ribbon on which she wore it next to her heart, and retained it on her finger all night, as if to fortify herself with the sensation that she was really the wife of this elusive lover of hers, who could propose that Ears could go with him abroad so shortly after he had left her. Having that, how could she write in treatise to him, or show that she cared for him any more? End of Chapter 43 Chapter 44 of Tess of the Durbovilles This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tess of the Durbovilles by Thomas Hardy, read by Adrian Pretzellus. Chapter 44 By the disclosure in the barn her thoughts were layered anew in the direction which they had taken, more than once of late, to the distant Emminster Vicarage. It was through her husband's parents that she had been charged to send a letter to Claire if she desired, 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 impulse to send these notes, and to the family at the Vicarage therefore, as to her own parents, since her marriage, she was virtually nonexistent. This self-affacement in both directions had been in consonance with her independent character of desiring nothing by way of favour or pity, to which she was not entitled on a fair consideration of her desserts. She had set herself to stand or fall by her qualities, and to waive such merely technical claims upon a strange family, as had been established for her by the flimsy fact of a member of that family in a season of impulse, writing his name in a church-book beside hers. Now that she was stung to a fever by Iz's tale, there was a limit to her powers of renunciation. Why had her husband not written to her? He had distinctly implied that he would at least let her know of the locality to which she had journeyed, but he had not sent a line to notify his address. Was he really indifferent? But was he ill? Was it for her to make some advance? Surely she might summon the courage of solicitude, call at the Vicarage for intelligence, 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-styled situation. Her social hardships she could conceal. To leave the farm on a weekday was not in her power. Sunday was the only possible opportunity. Flintcom Ash being in the middle of the cretaceous table-land over which no railway had climbed as yet, it would be necessary to walk. And the distance being fifteen miles each way she would have to allow herself a long day for the undertaking by rising early. A fortnight later, when the snow had gone, and it had been followed by a hard black frost, she took advantage of the state of the roads to try the experiment. At four o'clock that Sunday morning she came downstairs and stepped out into the starlight. The weather was still favourable, the ground ringing under her feet like an anvil. Marion and Is were much interested in her excursion, knowing that the journey concerned her husband. Their lodgings were in a cottage a little further along the lane, but they came and assisted Tess in her departure, and argued that she should dress up in her very prettiest guise to captivate the hearts of her parents-in-law, though she, knowing of the austere and Calvinistic tenets of old Mr. Clare, was indifferent and even doubtful. A year had now elapsed since her sad marriage, but she had preserved sufficient draperies from the wreck of her then full wardrobe to clothe her very charmingly as a simple country girl with no pretensions to recent fashion. A soft grey woollen gown with white crepe 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 now. You do look a real beauty,' said Is Hewitt, regarding Tess as she stood on the threshold between the steely starlight without and the yellow candlelight within. Is spoke with a magnanimous abandonment of herself to the situation. She could not be no woman with a heart bigger than a hazelnut could be antagonistic to Tess in her presence, the influence which she exercised over those of her own sex being of a warmth and strength quite unusual, curiously overpowering the less worthy feminine feelings of spite and rivalry. With a final tug and touch here, and a slight brush there, they let her go, and she was absorbed into the pearly air of the four dawn. They heard her footsteps tap along the hard road as she stepped out to her full pace. Even is hoped she would win, and though without any particular respect for her own virtue, felt glad that she had been prevented from 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 than he had been absent from her. Still, to start on a brisk walk, and on such an errand as hers, on a dry, clear wintery morning, through the rarefied air of those chalky hog-backs, was not depressing. And there was no doubt that her dream at starting was to win the heart of her mother-in-law, tell her whole story to that lady, enlist her on her side, and so gain back the truant. In time she reached the edge of the vast escarpment below which stretched the loamy veil of Blackmore, now lying misty and still in the dawn. Instead of the colourless air of the uplands, the atmosphere down there was a deep blue. Instead of the great enclosures of a hundred 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 Froome Valley, it was always green. Yet it was in that veil that her sorrow had taken place, and she did not love it as formally. Beauty to her, as to all who have felt, lay not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolised. Keeping the veil on her right, she steered steadily westward, passing above the Hintocks, crossing at right angles the high road from Sherton Abbas to Casterbridge, and skirting Dogbury Hill and High Stoy with a dell between 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 sight of a miracle or murder, or both. Three miles further she cut across the straight and deserted Roman road called Longash Lane, leaving which, as soon as she reached it, she dipped down a hill by a transverse lane into the small town or village of Evershed, being now about half way over the distance. She made a halt there and breakfasted at second time, heartily enough, not at the sourn acorn, for she avoided inns, but at a cottage by the church. The second half of her journey was through a more gentle country by way of Benville 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 formidable. She saw her purpose in such staring lines and the landscape so faintly that she was sometimes in danger of losing her way. However, about noon she paused by a gate on the edge of the basin in which Emminster and its vicarage lay. The square tower, beneath which she knew that at that moment the vicar and his congregation were gathered, had a severe look in her eyes. She wished that she had somehow contrived to come on a weekday. Such a good man might be prejudiced against a woman who had chosen Sunday, never realizing the necessities of her case, but it was encumbered 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 patent leather, and stuffing the former into the hedge by the gatepost where she might readily find them again, descended the hill. The freshness of colour she had derived from the keen air thinning away in spite of her as she drew near the parsonage. Tess hoped for some accident that might favour her, but nothing favoured her. The shrubs on the vicarage lawn rustled uncomfortably 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 relations, and yet nothing essential in nature or emotion divided her from them. In pains, pleasures, thoughts, birth, death, and after death they were the same. She nerved herself by an effort, entered the swing gate, and rang the doorbell. The thing was done. There could be no retreat. No, the thing was not done. Nobody answered 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 fifteen miles walk led her to support herself while she waited by resting her hand on her hip and her elbow against the wall of the porch. The wind was so nipping that the ivy leaves had become wizened and grey, each tapping incessantly upon its neighbour with a disquieting stir of her nerves. A piece of blood-stained paper caught up from some meat-buyer's dust heap beat up and down the road without the gate. Two flimsy to rest, two heavy to fly away, and a few straws kept it company. The second peel had been louder, and still nobody came. Then she walked out of the porch, opened the gate, and passed through. And though she looked 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 recognised, though how she could not tell, and orders been given not to admit her. Tess went as far as the corner. 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 windows. 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 included, 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 herself conspicuous by waiting on the spot, and she started to get past the church into the lane. But as she reached the churchyard gate, the people began pouring out, and Tess found herself in the midst of them. The Amidster congregation looked at her as only a congregation of small country townsfolk walking home at its leisure can look at a woman out of the common 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 vicar's family should have lunched, and it might be convenient for them to receive her. She stood distance from the church goers, except two youngish men who, linked arm in arm, were beating up behind her at a quick step. As they drew near, she could hear their voices engaged in earnest discourse, and with the natural quickness of a woman in her situation did not fail to recognize in these noises the quality of her husband's tones. The pedestrians were his two brothers. Forgetting her plans, Tess's one dread was less they should overtake her now in her disorganized condition before she was prepared to confront them. For though she felt that they could not identify her, she instinctively dreaded 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 with sitting through a long service. Only one person had proceeded Tess up the hill, a lady-like young woman, somewhat interesting, though perhaps a trifle-guin day 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 particularly interested her till, observing the young lady still further in front, one of them remarked, There is mercy chant, let us overtake her. Tess knew the name. It was the woman who had been destined for Angel's life companion by his and her parents, and whom he probably would have married but for her intrusive self. She would have known as much without previous information, had she waited a moment, for one of the brothers proceeded to say, Ah, poor Angel, poor Angel, I never see that nice girl without more and more regretting his precipitancy and throwing himself upon a dairy-maid or whatever she may be. It's a queer business, apparently. Whether she has joined him yet or not, I don't know, but she had not done so some months ago when 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 extraordinary opinions. Tess beat up the long hill still faster, but she could not outwalk them without exciting notice. At last they outspread her altogether and passed her by. The young lady still further 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, slackened pace, and turned all three aside to the gate where at Tess had paused an hour before that time to reconnoitre the town before descending into it. During their discourse one of the clerical brothers probed the hedge carefully with his umbrella and dragged something to light. Here is an old pair of boots, he said, thrown away, I suppose, by some tramp or other. Some imposter who wished to come into the town barefoot, 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. Cuthbert Clare, who had been the one to find them, picked them up for her with a 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 church party had left the gate with her boots, and retreated down the hill. Thereupon our heroine resumed her walk. Tears, blinding tears, were running down her face. She knew that it was all sentiment, all baseless impressibility which had caused her to read the scene as to her own condemnation. Nevertheless, she could not get over it. She could not contravene in her own defenseless person all those 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, super fine clerics. Innocently as the sleight had been inflicted, it was somewhat unfortunate that she had encountered the sons and not the father, who, despite his narrowness, was far less starched and ironed than they, and had to the full the gift of charity. As she again thought of her dusty boots, she almost pitted those habilments for the quizzing to which they had been subjected, and felt how hopeless life was for their owner. Ah, she said, still sighing in pity for herself. They don'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 colour of 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 grieved for the beloved man whose conventional standard of judgment had caused her all these latter sorrows, and she went away without knowing that the greatest misfortune of her life was this feminine loss of courage at the last and critical moment through her estimating her father-in-law by his sons. Her present condition was precisely one which would have enlisted the sympathies of old Mr and Mrs Clare. Their hearts went out of them at a bound towards extreme cases when the subtle mental troubles of the less desperate among mankind 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 full of a conviction that a crisis in her life was approaching. No crisis apparently had supervened, and there was nothing left of her to do but to continue upon that star-vaker farm till she could again summon courage to face the vicarage. She did indeed take sufficient interest in herself to throw up her veil on this return journey, as if to let the world see that she could at least exhibit 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 nothing, she said. Nobody loves it, nobody sees it. Who cares about the looks of a castaway like me? Her journey back was rather a meander than a march. It had no sprightliness, no purpose, only a tendency. Along the tedious length of Benville Lane she began to grow tired, and she leant upon gates and paused by milestones. She did not enter any house till at the seventh or eighth mile she descended the steep long hill below which lay the vicarage or townlet of Evershed, where in the morning she had breakfasted with such contrasting expectations. The cottage by the church in which she again sat down was almost the first at that end of the village, and while the woman fetched her some milk from the pantry, Tess, looking down the street, perceived that the place seemed quite deserted. The people had gone to the afternoon service, I suppose, she said. No, my dear, said the old woman, it is too soon for that. The bills haint shook out yet. They'd be all gone to hear the preaching in Yonder Barn. A ranta preaches there between the services, an excellent fiery Christian man, they say, but Lord, I don't go to hearing. What comes in the regular way over the pulpit is not enough for I. Tess soon went onward into the village, her footsteps echoing against the houses as though it was a place of the dead. Nearing the central part, her echoes were intruded on by other sounds. And seeing the barn not far off the road, 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 of the extremist antinomian type, on justification by faith, as expounded in the theology of St. Paul. This fixed idea of the Rhapsodist was delivered with animated enthusiasm 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 heard what the text had been from its constant iteration. O fool Galatians, who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truths before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you. Tess was all the more interested, as she stood listening behind, in finding that the preacher's doctrine was of a vehement form of the view of Angel's father, and her interest intensified when the speaker began to detail his own spiritual experiences of how he had come by those views. He had, he said, been the greatest of sinners. He had scoffed, he had wantonly 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 certain clergyman, whom he had at first grossly insulted, but whose 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, which, impossible as it seemed, was precisely that of Alec Durbeville. Her face fixed in painful suspense, she came round to the front of the barn and passed before it. The low winter sun beamed 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 entirely villagers, among them being the man whom she had seen carrying the red paint pot on a formal memorable occasion. But her attention was given to the central figure, who stood upon some sacks of corn, facing the people and the door. The three 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 distinctly, was at last established as a fact, indeed. End of chapter forty-four and end of phase the fifth. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tests of the Durbevilles by Thomas Hardy, read by Adrian Pretzelis. Phase the sixth. The Convert. Chapter forty-five. Till this moment she had never seen or heard from Durbevilles since her departure from Trantridge. The re-encounter came at a heavy moment. One of all moments calculated to permit its impact with the least emotional shock. But such was unreasoned memory that, though he stood there openly and palpably a converted man who was sorrowing for his past irregularities, a 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 unpleasantness of mean, but now he wore neatly trimmed old-fashioned whiskers, the sable moustache 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 Tests's sense there was, just at first, a ghastly bizarrery, 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 irony of the contrast. It was less of a reform than a transfiguration. The former curves of sensuousness were now modulated to lines of devotional passion. The lip shapes that had meant seductiveness were now made to express supplication. The glow on the cheek that yesterday could be translated as riotousness was evangelised today into the splendour of pious rhetoric. Animalism had become fanaticism. Paganism, Paulinism. The bold, rolling eye that had flashed upon her form in the old time with such mastery, now beamed with the rude energy of theology that was almost ferocious. Those black angularities which his face had used to put on when his wishes were thwarted now did duty in picturing the incorrigible backslider who would insist upon turning again to his wallowing in the mire. The lineaments as such seemed to complain. They had been diverted from their hereditary connotation to signify impressions for which nature did not intend them. Strange that their elevation was a misapplication that to raise seemed to falsify. Yet could it be so? She would admit the ungenerous sentiment no longer. Durberville was not the first wicked man who had turned away from his wickedness to save his soul alive, and why should she deem it unnatural in him? It was but the usage of thought which had been jarred in her, adhering 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 without strict definiteness. As soon as the nervous 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 than the effect of his presence upon her. His fire, the tumultuous ring of his eloquence, seemed to go out of him. His lips 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 confusedly in every other direction but hers, but came back in a desperate leap every few seconds. This paralysis lasted, however, but a short time, for Tess's energies returned with the atrophy of his, and she walked as fast as she was able 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 undoing, was now on the side of the spirit, while she remained unregenerate, and, as in the legend, it had resulted that her Cyprian image had suddenly appeared upon his altar whereby the fire 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 trouble. That hunger for affection too long withheld was, for the time, displaced by an almost physical sense of an implacable past which still ingirdled her. It intensified her consciousness of error to a practical despair. The break of continuity between her earlier and present existence which she had hoped for had not, after all, taken place. Bygones would never be complete bygones till she was a bygone herself. Thus absorbed she recrossed the northern part of Longash 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 brown horse droppings which dotted its cold aridity here and there. While slowly breasting this assent, Tess became conscious of footsteps behind her, and turning she saw approaching that well-known form, so strangely accoutred as the Methodist, 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 illusion, and she yielded as calmly 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 around. Tess, he repeated, it is I, Alec Durbeville. 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, there is something of the ridiculous to your eyes in seeing me like this, but I must put out with that. I heard you had gone away. Nobody knew where. Tess, you wonder why I have followed you? I do rather, and I would that you had not with all my heart. Yes, you may well say it, he returned grimly, as they moved onward together, she with unwilling tread. But don't mistake me. I beg 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 faltering, and considering what you have been to me, it was natural enough, but will helped me through it, though perhaps you think me a humbug for saying it, and immediately afterwards I felt that of all the 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 person. I've come with that sole purpose in view, nothing more. There was the smallest vein of scorn in her words of rejoinder. Have you saved yourself? Charity begins at home, they say. I have done nothing, he said indifferently. Heaven, as I have been telling my hearers, has done all. No amount of contempt that you can pour upon me, Tess, will equal what I have poured upon myself, the old Adam of my former years. Well, it is a strange story, believe it or not, but I can tell you the means by which my conversion was brought about, and I hope you will be interested enough at least to listen. Have you ever heard the name of the parson of M. Insta? You must have done so. Oh, Mr. Clare, one of the most earnest of his school, one of the few intense men left in the church. Not so intense as the extreme wing of Christian believers, with which I have thrown in my lot, 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 a shadow of what they were. I only differ from him on the question of church and state, the interpretation of the text, come out from among them, and be separate, saith the Lord. That's all. He is one who, I firmly believe, has been the humble means of saving more souls in this country than any other man you can name. You have heard of him? I have, she said. He came to Trantridge two or three years ago to preach on behalf of some missionary society, and I, wretched fellow that I was, insulted him when, in his disinterestedness, he tried to reason with me and show me the way. He did not resent my conduct, he simply said that some day I should receive the first fruits of the spirit, and that those who came to scoff sometimes remained to pray. But there was a strange magic in his words. They sank into my mind. But the loss of my mother hit me most, and by degrees I was brought to see the daylight. Since then my one desire has been to hand on the true view to others, and that is what I was trying to do today, though it is only lately that I preached here about. The first months of my ministry have been spent in the north of England, among strangers, where I preferred to make my earliest clumsy 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 pleasure of having a good slap at yourself, I'm sure. Don't go on with it, she cried passionately, as she turned away from him to a style by the wayside on which she bent herself. I can't believe in such sudden things. I feel indignant with you for talking to me like this when you know what harm you've done me. You and those like you take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow. And then it's a fine thing when you've had enough of that to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming converted. Out upon such I don't believe in you, I hate it. Tess, he insisted, don't speak so. It came to me like a jolly new idea, and you don't believe me. What don't you believe? Your conversion, your scheme of religion. Why? She dropped 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 you. Well, he declared a resentment beneath his words seeming ready to spring out at a moment's notice. God forbid that I should say that I am a good man, and you know I don't say any such thing. I am new to goodness, truly, but newcomers see furthest sometimes. Yes, she replied sadly, but I cannot believe in your conversion to a new spirit. Such flashes as you feel, Alec, I fear don't last. Thus speaking she turned from the style over which she had been leaning and faced him, whereupon his eyes, falling casually upon the familiar countenance and form, remained contemplating her. The inferior man was 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 mean, instantly withdrew the large dark gaze of her eyes, stammering with a flush, I beg your pardon, and there was revived in her wretched sentiment come to her before, that in inhabiting the fleshly tabernacle with which nature had endowed her, she was somehow doing wrong. No, no, don't beg my pardon, but since you wear a veil to hide your good looks, why don't you keep it down? She pulled down the veil, saying hastily, it was mostly to keep off the wind. It may seem harsh of me to dictate like this, he went on, but it is better that I should not look too often on you. It might be dangerous. Shhh, 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 they, and it reminds me of the old times that I would forget. After this their conversation dwindled to a casual remark now and then as they rambled onward, Tess inwardly wondering how far he was going with her, and not liking to send him back by positive mandate. Frequently when they came to a gate or style, she found painted there upon in red or blue letters some text of scripture, and she asked him if he knew who had been at pains to emblazon these announcements. He told her that the man was employed by himself and others who were working with him in that district to paint these reminders that no means might be left untried which might move the hearts of a wicked generation. At length the road touched the spot called Cross in Hand. Of all spots on the 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 view-lovers as to reach a new kind of beauty, a negative beauty of tragic tone. 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 roughly 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 thereupon of which the present relic was but the stump. Others that the stone as it stood was entire and that had been fixed there to mark a boundary or place of meeting. 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 drew near to the spot. I have to preach at Abbott's churnal at six this evening, and my way lies across to the right from here. And you upset me somewhat too, Tessie. I cannot, will not say why, I must go away and get strength. How is it that you speak so fluently now? Who has taught you such good English? I have learnt things in my troubles," she said evasively. What troubles have you had? She told him of the first one, the only one that related to him. Derbaville was struck mute. I knew nothing of this till now, he next murmured. Why 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. No, she answered, Do not again come near me. I will think, but before we part, come here," he stepped up to the pillar. This was once a holy cross. Relics are not in my creed, but I fear you at moments, far more than you need fear me at present, and to lessen my fear put your hand upon that stone hand, and swear that you will never tempt me by your charms always. Good God, how can you ask what is so unnecessary, all that is furthest from my thought? Yes, but swear it. 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, that some unbeliever 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 am off. Good-bye. He turned to a hunting-gate in the hedge, and, without letting his eyes rest upon her, leapt over and struck out across the down in the direction of Abbott's churnal. As he walked, his pace showed perturbation. And, by and by, as if instigated by a former thought, he drew from his pocket a small book, between the leaves of which was folded a letter, worn and soiled, as from much rereading. Durberville opened the letter. It was dated several months before this time, and was signed by Parson Clare. The letter began by expressing the writer's unfeigned joy at Durberville'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 Durberville's former conduct, and his interest in the young man's plans for the future. He, Mr. Clare, would very much have liked to see Durberville in the church, to whose ministry 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 possibly not cared to do this, on account of the delay it would have entailed, he was not the man to insist upon its paramount importance. Every man must work as he could best work, and in the method towards which he felt impelled by the spirit. Durberville read and reread this letter, and seemed to quiz himself cynically. He had also read some passages from Miranda as he walked, till his face assumed a calm, and apparently the image of Tess no longer troubled his mind. She, meanwhile, had kept along the edge of the hill by which lay her nearest way home. Within the 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 holy cross? Cross? No, to her not a cross. Tis a thing of ill omen, miss. It were put up in world times by the relations of a malefactor who was tortured there by nailing his hand to a post, and afterwards hung. The bones lie underneath. They say sold is sold to the devil, and that he walks at times. She felt the petite mort at this unexpectedly gruesome information, and left the solitary man behind her. It was dusk when she drew near to Flintcomash, 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 to the chilly air as one soothing thing within the dusky horizon, full of a stagnant obscurity 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 own tribulation. When she came close the girl turned serenely and recognized her, the young man walking off in embarrassment. The woman was Iz Hewitt, whose interest in Tess's excursion immediately superseded her own proceedings. Tess did not explain very clearly its results, and Iz, who was a girl of tact, began to speak of her own little affair, a phase of which Tess had just witnessed. He is ambiceed, Lynne, a chapper used to sometimes come and help at Talbertheys. She explained indifferently. He actually inquired and found out I had come here, and has followed me. He says he's been in low in me these two years, but I have hardly answered him. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Tess of the Derbervilles by Thomas Hardy, read by Adrian Pretzellus Chapter 46 Several 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 the sheltered side was a turnip-slicing machine whose bright blue hue of new paint seemed almost vocal in the otherwise subdued scene. Opposite 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 fibers 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 accompanied 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 browness, apparent where the Swedes had been pulled, was beginning to be striped in whales of darker brown, gradually broadening to ribbons. 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. It was two horses and a man, the plough going between them, turning up the cleared ground for a spring sowing. For hours nothing relieved 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 nine-pin, and was soon perceived to be a man in black, arriving from the direction of Flint Camache. The man at the slicer, having nothing else to do with his eyes, continually observed the comer, but Tess, who was occupied, did not perceive him till her companion directed her attention to his approach. It was not her hard task-master, Farmer Grobe, it was one in a semi-clerical costume, who now represented what had once been the free and easy Alec Derbaville. Not being hot at his preaching, there was less enthusiasm about him now, and the presence of the grinder seemed to embarrass him. A pale distress was already on Tess's face, and she pulled her curtained hood further over it. Derbaville came up and said quietly, I want to speak to Tess. You have refused my last request not to come near me, said she. 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 movement of the machine too sufficiently prevented Alec's words reaching other ears. Derbaville placed himself so as to screen Tess from the labourer, turning his back to the latter. It is this, he continued, with capricious compunction, in thinking of your soul and mine when we last met, I neglected to inquire as to your worldly condition. You were well dressed, and I did not think 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 he watched her inquiringly, as with bent head, her face completely screened by the hood, she resumed 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 of discontent. Yours was the very worst case I was ever concerned in. I had no idea what had resulted till you told me. Scamp that I was to fow that innocent life. The whole blame was mine, the whole unconventional business of our time at Trantridge. You too, the real blood of which I am but a base imitation, what a blind young thing you were as to possibilities. I say in all earnestness that it is a 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, throwing down one globular root, and taking up another with automatic regularity, the pensive contour of the mere field woman alone marking her. But it is not that that I came to say, Durbeville went on. My circumstances 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. A devil of a poor hand I shall make at the trade no doubt. However, 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 trick I played you? That is, will you be my wife and go with me? I have already obtained this precious document. It was my old mother's dying wish. He drew a piece of parchment from his pocket with a slight fumbling of embarrassment. What is it? said she. A marriage license. Oh no, sir, no! she said quickly, starting back. You will not? Why is that? As he asked the question a disappointment which was not entirely the disappointment of thwarted duty crossed Durbeville's face. It was unmistakably a symptom that something of his old passion for her had been revived. Duty and desire ran hand in hand. Surely he began again in more impetuous tones, and then looked round at the labourer who turned the slicer. Tess, too, felt that the argument could not be ended there, informing the man that a gentleman had come to see her, with whom she wished to walk a little way. She moved off with Durbeville, across the zebra-striped field. When they reached the first newly plowed section, he held out his hand to help her over it, and she stepped forward on the summits of the earth-rolls, as if she did not see him. You will not marry me, Tess, and make me a self-respecting man? he repeated, as soon as they were over the furrows. I cannot. But why? You know I have no affection for you. But you would get to feel that in time, perhaps, as soon as you really could forgive me? Never. Why so positive? I love somebody else. The words seemed to astonish him. You do, he cried, 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, your love for this other man may only be a passing feeling which you will overcome. No, no. Yes, yes, why not? I cannot tell you. You must, in honour. Well then, I have married him. Ah, he exclaimed, and he stopped dead and gazed at her. I did not wish to tell. I did not mean to, she pleaded. 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? He asked mechanically, denoting by a sign the labourer who turned the machine. That man, she said proudly, I should think not. Who then? Do not ask what I do not wish to tell? She begged, and flashed her appeal to him from her upturned face and last shadow's eyes. Durberville was disturbed. But I only asked for your sake, he retorted, hotly. Angels of heaven, God forgive me for such an expression, 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 had wakened up my love for you, which I believed was extinguished with all 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 unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, I said to myself. But my plan is dashed from me, and I must bear the disappointment. He moodily 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 for you and your husband, whoever he may be. There are many questions that I am tempted to ask, but I will not do so, of course, in opposition to your wishes. Though, 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 away from you? What sort of a husband can he be? Oh, do not speak against him. It was through you, he found out. Ah, it is so. That's sad, 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 with all her fervour. He don't know it. It is by my own arrangement. Then does he write? I cannot tell you. There are things which are private to ourselves. Of course, that means that he does not. You are a deserted wife, my fair Tess. In an impulse, he turned suddenly to take a hand. The buff 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 leaving it in his grasp. Oh, will you go away, for the sake of me and my husband, go in the name of your own Christianity? Yes, yes, I will, he said abruptly, and thrusting the glove back to her, he turned to leave. Facing round, however, he said, Tess, as God is my judge, I meant no humbug in taking 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 you doing away from your work at this time of day? Farmer Grobe had aspired the two figures from the distance, and had inquisitively ridden across to learn what was their business in his field. Don't speak like that to her, said Durbeville, his face blackening with something that was not Christianity. Indeed, mister, and what mid-methodist Parsons have to do with she! Who is the fellow? asked Durbeville, turning to Tess. She went close up to him. Go, I do beg you, she said. What, and leave you to that tyrant? I can see in his face what a chirle he is. He won't hurt me, he's not in love with me. I can leave at lady-day. Well, I have no right to obey, I suppose, but, well, good-bye. Her defender, whom she dreaded more than her assailant, having reluctantly disappeared, the farmer continued his reprimand, which Tess took with the greatest 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 experiences. She silently walked back towards the summit of the field that was the scene of her labor, so absorbed in the interview which had just taken place, that she was hardly aware that the nose of Grobe's horse almost touched her shoulders. If so be you make an arrangement to work for me till lady-day, I'll see you carry it out! he growled. Oh, I'd rot the women, now Tess one thing, and then Tess the other. But I'll put up with it no longer. Knowing very well that he had not harassed the other women of the farm, as he harassed her out of spite for the flooring he had once received, she did for one moment picture what might have been the result if she had been free to accept the offer just made of her, of being the moneyed Alex's wife. It would have lifted her completely out of subjection, not only to her present oppressive employer, but to a whole world who seemed to despise her. But no, no, she said breathlessly, I could not have married him now, he is so unpleasant to me. That very night she began an appealing letter to Claire, concealing from him her hardships, and assuring him of her undying affection. Anyone 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 desperation, as to some secret contingencies which were not disclosed. But again she did not finish her effusion. He had asked is 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 through heavily enough, and brought on the day which was of great import to agriculturalists, the day of the candle mass fair. It was at this fair 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 places duly attended at the county town where the fair was held. Nearly all the labourers at Flint-Kamash Farm intended flight, and early in the morning there was a general exodus in the direction of the town, which lay at a distance of from ten to a dozen miles over hilly country. Though Tess also meant to leave at the quarter day, she was one of the few who did not go to the fair, having a vaguely shaped hope that something would happen to render another outdoor engagement unnecessary. It was a peaceful February day, of wonderful softness for the time, and one would almost have thought that winter was over. She had hardly finished her dinner when Durberville's figure darkened the window of the cottage wherein she was a lodger, which she had all to herself today. Tess jumped up, but her visitor had knocked at the door, and she could hardly in reason run away. Durberville's knock, his walk up to the door, had some indescribable quality of difference from his air when she last saw him. They seemed to be acts of which the duo was ashamed. 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 quickly. He came in, saw her, and flung himself down to 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 at least to ask how you are. I assure you that I have 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 would only pray for me, Tess. The suppressed discontent 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 believe that the great power who moves the world will alter his plans on my account. You really think that? Yes, I have been cured of the presumption of thinking 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, perhaps owing to me. But I have, though I don't believe in anything supernatural. Derbavu looked at her with misgiving. Then do you think that the line I take is all wrong? A good deal of it. Hmm, and yet I felt so sure about it, he said uneasily. I believe in the spirit of the sermon on the mount, and so did my dear husband. But I don't believe. Here she gave her negations. The fact is, said Derbavu dryly, whatever your dear husband believed you accept, and whatever he rejected you'll reject, without the least inquiry or reasoning on your own part. It's just like 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 negative opinions wholesale from another person like that. A pretty fellow he must be to teach you such scepticism. He never forced my judgment. He would never argue on the subject with me. But I looked at it in this way. What he believed, after inquiring deep into doctrines, was much more likely to be right than what I might believe, who hadn't looked into doctrines at all. What used he to say? He must have said something. She reflected, and with her accurate memory for the letter of Angel Clare's remarks, even when she did not comprehend their spirit, she recalled a merciless polemical syllogism that she had heard him use when, as it occasionally happened, he indulged in a species of thinking allowed with her at his side. In delivering it, she also gave Clare's accent and manner with reverential faithfulness. Say that again, asked Durberville, who had listened with the greatest attention. She repeated the argument, and Durberville thoughtfully murmured the words after her. Anything else? he presently asked. He said at another time something like this, and she gave another, which might possibly have been paralleled in many a work of the pedigree, ranging from the Dictionnaire philosophique to Huxley's essays. Aha, how do you remember them? I wanted to believe what he believed, though he didn't wish me to, and I managed to coax him to tell me a few of his thoughts. I can't say I quite understood that one, but I know it is right. Hmm, fancy you're being able to teach me what you don't know yourself? He fell into thought. And so I threw in my spirit a lot with his, she resumed. I didn't wish 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 today than I am, Tess, after all. You don't believe that you ought to preach my doctrine, and therefore do not despise to your conscience in abstaining. I do believe I ought to preach it, but, like the devils, I believe and tremble, for I suddenly leave off preaching it, and give way to my passion for you. How? Why, he said aridly, I have come all the way here to see you today. But I started from home to go to the Caster Bridge Fair, where I have undertaken to preach the word from a wagon at half-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 whereupon was printed the day, hour, and place of meeting, at which he, Durberville, would preach the gospel as aforesaid. But how can you get there? said Tess, looking at the clock. I cannot get there. I have come here. What? You've really arranged to preach and— I have arranged to preach, and I shall not be there, by reason of my burning desire to see a woman whom I once despised. No, by my word and truth I never despised you. If I had, I should not love you now. Why, I did not despise you was on account of your being unsmerched in spite of all. You withdrew yourself from me so quickly and resolutely when you saw the situation. You did not remain at my pleasure. So there was one petticoat 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 mountains. But I find I still serve in the groves. Ha, ha! Oh, Alec Durberville, what does this mean? What have I done? Done, he said with a soulless sneer in the word. Nothing intentionally, but you have been the means, the innocent means of my backsliding, as they call it. I ask myself, am I indeed one of those servants of corruption who, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, are again entangled there in an overcome, whose latter end is worse than their beginning? He laid his hand on her shoulder. Tess, my girl, I was on the way to at least social salvation till I saw you again, he said freakishly shaking her as if she were a child. And why then have you tempted me? I was firm as a man could be till I saw those eyes and that mouth again. Surely there never was such a maddening mouth since eaves. His voice sank, and a hot archness shot from his own black eyes. You temptress Tess, you dear damned witch of Babylon, I could not resist you as soon as I met you again. I could not help your seer me again, said Tess, recoiling. I know it, I repeat that I do not blame you, but the fact remains. When 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 could not have it, whilst he who has it seems to neglect you utterly. Don't speak against him, he is absent, she cried in much excitement. Treat him honourably, he is never wronged you. Oh, leave his wife before any scandal spreads that may do harm to his honest name. I will, I will, he said, like a man awakening from a luring dream. I have broken my engagement to preach to those poor drunken boobies at the fair. It is the first time I have played such a practical joke. A month ago I should have been horrified at such a possibility. I'll go away to swear and, ah, can I, to keep away. Then suddenly one clasp Tessie, one only for old friendship. I am without defence, Alec. A good man's honour is in my keeping. Think, be ashamed. Pooh. Well, yes, yes. He clenched his lips mortified with himself for his weakness. His eyes were equally barren of worldly and religious faith. The corpses of those old, fitful passions which had lain inanimate amid the lines of his face ever since his reformation seemed to wake and come together as in a resurrection. He went out indeterminately. Though Durbeville had declared that this breach of his engagement today was the simple backsliding of a believer, Tessie'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 benumbed by the hitherto undreamt of possibility that his position was untenable. Reason had had nothing to do with his whimsical conversion which was perhaps the mere freak of a careless man in search of a new sensation and temporarily impressed by his mother's death. The drops of logic Tess had let fall into the sea of his enthusiasm serve to chill its effervescence, to stagnation. He said to himself, as he pondered again and again over the crystallised phrases that she had handed on to him, that clever fellow little thought that, by telling her those things, he might be paving my way back to her.