35
Her n arrative ended; even its re-ass ertions and secondaryexplanations were don e.Tess's voice throughout had hardly 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 anno uncement progressed.The fire in the grate lo oked impish—demoniacally funny, as if it did not care in the least about her strait.The fender grinned idly, as if it to o did not care.The light fro m th e water-bottle w as merely engaged in a chromatic problem.All material objects around announced their irresponsibility with terrible iteration.And yet nothing had changed since the moments when he had been kissing her; or rather, nothing in the subs tance of things.But the essence of things had changed.
When she ceased the aur icular impressions from their previous endearments seemed to h ustle away into the c orners of their brains, repeating themselves as echoed from a time of supremely purblind foolishness.
Clare performed the irrelevant act of tirring the fire; the intelligence had not even y et got to th e bottom of him.After stirring the embers he rose to his feet; all the force of her disclosure had imparted itself no w.His face h ad withered.In the strenuousness of h is concentration he treadled fitfully on the floor.He could no t, by any contr ivanee, think closely enoug h; that was the meaning of his vague movement.When 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 t o believe this?From your manner I am to take it as true.O you cannot be out of y our mind！You ought to be！Yet you are no t……My wife, my Tess—nothing in you warrants such a supposition as that?”
“I am not out of my mind, ”she said.
“And y et—”He looked vacan tly at her, to r esume with d azed 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 o ther of his words were nothing bu t the perfunctory babble of the surfa ce while the de pths re mained paraly zed.He turned away, and be nt 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 dry mouth.“I have forgiven you for the same！”
And, as he did not answer, she said again—
“Forgive me as you are forgiven！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 for giveness m eet such a grotesqu e—prestidigitation as that！”
He paused, contem plating this definition; then suddenly broke in to horrible laughter—as unnatural and ghastly as a laugh in hell.
“Don't—don't！It kills me quite, that！”she shrieked.“O have mercy upon me—have mercy！”
He did not answer; and, sickly white, she jumped up.
“Angel, Angel！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 happy！I have thought what joy it will be to do it, what an unworthy wife I shall be if I do not！That's what I have felt, Angel！”
“I know that.”
“I thought, Angel, that y ou loved me—me, my very self！If it is I you do love, O how can it b e th at y ou look and speak s o?It frightens m e！Havin gbegun to love you, I love you for ever—in all changes, in all disgraces, because you are y ourself.I ask no more.Then how can y ou, O 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 perceiv ed in his words the realization ofher own apprehensiv eforeboding in for mer times.He loo ked upon her as a species of im postor; 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 that she staggered; and 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 wher e she was, that strained look still upon her face, and her eyes such as to make his flesh creep.
“I don't belong to you any more, then; do I, Angel?”she asked helplessly.“It is not me, but another woman like me that he loved, he says.
The image r aised caused her to take pity upon h erself as o ne who was ill-used.Her eyes filled as she regard ed her position further; she turned r ound and burst into a flood of self-sympathetic tears.
Clare was r elieved at this chang e, for the effect on h er o f what ha d happened was beginning to be a trou ble to h im only less than the woe of the disclosure itself.He waited patiently, apathetically, till the violence of her grief had worn itself out, and her rush of weeping had lessened to a catching gasp at intervals.
“Angel, ”she said sudden ly, in her natural ton es, the insane, dr y voice of terror h aving lef t her no w.“Angel, am I to o wicked for y ou and me to live together?”
“I have not been able to think what we can do.”
“I shan't ask you to let me live with 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 werein lodgings.”
“Shan't yon?”
“No, I shan't do anything, unless y ou order me to; and if y ou 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 y our wretched slave, even if it is to lie down and die.”
“You are ve ry good.Bu t it str ikes me that ther e is a want of har mony between y our present mood of s elfsacrifice and y our past mood o f serf-preservation.”
These were the first words of a ntagonism.To fling elaborate sarcasms at Tess, however, was much like flinging them at a dog or cat.The charms of their subtlety passed by her unapprec iated, and she only received them as inimic al sounds which meant that anger ruled.She remained mute, not knowing that he was smothering his affection for her.She hardly observed that a tear descended slowly upon his cheek, a tear so large that it magnified the pores of the skin over whi ch i t ro lled, like th e ob ject lens of a microscope.Mean while reillumination as to the terr ible an d tot al c hange tha t her confession ha d wrought in his life, in his universe, returned to him, and he tried desperately to advance 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 will walk out a little way.”
He quietly left the roo m, and th e 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 their Agape had come to.At tea, two or three hours earlier, they had, in the freakishness of affection, drunk from one cup.
The closing of the door behind him, gently as it had been pulled to, roused Tess fro m h er stupo r.H e was gone; she cou ld not stay.Hastily flinging her cloak around her she opened the door and followed, putting ou t the candles as if she were never coming back.The rain was over and the night was now clear.
She was so on clos e at his heels, fo r Clar e walked slowly and withou tpurpose.His for m beside her light gray figure looked black, sin ister, and forbidding, and she felt as sarcasm the touch of the jewels of which she had been momentarily so p roud.Clare turned at hearing her fo otsteps, but his recognition of her presen ce seemed to make no difference in him, and he went on over the five yawning arches of the great bridge in front of the house.
The cow an d horse tra cks in the ro ad were full of water, the rain hav ing been enough to charge them, but not enough to wash them away.Across these minute pools the ref lected stars flitted in a qu ick transit as she passed; she would not h ave known they were shining overhead if she had not seen th em there—the vastest things of the universe imaged in objects so mean.
The place to which they had travelled to-day was in the same valley as Talbothays, but so me miles lower d own the riv er; and the surr oundings being open she kept easily in sight of h im.Away fro m the house the road wou nd through the meads, and along these she followed Clare without any attempt to come up with him or to attract him, but with dumb and vacant fidelity.
At last, however, her listless walk brought her up alongside him, and still he said nothing.The cruelty of fooled honesty is often great after enlightenment, and it was mighty in Clare now.The outdoor air had apparently taken away from him all tend ency to act on impulse; she kn ew that he saw her with out irradiation—in all her bareness; that Time was chanting his satiric psalm 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 div ert the strain of thought.What a weak thing her presence must have become to him！She could not help addressing Clare.
“What have I done—what have I d one！I have no t told you of any thing that interferes with or belies my love for y ou.You don't think I planned it, do you?It is in your own mind what you are angry at, Angel; it is not in me.O, it is not in me, and I am not that deceitful woman you think me！”
“H'm—well.Not deceitf ul, my wife; but not th e same.No, not the sa me.But do not make me reproach y ou.I have sworn that I w ill not; and I will do everything to avoid it.”
But she wen t on pleading in her distraction; and perhaps said things th at would have been better left to silence.
“Angel！—Angel！I w as a child—a ch ild w hen it h appened！I kne w nothing of men.”
“You were more sinned against than sinning, that I admit.”
“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.
“O Angel—my mother says that i t sometimes happens so！—she knows several cases where they were worse than I, and the husband has not minded it much—has got over it at least.And yet the wo man has not loved him as I do you！”
“Don't, T ess; don't ar gue.Dif ferent socie ties, d ifferent manners.You almost make me say y ou are an un apprehending peasant woman, who have never been initiated into the proportions of social things.You don't know what you say.”
“I am only a peasant by position, not by nature！”
She spoke with an impulse to anger, but it went as it came.
“So m uch the worse for you.I think thatparson who unearthed yourpedigree wo uld h ave done better if he had held his tongue.I cannot h elp associating your decline as a fa mily with th is o ther fa ct—of y our want o f firmness.D ecrepit families im ply decrep it wills, decrep it conduct.Heaven, why did you give me a handle for despising you more by informing me of your descent！Here was I thinking you a newsprung child of n ature; there were you, the belated seedling of an effete aristocracy！”
“Lots of families are as bad as mine in that！Retty's family were once large landowners, and so were Dairy man Billett's And the Debby houses, who now are c arters, were on ce th e De Bayeux fa mily.Y ou find such as I everywhere; 'tis a feature of our county, and I can't help it.”
“So much the worse for the county.”
She took these reproaches in their bulk sim ply, not in their par ticulars; 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 was sa id afterwards that a cottager of Wellbridge, who went out late that night for a doctor, met two lovers in the pastures, walking very slowly, without conv erse, one behind the other, as in a funeral procession, and the glim pse that he obtained of th eir faces seemed to denote that they were anxious and sad.Returning later, he passed them again in the same field, progressin g just as s lowly, and as regardless of the hour and of the cheerless night as before.It was only on account of his preoccupation with his own af fairs, and the illness in his house, that he did no t 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 all your 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 murder to my other follies, ”he said.
“I will le ave something to show that I did i t myself—on account of my shame.They will not blame you then.”
“Don't speak so absurdly—I wish n ot to hear it.It is nonsense to hav e such thoughts in this kind of case, which is rather one for satirical laughter than for trag edy.You don't in the least u nderstand th e qua lity of the mishap.It would be v iewed 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 ro ad which led to the well-known ruins of the Cistercian abbey behind the mill, the latter having, in centuries past, been attached to the monastic establishment.The mill still worked, on, food being a perennial ne cessity; the abbey h ad per ished, c reeds b eing tr ansient.One continually sees the ministration of the temporary outlasting the ministration of the eternal.Their walk having been circuitous th ey were still not far fro m 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 fe w yards.When she got b ack everything remained as she had left it, the f ire being still bu rning.She did notstay downstairs for more than a minute, but proceeded to her chamber, whither the luggage had been taken.Here she sat down on the edge of the bed, looking blankly around, and presently began to undress.In removing the light towards the beds tead its ray s fell upon the tester of white d imity; someth ing was hanging beneath it, and she lifted the candle to see what it was.A bough of mistletoe.A ngel h ad pu t it ther e; she knew t hat in an ins tant.This was th e 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 h is gaiety he had hung it th ere.How foolish and inopportune that mistletoe looked now.
Having nothing more to fear, having scarce any thing to hope, for that he would relen t there seemed no pro mise whatever, she lay down dully.W hen sorrow ceas es to be speculativ e s leep sees her o pportunity.Among so many happier moods which forbid repose this was a mood which welcomed it, and in a few minu tes the lon ely Tess for got exis tence, surrounded by the aro matic stillness of the chamber that had once, possibly, been the bride-chamber of her own ancestry.
Later on th at nigh t Clar e also retraced his steps to the h ouse.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 horse-hair sofa which stood there, and roughly shaped it to a sleeping-couch.Before lying down h e crept shoeless upstairs, and listened at the door of her apartment.Her measured breathing told that she was sleeping profoundly.
“Thank God！”murmured Clare; and y et he was conscious of a p ang o f bitterness at the though t—approximately true, though not wholly so—that having shif ted th e burd en of her life to h is shou lders she was now repos ing without care.
He turned 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 over th e entrance to Tess's bedcha mber.In th e cand lelight th e painting was m ore than unpleasan t.Sinister d esign lurked in the wo man's features, a concentr ated purpose of r evenge on the other sex—so it see med to him then.The Caroline bodice of the portrait was low—precisely as Tess's hadbeen when he tucked it in to show the necklace; and again he experienced the distressing sensation of a resemblance between them.
The check was sufficient.He resumed his retreat and descended.
His air remained calm and cold, his small compressed mouth indexing his powers of self-control; his face wearing since her disclosure.It was the face of a man who was no longer passion's slave, yet who found, no advantage in his enfranchisement.He w as sim ply regardin g the harrowing contingencies of human experience, the unexpectedness of things.Nothing so pure, so sweet, so virginal 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 him self that her heart was not index ed in the hon est freshness of her f ace; but Tess had n o advocate to set him right.Could it be possible, h e con tinued, tha t ey es which as th ey gazed n ever expressed any diver gence fro m wh at the tong ue was telling, were y et ever seeing another world behind her ostensible one, discordant and contrasting?
He reclined on his couch in the sitting-room, and extinguished the light.The night came in, and took up its place there, unconcerned and indifferent; the night which had already swallowed up his happiness, and was now digesting it listlessly; an d was ready to swallow up the hap piness of a thousand other people with as little disturbance or change of mien.
36
Clare arose in the light of a dawn that was ashy and furtive, as thoughassociated with crime.The fireplace confronted him with its extinct embers; the spread supper-table, whereon stood th e two full g lasses of untasted wine, n ow flat and filmy; her vacated seat and his own; the other articles of furniture, with their eternal look of not being able to help it, their intolerable inquiry what was to be done?From above there was no sound; but in a few minutes there came a knock at the door.He remembered that it would be the neighbouring cottager'swife, who was to minister to their wants while they remained here.
The presence of a third person in the house would be extremely awkward just now, and, being already dressed, he opened the window and informed her that th ey co uld manage to shif t fo r themselv es that morning.Sh e had a milk-can in her hand, w hich he told her to leave at the door.When the d ame had gone away he searched in the back quar ters of the hou se for fuel, and speedily lit a fire.There was p lenty of eggs, butter, bread, an d so on in th e larder, and Clare soon had breakf ast laid; h is experien ces at the d airy having-rendered him facile in domestic preparations.The smoke of the kindled wood rose from the chimney without like a lotus-headed column; local people who were p assing by saw it, and th ought of the newly-married co uple, and envied their happiness.
Angel cast a final g lance round, and then going to the foo t of the stairs, called in a conventional voice—
“Breakfast is ready！”
He opened the front door, and took a few steps in the morning air.When, after a shor t space, he ca me b ack she was already in th e sitting-ro om, 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 dressed or nearly so before he w ent 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 pa le b lue wooll en g arment wi th neck-fr illings of whit e.Her hands and face app eared to be cold, and she had p ossibly been sitting dr essed in the bedro om a long time withou t any fire.Th e marked civility of Clare's tone in calling her seemed to have inspired her, for the moment, with a new glimmer of hope.But it soon died when she looked at him.
The pair were, in truth, but th e ashes of their fo rmer fir es.To the ho t sorrow of the previous might had succeeded heaviness; it seemed as if nothing could kindle either of them to fervour of sensation any more.
He spoke g ently to her, and she r eplied with a like undem onstrativeness.At last she came up to him, looking in his sharply-defined face as one who had no consciousness that her own formed a visible object also.
“Angel！”she said, and p aused, touching him with her fingers lightly as abreeze, as though she could hardly believe to be there in the flesh the man who was once her lover.Her ey es were bright, h er pale ch eek still showed its wonted roun dness, thoug h half-dried tears h ad left glistening traces th ereon; and the usually ripe r ed mouth was alm ost as pale as her ch eek.Throbbingly alive as she was st ill, u nder the s tress of h er mental grie f the l ife be at s o brokenly, that a little fu rther pu ll u pon it would cause real illn ess, dull her characteristic eyes, and make her mouththin.
She looked absolutely pure.Nature, in her fantastic trickery, had set such a seal of maidenhood up on Tess's c ountenance that he gazed at her w ith a stupefied air.
“Tess！Say it is not true！No, it is not true！”
“It is true.”
“Every word?”
“Every word.”