finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_25_part_0.txt
Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 26
chapter 26
{"name": "Chapter 26", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-26", "summary": "When he meets up with Bathsheba in the hay field, Troy continues assaulting her with compliment after compliment. She tries to fend him off with sarcasm and discouraging remarks, but he can't be stopped. Eventually, he makes her absolutely speechless with his compliments. He totally wears her down and she starts speaking kindly to him. Once she's speaking kindly to him, he says that he'll soon be leaving town with his regiment. He flat out tells her that he has loved her ever since he first saw her. Yikes, the guy is coming on a little strong, don't you think? Then Sergeant Troy outdoes himself by giving her a gold watch as a present. She says she can't possibly accept it, but he backs away before she can give it back. When Troy returns to working on the hay, Bathsheba can't even bring herself to look at her workmen. Her heart is pounding now, and it's clear that she's smitten with Troy.", "analysis": ""}


SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD


"Ah, Miss Everdene!" said the sergeant, touching his diminutive cap.
"Little did I think it was you I was speaking to the other night.
And yet, if I had reflected, the 'Queen of the Corn-market' (truth is
truth at any hour of the day or night, and I heard you so named in
Casterbridge yesterday), the 'Queen of the Corn-market.' I say, could
be no other woman.  I step across now to beg your forgiveness a
thousand times for having been led by my feelings to express myself
too strongly for a stranger.  To be sure I am no stranger to the
place--I am Sergeant Troy, as I told you, and I have assisted your
uncle in these fields no end of times when I was a lad.  I have been
doing the same for you to-day."

"I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant Troy," said the Queen
of the Corn-market, in an indifferently grateful tone.

The sergeant looked hurt and sad.  "Indeed you must not, Miss
Everdene," he said.  "Why could you think such a thing necessary?"

"I am glad it is not."

"Why? if I may ask without offence."

"Because I don't much want to thank you for anything."

"I am afraid I have made a hole with my tongue that my heart will
never mend.  O these intolerable times: that ill-luck should follow
a man for honestly telling a woman she is beautiful!  'Twas the most
I said--you must own that; and the least I could say--that I own
myself."

"There is some talk I could do without more easily than money."

"Indeed.  That remark is a sort of digression."

"No.  It means that I would rather have your room than your company."

"And I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other
woman; so I'll stay here."

Bathsheba was absolutely speechless.  And yet she could not help
feeling that the assistance he was rendering forbade a harsh repulse.

"Well," continued Troy, "I suppose there is a praise which is
rudeness, and that may be mine.  At the same time there is a
treatment which is injustice, and that may be yours.  Because a plain
blunt man, who has never been taught concealment, speaks out his mind
without exactly intending it, he's to be snapped off like the son of
a sinner."

"Indeed there's no such case between us," she said, turning away.  "I
don't allow strangers to be bold and impudent--even in praise of me."

"Ah--it is not the fact but the method which offends you," he said,
carelessly.  "But I have the sad satisfaction of knowing that my
words, whether pleasing or offensive, are unmistakably true.  Would
you have had me look at you, and tell my acquaintance that you are
quite a common-place woman, to save you the embarrassment of being
stared at if they come near you?  Not I.  I couldn't tell any such
ridiculous lie about a beauty to encourage a single woman in England
in too excessive a modesty."

"It is all pretence--what you are saying!" exclaimed Bathsheba,
laughing in spite of herself at the sly method.  "You have a rare
invention, Sergeant Troy.  Why couldn't you have passed by me that
night, and said nothing?--that was all I meant to reproach you for."

"Because I wasn't going to.  Half the pleasure of a feeling lies in
being able to express it on the spur of the moment, and I let out
mine.  It would have been just the same if you had been the reverse
person--ugly and old--I should have exclaimed about it in the same
way."

"How long is it since you have been so afflicted with strong feeling,
then?"

"Oh, ever since I was big enough to know loveliness from deformity."

"'Tis to be hoped your sense of the difference you speak of doesn't
stop at faces, but extends to morals as well."

"I won't speak of morals or religion--my own or anybody else's.
Though perhaps I should have been a very good Christian if you pretty
women hadn't made me an idolater."

Bathsheba moved on to hide the irrepressible dimplings of merriment.
Troy followed, whirling his crop.

"But--Miss Everdene--you do forgive me?"

"Hardly."

"Why?"

"You say such things."

"I said you were beautiful, and I'll say so still; for, by G---- so you
are!  The most beautiful ever I saw, or may I fall dead this instant!
Why, upon my ----"

"Don't--don't!  I won't listen to you--you are so profane!" she said,
in a restless state between distress at hearing him and a _penchant_
to hear more.

"I again say you are a most fascinating woman.  There's nothing
remarkable in my saying so, is there?  I'm sure the fact is evident
enough.  Miss Everdene, my opinion may be too forcibly let out
to please you, and, for the matter of that, too insignificant to
convince you, but surely it is honest, and why can't it be excused?"

"Because it--it isn't a correct one," she femininely murmured.

"Oh, fie--fie!  Am I any worse for breaking the third of that
Terrible Ten than you for breaking the ninth?"

"Well, it doesn't seem QUITE true to me that I am fascinating," she
replied evasively.

"Not so to you: then I say with all respect that, if so, it is owing
to your modesty, Miss Everdene.  But surely you must have been told
by everybody of what everybody notices?  And you should take their
words for it."

"They don't say so exactly."

"Oh yes, they must!"

"Well, I mean to my face, as you do," she went on, allowing herself
to be further lured into a conversation that intention had rigorously
forbidden.

"But you know they think so?"

"No--that is--I certainly have heard Liddy say they do, but--"  She
paused.

Capitulation--that was the purport of the simple reply, guarded as it
was--capitulation, unknown to herself.  Never did a fragile tailless
sentence convey a more perfect meaning.  The careless sergeant smiled
within himself, and probably too the devil smiled from a loop-hole in
Tophet, for the moment was the turning-point of a career.  Her tone
and mien signified beyond mistake that the seed which was to lift the
foundation had taken root in the chink: the remainder was a mere
question of time and natural changes.

"There the truth comes out!" said the soldier, in reply.  "Never tell
me that a young lady can live in a buzz of admiration without knowing
something about it.  Ah, well, Miss Everdene, you are--pardon my
blunt way--you are rather an injury to our race than otherwise."

"How--indeed?" she said, opening her eyes.

"Oh, it is true enough.  I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb
(an old country saying, not of much account, but it will do for a
rough soldier), and so I will speak my mind, regardless of your
pleasure, and without hoping or intending to get your pardon.  Why,
Miss Everdene, it is in this manner that your good looks may do more
harm than good in the world."  The sergeant looked down the mead in
critical abstraction.  "Probably some one man on an average falls in
love with each ordinary woman.  She can marry him: he is content,
and leads a useful life.  Such women as you a hundred men always
covet--your eyes will bewitch scores on scores into an unavailing
fancy for you--you can only marry one of that many.  Out of these
say twenty will endeavour to drown the bitterness of despised love
in drink; twenty more will mope away their lives without a wish or
attempt to make a mark in he world, because they have no ambition
apart from their attachment to you; twenty more--the susceptible
person myself possibly among them--will be always draggling after
you, getting where they may just see you, doing desperate things.
Men are such constant fools!  The rest may try to get over their
passion with more or less success.  But all these men will be
saddened.  And not only those ninety-nine men, but the ninety-nine
women they might have married are saddened with them.  There's my
tale.  That's why I say that a woman so charming as yourself, Miss
Everdene, is hardly a blessing to her race."

The handsome sergeant's features were during this speech as rigid and
stern as John Knox's in addressing his gay young queen.

Seeing she made no reply, he said, "Do you read French?"

"No; I began, but when I got to the verbs, father died," she said
simply.

"I do--when I have an opportunity, which latterly has not been often
(my mother was a Parisienne)--and there's a proverb they have,
_Qui aime bien, chatie bien_--'He chastens who loves well.'  Do you
understand me?"

"Ah!" she replied, and there was even a little tremulousness in the
usually cool girl's voice; "if you can only fight half as winningly
as you can talk, you are able to make a pleasure of a bayonet wound!"
And then poor Bathsheba instantly perceived her slip in making this
admission: in hastily trying to retrieve it, she went from bad to
worse.  "Don't, however, suppose that _I_ derive any pleasure from
what you tell me."

"I know you do not--I know it perfectly," said Troy, with much hearty
conviction on the exterior of his face: and altering the expression
to moodiness; "when a dozen men are ready to speak tenderly to you,
and give the admiration you deserve without adding the warning you
need, it stands to reason that my poor rough-and-ready mixture of
praise and blame cannot convey much pleasure.  Fool as I may be, I
am not so conceited as to suppose that!"

"I think you--are conceited, nevertheless," said Bathsheba, looking
askance at a reed she was fitfully pulling with one hand, having
lately grown feverish under the soldier's system of procedure--not
because the nature of his cajolery was entirely unperceived, but
because its vigour was overwhelming.

"I would not own it to anybody else--nor do I exactly to you.  Still,
there might have been some self-conceit in my foolish supposition
the other night.  I knew that what I said in admiration might be
an opinion too often forced upon you to give any pleasure, but I
certainly did think that the kindness of your nature might prevent
you judging an uncontrolled tongue harshly--which you have done--and
thinking badly of me and wounding me this morning, when I am working
hard to save your hay."

"Well, you need not think more of that: perhaps you did not mean to
be rude to me by speaking out your mind: indeed, I believe you did
not," said the shrewd woman, in painfully innocent earnest.  "And I
thank you for giving help here.  But--but mind you don't speak to me
again in that way, or in any other, unless I speak to you."

"Oh, Miss Bathsheba!  That is too hard!"

"No, it isn't.  Why is it?"

"You will never speak to me; for I shall not be here long.  I am soon
going back again to the miserable monotony of drill--and perhaps
our regiment will be ordered out soon.  And yet you take away the
one little ewe-lamb of pleasure that I have in this dull life
of mine. Well, perhaps generosity is not a woman's most marked
characteristic."

"When are you going from here?" she asked, with some interest.

"In a month."

"But how can it give you pleasure to speak to me?"

"Can you ask Miss Everdene--knowing as you do--what my offence is
based on?"

"If you do care so much for a silly trifle of that kind, then, I
don't mind doing it," she uncertainly and doubtingly answered.  "But
you can't really care for a word from me? you only say so--I think
you only say so."

"That's unjust--but I won't repeat the remark.  I am too gratified to
get such a mark of your friendship at any price to cavil at the tone.
I DO, Miss Everdene, care for it.  You may think a man foolish to
want a mere word--just a good morning.  Perhaps he is--I don't know.
But you have never been a man looking upon a woman, and that woman
yourself."

"Well."

"Then you know nothing of what such an experience is like--and Heaven
forbid that you ever should!"

"Nonsense, flatterer!  What is it like?  I am interested in knowing."

"Put shortly, it is not being able to think, hear, or look in
any direction except one without wretchedness, nor there without
torture."

"Ah, sergeant, it won't do--you are pretending!" she said, shaking
her head. "Your words are too dashing to be true."

"I am not, upon the honour of a soldier."

"But WHY is it so?--Of course I ask for mere pastime."

"Because you are so distracting--and I am so distracted."

"You look like it."

"I am indeed."

"Why, you only saw me the other night!"

"That makes no difference.  The lightning works instantaneously.  I
loved you then, at once--as I do now."

Bathsheba surveyed him curiously, from the feet upward, as high as
she liked to venture her glance, which was not quite so high as his
eyes.

"You cannot and you don't," she said demurely.  "There is no such
sudden feeling in people.  I won't listen to you any longer.  Hear
me, I wish I knew what o'clock it is--I am going--I have wasted too
much time here already!"

The sergeant looked at his watch and told her.  "What, haven't you a
watch, miss?" he inquired.

"I have not just at present--I am about to get a new one."

"No.  You shall be given one.  Yes--you shall.  A gift, Miss
Everdene--a gift."

And before she knew what the young man was intending, a heavy gold
watch was in her hand.

"It is an unusually good one for a man like me to possess," he
quietly said.  "That watch has a history.  Press the spring and open
the back."

She did so.

"What do you see?"

"A crest and a motto."

"A coronet with five points, and beneath, _Cedit amor rebus_--'Love
yields to circumstance.' It's the motto of the Earls of Severn.
That watch belonged to the last lord, and was given to my mother's
husband, a medical man, for his use till I came of age, when it was
to be given to me.  It was all the fortune that ever I inherited.
That watch has regulated imperial interests in its time--the stately
ceremonial, the courtly assignation, pompous travels, and lordly
sleeps.  Now it is yours."

"But, Sergeant Troy, I cannot take this--I cannot!" she exclaimed,
with round-eyed wonder.  "A gold watch!  What are you doing?  Don't
be such a dissembler!"

The sergeant retreated to avoid receiving back his gift, which she
held out persistently towards him.  Bathsheba followed as he retired.

"Keep it--do, Miss Everdene--keep it!" said the erratic child of
impulse.  "The fact of your possessing it makes it worth ten times
as much to me.  A more plebeian one will answer my purpose just
as well, and the pleasure of knowing whose heart my old one beats
against--well, I won't speak of that.  It is in far worthier hands
than ever it has been in before."

"But indeed I can't have it!" she said, in a perfect simmer of
distress.  "Oh, how can you do such a thing; that is if you really
mean it!  Give me your dead father's watch, and such a valuable one!
You should not be so reckless, indeed, Sergeant Troy!"

"I loved my father: good; but better, I love you more.  That's how I
can do it," said the sergeant, with an intonation of such exquisite
fidelity to nature that it was evidently not all acted now.  Her
beauty, which, whilst it had been quiescent, he had praised in jest,
had in its animated phases moved him to earnest; and though his
seriousness was less than she imagined, it was probably more than he
imagined himself.

Bathsheba was brimming with agitated bewilderment, and she said, in
half-suspicious accents of feeling, "Can it be!  Oh, how can it be,
that you care for me, and so suddenly!  You have seen so little
of me: I may not be really so--so nice-looking as I seem to you.
Please, do take it; Oh, do!  I cannot and will not have it.  Believe
me, your generosity is too great.  I have never done you a single
kindness, and why should you be so kind to me?"

A factitious reply had been again upon his lips, but it was again
suspended, and he looked at her with an arrested eye.  The truth was,
that as she now stood--excited, wild, and honest as the day--her
alluring beauty bore out so fully the epithets he had bestowed upon
it that he was quite startled at his temerity in advancing them as
false.  He said mechanically, "Ah, why?" and continued to look at
her.

"And my workfolk see me following you about the field, and are
wondering.  Oh, this is dreadful!" she went on, unconscious of the
transmutation she was effecting.

"I did not quite mean you to accept it at first, for it was my one
poor patent of nobility," he broke out, bluntly; "but, upon my soul,
I wish you would now.  Without any shamming, come!  Don't deny me the
happiness of wearing it for my sake?  But you are too lovely even to
care to be kind as others are."

"No, no; don't say so!  I have reasons for reserve which I cannot
explain."

"Let it be, then, let it be," he said, receiving back the watch at
last; "I must be leaving you now.  And will you speak to me for these
few weeks of my stay?"

"Indeed I will.  Yet, I don't know if I will!  Oh, why did you come
and disturb me so!"

"Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught myself.  Such things have
happened.  Well, will you let me work in your fields?" he coaxed.

"Yes, I suppose so; if it is any pleasure to you."

"Miss Everdene, I thank you."

"No, no."

"Good-bye!"

The sergeant brought his hand to the cap on the slope of his head,
saluted, and returned to the distant group of haymakers.

Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now.  Her heart erratically
flitting hither and thither from perplexed excitement, hot, and
almost tearful, she retreated homeward, murmuring, "Oh, what have I
done!  What does it mean!  I wish I knew how much of it was true!"




Chapter 26
When he meets up with Bathsheba in the hay field, Troy continues assaulting her with compliment after compliment. She tries to fend him off with sarcasm and discouraging remarks, but he can't be stopped. Eventually, he makes her absolutely speechless with his compliments. He totally wears her down and she starts speaking kindly to him. Once she's speaking kindly to him, he says that he'll soon be leaving town with his regiment. He flat out tells her that he has loved her ever since he first saw her. Yikes, the guy is coming on a little strong, don't you think? Then Sergeant Troy outdoes himself by giving her a gold watch as a present. She says she can't possibly accept it, but he backs away before she can give it back. When Troy returns to working on the hay, Bathsheba can't even bring herself to look at her workmen. Her heart is pounding now, and it's clear that she's smitten with Troy.