finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_14_part_0.txt
Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapters 57-59
chapters 57-59
{"name": "Chapters 57-59", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151046/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary-and-analysis/phase-the-seventh-fulfilment-chapters-5759", "summary": "Angel hears from his parents via telegram that his brother Cuthbert is engaged to Mercy Chant. He leaves his hotel to go to the train station for a return trip home. At the station, Tess finds him and confesses to murdering Alec. Immediately, Angel formulates a plan to walk to the north of England, avoiding the more traveled roads, until they can reach a port city after the events surrounding the murder are forgotten. The two walk for miles, finally happy to be in each other's company. Along the way, they discover a vacant house, with only a caretaker occasionally stopping by. The great house, called Bramshurst Court, is empty of a renter, so the couple takes up residence. They spend five days in the house until the local caretaker sees them sleeping in the large bedrooms. Once discovered, Angel and Tess move directly north until they reach the ancient monoliths of Stonehenge. Tess feels that her freedom is limited and her end is near, so she has Angel promise to marry Liza Lu after her death. Now that it is night and the two are tired, Tess sleeps on one of the \"altars\" of stone. Near daybreak, the two are surrounded by police who take Tess into custody. For her part, Tess is glad that the end has come, and she goes with the police willingly. In the final chapter, Angel and Liza Lu journey together to Wintoncester to see that Tess' sentence, death by hanging, is carried out. They do not actually witness the deed, but know the enterprise is done when a black flag is hoisted over the town's tower. The two then return the way they came, \"As soon as they arose, joined hands again, and went on.\"", "analysis": "Hardy has brought the story full circle. Four years have passed since the day in May, in the beginning of the novel, when Tess and Angel met. At the story's end it is May again. Angel is in the process of leaving Sandbourne when he receives news that his brother, Cuthbert, has become engaged to Mercy Chant. As he is leaving town awaiting the next train, Tess appears with the tale that she had killed Alec. Angel is unsure about her story, but now that she is finally his, he takes no chances of her being discovered. One of their stops takes them to a vacant house, called Bramshurst Court. Their week together is uneventful in that Tess and Angel finally become a married couple. She seems to know that her time with Angel is limited, because she will soon be wanted for Alec's murder; \"My life can only be a question of a few weeks,\" she says. Her last wishes are for Angel to marry her sister, Liza Lu for \"'She had all the best of me without the bad of me.\" In Chapter 59, when Angel and Liza Lu join hands after Tess' execution, we understand that Angel will fulfill this request. The chase from Sandbourne ends at the historic site of Stonehenge, a collection of giant stones arranged in a circular form, dating from 2,800 to 1,500 B.C. The purposes for the monuments were to serve as an astrological calendar and a ceremonial place for religious or tribal worship. Because the original purposes of the ancient monuments have been shrouded in mystery, especially in Hardy's time, experts could only speculate as to the purpose of the megaliths. Tess and Angel stop in Stonehenge after they have traveled a long way and need rest. The stones are still warm from the sun, radiating heat all during the cool night. Tess realizes that her mother's family is from the area, \"One of my mother's people was a shepherd hereabouts, now I think of it. And you used to say at Talbothays that I was a heathen. So now I am at home.\" Angel recognizes that Tess is \"lying on an altar\" -- like a sacrifice to the ancient pagans who used to practice there. In a modern sense, Tess is sacrificed to the laws and morals of the nineteenth century. Hardy ends Tess' tale with the words \"'Justice' was done, and the President of the Immortals, in the Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.\" A bit of background is needed to understand this phrase. First, Aeschylus was an ancient Greek playwright who lived from 525-546 b.c. Aeschylus wrote plays that centered on individual will and the influence of divine power over mortals. In his play called Prometheus Bound, Prometheus is chained to a rock, and an eagle comes to devour his liver every day; each night, Prometheus' liver grows back. Hercules destroys the eagle and sets Prometheus free. Tess is like Prometheus in that she seems to have been a \"toy\" of the gods of morality and religion in Victorian England, and she had to be sacrificed for the good of mankind. All of Tess' life is the result of either an accident, fate, or the intervention of the gods. In fact, some critics feel that the circumstances leading to Tess' tragic life and death are too contrived, are unrealistic, and unbelievable. Whether realistic or not, Fate has intervened in Tess' world and shaped the course of her life. Glossary \"her Antinous . . . \" a favorite of the Roman Emperor Hadrian; like Apollo, the Greek god of sun and of music, Antinous was a figure of male beauty. Atalanta's race Atalanta was a Grecian huntress who refused to marry any suitor who could not outrun her; the penalty for those who lost was death. deprecated expressed disapproval of; depreciated; belittled. antiquity the quality of being ancient or old. \"Temple of the Winds\" also known as the \"tower of the winds,\" a temple in Athens used for telling time. Trilithon a monument consisting of two upright megaliths with a third stone serving as the lintel. taciturnity the condition of being silent or uncommunicative. integument a natural outer covering of the body or of a plant, including skin, shell, hide, husk, or rind. \"Giotto's 'Two Apostles'\" Hardy probably had in mind the fresco in the National Gallery in London that is now attributed to Spinello Aretino . wicket a small door or gate, esp. one set in or near a larger door or gate. Aeschylean phrase \"President of the Immortals\" translates a phrase from Prometheus Bound , by Aeschylus; Hardy finishes the novel by suggesting that the highest power in the universe uses human beings for \"sport.\""}


Meanwhile Angel Clare had walked automatically along the way by which
he had come, and, entering his hotel, sat down over the breakfast,
staring at nothingness.  He went on eating and drinking unconsciously
till on a sudden he demanded his bill; having paid which, he took his
dressing-bag in his hand, the only luggage he had brought with him,
and went out.

At the moment of his departure a telegram was handed to him--a few
words from his mother, stating that they were glad to know his
address, and informing him that his brother Cuthbert had proposed to
and been accepted by Mercy Chant.

Clare crumpled up the paper and followed the route to the station;
reaching it, he found that there would be no train leaving for an
hour and more.  He sat down to wait, and having waited a quarter of
an hour felt that he could wait there no longer.  Broken in heart and
numbed, he had nothing to hurry for; but he wished to get out of a
town which had been the scene of such an experience, and turned to
walk to the first station onward, and let the train pick him up
there.

The highway that he followed was open, and at a little distance
dipped into a valley, across which it could be seen running from edge
to edge.  He had traversed the greater part of this depression, and
was climbing the western acclivity when, pausing for breath, he
unconsciously looked back.  Why he did so he could not say, but
something seemed to impel him to the act.  The tape-like surface of
the road diminished in his rear as far as he could see, and as he
gazed a moving spot intruded on the white vacuity of its perspective.

It was a human figure running.  Clare waited, with a dim sense that
somebody was trying to overtake him.

The form descending the incline was a woman's, yet so entirely was
his mind blinded to the idea of his wife's following him that even
when she came nearer he did not recognize her under the totally
changed attire in which he now beheld her.  It was not till she was
quite close that he could believe her to be Tess.

"I saw you--turn away from the station--just before I got there--and
I have been following you all this way!"

She was so pale, so breathless, so quivering in every muscle, that he
did not ask her a single question, but seizing her hand, and pulling
it within his arm, he led her along.  To avoid meeting any possible
wayfarers he left the high road and took a footpath under some
fir-trees.  When they were deep among the moaning boughs he stopped
and looked at her inquiringly.

"Angel," she said, as if waiting for this, "do you know what I have
been running after you for?  To tell you that I have killed him!"
A pitiful white smile lit her face as she spoke.

"What!" said he, thinking from the strangeness of her manner that she
was in some delirium.

"I have done it--I don't know how," she continued.  "Still, I owed it
to you, and to myself, Angel.  I feared long ago, when I struck him
on the mouth with my glove, that I might do it some day for the trap
he set for me in my simple youth, and his wrong to you through me.
He has come between us and ruined us, and now he can never do it any
more.  I never loved him at all, Angel, as I loved you.  You know it,
don't you?  You believe it?  You didn't come back to me, and I was
obliged to go back to him.  Why did you go away--why did you--when I
loved you so?  I can't think why you did it.  But I don't blame you;
only, Angel, will you forgive me my sin against you, now I have
killed him?  I thought as I ran along that you would be sure to
forgive me now I have done that.  It came to me as a shining light
that I should get you back that way.  I could not bear the loss of
you any longer--you don't know how entirely I was unable to bear your
not loving me!  Say you do now, dear, dear husband; say you do, now I
have killed him!"

"I do love you, Tess--O, I do--it is all come back!" he said,
tightening his arms round her with fervid pressure.  "But how do you
mean--you have killed him?"

"I mean that I have," she murmured in a reverie.

"What, bodily?  Is he dead?"

"Yes.  He heard me crying about you, and he bitterly taunted me; and
called you by a foul name; and then I did it.  My heart could not
bear it.  He had nagged me about you before.  And then I dressed
myself and came away to find you."

By degrees he was inclined to believe that she had faintly attempted,
at least, what she said she had done; and his horror at her impulse
was mixed with amazement at the strength of her affection for
himself, and at the strangeness of its quality, which had apparently
extinguished her moral sense altogether.  Unable to realize the
gravity of her conduct, she seemed at last content; and he looked
at her as she lay upon his shoulder, weeping with happiness, and
wondered what obscure strain in the d'Urberville blood had led to
this aberration--if it were an aberration.  There momentarily flashed
through his mind that the family tradition of the coach and murder
might have arisen because the d'Urbervilles had been known to do
these things.  As well as his confused and excited ideas could
reason, he supposed that in the moment of mad grief of which she
spoke, her mind had lost its balance, and plunged her into this
abyss.

It was very terrible if true; if a temporary hallucination, sad.  But,
anyhow, here was this deserted wife of his, this passionately-fond
woman, clinging to him without a suspicion that he would be anything
to her but a protector.  He saw that for him to be otherwise was
not, in her mind, within the region of the possible.  Tenderness was
absolutely dominant in Clare at last.  He kissed her endlessly with
his white lips, and held her hand, and said--

"I will not desert you!  I will protect you by every means in my
power, dearest love, whatever you may have done or not have done!"

They then walked on under the trees, Tess turning her head every now
and then to look at him.  Worn and unhandsome as he had become, it
was plain that she did not discern the least fault in his appearance.
To her he was, as of old, all that was perfection, personally and
mentally.  He was still her Antinous, her Apollo even; his sickly
face was beautiful as the morning to her affectionate regard on
this day no less than when she first beheld him; for was it not the
face of the one man on earth who had loved her purely, and who had
believed in her as pure!

With an instinct as to possibilities, he did not now, as he had
intended, make for the first station beyond the town, but plunged
still farther under the firs, which here abounded for miles.  Each
clasping the other round the waist they promenaded over the dry bed
of fir-needles, thrown into a vague intoxicating atmosphere at the
consciousness of being together at last, with no living soul between
them; ignoring that there was a corpse.  Thus they proceeded for
several miles till Tess, arousing herself, looked about her, and
said, timidly--

"Are we going anywhere in particular?"

"I don't know, dearest.  Why?"

"I don't know."

"Well, we might walk a few miles further, and when it is evening find
lodgings somewhere or other--in a lonely cottage, perhaps.  Can you
walk well, Tessy?"

"O yes!  I could walk for ever and ever with your arm round me!"

Upon the whole it seemed a good thing to do.  Thereupon they
quickened their pace, avoiding high roads, and following obscure
paths tending more or less northward.  But there was an unpractical
vagueness in their movements throughout the day; neither one of them
seemed to consider any question of effectual escape, disguise, or
long concealment.  Their every idea was temporary and unforefending,
like the plans of two children.

At mid-day they drew near to a roadside inn, and Tess would have
entered it with him to get something to eat, but he persuaded
her to remain among the trees and bushes of this half-woodland,
half-moorland part of the country till he should come back.  Her
clothes were of recent fashion; even the ivory-handled parasol that
she carried was of a shape unknown in the retired spot to which they
had now wandered; and the cut of such articles would have attracted
attention in the settle of a tavern.  He soon returned, with food
enough for half-a-dozen people and two bottles of wine--enough to
last them for a day or more, should any emergency arise.

They sat down upon some dead boughs and shared their meal.  Between
one and two o'clock they packed up the remainder and went on again.

"I feel strong enough to walk any distance," said she.

"I think we may as well steer in a general way towards the interior
of the country, where we can hide for a time, and are less likely to
be looked for than anywhere near the coast," Clare remarked.  "Later
on, when they have forgotten us, we can make for some port."

She made no reply to this beyond that of grasping him more tightly,
and straight inland they went.  Though the season was an English May,
the weather was serenely bright, and during the afternoon it was
quite warm.  Through the latter miles of their walk their footpath
had taken them into the depths of the New Forest, and towards
evening, turning the corner of a lane, they perceived behind a brook
and bridge a large board on which was painted in white letters, "This
desirable Mansion to be Let Furnished"; particulars following, with
directions to apply to some London agents.  Passing through the gate
they could see the house, an old brick building of regular design and
large accommodation.

"I know it," said Clare.  "It is Bramshurst Court.  You can see that
it is shut up, and grass is growing on the drive."

"Some of the windows are open," said Tess.

"Just to air the rooms, I suppose."

"All these rooms empty, and we without a roof to our heads!"

"You are getting tired, my Tess!" he said.  "We'll stop soon."  And
kissing her sad mouth, he again led her onwards.

He was growing weary likewise, for they had wandered a dozen or
fifteen miles, and it became necessary to consider what they should
do for rest.  They looked from afar at isolated cottages and little
inns, and were inclined to approach one of the latter, when their
hearts failed them, and they sheered off.  At length their gait
dragged, and they stood still.

"Could we sleep under the trees?" she asked.

He thought the season insufficiently advanced.

"I have been thinking of that empty mansion we passed," he said.
"Let us go back towards it again."

They retraced their steps, but it was half an hour before they stood
without the entrance-gate as earlier.  He then requested her to stay
where she was, whilst he went to see who was within.

She sat down among the bushes within the gate, and Clare crept
towards the house.  His absence lasted some considerable time, and
when he returned Tess was wildly anxious, not for herself, but for
him.  He had found out from a boy that there was only an old woman in
charge as caretaker, and she only came there on fine days, from the
hamlet near, to open and shut the windows.  She would come to shut
them at sunset.  "Now, we can get in through one of the lower
windows, and rest there," said he.

Under his escort she went tardily forward to the main front, whose
shuttered windows, like sightless eyeballs, excluded the possibility
of watchers.  The door was reached a few steps further, and one of
the windows beside it was open. Clare clambered in, and pulled Tess
in after him.

Except the hall, the rooms were all in darkness, and they ascended
the staircase.  Up here also the shutters were tightly closed,
the ventilation being perfunctorily done, for this day at least,
by opening the hall-window in front and an upper window behind.
Clare unlatched the door of a large chamber, felt his way across
it, and parted the shutters to the width of two or three inches.
A shaft of dazzling sunlight glanced into the room, revealing heavy,
old-fashioned furniture, crimson damask hangings, and an enormous
four-post bedstead, along the head of which were carved running
figures, apparently Atalanta's race.

"Rest at last!" said he, setting down his bag and the parcel of
viands.

They remained in great quietness till the caretaker should have come
to shut the windows: as a precaution, putting themselves in total
darkness by barring the shutters as before, lest the woman should
open the door of their chamber for any casual reason.  Between six
and seven o'clock she came, but did not approach the wing they
were in.  They heard her close the windows, fasten them, lock the
door, and go away.  Then Clare again stole a chink of light from
the window, and they shared another meal, till by-and-by they
were enveloped in the shades of night which they had no candle to
disperse.




The night was strangely solemn and still.  In the small hours she
whispered to him the whole story of how he had walked in his sleep
with her in his arms across the Froom stream, at the imminent risk of
both their lives, and laid her down in the stone coffin at the ruined
abbey.  He had never known of that till now.

"Why didn't you tell me next day?" he said.  "It might have prevented
much misunderstanding and woe."

"Don't think of what's past!" said she.  "I am not going to think
outside of now.  Why should we!  Who knows what to-morrow has in
store?"

But it apparently had no sorrow.  The morning was wet and foggy, and
Clare, rightly informed that the caretaker only opened the windows
on fine days, ventured to creep out of their chamber and explore the
house, leaving Tess asleep.  There was no food on the premises, but
there was water, and he took advantage of the fog to emerge from the
mansion and fetch tea, bread, and butter from a shop in a little
place two miles beyond, as also a small tin kettle and spirit-lamp,
that they might get fire without smoke.  His re-entry awoke her; and
they breakfasted on what he had brought.

They were indisposed to stir abroad, and the day passed, and the
night following, and the next, and next; till, almost without their
being aware, five days had slipped by in absolute seclusion, not a
sight or sound of a human being disturbing their peacefulness, such
as it was.  The changes of the weather were their only events, the
birds of the New Forest their only company.  By tacit consent they
hardly once spoke of any incident of the past subsequent to their
wedding-day.  The gloomy intervening time seemed to sink into chaos,
over which the present and prior times closed as if it never had
been.  Whenever he suggested that they should leave their shelter,
and go forwards towards Southampton or London, she showed a strange
unwillingness to move.

"Why should we put an end to all that's sweet and lovely!" she
deprecated.  "What must come will come."  And, looking through the
shutter-chink: "All is trouble outside there; inside here content."

He peeped out also.  It was quite true; within was affection, union,
error forgiven: outside was the inexorable.

"And--and," she said, pressing her cheek against his, "I fear that
what you think of me now may not last.  I do not wish to outlive your
present feeling for me. I would rather not.  I would rather be dead
and buried when the time comes for you to despise me, so that it may
never be known to me that you despised me."

"I cannot ever despise you."

"I also hope that.  But considering what my life has been, I cannot
see why any man should, sooner or later, be able to help despising
me....  How wickedly mad I was!  Yet formerly I never could bear to
hurt a fly or a worm, and the sight of a bird in a cage used often to
make me cry."

They remained yet another day.  In the night the dull sky cleared,
and the result was that the old caretaker at the cottage awoke early.
The brilliant sunrise made her unusually brisk; she decided to open
the contiguous mansion immediately, and to air it thoroughly on such
a day.  Thus it occurred that, having arrived and opened the lower
rooms before six o'clock, she ascended to the bedchambers, and was
about to turn the handle of the one wherein they lay.  At that moment
she fancied she could hear the breathing of persons within.  Her
slippers and her antiquity had rendered her progress a noiseless one
so far, and she made for instant retreat; then, deeming that her
hearing might have deceived her, she turned anew to the door and
softly tried the handle.  The lock was out of order, but a piece of
furniture had been moved forward on the inside, which prevented her
opening the door more than an inch or two.  A stream of morning light
through the shutter-chink fell upon the faces of the pair, wrapped in
profound slumber, Tess's lips being parted like a half-opened flower
near his cheek.  The caretaker was so struck with their innocent
appearance, and with the elegance of Tess's gown hanging across a
chair, her silk stockings beside it, the pretty parasol, and the
other habits in which she had arrived because she had none else, that
her first indignation at the effrontery of tramps and vagabonds gave
way to a momentary sentimentality over this genteel elopement, as it
seemed.  She closed the door, and withdrew as softly as she had come,
to go and consult with her neighbours on the odd discovery.

Not more than a minute had elapsed after her withdrawal when Tess
woke, and then Clare.  Both had a sense that something had disturbed
them, though they could not say what; and the uneasy feeling which
it engendered grew stronger.  As soon as he was dressed he narrowly
scanned the lawn through the two or three inches of shutter-chink.

"I think we will leave at once," said he.  "It is a fine day. And I
cannot help fancying somebody is about the house.  At any rate, the
woman will be sure to come to-day."

She passively assented, and putting the room in order, they took up
the few articles that belonged to them, and departed noiselessly.
When they had got into the Forest she turned to take a last look at
the house.

"Ah, happy house--goodbye!" she said.  "My life can only be a
question of a few weeks.  Why should we not have stayed there?"

"Don't say it, Tess!  We shall soon get out of this district
altogether.  We'll continue our course as we've begun it, and keep
straight north.  Nobody will think of looking for us there.  We shall
be looked for at the Wessex ports if we are sought at all.  When we
are in the north we will get to a port and away."

Having thus persuaded her, the plan was pursued, and they kept a
bee-line northward.  Their long repose at the manor-house lent them
walking power now; and towards mid-day they found that they were
approaching the steepled city of Melchester, which lay directly in
their way.  He decided to rest her in a clump of trees during the
afternoon, and push onward under cover of darkness.  At dusk Clare
purchased food as usual, and their night march began, the boundary
between Upper and Mid-Wessex being crossed about eight o'clock.

To walk across country without much regard to roads was not new
to Tess, and she showed her old agility in the performance.  The
intercepting city, ancient Melchester, they were obliged to pass
through in order to take advantage of the town bridge for crossing a
large river that obstructed them.  It was about midnight when they
went along the deserted streets, lighted fitfully by the few lamps,
keeping off the pavement that it might not echo their footsteps.
The graceful pile of cathedral architecture rose dimly on their left
hand, but it was lost upon them now.  Once out of the town they
followed the turnpike-road, which after a few miles plunged across an
open plain.

Though the sky was dense with cloud, a diffused light from some
fragment of a moon had hitherto helped them a little.  But the moon
had now sunk, the clouds seemed to settle almost on their heads, and
the night grew as dark as a cave.  However, they found their way
along, keeping as much on the turf as possible that their tread might
not resound, which it was easy to do, there being no hedge or fence
of any kind.  All around was open loneliness and black solitude, over
which a stiff breeze blew.

They had proceeded thus gropingly two or three miles further when
on a sudden Clare became conscious of some vast erection close in
his front, rising sheer from the grass.  They had almost struck
themselves against it.

"What monstrous place is this?" said Angel.

"It hums," said she.  "Hearken!"

He listened.  The wind, playing upon the edifice, produced a booming
tune, like the note of some gigantic one-stringed harp.  No other
sound came from it, and lifting his hand and advancing a step or
two, Clare felt the vertical surface of the structure.  It seemed to
be of solid stone, without joint or moulding.  Carrying his fingers
onward he found that what he had come in contact with was a colossal
rectangular pillar; by stretching out his left hand he could feel a
similar one adjoining.  At an indefinite height overhead something
made the black sky blacker, which had the semblance of a vast
architrave uniting the pillars horizontally.  They carefully entered
beneath and between; the surfaces echoed their soft rustle; but they
seemed to be still out of doors.  The place was roofless.  Tess drew
her breath fearfully, and Angel, perplexed, said--

"What can it be?"

Feeling sideways they encountered another tower-like pillar, square
and uncompromising as the first; beyond it another and another.  The
place was all doors and pillars, some connected above by continuous
architraves.

"A very Temple of the Winds," he said.

The next pillar was isolated; others composed a trilithon; others
were prostrate, their flanks forming a causeway wide enough for a
carriage; and it was soon obvious that they made up a forest of
monoliths grouped upon the grassy expanse of the plain.  The couple
advanced further into this pavilion of the night till they stood in
its midst.

"It is Stonehenge!" said Clare.

"The heathen temple, you mean?"

"Yes.  Older than the centuries; older than the d'Urbervilles!  Well,
what shall we do, darling?  We may find shelter further on."

But Tess, really tired by this time, flung herself upon an oblong
slab that lay close at hand, and was sheltered from the wind by a
pillar.  Owing to the action of the sun during the preceding day, the
stone was warm and dry, in comforting contrast to the rough and chill
grass around, which had damped her skirts and shoes.

"I don't want to go any further, Angel," she said, stretching out her
hand for his.  "Can't we bide here?"

"I fear not.  This spot is visible for miles by day, although it does
not seem so now."

"One of my mother's people was a shepherd hereabouts, now I think of
it.  And you used to say at Talbothays that I was a heathen.  So now
I am at home."

He knelt down beside her outstretched form, and put his lips upon
hers.

"Sleepy are you, dear?  I think you are lying on an altar."

"I like very much to be here," she murmured.  "It is so solemn and
lonely--after my great happiness--with nothing but the sky above my
face.  It seems as if there were no folk in the world but we two;
and I wish there were not--except 'Liza-Lu."

Clare though she might as well rest here till it should get a little
lighter, and he flung his overcoat upon her, and sat down by her
side.

"Angel, if anything happens to me, will you watch over 'Liza-Lu for
my sake?" she asked, when they had listened a long time to the wind
among the pillars.

"I will."

"She is so good and simple and pure.  O, Angel--I wish you would
marry her if you lose me, as you will do shortly.  O, if you would!"

"If I lose you I lose all!  And she is my sister-in-law."

"That's nothing, dearest.  People marry sister-laws continually about
Marlott; and 'Liza-Lu is so gentle and sweet, and she is growing
so beautiful.  O, I could share you with her willingly when we are
spirits!  If you would train her and teach her, Angel, and bring her
up for your own self! ...  She had all the best of me without the bad
of me; and if she were to become yours it would almost seem as if
death had not divided us...  Well, I have said it.  I won't mention
it again."

She ceased, and he fell into thought.  In the far north-east sky he
could see between the pillars a level streak of light.  The uniform
concavity of black cloud was lifting bodily like the lid of a pot,
letting in at the earth's edge the coming day, against which the
towering monoliths and trilithons began to be blackly defined.

"Did they sacrifice to God here?" asked she.

"No," said he.

"Who to?"

"I believe to the sun.  That lofty stone set away by itself is in the
direction of the sun, which will presently rise behind it."

"This reminds me, dear," she said.  "You remember you never would
interfere with any belief of mine before we were married?  But I knew
your mind all the same, and I thought as you thought--not from any
reasons of my own, but because you thought so.  Tell me now, Angel,
do you think we shall meet again after we are dead?  I want to know."

He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time.

"O, Angel--I fear that means no!" said she, with a suppressed sob.
"And I wanted so to see you again--so much, so much!  What--not even
you and I, Angel, who love each other so well?"

Like a greater than himself, to the critical question at the critical
time he did not answer; and they were again silent.  In a minute or
two her breathing became more regular, her clasp of his hand relaxed,
and she fell asleep.  The band of silver paleness along the east
horizon made even the distant parts of the Great Plain appear dark
and near; and the whole enormous landscape bore that impress of
reserve, taciturnity, and hesitation which is usual just before day.
The eastward pillars and their architraves stood up blackly against
the light, and the great flame-shaped Sun-stone beyond them; and the
Stone of Sacrifice midway.  Presently the night wind died out, and
the quivering little pools in the cup-like hollows of the stones lay
still.  At the same time something seemed to move on the verge of the
dip eastward--a mere dot.  It was the head of a man approaching them
from the hollow beyond the Sun-stone.  Clare wished they had gone
onward, but in the circumstances decided to remain quiet.  The figure
came straight towards the circle of pillars in which they were.

He heard something behind him, the brush of feet.  Turning, he saw
over the prostrate columns another figure; then before he was aware,
another was at hand on the right, under a trilithon, and another on
the left.  The dawn shone full on the front of the man westward, and
Clare could discern from this that he was tall, and walked as if
trained.  They all closed in with evident purpose.  Her story then
was true!  Springing to his feet, he looked around for a weapon,
loose stone, means of escape, anything.  By this time the nearest
man was upon him.

"It is no use, sir," he said.  "There are sixteen of us on the Plain,
and the whole country is reared."

"Let her finish her sleep!" he implored in a whisper of the men as
they gathered round.

When they saw where she lay, which they had not done till then, they
showed no objection, and stood watching her, as still as the pillars
around.  He went to the stone and bent over her, holding one poor
little hand; her breathing now was quick and small, like that of a
lesser creature than a woman.  All waited in the growing light, their
faces and hands as if they were silvered, the remainder of their
figures dark, the stones glistening green-gray, the Plain still a
mass of shade.  Soon the light was strong, and a ray shone upon her
unconscious form, peering under her eyelids and waking her.

"What is it, Angel?" she said, starting up.  "Have they come for me?"

"Yes, dearest," he said.  "They have come."

"It is as it should be," she murmured.  "Angel, I am almost glad--yes,
glad!  This happiness could not have lasted.  It was too much.  I
have had enough; and now I shall not live for you to despise me!"

She stood up, shook herself, and went forward, neither of the men
having moved.

"I am ready," she said quietly.




The city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime capital
of Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave downlands in all the
brightness and warmth of a July morning.  The gabled brick, tile, and
freestone houses had almost dried off for the season their integument
of lichen, the streams in the meadows were low, and in the sloping
High Street, from the West Gateway to the mediaeval cross, and from
the mediaeval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping
was in progress which usually ushers in an old-fashioned market-day.

From the western gate aforesaid the highway, as every Wintoncestrian
knows, ascends a long and regular incline of the exact length of a
measured mile, leaving the houses gradually behind.  Up this road
from the precincts of the city two persons were walking rapidly,
as if unconscious of the trying ascent--unconscious through
preoccupation and not through buoyancy.  They had emerged upon this
road through a narrow, barred wicket in a high wall a little lower
down.  They seemed anxious to get out of the sight of the houses and
of their kind, and this road appeared to offer the quickest means
of doing so.  Though they were young, they walked with bowed heads,
which gait of grief the sun's rays smiled on pitilessly.

One of the pair was Angel Clare, the other a tall budding
creature--half girl, half woman--a spiritualized image of Tess,
slighter than she, but with the same beautiful eyes--Clare's
sister-in-law, 'Liza-Lu.  Their pale faces seemed to have shrunk
to half their natural size.  They moved on hand in hand, and never
spoke a word, the drooping of their heads being that of Giotto's
"Two Apostles".

When they had nearly reached the top of the great West Hill the
clocks in the town struck eight.  Each gave a start at the notes,
and, walking onward yet a few steps, they reached the first
milestone, standing whitely on the green margin of the grass, and
backed by the down, which here was open to the road.  They entered
upon the turf, and, impelled by a force that seemed to overrule their
will, suddenly stood still, turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense
beside the stone.

The prospect from this summit was almost unlimited.  In the valley
beneath lay the city they had just left, its more prominent buildings
showing as in an isometric drawing--among them the broad cathedral
tower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave,
the spires of St Thomas's, the pinnacled tower of the College, and,
more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice,
where to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale.
Behind the city swept the rotund upland of St Catherine's Hill;
further off, landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was lost
in the radiance of the sun hanging above it.

Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other
city edifices, a large red-brick building, with level gray roofs,
and rows of short barred windows bespeaking captivity, the whole
contrasting greatly by its formalism with the quaint irregularities
of the Gothic erections.  It was somewhat disguised from the road in
passing it by yews and evergreen oaks, but it was visible enough up
here.  The wicket from which the pair had lately emerged was in the
wall of this structure.  From the middle of the building an ugly
flat-topped octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and
viewed from this spot, on its shady side and against the light, it
seemed the one blot on the city's beauty.  Yet it was with this blot,
and not with the beauty, that the two gazers were concerned.

Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed.  Their eyes
were riveted on it.  A few minutes after the hour had struck
something moved slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the
breeze.  It was a black flag.

"Justice" was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean
phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.  And the d'Urberville knights
and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing.  The two speechless
gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and
remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued
to wave silently.  As soon as they had strength, they arose, joined
hands again, and went on.



Chapters 57-59
Angel hears from his parents via telegram that his brother Cuthbert is engaged to Mercy Chant. He leaves his hotel to go to the train station for a return trip home. At the station, Tess finds him and confesses to murdering Alec. Immediately, Angel formulates a plan to walk to the north of England, avoiding the more traveled roads, until they can reach a port city after the events surrounding the murder are forgotten. The two walk for miles, finally happy to be in each other's company. Along the way, they discover a vacant house, with only a caretaker occasionally stopping by. The great house, called Bramshurst Court, is empty of a renter, so the couple takes up residence. They spend five days in the house until the local caretaker sees them sleeping in the large bedrooms. Once discovered, Angel and Tess move directly north until they reach the ancient monoliths of Stonehenge. Tess feels that her freedom is limited and her end is near, so she has Angel promise to marry Liza Lu after her death. Now that it is night and the two are tired, Tess sleeps on one of the "altars" of stone. Near daybreak, the two are surrounded by police who take Tess into custody. For her part, Tess is glad that the end has come, and she goes with the police willingly. In the final chapter, Angel and Liza Lu journey together to Wintoncester to see that Tess' sentence, death by hanging, is carried out. They do not actually witness the deed, but know the enterprise is done when a black flag is hoisted over the town's tower. The two then return the way they came, "As soon as they arose, joined hands again, and went on."
Hardy has brought the story full circle. Four years have passed since the day in May, in the beginning of the novel, when Tess and Angel met. At the story's end it is May again. Angel is in the process of leaving Sandbourne when he receives news that his brother, Cuthbert, has become engaged to Mercy Chant. As he is leaving town awaiting the next train, Tess appears with the tale that she had killed Alec. Angel is unsure about her story, but now that she is finally his, he takes no chances of her being discovered. One of their stops takes them to a vacant house, called Bramshurst Court. Their week together is uneventful in that Tess and Angel finally become a married couple. She seems to know that her time with Angel is limited, because she will soon be wanted for Alec's murder; "My life can only be a question of a few weeks," she says. Her last wishes are for Angel to marry her sister, Liza Lu for "'She had all the best of me without the bad of me." In Chapter 59, when Angel and Liza Lu join hands after Tess' execution, we understand that Angel will fulfill this request. The chase from Sandbourne ends at the historic site of Stonehenge, a collection of giant stones arranged in a circular form, dating from 2,800 to 1,500 B.C. The purposes for the monuments were to serve as an astrological calendar and a ceremonial place for religious or tribal worship. Because the original purposes of the ancient monuments have been shrouded in mystery, especially in Hardy's time, experts could only speculate as to the purpose of the megaliths. Tess and Angel stop in Stonehenge after they have traveled a long way and need rest. The stones are still warm from the sun, radiating heat all during the cool night. Tess realizes that her mother's family is from the area, "One of my mother's people was a shepherd hereabouts, now I think of it. And you used to say at Talbothays that I was a heathen. So now I am at home." Angel recognizes that Tess is "lying on an altar" -- like a sacrifice to the ancient pagans who used to practice there. In a modern sense, Tess is sacrificed to the laws and morals of the nineteenth century. Hardy ends Tess' tale with the words "'Justice' was done, and the President of the Immortals, in the Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess." A bit of background is needed to understand this phrase. First, Aeschylus was an ancient Greek playwright who lived from 525-546 b.c. Aeschylus wrote plays that centered on individual will and the influence of divine power over mortals. In his play called Prometheus Bound, Prometheus is chained to a rock, and an eagle comes to devour his liver every day; each night, Prometheus' liver grows back. Hercules destroys the eagle and sets Prometheus free. Tess is like Prometheus in that she seems to have been a "toy" of the gods of morality and religion in Victorian England, and she had to be sacrificed for the good of mankind. All of Tess' life is the result of either an accident, fate, or the intervention of the gods. In fact, some critics feel that the circumstances leading to Tess' tragic life and death are too contrived, are unrealistic, and unbelievable. Whether realistic or not, Fate has intervened in Tess' world and shaped the course of her life. Glossary "her Antinous . . . " a favorite of the Roman Emperor Hadrian; like Apollo, the Greek god of sun and of music, Antinous was a figure of male beauty. Atalanta's race Atalanta was a Grecian huntress who refused to marry any suitor who could not outrun her; the penalty for those who lost was death. deprecated expressed disapproval of; depreciated; belittled. antiquity the quality of being ancient or old. "Temple of the Winds" also known as the "tower of the winds," a temple in Athens used for telling time. Trilithon a monument consisting of two upright megaliths with a third stone serving as the lintel. taciturnity the condition of being silent or uncommunicative. integument a natural outer covering of the body or of a plant, including skin, shell, hide, husk, or rind. "Giotto's 'Two Apostles'" Hardy probably had in mind the fresco in the National Gallery in London that is now attributed to Spinello Aretino . wicket a small door or gate, esp. one set in or near a larger door or gate. Aeschylean phrase "President of the Immortals" translates a phrase from Prometheus Bound , by Aeschylus; Hardy finishes the novel by suggesting that the highest power in the universe uses human beings for "sport."