finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_28_part_0.txt
Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 29
chapter 29
{"name": "Chapter 29", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-29", "summary": "\"Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She had never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.\" Bathsheba had talked of Boldwood to Liddy, but she spoke to no one of Troy. Gabriel, however, noticed and sorrowed over this new infatuation. He decided to talk with Bathsheba, basing his appeal on her unfairness to Boldwood. Oak met Bathsheba one evening when she went for a walk. He spoke of bad characters in the neighborhood, wishing to imply that Troy was one of them. He said that in the absence of Boldwood, who would normally protect her, he thought it advisable to take on this role himself. Bathsheba assured him that no wedding with Boldwood was in prospect; she said she had given the farmer no answer. Gabriel cited Troy's unworthiness. He considered him to be a man without conscience and on a downward course in life. Bathsheba countered his arguments. Oak begged her to be discreet: \"Bathsheba, dear mistress, this I beg you to consider -- that, both to keep yourself well honoured among the workfolk, and in common generosity to an honourable man who loves you as well as I, you should be more discreet in your bearing towards this soldier.\" Again Bathsheba wanted to dismiss Oak for meddling, and again he agreed to go, but only if she were to hire a good bailiff. When she refused to do so, Gabriel refused to leave the farm. Then, \"as a woman,\" she asked him to leave her alone. Gabriel saw her meet Troy but, not wishing to eavesdrop, he left. Troy had told Bathsheba that he attended church secretly, entering by the side door. Gabriel, doubting Troy's truthfulness, checked this door; he found it overgrown with ivy and therefore impossible to enter.", "analysis": "We admire Gabriel for his honesty, fairness, and courage in confronting Bathsheba with her dalliance with Troy. Oak is almost certain that she will not heed him, but he deems it his duty to speak. We understand his point of view when his lack of faith in Troy's veracity is corroborated."}


PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK


We now see the element of folly distinctly mingling with the many
varying particulars which made up the character of Bathsheba
Everdene.  It was almost foreign to her intrinsic nature.  Introduced
as lymph on the dart of Eros, it eventually permeated and coloured
her whole constitution.  Bathsheba, though she had too much
understanding to be entirely governed by her womanliness, had too
much womanliness to use her understanding to the best advantage.
Perhaps in no minor point does woman astonish her helpmate more than
in the strange power she possesses of believing cajoleries that she
knows to be false--except, indeed, in that of being utterly sceptical
on strictures that she knows to be true.

Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women
love when they abandon their self-reliance.  When a strong woman
recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman
who has never had any strength to throw away.  One source of her
inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice
in making the best of such a condition.  Weakness is doubly weak by
being new.

Bathsheba was not conscious of guile in this matter.  Though in one
sense a woman of the world, it was, after all, that world of daylight
coteries and green carpets wherein cattle form the passing crowd and
winds the busy hum; where a quiet family of rabbits or hares lives on
the other side of your party-wall, where your neighbour is everybody
in the tything, and where calculation is confined to market-days.
Of the fabricated tastes of good fashionable society she knew but
little, and of the formulated self-indulgence of bad, nothing at all.
Had her utmost thoughts in this direction been distinctly worded (and
by herself they never were), they would only have amounted to such a
matter as that she felt her impulses to be pleasanter guides than her
discretion.  Her love was entire as a child's, and though warm as
summer it was fresh as spring.  Her culpability lay in her making
no attempt to control feeling by subtle and careful inquiry into
consequences.  She could show others the steep and thorny way, but
"reck'd not her own rede."

And Troy's deformities lay deep down from a woman's vision, whilst
his embellishments were upon the very surface; thus contrasting with
homely Oak, whose defects were patent to the blindest, and whose
virtues were as metals in a mine.

The difference between love and respect was markedly shown in her
conduct.  Bathsheba had spoken of her interest in Boldwood with the
greatest freedom to Liddy, but she had only communed with her own
heart concerning Troy.

All this infatuation Gabriel saw, and was troubled thereby from the
time of his daily journey a-field to the time of his return, and on
to the small hours of many a night.  That he was not beloved had
hitherto been his great sorrow; that Bathsheba was getting into
the toils was now a sorrow greater than the first, and one which
nearly obscured it.  It was a result which paralleled the oft-quoted
observation of Hippocrates concerning physical pains.

That is a noble though perhaps an unpromising love which not even the
fear of breeding aversion in the bosom of the one beloved can deter
from combating his or her errors.  Oak determined to speak to his
mistress.  He would base his appeal on what he considered her unfair
treatment of Farmer Boldwood, now absent from home.

An opportunity occurred one evening when she had gone for a short
walk by a path through the neighbouring cornfields.  It was dusk when
Oak, who had not been far a-field that day, took the same path and
met her returning, quite pensively, as he thought.

The wheat was now tall, and the path was narrow; thus the way was
quite a sunken groove between the embowing thicket on either side.
Two persons could not walk abreast without damaging the crop, and
Oak stood aside to let her pass.

"Oh, is it Gabriel?" she said.  "You are taking a walk too.
Good-night."

"I thought I would come to meet you, as it is rather late," said Oak,
turning and following at her heels when she had brushed somewhat
quickly by him.

"Thank you, indeed, but I am not very fearful."

"Oh no; but there are bad characters about."

"I never meet them."

Now Oak, with marvellous ingenuity, had been going to introduce the
gallant sergeant through the channel of "bad characters."  But all at
once the scheme broke down, it suddenly occurring to him that this
was rather a clumsy way, and too barefaced to begin with.  He tried
another preamble.

"And as the man who would naturally come to meet you is away from
home, too--I mean Farmer Boldwood--why, thinks I, I'll go," he said.

"Ah, yes."  She walked on without turning her head, and for many
steps nothing further was heard from her quarter than the rustle
of her dress against the heavy corn-ears.  Then she resumed rather
tartly--

"I don't quite understand what you meant by saying that Mr. Boldwood
would naturally come to meet me."

"I meant on account of the wedding which they say is likely to take
place between you and him, miss.  Forgive my speaking plainly."

"They say what is not true." she returned quickly.  "No marriage is
likely to take place between us."

Gabriel now put forth his unobscured opinion, for the moment had
come.  "Well, Miss Everdene," he said, "putting aside what people
say, I never in my life saw any courting if his is not a courting
of you."

Bathsheba would probably have terminated the conversation there and
then by flatly forbidding the subject, had not her conscious weakness
of position allured her to palter and argue in endeavours to better
it.

"Since this subject has been mentioned," she said very emphatically,
"I am glad of the opportunity of clearing up a mistake which is very
common and very provoking.  I didn't definitely promise Mr. Boldwood
anything.  I have never cared for him.  I respect him, and he has
urged me to marry him.  But I have given him no distinct answer.
As soon as he returns I shall do so; and the answer will be that I
cannot think of marrying him."

"People are full of mistakes, seemingly."

"They are."

"The other day they said you were trifling with him, and you almost
proved that you were not; lately they have said that you be not, and
you straightway begin to show--"

"That I am, I suppose you mean."

"Well, I hope they speak the truth."

"They do, but wrongly applied.  I don't trifle with him; but then, I
have nothing to do with him."

Oak was unfortunately led on to speak of Boldwood's rival in a wrong
tone to her after all.  "I wish you had never met that young Sergeant
Troy, miss," he sighed.

Bathsheba's steps became faintly spasmodic.  "Why?" she asked.

"He is not good enough for 'ee."

"Did any one tell you to speak to me like this?"

"Nobody at all."

"Then it appears to me that Sergeant Troy does not concern us here,"
she said, intractably. "Yet I must say that Sergeant Troy is an
educated man, and quite worthy of any woman.  He is well born."

"His being higher in learning and birth than the ruck o' soldiers
is anything but a proof of his worth.  It show's his course to be
down'ard."

"I cannot see what this has to do with our conversation.  Mr. Troy's
course is not by any means downward; and his superiority IS a proof
of his worth!"

"I believe him to have no conscience at all.  And I cannot help
begging you, miss, to have nothing to do with him.  Listen to me this
once--only this once!  I don't say he's such a bad man as I have
fancied--I pray to God he is not.  But since we don't exactly know
what he is, why not behave as if he MIGHT be bad, simply for your own
safety?  Don't trust him, mistress; I ask you not to trust him so."

"Why, pray?"

"I like soldiers, but this one I do not like," he said, sturdily.
"His cleverness in his calling may have tempted him astray, and what
is mirth to the neighbours is ruin to the woman.  When he tries to
talk to 'ee again, why not turn away with a short 'Good day'; and
when you see him coming one way, turn the other.  When he says
anything laughable, fail to see the point and don't smile, and speak
of him before those who will report your talk as 'that fantastical
man,' or 'that Sergeant What's-his-name.' 'That man of a family
that has come to the dogs.'  Don't be unmannerly towards en, but
harmless-uncivil, and so get rid of the man."

No Christmas robin detained by a window-pane ever pulsed as did
Bathsheba now.

"I say--I say again--that it doesn't become you to talk about
him.  Why he should be mentioned passes me quite!" she exclaimed
desperately.  "I know this, th-th-that he is a thoroughly
conscientious man--blunt sometimes even to rudeness--but always
speaking his mind about you plain to your face!"

"Oh."

"He is as good as anybody in this parish!  He is very particular,
too, about going to church--yes, he is!"

"I am afeard nobody saw him there.  I never did, certainly."

"The reason of that is," she said eagerly, "that he goes in privately
by the old tower door, just when the service commences, and sits at
the back of the gallery.  He told me so."

This supreme instance of Troy's goodness fell upon Gabriel ears like
the thirteenth stroke of crazy clock.  It was not only received with
utter incredulity as regarded itself, but threw a doubt on all the
assurances that had preceded it.

Oak was grieved to find how entirely she trusted him.  He brimmed
with deep feeling as he replied in a steady voice, the steadiness of
which was spoilt by the palpableness of his great effort to keep it
so:--

"You know, mistress, that I love you, and shall love you always.
I only mention this to bring to your mind that at any rate I would
wish to do you no harm: beyond that I put it aside.  I have lost in
the race for money and good things, and I am not such a fool as to
pretend to 'ee now I am poor, and you have got altogether above me.
But Bathsheba, dear mistress, this I beg you to consider--that, both
to keep yourself well honoured among the workfolk, and in common
generosity to an honourable man who loves you as well as I, you
should be more discreet in your bearing towards this soldier."

"Don't, don't, don't!" she exclaimed, in a choking voice.

"Are ye not more to me than my own affairs, and even life!" he went
on.  "Come, listen to me!  I am six years older than you, and Mr.
Boldwood is ten years older than I, and consider--I do beg of 'ee to
consider before it is too late--how safe you would be in his hands!"

Oak's allusion to his own love for her lessened, to some extent, her
anger at his interference; but she could not really forgive him for
letting his wish to marry her be eclipsed by his wish to do her good,
any more than for his slighting treatment of Troy.

"I wish you to go elsewhere," she commanded, a paleness of face
invisible to the eye being suggested by the trembling words.  "Do not
remain on this farm any longer.  I don't want you--I beg you to go!"

"That's nonsense," said Oak, calmly.  "This is the second time you
have pretended to dismiss me; and what's the use o' it?"

"Pretended!  You shall go, sir--your lecturing I will not hear!  I am
mistress here."

"Go, indeed--what folly will you say next?  Treating me like Dick,
Tom and Harry when you know that a short time ago my position was as
good as yours!  Upon my life, Bathsheba, it is too barefaced.  You
know, too, that I can't go without putting things in such a strait as
you wouldn't get out of I can't tell when.  Unless, indeed, you'll
promise to have an understanding man as bailiff, or manager, or
something.  I'll go at once if you'll promise that."

"I shall have no bailiff; I shall continue to be my own manager," she
said decisively.

"Very well, then; you should be thankful to me for biding.  How would
the farm go on with nobody to mind it but a woman?  But mind this, I
don't wish 'ee to feel you owe me anything.  Not I.  What I do, I do.
Sometimes I say I should be as glad as a bird to leave the place--for
don't suppose I'm content to be a nobody.  I was made for better
things.  However, I don't like to see your concerns going to ruin, as
they must if you keep in this mind....  I hate taking my own measure
so plain, but, upon my life, your provoking ways make a man say
what he wouldn't dream of at other times!  I own to being rather
interfering.  But you know well enough how it is, and who she is that
I like too well, and feel too much like a fool about to be civil to
her!"

It is more than probable that she privately and unconsciously
respected him a little for this grim fidelity, which had been shown
in his tone even more than in his words.  At any rate she murmured
something to the effect that he might stay if he wished.  She said
more distinctly, "Will you leave me alone now?  I don't order it
as a mistress--I ask it as a woman, and I expect you not to be so
uncourteous as to refuse."

"Certainly I will, Miss Everdene," said Gabriel, gently.  He wondered
that the request should have come at this moment, for the strife was
over, and they were on a most desolate hill, far from every human
habitation, and the hour was getting late.  He stood still and
allowed her to get far ahead of him till he could only see her form
upon the sky.

A distressing explanation of this anxiety to be rid of him at that
point now ensued.  A figure apparently rose from the earth beside
her.  The shape beyond all doubt was Troy's.  Oak would not be even
a possible listener, and at once turned back till a good two hundred
yards were between the lovers and himself.

Gabriel went home by way of the churchyard.  In passing the tower
he thought of what she had said about the sergeant's virtuous habit
of entering the church unperceived at the beginning of service.
Believing that the little gallery door alluded to was quite disused,
he ascended the external flight of steps at the top of which
it stood, and examined it.  The pale lustre yet hanging in the
north-western heaven was sufficient to show that a sprig of ivy had
grown from the wall across the door to a length of more than a foot,
delicately tying the panel to the stone jamb.  It was a decisive
proof that the door had not been opened at least since Troy came back
to Weatherbury.




Chapter 29
"Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She had never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new." Bathsheba had talked of Boldwood to Liddy, but she spoke to no one of Troy. Gabriel, however, noticed and sorrowed over this new infatuation. He decided to talk with Bathsheba, basing his appeal on her unfairness to Boldwood. Oak met Bathsheba one evening when she went for a walk. He spoke of bad characters in the neighborhood, wishing to imply that Troy was one of them. He said that in the absence of Boldwood, who would normally protect her, he thought it advisable to take on this role himself. Bathsheba assured him that no wedding with Boldwood was in prospect; she said she had given the farmer no answer. Gabriel cited Troy's unworthiness. He considered him to be a man without conscience and on a downward course in life. Bathsheba countered his arguments. Oak begged her to be discreet: "Bathsheba, dear mistress, this I beg you to consider -- that, both to keep yourself well honoured among the workfolk, and in common generosity to an honourable man who loves you as well as I, you should be more discreet in your bearing towards this soldier." Again Bathsheba wanted to dismiss Oak for meddling, and again he agreed to go, but only if she were to hire a good bailiff. When she refused to do so, Gabriel refused to leave the farm. Then, "as a woman," she asked him to leave her alone. Gabriel saw her meet Troy but, not wishing to eavesdrop, he left. Troy had told Bathsheba that he attended church secretly, entering by the side door. Gabriel, doubting Troy's truthfulness, checked this door; he found it overgrown with ivy and therefore impossible to enter.
We admire Gabriel for his honesty, fairness, and courage in confronting Bathsheba with her dalliance with Troy. Oak is almost certain that she will not heed him, but he deems it his duty to speak. We understand his point of view when his lack of faith in Troy's veracity is corroborated.