finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_5_part_2.txt
Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 46
chapter 46
{"name": "Chapter 46", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-6-chapters-45-52", "summary": "Several days pass since Tess's journey to Emminster. Tess sees a man approach as she works; it is not Farmer Groby, her employer, but rather Alec d'Urberville. Alec claims that he has a good reason for violating Tess's request that he not see her. He tells her that he now sees that she suffers from hard conditions, which she did not know earlier because he saw her in her best dress. He tells her that her case was the worst he was ever concerned in, and he had no idea of what resulted until their encounter days before. He takes blame for the ordeal, but says that it is a shame that parents bring up girls ignorant of the wicked. He tells her that he has lost his mother since Tess left Trantridge and he intends to devote himself to missionary work in Africa. He asks Tess if she will be his wife and accompany her. He tells Tess that his mother's dying wish was for Alec to be married, and he presents Tess with a marriage license. Tess admits to Alec that she is already married, and claims that she and Alec are now strangers. As Tess attempts to explain her situation, Alec calls her a deserted wife and he grabs her hand. She asks Alec to leave in the name of his own Christianity. Farmer Groby approaches Alec and Tess and asks what the commotion is, and Alec calls him a tyrant. When Farmer Groby leaves, Tess says that Farmer Groby will not hurt her, because he's not in love with her. That night, Tess writes a letter to Angel, concealing her hardships. Tess sees Alec again, and he remarks that Tess seems to have no religion, perhaps owing to him. She says that she believes in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, but she does not believe other details. Alec dismisses her opinions as merely those of her husband. He claims that Angel must be an infidel. Alec gives Tess a poster giving the time when he would preach, but claims that he would rather be with Tess. Alec claims that Tess has the means of his backsliding, and accuses her of tempting him.", "analysis": "Hardy makes very clear in this chapter that Alec d'Urberville has changed little since Tess left Trantridge Cross, as he continues to behave as before. He repeats many of the same actions that prefaced his seduction of Tess, following her and using his monetary influence as charity to endear himself to Tess in order to win her. Alec continues to evade responsibility for his actions; when he discusses what happened to Tess, he does not blame himself for seducing her, but blames mothers who do not warn their daughters that men can seduce. He also reiterates his claim that Tess has caused his sinfulness by tempting him, rather than accepting the blame for his weakness of morals. Alec d'Urberville, rather than posing a threat to Tess's devotion to Angel Clare, instead bolsters her love for her husband. He reinforces Angel's purity of belief through contrast, while reminding Tess of their similarities of morals. Yet there remains an unfortunate similarity between Angel and Alec that Tess realizes during this chapter when she mentions that Farmer Groby cannot hurt Tess, for he does not love her. The one commonality that Angel and Alec have, despite their contrary natures, is that both inflict pain on Tess through love, whether expressed as an ideal or a physical act"}


Several days had passed since her futile journey, and Tess was
afield.  The dry winter wind still blew, but a screen of thatched
hurdles erected in the eye of the blast kept its force away from her.
On the sheltered side was a turnip-slicing machine, whose bright blue
hue of new paint seemed almost vocal in the otherwise subdued scene.
Opposite its front was a long mound or "grave", in which the roots
had been preserved since early winter.  Tess was standing at the
uncovered end, chopping off with a bill-hook the fibres and earth
from each root, and throwing it after the operation into the slicer.
A man was turning the handle of the machine, and from its trough
came the newly-cut swedes, the fresh smell of whose yellow chips
was accompanied by the sounds of the snuffling wind, the smart swish
of the slicing-blades, and the choppings of the hook in Tess's
leather-gloved hand.

The wide acreage of blank agricultural brownness, apparent where
the swedes had been pulled, was beginning to be striped in wales of
darker brown, gradually broadening to ribands.  Along the edge of
each of these something crept upon ten legs, moving without haste
and without rest up and down the whole length of the field; it was
two horses and a man, the plough going between them, turning up the
cleared ground for a spring sowing.

For hours nothing relieved the joyless monotony of things. Then, far
beyond the ploughing-teams, a black speck was seen.  It had come from
the corner of a fence, where there was a gap, and its tendency was
up the incline, towards the swede-cutters.  From the proportions of
a mere point it advanced to the shape of a ninepin, and was soon
perceived to be a man in black, arriving from the direction of
Flintcomb-Ash.  The man at the slicer, having nothing else to do with
his eyes, continually observed the comer, but Tess, who was occupied,
did not perceive him till her companion directed her attention to his
approach.

It was not her hard taskmaster, Farmer Groby; it was one in a
semi-clerical costume, who now represented what had once been the
free-and-easy Alec d'Urberville.  Not being hot at his preaching
there was less enthusiasm about him now, and the presence of the
grinder seemed to embarrass him.  A pale distress was already on
Tess's face, and she pulled her curtained hood further over it.

D'Urberville came up and said quietly--

"I want to speak to you, Tess."

"You have refused my last request, not to come near me!" said she.

"Yes, but I have a good reason."

"Well, tell it."

"It is more serious than you may think."

He glanced round to see if he were overheard.  They were at some
distance from the man who turned the slicer, and the movement of the
machine, too, sufficiently prevented Alec's words reaching other
ears.  D'Urberville placed himself so as to screen Tess from the
labourer, turning his back to the latter.

"It is this," he continued, with capricious compunction.  "In
thinking of your soul and mine when we last met, I neglected to
inquire as to your worldly condition.  You were well dressed, and I
did not think of it.  But I see now that it is hard--harder than it
used to be when I--knew you--harder than you deserve.  Perhaps a good
deal of it is owning to me!"

She did not answer, and he watched her inquiringly, as, with bent
head, her face completely screened by the hood, she resumed her
trimming of the swedes.  By going on with her work she felt better
able to keep him outside her emotions.

"Tess," he added, with a sigh of discontent,--"yours was the very
worst case I ever was concerned in!  I had no idea of what had
resulted till you told me.  Scamp that I was to foul that innocent
life!  The whole blame was mine--the whole unconventional business
of our time at Trantridge.  You, too, the real blood of which I am
but the base imitation, what a blind young thing you were as to
possibilities!  I say in all earnestness that it is a shame for
parents to bring up their girls in such dangerous ignorance of the
gins and nets that the wicked may set for them, whether their motive
be a good one or the result of simple indifference."

Tess still did no more than listen, throwing down one globular root
and taking up another with automatic regularity, the pensive contour
of the mere fieldwoman alone marking her.

"But it is not that I came to say," d'Urberville went on.  "My
circumstances are these.  I have lost my mother since you were at
Trantridge, and the place is my own.  But I intend to sell it, and
devote myself to missionary work in Africa.  A devil of a poor hand
I shall make at the trade, no doubt.  However, what I want to ask
you is, will you put it in my power to do my duty--to make the only
reparation I can make for the trick played you: that is, will you be
my wife, and go with me? ...  I have already obtained this precious
document.  It was my old mother's dying wish."

He drew a piece of parchment from his pocket, with a slight fumbling
of embarrassment.

"What is it?" said she.

"A marriage licence."

"O no, sir--no!" she said quickly, starting back.

"You will not?  Why is that?"

And as he asked the question a disappointment which was not entirely
the disappointment of thwarted duty crossed d'Urberville's face.  It
was unmistakably a symptom that something of his old passion for her
had been revived; duty and desire ran hand-in-hand.

"Surely," he began again, in more impetuous tones, and then looked
round at the labourer who turned the slicer.

Tess, too, felt that the argument could not be ended there.
Informing the man that a gentleman had come to see her, with whom she
wished to walk a little way, she moved off with d'Urberville across
the zebra-striped field.  When they reached the first newly-ploughed
section he held out his hand to help her over it; but she stepped
forward on the summits of the earth-rolls as if she did not see him.

"You will not marry me, Tess, and make me a self-respecting man?" he
repeated, as soon as they were over the furrows.

"I cannot."

"But why?"

"You know I have no affection for you."

"But you would get to feel that in time, perhaps--as soon as you
really could forgive me?"

"Never!"

"Why so positive?"

"I love somebody else."

The words seemed to astonish him.

"You do?" he cried.  "Somebody else?  But has not a sense of what is
morally right and proper any weight with you?"

"No, no, no--don't say that!"

"Anyhow, then, your love for this other man may be only a passing
feeling which you will overcome--"

"No--no."

"Yes, yes!  Why not?"

"I cannot tell you."

"You must in honour!"

"Well then ... I have married him."

"Ah!" he exclaimed; and he stopped dead and gazed at
her.

"I did not wish to tell--I did not mean to!" she pleaded.  "It is a
secret here, or at any rate but dimly known.  So will you, PLEASE
will you, keep from questioning me?  You must remember that we are
now strangers."

"Strangers--are we?  Strangers!"

For a moment a flash of his old irony marked his face; but he
determinedly chastened it down.

"Is that man your husband?" he asked mechanically, denoting by a sign
the labourer who turned the machine.

"That man!" she said proudly.  "I should think not!"

"Who, then?"

"Do not ask what I do not wish to tell!" she begged, and flashed her
appeal to him from her upturned face and lash-shadowed eyes.

D'Urberville was disturbed.

"But I only asked for your sake!" he retorted hotly.  "Angels of
heaven!--God forgive me for such an expression--I came here, I swear,
as I thought for your good.  Tess--don't look at me so--I cannot
stand your looks!  There never were such eyes, surely, before
Christianity or since!  There--I won't lose my head; I dare not.
I own that the sight of you had waked up my love for you, which, I
believed, was extinguished with all such feelings.  But I thought
that our marriage might be a sanctification for us both.  'The
unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving
wife is sanctified by the husband,' I said to myself.  But my plan
is dashed from me; and I must bear the disappointment!"

He moodily reflected with his eyes on the ground.

"Married.  Married! ...  Well, that being so," he added, quite
calmly, tearing the licence slowly into halves and putting them in
his pocket; "that being prevented, I should like to do some good to
you and your husband, whoever he may be.  There are many questions
that I am tempted to ask, but I will not do so, of course, in
opposition to your wishes.  Though, if I could know your husband, I
might more easily benefit him and you.  Is he on this farm?"

"No," she murmured.  "He is far away."

"Far away?  From YOU?  What sort of husband can he be?"

"O, do not speak against him!  It was through you!  He found out--"

"Ah, is it so! ...  That's sad, Tess!"

"Yes."

"But to stay away from you--to leave you to work like this!"

"He does not leave me to work!" she cried, springing to the defence
of the absent one with all her fervour.  "He don't know it!  It is by
my own arrangement."

"Then, does he write?"

"I--I cannot tell you.  There are things which are private to
ourselves."

"Of course that means that he does not.  You are a deserted wife, my
fair Tess--"

In an impulse he turned suddenly to take her hand; the buff-glove was
on it, and he seized only the rough leather fingers which did not
express the life or shape of those within.

"You must not--you must not!" she cried fearfully, slipping her hand
from the glove as from a pocket, and leaving it in his grasp.  "O,
will you go away--for the sake of me and my husband--go, in the name
of your own Christianity!"

"Yes, yes; I will," he said abruptly, and thrusting the glove back to
her he turned to leave.  Facing round, however, he said, "Tess, as
God is my judge, I meant no humbug in taking your hand!"

A pattering of hoofs on the soil of the field, which they had not
noticed in their preoccupation, ceased close behind them; and a voice
reached her ear:

"What the devil are you doing away from your work at this time o'
day?"

Farmer Groby had espied the two figures from the distance, and had
inquisitively ridden across, to learn what was their business in his
field.

"Don't speak like that to her!" said d'Urberville, his face
blackening with something that was not Christianity.

"Indeed, Mister!  And what mid Methodist pa'sons have to do with
she?"

"Who is the fellow?" asked d'Urberville, turning to Tess.

She went close up to him.

"Go--I do beg you!" she said.

"What!  And leave you to that tyrant?  I can see in his face what a
churl he is."

"He won't hurt me.  HE'S not in love with me.  I can leave at
Lady-Day."

"Well, I have no right but to obey, I suppose.  But--well, goodbye!"

Her defender, whom she dreaded more than her assailant, having
reluctantly disappeared, the farmer continued his reprimand, which
Tess took with the greatest coolness, that sort of attack being
independent of sex.  To have as a master this man of stone, who would
have cuffed her if he had dared, was almost a relief after her former
experiences.  She silently walked back towards the summit of the
field that was the scene of her labour, so absorbed in the interview
which had just taken place that she was hardly aware that the nose of
Groby's horse almost touched her shoulders.

"If so be you make an agreement to work for me till Lady-Day, I'll
see that you carry it out," he growled.  "'Od rot the women--now
'tis one thing, and then 'tis another.  But I'll put up with it no
longer!"

Knowing very well that he did not harass the other women of the
farm as he harassed her out of spite for the flooring he had once
received, she did for one moment picture what might have been the
result if she had been free to accept the offer just made her of
being the monied Alec's wife.  It would have lifted her completely
out of subjection, not only to her present oppressive employer, but
to a whole world who seemed to despise her.  "But no, no!" she said
breathlessly; "I could not have married him now!  He is so unpleasant
to me."

That very night she began an appealing letter to Clare, concealing
from him her hardships, and assuring him of her undying affection.
Any one who had been in a position to read between the lines would
have seen that at the back of her great love was some monstrous
fear--almost a desperation--as to some secret contingencies which
were not disclosed.  But again she did not finish her effusion; he
had asked Izz to go with him, and perhaps he did not care for her at
all.  She put the letter in her box, and wondered if it would ever
reach Angel's hands.

After this her daily tasks were gone through heavily enough, and
brought on the day which was of great import to agriculturists--the
day of the Candlemas Fair.  It was at this fair that new engagements
were entered into for the twelve months following the ensuing
Lady-Day, and those of the farming population who thought of changing
their places duly attended at the county-town where the fair was
held.  Nearly all the labourers on Flintcomb-Ash farm intended
flight, and early in the morning there was a general exodus in the
direction of the town, which lay at a distance of from ten to a dozen
miles over hilly country.  Though Tess also meant to leave at the
quarter-day, she was one of the few who did not go to the fair,
having a vaguely-shaped hope that something would happen to render
another outdoor engagement unnecessary.

It was a peaceful February day, of wonderful softness for the time,
and one would almost have thought that winter was over.  She had
hardly finished her dinner when d'Urberville's figure darkened the
window of the cottage wherein she was a lodger, which she had all to
herself to-day.

Tess jumped up, but her visitor had knocked at the door, and she
could hardly in reason run away.  D'Urberville's knock, his walk up
to the door, had some indescribable quality of difference from his
air when she last saw him.  They seemed to be acts of which the doer
was ashamed.  She thought that she would not open the door; but, as
there was no sense in that either, she arose, and having lifted the
latch stepped back quickly.  He came in, saw her, and flung himself
down into a chair before speaking.

"Tess--I couldn't help it!" he began desperately, as he wiped his
heated face, which had also a superimposed flush of excitement.  "I
felt that I must call at least to ask how you are.  I assure you I
had not been thinking of you at all till I saw you that Sunday; now I
cannot get rid of your image, try how I may!  It is hard that a good
woman should do harm to a bad man; yet so it is.  If you would only
pray for me, Tess!"

The suppressed discontent of his manner was almost pitiable, and yet
Tess did not pity him.

"How can I pray for you," she said, "when I am forbidden to believe
that the great Power who moves the world would alter His plans on my
account?"

"You really think that?"

"Yes.  I have been cured of the presumption of thinking otherwise."

"Cured?  By whom?"

"By my husband, if I must tell."

"Ah--your husband--your husband!  How strange it seems!  I remember
you hinted something of the sort the other day.  What do you really
believe in these matters, Tess?" he asked.  "You seem to have no
religion--perhaps owing to me."

"But I have.  Though I don't believe in anything supernatural."

D'Urberville looked at her with misgiving.

"Then do you think that the line I take is all wrong?"

"A good deal of it."

"H'm--and yet I've felt so sure about it," he said uneasily.

"I believe in the SPIRIT of the Sermon on the Mount, and so did my
dear husband...  But I don't believe--"

Here she gave her negations.

"The fact is," said d'Urberville drily, "whatever your dear husband
believed you accept, and whatever he rejected you reject, without the
least inquiry or reasoning on your own part.  That's just like you
women.  Your mind is enslaved to his."

"Ah, because he knew everything!" said she, with a triumphant
simplicity of faith in Angel Clare that the most perfect man could
hardly have deserved, much less her husband.

"Yes, but you should not take negative opinions wholesale from
another person like that.  A pretty fellow he must be to teach you
such scepticism!"

"He never forced my judgement!  He would never argue on the subject
with me!  But I looked at it in this way; what he believed, after
inquiring deep into doctrines, was much more likely to be right than
what I might believe, who hadn't looked into doctrines at all."

"What used he to say?  He must have said something?"

She reflected; and with her acute memory for the letter of Angel
Clare's remarks, even when she did not comprehend their spirit, she
recalled a merciless polemical syllogism that she had heard him
use when, as it occasionally happened, he indulged in a species of
thinking aloud with her at his side.  In delivering it she gave also
Clare's accent and manner with reverential faithfulness.

"Say that again," asked d'Urberville, who had listened with the
greatest attention.

She repeated the argument, and d'Urberville thoughtfully murmured the
words after her.

"Anything else?" he presently asked.

"He said at another time something like this"; and she gave another,
which might possibly have been paralleled in many a work of the
pedigree ranging from the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_ to Huxley's
_Essays_.

"Ah--ha!  How do you remember them?"

"I wanted to believe what he believed, though he didn't wish me to;
and I managed to coax him to tell me a few of his thoughts.  I can't
say I quite understand that one; but I know it is right."

"H'm.  Fancy your being able to teach me what you don't know
yourself!"

He fell into thought.

"And so I threw in my spiritual lot with his," she resumed.  "I
didn't wish it to be different.  What's good enough for him is good
enough for me."

"Does he know that you are as big an infidel as he?"

"No--I never told him--if I am an infidel."

"Well--you are better off to-day that I am, Tess, after all!  You
don't believe that you ought to preach my doctrine, and, therefore,
do no despite to your conscience in abstaining.  I do believe I ought
to preach it, but, like the devils, I believe and tremble, for I
suddenly leave off preaching it, and give way to my passion for you."

"How?"

"Why," he said aridly; "I have come all the way here to see you
to-day!  But I started from home to go to Casterbridge Fair, where
I have undertaken to preach the Word from a waggon at half-past two
this afternoon, and where all the brethren are expecting me this
minute.  Here's the announcement."

He drew from his breast-pocket a poster whereon was printed the day,
hour, and place of meeting, at which he, d'Urberville, would preach
the Gospel as aforesaid.

"But how can you get there?" said Tess, looking at the clock.

"I cannot get there!  I have come here."

"What, you have really arranged to preach, and--"

"I have arranged to preach, and I shall not be there--by reason of my
burning desire to see a woman whom I once despised!--No, by my word
and truth, I never despised you; if I had I should not love you now!
Why I did not despise you was on account of your being unsmirched in
spite of all; you withdrew yourself from me so quickly and resolutely
when you saw the situation; you did not remain at my pleasure; so
there was one petticoat in the world for whom I had no contempt,
and you are she.  But you may well despise me now!  I thought I
worshipped on the mountains, but I find I still serve in the groves!
Ha! ha!"

"O Alec d'Urberville! what does this mean?  What have I done!"

"Done?" he said, with a soulless sneer in the word.  "Nothing
intentionally.  But you have been the means--the innocent means--of
my backsliding, as they call it.  I ask myself, am I, indeed, one of
those 'servants of corruption' who, 'after they have escaped the
pollutions of the world, are again entangled therein and overcome'--
whose latter end is worse than their beginning?"  He laid his hand on
her shoulder.  "Tess, my girl, I was on the way to, at least, social
salvation till I saw you again!" he said freakishly shaking her, as
if she were a child.  "And why then have you tempted me?  I was firm
as a man could be till I saw those eyes and that mouth again--surely
there never was such a maddening mouth since Eve's!"  His voice sank,
and a hot archness shot from his own black eyes.  "You temptress,
Tess; you dear damned witch of Babylon--I could not resist you as
soon as I met you again!"

"I couldn't help your seeing me again!" said Tess, recoiling.

"I know it--I repeat that I do not blame you.  But the fact remains.
When I saw you ill-used on the farm that day I was nearly mad to
think that I had no legal right to protect you--that I could not have
it; whilst he who has it seems to neglect you utterly!"

"Don't speak against him--he is absent!" she cried in much
excitement.  "Treat him honourably--he has never wronged you!  O
leave his wife before any scandal spreads that may do harm to his
honest name!"

"I will--I will," he said, like a man awakening from a luring dream.
"I have broken my engagement to preach to those poor drunken boobies
at the fair--it is the first time I have played such a practical
joke.  A month ago I should have been horrified at such a
possibility.  I'll go away--to swear--and--ah, can I! to keep away."
Then, suddenly: "One clasp, Tessy--one!  Only for old friendship--"

"I am without defence. Alec!  A good man's honour is in my keeping--
think--be ashamed!"

"Pooh!  Well, yes--yes!"

He clenched his lips, mortified with himself for his weakness.  His
eyes were equally barren of worldly and religious faith.  The corpses
of those old fitful passions which had lain inanimate amid the lines
of his face ever since his reformation seemed to wake and come
together as in a resurrection.  He went out indeterminately.

Though d'Urberville had declared that this breach of his engagement
to-day was the simple backsliding of a believer, Tess's words, as
echoed from Angel Clare, had made a deep impression upon him, and
continued to do so after he had left her.  He moved on in silence, as
if his energies were benumbed by the hitherto undreamt-of possibility
that his position was untenable.  Reason had had nothing to do with
his whimsical conversion, which was perhaps the mere freak of a
careless man in search of a new sensation, and temporarily impressed
by his mother's death.

The drops of logic Tess had let fall into the sea of his enthusiasm
served to chill its effervescence to stagnation.  He said to himself,
as he pondered again and again over the crystallized phrases that she
had handed on to him, "That clever fellow little thought that, by
telling her those things, he might be paving my way back to her!"



Chapter 46
Several days pass since Tess's journey to Emminster. Tess sees a man approach as she works; it is not Farmer Groby, her employer, but rather Alec d'Urberville. Alec claims that he has a good reason for violating Tess's request that he not see her. He tells her that he now sees that she suffers from hard conditions, which she did not know earlier because he saw her in her best dress. He tells her that her case was the worst he was ever concerned in, and he had no idea of what resulted until their encounter days before. He takes blame for the ordeal, but says that it is a shame that parents bring up girls ignorant of the wicked. He tells her that he has lost his mother since Tess left Trantridge and he intends to devote himself to missionary work in Africa. He asks Tess if she will be his wife and accompany her. He tells Tess that his mother's dying wish was for Alec to be married, and he presents Tess with a marriage license. Tess admits to Alec that she is already married, and claims that she and Alec are now strangers. As Tess attempts to explain her situation, Alec calls her a deserted wife and he grabs her hand. She asks Alec to leave in the name of his own Christianity. Farmer Groby approaches Alec and Tess and asks what the commotion is, and Alec calls him a tyrant. When Farmer Groby leaves, Tess says that Farmer Groby will not hurt her, because he's not in love with her. That night, Tess writes a letter to Angel, concealing her hardships. Tess sees Alec again, and he remarks that Tess seems to have no religion, perhaps owing to him. She says that she believes in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, but she does not believe other details. Alec dismisses her opinions as merely those of her husband. He claims that Angel must be an infidel. Alec gives Tess a poster giving the time when he would preach, but claims that he would rather be with Tess. Alec claims that Tess has the means of his backsliding, and accuses her of tempting him.
Hardy makes very clear in this chapter that Alec d'Urberville has changed little since Tess left Trantridge Cross, as he continues to behave as before. He repeats many of the same actions that prefaced his seduction of Tess, following her and using his monetary influence as charity to endear himself to Tess in order to win her. Alec continues to evade responsibility for his actions; when he discusses what happened to Tess, he does not blame himself for seducing her, but blames mothers who do not warn their daughters that men can seduce. He also reiterates his claim that Tess has caused his sinfulness by tempting him, rather than accepting the blame for his weakness of morals. Alec d'Urberville, rather than posing a threat to Tess's devotion to Angel Clare, instead bolsters her love for her husband. He reinforces Angel's purity of belief through contrast, while reminding Tess of their similarities of morals. Yet there remains an unfortunate similarity between Angel and Alec that Tess realizes during this chapter when she mentions that Farmer Groby cannot hurt Tess, for he does not love her. The one commonality that Angel and Alec have, despite their contrary natures, is that both inflict pain on Tess through love, whether expressed as an ideal or a physical act