finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_6_part_5.txt
Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 57
chapter 57
{"name": "Chapter 57", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-7-chapters-53-59", "summary": "Angel prepares to leave town, dejected. He walks to the first nearby train station, and as he travels he sees a woman running toward him. It is Tess, who has been following him. She tells Angel that she has killed Alec, and smiles faintly as she tells him this. Tess admits that she killed Alec when he taunted Tess and called Angel by a foul name. Angel wonders what obscure strain in the d'Urberville blood had led to this aberration of moral sense, if it were an aberration. Angel thinks about the legend of the d'Urberville coach. He vows not to desert Tess, and they continue together. They pass a deserted mansion, Bramshurst Court, where they rest.", "analysis": "Tess and Angel finally reconcile in this chapter, but the circumstances under which Angel and Tess find themselves render this reconciliation short-lived. Hardy finally connects Tess to the d'Urberville legacy in this chapter, allowing that her d'Urberville heritage has endowed her with a faulty moral deficiency that has made her capable of murder. Angel himself relates the murder of Alec to the legend of the d'Urberville coach. However, Tess's action may be seen as a reversal of this legend, for in this instance it is the victimized woman who strikes out against a rapacious d'Urberville. Tess inverts her family history, recalling the d'Urberville history and refuting its legends"}


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.



Chapter 57
Angel prepares to leave town, dejected. He walks to the first nearby train station, and as he travels he sees a woman running toward him. It is Tess, who has been following him. She tells Angel that she has killed Alec, and smiles faintly as she tells him this. Tess admits that she killed Alec when he taunted Tess and called Angel by a foul name. Angel wonders what obscure strain in the d'Urberville blood had led to this aberration of moral sense, if it were an aberration. Angel thinks about the legend of the d'Urberville coach. He vows not to desert Tess, and they continue together. They pass a deserted mansion, Bramshurst Court, where they rest.
Tess and Angel finally reconcile in this chapter, but the circumstances under which Angel and Tess find themselves render this reconciliation short-lived. Hardy finally connects Tess to the d'Urberville legacy in this chapter, allowing that her d'Urberville heritage has endowed her with a faulty moral deficiency that has made her capable of murder. Angel himself relates the murder of Alec to the legend of the d'Urberville coach. However, Tess's action may be seen as a reversal of this legend, for in this instance it is the victimized woman who strikes out against a rapacious d'Urberville. Tess inverts her family history, recalling the d'Urberville history and refuting its legends