finished_summaries/shmoop/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_10_part_0.txt
Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 11
chapter 11
{"name": "Phase I: \"The Maiden,\" Chapter Eleven", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-11", "summary": "Alec canters off with Tess, and slows to a walk when she asks him to. He asks why she doesn't like him to kiss her, and she answers that it's because she doesn't love him. There's some more back-and-forth here--she says that he makes her angry, and offended when he flirts with her, and he doesn't argue . The horse walks slowly through the wood until they're surrounded by a deep fog. Alec hasn't taken the usual Trantridge path through the woods. Tess is exhausted--she's been up early and working hard all week, and it's now almost 1 a.m. At one point she starts to fall asleep, and slumps forward against Alec's back. He twists around to put his arm around her--but she wakes quickly enough to push him away. He's off balance and almost falls off of his horse. Alec says that he was only trying to keep her from falling, so Tess apologizes. He goes on to complain that she has \"no confidence\" in him and has been jerking him around for months now. He says he loves her. Tess stammers out a reply, and he puts his arm around her again. Tess realizes that they should already be back by this time, and asks where they are. He says that they're in The Chase--the oldest forest in the area. It's such a nice night, he says, why not enjoy it? Extend their ride a bit? Tess is mad--he lulled her into a false sense of security by making her feel guilty about shoving him. She asks to get down and walk home, but he says that she'd wander for hours in the fog and the trees. Alec says that he's not exactly sure where they are anyway, because of the fog. So they both dismount, and Alec says that he'll take a look around to get his bearings. Alec spreads his jacket on the ground for Tess to sit on while he looks around. Just then, he tells her that \"someone\" gave her father a new horse that day. Tess thanks him but feels awkward that she has to thank him at that moment. He asks if she's cold , and she admits that she is, a little. He takes a bottle out of the saddlebag, and puts it to her lips before she knows what he's up to. She swallows as he pours to keep it from spilling on her best dress. He assures her that it's medicinal, and then disappears into the fog and the trees. Alec really doesn't know where they are--he wasn't just trying to tease Tess. But after climbing up a nearby hill he finds the edge of the highway and figures out where they are. When he gets back, he calls her name. She doesn't answer--she's asleep under the trees. The narrator asks, \"where was Tess's guardian angel? where was Providence?\" , but neither her guardian angel nor Providence comes to help her. There are good men and women waking up in cottages not too far away from them, but not one of them knew \"that their sister was in the hands of the spoiler\" . . The narrator muses that perhaps one of Tess's distant knighted ancestors had \"dealt the same wrong upon peasant girls of their time\" . The first phase of the novel ends with the \"fatalistic\" remark common to Tess's neighbors: \"it was to be\" . Note that Hardy never once uses the word \"rape\" in this scene--he leaves it slightly ambiguous.", "analysis": ""}


The twain cantered along for some time without speech, Tess as she
clung to him still panting in her triumph, yet in other respects
dubious.  She had perceived that the horse was not the spirited one
he sometimes rose, and felt no alarm on that score, though her seat
was precarious enough despite her tight hold of him.  She begged him
to slow the animal to a walk, which Alec accordingly did.

"Neatly done, was it not, dear Tess?" he said by and by.

"Yes!" said she.  "I am sure I ought to be much obliged to you."

"And are you?"

She did not reply.

"Tess, why do you always dislike my kissing you?"

"I suppose--because I don't love you."

"You are quite sure?"

"I am angry with you sometimes!"

"Ah, I half feared as much."  Nevertheless, Alec did not object to
that confession.  He knew that anything was better then frigidity.
"Why haven't you told me when I have made you angry?"

"You know very well why.  Because I cannot help myself here."

"I haven't offended you often by love-making?"

"You have sometimes."

"How many times?"

"You know as well as I--too many times."

"Every time I have tried?"

She was silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable
distance, till a faint luminous fog, which had hung in the hollows
all the evening, became general and enveloped them.  It seemed to
hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in
clear air.  Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or
from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed
the point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from the highway,
and that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track.

She was inexpressibly weary.  She had risen at five o'clock every
morning of that week, had been on foot the whole of each day, and on
this evening had in addition walked the three miles to Chaseborough,
waited three hours for her neighbours without eating or drinking,
her impatience to start them preventing either; she had then walked
a mile of the way home, and had undergone the excitement of the
quarrel, till, with the slow progress of their steed, it was now
nearly one o'clock.  Only once, however, was she overcome by actual
drowsiness.  In that moment of oblivion her head sank gently against
him.

D'Urberville stopped the horse, withdrew his feet from the stirrups,
turned sideways on the saddle, and enclosed her waist with his arm to
support her.

This immediately put her on the defensive, and with one of those
sudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable she gave him a
little push from her.  In his ticklish position he nearly lost his
balance and only just avoided rolling over into the road, the horse,
though a powerful one, being fortunately the quietest he rode.

"That is devilish unkind!" he said.  "I mean no harm--only to keep
you from falling."

She pondered suspiciously, till, thinking that this might after all
be true, she relented, and said quite humbly, "I beg your pardon,
sir."

"I won't pardon you unless you show some confidence in me.  Good
God!" he burst out, "what am I, to be repulsed so by a mere chit like
you?  For near three mortal months have you trifled with my feelings,
eluded me, and snubbed me; and I won't stand it!"

"I'll leave you to-morrow, sir."

"No, you will not leave me to-morrow!  Will you, I ask once more,
show your belief in me by letting me clasp you with my arm?  Come,
between us two and nobody else, now.  We know each other well; and
you know that I love you, and think you the prettiest girl in the
world, which you are.  Mayn't I treat you as a lover?"

She drew a quick pettish breath of objection, writhing uneasily on
her seat, looked far ahead, and murmured, "I don't know--I wish--how
can I say yes or no when--"

He settled the matter by clasping his arm round her as he desired,
and Tess expressed no further negative.  Thus they sidled
slowly onward till it struck her they had been advancing for an
unconscionable time--far longer than was usually occupied by the
short journey from Chaseborough, even at this walking pace, and
that they were no longer on hard road, but in a mere trackway.

"Why, where be we?" she exclaimed.

"Passing by a wood."

"A wood--what wood?  Surely we are quite out of the road?"

"A bit of The Chase--the oldest wood in England.  It is a lovely
night, and why should we not prolong our ride a little?"

"How could you be so treacherous!" said Tess, between archness and
real dismay, and getting rid of his arm by pulling open his fingers
one by one, though at the risk of slipping off herself.  "Just when
I've been putting such trust in you, and obliging you to please you,
because I thought I had wronged you by that push!  Please set me
down, and let me walk home."

"You cannot walk home, darling, even if the air were clear.  We are
miles away from Trantridge, if I must tell you, and in this growing
fog you might wander for hours among these trees."

"Never mind that," she coaxed.  "Put me down, I beg you.  I don't
mind where it is; only let me get down, sir, please!"

"Very well, then, I will--on one condition.  Having brought you
here to this out-of-the-way place, I feel myself responsible for
your safe-conduct home, whatever you may yourself feel about it.
As to your getting to Trantridge without assistance, it is quite
impossible; for, to tell the truth, dear, owing to this fog, which so
disguises everything, I don't quite know where we are myself.  Now,
if you will promise to wait beside the horse while I walk through the
bushes till I come to some road or house, and ascertain exactly our
whereabouts, I'll deposit you here willingly.  When I come back I'll
give you full directions, and if you insist upon walking you may; or
you may ride--at your pleasure."

She accepted these terms, and slid off on the near side, though not
till he had stolen a cursory kiss.  He sprang down on the other side.

"I suppose I must hold the horse?" said she.

"Oh no; it's not necessary," replied Alec, patting the panting
creature.  "He's had enough of it for to-night."

He turned the horse's head into the bushes, hitched him on to a
bough, and made a sort of couch or nest for her in the deep mass of
dead leaves.

"Now, you sit there," he said.  "The leaves have not got damp as yet.
Just give an eye to the horse--it will be quite sufficient."

He took a few steps away from her, but, returning, said, "By the bye,
Tess, your father has a new cob to-day.  Somebody gave it to him."

"Somebody?  You!"

D'Urberville nodded.

"O how very good of you that is!" she exclaimed, with a painful sense
of the awkwardness of having to thank him just then.

"And the children have some toys."

"I didn't know--you ever sent them anything!" she murmured, much
moved.  "I almost wish you had not--yes, I almost wish it!"

"Why, dear?"

"It--hampers me so."

"Tessy--don't you love me ever so little now?"

"I'm grateful," she reluctantly admitted.  "But I fear I do not--"
The sudden vision of his passion for herself as a factor in this
result so distressed her that, beginning with one slow tear, and
then following with another, she wept outright.

"Don't cry, dear, dear one!  Now sit down here, and wait till I
come."  She passively sat down amid the leaves he had heaped, and
shivered slightly.  "Are you cold?" he asked.

"Not very--a little."

He touched her with his fingers, which sank into her as into down.
"You have only that puffy muslin dress on--how's that?"

"It's my best summer one.  'Twas very warm when I started, and I
didn't know I was going to ride, and that it would be night."

"Nights grow chilly in September.  Let me see."  He pulled off a
light overcoat that he had worn, and put it round her tenderly.
"That's it--now you'll feel warmer," he continued.  "Now, my pretty,
rest there; I shall soon be back again."

Having buttoned the overcoat round her shoulders he plunged into the
webs of vapour which by this time formed veils between the trees.
She could hear the rustling of the branches as he ascended the
adjoining slope, till his movements were no louder than the hopping
of a bird, and finally died away.  With the setting of the moon the
pale light lessened, and Tess became invisible as she fell into
reverie upon the leaves where he had left her.

In the meantime Alec d'Urberville had pushed on up the slope to clear
his genuine doubt as to the quarter of The Chase they were in.  He
had, in fact, ridden quite at random for over an hour, taking any
turning that came to hand in order to prolong companionship with her,
and giving far more attention to Tess's moonlit person than to any
wayside object.  A little rest for the jaded animal being desirable,
he did not hasten his search for landmarks.  A clamber over the
hill into the adjoining vale brought him to the fence of a highway
whose contours he recognized, which settled the question of their
whereabouts.  D'Urberville thereupon turned back; but by this time
the moon had quite gone down, and partly on account of the fog The
Chase was wrapped in thick darkness, although morning was not far
off.  He was obliged to advance with outstretched hands to avoid
contact with the boughs, and discovered that to hit the exact spot
from which he had started was at first entirely beyond him.  Roaming
up and down, round and round, he at length heard a slight movement of
the horse close at hand; and the sleeve of his overcoat unexpectedly
caught his foot.

"Tess!" said d'Urberville.

There was no answer.  The obscurity was now so great that he could
see absolutely nothing but a pale nebulousness at his feet, which
represented the white muslin figure he had left upon the dead leaves.
Everything else was blackness alike.  D'Urberville stooped; and heard
a gentle regular breathing.  He knelt and bent lower, till her breath
warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers.
She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered
tears.

Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around.  Above them rose the
primeval yews and oaks of The Chase, in which there poised gentle
roosting birds in their last nap; and about them stole the hopping
rabbits and hares.  But, might some say, where was Tess's guardian
angel? where was the providence of her simple faith?  Perhaps, like
that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking,
or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and
not to be awaked.

Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as
gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have
been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why
so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the
woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical
philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order.  One may,
indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present
catastrophe.  Doubtless some of Tess d'Urberville's mailed ancestors
rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more
ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time.  But though to visit
the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good
enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it
therefore does not mend the matter.

As Tess's own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying
among each other in their fatalistic way: "It was to be."  There
lay the pity of it.  An immeasurable social chasm was to divide our
heroine's personality thereafter from that previous self of hers
who stepped from her mother's door to try her fortune at Trantridge
poultry-farm.


END OF PHASE THE FIRST





Phase the Second: Maiden No More



Phase I: "The Maiden," Chapter Eleven
Alec canters off with Tess, and slows to a walk when she asks him to. He asks why she doesn't like him to kiss her, and she answers that it's because she doesn't love him. There's some more back-and-forth here--she says that he makes her angry, and offended when he flirts with her, and he doesn't argue . The horse walks slowly through the wood until they're surrounded by a deep fog. Alec hasn't taken the usual Trantridge path through the woods. Tess is exhausted--she's been up early and working hard all week, and it's now almost 1 a.m. At one point she starts to fall asleep, and slumps forward against Alec's back. He twists around to put his arm around her--but she wakes quickly enough to push him away. He's off balance and almost falls off of his horse. Alec says that he was only trying to keep her from falling, so Tess apologizes. He goes on to complain that she has "no confidence" in him and has been jerking him around for months now. He says he loves her. Tess stammers out a reply, and he puts his arm around her again. Tess realizes that they should already be back by this time, and asks where they are. He says that they're in The Chase--the oldest forest in the area. It's such a nice night, he says, why not enjoy it? Extend their ride a bit? Tess is mad--he lulled her into a false sense of security by making her feel guilty about shoving him. She asks to get down and walk home, but he says that she'd wander for hours in the fog and the trees. Alec says that he's not exactly sure where they are anyway, because of the fog. So they both dismount, and Alec says that he'll take a look around to get his bearings. Alec spreads his jacket on the ground for Tess to sit on while he looks around. Just then, he tells her that "someone" gave her father a new horse that day. Tess thanks him but feels awkward that she has to thank him at that moment. He asks if she's cold , and she admits that she is, a little. He takes a bottle out of the saddlebag, and puts it to her lips before she knows what he's up to. She swallows as he pours to keep it from spilling on her best dress. He assures her that it's medicinal, and then disappears into the fog and the trees. Alec really doesn't know where they are--he wasn't just trying to tease Tess. But after climbing up a nearby hill he finds the edge of the highway and figures out where they are. When he gets back, he calls her name. She doesn't answer--she's asleep under the trees. The narrator asks, "where was Tess's guardian angel? where was Providence?" , but neither her guardian angel nor Providence comes to help her. There are good men and women waking up in cottages not too far away from them, but not one of them knew "that their sister was in the hands of the spoiler" . . The narrator muses that perhaps one of Tess's distant knighted ancestors had "dealt the same wrong upon peasant girls of their time" . The first phase of the novel ends with the "fatalistic" remark common to Tess's neighbors: "it was to be" . Note that Hardy never once uses the word "rape" in this scene--he leaves it slightly ambiguous.