finished_summaries/gradesaver/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_6_part_0.txt
Far from the Madding Crowd.chapters 38-45
chapters 38-45
{"name": "Chapters 38-45", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210108004047/https://www.gradesaver.com/far-from-the-madding-crowd/study-guide/summary-chapters-38-45", "summary": "In October, Bathsheba and Troy are driving home from town, while Troy discusses the money he has recently lost by betting on horse races. He is unconcerned and thinks it is merely bad luck, but Bathsheba is troubled by how much money her husband is spending wastefully. The couple are approached by a woman who asks them for directions. The woman has a very intense reaction to recognizing Troy and collapses; Troy sends Bathsheba a distance off before helping the woman, giving him an opportunity to speak to her alone. Troy gives Fanny some money, and tells her to continue to town, but meet him on Monday on Casterbridge bridge. When Troy rejoins Bathsheba, he admits that he knows the woman but refuses to give any details or answer any questions. Left alone, Fanny begins her slow and laborious walk towards Casterbridge. She gets more and more weak and exhausted as she walks through the night. Helped by a large dog, she manages to drag herself to a building on the edge of town where she is taken inside. Meanwhile, back at the farmhouse, Troy asks Bathsheba for money. She assumes it is for an upcoming horserace, and complains about his spending, but gives him the money. She then catches sight of a lock of hair in the case of Troy's watch, and asks who it belongs to. Troy explains that it is the hair of a woman he was engaged to before he married Bathsheba. Bathsheba becomes jealous, and the couple have an argument. The next morning, Bathsheba learns that Troy has gone off to Casterbridge. As she walks around the farm, she sees Boldwood and Gabriel conversing, and sends a servant to find out what they talking about. From him, she learns that Fanny has died at the workhouse in town, and that Boldwood is planning to send a wagon to fetch her body. Bathsheba decides that since Fanny was a former employee of the farm, she will send for the body herself. When Bathsheba asks how long Fanny was at the workhouse, the servant explains that Fanny arrived there only on the day she died, having walked there from Melchester where she had been working before. Bathsheba becomes agitated, and asks questions about the route Fanny took, when she walked, and what color her hair was. Before Joseph sets off with the wagon, she questions him as well, trying to find out if anyone knows what Fanny died of. She is able to learn from Liddy that Fanny did indeed have blonde hair. Joseph goes to the workhouse, where the coffin is loaded into the wagon. As he drives home, he becomes depressed and stops at the pub for a drink, where he lingers longer than he intended to. Gabriel runs into him and is angry about this delay, driving the wagon with the corpse the rest of the way home himself. When he arrives at the farmhouse, the parson tells him it is too late and the funeral will have to take place the following day. Although Gabriel is uncomfortable with the idea, Bathsheba instructs that the coffin remain in the farmhouse until the funeral takes place on the subsequent morning. Before he leaves, Gabriel rubs out the words that have been written on the coffin: \"Fanny Robbins and child.\"Later that night, Bathsheba explains that she will sit up and wait for Troy, who still has not returned home. She continues to question Liddy about Fanny's health, unsatisfied with the answers she receives. A short time later, Liddy shares that she has heard a rumor that Fanny gave birth shortly before she died, and that the baby is also in the coffin. After Liddy goes to bed, Bathsheba becomes more and more agitated, wondering about what the truth is. In desperation for someone to help her, Bathsheba goes to Gabriel's cottage where she watches him through the window but finds herself unable to approach him. She returns to her house, and opens the coffin, where she finds Fanny and the corpse of a tiny baby. She realizes that Fanny must have been Troy's lover, and that this is their illegitimate child. While Bathsheba is trying to make sense of her emotions, Troy returns home, comes into the room, and sees what is lying in the coffin. When Troy gently kisses Fanny's corpse, Bathsheba flies into a jealous rage, and the two argue, leading Troy to say that he loves Fanny more than he ever loved Bathsheba and considers Fanny to be is true wife. Bathsheba flees from the house and spends the night wandering outdoors, until Liddy finds her in the early morning. Liddy explains that Troy also left the house early in the morning, and that people will soon be coming to take Fanny's body for the funeral. Bathsheba says she can't return to the house until the corpse has been taken away, so she and Liddy walk around until Fanny's coffin has been removed. Once they return to the house, Bathsheba explains that she is going to move into the attic for the time being, and has Liddy set it up for her. The narrative shifts to describe events from Troy's point of view. On Monday morning, he had gone to keep his meeting with Fanny with as much money as he had been able to put together. When she did not arrive, he got angry and went to spend the day at the horse races, returning late at night to the scene with the coffin. After Bathsheba fled, he waited miserably until it was morning and then hurried to town where he spent the money he had hoped to give to Fanny on a fancy marble tombstone. He set up an elaborate display of flowers and then fell asleep in a corner of the churchyard. When he awakened, there had been heavy rain and the arrangement was ruined. Frustrated, he left the churchyard and left the town a short time later. That same morning, Bathsheba decides to visit the grave since she has learned that Troy was seen leaving town and therefore does not have to worry about meeting him. When she arrives, she finds Gabriel there as well, and observes the marble tombstone, as well as the disarray. Bathsheba and Gabriel work together to tidy up the grave site and leave it in good condition.", "analysis": "Earlier in the novel, Bathsheba illustrated her resistance to the idea of a husband who would try and tell her what to do, or who would annoy her with his presence. Ironically, she is now confronted with the challenges of a husband who neglects her, refuses to play the active role that she needs, and often leaves her abandoned when she most needs his help. The challenges in their relationship are part of why she feels such suspicion when Troy engages in a mysterious conversation with an unknown woman, but Bathsheba also clings vainly to the hope that Troy is actually telling her the truth. Even though she is probably smart enough to know better on some level, Bathsheba is reduced to living in denial and refusing to confront the reality of the kind of man she has married. Fanny's agonizing walk to the village shows Hardy's talent for evoking sympathy for those who suffer, especially through circumstances beyond their control. Not unlike Bathsheba, Fanny has fallen victim to believing Troy and his empty promises but she hardly deserves the wretched poverty, physical pain, and deep fear she is now experiencing. The presence of the dog who finally helps her to endure the last stage of her journey reflects the themes of the natural world that are present throughout the novel. While human beings would be likely to judge Fanny, animals can sense her goodness and innocence because they also embody those qualities. Nonetheless, Fanny's death reveals the harsh reality of what it has meant for her to live in poverty and isolation. Presumably the suffering and ill-health she endured before going in to labor played a significant part in her death and the death of her baby. It is also very possible that dying in the workhouse meant she had limited access to medical care which might have helped her. When news of Fanny's death spreads, Gabriel again shows his instinct to protect Bathsheba. At no other moment in the novel has he lied or tried to conceal anything; in fact, he has been honest in situations where it may not even have served him. Nonetheless, Gabriel shows that he is capable of responding to ethically complex situations, and it seems to him that the greater good is served by Bathsheba remaining ignorant of what actually happened to Fanny. In a moment that echoes Gabriel by chance helping put out the fire, or Bathsheba impulsively opting to send Boldwood the valentine, fate intervenes. The chance event of Joseph being delayed at the pub sets in motion a train of events that means the coffin will stay in Bathsheba's house overnight. Had everything gone according to plan and Fanny been buried that afternoon, her secret would likely have been safe. However, almost as soon as news of Fanny's death reaches her, Bathsheba feels a mixture of sympathy and suspicion. Her suspicions torment her; she does fleetingly consider reaching out to Gabriel. Her attempt to go to his cottage to ask his advice reveals how much trust she places in him, and her awareness that he has her best interests at heart. Nonetheless, the shame that she would have to depend on another man when her own husband might be betraying her is too much for Bathsheba's pride. Left to make the decision alone, she opts to open the coffin and know the truth, only to have her worst fears confirmed. Hardy masterfully captures the complex and shifting emotions of Bathsheba when she realizes the secret Troy has been hiding: rage, betrayal, jealousy, grief, empathy, and shame. Especially when she realizes Troy genuinely cared for Fanny, she feels an almost grotesque need to assert her emotional dominance over him by insisting that he kiss her to balance out the kiss he gave to Fanny. Fixated on his own grief, Troy renounces the emotional and spiritual aspects of his marriage, even though he cannot dispute the legal ones. By telling Bathsheba that he considers Fanny to have been his true wife, he in effect turns Bathsheba into the fallen woman so many others have been afraid she would become. Troy's attempts to embellish Fanny's grave signal his impulsiveness and lack of forethought. He acts based on his emotions, but without planning to think about what will be sustainable. His lack of regard for the weather mirrors his reckless ignorance on the night of the harvest-supper, and leads to destruction again. Troy assumes his own will is the dominant force without acknowledging and respecting how the natural world will always be stronger than human endeavors. His lack of foresight that rainfall would ruin the way he had set up the grave mirrors the way he recklessly created the conditions that led to Fanny's death: he followed his own impulses by engaging in a sexual relationship with her, and did not consider the natural consequences of pregnancy that would follow. What is most telling about the episode is Troy's response when he awakens to find his work ruined: he simply gives up, making no effort to fix it. This is characteristic of his inability to take responsibility for situations he has created, and his unwillingness to work hard. The messy gravesite does however create an opportunity for redemption for Bathsheba. By tenderly fixing up the area, she is able to atone for her ambivalent feelings towards Fanny and experience forgiveness for the innocent woman and child."}


RAIN--ONE SOLITARY MEETS ANOTHER


It was now five o'clock, and the dawn was promising to break in hues
of drab and ash.

The air changed its temperature and stirred itself more vigorously.
Cool breezes coursed in transparent eddies round Oak's face.  The
wind shifted yet a point or two and blew stronger.  In ten minutes
every wind of heaven seemed to be roaming at large.  Some of the
thatching on the wheat-stacks was now whirled fantastically aloft,
and had to be replaced and weighted with some rails that lay near at
hand.  This done, Oak slaved away again at the barley.  A huge drop
of rain smote his face, the wind snarled round every corner, the
trees rocked to the bases of their trunks, and the twigs clashed in
strife.  Driving in spars at any point and on any system, inch by
inch he covered more and more safely from ruin this distracting
impersonation of seven hundred pounds.  The rain came on in earnest,
and Oak soon felt the water to be tracking cold and clammy routes
down his back.  Ultimately he was reduced well-nigh to a homogeneous
sop, and the dyes of his clothes trickled down and stood in a pool
at the foot of the ladder.  The rain stretched obliquely through the
dull atmosphere in liquid spines, unbroken in continuity between
their beginnings in the clouds and their points in him.

Oak suddenly remembered that eight months before this time he had
been fighting against fire in the same spot as desperately as he
was fighting against water now--and for a futile love of the same
woman.  As for her--But Oak was generous and true, and dismissed
his reflections.

It was about seven o'clock in the dark leaden morning when Gabriel
came down from the last stack, and thankfully exclaimed, "It is
done!"  He was drenched, weary, and sad, and yet not so sad as
drenched and weary, for he was cheered by a sense of success in a
good cause.

Faint sounds came from the barn, and he looked that way.  Figures
stepped singly and in pairs through the doors--all walking awkwardly,
and abashed, save the foremost, who wore a red jacket, and advanced
with his hands in his pockets, whistling.  The others shambled after
with a conscience-stricken air: the whole procession was not unlike
Flaxman's group of the suitors tottering on towards the infernal
regions under the conduct of Mercury.  The gnarled shapes passed
into the village, Troy, their leader, entering the farmhouse.  Not a
single one of them had turned his face to the ricks, or apparently
bestowed one thought upon their condition.

Soon Oak too went homeward, by a different route from theirs.  In
front of him against the wet glazed surface of the lane he saw a
person walking yet more slowly than himself under an umbrella.  The
man turned and plainly started; he was Boldwood.

"How are you this morning, sir?" said Oak.

"Yes, it is a wet day.--Oh, I am well, very well, I thank you; quite
well."

"I am glad to hear it, sir."

Boldwood seemed to awake to the present by degrees.  "You look tired
and ill, Oak," he said then, desultorily regarding his companion.

"I am tired.  You look strangely altered, sir."

"I?  Not a bit of it: I am well enough.  What put that into your
head?"

"I thought you didn't look quite so topping as you used to, that was
all."

"Indeed, then you are mistaken," said Boldwood, shortly.  "Nothing
hurts me.  My constitution is an iron one."

"I've been working hard to get our ricks covered, and was barely in
time.  Never had such a struggle in my life....  Yours of course are
safe, sir."

"Oh yes," Boldwood added, after an interval of silence: "What did you
ask, Oak?"

"Your ricks are all covered before this time?"

"No."

"At any rate, the large ones upon the stone staddles?"

"They are not."

"Them under the hedge?"

"No.  I forgot to tell the thatcher to set about it."

"Nor the little one by the stile?"

"Nor the little one by the stile.  I overlooked the ricks this year."

"Then not a tenth of your corn will come to measure, sir."

"Possibly not."

"Overlooked them," repeated Gabriel slowly to himself.  It is
difficult to describe the intensely dramatic effect that announcement
had upon Oak at such a moment.  All the night he had been feeling
that the neglect he was labouring to repair was abnormal and
isolated--the only instance of the kind within the circuit of the
county.  Yet at this very time, within the same parish, a greater
waste had been going on, uncomplained of and disregarded.  A few
months earlier Boldwood's forgetting his husbandry would have been as
preposterous an idea as a sailor forgetting he was in a ship.  Oak
was just thinking that whatever he himself might have suffered from
Bathsheba's marriage, here was a man who had suffered more, when
Boldwood spoke in a changed voice--that of one who yearned to make
a confidence and relieve his heart by an outpouring.

"Oak, you know as well as I that things have gone wrong with me
lately.  I may as well own it.  I was going to get a little settled
in life; but in some way my plan has come to nothing."

"I thought my mistress would have married you," said Gabriel, not
knowing enough of the full depths of Boldwood's love to keep silence
on the farmer's account, and determined not to evade discipline by
doing so on his own.  "However, it is so sometimes, and nothing
happens that we expect," he added, with the repose of a man whom
misfortune had inured rather than subdued.

"I daresay I am a joke about the parish," said Boldwood, as if
the subject came irresistibly to his tongue, and with a miserable
lightness meant to express his indifference.

"Oh no--I don't think that."

"--But the real truth of the matter is that there was not, as some
fancy, any jilting on--her part.  No engagement ever existed between
me and Miss Everdene.  People say so, but it is untrue: she never
promised me!"  Boldwood stood still now and turned his wild face to
Oak.  "Oh, Gabriel," he continued, "I am weak and foolish, and I
don't know what, and I can't fend off my miserable grief! ...  I had
some faint belief in the mercy of God till I lost that woman.  Yes,
He prepared a gourd to shade me, and like the prophet I thanked Him
and was glad.  But the next day He prepared a worm to smite the gourd
and wither it; and I feel it is better to die than to live!"

A silence followed.  Boldwood aroused himself from the momentary
mood of confidence into which he had drifted, and walked on again,
resuming his usual reserve.

"No, Gabriel," he resumed, with a carelessness which was like
the smile on the countenance of a skull: "it was made more of by
other people than ever it was by us.  I do feel a little regret
occasionally, but no woman ever had power over me for any length of
time.  Well, good morning; I can trust you not to mention to others
what has passed between us two here."





COMING HOME--A CRY


On the turnpike road, between Casterbridge and Weatherbury, and about
three miles from the former place, is Yalbury Hill, one of those
steep long ascents which pervade the highways of this undulating
part of South Wessex.  In returning from market it is usual for the
farmers and other gig-gentry to alight at the bottom and walk up.

One Saturday evening in the month of October Bathsheba's vehicle was
duly creeping up this incline.  She was sitting listlessly in the
second seat of the gig, whilst walking beside her in a farmer's
marketing suit of unusually fashionable cut was an erect, well-made
young man.  Though on foot, he held the reins and whip, and
occasionally aimed light cuts at the horse's ear with the end of the
lash, as a recreation.  This man was her husband, formerly Sergeant
Troy, who, having bought his discharge with Bathsheba's money, was
gradually transforming himself into a farmer of a spirited and very
modern school.  People of unalterable ideas still insisted upon
calling him "Sergeant" when they met him, which was in some degree
owing to his having still retained the well-shaped moustache of his
military days, and the soldierly bearing inseparable from his form
and training.

"Yes, if it hadn't been for that wretched rain I should have cleared
two hundred as easy as looking, my love," he was saying.  "Don't you
see, it altered all the chances?  To speak like a book I once read,
wet weather is the narrative, and fine days are the episodes, of our
country's history; now, isn't that true?"

"But the time of year is come for changeable weather."

"Well, yes.  The fact is, these autumn races are the ruin of
everybody.  Never did I see such a day as 'twas!  'Tis a wild open
place, just out of Budmouth, and a drab sea rolled in towards us like
liquid misery.  Wind and rain--good Lord!  Dark?  Why, 'twas as black
as my hat before the last race was run.  'Twas five o'clock, and
you couldn't see the horses till they were almost in, leave alone
colours.  The ground was as heavy as lead, and all judgment from a
fellow's experience went for nothing.  Horses, riders, people, were
all blown about like ships at sea.  Three booths were blown over,
and the wretched folk inside crawled out upon their hands and knees;
and in the next field were as many as a dozen hats at one time.  Ay,
Pimpernel regularly stuck fast, when about sixty yards off, and when
I saw Policy stepping on, it did knock my heart against the lining
of my ribs, I assure you, my love!"

"And you mean, Frank," said Bathsheba, sadly--her voice was painfully
lowered from the fulness and vivacity of the previous summer--"that
you have lost more than a hundred pounds in a month by this dreadful
horse-racing?  O, Frank, it is cruel; it is foolish of you to take
away my money so.  We shall have to leave the farm; that will be the
end of it!"

"Humbug about cruel.  Now, there 'tis again--turn on the waterworks;
that's just like you."

"But you'll promise me not to go to Budmouth second meeting, won't
you?" she implored.  Bathsheba was at the full depth for tears, but
she maintained a dry eye.

"I don't see why I should; in fact, if it turns out to be a fine day,
I was thinking of taking you."

"Never, never!  I'll go a hundred miles the other way first. I hate
the sound of the very word!"

"But the question of going to see the race or staying at home has
very little to do with the matter.  Bets are all booked safely enough
before the race begins, you may depend.  Whether it is a bad race for
me or a good one, will have very little to do with our going there
next Monday."

"But you don't mean to say that you have risked anything on this one
too!" she exclaimed, with an agonized look.

"There now, don't you be a little fool.  Wait till you are told.
Why, Bathsheba, you have lost all the pluck and sauciness you
formerly had, and upon my life if I had known what a chicken-hearted
creature you were under all your boldness, I'd never have--I know
what."

A flash of indignation might have been seen in Bathsheba's dark eyes
as she looked resolutely ahead after this reply.  They moved on
without further speech, some early-withered leaves from the trees
which hooded the road at this spot occasionally spinning downward
across their path to the earth.

A woman appeared on the brow of the hill.  The ridge was in a
cutting, so that she was very near the husband and wife before she
became visible.  Troy had turned towards the gig to remount, and
whilst putting his foot on the step the woman passed behind him.

Though the overshadowing trees and the approach of eventide enveloped
them in gloom, Bathsheba could see plainly enough to discern the
extreme poverty of the woman's garb, and the sadness of her face.

"Please, sir, do you know at what time Casterbridge Union-house
closes at night?"

The woman said these words to Troy over his shoulder.

Troy started visibly at the sound of the voice; yet he seemed to
recover presence of mind sufficient to prevent himself from giving
way to his impulse to suddenly turn and face her.  He said, slowly--

"I don't know."

The woman, on hearing him speak, quickly looked up, examined the side
of his face, and recognized the soldier under the yeoman's garb.  Her
face was drawn into an expression which had gladness and agony both
among its elements.  She uttered an hysterical cry, and fell down.

"Oh, poor thing!" exclaimed Bathsheba, instantly preparing to alight.

"Stay where you are, and attend to the horse!" said Troy,
peremptorily throwing her the reins and the whip.  "Walk the horse
to the top: I'll see to the woman."

"But I--"

"Do you hear?  Clk--Poppet!"

The horse, gig, and Bathsheba moved on.

"How on earth did you come here?  I thought you were miles away, or
dead!  Why didn't you write to me?" said Troy to the woman, in a
strangely gentle, yet hurried voice, as he lifted her up.

"I feared to."

"Have you any money?"

"None."

"Good Heaven--I wish I had more to give you!  Here's--wretched--the
merest trifle.  It is every farthing I have left.  I have none but
what my wife gives me, you know, and I can't ask her now."

The woman made no answer.

"I have only another moment," continued Troy; "and now listen.  Where
are you going to-night?  Casterbridge Union?"

"Yes; I thought to go there."

"You shan't go there; yet, wait.  Yes, perhaps for to-night; I can
do nothing better--worse luck!  Sleep there to-night, and stay there
to-morrow.  Monday is the first free day I have; and on Monday
morning, at ten exactly, meet me on Grey's Bridge just out of the
town.  I'll bring all the money I can muster.  You shan't want--I'll
see that, Fanny; then I'll get you a lodging somewhere.  Good-bye
till then.  I am a brute--but good-bye!"

After advancing the distance which completed the ascent of the
hill, Bathsheba turned her head.  The woman was upon her feet, and
Bathsheba saw her withdrawing from Troy, and going feebly down the
hill by the third milestone from Casterbridge.  Troy then came on
towards his wife, stepped into the gig, took the reins from her hand,
and without making any observation whipped the horse into a trot.  He
was rather agitated.

"Do you know who that woman was?" said Bathsheba, looking searchingly
into his face.

"I do," he said, looking boldly back into hers.

"I thought you did," said she, with angry hauteur, and still
regarding him.  "Who is she?"

He suddenly seemed to think that frankness would benefit neither of
the women.

"Nothing to either of us," he said.  "I know her by sight."

"What is her name?"

"How should I know her name?"

"I think you do."

"Think if you will, and be--" The sentence was completed by a smart
cut of the whip round Poppet's flank, which caused the animal to
start forward at a wild pace.  No more was said.





ON CASTERBRIDGE HIGHWAY


For a considerable time the woman walked on.  Her steps became
feebler, and she strained her eyes to look afar upon the naked road,
now indistinct amid the penumbrae of night.  At length her onward walk
dwindled to the merest totter, and she opened a gate within which was
a haystack.  Underneath this she sat down and presently slept.

When the woman awoke it was to find herself in the depths of a
moonless and starless night.  A heavy unbroken crust of cloud
stretched across the sky, shutting out every speck of heaven; and a
distant halo which hung over the town of Casterbridge was visible
against the black concave, the luminosity appearing the brighter by
its great contrast with the circumscribing darkness.  Towards this
weak, soft glow the woman turned her eyes.

"If I could only get there!" she said.  "Meet him the day after
to-morrow: God help me!  Perhaps I shall be in my grave before then."

A manor-house clock from the far depths of shadow struck the hour,
one, in a small, attenuated tone.  After midnight the voice of a
clock seems to lose in breadth as much as in length, and to diminish
its sonorousness to a thin falsetto.

Afterwards a light--two lights--arose from the remote shade, and grew
larger.  A carriage rolled along the road, and passed the gate.  It
probably contained some late diners-out.  The beams from one lamp
shone for a moment upon the crouching woman, and threw her face into
vivid relief.  The face was young in the groundwork, old in the
finish; the general contours were flexuous and childlike, but the
finer lineaments had begun to be sharp and thin.

The pedestrian stood up, apparently with revived determination, and
looked around.  The road appeared to be familiar to her, and she
carefully scanned the fence as she slowly walked along.  Presently
there became visible a dim white shape; it was another milestone.
She drew her fingers across its face to feel the marks.

"Two more!" she said.

She leant against the stone as a means of rest for a short interval,
then bestirred herself, and again pursued her way.  For a slight
distance she bore up bravely, afterwards flagging as before.  This
was beside a lone copsewood, wherein heaps of white chips strewn upon
the leafy ground showed that woodmen had been faggoting and making
hurdles during the day.  Now there was not a rustle, not a breeze,
not the faintest clash of twigs to keep her company.  The woman
looked over the gate, opened it, and went in.  Close to the entrance
stood a row of faggots, bound and un-bound, together with stakes of
all sizes.

For a few seconds the wayfarer stood with that tense stillness which
signifies itself to be not the end, but merely the suspension, of
a previous motion.  Her attitude was that of a person who listens,
either to the external world of sound, or to the imagined discourse
of thought.  A close criticism might have detected signs proving that
she was intent on the latter alternative.  Moreover, as was shown by
what followed, she was oddly exercising the faculty of invention upon
the speciality of the clever Jacquet Droz, the designer of automatic
substitutes for human limbs.

By the aid of the Casterbridge aurora, and by feeling with her hands,
the woman selected two sticks from the heaps.  These sticks were
nearly straight to the height of three or four feet, where each
branched into a fork like the letter Y.  She sat down, snapped off
the small upper twigs, and carried the remainder with her into the
road.  She placed one of these forks under each arm as a crutch,
tested them, timidly threw her whole weight upon them--so little that
it was--and swung herself forward.  The girl had made for herself a
material aid.

The crutches answered well.  The pat of her feet, and the tap of
her sticks upon the highway, were all the sounds that came from
the traveller now.  She had passed the last milestone by a good
long distance, and began to look wistfully towards the bank as if
calculating upon another milestone soon.  The crutches, though so
very useful, had their limits of power.  Mechanism only transfers
labour, being powerless to supersede it, and the original amount of
exertion was not cleared away; it was thrown into the body and arms.
She was exhausted, and each swing forward became fainter.  At last
she swayed sideways, and fell.

Here she lay, a shapeless heap, for ten minutes and more.  The
morning wind began to boom dully over the flats, and to move afresh
dead leaves which had lain still since yesterday.  The woman
desperately turned round upon her knees, and next rose to her feet.
Steadying herself by the help of one crutch, she essayed a step, then
another, then a third, using the crutches now as walking-sticks only.
Thus she progressed till descending Mellstock Hill another milestone
appeared, and soon the beginning of an iron-railed fence came into
view.  She staggered across to the first post, clung to it, and
looked around.

The Casterbridge lights were now individually visible. It was getting
towards morning, and vehicles might be hoped for, if not expected
soon.  She listened.  There was not a sound of life save that acme
and sublimation of all dismal sounds, the bark of a fox, its three
hollow notes being rendered at intervals of a minute with the
precision of a funeral bell.

"Less than a mile!" the woman murmured.  "No; more," she added, after
a pause.  "The mile is to the county hall, and my resting-place is on
the other side Casterbridge.  A little over a mile, and there I am!"
After an interval she again spoke.  "Five or six steps to a yard--six
perhaps.  I have to go seventeen hundred yards.  A hundred times six,
six hundred.  Seventeen times that.  O pity me, Lord!"

Holding to the rails, she advanced, thrusting one hand forward upon
the rail, then the other, then leaning over it whilst she dragged her
feet on beneath.

This woman was not given to soliloquy; but extremity of feeling
lessens the individuality of the weak, as it increases that of the
strong.  She said again in the same tone, "I'll believe that the end
lies five posts forward, and no further, and so get strength to pass
them."

This was a practical application of the principle that a half-feigned
and fictitious faith is better than no faith at all.

She passed five posts and held on to the fifth.

"I'll pass five more by believing my longed-for spot is at the next
fifth.  I can do it."

She passed five more.

"It lies only five further."

She passed five more.

"But it is five further."

She passed them.

"That stone bridge is the end of my journey," she said, when the
bridge over the Froom was in view.

She crawled to the bridge.  During the effort each breath of the
woman went into the air as if never to return again.

"Now for the truth of the matter," she said, sitting down.  "The
truth is, that I have less than half a mile."  Self-beguilement with
what she had known all the time to be false had given her strength to
come over half a mile that she would have been powerless to face in
the lump.  The artifice showed that the woman, by some mysterious
intuition, had grasped the paradoxical truth that blindness may
operate more vigorously than prescience, and the short-sighted effect
more than the far-seeing; that limitation, and not comprehensiveness,
is needed for striking a blow.

The half-mile stood now before the sick and weary woman like a stolid
Juggernaut.  It was an impassive King of her world.  The road here
ran across Durnover Moor, open to the road on either side.  She
surveyed the wide space, the lights, herself, sighed, and lay down
against a guard-stone of the bridge.

Never was ingenuity exercised so sorely as the traveller here
exercised hers.  Every conceivable aid, method, stratagem, mechanism,
by which these last desperate eight hundred yards could be overpassed
by a human being unperceived, was revolved in her busy brain,
and dismissed as impracticable.  She thought of sticks, wheels,
crawling--she even thought of rolling.  But the exertion demanded
by either of these latter two was greater than to walk erect.  The
faculty of contrivance was worn out.  Hopelessness had come at last.

"No further!" she whispered, and closed her eyes.

From the stripe of shadow on the opposite side of the bridge a
portion of shade seemed to detach itself and move into isolation
upon the pale white of the road.  It glided noiselessly towards the
recumbent woman.

She became conscious of something touching her hand; it was softness
and it was warmth.  She opened her eyes, and the substance touched
her face.  A dog was licking her cheek.

He was a huge, heavy, and quiet creature, standing darkly against the
low horizon, and at least two feet higher than the present position
of her eyes.  Whether Newfoundland, mastiff, bloodhound, or what
not, it was impossible to say.  He seemed to be of too strange and
mysterious a nature to belong to any variety among those of popular
nomenclature.  Being thus assignable to no breed, he was the ideal
embodiment of canine greatness--a generalization from what was common
to all.  Night, in its sad, solemn, and benevolent aspect, apart from
its stealthy and cruel side, was personified in this form.  Darkness
endows the small and ordinary ones among mankind with poetical power,
and even the suffering woman threw her idea into figure.

In her reclining position she looked up to him just as in earlier
times she had, when standing, looked up to a man.  The animal, who
was as homeless as she, respectfully withdrew a step or two when the
woman moved, and, seeing that she did not repulse him, he licked her
hand again.

A thought moved within her like lightning.  "Perhaps I can make use
of him--I might do it then!"

She pointed in the direction of Casterbridge, and the dog seemed to
misunderstand: he trotted on.  Then, finding she could not follow, he
came back and whined.

The ultimate and saddest singularity of woman's effort and invention
was reached when, with a quickened breathing, she rose to a stooping
posture, and, resting her two little arms upon the shoulders of the
dog, leant firmly thereon, and murmured stimulating words.  Whilst
she sorrowed in her heart she cheered with her voice, and what was
stranger than that the strong should need encouragement from the weak
was that cheerfulness should be so well stimulated by such utter
dejection.  Her friend moved forward slowly, and she with small
mincing steps moved forward beside him, half her weight being thrown
upon the animal.  Sometimes she sank as she had sunk from walking
erect, from the crutches, from the rails.  The dog, who now
thoroughly understood her desire and her incapacity, was frantic in
his distress on these occasions; he would tug at her dress and run
forward.  She always called him back, and it was now to be observed
that the woman listened for human sounds only to avoid them.  It was
evident that she had an object in keeping her presence on the road
and her forlorn state unknown.

Their progress was necessarily very slow.  They reached the bottom
of the town, and the Casterbridge lamps lay before them like fallen
Pleiads as they turned to the left into the dense shade of a deserted
avenue of chestnuts, and so skirted the borough.  Thus the town was
passed, and the goal was reached.

On this much-desired spot outside the town rose a picturesque
building.  Originally it had been a mere case to hold people.  The
shell had been so thin, so devoid of excrescence, and so closely
drawn over the accommodation granted, that the grim character of what
was beneath showed through it, as the shape of a body is visible
under a winding-sheet.

Then Nature, as if offended, lent a hand.  Masses of ivy grew up,
completely covering the walls, till the place looked like an abbey;
and it was discovered that the view from the front, over the
Casterbridge chimneys, was one of the most magnificent in the
county. A neighbouring earl once said that he would give up a year's
rental to have at his own door the view enjoyed by the inmates from
theirs--and very probably the inmates would have given up the view
for his year's rental.

This stone edifice consisted of a central mass and two wings, whereon
stood as sentinels a few slim chimneys, now gurgling sorrowfully to
the slow wind.  In the wall was a gate, and by the gate a bellpull
formed of a hanging wire.  The woman raised herself as high as
possible upon her knees, and could just reach the handle.  She moved
it and fell forwards in a bowed attitude, her face upon her bosom.

It was getting on towards six o'clock, and sounds of movement were
to be heard inside the building which was the haven of rest to this
wearied soul.  A little door by the large one was opened, and a man
appeared inside.  He discerned the panting heap of clothes, went back
for a light, and came again.  He entered a second time, and returned
with two women.

These lifted the prostrate figure and assisted her in through the
doorway.  The man then closed the door.

"How did she get here?" said one of the women.

"The Lord knows," said the other.

"There is a dog outside," murmured the overcome traveller.  "Where is
he gone?  He helped me."

"I stoned him away," said the man.

The little procession then moved forward--the man in front bearing
the light, the two bony women next, supporting between them the small
and supple one.  Thus they entered the house and disappeared.





SUSPICION--FANNY IS SENT FOR


Bathsheba said very little to her husband all that evening of their
return from market, and he was not disposed to say much to her.  He
exhibited the unpleasant combination of a restless condition with a
silent tongue.  The next day, which was Sunday, passed nearly in the
same manner as regarded their taciturnity, Bathsheba going to church
both morning and afternoon.  This was the day before the Budmouth
races.  In the evening Troy said, suddenly--

"Bathsheba, could you let me have twenty pounds?"

Her countenance instantly sank. "Twenty pounds?" she said.

"The fact is, I want it badly."  The anxiety upon Troy's face was
unusual and very marked.  It was a culmination of the mood he had
been in all the day.

"Ah! for those races to-morrow."

Troy for the moment made no reply.  Her mistake had its advantages
to a man who shrank from having his mind inspected as he did now.
"Well, suppose I do want it for races?" he said, at last.

"Oh, Frank!" Bathsheba replied, and there was such a volume of
entreaty in the words.  "Only such a few weeks ago you said that I
was far sweeter than all your other pleasures put together, and that
you would give them all up for me; and now, won't you give up this
one, which is more a worry than a pleasure?  Do, Frank.  Come, let
me fascinate you by all I can do--by pretty words and pretty looks,
and everything I can think of--to stay at home.  Say yes to your
wife--say yes!"

The tenderest and softest phases of Bathsheba's nature were prominent
now--advanced impulsively for his acceptance, without any of the
disguises and defences which the wariness of her character when she
was cool too frequently threw over them.  Few men could have resisted
the arch yet dignified entreaty of the beautiful face, thrown a
little back and sideways in the well known attitude that expresses
more than the words it accompanies, and which seems to have been
designed for these special occasions.  Had the woman not been his
wife, Troy would have succumbed instantly; as it was, he thought he
would not deceive her longer.

"The money is not wanted for racing debts at all," he said.

"What is it for?" she asked.  "You worry me a great deal by these
mysterious responsibilities, Frank."

Troy hesitated.  He did not now love her enough to allow himself
to be carried too far by her ways.  Yet it was necessary to be
civil.  "You wrong me by such a suspicious manner," he said.  "Such
strait-waistcoating as you treat me to is not becoming in you at so
early a date."

"I think that I have a right to grumble a little if I pay," she said,
with features between a smile and a pout.

"Exactly; and, the former being done, suppose we proceed to the
latter.  Bathsheba, fun is all very well, but don't go too far, or
you may have cause to regret something."

She reddened.  "I do that already," she said, quickly.

"What do you regret?"

"That my romance has come to an end."

"All romances end at marriage."

"I wish you wouldn't talk like that.  You grieve me to my soul by
being smart at my expense."

"You are dull enough at mine.  I believe you hate me."

"Not you--only your faults.  I do hate them."

"'Twould be much more becoming if you set yourself to cure them.
Come, let's strike a balance with the twenty pounds, and be friends."

She gave a sigh of resignation.  "I have about that sum here for
household expenses.  If you must have it, take it."

"Very good.  Thank you.  I expect I shall have gone away before you
are in to breakfast to-morrow."

"And must you go?  Ah! there was a time, Frank, when it would have
taken a good many promises to other people to drag you away from me.
You used to call me darling, then.  But it doesn't matter to you how
my days are passed now."

"I must go, in spite of sentiment."  Troy, as he spoke, looked at his
watch, and, apparently actuated by _non lucendo_ principles, opened
the case at the back, revealing, snugly stowed within it, a small
coil of hair.

Bathsheba's eyes had been accidentally lifted at that moment, and she
saw the action and saw the hair.  She flushed in pain and surprise,
and some words escaped her before she had thought whether or not it
was wise to utter them.  "A woman's curl of hair!" she said.  "Oh,
Frank, whose is that?"

Troy had instantly closed his watch.  He carelessly replied, as one
who cloaked some feelings that the sight had stirred.  "Why, yours,
of course.  Whose should it be?  I had quite forgotten that I had
it."

"What a dreadful fib, Frank!"

"I tell you I had forgotten it!" he said, loudly.

"I don't mean that--it was yellow hair."

"Nonsense."

"That's insulting me.  I know it was yellow.  Now whose was it?  I
want to know."

"Very well--I'll tell you, so make no more ado.  It is the hair of a
young woman I was going to marry before I knew you."

"You ought to tell me her name, then."

"I cannot do that."

"Is she married yet?"

"No."

"Is she alive?"

"Yes."

"Is she pretty?"

"Yes."

"It is wonderful how she can be, poor thing, under such an awful
affliction!"

"Affliction--what affliction?" he inquired, quickly.

"Having hair of that dreadful colour."

"Oh--ho--I like that!" said Troy, recovering himself.  "Why, her hair
has been admired by everybody who has seen her since she has worn it
loose, which has not been long.  It is beautiful hair.  People used
to turn their heads to look at it, poor girl!"

"Pooh! that's nothing--that's nothing!" she exclaimed, in incipient
accents of pique.  "If I cared for your love as much as I used to I
could say people had turned to look at mine."

"Bathsheba, don't be so fitful and jealous.  You knew what married
life would be like, and shouldn't have entered it if you feared these
contingencies."

Troy had by this time driven her to bitterness: her heart was big in
her throat, and the ducts to her eyes were painfully full.  Ashamed
as she was to show emotion, at last she burst out:--

"This is all I get for loving you so well!  Ah! when I married you
your life was dearer to me than my own.  I would have died for
you--how truly I can say that I would have died for you!  And now
you sneer at my foolishness in marrying you.  O! is it kind to me to
throw my mistake in my face?  Whatever opinion you may have of my
wisdom, you should not tell me of it so mercilessly, now that I am
in your power."

"I can't help how things fall out," said Troy; "upon my heart, women
will be the death of me!"

"Well you shouldn't keep people's hair.  You'll burn it, won't you,
Frank?"

Frank went on as if he had not heard her.  "There are considerations
even before my consideration for you; reparations to be made--ties
you know nothing of.  If you repent of marrying, so do I."

Trembling now, she put her hand upon his arm, saying, in mingled
tones of wretchedness and coaxing, "I only repent it if you don't
love me better than any woman in the world!  I don't otherwise,
Frank.  You don't repent because you already love somebody better
than you love me, do you?"

"I don't know.  Why do you say that?"

"You won't burn that curl.  You like the woman who owns that pretty
hair--yes; it is pretty--more beautiful than my miserable black mane!
Well, it is no use; I can't help being ugly.  You must like her best,
if you will!"

"Until to-day, when I took it from a drawer, I have never looked upon
that bit of hair for several months--that I am ready to swear."

"But just now you said 'ties'; and then--that woman we met?"

"'Twas the meeting with her that reminded me of the hair."

"Is it hers, then?"

"Yes.  There, now that you have wormed it out of me, I hope you are
content."

"And what are the ties?"

"Oh! that meant nothing--a mere jest."

"A mere jest!" she said, in mournful astonishment.  "Can you jest
when I am so wretchedly in earnest?  Tell me the truth, Frank.  I
am not a fool, you know, although I am a woman, and have my woman's
moments.  Come! treat me fairly," she said, looking honestly and
fearlessly into his face.  "I don't want much; bare justice--that's
all!  Ah! once I felt I could be content with nothing less than the
highest homage from the husband I should choose.  Now, anything
short of cruelty will content me.  Yes! the independent and spirited
Bathsheba is come to this!"

"For Heaven's sake don't be so desperate!" Troy said, snappishly,
rising as he did so, and leaving the room.

Directly he had gone, Bathsheba burst into great sobs--dry-eyed sobs,
which cut as they came, without any softening by tears.  But she
determined to repress all evidences of feeling.  She was conquered;
but she would never own it as long as she lived.  Her pride was
indeed brought low by despairing discoveries of her spoliation by
marriage with a less pure nature than her own.  She chafed to and fro
in rebelliousness, like a caged leopard; her whole soul was in arms,
and the blood fired her face.  Until she had met Troy, Bathsheba had
been proud of her position as a woman; it had been a glory to her to
know that her lips had been touched by no man's on earth--that her
waist had never been encircled by a lover's arm.  She hated herself
now.  In those earlier days she had always nourished a secret
contempt for girls who were the slaves of the first good-looking
young fellow who should choose to salute them.  She had never taken
kindly to the idea of marriage in the abstract as did the majority of
women she saw about her.  In the turmoil of her anxiety for her lover
she had agreed to marry him; but the perception that had accompanied
her happiest hours on this account was rather that of self-sacrifice
than of promotion and honour.  Although she scarcely knew the
divinity's name, Diana was the goddess whom Bathsheba instinctively
adored.  That she had never, by look, word, or sign, encouraged a man
to approach her--that she had felt herself sufficient to herself,
and had in the independence of her girlish heart fancied there was
a certain degradation in renouncing the simplicity of a maiden
existence to become the humbler half of an indifferent matrimonial
whole--were facts now bitterly remembered.  Oh, if she had never
stooped to folly of this kind, respectable as it was, and could only
stand again, as she had stood on the hill at Norcombe, and dare Troy
or any other man to pollute a hair of her head by his interference!

The next morning she rose earlier than usual, and had the horse
saddled for her ride round the farm in the customary way.  When she
came in at half-past eight--their usual hour for breakfasting--she
was informed that her husband had risen, taken his breakfast, and
driven off to Casterbridge with the gig and Poppet.

After breakfast she was cool and collected--quite herself in
fact--and she rambled to the gate, intending to walk to another
quarter of the farm, which she still personally superintended as
well as her duties in the house would permit, continually, however,
finding herself preceded in forethought by Gabriel Oak, for whom she
began to entertain the genuine friendship of a sister.  Of course,
she sometimes thought of him in the light of an old lover, and had
momentary imaginings of what life with him as a husband would have
been like; also of life with Boldwood under the same conditions.
But Bathsheba, though she could feel, was not much given to futile
dreaming, and her musings under this head were short and entirely
confined to the times when Troy's neglect was more than ordinarily
evident.

She saw coming up the road a man like Mr. Boldwood.  It was Mr.
Boldwood.  Bathsheba blushed painfully, and watched.  The farmer
stopped when still a long way off, and held up his hand to Gabriel
Oak, who was in a footpath across the field.  The two men then
approached each other and seemed to engage in earnest conversation.

Thus they continued for a long time.  Joseph Poorgrass now passed
near them, wheeling a barrow of apples up the hill to Bathsheba's
residence.  Boldwood and Gabriel called to him, spoke to him for a
few minutes, and then all three parted, Joseph immediately coming
up the hill with his barrow.

Bathsheba, who had seen this pantomime with some surprise,
experienced great relief when Boldwood turned back again.  "Well,
what's the message, Joseph?" she said.

He set down his barrow, and, putting upon himself the refined aspect
that a conversation with a lady required, spoke to Bathsheba over the
gate.

"You'll never see Fanny Robin no more--use nor principal--ma'am."

"Why?"

"Because she's dead in the Union."

"Fanny dead--never!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What did she die from?"

"I don't know for certain; but I should be inclined to think it was
from general neshness of constitution.  She was such a limber maid
that 'a could stand no hardship, even when I knowed her, and 'a went
like a candle-snoff, so 'tis said.  She was took bad in the morning,
and, being quite feeble and worn out, she died in the evening.  She
belongs by law to our parish; and Mr. Boldwood is going to send a
waggon at three this afternoon to fetch her home here and bury her."

"Indeed I shall not let Mr. Boldwood do any such thing--I shall do
it!  Fanny was my uncle's servant, and, although I only knew her
for a couple of days, she belongs to me.  How very, very sad this
is!--the idea of Fanny being in a workhouse."  Bathsheba had begun to
know what suffering was, and she spoke with real feeling....  "Send
across to Mr. Boldwood's, and say that Mrs. Troy will take upon
herself the duty of fetching an old servant of the family....  We
ought not to put her in a waggon; we'll get a hearse."

"There will hardly be time, ma'am, will there?"

"Perhaps not," she said, musingly.  "When did you say we must be at
the door--three o'clock?"

"Three o'clock this afternoon, ma'am, so to speak it."

"Very well--you go with it.  A pretty waggon is better than an ugly
hearse, after all.  Joseph, have the new spring waggon with the blue
body and red wheels, and wash it very clean.  And, Joseph--"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Carry with you some evergreens and flowers to put upon her
coffin--indeed, gather a great many, and completely bury her in
them.  Get some boughs of laurustinus, and variegated box, and yew,
and boy's-love; ay, and some bunches of chrysanthemum.  And let old
Pleasant draw her, because she knew him so well."

"I will, ma'am.  I ought to have said that the Union, in the form of
four labouring men, will meet me when I gets to our churchyard gate,
and take her and bury her according to the rites of the Board of
Guardians, as by law ordained."

"Dear me--Casterbridge Union--and is Fanny come to this?" said
Bathsheba, musing.  "I wish I had known of it sooner.  I thought she
was far away.  How long has she lived there?"

"On'y been there a day or two."

"Oh!--then she has not been staying there as a regular inmate?"

"No.  She first went to live in a garrison-town t'other side o'
Wessex, and since then she's been picking up a living at seampstering
in Melchester for several months, at the house of a very respectable
widow-woman who takes in work of that sort.  She only got handy the
Union-house on Sunday morning 'a b'lieve, and 'tis supposed here and
there that she had traipsed every step of the way from Melchester.
Why she left her place, I can't say, for I don't know; and as to a
lie, why, I wouldn't tell it.  That's the short of the story, ma'am."

"Ah-h!"

No gem ever flashed from a rosy ray to a white one more rapidly than
changed the young wife's countenance whilst this word came from her
in a long-drawn breath.  "Did she walk along our turnpike-road?" she
said, in a suddenly restless and eager voice.

"I believe she did....  Ma'am, shall I call Liddy?  You bain't well,
ma'am, surely?  You look like a lily--so pale and fainty!"

"No; don't call her; it is nothing.  When did she pass Weatherbury?"

"Last Saturday night."

"That will do, Joseph; now you may go."

"Certainly, ma'am."

"Joseph, come hither a moment.  What was the colour of Fanny Robin's
hair?"

"Really, mistress, now that 'tis put to me so judge-and-jury like, I
can't call to mind, if ye'll believe me!"

"Never mind; go on and do what I told you.  Stop--well no, go on."

She turned herself away from him, that he might no longer notice the
mood which had set its sign so visibly upon her, and went indoors
with a distressing sense of faintness and a beating brow.  About an
hour after, she heard the noise of the waggon and went out, still
with a painful consciousness of her bewildered and troubled look.
Joseph, dressed in his best suit of clothes, was putting in the horse
to start.  The shrubs and flowers were all piled in the waggon, as
she had directed; Bathsheba hardly saw them now.

"Died of what? did you say, Joseph?"

"I don't know, ma'am."

"Are you quite sure?"

"Yes, ma'am, quite sure."

"Sure of what?"

"I'm sure that all I know is that she arrived in the morning and died
in the evening without further parley.  What Oak and Mr. Boldwood
told me was only these few words.  'Little Fanny Robin is dead,
Joseph,' Gabriel said, looking in my face in his steady old way.
I was very sorry, and I said, 'Ah!--and how did she come to die?'
'Well, she's dead in Casterbridge Union,' he said, 'and perhaps
'tisn't much matter about how she came to die.  She reached the
Union early Sunday morning, and died in the afternoon--that's clear
enough.' Then I asked what she'd been doing lately, and Mr. Boldwood
turned round to me then, and left off spitting a thistle with the end
of his stick.  He told me about her having lived by seampstering in
Melchester, as I mentioned to you, and that she walked therefrom at
the end of last week, passing near here Saturday night in the dusk.
They then said I had better just name a hint of her death to you, and
away they went.  Her death might have been brought on by biding in
the night wind, you know, ma'am; for people used to say she'd go off
in a decline: she used to cough a good deal in winter time.  However,
'tisn't much odds to us about that now, for 'tis all over."

"Have you heard a different story at all?" She looked at him so
intently that Joseph's eyes quailed.

"Not a word, mistress, I assure 'ee!" he said.  "Hardly anybody in
the parish knows the news yet."

"I wonder why Gabriel didn't bring the message to me himself.  He
mostly makes a point of seeing me upon the most trifling errand."
These words were merely murmured, and she was looking upon the
ground.

"Perhaps he was busy, ma'am," Joseph suggested.  "And sometimes he
seems to suffer from things upon his mind, connected with the time
when he was better off than 'a is now.  'A's rather a curious item,
but a very understanding shepherd, and learned in books."

"Did anything seem upon his mind whilst he was speaking to you about
this?"

"I cannot but say that there did, ma'am.  He was terrible down, and
so was Farmer Boldwood."

"Thank you, Joseph.  That will do.  Go on now, or you'll be late."

Bathsheba, still unhappy, went indoors again.  In the course of the
afternoon she said to Liddy, who had been informed of the occurrence,
"What was the colour of poor Fanny Robin's hair?  Do you know?  I
cannot recollect--I only saw her for a day or two."

"It was light, ma'am; but she wore it rather short, and packed away
under her cap, so that you would hardly notice it.  But I have seen
her let it down when she was going to bed, and it looked beautiful
then.  Real golden hair."

"Her young man was a soldier, was he not?"

"Yes.  In the same regiment as Mr. Troy.  He says he knew him very
well."

"What, Mr. Troy says so?  How came he to say that?"

"One day I just named it to him, and asked him if he knew Fanny's
young man.  He said, 'Oh yes, he knew the young man as well as he
knew himself, and that there wasn't a man in the regiment he liked
better.'"

"Ah!  Said that, did he?"

"Yes; and he said there was a strong likeness between himself and the
other young man, so that sometimes people mistook them--"

"Liddy, for Heaven's sake stop your talking!" said Bathsheba, with
the nervous petulance that comes from worrying perceptions.





JOSEPH AND HIS BURDEN--BUCK'S HEAD


A wall bounded the site of Casterbridge Union-house, except along a
portion of the end.  Here a high gable stood prominent, and it was
covered like the front with a mat of ivy.  In this gable was no
window, chimney, ornament, or protuberance of any kind.  The single
feature appertaining to it, beyond the expanse of dark green leaves,
was a small door.

The situation of the door was peculiar.  The sill was three or four
feet above the ground, and for a moment one was at a loss for an
explanation of this exceptional altitude, till ruts immediately
beneath suggested that the door was used solely for the passage of
articles and persons to and from the level of a vehicle standing on
the outside.  Upon the whole, the door seemed to advertise itself as
a species of Traitor's Gate translated to another sphere.  That entry
and exit hereby was only at rare intervals became apparent on noting
that tufts of grass were allowed to flourish undisturbed in the
chinks of the sill.

As the clock over the South-street Alms-house pointed to five minutes
to three, a blue spring waggon, picked out with red, and containing
boughs and flowers, passed the end of the street, and up towards this
side of the building.  Whilst the chimes were yet stammering out a
shattered form of "Malbrook," Joseph Poorgrass rang the bell, and
received directions to back his waggon against the high door under
the gable.  The door then opened, and a plain elm coffin was slowly
thrust forth, and laid by two men in fustian along the middle of the
vehicle.

One of the men then stepped up beside it, took from his pocket a lump
of chalk, and wrote upon the cover the name and a few other words in
a large scrawling hand.  (We believe that they do these things more
tenderly now, and provide a plate.) He covered the whole with a
black cloth, threadbare, but decent, the tail-board of the waggon
was returned to its place, one of the men handed a certificate of
registry to Poorgrass, and both entered the door, closing it behind
them.  Their connection with her, short as it had been, was over for
ever.

Joseph then placed the flowers as enjoined, and the evergreens
around the flowers, till it was difficult to divine what the waggon
contained; he smacked his whip, and the rather pleasing funeral car
crept down the hill, and along the road to Weatherbury.

The afternoon drew on apace, and, looking to the right towards the
sea as he walked beside the horse, Poorgrass saw strange clouds and
scrolls of mist rolling over the long ridges which girt the landscape
in that quarter.  They came in yet greater volumes, and indolently
crept across the intervening valleys, and around the withered papery
flags of the moor and river brinks.  Then their dank spongy forms
closed in upon the sky.  It was a sudden overgrowth of atmospheric
fungi which had their roots in the neighbouring sea, and by the time
that horse, man, and corpse entered Yalbury Great Wood, these silent
workings of an invisible hand had reached them, and they were
completely enveloped, this being the first arrival of the autumn
fogs, and the first fog of the series.

The air was as an eye suddenly struck blind.  The waggon and its load
rolled no longer on the horizontal division between clearness and
opacity, but were imbedded in an elastic body of a monotonous pallor
throughout.  There was no perceptible motion in the air, not a
visible drop of water fell upon a leaf of the beeches, birches,
and firs composing the wood on either side.  The trees stood in an
attitude of intentness, as if they waited longingly for a wind to
come and rock them.  A startling quiet overhung all surrounding
things--so completely, that the crunching of the waggon-wheels
was as a great noise, and small rustles, which had never obtained
a hearing except by night, were distinctly individualized.

Joseph Poorgrass looked round upon his sad burden as it loomed
faintly through the flowering laurustinus, then at the unfathomable
gloom amid the high trees on each hand, indistinct, shadowless, and
spectre-like in their monochrome of grey.  He felt anything but
cheerful, and wished he had the company even of a child or dog.
Stopping the horse, he listened.  Not a footstep or wheel was audible
anywhere around, and the dead silence was broken only by a heavy
particle falling from a tree through the evergreens and alighting
with a smart rap upon the coffin of poor Fanny.  The fog had by this
time saturated the trees, and this was the first dropping of water
from the overbrimming leaves.  The hollow echo of its fall reminded
the waggoner painfully of the grim Leveller.  Then hard by came down
another drop, then two or three.  Presently there was a continual
tapping of these heavy drops upon the dead leaves, the road, and
the travellers.  The nearer boughs were beaded with the mist to the
greyness of aged men, and the rusty-red leaves of the beeches were
hung with similar drops, like diamonds on auburn hair.

At the roadside hamlet called Roy-Town, just beyond this wood,
was the old inn Buck's Head.  It was about a mile and a half from
Weatherbury, and in the meridian times of stage-coach travelling
had been the place where many coaches changed and kept their relays
of horses.  All the old stabling was now pulled down, and little
remained besides the habitable inn itself, which, standing a little
way back from the road, signified its existence to people far up and
down the highway by a sign hanging from the horizontal bough of an
elm on the opposite side of the way.

Travellers--for the variety _tourist_ had hardly developed into a
distinct species at this date--sometimes said in passing, when they
cast their eyes up to the sign-bearing tree, that artists were fond
of representing the signboard hanging thus, but that they themselves
had never before noticed so perfect an instance in actual working
order.  It was near this tree that the waggon was standing into which
Gabriel Oak crept on his first journey to Weatherbury; but, owing to
the darkness, the sign and the inn had been unobserved.

The manners of the inn were of the old-established type.  Indeed,
in the minds of its frequenters they existed as unalterable formulae:
_e.g._--


   Rap with the bottom of your pint for more liquor.
   For tobacco, shout.
   In calling for the girl in waiting, say, "Maid!"
   Ditto for the landlady, "Old Soul!" etc., etc.


It was a relief to Joseph's heart when the friendly signboard came in
view, and, stopping his horse immediately beneath it, he proceeded to
fulfil an intention made a long time before.  His spirits were oozing
out of him quite.  He turned the horse's head to the green bank, and
entered the hostel for a mug of ale.

Going down into the kitchen of the inn, the floor of which was a
step below the passage, which in its turn was a step below the
road outside, what should Joseph see to gladden his eyes but two
copper-coloured discs, in the form of the countenances of Mr. Jan
Coggan and Mr. Mark Clark.  These owners of the two most appreciative
throats in the neighbourhood, within the pale of respectability, were
now sitting face to face over a three-legged circular table, having
an iron rim to keep cups and pots from being accidentally elbowed
off; they might have been said to resemble the setting sun and the
full moon shining _vis-a-vis_ across the globe.

"Why, 'tis neighbour Poorgrass!" said Mark Clark.  "I'm sure your
face don't praise your mistress's table, Joseph."

"I've had a very pale companion for the last four miles," said
Joseph, indulging in a shudder toned down by resignation.  "And to
speak the truth, 'twas beginning to tell upon me.  I assure ye, I
ha'n't seed the colour of victuals or drink since breakfast time
this morning, and that was no more than a dew-bit afield."

"Then drink, Joseph, and don't restrain yourself!" said Coggan,
handing him a hooped mug three-quarters full.

Joseph drank for a moderately long time, then for a longer time,
saying, as he lowered the jug, "'Tis pretty drinking--very pretty
drinking, and is more than cheerful on my melancholy errand, so to
speak it."

"True, drink is a pleasant delight," said Jan, as one who repeated a
truism so familiar to his brain that he hardly noticed its passage
over his tongue; and, lifting the cup, Coggan tilted his head
gradually backwards, with closed eyes, that his expectant soul
might not be diverted for one instant from its bliss by irrelevant
surroundings.

"Well, I must be on again," said Poorgrass.  "Not but that I should
like another nip with ye; but the parish might lose confidence in me
if I was seed here."

"Where be ye trading o't to to-day, then, Joseph?"

"Back to Weatherbury.  I've got poor little Fanny Robin in my waggon
outside, and I must be at the churchyard gates at a quarter to five
with her."

"Ay--I've heard of it.  And so she's nailed up in parish boards after
all, and nobody to pay the bell shilling and the grave half-crown."

"The parish pays the grave half-crown, but not the bell shilling,
because the bell's a luxery: but 'a can hardly do without the grave,
poor body.  However, I expect our mistress will pay all."

"A pretty maid as ever I see!  But what's yer hurry, Joseph?  The
pore woman's dead, and you can't bring her to life, and you may as
well sit down comfortable, and finish another with us."

"I don't mind taking just the least thimbleful ye can dream of more
with ye, sonnies.  But only a few minutes, because 'tis as 'tis."

"Of course, you'll have another drop.  A man's twice the man
afterwards.  You feel so warm and glorious, and you whop and slap at
your work without any trouble, and everything goes on like sticks
a-breaking.  Too much liquor is bad, and leads us to that horned man
in the smoky house; but after all, many people haven't the gift of
enjoying a wet, and since we be highly favoured with a power that
way, we should make the most o't."

"True," said Mark Clark.  "'Tis a talent the Lord has mercifully
bestowed upon us, and we ought not to neglect it. But, what with the
parsons and clerks and school-people and serious tea-parties, the
merry old ways of good life have gone to the dogs--upon my carcase,
they have!"

"Well, really, I must be onward again now," said Joseph.

"Now, now, Joseph; nonsense!  The poor woman is dead, isn't she, and
what's your hurry?"

"Well, I hope Providence won't be in a way with me for my doings,"
said Joseph, again sitting down.  "I've been troubled with weak
moments lately, 'tis true.  I've been drinky once this month already,
and I did not go to church a-Sunday, and I dropped a curse or two
yesterday; so I don't want to go too far for my safety.  Your next
world is your next world, and not to be squandered offhand."

"I believe ye to be a chapelmember, Joseph.  That I do."

"Oh, no, no!  I don't go so far as that."

"For my part," said Coggan, "I'm staunch Church of England."

"Ay, and faith, so be I," said Mark Clark.

"I won't say much for myself; I don't wish to," Coggan continued,
with that tendency to talk on principles which is characteristic of
the barley-corn.  "But I've never changed a single doctrine: I've
stuck like a plaster to the old faith I was born in.  Yes; there's
this to be said for the Church, a man can belong to the Church and
bide in his cheerful old inn, and never trouble or worry his mind
about doctrines at all.  But to be a meetinger, you must go to chapel
in all winds and weathers, and make yerself as frantic as a skit.
Not but that chapel members be clever chaps enough in their way.
They can lift up beautiful prayers out of their own heads, all about
their families and shipwrecks in the newspaper."

"They can--they can," said Mark Clark, with corroborative feeling;
"but we Churchmen, you see, must have it all printed aforehand, or,
dang it all, we should no more know what to say to a great gaffer
like the Lord than babes unborn."

"Chapelfolk be more hand-in-glove with them above than we," said
Joseph, thoughtfully.

"Yes," said Coggan.  "We know very well that if anybody do go to
heaven, they will.  They've worked hard for it, and they deserve to
have it, such as 'tis.  I bain't such a fool as to pretend that we
who stick to the Church have the same chance as they, because we
know we have not.  But I hate a feller who'll change his old ancient
doctrines for the sake of getting to heaven.  I'd as soon turn
king's-evidence for the few pounds you get.  Why, neighbours, when
every one of my taties were frosted, our Parson Thirdly were the man
who gave me a sack for seed, though he hardly had one for his own
use, and no money to buy 'em.  If it hadn't been for him, I shouldn't
hae had a tatie to put in my garden.  D'ye think I'd turn after that?
No, I'll stick to my side; and if we be in the wrong, so be it: I'll
fall with the fallen!"

"Well said--very well said," observed Joseph.--"However, folks, I
must be moving now: upon my life I must.  Pa'son Thirdly will be
waiting at the church gates, and there's the woman a-biding outside
in the waggon."

"Joseph Poorgrass, don't be so miserable!  Pa'son Thirdly won't mind.
He's a generous man; he's found me in tracts for years, and I've
consumed a good many in the course of a long and shady life; but he's
never been the man to cry out at the expense.  Sit down."

The longer Joseph Poorgrass remained, the less his spirit was
troubled by the duties which devolved upon him this afternoon.
The minutes glided by uncounted, until the evening shades began
perceptibly to deepen, and the eyes of the three were but sparkling
points on the surface of darkness.  Coggan's repeater struck six
from his pocket in the usual still small tones.

At that moment hasty steps were heard in the entry, and the door
opened to admit the figure of Gabriel Oak, followed by the maid of
the inn bearing a candle.  He stared sternly at the one lengthy
and two round faces of the sitters, which confronted him with the
expressions of a fiddle and a couple of warming-pans.  Joseph
Poorgrass blinked, and shrank several inches into the background.

"Upon my soul, I'm ashamed of you; 'tis disgraceful, Joseph,
disgraceful!" said Gabriel, indignantly.  "Coggan, you call yourself
a man, and don't know better than this."

Coggan looked up indefinitely at Oak, one or other of his eyes
occasionally opening and closing of its own accord, as if it were not
a member, but a dozy individual with a distinct personality.

"Don't take on so, shepherd!" said Mark Clark, looking reproachfully
at the candle, which appeared to possess special features of interest
for his eyes.

"Nobody can hurt a dead woman," at length said Coggan, with the
precision of a machine.  "All that could be done for her is
done--she's beyond us: and why should a man put himself in a tearing
hurry for lifeless clay that can neither feel nor see, and don't know
what you do with her at all?  If she'd been alive, I would have been
the first to help her.  If she now wanted victuals and drink, I'd pay
for it, money down.  But she's dead, and no speed of ours will bring
her to life.  The woman's past us--time spent upon her is throwed
away: why should we hurry to do what's not required?  Drink,
shepherd, and be friends, for to-morrow we may be like her."

"We may," added Mark Clark, emphatically, at once drinking himself,
to run no further risk of losing his chance by the event alluded
to, Jan meanwhile merging his additional thoughts of to-morrow in a
song:--


                          To-mor-row, to-mor-row!
    And while peace and plen-ty I find at my board,
       With a heart free from sick-ness and sor-row,
    With my friends will I share what to-day may af-ford,
       And let them spread the ta-ble to-mor-row.
                          To-mor-row', to-mor--


"Do hold thy horning, Jan!" said Oak; and turning upon Poorgrass, "as
for you, Joseph, who do your wicked deeds in such confoundedly holy
ways, you are as drunk as you can stand."

"No, Shepherd Oak, no!  Listen to reason, shepherd.  All that's the
matter with me is the affliction called a multiplying eye, and that's
how it is I look double to you--I mean, you look double to me."

"A multiplying eye is a very bad thing," said Mark Clark.

"It always comes on when I have been in a public-house a little
time," said Joseph Poorgrass, meekly.  "Yes; I see two of every
sort, as if I were some holy man living in the times of King Noah
and entering into the ark....  Y-y-y-yes," he added, becoming much
affected by the picture of himself as a person thrown away, and
shedding tears; "I feel too good for England: I ought to have lived
in Genesis by rights, like the other men of sacrifice, and then I
shouldn't have b-b-been called a d-d-drunkard in such a way!"

"I wish you'd show yourself a man of spirit, and not sit whining
there!"

"Show myself a man of spirit? ...  Ah, well! let me take the name of
drunkard humbly--let me be a man of contrite knees--let it be!  I
know that I always do say 'Please God' afore I do anything, from my
getting up to my going down of the same, and I be willing to take as
much disgrace as there is in that holy act.  Hah, yes! ...  But not
a man of spirit?  Have I ever allowed the toe of pride to be lifted
against my hinder parts without groaning manfully that I question
the right to do so?  I inquire that query boldly?"

"We can't say that you have, Hero Poorgrass," admitted Jan.

"Never have I allowed such treatment to pass unquestioned!  Yet the
shepherd says in the face of that rich testimony that I be not a man
of spirit!  Well, let it pass by, and death is a kind friend!"

Gabriel, seeing that neither of the three was in a fit state to take
charge of the waggon for the remainder of the journey, made no reply,
but, closing the door again upon them, went across to where the
vehicle stood, now getting indistinct in the fog and gloom of this
mildewy time.  He pulled the horse's head from the large patch of
turf it had eaten bare, readjusted the boughs over the coffin, and
drove along through the unwholesome night.

It had gradually become rumoured in the village that the body to be
brought and buried that day was all that was left of the unfortunate
Fanny Robin who had followed the Eleventh from Casterbridge through
Melchester and onwards.  But, thanks to Boldwood's reticence
and Oak's generosity, the lover she had followed had never been
individualized as Troy.  Gabriel hoped that the whole truth of the
matter might not be published till at any rate the girl had been in
her grave for a few days, when the interposing barriers of earth
and time, and a sense that the events had been somewhat shut into
oblivion, would deaden the sting that revelation and invidious
remark would have for Bathsheba just now.

By the time that Gabriel reached the old manor-house, her residence,
which lay in his way to the church, it was quite dark.  A man came
from the gate and said through the fog, which hung between them like
blown flour--

"Is that Poorgrass with the corpse?"

Gabriel recognized the voice as that of the parson.

"The corpse is here, sir," said Gabriel.

"I have just been to inquire of Mrs. Troy if she could tell me the
reason of the delay.  I am afraid it is too late now for the funeral
to be performed with proper decency.  Have you the registrar's
certificate?"

"No," said Gabriel.  "I expect Poorgrass has that; and he's at the
Buck's Head.  I forgot to ask him for it."

"Then that settles the matter.  We'll put off the funeral till
to-morrow morning.  The body may be brought on to the church, or
it may be left here at the farm and fetched by the bearers in the
morning. They waited more than an hour, and have now gone home."

Gabriel had his reasons for thinking the latter a most objectionable
plan, notwithstanding that Fanny had been an inmate of the farm-house
for several years in the lifetime of Bathsheba's uncle.  Visions
of several unhappy contingencies which might arise from this delay
flitted before him.  But his will was not law, and he went indoors
to inquire of his mistress what were her wishes on the subject.  He
found her in an unusual mood: her eyes as she looked up to him were
suspicious and perplexed as with some antecedent thought.  Troy
had not yet returned.  At first Bathsheba assented with a mien of
indifference to his proposition that they should go on to the church
at once with their burden; but immediately afterwards, following
Gabriel to the gate, she swerved to the extreme of solicitousness on
Fanny's account, and desired that the girl might be brought into the
house.  Oak argued upon the convenience of leaving her in the waggon,
just as she lay now, with her flowers and green leaves about her,
merely wheeling the vehicle into the coach-house till the morning,
but to no purpose.  "It is unkind and unchristian," she said, "to
leave the poor thing in a coach-house all night."

"Very well, then," said the parson.  "And I will arrange that the
funeral shall take place early to-morrow.  Perhaps Mrs. Troy is
right in feeling that we cannot treat a dead fellow-creature too
thoughtfully.  We must remember that though she may have erred
grievously in leaving her home, she is still our sister: and it is
to be believed that God's uncovenanted mercies are extended towards
her, and that she is a member of the flock of Christ."

The parson's words spread into the heavy air with a sad yet
unperturbed cadence, and Gabriel shed an honest tear.  Bathsheba
seemed unmoved.  Mr. Thirdly then left them, and Gabriel lighted
a lantern.  Fetching three other men to assist him, they bore the
unconscious truant indoors, placing the coffin on two benches in the
middle of a little sitting-room next the hall, as Bathsheba directed.

Every one except Gabriel Oak then left the room.  He still
indecisively lingered beside the body.  He was deeply troubled at the
wretchedly ironical aspect that circumstances were putting on with
regard to Troy's wife, and at his own powerlessness to counteract
them.  In spite of his careful manoeuvering all this day, the very
worst event that could in any way have happened in connection with
the burial had happened now.  Oak imagined a terrible discovery
resulting from this afternoon's work that might cast over Bathsheba's
life a shade which the interposition of many lapsing years might but
indifferently lighten, and which nothing at all might altogether
remove.

Suddenly, as in a last attempt to save Bathsheba from, at any rate,
immediate anguish, he looked again, as he had looked before, at the
chalk writing upon the coffin-lid.  The scrawl was this simple one,
"FANNY ROBIN AND CHILD."  Gabriel took his handkerchief and carefully
rubbed out the two latter words, leaving visible the inscription
"FANNY ROBIN" only.  He then left the room, and went out quietly by
the front door.





FANNY'S REVENGE


"Do you want me any longer ma'am?" inquired Liddy, at a later hour
the same evening, standing by the door with a chamber candlestick in
her hand and addressing Bathsheba, who sat cheerless and alone in the
large parlour beside the first fire of the season.

"No more to-night, Liddy."

"I'll sit up for master if you like, ma'am.  I am not at all afraid
of Fanny, if I may sit in my own room and have a candle.  She was
such a childlike, nesh young thing that her spirit couldn't appear
to anybody if it tried, I'm quite sure."

"Oh no, no!  You go to bed.  I'll sit up for him myself till twelve
o'clock, and if he has not arrived by that time, I shall give him up
and go to bed too."

"It is half-past ten now."

"Oh! is it?"

"Why don't you sit upstairs, ma'am?"

"Why don't I?" said Bathsheba, desultorily.  "It isn't worth
while--there's a fire here, Liddy."  She suddenly exclaimed in an
impulsive and excited whisper, "Have you heard anything strange said
of Fanny?" The words had no sooner escaped her than an expression of
unutterable regret crossed her face, and she burst into tears.

"No--not a word!" said Liddy, looking at the weeping woman with
astonishment.  "What is it makes you cry so, ma'am; has anything hurt
you?"  She came to Bathsheba's side with a face full of sympathy.

"No, Liddy--I don't want you any more.  I can hardly say why I have
taken to crying lately: I never used to cry.  Good-night."

Liddy then left the parlour and closed the door.

Bathsheba was lonely and miserable now; not lonelier actually than
she had been before her marriage; but her loneliness then was to that
of the present time as the solitude of a mountain is to the solitude
of a cave.  And within the last day or two had come these disquieting
thoughts about her husband's past.  Her wayward sentiment that
evening concerning Fanny's temporary resting-place had been the
result of a strange complication of impulses in Bathsheba's bosom.
Perhaps it would be more accurately described as a determined
rebellion against her prejudices, a revulsion from a lower instinct
of uncharitableness, which would have withheld all sympathy from
the dead woman, because in life she had preceded Bathsheba in the
attentions of a man whom Bathsheba had by no means ceased from
loving, though her love was sick to death just now with the gravity
of a further misgiving.

In five or ten minutes there was another tap at the door.  Liddy
reappeared, and coming in a little way stood hesitating, until at
length she said, "Maryann has just heard something very strange, but
I know it isn't true.  And we shall be sure to know the rights of it
in a day or two."

"What is it?"

"Oh, nothing connected with you or us, ma'am.  It is about Fanny.
That same thing you have heard."

"I have heard nothing."

"I mean that a wicked story is got to Weatherbury within this last
hour--that--"  Liddy came close to her mistress and whispered the
remainder of the sentence slowly into her ear, inclining her head as
she spoke in the direction of the room where Fanny lay.

Bathsheba trembled from head to foot.

"I don't believe it!" she said, excitedly.  "And there's only one
name written on the coffin-cover."

"Nor I, ma'am.  And a good many others don't; for we should surely
have been told more about it if it had been true--don't you think so,
ma'am?"

"We might or we might not."

Bathsheba turned and looked into the fire, that Liddy might not see
her face.  Finding that her mistress was going to say no more, Liddy
glided out, closed the door softly, and went to bed.

Bathsheba's face, as she continued looking into the fire that
evening, might have excited solicitousness on her account even among
those who loved her least.  The sadness of Fanny Robin's fate did not
make Bathsheba's glorious, although she was the Esther to this poor
Vashti, and their fates might be supposed to stand in some respects
as contrasts to each other.  When Liddy came into the room a second
time the beautiful eyes which met hers had worn a listless, weary
look.  When she went out after telling the story they had expressed
wretchedness in full activity.  Her simple country nature, fed on
old-fashioned principles, was troubled by that which would have
troubled a woman of the world very little, both Fanny and her child,
if she had one, being dead.

Bathsheba had grounds for conjecturing a connection between her own
history and the dimly suspected tragedy of Fanny's end which Oak
and Boldwood never for a moment credited her with possessing.  The
meeting with the lonely woman on the previous Saturday night had been
unwitnessed and unspoken of.  Oak may have had the best of intentions
in withholding for as many days as possible the details of what had
happened to Fanny; but had he known that Bathsheba's perceptions had
already been exercised in the matter, he would have done nothing to
lengthen the minutes of suspense she was now undergoing, when the
certainty which must terminate it would be the worst fact suspected
after all.

She suddenly felt a longing desire to speak to some one stronger than
herself, and so get strength to sustain her surmised position with
dignity and her lurking doubts with stoicism.  Where could she find
such a friend? nowhere in the house.  She was by far the coolest of
the women under her roof.  Patience and suspension of judgement for
a few hours were what she wanted to learn, and there was nobody to
teach her.  Might she but go to Gabriel Oak!--but that could not be.
What a way Oak had, she thought, of enduring things.  Boldwood,
who seemed so much deeper and higher and stronger in feeling than
Gabriel, had not yet learnt, any more than she herself, the simple
lesson which Oak showed a mastery of by every turn and look he
gave--that among the multitude of interests by which he was
surrounded, those which affected his personal well-being were not the
most absorbing and important in his eyes.  Oak meditatively looked
upon the horizon of circumstances without any special regard to his
own standpoint in the midst.  That was how she would wish to be.  But
then Oak was not racked by incertitude upon the inmost matter of his
bosom, as she was at this moment.  Oak knew all about Fanny that he
wished to know--she felt convinced of that.  If she were to go to him
now at once and say no more than these few words, "What is the truth
of the story?" he would feel bound in honour to tell her.  It would
be an inexpressible relief.  No further speech would need to be
uttered.  He knew her so well that no eccentricity of behaviour in
her would alarm him.

She flung a cloak round her, went to the door and opened it.  Every
blade, every twig was still.  The air was yet thick with moisture,
though somewhat less dense than during the afternoon, and a steady
smack of drops upon the fallen leaves under the boughs was almost
musical in its soothing regularity.  It seemed better to be out of
the house than within it, and Bathsheba closed the door, and walked
slowly down the lane till she came opposite to Gabriel's cottage,
where he now lived alone, having left Coggan's house through being
pinched for room.  There was a light in one window only, and that
was downstairs.  The shutters were not closed, nor was any blind or
curtain drawn over the window, neither robbery nor observation being
a contingency which could do much injury to the occupant of the
domicile.  Yes, it was Gabriel himself who was sitting up: he was
reading.  From her standing-place in the road she could see him
plainly, sitting quite still, his light curly head upon his hand, and
only occasionally looking up to snuff the candle which stood beside
him.  At length he looked at the clock, seemed surprised at the
lateness of the hour, closed his book, and arose.  He was going to
bed, she knew, and if she tapped it must be done at once.

Alas for her resolve!  She felt she could not do it.  Not for worlds
now could she give a hint about her misery to him, much less ask him
plainly for information on the cause of Fanny's death.  She must
suspect, and guess, and chafe, and bear it all alone.

Like a homeless wanderer she lingered by the bank, as if lulled and
fascinated by the atmosphere of content which seemed to spread from
that little dwelling, and was so sadly lacking in her own.  Gabriel
appeared in an upper room, placed his light in the window-bench,
and then--knelt down to pray.  The contrast of the picture with her
rebellious and agitated existence at this same time was too much for
her to bear to look upon longer.  It was not for her to make a truce
with trouble by any such means.  She must tread her giddy distracting
measure to its last note, as she had begun it.  With a swollen heart
she went again up the lane, and entered her own door.

More fevered now by a reaction from the first feelings which Oak's
example had raised in her, she paused in the hall, looking at the
door of the room wherein Fanny lay.  She locked her fingers, threw
back her head, and strained her hot hands rigidly across her
forehead, saying, with a hysterical sob, "Would to God you would
speak and tell me your secret, Fanny! ... Oh, I hope, hope it is not
true that there are two of you! ... If I could only look in upon you
for one little minute, I should know all!"

A few moments passed, and she added, slowly, "AND I WILL."

Bathsheba in after times could never gauge the mood which carried
her through the actions following this murmured resolution on this
memorable evening of her life.  She went to the lumber-closet for a
screw-driver.  At the end of a short though undefined time she found
herself in the small room, quivering with emotion, a mist before her
eyes, and an excruciating pulsation in her brain, standing beside the
uncovered coffin of the girl whose conjectured end had so entirely
engrossed her, and saying to herself in a husky voice as she gazed
within--

"It was best to know the worst, and I know it now!"

She was conscious of having brought about this situation by a series
of actions done as by one in an extravagant dream; of following that
idea as to method, which had burst upon her in the hall with glaring
obviousness, by gliding to the top of the stairs, assuring herself by
listening to the heavy breathing of her maids that they were asleep,
gliding down again, turning the handle of the door within which the
young girl lay, and deliberately setting herself to do what, if she
had anticipated any such undertaking at night and alone, would have
horrified her, but which, when done, was not so dreadful as was the
conclusive proof of her husband's conduct which came with knowing
beyond doubt the last chapter of Fanny's story.

Bathsheba's head sank upon her bosom, and the breath which had been
bated in suspense, curiosity, and interest, was exhaled now in the
form of a whispered wail: "Oh-h-h!" she said, and the silent room
added length to her moan.

Her tears fell fast beside the unconscious pair in the coffin:
tears of a complicated origin, of a nature indescribable, almost
indefinable except as other than those of simple sorrow.  Assuredly
their wonted fires must have lived in Fanny's ashes when events were
so shaped as to chariot her hither in this natural, unobtrusive, yet
effectual manner.  The one feat alone--that of dying--by which a mean
condition could be resolved into a grand one, Fanny had achieved.
And to that had destiny subjoined this reencounter to-night, which
had, in Bathsheba's wild imagining, turned her companion's failure to
success, her humiliation to triumph, her lucklessness to ascendency;
it had thrown over herself a garish light of mockery, and set upon
all things about her an ironical smile.

Fanny's face was framed in by that yellow hair of hers; and there was
no longer much room for doubt as to the origin of the curl owned by
Troy.  In Bathsheba's heated fancy the innocent white countenance
expressed a dim triumphant consciousness of the pain she was
retaliating for her pain with all the merciless rigour of the Mosaic
law: "Burning for burning; wound for wound: strife for strife."

Bathsheba indulged in contemplations of escape from her position by
immediate death, which, thought she, though it was an inconvenient
and awful way, had limits to its inconvenience and awfulness that
could not be overpassed; whilst the shames of life were measureless.
Yet even this scheme of extinction by death was but tamely copying
her rival's method without the reasons which had glorified it in her
rival's case.  She glided rapidly up and down the room, as was mostly
her habit when excited, her hands hanging clasped in front of her, as
she thought and in part expressed in broken words: "O, I hate her,
yet I don't mean that I hate her, for it is grievous and wicked; and
yet I hate her a little!  Yes, my flesh insists upon hating her,
whether my spirit is willing or no! ... If she had only lived, I
could have been angry and cruel towards her with some justification;
but to be vindictive towards a poor dead woman recoils upon myself.
O God, have mercy!  I am miserable at all this!"

Bathsheba became at this moment so terrified at her own state of mind
that she looked around for some sort of refuge from herself.  The
vision of Oak kneeling down that night recurred to her, and with the
imitative instinct which animates women she seized upon the idea,
resolved to kneel, and, if possible, pray.  Gabriel had prayed; so
would she.

She knelt beside the coffin, covered her face with her hands, and
for a time the room was silent as a tomb.  Whether from a purely
mechanical, or from any other cause, when Bathsheba arose it was with
a quieted spirit, and a regret for the antagonistic instincts which
had seized upon her just before.

In her desire to make atonement she took flowers from a vase by the
window, and began laying them around the dead girl's head.  Bathsheba
knew no other way of showing kindness to persons departed than by
giving them flowers.  She knew not how long she remained engaged
thus.  She forgot time, life, where she was, what she was doing.  A
slamming together of the coach-house doors in the yard brought her to
herself again.  An instant after, the front door opened and closed,
steps crossed the hall, and her husband appeared at the entrance to
the room, looking in upon her.

He beheld it all by degrees, stared in stupefaction at the scene, as
if he thought it an illusion raised by some fiendish incantation.
Bathsheba, pallid as a corpse on end, gazed back at him in the same
wild way.

So little are instinctive guesses the fruit of a legitimate induction
that, at this moment, as he stood with the door in his hand, Troy
never once thought of Fanny in connection with what he saw.  His
first confused idea was that somebody in the house had died.

"Well--what?" said Troy, blankly.

"I must go!  I must go!" said Bathsheba, to herself more than to him.
She came with a dilated eye towards the door, to push past him.

"What's the matter, in God's name? who's dead?" said Troy.

"I cannot say; let me go out.  I want air!" she continued.

"But no; stay, I insist!"  He seized her hand, and then volition
seemed to leave her, and she went off into a state of passivity.  He,
still holding her, came up the room, and thus, hand in hand, Troy and
Bathsheba approached the coffin's side.

The candle was standing on a bureau close by them, and the light
slanted down, distinctly enkindling the cold features of both mother
and babe.  Troy looked in, dropped his wife's hand, knowledge of it
all came over him in a lurid sheen, and he stood still.

So still he remained that he could be imagined to have left in him no
motive power whatever.  The clashes of feeling in all directions
confounded one another, produced a neutrality, and there was motion
in none.

"Do you know her?" said Bathsheba, in a small enclosed echo, as from
the interior of a cell.

"I do," said Troy.

"Is it she?"

"It is."

He had originally stood perfectly erect.  And now, in the well-nigh
congealed immobility of his frame could be discerned an incipient
movement, as in the darkest night may be discerned light after a
while.  He was gradually sinking forwards.  The lines of his features
softened, and dismay modulated to illimitable sadness.  Bathsheba
was regarding him from the other side, still with parted lips and
distracted eyes.  Capacity for intense feeling is proportionate to
the general intensity of the nature, and perhaps in all Fanny's
sufferings, much greater relatively to her strength, there never was
a time she suffered in an absolute sense what Bathsheba suffered now.

What Troy did was to sink upon his knees with an indefinable union of
remorse and reverence upon his face, and, bending over Fanny Robin,
gently kissed her, as one would kiss an infant asleep to avoid
awakening it.

At the sight and sound of that, to her, unendurable act, Bathsheba
sprang towards him.  All the strong feelings which had been scattered
over her existence since she knew what feeling was, seemed gathered
together into one pulsation now.  The revulsion from her indignant
mood a little earlier, when she had meditated upon compromised
honour, forestalment, eclipse in maternity by another, was violent
and entire.  All that was forgotten in the simple and still
strong attachment of wife to husband.  She had sighed for her
self-completeness then, and now she cried aloud against the severance
of the union she had deplored.  She flung her arms round Troy's neck,
exclaiming wildly from the deepest deep of her heart--

"Don't--don't kiss them!  O, Frank, I can't bear it--I can't!  I love
you better than she did: kiss me too, Frank--kiss me!  YOU WILL,
FRANK, KISS ME TOO!"

There was something so abnormal and startling in the childlike pain
and simplicity of this appeal from a woman of Bathsheba's calibre
and independence, that Troy, loosening her tightly clasped arms from
his neck, looked at her in bewilderment.  It was such an unexpected
revelation of all women being alike at heart, even those so different
in their accessories as Fanny and this one beside him, that Troy
could hardly seem to believe her to be his proud wife Bathsheba.
Fanny's own spirit seemed to be animating her frame.  But this was
the mood of a few instants only.  When the momentary surprise had
passed, his expression changed to a silencing imperious gaze.

"I will not kiss you!" he said pushing her away.

Had the wife now but gone no further.  Yet, perhaps, under the
harrowing circumstances, to speak out was the one wrong act which
can be better understood, if not forgiven in her, than the right and
politic one, her rival being now but a corpse.  All the feeling she
had been betrayed into showing she drew back to herself again by a
strenuous effort of self-command.

"What have you to say as your reason?" she asked, her bitter voice
being strangely low--quite that of another woman now.

"I have to say that I have been a bad, black-hearted man," he
answered.

"And that this woman is your victim; and I not less than she."

"Ah! don't taunt me, madam.  This woman is more to me, dead as she
is, than ever you were, or are, or can be.  If Satan had not tempted
me with that face of yours, and those cursed coquetries, I should
have married her.  I never had another thought till you came in my
way.  Would to God that I had; but it is all too late!"  He turned
to Fanny then.  "But never mind, darling," he said; "in the sight of
Heaven you are my very, very wife!"

At these words there arose from Bathsheba's lips a long, low cry of
measureless despair and indignation, such a wail of anguish as had
never before been heard within those old-inhabited walls.  It was the
"Tetelestai" [GREEK word meaning "it is finished"] of her union with Troy.

"If she's--that,--what--am I?" she added, as a continuation of the
same cry, and sobbing pitifully: and the rarity with her of such
abandonment only made the condition more dire.

"You are nothing to me--nothing," said Troy, heartlessly.  "A
ceremony before a priest doesn't make a marriage.  I am not morally
yours."

A vehement impulse to flee from him, to run from this place, hide,
and escape his words at any price, not stopping short of death
itself, mastered Bathsheba now.  She waited not an instant, but
turned to the door and ran out.





UNDER A TREE--REACTION


Bathsheba went along the dark road, neither knowing nor caring about
the direction or issue of her flight.  The first time that she
definitely noticed her position was when she reached a gate leading
into a thicket overhung by some large oak and beech trees.  On
looking into the place, it occurred to her that she had seen it by
daylight on some previous occasion, and that what appeared like an
impassable thicket was in reality a brake of fern now withering fast.
She could think of nothing better to do with her palpitating self
than to go in here and hide; and entering, she lighted on a spot
sheltered from the damp fog by a reclining trunk, where she sank down
upon a tangled couch of fronds and stems.  She mechanically pulled
some armfuls round her to keep off the breezes, and closed her eyes.

Whether she slept or not that night Bathsheba was not clearly aware.
But it was with a freshened existence and a cooler brain that, a long
time afterwards, she became conscious of some interesting proceedings
which were going on in the trees above her head and around.

A coarse-throated chatter was the first sound.

It was a sparrow just waking.

Next: "Chee-weeze-weeze-weeze!" from another retreat.

It was a finch.

Third: "Tink-tink-tink-tink-a-chink!" from the hedge.

It was a robin.

"Chuck-chuck-chuck!" overhead.

A squirrel.

Then, from the road, "With my ra-ta-ta, and my rum-tum-tum!"

It was a ploughboy.  Presently he came opposite, and she believed
from his voice that he was one of the boys on her own farm.  He was
followed by a shambling tramp of heavy feet, and looking through the
ferns Bathsheba could just discern in the wan light of daybreak a
team of her own horses.  They stopped to drink at a pond on the other
side of the way.  She watched them flouncing into the pool, drinking,
tossing up their heads, drinking again, the water dribbling from
their lips in silver threads.  There was another flounce, and they
came out of the pond, and turned back again towards the farm.

She looked further around.  Day was just dawning, and beside its cool
air and colours her heated actions and resolves of the night stood
out in lurid contrast.  She perceived that in her lap, and clinging
to her hair, were red and yellow leaves which had come down from
the tree and settled silently upon her during her partial sleep.
Bathsheba shook her dress to get rid of them, when multitudes of the
same family lying round about her rose and fluttered away in the
breeze thus created, "like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing."

There was an opening towards the east, and the glow from the as yet
unrisen sun attracted her eyes thither.  From her feet, and between
the beautiful yellowing ferns with their feathery arms, the ground
sloped downwards to a hollow, in which was a species of swamp,
dotted with fungi.  A morning mist hung over it now--a fulsome
yet magnificent silvery veil, full of light from the sun, yet
semi-opaque--the hedge behind it being in some measure hidden by its
hazy luminousness.  Up the sides of this depression grew sheaves of
the common rush, and here and there a peculiar species of flag, the
blades of which glistened in the emerging sun, like scythes.  But
the general aspect of the swamp was malignant.  From its moist and
poisonous coat seemed to be exhaled the essences of evil things in
the earth, and in the waters under the earth.  The fungi grew in
all manner of positions from rotting leaves and tree stumps, some
exhibiting to her listless gaze their clammy tops, others their
oozing gills.  Some were marked with great splotches, red as arterial
blood, others were saffron yellow, and others tall and attenuated,
with stems like macaroni.  Some were leathery and of richest browns.
The hollow seemed a nursery of pestilences small and great, in the
immediate neighbourhood of comfort and health, and Bathsheba arose
with a tremor at the thought of having passed the night on the brink
of so dismal a place.

There were now other footsteps to be heard along the road.
Bathsheba's nerves were still unstrung: she crouched down out of
sight again, and the pedestrian came into view.  He was a schoolboy,
with a bag slung over his shoulder containing his dinner, and a
book in his hand.  He paused by the gate, and, without looking up,
continued murmuring words in tones quite loud enough to reach her
ears.

"'O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord':--that I know out o' book.
'Give us, give us, give us, give us, give us':--that I know.  'Grace
that, grace that, grace that, grace that':--that I know." Other
words followed to the same effect.  The boy was of the dunce class
apparently; the book was a psalter, and this was his way of learning
the collect.  In the worst attacks of trouble there appears to be
always a superficial film of consciousness which is left disengaged
and open to the notice of trifles, and Bathsheba was faintly amused
at the boy's method, till he too passed on.

By this time stupor had given place to anxiety, and anxiety began to
make room for hunger and thirst.  A form now appeared upon the rise
on the other side of the swamp, half-hidden by the mist, and came
towards Bathsheba.  The woman--for it was a woman--approached with
her face askance, as if looking earnestly on all sides of her.
When she got a little further round to the left, and drew nearer,
Bathsheba could see the newcomer's profile against the sunny sky, and
knew the wavy sweep from forehead to chin, with neither angle nor
decisive line anywhere about it, to be the familiar contour of Liddy
Smallbury.

Bathsheba's heart bounded with gratitude in the thought that she was
not altogether deserted, and she jumped up.  "Oh, Liddy!" she said,
or attempted to say; but the words had only been framed by her lips;
there came no sound.  She had lost her voice by exposure to the
clogged atmosphere all these hours of night.

"Oh, ma'am!  I am so glad I have found you," said the girl, as soon
as she saw Bathsheba.

"You can't come across," Bathsheba said in a whisper, which she
vainly endeavoured to make loud enough to reach Liddy's ears.  Liddy,
not knowing this, stepped down upon the swamp, saying, as she did so,
"It will bear me up, I think."

Bathsheba never forgot that transient little picture of Liddy
crossing the swamp to her there in the morning light.  Iridescent
bubbles of dank subterranean breath rose from the sweating sod beside
the waiting-maid's feet as she trod, hissing as they burst and
expanded away to join the vapoury firmament above.  Liddy did not
sink, as Bathsheba had anticipated.

She landed safely on the other side, and looked up at the beautiful
though pale and weary face of her young mistress.

"Poor thing!" said Liddy, with tears in her eyes, "Do hearten
yourself up a little, ma'am.  However did--"

"I can't speak above a whisper--my voice is gone for the present,"
said Bathsheba, hurriedly.  "I suppose the damp air from that
hollow has taken it away.  Liddy, don't question me, mind.  Who
sent you--anybody?"

"Nobody.  I thought, when I found you were not at home, that
something cruel had happened.  I fancy I heard his voice late last
night; and so, knowing something was wrong--"

"Is he at home?"

"No; he left just before I came out."

"Is Fanny taken away?"

"Not yet.  She will soon be--at nine o'clock."

"We won't go home at present, then.  Suppose we walk about in this
wood?"

Liddy, without exactly understanding everything, or anything, in this
episode, assented, and they walked together further among the trees.

"But you had better come in, ma'am, and have something to eat.  You
will die of a chill!"

"I shall not come indoors yet--perhaps never."

"Shall I get you something to eat, and something else to put over
your head besides that little shawl?"

"If you will, Liddy."

Liddy vanished, and at the end of twenty minutes returned with a
cloak, hat, some slices of bread and butter, a tea-cup, and some hot
tea in a little china jug.

"Is Fanny gone?" said Bathsheba.

"No," said her companion, pouring out the tea.

Bathsheba wrapped herself up and ate and drank sparingly.  Her voice
was then a little clearer, and trifling colour returned to her face.
"Now we'll walk about again," she said.

They wandered about the wood for nearly two hours, Bathsheba replying
in monosyllables to Liddy's prattle, for her mind ran on one subject,
and one only.  She interrupted with--

"I wonder if Fanny is gone by this time?"

"I will go and see."

She came back with the information that the men were just taking
away the corpse; that Bathsheba had been inquired for; that she had
replied to the effect that her mistress was unwell and could not be
seen.

"Then they think I am in my bedroom?"

"Yes."  Liddy then ventured to add: "You said when I first found you
that you might never go home again--you didn't mean it, ma'am?"

"No; I've altered my mind.  It is only women with no pride in them
who run away from their husbands.  There is one position worse than
that of being found dead in your husband's house from his ill usage,
and that is, to be found alive through having gone away to the house
of somebody else.  I've thought of it all this morning, and I've
chosen my course.  A runaway wife is an encumbrance to everybody,
a burden to herself and a byword--all of which make up a heap of
misery greater than any that comes by staying at home--though this
may include the trifling items of insult, beating, and starvation.
Liddy, if ever you marry--God forbid that you ever should!--you'll
find yourself in a fearful situation; but mind this, don't you
flinch. Stand your ground, and be cut to pieces.  That's what I'm
going to do."

"Oh, mistress, don't talk so!" said Liddy, taking her hand; "but I
knew you had too much sense to bide away.  May I ask what dreadful
thing it is that has happened between you and him?"

"You may ask; but I may not tell."

In about ten minutes they returned to the house by a circuitous
route, entering at the rear.  Bathsheba glided up the back stairs to
a disused attic, and her companion followed.

"Liddy," she said, with a lighter heart, for youth and hope had
begun to reassert themselves; "you are to be my confidante for the
present--somebody must be--and I choose you.  Well, I shall take up
my abode here for a while.  Will you get a fire lighted, put down
a piece of carpet, and help me to make the place comfortable.
Afterwards, I want you and Maryann to bring up that little stump
bedstead in the small room, and the bed belonging to it, and a table,
and some other things....  What shall I do to pass the heavy time
away?"

"Hemming handkerchiefs is a very good thing," said Liddy.

"Oh no, no!  I hate needlework--I always did."

"Knitting?"

"And that, too."

"You might finish your sampler.  Only the carnations and peacocks
want filling in; and then it could be framed and glazed, and hung
beside your aunt's ma'am."

"Samplers are out of date--horribly countrified.  No Liddy, I'll
read.  Bring up some books--not new ones.  I haven't heart to read
anything new."

"Some of your uncle's old ones, ma'am?"

"Yes.  Some of those we stowed away in boxes."  A faint gleam
of humour passed over her face as she said: "Bring Beaumont and
Fletcher's _Maid's Tragedy_, and the _Mourning Bride_, and--let
me see--_Night Thoughts_, and the _Vanity of Human Wishes_."

"And that story of the black man, who murdered his wife Desdemona?
It is a nice dismal one that would suit you excellent just now."

"Now, Liddy, you've been looking into my books without telling me;
and I said you were not to!  How do you know it would suit me?  It
wouldn't suit me at all."

"But if the others do--"

"No, they don't; and I won't read dismal books.  Why should
I read dismal books, indeed?  Bring me _Love in a Village_,
and _Maid of the Mill_, and _Doctor Syntax_, and some volumes of
the _Spectator-_."

All that day Bathsheba and Liddy lived in the attic in a state of
barricade; a precaution which proved to be needless as against Troy,
for he did not appear in the neighbourhood or trouble them at all.
Bathsheba sat at the window till sunset, sometimes attempting to
read, at other times watching every movement outside without much
purpose, and listening without much interest to every sound.

The sun went down almost blood-red that night, and a livid cloud
received its rays in the east.  Up against this dark background the
west front of the church tower--the only part of the edifice visible
from the farm-house windows--rose distinct and lustrous, the vane
upon the summit bristling with rays.  Hereabouts, at six o'clock, the
young men of the village gathered, as was their custom, for a game
of Prisoners' base.  The spot had been consecrated to this ancient
diversion from time immemorial, the old stocks conveniently forming
a base facing the boundary of the churchyard, in front of which the
ground was trodden hard and bare as a pavement by the players.  She
could see the brown and black heads of the young lads darting about
right and left, their white shirt-sleeves gleaming in the sun;
whilst occasionally a shout and a peal of hearty laughter varied the
stillness of the evening air.  They continued playing for a quarter
of an hour or so, when the game concluded abruptly, and the players
leapt over the wall and vanished round to the other side behind a
yew-tree, which was also half behind a beech, now spreading in one
mass of golden foliage, on which the branches traced black lines.

"Why did the base-players finish their game so suddenly?" Bathsheba
inquired, the next time that Liddy entered the room.

"I think 'twas because two men came just then from Casterbridge and
began putting up a grand carved tombstone," said Liddy.  "The lads
went to see whose it was."

"Do you know?" Bathsheba asked.

"I don't," said Liddy.





TROY'S ROMANTICISM


When Troy's wife had left the house at the previous midnight his
first act was to cover the dead from sight.  This done he ascended
the stairs, and throwing himself down upon the bed dressed as he was,
he waited miserably for the morning.

Fate had dealt grimly with him through the last four-and-twenty
hours.  His day had been spent in a way which varied very materially
from his intentions regarding it.  There is always an inertia to
be overcome in striking out a new line of conduct--not more in
ourselves, it seems, than in circumscribing events, which appear as
if leagued together to allow no novelties in the way of amelioration.

Twenty pounds having been secured from Bathsheba, he had managed to
add to the sum every farthing he could muster on his own account,
which had been seven pounds ten.  With this money, twenty-seven
pounds ten in all, he had hastily driven from the gate that morning
to keep his appointment with Fanny Robin.

On reaching Casterbridge he left the horse and trap at an inn, and
at five minutes before ten came back to the bridge at the lower end
of the town, and sat himself upon the parapet.  The clocks struck
the hour, and no Fanny appeared.  In fact, at that moment she was
being robed in her grave-clothes by two attendants at the Union
poorhouse--the first and last tiring-women the gentle creature had
ever been honoured with.  The quarter went, the half hour.  A rush of
recollection came upon Troy as he waited: this was the second time
she had broken a serious engagement with him.  In anger he vowed
it should be the last, and at eleven o'clock, when he had lingered
and watched the stone of the bridge till he knew every lichen upon
their face and heard the chink of the ripples underneath till they
oppressed him, he jumped from his seat, went to the inn for his
gig, and in a bitter mood of indifference concerning the past, and
recklessness about the future, drove on to Budmouth races.

He reached the race-course at two o'clock, and remained either there
or in the town till nine.  But Fanny's image, as it had appeared to
him in the sombre shadows of that Saturday evening, returned to his
mind, backed up by Bathsheba's reproaches.  He vowed he would not
bet, and he kept his vow, for on leaving the town at nine o'clock in
the evening he had diminished his cash only to the extent of a few
shillings.

He trotted slowly homeward, and it was now that he was struck for the
first time with a thought that Fanny had been really prevented by
illness from keeping her promise.  This time she could have made no
mistake.  He regretted that he had not remained in Casterbridge and
made inquiries.  Reaching home he quietly unharnessed the horse and
came indoors, as we have seen, to the fearful shock that awaited him.


As soon as it grew light enough to distinguish objects, Troy arose
from the coverlet of the bed, and in a mood of absolute indifference
to Bathsheba's whereabouts, and almost oblivious of her existence, he
stalked downstairs and left the house by the back door.  His walk was
towards the churchyard, entering which he searched around till he
found a newly dug unoccupied grave--the grave dug the day before for
Fanny.  The position of this having been marked, he hastened on to
Casterbridge, only pausing and musing for a while at the hill whereon
he had last seen Fanny alive.

Reaching the town, Troy descended into a side street and entered a
pair of gates surmounted by a board bearing the words, "Lester, stone
and marble mason."  Within were lying about stones of all sizes and
designs, inscribed as being sacred to the memory of unnamed persons
who had not yet died.

Troy was so unlike himself now in look, word, and deed, that the
want of likeness was perceptible even to his own consciousness.  His
method of engaging himself in this business of purchasing a tomb was
that of an absolutely unpractised man.  He could not bring himself
to consider, calculate, or economize.  He waywardly wished for
something, and he set about obtaining it like a child in a nursery.
"I want a good tomb," he said to the man who stood in a little office
within the yard.  "I want as good a one as you can give me for
twenty-seven pounds."

It was all the money he possessed.

"That sum to include everything?"

"Everything.  Cutting the name, carriage to Weatherbury, and
erection.  And I want it now, at once."

"We could not get anything special worked this week."

"I must have it now."

"If you would like one of these in stock it could be got ready
immediately."

"Very well," said Troy, impatiently.  "Let's see what you have."

"The best I have in stock is this one," said the stone-cutter, going
into a shed.  "Here's a marble headstone beautifully crocketed, with
medallions beneath of typical subjects; here's the footstone after
the same pattern, and here's the coping to enclose the grave.  The
polishing alone of the set cost me eleven pounds--the slabs are the
best of their kind, and I can warrant them to resist rain and frost
for a hundred years without flying."

"And how much?"

"Well, I could add the name, and put it up at Weatherbury for the sum
you mention."

"Get it done to-day, and I'll pay the money now."

The man agreed, and wondered at such a mood in a visitor who wore not
a shred of mourning.  Troy then wrote the words which were to form
the inscription, settled the account and went away.  In the afternoon
he came back again, and found that the lettering was almost done.  He
waited in the yard till the tomb was packed, and saw it placed in the
cart and starting on its way to Weatherbury, giving directions to the
two men who were to accompany it to inquire of the sexton for the
grave of the person named in the inscription.

It was quite dark when Troy came out of Casterbridge.  He carried
rather a heavy basket upon his arm, with which he strode moodily
along the road, resting occasionally at bridges and gates, whereon
he deposited his burden for a time.  Midway on his journey he met,
returning in the darkness, the men and the waggon which had conveyed
the tomb.  He merely inquired if the work was done, and, on being
assured that it was, passed on again.

Troy entered Weatherbury churchyard about ten o'clock and went
immediately to the corner where he had marked the vacant grave early
in the morning.  It was on the obscure side of the tower, screened to
a great extent from the view of passers along the road--a spot which
until lately had been abandoned to heaps of stones and bushes of
alder, but now it was cleared and made orderly for interments, by
reason of the rapid filling of the ground elsewhere.

Here now stood the tomb as the men had stated, snow-white and shapely
in the gloom, consisting of head and foot-stone, and enclosing border
of marble-work uniting them.  In the midst was mould, suitable for
plants.

Troy deposited his basket beside the tomb, and vanished for a few
minutes.  When he returned he carried a spade and a lantern, the
light of which he directed for a few moments upon the marble, whilst
he read the inscription.  He hung his lantern on the lowest bough
of the yew-tree, and took from his basket flower-roots of several
varieties.  There were bundles of snow-drop, hyacinth and crocus
bulbs, violets and double daisies, which were to bloom in early
spring, and of carnations, pinks, picotees, lilies of the valley,
forget-me-not, summer's farewell, meadow-saffron and others, for
the later seasons of the year.

Troy laid these out upon the grass, and with an impassive face set
to work to plant them.  The snowdrops were arranged in a line on the
outside of the coping, the remainder within the enclosure of the
grave.  The crocuses and hyacinths were to grow in rows; some of
the summer flowers he placed over her head and feet, the lilies and
forget-me-nots over her heart.  The remainder were dispersed in the
spaces between these.

Troy, in his prostration at this time, had no perception that in the
futility of these romantic doings, dictated by a remorseful reaction
from previous indifference, there was any element of absurdity.
Deriving his idiosyncrasies from both sides of the Channel, he showed
at such junctures as the present the inelasticity of the Englishman,
together with that blindness to the line where sentiment verges on
mawkishness, characteristic of the French.

It was a cloudy, muggy, and very dark night, and the rays from Troy's
lantern spread into the two old yews with a strange illuminating
power, flickering, as it seemed, up to the black ceiling of cloud
above.  He felt a large drop of rain upon the back of his hand, and
presently one came and entered one of the holes of the lantern,
whereupon the candle sputtered and went out.  Troy was weary and
it being now not far from midnight, and the rain threatening to
increase, he resolved to leave the finishing touches of his labour
until the day should break.  He groped along the wall and over the
graves in the dark till he found himself round at the north side.
Here he entered the porch, and, reclining upon the bench within,
fell asleep.




Chapters 38-45
In October, Bathsheba and Troy are driving home from town, while Troy discusses the money he has recently lost by betting on horse races. He is unconcerned and thinks it is merely bad luck, but Bathsheba is troubled by how much money her husband is spending wastefully. The couple are approached by a woman who asks them for directions. The woman has a very intense reaction to recognizing Troy and collapses; Troy sends Bathsheba a distance off before helping the woman, giving him an opportunity to speak to her alone. Troy gives Fanny some money, and tells her to continue to town, but meet him on Monday on Casterbridge bridge. When Troy rejoins Bathsheba, he admits that he knows the woman but refuses to give any details or answer any questions. Left alone, Fanny begins her slow and laborious walk towards Casterbridge. She gets more and more weak and exhausted as she walks through the night. Helped by a large dog, she manages to drag herself to a building on the edge of town where she is taken inside. Meanwhile, back at the farmhouse, Troy asks Bathsheba for money. She assumes it is for an upcoming horserace, and complains about his spending, but gives him the money. She then catches sight of a lock of hair in the case of Troy's watch, and asks who it belongs to. Troy explains that it is the hair of a woman he was engaged to before he married Bathsheba. Bathsheba becomes jealous, and the couple have an argument. The next morning, Bathsheba learns that Troy has gone off to Casterbridge. As she walks around the farm, she sees Boldwood and Gabriel conversing, and sends a servant to find out what they talking about. From him, she learns that Fanny has died at the workhouse in town, and that Boldwood is planning to send a wagon to fetch her body. Bathsheba decides that since Fanny was a former employee of the farm, she will send for the body herself. When Bathsheba asks how long Fanny was at the workhouse, the servant explains that Fanny arrived there only on the day she died, having walked there from Melchester where she had been working before. Bathsheba becomes agitated, and asks questions about the route Fanny took, when she walked, and what color her hair was. Before Joseph sets off with the wagon, she questions him as well, trying to find out if anyone knows what Fanny died of. She is able to learn from Liddy that Fanny did indeed have blonde hair. Joseph goes to the workhouse, where the coffin is loaded into the wagon. As he drives home, he becomes depressed and stops at the pub for a drink, where he lingers longer than he intended to. Gabriel runs into him and is angry about this delay, driving the wagon with the corpse the rest of the way home himself. When he arrives at the farmhouse, the parson tells him it is too late and the funeral will have to take place the following day. Although Gabriel is uncomfortable with the idea, Bathsheba instructs that the coffin remain in the farmhouse until the funeral takes place on the subsequent morning. Before he leaves, Gabriel rubs out the words that have been written on the coffin: "Fanny Robbins and child."Later that night, Bathsheba explains that she will sit up and wait for Troy, who still has not returned home. She continues to question Liddy about Fanny's health, unsatisfied with the answers she receives. A short time later, Liddy shares that she has heard a rumor that Fanny gave birth shortly before she died, and that the baby is also in the coffin. After Liddy goes to bed, Bathsheba becomes more and more agitated, wondering about what the truth is. In desperation for someone to help her, Bathsheba goes to Gabriel's cottage where she watches him through the window but finds herself unable to approach him. She returns to her house, and opens the coffin, where she finds Fanny and the corpse of a tiny baby. She realizes that Fanny must have been Troy's lover, and that this is their illegitimate child. While Bathsheba is trying to make sense of her emotions, Troy returns home, comes into the room, and sees what is lying in the coffin. When Troy gently kisses Fanny's corpse, Bathsheba flies into a jealous rage, and the two argue, leading Troy to say that he loves Fanny more than he ever loved Bathsheba and considers Fanny to be is true wife. Bathsheba flees from the house and spends the night wandering outdoors, until Liddy finds her in the early morning. Liddy explains that Troy also left the house early in the morning, and that people will soon be coming to take Fanny's body for the funeral. Bathsheba says she can't return to the house until the corpse has been taken away, so she and Liddy walk around until Fanny's coffin has been removed. Once they return to the house, Bathsheba explains that she is going to move into the attic for the time being, and has Liddy set it up for her. The narrative shifts to describe events from Troy's point of view. On Monday morning, he had gone to keep his meeting with Fanny with as much money as he had been able to put together. When she did not arrive, he got angry and went to spend the day at the horse races, returning late at night to the scene with the coffin. After Bathsheba fled, he waited miserably until it was morning and then hurried to town where he spent the money he had hoped to give to Fanny on a fancy marble tombstone. He set up an elaborate display of flowers and then fell asleep in a corner of the churchyard. When he awakened, there had been heavy rain and the arrangement was ruined. Frustrated, he left the churchyard and left the town a short time later. That same morning, Bathsheba decides to visit the grave since she has learned that Troy was seen leaving town and therefore does not have to worry about meeting him. When she arrives, she finds Gabriel there as well, and observes the marble tombstone, as well as the disarray. Bathsheba and Gabriel work together to tidy up the grave site and leave it in good condition.
Earlier in the novel, Bathsheba illustrated her resistance to the idea of a husband who would try and tell her what to do, or who would annoy her with his presence. Ironically, she is now confronted with the challenges of a husband who neglects her, refuses to play the active role that she needs, and often leaves her abandoned when she most needs his help. The challenges in their relationship are part of why she feels such suspicion when Troy engages in a mysterious conversation with an unknown woman, but Bathsheba also clings vainly to the hope that Troy is actually telling her the truth. Even though she is probably smart enough to know better on some level, Bathsheba is reduced to living in denial and refusing to confront the reality of the kind of man she has married. Fanny's agonizing walk to the village shows Hardy's talent for evoking sympathy for those who suffer, especially through circumstances beyond their control. Not unlike Bathsheba, Fanny has fallen victim to believing Troy and his empty promises but she hardly deserves the wretched poverty, physical pain, and deep fear she is now experiencing. The presence of the dog who finally helps her to endure the last stage of her journey reflects the themes of the natural world that are present throughout the novel. While human beings would be likely to judge Fanny, animals can sense her goodness and innocence because they also embody those qualities. Nonetheless, Fanny's death reveals the harsh reality of what it has meant for her to live in poverty and isolation. Presumably the suffering and ill-health she endured before going in to labor played a significant part in her death and the death of her baby. It is also very possible that dying in the workhouse meant she had limited access to medical care which might have helped her. When news of Fanny's death spreads, Gabriel again shows his instinct to protect Bathsheba. At no other moment in the novel has he lied or tried to conceal anything; in fact, he has been honest in situations where it may not even have served him. Nonetheless, Gabriel shows that he is capable of responding to ethically complex situations, and it seems to him that the greater good is served by Bathsheba remaining ignorant of what actually happened to Fanny. In a moment that echoes Gabriel by chance helping put out the fire, or Bathsheba impulsively opting to send Boldwood the valentine, fate intervenes. The chance event of Joseph being delayed at the pub sets in motion a train of events that means the coffin will stay in Bathsheba's house overnight. Had everything gone according to plan and Fanny been buried that afternoon, her secret would likely have been safe. However, almost as soon as news of Fanny's death reaches her, Bathsheba feels a mixture of sympathy and suspicion. Her suspicions torment her; she does fleetingly consider reaching out to Gabriel. Her attempt to go to his cottage to ask his advice reveals how much trust she places in him, and her awareness that he has her best interests at heart. Nonetheless, the shame that she would have to depend on another man when her own husband might be betraying her is too much for Bathsheba's pride. Left to make the decision alone, she opts to open the coffin and know the truth, only to have her worst fears confirmed. Hardy masterfully captures the complex and shifting emotions of Bathsheba when she realizes the secret Troy has been hiding: rage, betrayal, jealousy, grief, empathy, and shame. Especially when she realizes Troy genuinely cared for Fanny, she feels an almost grotesque need to assert her emotional dominance over him by insisting that he kiss her to balance out the kiss he gave to Fanny. Fixated on his own grief, Troy renounces the emotional and spiritual aspects of his marriage, even though he cannot dispute the legal ones. By telling Bathsheba that he considers Fanny to have been his true wife, he in effect turns Bathsheba into the fallen woman so many others have been afraid she would become. Troy's attempts to embellish Fanny's grave signal his impulsiveness and lack of forethought. He acts based on his emotions, but without planning to think about what will be sustainable. His lack of regard for the weather mirrors his reckless ignorance on the night of the harvest-supper, and leads to destruction again. Troy assumes his own will is the dominant force without acknowledging and respecting how the natural world will always be stronger than human endeavors. His lack of foresight that rainfall would ruin the way he had set up the grave mirrors the way he recklessly created the conditions that led to Fanny's death: he followed his own impulses by engaging in a sexual relationship with her, and did not consider the natural consequences of pregnancy that would follow. What is most telling about the episode is Troy's response when he awakens to find his work ruined: he simply gives up, making no effort to fix it. This is characteristic of his inability to take responsibility for situations he has created, and his unwillingness to work hard. The messy gravesite does however create an opportunity for redemption for Bathsheba. By tenderly fixing up the area, she is able to atone for her ambivalent feelings towards Fanny and experience forgiveness for the innocent woman and child.