It is the threshing of the last wheat-rick at Flintcomb-Ash farm. The
dawn of the March morning is singularly inexpressive, and there is
nothing to show where the eastern horizon lies.  Against the twilight
rises the trapezoidal top of the stack, which has stood forlornly
here through the washing and bleaching of the wintry weather.

When Izz Huett and Tess arrived at the scene of operations only a
rustling denoted that others had preceded them; to which, as the
light increased, there were presently added the silhouettes of two
men on the summit.  They were busily "unhaling" the rick, that
is, stripping off the thatch before beginning to throw down the
sheaves; and while this was in progress Izz and Tess, with the
other women-workers, in their whitey-brown pinners, stood waiting
and shivering, Farmer Groby having insisted upon their being on
the spot thus early to get the job over if possible by the end of
the day.  Close under the eaves of the stack, and as yet barely
visible, was the red tyrant that the women had come to serve--a
timber-framed construction, with straps and wheels appertaining--
the threshing-machine which, whilst it was going, kept up a
despotic demand upon the endurance of their muscles and nerves.

A little way off there was another indistinct figure; this one black,
with a sustained hiss that spoke of strength very much in reserve.
The long chimney running up beside an ash-tree, and the warmth which
radiated from the spot, explained without the necessity of much
daylight that here was the engine which was to act as the _primum
mobile_ of this little world.  By the engine stood a dark, motionless
being, a sooty and grimy embodiment of tallness, in a sort of trance,
with a heap of coals by his side: it was the engine-man.  The
isolation of his manner and colour lent him the appearance of a
creature from Tophet, who had strayed into the pellucid smokelessness
of this region of yellow grain and pale soil, with which he had
nothing in common, to amaze and to discompose its aborigines.

What he looked he felt.  He was in the agricultural world, but not of
it.  He served fire and smoke; these denizens of the fields served
vegetation, weather, frost, and sun.  He travelled with his engine
from farm to farm, from county to county, for as yet the steam
threshing-machine was itinerant in this part of Wessex.  He spoke in
a strange northern accent; his thoughts being turned inwards upon
himself, his eye on his iron charge, hardly perceiving the scenes
around him, and caring for them not at all: holding only strictly
necessary intercourse with the natives, as if some ancient doom
compelled him to wander here against his will in the service of his
Plutonic master.  The long strap which ran from the driving-wheel of
his engine to the red thresher under the rick was the sole tie-line
between agriculture and him.

While they uncovered the sheaves he stood apathetic beside his
portable repository of force, round whose hot blackness the morning
air quivered.  He had nothing to do with preparatory labour.  His
fire was waiting incandescent, his steam was at high pressure, in
a few seconds he could make the long strap move at an invisible
velocity.  Beyond its extent the environment might be corn, straw,
or chaos; it was all the same to him.  If any of the autochthonous
idlers asked him what he called himself, he replied shortly, "an
engineer."

The rick was unhaled by full daylight; the men then took their
places, the women mounted, and the work began.  Farmer Groby--or, as
they called him, "he"--had arrived ere this, and by his orders Tess
was placed on the platform of the machine, close to the man who fed
it, her business being to untie every sheaf of corn handed on to her
by Izz Huett, who stood next, but on the rick; so that the feeder
could seize it and spread it over the revolving drum, which whisked
out every grain in one moment.

They were soon in full progress, after a preparatory hitch or two,
which rejoiced the hearts of those who hated machinery.  The work
sped on till breakfast time, when the thresher was stopped for half
an hour; and on starting again after the meal the whole supplementary
strength of the farm was thrown into the labour of constructing the
straw-rick, which began to grow beside the stack of corn.  A hasty
lunch was eaten as they stood, without leaving their positions, and
then another couple of hours brought them near to dinner-time; the
inexorable wheel continuing to spin, and the penetrating hum of the
thresher to thrill to the very marrow all who were near the revolving
wire-cage.

The old men on the rising straw-rick talked of the past days
when they had been accustomed to thresh with flails on the oaken
barn-floor; when everything, even to winnowing, was effected by
hand-labour, which, to their thinking, though slow, produced better
results.  Those, too, on the corn-rick talked a little; but the
perspiring ones at the machine, including Tess, could not lighten
their duties by the exchange of many words.  It was the ceaselessness
of the work which tried her so severely, and began to make her
wish that she had never some to Flintcomb-Ash.  The women on the
corn-rick--Marian, who was one of them, in particular--could stop to
drink ale or cold tea from the flagon now and then, or to exchange
a few gossiping remarks while they wiped their faces or cleared the
fragments of straw and husk from their clothing; but for Tess there
was no respite; for, as the drum never stopped, the man who fed
it could not stop, and she, who had to supply the man with untied
sheaves, could not stop either, unless Marian changed places with
her, which she sometimes did for half an hour in spite of Groby's
objections that she was too slow-handed for a feeder.

For some probably economical reason it was usually a woman who was
chosen for this particular duty, and Groby gave as his motive in
selecting Tess that she was one of those who best combined strength
with quickness in untying, and both with staying power, and this may
have been true.  The hum of the thresher, which prevented speech,
increased to a raving whenever the supply of corn fell short of the
regular quantity.  As Tess and the man who fed could never turn their
heads she did not know that just before the dinner-hour a person had
come silently into the field by the gate, and had been standing under
a second rick watching the scene and Tess in particular.  He was
dressed in a tweed suit of fashionable pattern, and he twirled a gay
walking-cane.

"Who is that?" said Izz Huett to Marian.  She had at first addressed
the inquiry to Tess, but the latter could not hear it.

"Somebody's fancy-man, I s'pose," said Marian laconically.

"I'll lay a guinea he's after Tess."

"O no.  'Tis a ranter pa'son who's been sniffing after her lately;
not a dandy like this."

"Well--this is the same man."

"The same man as the preacher?  But he's quite different!"

"He hev left off his black coat and white neckercher, and hev cut off
his whiskers; but he's the same man for all that."

"D'ye really think so?  Then I'll tell her," said Marian.

"Don't.  She'll see him soon enough, good-now."

"Well, I don't think it at all right for him to join his preaching to
courting a married woman, even though her husband mid be abroad, and
she, in a sense, a widow."

"Oh--he can do her no harm," said Izz drily.  "Her mind can no more
be heaved from that one place where it do bide than a stooded waggon
from the hole he's in.  Lord love 'ee, neither court-paying, nor
preaching, nor the seven thunders themselves, can wean a woman when
'twould be better for her that she should be weaned."

Dinner-time came, and the whirling ceased; whereupon Tess left her
post, her knees trembling so wretchedly with the shaking of the
machine that she could scarcely walk.

"You ought to het a quart o' drink into 'ee, as I've done," said
Marian.  "You wouldn't look so white then.  Why, souls above us,
your face is as if you'd been hagrode!"

It occurred to the good-natured Marian that, as Tess was so tired,
her discovery of her visitor's presence might have the bad effect of
taking away her appetite; and Marian was thinking of inducing Tess
to descend by a ladder on the further side of the stack when the
gentleman came forward and looked up.

Tess uttered a short little "Oh!"  And a moment after she said,
quickly, "I shall eat my dinner here--right on the rick."

Sometimes, when they were so far from their cottages, they all did
this; but as there was rather a keen wind going to-day, Marian and
the rest descended, and sat under the straw-stack.

The newcomer was, indeed, Alec d'Urberville, the late Evangelist,
despite his changed attire and aspect.  It was obvious at a glance
that the original _Weltlust_ had come back; that he had restored
himself, as nearly as a man could do who had grown three or four
years older, to the old jaunty, slapdash guise under which Tess
had first known her admirer, and cousin so-called.  Having decided
to remain where she was, Tess sat down among the bundles, out of
sight of the ground, and began her meal; till, by-and-by, she heard
footsteps on the ladder, and immediately after Alec appeared upon the
stack--now an oblong and level platform of sheaves.  He strode across
them, and sat down opposite of her without a word.

Tess continued to eat her modest dinner, a slice of thick pancake
which she had brought with her.  The other workfolk were by this
time all gathered under the rick, where the loose straw formed a
comfortable retreat.

"I am here again, as you see," said d'Urberville.

"Why do you trouble me so!" she cried, reproach flashing from her
very finger-ends.

"I trouble YOU?  I think I may ask, why do you trouble me?"

"Sure, I don't trouble you any-when!"

"You say you don't?  But you do!  You haunt me.  Those very eyes that
you turned upon me with such a bitter flash a moment ago, they come
to me just as you showed them then, in the night and in the day!
Tess, ever since you told me of that child of ours, it is just as if
my feelings, which have been flowing in a strong puritanical stream,
had suddenly found a way open in the direction of you, and had all at
once gushed through.  The religious channel is left dry forthwith;
and it is you who have done it!"

She gazed in silence.

"What--you have given up your preaching entirely?" she asked.  She
had gathered from Angel sufficient of the incredulity of modern
thought to despise flash enthusiasm; but, as a woman, she was
somewhat appalled.

In affected severity d'Urberville continued--

"Entirely.  I have broken every engagement since that afternoon I was
to address the drunkards at Casterbridge Fair.  The deuce only knows
what I am thought of by the brethren.  Ah-ha!  The brethren!  No
doubt they pray for me--weep for me; for they are kind people in
their way.  But what do I care?  How could I go on with the thing
when I had lost my faith in it?--it would have been hypocrisy of
the basest kind!  Among them I should have stood like Hymenaeus and
Alexander, who were delivered over to Satan that they might learn
not to blaspheme.  What a grand revenge you have taken!  I saw you
innocent, and I deceived you.  Four years after, you find me a
Christian enthusiast; you then work upon me, perhaps to my complete
perdition!  But Tess, my coz, as I used to call you, this is only
my way of talking, and you must not look so horribly concerned.
Of course you have done nothing except retain your pretty face and
shapely figure.  I saw it on the rick before you saw me--that tight
pinafore-thing sets it off, and that wing-bonnet--you field-girls
should never wear those bonnets if you wish to keep out of danger."
He regarded her silently for a few moments, and with a short cynical
laugh resumed: "I believe that if the bachelor-apostle, whose deputy
I thought I was, had been tempted by such a pretty face, he would
have let go the plough for her sake as I do!"

Tess attempted to expostulate, but at this juncture all her fluency
failed her, and without heeding he added:

"Well, this paradise that you supply is perhaps as good as any other,
after all.  But to speak seriously, Tess."  D'Urberville rose and
came nearer, reclining sideways amid the sheaves, and resting upon
his elbow.  "Since I last saw you, I have been thinking of what
you said that HE said.  I have come to the conclusion that there
does seem rather a want of common-sense in these threadbare old
propositions; how I could have been so fired by poor Parson Clare's
enthusiasm, and have gone so madly to work, transcending even him, I
cannot make out!  As for what you said last time, on the strength of
your wonderful husband's intelligence--whose name you have never told
me--about having what they call an ethical system without any dogma,
I don't see my way to that at all."

"Why, you can have the religion of loving-kindness and purity at
least, if you can't have--what do you call it--dogma."

"O no!  I'm a different sort of fellow from that!  If there's nobody
to say, 'Do this, and it will be a good thing for you after you are
dead; do that, and if will be a bad thing for you,' I can't warm up.
Hang it, I am not going to feel responsible for my deeds and passions
if there's nobody to be responsible to; and if I were you, my dear,
I wouldn't either!"

She tried to argue, and tell him that he had mixed in his dull
brain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days
of mankind had been quite distinct.  But owing to Angel Clare's
reticence, to her absolute want of training, and to her being a
vessel of emotions rather than reasons, she could not get on.

"Well, never mind," he resumed.  "Here I am, my love, as in the old
times!"

"Not as then--never as then--'tis different!" she entreated.  "And
there was never warmth with me!  O why didn't you keep your faith,
if the loss of it has brought you to speak to me like this!"

"Because you've knocked it out of me; so the evil be upon your sweet
head!  Your husband little thought how his teaching would recoil upon
him!  Ha-ha--I'm awfully glad you have made an apostate of me all the
same!  Tess, I am more taken with you than ever, and I pity you too.
For all your closeness, I see you are in a bad way--neglected by one
who ought to cherish you."

She could not get her morsels of food down her throat; her lips
were dry, and she was ready to choke.  The voices and laughs of the
workfolk eating and drinking under the rick came to her as if they
were a quarter of a mile off.

"It is cruelty to me!" she said.  "How--how can you treat me to this
talk, if you care ever so little for me?"

"True, true," he said, wincing a little.  "I did not come to reproach
you for my deeds.  I came Tess, to say that I don't like you to be
working like this, and I have come on purpose for you.  You say you
have a husband who is not I.  Well, perhaps you have; but I've never
seen him, and you've not told me his name; and altogether he seems
rather a mythological personage.  However, even if you have one, I
think I am nearer to you than he is.  I, at any rate, try to help you
out of trouble, but he does not, bless his invisible face!  The words
of the stern prophet Hosea that I used to read come back to me.
Don't you know them, Tess?--'And she shall follow after her lover,
but she shall not overtake him; and she shall seek him, but shall
not find him; then shall she say, I will go and return to my first
husband; for then was it better with me than now!' ...  Tess, my trap
is waiting just under the hill, and--darling mine, not his!--you know
the rest."

Her face had been rising to a dull crimson fire while he spoke; but
she did not answer.

"You have been the cause of my backsliding," he continued, stretching
his arm towards her waist; "you should be willing to share it, and
leave that mule you call husband for ever."

One of her leather gloves, which she had taken off to eat her
skimmer-cake, lay in her lap, and without the slightest warning she
passionately swung the glove by the gauntlet directly in his face.
It was heavy and thick as a warrior's, and it struck him flat on the
mouth.  Fancy might have regarded the act as the recrudescence of
a trick in which her armed progenitors were not unpractised.  Alec
fiercely started up from his reclining position.  A scarlet oozing
appeared where her blow had alighted, and in a moment the blood began
dropping from his mouth upon the straw.  But he soon controlled
himself, calmly drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and mopped
his bleeding lips.

She too had sprung up, but she sank down again. "Now, punish me!" she
said, turning up her eyes to him with the hopeless defiance of the
sparrow's gaze before its captor twists its neck.  "Whip me, crush
me; you need not mind those people under the rick!  I shall not cry
out.  Once victim, always victim--that's the law!"

"O no, no, Tess," he said blandly.  "I can make full allowance for
this.  Yet you most unjustly forget one thing, that I would have
married you if you had not put it out of my power to do so.  Did I
not ask you flatly to be my wife--hey?  Answer me."

"You did."

"And you cannot be.  But remember one thing!"  His voice hardened
as his temper got the better of him with the recollection of his
sincerity in asking her and her present ingratitude, and he stepped
across to her side and held her by the shoulders, so that she shook
under his grasp.  "Remember, my lady, I was your master once!  I will
be your master again.  If you are any man's wife you are mine!"

The threshers now began to stir below.

"So much for our quarrel," he said, letting her go.  "Now I shall
leave you, and shall come again for your answer during the afternoon.
You don't know me yet!  But I know you."

She had not spoken again, remaining as if stunned.  D'Urberville
retreated over the sheaves, and descended the ladder, while the
workers below rose and stretched their arms, and shook down the beer
they had drunk.  Then the threshing-machine started afresh; and amid
the renewed rustle of the straw Tess resumed her position by the
buzzing drum as one in a dream, untying sheaf after sheaf in endless
succession.

A man comes to see Tess, and her three companions watch. They do not recognize the man as Alec, however, for Alec does not appear as a ranting parson, as they have heard him described, but rather as a dandy. Alec has returned to his normal appearance, wearing fancy clothing once more and shaving off his beard. Alec claims that he has given up his preaching entirely. Alec tells Tess that he does not want her working at Flinctcomb-Ash. He derides Tess's husband, whose name he does not know, as a "mythological personage. Alec tells her that she should leave her husband forever, and Tess responds by slapping him with her leather glove, drawing blood. When he springs up at her, she tells him that he can whip her or crush her, and she will not cry out because she is always his victim. Alec tells her that he was her master once and will be her master again.

The full rejection of religion by Alec d'Urberville that Hardy has foreshadowed arrives in this chapter, revealing the superficiality of his religious conversion. Alec rejects Christianity as easily as he would reject a style of clothing; he signals this change of belief not by any overt behavior, but rather by adopting a more stylish appearance and rejecting the austere dress of a fundamentalist preacher. In contrast, while Alec shows a weakness and adaptability in his beliefs, Tess demonstrates her core of strength and fortitude. She takes physical action against Alec and refuses to flinch at the possibility that he may hurt her in return. Her claim that she will not cry out if Alec hurts her because she will always be her victim is ironic, for by confronting Alec in such a way she makes it very clear that she is far too strong to be the victim of Alec again

Izz and Tess are out working in the fields at sun-up on a day in early March--the farmer wants them to finish the field by the end of that day, if possible. The farmer has rented a steam-powered threshing machine, and the field workers have to try to keep up with the machine, untying sheaves of grain to feed into the machine, which then separates the grains from the stalks. They take brief breaks at breakfast, and then again at lunchtime. They don't take any other breaks, and Tess is never allowed to pause in her labor--the machine never stops, and always needs to be fed, so Tess is never able to stop untying the grain to feed into it. Marian is working at a different spot, and is better able to look around her. She notices that Alec is at the edge of the field, and that he's no longer dressed like a preacher. They finally stop again at dinnertime, and Tess is so tired she can hardly stand. She starts to climb down off of the pile of stalks to eat her dinner, but when she sees Alec approaching, she decides to stay where she is. The pile of stalks doesn't deter him, he hops on up and sits down with her. She asks why he keeps harassing her, but he asks her the same thing--her eyes haunt him, he says. But he admits it's not her fault that she's pretty, but he did give up preaching all on her account. He was all too easily persuaded by what she repeated against dogma and organized religion, so he gave it all up. She tries to persuade him that it's not ethics or good morals that her husband disagrees with, it's the fact that so many people only practice good morals because they're afraid of going to hell if they don't. But Alec doesn't buy it, and he's happy to throw out good morals with the preaching and go back to his old ways. He tells her that he brought a carriage with him to carry her away, because he doesn't like to see her working so hard. And she might be married, but her husband is gone, and he's here. Tess takes one of her work gloves and slaps him across the mouth with it. He starts to jump up, but controls himself and just mops the blood up with his handkerchief. Alec leaves, and tells her harshly that she's his wife by natural law, and that he'll be back later on to get a final answer from her. The other workers have almost finished their dinner, and soon after Tess is back to work with everyone else.


In the afternoon the farmer made it known that the rick was to be
finished that night, since there was a moon by which they could see
to work, and the man with the engine was engaged for another farm on
the morrow.  Hence the twanging and humming and rustling proceeded
with even less intermission than usual.

It was not till "nammet"-time, about three o-clock, that Tess raised
her eyes and gave a momentary glance round.  She felt but little
surprise at seeing that Alec d'Urberville had come back, and was
standing under the hedge by the gate.  He had seen her lift her
eyes, and waved his hand urbanely to her, while he blew her a kiss.
It meant that their quarrel was over.  Tess looked down again, and
carefully abstained from gazing in that direction.

Thus the afternoon dragged on.  The wheat-rick shrank lower, and the
straw-rick grew higher, and the corn-sacks were carted away.  At six
o'clock the wheat-rick was about shoulder-high from the ground.  But
the unthreshed sheaves remaining untouched seemed countless still,
notwithstanding the enormous numbers that had been gulped down by
the insatiable swallower, fed by the man and Tess, through whose two
young hands the greater part of them had passed.  And the immense
stack of straw where in the morning there had been nothing, appeared
as the faeces of the same buzzing red glutton.  From the west sky
a wrathful shine--all that wild March could afford in the way of
sunset--had burst forth after the cloudy day, flooding the tired and
sticky faces of the threshers, and dyeing them with a coppery light,
as also the flapping garments of the women, which clung to them like
dull flames.

A panting ache ran through the rick.  The man who fed was weary, and
Tess could see that the red nape of his neck was encrusted with dirt
and husks.  She still stood at her post, her flushed and perspiring
face coated with the corndust, and her white bonnet embrowned by it.
She was the only woman whose place was upon the machine so as to be
shaken bodily by its spinning, and the decrease of the stack now
separated her from Marian and Izz, and prevented their changing
duties with her as they had done.  The incessant quivering, in
which every fibre of her frame participated, had thrown her into a
stupefied reverie in which her arms worked on independently of her
consciousness.  She hardly knew where she was, and did not hear Izz
Huett tell her from below that her hair was tumbling down.

By degrees the freshest among them began to grow cadaverous and
saucer-eyed.  Whenever Tess lifted her head she beheld always the
great upgrown straw-stack, with the men in shirt-sleeves upon it,
against the gray north sky; in front of it the long red elevator
like a Jacob's ladder, on which a perpetual stream of threshed straw
ascended, a yellow river running uphill, and spouting out on the top
of the rick.

She knew that Alec d'Urberville was still on the scene, observing
her from some point or other, though she could not say where.  There
was an excuse for his remaining, for when the threshed rick drew
near its final sheaves a little ratting was always done, and men
unconnected with the threshing sometimes dropped in for that
performance--sporting characters of all descriptions, gents with
terriers and facetious pipes, roughs with sticks and stones.

But there was another hour's work before the layer of live rats at
the base of the stack would be reached; and as the evening light in
the direction of the Giant's Hill by Abbot's-Cernel dissolved away,
the white-faced moon of the season arose from the horizon that lay
towards Middleton Abbey and Shottsford on the other side.  For the
last hour or two Marian had felt uneasy about Tess, whom she could
not get near enough to speak to, the other women having kept up their
strength by drinking ale, and Tess having done without it through
traditionary dread, owing to its results at her home in childhood.
But Tess still kept going: if she could not fill her part she would
have to leave; and this contingency, which she would have regarded
with equanimity and even with relief a month or two earlier, had
become a terror since d'Urberville had begun to hover round her.

The sheaf-pitchers and feeders had now worked the rick so low that
people on the ground could talk to them.  To Tess's surprise Farmer
Groby came up on the machine to her, and said that if she desired to
join her friend he did not wish her to keep on any longer, and would
send somebody else to take her place.  The "friend" was d'Urberville,
she knew, and also that this concession had been granted in obedience
to the request of that friend, or enemy.  She shook her head and
toiled on.

The time for the rat-catching arrived at last, and the hunt began.
The creatures had crept downwards with the subsidence of the rick
till they were all together at the bottom, and being now uncovered
from their last refuge, they ran across the open ground in all
directions, a loud shriek from the by-this-time half-tipsy Marian
informing her companions that one of the rats had invaded her
person--a terror which the rest of the women had guarded against by
various schemes of skirt-tucking and self-elevation.  The rat was
at last dislodged, and, amid the barking of dogs, masculine shouts,
feminine screams, oaths, stampings, and confusion as of Pandemonium,
Tess untied her last sheaf; the drum slowed, the whizzing ceased,
and she stepped from the machine to the ground.

Her lover, who had only looked on at the rat-catching, was promptly
at her side.

"What--after all--my insulting slap, too!" said she in an
underbreath.  She was so utterly exhausted that she had not strength
to speak louder.

"I should indeed be foolish to feel offended at anything you say or
do," he answered, in the seductive voice of the Trantridge time.
"How the little limbs tremble!  You are as weak as a bled calf, you
know you are; and yet you need have done nothing since I arrived.
How could you be so obstinate?  However, I have told the farmer that
he has no right to employ women at steam-threshing.  It is not proper
work for them; and on all the better class of farms it has been given
up, as he knows very well.  I will walk with you as far as your
home."

"O yes," she answered with a jaded gait.  "Walk wi' me if you will!
I do bear in mind that you came to marry me before you knew o' my
state.  Perhaps--perhaps you are a little better and kinder than I
have been thinking you were.  Whatever is meant as kindness I am
grateful for; whatever is meant in any other way I am angered at.
I cannot sense your meaning sometimes."

"If I cannot legitimize our former relations at least I can assist
you.  And I will do it with much more regard for your feelings than
I formerly showed.  My religious mania, or whatever it was, is over.
But I retain a little good nature; I hope I do.  Now, Tess, by
all that's tender and strong between man and woman, trust me!  I
have enough and more than enough to put you out of anxiety, both
for yourself and your parents and sisters.  I can make them all
comfortable if you will only show confidence in me."

"Have you seen 'em lately?" she quickly inquired.

"Yes.  They didn't know where you were.  It was only by chance that I
found you here."

The cold moon looked aslant upon Tess's fagged face between the twigs
of the garden-hedge as she paused outside the cottage which was her
temporary home, d'Urberville pausing beside her.

"Don't mention my little brothers and sisters--don't make me break
down quite!" she said.  "If you want to help them--God knows they
need it--do it without telling me.  But no, no!" she cried.  "I will
take nothing from you, either for them or for me!"

He did not accompany her further, since, as she lived with the
household, all was public indoors.  No sooner had she herself
entered, laved herself in a washing-tub, and shared supper with the
family than she fell into thought, and withdrawing to the table under
the wall, by the light of her own little lamp wrote in a passionate
mood--

   MY OWN HUSBAND,--

   Let me call you so--I must--even if it makes you angry to
   think of such an unworthy wife as I.  I must cry to you
   in my trouble--I have no one else!  I am so exposed to
   temptation, Angel.  I fear to say who it is, and I do not
   like to write about it at all.  But I cling to you in a way
   you cannot think!  Can you not come to me now, at once,
   before anything terrible happens?  O, I know you cannot,
   because you are so far away!  I think I must die if you do
   not come soon, or tell me to come to you.  The punishment
   you have measured out to me is deserved--I do know that--
   well deserved--and you are right and just to be angry with
   me.  But, Angel, please, please, not to be just--only a
   little kind to me, even if I do not deserve it, and come to
   me!  If you would come, I could die in your arms!  I would
   be well content to do that if so be you had forgiven me!

   Angel, I live entirely for you.  I love you too much to
   blame you for going away, and I know it was necessary you
   should find a farm.  Do not think I shall say a word of
   sting or bitterness.  Only come back to me.  I am desolate
   without you, my darling, O, so desolate! I do not mind
   having to work: but if you will send me one little line,
   and say, "I am coming soon," I will bide on, Angel--O, so
   cheerfully!

   It has been so much my religion ever since we were married
   to be faithful to you in every thought and look, that even
   when a man speaks a compliment to me before I am aware, it
   seems wronging you.  Have you never felt one little bit of
   what you used to feel when we were at the dairy?  If you
   have, how can you keep away from me?  I am the same women,
   Angel, as you fell in love with; yes, the very same!--not
   the one you disliked but never saw.  What was the past to me
   as soon as I met you?  It was a dead thing altogether.  I
   became another woman, filled full of new life from you.  How
   could I be the early one?  Why do you not see this?  Dear,
   if you would only be a little more conceited, and believe
   in yourself so far as to see that you were strong enough to
   work this change in me, you would perhaps be in a mind to
   come to me, your poor wife.

   How silly I was in my happiness when I thought I could trust
   you always to love me!  I ought to have known that such as
   that was not for poor me.  But I am sick at heart, not only
   for old times, but for the present.  Think--think how it do
   hurt my heart not to see you ever--ever!  Ah, if I could
   only make your dear heart ache one little minute of each day
   as mine does every day and all day long, it might lead you
   to show pity to your poor lonely one.

   People still say that I am rather pretty, Angel (handsome is
   the word they use, since I wish to be truthful).  Perhaps I
   am what they say.  But I do not value my good looks; I only
   like to have them because they belong to you, my dear, and
   that there may be at least one thing about me worth your
   having.  So much have I felt this, that when I met with
   annoyance on account of the same, I tied up my face in a
   bandage as long as people would believe in it.  O Angel, I
   tell you all this not from vanity--you will certainly know
   I do not--but only that you may come to me!

   If you really cannot come to me, will you let me come to
   you?  I am, as I say, worried, pressed to do what I will
   not do.  It cannot be that I shall yield one inch, yet I am
   in terror as to what an accident might lead to, and I so
   defenceless on account of my first error. I cannot say more
   about this--it makes me too miserable.  But if I break down
   by falling into some fearful snare, my last state will be
   worse than my first.  O God, I cannot think of it!  Let me
   come at once, or at once come to me!

   I would be content, ay, glad, to live with you as your
   servant, if I may not as your wife; so that I could only be
   near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you as mine.

   The daylight has nothing to show me, since you are not here,
   and I don't like to see the rooks and starlings in the
   field, because I grieve and grieve to miss you who used to
   see them with me.  I long for only one thing in heaven or
   earth or under the earth, to meet you, my own dear!  Come
   to me--come to me, and save me from what threatens me!--

   Your faithful heartbroken

   TESS

Alec continues to visit Flintcomb-Ash to observe Tess. When he visits her again, he says that if he cannot legitimize their former relations, he can at least assist her. He says that although his religious mania is over, he retains a little good nature. He says that he will make her family comfortable if only she will show confidence in him. She tells him not to mention her siblings, and if he wants to help them, he should do so without telling her. After Alec leaves, Tess writes yet another letter to Angel, asking him to return to her. In this letter, she writes that she lives entirely for him and would be content to live with him as his servant if not as his wife.

Alec's offer to aid Tess is yet another example of his use of his financial resources to exert control over Tess, endearing himself to her by making himself essential for her survival. The significant difference in this offer to Tess is that it does not aid her, but rather her family. Hardy has established that the Durbeyfield family exerts a certain control over Tess, as when her parents goaded her into claiming kinship with the d'Urbervilles after Tess's mishap with the horse. While Tess can survive the physical hardship that she faces at Flintcomb-Ash, she finds it more difficult to allow her parents to suffer similar adversity. Tess's plea for Angel that he return to her is therefore her first sign of weakness with regard to Alec d'Urberville, who has found the one way to break down Tess's considerable defenses

Later that afternoon, Tess notices that Alec has come back. When he sees her look up, he waves and blows her a kiss to show her there are no hard feelings about the slap. The farmer says that they'll finish the field even if they have to work into the night--there's a full moon, so they'll have light to work by. All the workers are already exhausted. Tess is the only one of the women who is working on top of the machine itself, and the vibration of it shakes her from head to toe. At one point, the farmer comes up and tells Tess that she can go join her friend if she likes, but Tess knows that Alec must have had something to do with this, and so she refuses, and continues to work. After they're finished, Alec offers to walk her home. He says he's sorry she had to work so hard--most farms don't make women stand on the machine, since it's too back-breaking. Tess is thankful for his kindness, but has a hard time telling when he's being nice, and when he's trying to put her off her guard. He asks about her family, and says that he saw them recently. He went to them to ask where she was working. She feels so sorry for her little brothers and sisters that she's tempted to give in to him, and he knows it. She tells him not to bring them up, and that she doesn't want to accept anything from him, either for herself or for him. That night, Tess writes another letter to Angel, begging him to come to her, or to ask her to come to him. She doesn't give any details, but she says that she's being pressed and harassed to do what she doesn't want to do.

CHAPTER 48 Summary Alec continues to visit Tess and offer his help. He reminds her that he has the financial means to help both her and her family. Tess clearly states that she will take nothing from him, no matter how hard she must work. Tess continues to center all of her attention on Angel. She writes him a touching letter, filled with emotion. She swears her devotion to him, begs him to come to her, and tells him she is threatened. She also reminds him of the happy times they had shared at Talbothays. Notes Tess's letter is meant to appeal to Angel's sentimental and gentle heart. By baring her soul to him in Brazil, she hopes to win him back. After more than a year, Tess still refuses to give up hope


The appeal duly found its way to the breakfast-table of the quiet
Vicarage to the westward, in that valley where the air is so soft and
the soil so rich that the effort of growth requires but superficial
aid by comparison with the tillage at Flintcomb-Ash, and where to
Tess the human world seemed so different (though it was much the
same).  It was purely for security that she had been requested by
Angel to send her communications through his father, whom he kept
pretty well informed of his changing addresses in the country he
had gone to exploit for himself with a heavy heart.

"Now," said old Mr Clare to his wife, when he had read the envelope,
"if Angel proposes leaving Rio for a visit home at the end of next
month, as he told us that he hoped to do, I think this may hasten his
plans; for I believe it to be from his wife."  He breathed deeply at
the thought of her; and the letter was redirected to be promptly sent
on to Angel.

"Dear fellow, I hope he will get home safely," murmured Mrs Clare.
"To my dying day I shall feel that he has been ill-used.  You should
have sent him to Cambridge in spite of his want of faith and given
him the same chance as the other boys had.  He would have grown out
of it under proper influence, and perhaps would have taken Orders
after all.  Church or no Church, it would have been fairer to him."

This was the only wail with which Mrs Clare ever disturbed her
husband's peace in respect to their sons.  And she did not vent this
often; for she was as considerate as she was devout, and knew that
his mind too was troubled by doubts as to his justice in this matter.
Only too often had she heard him lying awake at night, stifling sighs
for Angel with prayers.  But the uncompromising Evangelical did not
even now hold that he would have been justified in giving his son,
an unbeliever, the same academic advantages that he had given to the
two others, when it was possible, if not probable, that those very
advantages might have been used to decry the doctrines which he had
made it his life's mission and desire to propagate, and the mission
of his ordained sons likewise.  To put with one hand a pedestal
under the feet of the two faithful ones, and with the other to exalt
the unfaithful by the same artificial means, he deemed to be alike
inconsistent with his convictions, his position, and his hopes.
Nevertheless, he loved his misnamed Angel, and in secret mourned
over this treatment of him as Abraham might have mourned over the
doomed Isaac while they went up the hill together.  His silent
self-generated regrets were far bitterer than the reproaches which
his wife rendered audible.

They blamed themselves for this unlucky marriage.  If Angel had never
been destined for a farmer he would never have been thrown with
agricultural girls.  They did not distinctly know what had separated
him and his wife, nor the date on which the separation had taken
place.  At first they had supposed it must be something of the nature
of a serious aversion.  But in his later letters he occasionally
alluded to the intention of coming home to fetch her; from which
expressions they hoped the division might not owe its origin to
anything so hopelessly permanent as that.  He had told them that she
was with her relatives, and in their doubts they had decided not to
intrude into a situation which they knew no way of bettering.

The eyes for which Tess's letter was intended were gazing at this
time on a limitless expanse of country from the back of a mule which
was bearing him from the interior of the South-American Continent
towards the coast.  His experiences of this strange land had been
sad.  The severe illness from which he had suffered shortly after
his arrival had never wholly left him, and he had by degrees almost
decided to relinquish his hope of farming here, though, as long as
the bare possibility existed of his remaining, he kept this change
of view a secret from his parents.

The crowds of agricultural labourers who had come out to the country
in his wake, dazzled by representations of easy independence, had
suffered, died, and wasted away.  He would see mothers from English
farms trudging along with their infants in their arms, when the child
would be stricken with fever and would die; the mother would pause
to dig a hole in the loose earth with her bare hands, would bury the
babe therein with the same natural grave-tools, shed one tear, and
again trudge on.

Angel's original intention had not been emigration to Brazil but a
northern or eastern farm in his own country.  He had come to this
place in a fit of desperation, the Brazil movement among the English
agriculturists having by chance coincided with his desire to escape
from his past existence.

During this time of absence he had mentally aged a dozen years.
What arrested him now as of value in life was less its beauty than
its pathos.  Having long discredited the old systems of mysticism,
he now began to discredit the old appraisements of morality.  He
thought they wanted readjusting.  Who was the moral man?  Still more
pertinently, who was the moral woman?  The beauty or ugliness of
a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and
impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among
things willed.

How, then, about Tess?

Viewing her in these lights, a regret for his hasty judgement began
to oppress him.  Did he reject her eternally, or did he not?  He
could no longer say that he would always reject her, and not to say
that was in spirit to accept her now.

This growing fondness for her memory coincided in point of time
with her residence at Flintcomb-Ash, but it was before she had felt
herself at liberty to trouble him with a word about her circumstances
or her feelings.  He was greatly perplexed; and in his perplexity as
to her motives in withholding intelligence, he did not inquire.  Thus
her silence of docility was misinterpreted.  How much it really said
if he had understood!--that she adhered with literal exactness to
orders which he had given and forgotten; that despite her natural
fearlessness she asserted no rights, admitted his judgement to be in
every respect the true one, and bent her head dumbly thereto.

In the before-mentioned journey by mules through the interior of the
country, another man rode beside him. Angel's companion was also an
Englishman, bent on the same errand, though he came from another part
of the island.  They were both in a state of mental depression, and
they spoke of home affairs.  Confidence begat confidence.  With that
curious tendency evinced by men, more especially when in distant
lands, to entrust to strangers details of their lives which they
would on no account mention to friends, Angel admitted to this man
as they rode along the sorrowful facts of his marriage.

The stranger had sojourned in many more lands and among many more
peoples than Angel; to his cosmopolitan mind such deviations from the
social norm, so immense to domesticity, were no more than are the
irregularities of vale and mountain-chain to the whole terrestrial
curve.  He viewed the matter in quite a different light from Angel;
thought that what Tess had been was of no importance beside what she
would be, and plainly told Clare that he was wrong in coming away
from her.

The next day they were drenched in a thunder-storm. Angel's companion
was struck down with fever, and died by the week's end.  Clare waited
a few hours to bury him, and then went on his way.

The cursory remarks of the large-minded stranger, of whom he knew
absolutely nothing beyond a commonplace name, were sublimed by his
death, and influenced Clare more than all the reasoned ethics of the
philosophers.  His own parochialism made him ashamed by its contrast.
His inconsistencies rushed upon him in a flood.  He had persistently
elevated Hellenic Paganism at the expense of Christianity; yet in
that civilization an illegal surrender was not certain disesteem.
Surely then he might have regarded that abhorrence of the un-intact
state, which he had inherited with the creed of mysticism, as at
least open to correction when the result was due to treachery.  A
remorse struck into him.  The words of Izz Huett, never quite stilled
in his memory, came back to him.  He had asked Izz if she loved him,
and she had replied in the affirmative.  Did she love him more than
Tess did?  No, she had replied; Tess would lay down her life for him,
and she herself could do no more.

He thought of Tess as she had appeared on the day of the wedding.
How her eyes had lingered upon him; how she had hung upon his words
as if they were a god's!  And during the terrible evening over the
hearth, when her simple soul uncovered itself to his, how pitiful her
face had looked by the rays of the fire, in her inability to realize
that his love and protection could possibly be withdrawn.

Thus from being her critic he grew to be her advocate.  Cynical
things he had uttered to himself about her; but no man can be always
a cynic and live; and he withdrew them.  The mistake of expressing
them had arisen from his allowing himself to be influenced by general
principles to the disregard of the particular instance.

But the reasoning is somewhat musty; lovers and husbands have gone
over the ground before to-day.  Clare had been harsh towards her;
there is no doubt of it.  Men are too often harsh with women they
love or have loved; women with men.  And yet these harshnesses are
tenderness itself when compared with the universal harshness out
of which they grow; the harshness of the position towards the
temperament, of the means towards the aims, of to-day towards
yesterday, of hereafter towards to-day.

The historic interest of her family--that masterful line of
d'Urbervilles--whom he had despised as a spent force, touched his
sentiments now.  Why had he not known the difference between the
political value and the imaginative value of these things?  In
the latter aspect her d'Urberville descent was a fact of great
dimensions; worthless to economics, it was a most useful ingredient
to the dreamer, to the moralizer on declines and falls.  It was a
fact that would soon be forgotten--that bit of distinction in poor
Tess's blood and name, and oblivion would fall upon her hereditary
link with the marble monuments and leaded skeletons at Kingsbere.  So
does Time ruthlessly destroy his own romances.  In recalling her face
again and again, he thought now that he could see therein a flash of
the dignity which must have graced her grand-dames; and the vision
sent that _aura_ through his veins which he had formerly felt, and
which left behind it a sense of sickness.

Despite her not-inviolate past, what still abode in such a woman as
Tess outvalued the freshness of her fellows.  Was not the gleaning
of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?

So spoke love renascent, preparing the way for Tess's devoted
outpouring, which was then just being forwarded to him by his father;
though owing to his distance inland it was to be a long time in
reaching him.

Meanwhile the writer's expectation that Angel would come in response
to the entreaty was alternately great and small.  What lessened it
was that the facts of her life which had led to the parting had
not changed--could never change; and that, if her presence had not
attenuated them, her absence could not.  Nevertheless she addressed
her mind to the tender question of what she could do to please him
best if he should arrive.  Sighs were expended on the wish that she
had taken more notice of the tunes he played on his harp, that she
had inquired more curiously of him which were his favourite ballads
among those the country-girls sang.  She indirectly inquired of Amby
Seedling, who had followed Izz from Talbothays, and by chance Amby
remembered that, amongst the snatches of melody in which they had
indulged at the dairyman's, to induce the cows to let down their
milk, Clare had seemed to like "Cupid's Gardens", "I have parks, I
have hounds", and "The break o' the day"; and had seemed not to care
for "The Tailor's Breeches" and "Such a beauty I did grow", excellent
ditties as they were.

To perfect the ballads was now her whimsical desire. She practised
them privately at odd moments, especially "The break o' the day":

   Arise, arise, arise!
   And pick your love a posy,
   All o' the sweetest flowers
   That in the garden grow.
   The turtle doves and sma' birds
   In every bough a-building,
   So early in the May-time
   At the break o' the day!

It would have melted the heart of a stone to hear her singing these
ditties whenever she worked apart from the rest of the girls in this
cold dry time; the tears running down her cheeks all the while at the
thought that perhaps he would not, after all, come to hear her, and
the simple silly words of the songs resounding in painful mockery of
the aching heart of the singer.

Tess was so wrapt up in this fanciful dream that she seemed not to
know how the season was advancing; that the days had lengthened, that
Lady-Day was at hand, and would soon be followed by Old Lady-Day, the
end of her term here.

But before the quarter-day had quite come, something happened which
made Tess think of far different matters.  She was at her lodging as
usual one evening, sitting in the downstairs room with the rest of
the family, when somebody knocked at the door and inquired for Tess.
Through the doorway she saw against the declining light a figure
with the height of a woman and the breadth of a child, a tall, thin,
girlish creature whom she did not recognize in the twilight till the
girl said "Tess!"

"What--is it 'Liza-Lu?" asked Tess, in startled accents.  Her sister,
whom a little over a year ago she had left at home as a child, had
sprung up by a sudden shoot to a form of this presentation, of which
as yet Lu seemed herself scarce able to understand the meaning.
Her thin legs, visible below her once-long frock, now short by her
growing, and her uncomfortable hands and arms revealed her youth and
inexperience.

"Yes, I have been traipsing about all day, Tess," said Lu, with
unemotional gravity, "a-trying to find 'ee; and I'm very tired."

"What is the matter at home?"

"Mother is took very bad, and the doctor says she's dying, and as
father is not very well neither, and says 'tis wrong for a man of
such a high family as his to slave and drave at common labouring
work, we don't know what to do."

Tess stood in reverie a long time before she thought of asking
'Liza-Lu to come in and sit down.  When she had done so, and 'Liza-Lu
was having some tea, she came to a decision.  It was imperative that
she should go home.  Her agreement did not end till Old Lady-Day, the
sixth of April, but as the interval thereto was not a long one she
resolved to run the risk of starting at once.

To go that night would be a gain of twelve-hours; but her sister
was too tired to undertake such a distance till the morrow.  Tess
ran down to where Marian and Izz lived, informed them of what had
happened, and begged them to make the best of her case to the farmer.
Returning, she got Lu a supper, and after that, having tucked the
younger into her own bed, packed up as many of her belongings as
would go into a withy basket, and started, directing Lu to follow
her next morning.

The Clares receive the letter that Tess wrote to Angel so that they may forward it to him. Mrs. Clare laments that Angel has been ill-used and should have been sent to Cambridge. The Clares blame themselves for Angel's marriage, for if Angel were not destined to be a farmer, he would have never been thrown in with an agricultural girl. During Angel's absence he had mentally aged a dozen years. Angel wonders whether he rejected Tess eternally and could no longer say that he would always reject her. Angel has grown to be Tess's advocate, remembering Izz Huett's words about her. Tess's sister, Liza-Lu, visits Tess at Flintcomb-Ash and tells her how both of their parents are ill and Joan may be dying.

Hardy removes the center of action from Tess in this chapter to give a brief account of Angel's recent actions and to suggest a change in Angel's behavior and attitudes. The obstacle to Angel reuniting with Tess becomes not whether or not Angel can accept Tess, but instead whether or not Angel believes that Tess will accept him if he were to return. Nevertheless, this foreshadows an eventual reunion between Tess and Angel, as he no longer feels the strong aversion to Tess that proved the cause of their separation. When Hardy does give details concerning the title character, he continues the pattern of greater suffering that has marked Tess's life since her separation from Angel. The possible death of Joan Durbeyfield suggests an inevitable change in the dynamic between Tess and Alec; since it is Tess's devotion to her parents that causes her to weaken against Alec's demands, her fate is contingent upon what occurs to them

Tess's letter is addressed to Angel's parents, since they are the ones who had his current address in Brazil. Mrs. Clare forwards it to Angel immediately, and hopes that it will make him hurry home for the visit he's been planning. Mr. Clare still feels guilty about not allowing Angel to go to the university like his brothers, and blames himself for Angel's unhappy marriage. Angel, meanwhile, has grown up an awful lot since he left for Brazil. The fever he caught soon after arriving almost killed him, and he's still weak. He's re-considering a lot of things he used to take for granted. He's decided that morality has more to do with your intentions than your actions. And Tess never intended to be raped, so was she still pure? At one point, Angel meets another Englishman in Brazil, and they become friends. Angel confides his whole story to the man, and the man tells Angel that deserting Tess was the dumbest move, ever. The man dies shortly afterwards, but his words have a lasting effect on Angel. He realizes how wrong he's been about Tess. Tess, meanwhile, is convinced that Angel will soon come back in response to her letter, and so she starts thinking about what she can do to please him when he gets back. She starts studying up on all the ballads and songs that he liked best, and daydreaming about life with Angel after his return. One day in late March, her sister 'Liza-Lu shows up at her door, telling her that their mother is sick, and their father isn't doing well, either. And their father is refusing to work on account of his noble background. Tess decides she has to go home, even though she's supposed to stick around until Old Lady Day . 'Liza-Lu is too tired to head back that night , so Tess decides to let her sister spend the night in her bed, and follow her in the morning. Tess herself leaves a message with Marian and Izz to try to excuse her to the farmer, and then sets out for home.

CHAPTER 49 Summary When Tess's letter reaches Mr. Clare, it is forwarded on to Angel. By this time his parents realize that Angel has left England due to his unlucky marriage, but they have no idea of the gravity of the situation and its effects on their son. In Rio, a sick and frustrated Angel is about to give up on his idea of farming in Brazil. His year away from home and Tess has been a difficult one. He has befriended another Englishman in Rio, who tells him he was foolish to have left Tess. As a result of his words, Angel re-evaluates his feelings about Tess and his assumptions about morality. He realizes that he still loves his wife and is ready to forgive her past misdeeds. Angel is mentally and emotionally prepared to receive Tess's letter, which is on its way to him. As Tess's job at Flintcomb-Ash come to an end, her sister, Liza Lu, arrives with the news that their mother is seriously ill and their father is also sick. Without wasting time, Tess proceeds towards Marlott. Notes It is obvious that Angel has changed and matured in Brazil. His worldly friend has helped him to realize the narrow nature of his thinking, and his own troubles have made him more sympathetic. As a result, he now sees Tess in a different light and feels bad about how he has treated her. He is ready for a reconciliation. It is pathetic that Angel has taken such a long time to realize Tess's genuine love and goodness. Ironically, by the time he returns to her, fate has one more cruel joke to play on him


She plunged into the chilly equinoctial darkness as the clock struck
ten, for her fifteen miles' walk under the steely stars.  In lonely
districts night is a protection rather than a danger to a noiseless
pedestrian, and knowing this, Tess pursued the nearest course along
by-lanes that she would almost have feared in the day-time; but
marauders were wanting now, and spectral fears were driven out of
her mind by thoughts of her mother.  Thus she proceeded mile after
mile, ascending and descending till she came to Bulbarrow, and about
midnight looked from that height into the abyss of chaotic shade
which was all that revealed itself of the vale on whose further side
she was born.  Having already traversed about five miles on the
upland, she had now some ten or eleven in the lowland before her
journey would be finished.  The winding road downwards became just
visible to her under the wan starlight as she followed it, and
soon she paced a soil so contrasting with that above it that the
difference was perceptible to the tread and to the smell.  It was the
heavy clay land of Blackmoor Vale, and a part of the Vale to which
turnpike-roads had never penetrated.  Superstitions linger longest on
these heavy soils.  Having once been forest, at this shadowy time it
seemed to assert something of its old character, the far and the near
being blended, and every tree and tall hedge making the most of its
presence.  The harts that had been hunted here, the witches that had
been pricked and ducked, the green-spangled fairies that "whickered"
at you as you passed;--the place teemed with beliefs in them still,
and they formed an impish multitude now.

At Nuttlebury she passed the village inn, whose sign creaked in
response to the greeting of her footsteps, which not a human soul
heard but herself.  Under the thatched roofs her mind's eye beheld
relaxed tendons and flaccid muscles, spread out in the darkness
beneath coverlets made of little purple patchwork squares, and
undergoing a bracing process at the hands of sleep for renewed labour
on the morrow, as soon as a hint of pink nebulosity appeared on
Hambledon Hill.

At three she turned the last corner of the maze of lanes she had
threaded, and entered Marlott, passing the field in which as a
club-girl she had first seen Angel Clare, when he had not danced
with her; the sense of disappointment remained with her yet.  In the
direction of her mother's house she saw a light.  It came from the
bedroom window, and a branch waved in front of it and made it wink at
her.  As soon as she could discern the outline of the house--newly
thatched with her money--it had all its old effect upon Tess's
imagination.  Part of her body and life it ever seemed to be; the
slope of its dormers, the finish of its gables, the broken courses of
brick which topped the chimney, all had something in common with her
personal character.  A stupefaction had come into these features, to
her regard; it meant the illness of her mother.

She opened the door so softly as to disturb nobody; the lower room
was vacant, but the neighbour who was sitting up with her mother came
to the top of the stairs, and whispered that Mrs Durbeyfield was no
better, though she was sleeping just then.  Tess prepared herself a
breakfast, and then took her place as nurse in her mother's chamber.

In the morning, when she contemplated the children, they had all a
curiously elongated look; although she had been away little more than
a year, their growth was astounding; and the necessity of applying
herself heart and soul to their needs took her out of her own cares.

Her father's ill-health was the same indefinite kind, and he sat in
his chair as usual.  But the day after her arrival he was unusually
bright.  He had a rational scheme for living, and Tess asked him what
it was.

"I'm thinking of sending round to all the old antiqueerians in this
part of England," he said, "asking them to subscribe to a fund to
maintain me.  I'm sure they'd see it as a romantical, artistical,
and proper thing to do.  They spend lots o' money in keeping up old
ruins, and finding the bones o' things, and such like; and living
remains must be more interesting to 'em still, if they only knowed
of me.  Would that somebody would go round and tell 'em what there
is living among 'em, and they thinking nothing of him!  If Pa'son
Tringham, who discovered me, had lived, he'd ha' done it, I'm sure."

Tess postponed her arguments on this high project till she had
grappled with pressing matters in hand, which seemed little improved
by her remittances.  When indoor necessities had been eased, she
turned her attention to external things.  It was now the season for
planting and sowing; many gardens and allotments of the villagers
had already received their spring tillage; but the garden and the
allotment of the Durbeyfields were behindhand.  She found, to her
dismay, that this was owing to their having eaten all the seed
potatoes,--that last lapse of the improvident.  At the earliest
moment she obtained what others she could procure, and in a few
days her father was well enough to see to the garden, under Tess's
persuasive efforts: while she herself undertook the allotment-plot
which they rented in a field a couple of hundred yards out of the
village.

She liked doing it after the confinement of the sick chamber, where
she was not now required by reason of her mother's improvement.
Violent motion relieved thought.  The plot of ground was in a high,
dry, open enclosure, where there were forty or fifty such pieces,
and where labour was at its briskest when the hired labour of the
day had ended.  Digging began usually at six o'clock and extended
indefinitely into the dusk or moonlight.  Just now heaps of dead
weeds and refuse were burning on many of the plots, the dry weather
favouring their combustion.

One fine day Tess and 'Liza-Lu worked on here with their neighbours
till the last rays of the sun smote flat upon the white pegs that
divided the plots.  As soon as twilight succeeded to sunset the flare
of the couch-grass and cabbage-stalk fires began to light up the
allotments fitfully, their outlines appearing and disappearing under
the dense smoke as wafted by the wind.  When a fire glowed, banks
of smoke, blown level along the ground, would themselves become
illuminated to an opaque lustre, screening the workpeople from one
another; and the meaning of the "pillar of a cloud", which was a wall
by day and a light by night, could be understood.

As evening thickened, some of the gardening men and women gave over
for the night, but the greater number remained to get their planting
done, Tess being among them, though she sent her sister home.  It was
on one of the couch-burning plots that she laboured with her fork,
its four shining prongs resounding against the stones and dry clods
in little clicks.  Sometimes she was completely involved in the smoke
of her fire; then it would leave her figure free, irradiated by the
brassy glare from the heap.  She was oddly dressed to-night, and
presented a somewhat staring aspect, her attire being a gown bleached
by many washings, with a short black jacket over it, the effect of
the whole being that of a wedding and funeral guest in one.  The
women further back wore white aprons, which, with their pale faces,
were all that could be seen of them in the gloom, except when at
moments they caught a flash from the flames.

Westward, the wiry boughs of the bare thorn hedge which formed the
boundary of the field rose against the pale opalescence of the lower
sky.  Above, Jupiter hung like a full-blown jonquil, so bright
as almost to throw a shade.  A few small nondescript stars were
appearing elsewhere.  In the distance a dog barked, and wheels
occasionally rattled along the dry road.

Still the prongs continued to click assiduously, for it was not late;
and though the air was fresh and keen there was a whisper of spring
in it that cheered the workers on.  Something in the place, the
hours, the crackling fires, the fantastic mysteries of light and
shade, made others as well as Tess enjoy being there. Nightfall,
which in the frost of winter comes as a fiend and in the warmth of
summer as a lover, came as a tranquillizer on this March day.

Nobody looked at his or her companions.  The eyes of all were on the
soil as its turned surface was revealed by the fires.  Hence as Tess
stirred the clods and sang her foolish little songs with scarce
now a hope that Clare would ever hear them, she did not for a long
time notice the person who worked nearest to her--a man in a long
smockfrock who, she found, was forking the same plot as herself, and
whom she supposed her father had sent there to advance the work.
She became more conscious of him when the direction of his digging
brought him closer.  Sometimes the smoke divided them; then it
swerved, and the two were visible to each other but divided from all
the rest.

Tess did not speak to her fellow-worker, nor did he speak to her.
Nor did she think of him further than to recollect that he had not
been there when it was broad daylight, and that she did not know
him as any one of the Marlott labourers, which was no wonder, her
absences having been so long and frequent of late years.  By-and-by
he dug so close to her that the fire-beams were reflected as
distinctly from the steel prongs of his fork as from her own.  On
going up to the fire to throw a pitch of dead weeds upon it, she
found that he did the same on the other side. The fire flared up,
and she beheld the face of d'Urberville.

The unexpectedness of his presence, the grotesqueness of his
appearance in a gathered smockfrock, such as was now worn only by the
most old-fashioned of the labourers, had a ghastly comicality that
chilled her as to its bearing.  D'Urberville emitted a low, long
laugh.

"If I were inclined to joke, I should say, How much this seems like
Paradise!" he remarked whimsically, looking at her with an inclined
head.

"What do you say?" she weakly asked.

"A jester might say this is just like Paradise.  You are Eve, and I
am the old Other One come to tempt you in the disguise of an inferior
animal.  I used to be quite up in that scene of Milton's when I was
theological.  Some of it goes--

   "'Empress, the way is ready, and not long,
   Beyond a row of myrtles...
   ... If thou accept
   My conduct, I can bring thee thither soon.'
   'Lead then,' said Eve.

"And so on.  My dear Tess, I am only putting this to you as a thing
that you might have supposed or said quite untruly, because you think
so badly of me."

"I never said you were Satan, or thought it.  I don't think of you in
that way at all.  My thoughts of you are quite cold, except when you
affront me.  What, did you come digging here entirely because of me?"

"Entirely.  To see you; nothing more.  The smockfrock, which I
saw hanging for sale as I came along, was an afterthought, that I
mightn't be noticed.  I come to protest against your working like
this."

"But I like doing it--it is for my father."

"Your engagement at the other place is ended?"

"Yes."

"Where are you going to next?  To join your dear husband?"

She could not bear the humiliating reminder.

"O--I don't know!" she said bitterly.  "I have no husband!"

"It is quite true--in the sense you mean.  But you have a friend, and
I have determined that you shall be comfortable in spite of yourself.
When you get down to your house you will see what I have sent there
for you."

"O, Alec, I wish you wouldn't give me anything at all!  I cannot take
it from you!  I don't like--it is not right!"

"It IS right!" he cried lightly.  "I am not going to see a woman whom
I feel so tenderly for as I do for you in trouble without trying to
help her."

"But I am very well off!  I am only in trouble about--about--not
about living at all!"

She turned, and desperately resumed her digging, tears dripping upon
the fork-handle and upon the clods.

"About the children--your brothers and sisters," he resumed. "I've
been thinking of them."

Tess's heart quivered--he was touching her in a weak place.  He had
divined her chief anxiety.  Since returning home her soul had gone
out to those children with an affection that was passionate.

"If your mother does not recover, somebody ought to do something for
them; since your father will not be able to do much, I suppose?"

"He can with my assistance.  He must!"

"And with mine."

"No, sir!"

"How damned foolish this is!" burst out d'Urberville.  "Why, he
thinks we are the same family; and will be quite satisfied!"

"He don't.  I've undeceived him."

"The more fool you!"

D'Urberville in anger retreated from her to the hedge, where he
pulled off the long smockfrock which had disguised him; and rolling
it up and pushing it into the couch-fire, went away.

Tess could not get on with her digging after this; she felt restless;
she wondered if he had gone back to her father's house; and taking
the fork in her hand proceeded homewards.

Some twenty yards from the house she was met by one of her sisters.

"O, Tessy--what do you think!  'Liza-Lu is a-crying, and there's a
lot of folk in the house, and mother is a good deal better, but they
think father is dead!"

The child realized the grandeur of the news; but not as yet its
sadness, and stood looking at Tess with round-eyed importance till,
beholding the effect produced upon her, she said--

"What, Tess, shan't we talk to father never no more?"

"But father was only a little bit ill!" exclaimed Tess distractedly.

'Liza-Lu came up.

"He dropped down just now, and the doctor who was there for mother
said there was no chance for him, because his heart was growed in."

Yes; the Durbeyfield couple had changed places; the dying one was
out of danger, and the indisposed one was dead.  The news meant even
more than it sounded.  Her father's life had a value apart from his
personal achievements, or perhaps it would not have had much. It
was the last of the three lives for whose duration the house and
premises were held under a lease; and it had long been coveted by the
tenant-farmer for his regular labourers, who were stinted in cottage
accommodation.  Moreover, "liviers" were disapproved of in villages
almost as much as little freeholders, because of their independence
of manner, and when a lease determined it was never renewed.

Thus the Durbeyfields, once d'Urbervilles, saw descending upon them
the destiny which, no doubt, when they were among the Olympians of
the county, they had caused to descend many a time, and severely
enough, upon the heads of such landless ones as they themselves were
now.  So do flux and reflux--the rhythm of change--alternate and
persist in everything under the sky.

Tess returns home to find a neighbor who has been caring for Joan Durbeyfield. John tells Tess that he is thinking of asking local antiquarians to subscribe to a fund to maintain him as a part of local history. He says that such societies keep local bones, and living remains should be far more interesting. Alec finds Tess in Marlott. He asks Tess if her engagement at Flintcomb-Ash has ended, and mocks the idea that she might join her husband. Tess replies that she has no husband. Alec tells her that he has sent her something that should have arrived at her house, and insists that he will help her in spite of herself. When Tess returns home, she finds that her father has died.

The death of John Durbeyfield is an ironic reversal of fortune for the Durbeyfield family, for it is Joan, who makes a sudden recovery, whose health seemed most in danger. This plot point is particularly ironic when considered in reference to his final conversation with his daughter in which he notes that local antiquarians support old bones of d'Urbervilles, and might do so for living descendants from that family. Durbeyfield therefore holds his final hopes on his worth as a d'Urberville. Although he notes the discrepancy between antiquarians supporting artifacts but not living remains, he does not find the irony in this predicament; instead, he holds to the same system of values that prizes the antique and the established over the modern. It is John Durbeyfield's reliance on his history as a d'Urberville that proves his most significant flaw, one with tragic consequences for his family. Alec's attempts to help Tess appear more sinister in this chapter, for Alec uses them more explicitly as a means for domination. Alec approaches his efforts to aid Tess as if his kindness must be inflicted upon her; he essentially states that he will help her whether she likes her or not. This once again reinforces that, even when Alec appears ready to aid Tess, he in fact proves dangerous to her, a fact that Tess rightfully realizes

Tess walks all the way back to Marlott, and passes all the old scenes of her childhood on her way. She arrives in the middle of the night, and opens the door of the family house as quietly as she can so that she won't wake anybody up. The next morning, her father tells her of his bright idea to get money without having to work: he'll send a letter around to all the historians in the area, and ask them to contribute money to a fund to save the D'Urbervilles. He figures they'd be happy to do it, since the D'Urbervilles are such an important old family. Tess doesn't argue with him, but persuades him to start working in the garden so that they'll have something to eat that summer. She herself starts working in an additional garden plot that they rented from a landowner nearby. The extra plot has tough soil, and requires a lot of digging and weeding to get it ready for planting. Tess works on it every evening. After spending all day indoors taking care of her sick mother, it's a relief to work outside, even after dark. There are a lot of plots close together, and various other families work there in the evenings, too. One evening, Tess and 'Liza-Lu are working together at dusk. It's chilly, but there's enough warmth still in the air that they're happy to continue working. Tess sings to herself , and notices that a man working the plot next to theirs is slowly working his way closer to her. After a while, Tess realizes that it's Alec. Alec asks after her husband, and she bitterly answers that she doesn't have one. He then offers his help again, and again she refuses. He offers to help her family, and she refuses that, too. He leaves in a huff, and Tess is too agitated to continue working. When she gets home, the house is in an uproar--she assumes that her mother must be dead, but their mother is on the mend. It's their father. He died suddenly of a heart attack.

CHAPTER 50 Summary In Marlott, Tess resumes her difficult work in the potato fields and takes care of her ailing parents. Once while working in the fields, she is astonished to find that Alec is working with her. He again begs Tess to let him help she and her family, a request that she resolutely refuses. Alec expresses his anger and leaves. While she is returning home, one of her sisters brings her the news of her father's death. This is a serious blow to her, especially since the family will not be able to remain in their house after his death. Another tenant farmer has the legal right to it now. Notes To help pass the time in Marlott, Tess thinks about her past. She is again nostalgic about the May-Day dance episode, when she first spied the handsome Angel. It always pricks her heart to think that if she had been Angel's partner at that dance, life would perhaps have been totally different. Fate, however, did not allow that to happen. Now, there are only memories and drudgery. In tempting Tess to let him help her, Alec refers to the temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden; he reminds her that Satan was successful in his temptation. Like Satan, Alec believes that he will also achieve his desire, if the temptations continue. With John's death, the family is left homeless, and Tess's plight is worse than ever. Fate is wearing her down and preparing her to accept temptation,


At length it was the eve of Old Lady-Day, and the agricultural world
was in a fever of mobility such as only occurs at that particular
date of the year.  It is a day of fulfilment; agreements for outdoor
service during the ensuing year, entered into at Candlemas, are to
be now carried out.  The labourers--or "work-folk", as they used to
call themselves immemorially till the other word was introduced from
without--who wish to remain no longer in old places are removing to
the new farms.

These annual migrations from farm to farm were on the increase here.
When Tess's mother was a child the majority of the field-folk about
Marlott had remained all their lives on one farm, which had been the
home also of their fathers and grandfathers; but latterly the desire
for yearly removal had risen to a high pitch.  With the younger
families it was a pleasant excitement which might possibly be an
advantage.  The Egypt of one family was the Land of Promise to the
family who saw it from a distance, till by residence there it became
it turn their Egypt also; and so they changed and changed.

However, all the mutations so increasingly discernible in village
life did not originate entirely in the agricultural unrest.  A
depopulation was also going on.  The village had formerly contained,
side by side with the argicultural labourers, an interesting and
better-informed class, ranking distinctly above the former--the class
to which Tess's father and mother had belonged--and including the
carpenter, the smith, the shoemaker, the huckster, together with
nondescript workers other than farm-labourers; a set of people
who owed a certain stability of aim and conduct to the fact of
their being lifeholders like Tess's father, or copyholders, or
occasionally, small freeholders.  But as the long holdings fell
in, they were seldom again let to similar tenants, and were mostly
pulled down, if not absolutely required by the farmer for his hands.
Cottagers who were not directly employed on the land were looked
upon with disfavour, and the banishment of some starved the trade of
others, who were thus obliged to follow.  These families, who had
formed the backbone of the village life in the past, who were the
depositaries of the village traditions, had to seek refuge in the
large centres; the process, humorously designated by statisticians as
"the tendency of the rural population towards the large towns", being
really the tendency of water to flow uphill when forced by machinery.

The cottage accommodation at Marlott having been in this manner
considerably curtailed by demolitions, every house which remained
standing was required by the agriculturist for his work-people.  Ever
since the occurrence of the event which had cast such a shadow over
Tess's life, the Durbeyfield family (whose descent was not credited)
had been tacitly looked on as one which would have to go when their
lease ended, if only in the interests of morality.  It was, indeed,
quite true that the household had not been shining examples either of
temperance, soberness, or chastity.  The father, and even the mother,
had got drunk at times, the younger children seldom had gone to
church, and the eldest daughter had made queer unions.  By some means
the village had to be kept pure.  So on this, the first Lady-Day
on which the Durbeyfields were expellable, the house, being roomy,
was required for a carter with a large family; and Widow Joan,
her daughters Tess and 'Liza-Lu, the boy Abraham, and the younger
children had to go elsewhere.

On the evening preceding their removal it was getting dark betimes by
reason of a drizzling rain which blurred the sky.  As it was the last
night they would spend in the village which had been their home and
birthplace, Mrs Durbeyfield, 'Liza-Lu, and Abraham had gone out to
bid some friends goodbye, and Tess was keeping house till they should
return.

She was kneeling in the window-bench, her face close to the casement,
where an outer pane of rain-water was sliding down the inner pane of
glass.  Her eyes rested on the web of a spider, probably starved long
ago, which had been mistakenly placed in a corner where no flies
ever came, and shivered in the slight draught through the casement.
Tess was reflecting on the position of the household, in which she
perceived her own evil influence.  Had she not come home, her mother
and the children might probably have been allowed to stay on as
weekly tenants.  But she had been observed almost immediately on her
return by some people of scrupulous character and great influence:
they had seen her idling in the churchyard, restoring as well as she
could with a little trowel a baby's obliterated grave.  By this means
they had found that she was living here again; her mother was scolded
for "harbouring" her; sharp retorts had ensued from Joan, who had
independently offered to leave at once; she had been taken at her
word; and here was the result.

"I ought never to have come home," said Tess to herself, bitterly.

She was so intent upon these thoughts that she hardly at first took
note of a man in a white mackintosh whom she saw riding down the
street.  Possibly it was owing to her face being near to the pane
that he saw her so quickly, and directed his horse so close to the
cottage-front that his hoofs were almost upon the narrow border for
plants growing under the wall.  It was not till he touched the window
with his riding-crop that she observed him.  The rain had nearly
ceased, and she opened the casement in obedience to his gesture.

"Didn't you see me?" asked d'Urberville.

"I was not attending," she said.  "I heard you, I believe, though I
fancied it was a carriage and horses. I was in a sort of dream."

"Ah! you heard the d'Urberville Coach, perhaps.  You know the legend,
I suppose?"

"No.  My--somebody was going to tell it me once, but didn't."

"If you are a genuine d'Urberville I ought not to tell you either,
I suppose.  As for me, I'm a sham one, so it doesn't matter.  It is
rather dismal.  It is that this sound of a non-existent coach can
only be heard by one of d'Urberville blood, and it is held to be
of ill-omen to the one who hears it.  It has to do with a murder,
committed by one of the family, centuries ago."

"Now you have begun it, finish it."

"Very well.  One of the family is said to have abducted some
beautiful woman, who tried to escape from the coach in which he was
carrying her off, and in the struggle he killed her--or she killed
him--I forget which.  Such is one version of the tale...  I see that
your tubs and buckets are packed.  Going away, aren't you?"

"Yes, to-morrow--Old Lady Day."

"I heard you were, but could hardly believe it; it seems so sudden.
Why is it?"

"Father's was the last life on the property, and when that dropped we
had no further right to stay.  Though we might, perhaps, have stayed
as weekly tenants--if it had not been for me."

"What about you?"

"I am not a--proper woman."

D'Urberville's face flushed.

"What a blasted shame!  Miserable snobs!  May their dirty souls
be burnt to cinders!" he exclaimed in tones of ironic resentment.
"That's why you are going, is it?  Turned out?"

"We are not turned out exactly; but as they said we should have to go
soon, it was best to go now everybody was moving, because there are
better chances."

"Where are you going to?"

"Kingsbere.  We have taken rooms there.  Mother is so foolish about
father's people that she will go there."

"But your mother's family are not fit for lodgings, and in a little
hole of a town like that.  Now why not come to my garden-house at
Trantridge?  There are hardly any poultry now, since my mother's
death; but there's the house, as you know it, and the garden.  It
can be whitewashed in a day, and your mother can live there quite
comfortably; and I will put the children to a good school.  Really
I ought to do something for you!"

"But we have already taken the rooms at Kingsbere!" she declared.
"And we can wait there--"

"Wait--what for?  For that nice husband, no doubt.  Now look here,
Tess, I know what men are, and, bearing in mind the _grounds_ of
your separation, I am quite positive he will never make it up with
you.  Now, though I have been your enemy, I am your friend, even
if you won't believe it.  Come to this cottage of mine. We'll get
up a regular colony of fowls, and your mother can attend to them
excellently; and the children can go to school."

Tess breathed more and more quickly, and at length she said--

"How do I know that you would do all this?  Your views may
change--and then--we should be--my mother would be--homeless
again."

"O no--no.  I would guarantee you against such as that in writing, if
necessary.  Think it over."

Tess shook her head.  But d'Urberville persisted; she had seldom seen
him so determined; he would not take a negative.

"Please just tell your mother," he said, in emphatic tones.  "It is
her business to judge--not yours.  I shall get the house swept out
and whitened to-morrow morning, and fires lit; and it will be dry by
the evening, so that you can come straight there.  Now mind, I shall
expect you."

Tess again shook her head, her throat swelling with complicated
emotion.  She could not look up at d'Urberville.

"I owe you something for the past, you know," he resumed.  "And you
cured me, too, of that craze; so I am glad--"

"I would rather you had kept the craze, so that you had kept the
practice which went with it!"

"I am glad of this opportunity of repaying you a little.  To-morrow I
shall expect to hear your mother's goods unloading...  Give me your
hand on it now--dear, beautiful Tess!"

With the last sentence he had dropped his voice to a murmur, and put
his hand in at the half-open casement.  With stormy eyes she pulled
the stay-bar quickly, and, in doing so, caught his arm between the
casement and the stone mullion.

"Damnation--you are very cruel!" he said, snatching out his arm.
"No, no!--I know you didn't do it on purpose.  Well I shall expect
you, or your mother and children at least."

"I shall not come--I have plenty of money!" she cried.

"Where?"

"At my father-in-law's, if I ask for it."

"IF you ask for it.  But you won't, Tess; I know you; you'll never
ask for it--you'll starve first!"

With these words he rode off.  Just at the corner of the street he
met the man with the paint-pot, who asked him if he had deserted the
brethren.

"You go to the devil!" said d'Urberville.

Tess remained where she was a long while, till a sudden rebellious
sense of injustice caused the region of her eyes to swell with the
rush of hot tears thither.  Her husband, Angel Clare himself, had,
like others, dealt out hard measure to her; surely he had!  She had
never before admitted such a thought; but he had surely!  Never
in her life--she could swear it from the bottom of her soul--had
she ever intended to do wrong; yet these hard judgements had
come.  Whatever her sins, they were not sins of intention, but of
inadvertence, and why should she have been punished so persistently?

She passionately seized the first piece of paper that came to hand,
and scribbled the following lines:

   O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do
   not deserve it.  I have thought it all over carefully,
   and I can never, never forgive you!  You know that I
   did not intend to wrong you--why have you so wronged
   me?  You are cruel, cruel indeed!  I will try to forget
   you.  It is all injustice I have received at your
   hands!
                                  T.

She watched till the postman passed by, ran out to him with
her epistle, and then again took her listless place inside the
window-panes.

It was just as well to write like that as to write tenderly.  How
could he give way to entreaty?  The facts had not changed: there was
no new event to alter his opinion.

It grew darker, the fire-light shining over the room.  The two
biggest of the younger children had gone out with their mother; the
four smallest, their ages ranging from three-and-a-half years to
eleven, all in black frocks, were gathered round the hearth babbling
their own little subjects.  Tess at length joined them, without
lighting a candle.

"This is the last night that we shall sleep here, dears, in the house
where we were born," she said quickly.  "We ought to think of it,
oughtn't we?"

They all became silent; with the impressibility of their age they
were ready to burst into tears at the picture of finality she had
conjured up, though all the day hitherto they had been rejoicing in
the idea of a new place.  Tess changed the subject.

"Sing to me, dears," she said.

"What shall we sing?"

"Anything you know; I don't mind."

There was a momentary pause; it was broken, first, in one little
tentative note; then a second voice strengthened it, and a third
and a fourth chimed in unison, with words they had learnt at the
Sunday-school--

     Here we suffer grief and pain,
     Here we meet to part again;
       In Heaven we part no more.

The four sang on with the phlegmatic passivity of persons who had
long ago settled the question, and there being no mistake about it,
felt that further thought was not required.  With features strained
hard to enunciate the syllables they continued to regard the centre
of the flickering fire, the notes of the youngest straying over into
the pauses of the rest.

Tess turned from them, and went to the window again.  Darkness had
now fallen without, but she put her face to the pane as though to
peer into the gloom.  It was really to hide her tears.  If she could
only believe what the children were singing; if she were only sure,
how different all would now be; how confidently she would leave them
to Providence and their future kingdom!  But, in default of that, it
behoved her to do something; to be their Providence; for to Tess,
as to not a few millions of others, there was ghastly satire in the
poet's lines--

                      Not in utter nakedness
     But trailing clouds of glory do we come.

To her and her like, birth itself was an ordeal of degrading personal
compulsion, whose gratuitousness nothing in the result seemed to
justify, and at best could only palliate.

In the shades of the wet road she soon discerned her mother with tall
'Liza-Lu and Abraham.  Mrs Durbeyfield's pattens clicked up to the
door, and Tess opened it.

"I see the tracks of a horse outside the window," said Joan.  "Hev
somebody called?"

"No," said Tess.

The children by the fire looked gravely at her, and one murmured--

"Why, Tess, the gentleman a-horseback!"

"He didn't call," said Tess.  "He spoke to me in passing."

"Who was the gentleman?" asked the mother.  "Your husband?"

"No.  He'll never, never come," answered Tess in stony hopelessness.

"Then who was it?"

"Oh, you needn't ask.  You've seen him before, and so have I."

"Ah!  What did he say?" said Joan curiously.

"I will tell you when we are settled in our lodging at Kingsbere
to-morrow--every word."

It was not her husband, she had said.  Yet a consciousness that in a
physical sense this man alone was her husband seemed to weigh on her
more and more.

Over the preceding generation, the class of skilled laborers in Marlott had largely left, leaving only tenant farmers. Those who were not employed as farmers were largely forced to seek refuge. Upon John Durbeyfield's death, the Durbeyfield's lease of their home is not renewed and the family is forced to find accommodations elsewhere. Tess believes that their lease is not renewed because of her reappearance in Marlott, a reminder of the family's questionable morals. Alec tells Tess the full legend of the d'Urberville coach. According to family legend, a d'Urberville abducted a beautiful woman who tried to escape from his coach and, in a struggle, he killed her. Tess admits that she is the reason that her family must leave their home, for she is not a proper woman. She tells Alec that they will go to Kingsbere, where they have lodgings. Alec offers his house at Trantridge and tells Tess that her husband will never return to her. Tess says that, if her circumstances with Alec would change, her mother would be homeless again. He offers a guarantee in writing against that occurring. Tess says that she can have money from her father-in-law if she were to ask, but Alec retorts that he knows that she will never ask. Tess writes to Angel again, asking why he has treated her so monstrously and vowing to forget him because of the injustice she has received at his hands. Tess and her family remain in their home for the last night, and Joan sees a man at the window. Tess says that it is not her husband, and once they reach Kingsbere she will tell her mother everything. Tess worries that Alec is her husband in a very physical sense.

Tess once again shoulders the burden of her family's troubles in this chapter, as the disreputable status of her family for which she is partially to blame causes Joan Durbeyfield to lose the lease to the family house after John Durbeyfield's death. This returns to the theme of Tess's inability to escape her past, yet darkens this theme by showing that Tess's actions have determined the fate of her family. This turn of events seems particularly tragic, for the dutiful Tess has always taken responsibility when her family has faced hardship, yet always blames herself. Here Tess actually is the reason for her family's hardship. The recurrence of past sins is also evident in this chapter in Tess's worry that Alec is her husband in a more physical sense than Angel, a worry that also illustrates the differences between the carnal, physical Alec and the spiritual, intellectual Angel. The explanation of the d'Urberville coach foreshadows a tragic end to Tess Durbeyfield and neatly parallels the events of Tess's seduction by Alec. The legend posits that a beautiful woman falls victim to a villainous d'Urberville while traveling, recalling Alec's repeated attempts to seduce Tess while traveling by coach. However, at this point the conflict between Alec and Tess has not yet reached the point of serious violence. The offer that Alec d'Urberville makes guaranteeing that he help the Durbeyfield family is perhaps the one act of charity that Tess finds difficult to reject, for in this situation she condemns her family to the same suffering she has felt. However, this does not necessarily indicate that Alec's offer is pure; rather, it remains tainted by its actual intent, for like the others it is merely a means for him to secure Tess as his own once more

It's April 6--Old Lady Day--the day that lots of farm workers change positions and move from farm to farm looking for new work. When Joan Durbeyfield was a girl, everyone stayed their whole lives on one farm, but nowadays everyone likes to be on the move all the time. All the big farm owners liked to have as many cottages and houses available as possible to rent out to the migrant workers. Now that Jack Durbeyfield is dead, the local farm owners are legally able to evict the rest of the Durbeyfields. They might not have been evicted, except that Tess has a reputation as an "improper" woman. Tess, Mrs. Durbeyfield, 'Liza-Lu, Abraham, and the younger children all have to move someplace else. Mrs. Durbeyfield and the children are all out running errands in preparation for their departure, so Tess is home alone. Tess is bitter, and angry at the universe. She's even angry with Angel, and in the heat of her despair she scribbles him an angry note and mails it before she can think better of it. Alec comes up, and asks through the open window why they're moving. Tess tells him that it's because her father is dead, and because she's not considered a "proper" woman. They're going to Kingsbere, where the D'Urbervilles originally lived. Alec asks that they come and live in the garden cottage at Trantridge, which used to be used as the poultry house. He says that they can fix it up quickly, and her mother can take care of the poultry, and the younger children can go to school. She refuses, but is clearly tempted by the offer to look after her siblings. He's determined, and asks her to let her mother decide. He gets a little bit too flirty in saying goodbye, so she slams the window on his fingers. That night, Tess gets her younger siblings to sing to her, and they choose a sad song, but it goes with her mood. Mrs. Durbeyfield sees the tracks of Alec's horse, and asks if he had come, and what he had said. Tess promises to tell her after they've settled at Kingsbere.