The community of fowls to which Tess had been appointed as
supervisor, purveyor, nurse, surgeon, and friend made its
headquarters in an old thatched cottage standing in an enclosure that
had once been a garden, but was now a trampled and sanded square.
The house was overrun with ivy, its chimney being enlarged by the
boughs of the parasite to the aspect of a ruined tower.  The lower
rooms were entirely given over to the birds, who walked about them
with a proprietary air, as though the place had been built by
themselves, and not by certain dusty copyholders who now lay east
and west in the churchyard.  The descendants of these bygone owners
felt it almost as a slight to their family when the house which had
so much of their affection, had cost so much of their forefathers'
money, and had been in their possession for several generations
before the d'Urbervilles came and built here, was indifferently
turned into a fowl-house by Mrs Stoke-d'Urberville as soon as the
property fell into hand according to law.  "'Twas good enough for
Christians in grandfather's time," they said.

The rooms wherein dozens of infants had wailed at their nursing now
resounded with the tapping of nascent chicks.  Distracted hens in
coops occupied spots where formerly stood chairs supporting sedate
agriculturists.  The chimney-corner and once-blazing hearth was now
filled with inverted beehives, in which the hens laid their eggs;
while out of doors the plots that each succeeding householder had
carefully shaped with his spade were torn by the cocks in wildest
fashion.

The garden in which the cottage stood was surrounded by a wall, and
could only be entered through a door.

When Tess had occupied herself about an hour the next morning in
altering and improving the arrangements, according to her skilled
ideas as the daughter of a professed poulterer, the door in the wall
opened and a servant in white cap and apron entered.  She had come
from the manor-house.

"Mrs d'Urberville wants the fowls as usual," she said; but perceiving
that Tess did not quite understand, she explained, "Mis'ess is a old
lady, and blind."

"Blind!" said Tess.

Almost before her misgiving at the news could find time to shape
itself she took, under her companion's direction, two of the
most beautiful of the Hamburghs in her arms, and followed the
maid-servant, who had likewise taken two, to the adjacent mansion,
which, though ornate and imposing, showed traces everywhere on this
side that some occupant of its chambers could bend to the love of
dumb creatures--feathers floating within view of the front, and
hen-coops standing on the grass.

In a sitting-room on the ground-floor, ensconced in an armchair with
her back to the light, was the owner and mistress of the estate, a
white-haired woman of not more than sixty, or even less, wearing a
large cap.  She had the mobile face frequent in those whose sight
has decayed by stages, has been laboriously striven after, and
reluctantly let go, rather than the stagnant mien apparent in persons
long sightless or born blind.  Tess walked up to this lady with her
feathered charges--one sitting on each arm.

"Ah, you are the young woman come to look after my birds?" said Mrs
d'Urberville, recognizing a new footstep.  "I hope you will be kind
to them.  My bailiff tells me you are quite the proper person.
Well, where are they?  Ah, this is Strut!  But he is hardly so
lively to-day, is he?  He is alarmed at being handled by a stranger,
I suppose. And Phena too--yes, they are a little frightened--aren't
you, dears? But they will soon get used to you."

While the old lady had been speaking Tess and the other maid, in
obedience to her gestures, had placed the fowls severally in her lap,
and she had felt them over from head to tail, examining their beaks,
their combs, the manes of the cocks, their wings, and their claws.
Her touch enabled her to recognize them in a moment, and to discover
if a single feather were crippled or draggled.  She handled their
crops, and knew what they had eaten, and if too little or too much;
her face enacting a vivid pantomime of the criticisms passing in her
mind.

The birds that the two girls had brought in were duly returned to the
yard, and the process was repeated till all the pet cocks and hens
had been submitted to the old woman--Hamburghs, Bantams, Cochins,
Brahmas, Dorkings, and such other sorts as were in fashion just
then--her perception of each visitor being seldom at fault as she
received the bird upon her knees.

It reminded Tess of a Confirmation, in which Mrs d'Urberville was the
bishop, the fowls the young people presented, and herself and the
maid-servant the parson and curate of the parish bringing them up.
At the end of the ceremony Mrs d'Urberville abruptly asked Tess,
wrinkling and twitching her face into undulations, "Can you whistle?"

"Whistle, Ma'am?"

"Yes, whistle tunes."

Tess could whistle like most other country-girls, though the
accomplishment was one which she did not care to profess in genteel
company.  However, she blandly admitted that such was the fact.

"Then you will have to practise it every day.  I had a lad who did it
very well, but he has left.  I want you to whistle to my bullfinches;
as I cannot see them, I like to hear them, and we teach 'em airs
that way.  Tell her where the cages are, Elizabeth.  You must begin
to-morrow, or they will go back in their piping. They have been
neglected these several days."

"Mr d'Urberville whistled to 'em this morning, ma'am," said
Elizabeth.

"He!  Pooh!"

The old lady's face creased into furrows of repugnance, and she made
no further reply.

Thus the reception of Tess by her fancied kinswoman terminated, and
the birds were taken back to their quarters.  The girl's surprise at
Mrs d'Urberville's manner was not great; for since seeing the size of
the house she had expected no more.  But she was far from being aware
that the old lady had never heard a word of the so-called kinship.
She gathered that no great affection flowed between the blind woman
and her son.  But in that, too, she was mistaken.  Mrs d'Urberville
was not the first mother compelled to love her offspring resentfully,
and to be bitterly fond.

In spite of the unpleasant initiation of the day before, Tess
inclined to the freedom and novelty of her new position in the
morning when the sun shone, now that she was once installed there;
and she was curious to test her powers in the unexpected direction
asked of her, so as to ascertain her chance of retaining her post.
As soon as she was alone within the walled garden she sat herself
down on a coop, and seriously screwed up her mouth for the
long-neglected practice.  She found her former ability to have
degenerated to the production of a hollow rush of wind through the
lips, and no clear note at all.

She remained fruitlessly blowing and blowing, wondering how she
could have so grown out of the art which had come by nature, till
she became aware of a movement among the ivy-boughs which cloaked
the garden-wall no less then the cottage.  Looking that way she
beheld a form springing from the coping to the plot.  It was Alec
d'Urberville, whom she had not set eyes on since he had conducted
her the day before to the door of the gardener's cottage where she
had lodgings.

"Upon my honour!" cried he, "there was never before such a beautiful
thing in Nature or Art as you look, 'Cousin' Tess ('Cousin' had a
faint ring of mockery).  I have been watching you from over the
wall--sitting like IM-patience on a monument, and pouting up that
pretty red mouth to whistling shape, and whooing and whooing, and
privately swearing, and never being able to produce a note.  Why,
you are quite cross because you can't do it."

"I may be cross, but I didn't swear."

"Ah!  I understand why you are trying--those bullies!  My mother
wants you to carry on their musical education.  How selfish of her!
As if attending to these curst cocks and hens here were not enough
work for any girl.  I would flatly refuse, if I were you."

"But she wants me particularly to do it, and to be ready by to-morrow
morning."

"Does she?  Well then--I'll give you a lesson or two."

"Oh no, you won't!" said Tess, withdrawing towards the door.

"Nonsense; I don't want to touch you.  See--I'll stand on this side
of the wire-netting, and you can keep on the other; so you may feel
quite safe.  Now, look here; you screw up your lips too harshly.
There 'tis--so."

He suited the action to the word, and whistled a line of "Take, O
take those lips away."  But the allusion was lost upon Tess.

"Now try," said d'Urberville.

She attempted to look reserved; her face put on a sculptural
severity.  But he persisted in his demand, and at last, to get rid of
him, she did put up her lips as directed for producing a clear note;
laughing distressfully, however, and then blushing with vexation that
she had laughed.

He encouraged her with "Try again!"

Tess was quite serious, painfully serious by this time; and she
tried--ultimately and unexpectedly emitting a real round sound.
The momentary pleasure of success got the better of her; her eyes
enlarged, and she involuntarily smiled in his face.

"That's it!  Now I have started you--you'll go on beautifully.
There--I said I would not come near you; and, in spite of such
temptation as never before fell to mortal man, I'll keep my
word...  Tess, do you think my mother a queer old soul?"

"I don't know much of her yet, sir."

"You'll find her so; she must be, to make you learn to whistle to her
bullfinches.  I am rather out of her books just now, but you will be
quite in favour if you treat her live-stock well.  Good morning.  If
you meet with any difficulties and want help here, don't go to the
bailiff, come to me."

It was in the economy of this _regime_ that Tess Durbeyfield had
undertaken to fill a place.  Her first day's experiences were fairly
typical of those which followed through many succeeding days.  A
familiarity with Alec d'Urberville's presence--which that young man
carefully cultivated in her by playful dialogue, and by jestingly
calling her his cousin when they were alone--removed much of her
original shyness of him, without, however, implanting any feeling
which could engender shyness of a new and tenderer kind.  But she was
more pliable under his hands than a mere companionship would have
made her, owing to her unavoidable dependence upon his mother, and,
through that lady's comparative helplessness, upon him.

She soon found that whistling to the bullfinches in Mrs
d'Urberville's room was no such onerous business when she had
regained the art, for she had caught from her musical mother numerous
airs that suited those songsters admirably.  A far more satisfactory
time than when she practised in the garden was this whistling by the
cages each morning.  Unrestrained by the young man's presence she
threw up her mouth, put her lips near the bars, and piped away in
easeful grace to the attentive listeners.

Mrs d'Urberville slept in a large four-post bedstead hung with heavy
damask curtains, and the bullfinches occupied the same apartment,
where they flitted about freely at certain hours, and made little
white spots on the furniture and upholstery.  Once while Tess was at
the window where the cages were ranged, giving her lesson as usual,
she thought she heard a rustling behind the bed.  The old lady was
not present, and turning round the girl had an impression that
the toes of a pair of boots were visible below the fringe of the
curtains.  Thereupon her whistling became so disjointed that the
listener, if such there were, must have discovered her suspicion of
his presence.  She searched the curtains every morning after that,
but never found anybody within them.  Alec d'Urberville had evidently
thought better of his freak to terrify her by an ambush of that kind.

Every village has its idiosyncrasy, its constitution, often its own
code of morality.  The levity of some of the younger women in and
about Trantridge was marked, and was perhaps symptomatic of the
choice spirit who ruled The Slopes in that vicinity.  The place had
also a more abiding defect; it drank hard.  The staple conversation
on the farms around was on the uselessness of saving money; and
smock-frocked arithmeticians, leaning on their ploughs or hoes, would
enter into calculations of great nicety to prove that parish relief
was a fuller provision for a man in his old age than any which could
result from savings out of their wages during a whole lifetime.

The chief pleasure of these philosophers lay in going every Saturday
night, when work was done, to Chaseborough, a decayed market-town two
or three miles distant; and, returning in the small hours of the next
morning, to spend Sunday in sleeping off the dyspeptic effects of the
curious compounds sold to them as beer by the monopolizers of the
once-independent inns.

For a long time Tess did not join in the weekly pilgrimages.  But
under pressure from matrons not much older than herself--for a
field-man's wages being as high at twenty-one as at forty, marriage
was early here--Tess at length consented to go.  Her first experience
of the journey afforded her more enjoyment than she had expected,
the hilariousness of the others being quite contagious after her
monotonous attention to the poultry-farm all the week. She went again
and again.  Being graceful and interesting, standing moreover on the
momentary threshold of womanhood, her appearance drew down upon her
some sly regards from loungers in the streets of Chaseborough; hence,
though sometimes her journey to the town was made independently, she
always searched for her fellows at nightfall, to have the protection
of their companionship homeward.

This had gone on for a month or two when there came a Saturday in
September, on which a fair and a market coincided; and the pilgrims
from Trantridge sought double delights at the inns on that account.
Tess's occupations made her late in setting out, so that her comrades
reached the town long before her.  It was a fine September evening,
just before sunset, when yellow lights struggle with blue shades in
hairlike lines, and the atmosphere itself forms a prospect without
aid from more solid objects, except the innumerable winged insects
that dance in it.  Through this low-lit mistiness Tess walked
leisurely along.

She did not discover the coincidence of the market with the fair till
she had reached the place, by which time it was close upon dusk.  Her
limited marketing was soon completed; and then as usual she began to
look about for some of the Trantridge cottagers.

At first she could not find them, and she was informed that most of
them had gone to what they called a private little jig at the house
of a hay-trusser and peat-dealer who had transactions with their
farm.  He lived in an out-of-the-way nook of the townlet, and in
trying to find her course thither her eyes fell upon Mr d'Urberville
standing at a street corner.

"What--my Beauty?  You here so late?" he said.

She told him that she was simply waiting for company homeward.

"I'll see you again," said he over her shoulder as she went on down
the back lane.

Approaching the hay-trussers, she could hear the fiddled notes of
a reel proceeding from some building in the rear; but no sound of
dancing was audible--an exceptional state of things for these parts,
where as a rule the stamping drowned the music.  The front door being
open she could see straight through the house into the garden at the
back as far as the shades of night would allow; and nobody appearing
to her knock, she traversed the dwelling and went up the path to the
outhouse whence the sound had attracted her.

It was a windowless erection used for storage, and from the open door
there floated into the obscurity a mist of yellow radiance, which at
first Tess thought to be illuminated smoke.  But on drawing nearer
she perceived that it was a cloud of dust, lit by candles within the
outhouse, whose beams upon the haze carried forward the outline of
the doorway into the wide night of the garden.

When she came close and looked in she beheld indistinct forms
racing up and down to the figure of the dance, the silence of their
footfalls arising from their being overshoe in "scroff"--that is
to say, the powdery residuum from the storage of peat and other
products, the stirring of which by their turbulent feet created the
nebulosity that involved the scene.  Through this floating, fusty
_debris_ of peat and hay, mixed with the perspirations and warmth of
the dancers, and forming together a sort of vegeto-human pollen, the
muted fiddles feebly pushed their notes, in marked contrast to the
spirit with which the measure was trodden out.  They coughed as
they danced, and laughed as they coughed.  Of the rushing couples
there could barely be discerned more than the high lights--the
indistinctness shaping them to satyrs clasping nymphs--a multiplicity
of Pans whirling a multiplicity of Syrinxes; Lotis attempting to
elude Priapus, and always failing.

At intervals a couple would approach the doorway for air, and
the haze no longer veiling their features, the demigods resolved
themselves into the homely personalities of her own next-door
neighbours.  Could Trantridge in two or three short hours have
metamorphosed itself thus madly!

Some Sileni of the throng sat on benches and hay-trusses by the wall;
and one of them recognized her.

"The maids don't think it respectable to dance at The Flower-de-Luce,"
he explained.  "They don't like to let everybody see which be their
fancy-men.  Besides, the house sometimes shuts up just when their
jints begin to get greased.  So we come here and send out for
liquor."

"But when be any of you going home?" asked Tess with some anxiety.

"Now--a'most directly.  This is all but the last jig."

She waited.  The reel drew to a close, and some of the party were in
the mind of starting.  But others would not, and another dance was
formed.  This surely would end it, thought Tess.  But it merged in
yet another.  She became restless and uneasy; yet, having waited so
long, it was necessary to wait longer; on account of the fair the
roads were dotted with roving characters of possibly ill intent; and,
though not fearful of measurable dangers, she feared the unknown.
Had she been near Marlott she would have had less dread.

"Don't ye be nervous, my dear good soul," expostulated, between his
coughs, a young man with a wet face and his straw hat so far back
upon his head that the brim encircled it like the nimbus of a saint.
"What's yer hurry?  To-morrow is Sunday, thank God, and we can sleep
it off in church-time.  Now, have a turn with me?"

She did not abhor dancing, but she was not going to dance here.  The
movement grew more passionate: the fiddlers behind the luminous
pillar of cloud now and then varied the air by playing on the wrong
side of the bridge or with the back of the bow.  But it did not
matter; the panting shapes spun onwards.

They did not vary their partners if their inclination were to stick
to previous ones.  Changing partners simply meant that a satisfactory
choice had not as yet been arrived at by one or other of the pair,
and by this time every couple had been suitably matched.  It was then
that the ecstasy and the dream began, in which emotion was the matter
of the universe, and matter but an adventitious intrusion likely to
hinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin.

Suddenly there was a dull thump on the ground: a couple had fallen,
and lay in a mixed heap.  The next couple, unable to check its
progress, came toppling over the obstacle.  An inner cloud of dust
rose around the prostrate figures amid the general one of the room,
in which a twitching entanglement of arms and legs was discernible.

"You shall catch it for this, my gentleman, when you get home!" burst
in female accents from the human heap--those of the unhappy partner
of the man whose clumsiness had caused the mishap; she happened
also to be his recently married wife, in which assortment there was
nothing unusual at Trantridge as long as any affection remained
between wedded couples; and, indeed, it was not uncustomary in their
later lives, to avoid making odd lots of the single people between
whom there might be a warm understanding.

A loud laugh from behind Tess's back, in the shade of the garden,
united with the titter within the room.  She looked round, and saw
the red coal of a cigar: Alec d'Urberville was standing there alone.
He beckoned to her, and she reluctantly retreated towards him.

"Well, my Beauty, what are you doing here?"

She was so tired after her long day and her walk that she confided
her trouble to him--that she had been waiting ever since he saw her
to have their company home, because the road at night was strange to
her.  "But it seems they will never leave off, and I really think I
will wait no longer."

"Certainly do not.  I have only a saddle-horse here to-day; but come
to The Flower-de-Luce, and I'll hire a trap, and drive you home with
me."

Tess, though flattered, had never quite got over her original
mistrust of him, and, despite their tardiness, she preferred to walk
home with the work-folk.  So she answered that she was much obliged
to him, but would not trouble him.  "I have said that I will wait for
'em, and they will expect me to now."

"Very well, Miss Independence.  Please yourself...  Then I shall not
hurry...  My good Lord, what a kick-up they are having there!"

He had not put himself forward into the light, but some of them
had perceived him, and his presence led to a slight pause and a
consideration of how the time was flying.  As soon as he had re-lit
a cigar and walked away the Trantridge people began to collect
themselves from amid those who had come in from other farms, and
prepared to leave in a body.  Their bundles and baskets were gathered
up, and half an hour later, when the clock-chime sounded a quarter
past eleven, they were straggling along the lane which led up the
hill towards their homes.

It was a three-mile walk, along a dry white road, made whiter
to-night by the light of the moon.

Tess soon perceived as she walked in the flock, sometimes with this
one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing
staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too
freely; some of the more careless women also were wandering in their
gait--to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, till
lately a favourite of d'Urberville's; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed
the Queen of Diamonds; and the young married woman who had already
tumbled down.  Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance
just now to the mean unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was
different.  They followed the road with a sensation that they were
soaring along in a supporting medium, possessed of original and
profound thoughts, themselves and surrounding nature forming
an organism of which all the parts harmoniously and joyously
interpenetrated each other.  They were as sublime as the moon and
stars above them, and the moon and stars were as ardent as they.

Tess, however, had undergone such painful experiences of this kind in
her father's house that the discovery of their condition spoilt the
pleasure she was beginning to feel in the moonlight journey.  Yet she
stuck to the party, for reasons above given.

In the open highway they had progressed in scattered order; but now
their route was through a field-gate, and the foremost finding a
difficulty in opening it, they closed up together.

This leading pedestrian was Car the Queen of Spades, who carried a
wicker-basket containing her mother's groceries, her own draperies,
and other purchases for the week.  The basket being large and heavy,
Car had placed it for convenience of porterage on the top of her
head, where it rode on in jeopardized balance as she walked with
arms akimbo.

"Well--whatever is that a-creeping down thy back, Car Darch?" said
one of the group suddenly.

All looked at Car.  Her gown was a light cotton print, and from the
back of her head a kind of rope could be seen descending to some
distance below her waist, like a Chinaman's queue.

"'Tis her hair falling down," said another.

No; it was not her hair: it was a black stream of something oozing
from her basket, and it glistened like a slimy snake in the cold
still rays of the moon.

"'Tis treacle," said an observant matron.

Treacle it was.  Car's poor old grandmother had a weakness for the
sweet stuff.  Honey she had in plenty out of her own hives, but
treacle was what her soul desired, and Car had been about to give her
a treat of surprise.  Hastily lowering the basket the dark girl found
that the vessel containing the syrup had been smashed within.

By this time there had arisen a shout of laughter at the
extraordinary appearance of Car's back, which irritated the dark
queen into getting rid of the disfigurement by the first sudden means
available, and independently of the help of the scoffers.  She rushed
excitedly into the field they were about to cross, and flinging
herself flat on her back upon the grass, began to wipe her gown
as well as she could by spinning horizontally on the herbage and
dragging herself over it upon her elbows.

The laughter rang louder; they clung to the gate, to the posts,
rested on their staves, in the weakness engendered by their
convulsions at the spectacle of Car.  Our heroine, who had hitherto
held her peace, at this wild moment could not help joining in with
the rest.

It was a misfortune--in more ways than one.  No sooner did the dark
queen hear the soberer richer note of Tess among those of the other
work-people than a long-smouldering sense of rivalry inflamed her to
madness.  She sprang to her feet and closely faced the object of her
dislike.

"How darest th' laugh at me, hussy!" she cried.

"I couldn't really help it when t'others did," apologized Tess,
still tittering.

"Ah, th'st think th' beest everybody, dostn't, because th' beest
first favourite with He just now!  But stop a bit, my lady, stop a
bit!  I'm as good as two of such! Look here--here's at 'ee!"

To Tess's horror the dark queen began stripping off the bodice of
her gown--which for the added reason of its ridiculed condition she
was only too glad to be free of--till she had bared her plump neck,
shoulders, and arms to the moonshine, under which they looked as
luminous and beautiful as some Praxitelean creation, in their
possession of the faultless rotundities of a lusty country-girl.
She closed her fists and squared up at Tess.

"Indeed, then, I shall not fight!" said the latter majestically; "and
if I had know you was of that sort, I wouldn't have so let myself
down as to come with such a whorage as this is!"

The rather too inclusive speech brought down a torrent of
vituperation from other quarters upon fair Tess's unlucky head,
particularly from the Queen of Diamonds, who having stood in the
relations to d'Urberville that Car had also been suspected of, united
with the latter against the common enemy.  Several other women also
chimed in, with an animus which none of them would have been so
fatuous as to show but for the rollicking evening they had passed.
Thereupon, finding Tess unfairly browbeaten, the husbands and lovers
tried to make peace by defending her; but the result of that attempt
was directly to increase the war.

Tess was indignant and ashamed.  She no longer minded the loneliness
of the way and the lateness of the hour; her one object was to get
away from the whole crew as soon as possible.  She knew well enough
that the better among them would repent of their passion next day.
They were all now inside the field, and she was edging back to rush
off alone when a horseman emerged almost silently from the corner of
the hedge that screened the road, and Alec d'Urberville looked round
upon them.

"What the devil is all this row about, work-folk?" he asked.

The explanation was not readily forthcoming; and, in truth, he did
not require any.  Having heard their voices while yet some way off he
had ridden creepingly forward, and learnt enough to satisfy himself.

Tess was standing apart from the rest, near the gate.  He bent over
towards her.  "Jump up behind me," he whispered, "and we'll get shot
of the screaming cats in a jiffy!"

She felt almost ready to faint, so vivid was her sense of the crisis.
At almost any other moment of her life she would have refused such
proffered aid and company, as she had refused them several times
before; and now the loneliness would not of itself have forced her
to do otherwise.  But coming as the invitation did at the particular
juncture when fear and indignation at these adversaries could be
transformed by a spring of the foot into a triumph over them, she
abandoned herself to her impulse, climbed the gate, put her toe upon
his instep, and scrambled into the saddle behind him.  The pair were
speeding away into the distant gray by the time that the contentious
revellers became aware of what had happened.

The Queen of Spades forgot the stain on her bodice, and stood
beside the Queen of Diamonds and the new-married, staggering young
woman--all with a gaze of fixity in the direction in which the
horse's tramp was diminishing into silence on the road.

"What be ye looking at?" asked a man who had not observed the
incident.

"Ho-ho-ho!" laughed dark Car.

"Hee-hee-hee!" laughed the tippling bride, as she steadied herself on
the arm of her fond husband.

"Heu-heu-heu!" laughed dark Car's mother, stroking her moustache as
she explained laconically: "Out of the frying-pan into the fire!"

Then these children of the open air, whom even excess of alcohol
could scarce injure permanently, betook themselves to the field-path;
and as they went there moved onward with them, around the shadow of
each one's head, a circle of opalized light, formed by the moon's
rays upon the glistening sheet of dew.  Each pedestrian could see
no halo but his or her own, which never deserted the head-shadow,
whatever its vulgar unsteadiness might be; but adhered to it, and
persistently beautified it; till the erratic motions seemed an
inherent part of the irradiation, and the fumes of their breathing
a component of the night's mist; and the spirit of the scene, and
of the moonlight, and of Nature, seemed harmoniously to mingle with
the spirit of wine.

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

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

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

"And are you?"

She did not reply.

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

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

"You are quite sure?"

"I am angry with you sometimes!"

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

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

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

"You have sometimes."

"How many times?"

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

"Every time I have tried?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why, where be we?" she exclaimed.

"Passing by a wood."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Somebody?  You!"

D'Urberville nodded.

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

"And the children have some toys."

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

"Why, dear?"

"It--hampers me so."

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

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

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

"Not very--a little."

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

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

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

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

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

"Tess!" said d'Urberville.

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

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

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

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

END OF PHASE THE FIRST

Phase the Second: Maiden No More

Tess makes her new home in an old house that had once been the primary house at The Slopes. It is now a chicken coop. The new house is the centerpiece of the estate. Tess must, along with the other staff, bring the chickens one by one to Mrs. d'Urberville for inspection. When Mrs. d'Urberville, a blind 60-year-old woman, asks Tess whether she can whistle , Tess says she can. When she tries later, though, she realizes whistling is a talent she no longer possesses, and so she begins to practice so that she may regain the skill. Alec sees Tess practicing, finds her attempts humorous, and offers to coach her. Tess declines his offer, but he persists until, just to be rid of him, she agrees to let him assist her. Alec, taken by Tess and unaccustomed to being denied, begins to spy on Tess, watching her as she works in the house, even hiding behind the bed curtains on his mother's bed to catch her whistling to the birds. Tess makes friends with other housekeeping staff members, and they introduce Tess to the dances that they attend on the weekends. The staff goes to nearby Chaseborough to drink at the pub or dance in the dancehall. Because Tess does not have a partner to dance with, she watches the other staff dance. This particular September evening, the cottage staff opt instead for a private dance in the barn of a supplier to the d'Urberville estate. Alec surprises Tess by appearing at the barn dance. He offers her a ride home, which she turns down. Later, when the cottage staff return home, Tess and Car, another girl who works at The Slopes, get into a fight over Car's jealousy at Alec's attention towards Tess. Alec rides up and rescues Tess from a small mob of resentful women. He takes her away from a beating she surely would have suffered at the hands of the cottage staff women. Instead of returning directly to The Slopes, Alec meanders along, hoping to take advantage of Tess in a vulnerable state. He finally actually loses his way in the dense fog. He leaves Tess in the woods as he goes to find a cottage for directions back to Trantridge. When Alec returns to Tess, he finds her asleep and rapes her, knowing he has worn down Tess' defenses over the last few months.

Alec uses all types of methods to achieve his goal, from light sexual teasing to forcible rape. One has to believe that it was Alec's intent all along to take any freedoms he chose with Tess. This is foreshadowed by Hardy throughout Phase I in his references to Alec's debauchery and Tess' innocence. From the beginning, Alec has implied that he and she share an intimate link through their common ancestor.  Alec has also been able, in nearly every encounter with Tess, to coerce her to do as he wishes, despite her obvious despair. His predatory behavior escalates from simply refusing to accept her refusal of his advances , to putting her in a precarious position  and then offering her salvation -- if she will acquiesce to one small liberty -- a kiss in this case, to finally, raping her. It might be argued that Alec had a history of doing as he pleased, even with the hired help at The Slopes: "It was evidently the gentleman's wish not to be disturbed in this pleasant tete-a-tete by the servantry." Even the cottage workers know what is about to happen, "'Heu-heu-heu!' laughed Car's mother, stroking her moustache as she explains laconically: 'Out of the frying-pan into the fire!'" Hardy also reintroduces the concept that fate plays a significant part in how people's lives turn out, when he concludes "It  was meant to be." Fate was not a new concept with Hardy. The ancient Greeks used fate as a guiding force in their plays. To the Greeks  the Fates were, literally, three goddesses -- Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos -- who control human destiny and life. Late in the novel, Hardy evokes Aeschylus and the Greek idea that we are all destined to be controlled by fate. Because Alec is of the gentry class in England, there will be no consequences for him to endure. Tess, the victim, is the one who must live with the consequences of the act. This scenario is one of the ways in which this novel was considered controversial by its original readers. Alec is allowed to do as he pleases, abusing power and position, which in Hardy's estimation, was one of the ills of Victorian society and one of the issues with English aristocracy: "One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d'Urberville's mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time." Whether it's fate, or "retribution" for past offenses, or predestination, Tess does not deserve what happens to her. Nevertheless, she is the one who must endure under the burden of the crime perpetrated against her. Hardy would not offend the sensibilities of his readers by tainting the novel with a lurid sex scene. At the end of Chapter 9, the rape scene is not played out before our eyes. In fact, it is hard to find the actual mention of rape in the entire novel. Hardy leaves out the gratuitous violent scenes. Instead, like a Greek tragedy, the violence takes place off-stage. Indeed, all violence in the Greek theatre was played off-stage as witnessed by Aeschylus' play Oedipus Rex. Even when his main character, Oedipus, blinds himself by gouging his eyes out, we do not see the actual act on stage, which would have offended the sensibilities of his audience. Instead, we see the result of the action, as we will here. What the characters do or how they react is more important than the act. Now that Alec has conquered Tess, he wants to keep her as his own. But Tess will not let Alec's advances keep her at The Slopes. Glossary copyholders persons who hold land by copyhold; here, possessors of the land at the will of the lord of the manor, who, by custom, normally allowed tenants to stay for longer than the life of the original tenant. "Take, O take those lips away" from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure . satyrs in classical mythology, minor woodland deities having the head and trunk of a man and the hind legs of a goat, and as being fond of riotous merriment and lechery. nymphs minor nature goddesses, represented as young and beautiful and living in rivers, mountains, or trees. Pan Greek god with legs, ears, and horns of a goat, noted for his lust. Syrinx Syrinx was pursued by Pan, but the gods turned her into a reed, from which Pan made his pipe. Lotis . . . Priapus Priapus, another lustful god, pursued Lotis, who was turned into a lotus flower. Sileni plural form of Silenus, a satyr and follower of Bacchus. Jints  joints or hip/knee joints. treacle molasses. Praxitlean creation like the work of Praxiteles, Greek sculptor of the fourth century B.C. known for his sensual statues. Tishbite Elijah, who in 1 Kings 18 mocks the god worshipped by the priests of Baal. "Sins of the fathers" Exodus 20:5: "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me."