Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman
you yourself might be tempted to say words, and they might be
overheard, perhaps by my own children. O, what only hurts me now would
torture and kill me then! I will go—to-morrow.”
“And I shall not stay here. Though I didn’t like to initiate it, I have
seen that it was advisable we should part—at least for a while, till I
can better see the shape that things have taken, and can write to you.”
Tess stole a glance at her husband. He was pale, even tremulous; but,
as before, she was appalled by the determination revealed in the depths
of this gentle being she had married—the will to subdue the grosser to
the subtler emotion, the substance to the conception, the flesh to the
spirit. Propensities, tendencies, habits, were as dead leaves upon the
tyrannous wind of his imaginative ascendency.
He may have observed her look, for he explained—
“I think of people more kindly when I am away from them”; adding
cynically, “God knows; perhaps we will shake down together some day,
for weariness; thousands have done it!”
That day he began to pack up, and she went upstairs and began to pack
also. Both knew that it was in their two minds that they might part the
next morning for ever, despite the gloss of assuaging conjectures
thrown over their proceeding because they were of the sort to whom any
parting which has an air of finality is a torture. He knew, and she
knew, that, though the fascination which each had exercised over the
other—on her part independently of accomplishments—would probably in
the first days of their separation be even more potent than ever, time
must attenuate that effect; the practical arguments against accepting
her as a housemate might pronounce themselves more strongly in the
boreal light of a remoter view. Moreover, when two people are once
parted—have abandoned a common domicile and a common environment—new
growths insensibly bud upward to fill each vacated place; unforeseen
accidents hinder intentions, and old plans are forgotten.
XXXVII
Midnight came and passed silently, for there was nothing to announce it
in the Valley of the Froom.
Not long after one o’clock there was a slight creak in the darkened
farmhouse once the mansion of the d’Urbervilles. Tess, who used the
upper chamber, heard it and awoke. It had come from the corner step of
the staircase, which, as usual, was loosely nailed. She saw the door of
her bedroom open, and the figure of her husband crossed the stream of
moonlight with a curiously careful tread. He was in his shirt and
trousers only, and her first flush of joy died when she perceived that
his eyes were fixed in an unnatural stare on vacancy. When he reached
the middle of the room he stood still and murmured in tones of
indescribable sadness—
“Dead! dead! dead!”
Under the influence of any strongly-disturbing force, Clare would
occasionally walk in his sleep, and even perform strange feats, such as
he had done on the night of their return from market just before their
marriage, when he re-enacted in his bedroom his combat with the man who
had insulted her. Tess saw that continued mental distress had wrought
him into that somnambulistic state now.
Her loyal confidence in him lay so deep down in her heart, that, awake
or asleep, he inspired her with no sort of personal fear. If he had
entered with a pistol in his hand he would scarcely have disturbed her
trust in his protectiveness.
Clare came close, and bent over her. “Dead, dead, dead!” he murmured.
After fixedly regarding her for some moments with the same gaze of
unmeasurable woe, he bent lower, enclosed her in his arms, and rolled
her in the sheet as in a shroud. Then lifting her from the bed with as
much respect as one would show to a dead body, he carried her across
the room, murmuring—
“My poor, poor Tess—my dearest, darling Tess! So sweet, so good, so
true!”
The words of endearment, withheld so severely in his waking hours, were
inexpressibly sweet to her forlorn and hungry heart. If it had been to
save her weary life she would not, by moving or struggling, have put an
end to the position she found herself in. Thus she lay in absolute
stillness, scarcely venturing to breathe, and, wondering what he was
going to do with her, suffered herself to be borne out upon the
landing.
“My wife—dead, dead!” he said.
He paused in his labours for a moment to lean with her against the
banister. Was he going to throw her down? Self-solicitude was near
extinction in her, and in the knowledge that he had planned to depart
on the morrow, possibly for always, she lay in his arms in this
precarious position with a sense rather of luxury than of terror. If
they could only fall together, and both be dashed to pieces, how fit,
how desirable.
However, he did not let her fall, but took advantage of the support of
the handrail to imprint a kiss upon her lips—lips in the day-time
scorned. Then he clasped her with a renewed firmness of hold, and
descended the staircase. The creak of the loose stair did not awaken
him, and they reached the ground-floor safely. Freeing one of his hands
from his grasp of her for a moment, he slid back the door-bar and
passed out, slightly striking his stockinged toe against the edge of
the door. But this he seemed not to mind, and, having room for
extension in the open air, he lifted her against his shoulder, so that
he could carry her with ease, the absence of clothes taking much from
his burden. Thus he bore her off the premises in the direction of the
river a few yards distant.
His ultimate intention, if he had any, she had not yet divined; and she
found herself conjecturing on the matter as a third person might have
done. So easefully had she delivered her whole being up to him that it
pleased her to think he was regarding her as his absolute possession,
to dispose of as he should choose. It was consoling, under the hovering
terror of to-morrow’s separation, to feel that he really recognized her
now as his wife Tess, and did not cast her off, even if in that
recognition he went so far as to arrogate to himself the right of
harming her.
Ah! now she knew what he was dreaming of—that Sunday morning when he
had borne her along through the water with the other dairymaids, who
had loved him nearly as much as she, if that were possible, which Tess
could hardly admit. Clare did not cross the bridge with her, but
proceeding several paces on the same side towards the adjoining mill,
at length stood still on the brink of the river.
Its waters, in creeping down these miles of meadowland, frequently
divided, serpentining in purposeless curves, looping themselves around
little islands that had no name, returning and re-embodying themselves
as a broad main stream further on. Opposite the spot to which he had
brought her was such a general confluence, and the river was
proportionately voluminous and deep. Across it was a narrow
foot-bridge; but now the autumn flood had washed the handrail away,
leaving the bare plank only, which, lying a few inches above the
speeding current, formed a giddy pathway for even steady heads; and
Tess had noticed from the window of the house in the day-time young men
walking across upon it as a feat in balancing. Her husband had possibly
observed the same performance; anyhow, he now mounted the plank, and,
sliding one foot forward, advanced along it.
Was he going to drown her? Probably he was. The spot was lonely, the
river deep and wide enough to make such a purpose easy of
accomplishment. He might drown her if he would; it would be better than
parting to-morrow to lead severed lives.
The swift stream raced and gyrated under them, tossing, distorting, and
splitting the moon’s reflected face. Spots of froth travelled past, and
intercepted weeds waved behind the piles. If they could both fall
together into the current now, their arms would be so tightly clasped
together that they could not be saved; they would go out of the world
almost painlessly, and there would be no more reproach to her, or to
him for marrying her. His last half-hour with her would have been a
loving one, while if they lived till he awoke, his day-time aversion
would return, and this hour would remain to be contemplated only as a
transient dream.
The impulse stirred in her, yet she dared not indulge it, to make a
movement that would have precipitated them both into the gulf. How she
valued her own life had been proved; but his—she had no right to tamper
with it. He reached the other side with her in safety.
Here they were within a plantation which formed the Abbey grounds, and
taking a new hold of her he went onward a few steps till they reached
the ruined choir of the Abbey-church. Against the north wall was the
empty stone coffin of an abbot, in which every tourist with a turn for
grim humour was accustomed to stretch himself. In this Clare carefully
laid Tess. Having kissed her lips a second time he breathed deeply, as
if a greatly desired end were attained. Clare then lay down on the
ground alongside, when he immediately fell into the deep dead slumber
of exhaustion, and remained motionless as a log. The spurt of mental
excitement which had produced the effort was now over.
Tess sat up in the coffin. The night, though dry and mild for the
season, was more than sufficiently cold to make it dangerous for him to
remain here long, in his half-clothed state. If he were left to himself
he would in all probability stay there till the morning, and be chilled
to certain death. She had heard of such deaths after sleep-walking. But
how could she dare to awaken him, and let him know what he had been
doing, when it would mortify him to discover his folly in respect of
her? Tess, however, stepping out of her stone confine, shook him
slightly, but was unable to arouse him without being violent. It was
indispensable to do something, for she was beginning to shiver, the
sheet being but a poor protection. Her excitement had in a measure kept
her warm during the few minutes’ adventure; but that beatific interval
was over.
It suddenly occurred to her to try persuasion; and accordingly she
whispered in his ear, with as much firmness and decision as she could
summon—
“Let us walk on, darling,” at the same time taking him suggestively by
the arm. To her relief, he unresistingly acquiesced; her words had
apparently thrown him back into his dream, which thenceforward seemed
to enter on a new phase, wherein he fancied she had risen as a spirit,
and was leading him to Heaven. Thus she conducted him by the arm to the
stone bridge in front of their residence, crossing which they stood at
the manor-house door. Tess’s feet were quite bare, and the stones hurt
her, and chilled her to the bone; but Clare was in his woollen
stockings and appeared to feel no discomfort.
There was no further difficulty. She induced him to lie down on his own
sofa bed, and covered him up warmly, lighting a temporary fire of wood,
to dry any dampness out of him. The noise of these attentions she
thought might awaken him, and secretly wished that they might. But the
exhaustion of his mind and body was such that he remained undisturbed.
As soon as they met the next morning Tess divined that Angel knew
little or nothing of how far she had been concerned in the night’s
excursion, though, as regarded himself, he may have been aware that he
had not lain still. In truth, he had awakened that morning from a sleep
deep as annihilation; and during those first few moments in which the
brain, like a Samson shaking himself, is trying its strength, he had
some dim notion of an unusual nocturnal proceeding. But the realities
of his situation soon displaced conjecture on the other subject.
He waited in expectancy to discern some mental pointing; he knew that