Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman
could see between the pillars a level streak of light. The uniform
concavity of black cloud was lifting bodily like the lid of a pot,
letting in at the earth’s edge the coming day, against which the
towering monoliths and trilithons began to be blackly defined.
“Did they sacrifice to God here?” asked she.
“No,” said he.
“Who to?”
“I believe to the sun. That lofty stone set away by itself is in the
direction of the sun, which will presently rise behind it.”
“This reminds me, dear,” she said. “You remember you never would
interfere with any belief of mine before we were married? But I knew
your mind all the same, and I thought as you thought—not from any
reasons of my own, but because you thought so. Tell me now, Angel, do
you think we shall meet again after we are dead? I want to know.”
He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time.
“O, Angel—I fear that means no!” said she, with a suppressed sob. “And
I wanted so to see you again—so much, so much! What—not even you and I,
Angel, who love each other so well?”
Like a greater than himself, to the critical question at the critical
time he did not answer; and they were again silent. In a minute or two
her breathing became more regular, her clasp of his hand relaxed, and
she fell asleep. The band of silver paleness along the east horizon
made even the distant parts of the Great Plain appear dark and near;
and the whole enormous landscape bore that impress of reserve,
taciturnity, and hesitation which is usual just before day. The
eastward pillars and their architraves stood up blackly against the
light, and the great flame-shaped Sun-stone beyond them; and the Stone
of Sacrifice midway. Presently the night wind died out, and the
quivering little pools in the cup-like hollows of the stones lay still.
At the same time something seemed to move on the verge of the dip
eastward—a mere dot. It was the head of a man approaching them from the
hollow beyond the Sun-stone. Clare wished they had gone onward, but in
the circumstances decided to remain quiet. The figure came straight
towards the circle of pillars in which they were.
He heard something behind him, the brush of feet. Turning, he saw over
the prostrate columns another figure; then before he was aware, another
was at hand on the right, under a trilithon, and another on the left.
The dawn shone full on the front of the man westward, and Clare could
discern from this that he was tall, and walked as if trained. They all
closed in with evident purpose. Her story then was true! Springing to
his feet, he looked around for a weapon, loose stone, means of escape,
anything. By this time the nearest man was upon him.
“It is no use, sir,” he said. “There are sixteen of us on the Plain,
and the whole country is reared.”
“Let her finish her sleep!” he implored in a whisper of the men as they
gathered round.
When they saw where she lay, which they had not done till then, they
showed no objection, and stood watching her, as still as the pillars
around. He went to the stone and bent over her, holding one poor little
hand; her breathing now was quick and small, like that of a lesser
creature than a woman. All waited in the growing light, their faces and
hands as if they were silvered, the remainder of their figures dark,
the stones glistening green-gray, the Plain still a mass of shade. Soon
the light was strong, and a ray shone upon her unconscious form,
peering under her eyelids and waking her.
“What is it, Angel?” she said, starting up. “Have they come for me?”
“Yes, dearest,” he said. “They have come.”
“It is as it should be,” she murmured. “Angel, I am almost glad—yes,
glad! This happiness could not have lasted. It was too much. I have had
enough; and now I shall not live for you to despise me!”
She stood up, shook herself, and went forward, neither of the men
having moved.
“I am ready,” she said quietly.
LIX
The city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime capital of
Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave downlands in all the
brightness and warmth of a July morning. The gabled brick, tile, and
freestone houses had almost dried off for the season their integument
of lichen, the streams in the meadows were low, and in the sloping High
Street, from the West Gateway to the mediæval cross, and from the
mediæval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping was
in progress which usually ushers in an old-fashioned market-day.
From the western gate aforesaid the highway, as every Wintoncestrian
knows, ascends a long and regular incline of the exact length of a
measured mile, leaving the houses gradually behind. Up this road from
the precincts of the city two persons were walking rapidly, as if
unconscious of the trying ascent—unconscious through preoccupation and
not through buoyancy. They had emerged upon this road through a narrow,
barred wicket in a high wall a little lower down. They seemed anxious
to get out of the sight of the houses and of their kind, and this road
appeared to offer the quickest means of doing so. Though they were
young, they walked with bowed heads, which gait of grief the sun’s rays
smiled on pitilessly.
One of the pair was Angel Clare, the other a tall budding creature—half
girl, half woman—a spiritualized image of Tess, slighter than she, but
with the same beautiful eyes—Clare’s sister-in-law, ’Liza-Lu. Their
pale faces seemed to have shrunk to half their natural size. They moved
on hand in hand, and never spoke a word, the drooping of their heads
being that of Giotto’s “Two Apostles”.
When they had nearly reached the top of the great West Hill the clocks
in the town struck eight. Each gave a start at the notes, and, walking
onward yet a few steps, they reached the first milestone, standing
whitely on the green margin of the grass, and backed by the down, which
here was open to the road. They entered upon the turf, and, impelled by
a force that seemed to overrule their will, suddenly stood still,
turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense beside the stone.
The prospect from this summit was almost unlimited. In the valley
beneath lay the city they had just left, its more prominent buildings
showing as in an isometric drawing—among them the broad cathedral
tower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave,
the spires of St Thomas’s, the pinnacled tower of the College, and,
more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice, where
to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale. Behind
the city swept the rotund upland of St Catherine’s Hill; further off,
landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was lost in the radiance
of the sun hanging above it.
Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other city
edifices, a large red-brick building, with level gray roofs, and rows
of short barred windows bespeaking captivity, the whole contrasting
greatly by its formalism with the quaint irregularities of the Gothic
erections. It was somewhat disguised from the road in passing it by
yews and evergreen oaks, but it was visible enough up here. The wicket
from which the pair had lately emerged was in the wall of this
structure. From the middle of the building an ugly flat-topped
octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and viewed from this
spot, on its shady side and against the light, it seemed the one blot
on the city’s beauty. Yet it was with this blot, and not with the
beauty, that the two gazers were concerned.
Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes were
riveted on it. A few minutes after the hour had struck something moved
slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a
black flag.
“Justice” was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Æschylean
phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. And the d’Urberville knights and
dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent
themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long
time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As
soon as they had strength, they arose, joined hands again, and went on.