The Return of the Native
study, sitting over the open books; but the work of those hours was
miserably scant. Determined that there should be nothing in his conduct
towards his mother resembling sullenness, he had occasionally spoken to
her on passing matters, and would take no notice of the brevity of her
replies. With the same resolve to keep up a show of conversation he
said, about seven o’clock in the evening, “There’s an eclipse of the
moon tonight. I am going out to see it.” And, putting on his overcoat,
he left her.
The low moon was not as yet visible from the front of the house, and
Yeobright climbed out of the valley until he stood in the full flood of
her light. But even now he walked on, and his steps were in the
direction of Rainbarrow.
In half an hour he stood at the top. The sky was clear from verge to
verge, and the moon flung her rays over the whole heath, but without
sensibly lighting it, except where paths and water-courses had laid
bare the white flints and glistening quartz sand, which made streaks
upon the general shade. After standing awhile he stooped and felt the
heather. It was dry, and he flung himself down upon the barrow, his
face towards the moon, which depicted a small image of herself in each
of his eyes.
He had often come up here without stating his purpose to his mother;
but this was the first time that he had been ostensibly frank as to his
purpose while really concealing it. It was a moral situation which,
three months earlier, he could hardly have credited of himself. In
returning to labour in this sequestered spot he had anticipated an
escape from the chafing of social necessities; yet behold they were
here also. More than ever he longed to be in some world where personal
ambition was not the only recognized form of progress—such, perhaps, as
might have been the case at some time or other in the silvery globe
then shining upon him. His eye travelled over the length and breadth of
that distant country—over the Bay of Rainbows, the sombre Sea of
Crises, the Ocean of Storms, the Lake of Dreams, the vast Walled
Plains, and the wondrous Ring Mountains—till he almost felt himself to
be voyaging bodily through its wild scenes, standing on its hollow
hills, traversing its deserts, descending its vales and old sea
bottoms, or mounting to the edges of its craters.
While he watched the far-removed landscape a tawny stain grew into
being on the lower verge—the eclipse had begun. This marked a
preconcerted moment—for the remote celestial phenomenon had been
pressed into sublunary service as a lover’s signal. Yeobright’s mind
flew back to earth at the sight; he arose, shook himself and listened.
Minute after minute passed by, perhaps ten minutes passed, and the
shadow on the moon perceptibly widened. He heard a rustling on his left
hand, a cloaked figure with an upturned face appeared at the base of
the Barrow, and Clym descended. In a moment the figure was in his arms,
and his lips upon hers.
“My Eustacia!”
“Clym, dearest!”
Such a situation had less than three months brought forth.
They remained long without a single utterance, for no language could
reach the level of their condition—words were as the rusty implements
of a by-gone barbarous epoch, and only to be occasionally tolerated.
“I began to wonder why you did not come,” said Yeobright, when she had
withdrawn a little from his embrace.
“You said ten minutes after the first mark of shade on the edge of the
moon, and that’s what it is now.”
“Well, let us only think that here we are.”
Then, holding each other’s hand, they were again silent, and the shadow
on the moon’s disc grew a little larger.
“Has it seemed long since you last saw me?” she asked.
“It has seemed sad.”
“And not long? That’s because you occupy yourself, and so blind
yourself to my absence. To me, who can do nothing, it has been like
living under stagnant water.”
“I would rather bear tediousness, dear, than have time made short by
such means as have shortened mine.”
“In what way is that? You have been thinking you wished you did not
love me.”
“How can a man wish that, and yet love on? No, Eustacia.”
“Men can, women cannot.”
“Well, whatever I may have thought, one thing is certain—I do love
you—past all compass and description. I love you to oppressiveness—I,
who have never before felt more than a pleasant passing fancy for any
woman I have ever seen. Let me look right into your moonlit face and
dwell on every line and curve in it! Only a few hairbreadths make the
difference between this face and faces I have seen many times before I
knew you; yet what a difference—the difference between everything and
nothing at all. One touch on that mouth again! there, and there, and
there. Your eyes seem heavy, Eustacia.”
“No, it is my general way of looking. I think it arises from my feeling
sometimes an agonizing pity for myself that I ever was born.”
“You don’t feel it now?”
“No. Yet I know that we shall not love like this always. Nothing can
ensure the continuance of love. It will evaporate like a spirit, and so
I feel full of fears.”
“You need not.”
“Ah, you don’t know. You have seen more than I, and have been into
cities and among people that I have only heard of, and have lived more
years than I; but yet I am older at this than you. I loved another man
once, and now I love you.”
“In God’s mercy don’t talk so, Eustacia!”
“But I do not think I shall be the one who wearies first. It will, I
fear, end in this way: your mother will find out that you meet me, and
she will influence you against me!”
“That can never be. She knows of these meetings already.”
“And she speaks against me?”
“I will not say.”
“There, go away! Obey her. I shall ruin you. It is foolish of you to
meet me like this. Kiss me, and go away forever. Forever—do you
hear?—forever!”
“Not I.”
“It is your only chance. Many a man’s love has been a curse to him.”
“You are desperate, full of fancies, and wilful; and you misunderstand.
I have an additional reason for seeing you tonight besides love of you.
For though, unlike you, I feel our affection may be eternal. I feel
with you in this, that our present mode of existence cannot last.”
“Oh! ’tis your mother. Yes, that’s it! I knew it.”
“Never mind what it is. Believe this, I cannot let myself lose you. I
must have you always with me. This very evening I do not like to let
you go. There is only one cure for this anxiety, dearest—you must be my
wife.”
She started—then endeavoured to say calmly, “Cynics say that cures the
anxiety by curing the love.”
“But you must answer me. Shall I claim you some day—I don’t mean at
once?”
“I must think,” Eustacia murmured. “At present speak of Paris to me. Is
there any place like it on earth?”
“It is very beautiful. But will you be mine?”
“I will be nobody else’s in the world—does that satisfy you?”
“Yes, for the present.”
“Now tell me of the Tuileries, and the Louvre,” she continued
evasively.
“I hate talking of Paris! Well, I remember one sunny room in the Louvre
which would make a fitting place for you to live in—the Galerie
d’Apollon. Its windows are mainly east; and in the early morning, when
the sun is bright, the whole apartment is in a perfect blaze of
splendour. The rays bristle and dart from the encrustations of gilding
to the magnificent inlaid coffers, from the coffers to the gold and
silver plate, from the plate to the jewels and precious stones, from
these to the enamels, till there is a perfect network of light which
quite dazzles the eye. But now, about our marriage——”
“And Versailles—the King’s Gallery is some such gorgeous room, is it
not?”
“Yes. But what’s the use of talking of gorgeous rooms? By the way, the
Little Trianon would suit us beautifully to live in, and you might walk
in the gardens in the moonlight and think you were in some English
shrubbery; it is laid out in English fashion.”
“I should hate to think that!”
“Then you could keep to the lawn in front of the Grand Palace. All
about there you would doubtless feel in a world of historical romance.”
He went on, since it was all new to her, and described Fontainebleau,
St. Cloud, the Bois, and many other familiar haunts of the Parisians;
till she said—
“When used you to go to these places?”
“On Sundays.”
“Ah, yes. I dislike English Sundays. How I should chime in with their
manners over there! Dear Clym, you’ll go back again?”
Clym shook his head, and looked at the eclipse.
“If you’ll go back again I’ll—be something,” she said tenderly, putting
her head near his breast. “If you’ll agree I’ll give my promise,
without making you wait a minute longer.”
“How extraordinary that you and my mother should be of one mind about
this!” said Yeobright. “I have vowed not to go back, Eustacia. It is
not the place I dislike; it is the occupation.”
“But you can go in some other capacity.”
“No. Besides, it would interfere with my scheme. Don’t press that,
Eustacia. Will you marry me?”
“I cannot tell.”
“Now—never mind Paris; it is no better than other spots. Promise,
sweet!”
“You will never adhere to your education plan, I am quite sure; and
then it will be all right for me; and so I promise to be yours for ever
and ever.”
Clym brought her face towards his by a gentle pressure of the hand, and
kissed her.
“Ah! but you don’t know what you have got in me,” she said. “Sometimes
I think there is not that in Eustacia Vye which will make a good
homespun wife. Well, let it go—see how our time is slipping, slipping,
slipping!” She pointed towards the half-eclipsed moon.
“You are too mournful.”
“No. Only I dread to think of anything beyond the present. What is, we
know. We are together now, and it is unknown how long we shall be so;
the unknown always fills my mind with terrible possibilities, even when
I may reasonably expect it to be cheerful.... Clym, the eclipsed
moonlight shines upon your face with a strange foreign colour, and
shows its shape as if it were cut out in gold. That means that you
should be doing better things than this.”
“You are ambitious, Eustacia—no, not exactly ambitious, luxurious. I
ought to be of the same vein, to make you happy, I suppose. And yet,
far from that, I could live and die in a hermitage here, with proper
work to do.”
There was that in his tone which implied distrust of his position as a
solicitous lover, a doubt if he were acting fairly towards one whose
tastes touched his own only at rare and infrequent points. She saw his
meaning, and whispered, in a low, full accent of eager assurance,
“Don’t mistake me, Clym—though I should like Paris, I love you for
yourself alone. To be your wife and live in Paris would be heaven to
me; but I would rather live with you in a hermitage here than not be
yours at all. It is gain to me either way, and very great gain. There’s
my too candid confession.”
“Spoken like a woman. And now I must soon leave you. I’ll walk with you
towards your house.”
“But must you go home yet?” she asked. “Yes, the sand has nearly
slipped away, I see, and the eclipse is creeping on more and more.
Don’t go yet! Stop till the hour has run itself out; then I will not
press you any more. You will go home and sleep well; I keep sighing in
my sleep! Do you ever dream of me?”
“I cannot recollect a clear dream of you.”
“I see your face in every scene of my dreams, and hear your voice in
every sound. I wish I did not. It is too much what I feel. They say
such love never lasts. But it must! And yet once, I remember, I saw an
officer of the Hussars ride down the street at Budmouth, and though he
was a total stranger and never spoke to me, I loved him till I thought
I should really die of love—but I didn’t die, and at last I left off