It was a typical summer evening in June, the atm osphere being in su ch delicate equ ilibrium and so transmissive that inani mate objec ts see med endowed with two or three senses, if not five.There was no distinction betweenthe near and the far, and an auditor fe lt close to everything within the horizon.The soundlessness im pressed her as a positive entity rather than as th e mere negation of noise.It was broken by the strumming of strings.
Tess had heard those notes in the attic above her head.Dim, flattened, constrained by their confinement, they had never appealed to her as now, when they wandered in the still air with a stark quality like that of nudity.To speak absolutely, both instrument and execution were poor; but the relative is all, and as she listened Tess, like a fascinated bird, could not leave the spot.Far from leaving she drew up towards the performer, keeping behind the hedge that h e might not guess her presence.
The outskirt of the garden in which Tess found herself had been left uncultivated for so me years, and was now damp and rank with ju icy g rass which sent up mists of pollen at a touch; and with tall blooming weeds emitting offensive smells—weeds whose red and y ellow and purple hues formed a polychrome as dazzling as that o f cultivated flowers.She wen t stealthily as a cat throug h this p rofusion of grow th, gath ering cuckoo-spittle on h er skir ts, cracking sn ails that were underfo ot, staining her hands with thistle-milk and slug-slime, and rubb ing off upon h er naked arms sticky blights which, though snow-white on the apple-tree trunks, made madder stains on her skin; thus she drew quite near to Clare, still unobserved of him.
Tess was conscious of neither time nor space.The exaltation which she had described as being producible at will by gazing at a star, came now without any deter mination of h ers; she un dulated upo n the thin notes of the second-hand harp, and their har monies passed lik e breezes throug h her, bringing tears into her eyes.The floating pollen seemed to be his notes made visible, and the dampness of the garden the weeping of the garden's sensibility.Though near nightfall, the rank-smelling weed-flowers glowed as if they would not close fo r intentn ess, and th e waves of colou r mixed with the wav es of sound.
The light which stillsh one was derived mainly from a large hole in the western bank of cloud; it was like a p iece of day left behind by accident, dusk having closed in elsewhere.He concl uded his plaintive melody, a very simple performance, demanding no great skill; and she waited, thinking another mightbe begun.But, tired of p laying, he had desultor ily come round the fen ce, and was rambling up behind her.Tess, her cheeks on fire, moved away furtively, as if hardly moving at all.
Angel, however, saw her light summer gown, and he spoke; his low tones reaching her, though he was some distance off.
“What makes you draw off in that way, Tess?”said he.“Are you afraid?”
“Oh no, sir……not of outdoor things; especially just now when th eapple-blooth is falling, and everything so green.”
“But you have your indoor fears—eh?”
“Well—yes, Sir.”
“What of?”
“I couldn't quite say.”
“The milk turning sour?”
“No.”
“Life in general?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ah—so have I, very often.This hobble of b eing alive is rather ser ious, don't you think so?”
“It is—now you put it that way.”
All the same, I shouldn't have ex pected a young girl like you to see it so just yet.How is it you do?”
She maintained a hesitating silence.
“Come, Tess, tell me in confidence.”
She thought that he meant what were the aspects of things to her, an d replied shyly—
“The trees h ave inquisitive eyes, haven't they?—that is, seem as if the y had.And the river say s, —‘Why do ye trouble me with your looks?'And you seem to see numbers of tomorrow just all in a line, the first of them the biggest and clearest, the others getting smaller and smaller as they stand farther away; but they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they said, ‘I'm coming！Beware of me！Beware of me！'……But you, sir, can rais e up dreams with your music, and drive all such horrid fancies away！”
He was surprised to find this young woman—who though but a milkmaidhad just that touch of rarity about her which might make her the envied of her housemates—shaping s uch sad imaginings.She was expressing in her own native phrases—assisted a little by her Sixth Standard training—feelings which might almost have been called those of the age—the ache of modernism.The perception arrested him less when he reflected th at what are called advanced ideas ar e re ally in grea t part bu t t he la test fas hion in def inition—a mor e accurate expression, by words in logy and is m, of sensations which men and women have vaguely grasped for centuries.
Still, it was strange that they should have come to her while yet so young; more th an st range; it wa s impressiv e, inter esting, pathe tic.Not guessing the cause, there was nothing to remind him that experience is as to intens ity, and not as to duration.Tess's passing corporeal blight had been her mental harvest.
Tess, on her part, could not understand why a m an of clerical family and good education, and above physical want, should look upon it as a mishap to be alive.For th e unhappy pilgrim herself there was very good reason.But how could this admirab le an d poetic man ever hav e descended into th e Valley of Humiliation, have felt with the man of Uz—as she herself had felt two or three years ago—”My soul chooseth str angling and death r ather than my lif e.I loathe it; l would not live alway.”
It was true that he was at present out of his class.But she knew that was only because, like Peter the Great in a shipwright's yard, he was studying what he wanted to know.He did not milk cows because he was obliged to milk cows, but because he was learning how to be a rich and prosperous dairy man, landowner, agriculturist, and breeder of cattle.He would b ecome an American or Australian Abraham, commanding like a monarch his flocks and h is herds, his spotted and his ring straked, h is m enservants and his maids.At times, nevertheless, it did seem unaccoun table to her that a decidedly book ish, musical, thinking young man should have chosen deliberately to be a f armer, and not a clergyman, like his fathcr and brothers.
Thus, neither having the clue to the other's secret, they were r espectively puzzled at what each r evealed, and awaited n ew knowledge of each o ther's character and moods without attempting to pry into each other's history.
Every day, every hour, brought to him one more little stroke of her nature, and to her one more of his.Tess was trying to lead a repressed life, but she little divined the strength of her own vitality.
At first Tess seemed to regard Angel Clare as an intelligence rather than as a man.As such she co mpared him with he rself; and at ev ery discovery of th e abundance of his illuminations, of the distance between her own modest mental standpoint and the un measurable, Andean altitude of his, s he became quite dejected, disheartened from all further effort on her own part whatever.
He observed her dejection one day, when he had casually mentioned something to her about pastoral life in ancien t Greece.She was gathering the buds called“lords and ladies”from the bank while he spoke.
“Why do you look so woebegone all of a sudden?”he asked.
“Oh, 'tis only—about my own self, ”she said, with a frail laugh of sadness, fitfully beginning to peel“a lady”meanwhile.“Just a sense of what might have been with me！My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances！
When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am！I'm like the poor Queen of Sheba who lived in the Bible.There is no more spirit in me.”
“Bless my soul, do n't go troub ling about that！Why, ”he said with so me enthusiasm, “I should be only too glad, m y dear Tess, to help you to any thing in the way of history, or any line of reading you would like to take up—”
“It is a lady again, ”interrupted she, holding out the bud she had peeled.
“What?”
“I meant that there are always more ladies than lords when y ou come to peel them.”
“Never mind about the lords and ladies.Would you like to take up any course of study—history, for example?”
“Sometimes I feel I don't want to k now any thing more about it than I know already.”
“Why not?”
“Because what's the use of lear ning that I am one of a long r ow only—finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all.The best is not to remem ber that y our natur e and y our past doings have been just likethousands'a nd thousan ds', and that your coming lif e and do ings'll be like thousands'and thousands'.”
“What, really, then, you don't want to learn anything?”
“I shouldn't mind learning why—why the sun do shine on the just and the unjust alike, ”she answered, with a s light quaver in her voice.“But that's what books will not tell me.”
“Tess, fie fo r such bitter ness！”Of course he sp oke with a conventional sense of duty only, for that sort of wondering had not been unknown to himself in bygone days.And as he looked at the unpractised mouth and lips, he thought that such a daughter of the soil could only have caught up the sentiment by rote.She went on peeling the lords and ladies till Clare, regarding for a moment the wave-like cu rl of her lashes as they drooped with her ben t g aze on h er s oft cheek, lingeringly went away.When he was gone she stood awhile, thoughtfully peeling the last bud; and then, awakening from her reverie, flung it and all th e crowd of flor al nobility impatiently on the ground, in an ebullitio n of displeasure with herself for h er niaiseries, and with a quickening warmth in her heart of hearts.
How stupid he must think her！In an access of hunger for his good opinion she bethoug ht herself o f what she had latterly endeavour ed to for get, so unpleasant h ad been its issues—the identity of her fa mily with th at of th e knightly d'Urbervilles.Barren attr ibute as it was, disastrous as its d iscovery had been in many ways to her, perhaps Mr.Clare, as a gentleman and a student of history, would respect her sufficiently to forget her childish conduct with the lords and ladies if he kn ew that those Purbeck-marble and alabaster people in Kingsbere Church really represented her own lineal forefathers; that she was no spurious d'Urberville, compounded of money and ambition like th ose at Trantridge, but true d'Urberville to the bone.
But, befor e venturing to make the r evelation, d ubious T ess indir ectly sounded the dairyman as to its poss ible effect upon Mr.Clare, by asking th e former if Mr.Clare had any great respect for old county families when they had lost all their money and land.
“Mr.Clare, ”said the dairyman emphatically, “is one of the most rebellest rozums you ever knowed—not a bit like the res t of his family; and if there'sone thing that he do hate more than another'tis the notion of what's called a'old family.He say s that it stands to reason that old families have done their spurt of work in past days, and can't have anything left in'em now.There's the Billetts and the Drenkhar ds and the Greys and the St.Quintins and the Hardys and the Goulds, who used to own th e lands fo r miles down this va lley; y ou could buy'em all up now for an old song a'most.Why, our little Retty.Priddle here, you know, is one of the Paridelles—the old family that used to own lots o'the lands out by King's-Hintock now owned by the Earl o'Wessex, afore even he or his was heard of.Well, Mr.Clare found this out, and spoke quite scornful to the poor girl for day s.‘Ah！'he say s to her, ‘y ou'll never m ake a go od dairymaid！All your skill was used u p ages ago in Palestine, and you must lie fallow for a thousand years to git str ength for more deeds.‘A boy came here t'other day asking for a job, and said his name was Matt, and when we asked him his surn ame he s aid he'd never heard th at'a had any surname, and when we asked why, he said he supposed his folks h adn't been'stablished lo ng enough.‘Ah！y ou're the very boy I want！”s ays Mr.Clare, jum ping up and shaking hands wi'en; ‘I've great hop es of y ou; 'and gave h im half-acrown.O no！he can't stomach old families！”
After hearing this car icature of Clare's opinions poor T ess was glad th at she had not said a word in a weak moment about her family—even though it was so unusually old as almost to have gone round the circle and become a new one.Besides, another dairy-girl was as good as she, it seemed, in that respect.She held her tongue ab out the d'Urberville v ault, and the Knight of the Conqueror whose name she bore.The insigh t afforded into Clare's character suggested to her that it was lar gely owing to her suppos ed untr aditional newness that she had won interest in his eyes.
20
The sea son develop ed and maturcd.Another y ear's instalment o fflowers, leaves, nightingales, thrushes, finches, and such ephe meral creatures, took up their positions where only a year ago others had stood in their place when these were nothing more than germs and inorganic particles.Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scen ts in invisible jets and breathings.
Dairyman Crick's house hold of maids and men lived on com fort-ably, placidly, even merrily.Their position was perhaps the happiest of all position s in the social scale, being above the line at which neediness ends, and below the line at which the convenances begin to cramp natural feeling, and the stress of threadbare modishness makes too little of enough.
Thus passed the le afy time when ar borescence seems to be the one thing aimed at out of doors.Tess and Clare unconsciously studied each other, ever balanced on the edge of a passion, yet apparently keeping o ut of it.All the while they were converging, under an irresistible law, as surcly as two streams in one vale.
Tess had never in her recent life been so happy as she was now, possibly never would be so happy again.She was, for one thing, physically and mentally suited among these new surroundings.The sapling which had rooted down to a poisonous stratum on the spot of its s owing had b een transplanted to a deeper soil, Moreover she, and Clare also, stood as yet on the debatable land between predilection and love; where no profundities have been reached; no reflections have set in, awkwardly inquiring, “Whither does this new current tend to carry me?What does it mean to my future?How does it stand towards my past?”
Tess was the merest stray pheno menon to Angel Clare as yet—a rosy warming apparition which had only just acquired the attribute of persistence in his consciousness.So he allowed his mind to be occupied with her, deeming his preoccupation to be no more than a philosopher's regard of an exceed ingly novel, fresh, and interesting specimen of womankind.
They met continually; they could not help it.They met daily in that strange and solemn interval, the twilight of the morning, in the violet or pink dawn; for it was n ecessary to rise early, so ver y early, here.Milk ing was done b etimes; and before the milking came the skimming, which began at a little past three.It usually fell to the lot of some one or other of them to wake the rest, the first being aroused by an alar m-clock; and, as Tess was the lates t arrival, and they soon discov ered that sh e cou ld b e depended up on not to sleep through th e alarm as the others did, this task was thrust most frequen tly upon her.No sooner had the hour of three struck and whizzed, than she left her room and ran to th e dairy man's door; then up the ladder to Angel's, calling him in a loud whisper; then woke her fellow-milkmaids.By the time that Tess was dressed Clare was d ownstairs and out in the humid air.The remaining maids and the dairyman us ually gave themselves another turn on the p illow, and did not appear till a quarter of an hour later.
The gray half-tones of day break are not the gr ay half-tones of the day's close, though the degree of their shade may be the same.In the twilight of the morning light seems active, darkness passive; in the twilight of evening it is the darkness which is active and crescent, and the ligh t which is the drowsy reverse.
Being so often—possibly not alway s by chance—the first two persons to get up at the dairy-house, they seemed to themselves the first persons up of all the world.In these early days of her residence here Tess did not skim, but went out of doors at once after r ising, where h e was gener ally awaiting h er.The spectral, half-co mpounded, aqueous ligh t which pervaded the open mead, impressed them with a feeling of isolation, as if they were Adam and Eve.At this dim inceptive stage of the day Tess seemed to Clare to exhibit a dignified largeness both of dispos ition and physique, an almost regn ant power, possibly because he knew tha t at tha t pr eternatural time hardly any wom an so well endowed in person as sh e was likely to be walk ing in the open air within the boundaries o f his horizo n; very few in all Eng land.Fair wo men are usually asleep at midsummer dawns.She was close at hand, and the rest were nowhere.The mixed, singular, luminous gloom in which they walked along together to the spot where the cows lay, often made him think of the Resurrection hour.He little th ought that the Magdalen might b e at his s ide.Whilst all th e landscape was in neutral shade his companion's face, which was the focus of his ey es, r ising above the mist stratum, seemed to h ave a sort of phosphorescence upon it.She look ed ghostly, as if she wer e merely a sou l at large.In reality her face, without appearing to do so, had caught the cold gleam of day from the north-east, his own f ace, though he did not th ink of it, wo re the same aspect to her.
It was then, as has been said, that she impressed him most deeply.She was no longer the milkmaid, but a vis ionary essence of wo man—a whole sex condensed into one ty pical f orm.He cal led her Artemis, Demeter, and o ther fanciful names half teasingly, which she did not like because she did no t understand them.
“Call me Tess, ”she would say askance; and he did.
Then it wo uld grow lighter, and her features would become simplyfeminine; they had changed from those of a d ivinity who could confer bliss to those of a being who craved it.
At thes e no n-human h ours they cou ld get qu ite close to the water-fowl.Herons came, with a great bo ld noise as if open ing doors and shutters, our of the boughs of a plantation which they frequented at the side of the mead; or, if already on the spot, h ardily maintained their standing in th e water as the pair walked by, watching them by moving their heads round in a s low, horizontal, passionless wheel, like the turn of puppets by clockwork.
They could then see the fain t su mmer fogs in layers, woolly, leve l, an d apparently no thicker than counterpanes, spread about the meadows in detached remnants of small extent.On the gr ay moisture of the grass were marks where the cows had lain through the night—darkgreen islands of dry herbage the size of th eir car cases, in the general ses or dew.Fro m each island proceeded a serpentine trail, by which the cow had rambled away to feed after getting up, at the end of w hich trail th ey found her; the snoring puff from her nostrils when she recognized them, making an intens er little fog of her own amid th e prevailing one.Then they drove the animals back to the barton, or sat down tomilk them on the spot, as the case might require.
Or perhaps the summer fog was more general, and thc meadows lay like a white se a, o ut of whic h the sc attered trees ros c like dange rous rocks.Birds would scar through it into the upper radiance, and hang on the wing sunning themselves, or alight on the wet r ails subdividing the mead, which now shone like glass ro ds.Minute d iamonds of moisture from the mist hung, too, upon Tess's eyelashes, and drops upon her hair, like seed pearls.When the day grew quite strong and commonplace these dried off her; moreover, Tess then lost her strange and ethere al b eauty; her t eeth, lips, a nd ey es scinti llated i n th e sunbeams, and she was again the dazzlingly fair dairymaid only, who had to hold her own against the other women of the world.
About this time th ey would h ear Dairy man Crick's voice, lecturing th e non-resident milkers for arriv ing late, and sp eaking sharp ly to old Debo rah Fyander for not washing her hands.
“For Heaven's sake, pop thy hands under the pump, Deb！Upon my soul, if the London folk only knowed of thee and thy slovenly ways, they'd swaller their milk and butter more mincing than they do a'ready; and that's saying a good deal.”
The milking progressed, till towards the end T ess and Clare, in common with the rest, could hear the heavy breakfast table dragged out from the wall in the kitchen by Mrs.Crick, th is being the invariable preliminary to each meal; the same horrible scrape accompanying its return journey when th e table had been cleared.
21
There was a great stir in the milk-house just after breakfast The churnrevolved as usual, but the butter would not come.Whenever this happen ed the dairy was paralyzed.Squish, squash, echoed the milk in the great cylinder, but never arose the sound they waited for.
Dairyman Crick and his wife, the milkmaids Tess, Marian, Retty Priddle, Izz Huett, a nd the married ones fro m the cottages; also Mr.Clare, Jona than Kail, old Deborah, and the rest, stood gazing hopelessly at the churn; and the boy who kept the horse going outside put on moon-like eyes to show his sense of the situation.Even the melancholy horse h imself seemed to look in at the window in inquiring despair at each walk round.
“'Tis years since I went to Conjuror Trendle's son in Egdon—years！”said the dairyman bitterly.“And he was nothing to what his father had been.I have said f ifty times, if I h ave said once, that I don't believe in en And I do n't believe in en.But I shall have to go to'n if he's alive.O yes, I shall have to go to'n, if this sort of thing continnys！”
Even Mr.Clare began to feel tragical at the dairyman's desperation.
“Conjuror F all, t'other side of Cas terbridge, th at they used to call‘Wide-O, 'was a very good man when I was a bo y, ”said Jonathan Kail.“But he's rotten as touch-wood by now.”
“My grandfather used to go to Con juror My nterne, ou t at Owlsco mbe, and a clev er man a'were, so I've heard grandf'er say, ”continued Mr.Crick.“But there's no such genuine folk about nowadays！”
Mrs.Crick's mind kept nearer to the matter in hand.