Speaker 1: Chapter twenty five, Claire restless went out into the dusk.
When evening drew on, she who had won him, having
retired to her chamber. The night was as sultry as
the day. There was no coolness after dark, unless on
the grass roads, garden paths, the house fronts. The Barton
walls were warm as hearths and reflected the noontide temperature
into the noctambulist's face. He sat in the east gate
of the dairy yard and knew not what to think
of himself. Feeling had indeed smothered judgment that day since
the sudden embrace three hours before the twain had kept apart.
She seemed stilled, almost alarmed at what had occurred, while
the novelty, unpremeditation mastery of circumstance disquieted him pulpitating contemplation.
Being that he was, he could hardly realize their true
relations to each other as yet, and what their mutual
bearing should be before third parties. Henceforward, Angel had come
as pupil to this dairy in the idea that his
temporary residence here was to be the merest episode in
his life soon passed through and easily forgotten. He had
come as to a place from which, as to a
screened alcove, he could calmly view the absorbing world without
and apostrophizing it with Walt Whitman, crowds of men and
women attired in the usual costumes. How curious you are
to me resolve upon a plan for plunging into that
world anew But behold, the absorbing scene had been imported.
Hither what had been the engrossing world had dissolved into
an uninteresting, outer dumb show. While in this apparently dim
and impassioned place, novelty had volcanically started up, as it
had never for him started up elsewhere. Every window of
the house being open, Claire could hear across the yard,
each trivial sound of the retiring household, that dairy house,
so humble, so insignificant, so purely to him, a place
of constrained sojourn, that he had never hitherto deemed it
of sufficient importance to be reconnointed as an object of
any quality whatever in the landscape. What was it now?
The aged and lichened brick gables breathed forth stay, the
windows smiled, the door coaxed and beckoned, the creeper blushed confederacy,
a personality within it was so far reaching in her
influence as to spread into and make the bricks, mortar
and whole overhanging sky throb with a burning sensibility. Whose
was this mighty personality a milkmaid's. It was amazing, indeed
to find how great a matter the life of the
obscure dairy had become to him. And though new Love
was to be held partly responsible for this, it was
not solely. So. Many besides Angel have learned that the
magnitude of lives is not as to their external displacements,
but as to their subjective experiences. The impressionable peasant leaves
a larger, fuller, more dramatic life than the pachydermatous king.
Looking at it, thus, he found that life was to
be seen of the same magnitude here as elsewhere. Despite
his heterodoxy, faults and weaknesses, Claire was a man of conscience.
Tess was no insignificant creature to toy with and dismiss,
but a woman living her precious life, a life which
to herself who endured or enjoyed it, possessed as great
a dimension as the life of the mightiest to himself
upon her sensations. The whole world depended to Tess. Through
her existence, all her fellow creatures existed to her. The
universe itself only came into being for Tess on the
particular day, in the particular year in which she was born.
This consciousness upon which he had intruded was the single
opportunity of existence ever vouchsafed to Tess by an unsympathetic
first cause her all her every and only chance. How then,
should he look upon her as of less consequence than himself,
as a pretty trifle to caress and grow weary of,
and not deal in the great seriousness with the affection
which he knew that he had awakened in her, so
fervid and so rationable as she was under her reserve,
in order that it might not agonize and wreck her.
To encounter her daily in the accustomed manner would be
to develop what had begun. Living in such close relations,
to meet meant to fall into endearment flesh and blood
could not resist it, And having arrived at no conclusion
as to the issue of such a tendency, he decided
to hold aloof for the present from occupations in which
they would be mutually engaged. As yet, the harm done
was small, But it was not easy to carry out
the resolution never to approach her. He was driven towards
her by every heave of his pulse. He thought he
would go and see his friends. It might be possible
to sound them upon this. In less than five months
his term here would have ended, and after a few
additional months spent upon other farms, he would be fully
equipped in agriculture knowledge and in a position to start
on his own account. Would not a farmer want a wife?
And should a farmer's wife be a drawing room wax
figure or a woman who understood farming? Notwithstanding the pleasing
answer returned to him by the silence, he resolved to
go his journey. One morning, when they sat down at
breakfast at Talbethoy's dairy, some maid observed that she had
not seen anything of mister Clare that day. Oh no,
said dairyman Crik, mister Clare has gone home to Emminster
to spend a few days with his kinfolk. For four
impassioned ones around that table, the sunshine of the morning
went out at a stroke, and the birds muffled their song.
But neither girl by word or gesture, revealed her blankness.
He's getting on towards the end of his tome, wi me,
added the dairy man, with a phlegm which unconsciously was brutal.
And so I suppose he is beginning to see about
his plans elsewhere. How much longer is he to boyd? Here?
Asked is Hewett, the only one of the gloom stricken
Bevy who could trust her voice with the question. The
others waited for the dairy Man's answer, as if their
lives hung upon it. Retty, with parted lips gazing on
the tablecloth, Marian with heat added to her redness. Tess
throbbing and looking out at the meads. Well, I can't
mind thy exact day without looking at my memorandum book,
replied Crick, with the same intolerable unconcern. And even that
may be altered a bit. He'll bowed to get a
little practice in the carve in out at the stray yard.
For certain, he lung on to the end of the year,
I should say, four months or so of torturing ecstasy
in his society of pleasure, girded about with pain. After that,
the blackness of unutterable night At this moment of the morning,
Angel Clare was riding along a narrow lane ten miles
distance from the Breakfasters, in the direction of his father's
vicarage at Emminster, carrying as well as he could a
little basket which contained some black puddings and a bottle
of mead, sent by Missus Crick with her kind regards
to his parents. The white lane stretched before him, and
his eyes were upon it, but they were staring into
the next year, and not at the lane. He loved her,
ought he to marry her? Dared he to marry her?
What would his mother and brothers say? What would he
himself say in a couple of years after the event?
That would depend upon whether the germs of staunch comradeship
underlay the temporary emotion, or whether it were a sensuous
joy in her form only with no substratum of everlastingness.
His father's hill surrounded little town, the Tudor church tower
of red Stone, the clump of trees near the vicarage
came at last into view beneath him, and he rode
down towards the well known gate, casting a glance in
the direction of the church before entering his home. He
beheld standing by the vestry door a group of girls,
ages between twelve and sixteen, apparently awaiting the arrival of
some other one, who in a moment became visible a
figure somewhat older than the schoolgirls, wearing a broad brimmed
hat and highly starched cambric morning gown, with a couple
of books in her hand. Claire knew her well, he
could not be sure that she observed him. He hoped
she did not, so as to render it unnecessary that
he should go and speak to her. Blameless creature that
she was an overpowering reluctance to greet her made him
decide that she had not seen him. The young lady
was Miss Mercy Chant, the only daughter of his father's
neighbor and friend, whom it was his parents quiet hope
that he might wed some day. She was great at
Antiinemanianism and Bible classes, and was plainly going to hold
a class. Now Claire's mind flew to the impassioned, summer
steeped heathens of the var Vale, their rosy faces caught
patched with cow droppings, and to one the most impassioned
of them all. It was on the impulse of the
moment that he resolved to trot over to Emminster, and
hence had not written to apprize his father and mother, aiming, however,
to arrive about the breakfast hour before they should have
gone out to their Paris duties. He was a little late,
and they had already sat down to the morning meal.
The group at table jumped up to welcome him as
soon as he entered. They were his father and mother,
his brother, the Reverend Felix Curate at a town in
the adjoining county, home for the inside of a fortnight,
and his other brother, the Reverend Cuthbert, the classical scholar
and fellow and dean of his college, down from Cambridge
for the long vacation. His mother appeared in a cap
and silver spectacles, and his father looked what in fact
he was an earnest, god fearing man, somewhat gaunt in years,
about sixty five, his pale face lined with thought and purpose.
Over their heads hung the picture of Angel's sister, the
eldest of the family, sixteen years his senior, who had
married a missionary and gone out to Africa. Old mister
Clare was a clergyman of a type which within the
last twenty years has well nigh dropped out of contemporary life.
A spiritual descendant in the direct line from Wickcliffe Huss
Luther Calvin, an evangelical of the Evangelicals, a conversionist, a
man of apostolic simplicity in life and thought. He had
in his raw youth made up his mind once and
for all on the deeper questions of existence, and admitted
no further reasoning on them. Henceforward he was regarded even
by those of his own date and school of thinking,
as extreme, while on the other hand, those totally opposed
to him were unwillingly one to admiration for his thoroughness
and for the remarkable power he showed in dismissing all
question as to principles in his energy for applying them.
He loved Paul of Tarsus, liked Saint John, hated Saint
James as much as he dared, and regarded with mixed
feelings Timothy Titus and Philammon. The New Testament was less
a christiad than a poorlead to his intelligence, less an
argument than an intoxication. His creed of determinism was such
that it almost amounted to a vice, and quite a
man mounted on its negative side, to a remunerative philosophy
which had cousinship with that of Schoppenhauser and Lopardi. He
despised the canons and the rubric, swore by the articles,
and deemed himself consistent through the whole category, which, in
a way he might have been. One thing. He certainly
was sincere to the esthetic, sensuous pagan pleasure in natural
life and lush womanhood which his son Angel had lately
been experiencing in vole Vail. His temper would have been
quite antipathetic in a high degree, had he, either by
inquiry or imagination, been able to apprehend it. Once upon
a time, Angel had been so unlucky as to say
to his father, in a moment of irritation, that it
might have resulted far better for mankind if Greece had
been the source of the religion of modern civilization and
not Palestine. And his father's grief was of that blank
Deay inscription, which could not realize that there might lurk
a thousandth part of a truth, much less a half
truth or a whole truth. In such a proposition. He
had simply preached austerely at Angel for some time after,
But the kindness of his heart was such that he
never resented anything for long, and welcomed his son to
day with a smile which was as candidly sweet as
a child's. Angel sat down, and the place felt like home.
Yet he did not so much as formerly feel himself
one of the family gathered there every time that he
returned hither, he was conscious of this divergence, and since
he had last shared in the vicarage life, it had
grown even more distinctly foreign to his own than usual,
Its transcendental aspirations, still unconsciously based on the geocentric view
of things, a zenithyl paradise, a nadiral hell, was as
foreign to his own as if they had been the
dreams of people on another planet. Latterly, he had seen
only life, felt only the great passionate pulse of existence, unwarped, uncontorted,
untrammeled by those creeds which futilely attempt to check what
wisdom would be content to regulate. On their part, they
saw a great difference in him, a growing divergence from
the Angel clear of former times. It was chiefly a
difference in his manner that they noticed, just now, particularly
his brothers. He was getting to behave like a farmer.
He flung his legs about, the muscles of his face
had grown more expressive, his eyes looked as much information
as his tongue spoke, and more. The manner of the
scholar had nearly disappeared. Still more, the manner of the
drawing room young man. A prig would have said that
he had lost culture, and a prude that he had
become core. Such was the contagion of domiciliary fellowship with
the talbothois, nymphs and swains. After breakfast, he walked with
his two brothers, non evangelical, well educated, hall marked young men,
correct to their remotest fiber, such unimpeachable models as are
turned out yearly by the lathe of a systematic tuition.
They were both somewhat short sighted, and when it was
the custom to wear a single eye glass and a string,
they wore a single eye glass and a string. When
it was the custom to wear a double glass, they
wore a double glass. When it was the custom to
wear spectacles, they wore spectacles straightway, all without reference to
the particular variety of defect in their own vision. When
Wordsworth was enthroned, they carried pocket copies, and when Shelley
was belittled, they allowed him to grow dusty on their shelves.
When Correggio's holy families were admired, they admired Correggio's holy families.
When he was decried in favor of Velasquez, they sedulously
followed suit, without any personal objection. If these two noticed
angels growing social ineptness, he noticed their growing mental limitations.
Felix seemed to him all Church, Cuthbert, all College, his
diocesan synod, and visitations were the mainspring of the world.
To the one cambridge to the other. Each brother candidly
recognized that there were a few unimportant scores of millions
of outsiders in civilized society, persons who were neither university
men nor churchmen. But they were to be tolerated rather
than reckoned, with than respected. They were both dutiful and
attentive sons, and were regular in their visits to their parents. Felix,
though an offshoot from a far more recent point in
the devolution of theology than his father, was less self
sacrificing and disinterested, more tolerant than his father of a
contradictory opinion in its aspect as a danger to its holder.
He was less ready than his father to pardon it
as a slight to his own teaching. Cuthbert was, on
the whole the more liberal minded, though with a greater subtlety,
he had not so much heart. As they walked along
the hillside, Angel's former feeling revived in him that whatever
their advantages, by comparison with himself, neither sow nor set
forth life as it really was lived. Perhaps, as with
many men, their opportunities of observation were not so good
as their opportunities of expression. Neither had an adequate conception
of the complicated forces at work outside the smooth and
gentle current in which they and their associates floated. Neither
saw the difference between local truth and universal truth. That
what the inner world said in their clerical and academic
hearing was quite a different thing from what the outer
world was thinking. I suppose it is farming or nothing
for you, now, my dear fellow, Felix was saying, among
other things, to his youngest brother, as he looked through
his spectacles at the distant fields with sad austerity. And
therefore we must make the best of it. But I
do entreat you to endeavor to keep as much as
possible in touch with moral ideas. Farming, of course means
roughing it externally, but high thinking may go with plain living. Nevertheless,
of course it may, said Angel. Was it not proven
nineteen hundred years ago? If I made trespass upon your
domain a little? Why should you think, Felix, that I
am likely to drop my high thinking and my moral ideals? Well?
I fancied from the tone of your letters and our conversation,
it may be fancy only that you were somehow losing
intellectual grasp. Hasn't it struck you, Cuthbert? Now, Felix said
Angel dryly. We are very good friends, you know, each
of us treading our allotted circles. But if it comes
to intellectual grasp, I think you, as a contented dogmatist,
had better leave mine alone and inquire at what has
become of yours. They returned down the hill to dinner,
which were fixed at any time at which their father's
and mother's morning work in the parish usually concluded. Convenience,
as regarded afternoon callers, was the last thing to enter
into the consideration of selfish mister and Missus Clare. Though
the three sons were sufficiently in unison on this matter
to wish that their parents would conform a little to
modern notions, the walk had made them hungry, Angel in particular,
who was now an outdoor man, accustomed to the profuse
d'arpay's in empty of the dairy man somewhat coarsely laden table.
But neither of the old people had arrived, and it
was not till the sons were almost tired of waiting
that their parents entered. The self denying pair had been
occupied in coaxing the appetites of some of their sick parishioners,
whom they somewhat inconsistently tried to keep imprisoned in the flesh,
their own appetites being quite forgotten. The family sat down
to table, and a frugal meal of cold viands was
deposited before them. Angel looked round for Missus Crick's black puddings,
which he had directed to be nicely grilled as they
did them at the dairy, and of which he wished
his father and mother to appreciate the marvelous herbal savors
as highly as he did himself. Ah, you are looking
for the black puddings, my dear boy, observed Claire's mother.
But I am sure you will not mind doing without them,
as I am sure your father and I shall not,
when you know the reason. I suggested to him that
we should take missus Crick's kind present to the children
of the man who can earn nothing just now because
of his tax of delirium tremens. And he agreed that
it would be a great pleasure to them. So we did,
of course, said Angel, cheerfully, looking round for the mead.
I found the mead so extremely alcoholic, continued his mother.
That it was quite unfit for use as a beverage,
but as valuable as rum or brandy in emergency. So
I have put it in my medicine chest. We never
drink spirits of this table on principle, added his father.
But what shall I tell the dairyman's wife, said Angel,
The truth, of course, said his father. I rather wanted
to say we had enjoyed the mead and the black
puddings very much. She is a kind, jolly sort of body,
and is sure to ask me directly. I return, Oh,
you cannot if we did not, mister Clay answered lucidly.
Ah No, though that mead was a drop of pretty tipple.
Oh what said Cuthbert and Felix both Oh tis an
expression they used down at Talbothay's, replied, Angel blushing. He
felt that his parents were right in their practice, if
wrong in their want of sentiment, and said no more.
End of Chapter twenty five.