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Speaker 1: Chapter twenty four. Amid the using fatness and warm ferments

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of the Vile Vale, at a season when the rush

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of juices could almost be heard below the hiss of fermentation,

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it was impossible that the most fanciful love should not

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grow passionate. The ready bosoms existing there were impregnated by

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their surroundings. June passed over their heads, and the Thermidorian

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weather which had come in its wake seemed an effort

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on the part of nature to match the state of hearts.

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At Talbothay's Dairy, the air of the place, so fresh

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in the spring and early summer, was stagnant and enervating.

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Now its heavy scents weighed upon them, and at midday

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the landscape seemed lying in a swoon. Ethiopic scorchings browned

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the upper slopes of the pastures, but there were still

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bright green herbage here where the watercourses purled. And as

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Claire was oppressed by the outward heats, so was he

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burdened inwardly by waxing fervor of passion. For the soft

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and silent tests the rains having passed, the uplands were dry.

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The wheels of the dairyman's spring cart as he sped

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home from market, licked up the pulverized surface of the highway,

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and were followed by white ribbons of dust, as if

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they had set a thin powder train on fire. The

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cows jumped wildly over the five barred Barton Gate, maddened

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by the gad fly. Dairyman Creek kept his shirt sleeves

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permanently rolled up from Monday to Saturday. Open windows had

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no effect on ventilation. Without open doors and the dairy garden,

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the blackbirds and thrushes crept out among the currant bushes,

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rather in the manner of quadrupeds than of winged creatures.

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The flies in the kitchen were lazy, teasing and familiar,

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crawling about in unwonted places on the floor, into drawers

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and over the backs of the milkmaid's hands. Conversations were

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concerning sunstroke, while butter making and still more butter making

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was a despair. They milked entirely in the meads for

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coolness and convenience, without driving in the cows. During the day,

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the animals obsequiously followed the shadow of the smallest tree

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as it moved round the stem with the diurnal roll,

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and when the milkers came, they could hardly stand still

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for the flies. On one of these afternoons, four or

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five unmilked cows chanced to stand apart from the general herd,

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behind the corner of a hedge, among them being Dumpling,

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an old pretty who loved Tess's hands above those of

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any other maid. When she rose from her stool under

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a finished cow, Angel Claire, who had been observing her

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for some time, asked her if she would take the

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aforesaid creatures next. She silently assented, and, with her stool

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at arm's length and the pail against her knee, went

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round to where they stood. Soon the sound of old

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Pretty's milk fizzing into the pail came through the hedge,

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and then Angel felt inclined to go round the corner,

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also to finish off a hard yielding milcher who had

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strayed there, he being now as capable of this as

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the dairyman himself. All the men and some of the women,

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when milking, dug their foreheads into the cows and gazed

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into the pail, but a few, mainly the younger ones,

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rested their heads sideways. This was Tess Durbeyfield's habit her temple,

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pressing the milcher's flank, her eyes fixed on the far

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end of the meadow, with the quiet of one lost

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in meditation. She was milking Old Pretty, and the sun

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chancing to be on the milking side. It shone flat

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against her pink gowned form and her white curtained bonnet,

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and upon her profile, rendering it keen as a cameo

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cut from the dun background of the cow. She did

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not know that Claire had followed her round, and that

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he sat under his cow watching her. The stillness of

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her head and features was remarkable. She might have been

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in a trance, her eyes open yet unseeing. Nothing in

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the picture moved but Old Pretty's tail and Tess's pink hands,

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the latter so gently as to be a rhythmic pulsation,

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only as if they were obeying a reflex stimulus, like

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a beating heart. How very lovable her face was to him,

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Yet there was nothing ethereal about it. All was real vitality,

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real warmth, real incarnation. And it was in her mouth

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that this culminated. Eyes almost as deep and speaking as

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he had seen before, and cheeks perhaps as fair, brows

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as arched, a chin and throat almost as shapely her mouth.

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He had seen nothing to equal on the face of

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the earth. To a young man with the least fire

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in him, that little upward lift in the middle of

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her red top lip was distracting, infatuating, maddening. He had

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never before seen a woman's lips and teeth which forced

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upon his mind with such persistent iteration, the old Elizabethan

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simele of roses filled with snow perfect. He, as a lover,

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might have called them off hand, but no, they were

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not perfect, and it was the touch of the imperfect

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upon the would be perfect that gave the sweetness, because

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it was that which gave the humanity. Claire had studded

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the curves of those lips so many times that he

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could reproduce them mentally with ease. And now, as they

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again confronted him, clothed with colour and life, they sent

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an aura over his flesh, a breeze through his nerves,

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which well nigh produced a qualm, and actually produced, by

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some mysterious physiological process, a prosaic sneeze. She then became

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conscious that he was observing her, but she would not

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show it by any change of position. Though the curious

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dreamlike fixity disappeared, and a close eye might easily have

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discerned that the rosiness of her face deepened and then faded,

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till only a tinge of it was left. The influence

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that had passed into Clare, like an excitation from the sky,

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did not die down. Resolutions, reticences, prudences, fears fell back

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like a defeated battalion. He jumped up from his seat, and,

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leaving his pail to be kicked over if the milcher

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had such a mind, went quickly toward the desire of

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his eyes, and, kneeling down beside her, clasped her in

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his arms. Tess was taken completely by surprise, and she

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yielded to his embrace with unreflecting inevitableness, having seen that

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it was really her lover who had advanced, and no

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one else. Her lips parted and she sank upon him

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in her momentary joy, with something like a very ecstatic cry.

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He had been on the point of kissing that too

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tempting mouth, but he had checked himself for tender conscience sake.

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Forgive me, Tess, dear, he whispered, I ought to have asked,

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I did not know what I was doing. I do

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not mean it as a liberty. I am devoted to you,

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Tessy dearest, in all sincerity. Old pretty by this time

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had looked round, puzzled and seeing two people crouching under

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her war where by immemorial custom there should have been

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only one. Lifted her hind leg crossly. She's angry. She

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doesn't know what we mean. She'll kick over the milk,

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exclaimed Tess, gently, striving to be free herself, her eyes

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concerned with the quadruped's action, her heart more deeply concerned

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with herself and clear, she slipped up from her seat

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and they stood together, his arm still encircling her. Tess's eyes,

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fixed on distance, began to fill. Why do you cry,

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my darling, he said, Oh, I don't know, She murmured,

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as she saw and felt more clearly the position she

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was in. She became agitated and tried to withdraw. Well,

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I have betrayed my feeling, Tess. At last, said he,

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with a curious sigh of desperation, signifying unconsciously that his

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heart had outrun his judgment, that I love you dearly,

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and truly I need not say, but I it shall

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go no further now it distresses you I am surprised

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as you are. You will not think I have presumed

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upon your defenselessness, being too quick and unreflecting, will you,

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I can't tell. He had allowed her to free herself,

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and in a minute or two the milking of each

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was resumed. Nobody had beheld the gravitation of the two

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into one, and when the dairy man came round by

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that screened nook a few minutes later, there was not

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a sign to reveal that the markedly sundered pair were

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more to each other than mere acquaintance. Yet in the

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interval since Quick's last view of them, something had occurred

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which changed the pivot of the universe for their two natures,

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something which, had he known its quality, the Dairyman would

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have despised as a practical man, Yet which was based

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upon a more stubborn and restless tendency than a whole

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heap of so called practicalities. A veil had been whisked aside.

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The tract of each one's outlook was to have a

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new horizon. Henceforward for a short time or for a long.

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End of Chapter twenty four