It was a hazy sunrise in August. The denser nocturnal vapours, attacked by the warm beams, were dividing and shrinking into isolated fleeces within hollows and coverts, where they waited till they should be dried away to nothing The sun, on account of the mist, had a curious sentient, personal look, demanding the masculine pronoun for its adequate expression. His present aspect, coupled with the lack of all human forms in the scene, explained the oldtime heliolatries in a moment. One could feel that a saner religion had never prevailed under the sky. The luminary was a goldenhaired, beaming, mildeyed, Godlike creature, gazing down in the vigour and intentness of youth upon an earth that was brimming with interest for him His light, a little later, broke though chinks of cottage shutters, throwing stripes like redhot pokers upon cupboards, chests of drawers, and other furniture within and awakening harvesters who were not already astir But of all ruddy things that morning the brightest were two broad arms of painted wood, which rose from the margin of yellow cornfield hard by Marlott village. They, with two others below, formed the revolving Maltese cross of the reapingmachine, which had been brought to the field on the previous evening to be ready for operations this day. The paint with which they were smeared, intensified in hue by the sunlight, imparted to them a look of having been dipped in liquid fire The field had already been opened that is to say, a lane a few feet wide had been handcut through the wheat along the whole circumference of the field for the first passage of the horses and machine Two groups, one of men and lads, the other of women, had come down the lane just at the hour when the shadows of the eastern hedgetop struck the west hedge midway, so that the heads of the groups were enjoying sunrise while their feet were still in the dawn. They disappeared from the lane between the two stone posts which flanked the nearest fieldgate Presently there arose from within a ticking like the lovemaking of the grasshopper. The machine had begun, and a moving concatenation of three horses and the aforesaid long rickety machine was visible over the gate, a driver sitting upon one of the hauling horses, and an attendant on the seat of the implement. Along one side of the field the whole wain went, the arms of the mechanical reaper revolving slowly, till it passed down the hill quite out of sight. In a minute it came up on the other side of the field at the same equable pace the glistening brass star in the forehead of the fore horse first catching the eye as it rose into view over the stubble, then the bright arms, and then the whole machine The narrow lane of stubble encompassing the field grew wider with each circuit, and the standing corn was reduced to smaller area as the morning wore on. Rabbits, hares, snakes, rats, mice, retreated inwards as into a fastness, unaware of the ephemeral nature of their refuge, and of the doom that awaited them later in the day when, their covert shrinking to a more and more horrible narrowness, they were huddled together, friends and foes, till the last few yards of upright wheat fell also under the teeth of the unerring reaper, and they were every one put to death by the sticks and stones of the harvesters The reapingmachine left the fallen corn behind it in little heaps, each heap being of the quantity for a sheaf and upon these the active binders in the rear laid their handsmainly women, but some of them men in print shirts, and trousers supported round their waists by leather straps, rendering useless the two buttons behind, which twinkled and bristled with sunbeams at every movement of each wearer, as if they were a pair of eyes in the small of his back But those of the other sex were the most interesting of this company of binders, by reason of the charm which is acquired by woman when she becomes part and parcel of outdoor nature, and is not merely an object set down therein as at ordinary times. A fieldman is a personality afield a fieldwoman is a portion of the field she had somehow lost her own margin, imbibed the essence of her surrounding, and assimilated herself with it The womenor rather girls, for they were mostly youngwore drawn cotton bonnets with great flapping curtains to keep off the sun, and gloves to prevent their hands being wounded by the stubble. There was one wearing a pale pink jacket, another in a creamcoloured tightsleeved gown, another in a petticoat as red as the arms of the reapingmachine and others, older, in the brownrough wropper or overallthe oldestablished and most appropriate dress of the fieldwoman, which the young ones were abandoning. This morning the eye returns involuntarily to the girl in the pink cotton jacket, she being the most flexuous and finelydrawn figure of them all. But her bonnet is pulled so far over her brow that none of her face is disclosed while she binds, though her complexion may be guessed from a stray twine or two of dark brown hair which extends below the curtain of her bonnet. Perhaps one reason why she seduces casual attention is that she never courts it, though the other women often gaze around them Her binding proceeds with clocklike monotony. From the sheaf last finished she draws a handful of ears, patting their tips with her left palm to bring them even. Then stooping low she moves forward, gathering the corn with both hands against her knees, and pushing her left gloved hand under the bundle to meet the right on the other side, holding the corn in an embrace like that of a lover. She brings the ends of the bond together, and kneels on the sheaf while she ties it, beating back her skirts now and then when lifted by the breeze. A bit of her naked arm is visible between the buff leather of the gauntlet and the sleeve of her gown and as the day wears on its feminine smoothness becomes scarified by the stubble, and bleeds At intervals she stands up to rest, and to retie her disarranged apron, or to pull her bonnet straight. Then one can see the oval face of a handsome young woman with deep dark eyes and long heavy clinging tresses, which seem to clasp in a beseeching way anything they fall against. The cheeks are paler, the teeth more regular, the red lips thinner than is usual in a countrybred girl It is Tess Durbeyfield, otherwise dUrberville, somewhat changedthe same, but not the same at the present stage of her existence living as a stranger and an alien here, though it was no strange land that she was in. After a long seclusion she had come to a resolve to undertake outdoor work in her native village, the busiest season of the year in the agricultural world having arrived, and nothing that she could do within the house being so remunerative for the time as harvesting in the fields The movements of the other women were more or less similar to Tesss, the whole bevy of them drawing together like dancers in a quadrille at the completion of a sheaf by each, every one placing her sheaf on end against those of the rest, till a shock, or stitch as it was here called, of ten or a dozen was formed They went to breakfast, and came again, and the work proceeded as before. As the hour of eleven drew near a person watching her might have noticed that every now and then Tesss glance flitted wistfully to the brow of the hill, though she did not pause in her sheafing. On the verge of the hour the heads of a group of children, of ages ranging from six to fourteen, rose over the stubbly convexity of the hill The face of Tess flushed slightly, but still she did not pause The eldest of the comers, a girl who wore a triangular shawl, its corners draggling on the stubble, carried in her arms what at first sight seemed to be a doll, but proved to be an infant in long clothes. Another brought some lunch. The harvesters ceased working, took their provisions, and sat down against one of the shocks. Here they fell to, the men plying a stone jar freely, and passing round a cup Tess Durbeyfield had been one of the last to suspend her labours. She sat down at the end of the shock, her face turned somewhat away from her companions. When she had deposited herself a man in a rabbitskin cap and with a red handkerchief tucked into his belt, held the cup of ale over the top of the shock for her to drink. But she did not accept his offer. As soon as her lunch was spread she called up the big girl her sister, and took the baby off her, who, glad to be relieved of the burden, went away to the next shock and joined the other children playing there. Tess, with a curiously stealthy yet courageous movement, and with a still rising colour, unfastened her frock and began suckling the child The men who sat nearest considerately turned their faces towards the other end of the field, some of them beginning to smoke one, with absentminded fondness, regretfully stroking the jar that would no longer yield a stream. All the women but Tess fell into animated talk, and adjusted the disarranged knots of their hair When the infant had taken its fill the young mother sat it upright in her lap, and looking into the far distance dandled it with a gloomy indifference that was almost dislike then all of a sudden she fell to violently kissing it some dozens of times, as if she could never leave off, the child crying at the vehemence of an onset which strangely combined passionateness with contempt Shes fond of that there child, though she mid pretend to hate en, and say she wishes the baby and her too were in the churchyard, observed the woman in the red petticoat Shell soon leave off saying that, replied the one in buff. Lord, tis wonderful what a body can get used to o that sort in time! A little more than persuading had to do wi the coming ot, I reckon. There were they that heard a sobbing one night last year in The Chase and it mid ha gone hard wi a certain party if folks had come along. Well, a little more, or a little less, twas a thousand pities that it should have happened to she, of all others. But tis always the comeliest! The plain ones be as safe as churcheshey, Jenny? The speaker turned to one of the group who certainly was not illdefined as plain It was a thousand pities, indeed it was impossible for even an enemy to feel otherwise on looking at Tess as she sat there, with her flowerlike mouth and large tender eyes, neither black nor blue nor grey nor violet rather all those shades together, and a hundred others, which could be seen if one looked into their irisesshade behind shadetint beyond tintaround pupils that had no bottom an almost standard woman, but for the slight incautiousness of character inherited from her race A resolution which had surprised herself had brought her into the fields this week for the first time during many months. After wearing and wasting her palpitating heart with every engine of regret that lonely inexperience could devise, commonsense had illuminated her. She felt that she would do well to be useful againto taste anew sweet independence at any price. The past was past whatever it had been it was no more at hand. Whatever its consequences, time would close over them they would all in a few years be as if they had never been, and she herself grassed down and forgotten. Meanwhile the trees were just as green as before the birds sang and the sun shone as clearly now as ever. The familiar surroundings had not darkened because of her grief, nor sickened because of her pain She might have seen that what had bowed her head so profoundlythe thought of the worlds concern at her situationwas founded on an illusion. She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself. To all humankind besides Tess was only a passing thought. Even to friends she was no more than a frequently passing thought. If she made herself miserable the livelong night and day it was only this much to themAh, she makes herself unhappy. If she tried to be cheerful, to dismiss all care, to take pleasure in the daylight, the flowers, the baby, she could only be this idea to themAh, she bears it very well. Moreover, alone in a desert island would she have been wretched at what had happened to her? Not greatly. If she could have been but just created, to discover herself as a spouseless mother, with no experience of life except as the parent of a nameless child, would the position have caused her to despair? No, she would have taken it calmly, and found pleasure therein. Most of the misery had been generated by her conventional aspect, and not by her innate sensations Whatever Tesss reasoning, some spirit had induced her to dress herself up neatly as she had formerly done, and come out into the fields, harvesthands being greatly in demand just then. This was why she had borne herself with dignity, and had looked people calmly in the face at times, even when holding the baby in her arms The harvestmen rose from the shock of corn, and stretched their limbs, and extinguished their pipes. The horses, which had been unharnessed and fed, were again attached to the scarlet machine. Tess, having quickly eaten her own meal, beckoned to her eldest sister to come and take away the baby, fastened her dress, put on the buff gloves again, and stooped anew to draw a bond from the last completed sheaf for the tying of the next In the afternoon and evening the proceedings of the morning were continued, Tess staying on till dusk with the body of harvesters. Then they all rode home in one of the largest wagons, in the company of a broad tarnished moon that had risen from the ground to the eastwards, its face resembling the outworn goldleaf halo of some wormeaten Tuscan saint. Tesss female companions sang songs, and showed themselves very sympathetic and glad at her reappearance out of doors, though they could not refrain from mischievously throwing in a few verses of the ballad about the maid who went to the merry green wood and came back a changed state. There are counterpoises and compensations in life and the event which had made of her a social warning had also for the moment made her the most interesting personage in the village to many. Their friendliness won her still farther away from herself, their lively spirits were contagious, and she became almost gay But now that her moral sorrows were passing away a fresh one arose on the natural side of her which knew no social law. When she reached home it was to learn to her grief that the baby had been suddenly taken ill since the afternoon. Some such collapse had been probable, so tender and puny was its frame but the event came as a shock nevertheless The babys offence against society in coming into the world was forgotten by the girlmother her souls desire was to continue that offence by preserving the life of the child. However, it soon grew clear that the hour of emancipation for that little prisoner of the flesh was to arrive earlier than her worst misgiving had conjectured. And when she had discovered this she was plunged into a misery which transcended that of the childs simple loss. Her baby had not been baptized Tess had drifted into a frame of mind which accepted passively the consideration that if she should have to burn for what she had done, burn she must, and there was an end of it. Like all village girls she was well grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and had dutifully studied the histories of Aholah and Aholibah, and knew the inferences to be drawn therefrom. But when the same question arose with regard to the baby, it had a very different colour. Her darling was about to die, and no salvation It was nearly bedtime, but she rushed downstairs and asked if she might send for the parson. The moment happened to be one at which her fathers sense of the antique nobility of his family was highest, and his sensitiveness to the smudge which Tess had set upon that nobility most pronounced, for he had just returned from his weekly booze at Rollivers Inn. No parson should come inside his door, he declared, prying into his affairs, just then, when, by her shame, it had become more necessary than ever to hide them. He locked the door and put the key in his pocket The household went to bed, and, distressed beyond measure, Tess retired also. She was continually waking as she lay, and in the middle of the night found that the baby was still worse. It was obviously dyingquietly and painlessly, but none the less surely In her misery she rocked herself upon the bed. The clock struck the solemn hour of one, that hour when fancy stalks outside reason, and malignant possibilities stand rockfirm as facts. She thought of the child consigned to the nethermost corner of hell, as its double doom for lack of baptism and lack of legitimacy saw the archfiend tossing it with his threepronged fork, like the one they used for heating the oven on baking days to which picture she added many other quaint and curious details of torment sometimes taught the young in this Christian country. The lurid presentment so powerfully affected her imagination in the silence of the sleeping house that her nightgown became damp with perspiration, and the bedstead shook with each throb of her heart The infants breathing grew more difficult, and the mothers mental tension increased. It was useless to devour the little thing with kisses she could stay in bed no longer, and walked feverishly about the room O merciful God, have pity have pity upon my poor baby! she cried. Heap as much anger as you want to upon me, and welcome but pity the child! She leant against the chest of drawers, and murmured incoherent supplications for a long while, till she suddenly started up Ah! perhaps baby can be saved! Perhaps it will be just the same! She spoke so brightly that it seemed as though her face might have shone in the gloom surrounding her. She lit a candle, and went to a second and a third bed under the wall, where she awoke her young sisters and brothers, all of whom occupied the same room. Pulling out the washingstand so that she could get behind it, she poured some water from a jug, and made them kneel around, putting their hands together with fingers exactly vertical. While the children, scarcely awake, awestricken at her manner, their eyes growing larger and larger, remained in this position, she took the baby from her beda childs childso immature as scarce to seem a sufficient personality to endow its producer with the maternal title. Tess then stood erect with the infant on her arm beside the basin, the next sister held the PrayerBook open before her, as the clerk at church held it before the parson and thus the girl set about baptizing her child Her figure looked singularly tall and imposing as she stood in her long white nightgown, a thick cable of twisted dark hair hanging straight down her back to her waist. The kindly dimness of the weak candle abstracted from her form and features the little blemishes which sunlight might have revealedthe stubble scratches upon her wrists, and the weariness of her eyesher high enthusiasm having a transfiguring effect upon the face which had been her undoing, showing it as a thing of immaculate beauty, with a touch of dignity which was almost regal. The little ones kneeling round, their sleepy eyes blinking and red, awaited her preparations full of a suspended wonder which their physical heaviness at that hour would not allow to become active The most impressed of them said Be you really going to christen him, Tess? The girlmother replied in a grave affirmative Whats his name going to be? She had not thought of that, but a name suggested by a phrase in the book of Genesis came into her head as she proceeded with the baptismal service, and now she pronounced it Sorrow, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. She sprinkled the water, and there was silence Say Amen, children. The tiny voices piped in obedient response Amen! Tess went on We receive this childand so forthand do sign him with the sign of the Cross. Here she dipped her hand into the basin, and fervently drew an immense cross upon the baby with her forefinger, continuing with the customary sentences as to his manfully fighting against sin, the world, and the devil, and being a faithful soldier and servant unto his lifes end. She duly went on with the Lords Prayer, the children lisping it after her in a thin gnatlike wail, till, at the conclusion, raising their voices to clerks pitch, they again piped into silence, Amen! Then their sister, with much augmented confidence in the efficacy of the sacrament, poured forth from the bottom of her heart the thanksgiving that follows, uttering it boldly and triumphantly in the stoptdiapason note which her voice acquired when her heart was in her speech, and which will never be forgotten by those who knew her. The ecstasy of faith almost apotheosized her it set upon her face a glowing irradiation, and brought a red spot into the middle of each cheek while the miniature candleflame inverted in her eyepupils shone like a diamond. The children gazed up at her with more and more reverence, and no longer had a will for questioning. She did not look like Sissy to them now, but as a being large, towering, and awfula divine personage with whom they had nothing in common Poor Sorrows campaign against sin, the world, and the devil was doomed to be of limited brilliancyluckily perhaps for himself, considering his beginnings. In the blue of the morning that fragile soldier and servant breathed his last, and when the other children awoke they cried bitterly, and begged Sissy to have another pretty baby. The calmness which had possessed Tess since the christening remained with her in the infants loss. In the daylight, indeed, she felt her terrors about his soul to have been somewhat exaggerated whether well founded or not she had no uneasiness now, reasoning that if Providence would not ratify such an act of approximation she, for one, did not value the kind of heaven lost by the irregularityeither for herself or for her child So passed away Sorrow the Undesiredthat intrusive creature, that bastard gift of shameless Nature who respects not the social law a waif to whom eternal Time had been a matter of days merely, who knew not that such things as years and centuries ever were to whom the cottage interior was the universe, the weeks weather climate, newborn babyhood human existence, and the instinct to suck human knowledge Tess, who mused on the christening a good deal, wondered if it were doctrinally sufficient to secure a Christian burial for the child. Nobody could tell this but the parson of the parish, and he was a newcomer, and did not know her. She went to his house after dusk, and stood by the gate, but could not summon courage to go in. The enterprise would have been abandoned if she had not by accident met him coming homeward as she turned away. In the gloom she did not mind speaking freely I should like to ask you something, sir. He expressed his willingness to listen, and she told the story of the babys illness and the extemporized ordinance. And now, sir, she added earnestly, can you tell me thiswill it be just the same for him as if you had baptized him? Having the natural feelings of a tradesman at finding that a job he should have been called in for had been unskilfully botched by his customers among themselves, he was disposed to say no. Yet the dignity of the girl, the strange tenderness in her voice, combined to affect his nobler impulsesor rather those that he had left in him after ten years of endeavour to graft technical belief on actual scepticism. The man and the ecclesiastic fought within him, and the victory fell to the man My dear girl, he said, it will be just the same. Then will you give him a Christian burial? she asked quickly The Vicar felt himself cornered. Hearing of the babys illness, he had conscientiously gone to the house after nightfall to perform the rite, and, unaware that the refusal to admit him had come from Tesss father and not from Tess, he could not allow the plea of necessity for its irregular administration Ahthats another matter, he said Another matterwhy? asked Tess, rather warmly WellI would willingly do so if only we two were concerned. But I must notfor certain reasons. Just for once, sir! Really I must not. O sir! She seized his hand as she spoke He withdrew it, shaking his head Then I dont like you! she burst out, and Ill never come to your church no more! Dont talk so rashly. Perhaps it will be just the same to him if you dont? ... Will it be just the same? Dont for Gods sake speak as saint to sinner, but as you yourself to me myselfpoor me! How the Vicar reconciled his answer with the strict notions he supposed himself to hold on these subjects it is beyond a laymans power to tell, though not to excuse. Somewhat moved, he said in this case also It will be just the same. So the baby was carried in a small deal box, under an ancient womans shawl, to the churchyard that night, and buried by lanternlight, at the cost of a shilling and a pint of beer to the sexton, in that shabby corner of Gods allotment where He lets the nettles grow, and where all unbaptized infants, notorious drunkards, suicides, and others of the conjecturally damned are laid. In spite of the untoward surroundings, however, Tess bravely made a little cross of two laths and a piece of string, and having bound it with flowers, she stuck it up at the head of the grave one evening when she could enter the churchyard without being seen, putting at the foot also a bunch of the same flowers in a little jar of water to keep them alive. What matter was it that on the outside of the jar the eye of mere observation noted the words Keelwells Marmalade? The eye of maternal affection did not see them in its vision of higher things
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