feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_9_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapters 39-41
feat_summary_id: chapters 39-41
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters 39-41", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151046/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary-and-analysis/phase-the-fifth-the-woman-pays-chapters-3941", "summary": "Angel returns home to his parents in Emminster. He brings up the possibility of going to Brazil to be a farmer with his family. Naturally, they are taken aback at his suggestion of so sudden a move, far away to another land. Angel's idea is to work for a year in Brazil and to bring Tess later when he is established. His parents ask about her character and physical attributes, which Angel says are the best. Angel meets his former intended bride, Mercy Chant, on his way home. They discuss his upcoming journey to Brazil where he says to her \"I think I am going crazy.\" Angel puts away the jewelry and money for Tess with a local banker and meets Izz Huett on his way back to his house. He asks Izz if she will join him for the trip to Brazil and she agrees. He realizes his impetuous actions and reconsiders asking Izz to leave with him. Five days later, Angel leaves for Brazil. Eight months pass, and Tess is in dire straits with little income and irregular work. She gives half of her money to fix the roof on her family's home at Marlott and uses the rest for food and clothing. She is down to her last pennies when she remembers a letter from Marian and prospects for a job as a field woman, grueling work at best. Tess' journey takes her from Marlott to Flintcomb-Ash, not far from her home. On the way, because she hasn't even enough money for lodgings, she sleeps in a forest, where she encounters wounded pheasants shot by hunters who have lost track of the injured creatures. To put them out of their misery, Tess kills the suffering birds.", "analysis": "Angel makes a hasty decision to try farming in Brazil. He pitches the idea to his parents who are surprised at his sudden decision. They also are curious as to the whereabouts of Tess, his new bride. At the nightly reading of the Bible, Angel hears a reading from Proverbs 31:10 on the attributes of a virtuous woman. When he hears these words, Angel cries bitterly. His parents are quite concerned, and Angel tells some of what has happened to Tess, but not all, and when his mother questions Tess' virtue -- \"is she a woman whose history will bear investigation?\" -- Angel replies \"She is spotless!\" and then feels anger toward Tess for putting him in a situation where he must deceive his parents. The irony is clear. Tess is a virtuous woman; the problem rests with Angel -- \"there hung a deeper shade than the shade which Angel Clare perceived, namely, the shade of his own limitation.\" The Clares are sure Angel can cure any defects in Tess, \"Any crudeness of manner which may offend your more educated sense at first, will, I am sure, disappear under the influence or your companionship and tuition.\" However, it is Angel's own lack of flexibility that hinders him, thus making him intractable to Tess' plight. Angel's limitations cast a cloud over his tutelage of Tess. He is stubborn in his belief that a blemish on Tess' reputation ruins her whole being -- \"In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire.\" Angel's exchanges with Mercy and Izz further demonstrate the alteration in his character, revealing a man in a state of flux and anticipating a major change for him. He chides himself for not seeing what Tess tried to make obvious to him earlier, \"O Tess! If you had only told me sooner, I would have forgiven you!\" We must wonder if Angel had paid attention when the signs were posted for him. However, Izz is an honest woman, even when she volunteers to accompany him to Brazil, without too many questions. He later withdraws the offer, abashed at his rashness after Izz announces that Tess loved him best at Talbothays -- \" . . . nobody could love @'ee more than Tess did! . . . She would have laid down her life for @'ee. I could do no more.'\" Angel even reconsiders his decision to go to Brazil, but fate and his conscious steer him on his present course. In Chapter 41, Tess encounters the injured pheasants. While traveling to Flintcomb-Ash, she finds refuge in a wood. Upon waking the following morning, Tess discovers several wounded pheasants who were shot but not captured. She does her best to end the birds' suffering, \" the necks of as many as she could find\" with \"tears running down as she killed the birds tenderly.\" This scene is thematically significant. First, it reveals more of Tess' character. She exhibits compassion for the bird's injuries and benevolence for their plight. Even in her own suffering, Tess is still aware of the suffering of others. Killing the birds is a kindness. In fact, in comparing her plight to theirs, Tess feels contrite: -- \"Poor darlings -- to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight o' such misery as yours!\" She is not bodily injured, only injured in her soul; the birds are near death, which she is not. \"She was ashamed of herself for her gloom of the night, based on nothing more tangible than a sense of condemnation under an arbitrary law of society that had no foundation in Nature.\" Hardy's point is that the \"arbitrary law\" -- the one that has condemned Tess -- has overcome nature. Tess' fate twists upon the capricious rules that man has created, with no apparent regard for natural law. Second, this scene foreshadows the tale's end. Tess and the birds are the same: Both have been hunted, both wounded, both driven to seek a safe place, and both left, injured, to their own resources. The difference is that Tess ends the birds suffering; no one ends Tess'. In a way, this scene represents what has happened to Tess thus far in the story and foreshadows her death at the end. Glossary Wiertz Museum museum in Brussels containing the macabre works of the Flemish painter Antoine Wiertz . Van Beers Jan Van Beers , Flemish painter frequently compared to Wiertz. desultory passing from one thing to another in an aimless way; disconnected; not methodical. Pagan Moralist Marcus Aurelius Antoninus , Roman emperor and stoic philosopher. Nazarene Jesus, from John 14:27. \"a good thing could come out of Nazareth\" John 1:46. \"the world, the flesh, nor the devil\" traditional temptations to sin mentioned in The Book of Common Prayer. parlous perilous; dangerous; risky. reconnoitre to make a reconnaissance; alternate spelling of reconnoiter. \"prophet on the top of Peor\" Balaam, who refused to curse the Israelites, Numbers 23-24. supernumerary that exceeds or is beyond the regular or prescribed number; extra. eclat brilliant or conspicuous success; dazzling display. fancy-man .a man supported by a woman; esp., a pimp; here, a sweetheart . exaction an excessive demand; extortion; an exacted fee, tax."}
text: 
  
  It was three weeks after the marriage that Clare found himself
  descending the hill which led to the well-known parsonage of his
  father.  With his downward course the tower of the church rose into
  the evening sky in a manner of inquiry as to why he had come; and no
  living person in the twilighted town seemed to notice him, still less
  to expect him.  He was arriving like a ghost, and the sound of his
  own footsteps was almost an encumbrance to be got rid of.
  
  The picture of life had changed for him.  Before this time he had
  known it but speculatively; now he thought he knew it as a practical
  man; though perhaps he did not, even yet.  Nevertheless humanity
  stood before him no longer in the pensive sweetness of Italian art,
  but in the staring and ghastly attitudes of a Wiertz Museum, and with
  the leer of a study by Van Beers.
  
  His conduct during these first weeks had been desultory beyond
  description.  After mechanically attempting to pursue his
  agricultural plans as though nothing unusual had happened, in
  the manner recommended by the great and wise men of all ages, he
  concluded that very few of those great and wise men had ever gone so
  far outside themselves as to test the feasibility of their counsel.
  "This is the chief thing: be not perturbed," said the Pagan moralist.
  That was just Clare's own opinion.  But he was perturbed.  "Let not
  your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid," said the Nazarene.
  Clare chimed in cordially; but his heart was troubled all the same.
  How he would have liked to confront those two great thinkers, and
  earnestly appeal to them as fellow-man to fellow-men, and ask them
  to tell him their method!
  
  His mood transmuted itself into a dogged indifference till at length
  he fancied he was looking on his own existence with the passive
  interest of an outsider.
  
  He was embittered by the conviction that all this desolation had been
  brought about by the accident of her being a d'Urberville.  When he
  found that Tess came of that exhausted ancient line, and was not of
  the new tribes from below, as he had fondly dreamed, why had he not
  stoically abandoned her in fidelity to his principles?  This was what
  he had got by apostasy, and his punishment was deserved.
  
  Then he became weary and anxious, and his anxiety increased.  He
  wondered if he had treated her unfairly.  He ate without knowing that
  he ate, and drank without tasting.  As the hours dropped past, as the
  motive of each act in the long series of bygone days presented itself
  to his view, he perceived how intimately the notion of having Tess as
  a dear possession was mixed up with all his schemes and words and
  ways.
  
  In going hither and thither he observed in the outskirts of a small
  town a red-and-blue placard setting forth the great advantages of
  the Empire of Brazil as a field for the emigrating agriculturist.
  Land was offered there on exceptionally advantageous terms.  Brazil
  somewhat attracted him as a new idea.  Tess could eventually join him
  there, and perhaps in that country of contrasting scenes and notions
  and habits the conventions would not be so operative which made life
  with her seem impracticable to him here.  In brief he was strongly
  inclined to try Brazil, especially as the season for going thither
  was just at hand.
  
  With this view he was returning to Emminster to disclose his plan
  to his parents, and to make the best explanation he could make of
  arriving without Tess, short of revealing what had actually separated
  them.  As he reached the door the new moon shone upon his face, just
  as the old one had done in the small hours of that morning when he
  had carried his wife in his arms across the river to the graveyard
  of the monks; but his face was thinner now.
  
  Clare had given his parents no warning of his visit, and his arrival
  stirred the atmosphere of the Vicarage as the dive of the kingfisher
  stirs a quiet pool.  His father and mother were both in the
  drawing-room, but neither of his brothers was now at home.  Angel
  entered, and closed the door quietly behind him.
  
  "But--where's your wife, dear Angel?" cried his mother.  "How you
  surprise us!"
  
  "She is at her mother's--temporarily.  I have come home rather in a
  hurry because I've decided to go to Brazil."
  
  "Brazil!  Why they are all Roman Catholics there surely!"
  
  "Are they?  I hadn't thought of that."
  
  But even the novelty and painfulness of his going to a Papistical
  land could not displace for long Mr and Mrs Clare's natural interest
  in their son's marriage.
  
  "We had your brief note three weeks ago announcing that it had taken
  place," said Mrs Clare, "and your father sent your godmother's gift
  to her, as you know.  Of course it was best that none of us should be
  present, especially as you preferred to marry her from the dairy, and
  not at her home, wherever that may be.  It would have embarrassed
  you, and given us no pleasure.  Your bothers felt that very strongly.
  Now it is done we do not complain, particularly if she suits you for
  the business you have chosen to follow instead of the ministry of the
  Gospel. ...  Yet I wish I could have seen her first, Angel, or have
  known a little more about her.  We sent her no present of our own,
  not knowing what would best give her pleasure, but you must suppose
  it only delayed.  Angel, there is no irritation in my mind or your
  father's against you for this marriage; but we have thought it much
  better to reserve our liking for your wife till we could see her.
  And now you have not brought her.  It seems strange.  What has
  happened?"
  
  He replied that it had been thought best by them that she should to
  go her parents' home for the present, whilst he came there.
  
  "I don't mind telling you, dear mother," he said, "that I always
  meant to keep her away from this house till I should feel she could
  come with credit to you.  But this idea of Brazil is quite a recent
  one.  If I do go it will be unadvisable for me to take her on this my
  first journey.  She will remain at her mother's till I come back."
  
  "And I shall not see her before you start?"
  
  He was afraid they would not.  His original plan had been, as he had
  said, to refrain from bringing her there for some little while--not
  to wound their prejudices--feelings--in any way; and for other
  reasons he had adhered to it.  He would have to visit home in the
  course of a year, if he went out at once; and it would be possible
  for them to see her before he started a second time--with her.
  
  A hastily prepared supper was brought in, and Clare made further
  exposition of his plans.  His mother's disappointment at not seeing
  the bride still remained with her.  Clare's late enthusiasm for Tess
  had infected her through her maternal sympathies, till she had almost
  fancied that a good thing could come out of Nazareth--a charming
  woman out of Talbothays Dairy. She watched her son as he ate.
  
  "Cannot you describe her?  I am sure she is very pretty, Angel."
  
  "Of that there can be no question!" he said, with a zest which
  covered its bitterness.
  
  "And that she is pure and virtuous goes without question?"
  
  "Pure and virtuous, of course, she is."
  
  "I can see her quite distinctly.  You said the other day that she was
  fine in figure; roundly built; had deep red lips like Cupid's bow;
  dark eyelashes and brows, an immense rope of hair like a ship's
  cable; and large eyes violety-bluey-blackish."
  
  "I did, mother."
  
  "I quite see her.  And living in such seclusion she naturally had
  scarce ever seen any young man from the world without till she saw
  you."
  
  "Scarcely."
  
  "You were her first love?"
  
  "Of course."
  
  "There are worse wives than these simple, rosy-mouthed, robust girls
  of the farm.  Certainly I could have wished--well, since my son is to
  be an agriculturist, it is perhaps but proper that his wife should
  have been accustomed to an outdoor life."
  
  His father was less inquisitive; but when the time came for the
  chapter from the Bible which was always read before evening prayers,
  the Vicar observed to Mrs Clare--
  
  "I think, since Angel has come, that it will be more appropriate to
  read the thirty-first of Proverbs than the chapter which we should
  have had in the usual course of our reading?"
  
  "Yes, certainly," said Mrs Clare.  "The words of King Lemuel" (she
  could cite chapter and verse as well as her husband).  "My dear son,
  your father has decided to read us the chapter in Proverbs in praise
  of a virtuous wife.  We shall not need to be reminded to apply the
  words to the absent one.  May Heaven shield her in all her ways!"
  
  A lump rose in Clare's throat.  The portable lectern was taken out
  from the corner and set in the middle of the fireplace, the two old
  servants came in, and Angel's father began to read at the tenth verse
  of the aforesaid chapter--
  
  
     "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far
     above rubies.  She riseth while it is yet night, and
     giveth meat to her household.  She girdeth her loins
     with strength and strengtheneth her arms.  She
     perceiveth that her merchandise is good; her candle
     goeth not out by night.  She looketh well to the ways
     of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
     Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband
     also, and he praiseth her.  Many daughters have done
     virtuously, but thou excellest them all."
  
  
  When prayers were over, his mother said--
  
  "I could not help thinking how very aptly that chapter your dear
  father read applied, in some of its particulars, to the woman you
  have chosen.  The perfect woman, you see, was a working woman; not an
  idler; not a fine lady; but one who used her hands and her head and
  her heart for the good of others.  'Her children arise up and call
  her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.  Many daughters
  have done virtuously, but she excelleth them all.'  Well, I wish I
  could have seen her, Angel.  Since she is pure and chaste, she would
  have been refined enough for me."
  
  Clare could bear this no longer.  His eyes were full of tears, which
  seemed like drops of molten lead.  He bade a quick good night to
  these sincere and simple souls whom he loved so well; who knew
  neither the world, the flesh, nor the devil in their own hearts, only
  as something vague and external to themselves.  He went to his own
  chamber.
  
  His mother followed him, and tapped at his door.  Clare opened it to
  discover her standing without, with anxious eyes.
  
  "Angel," she asked, "is there something wrong that you go away so
  soon?  I am quite sure you are not yourself."
  
  "I am not, quite, mother," said he.
  
  "About her?  Now, my son, I know it is that--I know it is about her!
  Have you quarrelled in these three weeks?"
  
  "We have not exactly quarrelled," he said.  "But we have had a
  difference--"
  
  "Angel--is she a young woman whose history will bear investigation?"
  
  With a mother's instinct Mrs Clare had put her finger on the kind of
  trouble that would cause such a disquiet as seemed to agitate her
  son.
  
  "She is spotless!" he replied; and felt that if it had sent him to
  eternal hell there and then he would have told that lie.
  
  "Then never mind the rest.  After all, there are few purer things in
  nature then an unsullied country maid. Any crudeness of manner which
  may offend your more educated sense at first, will, I am sure,
  disappear under the influence or your companionship and tuition."
  
  Such terrible sarcasm of blind magnanimity brought home to Clare the
  secondary perception that he had utterly wrecked his career by this
  marriage, which had not been among his early thoughts after the
  disclosure.  True, on his own account he cared very little about his
  career; but he had wished to make it at least a respectable one on
  account of his parents and brothers.  And now as he looked into the
  candle its flame dumbly expressed to him that it was made to shine on
  sensible people, and that it abhorred lighting the face of a dupe and
  a failure.
  
  When his agitation had cooled he would be at moments incensed with
  his poor wife for causing a situation in which he was obliged to
  practise deception on his parents.  He almost talked to her in his
  anger, as if she had been in the room.  And then her cooing voice,
  plaintive in expostulation, disturbed the darkness, the velvet touch
  of her lips passed over his brow, and he could distinguish in the air
  the warmth of her breath.
  
  This night the woman of his belittling deprecations was thinking how
  great and good her husband was.  But over them both there hung a
  deeper shade than the shade which Angel Clare perceived, namely, the
  shade of his own limitations.  With all his attempted independence of
  judgement this advanced and well-meaning young man, a sample product
  of the last five-and-twenty years, was yet the slave to custom and
  conventionality when surprised back into his early teachings.  No
  prophet had told him, and he was not prophet enough to tell himself,
  that essentially this young wife of his was as deserving of the
  praise of King Lemuel as any other woman endowed with the same
  dislike of evil, her moral value having to be reckoned not by
  achievement but by tendency.  Moreover, the figure near at hand
  suffers on such occasion, because it shows up its sorriness without
  shade; while vague figures afar off are honoured, in that their
  distance makes artistic virtues of their stains.  In considering
  what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the
  defective can be more than the entire.
  
  
  
  
  At breakfast Brazil was the topic, and all endeavoured to take a
  hopeful view of Clare's proposed experiment with that country's soil,
  notwithstanding the discouraging reports of some farm-labourers who
  had emigrated thither and returned home within the twelve months.
  After breakfast Clare went into the little town to wind up such
  trifling matters as he was concerned with there, and to get from
  the local bank all the money he possessed.  On his way back he
  encountered Miss Mercy Chant by the church, from whose walls she
  seemed to be a sort of emanation.  She was carrying an armful of
  Bibles for her class, and such was her view of life that events which
  produced heartache in others wrought beatific smiles upon her--an
  enviable result, although, in the opinion of Angel, it was obtained
  by a curiously unnatural sacrifice of humanity to mysticism.
  
  She had learnt that he was about to leave England, and observed what
  an excellent and promising scheme it seemed to be.
  
  "Yes; it is a likely scheme enough in a commercial sense, no doubt,"
  he replied.  "But, my dear Mercy, it snaps the continuity of
  existence.  Perhaps a cloister would be preferable."
  
  "A cloister!  O, Angel Clare!"
  
  "Well?"
  
  "Why, you wicked man, a cloister implies a monk, and a monk Roman
  Catholicism."
  
  "And Roman Catholicism sin, and sin damnation.  Thou art in a parlous
  state, Angel Clare."
  
  "_I_ glory in my Protestantism!" she said severely.
  
  Then Clare, thrown by sheer misery into one of the demoniacal moods
  in which a man does despite to his true principles, called her close
  to him, and fiendishly whispered in her ear the most heterodox ideas
  he could think of.  His momentary laughter at the horror which
  appeared on her fair face ceased when it merged in pain and anxiety
  for his welfare.
  
  "Dear Mercy," he said, "you must forgive me.  I think I am going
  crazy!"
  
  She thought that he was; and thus the interview ended, and Clare
  re-entered the Vicarage.  With the local banker he deposited the
  jewels till happier days should arise.  He also paid into the bank
  thirty pounds--to be sent to Tess in a few months, as she might
  require; and wrote to her at her parents' home in Blackmoor Vale to
  inform her of what he had done.  This amount, with the sum he had
  already placed in her hands--about fifty pounds--he hoped would be
  amply sufficient for her wants just at present, particularly as in
  an emergency she had been directed to apply to his father.
  
  He deemed it best not to put his parents into communication with her
  by informing them of her address; and, being unaware of what had
  really happened to estrange the two, neither his father nor his
  mother suggested that he should do so.  During the day he left the
  parsonage, for what he had to complete he wished to get done quickly.
  
  As the last duty before leaving this part of England it was necessary
  for him to call at the Wellbridge farmhouse, in which he had spent
  with Tess the first three days of their marriage, the trifle of rent
  having to be paid, the key given up of the rooms they had occupied,
  and two or three small articles fetched away that they had left
  behind.  It was under this roof that the deepest shadow ever thrown
  upon his life had stretched its gloom over him.  Yet when he had
  unlocked the door of the sitting-room and looked into it, the memory
  which returned first upon him was that of their happy arrival on a
  similar afternoon, the first fresh sense of sharing a habitation
  conjointly, the first meal together, the chatting by the fire with
  joined hands.
  
  The farmer and his wife were in the field at the moment of his visit,
  and Clare was in the rooms alone for some time.  Inwardly swollen
  with a renewal of sentiment that he had not quite reckoned with, he
  went upstairs to her chamber, which had never been his.  The bed
  was smooth as she had made it with her own hands on the morning of
  leaving.  The mistletoe hung under the tester just as he had placed
  it.  Having been there three or four weeks it was turning colour, and
  the leaves and berries were wrinkled.  Angel took it down and crushed
  it into the grate.  Standing there, he for the first time doubted
  whether his course in this conjecture had been a wise, much less
  a generous, one.  But had he not been cruelly blinded?  In the
  incoherent multitude of his emotions he knelt down at the bedside
  wet-eyed.  "O Tess!  If you had only told me sooner, I would have
  forgiven you!" he mourned.
  
  Hearing a footstep below, he rose and went to the top of the stairs.
  At the bottom of the flight he saw a woman standing, and on her
  turning up her face recognized the pale, dark-eyed Izz Huett.
  
  "Mr Clare," she said, "I've called to see you and Mrs Clare, and to
  inquire if ye be well.  I thought you might be back here again."
  
  This was a girl whose secret he had guessed, but who had not yet
  guessed his; an honest girl who loved him--one who would have made as
  good, or nearly as good, a practical farmer's wife as Tess.
  
  "I am here alone," he said; "we are not living here now."  Explaining
  why he had come, he asked, "Which way are you going home, Izz?"
  
  "I have no home at Talbothays Dairy now, sir," she said.
  
  "Why is that?"
  
  Izz looked down.
  
  "It was so dismal there that I left!  I am staying out this way."
  She pointed in a contrary direction, the direction in which he was
  journeying.
  
  "Well--are you going there now?  I can take you if you
  wish for a lift."
  
  Her olive complexion grew richer in hue.
  
  "Thank 'ee, Mr Clare," she said.
  
  He soon found the farmer, and settled the account for his rent and
  the few other items which had to be considered by reason of the
  sudden abandonment of the lodgings.  On Clare's return to his horse
  and gig, Izz jumped up beside him.
  
  "I am going to leave England, Izz," he said, as they drove on.
  "Going to Brazil."
  
  "And do Mrs Clare like the notion of such a journey?" she asked.
  
  "She is not going at present--say for a year or so.  I am going out
  to reconnoitre--to see what life there is like."
  
  They sped along eastward for some considerable distance, Izz making
  no observation.
  
  "How are the others?" he inquired.  "How is Retty?"
  
  "She was in a sort of nervous state when I zid her last; and so thin
  and hollow-cheeked that 'a do seem in a decline.  Nobody will ever
  fall in love wi' her any more," said Izz absently.
  
  "And Marian?"
  
  Izz lowered her voice.
  
  "Marian drinks."
  
  "Indeed!"
  
  "Yes.  The dairyman has got rid of her."
  
  "And you!"
  
  "I don't drink, and I bain't in a decline.  But--I am no great things
  at singing afore breakfast now!"
  
  "How is that?  Do you remember how neatly you used to turn ''Twas
  down in Cupid's Gardens' and 'The Tailor's Breeches' at morning
  milking?"
  
  "Ah, yes!  When you first came, sir, that was.  Not when you had been
  there a bit."
  
  "Why was that falling-off?"
  
  Her black eyes flashed up to his face for one moment by way of
  answer.
  
  "Izz!--how weak of you--for such as I!" he said, and fell into
  reverie.  "Then--suppose I had asked YOU to marry me?"
  
  "If you had I should have said 'Yes', and you would have married a
  woman who loved 'ee!"
  
  "Really!"
  
  "Down to the ground!" she whispered vehemently.  "O my God! did you
  never guess it till now!"
  
  By-and-by they reached a branch road to a village.
  
  "I must get down.  I live out there," said Izz abruptly, never having
  spoken since her avowal.
  
  Clare slowed the horse.  He was incensed against his fate, bitterly
  disposed towards social ordinances; for they had cooped him up in a
  corner, out of which there was no legitimate pathway.  Why not be
  revenged on society by shaping his future domesticities loosely,
  instead of kissing the pedagogic rod of convention in this ensnaring
  manner?
  
  "I am going to Brazil alone, Izz," said he.  "I have separated from
  my wife for personal, not voyaging, reasons.  I may never live with
  her again.  I may not be able to love you; but--will you go with me
  instead of her?"
  
  "You truly wish me to go?"
  
  "I do.  I have been badly used enough to wish for relief.  And you at
  least love me disinterestedly."
  
  "Yes--I will go," said Izz, after a pause.
  
  "You will?  You know what it means, Izz?"
  
  "It means that I shall live with you for the time you are over
  there--that's good enough for me."
  
  "Remember, you are not to trust me in morals now.  But I ought
  to remind you that it will be wrong-doing in the eyes of
  civilization--Western civilization, that is to say."
  
  "I don't mind that; no woman do when it comes to agony-point, and
  there's no other way!"
  
  "Then don't get down, but sit where you are."
  
  He drove past the cross-roads, one mile, two miles, without showing
  any signs of affection.
  
  "You love me very, very much, Izz?" he suddenly asked.
  
  "I do--I have said I do!  I loved you all the time we was at the
  dairy together!"
  
  "More than Tess?"
  
  She shook her head.
  
  "No," she murmured, "not more than she."
  
  "How's that?"
  
  "Because nobody could love 'ee more than Tess did! ...  She would
  have laid down her life for 'ee.  I could do no more."
  
  Like the prophet on the top of Peor, Izz Huett would fain have spoken
  perversely at such a moment, but the fascination exercised over her
  rougher nature by Tess's character compelled her to grace.
  
  Clare was silent; his heart had risen at these straightforward words
  from such an unexpected unimpeachable quarter.  In his throat was
  something as if a sob had solidified there.  His ears repeated, "SHE
  WOULD HAVE LAID DOWN HER LIFE FOR 'EE.  I COULD DO NO MORE!"
  
  "Forget our idle talk, Izz," he said, turning the horse's head
  suddenly.  "I don't know what I've been saying!  I will now drive
  you back to where your lane branches off."
  
  "So much for honesty towards 'ee!  O--how can I bear it--how can
  I--how can I!"
  
  Izz Huett burst into wild tears, and beat her forehead as she saw
  what she had done.
  
  "Do you regret that poor little act of justice to an absent one?
  O, Izz, don't spoil it by regret!"
  
  She stilled herself by degrees.
  
  "Very well, sir.  Perhaps I didn't know what I was saying, either,
  wh--when I agreed to go!  I wish--what cannot be!"
  
  "Because I have a loving wife already."
  
  "Yes, yes!  You have!"
  
  They reached the corner of the lane which they had passed half an
  hour earlier, and she hopped down.
  
  "Izz--please, please forget my momentary levity!" he cried.  "It was
  so ill-considered, so ill-advised!"
  
  "Forget it?  Never, never!  O, it was no levity to me!"
  
  He felt how richly he deserved the reproach that the wounded cry
  conveyed, and, in a sorrow that was inexpressible, leapt down and
  took her hand.
  
  "Well, but, Izz, we'll part friends, anyhow?  You don't know what
  I've had to bear!"
  
  She was a really generous girl, and allowed no further bitterness to
  mar their adieux.
  
  "I forgive 'ee, sir!" she said.
  
  "Now, Izz," he said, while she stood beside him there, forcing
  himself to the mentor's part he was far from feeling; "I want you to
  tell Marian when you see her that she is to be a good woman, and not
  to give way to folly.  Promise that, and tell Retty that there are
  more worthy men than I in the world, that for my sake she is to act
  wisely and well--remember the words--wisely and well--for my sake.
  I send this message to them as a dying man to the dying; for I shall
  never see them again.  And you, Izzy, you have saved me by your
  honest words about my wife from an incredible impulse towards folly
  and treachery.  Women may be bad, but they are not so bad as men in
  these things!  On that one account I can never forget you.  Be always
  the good and sincere girl you have hitherto been; and think of me as
  a worthless lover, but a faithful friend.  Promise."
  
  She gave the promise.
  
  "Heaven bless and keep you, sir.  Goodbye!"
  
  He drove on; but no sooner had Izz turned into the lane, and Clare
  was out of sight, than she flung herself down on the bank in a fit of
  racking anguish; and it was with a strained unnatural face that she
  entered her mother's cottage late that night.  Nobody ever was told
  how Izz spent the dark hours that intervened between Angel Clare's
  parting from her and her arrival home.
  
  Clare, too, after bidding the girl farewell, was wrought to aching
  thoughts and quivering lips.  But his sorrow was not for Izz.  That
  evening he was within a feather-weight's turn of abandoning his road
  to the nearest station, and driving across that elevated dorsal line
  of South Wessex which divided him from his Tess's home.  It was
  neither a contempt for her nature, nor the probable state of her
  heart, which deterred him.
  
  No; it was a sense that, despite her love, as corroborated by Izz's
  admission, the facts had not changed.  If he was right at first,
  he was right now.  And the momentum of the course on which he
  had embarked tended to keep him going in it, unless diverted by
  a stronger, more sustained force than had played upon him this
  afternoon.  He could soon come back to her.  He took the train that
  night for London, and five days after shook hands in farewell of his
  brothers at the port of embarkation.
  
  
  
  
  From the foregoing events of the winter-time let us press on to
  an October day, more than eight months subsequent to the parting
  of Clare and Tess.  We discover the latter in changed conditions;
  instead of a bride with boxes and trunks which others bore, we see
  her a lonely woman with a basket and a bundle in her own porterage,
  as at an earlier time when she was no bride; instead of the ample
  means that were projected by her husband for her comfort through
  this probationary period, she can produce only a flattened purse.
  
  After again leaving Marlott, her home, she had got through the
  spring and summer without any great stress upon her physical powers,
  the time being mainly spent in rendering light irregular service
  at dairy-work near Port-Bredy to the west of the Blackmoor Valley,
  equally remote from her native place and from Talbothays.  She
  preferred this to living on his allowance.  Mentally she remained in
  utter stagnation, a condition which the mechanical occupation rather
  fostered than checked.  Her consciousness was at that other dairy,
  at that other season, in the presence of the tender lover who had
  confronted her there--he who, the moment she had grasped him to keep
  for her own, had disappeared like a shape in a vision.
  
  The dairy-work lasted only till the milk began to lessen, for she
  had not met with a second regular engagement as at Talbothays, but
  had done duty as a supernumerary only.  However, as harvest was now
  beginning, she had simply to remove from the pasture to the stubble
  to find plenty of further occupation, and this continued till harvest
  was done.
  
  Of the five-and-twenty pounds which had remained to her of Clare's
  allowance, after deducting the other half of the fifty as a
  contribution to her parents for the trouble and expense to which
  she had put them, she had as yet spent but little.  But there now
  followed an unfortunate interval of wet weather, during which she was
  obliged to fall back upon her sovereigns.
  
  She could not bear to let them go.  Angel had put them into her hand,
  had obtained them bright and new from his bank for her; his touch had
  consecrated them to souvenirs of himself--they appeared to have had
  as yet no other history than such as was created by his and her own
  experiences--and to disperse them was like giving away relics.  But
  she had to do it, and one by one they left her hands.
  
  She had been compelled to send her mother her address from time to
  time, but she concealed her circumstances.  When her money had almost
  gone a letter from her mother reached her.  Joan stated that they
  were in dreadful difficulty; the autumn rains had gone through the
  thatch of the house, which required entire renewal; but this could
  not be done because the previous thatching had never been paid for.
  New rafters and a new ceiling upstairs also were required, which,
  with the previous bill, would amount to a sum of twenty pounds.  As
  her husband was a man of means, and had doubtless returned by this
  time, could she not send them the money?
  
  Tess had thirty pounds coming to her almost immediately from Angel's
  bankers, and, the case being so deplorable, as soon as the sum was
  received she sent the twenty as requested.  Part of the remainder
  she was obliged to expend in winter clothing, leaving only a nominal
  sum for the whole inclement season at hand.  When the last pound
  had gone, a remark of Angel's that whenever she required further
  resources she was to apply to his father, remained to be considered.
  
  But the more Tess thought of the step, the more reluctant was she to
  take it.  The same delicacy, pride, false shame, whatever it may be
  called, on Clare's account, which had led her to hide from her own
  parents the prolongation of the estrangement, hindered her owning to
  his that she was in want after the fair allowance he had left her.
  They probably despised her already; how much more they would despise
  her in the character of a mendicant!  The consequence was that by no
  effort could the parson's daughter-in-law bring herself to let him
  know her state.
  
  Her reluctance to communicate with her husband's parents might,
  she thought, lessen with the lapse of time; but with her own the
  reverse obtained.  On her leaving their house after the short visit
  subsequent to her marriage they were under the impression that she
  was ultimately going to join her husband; and from that time to the
  present she had done nothing to disturb their belief that she was
  awaiting his return in comfort, hoping against hope that his journey
  to Brazil would result in a short stay only, after which he would
  come to fetch her, or that he would write for her to join him; in any
  case that they would soon present a united front to their families
  and the world.  This hope she still fostered.  To let her parents
  know that she was a deserted wife, dependent, now that she had
  relieved their necessities, on her own hands for a living, after the
  _eclat_ of a marriage which was to nullify the collapse of the first
  attempt, would be too much indeed.
  
  The set of brilliants returned to her mind.  Where Clare had
  deposited them she did not know, and it mattered little, if it were
  true that she could only use and not sell them.  Even were they
  absolutely hers it would be passing mean to enrich herself by a legal
  title to them which was not essentially hers at all.
  
  Meanwhile her husband's days had been by no means free from trial.
  At this moment he was lying ill of fever in the clay lands near
  Curitiba in Brazil, having been drenched with thunder-storms and
  persecuted by other hardships, in common with all the English farmers
  and farm-labourers who, just at this time, were deluded into going
  thither by the promises of the Brazilian Government, and by the
  baseless assumption that those frames which, ploughing and sowing on
  English uplands, had resisted all the weathers to whose moods they
  had been born, could resist equally well all the weathers by which
  they were surprised on Brazilian plains.
  
  To return.  Thus it happened that when the last of Tess's sovereigns
  had been spent she was unprovided with others to take their place,
  while on account of the season she found it increasingly difficult
  to get employment.  Not being aware of the rarity of intelligence,
  energy, health, and willingness in any sphere of life, she refrained
  from seeking an indoor occupation; fearing towns, large houses,
  people of means and social sophistication, and of manners other
  than rural.  From that direction of gentility Black Care had come.
  Society might be better than she supposed from her slight experience
  of it.  But she had no proof of this, and her instinct in the
  circumstances was to avoid its purlieus.
  
  The small dairies to the west, beyond Port-Bredy, in which she
  had served as supernumerary milkmaid during the spring and summer
  required no further aid.  Room would probably have been made for her
  at Talbothays, if only out of sheer compassion; but comfortable as
  her life had been there, she could not go back.  The anti-climax
  would be too intolerable; and her return might bring reproach upon
  her idolized husband.  She could not have borne their pity, and their
  whispered remarks to one another upon her strange situation; though
  she would almost have faced a knowledge of her circumstances by every
  individual there, so long as her story had remained isolated in the
  mind of each.  It was the interchange of ideas about her that made
  her sensitiveness wince.  Tess could not account for this
  distinction; she simply knew that she felt it.
  
  She was now on her way to an upland farm in the centre of the county,
  to which she had been recommended by a wandering letter which had
  reached her from Marian.  Marian had somehow heard that Tess was
  separated from her husband--probably through Izz Huett--and the
  good-natured and now tippling girl, deeming Tess in trouble, had
  hastened to notify to her former friend that she herself had gone to
  this upland spot after leaving the dairy, and would like to see her
  there, where there was room for other hands, if it was really true
  that she worked again as of old.
  
  With the shortening of the days all hope of obtaining her husband's
  forgiveness began to leave her; and there was something of the
  habitude of the wild animal in the unreflecting instinct with which
  she rambled on--disconnecting herself by littles from her eventful
  past at every step, obliterating her identity, giving no thought to
  accidents or contingencies which might make a quick discovery of her
  whereabouts by others of importance to her own happiness, if not to
  theirs.
  
  Among the difficulties of her lonely position not the least was
  the attention she excited by her appearance, a certain bearing of
  distinction, which she had caught from Clare, being superadded to her
  natural attractiveness.  Whilst the clothes lasted which had been
  prepared for her marriage, these casual glances of interest caused
  her no inconvenience, but as soon as she was compelled to don the
  wrapper of a fieldwoman, rude words were addressed to her more than
  once; but nothing occurred to cause her bodily fear till a particular
  November afternoon.
  
  She had preferred the country west of the River Brit to the upland
  farm for which she was now bound, because, for one thing, it was
  nearer to the home of her husband's father; and to hover about that
  region unrecognized, with the notion that she might decide to call at
  the Vicarage some day, gave her pleasure.  But having once decided to
  try the higher and drier levels, she pressed back eastward, marching
  afoot towards the village of Chalk-Newton, where she meant to pass
  the night.
  
  The lane was long and unvaried, and, owing to the rapid shortening of
  the days, dusk came upon her before she was aware.  She had reached
  the top of a hill down which the lane stretched its serpentine length
  in glimpses, when she heard footsteps behind her back, and in a few
  moments she was overtaken by a man.  He stepped up alongside Tess and
  said--
  
  "Good night, my pretty maid": to which she civilly replied.
  
  The light still remaining in the sky lit up her face, though the
  landscape was nearly dark.  The man turned and stared hard at her.
  
  "Why, surely, it is the young wench who was at Trantridge awhile--
  young Squire d'Urberville's friend?  I was there at that time, though
  I don't live there now."
  
  She recognized in him the well-to-do boor whom Angel had knocked down
  at the inn for addressing her coarsely.  A spasm of anguish shot
  through her, and she returned him no answer.
  
  "Be honest enough to own it, and that what I said in the town was
  true, though your fancy-man was so up about it--hey, my sly one?  You
  ought to beg my pardon for that blow of his, considering."
  
  Still no answer came from Tess.  There seemed only one escape for her
  hunted soul.  She suddenly took to her heels with the speed of the
  wind, and, without looking behind her, ran along the road till she
  came to a gate which opened directly into a plantation.  Into this
  she plunged, and did not pause till she was deep enough in its shade
  to be safe against any possibility of discovery.
  
  Under foot the leaves were dry, and the foliage of some holly bushes
  which grew among the deciduous trees was dense enough to keep off
  draughts.  She scraped together the dead leaves till she had formed
  them into a large heap, making a sort of nest in the middle.  Into
  this Tess crept.
  
  Such sleep as she got was naturally fitful; she fancied she heard
  strange noises, but persuaded herself that they were caused by the
  breeze.  She thought of her husband in some vague warm clime on the
  other side of the globe, while she was here in the cold.  Was there
  another such a wretched being as she in the world?  Tess asked
  herself; and, thinking of her wasted life, said, "All is vanity."
  She repeated the words mechanically, till she reflected that this
  was a most inadequate thought for modern days.  Solomon had thought
  as far as that more than two thousand years ago; she herself,
  though not in the van of thinkers, had got much further.  If all
  were only vanity, who would mind it?  All was, alas, worse than
  vanity--injustice, punishment, exaction, death.  The wife of Angel
  Clare put her hand to her brow, and felt its curve, and the edges of
  her eye-sockets perceptible under the soft skin, and thought as she
  did so that a time would come when that bone would be bare.  "I wish
  it were now," she said.
  
  In the midst of these whimsical fancies she heard a new strange sound
  among the leaves.  It might be the wind; yet there was scarcely any
  wind.  Sometimes it was a palpitation, sometimes a flutter; sometimes
  it was a sort of gasp or gurgle.  Soon she was certain that the
  noises came from wild creatures of some kind, the more so when,
  originating in the boughs overhead, they were followed by the fall
  of a heavy body upon the ground.  Had she been ensconced here under
  other and more pleasant conditions she would have become alarmed;
  but, outside humanity, she had at present no fear.
  
  Day at length broke in the sky.  When it had been day aloft for some
  little while it became day in the wood.
  
  Directly the assuring and prosaic light of the world's active hours
  had grown strong, she crept from under her hillock of leaves, and
  looked around boldly.  Then she perceived what had been going on to
  disturb her.  The plantation wherein she had taken shelter ran down
  at this spot into a peak, which ended it hitherward, outside the
  hedge being arable ground.  Under the trees several pheasants lay
  about, their rich plumage dabbled with blood; some were dead, some
  feebly twitching a wing, some staring up at the sky, some pulsating
  quickly, some contorted, some stretched out--all of them writhing in
  agony, except the fortunate ones whose tortures had ended during the
  night by the inability of nature to bear more.
  
  Tess guessed at once the meaning of this.  The birds had been driven
  down into this corner the day before by some shooting-party; and
  while those that had dropped dead under the shot, or had died before
  nightfall, had been searched for and carried off, many badly wounded
  birds had escaped and hidden themselves away, or risen among the
  thick boughs, where they had maintained their position till they grew
  weaker with loss of blood in the night-time, when they had fallen one
  by one as she had heard them.
  
  She had occasionally caught glimpses of these men in girlhood,
  looking over hedges, or peeping through bushes, and pointing their
  guns, strangely accoutred, a bloodthirsty light in their eyes.  She
  had been told that, rough and brutal as they seemed just then, they
  were not like this all the year round, but were, in fact, quite civil
  persons save during certain weeks of autumn and winter, when, like
  the inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula, they ran amuck, and made
  it their purpose to destroy life--in this case harmless feathered
  creatures, brought into being by artificial means solely to gratify
  these propensities--at once so unmannerly and so unchivalrous towards
  their weaker fellows in Nature's teeming family.
  
  With the impulse of a soul who could feel for kindred sufferers as
  much as for herself, Tess's first thought was to put the still living
  birds out of their torture, and to this end with her own hands she
  broke the necks of as many as she could find, leaving them to lie
  where she had found them till the game-keepers should come--as they
  probably would come--to look for them a second time.
  
  "Poor darlings--to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth
  in the sight o' such misery as yours!" she exclaimed, her tears
  running down as she killed the birds tenderly.  "And not a twinge of
  bodily pain about me!  I be not mangled, and I be not bleeding, and
  I have two hands to feed and clothe me."  She was ashamed of herself
  for her gloom of the night, based on nothing more tangible than a
  sense of condemnation under an arbitrary law of society which had no
  foundation in Nature.
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapters 39-41
target: Angel returns home to his parents in Emminster. He brings up the possibility of going to Brazil to be a farmer with his family. Naturally, they are taken aback at his suggestion of so sudden a move, far away to another land. Angel's idea is to work for a year in Brazil and to bring Tess later when he is established. His parents ask about her character and physical attributes, which Angel says are the best. Angel meets his former intended bride, Mercy Chant, on his way home. They discuss his upcoming journey to Brazil where he says to her "I think I am going crazy." Angel puts away the jewelry and money for Tess with a local banker and meets Izz Huett on his way back to his house. He asks Izz if she will join him for the trip to Brazil and she agrees. He realizes his impetuous actions and reconsiders asking Izz to leave with him. Five days later, Angel leaves for Brazil. Eight months pass, and Tess is in dire straits with little income and irregular work. She gives half of her money to fix the roof on her family's home at Marlott and uses the rest for food and clothing. She is down to her last pennies when she remembers a letter from Marian and prospects for a job as a field woman, grueling work at best. Tess' journey takes her from Marlott to Flintcomb-Ash, not far from her home. On the way, because she hasn't even enough money for lodgings, she sleeps in a forest, where she encounters wounded pheasants shot by hunters who have lost track of the injured creatures. To put them out of their misery, Tess kills the suffering birds.
feat_summary_analysis: Angel makes a hasty decision to try farming in Brazil. He pitches the idea to his parents who are surprised at his sudden decision. They also are curious as to the whereabouts of Tess, his new bride. At the nightly reading of the Bible, Angel hears a reading from Proverbs 31:10 on the attributes of a virtuous woman. When he hears these words, Angel cries bitterly. His parents are quite concerned, and Angel tells some of what has happened to Tess, but not all, and when his mother questions Tess' virtue -- "is she a woman whose history will bear investigation?" -- Angel replies "She is spotless!" and then feels anger toward Tess for putting him in a situation where he must deceive his parents. The irony is clear. Tess is a virtuous woman; the problem rests with Angel -- "there hung a deeper shade than the shade which Angel Clare perceived, namely, the shade of his own limitation." The Clares are sure Angel can cure any defects in Tess, "Any crudeness of manner which may offend your more educated sense at first, will, I am sure, disappear under the influence or your companionship and tuition." However, it is Angel's own lack of flexibility that hinders him, thus making him intractable to Tess' plight. Angel's limitations cast a cloud over his tutelage of Tess. He is stubborn in his belief that a blemish on Tess' reputation ruins her whole being -- "In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire." Angel's exchanges with Mercy and Izz further demonstrate the alteration in his character, revealing a man in a state of flux and anticipating a major change for him. He chides himself for not seeing what Tess tried to make obvious to him earlier, "O Tess! If you had only told me sooner, I would have forgiven you!" We must wonder if Angel had paid attention when the signs were posted for him. However, Izz is an honest woman, even when she volunteers to accompany him to Brazil, without too many questions. He later withdraws the offer, abashed at his rashness after Izz announces that Tess loved him best at Talbothays -- " . . . nobody could love @'ee more than Tess did! . . . She would have laid down her life for @'ee. I could do no more.'" Angel even reconsiders his decision to go to Brazil, but fate and his conscious steer him on his present course. In Chapter 41, Tess encounters the injured pheasants. While traveling to Flintcomb-Ash, she finds refuge in a wood. Upon waking the following morning, Tess discovers several wounded pheasants who were shot but not captured. She does her best to end the birds' suffering, " the necks of as many as she could find" with "tears running down as she killed the birds tenderly." This scene is thematically significant. First, it reveals more of Tess' character. She exhibits compassion for the bird's injuries and benevolence for their plight. Even in her own suffering, Tess is still aware of the suffering of others. Killing the birds is a kindness. In fact, in comparing her plight to theirs, Tess feels contrite: -- "Poor darlings -- to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight o' such misery as yours!" She is not bodily injured, only injured in her soul; the birds are near death, which she is not. "She was ashamed of herself for her gloom of the night, based on nothing more tangible than a sense of condemnation under an arbitrary law of society that had no foundation in Nature." Hardy's point is that the "arbitrary law" -- the one that has condemned Tess -- has overcome nature. Tess' fate twists upon the capricious rules that man has created, with no apparent regard for natural law. Second, this scene foreshadows the tale's end. Tess and the birds are the same: Both have been hunted, both wounded, both driven to seek a safe place, and both left, injured, to their own resources. The difference is that Tess ends the birds suffering; no one ends Tess'. In a way, this scene represents what has happened to Tess thus far in the story and foreshadows her death at the end. Glossary Wiertz Museum museum in Brussels containing the macabre works of the Flemish painter Antoine Wiertz . Van Beers Jan Van Beers , Flemish painter frequently compared to Wiertz. desultory passing from one thing to another in an aimless way; disconnected; not methodical. Pagan Moralist Marcus Aurelius Antoninus , Roman emperor and stoic philosopher. Nazarene Jesus, from John 14:27. "a good thing could come out of Nazareth" John 1:46. "the world, the flesh, nor the devil" traditional temptations to sin mentioned in The Book of Common Prayer. parlous perilous; dangerous; risky. reconnoitre to make a reconnaissance; alternate spelling of reconnoiter. "prophet on the top of Peor" Balaam, who refused to curse the Israelites, Numbers 23-24. supernumerary that exceeds or is beyond the regular or prescribed number; extra. eclat brilliant or conspicuous success; dazzling display. fancy-man .a man supported by a woman; esp., a pimp; here, a sweetheart . exaction an excessive demand; extortion; an exacted fee, tax.