finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_27_part_0.txt
Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 28
chapter 28
{"name": "Chapter 28", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-28", "summary": "At eight o'clock that midsummer evening, Bathsheba appeared in the fern hollow amid the soft, green, shoulder-high fronds. She paused, changed her mind, and was halfway home again before she caught sight of a red coat approaching. She considered Troy's disappointment were she not to appear, and she ran back to the hollow. When she reached the verge of a pit in the midst of the ferns, she saw Troy standing at the bottom and looking toward her. Troy's performance with the sword was precise and filled with bravado. It grew a bit frightening. He pretended the girl was the enemy and brandished his sword about her so realistically that she imagined herself run through. It was a dexterous feat. As a final tour-de-force, he said, \"That outer loose lock of hair wants tidying. . . . Wait: I'll do it for you.\" \"An area of silver shone on her right side; the sword had descended. The lock dropped to the ground.\" Next Troy speared a caterpillar that had settled upon Bathsheba's bosom. Only then did Troy admit that the sword was razor-sharp. \"You have been within half an inch of being pared alive two hundred and ninety-five times.\" Then the man stopped to pick up the lock of Bathsheba's hair. He tucked it inside his coat. Softly he announced that he had to leave. He disappeared, and, overcome by tumultuous emotion, \"aflame to the very hollows of her feet,\" Bathsheba wept, feeling \"like one who has sinned a great sin.\" \"The circumstances had been the gentle dip of Troy's mouth downwards upon her own. He had kissed her.\"", "analysis": "Troy is so completely in command of his sword and so perfectly confident of his skill that he does not hesitate to risk Bathsheba's life for the sake of his performance. His actions have utterly overwhelmed Bathsheba: \"She felt powerless to withstand or deny him.\" We must not overlook Hardy's own showmanship. He creates a sensuous chapter, with the lush setting, textures, colors, and lighting all playing their parts. He does a masterful job of describing the flashing of lights and the lightning speed of Troy's every move. Hardy was interested in dramatics and here uses his sense of effective staging."}


THE HOLLOW AMID THE FERNS


The hill opposite Bathsheba's dwelling extended, a mile off, into an
uncultivated tract of land, dotted at this season with tall thickets
of brake fern, plump and diaphanous from recent rapid growth, and
radiant in hues of clear and untainted green.

At eight o'clock this midsummer evening, whilst the bristling ball
of gold in the west still swept the tips of the ferns with its long,
luxuriant rays, a soft brushing-by of garments might have been heard
among them, and Bathsheba appeared in their midst, their soft,
feathery arms caressing her up to her shoulders.  She paused, turned,
went back over the hill and half-way to her own door, whence she cast
a farewell glance upon the spot she had just left, having resolved
not to remain near the place after all.

She saw a dim spot of artificial red moving round the shoulder of the
rise.  It disappeared on the other side.

She waited one minute--two minutes--thought of Troy's disappointment
at her non-fulfilment of a promised engagement, till she again ran
along the field, clambered over the bank, and followed the original
direction.  She was now literally trembling and panting at this her
temerity in such an errant undertaking; her breath came and went
quickly, and her eyes shone with an infrequent light.  Yet go she
must.  She reached the verge of a pit in the middle of the ferns.
Troy stood in the bottom, looking up towards her.

"I heard you rustling through the fern before I saw you," he said,
coming up and giving her his hand to help her down the slope.

The pit was a saucer-shaped concave, naturally formed, with a top
diameter of about thirty feet, and shallow enough to allow the
sunshine to reach their heads.  Standing in the centre, the sky
overhead was met by a circular horizon of fern: this grew nearly to
the bottom of the slope and then abruptly ceased.  The middle within
the belt of verdure was floored with a thick flossy carpet of moss
and grass intermingled, so yielding that the foot was half-buried
within it.

"Now," said Troy, producing the sword, which, as he raised it into
the sunlight, gleamed a sort of greeting, like a living thing,
"first, we have four right and four left cuts; four right and four
left thrusts.   Infantry cuts and guards are more interesting than
ours, to my mind; but they are not so swashing.  They have seven
cuts and three thrusts.   So much as a preliminary.  Well, next, our
cut one is as if you were sowing your corn--so."  Bathsheba saw a
sort of rainbow, upside down in the air, and Troy's arm was still
again.  "Cut two, as if you were hedging--so.  Three, as if you were
reaping--so. Four, as if you were threshing--in that way.  Then the
same on the left.  The thrusts are these: one, two, three, four,
right; one, two, three, four, left."  He repeated them.  "Have 'em
again?" he said.  "One, two--"

She hurriedly interrupted: "I'd rather not; though I don't mind your
twos and fours; but your ones and threes are terrible!"

"Very well.  I'll let you off the ones and threes.  Next, cuts,
points and guards altogether."  Troy duly exhibited them.  "Then
there's pursuing practice, in this way."  He gave the movements as
before.   "There, those are the stereotyped forms.  The infantry have
two most diabolical upward cuts, which we are too humane to use.
Like this--three, four."

"How murderous and bloodthirsty!"

"They are rather deathly.  Now I'll be more interesting, and let you
see some loose play--giving all the cuts and points, infantry and
cavalry, quicker than lightning, and as promiscuously--with just
enough rule to regulate instinct and yet not to fetter it.  You are
my antagonist, with this difference from real warfare, that I shall
miss you every time by one hair's breadth, or perhaps two.  Mind you
don't flinch, whatever you do."

"I'll be sure not to!" she said invincibly.

He pointed to about a yard in front of him.

Bathsheba's adventurous spirit was beginning to find some grains of
relish in these highly novel proceedings.  She took up her position
as directed, facing Troy.

"Now just to learn whether you have pluck enough to let me do what I
wish, I'll give you a preliminary test."

He flourished the sword by way of introduction number two, and the
next thing of which she was conscious was that the point and blade of
the sword were darting with a gleam towards her left side, just above
her hip; then of their reappearance on her right side, emerging as
it were from between her ribs, having apparently passed through her
body.  The third item of consciousness was that of seeing the same
sword, perfectly clean and free from blood held vertically in Troy's
hand (in the position technically called "recover swords").  All was
as quick as electricity.

"Oh!" she cried out in affright, pressing her hand to her side. "Have
you run me through?--no, you have not!  Whatever have you done!"

"I have not touched you," said Troy, quietly.  "It was mere sleight
of hand.  The sword passed behind you.  Now you are not afraid, are
you?  Because if you are I can't perform.  I give my word that I will
not only not hurt you, but not once touch you."

"I don't think I am afraid.  You are quite sure you will not hurt
me?"

"Quite sure."

"Is the sword very sharp?"

"O no--only stand as still as a statue.  Now!"

In an instant the atmosphere was transformed to Bathsheba's eyes.
Beams of light caught from the low sun's rays, above, around, in
front of her, well-nigh shut out earth and heaven--all emitted in
the marvellous evolutions of Troy's reflecting blade, which seemed
everywhere at once, and yet nowhere specially.  These circling gleams
were accompanied by a keen rush that was almost a whistling--also
springing from all sides of her at once.  In short, she was enclosed
in a firmament of light, and of sharp hisses, resembling a sky-full
of meteors close at hand.

Never since the broadsword became the national weapon had there been
more dexterity shown in its management than by the hands of Sergeant
Troy, and never had he been in such splendid temper for the
performance as now in the evening sunshine among the ferns with
Bathsheba.  It may safely be asserted with respect to the closeness
of his cuts, that had it been possible for the edge of the sword to
leave in the air a permanent substance wherever it flew past, the
space left untouched would have been almost a mould of Bathsheba's
figure.

Behind the luminous streams of this _aurora militaris_, she could see
the hue of Troy's sword arm, spread in a scarlet haze over the space
covered by its motions, like a twanged harpstring, and behind all
Troy himself, mostly facing her; sometimes, to show the rear cuts,
half turned away, his eye nevertheless always keenly measuring
her breadth and outline, and his lips tightly closed in sustained
effort.  Next, his movements lapsed slower, and she could see them
individually.  The hissing of the sword had ceased, and he stopped
entirely.

"That outer loose lock of hair wants tidying," he said, before she
had moved or spoken.  "Wait: I'll do it for you."

An arc of silver shone on her right side: the sword had descended.
The lock dropped to the ground.

"Bravely borne!" said Troy.  "You didn't flinch a shade's thickness.
Wonderful in a woman!"

"It was because I didn't expect it.  Oh, you have spoilt my hair!"

"Only once more."

"No--no!  I am afraid of you--indeed I am!" she cried.

"I won't touch you at all--not even your hair.  I am only going to
kill that caterpillar settling on you.  Now: still!"

It appeared that a caterpillar had come from the fern and chosen the
front of her bodice as his resting place.  She saw the point glisten
towards her bosom, and seemingly enter it.  Bathsheba closed her eyes
in the full persuasion that she was killed at last.  However, feeling
just as usual, she opened them again.

"There it is, look," said the sergeant, holding his sword before her
eyes.

The caterpillar was spitted upon its point.

"Why, it is magic!" said Bathsheba, amazed.

"Oh no--dexterity.  I merely gave point to your bosom where the
caterpillar was, and instead of running you through checked the
extension a thousandth of an inch short of your surface."

"But how could you chop off a curl of my hair with a sword that has
no edge?"

"No edge!  This sword will shave like a razor.  Look here."

He touched the palm of his hand with the blade, and then, lifting it,
showed her a thin shaving of scarf-skin dangling therefrom.

"But you said before beginning that it was blunt and couldn't cut
me!"

"That was to get you to stand still, and so make sure of your safety.
The risk of injuring you through your moving was too great not to
force me to tell you a fib to escape it."

She shuddered.  "I have been within an inch of my life, and didn't
know it!"

"More precisely speaking, you have been within half an inch of being
pared alive two hundred and ninety-five times."

"Cruel, cruel, 'tis of you!"

"You have been perfectly safe, nevertheless.  My sword never errs."
And Troy returned the weapon to the scabbard.

Bathsheba, overcome by a hundred tumultuous feelings resulting from
the scene, abstractedly sat down on a tuft of heather.

"I must leave you now," said Troy, softly.  "And I'll venture to take
and keep this in remembrance of you."

She saw him stoop to the grass, pick up the winding lock which he
had severed from her manifold tresses, twist it round his fingers,
unfasten a button in the breast of his coat, and carefully put
it inside.  She felt powerless to withstand or deny him.  He was
altogether too much for her, and Bathsheba seemed as one who, facing
a reviving wind, finds it blow so strongly that it stops the breath.
He drew near and said, "I must be leaving you."

He drew nearer still.  A minute later and she saw his scarlet form
disappear amid the ferny thicket, almost in a flash, like a brand
swiftly waved.

That minute's interval had brought the blood beating into her face,
set her stinging as if aflame to the very hollows of her feet, and
enlarged emotion to a compass which quite swamped thought.  It had
brought upon her a stroke resulting, as did that of Moses in Horeb,
in a liquid stream--here a stream of tears.  She felt like one who
has sinned a great sin.

The circumstance had been the gentle dip of Troy's mouth downwards
upon her own.  He had kissed her.




Chapter 28
At eight o'clock that midsummer evening, Bathsheba appeared in the fern hollow amid the soft, green, shoulder-high fronds. She paused, changed her mind, and was halfway home again before she caught sight of a red coat approaching. She considered Troy's disappointment were she not to appear, and she ran back to the hollow. When she reached the verge of a pit in the midst of the ferns, she saw Troy standing at the bottom and looking toward her. Troy's performance with the sword was precise and filled with bravado. It grew a bit frightening. He pretended the girl was the enemy and brandished his sword about her so realistically that she imagined herself run through. It was a dexterous feat. As a final tour-de-force, he said, "That outer loose lock of hair wants tidying. . . . Wait: I'll do it for you." "An area of silver shone on her right side; the sword had descended. The lock dropped to the ground." Next Troy speared a caterpillar that had settled upon Bathsheba's bosom. Only then did Troy admit that the sword was razor-sharp. "You have been within half an inch of being pared alive two hundred and ninety-five times." Then the man stopped to pick up the lock of Bathsheba's hair. He tucked it inside his coat. Softly he announced that he had to leave. He disappeared, and, overcome by tumultuous emotion, "aflame to the very hollows of her feet," Bathsheba wept, feeling "like one who has sinned a great sin." "The circumstances had been the gentle dip of Troy's mouth downwards upon her own. He had kissed her."
Troy is so completely in command of his sword and so perfectly confident of his skill that he does not hesitate to risk Bathsheba's life for the sake of his performance. His actions have utterly overwhelmed Bathsheba: "She felt powerless to withstand or deny him." We must not overlook Hardy's own showmanship. He creates a sensuous chapter, with the lush setting, textures, colors, and lighting all playing their parts. He does a masterful job of describing the flashing of lights and the lightning speed of Troy's every move. Hardy was interested in dramatics and here uses his sense of effective staging.