finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_4_part_3.txt
Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 37
chapter 37
{"name": "Chapter 37", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-5-chapters-35-44", "summary": "At midnight, Angel enters the bedroom to find Tess, who was asleep. Standing still, he murmurs in an indescribably sad tone \"dead, dead, dead. Angel occasionally walks in his sleep as he does now. Tess sees this continued mental distress. Angel bends low and encloses Tess in his arms, and rolls her in the sheet as in a shroud. He lifts her from the bed and carries her across the room, murmuring \"my dearest darling Tess. So sweet so good, so true. He leans her against the banister as if to throw her down, but rather kisses her and descends the staircase. Tess cannot determine Angel's ultimate intention, but finally realizes that he is dreaming about the Sunday when he carried her across the water with the other milkmaids. He carries her near the river, and she believes he may drown her. He walks through the shallow areas of the river carrying her, but they reach the other side in safety; if she had awakened him, they would have fallen into the gulf and both died. Angel carries her to the empty stone coffin of an abbot, where he lays Tess and then falls down asleep. Tess sits up in the coffin, but does not awake Angel out of fear that he may die if awakened from sleep-walking. She walks him back to the house and induces him to lay down on the sofa bed. The next morning, Angel seems to know nothing about the previous night's events. The two leave Wellbridge to return to Talbothays to pay a visit to the Cricks. At Talbothays, Tess learns that Marian and Retty have left Talbothays, and she fears they will come to no good. After Tess and Angel leave, Mrs. Crick remarks how unnatural the two look, as if they were in a dream. Angel tells Tess that he has no anger, and he will let her know where he is going as soon as he himself knows. He tells her that until he comes to her she should not come to him, and that she should write if she is ill or if she wants anything.", "analysis": "Hardy explores the depths to which Angel has been wounded by Tess's revelation in this chapter, in which Angel, while sleepwalking, reveals the great psychological torment that he feels. He so fervently believes that his wife is dead that he carries her to a coffin and lays her there. This is a departure from previous chapters in which Hardy has portrayed Angel as coldly observing his principles without any display of affection for his wife. Here the unconscious Angel shows that he still loves the previous conception he had of Tess, yet cannot reconcile it with this new information about her. His anguish is so great that it possesses him while asleep. However, that Angel cannot realize what he has done while sleepwalking demonstrates that he is unaware of the deep emotional vein of his torment; rather, he focuses on the intellectual disappointment. If Hardy allows Angel greater sympathy in this chapter, he also shows the degree to which Tess will sacrifice herself for her husband. Tess remains completely submissive to her sleepwalking husband as he carries her across the river and to the cemetery. She remains open to the possibility that he may murder her or cause their mutual death, but remains still rather than disturb Angel. Tess therefore makes manifest her promise to Angel in previous chapters by leaving her life in his hands. The final separation of Tess and Angel that ends this chapter leaves some degree of room for consideration. Angel remains calm, as always, yet realizes that it is he who must change before he can accept Tess again. He therefore places the burden of acceptance on himself rather than on Tess, while still allowing for her sustenance. Angel takes grudging steps toward admitting his own fallibility; his struggle to sacrifice his principles for greater ones and Tess's reaction to her new fate will provide a great deal of the narrative drive of the rest of the novel"}


Midnight came and passed silently, for there was nothing to announce
it in the Valley of the Froom.

Not long after one o'clock there was a slight creak in the darkened
farmhouse once the mansion of the d'Urbervilles.  Tess, who used the
upper chamber, heard it and awoke.  It had come from the corner step
of the staircase, which, as usual, was loosely nailed.  She saw the
door of her bedroom open, and the figure of her husband crossed the
stream of moonlight with a curiously careful tread.  He was in his
shirt and trousers only, and her first flush of joy died when she
perceived that his eyes were fixed in an unnatural stare on vacancy.
When he reached the middle of the room he stood still and murmured in
tones of indescribable sadness--

"Dead! dead! dead!"

Under the influence of any strongly-disturbing force, Clare would
occasionally walk in his sleep, and even perform strange feats, such
as he had done on the night of their return from market just before
their marriage, when he re-enacted in his bedroom his combat with the
man who had insulted her.  Tess saw that continued mental distress
had wrought him into that somnambulistic state now.

Her loyal confidence in him lay so deep down in her heart, that,
awake or asleep, he inspired her with no sort of personal fear.  If
he had entered with a pistol in his hand he would scarcely have
disturbed her trust in his protectiveness.

Clare came close, and bent over her. "Dead, dead, dead!" he murmured.

After fixedly regarding her for some moments with the same gaze of
unmeasurable woe, he bent lower, enclosed her in his arms, and rolled
her in the sheet as in a shroud.  Then lifting her from the bed with
as much respect as one would show to a dead body, he carried her
across the room, murmuring--

"My poor, poor Tess--my dearest, darling Tess!  So sweet, so good, so
true!"

The words of endearment, withheld so severely in his waking hours,
were inexpressibly sweet to her forlorn and hungry heart.  If it had
been to save her weary life she would not, by moving or struggling,
have put an end to the position she found herself in.  Thus she lay
in absolute stillness, scarcely venturing to breathe, and, wondering
what he was going to do with her, suffered herself to be borne out
upon the landing.

"My wife--dead, dead!" he said.

He paused in his labours for a moment to lean with her against the
banister.  Was he going to throw her down?  Self-solicitude was near
extinction in her, and in the knowledge that he had planned to depart
on the morrow, possibly for always, she lay in his arms in this
precarious position with a sense rather of luxury than of terror.  If
they could only fall together, and both be dashed to pieces, how fit,
how desirable.

However, he did not let her fall, but took advantage of the support
of the handrail to imprint a kiss upon her lips--lips in the day-time
scorned.  Then he clasped her with a renewed firmness of hold, and
descended the staircase.  The creak of the loose stair did not awaken
him, and they reached the ground-floor safely.  Freeing one of his
hands from his grasp of her for a moment, he slid back the door-bar
and passed out, slightly striking his stockinged toe against the edge
of the door.  But this he seemed not to mind, and, having room for
extension in the open air, he lifted her against his shoulder, so
that he could carry her with ease, the absence of clothes taking much
from his burden.  Thus he bore her off the premises in the direction
of the river a few yards distant.

His ultimate intention, if he had any, she had not yet divined; and
she found herself conjecturing on the matter as a third person might
have done.  So easefully had she delivered her whole being up to him
that it pleased her to think he was regarding her as his absolute
possession, to dispose of as he should choose.  It was consoling,
under the hovering terror of to-morrow's separation, to feel that he
really recognized her now as his wife Tess, and did not cast her off,
even if in that recognition he went so far as to arrogate to himself
the right of harming her.

Ah! now she knew what he was dreaming of--that Sunday morning when he
had borne her along through the water with the other dairymaids, who
had loved him nearly as much as she, if that were possible, which
Tess could hardly admit.  Clare did not cross the bridge with her,
but proceeding several paces on the same side towards the adjoining
mill, at length stood still on the brink of the river.

Its waters, in creeping down these miles of meadowland, frequently
divided, serpentining in purposeless curves, looping themselves
around little islands that had no name, returning and re-embodying
themselves as a broad main stream further on.  Opposite the spot to
which he had brought her was such a general confluence, and the river
was proportionately voluminous and deep.  Across it was a narrow
foot-bridge; but now the autumn flood had washed the handrail away,
leaving the bare plank only, which, lying a few inches above the
speeding current, formed a giddy pathway for even steady heads; and
Tess had noticed from the window of the house in the day-time young
men walking across upon it as a feat in balancing.  Her husband had
possibly observed the same performance; anyhow, he now mounted the
plank, and, sliding one foot forward, advanced along it.

Was he going to drown her?  Probably he was.  The spot was lonely,
the river deep and wide enough to make such a purpose easy of
accomplishment.  He might drown her if he would; it would be better
than parting to-morrow to lead severed lives.

The swift stream raced and gyrated under them, tossing, distorting,
and splitting the moon's reflected face.  Spots of froth travelled
past, and intercepted weeds waved behind the piles.  If they could
both fall together into the current now, their arms would be so
tightly clasped together that they could not be saved; they would
go out of the world almost painlessly, and there would be no more
reproach to her, or to him for marrying her.  His last half-hour with
her would have been a loving one, while if they lived till he awoke,
his day-time aversion would return, and this hour would remain to be
contemplated only as a transient dream.

The impulse stirred in her, yet she dared not indulge it, to make a
movement that would have precipitated them both into the gulf.  How
she valued her own life had been proved; but his--she had no right to
tamper with it.  He reached the other side with her in safety.

Here they were within a plantation which formed the Abbey grounds,
and taking a new hold of her he went onward a few steps till they
reached the ruined choir of the Abbey-church.  Against the north wall
was the empty stone coffin of an abbot, in which every tourist with
a turn for grim humour was accustomed to stretch himself.  In this
Clare carefully laid Tess.  Having kissed her lips a second time he
breathed deeply, as if a greatly desired end were attained.  Clare
then lay down on the ground alongside, when he immediately fell into
the deep dead slumber of exhaustion, and remained motionless as a
log.  The spurt of mental excitement which had produced the effort
was now over.

Tess sat up in the coffin.  The night, though dry and mild for the
season, was more than sufficiently cold to make it dangerous for him
to remain here long, in his half-clothed state.  If he were left to
himself he would in all probability stay there till the morning, and
be chilled to certain death.  She had heard of such deaths after
sleep-walking.  But how could she dare to awaken him, and let him
know what he had been doing, when it would mortify him to discover
his folly in respect of her?  Tess, however, stepping out of her
stone confine, shook him slightly, but was unable to arouse him
without being violent.  It was indispensable to do something, for she
was beginning to shiver, the sheet being but a poor protection.  Her
excitement had in a measure kept her warm during the few minutes'
adventure; but that beatific interval was over.

It suddenly occurred to her to try persuasion; and accordingly she
whispered in his ear, with as much firmness and decision as she could
summon--

"Let us walk on, darling," at the same time taking him suggestively
by the arm.  To her relief, he unresistingly acquiesced; her words
had apparently thrown him back into his dream, which thenceforward
seemed to enter on a new phase, wherein he fancied she had risen as a
spirit, and was leading him to Heaven. Thus she conducted him by the
arm to the stone bridge in front of their residence, crossing which
they stood at the manor-house door.  Tess's feet were quite bare, and
the stones hurt her, and chilled her to the bone; but Clare was in
his woollen stockings, and appeared to feel no discomfort.

There was no further difficulty.  She induced him to lie down on his
own sofa bed, and covered him up warmly, lighting a temporary fire of
wood, to dry any dampness out of him.  The noise of these attentions
she thought might awaken him, and secretly wished that they might.
But the exhaustion of his mind and body was such that he remained
undisturbed.

As soon as they met the next morning Tess divined that Angel knew
little or nothing of how far she had been concerned in the night's
excursion, though, as regarded himself, he may have been aware that
he had not lain still.  In truth, he had awakened that morning from
a sleep deep as annihilation; and during those first few moments
in which the brain, like a Samson shaking himself, is trying its
strength, he had some dim notion of an unusual nocturnal proceeding.
But the realities of his situation soon displaced conjecture on the
other subject.

He waited in expectancy to discern some mental pointing; he knew that
if any intention of his, concluded over-night, did not vanish in the
light of morning, it stood on a basis approximating to one of pure
reason, even if initiated by impulse of feeling; that it was so
far, therefore, to be trusted.  He thus beheld in the pale morning
light the resolve to separate from her; not as a hot and indignant
instinct, but denuded of the passionateness which had made it scorch
and burn; standing in its bones; nothing but a skeleton, but none the
less there.  Clare no longer hesitated.

At breakfast, and while they were packing the few remaining articles,
he showed his weariness from the night's effort so unmistakeably that
Tess was on the point of revealing all that had happened; but the
reflection that it would anger him, grieve him, stultify him, to know
that he had instinctively manifested a fondness for her of which his
common-sense did not approve, that his inclination had compromised
his dignity when reason slept, again deterred her.  It was too much
like laughing at a man when sober for his erratic deeds during
intoxication.

It just crossed her mind, too, that he might have a faint
recollection of his tender vagary, and was disinclined to allude to
it from a conviction that she would take amatory advantage of the
opportunity it gave her of appealing to him anew not to go.

He had ordered by letter a vehicle from the nearest town, and
soon after breakfast it arrived.  She saw in it the beginning of
the end--the temporary end, at least, for the revelation of his
tenderness by the incident of the night raised dreams of a possible
future with him.  The luggage was put on the top, and the man drove
them off, the miller and the old waiting-woman expressing some
surprise at their precipitate departure, which Clare attributed to
his discovery that the mill-work was not of the modern kind which he
wished to investigate, a statement that was true so far as it went.
Beyond this there was nothing in the manner of their leaving to
suggest a fiasco, or that they were not going together to visit
friends.

Their route lay near the dairy from which they had started with such
solemn joy in each other a few days back, and as Clare wished to wind
up his business with Mr Crick, Tess could hardly avoid paying Mrs
Crick a call at the same time, unless she would excite suspicion of
their unhappy state.

To make the call as unobtrusive as possible, they left the carriage
by the wicket leading down from the high road to the dairy-house, and
descended the track on foot, side by side.  The withy-bed had been
cut, and they could see over the stumps the spot to which Clare had
followed her when he pressed her to be his wife; to the left the
enclosure in which she had been fascinated by his harp; and far away
behind the cow-stalls the mead which had been the scene of their
first embrace.  The gold of the summer picture was now gray, the
colours mean, the rich soil mud, and the river cold.

Over the barton-gate the dairyman saw them, and came forward,
throwing into his face the kind of jocularity deemed appropriate
in Talbothays and its vicinity on the re-appearance of the
newly-married.  Then Mrs Crick emerged from the house, and several
others of their old acquaintance, though Marian and Retty did not
seem to be there.

Tess valiantly bore their sly attacks and friendly humours, which
affected her far otherwise than they supposed.  In the tacit
agreement of husband and wife to keep their estrangement a secret
they behaved as would have been ordinary.  And then, although she
would rather there had been no word spoken on the subject, Tess had
to hear in detail the story of Marian and Retty.  The later had gone
home to her father's, and Marian had left to look for employment
elsewhere.  They feared she would come to no good.

To dissipate the sadness of this recital Tess went and bade all her
favourite cows goodbye, touching each of them with her hand, and as
she and Clare stood side by side at leaving, as if united body and
soul, there would have been something peculiarly sorry in their
aspect to one who should have seen it truly; two limbs of one life,
as they outwardly were, his arm touching hers, her skirts touching
him, facing one way, as against all the dairy facing the other,
speaking in their adieux as "we", and yet sundered like the poles.
Perhaps something unusually stiff and embarrassed in their attitude,
some awkwardness in acting up to their profession of unity, different
from the natural shyness of young couples, may have been apparent,
for when they were gone Mrs Crick said to her husband--

"How onnatural the brightness of her eyes did seem, and how they
stood like waxen images and talked as if they were in a dream!
Didn't it strike 'ee that 'twas so?  Tess had always sommat strange
in her, and she's not now quite like the proud young bride of a
well-be-doing man."

They re-entered the vehicle, and were driven along the roads towards
Weatherbury and Stagfoot Lane, till they reached the Lane inn, where
Clare dismissed the fly and man.  They rested here a while, and
entering the Vale were next driven onward towards her home by a
stranger who did not know their relations.  At a midway point, when
Nuttlebury had been passed, and where there were cross-roads, Clare
stopped the conveyance and said to Tess that if she meant to return
to her mother's house it was here that he would leave her.  As they
could not talk with freedom in the driver's presence he asked her to
accompany him for a few steps on foot along one of the branch roads;
she assented, and directing the man to wait a few minutes they
strolled away.

"Now, let us understand each other," he said gently.  "There is no
anger between us, though there is that which I cannot endure at
present.  I will try to bring myself to endure it.  I will let you
know where I go to as soon as I know myself.  And if I can bring
myself to bear it--if it is desirable, possible--I will come to you.
But until I come to you it will be better that you should not try to
come to me."

The severity of the decree seemed deadly to Tess; she saw his view of
her clearly enough; he could regard her in no other light than that
of one who had practised gross deceit upon him.  Yet could a woman
who had done even what she had done deserve all this?  But she could
contest the point with him no further.  She simply repeated after him
his own words.

"Until you come to me I must not try to come to you?"

"Just so."

"May I write to you?"

"O yes--if you are ill, or want anything at all.  I hope that will
not be the case; so that it may happen that I write first to you."

"I agree to the conditions, Angel; because you know best what my
punishment ought to be; only--only--don't make it more than I can
bear!"

That was all she said on the matter.  If Tess had been artful, had
she made a scene, fainted, wept hysterically, in that lonely lane,
notwithstanding the fury of fastidiousness with which he was
possessed, he would probably not have withstood her.  But her mood
of long-suffering made his way easy for him, and she herself was
his best advocate.  Pride, too, entered into her submission--which
perhaps was a symptom of that reckless acquiescence in chance too
apparent in the whole d'Urberville family--and the many effective
chords which she could have stirred by an appeal were left untouched.

The remainder of their discourse was on practical matters only.  He
now handed her a packet containing a fairly good sum of money, which
he had obtained from his bankers for the purpose.  The brilliants,
the interest in which seemed to be Tess's for her life only (if he
understood the wording of the will), he advised her to let him send
to a bank for safety; and to this she readily agreed.

These things arranged, he walked with Tess back to the carriage,
and handed her in.  The coachman was paid and told where to drive
her.  Taking next his own bag and umbrella--the sole articles he had
brought with him hitherwards--he bade her goodbye; and they parted
there and then.

The fly moved creepingly up a hill, and Clare watched it go with an
unpremeditated hope that Tess would look out of the window for one
moment.  But that she never thought of doing, would not have ventured
to do, lying in a half-dead faint inside.  Thus he beheld her recede,
and in the anguish of his heart quoted a line from a poet, with
peculiar emendations of his own--


    God's NOT in his heaven:
    All's WRONG with the world!


When Tess had passed over the crest of the hill he turned to go his
own way, and hardly knew that he loved her still.



Chapter 37
At midnight, Angel enters the bedroom to find Tess, who was asleep. Standing still, he murmurs in an indescribably sad tone "dead, dead, dead. Angel occasionally walks in his sleep as he does now. Tess sees this continued mental distress. Angel bends low and encloses Tess in his arms, and rolls her in the sheet as in a shroud. He lifts her from the bed and carries her across the room, murmuring "my dearest darling Tess. So sweet so good, so true. He leans her against the banister as if to throw her down, but rather kisses her and descends the staircase. Tess cannot determine Angel's ultimate intention, but finally realizes that he is dreaming about the Sunday when he carried her across the water with the other milkmaids. He carries her near the river, and she believes he may drown her. He walks through the shallow areas of the river carrying her, but they reach the other side in safety; if she had awakened him, they would have fallen into the gulf and both died. Angel carries her to the empty stone coffin of an abbot, where he lays Tess and then falls down asleep. Tess sits up in the coffin, but does not awake Angel out of fear that he may die if awakened from sleep-walking. She walks him back to the house and induces him to lay down on the sofa bed. The next morning, Angel seems to know nothing about the previous night's events. The two leave Wellbridge to return to Talbothays to pay a visit to the Cricks. At Talbothays, Tess learns that Marian and Retty have left Talbothays, and she fears they will come to no good. After Tess and Angel leave, Mrs. Crick remarks how unnatural the two look, as if they were in a dream. Angel tells Tess that he has no anger, and he will let her know where he is going as soon as he himself knows. He tells her that until he comes to her she should not come to him, and that she should write if she is ill or if she wants anything.
Hardy explores the depths to which Angel has been wounded by Tess's revelation in this chapter, in which Angel, while sleepwalking, reveals the great psychological torment that he feels. He so fervently believes that his wife is dead that he carries her to a coffin and lays her there. This is a departure from previous chapters in which Hardy has portrayed Angel as coldly observing his principles without any display of affection for his wife. Here the unconscious Angel shows that he still loves the previous conception he had of Tess, yet cannot reconcile it with this new information about her. His anguish is so great that it possesses him while asleep. However, that Angel cannot realize what he has done while sleepwalking demonstrates that he is unaware of the deep emotional vein of his torment; rather, he focuses on the intellectual disappointment. If Hardy allows Angel greater sympathy in this chapter, he also shows the degree to which Tess will sacrifice herself for her husband. Tess remains completely submissive to her sleepwalking husband as he carries her across the river and to the cemetery. She remains open to the possibility that he may murder her or cause their mutual death, but remains still rather than disturb Angel. Tess therefore makes manifest her promise to Angel in previous chapters by leaving her life in his hands. The final separation of Tess and Angel that ends this chapter leaves some degree of room for consideration. Angel remains calm, as always, yet realizes that it is he who must change before he can accept Tess again. He therefore places the burden of acceptance on himself rather than on Tess, while still allowing for her sustenance. Angel takes grudging steps toward admitting his own fallibility; his struggle to sacrifice his principles for greater ones and Tess's reaction to her new fate will provide a great deal of the narrative drive of the rest of the novel