finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_10_part_0.txt
Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 11
chapter 11
{"name": "Chapter 11", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-11", "summary": "Hours later, in snow and darkness, a figure appeared on the public path that was bordered by a river. In the background could be heard the constant gurgling of water. The figure was counting out the windows of a barracks. Stopping at the fifth, it threw a small snowball which \"smacked against the wall at a point several yards from its mark. The throw was the idea of a man conjoined with the execution of a woman. No man . . . could possibly have thrown with such utter imbecility as was shown here.\" After many efforts, the girl finally struck the proper window. The window opened and a man's voice asked who was there. The girl identified herself as Fanny Robin. She regarded herself as Sergeant Troy's wife because of his frequent promises, and she wished to publish their marriage banns. They agreed to meet the next day. Then she went away, amid the guffaws of Troy's companions.", "analysis": "Hardy lets the weather serve to show the interrelation between atmospheric conditions and mood. The approach of winter is well portrayed, and the bleakness of the barracks territory reflects Fanny's dismal situation. The tall \"verticality\" of the barracks wall is dramatically contrasted with the smallness of the little waif; her credulity is contrasted with Troy's blustering. Using nature to mirror mood or situation is a common device in Hardy. Note the seasons in which major events occur throughout the book. Spring is often a time of happiness and renewal; winter, a time of death and despair."}


OUTSIDE THE BARRACKS--SNOW--A MEETING


For dreariness nothing could surpass a prospect in the outskirts of a
certain town and military station, many miles north of Weatherbury,
at a later hour on this same snowy evening--if that may be called a
prospect of which the chief constituent was darkness.

It was a night when sorrow may come to the brightest without causing
any great sense of incongruity: when, with impressible persons, love
becomes solicitousness, hope sinks to misgiving, and faith to hope:
when the exercise of memory does not stir feelings of regret at
opportunities for ambition that have been passed by, and anticipation
does not prompt to enterprise.

The scene was a public path, bordered on the left hand by a river,
behind which rose a high wall.  On the right was a tract of land,
partly meadow and partly moor, reaching, at its remote verge, to a
wide undulating upland.

The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on spots of this
kind than amid woodland scenery.  Still, to a close observer, they
are just as perceptible; the difference is that their media of
manifestation are less trite and familiar than such well-known ones
as the bursting of the buds or the fall of the leaf.  Many are not
so stealthy and gradual as we may be apt to imagine in considering
the general torpidity of a moor or waste.  Winter, in coming to the
country hereabout, advanced in well-marked stages, wherein might
have been successively observed the retreat of the snakes, the
transformation of the ferns, the filling of the pools, a rising of
fogs, the embrowning by frost, the collapse of the fungi, and an
obliteration by snow.

This climax of the series had been reached to-night on the aforesaid
moor, and for the first time in the season its irregularities were
forms without features; suggestive of anything, proclaiming nothing,
and without more character than that of being the limit of something
else--the lowest layer of a firmament of snow.  From this chaotic
skyful of crowding flakes the mead and moor momentarily received
additional clothing, only to appear momentarily more naked thereby.
The vast arch of cloud above was strangely low, and formed as it were
the roof of a large dark cavern, gradually sinking in upon its floor;
for the instinctive thought was that the snow lining the heavens and
that encrusting the earth would soon unite into one mass without any
intervening stratum of air at all.

We turn our attention to the left-hand characteristics; which were
flatness in respect of the river, verticality in respect of the wall
behind it, and darkness as to both.  These features made up the mass.
If anything could be darker than the sky, it was the wall, and if any
thing could be gloomier than the wall it was the river beneath.  The
indistinct summit of the facade was notched and pronged by chimneys
here and there, and upon its face were faintly signified the oblong
shapes of windows, though only in the upper part.  Below, down to the
water's edge, the flat was unbroken by hole or projection.

An indescribable succession of dull blows, perplexing in their
regularity, sent their sound with difficulty through the fluffy
atmosphere.  It was a neighbouring clock striking ten.  The bell was
in the open air, and being overlaid with several inches of muffling
snow, had lost its voice for the time.

About this hour the snow abated: ten flakes fell where twenty had
fallen, then one had the room of ten.  Not long after a form moved
by the brink of the river.

By its outline upon the colourless background, a close observer
might have seen that it was small.  This was all that was positively
discoverable, though it seemed human.

The shape went slowly along, but without much exertion, for the snow,
though sudden, was not as yet more than two inches deep.  At this
time some words were spoken aloud:--

"One.  Two.  Three.  Four.  Five."

Between each utterance the little shape advanced about half a dozen
yards.  It was evident now that the windows high in the wall were
being counted.  The word "Five" represented the fifth window from the
end of the wall.

Here the spot stopped, and dwindled smaller.  The figure was
stooping.  Then a morsel of snow flew across the river towards the
fifth window.  It smacked against the wall at a point several yards
from its mark.  The throw was the idea of a man conjoined with the
execution of a woman.  No man who had ever seen bird, rabbit, or
squirrel in his childhood, could possibly have thrown with such utter
imbecility as was shown here.

Another attempt, and another; till by degrees the wall must have
become pimpled with the adhering lumps of snow.  At last one fragment
struck the fifth window.

The river would have been seen by day to be of that deep smooth sort
which races middle and sides with the same gliding precision, any
irregularities of speed being immediately corrected by a small
whirlpool.  Nothing was heard in reply to the signal but the gurgle
and cluck of one of these invisible wheels--together with a few small
sounds which a sad man would have called moans, and a happy man
laughter--caused by the flapping of the waters against trifling
objects in other parts of the stream.

The window was struck again in the same manner.

Then a noise was heard, apparently produced by the opening of the
window.  This was followed by a voice from the same quarter.

"Who's there?"

The tones were masculine, and not those of surprise.  The high
wall being that of a barrack, and marriage being looked upon with
disfavour in the army, assignations and communications had probably
been made across the river before to-night.

"Is it Sergeant Troy?" said the blurred spot in the snow,
tremulously.

This person was so much like a mere shade upon the earth, and the
other speaker so much a part of the building, that one would have
said the wall was holding a conversation with the snow.

"Yes," came suspiciously from the shadow. "What girl are you?"

"Oh, Frank--don't you know me?" said the spot.  "Your wife, Fanny
Robin."

"Fanny!" said the wall, in utter astonishment.

"Yes," said the girl, with a half-suppressed gasp of emotion.

There was something in the woman's tone which is not that of the
wife, and there was a manner in the man which is rarely a husband's.
The dialogue went on:

"How did you come here?"

"I asked which was your window.  Forgive me!"

"I did not expect you to-night.  Indeed, I did not think you would
come at all.  It was a wonder you found me here.  I am orderly
to-morrow."

"You said I was to come."

"Well--I said that you might."

"Yes, I mean that I might.  You are glad to see me, Frank?"

"Oh yes--of course."

"Can you--come to me!"

"My dear Fan, no!  The bugle has sounded, the barrack gates are
closed, and I have no leave.  We are all of us as good as in the
county gaol till to-morrow morning."

"Then I shan't see you till then!"  The words were in a faltering
tone of disappointment.

"How did you get here from Weatherbury?"

"I walked--some part of the way--the rest by the carriers."

"I am surprised."

"Yes--so am I.  And Frank, when will it be?"

"What?"

"That you promised."

"I don't quite recollect."

"O you do!  Don't speak like that.  It weighs me to the earth.  It
makes me say what ought to be said first by you."

"Never mind--say it."

"O, must I?--it is, when shall we be married, Frank?"

"Oh, I see.  Well--you have to get proper clothes."

"I have money.  Will it be by banns or license?"

"Banns, I should think."

"And we live in two parishes."

"Do we?  What then?"

"My lodgings are in St. Mary's, and this is not.  So they will have
to be published in both."

"Is that the law?"

"Yes.  O Frank--you think me forward, I am afraid!  Don't, dear
Frank--will you--for I love you so.  And you said lots of times you
would marry me, and--and--I--I--I--"

"Don't cry, now!  It is foolish.  If I said so, of course I will."

"And shall I put up the banns in my parish, and will you in yours?"

"Yes"

"To-morrow?"

"Not to-morrow.  We'll settle in a few days."

"You have the permission of the officers?"

"No, not yet."

"O--how is it?  You said you almost had before you left
Casterbridge."

"The fact is, I forgot to ask.  Your coming like this is so sudden
and unexpected."

"Yes--yes--it is.  It was wrong of me to worry you.  I'll go away
now.  Will you come and see me to-morrow, at Mrs. Twills's, in North
Street?  I don't like to come to the Barracks.  There are bad women
about, and they think me one."

"Quite, so.  I'll come to you, my dear.  Good-night."

"Good-night, Frank--good-night!"

And the noise was again heard of a window closing.  The little spot
moved away.  When she passed the corner a subdued exclamation was
heard inside the wall.

"Ho--ho--Sergeant--ho--ho!" An  expostulation followed, but it was
indistinct; and it became lost amid a low peal of laughter, which was
hardly distinguishable from the gurgle of the tiny whirlpools
outside.




Chapter 11
Hours later, in snow and darkness, a figure appeared on the public path that was bordered by a river. In the background could be heard the constant gurgling of water. The figure was counting out the windows of a barracks. Stopping at the fifth, it threw a small snowball which "smacked against the wall at a point several yards from its mark. The throw was the idea of a man conjoined with the execution of a woman. No man . . . could possibly have thrown with such utter imbecility as was shown here." After many efforts, the girl finally struck the proper window. The window opened and a man's voice asked who was there. The girl identified herself as Fanny Robin. She regarded herself as Sergeant Troy's wife because of his frequent promises, and she wished to publish their marriage banns. They agreed to meet the next day. Then she went away, amid the guffaws of Troy's companions.
Hardy lets the weather serve to show the interrelation between atmospheric conditions and mood. The approach of winter is well portrayed, and the bleakness of the barracks territory reflects Fanny's dismal situation. The tall "verticality" of the barracks wall is dramatically contrasted with the smallness of the little waif; her credulity is contrasted with Troy's blustering. Using nature to mirror mood or situation is a common device in Hardy. Note the seasons in which major events occur throughout the book. Spring is often a time of happiness and renewal; winter, a time of death and despair.