the night watch by rembrandt

sprang away and raced before the wind, and for two hours Johnson and Leach pursued us. We hove to and ran away, hove to and ran away; and ever astern the struggling patch of sail tossed skyward and fell into the rushing valleys. It was a quarter of a mile away when a thick squall of rain veiled it from view. It never emerged. The wind blew the air clear again, but no patch of sail broke the troubled surface. I thought I saw, for an instant, the boat's bottom show black in a breaking crest. At the best, that was all. For Johnson and Leach the travail of existence had ceased. ¡¡¡¡The men remained grouped amidships. No one had gone below, and no one was speaking. Nor were any looks being exchanged. Each man seemed stunned- deeply contemplative, as it were, and, not quite sure, trying to realize just what had taken place. Wolf Larsen gave them little time for thought. He at once put the Ghost

American Day Dream

Wolf Larsen had little to say at first, doing no more than reply when he was addressed. Not that he was abashed. Far from it. This woman was a new type to him, a different breed from any he had ever known, and he was curious. He studied her, his eyes rarely leaving her face, unless to follow the movements of her hands or shoulders. I studied her myself, and though it was I who maintained the conversation, I know that I was a bit shy, not quite self-possessed. His was the perfect poise, the supreme confidence in self which nothing could shake; and he was no more timid of a woman than he was of storm and battle. ¡¡¡¡'And when shall we arrive at Yokohama?' she asked, turning to him and looking him square in the eyes. ¡¡¡¡There it was, the question flat. The jaws stopped working, the ears ceased wabbling, and though eyes remained on plates, each man listened greedily for the answer.

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upon her course- a course which meant the seal-herd and not Yokohama harbor. But the men were no longer eager as they pulled and hauled, and I heard curses among them which left their lips smothered and as heavy and lifeless as were they. Not so was it with the hunters. Smoke the irrepressible related a story, and they descended into the steerage bellowing with laughter. ¡¡¡¡As I passed to leeward of the galley on my way aft, I was approached by the engineer we had rescued. His face was white, his lips were trembling. ¡¡¡¡'Good God! sir, what kind of a craft is this?' he cried. ¡¡¡¡'You have eyes; you have seen,' I answered almost brutally, what of the pain and fear at my own heart. ¡¡¡¡'Your promise?' I said to Wolf Larsen. ¡¡¡¡'I was not thinking of taking them aboard when I made that promise,' he answered. 'And, anyway, you'll agree I've not laid my hands upon them. Far from it, far from it,' he laughed a moment later.

The Water lily Pond

I made no reply. I was incapable of speaking, my mind was too confused. I must have time to think, I knew. This woman, sleeping even now in the spare cabin, was a responsibility which I must consider, and the only rational thought that flickered through my mind was that I must do nothing hastily if I were to be any help to her at all.
¡¡¡CHAPTER TWENTY. ¡¡¡¡THE REMAINDER OF THE DAY passed uneventfully. The young slip of a gale, having wetted our gills, proceeded to moderate. The fourth engineer and the three oilers, after a warm interview with Wolf Larsen, were furnished with outfits from the slop-chest, assigned places under the hunters in the various boats and watches on the vessel, and bundled forward into the forecastle. They went protestingly, but their voices were not loud. They were awed by what they had already seen of Wolf Larsen's character, while the tale of woe they speedily heard in the forecastle took the last bit of rebellion out of them.

Woman with a Parasol

Miss Brewster- we had learned her name from the engineer- slept on and on. At supper I requested the hunters to lower their voices, so she was not disturbed; and it was not till next morning that she made her appearance. It had been my intention to have her meals served apart, but Wolf Larsen put down his foot. Who was she that she should be too good for cabin table and cabin society? had been his demand. ¡¡¡¡But her coming to the table had something amusing in it. The hunters fell as silent as clams. Jock Horner and Smoke alone were unabashed, stealing stealthy glances at her now and again, and even taking part in the conversation. The other four men glued their eyes on their plates and chewed steadily and with thoughtful precision, their ears moving and wabbling, in time with their jaws, like the ears of so many animals.

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We must have been well in the path of the transpacific steamships when the typhoon moderated, and here, to the surprise of the hunters, we found ourselves in the midst of seals- a second herd, or sort of rear-guard, they declared, and a most unusual thing. But it was 'Boats over!' the boom, boom of guns, and pitiful slaughter through the long day. ¡¡¡¡It was at this time that I was approached by Leach. I had just finished tallying the skins of the last boat aboard when he came to my side, in the darkness, and said in a low tone: ¡¡¡¡'Can you tell me, Mr. Van Weyden, how far we are off the coast, and what the bearings of Yokohama are?' ¡¡¡¡My heart leaped with gladness, for I knew what he had in mind, and I gave him the bearings- west-northwest and five hundred miles away. ¡¡¡¡'Thank you, sir,' was all he said as he slipped back into the darkness. ¡¡¡¡Next morning No. 3 boat and Johnson and Leach were missing. The waterbreakers and grub-boxes from all the other boats were likewise missing, as were the

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beds and sea-bags of the two men. Wolf Larsen was furious. He set sail and bore away into the west-northwest, two hunters constantly at the mastheads, and sweeping the sea with glasses, himself pacing the deck like an angry lion. He knew too well my sympathy for the runaways to send me aloft as lookout. ¡¡¡¡The wind was fair but fitful, and it was like looking for a needle in a haystack to raise that tiny boat out of the blue immensity. But he put the Ghost through her best paces, so as to get between the deserters and the land. This accomplished, he cruised back and forth across what he knew must be their course. ¡¡¡¡On the morning of the third day, shortly after eight bells, a cry that the boat was sighted came down from Smoke at the masthead. All hands lined the rail. A snappy breeze was blowing from the west, with the promise of more wind behind it; and there, to leeward, in the troubled silver of the rising sun, appeared and disappeared a black speck. ¡¡¡¡We squared away and ran for it. My heart was as lead. I felt myself turning sick in anticipation; and as I looked at the gleam of triumph in Wolf Larsen's eyes, hi

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face and a mass of light-brown hair escaping from under the seaman's cap on her head. The eyes were large and brown and lustrous, the mouth sweet and sensitive, and the face itself a delicate oval, though sun and exposure to briny wind had burned the face scarlet. ¡¡¡¡She seemed to me like a being from another world. I was aware of a hungry outreaching for her, as of a starving man for bread. But then I had not seen a woman for a very long time. I know that I was lost in a great wonder, almost a stupor,- this, then, was a woman?- so that I forgot myself and my mate's duties, and took no part in helping the newcomers aboard. For when one of the sailors lifted her into Wolf Larsen's down-stretched arms, she looked up into our curious faces and smiled amusedly and sweetly, as only a woman can smile, and as I had seen no one smile for so long that I had forgotten such smiles existed. ¡¡¡¡'Mr. Van Weyden!' ¡¡¡¡Wolf Larsen's voice brought me sharply back to myself.

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form swam before me, and I felt almost irresistibly impelled to fling myself upon him. So unnerved was I by the thought of impending violence to Leach and Johnson that my reason must have left me. I know that I slipped down into the steerage, in a daze, and that I was just beginning the ascent to the deck, a loaded shotgun in my hands, when I heard the startled cry: ¡¡¡¡'There's five men in that boat!' ¡¡¡¡I supported myself in the companion-way, weak and trembling, while the observation was being verified by the remarks of the rest of the men. Then my knees gave from under me, and I sank down, myself again, but overcome by shock at knowledge of what I had so nearly done. Also, I was very thankful as I put the gun away and slipped back on deck. ¡¡¡¡No one had remarked my absence. The boat was near enough for us to make out that it was larger than any sealing-boat and built on different lines. As we drew closer, the sail was taken in and the mast unstepped. Oars were shipped, and its occupants waited for us to heave to and take them aboard.

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Smoke, who had descended to the deck and was now standing by my side, began to chuckle in a significant way. I looked at him inquiringly. ¡¡¡¡'Talk of a mess!' he giggled. 'It's a pretty one we've got now.' ¡¡¡¡'What's wrong?' I demanded. ¡¡¡¡Again he chuckled. 'Don't you see there, in the stern- sheets, on the bottom? May I never shoot a seal again if that ain't a woman!' ¡¡¡¡I looked closely, but was not sure until exclamation broke out on all sides. The boat contained four men, and its fifth occupant was certainly a woman. ¡¡¡¡We were agog with excitement, all except Wolf Larsen, who was too evidently disappointed in that it was not his own boat with the two victims of his malice. ¡¡¡¡We ran down the flying jib, hauled the jib-sheets to windward and the mainsheet flat, and came up into the wind. The oars struck the water, and with a few strokes the boat was alongside. I now caught my first fair glimpse of the woman. She was wrapped in a long ulster, for the morning was raw, and I could see nothing

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

'And see that you serve no more slops,' was his parting injunction. 'No more grease and dirt, mind, and a clean shirt occasionally, or you'll get a tow over the side. Understand?' ¡¡¡¡Thomas Mugridge crawled weakly across the galley floor, and a short lurch of the Ghost sent him staggering. In attempting to recover himself, he reached for the iron railing which surrounded the stove and kept the pots from sliding off; but his missed the railing, and his hand, with his weight behind it, landed squarely on the hot surface. ¡¡¡¡'Oh, Gawd, Gawd, wot 'ave I done?' he wailed, sitting down in the coalbox and nursing his new hurt by rocking back and forth. 'W'y 'as all this come on me? It mykes me fair sick, it does, an' I try so 'ard to go through life harmless an' 'urtin' nobody.' ¡¡¡¡The tears were running down his puffed and discolored cheeks, and his face was drawn with pain. A savage expression flitted across it. ¡¡¡¡'Oh, 'ow I 'ate 'im! 'Ow I 'ate 'im!' he gritted out. ¡¡¡¡'Whom?' I asked; but the poor wretch was weeping again over his misfortunes. Less difficult it was to guess whom he hated than whom he did not hate; for I had

Charity painting

come to see a malignant devil in him which impelled him to hate all the world. I sometimes thought that he hated even himself, so grotesquely had life dealt with him, and so monstrously. At such moments a great sympathy welled up within me, and I felt shame that I had ever joyed in his discomfiture or pain. Life had been unfair to him. It had played him a scurvy trick when it fashioned him into the thing he was, and it had played him scurvy tricks ever since. What chance had he to be anything else than what he was? And as though answering my unspoken thought, he wailed: ¡¡¡¡'I never 'ad no chance, nor 'arf a chance! 'Oo was there to send me to school, or put tommy in my 'ungry bell w'en I was a kiddy? 'Oo ever did anything for me, heh? 'oo, I s'y?' ¡¡¡¡'Never mind, Tommy,' I said, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder. 'Cheer up. It'll all come right in the end. You've long years before you, and you can make anything you please of yourself.'

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'It's a lie!' he shouted in my face, flinging off the hand. 'It's a lie, an' you know it. I'm already myde, an' myde out of leavin's an' scraps. It's all right for you, 'Ump. You was born a gentleman. You never knew wot it was to go 'ungry, to cry yerself asleep with a gnawin' an' gnawin', like a rat, inside yer. It carn't come right. If I was President of the United Stytes to-morrer, low would it fill my belly for one time w'en I was a kiddy an' it went empty? ¡¡¡¡''Ow could it, I s'y? I was born to sufferin' and' sorrer. I've 'ad more cruel sufferin' than any ten men, I 'ave. I've been in 'orspital 'arf my bleedin' life. I've 'ad the fever in Aspinwall, in 'Avana, in New Orleans. I near died of the scurvy, an' rotten with it six months in Barbados. Smallpox in 'Onolulu, two broken legs in Shanghai, pneumonia in Unalaska, three busted ribs an' my insides all twisted in 'Frisco. An' 'ere I am now. Look at me! Look at me! My ribs kicked loose from my back again. I'll be coughin' blood before eyght bells. 'Ow can it be myde up to me, I arsk? 'Oo's goin' to do it? Gawd? 'Ow Gawd must 'ave 'ated me w'en 'e signed me on for a voyage in this bloomin' world of 'is!'

Gustav Klimt Kiss painting

This tirade against destiny went on for an hour or more, and then he buckled to his work, limping and groaning, and in his eyes a great hatred for all created things. ¡¡¡¡Several days more passed before Johnson crawled on deck and went about his work in a half-hearted way. He was still a sick man, and I more than once observed him creeping painfully aloft to a topsail or drooping wearily as he stood at the wheel. But, still worse, it seemed that his spirit was broken. He was abject before Wolf Larsen, and almost groveled to Johansen. Not so Leach. He went about the deck like a tiger-cub, glaring his hatred openly at Wolf Larsen and Johansen. ¡¡¡¡'I'll do for you yet, you slab-footed Swede.' I heard him say to Johansen one night on deck. ¡¡¡¡The mate cursed him in the darkness, and the next moment some missile struck the galley a sharp rap. There was more cursing, and a mocking laugh, and when all was quiet I stole outside and found a heavy knife embedded over an inch in the solid wood. A few minutes later the mate came fumbling about in

klimt painting the kiss

returned it privily to Leach next day. He grinned when I handed it over, yet it was a grin that contained more sincere thanks than a multitude of the verbosities of speech common to the members of my own class. ¡¡¡¡Unlike any one else in the ship's company, I now found myself with no quarrels on my hands and in the good graces of all. The hunters possibly no more than tolerated me, though none of them disliked me; while Smoke and Henderson, convalescent under a deck awning and swinging day and night in their hammocks, assured me that I was better than any hospital nurse, and that they would not forget me at the end of the voyage when they were paid off. As though I stood in need of their money- I, who could have bought them out, bag and baggage, and the schooner and its equipment, a hundred times over! But upon me had devolved the task of tending their wounds and pulling them through, and I did my best by them.

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another, so far as he is concerned, were it not that he needs them alive for the hunting. If they will only hold their hands until the season is over, he promises them a royal carnival, when all grudges can be settled and the survivors may toss the non-survivors overboard and arrange a story as to how the missing men were lost at sea. I think even the hunters are appalled at his cold-bloodedness. Wicked men though they be, they are certainly very much afraid of him. ¡¡¡¡Thomas Mugridge is cur-like in his subjection to me, while I go about in secret dread of him. His is the courage of fear, a strange thing I know well of myself, and at any moment it may master the fear and impel him to the taking of my life. My knee is much better, though it often aches for long periods, and the stiffness is gradually leaving the arm which Wolf Larsen squeezed. Otherwise I am in splendid condition, feel that I am in splendid condition. My muscles are growing harder and increasing in size. My hands, however, are a spectacle for grief. Also, I am suffering from boils, due to the diet most likely, for I was never so afflicted before

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¡¡¡¡I was amused, a couple of evenings back, by seeing Wolf Larsen reading the Bible, a copy of which, after the futile search for one at the beginning of the voyage, had been found in the dead mate's sea-chest. I wondered what Wolf Larsen could get from it, and he read aloud to me from Ecclesiastes. I could imagine he was speaking the thoughts of his own mind as he read to me, and his voice, reverberating deeply and mournfully in the confined cabin, charmed and held me. He may be uneducated, but he certainly knows how to express the significance of the written word. I can hear him now, as I shall always hear him, the primal melancholy vibrant in his voice, as he read from Ecclesiastes the passage beginning: 'I gathered me also silver and gold.' ¡¡¡¡'There you have it, Hump,' he said, closing the book upon his finger and looking up at me. 'The Preacher who was king over Israel in Jerusalem thought as I think. You call me a pessimist. Is not this pessimism of the blackest?- 'all is vanity and vexation of spirit'; 'there is no profit under the sun'; 'there is one event unto all,' to the

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rebellion which for the life of me I could not discover myself. Possibly I recited with a certain joyous lilt which was my own, for- his memory was good, and at a second rendering, very often the first, he made a quatrain his own- he recited the same lines and invested them with an unrest and passionate revolt that were well-nigh convincing. ¡¡¡¡I was interested as to which quatrain he would like best, and was not surprised when he hit upon the one born of an instant's irritability and quite at variance with the Persian's complacent philosophy and genial code of life: ¡¡¡¡ What, without asking, hither hurried Whence? ¡¡¡¡ And, without asking, Whither hurried hence! ¡¡¡¡ Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine ¡¡¡¡ Must drown the memory of that insolence! ¡¡¡¡'Great!' Wolf Larsen cried. 'Great! That's the keynote. Insolence! He could not have used a better word.' ¡¡¡¡In vain I objected and denied. He deluged me, overwhelmed me with argument. ¡¡¡¡'It's not the nature of life to be otherwise. Life, when it knows that it must cease living, will always rebel. It cannot help itself. The Preacher found life and the works of life all a vanity and vexation, an evil thing; but death, the ceasing to be able to be vain and vexed, he found an eviler thing. Through chapter after chapter he is

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fool and the wise, the clean and the unclean, the sinner and the saint; and that event is death, and an evil thing, he says. For the Preacher loved life, and did not want to die, saying, 'For a living dog is better than a dead lion.' He preferred the vanity and vexation to the silence and unmovableness of the grave. And so I. To crawl is piggish; but to not crawl, to be as the clod and rock, is loathsome to contemplate. It is loathsome to the life that is in me, the very essence of which is movement, the power of movement, and the consciousness of the power of movement. Life itself is unsatisfaction, but to look ahead to death is greater unsatisfaction.' ¡¡¡¡'You are worse off than Omar,' I said. 'He, at least, after the customary agonizing of youth, found content and made of his materialism a joyous thing.' ¡¡¡¡'Who was Omar?' Wolf Larsen asked, and I did no more work that day, nor the next, or next. ¡¡¡¡In his random reading he had never chanced upon the 'Rubaiyat,' and it was to him like a great find of treasure. Much I remembered, possibly two thirds of the quatrains, and I managed to piece out the remainder without difficulty. We talked for hours over single stanzas, and I found him reading into them a wail of regret and

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worried by the one event that cometh to all alike. So Omar, so I, so you, even you, for you rebelled against dying when Cooky sharpened a knife for you. You were afraid to die; the life that was in you, that composes you, that is greater than you, did not want to die. You have talked of the instinct of immortality. I talk of the instinct of life, which is to live, and which, when death looms near and large, masters the instinct, so called, of immortality. It mastered it in you (you cannot deny it), because a crazy Cockney cook sharpened a knife. ¡¡¡¡'You are afraid of him now. You are afraid of me. You cannot deny it. If I catch you by the throat thus,'- his hand was about my throat, and my breath was shut off,- 'and begin to press the life out of you, thus, and thus, your instinct of immortality will go glimmering, and your instinct of life, which is longing for life, will flutter up, and you will struggle to save yourself. Eh? I see the fear of death in your eyes. You beat the air with your arms. You exert all your puny strength to struggle to live

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'That he's going home some day to see his mother,' I answered diplomatically. ¡¡¡¡'I never 'ad none,' was the Cockney's comment, as he gazed with lusterless, hopeless eyes into mine. ¡¡¡¡ name="14"¡¡¡CHAPTER FOURTEEN. ¡¡¡¡IT DAWNED UPON ME THAT I had never placed a proper valuation upon womankind. For that matter, though not amative to any considerable degree, so far as I have discovered, I was never outside the atmosphere of women until now. My mother and sisters were always about me, and I was always trying to escape them, for they worried me to distraction with their solicitude for my health, and with their periodic inroads on my den, when my orderly confusion, upon which I prided myself, was turned into worse confusion and less order, though it looked neat enough to the eye. I never could find anything when they had departed. But now, alas! how

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Wolf Larsen underwent another bad attack of headache, which lasted two days. He must have suffered severely, for he called me in and obeyed my commands like a sick child. But nothing I could do seemed to relieve him. At my suggestion, however, he gave up smoking and drinking, though why so magnificent an animal as he should have headaches at all puzzled me. ¡¡¡¡''T is the hand of God, I'm tellin' you,' was the way Louis saw it. ''T is a visitation for his black-hearted deeds, an' there's more behind an' comin', or else-' ¡¡¡¡'Or else,' I prompted. ¡¡¡¡'God is noddin' an' not doin' his duty, though it's me as shouldn't say it.' I was mistaken when I said that I was in the good graces of all. Not only did Thomas Mugridge continue to hate me, but he had discovered a new reason for hating me. It took me no little while to puzzle it out, but I finally discovered that it was because I was more luckily born than he- 'gentleman born,' he put it.

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'And still no more dead men,' I twitted Louis, when Smoke and Henderson, side by side, in friendly conversation, took their first exercise on deck. ¡¡¡¡Louis surveyed me with his shrewd gray eyes and shook his head portentously. ¡¡¡¡'She's a-comin', I tell you, an' it'll be sheets an' halyards, stand by all hands, when she begins to howl. I've had the feel iv it this long time, an' I can feel it now as plainly as I feel the riggin' iv a dark night. She's close, she's close.' ¡¡¡¡'Who goes first?' I queried. ¡¡¡¡'Not old fat Louis, I promise you,' he laughed. 'For 't is in the bones iv me I know that come this time next year I'll be gazin' in the old mother's eyes, weary with watchin' iv the sea for the five sons she gave to it.' ¡¡¡¡'Wot's'e been s'yin' to yer?' Thomas Mugridge demanded a moment later.

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welcome would have been the feel of their presence, the frou-frou and swish-swish of their skirts, which I had so cordially detested! I am sure, if I ever get home, that I shall never be irritable with them again. They may dose me and doctor me morning, noon, and night, and dust and sweep and put my den to rights every minute of the day, and I shall only lean back and survey it all and be thankful that I am possessed of a mother and some several sisters. ¡¡¡¡All of which has set me wondering. Where are the mothers of these twenty and odd men on the Ghost? It strikes me as unnatural and unhealthful that men should be totally separated from women and herd through the world by themselves. Coarseness and savagery are the inevitable results. These men about me should have sisters and wives and daughters; then would they be capable of softness and tenderness and sympathy. As it is, not one of them is married. In years and

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of them has been in contact with a good woman, or within the influence, or redemption, which irresistibly radiates from such a creature. There is no balance in their lives. Their masculinity, which in itself is of the brute, has been overdeveloped. The other and spiritual side of their natures has been dwarfed- atrophied, in fact. ¡¡¡¡Rendered curious by this new direction of ideas, I talked with Johansen last night- the first superfluous words with which he has favored me since the voyage began. He left Sweden when he was eighteen, is now thirty-eight, and in all the intervening time has not been home once. He had met a townsman, a couple of years before, in some sailor boarding-house in Chile, so that he knew his mother to be still alive. ¡¡¡¡'She must be a pretty old woman now,' he said, staring meditatively into the binnacle and then jerking a sharp glance at Harrison, who was steering a point off the course. ¡¡¡¡'When did you last write to her?'

The Painter's Honeymoon

'Well, have I convinced you?' he demanded. 'Here, take a drink of this. I want to ask you some questions.' ¡¡¡¡I rolled my head negatively on the floor. 'Your arguments are too- er- forcible,' I managed to articulate, at cost of great pain to my aching throat. ¡¡¡¡'You'll be all right in half an hour,' he assured me. 'And I promise I won't use any more physical demonstrations. Get up now. You can sit on a chair.' ¡¡¡¡And, toy that I was of this monster, the discussion of Omar and the Preacher was resumed. And half the night we sat up over it. ¡¡¡¡¡CHAPTER TWELVE. ¡¡¡¡THE LAST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS have witnessed a carnival of brutality. From cabin to forecastle it seems to have broken out like a contagion. I scarcely know where to begin. Wolf Larsen was really the cause of it. The relations among the men, strained and made tense by feuds, quarrels, and grudges, were in a state of unstable equilibrium. Wolf Larsen disturbed the equilibrium, and evil passions flared up like flame in prairie-grass.

The Virgin and Child with St Anne

Thomas Mugridge was proving himself a sneak, a spy, an informer. He attempted to curry favor and reinstate himself in the good graces of the captain by carrying tales of the men forward. He it was, I know, that carried some of Johnson's hasty talk to Wolf Larsen. Johnson, it seems, had bought a suit of oilskins from the slop-chest and found them to be of greatly inferior quality. Nor was he slow in advertising the fact. The slop-chest is a sort of miniature dry-goods store which is carried by all sealing-schooners and which is stocked with articles peculiar to the needs of the sailors. Whatever a sailor purchases is taken from his subsequent earnings on the sealing-grounds; for, as it is with the hunters, so it is with the boat-pullers and steerers: in the place of wages, they receive a 'lay,' a rate of so much per skin for every skin captured in their particular boat.

virgin of the rocks

But of Johnson's grumbling at the slop-chest I knew nothing, so that what I witnessed came with the shock of sudden surprise. I had just finished sweeping the cabin, and had been inveigled by Wolf Larsen into a discussion of Hamlet, his favorite Shakespearean character, when Johansen descended the companion-stairs, followed by Johnson. The latter's cap came off, after the custom of the sea, and he stood respectfully in the middle of the cabin, swaying heavily and uneasily to the roll of the schooner, and facing the captain. ¡¡¡¡'Shut the doors and draw the slide,' Wolf Larsen said to me. ¡¡¡¡I noticed an anxious light in Johnson's eyes, but mistook it for the native shyness and embarrassment of the man. The mate, Johansen, stood away several feet to the side of him, and fully three yards in front of him sat Wolf Larsen on one of the revolving cabin chairs. An appreciable pause fell after I had closed the doors and drawn the slide- a pause that must have lasted fully a minute. It was broken by Wolf Larsen.

American Day Dream

'Yonson,' he began. ¡¡¡¡'My name is Johnson, sir,' the sailor boldly corrected. ¡¡¡¡'Well, Johnson, then,- you! Can you guess why I have sent for you?' ¡¡¡¡'Yes, and no, sir,' was the slow reply. 'My work is done well. The mate knows that, and you know it, sir. So there cannot be any complaint.' ¡¡¡¡'And is that all?' Wolf Larsen queried, his voice soft and low and purring. ¡¡¡¡'I know you have it in for me,' Johnson continued with his unalterable and ponderous slowness. 'You do not like me. You- you-' ¡¡¡¡'Go on,' Wolf Larsen prompted. 'Don't be afraid of my feelings.' ¡¡¡¡'I am not afraid,' the sailor retorted, a slight angry flush rising through his sunburn. 'You do not like me because I am too much of a man, that is why, sir.' ¡¡¡¡'You are too much of a man for ship discipline, if that is what you mean, and if you know what I mean,' was Wolf Larsen's retort. ¡¡¡¡'I know English, and I know what you mean, sir,' Johnson answered, his flush deepening at the slur on his knowledge of the English language. ¡¡¡¡'Johnson,' Wolf Larsen said, with an air of dismissing all that had gone before as introductory to the main business in hand, 'I understand you're not quite satisfied with those oilskins.'

Christ In The Storm On The Sea Of Galilee

¡¡¡¡'No, I am not. They are no good, sir.' ¡¡¡¡'And you've been shooting off your mouth about them.' ¡¡¡¡'I say what I think, sir,' the sailor answered courageously, not failing at the same time in ship courtesy, which demanded that 'sir' be appended to each speech he made. ¡¡¡¡It was at this moment that I chanced to glance at Johansen. His big fists were clenching and unclenching, and his face was positively fiendish, so malignantly did he look at Johnson. I noticed a black discoloration, still faintly visible, under Johansen's eye, a mark of the thrashing he had received a few nights before from the sailor. For the first time I began to divine that something terrible was about to be enacted- what, I could not imagine. ¡¡¡¡'Do you know what happens to men who say what you've said about my slop-chest and me?' Wolf Larsen was demanding. ¡¡¡¡'I know, sir,' was the answer. ¡¡¡¡'What?' Wolf Larsen demanded sharply and imperatively. ¡¡¡¡'What you and the mate there are going to do to me, sir.'

Johannes Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring Painting

'Who earned it? Eh? I thought so. Your father. You stand on dead men's legs. You've never had any of your own. You couldn't walk alone between two sunrises and hustle the meat for your belly for three meals. Let me see your hand.' ¡¡¡¡His tremendous, dormant strength must have stirred swiftly and accurately, or I must have slept a moment, for before I knew it he had stepped two paces forward, gripped my right hand in his, and held it up for inspection. I tried to withdraw it, but his fingers tightened, without visible effort, till I thought mine would be crushed. It is hard to maintain one's dignity under such circumstances. I could not squirm or struggle like a schoolboy. Nor could I attack such a creature, who had but to twist my arm to break it. Nothing remained but to stand still and accept the indignity. I had time to notice that the pockets of the dead man had been emptied on the deck and that his body and his grin had been wrapped from view in canvas, the folds of which the sailor Johansen was sewing together with coarse white twine, shoving the needle through with a leather contrivance fitted on the palm of his hand.

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Wolf Larsen dropped my hand with a flirt of disdain. ¡¡¡¡'Dead men's hands have kept it soft. Good for little else than dishwashing and scullion-work.' ¡¡¡¡'I wish to be put ashore,' I said firmly, for I now had myself in control. ¡¡¡¡'I shall pay you whatever you judge your delay and trouble to be worth.' ¡¡¡¡He looked at me curiously. Mockery shone in his eyes. ¡¡¡¡'I have a counter-proposition to make, and for the good of your soul. My mate's gone, and there'll be a lot of promotion. A sailor comes aft to take mate's place, cabin-boy goes for'ard to take sailor's place, and you take the cabin-boy's place, sign the articles for the cruise, twenty dollars per month and found. Now, what do you say? And mind you, it's for your own soul's sake. It will be the making of you. You might learn in time to stand on your own legs and perhaps to toddle along a

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But I took no notice. The sails of the vessel I had seen off to the southwest had grown larger and plainer. They were of the same rig as the Ghost's, though the hull itself, I could see, was smaller. She was a pretty sight, leaping and flying toward us, and evidently bound to pass at close range. The wind had been momentarily increasing, and the sun, after a few angry gleams, had disappeared. The sea had turned a dull leaden gray and grown rougher, and was now tossing foaming whitecaps to the sky. We were traveling faster and heeled farther over. Once, in a gust, the rail dipped under the sea, and the decks on that side were for the moment awash with water that made a couple of the hunters hastily lift their feet. ¡¡¡¡'That vessel will soon be passing us,' I said, after a moment's pause. 'As she is going in the opposite direction, she is very probably bound for San Francisco.' ¡¡¡¡'Very probably,' was Wolf Larsen's answer, as he turned partly away from me and cried out, 'Cooky! Oh, Cooky!'

Red Hat Girl

'McCready & Swanson.' ¡¡¡¡'Sir!' Wolf Larsen thundered. ¡¡¡¡'McCready & Swanson, sir,' the boy corrected, his eyes burning with a bitter light. ¡¡¡¡'Who got the advance money?' ¡¡¡¡'They did, sir.' ¡¡¡¡'I thought as much. And devilish glad you were to let them have it. Couldn't make yourself scarce too quick, with several gentlemen you may have heard of looking for you.' ¡¡¡¡The boy metamorphosed into a savage on the instant. His body bunched together as though for a spring, and his face became as an infuriated beast's as he snarled, 'It's a-' ¡¡¡¡'A what?' Wolf Larsen asked, a peculiar softness in his voice, as though he were overwhelmingly curious to hear the unspoken word. ¡¡¡¡The boy hesitated, then mastered his temper. 'Nothin', sir. I take it back.' ¡¡¡¡'And you have shown me I was right.' This with a gratified smile. 'How old are you?' ¡¡¡¡'Just turned sixteen, sir.' ¡¡¡¡'A lie. You'll never see eighteen again. Big for your age at that, with muscles like a horse. Pack up your kit and go for'ard into the fo'c's'le. You're a boat-puller now. You're promoted; see?'

Nighthawks Hopper

The Cockney popped out of the galley. ¡¡¡¡'Where's that boy? Tell him I want him.' ¡¡¡¡'Yes, sir,' and Thomas Mugridge fled swiftly aft and disappeared down another companionway near the wheel. A moment later he emerged, a heavy-set young fellow of eighteen or nineteen, with a glowering, villainous countenance, trailing at his heels. ¡¡¡¡''Ere 'e, is, sir,' the cook said. ¡¡¡¡But Wolf Larsen ignored that worthy, turning at once to the cabin-boy. ¡¡¡¡'What's your name, boy?' ¡¡¡¡'George Leach, sir,' came the sullen answer, and the boy's bearing showed clearly that he divined the reason for which he had been summoned. ¡¡¡¡'Not an Irish name,' the captain snapped sharply. 'O'Toole or McCarthy would suit your mug a-sight better. 'But let that go,' he continued. 'You may have very good reasons for forgetting your name, and I'll like you none the worse for it as long as you toe the mark. Telegraph Hill, of course, is your port of entry. It sticks out all over your mug. Tough as they make them and twice as nasty. I know the kind. Well, you can make up your mind to have it taken out of you on this craft. Understand? Who shipped you, anyway

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The man addressed as Yonson, a man of the heavy Scandinavian type, ceased chafing me and arose awkwardly to his feet. The man who had spoken to him was clearly a Cockney, with the clean lines and weakly pretty, almost effeminate, face of the man who has absorbed the sound of Bow Bells with his mother's milk. A draggled muslin cap on his head, and a dirty gunny-sack about his slim hips, proclaimed him cook of the decidedly dirty ship's galley in which I found myself. ¡¡¡¡'An' 'ow yer feelin' now, sir?' he asked, with the subservient smirk which comes only of generations of tip-seeking ancestors. ¡¡¡¡For reply, I twisted weakly into a sitting posture, and was helped by Yonson to my feet. The rattle and bang of the frying-pan was grating horribly on my nerves. I could not collect my thoughts. Clutching the woodwork of the galley for support,- and I confess the grease with which it was scummed put my teeth on edge,- I reached across a hot cooking-range to the offending utensil, unhooked it, and wedged it securely into the coal-box.

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¡¡¡¡The cook grinned at my exhibition of nerves, and thrust into my hand a steaming mug with an ''Ere, this'll do yer good.' ¡¡¡¡It was a nauseous mess,- ship's coffee,- but the heat of it was revivifying. Between gulps of the molten stuff I glanced down at my raw and bleeding chest and turned to the Scandinavian. ¡¡¡¡'Thank you, Mr. Yonson,' I said; 'but don't you think your measures were rather heroic?' ¡¡¡¡It was because he understood the reproof of my action, rather than of my words, that he held up his palm for inspection. It was remarkably calloused. I passed my hand over the horny projections, and my teeth went on edge once more from the horrible rasping sensation produced. ¡¡¡¡'My name is Johnson, not Yonson,' he said in very good, though slow, English, with no more than a shade of accent to it. ¡¡¡¡There was mild protest in his pale-blue eyes, and, withal, a timid frankness and manliness that quite won me to him.

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I corrected, and reached out my hand for his. ¡¡¡¡He hesitated, awkward and bashful, shifted his weight from one leg to the other, then blunderingly gripped my hand in a hearty shake. ¡¡¡¡'Have you any dry clothes I may put on?' I asked the cook. ¡¡¡¡'Yes, sir,' he answered, with cheerful alacrity. 'I'll run down an' tyke a look over my kit, if you've no objections, sir, to wearin' my things.' ¡¡¡¡He dived out of the galley door, or glided, rather, with a swiftness and smoothness of gait that struck me as being not so much cat-like as oily. In fact, this oiliness, or greasiness, as I was later to learn, was probably the most salient expression of his personality. ¡¡¡¡'And where am I?' I asked Johnson, whom I took, and rightly, to be one of the sailors. 'What vessel is this? And where is she bound?' ¡¡¡¡'Off the Farralones, heading about sou'west,' he answered slowly and methodically, as though groping for his best English, and rigidly observing the order of my queries. 'The schooner Ghost; bound seal-hunting to Japan.' ¡¡¡¡'And who is the captain? I must see him as soon as I am dressed?'

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Johnson looked puzzled and embarrassed. He hesitated while he groped in his vocabulary and framed a complete answer. 'The cap'n is Wolf Larsen, or so men call him. I never heard his other name. But you better speak soft with him. He is mad this morning. The mate-' ¡¡¡¡But he did not finish. The cook had glided in. ¡¡¡¡'Better sling yer 'ook out of 'ere, Yonson,' he said. 'The Old Man'll be wantin' yer on deck, an' this ayn't no d'y to fall foul of 'im.' ¡¡¡¡Johnson turned obediently to the door, at the same time, over the cook's shoulder, favoring me with an amazingly solemn and portentous wink, as though to emphasize his interrupted remark and the need for me to be soft-spoken with the captain. ¡¡¡¡Hanging over the cook's arm was a loose and crumpled array of evil-looking and sour-smelling garments. ¡¡¡¡'They was put aw'y wet, sir,' he vouchsafed explanation. 'But you'll 'ave to make them do while I dry yours out by the fire.' ¡¡¡¡Clinging to the woodwork, staggering with the roll of the ship, and aided by the cook, I managed to slip into a rough woolen undershirt. On the instant my flesh was creeping and crawling from the harsh contact. He noticed my involuntary twitching and grimacing, and smirked: ¡¡¡¡'I only 'ope yer don't ever 'ave to get used to such as that in this life, 'cos you've got a bloomin' soft skin, that you 'ave

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bloomin' well sure you was a gentleman as soon as I set eyes on yer.' ¡¡¡¡I had taken a dislike to him at the first, and as he helped to dress me this dislike increased. There was something repulsive about his touch. I shrank from his hand; my flesh revolted. And between this and the smells arising from various pots boiling and bubbling on the galley fire, I was in haste to get out into the fresh air. Further, there was the need of seeing the captain about what arrangements could be made for getting me ashore. ¡¡¡¡A cheap cotton shirt, with frayed collar and a bosom discolored with what I took to be ancient bloodstains, was put on me amidst a running and apologetic fire of comment. A pair of workman's brogans incased my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a pair of pale-blue, washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fully ten inches shorter than the other. The abbreviated leg looked as though the devil had there clutched for the Cockney's soul and missed the shadow for the substance.

American Day Dream

¡¡¡¡`Anything else?' he presently asked. ¡¡¡¡`He said at another time something like this'; and she gave another, which might possibly have been paralleled in many a work of the pedigree ranging from the Dictionnaire Philosophique to Huxley's Essays. ¡¡¡¡`Ah - ha! How do you remember them?' ¡¡¡¡`I wanted to believe what he believed, though he didn't wish me to; and I managed to coax him to tell me a few of his thoughts. I can't say I quite understand that one; but I know it is right.' ¡¡¡¡`H'm. Fancy your being able to teach me what you don't know yourself!' ¡¡¡¡He fell into thought. ¡¡¡¡`And so I threw in my spiritual lot with his,' she resumed. `I didn't wish it to be different. What's good enough for him is good enough for me.' ¡¡¡¡`Does he know that you are as big an infidel as he?' ¡¡¡¡`No - I never told him - if I am an infidel.'

Christ In The Storm On The Sea Of Galilee

Well - you are better off to-day than I am, Tess, after all! You don't believe that you ought to preach my doctrine, and, therefore, do no despite to your conscience in abstaining. I do believe I ought to preach it, but like the devils I believe and tremble, for I suddenly leave off preaching it, and give way to my passion for you.' ¡¡¡¡`How?' ¡¡¡¡`Why,' he said aridly; `I have come all the way here to see you to-day! But I started from home to go to Casterbridge Fair, where I have undertaken to preach the Word from a waggon at half-past two this afternoon, and where all the brethren are expecting me this minute. Here's the announcement.' ¡¡¡¡He drew from his breast-pocket a poster whereon was printed the day, hour, and place of meeting, at which he, d'Urberville, would preach the Gospel as aforesaid. ¡¡¡¡`But how can you get there?' said Tess, looking at the clock. ¡¡¡¡`I cannot get there! I have come here.'

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What, you have really arranged to preach, and------' ¡¡¡¡`I have arranged to preach, and I shall not be there - by reason of my burning desire to see a woman whom I once despised! - No, by my word and truth, I never despised you; if I had I should not love you now! Why I did not despise you was on account of your being unsmirched in spite of all; you withdrew yourself from me so quickly and resolutely when you saw the situation; you did not remain at my pleasure; so there was one petticoat in the world for whom I had no contempt, and you are she. But you may well despise me now! I thought I worshipped on the mountains, but I find I still serve in the groves! Ha! ha!' ¡¡¡¡`O Alec d'Urberville! What does this mean? What have I done

Head of Christ

Done?' he said, with a soulless sneer in the word. `Nothing intentionally. But you have been the means - the innocent means - of my backsliding, as they call it. I ask myself, am I, indeed, one of those "servants of corruption" who, "after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, are again entangled therein and overcome" - whose latter end is worse than their beginning?' He laid his hand on her shoulder. `Tess, my girl, I was on the way to, at least, social salvation till I saw you again!' he said freakishly shaking her, as if she were a child. `And why then have you tempted me? I was firm as a man could be till I saw those eyes and that mouth again - surely there never was such a maddening mouth since Eve's!' His voice sank, and a hot archness shot from his own black eyes. `You temptress, Tess; you dear damned witch of Babylon, - I could not resist you as soon as I met you again!'

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¡¡¡¡I couldn't help your seeing me again!' said Tess, recoiling. ¡¡¡¡`I know it - I repeat that I do not blame you. But the fact remains. When I saw you ill-used on the farm that day I was nearly mad to think that I had no legal right to protect you - that I could not have it; whilst he who has it seems to neglect you utterly!' ¡¡¡¡`Don't speak against him - he is absent!' she cried in much excitement. `Treat him honourably - he has never wronged you! O leave his wife before any scandal spreads that may do harm to bis honest name!' ¡¡¡¡`I will - I will,' he said, like a man awakening from a luring dream. `I have broken my engagement to preach to those poor drunken boobies at the fair - it is the first time I have played such a practical joke. A month ago I should have been horrified at such a possibility. I'll go away - to swear - and - ah, can I! to keep away.' Then, suddenly: `One clasp, Tessy - one! Only for old friendship------' ¡¡¡¡`I am without defence, Alec! A good man's honour is in my keeping - think - be ashamed!'

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Cernel. As he walked his pace showed perturbation, and by-and-by, as if instigated by a former thought, he drew from his pocket a small book, between the leaves of which was folded a letter, worn and soiled, as from much re-reading. D'Urberville opened the letter. It was dated several months before this time, and was signed by Parson Clare. ¡¡¡¡The letter began by expressing the writer's unfeigned joy at d'Urberville's conversion, and thanked him for his kindness in communicating with the parson on the subject. It expressed Mr Clare's warm assurance of forgiveness for d'Urberville's former conduct, and his interest in the young man's plans for the future. He, Mr Clare, would much have liked to see d'Urberville in the Church to whose ministry he had devoted so many years of his own life, and would have helped him to enter a theological college to that end; but since his correspondent had possibly not cared to do this on account of the delay it would have entailed, he was not the man to insist upon its paramount importance. Every man must work as he could best work, and in the method towards which he felt impelled by the Spirit.

famous flower painting

D'Urberville read and re-read this letter, and seemed to quiz himself cynically. He also read some passages from memoranda as he walked till his face assumed a calm, and apparently the image of Tess no longer troubled his mind. ¡¡¡¡She meanwhile had kept along the edge of the hill by which lay her nearest way home. Within the distance of a mile she met a solitary shepherd. ¡¡¡¡`What is the meaning of that old stone I have passed?' she asked of him. `Was it ever a Holy Cross?' ¡¡¡¡`Cross - no; 'twer not a cross! 'Tis a thing of ill-omen, Miss. It was put up in wuld times by the relations of a malefactor who was tortured there by nailing his hand to a post and afterwards hung. The bones lie underneath. They say he sold his soul to the devil, and that he walks at times.' ¡¡¡¡She felt the petite mort at this unexpectedly gruesome information, and left the solitary man behind her. It was dusk when she drew near to Flintcomb-Ash, and in the lane at the entrance to the hamlet she approached a girl and her lover without their observing her. They were talking no secrets, and the clear unconcerned voice of the young woman, in response to the warmer accents of the man, spread into the chilly air as the one soothing thing within the dusky horizon, full of a stagn

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obscurity upon which nothing else intruded. For a moment the voices cheered the heart of Tess, till she reasoned that this interview had its origin, on one side or the other, in the same attraction which had been the prelude to her own tribulation. When she came close the girl turned serenely and recognized her, the young man walking off in embarrassment. The woman was Izz Huett, whose interest in Tess's excursion immediately superseded her own proceedings. Tess did not explain very clearly its results, and Izz, who was a girl of tact, began to speak of her own little affair, a phase of which Tess had just witnessed. ¡¡¡¡`He is Amby Seedling, the chap who used to sometimes come and help at Talbothays,' she explained indifferently. `He actually inquired and found out that I had come here, and has followed me. He says he's been in love wi' me these two years. But I've hardly answered him.'

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Several days had passed since her futile journey, and Tess was afield. The dry winter wind still blew, but a screen of thatched hurdles erected in the eye of the blast kept its force away from her. On the sheltered side was a turnip-slicing machine, whose bright blue hue of new paint seemed almost vocal in the otherwise subdued scene. Opposite its front was a long mound or `grave', in which the roots had been preserved since early winter. Tess was standing at the uncovered end, chopping off with a bill-hook the fibres and earth from each root, and throwing it after the operation into the slicer. A man was turning the handle of the machine, and from its trough came the newly-cut swedes, the fresh smell of whose yellow chips was accompanied by the sounds of the snuffling wind, the smart swish of the slicing-blades, and the choppings of the hook in Tess's leather-gloved hand.

famous animal painting

The wide acreage of blank agricultural brownness, apparent where the swedes had been pulled, was beginning to be striped in wales of darker brown, gradually broadening to ribands. Along the edge of each of these something crept upon ten legs, moving without haste and without rest up and down the whole length of the field; it was two horses and a man, the plough going between them, turning up the cleared ground for a spring sowing. ¡¡¡¡For hours nothing relieved the joyless monotony of things. Then, far beyond the ploughing-teams, a black speck was seen. It had come from the corner of a fence, where there was a gap, and its tendency was up the incline, towards the swede-cutters. From the proportions of a mere point it advanced to the shape of a ninepin, and was soon perceived to be a man in black, arriving from the direction of Flintcomb-Ash. The man at the slicer, having nothing else to do with his eyes, continually

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

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 god-mother'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

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have embarrassed you, and given us no pleasure. Your brothers 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 go to her parents' home for the present, whilst he came there.

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¡¡¡¡`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.

Gustav Klimt Kiss painting

¡¡¡¡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.'

klimt painting the kiss

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?'

famous angel painting

¡¡¡¡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 latter had gone home to her father's, and Marian had left to look for employment elsewhere. They feared she would come to no good.

famous flower painting

To dissipate the sadness of this recital Tess went and bade all her favourite cows good-bye, 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.'

asian famous painting

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

famous monet painting

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!'

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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.

American Day Dream

¡¡¡¡What she meant was not very clear, and he directed her to dismiss such fancies from her mind, which she obediently did as well as she could. But she was grave, very grave, all the way home; till she thought, `We shall go away, a very long distance, hundreds of miles from these parts, and such as this can never happen again, and no ghost of the past reach there.' ¡¡¡¡They parted tenderly that night on the landing, and Clare ascended to his attic. Tess sat up getting on with some little requisites, lest the few remaining days should not afford sufficient time. While she sat she heard a noise in Angel's room overhead, a sound of thumping and struggling. Everybody else in the house was asleep, and in her anxiety lest Clare should be ill she ran up and knocked at his door, and asked him what was the matter. Oh, nothing, dear,' he said from within. `I am so sorry disturbed you! But the reason is rather an amusing one: I fell asleep and dreamt that I was fighting that fellow again who insulted you and the noise you heard was my pummelling away with my fists at my portmanteau, which I pulled out to-day for packing. I am occasionally liable to these freaks in my sleep. Go to bed and think of it no more.'

Christ In The Storm On The Sea Of Galilee

This was the last drachm required to turn the scale of her indecision. Declare the past to him by word of mouth she could not; but there was another way. She sat down and wrote on the four pages of a note-sheet a succinct narrative of those events of three or four years ago, put it into an envelope, and directed it to Clare. Then, lest the flesh should again be weak, she crept upstairs without any shoes and slipped the note under his door. ¡¡¡¡Her night was a broken one, as it well might be, and she listened for the first faint noise overhead. It came, as usual; he descended, as usual. She descended. He met her at the bottom of the stairs and kissed her. Surely it was as warmly as ever! ¡¡¡¡He looked a little disturbed and worn, she thought. But he said not a word to her about her revelation, even when they were alone. Could he have had it? Unless he

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began the subject she felt that she could say nothing. So the day passed, and it was evident that whatever he thought he meant to keep to himself. Yet he was frank and affectionate as before. Could it be that her doubts were childish? that he forgave her; that he loved her for what she was, just as she was, and smiled at her disquiet as at a foolish nightmare? Had he really received her note? She glanced into his room, and could see nothing of it. It might be that he forgave her. But even if he had not received it she had a sudden enthusiastic trust that he surely would forgive her. ¡¡¡¡Every morning and night he was the same, and thus New Year's Eve broke - the wedding-day. ¡¡¡¡The lovers did not rise at milking-time, having through the whole of this last week of their sojourn at the dairy been accorded something of the position of guests, Tess being honoured with a room of her own. When they arrived downstairs at breakfast-time they were surprised to see what effects had been produced in the large

Head of Christ

kitchen for their glory since they had last beheld it. At some unnatural hour of the morning the dairyman had caused the yawning chimney-corner to be whitened, and the brick hearth reddened, and a blazing yellow damask blower to be hung across the arch in place of the old grimy blue cotton one with a black sprig pattern which had formerly done duty here. This renovated aspect of what was the focus indeed of the room on a dull winter morning, threw a smiling demeanour over the whole apartment. ¡¡¡¡`I was determined to do summat in honour o't,' said the dairyman. `And as you wouldn't hear of my gieing a rattling good randy wi' fiddles and bass-viols complete, as we should ha' done in old times, this was all I could think o' as a noiseless thing.' Tess's friends lived so far off that none could conveniently have been present at the ceremony, even had any been asked; but as a fact nobody was invited from Marlott. As for Angel's family, he had written and duly informed them of the time, and

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assured them that he would be glad to see one at least of them there for the day if he would like to come. His brothers had not replied at all, seeming to be indignant with him; while his father and mother had written a rather sad letter, deploring his precipitancy in rushing into marriage, but making the best of the matter by saying that, though a dairywoman was the last daughter-in-law they could have expected, their son had arrived at an age at which he might be supposed to be the best judge. ¡¡¡¡This coolness in his relations distressed Clare less than it would have done had he been without the grand card with which he meant to surprise them ere long. To produce Tess, fresh from the dairy, as a d'Urberville and a lady, he had felt to be temerarious and risky; hence he had concealed her lineage till such time as, familiarized with worldly ways by a few months' travel and reading with him, he could take her on a visit to his parents, and impart the knowledge while triumphantly producing her as worthy of such an ancient line. It was a pretty lover's dream, if no more. Perhaps Tess's lineage had more value for himself than for anybody in the world besides.

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And by a sort of fascination the three girls, one after another, crept out of their beds, and came and stood barefooted round Tess. Retty put her hands upon Tess's shoulders, as if to realize her friend's corporeality after such a miracle, and the other two laid their arms round her waist, all looking into her face. ¡¡¡¡`How it do seem! Almost more than I can think of!' said Izz Huett. ¡¡¡¡Marian kissed Tess. `Yes,' she murmured as she withdrew her lips. ¡¡¡¡`Was that because of love for her, or because other lips have touched there by now?' continued Izz drily to Marian. ¡¡¡¡`I wasn't thinking o' that,' said Marian simply. `I was only feeling all the strangeness o't - that she is to be his wife, and nobody else. I don't say nay to it, nor either of us, because we did not think of it - only loved him. Still, nobody else is to marry'n in the world - no fine lady, nobody in silks and satins; but she who do live like we.' ¡¡¡¡`Are you sure you don't dislike me for it?' said Tess in a low voice.

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They hung about her in their white nightgowns before replying, as if they considered their answer might lie in her look. ¡¡¡¡`I don't know - I don't know,' murmured Retty Priddle. `I want to hate 'ee; but I cannot!' ¡¡¡¡`That's how I feel,' echoed Izz and Marian. `I can't hate her. Somehow she hinders me!' ¡¡¡¡`He ought to marry one of you,' murmured Tess. ¡¡¡¡`Why?' ¡¡¡¡`You are all better than I.' ¡¡¡¡`We better than you?' said the girls in a low, slow whisper. `No, no, dear Tess!' ¡¡¡¡`You are!' she contradicted impetuously. And suddenly tearing away from their clinging arms she burst into a hysterical fit of tears, bowing herself on the chest of drawers and repeating incessantly, `O yes, yes, yes!' ¡¡¡¡Having once given way she could not stop her weeping. ¡¡¡¡`He ought to have had one of you!' she cried. `I think I ought to make him even now! You would be better for him than - I don't know what I'm saying! O! O!'

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They went up to her and clasped her round, but still her sobs tore her. ¡¡¡¡`Get some water,' said Marian. `She's upset by us, poor thing, poor thing!' ¡¡¡¡They gently led her back to the side of her bed, where they kissed her warmly. ¡¡¡¡`You are best for 'n,' said Marian. `More ladylike, and a better scholar than we, especially since he has taught 'ee so much. But even you ought to be proud. You be proud, I'm sure!' ¡¡¡¡`Yes, I am,' she said; `and I am ashamed at so breaking down!' ¡¡¡¡When they were all in bed, and the light was out, Marian whispered across to her-- ¡¡¡¡`You will think of us when you be his wife, Tess, and of how we told 'ee that we loved him, and how we tried not to hate you, and did not hate you, and could not hate you, because you were his choice, and we never hoped to be chose by him.' They were not aware that, at these words, salt, stinging tears trickled down upon

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Tess's pillows anew, and how she resolved, with a bursting heart, to tell all her history to Angel Clare, despite her mother's command - to let him for whom she lived and breathed despise her if he would, and her mother regard her as a fool, rather than preserve a silence which might be deemed a treachery to him, and which somehow seemed a wrong to these. ¡¡¡¡ ¡¡¡¡Chapter 32¡¡¡¡ This penitential mood kept her from naming the wedding-day. The beginning of November found its date still in abeyance, though he asked her at the most tempting times. But Tess's desire seemed to be for a perpetual betrothal in which everything should remain as it was then. ¡¡¡¡The meads were changing now; but it was still warm enough in early afternoons before milking to idle there awhile, and the state of dairy-work at this time of year allowed a spare hour for idling. Looking over the damp sod in the direction of the sun, a glistening ripple of gossamer webs was visible to their eyes under the luminary

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like the track of moonlight on the sea. Gnats, knowing nothing of their brief glorification, wandered across the shimmer of this pathway, irradiated as if they bore fire within them, then passed out of its line, and were quite extinct. In the presence of these things he would remind her that the date was still the question. ¡¡¡¡Or he would ask her at night, when he accompanied her on some mission invented by Mrs Crick to give him the opportunity. This was mostly a journey to the farmhouse on the slopes above the vale, to inquire how the advanced cows were getting on in the straw-barton to which they were relegated. For it was a time of the year that brought great changes to the world of kine. Batches of the animals were sent away daily to this lying-in hospital, where they lived on straw till their calves were born, after which event, and as soon as the calf could walk, mother and offspring were driven back to the dairy. In the interval which elapsed before the calves were sold there was, of course, little milking to be done, but as soon as the calf had been taken away the milkmaids would have to set to work as usual.

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use of his marrying a fine lady, and all the while ten thousand acres of Colonial pasture to feed, and cattle to rear, and corn to reap. A farm-woman would be the only sensible kind of wife for him. But whether Mr Clare had spoken seriously or not, why should she, who could never conscientiously allow any man to marry her now, and who had religiously determined that she never would be tempted to do so, draw off Mr Clare's attention from other women, for the brief happiness of sunning herself in his eyes while he remained at Talbothays? ¡¡¡¡ ¡¡¡¡Chapter 22¡¡¡¡ They came downstairs yawning next morning; but skimming and milking were proceeded with as usual, and they went indoors to breakfast. Dairyman Crick was discovered stamping about the house. He had received a letter, in which a customer had complained that the butter had a twang.

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And begad, so 't have!' said the dairyman, who held in his left hand a wooden slice on which a lump of butter was stuck. `Yes - taste for yourself!' ¡¡¡¡Several of them gathered round him; and Mr Clare tasted, Tess tasted, also the other indoor milkmaids, one or two of the milking-men, and last of all Mrs Crick, who came out from the waiting breakfast-table. There certainly was a twang. ¡¡¡¡The dairyman, who had thrown himself into abstraction to better realize the taste, and so divine the particular species of noxious weed to which it appertained, suddenly exclaimed-- ¡¡¡¡`'Tis garlic! and I thought there wasn't a blade left in that mead!' ¡¡¡¡Then all the old hands remembered that a certain dry mead, into which a few of the cows had been admitted of late, had, in years gone by, spoilt the butter in the same way. The dairyman had not recognized the taste at that time, and thought the butter bewitched. ¡¡¡¡`We must overhaul that mead,' he resumed; `this mustn't continny!'

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All having armed themselves with old pointed knives they went out together. As the inimical plant could only be present in very microscopic dimensions to have escaped ordinary observation, to find it seemed rather a hopeless attempt in the stretch of rich grass before them. However, they formed themselves into line, all assisting, owing to the importance of the search; the dairyman at the upper end with Mr Clare, who had volunteered to help; then Tess, Marian, Izz Huett, and Retty; then Bill Lewell, Jonathan, and the married dairywomen - Beck Knibbs, with her woolly black hair and rolling eyes; and flaxen Frances, consumptive from the winter damps of the water-meads - who lived in their respective cottages. ¡¡¡¡With eyes fixed upon the ground they crept slowly across a strip of the field, returning a little further down in such a manner that, when they should have finished, not a single inch of the pasture but would have fallen under the eye of some one of them. It was a most tedious business, not more than half a dozen shoots of garlic being discoverable in the whole field; yet such was the herb's pungency that probably one bite of it by one cow had been sufficient to season the whole dairy's produce for the day.

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ng one from another in natures and moods so greatly as they did, they yet formed, bending, a curiously uniform row - automatic, noiseless; and an alien observer passing down the neighbouring lane might well have been excused for massing them as `Hodge'. As they crept along, stooping low to discern the plant, a soft yellow gleam was reflected from the buttercups into their shaded faces, giving them an elfish, moonlit aspect, though the sun was pouring upon their backs in all the strength of noon. ¡¡¡¡Angel Clare, who communistically stuck to his rule of taking part with the rest in everything, glanced up now and then. It was not, of course, by accident that he walked next to Tess. ¡¡¡¡`Well, how are you?' he murmured. ¡¡¡¡`Very well, thank you, sir,' she replied demurely. As they had been discussing a score of personal matters only half-an-hour before, the introductory style seemed a little superfluous. But they got no further in speech just then. They crept and crept, the hem of her petticoat just touching his gaiter, and his elbow sometimes brushing hers. At last the dairyman, who came next, could stand it no longer.

My Sweet Rose painting

Upon my soul and body, this here stooping do fairly make my back open and shut!' he exclaimed, straightening himself slowly with an excruciated look till quite upright. `And you, maidy Tess, you wasn't well a day or two ago - this will make your head ache finely! Don't do any more, if you feel fainty; leave the rest to finish it.' ¡¡¡¡Dairyman Crick withdrew, and Tess dropped behind. Mr Clare also stepped out of line, and began privateering about for the weed. When she found him near her, her very tension at what she had heard the night before made her the first to speak. ¡¡¡¡`Don't they look pretty?' she said. ¡¡¡¡`Who?' ¡¡¡¡`Izzy Huett and Retty.' ¡¡¡¡Tess had moodily decided that either of these maidens would make a good farmer's wife, and that she ought to recommend them, and obscure her own wretched charms. ¡¡¡¡`Pretty? Well, yes - they are pretty girls - fresh looking. I have often thought so.' ¡¡¡¡`Though, poor dears, prettiness won't last long!' ¡¡¡¡`O no, unfortunately.'

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must lie fallow for a thousand years to git strength for more deeds!' A boy came here t'other day asking for a job, and said his name was Matt, and when we asked him his surname he said he'd never heard that `a had any surname, and when we asked why, he said he supposed his folks hadn't been established long enough. "Ah! you're the very boy I want!" says Mr Clare, jumping up and shaking hands wi'en; "I've great hopes of you"; and gave him half-a-crown. O no! he can't stomach old families!' ¡¡¡¡After hearing this caricature of Clare's opinions poor Tess was glad that she had not said a word in a weak moment about her family - even though it was so unusually old as almost to have gone round the circle and become a new one. Besides, another dairy-girl was as good as she, it seemed, in that respect. She held her tongue about the d'Urberville vault, and the Knight of the Conqueror whose name she bore. The insight afforded into Clare's character suggested to her that it was largely owing to her supposed untraditional newness that she had won interest in his eyes.

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The season developed and matured. Another year's instalment of flowers, leaves, nightingales, thrushes, finches, and such ephemeral creatures, took up their positions where only a year ago others had stood in their place when these were nothing more than germs and inorganic particles. Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and breathings. ¡¡¡¡Dairyman Crick's household of maids and men lived on comfortably, placidly, even merrily. Their position was perhaps the happiest of all positions in the social scale, being above the line at which neediness ends, and below the line at which the convenances begin to cramp natural feeling, and the stress of threadbare modishness makes too little of enough.

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could be depended upon not to sleep through the alarm as the others did, this task was thrust most frequently upon her. No sooner had the hour of three struck and whizzed, than she left her room and ran to the dairyman's door; then up the ladder to Angel's, calling him in a loud whisper; then woke her fellow-milkmaids. By the time that Tess was dressed Clare was downstairs and out in the humid air. The remaining maids and the dairyman usually gave themselves another turn on the pillow, and did not appear till a quarter of an hour later. ¡¡¡¡The gray half-tones of daybreak are not the gray half-tones of the day's close, though the degree of their shade may be the same. In the twilight of the morning light seems active, darkness passive; in the twilight of evening it is the darkness which is active and crescent, and the light which is the drowsy reverse. ¡¡¡¡Being so often - possibly not always by chance - the first two persons to get up at the dairy-house, they seemed to themselves the first persons up of all the world

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Thus passed the leafy time when arborescence seems to be the one thing aimed at out of doors. Tess and Clare unconsciously studied each other, ever balanced on the edge of a passion, yet apparently keeping out of it. All the while they were converging, under an irresistible law, as surely as two streams in one vale. ¡¡¡¡Tess had never in her recent life been so happy as she was now, possibly never would be so happy again. She was, for one thing, physically and mentally suited among these new surroundings. The sapling which had rooted down to a poisonous stratum on the spot of its sowing had been transplanted to a deeper soil. Moreover she, and Clare also, stood as yet on the debatable land between predilection and love; where no profundities have been reached; no reflections have set in, awkwardly inquiring, `Whither does this new current tend to carry me? What does it mean to my future? How does it stand towards my past?'

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Tess was the merest stray phenomenon to Angel Clare as yet - a rosy warming apparition which had only just acquired the attribute of persistence in his consciousness. So he allowed his mind to be occupied with her, deeming his preoccupation to be no more than a philosopher's regard of an exceedingly novel, fresh, and interesting specimen of womankind. ¡¡¡¡They met continually; they could not help it. They met dally in that strange and solemn interval, the twilight of the morning, in the violet or pink dawn; for it was necessary to rise early, so very early, here. Milking was done betimes; and before the milking came the skimming, which began at a little past three. It usually fell to the lot of some one or other of them to wake the rest, the first being aroused by an alarm-clock; and, as Tess was the latest arrival, and they soon discovered that she

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Whatever Tess's reasoning, some spirit had induced her to dress herself up neatly as she had formerly done, and come out into the fields, harvest-hands being greatly in demand just then. This was why she had borne herself with dignity, and had looked people calmly in the face at times, even when holding the baby in her arms. ¡¡¡¡The harvest-men rose from the shock of corn, and stretched their limbs, and extinguished their pipes. The horses, which had been unharnessed and fed, were again attached to the scarlet machine. Tess, having quickly eaten her own meal, beckoned to her eldest sister to come and take away the baby, fastened her dress, put on the buff gloves again, and stooped anew to draw a bond from the last completed sheaf for the tying of the next.

The Lady of Shalott

rnoon and evening the proceedings of the morning were continued, Tess staying on till dusk with the body of harvesters. Then they all rode home in one of the largest waggons, in the company of a broad tarnished moon that had risen from the ground to the eastwards, its face resembling the outworn goldleaf halo of some worm-eaten Tuscan saint. Tess's female companions sang songs, and showed themselves very sympathetic and glad at her reappearance out of doors, though they could not refrain from mischievously throwing in a few verses of the ballad about the maid who went to the merry green wood and came back a changed state. There are counterpoises and compensations in life; and the event which had made of her a social warning had also for the moment made her the most interesting personage in the village to many. Their friendliness won her still farther away from herself, their lively spirits were contagious, and she became almost gay.

The Painter's Honeymoon

But now that her moral sorrows were passing away a fresh one arose on the natural side of her which knew no social law. When she reached home it was to learn to her grief that the baby had been suddenly taken ill since the afternoon. Some such collapse had been probable, so tender and puny was its frame; but the event came as a shock nevertheless. ¡¡¡¡The baby's offence against society in coming into the world was forgotten by the girl-mother; her soul's desire was to continue that offence by preserving the life of the child. However, it soon grew clear that the hour of emancipation for that little prisoner of the flesh was to arrive earlier than her worst misgivings had conjectured. And when she had discovered this she was plunged into a misery which transcended that of the child's simple loss. Her baby had not been baptized. ¡¡¡¡Tess had drifted into a frame of mind which accepted passively the consideration that if she should have to burn for what she had done, burn she must, and there was an end of it. Like all village girls she was well grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and had dutifully studied the histories of Aholah and Aholibah, and knew the inferences to be drawn therefrom. But when the same question arose with regard to the baby, it had a very different colour. Her darling was about to die, and no salvation.

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It was nearly bedtime, but she rushed downstairs and asked if she might send for the parson. The moment happened to be one at which her father's sense of the antique nobility of his family was highest, and his sensitiveness to the smudge which Tess had set upon that nobility most pronounced, for he had just returned from his weekly booze at Rolliver's Inn. No parson should come inside his door, he declared, prying into his affairs, just then, when, by her shame, it had become more necessary than ever to hide them. He locked the door and put the key in his pocket. ¡¡¡¡The household went to bed, and, distressed beyond measure, Tess retired also. She was continually waking as she lay, and in the middle of the night found that the baby was still worse. It was obviously dying - quietly and painlessly, but none the less surely.

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In her misery she rocked herself upon the bed. The clock struck the solemn hour of one, that hour when fancy stalks outside reason, and malignant possibilities stand rock-firm as facts. She thought of the child consigned to the nethermost corner of hell, as its double doom for lack of baptism and lack of legitimacy; saw the arch-fiend tossing it with his three-pronged fork, like the one they used for heating the oven on baking days; to which picture she added many other quaint and curious details of torment sometimes taught the young in this Christian country. The lurid presentment so powerfully affected her imagination in the silence of the sleeping house that her nightgown became damp with perspiration, and the bedstead shook with each throb of her heart. ¡¡¡¡The infant's breathing grew more difficult, and the mother's mental tension increased. It was useless to devour the little thing with kisses; she could stay in bed no longer, and walked feverishly about the room.

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The event of Tess Durbeyfield's return from the manor of her bogus kinsfolk was rumoured abroad, if rumour be not too large a word for a space of a square mile. In the afternoon several young girls of Marlott, former schoolfellows and acquaintances of Tess, called to see her, arriving dressed in their best starched and ironed, as became visitors to a person who had made a transcendent conquest (as they supposed), and sat round the room looking at her with great curiosity. For the fact that it was this said thirty-first cousin, Mr d'Urberville, who had fallen in love with her, a gentleman not altogether local, whose reputation as a reckless gallant and heart-breaker was beginning to spread beyond the immediate boundaries of Trantridge, lent Tess's supposed position, by its fearsomeness, a far higher fascination than it would have exercised if unhazardous. ¡¡¡¡Their interest was so deep that the younger ones whispered when her back was turned--

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How pretty she is; and how that best frock do set her off! I believe it cost an immense deal, and that it was a gift from him.' ¡¡¡¡Tess, who was reaching up to get the tea-things from the corner-cupboard, did not hear these commentaries. If she had heard them, she might soon have set her friends right on the matter. But her mother heard, and Joan's simple vanity, having been denied the hope of a dashing marriage, fed itself as well as it could upon the sensation of a dashing flirtation. Upon the whole she felt gratified, even though such a limited and evanescent triumph should involve her daughter's reputation; it might end in marriage yet, and in the warmth of her responsiveness to their admiration she invited her visitors to stay to tea. ¡¡¡¡Their chatter, their laughter, their good-humoured innuendoes, above all, their flashes and flickerings of envy, revived Tess's spirits also; and, as the evening wore on, she caught the infection of their excitement, and grew almost gay. The marble hardness left her face, she moved with something of her old bounding step, and flushed in all her young beauty.

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At moments, in spite of thought, she would reply to their inquiries with a manner of superiority, as if recognizing that her experiences in the field of courtship had, indeed, been slightly enviable. But so far was she from being, in the words of Robert South, `in love with her own ruin', that the illusion was transient as lightning; cold reason came back to mock her spasmodic weakness; the ghastliness of her momentary pride would convict her, and recall her to reserved listlessness again. ¡¡¡¡And the despondency of the next morning's dawn, when it was no longer Sunday, but Monday; and no best clothes; and the laughing visitors were gone, and she awoke alone in her old bed, the innocent younger children breathing softly around her. In place of the excitement of her return, and the interest it had inspired, she saw before her a long and stony highway which she had to tread, without aid, and with little sympathy. Her depression was then terrible, and she could have hidden herself in a tomb.

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In the course of a few weeks Tess revived sufficiently to show herself so far as was necessary to get to church one Sunday morning. She liked to hear the chanting - such as it was - and the old Psalms, and to join in the Morning Hymn. That innate love of melody, which she had inherited from her ballad-singing mother, gave the simplest music a power over her which could well-nigh drag her heart out of her bosom at times. ¡¡¡¡To be as much out of observation as possible for reasons of her own, and to escape the gallantries of the young men, she set out before the chiming began, and took a back seat under the gallery, close to the lumber, where only old men and women came, and where the bier stood on end among the churchyard tools. Parishioners dropped in by twos and threes, deposited themselves in rows before her, rested three-quarters of a minute on their foreheads as if they were praying, though they were not; then sat up, and looked around. When the chants came on one of her favourites happened to be chosen among the rest - the old double chant

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Langdon' - but she did not know what it was called, though she would much have liked to know. She thought, without exactly wording the thought, how strange and godlike was a composer's power, who from the grave could lead through sequences of emotion, which he alone had felt at first, a girl like her who had never heard of his name, and never would have a clue to his personality. ¡¡¡¡The people who had turned their heads turned them again as the service proceeded; and at last observing her they whispered to each other. She knew what their whispers were about, grew sick at heart, and felt that she could come to church no more. ¡¡¡¡The bedroom which she shared with some of the children formed her retreat more continually than ever. Here, under her few square yards of thatch, she watched winds, and snows, and rains, gorgeous sunsets, and successive moons at their full. So close kept she that at length almost everybody thought she had gone away

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You shall catch it for this, my gentleman, when you get home!' burst in female accents from the human heap - those of the unhappy partner of the man whose clumsiness had caused the mishap; she happened also to be his recently married wife, in which assortment there was nothing unusual at Trantridge as long as any affection remained between wedded couples; and, indeed, it was not uncustomary in their later lives, to avoid making odd lots of the single people between whom there might be a warm understanding. ¡¡¡¡A loud laugh from behind Tess's back, in the shade of the garden, united with the titter within the room. She looked round, and saw the red coal of a cigar: Alec d'Urberville was standing there alone. He beckoned to her, and she reluctantly retreated towards him.

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¡¡¡¡`Well, my Beauty, what are you doing here?' ¡¡¡¡She was so tired after her long day and her walk that she confided her trouble to him - that she had been waiting ever since he saw her to have their company home, because the road at night was strange to her. `But it seems they will never leave off, and I really think I will wait no longer.' ¡¡¡¡`Certainly do not. I have only a saddle-horse here to-day; but come to "The Flower-de-Luce", and I'll hire a trap, and drive you home with me.' ¡¡¡¡Tess, though flattered, had never quite got over her original mistrust of him, and, despite their tardiness, she preferred to walk home with the work folk. So she answered that she was much obliged to him, but would not trouble him. `I have said that I will wait for 'em, and they will expect me to now.' ¡¡¡¡`Very well, Miss Independence. Please yourself... Then I shall not hurry... My good Lord, what a kick-up they are having there!'

famous animal painting

¡¡¡¡Tess soon perceived as she walked in the flock, sometimes with this one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too freely; some of the more careless women also were wandering in their gait to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, till lately a favourite of d'Urberville's; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed the Queen of Diamonds; and the young married woman who had already tumbled down. Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance just now to the mean unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was different. They followed the road with a sensation that they were soaring along in a supporting medium, possessed of original and profound thought, themselves and surrounding nature forming an organism of which all the parts harmoniously and joyously interpenetrated each other. They were as sublime as the moon and stars above them, and the moon and stars were as ardent as they.

flower impact painting

Tess, however, had undergone such painful experiences of this kind in her father's house, that the discovery of their condition spoilt the pleasure she was beginning to feel in the moonlight journey. Yet she stuck to the party, for reasons above given. ¡¡¡¡In the open highway they had progressed in scattered order; but now their route was through a field-gate, and the foremost finding a difficulty in opening it they closed up together. ¡¡¡¡This leading pedestrian was Car the Queen of Spades, who carried a wicker-basket containing her mother's groceries, her own draperies, and other purchases for the week. The basket being large and heavy, Car had placed it for convenience of porterage on the top of her head, where it rode on in jeopardized balance as she walked with arms akimbo. ¡¡¡¡`Well - whatever is that a-creeping down the back, Car Darch?' said one of the group suddenly.

claude monet impressionism painting

All looked at Car. Her gown was a light cotton print, and from the back of her head a kind of rope could be seen descending to some distance below her waist, like a Chinaman's queue. ¡¡¡¡`'Tis her hair falling down,' said another. ¡¡¡¡No; it was not her hair: it was a black stream of something oozing from her basket, mid it glistened like a slimy snake in the cold still rays of the moon. ¡¡¡¡`'Tis treacle,' said an observant matron. ¡¡¡¡Treacle it was. Car's poor old grandmother had a weakness for the sweet stuff. Honey she had in plenty out of her own hives, but treacle was what her soul desired, and Car had been about to give her a treat of surprise. Hastily lowering the basket the dark girl found that the vessel containing the syrup had been smashed within. ¡¡¡¡By this time there had arisen a shout of laughter at the extraordinary appearance of Car's back, which irritated the dark queen into getting rid of the disfigurement by the first sudden means available, and independently of the help of the scoffers. She rushed excitedly into the field they were about to cross, and flinging herself flat on her back upon the grass, began to wipe her gown as well as she could by spinning horizontally on the herbage and dragging herself over it upon her elbows.

The Lady of Shalott

Still Tess could not be induced to remount. She did not, however, object to his keeping his gig alongside her; and in this manner, at a slow pace, they advanced towards the village of Trantridge. From time to time d'Urberville exhibited a sort of fierce distress at the sight of the tramping he had driven her to undertake by his misdemeanour. She might in truth have safely trusted him now; but he had forfeited her confidence for the time, and she kept on the ground, progressing thoughtfully, as if wondering whether it would be wiser to return home. Her resolve, however, had been taken, and it seemed vacillating even to childishness to abandon it now, unless for graver reasons. How could she face her parents, get back her box, and disconcert the whole scheme for the rehabilitation of her family on such sentimental grounds? ¡¡¡¡A few minutes later the chimneys of The Slopes appeared in view, and in a snug nook to the right the poultry-farm and cottage of Tess's destination.

The Painter's Honeymoon

The community of fowls to which Tess had been appointed as supervisor, purveyor, nurse, surgeon, and friend, made its head quarters in an old thatched cottage standing in an enclosure that had once been a garden, but was now a trampled and sanded square. The house was overrun with ivy, its chimney being enlarged by the boughs of the parasite to the aspect of a ruined tower. The lower rooms were entirely given over to the birds, who walked about them with a proprietary air, as though the place had been built by themselves, and not by certain dusty copy holders who now lay east and west in the churchyard. The descendants of these bygone owners felt it almost as a slight to their family when the house which had so much of their affection, had cost so much of their forefathers' money, and had been in their possession for several generations before the d'Urbervilles came and built here, was indifferently turned into a fowl house by Mrs Stoke-d'Urberville as soon as the property fell into hand according to law. `'Twas good enough for Christians in grandfather's time,' they said

The Virgin and Child with St Anne

The rooms wherein dozens of infants had wailed at their nursing now resounded with the tapping of nascent chicks. Distracted hens in coops occupied spots where formerly stood chairs supporting sedate agriculturists. The chimney-corner and once blazing hearth was now filled with inverted beehives, in which the hens laid their eggs; while out of doors the plots that each succeeding householder had carefully shaped with his spade were torn by the cocks in wildest fashion. ¡¡¡¡The garden in which the cottage stood was surrounded by a wall, and could only be entered through a door. ¡¡¡¡When Tess had occupied herself about an hour the next morning in altering and improving the arrangements, according to her skilled ideas as the daughter of a professed poulterer, the door in the wall opened and a servant in white cap and apron entered. She had come from the manor-house. ¡¡¡¡`Mrs d'Urberville wants the fowls as usual,' she said; but perceiving that Tess did not quite understand, she explained, `Mis'ess is a old lady, and blind.'

virgin of the rocks

Blind!' said Tess. ¡¡¡¡Almost before her misgiving at the news could find time to shape itself she took, under her companion's direction, two of the most beautiful of the Hamburghs in her arms, and followed the maid-servant, who had likewise taken two, to the adjacent mansion, which, though ornate and imposing, showed traces everywhere on this side that some occupant of its chambers could bend to the love of dumb creatures - feathers floating within view of the front, and hen-coops standing on the grass. ¡¡¡¡In a sitting-room on the ground-floor, ensconced in an armchair with her back to the light, was the owner and mistress of the estate, a white haired woman of not more than sixty, or even less, wearing a large cap. She had the mobile face frequent in those whose sight has decayed by stages, has been laboriously striven after, and reluctantly let go, rather than the stagnant mien apparent in persons long sightless or born blind. Tess walked up to this lady with her feathered charges - one sitting on each arm.

Biblis painting

Ah, you are the young woman come to look after my birds?' said Mrs d'Urberville, recognizing a new footstep. `I hope you will be kind to them. My bailiff tells me you are quite the proper person. Well, where are they? Ah, this is Strut! But he is hardly so lively today, is he? He is alarmed at being handled by a stranger, I suppose. And Phena too - yes, they are a little frightened - aren't you, dears? But they will soon get used to you.' ¡¡¡¡While the old lady had been speaking Tess and the other maid, in obedience to her gestures, had placed the fowls severally in her lap, and she had felt them over from head to tail, examining their beaks, their combs, the manes of the cocks, their wings, and their claws. Her touch enabled her to recognize them in a moment, and to discover if a single feather were crippled or dragged. She handled their crops, and knew what they had eaten, and if too little or too much; her face enacting a vivid pantomime of the criticisms passing in her mind.