feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_9_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapters 23-24
feat_summary_id: chapters 23 - 24
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapters  23 - 24", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD33.asp", "summary": "Tess has been on the farm for two months before she goes on her first outing. Tess and her co-workers dress in their best clothes and set out for Mellstock Church. On the way, they find the route is flooded due to heavy rains the day before. Angel, who is out in the field, sees their difficulty and comes to their rescue. He carries each of them across the water. When Tess's turn comes, Angel's ardent admiration for her is revealed again. He tells her he has carried \"three Leahs to get one Rachel,\" a clear Biblical reference to her beauty. He also takes as long as possible in carrying Tess across. Seeing his obvious attraction to her, the other maids conclude that they do not stand a chance with Angel against Tess. Pained by all this, Tess tells them that if Angel ever proposes to her, she will refuse him. Later Tess is relieved to hear from the other milkmaids that Angel's parents have chosen a girl for him to marry. However, Angel surprises her by his confession of his sincere love for her.", "analysis": "Notes In this chapter, Hardy compares and contrasts Tess with the other milkmaids. Like them, she feels at home in the country, enjoys her work, takes pleasure in small things, and seems to take an interest in men. But Hardy also stresses how she is different from the others. She is more beautiful, more refined, and more educated than the others. She stands out from the crowd, and that is why Angel has grown attached to her. After their excursion, the milkmaids are all talk about Angel and his kindness in carrying them through the water. They all cherish the beautiful moments in his company and openly admit they love him. They also realize that Angel prefers Tess to them and express no jealousy. Tess, however, makes it clear that she is not hindering them in their pursuit of Angel. She even tells them that if Angel asks for her hand in marriage, she will refuse. Knowing nothing about her past, the other three milkmaids are shocked by her revelation. They, however, know their efforts with Angel are to no avail and lament their unsuitability for this handsome man. CHAPTER 24 Summary In this chapter, Angel professes his true love to Tess. On a hot July afternoon, as he works beside Tess milking cows, he is overcome with emotion for her. He leaves his milking and takes her in his arms. At first she responds, but then reigns in her emotions and withdraws from him. He is surprised at her distress over his affection and assures Tess that he loves her. Tears form in Tess's eyes as she realizes that her past stands in the way of love. Angel is unable to fathom the reason for Tess's crying, but knows that he has caused the sadness. He begs for forgiveness. Notes The warm summer weather again provokes passion in this chapter. Angel is no longer able to keep silent about his love for Tess. While they are milking the cows together, he is overcome with emotion, embraces her, and confesses his love. Angel's unveiled love makes things difficult for Tess. Before meeting Angel, Tess has accepted the situation that fate has given her; she knows she can never marry because of her past. At Talbothay's farm, Angel is attracted to her for her beauty, intelligence, and seeming purity. She has tried to discourage him, pointing out the virtues of the other milkmaids to him and trying to avoid his company. Despite her efforts, Angel and Tess have fallen in love with each other. When he first embraces her, Tess, revealing her true feelings, responds to his warmth; but she quickly remembers her predicament and draws away from him. As he confesses his love, she sheds tears caused by her emotions, her confusion, and her disappointment. Because of her past, Tess cannot be at peace. Fate still has the upper hand."}
text: 
  
  The hot weather of July had crept upon them unawares, and the
  atmosphere of the flat vale hung heavy as an opiate over the
  dairy-folk, the cows, and the trees.  Hot steaming rains fell
  frequently, making the grass where the cows fed yet more rank, and
  hindering the late hay-making in the other meads.
  
  It was Sunday morning; the milking was done; the outdoor milkers
  had gone home.  Tess and the other three were dressing themselves
  rapidly, the whole bevy having agreed to go together to Mellstock
  Church, which lay some three or four miles distant from the
  dairy-house.  She had now been two months at Talbothays, and this
  was her first excursion.
  
  All the preceding afternoon and night heavy thunderstorms had hissed
  down upon the meads, and washed some of the hay into the river; but
  this morning the sun shone out all the more brilliantly for the
  deluge, and the air was balmy and clear.
  
  The crooked lane leading from their own parish to Mellstock ran along
  the lowest levels in a portion of its length, and when the girls
  reached the most depressed spot they found that the result of the
  rain had been to flood the lane over-shoe to a distance of some fifty
  yards.  This would have been no serious hindrance on a week-day; they
  would have clicked through it in their high pattens and boots quite
  unconcerned; but on this day of vanity, this Sun's-day, when flesh
  went forth to coquet with flesh while hypocritically affecting
  business with spiritual things; on this occasion for wearing their
  white stockings and thin shoes, and their pink, white, and lilac
  gowns, on which every mud spot would be visible, the pool was an
  awkward impediment.  They could hear the church-bell calling--as yet
  nearly a mile off.
  
  "Who would have expected such a rise in the river in summer-time!"
  said Marian, from the top of the roadside bank on which they had
  climbed, and were maintaining a precarious footing in the hope of
  creeping along its slope till they were past the pool.
  
  "We can't get there anyhow, without walking right through it, or else
  going round the Turnpike way; and that would make us so very late!"
  said Retty, pausing hopelessly.
  
  "And I do colour up so hot, walking into church late, and all the
  people staring round," said Marian, "that I hardly cool down again
  till we get into the That-it-may-please-Thees."
  
  While they stood clinging to the bank they heard a splashing round
  the bend of the road, and presently appeared Angel Clare, advancing
  along the lane towards them through the water.
  
  Four hearts gave a big throb simultaneously.
  
  His aspect was probably as un-Sabbatarian a one as a dogmatic
  parson's son often presented; his attire being his dairy clothes,
  long wading boots, a cabbage-leaf inside his hat to keep his head
  cool, with a thistle-spud to finish him off.  "He's not going to
  church," said Marian.
  
  "No--I wish he was!" murmured Tess.
  
  Angel, in fact, rightly or wrongly (to adopt the safe phrase of
  evasive controversialists), preferred sermons in stones to sermons in
  churches and chapels on fine summer days.  This morning, moreover,
  he had gone out to see if the damage to the hay by the flood was
  considerable or not.  On his walk he observed the girls from a long
  distance, though they had been so occupied with their difficulties of
  passage as not to notice him.  He knew that the water had risen at
  that spot, and that it would quite check their progress.  So he had
  hastened on, with a dim idea of how he could help them--one of them
  in particular.
  
  The rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed quartet looked so charming in their
  light summer attire, clinging to the roadside bank like pigeons on a
  roof-slope, that he stopped a moment to regard them before coming
  close.  Their gauzy skirts had brushed up from the grass innumerable
  flies and butterflies which, unable to escape, remained caged in
  the transparent tissue as in an aviary.  Angel's eye at last fell
  upon Tess, the hindmost of the four; she, being full of suppressed
  laughter at their dilemma, could not help meeting his glance
  radiantly.
  
  He came beneath them in the water, which did not rise over his long
  boots; and stood looking at the entrapped flies and butterflies.
  
  "Are you trying to get to church?" he said to Marian, who was in
  front, including the next two in his remark, but avoiding Tess.
  
  "Yes, sir; and 'tis getting late; and my colour do come up so--"
  
  "I'll carry you through the pool--every Jill of you."
  
  The whole four flushed as if one heart beat through them.
  
  "I think you can't, sir," said Marian.
  
  "It is the only way for you to get past.  Stand still.  Nonsense--you
  are not too heavy!  I'd carry you all four together.  Now, Marian,
  attend," he continued, "and put your arms round my shoulders, so.
  Now!  Hold on. That's well done."
  
  Marian had lowered herself upon his arm and shoulder as directed, and
  Angel strode off with her, his slim figure, as viewed from behind,
  looking like the mere stem to the great nosegay suggested by hers.
  They disappeared round the curve of the road, and only his sousing
  footsteps and the top ribbon of Marian's bonnet told where they were.
  In a few minutes he reappeared.  Izz Huett was the next in order upon
  the bank.
  
  "Here he comes," she murmured, and they could hear that her lips were
  dry with emotion.  "And I have to put my arms round his neck and look
  into his face as Marian did."
  
  "There's nothing in that," said Tess quickly.
  
  "There's a time for everything," continued Izz, unheeding.  "A time
  to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; the first is now
  going to be mine."
  
  "Fie--it is Scripture, Izz!"
  
  "Yes," said Izz, "I've always a' ear at church for pretty verses."
  
  Angel Clare, to whom three-quarters of this performance was a
  commonplace act of kindness, now approached Izz.  She quietly and
  dreamily lowered herself into his arms, and Angel methodically
  marched off with her.  When he was heard returning for the third time
  Retty's throbbing heart could be almost seen to shake her.  He went
  up to the red-haired girl, and while he was seizing her he glanced at
  Tess.  His lips could not have pronounced more plainly, "It will soon
  be you and I."  Her comprehension appeared in her face; she could not
  help it.  There was an understanding between them.
  
  Poor little Retty, though by far the lightest weight, was the most
  troublesome of Clare's burdens.  Marian had been like a sack of meal,
  a dead weight of plumpness under which he has literally staggered.
  Izz had ridden sensibly and calmly.  Retty was a bunch of hysterics.
  
  However, he got through with the disquieted creature, deposited her,
  and returned.  Tess could see over the hedge the distant three in a
  group, standing as he had placed them on the next rising ground.  It
  was now her turn.  She was embarrassed to discover that excitement at
  the proximity of Mr Clare's breath and eyes, which she had contemned
  in her companions, was intensified in herself; and as if fearful of
  betraying her secret, she paltered with him at the last moment.
  
  "I may be able to clim' along the bank perhaps--I can clim' better
  than they.  You must be so tired, Mr Clare!"
  
  "No, no, Tess," said he quickly.  And almost before she was aware,
  she was seated in his arms and resting against his shoulder.
  
  "Three Leahs to get one Rachel," he whispered.
  
  "They are better women than I," she replied, magnanimously sticking
  to her resolve.
  
  "Not to me," said Angel.
  
  He saw her grow warm at this; and they went some steps in silence.
  
  "I hope I am not too heavy?" she said timidly.
  
  "O no.  You should lift Marian!  Such a lump.  You are like an
  undulating billow warmed by the sun.  And all this fluff of muslin
  about you is the froth."
  
  "It is very pretty--if I seem like that to you."
  
  "Do you know that I have undergone three-quarters of this labour
  entirely for the sake of the fourth quarter?"
  
  "No."
  
  "I did not expect such an event to-day."
  
  "Nor I...  The water came up so sudden."
  
  That the rise in the water was what she understood him to refer to,
  the state of breathing belied.  Clare stood still and inclinced his
  face towards hers.
  
  "O Tessy!" he exclaimed.
  
  The girl's cheeks burned to the breeze, and she could not look into
  his eyes for her emotion.  It reminded Angel that he was somewhat
  unfairly taking advantage of an accidental position; and he went no
  further with it.  No definite words of love had crossed their lips
  as yet, and suspension at this point was desirable now. However,
  he walked slowly, to make the remainder of the distance as long as
  possible; but at last they came to the bend, and the rest of their
  progress was in full view of the other three.  The dry land was
  reached, and he set her down.
  
  Her friends were looking with round thoughtful eyes at her and him,
  and she could see that they had been talking of her.  He hastily bade
  them farewell, and splashed back along the stretch of submerged road.
  
  The four moved on together as before, till Marian broke the silence
  by saying--
  
  "No--in all truth; we have no chance against her!"  She looked
  joylessly at Tess.
  
  "What do you mean?" asked the latter.
  
  "He likes 'ee best--the very best!  We could see it as he brought
  'ee.  He would have kissed 'ee, if you had encouraged him to do it,
  ever so little."
  
  "No, no," said she.
  
  The gaiety with which they had set out had somehow vanished; and
  yet there was no enmity or malice between them.  They were generous
  young souls; they had been reared in the lonely country nooks where
  fatalism is a strong sentiment, and they did not blame her.  Such
  supplanting was to be.
  
  Tess's heart ached.  There was no concealing from herself the fact
  that she loved Angel Clare, perhaps all the more passionately from
  knowing that the others had also lost their hearts to him.  There is
  contagion in this sentiment, especially among women.  And yet that
  same hungry nature had fought against this, but too feebly, and the
  natural result had followed.
  
  "I will never stand in your way, nor in the way of either of you!"
  she declared to Retty that night in the bedroom (her tears running
  down).  "I can't help this, my dear!  I don't think marrying is in
  his mind at all; but if he were ever to ask me I should refuse him,
  as I should refuse any man."
  
  "Oh! would you?  Why?" said wondering Retty.
  
  "It cannot be!  But I will be plain.  Putting myself quite on one
  side, I don't think he will choose either of you."
  
  "I have never expected it--thought of it!" moaned Retty.  "But O! I
  wish I was dead!"
  
  The poor child, torn by a feeling which she hardly understood, turned
  to the other two girls who came upstairs just then.
  
  "We be friends with her again," she said to them.  "She thinks no
  more of his choosing her than we do."
  
  So the reserve went off, and they were confiding and warm.
  
  "I don't seem to care what I do now," said Marian, whose mood was
  turned to its lowest bass.  "I was going to marry a dairyman at
  Stickleford, who's asked me twice; but--my soul--I would put an end
  to myself rather'n be his wife now!  Why don't ye speak, Izz?"
  
  "To confess, then," murmured Izz, "I made sure to-day that he was
  going to kiss me as he held me; and I lay still against his breast,
  hoping and hoping, and never moved at all.  But he did not.  I don't
  like biding here at Talbothays any longer!  I shall go hwome."
  
  The air of the sleeping-chamber seemed to palpitate with the
  hopeless passion of the girls.  They writhed feverishly under the
  oppressiveness of an emotion thrust on them by cruel Nature's law--an
  emotion which they had neither expected nor desired.  The incident
  of the day had fanned the flame that was burning the inside of their
  hearts out, and the torture was almost more than they could endure.
  The differences which distinguished them as individuals were
  abstracted by this passion, and each was but portion of one organism
  called sex.  There was so much frankness and so little jealousy
  because there was no hope.  Each one was a girl of fair common sense,
  and she did not delude herself with any vain conceits, or deny her
  love, or give herself airs, in the idea of outshining the others.
  The full recognition of the futility of their infatuation, from a
  social point of view; its purposeless beginning; its self-bounded
  outlook; its lack of everything to justify its existence in the eye
  of civilization (while lacking nothing in the eye of Nature); the one
  fact that it did exist, ecstasizing them to a killing joy--all this
  imparted to them a resignation, a dignity, which a practical and
  sordid expectation of winning him as a husband would have destroyed.
  
  They tossed and turned on their little beds, and the cheese-wring
  dripped monotonously downstairs.
  
  "B' you awake, Tess?" whispered one, half-an-hour later.
  
  It was Izz Huett's voice.
  
  Tess replied in the affirmative, whereupon also Retty and Marian
  suddenly flung the bedclothes off them, and sighed--
  
  "So be we!"
  
  "I wonder what she is like--the lady they say his family have looked
  out for him!"
  
  "I wonder," said Izz.
  
  "Some lady looked out for him?" gasped Tess, starting.  "I have never
  heard o' that!"
  
  "O yes--'tis whispered; a young lady of his own rank, chosen by his
  family; a Doctor of Divinity's daughter near his father's parish of
  Emminster; he don't much care for her, they say.  But he is sure to
  marry her."
  
  They had heard so very little of this; yet it was enough to build up
  wretched dolorous dreams upon, there in the shade of the night.  They
  pictured all the details of his being won round to consent, of the
  wedding preparations, of the bride's happiness, of her dress and
  veil, of her blissful home with him, when oblivion would have fallen
  upon themselves as far as he and their love were concerned.  Thus
  they talked, and ached, and wept till sleep charmed their sorrow
  away.
  
  After this disclosure Tess nourished no further foolish thought that
  there lurked any grave and deliberate import in Clare's attentions
  to her.  It was a passing summer love of her face, for love's own
  temporary sake--nothing more. And the thorny crown of this sad
  conception was that she whom he really did prefer in a cursory way
  to the rest, she who knew herself to be more impassioned in nature,
  cleverer, more beautiful than they, was in the eyes of propriety far
  less worthy of him than the homelier ones whom he ignored.
  
  
  
  
  Amid the oozing fatness and warm ferments of the Froom Vale, at a
  season when the rush of juices could almost be heard below the hiss
  of fertilization, it was impossible that the most fanciful love
  should not grow passionate.  The ready bosoms existing there were
  impregnated by their surroundings.
  
  July passed over their heads, and the Thermidorean weather which came
  in its wake seemed an effort on the part of Nature to match the state
  of hearts at Talbothays Dairy.  The air of the place, so fresh in the
  spring and early summer, was stagnant and enervating now.  Its heavy
  scents weighed upon them, and at mid-day the landscape seemed lying
  in a swoon. Ethiopic scorchings browned the upper slopes of the
  pastures, but there was still bright green herbage here where the
  watercourses purled.  And as Clare was oppressed by the outward
  heats, so was he burdened inwardly by waxing fervour of passion for
  the soft and silent Tess.
  
  The rains having passed, the uplands were dry.  The wheels of the
  dairyman's spring-cart, as he sped home from market, licked up the
  pulverized surface of the highway, and were followed by white ribands
  of dust, as if they had set a thin powder-train on fire.  The cows
  jumped wildly over the five-barred barton-gate, maddened by the
  gad-fly; Dairyman Crick kept his shirt-sleeves permanently rolled up
  from Monday to Saturday; open windows had no effect in ventilation
  without open doors, and in the dairy-garden the blackbirds and
  thrushes crept about under the currant-bushes, rather in the manner
  of quadrupeds than of winged creatures.  The flies in the kitchen
  were lazy, teasing, and familiar, crawling about in the unwonted
  places, on the floors, into drawers, and over the backs of the
  milkmaids' hands. Conversations were concerning sunstroke; while
  butter-making, and still more butter-keeping, was a despair.
  
  They milked entirely in the meads for coolness and convenience,
  without driving in the cows.  During the day the animals obsequiously
  followed the shadow of the smallest tree as it moved round the stem
  with the diurnal roll; and when the milkers came they could hardly
  stand still for the flies.
  
  On one of these afternoons four or five unmilked cows chanced to
  stand apart from the general herd, behind the corner of a hedge,
  among them being Dumpling and Old Pretty, who loved Tess's hands
  above those of any other maid.  When she rose from her stool under a
  finished cow, Angel Clare, who had been observing her for some time,
  asked her if she would take the aforesaid creatures next.  She
  silently assented, and with her stool at arm's length, and the pail
  against her knee, went round to where they stood.  Soon the sound of
  Old Pretty's milk fizzing into the pail came through the hedge, and
  then Angel felt inclined to go round the corner also, to finish off a
  hard-yielding milcher who had strayed there, he being now as capable
  of this as the dairyman himself.
  
  All the men, and some of the women, when milking, dug their foreheads
  into the cows and gazed into the pail.  But a few--mainly the younger
  ones--rested their heads sideways.  This was Tess Durbeyfield's
  habit, her temple pressing the milcher's flank, her eyes fixed on
  the far end of the meadow with the quiet of one lost in meditation.
  She was milking Old Pretty thus, and the sun chancing to be on the
  milking-side, it shone flat upon her pink-gowned form and her white
  curtain-bonnet, and upon her profile, rendering it keen as a cameo
  cut from the dun background of the cow.
  
  She did not know that Clare had followed her round, and that he sat
  under his cow watching her.  The stillness of her head and features
  was remarkable: she might have been in a trance, her eyes open, yet
  unseeing.  Nothing in the picture moved but Old Pretty's tail and
  Tess's pink hands, the latter so gently as to be a rhythmic pulsation
  only, as if they were obeying a reflex stimulus, like a beating
  heart.
  
  How very lovable her face was to him.  Yet there was nothing ethereal
  about it; all was real vitality, real warmth, real incarnation.  And
  it was in her mouth that this culminated.  Eyes almost as deep and
  speaking he had seen before, and cheeks perhaps as fair; brows as
  arched, a chin and throat almost as shapely; her mouth he had seen
  nothing to equal on the face of the earth.  To a young man with the
  least fire in him that little upward lift in the middle of her red
  top lip was distracting, infatuating, maddening.  He had never before
  seen a woman's lips and teeth which forced upon his mind with such
  persistent iteration the old Elizabethan simile of roses filled with
  snow.  Perfect, he, as a lover, might have called them off-hand.  But
  no--they were not perfect.  And it was the touch of the imperfect
  upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was
  that which gave the humanity.
  
  Clare had studied the curves of those lips so many times that he
  could reproduce them mentally with ease: and now, as they again
  confronted him, clothed with colour and life, they sent an _aura_
  over his flesh, a breeze through his nerves, which well nigh produced
  a qualm; and actually produced, by some mysterious physiological
  process, a prosaic sneeze.
  
  She then became conscious that he was observing her; but she would
  not show it by any change of position, though the curious dream-like
  fixity disappeared, and a close eye might easily have discerned that
  the rosiness of her face deepened, and then faded till only a tinge
  of it was left.
  
  The influence that had passed into Clare like an excitation from the
  sky did not die down.  Resolutions, reticences, prudences, fears,
  fell back like a defeated battalion.  He jumped up from his seat,
  and, leaving his pail to be kicked over if the milcher had such a
  mind, went quickly towards the desire of his eyes, and, kneeling down
  beside her, clasped her in his arms.
  
  Tess was taken completely by surprise, and she yielded to his embrace
  with unreflecting inevitableness.  Having seen that it was really her
  lover who had advanced, and no one else, her lips parted, and she
  sank upon him in her momentary joy, with something very like an
  ecstatic cry.
  
  He had been on the point of kissing that too tempting mouth, but he
  checked himself, for tender conscience' sake.
  
  "Forgive me, Tess dear!" he whispered.  "I ought to have asked.
  I--did not know what I was doing.  I do not mean it as a liberty.
  I am devoted to you, Tessy, dearest, in all sincerity!"
  
  Old Pretty by this time had looked round, puzzled; and seeing two
  people crouching under her where, by immemorial custom, there should
  have been only one, lifted her hind leg crossly.
  
  "She is angry--she doesn't know what we mean--she'll kick over the
  milk!" exclaimed Tess, gently striving to free herself, her eyes
  concerned with the quadruped's actions, her heart more deeply
  concerned with herself and Clare.
  
  She slipped up from her seat, and they stood together, his arm still
  encircling her.  Tess's eyes, fixed on distance, began to fill.
  
  "Why do you cry, my darling?" he said.
  
  "O--I don't know!" she murmured.
  
  As she saw and felt more clearly the position she was in she became
  agitated and tried to withdraw.
  
  "Well, I have betrayed my feeling, Tess, at last," said he, with a
  curious sigh of desperation, signifying unconsciously that his heart
  had outrun his judgement.  "That I--love you dearly and truly I need
  not say.  But I--it shall go no further now--it distresses you--I am
  as surprised as you are.  You will not think I have presumed upon
  your defencelessness--been too quick and unreflecting, will you?"
  
  "N'--I can't tell."
  
  He had allowed her to free herself; and in a minute or two the
  milking of each was resumed.  Nobody had beheld the gravitation of
  the two into one; and when the dairyman came round by that screened
  nook a few minutes later, there was not a sign to reveal that
  the markedly sundered pair were more to each other than mere
  acquaintance.  Yet in the interval since Crick's last view of them
  something had occurred which changed the pivot of the universe for
  their two natures; something which, had he known its quality, the
  dairyman would have despised, as a practical man; yet which was based
  upon a more stubborn and resistless tendency than a whole heap of
  so-called practicalities.  A veil had been whisked aside; the tract
  of each one's outlook was to have a new horizon thenceforward--for a
  short time or for a long.
  
  
  END OF PHASE THE THIRD
  
  
  
  
  
  Phase the Fourth: The Consequence
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapters  23 - 24
target: Tess has been on the farm for two months before she goes on her first outing. Tess and her co-workers dress in their best clothes and set out for Mellstock Church. On the way, they find the route is flooded due to heavy rains the day before. Angel, who is out in the field, sees their difficulty and comes to their rescue. He carries each of them across the water. When Tess's turn comes, Angel's ardent admiration for her is revealed again. He tells her he has carried "three Leahs to get one Rachel," a clear Biblical reference to her beauty. He also takes as long as possible in carrying Tess across. Seeing his obvious attraction to her, the other maids conclude that they do not stand a chance with Angel against Tess. Pained by all this, Tess tells them that if Angel ever proposes to her, she will refuse him. Later Tess is relieved to hear from the other milkmaids that Angel's parents have chosen a girl for him to marry. However, Angel surprises her by his confession of his sincere love for her.
feat_summary_analysis: Notes In this chapter, Hardy compares and contrasts Tess with the other milkmaids. Like them, she feels at home in the country, enjoys her work, takes pleasure in small things, and seems to take an interest in men. But Hardy also stresses how she is different from the others. She is more beautiful, more refined, and more educated than the others. She stands out from the crowd, and that is why Angel has grown attached to her. After their excursion, the milkmaids are all talk about Angel and his kindness in carrying them through the water. They all cherish the beautiful moments in his company and openly admit they love him. They also realize that Angel prefers Tess to them and express no jealousy. Tess, however, makes it clear that she is not hindering them in their pursuit of Angel. She even tells them that if Angel asks for her hand in marriage, she will refuse. Knowing nothing about her past, the other three milkmaids are shocked by her revelation. They, however, know their efforts with Angel are to no avail and lament their unsuitability for this handsome man. CHAPTER 24 Summary In this chapter, Angel professes his true love to Tess. On a hot July afternoon, as he works beside Tess milking cows, he is overcome with emotion for her. He leaves his milking and takes her in his arms. At first she responds, but then reigns in her emotions and withdraws from him. He is surprised at her distress over his affection and assures Tess that he loves her. Tears form in Tess's eyes as she realizes that her past stands in the way of love. Angel is unable to fathom the reason for Tess's crying, but knows that he has caused the sadness. He begs for forgiveness. Notes The warm summer weather again provokes passion in this chapter. Angel is no longer able to keep silent about his love for Tess. While they are milking the cows together, he is overcome with emotion, embraces her, and confesses his love. Angel's unveiled love makes things difficult for Tess. Before meeting Angel, Tess has accepted the situation that fate has given her; she knows she can never marry because of her past. At Talbothay's farm, Angel is attracted to her for her beauty, intelligence, and seeming purity. She has tried to discourage him, pointing out the virtues of the other milkmaids to him and trying to avoid his company. Despite her efforts, Angel and Tess have fallen in love with each other. When he first embraces her, Tess, revealing her true feelings, responds to his warmth; but she quickly remembers her predicament and draws away from him. As he confesses his love, she sheds tears caused by her emotions, her confusion, and her disappointment. Because of her past, Tess cannot be at peace. Fate still has the upper hand.