feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_20_part_1.txt
feat_book_id: Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 53
feat_summary_id: chapter 53
feat_summary: {"name": "CHAPTER 53", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD63.asp", "summary": "The Clare couple eagerly awaits their son's return to the Emminster Vicarage. When Angel arrives, they are shocked at his pathetic appearance. He has aged far beyond a year in his absence, he is skin and bones, and his eyes have lost their luster. Angel asks his parents if Tess has come to them for help and is surprised she has asked for nothing. Angel also inquires about a letter from Tess and is handed the last one that is filled with scathing criticism of his behavior. Her letter touches him, and he accepts the fact that he has been cruel to her, but he does not give up hope for a reconciliation. He writes a letter to her, telling of his homecoming, and sends it to Marlott. Within a few days, Angel receives a letter from Joan, revealing that they no longer live in Marlott and Tess is not with her. Joan promises to reveal Tess's whereabouts in her next letter. A couple of days later, Angel receives the note of warning from Marian and Izz. He immediately sets out to search for Tess.", "analysis": "Notes Angel's suffering shows in his appearance and his parents barely recognize him on his return home. Unfortunately, he will continue to suffer. He always thought that the arrangements that he had made for Tess were sufficient, but she has not asked for a penny. He underestimated her pride and did not realize that Tess would prefer to starve rather than ask for money from his parents. This information makes Angel feel even more miserable, for he realizes how Tess must have suffered. The news he reads in her last letter just makes matters worse. He is ashamed that he has treated his wife so poorly and does not blame her for her written hostility. In spite of the feelings expressed in her letter, Angel has not given up hope about Tess. He plans to find her, beg forgiveness, and reconcile. It is important to notice the characterization of Mr. and Mrs. Clare in this chapter. They are genuinely concerned about their son, realize the facts surrounding his marriage and subsequent departure, and sympathize with Tess's plight. In essence, they are generous, forgiving, and loving. It is ironic that Tess has been afraid to approach them for help; if she had not been so proud, her situation would be very different. If she had received the help from them that Angel arranged, she would not have reached the bottom and made the decisions that she did. Once again, fate has had the upper hand"}
text: 
  
  It was evening at Emminster Vicarage.  The two customary candles were
  burning under their green shades in the Vicar's study, but he had not
  been sitting there.  Occasionally he came in, stirred the small fire
  which sufficed for the increasing mildness of the spring, and went
  out again; sometimes pausing at the front door, going on to the
  drawing-room, then returning again to the front door.
  
  It faced westward, and though gloom prevailed inside, there was still
  light enough without to see with distinctness.  Mrs Clare, who had
  been sitting in the drawing-room, followed him hither.
  
  "Plenty of time yet," said the Vicar.  "He doesn't reach Chalk-Newton
  till six, even if the train should be punctual, and ten miles of
  country-road, five of them in Crimmercrock Lane, are not jogged over
  in a hurry by our old horse."
  
  "But he has done it in an hour with us, my dear."
  
  "Years ago."
  
  Thus they passed the minutes, each well knowing that this was only
  waste of breath, the one essential being simply to wait.
  
  At length there was a slight noise in the lane, and the old
  pony-chaise appeared indeed outside the railings.  They saw alight
  therefrom a form which they affected to recognize, but would actually
  have passed by in the street without identifying had he not got out
  of their carriage at the particular moment when a particular person
  was due.
  
  Mrs Clare rushed through the dark passage to the door, and her
  husband came more slowly after her.
  
  The new arrival, who was just about to enter, saw their anxious faces
  in the doorway and the gleam of the west in their spectacles because
  they confronted the last rays of day; but they could only see his
  shape against the light.
  
  "O, my boy, my boy--home again at last!" cried Mrs Clare, who cared
  no more at that moment for the stains of heterodoxy which had caused
  all this separation than for the dust upon his clothes.  What woman,
  indeed, among the most faithful adherents of the truth, believes the
  promises and threats of the Word in the sense in which she believes
  in her own children, or would not throw her theology to the wind if
  weighed against their happiness?  As soon as they reached the room
  where the candles were lighted she looked at his face.
  
  "O, it is not Angel--not my son--the Angel who went away!" she cried
  in all the irony of sorrow, as she turned herself aside.
  
  His father, too, was shocked to see him, so reduced was that figure
  from its former contours by worry and the bad season that Clare had
  experienced, in the climate to which he had so rashly hurried in his
  first aversion to the mockery of events at home.  You could see the
  skeleton behind the man, and almost the ghost behind the skeleton.
  He matched Crivelli's dead _Christus_.  His sunken eye-pits were of
  morbid hue, and the light in his eyes had waned.  The angular hollows
  and lines of his aged ancestors had succeeded to their reign in his
  face twenty years before their time.
  
  "I was ill over there, you know," he said.  "I am all right now."
  
  As if, however, to falsify this assertion, his legs seemed to give
  way, and he suddenly sat down to save himself from falling.  It was
  only a slight attack of faintness, resulting from the tedious day's
  journey, and the excitement of arrival.
  
  "Has any letter come for me lately?" he asked.  "I received the
  last you sent on by the merest chance, and after considerable delay
  through being inland; or I might have come sooner."
  
  "It was from your wife, we supposed?"
  
  "It was."
  
  Only one other had recently come.  They had not sent it on to him,
  knowing he would start for home so soon.
  
  He hastily opened the letter produced, and was much disturbed to read
  in Tess's handwriting the sentiments expressed in her last hurried
  scrawl to him.
  
  
     O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do
     not deserve it.  I have thought it all over carefully,
     and I can never, never forgive you!  You know that I
     did not intend to wrong you--why have you so wronged
     me?  You are cruel, cruel indeed!  I will try to forget
     you.  It is all injustice I have received at your
     hands!
                                    T.
  
  "It is quite true!" said Angel, throwing down the letter.  "Perhaps
  she will never be reconciled to me!"
  
  "Don't, Angel, be so anxious about a mere child of the soil!" said
  his mother.
  
  "Child of the soil!  Well, we all are children of the soil.  I wish
  she were so in the sense you mean; but let me now explain to you what
  I have never explained before, that her father is a descendant in the
  male line of one of the oldest Norman houses, like a good many others
  who lead obscure agricultural lives in our villages, and are dubbed
  'sons of the soil.'"
  
  He soon retired to bed; and the next morning, feeling exceedingly
  unwell, he remained in his room pondering.  The circumstances amid
  which he had left Tess were such that though, while on the south of
  the Equator and just in receipt of her loving epistle, it had seemed
  the easiest thing in the world to rush back into her arms the moment
  he chose to forgive her, now that he had arrived it was not so easy
  as it had seemed.  She was passionate, and her present letter,
  showing that her estimate of him had changed under his delay--too
  justly changed, he sadly owned,--made him ask himself if it would
  be wise to confront her unannounced in the presence of her parents.
  Supposing that her love had indeed turned to dislike during the last
  weeks of separation, a sudden meeting might lead to bitter words.
  
  Clare therefore thought it would be best to prepare Tess and her
  family by sending a line to Marlott announcing his return, and his
  hope that she was still living with them there, as he had arranged
  for her to do when he left England.  He despatched the inquiry that
  very day, and before the week was out there came a short reply from
  Mrs Durbeyfield which did not remove his embarrassment, for it bore
  no address, though to his surprise it was not written from Marlott.
  
  
     SIR,
  
     J write these few lines to say that my Daughter is away
     from me at present, and J am not sure when she will
     return, but J will let you know as Soon as she do.
     J do not feel at liberty to tell you Where she is
     temperly biding.  J should say that me and my Family
     have left Marlott for some Time.--
  
     Yours,
  
     J. DURBEYFIELD
  
  
  It was such a relief to Clare to learn that Tess was at least
  apparently well that her mother's stiff reticence as to her
  whereabouts did not long distress him.  They were all angry with him,
  evidently.  He would wait till Mrs Durbeyfield could inform him of
  Tess's return, which her letter implied to be soon.  He deserved no
  more.  His had been a love "which alters when it alteration finds".
  He had undergone some strange experiences in his absence; he had seen
  the virtual Faustina in the literal Cornelia, a spiritual Lucretia in
  a corporeal Phryne; he had thought of the woman taken and set in the
  midst as one deserving to be stoned, and of the wife of Uriah being
  made a queen; and he had asked himself why he had not judged Tess
  constructively rather than biographically, by the will rather than
  by the deed?
  
  A day or two passed while he waited at his father's house for the
  promised second note from Joan Durbeyfield, and indirectly to recover
  a little more strength.  The strength showed signs of coming back,
  but there was no sign of Joan's letter.  Then he hunted up the
  old letter sent on to him in Brazil, which Tess had written from
  Flintcomb-Ash, and re-read it.  The sentences touched him now as
  much as when he had first perused them.
  
  
     ... I must cry to you in my trouble--I have no one
     else! ...  I think I must die if you do not come
     soon, or tell me to come to you... please, please,
     not to be just--only a little kind to me ...  If
     you would come, I could die in your arms!  I would
     be well content to do that if so be you had forgiven
     me! ... if you will send me one little line, and say,
     "I am coming soon," I will bide on, Angel--O, so
     cheerfully! ... think how it do hurt my heart not to
     see you ever--ever!  Ah, if I could only make your
     dear heart ache one little minute of each day as mine
     does every day and all day long, it might lead you to
     show pity to your poor lonely one. ...  I would be
     content, ay, glad, to live with you as your servant,
     if I may not as your wife; so that I could only be
     near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you
     as mine. ...  I long for only one thing in heaven
     or earth or under the earth, to meet you, my own
     dear!  Come to me--come to me, and save me from what
     threatens me!
  
  
  Clare determined that he would no longer believe in her more recent
  and severer regard of him, but would go and find her immediately.  He
  asked his father if she had applied for any money during his absence.
  His father returned a negative, and then for the first time it
  occurred to Angel that her pride had stood in her way, and that she
  had suffered privation.  From his remarks his parents now gathered
  the real reason of the separation; and their Christianity was such
  that, reprobates being their especial care, the tenderness towards
  Tess which her blood, her simplicity, even her poverty, had not
  engendered, was instantly excited by her sin.
  
  Whilst he was hastily packing together a few articles for his journey
  he glanced over a poor plain missive also lately come to hand--the
  one from Marian and Izz Huett, beginning--
  
  "Honour'd Sir, Look to your Wife if you do love her as much as she do
  love you," and signed, "From Two Well-Wishers."
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: CHAPTER 53
target: The Clare couple eagerly awaits their son's return to the Emminster Vicarage. When Angel arrives, they are shocked at his pathetic appearance. He has aged far beyond a year in his absence, he is skin and bones, and his eyes have lost their luster. Angel asks his parents if Tess has come to them for help and is surprised she has asked for nothing. Angel also inquires about a letter from Tess and is handed the last one that is filled with scathing criticism of his behavior. Her letter touches him, and he accepts the fact that he has been cruel to her, but he does not give up hope for a reconciliation. He writes a letter to her, telling of his homecoming, and sends it to Marlott. Within a few days, Angel receives a letter from Joan, revealing that they no longer live in Marlott and Tess is not with her. Joan promises to reveal Tess's whereabouts in her next letter. A couple of days later, Angel receives the note of warning from Marian and Izz. He immediately sets out to search for Tess.
feat_summary_analysis: Notes Angel's suffering shows in his appearance and his parents barely recognize him on his return home. Unfortunately, he will continue to suffer. He always thought that the arrangements that he had made for Tess were sufficient, but she has not asked for a penny. He underestimated her pride and did not realize that Tess would prefer to starve rather than ask for money from his parents. This information makes Angel feel even more miserable, for he realizes how Tess must have suffered. The news he reads in her last letter just makes matters worse. He is ashamed that he has treated his wife so poorly and does not blame her for her written hostility. In spite of the feelings expressed in her letter, Angel has not given up hope about Tess. He plans to find her, beg forgiveness, and reconcile. It is important to notice the characterization of Mr. and Mrs. Clare in this chapter. They are genuinely concerned about their son, realize the facts surrounding his marriage and subsequent departure, and sympathize with Tess's plight. In essence, they are generous, forgiving, and loving. It is ironic that Tess has been afraid to approach them for help; if she had not been so proud, her situation would be very different. If she had received the help from them that Angel arranged, she would not have reached the bottom and made the decisions that she did. Once again, fate has had the upper hand