feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_55_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 56
feat_summary_id: chapter 56
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 56", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-56", "summary": "As the spring turns to summer, Bathsheba's bad mood slowly lifts. She still spends most of her time alone, though. She visits her husband's grave one day, and smiles at the fact that he now lies right next to his true love, Fanny Robin. The two of them even share a tombstone. Then she starts to cry uncontrollably. When she turns back, she finds that Gabriel Oak is standing behind her. She wipes her tears and asks if he's going into the church. He answers that he is indeed. Mr. Oak apologizes for bringing up a business matter, but he feels that he needs to tell her right away that he will soon leave England to live in California. Bathsheba begs him not to leave, but he says that there's no longer anything for him in Weatherbury. She awaits his departure with total dread, since now she'll barely have anyone left, especially no one as loyal as Gabriel. She also notices that in the weeks leading up to his departure, he starts to walk the other way whenever he sees her coming on a path. When she finally receives a letter saying that he is about to go, Bathsheba starts to cry bitter tears. Finally, she forgets her pride and goes to his house in the evening, even though it's not appropriate for a single woman to go to a single man's place at night. She complains one last time about how he's leaving her all alone. He simply answers that if she doesn't want him to leave, he won't. She just has to ask him to stay. Finally, Gabriel comes out and says that now that he has inherited Boldwood's farm , he thinks he's rich enough to marry Bathsheba. And after just a little more hemming and hawing, Bathsheba and Oak decide to get married. If she'd only said yes at the beginning of the book, she could have saved everyone a lot of trouble.", "analysis": ""}
text: BEAUTY IN LONELINESS--AFTER ALL
  
  
  Bathsheba revived with the spring.  The utter prostration that
  had followed the low fever from which she had suffered diminished
  perceptibly when all uncertainty upon every subject had come to
  an end.
  
  But she remained alone now for the greater part of her time, and
  stayed in the house, or at furthest went into the garden.  She
  shunned every one, even Liddy, and could be brought to make no
  confidences, and to ask for no sympathy.
  
  As the summer drew on she passed more of her time in the open air,
  and began to examine into farming matters from sheer necessity,
  though she never rode out or personally superintended as at former
  times.  One Friday evening in August she walked a little way along
  the road and entered the village for the first time since the sombre
  event of the preceding Christmas.  None of the old colour had as yet
  come to her cheek, and its absolute paleness was heightened by the
  jet black of her gown, till it appeared preternatural.  When she
  reached a little shop at the other end of the place, which stood
  nearly opposite to the churchyard, Bathsheba heard singing inside the
  church, and she knew that the singers were practising.  She crossed
  the road, opened the gate, and entered the graveyard, the high sills
  of the church windows effectually screening her from the eyes of
  those gathered within.  Her stealthy walk was to the nook wherein
  Troy had worked at planting flowers upon Fanny Robin's grave, and
  she came to the marble tombstone.
  
  A motion of satisfaction enlivened her face as she read the complete
  inscription.  First came the words of Troy himself:--
  
  
       ERECTED BY FRANCIS TROY
        IN BELOVED MEMORY OF
            FANNY ROBIN,
      WHO DIED OCTOBER 9, 18--,
            AGED 20 YEARS
  
  
  Underneath this was now inscribed in new letters:--
  
  
        IN THE SAME GRAVE LIE
     THE REMAINS OF THE AFORESAID
            FRANCIS TROY,
     WHO DIED DECEMBER 24TH, 18--,
            AGED 26 YEARS
  
  
  Whilst she stood and read and meditated the tones of the organ
  began again in the church, and she went with the same light step
  round to the porch and listened.  The door was closed, and the
  choir was learning a new hymn.  Bathsheba was stirred by emotions
  which latterly she had assumed to be altogether dead within her.
  The little attenuated voices of the children brought to her ear
  in distinct utterance the words they sang without thought or
  comprehension--
  
  
       Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
         Lead Thou me on.
  
  
  Bathsheba's feeling was always to some extent dependent upon her
  whim, as is the case with many other women.  Something big came into
  her throat and an uprising to her eyes--and she thought that she
  would allow the imminent tears to flow if they wished.  They did
  flow and plenteously, and one fell upon the stone bench beside her.
  Once that she had begun to cry for she hardly knew what, she could
  not leave off for crowding thoughts she knew too well.  She would
  have given anything in the world to be, as those children were,
  unconcerned at the meaning of their words, because too innocent to
  feel the necessity for any such expression.  All the impassioned
  scenes of her brief experience seemed to revive with added emotion at
  that moment, and those scenes which had been without emotion during
  enactment had emotion then.  Yet grief came to her rather as a luxury
  than as the scourge of former times.
  
  Owing to Bathsheba's face being buried in her hands she did not
  notice a form which came quietly into the porch, and on seeing
  her, first moved as if to retreat, then paused and regarded her.
  Bathsheba did not raise her head for some time, and when she looked
  round her face was wet, and her eyes drowned and dim.  "Mr. Oak,"
  exclaimed she, disconcerted, "how long have you been here?"
  
  "A few minutes, ma'am," said Oak, respectfully.
  
  "Are you going in?" said Bathsheba; and there came from within the
  church as from a prompter--
  
  
       I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
       Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.
  
  
  "I was," said Gabriel.  "I am one of the bass singers, you know.  I
  have sung bass for several months."
  
  "Indeed: I wasn't aware of that.  I'll leave you, then."
  
  
       Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile,
  
  
  sang the children.
  
  "Don't let me drive you away, mistress.  I think I won't go in
  to-night."
  
  "Oh no--you don't drive me away."
  
  Then they stood in a state of some embarrassment, Bathsheba trying to
  wipe her dreadfully drenched and inflamed face without his noticing
  her.  At length Oak said, "I've not seen you--I mean spoken to
  you--since ever so long, have I?"  But he feared to bring distressing
  memories back, and interrupted himself with: "Were you going into
  church?"
  
  "No," she said.  "I came to see the tombstone privately--to see if
  they had cut the inscription as I wished.  Mr. Oak, you needn't mind
  speaking to me, if you wish to, on the matter which is in both our
  minds at this moment."
  
  "And have they done it as you wished?" said Oak.
  
  "Yes.  Come and see it, if you have not already."
  
  So together they went and read the tomb.  "Eight months ago!" Gabriel
  murmured when he saw the date.  "It seems like yesterday to me."
  
  "And to me as if it were years ago--long years, and I had been dead
  between.  And now I am going home, Mr. Oak."
  
  Oak walked after her.  "I wanted to name a small matter to you as
  soon as I could," he said, with hesitation.  "Merely about business,
  and I think I may just mention it now, if you'll allow me."
  
  "Oh yes, certainly."
  
  "It is that I may soon have to give up the management of your farm,
  Mrs. Troy.  The fact is, I am thinking of leaving England--not yet,
  you know--next spring."
  
  "Leaving England!" she said, in surprise and genuine disappointment.
  "Why, Gabriel, what are you going to do that for?"
  
  "Well, I've thought it best," Oak stammered out.  "California is the
  spot I've had in my mind to try."
  
  "But it is understood everywhere that you are going to take poor Mr.
  Boldwood's farm on your own account."
  
  "I've had the refusal o' it 'tis true; but nothing is settled yet,
  and I have reasons for giving up.  I shall finish out my year there
  as manager for the trustees, but no more."
  
  "And what shall I do without you?  Oh, Gabriel, I don't think you
  ought to go away.  You've been with me so long--through bright times
  and dark times--such old friends as we are--that it seems unkind
  almost.  I had fancied that if you leased the other farm as master,
  you might still give a helping look across at mine.  And now going
  away!"
  
  "I would have willingly."
  
  "Yet now that I am more helpless than ever you go away!"
  
  "Yes, that's the ill fortune o' it," said Gabriel, in a distressed
  tone.  "And it is because of that very helplessness that I feel bound
  to go.  Good afternoon, ma'am" he concluded, in evident anxiety to
  get away, and at once went out of the churchyard by a path she could
  follow on no pretence whatever.
  
  Bathsheba went home, her mind occupied with a new trouble, which
  being rather harassing than deadly was calculated to do good by
  diverting her from the chronic gloom of her life.  She was set
  thinking a great deal about Oak and of his wish to shun her;
  and there occurred to Bathsheba several incidents of her latter
  intercourse with him, which, trivial when singly viewed, amounted
  together to a perceptible disinclination for her society.  It broke
  upon her at length as a great pain that her last old disciple was
  about to forsake her and flee.  He who had believed in her and argued
  on her side when all the rest of the world was against her, had at
  last like the others become weary and neglectful of the old cause,
  and was leaving her to fight her battles alone.
  
  Three weeks went on, and more evidence of his want of interest in
  her was forthcoming.  She noticed that instead of entering the small
  parlour or office where the farm accounts were kept, and waiting, or
  leaving a memorandum as he had hitherto done during her seclusion,
  Oak never came at all when she was likely to be there, only entering
  at unseasonable hours when her presence in that part of the house
  was least to be expected.  Whenever he wanted directions he sent a
  message, or note with neither heading nor signature, to which she was
  obliged to reply in the same offhand style.  Poor Bathsheba began to
  suffer now from the most torturing sting of all--a sensation that she
  was despised.
  
  The autumn wore away gloomily enough amid these melancholy
  conjectures, and Christmas-day came, completing a year of her legal
  widowhood, and two years and a quarter of her life alone.  On
  examining her heart it appeared beyond measure strange that the
  subject of which the season might have been supposed suggestive--the
  event in the hall at Boldwood's--was not agitating her at all; but
  instead, an agonizing conviction that everybody abjured her--for what
  she could not tell--and that Oak was the ringleader of the recusants.
  Coming out of church that day she looked round in hope that Oak,
  whose bass voice she had heard rolling out from the gallery overhead
  in a most unconcerned manner, might chance to linger in her path in
  the old way.  There he was, as usual, coming down the path behind
  her.  But on seeing Bathsheba turn, he looked aside, and as soon
  as he got beyond the gate, and there was the barest excuse for a
  divergence, he made one, and vanished.
  
  The next morning brought the culminating stroke; she had been
  expecting it long.  It was a formal notice by letter from him that he
  should not renew his engagement with her for the following Lady-day.
  
  Bathsheba actually sat and cried over this letter most bitterly.  She
  was aggrieved and wounded that the possession of hopeless love from
  Gabriel, which she had grown to regard as her inalienable right for
  life, should have been withdrawn just at his own pleasure in this
  way.  She was bewildered too by the prospect of having to rely on her
  own resources again: it seemed to herself that she never could again
  acquire energy sufficient to go to market, barter, and sell.
  Since Troy's death Oak had attended all sales and fairs for her,
  transacting her business at the same time with his own.  What should
  she do now?  Her life was becoming a desolation.
  
  So desolate was Bathsheba this evening, that in an absolute hunger
  for pity and sympathy, and miserable in that she appeared to have
  outlived the only true friendship she had ever owned, she put on her
  bonnet and cloak and went down to Oak's house just after sunset,
  guided on her way by the pale primrose rays of a crescent moon a few
  days old.
  
  A lively firelight shone from the window, but nobody was visible in
  the room.  She tapped nervously, and then thought it doubtful if
  it were right for a single woman to call upon a bachelor who lived
  alone, although he was her manager, and she might be supposed to call
  on business without any real impropriety.  Gabriel opened the door,
  and the moon shone upon his forehead.
  
  "Mr. Oak," said Bathsheba, faintly.
  
  "Yes; I am Mr. Oak," said Gabriel.  "Who have I the honour--O how
  stupid of me, not to know you, mistress!"
  
  "I shall not be your mistress much longer, shall I Gabriel?" she
  said, in pathetic tones.
  
  "Well, no.  I suppose--But come in, ma'am.  Oh--and I'll get a
  light," Oak replied, with some awkwardness.
  
  "No; not on my account."
  
  "It is so seldom that I get a lady visitor that I'm afraid I haven't
  proper accommodation.  Will you sit down, please? Here's a chair, and
  there's one, too.  I am sorry that my chairs all have wood seats, and
  are rather hard, but I--was thinking of getting some new ones."  Oak
  placed two or three for her.
  
  "They are quite easy enough for me."
  
  So down she sat, and down sat he, the fire dancing in their faces,
  and upon the old furniture,
  
  
              all a-sheenen
       Wi' long years o' handlen, [3]
  
     [Footnote 3: W. Barnes]
  
  that formed Oak's array of household possessions, which sent back a
  dancing reflection in reply.  It was very odd to these two persons,
  who knew each other passing well, that the mere circumstance of their
  meeting in a new place and in a new way should make them so awkward
  and constrained.  In the fields, or at her house, there had never
  been any embarrassment; but now that Oak had become the entertainer
  their lives seemed to be moved back again to the days when they were
  strangers.
  
  "You'll think it strange that I have come, but--"
  
  "Oh no; not at all."
  
  "But I thought--Gabriel, I have been uneasy in the belief that I
  have offended you, and that you are going away on that account.  It
  grieved me very much and I couldn't help coming."
  
  "Offended me!  As if you could do that, Bathsheba!"
  
  "Haven't I?" she asked, gladly.  "But, what are you going away for
  else?"
  
  "I am not going to emigrate, you know; I wasn't aware that you would
  wish me not to when I told 'ee or I shouldn't ha' thought of doing
  it," he said, simply.  "I have arranged for Little Weatherbury Farm
  and shall have it in my own hands at Lady-day.  You know I've had a
  share in it for some time.  Still, that wouldn't prevent my attending
  to your business as before, hadn't it been that things have been said
  about us."
  
  "What?" said Bathsheba, in surprise.  "Things said about you and me!
  What are they?"
  
  "I cannot tell you."
  
  "It would be wiser if you were to, I think.  You have played the part
  of mentor to me many times, and I don't see why you should fear to do
  it now."
  
  "It is nothing that you have done, this time.  The top and tail
  o't is this--that I am sniffing about here, and waiting for poor
  Boldwood's farm, with a thought of getting you some day."
  
  "Getting me!  What does that mean?"
  
  "Marrying of 'ee, in plain British.  You asked me to tell, so you
  mustn't blame me."
  
  Bathsheba did not look quite so alarmed as if a cannon had been
  discharged by her ear, which was what Oak had expected.  "Marrying
  me!  I didn't know it was that you meant," she said, quietly.  "Such
  a thing as that is too absurd--too soon--to think of, by far!"
  
  "Yes; of course, it is too absurd.  I don't desire any such thing;
  I should think that was plain enough by this time.  Surely, surely
  you be the last person in the world I think of marrying.  It is too
  absurd, as you say."
  
  "'Too--s-s-soon' were the words I used."
  
  "I must beg your pardon for correcting you, but you said, 'too
  absurd,' and so do I."
  
  "I beg your pardon too!" she returned, with tears in her eyes.  "'Too
  soon' was what I said.  But it doesn't matter a bit--not at all--but
  I only meant, 'too soon.'  Indeed, I didn't, Mr. Oak, and you must
  believe me!"
  
  Gabriel looked her long in the face, but the firelight being faint
  there was not much to be seen.  "Bathsheba," he said, tenderly and in
  surprise, and coming closer: "if I only knew one thing--whether you
  would allow me to love you and win you, and marry you after all--if
  I only knew that!"
  
  "But you never will know," she murmured.
  
  "Why?"
  
  "Because you never ask."
  
  "Oh--Oh!" said Gabriel, with a low laugh of joyousness.  "My own
  dear--"
  
  "You ought not to have sent me that harsh letter this morning," she
  interrupted.  "It shows you didn't care a bit about me, and were
  ready to desert me like all the rest of them!  It was very cruel of
  you, considering I was the first sweetheart that you ever had, and
  you were the first I ever had; and I shall not forget it!"
  
  "Now, Bathsheba, was ever anybody so provoking," he said, laughing.
  "You know it was purely that I, as an unmarried man, carrying on a
  business for you as a very taking young woman, had a proper hard part
  to play--more particular that people knew I had a sort of feeling for
  'ee; and I fancied, from the way we were mentioned together, that it
  might injure your good name.  Nobody knows the heat and fret I have
  been caused by it."
  
  "And was that all?"
  
  "All."
  
  "Oh, how glad I am I came!" she exclaimed, thankfully, as she rose
  from her seat.  "I have thought so much more of you since I fancied
  you did not want even to see me again.  But I must be going now, or
  I shall be missed.  Why Gabriel," she said, with a slight laugh, as
  they went to the door, "it seems exactly as if I had come courting
  you--how dreadful!"
  
  "And quite right too," said Oak.  "I've danced at your skittish
  heels, my beautiful Bathsheba, for many a long mile, and many a long
  day; and it is hard to begrudge me this one visit."
  
  He accompanied her up the hill, explaining to her the details of
  his forthcoming tenure of the other farm.  They spoke very little
  of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being
  probably unnecessary between such tried friends.  Theirs was that
  substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the
  two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher
  sides of each other's character, and not the best till further on,
  the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic
  reality.  This good-fellowship--_camaraderie_--usually occurring
  through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom superadded
  to love between the sexes, because men and women associate, not in
  their labours, but in their pleasures merely.  Where, however, happy
  circumstance permits its development, the compounded feeling proves
  itself to be the only love which is strong as death--that love which
  many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, beside which the
  passion usually called by the name is evanescent as steam.
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 56
target: As the spring turns to summer, Bathsheba's bad mood slowly lifts. She still spends most of her time alone, though. She visits her husband's grave one day, and smiles at the fact that he now lies right next to his true love, Fanny Robin. The two of them even share a tombstone. Then she starts to cry uncontrollably. When she turns back, she finds that Gabriel Oak is standing behind her. She wipes her tears and asks if he's going into the church. He answers that he is indeed. Mr. Oak apologizes for bringing up a business matter, but he feels that he needs to tell her right away that he will soon leave England to live in California. Bathsheba begs him not to leave, but he says that there's no longer anything for him in Weatherbury. She awaits his departure with total dread, since now she'll barely have anyone left, especially no one as loyal as Gabriel. She also notices that in the weeks leading up to his departure, he starts to walk the other way whenever he sees her coming on a path. When she finally receives a letter saying that he is about to go, Bathsheba starts to cry bitter tears. Finally, she forgets her pride and goes to his house in the evening, even though it's not appropriate for a single woman to go to a single man's place at night. She complains one last time about how he's leaving her all alone. He simply answers that if she doesn't want him to leave, he won't. She just has to ask him to stay. Finally, Gabriel comes out and says that now that he has inherited Boldwood's farm , he thinks he's rich enough to marry Bathsheba. And after just a little more hemming and hawing, Bathsheba and Oak decide to get married. If she'd only said yes at the beginning of the book, she could have saved everyone a lot of trouble.