chapter 15


"By experience," says Roger Ascham, "we find out a short way by
a long wandering."  Not seldom that long wandering unfits us for
further travel, and of what use is our experience to us then?  Tess
Durbeyfield's experience was of this incapacitating kind.  At last
she had learned what to do; but who would now accept her doing?

If before going to the d'Urbervilles' she had vigorously moved under
the guidance of sundry gnomic texts and phrases known to her and to
the world in general, no doubt she would never have been imposed on.
But it had not been in Tess's power--nor is it in anybody's power--to
feel the whole truth of golden opinions while it is possible to
profit by them.  She--and how many more--might have ironically said
to God with Saint Augustine: "Thou hast counselled a better course
than Thou hast permitted."

She remained at her father's house during the winter months, plucking
fowls, or cramming turkeys and geese, or making clothes for her
sisters and brothers out of some finery which d'Urberville had given
her, and she had put by with contempt.  Apply to him she would not.
But she would often clasp her hands behind her head and muse when she
was supposed to be working hard.

She philosophically noted dates as they came past in the revolution
of the year; the disastrous night of her undoing at Trantridge with
its dark background of The Chase; also the dates of the baby's birth
and death; also her own birthday; and every other day individualized
by incidents in which she had taken some share.  She suddenly thought
one afternoon, when looking in the glass at her fairness, that there
was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that
of her own death, when all these charms would have disappeared; a day
which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving
no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less
surely there.  When was it?  Why did she not feel the chill of each
yearly encounter with such a cold relation?  She had Jeremy Taylor's
thought that some time in the future those who had known her would
say: "It is the ----th, the day that poor Tess Durbeyfield died"; and
there would be nothing singular to their minds in the statement.  Of
that day, doomed to be her terminus in time through all the ages, she
did not know the place in month, week, season or year.

Almost at a leap Tess thus changed from simple girl to complex woman.
Symbols of reflectiveness passed into her face, and a note of tragedy
at times into her voice.  Her eyes grew larger and more eloquent.
She became what would have been called a fine creature; her aspect
was fair and arresting; her soul that of a woman whom the turbulent
experiences of the last year or two had quite failed to demoralize.
But for the world's opinion those experiences would have been simply
a liberal education.

She had held so aloof of late that her trouble, never generally
known, was nearly forgotten in Marlott.  But it became evident to her
that she could never be really comfortable again in a place which
had seen the collapse of her family's attempt to "claim kin"--and,
through her, even closer union--with the rich d'Urbervilles.  At
least she could not be comfortable there till long years should have
obliterated her keen consciousness of it.  Yet even now Tess felt the
pulse of hopeful life still warm within her; she might be happy in
some nook which had no memories.  To escape the past and all that
appertained thereto was to annihilate it, and to do that she would
have to get away.

Was once lost always lost really true of chastity? she would ask
herself.  She might prove it false if she could veil bygones.  The
recuperative power which pervaded organic nature was surely not
denied to maidenhood alone.

She waited a long time without finding opportunity for a new
departure.  A particularly fine spring came round, and the stir of
germination was almost audible in the buds; it moved her, as it moved
the wild animals, and made her passionate to go.  At last, one day in
early May, a letter reached her from a former friend of her mother's,
to whom she had addressed inquiries long before--a person whom she
had never seen--that a skilful milkmaid was required at a dairy-house
many miles to the southward, and that the dairyman would be glad to
have her for the summer months.

It was not quite so far off as could have been wished; but it was
probably far enough, her radius of movement and repute having been
so small.  To persons of limited spheres, miles are as geographical
degrees, parishes as counties, counties as provinces and kingdoms.

On one point she was resolved: there should be no more d'Urberville
air-castles in the dreams and deeds of her new life.  She would be
the dairymaid Tess, and nothing more.  Her mother knew Tess's feeling
on this point so well, though no words had passed between them on the
subject, that she never alluded to the knightly ancestry now.

Yet such is human inconsistency that one of the interests of the
new place to her was the accidental virtues of its lying near her
forefathers' country (for they were not Blakemore men, though her
mother was Blakemore to the bone).  The dairy called Talbothays,
for which she was bound, stood not remotely from some of the former
estates of the d'Urbervilles, near the great family vaults of her
granddames and their powerful husbands.  She would be able to look at
them, and think not only that d'Urberville, like Babylon, had fallen,
but that the individual innocence of a humble descendant could lapse
as silently.  All the while she wondered if any strange good thing
might come of her being in her ancestral land; and some spirit within
her rose  automatically as the sap in the twigs.  It was unexpected
youth, surging up anew after its temporary check, and bringing with
it hope, and the invincible instinct towards self-delight.


END OF PHASE THE SECOND





Phase the Third: The Rally



gradesaver
Tess began to note the passing of anniversaries, such as her first arrival at Trantridge and the fateful night at The Chase. Almost suddenly Tess changed from a simple girl to a complex woman. Her eyes grow larger and more eloquent. She wonders if chastity, once lost, is always lost and waits for a new departure. She vows that there will be no more talk of d'Urberville castles, and prepares to go to the Talbothays dairy.
Hardy makes explicit in this chapter what he implied earlier, elucidating the transformative events that moved Tess from a timid girl to a strong and courageous woman. Her rebirth during the baptism of Sorrow is followed by Tess's decision to leave Marlott for a place in which she may start her life anew. However, at this point Hardy introduces one of the most important themes of the novel: the question of the extent to which sins may be forgiven. In this instance, the question is given explicitly: can Tess regain her chastity after one indiscretion. Although Tess herself appears as evidence that purity may be regained, this question will provide significant thematic material throughout the novel
shmoop
Tess stays in her father's house in Marlott through the winter, making money doing odd jobs around the village, and turning the fancy clothes Alec had given her into good working clothes for her brothers and sisters. Tess takes note of dates as they pass--the date of her rape in The Chase, the birth and the death of the baby. Then she begins to think about her own death. On what day of the year will it occur? Will it be on a crisp October morning, or a sunny June afternoon? These meditations make Tess's already complex character even more complicated. Tess had stayed out of the way of most people since her "trouble," and since more than a year has passed, most people in Marlott had almost forgotten about it. But Tess knows that she'll never be really comfortable again in the place where she had known such tragedy. She wants to escape the past, but knows she can't, so she resolves at least to escape her hometown. It's a fine spring, and Tess is chomping at the bit--she wants out of there. Her mother happens to receive a letter from an old friend of her mother's--it's from a dairy farmer who's looking for a good dairymaid to come and work for him during the summer. It's not all that far away, but Tess decides that it's far enough, since she wasn't known outside of the Vale of Blackmoor and Trantridge. Tess doesn't want anyone at the dairy to know about her D'Urberville heritage. It's brought her nothing but trouble in the past, and she's embarrassed that her father has gotten so ridiculously snooty about it. But the dairy where she's going to work is actually very close to the ancient estate of the D'Urbervilles, her ancestral lands. Tess perks up at the prospect of leaving her troubles behind her.
pinkmonkey
CHAPTER 15 Summary Tess remains with her parents during the winter months. The loss of her baby in August has made her even more pensive and melancholy. She longs to leave Marlott and work some place where she can hide from her past. After waiting for over a year, she finally gets a job as a milkmaid at the Talbothay's farm. In springtime, she departs without hesitation, for she knows that she can never find peace in Marlott, where they judge her by her past. Notes Tess slips into an almost trance-like existence without emotion or sentiment. Her indelible memories, however, continue to remind her that her future holds nothing in store for her except sorrow and grief. She accepts her fate without complaining, for unhappiness by now, has simply become a way of life for this poor country girl. Hardy seems to challenge the idea that a fallen woman cannot have a future. He sounds pragmatic when he indicates that she could recover from the sin of her lost chastity if she is successful in veiling her past. At the end of the chapter, Tess is leaving Marlott and her accusers behind. It is important to notice that it is spring when Tess departs to find a new life for herself. It is significant because spring is the time of new beginnings and hope, foreshadowing that Tess may finally be moving towards happiness