Tess of the dUrbervilles - Page 176/283

XXXV

Her narrative ended; even its re-assertions and secondary

explanations were done. Tess's voice throughout had hardly risen

higher than its opening tone; there had been no exculpatory phrase of

any kind, and she had not wept.

But the complexion even of external things seemed to suffer

transmutation as her announcement progressed. The fire in the grate

looked impish--demoniacally funny, as if it did not care in the least

about her strait. The fender grinned idly, as if it too did not

care. The light from the water-bottle was merely engaged in a

chromatic problem. All material objects around announced their

irresponsibility with terrible iteration. And yet nothing had

changed since the moments when he had been kissing her; or rather,

nothing in the substance of things. But the essence of things had

changed.

When she ceased, the auricular impressions from their previous

endearments seemed to hustle away into the corner of their brains,

repeating themselves as echoes from a time of supremely purblind

foolishness. Clare performed the irrelevant act of stirring the fire; the

intelligence had not even yet got to the bottom of him. After

stirring the embers he rose to his feet; all the force of her

disclosure had imparted itself now. His face had withered. In the

strenuousness of his concentration he treadled fitfully on the floor.

He could not, by any contrivance, think closely enough; that was the

meaning of his vague movement. When he spoke it was in the most

inadequate, commonplace voice of the many varied tones she had heard

from him.

"Tess!"

"Yes, dearest."

"Am I to believe this? From your manner I am to take it as true.

O you cannot be out of your mind! You ought to be! Yet you are

not... My wife, my Tess--nothing in you warrants such a supposition

as that?"

"I am not out of my mind," she said. "And yet--" He looked vacantly at her, to resume with dazed senses:

"Why didn't you tell me before? Ah, yes, you would have told me, in a

way--but I hindered you, I remember!"

These and other of his words were nothing but the perfunctory babble

of the surface while the depths remained paralyzed. He turned away,

and bent over a chair. Tess followed him to the middle of the room,

where he was, and stood there staring at him with eyes that did not

weep. Presently she slid down upon her knees beside his foot, and

from this position she crouched in a heap.

"In the name of our love, forgive me!" she whispered with a dry

mouth. "I have forgiven you for the same!" And, as he did not answer, she said again-"Forgive me as you are forgiven! I forgive YOU, Angel."