by Thomas Hardy
Amid these jarring events Yeobright felt one thing to beindispensable--that he should speedily make some show of progress inhis scholastic plans. With this view he read far into the small hoursduring many nights.
One morning, after a severer strain than usual, he awoke with astrange sensation in his eyes. The sun was shining directly upon thewindow-blind, and at his first glance thitherward a sharp pain obligedhim to close his eyelids quickly. At every new attempt to lookabout him the same morbid sensibility to light was manifested, andexcoriating tears ran down his cheeks. He was obliged to tie abandage over his brow while dressing; and during the day it could notbe abandoned. Eustacia was thoroughly alarmed. On finding that thecase was no better the next morning they decided to send to Angleburyfor a surgeon.
Towards evening he arrived, and pronounced the disease to be acuteinflammation induced by Clym's night studies, continued in spite of acold previously caught, which had weakened his eyes for the time.
Fretting with impatience at this interruption to a task he was soanxious to hasten, Clym was transformed into an invalid. He was shutup in a room from which all light was excluded, and his conditionwould have been one of absolute misery had not Eustacia read to him bythe glimmer of a shaded lamp. He hoped that the worst would soon beover; but at the surgeon's third visit he learnt to his dismay thatalthough he might venture out of doors with shaded eyes in the courseof a month, all thought of pursuing his work, or of reading print ofany description, would have to be given up for a long time to come.
One week and another week wore on, and nothing seemed to lighten thegloom of the young couple. Dreadful imaginings occurred to Eustacia,but she carefully refrained from uttering them to her husband. Supposehe should become blind, or, at all events, never recover sufficientstrength of sight to engage in an occupation which would be congenialto her feelings, and conduce to her removal from this lonely dwellingamong the hills? That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely tocohere into substance in the presence of this misfortune. As day afterday passed by, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more inthis mournful groove, and she would go away from him into the gardenand weep despairing tears.
Yeobright thought he would send for his mother; and then he thoughthe would not. Knowledge of his state could only make her the moreunhappy; and the seclusion of their life was such that she wouldhardly be likely to learn the news except through a special messenger.Endeavouring to take the trouble as philosophically as possible, hewaited on till the third week had arrived, when he went into the openair for the first time since the attack. The surgeon visited himagain at this stage, and Clym urged him to express a distinct opinion.The young man learnt with added surprise that the date at which hemight expect to resume his labours was as uncertain as ever, his eyesbeing in that peculiar state which, though affording him sight enoughfor walking about, would not admit of their being strained upon anydefinite object without incurring the risk of reproducing ophthalmiain its acute form.
Clym was very grave at the intelligence, but not despairing. A quietfirmness, and even cheerfulness, took possession of him. He wasnot to be blind; that was enough. To be doomed to behold the worldthrough smoked glass for an indefinite period was bad enough, andfatal to any kind of advance; but Yeobright was an absolute stoic inthe face of mishaps which only affected his social standing; and,apart from Eustacia, the humblest walk of life would satisfy him ifit could be made to work in with some form of his culture scheme. Tokeep a cottage night-school was one such form; and his affliction didnot master his spirit as it might otherwise have done.
He walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts of Egdonwith which he was best acquainted, being those lying nearer to his oldhome. He saw before him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whettediron, and advancing, dimly perceived that the shine came from thetool of a man who was cutting furze. The worker recognized Clym, andYeobright learnt from the voice that the speaker was Humphrey.
Humphrey expressed his sorrow at Clym's condition, and added; "Now, ifyours was low-class work like mine, you could go on with it just thesame."
"Yes, I could," said Yeobright musingly. "How much do you get forcutting these faggots?"
"Half-a-crown a hundred, and in these long days I can live very wellon the wages."
During the whole of Yeobright's walk home to Alderworth he was lostin reflections which were not of an unpleasant kind. On his coming upto the house Eustacia spoke to him from the open window, and he wentacross to her.
"Darling," he said, "I am much happier. And if my mother werereconciled to me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite."
"I fear that will never be," she said, looking afar with her beautifulstormy eyes. "How CAN you say 'I am happier,' and nothing changed?"
"It arises from my having at last discovered something I can do, andget a living at, in this time of misfortune."
"Yes?"
"I am going to be a furze and turf-cutter."
"No, Clym!" she said, the slight hopefulness previously apparent inher face going off again, and leaving her worse than before.
"Surely I shall. Is it not very unwise in us to go on spending thelittle money we've got when I can keep down expenditure by an honestoccupation? The outdoor exercise will do me good, and who knows butthat in a few months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?"
"But my grandfather offers to assist us, if we require assistance."
"We don't require it. If I go furze-cutting we shall be fairly welloff."
"In comparison with slaves, and the Israelites in Egypt, and suchpeople!" A bitter tear rolled down Eustacia's face, which he did notsee. There had been _nonchalance_ in his tone, showing her that hefelt no absolute grief at a consummation which to her was a positivehorror.
The very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey's cottage, and borrowedof him leggings, gloves, a whet-stone, and a hook, to use till heshould be able to purchase some for himself. Then he sallied forthwith his new fellow-labourer and old acquaintance, and selecting aspot where the furze grew thickest he struck the first blow in hisadopted calling. His sight, like the wings in "Rasselas," thoughuseless to him for his grand purpose, sufficed for this strait, andhe found that when a little practice should have hardened his palmsagainst blistering he would be able to work with ease.
Day after day he rose with the sun, buckled on his leggings, and wentoff to the rendezvous with Humphrey. His custom was to work from fouro'clock in the morning till noon; then, when the heat of the day wasat its highest, to go home and sleep for an hour or two; afterwardscoming out again and working till dusk at nine.
This man from Paris was now so disguised by his leather accoutrements,and by the goggles he was obliged to wear over his eyes, that hisclosest friend might have passed by without recognizing him. He wasa brown spot in the midst of an expanse of olive-green gorse, andnothing more. Though frequently depressed in spirit when not actuallyat work, owing to thoughts of Eustacia's position and his mother'sestrangement, when in the full swing of labour he was cheerfullydisposed and calm.
His daily life was of a curious microscopic sort, his whole worldbeing limited to a circuit of a few feet from his person. Hisfamiliars were creeping and winged things, and they seemed to enrollhim in their band. Bees hummed around his ears with an intimateair, and tugged at the heath and furze-flowers at his side in suchnumbers as to weigh them down to the sod. The strange amber-colouredbutterflies which Egdon produced, and which were never seen elsewhere,quivered in the breath of his lips, alighted upon his bowed back, andsported with the glittering point of his hook as he flourished it upand down. Tribes of emerald-green grasshoppers leaped over his feet,falling awkwardly on their backs, heads, or hips, like unskilfulacrobats, as chance might rule; or engaged themselves in noisyflirtations under the fern-fronds with silent ones of homely hue. Hugeflies, ignorant of larders and wire-netting, and quite in a savagestate, buzzed about him without knowing that he was a man. In andout of the fern-dells snakes glided in their most brillia
nt blue andyellow guise, it being the season immediately following the sheddingof their old skins, when their colours are brightest. Litters of youngrabbits came out from their forms to sun themselves upon hillocks, thehot beams blazing through the delicate tissue of each thin-fleshedear, and firing it to a blood-red transparency in which the veinscould be seen. None of them feared him.
The monotony of his occupation soothed him, and was in itself apleasure. A forced limitation of effort offered a justification ofhomely courses to an unambitious man, whose conscience would hardlyhave allowed him to remain in such obscurity while his powers wereunimpeded. Hence Yeobright sometimes sang to himself, and when obligedto accompany Humphrey in search of brambles for faggot-bonds he wouldamuse his companion with sketches of Parisian life and character, andso while away the time.
On one of these warm afternoons Eustacia walked out alone in thedirection of Yeobright's place of work. He was busily chopping awayat the furze, a long row of faggots which stretched downward from hisposition representing the labour of the day. He did not observe herapproach, and she stood close to him, and heard his undercurrent ofsong. It shocked her. To see him there, a poor afflicted man, earningmoney by the sweat of his brow, had at first moved her to tears; butto hear him sing and not at all rebel against an occupation which,however satisfactory to himself, was degrading to her, as an educatedlady-wife, wounded her through. Unconscious of her presence, he stillwent on singing:--
"Le point du jour A nos bosquets rend toute leur parure; Flore est plus belle a son retour; L'oiseau reprend doux chant d'amour; Tout celebre dans la nature Le point du jour.
"Le point du jour Cause parfois, cause douleur extreme; Que l'espace des nuits est court Pour le berger brulant d'amour, Force de quitter ce qu'il aime Au point du jour!"
It was bitterly plain to Eustacia that he did not care much aboutsocial failure; and the proud fair woman bowed her head and wept insick despair at thought of the blasting effect upon her own life ofthat mood and condition in him. Then she came forward.
"I would starve rather than do it!" she exclaimed vehemently. "Andyou can sing! I will go and live with my grandfather again!"
"Eustacia! I did not see you, though I noticed something moving," hesaid gently. He came forward, pulled off his huge leather glove, andtook her hand. "Why do you speak in such a strange way? It is only alittle old song which struck my fancy when I was in Paris, and nowjust applies to my life with you. Has your love for me all died,then, because my appearance is no longer that of a fine gentleman?"
"Dearest, you must not question me unpleasantly, or it may make menot love you."
"Do you believe it possible that I would run the risk of doing that?"
"Well, you follow out your own ideas, and won't give in to mine whenI wish you to leave off this shameful labour. Is there anything youdislike in me that you act so contrarily to my wishes? I am yourwife, and why will you not listen? Yes, I am your wife indeed!"
"I know what that tone means."
"What tone?"
"The tone in which you said, 'Your wife indeed.' It meant, 'Your wife,worse luck.'"
"It is hard in you to probe me with that remark. A woman may havereason, though she is not without heart, and if I felt 'worse luck,'it was no ignoble feeling--it was only too natural. There, you seethat at any rate I do not attempt untruths. Do you remember how,before we were married, I warned you that I had not good wifelyqualities?"
"You mock me to say that now. On that point at least the only noblecourse would be to hold your tongue, for you are still queen of me,Eustacia, though I may no longer be king of you."
"You are my husband. Does not that content you?"
"Not unless you are my wife without regret."
"I cannot answer you. I remember saying that I should be a seriousmatter on your hands."
"Yes, I saw that."
"Then you were too quick to see! No true lover would have seen anysuch thing; you are too severe upon me, Clym--I don't like yourspeaking so at all."
"Well, I married you in spite of it, and don't regret doing so. Howcold you seem this afternoon! and yet I used to think there never wasa warmer heart than yours."
"Yes, I fear we are cooling--I see it as well as you," she sighedmournfully. "And how madly we loved two months ago! You were nevertired of contemplating me, nor I of contemplating you. Who could havethought then that by this time my eyes would not seem so very brightto yours, nor your lips so very sweet to mine? Two months--is itpossible? Yes, 'tis too true!"
"You sigh, dear, as if you were sorry for it; and that's a hopefulsign."
"No. I don't sigh for that. There are other things for me to sighfor, or any other woman in my place."
"That your chances in life are ruined by marrying in haste anunfortunate man?"
"Why will you force me, Clym, to say bitter things? I deserve pity asmuch as you. As much?--I think I deserve it more. For you can sing!It would be a strange hour which should catch me singing under such acloud as this! Believe me, sweet, I could weep to a degree that wouldastonish and confound such an elastic mind as yours. Even had youfelt careless about your own affliction, you might have refrained fromsinging out of sheer pity for mine. God! if I were a man in such aposition I would curse rather than sing."
Yeobright placed his hand upon her arm. "Now, don't you suppose, myinexperienced girl, that I cannot rebel, in high Promethean fashion,against the gods and fate as well as you. I have felt more steam andsmoke of that sort than you have ever heard of. But the more I see oflife the more do I perceive that there is nothing particularly greatin its greatest walks, and therefore nothing particularly smallin mine of furze-cutting. If I feel that the greatest blessingsvouchsafed to us are not very valuable, how can I feel it to be anygreat hardship when they are taken away? So I sing to pass the time.Have you indeed lost all tenderness for me, that you begrudge me afew cheerful moments?"
"I have still some tenderness left for you."
"Your words have no longer their old flavour. And so love dies withgood fortune!"
"I cannot listen to this, Clym--it will end bitterly," she said in abroken voice. "I will go home."
