by Thomas Hardy
BOOK FIFTHTHE DISCOVERY
I
"Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery"
One evening, about three weeks after the funeral of Mrs. Yeobright,when the silver face of the moon sent a bundle of beams directly uponthe floor of Clym's house at Alderworth, a woman came forth fromwithin. She reclined over the garden gate as if to refresh herselfawhile. The pale lunar touches which make beauties of hags lentdivinity to this face, already beautiful.
She had not long been there when a man came up the road and with somehesitation said to her, "How is he tonight, ma'am, if you please?"
"He is better, though still very unwell, Humphrey," replied Eustacia.
"Is he light-headed, ma'am?"
"No. He is quite sensible now."
"Do he rave about his mother just the same, poor fellow?" continuedHumphrey.
"Just as much, though not quite so wildly," she said in a low voice.
"It was very unfortunate, ma'am, that the boy Johnny should ever ha'told him his mother's dying words, about her being broken-hearted andcast off by her son. 'Twas enough to upset any man alive."
Eustacia made no reply beyond that of a slight catch in her breath, asof one who fain would speak but could not; and Humphrey, declining herinvitation to come in, went away.
Eustacia turned, entered the house, and ascended to the front bedroom,where a shaded light was burning. In the bed lay Clym, pale, haggard,wide awake, tossing to one side and to the other, his eyes lit bya hot light, as if the fire in their pupils were burning up theirsubstance.
"Is it you, Eustacia?" he said as she sat down.
"Yes, Clym. I have been down to the gate. The moon is shiningbeautifully, and there is not a leaf stirring."
"Shining, is it? What's the moon to a man like me? Let it shine--letanything be, so that I never see another day!... Eustacia, I don'tknow where to look: my thoughts go through me like swords. O, ifany man wants to make himself immortal by painting a picture ofwretchedness, let him come here!"
"Why do you say so?"
"I cannot help feeling that I did my best to kill her."
"No, Clym."
"Yes, it was so; it is useless to excuse me! My conduct to her wastoo hideous--I made no advances; and she could not bring herself toforgive me. Now she is dead! If I had only shown myself willing tomake it up with her sooner, and we had been friends, and then shehad died, it wouldn't be so hard to bear. But I never went near herhouse, so she never came near mine, and didn't know how welcome shewould have been--that's what troubles me. She did not know I wasgoing to her house that very night, for she was too insensible tounderstand me. If she had only come to see me! I longed that shewould. But it was not to be."
There escaped from Eustacia one of those shivering sighs which usedto shake her like a pestilent blast. She had not yet told.
But Yeobright was too deeply absorbed in the ramblings incidental tohis remorseful state to notice her. During his illness he had beencontinually talking thus. Despair had been added to his originalgrief by the unfortunate disclosure of the boy who had received thelast words of Mrs. Yeobright--words too bitterly uttered in an hour ofmisapprehension. Then his distress had overwhelmed him, and he longedfor death as a field labourer longs for the shade. It was the pitifulsight of a man standing in the very focus of sorrow. He continuallybewailed his tardy journey to his mother's house, because it was anerror which could never be rectified, and insisted that he must havebeen horribly perverted by some fiend not to have thought before thatit was his duty to go to her, since she did not come to him. He wouldask Eustacia to agree with him in his self-condemnation; and when she,seared inwardly by a secret she dared not tell, declared that shecould not give an opinion, he would say, "That's because you didn'tknow my mother's nature. She was always ready to forgive if asked todo so; but I seemed to her to be as an obstinate child, and that madeher unyielding. Yet not unyielding: she was proud and reserved, nomore... Yes, I can understand why she held out against me so long.She was waiting for me. I dare say she said a hundred times in hersorrow, 'What a return he makes for all the sacrifices I have madefor him!' I never went to her! When I set out to visit her it was toolate. To think of that is nearly intolerable!"
Sometimes his condition had been one of utter remorse, unsoftened bya single tear of pure sorrow: and then he writhed as he lay, feveredfar more by thought than by physical ills. "If I could only get oneassurance that she did not die in a belief that I was resentful," hesaid one day when in this mood, "it would be better to think of thana hope of heaven. But that I cannot do."
"You give yourself up too much to this wearying despair," saidEustacia. "Other men's mothers have died."
"That doesn't make the loss of mine less. Yet it is less the lossthan the circumstances of the loss. I sinned against her, and on thataccount there is no light for me."
"She sinned against you, I think."
"No, she did not. I committed the guilt; and may the whole burden beupon my head!"
"I think you might consider twice before you say that," Eustaciareplied. "Single men have, no doubt, a right to curse themselves asmuch as they please; but men with wives involve two in the doom theypray down."
"I am in too sorry a state to understand what you are refining on,"said the wretched man. "Day and night shout at me, 'You have helpedto kill her.' But in loathing myself I may, I own, be unjust to you,my poor wife. Forgive me for it, Eustacia, for I scarcely know whatI do."
Eustacia was always anxious to avoid the sight of her husband in sucha state as this, which had become as dreadful to her as the trialscene was to Judas Iscariot. It brought before her eyes the spectreof a worn-out woman knocking at a door which she would not open; andshe shrank from contemplating it. Yet it was better for Yeobrighthimself when he spoke openly of his sharp regret, for in silence heendured infinitely more, and would sometimes remain so long in atense, brooding mood, consuming himself by the gnawing of his thought,that it was imperatively necessary to make him talk aloud, that hisgrief might in some degree expend itself in the effort.
Eustacia had not been long indoors after her look at the moonlightwhen a soft footstep came up to the house, and Thomasin was announcedby the woman downstairs.
"Ah, Thomasin! Thank you for coming tonight," said Clym when sheentered the room. "Here am I, you see. Such a wretched spectacle amI, that I shrink from being seen by a single friend, and almost fromyou."
"You must not shrink from me, dear Clym," said Thomasin earnestly, inthat sweet voice of hers which came to a sufferer like fresh air intoa Black Hole. "Nothing in you can ever shock me or drive me away. Ihave been here before, but you don't remember it."
"Yes, I do; I am not delirious, Thomasin, nor have I been so at all.Don't you believe that if they say so. I am only in great misery atwhat I have done: and that, with the weakness, makes me seem mad. Butit has not upset my reason. Do you think I should remember all aboutmy mother's death if I were out of my mind? No such good luck. Twomonths and a half, Thomasin, the last of her life, did my poor motherlive alone, distracted and mourning because of me; yet she wasunvisited by me, though I was living only six miles off. Two monthsand a half--seventy-five days did the sun rise and set upon her inthat deserted state which a dog didn't deserve! Poor people who hadnothing in common with her would have cared for her, and visited herhad they known her sickness and loneliness; but I, who should havebeen all to her, stayed away like a cur. If there is any justice inGod let Him kill me now. He has nearly blinded me, but that is notenough. If He would only strike me with more pain I would believe inHim for ever!"
"Hush, hush! O, pray, Clym, don't, don't say it!" implored Thomasin,affrighted into sobs and tears; while Eustacia, at the other side ofthe room, though her pale face remained calm, writhed in her chair.Clym went on without heeding his cousin.
"But I am not worth receiving further proof even of Heaven'sreprobation. Do you think, Thomasin, that she knew me--that she didnot die in that horrid mistaken notion about my not for
giving her,which I can't tell you how she acquired? If you could only assure meof that! Do you think so, Eustacia? Do speak to me."
"I think I can assure you that she knew better at last," saidThomasin. The pallid Eustacia said nothing.
"Why didn't she come to my house? I would have taken her in andshowed her how I loved her in spite of all. But she never came; and Ididn't go to her, and she died on the heath like an animal kicked out,nobody to help her till it was too late. If you could have seen her,Thomasin, as I saw her--a poor dying woman, lying in the dark upon thebare ground, moaning, nobody near, believing she was utterly desertedby all the world, it would have moved you to anguish, it would havemoved a brute. And this poor woman my mother! No wonder she said tothe child, 'You have seen a broken-hearted woman.' What a state shemust have been brought to, to say that! and who can have done it butI? It is too dreadful to think of, and I wish I could be punishedmore heavily than I am. How long was I what they called out of mysenses?"
"A week, I think."
"And then I became calm."
"Yes, for four days."
"And now I have left off being calm."
"But try to be quiet: please do, and you will soon be strong. If youcould remove that impression from your mind--"
"Yes, yes," he said impatiently. "But I don't want to get strong.What's the use of my getting well? It would be better for me if Idie, and it would certainly be better for Eustacia. Is Eustaciathere?"
"Yes."
"It would be better for you, Eustacia, if I were to die?"
"Don't press such a question, dear Clym."
"Well, it really is but a shadowy supposition; for unfortunately I amgoing to live. I feel myself getting better. Thomasin, how long areyou going to stay at the inn, now that all this money has come to yourhusband?"
"Another month or two, probably; until my illness is over. We cannotget off till then. I think it will be a month or more."
"Yes, yes. Of course. Ah, Cousin Tamsie, you will get over yourtrouble--one little month will take you through it, and bringsomething to console you; but I shall never get over mine, and noconsolation will come!"
"Clym, you are unjust to yourself. Depend upon it, aunt thoughtkindly of you. I know that, if she had lived, you would have beenreconciled with her."
"But she didn't come to see me, though I asked her, before I married,if she would come. Had she come, or had I gone there, she would neverhave died saying, 'I am a broken-hearted woman, cast off by my son.'My door has always been open to her--a welcome here has always awaitedher. But that she never came to see."
"You had better not talk any more now, Clym," said Eustacia faintlyfrom the other part of the room, for the scene was growing intolerableto her.
"Let me talk to you instead for the little time I shall be here,"Thomasin said soothingly. "Consider what a one-sided way you have oflooking at the matter, Clym. When she said that to the little boy youhad not found her and taken her into your arms; and it might have beenuttered in a moment of bitterness. It was rather like aunt to saythings in haste. She sometimes used to speak so to me. Though she didnot come I am convinced that she thought of coming to see you. Doyou suppose a man's mother could live two or three months withoutone forgiving thought? She forgave me; and why should she not haveforgiven you?"
"You laboured to win her round; I did nothing. I, who was going toteach people the higher secrets of happiness, did not know how to keepout of that gross misery which the most untaught are wise enough toavoid."
"How did you get here tonight, Thomasin?" said Eustacia.
"Damon set me down at the end of the lane. He has driven into EastEgdon on business, and he will come and pick me up by-and-by."
Accordingly they soon after heard the noise of wheels. Wildeve hadcome, and was waiting outside with his horse and gig.
"Send out and tell him I will be down in two minutes," said Thomasin.
"I will run down myself," said Eustacia.
She went down. Wildeve had alighted, and was standing before thehorse's head when Eustacia opened the door. He did not turn for amoment, thinking the comer Thomasin. Then he looked, started everso little, and said one word: "Well?"
"I have not yet told him," she replied in a whisper.
"Then don't do so till he is well--it will be fatal. You are illyourself."
"I am wretched... O Damon," she said, bursting into tears, "I--I can'ttell you how unhappy I am! I can hardly bear this. I can tell nobodyof my trouble--nobody knows of it but you."
"Poor girl!" said Wildeve, visibly affected at her distress, and atlast led on so far as to take her hand. "It is hard, when you havedone nothing to deserve it, that you should have got involved in sucha web as this. You were not made for these sad scenes. I am to blamemost. If I could only have saved you from it all!"
"But, Damon, please pray tell me what I must do? To sit by him hourafter hour, and hear him reproach himself as being the cause of herdeath, and to know that I am the sinner, if any human being is at all,drives me into cold despair. I don't know what to do. Should I tellhim or should I not tell him? I always am asking myself that. O, Iwant to tell him; and yet I am afraid. If he find it out he mustsurely kill me, for nothing else will be in proportion to his feelingsnow. 'Beware the fury of a patient man' sounds day by day in my earsas I watch him."
"Well, wait till he is better, and trust to chance. And when youtell, you must only tell part--for his own sake."
"Which part should I keep back?"
Wildeve paused. "That I was in the house at the time," he said in alow tone.
"Yes; it must be concealed, seeing what has been whispered. How mucheasier are hasty actions than speeches that will excuse them!"
"If he were only to die--" Wildeve murmured.
"Do not think of it! I would not buy hope of immunity by so cowardly adesire even if I hated him. Now I am going up to him again. Thomasinbade me tell you she would be down in a few minutes. Good-bye."
She returned, and Thomasin soon appeared. When she was seated in thegig with her husband, and the horse was turning to go off, Wildevelifted his eyes to the bedroom windows. Looking from one of them hecould discern a pale, tragic face watching him drive away. It wasEustacia's.
