[hardy-l] A thousand pities, indeed

[carolyn mcgrath]

In my view, the mutual confession scene on the bridal night between Tess and Angel is indeed the crux of the matter: it is the moment of climax which the first half of the book has been building up to and on the outcome of which the rest of the book depends. To say that Tess is
'grabbing at straws' at this point is, in my opinion, to misunderstand the nature of the tragedy that occurs. Of course the consequences are very different for Tess than Angel, but that does not mean that the
'transgressions' were dissimilar in nature. As readers privy to the circumstances surrounding Tess at Tantridge, we may feel Tess' lack of choice more keenly than Angel's, and the dramatic irony built into this chapter ensures that we know Angel will fail Tess. He nevertheless claims 'perfect frankness and honour' so surely Tess would not give him anything less:
 
"He then told her of that time of his life to which allusion has been made when, tossed about by doubts and difficulties in London, like a cork on the waves, he plunged into eight-and-forty hours' dissipation with a stranger. 
"Happily I awoke almost immediately to a sense of my folly," he continued. "I would have no more to say to her, and I came home. I have never repeated the offence. But I felt I should like to treat you with perfect frankness and honour, and I could not do so without telling this. Do you forgive me?" 
 
Her sudden euphoria is, to my mind, completely genuine: she suddenly feels herself liberated from the terrible guilt she has been carrying, and I think that the miracle she believes will happen is that she can reveal not only that she lost her virginity to a man not worthy of her, and that she bore his child, but that she also inexplicably discovered and followed her own sexual feelings that night - feelings that women in Victorian England were not supposed to have - and that she had also, very soon - maybe immediately - deeply regretted her 'weakness'; she believes that Angel will not only understand but will forgive her, as she has understood and forgiven him. Yes, we all shudder when we read this chapter and the turning away of the narrator recalls that earlier unbearable moment at The Chase: 
  
"She bent forward, at which each diamond on her neck gave a sinister wink like a toad's; and pressing her forehead against his temple she entered on her story of her acquaintance with Alec d'Urberville and its results, murmuring the words without flinching, and with her eyelids drooping down." 

The words of one Dr William Acton, 1857, represent the expected Victorian view: "I would say that the majority of women, happily for society, are not much troubled with sexual feelings of any kind." What Hardy presents with TESS is a story that compels the reader to question not only society's repression, distortion and abuse of female sexuality but also how that dominant patriarchal ideology has crept into our own thinking, even now in the C20th & C21st. As a reader, especially in my teens, I found myself disturbed by Tess' seemingly slow departure from Tantridge and the possible suggestion through the voice of the narrator that not only might she have not resisted Alec but may even have acquiesced in some way. Would this mean that our heroine was responsible for all that then happened?  How, when he was clearly a moustache-twirling, cigar-smoking bounder, could she not have known? I think life has taught me otherwise and now better appreciate
 the straightforward appraisal of the sequence of events:
 
"Perhaps it was unusual in the circumstances, unlucky, unaccountable; but there it was; and this, as she had said, was what made her detest herself. She had never wholly cared for him; she did not at all care for him now. She had dreaded him, winced before him, succumbed to adroit advantages he took of her helplessness; then, temporarily blinded by his ardent manners, had been stirred to confused surrender awhile: had suddenly despised and disliked him, and had run away. That was all. Hate him she did not quite; but he was dust and ashes to her, and even for her name's sake she scarcely wished to marry him."
 
This fits very well for me with the quote attributed to Hardy that Fraser gave us in a recent post: "the honest sadness that comes of a logical and inevitable tragedy" (Thank you for that, Fraser, I found the comments pertinent and interesting, even if we can't vouch for their authenticity). 

I have more and more come to the understanding that Tess' purity and lovableness do not depend upon her behaviour that night - in fact, that night happened because of her purity and lovableness (and Alec is maybe all the more detestable for his capacity to take 'adroit advantages' and for knowing "that anything was better then frigidity". 
 
Angel finally says:
 
"But, anyhow, here was this deserted wife of his, this passionately-fond woman, clinging to him without a suspicion that he would be anything to her but a protector. He saw that for him to be otherwise was not, in her mind, within the region of the possible. Tenderness was absolutely dominant in Clare at last. He kissed her endlessly with his white lips, and held her hand, and said— 
"I will not desert you! I will protect you by every means in my power, dearest love, whatever you may have done or not have done!" 

This belated attitude is similar to that earlier non-judgemental view of the unnamed field-woman who said, in response to the suggestion that "A little more than persuading had to do wi' the coming o't,":
 
"Well, a little more, or a little less, 'twas a thousand pities that it should have happened to she, of all others."



best wishes - and sorry, my 'succinct' is clearly not!


Carolyn McGrath
 
PS Rosemarie - re: the cheek vs vagina discussion - I had envisioned the roughness of Alec's facial hair on her tender skin as symbolically representing the sexual act, but am happy to include your version of actual penetration as part and parcel of the overall image. Would that have got past the censors if it were the only possible interpretation? I thought cheeks were a recurring image as later, when Alec and Tess part, Alec insists on a 'pantomime' goodbye kissing of both cheeks which seemed to connect back to that earlier image.