feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_0_part_11.txt
feat_book_id: Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 11
feat_summary_id: chapter 11
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 11", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-1-chapters-1-11", "summary": "Tess admits to Alec that she is much obliged to him. He asks her why she dislikes him kissing her, and she says it is because she does not love him, and is angry with him sometimes. Alec did not object to this confession, because he prefers her anger to frigidity. He asks if he has offended her by love-making, and she says sometimes. She does not answer when he asks if she is offended every time he tries. Tess is weary, and nearly falls asleep on Alec's shoulder. Alec stops the horse and encloses her waist with his arm to support her, which immediately puts her on the defensive. When she pushes him away, he calls her devilish unkind, for he means no harm. He asks if she can show her belief in him by letting him clasp her with his arm. She finally submits and allows him to do so. Later on their journey, Tess finds that Alec has prolonged the ride home, and they are now in The Chase, the oldest wood in England. Tess calls him treacherous, and asks him to let her down so she may walk home. He agrees to let her walk home only after he finds a nearby house and ascertains their distance from Trantridge. Alec gives her an overcoat and walks away. In the meantime, he goes to ascertain which quarter of The Chase he is actually in, for he had purposely ridden at random. He returns to Tess and finds her sleeping. Tess' guardian angel' is nowhere to be seen, and Tess is seduced by Alec d'Urberville.", "analysis": "The final conquest of Tess Durbeyfield comes to fruition in this chapter, in which Alec d'Urberville uses several factors particular to this situation to seduce his distant relative. The seduction does not come easily; in fact Hardy leaves the details of the conquest so vague that it allows the distinct possibility that Tess did not consent at all to Alec. Nevertheless, assuming that Tess consented to Alec's demands, Hardy constructs several factors that precipitated the event. At this point in the novel Alec is at his most heroic to Tess, having saved her from Car Darch. Alec frames his arguments against Tess as evidence that she is frigid, untrusting and ungrateful; she must defend her refusal to give in to Alec rather than Alec having to defend his much less excusable behavior. Finally, and perhaps most critical in Tess letting down her guard is that she is intensely tired and Alec's final proposition of her is unexpected. He comes upon her when she is sleeping and, at last, she may not have had the strength to refuse him at this point"}
text: 
  
  The twain cantered along for some time without speech, Tess as she
  clung to him still panting in her triumph, yet in other respects
  dubious.  She had perceived that the horse was not the spirited one
  he sometimes rose, and felt no alarm on that score, though her seat
  was precarious enough despite her tight hold of him.  She begged him
  to slow the animal to a walk, which Alec accordingly did.
  
  "Neatly done, was it not, dear Tess?" he said by and by.
  
  "Yes!" said she.  "I am sure I ought to be much obliged to you."
  
  "And are you?"
  
  She did not reply.
  
  "Tess, why do you always dislike my kissing you?"
  
  "I suppose--because I don't love you."
  
  "You are quite sure?"
  
  "I am angry with you sometimes!"
  
  "Ah, I half feared as much."  Nevertheless, Alec did not object to
  that confession.  He knew that anything was better then frigidity.
  "Why haven't you told me when I have made you angry?"
  
  "You know very well why.  Because I cannot help myself here."
  
  "I haven't offended you often by love-making?"
  
  "You have sometimes."
  
  "How many times?"
  
  "You know as well as I--too many times."
  
  "Every time I have tried?"
  
  She was silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable
  distance, till a faint luminous fog, which had hung in the hollows
  all the evening, became general and enveloped them.  It seemed to
  hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in
  clear air.  Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or
  from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed
  the point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from the highway,
  and that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track.
  
  She was inexpressibly weary.  She had risen at five o'clock every
  morning of that week, had been on foot the whole of each day, and on
  this evening had in addition walked the three miles to Chaseborough,
  waited three hours for her neighbours without eating or drinking,
  her impatience to start them preventing either; she had then walked
  a mile of the way home, and had undergone the excitement of the
  quarrel, till, with the slow progress of their steed, it was now
  nearly one o'clock.  Only once, however, was she overcome by actual
  drowsiness.  In that moment of oblivion her head sank gently against
  him.
  
  D'Urberville stopped the horse, withdrew his feet from the stirrups,
  turned sideways on the saddle, and enclosed her waist with his arm to
  support her.
  
  This immediately put her on the defensive, and with one of those
  sudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable she gave him a
  little push from her.  In his ticklish position he nearly lost his
  balance and only just avoided rolling over into the road, the horse,
  though a powerful one, being fortunately the quietest he rode.
  
  "That is devilish unkind!" he said.  "I mean no harm--only to keep
  you from falling."
  
  She pondered suspiciously, till, thinking that this might after all
  be true, she relented, and said quite humbly, "I beg your pardon,
  sir."
  
  "I won't pardon you unless you show some confidence in me.  Good
  God!" he burst out, "what am I, to be repulsed so by a mere chit like
  you?  For near three mortal months have you trifled with my feelings,
  eluded me, and snubbed me; and I won't stand it!"
  
  "I'll leave you to-morrow, sir."
  
  "No, you will not leave me to-morrow!  Will you, I ask once more,
  show your belief in me by letting me clasp you with my arm?  Come,
  between us two and nobody else, now.  We know each other well; and
  you know that I love you, and think you the prettiest girl in the
  world, which you are.  Mayn't I treat you as a lover?"
  
  She drew a quick pettish breath of objection, writhing uneasily on
  her seat, looked far ahead, and murmured, "I don't know--I wish--how
  can I say yes or no when--"
  
  He settled the matter by clasping his arm round her as he desired,
  and Tess expressed no further negative.  Thus they sidled
  slowly onward till it struck her they had been advancing for an
  unconscionable time--far longer than was usually occupied by the
  short journey from Chaseborough, even at this walking pace, and
  that they were no longer on hard road, but in a mere trackway.
  
  "Why, where be we?" she exclaimed.
  
  "Passing by a wood."
  
  "A wood--what wood?  Surely we are quite out of the road?"
  
  "A bit of The Chase--the oldest wood in England.  It is a lovely
  night, and why should we not prolong our ride a little?"
  
  "How could you be so treacherous!" said Tess, between archness and
  real dismay, and getting rid of his arm by pulling open his fingers
  one by one, though at the risk of slipping off herself.  "Just when
  I've been putting such trust in you, and obliging you to please you,
  because I thought I had wronged you by that push!  Please set me
  down, and let me walk home."
  
  "You cannot walk home, darling, even if the air were clear.  We are
  miles away from Trantridge, if I must tell you, and in this growing
  fog you might wander for hours among these trees."
  
  "Never mind that," she coaxed.  "Put me down, I beg you.  I don't
  mind where it is; only let me get down, sir, please!"
  
  "Very well, then, I will--on one condition.  Having brought you
  here to this out-of-the-way place, I feel myself responsible for
  your safe-conduct home, whatever you may yourself feel about it.
  As to your getting to Trantridge without assistance, it is quite
  impossible; for, to tell the truth, dear, owing to this fog, which so
  disguises everything, I don't quite know where we are myself.  Now,
  if you will promise to wait beside the horse while I walk through the
  bushes till I come to some road or house, and ascertain exactly our
  whereabouts, I'll deposit you here willingly.  When I come back I'll
  give you full directions, and if you insist upon walking you may; or
  you may ride--at your pleasure."
  
  She accepted these terms, and slid off on the near side, though not
  till he had stolen a cursory kiss.  He sprang down on the other side.
  
  "I suppose I must hold the horse?" said she.
  
  "Oh no; it's not necessary," replied Alec, patting the panting
  creature.  "He's had enough of it for to-night."
  
  He turned the horse's head into the bushes, hitched him on to a
  bough, and made a sort of couch or nest for her in the deep mass of
  dead leaves.
  
  "Now, you sit there," he said.  "The leaves have not got damp as yet.
  Just give an eye to the horse--it will be quite sufficient."
  
  He took a few steps away from her, but, returning, said, "By the bye,
  Tess, your father has a new cob to-day.  Somebody gave it to him."
  
  "Somebody?  You!"
  
  D'Urberville nodded.
  
  "O how very good of you that is!" she exclaimed, with a painful sense
  of the awkwardness of having to thank him just then.
  
  "And the children have some toys."
  
  "I didn't know--you ever sent them anything!" she murmured, much
  moved.  "I almost wish you had not--yes, I almost wish it!"
  
  "Why, dear?"
  
  "It--hampers me so."
  
  "Tessy--don't you love me ever so little now?"
  
  "I'm grateful," she reluctantly admitted.  "But I fear I do not--"
  The sudden vision of his passion for herself as a factor in this
  result so distressed her that, beginning with one slow tear, and
  then following with another, she wept outright.
  
  "Don't cry, dear, dear one!  Now sit down here, and wait till I
  come."  She passively sat down amid the leaves he had heaped, and
  shivered slightly.  "Are you cold?" he asked.
  
  "Not very--a little."
  
  He touched her with his fingers, which sank into her as into down.
  "You have only that puffy muslin dress on--how's that?"
  
  "It's my best summer one.  'Twas very warm when I started, and I
  didn't know I was going to ride, and that it would be night."
  
  "Nights grow chilly in September.  Let me see."  He pulled off a
  light overcoat that he had worn, and put it round her tenderly.
  "That's it--now you'll feel warmer," he continued.  "Now, my pretty,
  rest there; I shall soon be back again."
  
  Having buttoned the overcoat round her shoulders he plunged into the
  webs of vapour which by this time formed veils between the trees.
  She could hear the rustling of the branches as he ascended the
  adjoining slope, till his movements were no louder than the hopping
  of a bird, and finally died away.  With the setting of the moon the
  pale light lessened, and Tess became invisible as she fell into
  reverie upon the leaves where he had left her.
  
  In the meantime Alec d'Urberville had pushed on up the slope to clear
  his genuine doubt as to the quarter of The Chase they were in.  He
  had, in fact, ridden quite at random for over an hour, taking any
  turning that came to hand in order to prolong companionship with her,
  and giving far more attention to Tess's moonlit person than to any
  wayside object.  A little rest for the jaded animal being desirable,
  he did not hasten his search for landmarks.  A clamber over the
  hill into the adjoining vale brought him to the fence of a highway
  whose contours he recognized, which settled the question of their
  whereabouts.  D'Urberville thereupon turned back; but by this time
  the moon had quite gone down, and partly on account of the fog The
  Chase was wrapped in thick darkness, although morning was not far
  off.  He was obliged to advance with outstretched hands to avoid
  contact with the boughs, and discovered that to hit the exact spot
  from which he had started was at first entirely beyond him.  Roaming
  up and down, round and round, he at length heard a slight movement of
  the horse close at hand; and the sleeve of his overcoat unexpectedly
  caught his foot.
  
  "Tess!" said d'Urberville.
  
  There was no answer.  The obscurity was now so great that he could
  see absolutely nothing but a pale nebulousness at his feet, which
  represented the white muslin figure he had left upon the dead leaves.
  Everything else was blackness alike.  D'Urberville stooped; and heard
  a gentle regular breathing.  He knelt and bent lower, till her breath
  warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers.
  She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered
  tears.
  
  Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around.  Above them rose the
  primeval yews and oaks of The Chase, in which there poised gentle
  roosting birds in their last nap; and about them stole the hopping
  rabbits and hares.  But, might some say, where was Tess's guardian
  angel? where was the providence of her simple faith?  Perhaps, like
  that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking,
  or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and
  not to be awaked.
  
  Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as
  gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have
  been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why
  so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the
  woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical
  philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order.  One may,
  indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present
  catastrophe.  Doubtless some of Tess d'Urberville's mailed ancestors
  rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more
  ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time.  But though to visit
  the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good
  enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it
  therefore does not mend the matter.
  
  As Tess's own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying
  among each other in their fatalistic way: "It was to be."  There
  lay the pity of it.  An immeasurable social chasm was to divide our
  heroine's personality thereafter from that previous self of hers
  who stepped from her mother's door to try her fortune at Trantridge
  poultry-farm.
  
  
  END OF PHASE THE FIRST
  
  
  
  
  
  Phase the Second: Maiden No More
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 11
target: Tess admits to Alec that she is much obliged to him. He asks her why she dislikes him kissing her, and she says it is because she does not love him, and is angry with him sometimes. Alec did not object to this confession, because he prefers her anger to frigidity. He asks if he has offended her by love-making, and she says sometimes. She does not answer when he asks if she is offended every time he tries. Tess is weary, and nearly falls asleep on Alec's shoulder. Alec stops the horse and encloses her waist with his arm to support her, which immediately puts her on the defensive. When she pushes him away, he calls her devilish unkind, for he means no harm. He asks if she can show her belief in him by letting him clasp her with his arm. She finally submits and allows him to do so. Later on their journey, Tess finds that Alec has prolonged the ride home, and they are now in The Chase, the oldest wood in England. Tess calls him treacherous, and asks him to let her down so she may walk home. He agrees to let her walk home only after he finds a nearby house and ascertains their distance from Trantridge. Alec gives her an overcoat and walks away. In the meantime, he goes to ascertain which quarter of The Chase he is actually in, for he had purposely ridden at random. He returns to Tess and finds her sleeping. Tess' guardian angel' is nowhere to be seen, and Tess is seduced by Alec d'Urberville.
feat_summary_analysis: The final conquest of Tess Durbeyfield comes to fruition in this chapter, in which Alec d'Urberville uses several factors particular to this situation to seduce his distant relative. The seduction does not come easily; in fact Hardy leaves the details of the conquest so vague that it allows the distinct possibility that Tess did not consent at all to Alec. Nevertheless, assuming that Tess consented to Alec's demands, Hardy constructs several factors that precipitated the event. At this point in the novel Alec is at his most heroic to Tess, having saved her from Car Darch. Alec frames his arguments against Tess as evidence that she is frigid, untrusting and ungrateful; she must defend her refusal to give in to Alec rather than Alec having to defend his much less excusable behavior. Finally, and perhaps most critical in Tess letting down her guard is that she is intensely tired and Alec's final proposition of her is unexpected. He comes upon her when she is sleeping and, at last, she may not have had the strength to refuse him at this point