feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_27_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 28
feat_summary_id: chapter 28
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter 28", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-28", "summary": "At eight o'clock that midsummer evening, Bathsheba appeared in the fern hollow amid the soft, green, shoulder-high fronds. She paused, changed her mind, and was halfway home again before she caught sight of a red coat approaching. She considered Troy's disappointment were she not to appear, and she ran back to the hollow. When she reached the verge of a pit in the midst of the ferns, she saw Troy standing at the bottom and looking toward her. Troy's performance with the sword was precise and filled with bravado. It grew a bit frightening. He pretended the girl was the enemy and brandished his sword about her so realistically that she imagined herself run through. It was a dexterous feat. As a final tour-de-force, he said, \"That outer loose lock of hair wants tidying. . . . Wait: I'll do it for you.\" \"An area of silver shone on her right side; the sword had descended. The lock dropped to the ground.\" Next Troy speared a caterpillar that had settled upon Bathsheba's bosom. Only then did Troy admit that the sword was razor-sharp. \"You have been within half an inch of being pared alive two hundred and ninety-five times.\" Then the man stopped to pick up the lock of Bathsheba's hair. He tucked it inside his coat. Softly he announced that he had to leave. He disappeared, and, overcome by tumultuous emotion, \"aflame to the very hollows of her feet,\" Bathsheba wept, feeling \"like one who has sinned a great sin.\" \"The circumstances had been the gentle dip of Troy's mouth downwards upon her own. He had kissed her.\"", "analysis": "Troy is so completely in command of his sword and so perfectly confident of his skill that he does not hesitate to risk Bathsheba's life for the sake of his performance. His actions have utterly overwhelmed Bathsheba: \"She felt powerless to withstand or deny him.\" We must not overlook Hardy's own showmanship. He creates a sensuous chapter, with the lush setting, textures, colors, and lighting all playing their parts. He does a masterful job of describing the flashing of lights and the lightning speed of Troy's every move. Hardy was interested in dramatics and here uses his sense of effective staging."}
text: 
  
  THE HOLLOW AMID THE FERNS
  
  
  The hill opposite Bathsheba's dwelling extended, a mile off, into an
  uncultivated tract of land, dotted at this season with tall thickets
  of brake fern, plump and diaphanous from recent rapid growth, and
  radiant in hues of clear and untainted green.
  
  At eight o'clock this midsummer evening, whilst the bristling ball
  of gold in the west still swept the tips of the ferns with its long,
  luxuriant rays, a soft brushing-by of garments might have been heard
  among them, and Bathsheba appeared in their midst, their soft,
  feathery arms caressing her up to her shoulders.  She paused, turned,
  went back over the hill and half-way to her own door, whence she cast
  a farewell glance upon the spot she had just left, having resolved
  not to remain near the place after all.
  
  She saw a dim spot of artificial red moving round the shoulder of the
  rise.  It disappeared on the other side.
  
  She waited one minute--two minutes--thought of Troy's disappointment
  at her non-fulfilment of a promised engagement, till she again ran
  along the field, clambered over the bank, and followed the original
  direction.  She was now literally trembling and panting at this her
  temerity in such an errant undertaking; her breath came and went
  quickly, and her eyes shone with an infrequent light.  Yet go she
  must.  She reached the verge of a pit in the middle of the ferns.
  Troy stood in the bottom, looking up towards her.
  
  "I heard you rustling through the fern before I saw you," he said,
  coming up and giving her his hand to help her down the slope.
  
  The pit was a saucer-shaped concave, naturally formed, with a top
  diameter of about thirty feet, and shallow enough to allow the
  sunshine to reach their heads.  Standing in the centre, the sky
  overhead was met by a circular horizon of fern: this grew nearly to
  the bottom of the slope and then abruptly ceased.  The middle within
  the belt of verdure was floored with a thick flossy carpet of moss
  and grass intermingled, so yielding that the foot was half-buried
  within it.
  
  "Now," said Troy, producing the sword, which, as he raised it into
  the sunlight, gleamed a sort of greeting, like a living thing,
  "first, we have four right and four left cuts; four right and four
  left thrusts.   Infantry cuts and guards are more interesting than
  ours, to my mind; but they are not so swashing.  They have seven
  cuts and three thrusts.   So much as a preliminary.  Well, next, our
  cut one is as if you were sowing your corn--so."  Bathsheba saw a
  sort of rainbow, upside down in the air, and Troy's arm was still
  again.  "Cut two, as if you were hedging--so.  Three, as if you were
  reaping--so. Four, as if you were threshing--in that way.  Then the
  same on the left.  The thrusts are these: one, two, three, four,
  right; one, two, three, four, left."  He repeated them.  "Have 'em
  again?" he said.  "One, two--"
  
  She hurriedly interrupted: "I'd rather not; though I don't mind your
  twos and fours; but your ones and threes are terrible!"
  
  "Very well.  I'll let you off the ones and threes.  Next, cuts,
  points and guards altogether."  Troy duly exhibited them.  "Then
  there's pursuing practice, in this way."  He gave the movements as
  before.   "There, those are the stereotyped forms.  The infantry have
  two most diabolical upward cuts, which we are too humane to use.
  Like this--three, four."
  
  "How murderous and bloodthirsty!"
  
  "They are rather deathly.  Now I'll be more interesting, and let you
  see some loose play--giving all the cuts and points, infantry and
  cavalry, quicker than lightning, and as promiscuously--with just
  enough rule to regulate instinct and yet not to fetter it.  You are
  my antagonist, with this difference from real warfare, that I shall
  miss you every time by one hair's breadth, or perhaps two.  Mind you
  don't flinch, whatever you do."
  
  "I'll be sure not to!" she said invincibly.
  
  He pointed to about a yard in front of him.
  
  Bathsheba's adventurous spirit was beginning to find some grains of
  relish in these highly novel proceedings.  She took up her position
  as directed, facing Troy.
  
  "Now just to learn whether you have pluck enough to let me do what I
  wish, I'll give you a preliminary test."
  
  He flourished the sword by way of introduction number two, and the
  next thing of which she was conscious was that the point and blade of
  the sword were darting with a gleam towards her left side, just above
  her hip; then of their reappearance on her right side, emerging as
  it were from between her ribs, having apparently passed through her
  body.  The third item of consciousness was that of seeing the same
  sword, perfectly clean and free from blood held vertically in Troy's
  hand (in the position technically called "recover swords").  All was
  as quick as electricity.
  
  "Oh!" she cried out in affright, pressing her hand to her side. "Have
  you run me through?--no, you have not!  Whatever have you done!"
  
  "I have not touched you," said Troy, quietly.  "It was mere sleight
  of hand.  The sword passed behind you.  Now you are not afraid, are
  you?  Because if you are I can't perform.  I give my word that I will
  not only not hurt you, but not once touch you."
  
  "I don't think I am afraid.  You are quite sure you will not hurt
  me?"
  
  "Quite sure."
  
  "Is the sword very sharp?"
  
  "O no--only stand as still as a statue.  Now!"
  
  In an instant the atmosphere was transformed to Bathsheba's eyes.
  Beams of light caught from the low sun's rays, above, around, in
  front of her, well-nigh shut out earth and heaven--all emitted in
  the marvellous evolutions of Troy's reflecting blade, which seemed
  everywhere at once, and yet nowhere specially.  These circling gleams
  were accompanied by a keen rush that was almost a whistling--also
  springing from all sides of her at once.  In short, she was enclosed
  in a firmament of light, and of sharp hisses, resembling a sky-full
  of meteors close at hand.
  
  Never since the broadsword became the national weapon had there been
  more dexterity shown in its management than by the hands of Sergeant
  Troy, and never had he been in such splendid temper for the
  performance as now in the evening sunshine among the ferns with
  Bathsheba.  It may safely be asserted with respect to the closeness
  of his cuts, that had it been possible for the edge of the sword to
  leave in the air a permanent substance wherever it flew past, the
  space left untouched would have been almost a mould of Bathsheba's
  figure.
  
  Behind the luminous streams of this _aurora militaris_, she could see
  the hue of Troy's sword arm, spread in a scarlet haze over the space
  covered by its motions, like a twanged harpstring, and behind all
  Troy himself, mostly facing her; sometimes, to show the rear cuts,
  half turned away, his eye nevertheless always keenly measuring
  her breadth and outline, and his lips tightly closed in sustained
  effort.  Next, his movements lapsed slower, and she could see them
  individually.  The hissing of the sword had ceased, and he stopped
  entirely.
  
  "That outer loose lock of hair wants tidying," he said, before she
  had moved or spoken.  "Wait: I'll do it for you."
  
  An arc of silver shone on her right side: the sword had descended.
  The lock dropped to the ground.
  
  "Bravely borne!" said Troy.  "You didn't flinch a shade's thickness.
  Wonderful in a woman!"
  
  "It was because I didn't expect it.  Oh, you have spoilt my hair!"
  
  "Only once more."
  
  "No--no!  I am afraid of you--indeed I am!" she cried.
  
  "I won't touch you at all--not even your hair.  I am only going to
  kill that caterpillar settling on you.  Now: still!"
  
  It appeared that a caterpillar had come from the fern and chosen the
  front of her bodice as his resting place.  She saw the point glisten
  towards her bosom, and seemingly enter it.  Bathsheba closed her eyes
  in the full persuasion that she was killed at last.  However, feeling
  just as usual, she opened them again.
  
  "There it is, look," said the sergeant, holding his sword before her
  eyes.
  
  The caterpillar was spitted upon its point.
  
  "Why, it is magic!" said Bathsheba, amazed.
  
  "Oh no--dexterity.  I merely gave point to your bosom where the
  caterpillar was, and instead of running you through checked the
  extension a thousandth of an inch short of your surface."
  
  "But how could you chop off a curl of my hair with a sword that has
  no edge?"
  
  "No edge!  This sword will shave like a razor.  Look here."
  
  He touched the palm of his hand with the blade, and then, lifting it,
  showed her a thin shaving of scarf-skin dangling therefrom.
  
  "But you said before beginning that it was blunt and couldn't cut
  me!"
  
  "That was to get you to stand still, and so make sure of your safety.
  The risk of injuring you through your moving was too great not to
  force me to tell you a fib to escape it."
  
  She shuddered.  "I have been within an inch of my life, and didn't
  know it!"
  
  "More precisely speaking, you have been within half an inch of being
  pared alive two hundred and ninety-five times."
  
  "Cruel, cruel, 'tis of you!"
  
  "You have been perfectly safe, nevertheless.  My sword never errs."
  And Troy returned the weapon to the scabbard.
  
  Bathsheba, overcome by a hundred tumultuous feelings resulting from
  the scene, abstractedly sat down on a tuft of heather.
  
  "I must leave you now," said Troy, softly.  "And I'll venture to take
  and keep this in remembrance of you."
  
  She saw him stoop to the grass, pick up the winding lock which he
  had severed from her manifold tresses, twist it round his fingers,
  unfasten a button in the breast of his coat, and carefully put
  it inside.  She felt powerless to withstand or deny him.  He was
  altogether too much for her, and Bathsheba seemed as one who, facing
  a reviving wind, finds it blow so strongly that it stops the breath.
  He drew near and said, "I must be leaving you."
  
  He drew nearer still.  A minute later and she saw his scarlet form
  disappear amid the ferny thicket, almost in a flash, like a brand
  swiftly waved.
  
  That minute's interval had brought the blood beating into her face,
  set her stinging as if aflame to the very hollows of her feet, and
  enlarged emotion to a compass which quite swamped thought.  It had
  brought upon her a stroke resulting, as did that of Moses in Horeb,
  in a liquid stream--here a stream of tears.  She felt like one who
  has sinned a great sin.
  
  The circumstance had been the gentle dip of Troy's mouth downwards
  upon her own.  He had kissed her.
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter 28
target: At eight o'clock that midsummer evening, Bathsheba appeared in the fern hollow amid the soft, green, shoulder-high fronds. She paused, changed her mind, and was halfway home again before she caught sight of a red coat approaching. She considered Troy's disappointment were she not to appear, and she ran back to the hollow. When she reached the verge of a pit in the midst of the ferns, she saw Troy standing at the bottom and looking toward her. Troy's performance with the sword was precise and filled with bravado. It grew a bit frightening. He pretended the girl was the enemy and brandished his sword about her so realistically that she imagined herself run through. It was a dexterous feat. As a final tour-de-force, he said, "That outer loose lock of hair wants tidying. . . . Wait: I'll do it for you." "An area of silver shone on her right side; the sword had descended. The lock dropped to the ground." Next Troy speared a caterpillar that had settled upon Bathsheba's bosom. Only then did Troy admit that the sword was razor-sharp. "You have been within half an inch of being pared alive two hundred and ninety-five times." Then the man stopped to pick up the lock of Bathsheba's hair. He tucked it inside his coat. Softly he announced that he had to leave. He disappeared, and, overcome by tumultuous emotion, "aflame to the very hollows of her feet," Bathsheba wept, feeling "like one who has sinned a great sin." "The circumstances had been the gentle dip of Troy's mouth downwards upon her own. He had kissed her."
feat_summary_analysis: Troy is so completely in command of his sword and so perfectly confident of his skill that he does not hesitate to risk Bathsheba's life for the sake of his performance. His actions have utterly overwhelmed Bathsheba: "She felt powerless to withstand or deny him." We must not overlook Hardy's own showmanship. He creates a sensuous chapter, with the lush setting, textures, colors, and lighting all playing their parts. He does a masterful job of describing the flashing of lights and the lightning speed of Troy's every move. Hardy was interested in dramatics and here uses his sense of effective staging.