feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/novelguide/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_4_part_10.txt
feat_book_id: Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapter xxxiv
feat_summary_id: chapter xxxiv
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter XXXIV", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase4-chapter25-34", "summary": "Tess and Angel stay their first night as man and wife in the shoddy old d'Urberville mansion, where portraits of earlier d'Urberville women spook Tess. Angel, who is pleased to have a wife of noble lineage, notices that despite the terrifying countenances of the framed women, they bear a resemblance to his new wife. A package arrives from Angel's father. It contains diamond heirloom jewelry for a shocked Tess who looks more brilliant than the diamonds to her admiring new husband after she puts them on. However, almost immediately a man arrives late with their luggage and explains he was delayed by the suicide of Retty the milkmaid. Marian, another lovelorn milkmaid has also taken to drink. The newlyweds attempt to shake off the disastrous news, and Angel confesses to Tess about an earlier sexual indiscretion with a stranger. Deeply relieved, Tess finally confesses her own past to Angel without flinching, safe in the knowledge that he will forgive her because her \"crime\" with Alec d'Urberville is \"just the same\".", "analysis": ". Angel's family doesn't know what to make of their son's choice for a wife. Despite the rationality behind his decision--a farm woman is worth more to him than one familiar with the niceties of upper-class Victorian society-- they, especially his mother, are snobs and worry about their social standing and their position in the church. They immediately characterize Tess as low class and suggest Angel marry Mercy Chance instead. In addition, they are appalled that Angel's manners have deteriorated during the time he has spent away. Perhaps he has been contaminated by Tess who is sure to lower their social standing in the eyes of their neighbors. Both of Angel's brothers have entered the church and are also displeased with his choice of a common woman. Intellectuals, they are emotionally frozen. While Angel seems removed from his family, such training has also worked its way deep into his psyche and this will become increasing apparent. Is he saying one thing--that he totally accepts and loves Tess despite her lack of social and financial standing--or is he also a snob and a hypocrite. He has given up the church to live a more humble existence on the land, but his actions in the future bear watching. Consider that although Angel has earlier claimed to dislike ancient families, he is happy to learn of Tess's lineage and prompts her to use d'Urberville instead of Durbeyfield: \"he could take her on a visit to his parents and impart the knowledge while triumphantly producing her as worthy of such an ancient line\". In short, Angel, like Tess, is not what he seems. Tess idealizes him entirely and sees him as a pagan god wandering around in the fertile fields--a man of Nature in search of a natural woman: \"It seemed natural enough to him now that Tess was again in sight to choose a mate from unrestrained Nature and not from the abodes of Art\". But, Tess takes on Angel's gestures and mimics his words and thus becomes less of what he makes her out to be, or indeed what he says he wants her to be. In the Victorian era, women's sexuality was denied, and they took on the role of Angel of the House, above men spiritually, and the moral guide of their children. A true lady merely tolerated sex for procreation. Tess's denial of Angel's advances makes Tess appear even more pure: \"I know you to be the most honest, most spotless creature that ever lived\". However, Angel fails to see Tess as a living breathing human, and when anyone is placed this high, down is the only direction they can move. While Tess does make several attempts to tell Angel the truth about her past, in fairness she chooses not to tell him out of fear that she will lose him. Yes, writing him the letter and attempting to tell him immediately before the wedding count as sincere efforts, but in reality, she held back the truth and married him: \"I can't bear to let anyone have him but me. Yet it is a wrong to him, and may kill him when he knows. Tess uses her mother's advice to justify her actions and chooses not to risk losing Angel. To Tess's credit, however, she decides to tell her new husband the truth, even though at this point she could have continued to withhold it"}
text: 
  
  They drove by the level road along the valley to a distance of a few
  miles, and, reaching Wellbridge, turned away from the village to the
  left, and over the great Elizabethan bridge which gives the place
  half its name.  Immediately behind it stood the house wherein they
  had engaged lodgings, whose exterior features are so well known to
  all travellers through the Froom Valley; once portion of a fine
  manorial residence, and the property and seat of a d'Urberville, but
  since its partial demolition a farmhouse.
  
  "Welcome to one of your ancestral mansions!" said Clare as he handed
  her down.  But he regretted the pleasantry; it was too near a satire.
  
  On entering they found that, though they had only engaged a couple
  of rooms, the farmer had taken advantage of their proposed presence
  during the coming days to pay a New Year's visit to some friends,
  leaving a woman from a neighbouring cottage to minister to their
  few wants.  The absoluteness of possession pleased them, and they
  realized it as the first moment of their experience under their own
  exclusive roof-tree.
  
  But he found that the mouldy old habitation somewhat depressed his
  bride.  When the carriage was gone they ascended the stairs to wash
  their hands, the charwoman showing the way.  On the landing Tess
  stopped and started.
  
  "What's the matter?" said he.
  
  "Those horrid women!" she answered with a smile.  "How they
  frightened me."
  
  He looked up, and perceived two life-size portraits on panels built
  into the masonry.  As all visitors to the mansion are aware, these
  paintings represent women of middle age, of a date some two hundred
  years ago, whose lineaments once seen can never be forgotten.
  The long pointed features, narrow eye, and smirk of the one, so
  suggestive of merciless treachery; the bill-hook nose, large
  teeth, and bold eye of the other suggesting arrogance to the point
  of ferocity, haunt the beholder afterwards in his dreams.
  
  "Whose portraits are those?" asked Clare of the charwoman.
  
  "I have been told by old folk that they were ladies of the
  d'Urberville family, the ancient lords of this manor," she said,
  "Owing to their being builded into the wall they can't be moved
  away."
  
  The unpleasantness of the matter was that, in addition to their
  effect upon Tess, her fine features were unquestionably traceable
  in these exaggerated forms.  He said nothing of this, however, and,
  regretting that he had gone out of his way to choose the house for
  their bridal time, went on into the adjoining room.  The place having
  been rather hastily prepared for them, they washed their hands in one
  basin.  Clare touched hers under the water.
  
  "Which are my fingers and which are yours?" he said, looking up.
  "They are very much mixed."
  
  "They are all yours," said she, very prettily, and endeavoured
  to be gayer than she was.  He had not been displeased with her
  thoughtfulness on such an occasion; it was what every sensible woman
  would show: but Tess knew that she had been thoughtful to excess,
  and struggled against it.
  
  The sun was so low on that short last afternoon of the year that it
  shone in through a small opening and formed a golden staff which
  stretched across to her skirt, where it made a spot like a paint-mark
  set upon her.  They went into the ancient parlour to tea, and
  here they shared their first common meal alone.  Such was their
  childishness, or rather his, that he found it interesting to use the
  same bread-and-butter plate as herself, and to brush crumbs from her
  lips with his own.  He wondered a little that she did not enter into
  these frivolities with his own zest.
  
  Looking at her silently for a long time; "She is a dear dear Tess,"
  he thought to himself, as one deciding on the true construction of
  a difficult passage.  "Do I realize solemnly enough how utterly and
  irretrievably this little womanly thing is the creature of my good
  or bad faith and fortune?  I think not.  I think I could not, unless
  I were a woman myself.  What I am in worldly estate, she is.  What I
  become, she must become.  What I cannot be, she cannot be.  And shall
  I ever neglect her, or hurt her, or even forget to consider her?  God
  forbid such a crime!"
  
  They sat on over the tea-table waiting for their luggage, which the
  dairyman had promised to send before it grew dark.  But evening began
  to close in, and the luggage did not arrive, and they had brought
  nothing more than they stood in.  With the departure of the sun the
  calm mood of the winter day changed.  Out of doors there began noises
  as of silk smartly rubbed; the restful dead leaves of the preceding
  autumn were stirred to irritated resurrection, and whirled about
  unwillingly, and tapped against the shutters.  It soon began to rain.
  
  "That cock knew the weather was going to change," said Clare.
  
  The woman who had attended upon them had gone home for the night, but
  she had placed candles upon the table, and now they lit them.  Each
  candle-flame drew towards the fireplace.
  
  "These old houses are so draughty," continued Angel, looking at the
  flames, and at the grease guttering down the sides.  "I wonder where
  that luggage is.  We haven't even a brush and comb."
  
  "I don't know," she answered, absent-minded.
  
  "Tess, you are not a bit cheerful this evening--not at all as you
  used to be.  Those harridans on the panels upstairs have unsettled
  you.  I am sorry I brought you here.  I wonder if you really love me,
  after all?"
  
  He knew that she did, and the words had no serious intent; but she
  was surcharged with emotion, and winced like a wounded animal.
  Though she tried not to shed tears, she could not help showing one
  or two.
  
  "I did not mean it!" said he, sorry.  "You are worried at not having
  your things, I know.  I cannot think why old Jonathan has not come
  with them.  Why, it is seven o'clock?  Ah, there he is!"
  
  A knock had come to the door, and, there being nobody else to answer
  it, Clare went out.  He returned to the room with a small package in
  his hand.
  
  "It is not Jonathan, after all," he said.
  
  "How vexing!" said Tess.
  
  The packet had been brought by a special messenger, who had arrived
  at Talbothays from Emminster Vicarage immediately after the departure
  of the married couple, and had followed them hither, being under
  injunction to deliver it into nobody's hands but theirs.  Clare
  brought it to the light.  It was less than a foot long, sewed up in
  canvas, sealed in red wax with his father's seal, and directed in his
  father's hand to "Mrs Angel Clare."
  
  "It is a little wedding-present for you, Tess," said he, handing it
  to her.  "How thoughtful they are!"
  
  Tess looked a little flustered as she took it.
  
  "I think I would rather have you open it, dearest," said she, turning
  over the parcel.  "I don't like to break those great seals; they look
  so serious.  Please open it for me!"
  
  He undid the parcel.  Inside was a case of morocco leather, on the
  top of which lay a note and a key.
  
  The note was for Clare, in the following words:
  
  
     MY DEAR SON--
  
     Possibly you have forgotten that on the death of your
     godmother, Mrs Pitney, when you were a lad, she--vain,
     kind woman that she was--left to me a portion of the
     contents of her jewel-case in trust for your wife, if
     you should ever have one, as a mark of her affection
     for you and whomsoever you should choose.  This trust
     I have fulfilled, and the diamonds have been locked up
     at my banker's ever since.  Though I feel it to be a
     somewhat incongruous act in the circumstances, I am, as
     you will see, bound to hand over the articles to the
     woman to whom the use of them for her lifetime will now
     rightly belong, and they are therefore promptly sent.
     They become, I believe, heirlooms, strictly speaking,
     according to the terms of your godmother's will.  The
     precise words of the clause that refers to this matter
     are enclosed.
  
  
  "I do remember," said Clare; "but I had quite forgotten."
  
  Unlocking the case, they found it to contain a necklace, with
  pendant, bracelets, and ear-rings; and also some other small
  ornaments.
  
  Tess seemed afraid to touch them at first, but her eyes sparkled for
  a moment as much as the stones when Clare spread out the set.
  
  "Are they mine?" she asked incredulously.
  
  "They are, certainly," said he.
  
  He looked into the fire.  He remembered how, when he was a lad of
  fifteen, his godmother, the Squire's wife--the only rich person
  with whom he had ever come in contact--had pinned her faith to his
  success; had prophesied a wondrous career for him.  There had seemed
  nothing at all out of keeping with such a conjectured career in the
  storing up of these showy ornaments for his wife and the wives of
  her descendants.  They gleamed somewhat ironically now.  "Yet why?"
  he asked himself.  It was but a question of vanity throughout; and
  if that were admitted into one side of the equation it should be
  admitted into the other.  His wife was a d'Urberville: whom could
  they become better than her?
  
  Suddenly he said with enthusiasm--
  
  "Tess, put them on--put them on!"  And he turned from the fire to
  help her.
  
  But as if by magic she had already donned them--necklace, ear-rings,
  bracelets, and all.
  
  "But the gown isn't right, Tess," said Clare.  "It ought to be a low
  one for a set of brilliants like that."
  
  "Ought it?" said Tess.
  
  "Yes," said he.
  
  He suggested to her how to tuck in the upper edge of her bodice, so
  as to make it roughly approximate to the cut for evening wear; and
  when she had done this, and the pendant to the necklace hung isolated
  amid the whiteness of her throat, as it was designed to do, he
  stepped back to survey her.
  
  "My heavens," said Clare, "how beautiful you are!"
  
  As everybody knows, fine feathers make fine birds; a peasant girl but
  very moderately prepossessing to the casual observer in her simple
  condition and attire will bloom as an amazing beauty if clothed as a
  woman of fashion with the aids that Art can render; while the beauty
  of the midnight crush would often cut but a sorry figure if placed
  inside the field-woman's wrapper upon a monotonous acreage of
  turnips on a dull day.  He had never till now estimated the artistic
  excellence of Tess's limbs and features.
  
  "If you were only to appear in a ball-room!" he said.  "But
  no--no, dearest; I think I love you best in the wing-bonnet and
  cotton-frock--yes, better than in this, well as you support these
  dignities."
  
  Tess's sense of her striking appearance had given her a flush of
  excitement, which was yet not happiness.
  
  "I'll take them off," she said, "in case Jonathan should see me.
  They are not fit for me, are they?  They must be sold, I suppose?"
  
  "Let them stay a few minutes longer.  Sell them?  Never. It would be
  a breach of faith."
  
  Influenced by a second thought she readily obeyed.  She had something
  to tell, and there might be help in these.  She sat down with the
  jewels upon her; and they again indulged in conjectures as to where
  Jonathan could possibly be with their baggage.  The ale they had
  poured out for his consumption when he came had gone flat with long
  standing.
  
  Shortly after this they began supper, which was already laid on
  a side-table.  Ere they had finished there was a jerk in the
  fire-smoke, the rising skein of which bulged out into the room, as if
  some giant had laid his hand on the chimney-top for a moment.  It had
  been caused by the opening of the outer door.  A heavy step was now
  heard in the passage, and Angel went out.
  
  "I couldn' make nobody hear at all by knocking," apologized Jonathan
  Kail, for it was he at last; "and as't was raining out I opened the
  door.  I've brought the things, sir."
  
  "I am very glad to see them.  But you are very late."
  
  "Well, yes, sir."
  
  There was something subdued in Jonathan Kail's tone which had not
  been there in the day, and lines of concern were ploughed upon his
  forehead in addition to the lines of years.  He continued--
  
  "We've all been gallied at the dairy at what might ha' been a most
  terrible affliction since you and your Mis'ess--so to name her
  now--left us this a'ternoon.  Perhaps you ha'nt forgot the cock's
  afternoon crow?"
  
  "Dear me;--what--"
  
  "Well, some says it do mane one thing, and some another; but what's
  happened is that poor little Retty Priddle hev tried to drown
  herself."
  
  "No! Really!  Why, she bade us goodbye with the rest--"
  
  "Yes.  Well, sir, when you and your Mis'ess--so to name what she
  lawful is--when you two drove away, as I say, Retty and Marian put on
  their bonnets and went out; and as there is not much doing now, being
  New Year's Eve, and folks mops and brooms from what's inside 'em,
  nobody took much notice.  They went on to Lew-Everard, where they
  had summut to drink, and then on they vamped to Dree-armed Cross,
  and there they seemed to have parted, Retty striking across the
  water-meads as if for home, and Marian going on to the next village,
  where there's another public-house.  Nothing more was zeed or heard
  o' Retty till the waterman, on his way home, noticed something by the
  Great Pool; 'twas her bonnet and shawl packed up.  In the water he
  found her.  He and another man brought her home, thinking a' was
  dead; but she fetched round by degrees."
  
  Angel, suddenly recollecting that Tess was overhearing this gloomy
  tale, went to shut the door between the passage and the ante-room
  to the inner parlour where she was; but his wife, flinging a shawl
  round her, had come to the outer room and was listening to the man's
  narrative, her eyes resting absently on the luggage and the drops of
  rain glistening upon it.
  
  "And, more than this, there's Marian; she's been found dead drunk
  by the withy-bed--a girl who hev never been known to touch anything
  before except shilling ale; though, to be sure, 'a was always a good
  trencher-woman, as her face showed.  It seems as if the maids had
  all gone out o' their minds!"
  
  "And Izz?" asked Tess.
  
  "Izz is about house as usual; but 'a do say 'a can guess how it
  happened; and she seems to be very low in mind about it, poor maid,
  as well she mid be.  And so you see, sir, as all this happened just
  when we was packing your few traps and your Mis'ess's night-rail and
  dressing things into the cart, why, it belated me."
  
  "Yes.  Well, Jonathan, will you get the trunks upstairs, and drink a
  cup of ale, and hasten back as soon as you can, in case you should be
  wanted?"
  
  Tess had gone back to the inner parlour, and sat down by the fire,
  looking wistfully into it.  She heard Jonathan Kail's heavy footsteps
  up and down the stairs till he had done placing the luggage, and
  heard him express his thanks for the ale her husband took out to him,
  and for the gratuity he received.  Jonathan's footsteps then died
  from the door, and his cart creaked away.
  
  Angel slid forward the massive oak bar which secured the door, and
  coming in to where she sat over the hearth, pressed her cheeks
  between his hands from behind.  He expected her to jump up gaily and
  unpack the toilet-gear that she had been so anxious about, but as she
  did not rise he sat down with her in the firelight, the candles on
  the supper-table being too thin and glimmering to interfere with its
  glow.
  
  "I am so sorry you should have heard this sad story about the girls,"
  he said.  "Still, don't let it depress you.  Retty was naturally
  morbid, you know."
  
  "Without the least cause," said Tess.  "While they who have cause to
  be, hide it, and pretend they are not."
  
  This incident had turned the scale for her.  They were simple and
  innocent girls on whom the unhappiness of unrequited love had fallen;
  they had deserved better at the hands of Fate.  She had deserved
  worse--yet she was the chosen one.  It was wicked of her to take all
  without paying.  She would pay to the uttermost farthing; she would
  tell, there and then.  This final determination she came to when she
  looked into the fire, he holding her hand.
  
  A steady glare from the now flameless embers painted the sides
  and back of the fireplace with its colour, and the well-polished
  andirons, and the old brass tongs that would not meet.  The underside
  of the mantel-shelf was flushed with the high-coloured light, and
  the legs of the table nearest the fire.  Tess's face and neck
  reflected the same warmth, which each gem turned into an Aldebaran
  or a Sirius--a constellation of white, red, and green flashes, that
  interchanged their hues with her every pulsation.
  
  "Do you remember what we said to each other this morning about
  telling our faults?" he asked abruptly, finding that she still
  remained immovable.  "We spoke lightly perhaps, and you may well
  have done so.  But for me it was no light promise.  I want to make
  a confession to you, Love."
  
  This, from him, so unexpectedly apposite, had the effect upon her of
  a Providential interposition.
  
  "You have to confess something?" she said quickly, and even with
  gladness and relief.
  
  "You did not expect it?  Ah--you thought too highly of me.  Now
  listen.  Put your head there, because I want you to forgive me, and
  not to be indignant with me for not telling you before, as perhaps
  I ought to have done."
  
  How strange it was!  He seemed to be her double.  She did not speak,
  and Clare went on--
  
  "I did not mention it because I was afraid of endangering my chance
  of you, darling, the great prize of my life--my Fellowship I call
  you.  My brother's Fellowship was won at his college, mine at
  Talbothays Dairy.  Well, I would not risk it.  I was going to tell
  you a month ago--at the time you agreed to be mine, but I could not;
  I thought it might frighten you away from me.  I put it off; then I
  thought I would tell you yesterday, to give you a chance at least of
  escaping me.  But I did not.  And I did not this morning, when you
  proposed our confessing our faults on the landing--the sinner that I
  was!  But I must, now I see you sitting there so solemnly.  I wonder
  if you will forgive me?"
  
  "O yes!  I am sure that--"
  
  "Well, I hope so.  But wait a minute.  You don't know. To begin at
  the beginning.  Though I imagine my poor father fears that I am one
  of the eternally lost for my doctrines, I am of course, a believer in
  good morals, Tess, as much as you.  I used to wish to be a teacher of
  men, and it was a great disappointment to me when I found I could not
  enter the Church.  I admired spotlessness, even though I could lay no
  claim to it, and hated impurity, as I hope I do now.  Whatever one
  may think of plenary inspiration, one must heartily subscribe to
  these words of Paul: 'Be thou an example--in word, in conversation,
  in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.'  It is the only
  safeguard for us poor human beings.  '_Integer vitae_,' says a Roman
  poet, who is strange company for St Paul--
  
  
    "The man of upright life, from frailties free,
     Stands not in need of Moorish spear or bow.
  
  
  "Well, a certain place is paved with good intentions, and having felt
  all that so strongly, you will see what a terrible remorse it bred
  in me when, in the midst of my fine aims for other people, I myself
  fell."
  
  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?"
  
  She pressed his hand tightly for an answer.
  
  "Then we will dismiss it at once and for ever!--too painful as it is
  for the occasion--and talk of something lighter."
  
  "O, Angel--I am almost glad--because now YOU can forgive ME!  I have
  not made my confession.  I have a confession, too--remember, I said
  so."
  
  "Ah, to be sure!  Now then for it, wicked little one."
  
  "Perhaps, although you smile, it is as serious as yours, or more so."
  
  "It can hardly be more serious, dearest."
  
  "It cannot--O no, it cannot!"  She jumped up joyfully at the hope.
  "No, it cannot be more serious, certainly," she cried, "because 'tis
  just the same! I will tell you now."
  
  She sat down again.
  
  Their hands were still joined.  The ashes under the grate were lit
  by the fire vertically, like a torrid waste.  Imagination might have
  beheld a Last Day luridness in this red-coaled glow, which fell on
  his face and hand, and on hers, peering into the loose hair about her
  brow, and firing the delicate skin underneath.  A large shadow of her
  shape rose upon the wall and ceiling.  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.
  
  
  END OF PHASE THE FOURTH
  
  
  
  
  
  Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter XXXIV
target: Tess and Angel stay their first night as man and wife in the shoddy old d'Urberville mansion, where portraits of earlier d'Urberville women spook Tess. Angel, who is pleased to have a wife of noble lineage, notices that despite the terrifying countenances of the framed women, they bear a resemblance to his new wife. A package arrives from Angel's father. It contains diamond heirloom jewelry for a shocked Tess who looks more brilliant than the diamonds to her admiring new husband after she puts them on. However, almost immediately a man arrives late with their luggage and explains he was delayed by the suicide of Retty the milkmaid. Marian, another lovelorn milkmaid has also taken to drink. The newlyweds attempt to shake off the disastrous news, and Angel confesses to Tess about an earlier sexual indiscretion with a stranger. Deeply relieved, Tess finally confesses her own past to Angel without flinching, safe in the knowledge that he will forgive her because her "crime" with Alec d'Urberville is "just the same".
feat_summary_analysis: . Angel's family doesn't know what to make of their son's choice for a wife. Despite the rationality behind his decision--a farm woman is worth more to him than one familiar with the niceties of upper-class Victorian society-- they, especially his mother, are snobs and worry about their social standing and their position in the church. They immediately characterize Tess as low class and suggest Angel marry Mercy Chance instead. In addition, they are appalled that Angel's manners have deteriorated during the time he has spent away. Perhaps he has been contaminated by Tess who is sure to lower their social standing in the eyes of their neighbors. Both of Angel's brothers have entered the church and are also displeased with his choice of a common woman. Intellectuals, they are emotionally frozen. While Angel seems removed from his family, such training has also worked its way deep into his psyche and this will become increasing apparent. Is he saying one thing--that he totally accepts and loves Tess despite her lack of social and financial standing--or is he also a snob and a hypocrite. He has given up the church to live a more humble existence on the land, but his actions in the future bear watching. Consider that although Angel has earlier claimed to dislike ancient families, he is happy to learn of Tess's lineage and prompts her to use d'Urberville instead of Durbeyfield: "he could take her on a visit to his parents and impart the knowledge while triumphantly producing her as worthy of such an ancient line". In short, Angel, like Tess, is not what he seems. Tess idealizes him entirely and sees him as a pagan god wandering around in the fertile fields--a man of Nature in search of a natural woman: "It seemed natural enough to him now that Tess was again in sight to choose a mate from unrestrained Nature and not from the abodes of Art". But, Tess takes on Angel's gestures and mimics his words and thus becomes less of what he makes her out to be, or indeed what he says he wants her to be. In the Victorian era, women's sexuality was denied, and they took on the role of Angel of the House, above men spiritually, and the moral guide of their children. A true lady merely tolerated sex for procreation. Tess's denial of Angel's advances makes Tess appear even more pure: "I know you to be the most honest, most spotless creature that ever lived". However, Angel fails to see Tess as a living breathing human, and when anyone is placed this high, down is the only direction they can move. While Tess does make several attempts to tell Angel the truth about her past, in fairness she chooses not to tell him out of fear that she will lose him. Yes, writing him the letter and attempting to tell him immediately before the wedding count as sincere efforts, but in reality, she held back the truth and married him: "I can't bear to let anyone have him but me. Yet it is a wrong to him, and may kill him when he knows. Tess uses her mother's advice to justify her actions and chooses not to risk losing Angel. To Tess's credit, however, she decides to tell her new husband the truth, even though at this point she could have continued to withhold it