feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_56_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 57
feat_summary_id: chapter 57
feat_summary: {"name": "Phase VII: \"Fulfillment,\" Chapter Fifty-Seven", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-57", "summary": "Angel, meanwhile, has walked back to his hotel. He receives a telegram saying that his brother is engaged to marry Mercy Chant. He decides to leave Sandbourne immediately, and sets out along the road. Tess sees him in the street, and catches up to him at a run. She says that she's killed Alec, and that she owed it to herself and to Angel, for what Alec had done to her when she was young, and for coming between them again now. Angel is horrified, but he only thinks of protecting her and swears never to desert her, no matter what she's done. They set out from the city, walking in a random direction, with no more plans than a couple of kids playing hooky. They decide to head towards London. Angel hopes that they'll be able to get passage on a ship and go to some remote corner of the world together. They walk for more than twenty miles before wearing out. They find an abandoned mansion to spend the night in, and sneak in through one of the windows. The caretaker of the mansion comes in to check the windows that evening, but doesn't enter the room where Tess and Angel have hidden themselves, and they spend the night there.", "analysis": ""}
text: 
  
  Meanwhile Angel Clare had walked automatically along the way by which
  he had come, and, entering his hotel, sat down over the breakfast,
  staring at nothingness.  He went on eating and drinking unconsciously
  till on a sudden he demanded his bill; having paid which, he took his
  dressing-bag in his hand, the only luggage he had brought with him,
  and went out.
  
  At the moment of his departure a telegram was handed to him--a few
  words from his mother, stating that they were glad to know his
  address, and informing him that his brother Cuthbert had proposed to
  and been accepted by Mercy Chant.
  
  Clare crumpled up the paper and followed the route to the station;
  reaching it, he found that there would be no train leaving for an
  hour and more.  He sat down to wait, and having waited a quarter of
  an hour felt that he could wait there no longer.  Broken in heart and
  numbed, he had nothing to hurry for; but he wished to get out of a
  town which had been the scene of such an experience, and turned to
  walk to the first station onward, and let the train pick him up
  there.
  
  The highway that he followed was open, and at a little distance
  dipped into a valley, across which it could be seen running from edge
  to edge.  He had traversed the greater part of this depression, and
  was climbing the western acclivity when, pausing for breath, he
  unconsciously looked back.  Why he did so he could not say, but
  something seemed to impel him to the act.  The tape-like surface of
  the road diminished in his rear as far as he could see, and as he
  gazed a moving spot intruded on the white vacuity of its perspective.
  
  It was a human figure running.  Clare waited, with a dim sense that
  somebody was trying to overtake him.
  
  The form descending the incline was a woman's, yet so entirely was
  his mind blinded to the idea of his wife's following him that even
  when she came nearer he did not recognize her under the totally
  changed attire in which he now beheld her.  It was not till she was
  quite close that he could believe her to be Tess.
  
  "I saw you--turn away from the station--just before I got there--and
  I have been following you all this way!"
  
  She was so pale, so breathless, so quivering in every muscle, that he
  did not ask her a single question, but seizing her hand, and pulling
  it within his arm, he led her along.  To avoid meeting any possible
  wayfarers he left the high road and took a footpath under some
  fir-trees.  When they were deep among the moaning boughs he stopped
  and looked at her inquiringly.
  
  "Angel," she said, as if waiting for this, "do you know what I have
  been running after you for?  To tell you that I have killed him!"
  A pitiful white smile lit her face as she spoke.
  
  "What!" said he, thinking from the strangeness of her manner that she
  was in some delirium.
  
  "I have done it--I don't know how," she continued.  "Still, I owed it
  to you, and to myself, Angel.  I feared long ago, when I struck him
  on the mouth with my glove, that I might do it some day for the trap
  he set for me in my simple youth, and his wrong to you through me.
  He has come between us and ruined us, and now he can never do it any
  more.  I never loved him at all, Angel, as I loved you.  You know it,
  don't you?  You believe it?  You didn't come back to me, and I was
  obliged to go back to him.  Why did you go away--why did you--when I
  loved you so?  I can't think why you did it.  But I don't blame you;
  only, Angel, will you forgive me my sin against you, now I have
  killed him?  I thought as I ran along that you would be sure to
  forgive me now I have done that.  It came to me as a shining light
  that I should get you back that way.  I could not bear the loss of
  you any longer--you don't know how entirely I was unable to bear your
  not loving me!  Say you do now, dear, dear husband; say you do, now I
  have killed him!"
  
  "I do love you, Tess--O, I do--it is all come back!" he said,
  tightening his arms round her with fervid pressure.  "But how do you
  mean--you have killed him?"
  
  "I mean that I have," she murmured in a reverie.
  
  "What, bodily?  Is he dead?"
  
  "Yes.  He heard me crying about you, and he bitterly taunted me; and
  called you by a foul name; and then I did it.  My heart could not
  bear it.  He had nagged me about you before.  And then I dressed
  myself and came away to find you."
  
  By degrees he was inclined to believe that she had faintly attempted,
  at least, what she said she had done; and his horror at her impulse
  was mixed with amazement at the strength of her affection for
  himself, and at the strangeness of its quality, which had apparently
  extinguished her moral sense altogether.  Unable to realize the
  gravity of her conduct, she seemed at last content; and he looked
  at her as she lay upon his shoulder, weeping with happiness, and
  wondered what obscure strain in the d'Urberville blood had led to
  this aberration--if it were an aberration.  There momentarily flashed
  through his mind that the family tradition of the coach and murder
  might have arisen because the d'Urbervilles had been known to do
  these things.  As well as his confused and excited ideas could
  reason, he supposed that in the moment of mad grief of which she
  spoke, her mind had lost its balance, and plunged her into this
  abyss.
  
  It was very terrible if true; if a temporary hallucination, sad.  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!"
  
  They then walked on under the trees, Tess turning her head every now
  and then to look at him.  Worn and unhandsome as he had become, it
  was plain that she did not discern the least fault in his appearance.
  To her he was, as of old, all that was perfection, personally and
  mentally.  He was still her Antinous, her Apollo even; his sickly
  face was beautiful as the morning to her affectionate regard on
  this day no less than when she first beheld him; for was it not the
  face of the one man on earth who had loved her purely, and who had
  believed in her as pure!
  
  With an instinct as to possibilities, he did not now, as he had
  intended, make for the first station beyond the town, but plunged
  still farther under the firs, which here abounded for miles.  Each
  clasping the other round the waist they promenaded over the dry bed
  of fir-needles, thrown into a vague intoxicating atmosphere at the
  consciousness of being together at last, with no living soul between
  them; ignoring that there was a corpse.  Thus they proceeded for
  several miles till Tess, arousing herself, looked about her, and
  said, timidly--
  
  "Are we going anywhere in particular?"
  
  "I don't know, dearest.  Why?"
  
  "I don't know."
  
  "Well, we might walk a few miles further, and when it is evening find
  lodgings somewhere or other--in a lonely cottage, perhaps.  Can you
  walk well, Tessy?"
  
  "O yes!  I could walk for ever and ever with your arm round me!"
  
  Upon the whole it seemed a good thing to do.  Thereupon they
  quickened their pace, avoiding high roads, and following obscure
  paths tending more or less northward.  But there was an unpractical
  vagueness in their movements throughout the day; neither one of them
  seemed to consider any question of effectual escape, disguise, or
  long concealment.  Their every idea was temporary and unforefending,
  like the plans of two children.
  
  At mid-day they drew near to a roadside inn, and Tess would have
  entered it with him to get something to eat, but he persuaded
  her to remain among the trees and bushes of this half-woodland,
  half-moorland part of the country till he should come back.  Her
  clothes were of recent fashion; even the ivory-handled parasol that
  she carried was of a shape unknown in the retired spot to which they
  had now wandered; and the cut of such articles would have attracted
  attention in the settle of a tavern.  He soon returned, with food
  enough for half-a-dozen people and two bottles of wine--enough to
  last them for a day or more, should any emergency arise.
  
  They sat down upon some dead boughs and shared their meal.  Between
  one and two o'clock they packed up the remainder and went on again.
  
  "I feel strong enough to walk any distance," said she.
  
  "I think we may as well steer in a general way towards the interior
  of the country, where we can hide for a time, and are less likely to
  be looked for than anywhere near the coast," Clare remarked.  "Later
  on, when they have forgotten us, we can make for some port."
  
  She made no reply to this beyond that of grasping him more tightly,
  and straight inland they went.  Though the season was an English May,
  the weather was serenely bright, and during the afternoon it was
  quite warm.  Through the latter miles of their walk their footpath
  had taken them into the depths of the New Forest, and towards
  evening, turning the corner of a lane, they perceived behind a brook
  and bridge a large board on which was painted in white letters, "This
  desirable Mansion to be Let Furnished"; particulars following, with
  directions to apply to some London agents.  Passing through the gate
  they could see the house, an old brick building of regular design and
  large accommodation.
  
  "I know it," said Clare.  "It is Bramshurst Court.  You can see that
  it is shut up, and grass is growing on the drive."
  
  "Some of the windows are open," said Tess.
  
  "Just to air the rooms, I suppose."
  
  "All these rooms empty, and we without a roof to our heads!"
  
  "You are getting tired, my Tess!" he said.  "We'll stop soon."  And
  kissing her sad mouth, he again led her onwards.
  
  He was growing weary likewise, for they had wandered a dozen or
  fifteen miles, and it became necessary to consider what they should
  do for rest.  They looked from afar at isolated cottages and little
  inns, and were inclined to approach one of the latter, when their
  hearts failed them, and they sheered off.  At length their gait
  dragged, and they stood still.
  
  "Could we sleep under the trees?" she asked.
  
  He thought the season insufficiently advanced.
  
  "I have been thinking of that empty mansion we passed," he said.
  "Let us go back towards it again."
  
  They retraced their steps, but it was half an hour before they stood
  without the entrance-gate as earlier.  He then requested her to stay
  where she was, whilst he went to see who was within.
  
  She sat down among the bushes within the gate, and Clare crept
  towards the house.  His absence lasted some considerable time, and
  when he returned Tess was wildly anxious, not for herself, but for
  him.  He had found out from a boy that there was only an old woman in
  charge as caretaker, and she only came there on fine days, from the
  hamlet near, to open and shut the windows.  She would come to shut
  them at sunset.  "Now, we can get in through one of the lower
  windows, and rest there," said he.
  
  Under his escort she went tardily forward to the main front, whose
  shuttered windows, like sightless eyeballs, excluded the possibility
  of watchers.  The door was reached a few steps further, and one of
  the windows beside it was open. Clare clambered in, and pulled Tess
  in after him.
  
  Except the hall, the rooms were all in darkness, and they ascended
  the staircase.  Up here also the shutters were tightly closed,
  the ventilation being perfunctorily done, for this day at least,
  by opening the hall-window in front and an upper window behind.
  Clare unlatched the door of a large chamber, felt his way across
  it, and parted the shutters to the width of two or three inches.
  A shaft of dazzling sunlight glanced into the room, revealing heavy,
  old-fashioned furniture, crimson damask hangings, and an enormous
  four-post bedstead, along the head of which were carved running
  figures, apparently Atalanta's race.
  
  "Rest at last!" said he, setting down his bag and the parcel of
  viands.
  
  They remained in great quietness till the caretaker should have come
  to shut the windows: as a precaution, putting themselves in total
  darkness by barring the shutters as before, lest the woman should
  open the door of their chamber for any casual reason.  Between six
  and seven o'clock she came, but did not approach the wing they
  were in.  They heard her close the windows, fasten them, lock the
  door, and go away.  Then Clare again stole a chink of light from
  the window, and they shared another meal, till by-and-by they
  were enveloped in the shades of night which they had no candle to
  disperse.
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Phase VII: "Fulfillment," Chapter Fifty-Seven
target: Angel, meanwhile, has walked back to his hotel. He receives a telegram saying that his brother is engaged to marry Mercy Chant. He decides to leave Sandbourne immediately, and sets out along the road. Tess sees him in the street, and catches up to him at a run. She says that she's killed Alec, and that she owed it to herself and to Angel, for what Alec had done to her when she was young, and for coming between them again now. Angel is horrified, but he only thinks of protecting her and swears never to desert her, no matter what she's done. They set out from the city, walking in a random direction, with no more plans than a couple of kids playing hooky. They decide to head towards London. Angel hopes that they'll be able to get passage on a ship and go to some remote corner of the world together. They walk for more than twenty miles before wearing out. They find an abandoned mansion to spend the night in, and sneak in through one of the windows. The caretaker of the mansion comes in to check the windows that evening, but doesn't enter the room where Tess and Angel have hidden themselves, and they spend the night there.