feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_12_part_1.txt
feat_book_id: Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 30
feat_summary_id: chapter 30
feat_summary: {"name": "CHAPTER 30", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD40.asp", "summary": "One evening as Tess and Angel transport the milk, Angel points out an old mansion that used to belong to the D'Urberville family. Tess takes it as a sign that it is time to tell Angel about her past. When he begs her again to marry him, she says that she needs to tell him some things about herself. She discloses that her ancestors are D'Urbervilles; she assumes Angel will be upset, for she knows his dislike towards old families and the D'Urbervilles in particular. Angel dismisses her apprehension and proclaims that her background will not affect their love. He also believes that such a relationship will impress his mother and further Tess's cause with her. Tess's strong desire to reveal the rest of her story without prevarication weakens. She tells Angel she will marry him and then begins to cry. Angel kisses his fiancee passionately and then recalls that he has seen her before at the dance in Marlott.", "analysis": "Notes In this chapter, a panicked Tess tries to disclose all of her past misadventure to Angel, but her courage fails her. Instead, she only manages to tell him that she is from the D'Urberville family, a fact that she thinks may discourage Angel's love. Quite the opposite happens; Angel realizes that this association will make Tess more welcomed as his wife by his mother and society. Undone by this reaction on Angel's part, Tess looses all resolve to stay single. She tells Angel she will marry him. Angel rejoices at her acceptance. Tess, however, sobs over breaking her vow of remaining single and failing to reveal her past. Angel is perplexed by her tears but is delighted in her passionate kiss. It begins to rain on the engaged couple. They are quickly drenched, but proclaim that their love will be able to face all the odds. The reader is not so certain"}
text: 
  
  In the diminishing daylight they went along the level roadway through
  the meads, which stretched away into gray miles, and were backed in
  the extreme edge of distance by the swarthy and abrupt slopes of
  Egdon Heath.  On its summit stood clumps and stretches of fir-trees,
  whose notched tips appeared like battlemented towers crowning
  black-fronted castles of enchantment.
  
  They were so absorbed in the sense of being close to each other that
  they did not begin talking for a long while, the silence being broken
  only by the clucking of the milk in the tall cans behind them.
  The lane they followed was so solitary that the hazel nuts had
  remained on the boughs till they slipped from their shells, and the
  blackberries hung in heavy clusters.  Every now and then Angel would
  fling the lash of his whip round one of these, pluck it off, and give
  it to his companion.
  
  The dull sky soon began to tell its meaning by sending down
  herald-drops of rain, and the stagnant air of the day changed into
  a fitful breeze which played about their faces.  The quick-silvery
  glaze on the rivers and pools vanished; from broad mirrors of light
  they changed to lustreless sheets of lead, with a surface like a
  rasp.  But that spectacle did not affect her preoccupation.  Her
  countenance, a natural carnation slightly embrowned by the season,
  had deepened its tinge with the beating of the rain-drops; and her
  hair, which the pressure of the cows' flanks had, as usual, caused to
  tumble down from its fastenings and stray beyond the curtain of her
  calico bonnet, was made clammy by the moisture, till it hardly was
  better than seaweed.
  
  "I ought not to have come, I suppose," she murmured, looking at the
  sky.
  
  "I am sorry for the rain," said he.  "But how glad I am to have you
  here!"
  
  Remote Egdon disappeared by degree behind the liquid gauze.  The
  evening grew darker, and the roads being crossed by gates, it was
  not safe to drive faster than at a walking pace.  The air was rather
  chill.
  
  "I am so afraid you will get cold, with nothing upon your arms and
  shoulders," he said.  "Creep close to me, and perhaps the drizzle
  won't hurt you much.  I should be sorrier still if I did not think
  that the rain might be helping me."
  
  She imperceptibly crept closer, and he wrapped round them both a
  large piece of sail-cloth, which was sometimes used to keep the sun
  off the milk-cans.  Tess held it from slipping off him as well as
  herself, Clare's hands being occupied.
  
  "Now we are all right again.  Ah--no we are not!  It runs down into
  my neck a little, and it must still more into yours.  That's better.
  Your arms are like wet marble, Tess.  Wipe them in the cloth.  Now,
  if you stay quiet, you will not get another drop.  Well, dear--about
  that question of mine--that long-standing question?"
  
  The only reply that he could hear for a little while was the smack of
  the horse's hoofs on the moistening road, and the cluck of the milk
  in the cans behind them.
  
  "Do you remember what you said?"
  
  "I do," she replied.
  
  "Before we get home, mind."
  
  "I'll try."
  
  He said no more then.  As they drove on, the fragment of an old manor
  house of Caroline date rose against the sky, and was in due course
  passed and left behind.
  
  "That," he observed, to entertain her, "is an interesting old
  place--one of the several seats which belonged to an ancient Norman
  family formerly of great influence in this county, the d'Urbervilles.
  I never pass one of their residences without thinking of them.  There
  is something very sad in the extinction of a family of renown, even
  if it was fierce, domineering, feudal renown."
  
  "Yes," said Tess.
  
  They crept along towards a point in the expanse of shade just at hand
  at which a feeble light was beginning to assert its presence, a spot
  where, by day, a fitful white streak of steam at intervals upon the
  dark green background denoted intermittent moments of contact between
  their secluded world and modern life.  Modern life stretched out its
  steam feeler to this point three or four times a day, touched the
  native existences, and quickly withdrew its feeler again, as if what
  it touched had been uncongenial.
  
  They reached the feeble light, which came from the smoky lamp of a
  little railway station; a poor enough terrestrial star, yet in one
  sense of more importance to Talbothays Dairy and mankind than the
  celestial ones to which it stood in such humiliating contrast.  The
  cans of new milk were unladen in the rain, Tess getting a little
  shelter from a neighbouring holly tree.
  
  Then there was the hissing of a train, which drew up almost silently
  upon the wet rails, and the milk was rapidly swung can by can into
  the truck.  The light of the engine flashed for a second upon Tess
  Durbeyfield's figure, motionless under the great holly tree.  No
  object could have looked more foreign to the gleaming cranks and
  wheels than this unsophisticated girl, with the round bare arms, the
  rainy face and hair, the suspended attitude of a friendly leopard at
  pause, the print gown of no date or fashion, and the cotton bonnet
  drooping on her brow.
  
  She mounted again beside her lover, with a mute obedience
  characteristic of impassioned natures at times, and when they had
  wrapped themselves up over head and ears in the sailcloth again, they
  plunged back into the now thick night.  Tess was so receptive that
  the few minutes of contact with the whirl of material progress
  lingered in her thought.
  
  "Londoners will drink it at their breakfasts to-morrow, won't they?"
  she asked.  "Strange people that we have never seen."
  
  "Yes--I suppose they will.  Though not as we send it.  When its
  strength has been lowered, so that it may not get up into their
  heads."
  
  "Noble men and noble women, ambassadors and centurions, ladies and
  tradeswomen, and babies who have never seen a cow."
  
  "Well, yes; perhaps; particularly centurions."
  
  "Who don't know anything of us, and where it comes from; or think how
  we two drove miles across the moor to-night in the rain that it might
  reach 'em in time?"
  
  "We did not drive entirely on account of these precious Londoners; we
  drove a little on our own--on account of that anxious matter which
  you will, I am sure, set at rest, dear Tess.  Now, permit me to put
  it in this way.  You belong to me already, you know; your heart, I
  mean. Does it not?"
  
  "You know as well as I.  O yes--yes!"
  
  "Then, if your heart does, why not your hand?"
  
  "My only reason was on account of you--on account of a question.  I
  have something to tell you--"
  
  "But suppose it to be entirely for my happiness, and my worldly
  convenience also?"
  
  "O yes; if it is for your happiness and worldly convenience.  But my
  life before I came here--I want--"
  
  "Well, it is for my convenience as well as my happiness.  If I have a
  very large farm, either English or colonial, you will be invaluable
  as a wife to me; better than a woman out of the largest mansion in
  the country.  So please--please, dear Tessy, disabuse your mind of
  the feeling that you will stand in my way."
  
  "But my history.  I want you to know it--you must let me tell
  you--you will not like me so well!"
  
  "Tell it if you wish to, dearest.  This precious history then.  Yes,
  I was born at so and so, Anno Domini--"
  
  "I was born at Marlott," she said, catching at his words as a help,
  lightly as they were spoken.  "And I grew up there. And I was in the
  Sixth Standard when I left school, and they said I had great aptness,
  and should make a good teacher, so it was settled that I should
  be one.  But there was trouble in my family; father was not very
  industrious, and he drank a little."
  
  "Yes, yes.  Poor child!  Nothing new."  He pressed her more closely
  to his side.
  
  "And then--there is something very unusual about it--about me.  I--I
  was--"
  
  Tess's breath quickened.
  
  "Yes, dearest.  Never mind."
  
  "I--I--am not a Durbeyfield, but a d'Urberville--a descendant of the
  same family as those that owned the old house we passed.  And--we are
  all gone to nothing!"
  
  "A d'Urberville!--Indeed!  And is that all the trouble, dear Tess?"
  
  "Yes," she answered faintly.
  
  "Well--why should I love you less after knowing this?"
  
  "I was told by the dairyman that you hated old families."
  
  He laughed.
  
  "Well, it is true, in one sense.  I do hate the aristocratic
  principle of blood before everything, and do think that as reasoners
  the only pedigrees we ought to respect are those spiritual ones of
  the wise and virtuous, without regard to corporal paternity.  But
  I am extremely interested in this news--you can have no idea how
  interested I am!  Are you not interested yourself in being one of
  that well-known line?"
  
  "No.  I have thought it sad--especially since coming here, and
  knowing that many of the hills and fields I see once belonged to
  my father's people.  But other hills and field belonged to Retty's
  people, and perhaps others to Marian's, so that I don't value it
  particularly."
  
  "Yes--it is surprising how many of the present tillers of the soil
  were once owners of it, and I sometimes wonder that a certain school
  of politicians don't make capital of the circumstance; but they don't
  seem to know it...  I wonder that I did not see the resemblance of
  your name to d'Urberville, and trace the manifest corruption.  And
  this was the carking secret!"
  
  She had not told.  At the last moment her courage had failed her;
  she feared his blame for not telling him sooner; and her instinct
  of self-preservation was stronger than her candour.
  
  "Of course," continued the unwitting Clare, "I should have been glad
  to know you to be descended exclusively from the long-suffering,
  dumb, unrecorded rank and file of the English nation, and not from
  the self-seeking few who made themselves powerful at the expense of
  the rest.  But I am corrupted away from that by my affection for you,
  Tess (he laughed as he spoke), and made selfish likewise.  For your
  own sake I rejoice in your descent.  Society is hopelessly snobbish,
  and this fact of your extraction may make an appreciable difference
  to its acceptance of you as my wife, after I have made you the
  well-read woman that I mean to make you.  My mother too, poor soul,
  will think so much better of you on account of it.  Tess, you must
  spell your name correctly--d'Urberville--from this very day."
  
  "I like the other way rather best."
  
  "But you MUST, dearest!  Good heavens, why dozens of mushroom
  millionaires would jump at such a possession!  By the bye, there's
  one of that kidney who has taken the name--where have I heard of
  him?--Up in the neighbourhood of The Chase, I think.  Why, he is the
  very man who had that rumpus with my father I told you of.  What an
  odd coincidence!"
  
  "Angel, I think I would rather not take the name!  It is unlucky,
  perhaps!"
  
  She was agitated.
  
  "Now then, Mistress Teresa d'Urberville, I have you.  Take my name,
  and so you will escape yours!  The secret is out, so why should you
  any longer refuse me?"
  
  "If it is SURE to make you happy to have me as your wife, and you
  feel that you do wish to marry me, VERY, VERY much--"
  
  "I do, dearest, of course!"
  
  "I mean, that it is only your wanting me very much, and being hardly
  able to keep alive without me, whatever my offences, that would make
  me feel I ought to say I will."
  
  "You will--you do say it, I know!  You will be mine for ever and
  ever."
  
  He clasped her close and kissed her.
  
  "Yes!"
  
  She had no sooner said it than she burst into a dry hard sobbing, so
  violent that it seemed to rend her.  Tess was not a hysterical girl
  by any means, and he was surprised.
  
  "Why do you cry, dearest?"
  
  "I can't tell--quite!--I am so glad to think--of being yours, and
  making you happy!"
  
  "But this does not seem very much like gladness, my Tessy!"
  
  "I mean--I cry because I have broken down in my vow!  I said I would
  die unmarried!"
  
  "But, if you love me you would like me to be your husband?"
  
  "Yes, yes, yes!  But O, I sometimes wish I had never been born!"
  
  "Now, my dear Tess, if I did not know that you are very much excited,
  and very inexperienced, I should say that remark was not very
  complimentary.  How came you to wish that if you care for me?  Do you
  care for me?  I wish you would prove it in some way."
  
  "How can I prove it more than I have done?" she cried, in a
  distraction of tenderness.  "Will this prove it more?"
  
  She clasped his neck, and for the first time Clare learnt what an
  impassioned woman's kisses were like upon the lips of one whom she
  loved with all her heart and soul, as Tess loved him.
  
  "There--now do you believe?" she asked, flushed, and wiping her eyes.
  
  "Yes. I never really doubted--never, never!"
  
  So they drove on through the gloom, forming one bundle inside the
  sail-cloth, the horse going as he would, and the rain driving against
  them.  She had consented.  She might as well have agreed at first.
  The "appetite for joy" which pervades all creation, that tremendous
  force which sways humanity to its purpose, as the tide sways the
  helpless weed, was not to be controlled by vague lucubrations over
  the social rubric.
  
  "I must write to my mother," she said.  "You don't mind my doing
  that?"
  
  "Of course not, dear child.  You are a child to me, Tess, not to know
  how very proper it is to write to your mother at such a time, and how
  wrong it would be in me to object.  Where does she live?"
  
  "At the same place--Marlott.  On the further side of Blackmoor Vale."
  
  "Ah, then I HAVE seen you before this summer--"
  
  "Yes; at that dance on the green; but you would not dance with me.
  O, I hope that is of no ill-omen for us now!"
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: CHAPTER 30
target: One evening as Tess and Angel transport the milk, Angel points out an old mansion that used to belong to the D'Urberville family. Tess takes it as a sign that it is time to tell Angel about her past. When he begs her again to marry him, she says that she needs to tell him some things about herself. She discloses that her ancestors are D'Urbervilles; she assumes Angel will be upset, for she knows his dislike towards old families and the D'Urbervilles in particular. Angel dismisses her apprehension and proclaims that her background will not affect their love. He also believes that such a relationship will impress his mother and further Tess's cause with her. Tess's strong desire to reveal the rest of her story without prevarication weakens. She tells Angel she will marry him and then begins to cry. Angel kisses his fiancee passionately and then recalls that he has seen her before at the dance in Marlott.
feat_summary_analysis: Notes In this chapter, a panicked Tess tries to disclose all of her past misadventure to Angel, but her courage fails her. Instead, she only manages to tell him that she is from the D'Urberville family, a fact that she thinks may discourage Angel's love. Quite the opposite happens; Angel realizes that this association will make Tess more welcomed as his wife by his mother and society. Undone by this reaction on Angel's part, Tess looses all resolve to stay single. She tells Angel she will marry him. Angel rejoices at her acceptance. Tess, however, sobs over breaking her vow of remaining single and failing to reveal her past. Angel is perplexed by her tears but is delighted in her passionate kiss. It begins to rain on the engaged couple. They are quickly drenched, but proclaim that their love will be able to face all the odds. The reader is not so certain