TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES
PART 25
LIX
The city
of Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime capital of Wessex, lay amidst
its convex and concave downlands in all the brightness and warmth of a July
morning. The gabled brick, tile, and freestone houses had almost dried off for
the season their integument of lichen, the streams in the meadows were low, and
in the sloping High Street, from the West Gateway to the mediæval cross, and
from the mediæval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping was
in progress which usually ushers in an old-fashioned market-day.
From the
western gate aforesaid the highway, as every Wintoncestrian knows, ascends a long
and regular incline of the exact length of a measured mile, leaving the houses
gradually behind. Up this road from the precincts of the city two persons were
walking rapidly, as if unconscious of the trying ascent—unconscious through
preoccupation and not through buoyancy. They had emerged upon this road through
a narrow, barred wicket in a high wall a little lower down. They seemed anxious
to get out of the sight of the houses and of their kind, and this road appeared
to offer the quickest means of doing so. Though they were young, they walked
with bowed heads, which gait of grief the sun's rays smiled on pitilessly.
One of the
pair was Angel Clare, the other a tall budding creature—half girl, half woman—a
spiritualized image of Tess, slighter than she, but with the same beautiful
eyes—Clare's sister-in-law, 'Liza-Lu. Their pale faces seemed to have shrunk to
half their natural size. They moved on hand in hand, and never spoke a word,
the drooping of their heads being that of Giotto's "Two Apostles".
When they
had nearly reached the top of the great West Hill the clocks in the town struck
eight. Each gave a start at the notes, and, walking onward yet a few steps,
they reached the first milestone, standing whitely on the green margin of the
grass, and backed by the down, which here was open to the road. They entered
upon the turf, and, impelled by a force that seemed to overrule their will,
suddenly stood still, turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense beside the
stone.
The
prospect from this summit was almost unlimited. In the valley beneath lay the
city they had just left, its more prominent buildings showing as in an
isometric drawing—among them the broad cathedral tower, with its Norman windows
and immense length of aisle and nave, the spires of St Thomas's, the pinnacled
tower of the College, and, more to the right, the tower and gables of the
ancient hospice, where to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread
and ale. Behind the city swept the rotund upland of St Catherine's Hill;
further off, landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was lost in the
radiance of the sun hanging above it.
Against
these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other city edifices, a
large red-brick building, with level gray roofs, and rows of short barred
windows bespeaking captivity, the whole contrasting greatly by its formalism
with the quaint irregularities of the Gothic erections. It was somewhat
disguised from the road in passing it by yews and evergreen oaks, but it was
visible enough up here. The wicket from which the pair had lately emerged was
in the wall of this structure. From the middle of the building an ugly
flat-topped octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and viewed from
this spot, on its shady side and against the light, it seemed the one blot on
the city's beauty. Yet it was with this blot, and not with the beauty, that the
two gazers were concerned.
Upon the
cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes were riveted on it. A
few minutes after the hour had struck something moved slowly up the staff, and
extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag.
"Justice" was done, and the President of the
Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. And the
d'Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two
speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and
remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave
silently. As soon as they had strength, they arose, joined hands again, and
went on.
The End
