Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy [best ereader for pdf txt] 📗

trees, sky, any trivial object before her eyes, whilst his reproaches fell, but ingenuity could not save her now.

“I did not take you up⁠—surely I did not!” she answered as heroically as she could. “But don’t be in this mood with me. I can endure being told I am in the wrong, if you will only tell it me gently! O sir, will you not kindly forgive me, and look at it cheerfully?”

“Cheerfully! Can a man fooled to utter heart-burning find a reason for being merry? If I have lost, how can I be as if I had won? Heavens you must be heartless quite! Had I known what a fearfully bitter sweet this was to be, how I would have avoided you, and never seen you, and been deaf of you. I tell you all this, but what do you care! You don’t care.”

She returned silent and weak denials to his charges, and swayed her head desperately, as if to thrust away the words as they came showering about her ears from the lips of the trembling man in the climax of life, with his bronzed Roman face and fine frame.

“Dearest, dearest, I am wavering even now between the two opposites of recklessly renouncing you, and labouring humbly for you again. Forget that you have said No, and let it be as it was! Say, Bathsheba, that you only wrote that refusal to me in fun⁠—come, say it to me!”

“It would be untrue, and painful to both of us. You overrate my capacity for love. I don’t possess half the warmth of nature you believe me to have. An unprotected childhood in a cold world has beaten gentleness out of me.”

He immediately said with more resentment: “That may be true, somewhat; but ah, Miss Everdene, it won’t do as a reason! You are not the cold woman you would have me believe. No, no! It isn’t because you have no feeling in you that you don’t love me. You naturally would have me think so⁠—you would hide from me that you have a burning heart like mine. You have love enough, but it is turned into a new channel. I know where.”

The swift music of her heart became hubbub now, and she throbbed to extremity. He was coming to Troy. He did then know what had occurred! And the name fell from his lips the next moment.

“Why did Troy not leave my treasure alone?” he asked, fiercely. “When I had no thought of injuring him, why did he force himself upon your notice! Before he worried you your inclination was to have me; when next I should have come to you your answer would have been Yes. Can you deny it⁠—I ask, can you deny it?”

She delayed the reply, but was too honest to withhold it. “I cannot,” she whispered.

“I know you cannot. But he stole in in my absence and robbed me. Why didn’t he win you away before, when nobody would have been grieved?⁠—when nobody would have been set tale-bearing. Now the people sneer at me⁠—the very hills and sky seem to laugh at me till I blush shamefully for my folly. I have lost my respect, my good name, my standing⁠—lost it, never to get it again. Go and marry your man⁠—go on!”

“Oh sir⁠—Mr. Boldwood!”

“You may as well. I have no further claim upon you. As for me, I had better go somewhere alone, and hide⁠—and pray. I loved a woman once. I am now ashamed. When I am dead they’ll say, miserable love-sick man that he was. Heaven⁠—heaven⁠—if I had got jilted secretly, and the dishonour not known, and my position kept! But no matter, it is gone, and the woman not gained. Shame upon him⁠—shame!”

His unreasonable anger terrified her, and she glided from him, without obviously moving, as she said, “I am only a girl⁠—do not speak to me so!”

“All the time you knew⁠—how very well you knew⁠—that your new freak was my misery. Dazzled by brass and scarlet⁠—Oh, Bathsheba⁠—this is woman’s folly indeed!”

She fired up at once. “You are taking too much upon yourself!” she said, vehemently. “Everybody is upon me⁠—everybody. It is unmanly to attack a woman so! I have nobody in the world to fight my battles for me; but no mercy is shown. Yet if a thousand of you sneer and say things against me, I will not be put down!”

“You’ll chatter with him doubtless about me. Say to him, ‘Boldwood would have died for me.’ Yes, and you have given way to him, knowing him to be not the man for you. He has kissed you⁠—claimed you as his. Do you hear⁠—he has kissed you. Deny it!”

The most tragic woman is cowed by a tragic man, and although Boldwood was, in vehemence and glow, nearly her own self rendered into another sex, Bathsheba’s cheek quivered. She gasped, “Leave me, sir⁠—leave me! I am nothing to you. Let me go on!”

“Deny that he has kissed you.”

“I shall not.”

“Ha⁠—then he has!” came hoarsely from the farmer.

“He has,” she said, slowly, and, in spite of her fear, defiantly. “I am not ashamed to speak the truth.”

“Then curse him; and curse him!” said Boldwood, breaking into a whispered fury. “Whilst I would have given worlds to touch your hand, you have let a rake come in without right or ceremony and⁠—kiss you! Heaven’s mercy⁠—kiss you!⁠ ⁠… Ah, a time of his life shall come when he will have to repent, and think wretchedly of the pain he has caused another man; and then may he ache, and wish, and curse, and yearn⁠—as I do now!”

“Don’t, don’t, oh, don’t pray down evil upon him!” she implored in a miserable cry. “Anything but that⁠—anything. Oh, be kind to him, sir, for I love him true!”

Boldwood’s ideas had reached that point of fusion at which outline and consistency entirely disappear. The impending night appeared to concentrate in his eye. He did not hear her at all now.

“I’ll punish him⁠—by my soul, that will I! I’ll meet him, soldier