EFFECT OF THE LETTER -- SUNRISE

AT dusk, on the evening of St. Valentine's Day, Bold-wood sat down to supper as usual, by a beaming fireof aged logs. Upon the mantel-shelf before him wasa time-piece, surmounted by a spread eagle, and uponthe eagle's wings was the letter Bathsheba had sent.Here the bachelor's gaze was continually fasteningitself, till the large red seal became as a blot of bloodon the retina of his eye; and as he ate and drank hestill read in fancy the words thereon, although theywere too remote for his sight --”MARRY ME.”The pert injunction was like those crystal substanceswhich, colourless themselves, assume the tone of objectsabout them. Here, in the quiet of Boldwood's parlour,where everything that ,was not grave was extraneous,and where the atmosphere was that of a Puritan Sundaylasting all the week, the letter and its dictum changed”their tenor from the thoughtlessness of their origin toa deep solemnity, imbibed from their accessoriesnow.Since the receipt of the missive in the morning,Boldwood had felt the symmetry of his existence tobe slowly getting distorted in the direction of an idealpassion. The disturbance was as the first floatingweed to Columbus -- the eontemptibly little suggestingpossibilities of the infinitely great.The letter must have had an origin and a motive.That the latter was of the smallest magnitude com-patible with its existence at all, Boldwood, of course,did not know. And such an explanation did notstrike him as a possibility even. It is foreign to amystified condition of mind to realize of the mystifierthat the processes of approving a course suggested bycircumstance, and of striking out a course from innerimpulse, would look the same in the result. The vastdifference between starting a train of events, and direct-ing into a particular groove a series already started, israrely apparent to the person confounded by theissue.When Boldwood went to bed he placed the valen-tine in the corner of the looking-glass. He wasconscious of its presence, even when his back wasturned upon it. It was the first time in Boldwood'slife that such an event had occurred. The samefascination that caused him to think it an act which hada deliberate motive prevented him from regarding it asan impertinence. He looked again at the direction.The mysterious influences of night invested the writingwith the presence of the unknown writer. Somebody'ssome woman's -- hand had travelled softly over thepaper bearing his name; her unrevealed eyes hadwatched every curve as she formed it; her brain hadseen him in imagination the while. Why shouldshe have imagined him? Her mouth -- were the lipsred or pale, plump or creased? -- had curved itself to acertain expression as the pen went on -- the corners hadmoved with all their natural tremulousness: what hadbeen the expression?The vision of the woman writing, as a supplement tothe words written, had no individuality. She was amisty shape, and well she might be, considering thather original was at that moment sound asleep andoblivious of all love and letter-writing under the sky.Whenever Boldwood dozed she took a form, and com-paratively ceased to be a vision: when he awoke therewas the letter justifying the dream.The moon shone to-night, and its light was not ofa customary kind. His window admitted only areflection of its rays, and the pale sheen had thatreversed direction which snow gives, coming upwardand lighting up his ceiling in an unnatural way, castingshadows in strange places, and putting lights whereshadows had used to be.The substance of the epistle had occupied him butlittle in comparison with the fact of its arrival. Hesuddenly wondered if anything more might be found inthe envelope than what he had withdrawn. He jumpedout of bed in the weird light, took the letter, pulled outthe flimsy sheet, shook the envelope -- searched it.Nothing more was there. Boldwood looked, as hehad a hundred times the preceding day, at the insistent redseal: ”Marry me.” he said aloud.The solemn and reserved yeoman again closed theletter, and stuck it in the frame of the glass. In doingso he caught sight of his reflected features, wan inexpression, and insubstantial in form. He saw howclosely compressed was his mouth, and that his eyeswere wide-spread and vacant. Feeling uneasy and dis-satisfied with himself for this nervous excitability, hereturned to bed.Then the dawn drew on. The full power of theclear heaven was not equal to that of a cloudy sky atnoon, when Boldwood arose and dressed himself. Hedescended the stairs and went out towards the gate ofa field to the east, leaning over which he paused andlooked around.It was one of the usual slow sunrises of this time ofthe year, and the sky, pure violet in the zenith, wasleaden to the northward, and murky to the east, where,over the snowy down or ewe-lease on WeatherburyUpper Farm, and apparently resting upon the ridge, theonly half of the sun yet visible burnt rayless, like a redand flameless fire shining over a white hearthstone.The whole effect resembled a sunset as childhoodresembles age.In other directions, the fields and sky were so muchof one colour by the snow, that it was difficult in ahasty glance to tell whereabouts the horizon occurred;and in general there was here, too, that before-mentionedpreternatural inversion of light and shade which attendsthe prospect when the garish brightness commonly inthe sky is found on the earth, and the shades of earthare in the sky. Over the west hung the wasting moon,now dull and greenish-yellow, like tarnished brass.Boldwood was listlessly noting how the frost hadhardened and glazed the surface of the snow, till itshone in the red eastern light wit-h the polish of marble;how, in some portions of the slope, withered grass-bents,encased in icicles, bristled through the smooth wancoverlet in the twisted and curved shapes of oldVenetian glass; and how the footprints of a few birds,which had hopped over the snow whilst it lay in thestate of a soft fleece, were now frozen to a short perma-nency. A half-muffled noise of light wheels interruptedhim. Boldwood turned back into the road. It wasthe mail-cart -- a crazy, two-wheeled vehicle, hardlyheavy enough to resist a puff of wind. The driver heldout a letter. Boldwood seized it and opened it, ex-pecting another anonymous one -- so greatly are people'sideas of probability a mere sense that precedent willrepeat itself.”I don't think it is for you, sir.” said the man, whenhe saw Boldwood's action. ”Though there is no nameI think it is for your shepherd.”Boldwood looked then at the address --To the New Shepherd,Weatherbury Farm,Near Casterbridge.”Oh -- what a mistake! -- it is not mine. Nor is itfor my shepherd. It is for Miss Everdene's.” You hadbetter take it on to him -- Gabriel Oak -- and say I openedit in mistake.”At this moment, on the ridge, up against the blazingsky, a figure was visible, like the black snuff in themidst of a candle-flame. Then it moved and began tobustle about vigorously from place to place, carryingsquare skeleton masses, which were riddled by the samerays. A small figure on all fours followed behind. Thetall form was that of Gabriel Oak; the small one thatof George; the articles in course of transit were hurdles.”Wait,” said Boldwood.” That's the man on the hill.I'll take the letter to him myself.”To Boldwood it was now no longer merely a letter toI another man. It was an opportunity. Exhibiting aface pregnant with intention, he entered the snowy field.Gabriel, at that minute, descended the hill towardsthe right. The glow stretched down in this directionnow, and touched the distant roof of Warren's Malthousewhither the shepherd was apparently bent: Boldwoodfollowed at a distance.



CHAPTER XV