Far from the Madding Crowd

IN THE MARKET-PLACE

ON Saturday Boldwood was in Casterbridge markethouse as usual, when the disturber of his dreams enteredand became visible to him. Adam had awakened fromhis deep sleep, and behold! there was Eve. Thefarmer took courage, and for the first time really lookedat her.Material causes and emotional effects are not to bearranged in regular equation. The result from capitalemployed in the production of any movement of amental nature is sometimes as tremendous as the causeitself is absurdly minute. When women are in a freakishmood, their usual intuition, either from carelessness orinherent defect, seemingly fails to teach them this, andhence it was that Bathsheba was fated to be astonishedtoday.Boldwood looked at her -- not slily, critically, orunderstandingly, but blankly at gaze, in the way areaper looks up at a passing train -- as something foreignto his element, and but dimly understood. To Bold-wood women had been remote phenomena rather thannecessary complements -- comets of such uncertainaspect, movement, and permanence, that whethertheir orbits were as geometrical, unchangeable, andas subject to laws as his own, or as absolutely erraticas they superficially appeared, he had not deemed ithis duty to consider.He saw her black hair, her correct facial curvesand profile, and the roundness of her chin and throat.He saw then the side of her eyelids, eyes, and lashes,and the shape of her ear. Next he noticed her figure,her skirt, and the very soles of her shoes.Boldwood thought her beautiful, but wonderedwhether he was right in his thought, for it seemedimpossible that this romance in the flesh, if so sweetas he imagined, could have been going on long withoutcreating a commotion of delight among men, and pro-voking more inquiry than Bathsheba had done, eventhough that was not a little. To the best of his judge-ment neither nature nor art could improve this perfectone of an imperfect many. His heart began to movewithin him. Boldwood, it must be remembered, thoughforty years of age, had never before inspected a womanwith the very centre and force of his glance; they hadstruck upon all his senses at wide angles.Was she really beautiful? He could not assurehimself that his opinion was true even now. He fur-tively said to a neighbour, ”Is Miss Everdene consideredhandsome?””O yes; she was a good deal noticed the firsttime she came, if you remember. A very handsomegirl indeed.”A man is never more credulous than in receivingfavourable opinions on the beauty of a woman he ishalf, or quite, in love with; a mere child's word on thepoint has the weight of an R.A.'s. Boldwood wassatisfied now.And this charming woman had in effect said tohim, ”Marry me.” Why should she have done thatstrange thing? Boldwood's blindness to the differencebetween approving of what circumstances suggest, andoriginating what they do not suggest, was well matchedby Bathsheba's insensibility to the possibly great issuesof little beginnings.She was at this moment coolly dealing with a dashingyoung farmer, adding up accounts with him as indiffer-ently as if his face had been the pages of a ledger. Itwas evident that such a nature as his had no attractionfor a woman of Bathsheba's taste. But Boldwood grewhot down to his hands with an incipient jealousy; hetrod for the first time the threshold of ”the injuredlover's hell.” His first impulse was to go and thrusthimself between them. This could be done, but onlyin one way -- by asking to see a sample of her corn.Boldwood renounced the idea. He could not makethe request; it was debasing loveliness to ask it tobuy and sell, and jarred with his conceptions of her.All this time Bathsheba was conscious of havingbroken into that dignified stronghold at last. Hiseyes, she knew, were following her everywhere. Thiswas a triumph; and had it come naturally, such atriumph would have been the sweeter to her for thispiquing delay. But it had been brought about bymisdirected ingenuity, and she valued it only as shevalued an artificial flower or a wax fruit.Being a woman with some good sense in reasoningon subjects wherein her heart was not involved, Bath-sheba genuinely repented that a freak which had owedits existence as much to Liddy as to herself, shouldever have been undertaken, to disturb the placidity ofa man she respected too highly to deliberately tease.She that day nearly formed the intention of begginghis pardon on the very next occasion of their meeting.The worst features of this arrangement were that, ifhe thought she ridiculed him, an apology would in-crease the offence by being disbelieved; and if hethought she wanted him to woo her, it would readlike additional evidence of her forwardness.



CHAPTER XVIII