TROY'S ROMANTICISM
WHEN Troy's wife had left the house at the previousmidnight his first act was to cover the dead from sight.This done he ascended the stairs, and throwing himselfdown upon the bed dressed as he was, he waited miser-ably for the morning.Fate had dealt grimly with him through the last four-and-twenty hours. His day had been spent in a waywhich varied very materially from his intentions regard-ing it. There is always an inertia to be overcome instriking out a new line of conduct -- not more in our-selves, it seems, than in circumscribing events, whichappear as if leagued together to allow no novelties inthe way of amelioration.Twenty pounds having been secured from Bathsheba,he had managed to add to the sum every farthing hecould muster on his own account, which had been sevenpounds ten. With this money, twenty-seven pounds tenin all, he had hastily driven from the gate that morningto keep his appointment with Fanny Robin.On reaching Casterbridge he left the horse and trapat an inn, and at five minutes before ten came back tothe bridge at the lower end of the town, and sat himselfupon the parapet. The clocks struck the hour, and noFanny appeared. In fact, at that moment she was beingrobed in her grave-clothes by two attendants at theUnion poorhouse -- the first and last tiring-women thegentle creature had ever been honoured with. Thequarter went, the half hour. A rush of recollectioncame upon Troy as he waited: this was the secondtime she had broken a serious engagement with himIn anger he vowed it should be the last, and at eleveno'clock, when he had lingered and watched the stoneof the bridge till he knew every lichen upon their faceand heard the chink of the ripples underneath till theyoppressed him, he jumped from his seat, went to the innfor his gig, and in a bitter mood of indifference con-cerning the past, and recklessness about the future,drove on to Budmouth races.He reached the race-course at two o'clock, and re-mained either there or in the town till nine, ButFanny's image, as it had appeared to him in the sombreshadows of that Saturday evening, returned to his mind,backed up by Bathsheba's reproaches. He vowed hewould not bet, and he kept his vow, for on leaving thetown at nine o'clock in the evening he had diminishhis cash only to the extent of a few shillings.He trotted slowly homeward, and it was now thatwas struck for the first time with a thought that Fannyhad been really prevented by illness from keeping herpromise. This time she could have made no mistakeHe regretted that he had not remained in Casterbridgeand made inquiries. Reaching home he quietly un-harnessed the horse and came indoors, as we have seen,to the fearful shock that awaited him.As soon as it grew light enough to distinguish objects,Troy arose from the coverlet of the bed, and in a moodof absolute indifference to Bathsheba's whereabouts, aalmost oblivious of her existence, he stalked downstairsand left the house by the back door. His walk wastowards the churchyard, entering which he searchedaround till he found a newly dug unoccupied grave --the grave dug the day before for Fanny. The positionof this having been marked, he hastened on to Caster-bridge, only pausingwhereon he had last seen Fanny alive.Reaching the town, Troy descended into a sidestreet and entered a pair of gates surmounted by a boardbearing the words, Lester, stone and marble mason.Within were lying about stones of all sizes and designs,inscribed as being sacred to the memory of unnamedpersons who had not yet died.Troy was so unlike himself now in look, word, anddeed, that the want of likeness was perceptible even tohis own consciousness. His method of engaging himselfin this business of purchasing a tomb was that of anabsolutely unpractised man. He could not bring him-self to consider, calculate, or economize. He waywardlywished for something, and he set about obtaining it likea child in a nursery. 'I want a good tomb. he said tothe man who stood in a little office within the yard.I want as good a one as you can give me for twenty-seven pounds,It was all the money he possessed.That sum to include everything?Everything. Cutting the name, carriage to Weather-bury, and erection. And I want it now at once .We could not get anything special worked thisweek.If you would like one of these in stock it could begot ready immediately.Very well. said Troy, impatiently. Let's see whatyou have.The best I have in stock is this one, said the stone-cutter, going into a shed. Here's a marble headstonebeautifully crocketed, with medallions beneath of typicalsubjects; here's the footstone after the same pattern,and here's the coping to enclose the- grave. Theslabs are the best of their kind, and I can warrant themWell, I could add the name, and put it up atvisitor who wore not a shred of mourning. Troy thensettled the account and went away. In the afternoonalmost done. He waited in the yard till the tomb wasway to Weatherbury, giving directions to the two menthe grave of the person named in the inscription.bridge. He carried rather a heavy basket upon hisoccasionally at bridges and gates, whereon he depositedreturning in the darkness, the men and the waggonthe work was done, and, on being assured that it was,Troy entered Weatherbury churchyard about tenhad marked the vacant grave early in the morning. Itextent from the view of passers along the road -- a spotand bushes of alder, but now it was cleared and madethe ground elsewhere.Here now stood the tomb as the men had stated, snow-white and shapely in the gloom, consisting of head andfoot-stone, and enclosing border of marble-work unitingthem. In the midst was mould, suitable for plants.Troy deposited his basket beside the tomb, andvanished for a few minutes. When he returned hecarried a spade and a lantern, the light of which hedirected for a few moments upon the marble, whilst heread the inscription. He hung his lantern on the lowestbough of the yew-tree, and took from his basket flower-roots of several varieties. There were bundles of snow-drop, hyacinth and crocus bulbs, violets and doubledaisies, which were to bloom in early spring, and ofcarnations, pinks, picotees, lilies of the valley, forget-me-not, summer's-farewell, meadow-saffron and others, forthe later seasons of the year.Troy laid these out upon the grass, and with an im-passive face set to work to plant them. The snowdropswere arranged in a line on the outside of the coping,the remainder within the enclosure of the grave. Thecrocuses and hyacinths were to grow in rows; some ofthe summer flowers he placed over her head and feet,the lilies and forget-me-nots over her heart. Theremainder were dispersed in the spaces between these.Troy, in his prostration at this time, had no percep-tion that in the futility of these romantic doings, dictatedby a remorseful reaction from previous indifference, therewas any element of absurdity. Deriving his idiosyn-crasies from both sides of the Channel, he showed atsuch junctures as the present the inelasticity of theEnglishman, together with that blindness to the linewhere sentiment verges on mawkishness, characteristicof the French.lt was a cloudy, muggy, and very dark night, andthe rays from Troy's lantern spread into the two oldyews with a strange illuminating power, flickering, as itseemed, up to the black ceiling of cloud above. Hefelt a large drop of rain upon the back of his hand, andpresently one came and entered one of the holes of thelantern, whereupon the candle sputtered and went out-Troy was weary and it being now not far from midnight,and the rain threatening to increase, he resolved to leavethe finishing touches of his labour until the day shouldbreak. He groped along the wall and over the gravesin the dark till he found himself round at the north side.Here he entered the porch, and, reclining upon thebench within, fell asleep.
CHAPTER XLVI