Far from the Madding Crowd

  CHAPTER XIV

  EFFECT OF THE LETTER--SUNRISE

  At dusk, on the evening of St. Valentine's Day, Boldwood sat downto supper as usual, by a beaming fire of aged logs. Upon themantel-shelf before him was a time-piece, surmounted by a spreadeagle, and upon the eagle's wings was the letter Bathsheba had sent.Here the bachelor's gaze was continually fastening itself, till thelarge red seal became as a blot of blood on the retina of his eye;and as he ate and drank he still read in fancy the words thereon,although they were too remote for his sight--

  "MARRY ME."

  The pert injunction was like those crystal substances which,colourless themselves, assume the tone of objects about them. Here,in the quiet of Boldwood's parlour, where everything that was notgrave was extraneous, and where the atmosphere was that of a PuritanSunday lasting all the week, the letter and its dictum changed theirtenor from the thoughtlessness of their origin to a deep solemnity,imbibed from their accessories now.

  Since the receipt of the missive in the morning, Boldwood had feltthe symmetry of his existence to be slowly getting distorted in thedirection of an ideal passion. The disturbance was as the firstfloating weed to Columbus--the contemptibly little suggestingpossibilities of the infinitely great.

  The letter must have had an origin and a motive. That the latterwas of the smallest magnitude compatible 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 a mystifiedcondition of mind to realize of the mystifier that the processes ofapproving a course suggested by circumstance, and of striking out acourse from inner impulse, would look the same in the result. Thevast difference between starting a train of events, and directinginto a particular groove a series already started, is rarely apparentto the person confounded by the issue.

  When Boldwood went to bed he placed the valentine in the corner ofthe looking-glass. He was conscious of its presence, even when hisback was turned upon it. It was the first time in Boldwood's lifethat such an event had occurred. The same fascination that causedhim to think it an act which had a deliberate motive preventedhim from regarding it as an impertinence. He looked again atthe direction. The mysterious influences of night invested thewriting with the presence of the unknown writer. Somebody's--someWOMAN'S--hand had travelled softly over the paper bearing his name;her unrevealed eyes had watched every curve as she formed it; herbrain had seen him in imagination the while. Why should she haveimagined him? Her mouth--were the lips red or pale, plump orcreased?--had curved itself to a certain expression as the pen wenton--the corners had moved with all their natural tremulousness: whathad been the expression?

  The vision of the woman writing, as a supplement to the wordswritten, had no individuality. She was a misty shape, and well shemight be, considering that her original was at that moment soundasleep and oblivious of all love and letter-writing under the sky.Whenever Boldwood dozed she took a form, and comparatively ceased tobe a vision: when he awoke there was the letter justifying the dream.

  The moon shone to-night, and its light was not of a customary kind.His window admitted only a reflection of its rays, and the pale sheenhad that reversed direction which snow gives, coming upward andlighting up his ceiling in an unnatural way, casting shadows instrange places, and putting lights where shadows had used to be.

  The substance of the epistle had occupied him but little incomparison with the fact of its arrival. He suddenly wonderedif anything more might be found in the envelope than what he hadwithdrawn. He jumped out of bed in the weird light, took theletter, pulled out the flimsy sheet, shook the envelope--searched it.Nothing more was there. Boldwood looked, as he had a hundred timesthe preceding day, at the insistent red seal: "Marry me," he saidaloud.

  The solemn and reserved yeoman again closed the letter, and stuckit in the frame of the glass. In doing so he caught sight of hisreflected features, wan in expression, and insubstantial in form.He saw how closely compressed was his mouth, and that his eyes werewide-spread and vacant. Feeling uneasy and dissatisfied with himselffor this nervous excitability, he returned to bed.

  Then the dawn drew on. The full power of the clear heaven was notequal to that of a cloudy sky at noon, when Boldwood arose anddressed himself. He descended the stairs and went out towards thegate of a field to the east, leaning over which he paused and lookedaround.

  It was one of the usual slow sunrises of this time of the year, andthe sky, pure violet in the zenith, was leaden to the northward,and murky to the east, where, over the snowy down or ewe-lease onWeatherbury Upper Farm, and apparently resting upon the ridge, theonly half of the sun yet visible burnt rayless, like a red andflameless fire shining over a white hearthstone. The whole effectresembled a sunset as childhood resembles age.

  In other directions, the fields and sky were so much of one colour bythe snow, that it was difficult in a hasty glance to tell whereaboutsthe horizon occurred; and in general there was here, too, thatbefore-mentioned preternatural inversion of light and shade whichattends the prospect when the garish brightness commonly in the skyis found on the earth, and the shades of earth are in the sky. Overthe west hung the wasting moon, now dull and greenish-yellow, liketarnished brass.

  Boldwood was listlessly noting how the frost had hardened and glazedthe surface of the snow, till it shone in the red eastern light withthe polish of marble; how, in some portions of the slope, witheredgrass-bents, encased in icicles, bristled through the smooth wancoverlet in the twisted and curved shapes of old Venetian glass; andhow the footprints of a few birds, which had hopped over the snowwhilst it lay in the state of a soft fleece, were now frozen to ashort permanency. A half-muffled noise of light wheels interruptedhim. Boldwood turned back into the road. It was the mail-cart--acrazy, two-wheeled vehicle, hardly heavy enough to resist a puff ofwind. The driver held out a letter. Boldwood seized it and openedit, expecting another anonymous one--so greatly are people's ideas ofprobability a mere sense that precedent will repeat itself.

  "I don't think it is for you, sir," said the man, when he sawBoldwood's action. "Though there is no name, I think it is for yourshepherd."

  Boldwood looked then at the address--

  To the New Shepherd, Weatherbury Farm, Near Casterbridge

  "Oh--what a mistake!--it is not mine. Nor is it for my shepherd. Itis for Miss Everdene's. You had better take it on to him--GabrielOak--and say I opened it in mistake."

  At this moment, on the ridge, up against the blazing sky, a figurewas visible, like the black snuff in the midst of a candle-flame.Then it moved and began to bustle about vigorously from place toplace, carrying square skeleton masses, which were riddled by thesame rays. A small figure on all fours followed behind. The tallform was that of Gabriel Oak; the small one that of George; thearticles in course of transit were hurdles.

  "Wait," said Boldwood. "That's the man on the hill. I'll take theletter to him myself."

  To Boldwood it was now no longer merely a letter to another man. Itwas an opportunity. Exhibiting a face pregnant with intention, heentered the snowy field.

  Gabriel, at that minute, descended the hill towards the right. Theglow stretched down in this direction now, and touched the distantroof of Warren's Malthouse--whither the shepherd was apparently bent:Boldwood followed at a distance.