The Return of the Native

by Thomas Hardy

In the heath’s barrenness to the farmer lay its fertility to the historian. There had been no obliteration because there had been no tending.

the muttered articulations of the wind in the hollows were as complaints and petitions from the “souls of mighty worth” suspended therein.

She ascended to her old position at the top, where the red coals of the perishing fire greeted her like living eyes in the corpse of day.

had she handled the distaff, the spindle, and the shears*

To see her hair was to fancy that a whole winter did not contain darkness enough to form its shadow. It closed over her forehead like nightfall extinguishing the western glow.

“I should like to say a word first,” said Venn firmly. “Mr Wildeve is not the only man who has asked Thomasin to marry him; and why should not another have a chance? Mrs Yeobright, I would be glad to marry your niece, and would have done it any time these last two years. There, now it is out, and I have never told anybody before, but herself.”

What was Thomasin’s answer when you told her of your feelings?” “She wrote that you would object to me; and other things.”

But though this conversation did not divert Thomasin’s aunt from her purposed interview with Wildeve, it made a considerable difference

in her mode of conducting that interview. She knew enough of the male heart to see that with Wildeve, and indeed with the majority of men, the being able to state at such a critical juncture that another lover had eagerly bid for the hand that he was disposed to decline, would immensely alter the situation.

Who was to know that she had grown generous in the greediness of a new passion, that in coveting one cousin she was dealing liberally with another, that in her eagerness to appropriate she gave away?

“I agreed to it,” Thomasin answered firmly. “I am a practical woman now. I don’t believe in hearts at all. I would marry him under any circumstances since—since Clym’s letter.”

It is too ridiculous that such a girl as Thomasin could so mortify us as to get jilted on the wedding-day. What has she done?”

Well, that is harsh of Clym putting the blame on Thomasin for getting jilted at the alter. And saying that she has "mortified" Clym and his mother. How insensitive of Clym!

Well, that is quite harsh of Clym, putting the blame on Thomasin for getting jilted at the alter.

“It is right that there should be schoolmasters, and missionaries, and all such men,” she replied. “But it is right, too, that I should try to lift you out of this life into something higher, and that you should not come back again, and be as if I had not tried at all.”

IN A TIMEWORN DRAMA

“Will not Captain Drew get her punished?”

I thought Eustacia's grandfather was Captain Vye

“I can hardly say that I am not. Angry, no. But when I consider the usual nature of the drag which causes men of promise to disappoint the world I feel uneasy.”

Dear Clym, you’ll go back again?” Clym shook his head, and looked at the eclipse. “If you’ll go back again I’ll—be something,” she said tenderly, putting her head near his breast. “If you’ll agree I’ll give my promise, without making you wait a minute longer.” “How extraordinary, that you and my mother should be of one mind about this,”

“You will never adhere to your education plan I am quite sure; and then it will be all right for me; and so I promise to be yours for ever and ever.”

“You are ambitious Eustacia—no, not exactly ambitious, luxurious. I ought to be of the same vein to make you happy, I suppose. And yet, far from that, I could live and die in a hermitage here, with proper work to do.”

She saw his meaning, and whispered in a low full accent of eager assurance: “Don’t mistake me, Clym. Though I should like Paris, I love you for yourself alone. To be your wife and live in Paris would be heaven to me; but I would rather live with you in a hermitage here than not be yours at all. It is gain to me either way, and very great gain. There’s my too candid confession.”

But, Eustacia is lying - or at the very leazst - exaggerating

though she made no conditions as to his return to the French capital, this was what she secretly longed for in the event of marriage;

Wildeve forgot the loss of the money at the sight of his lost love, whose preciousness in his eyes was increasing in geometrical progression with each new incident that reminded him of their hopeless division.

He handed a small parcel; it consisted of the hundred guineas he had just won, roughly twisted up in a piece of paper.

Thus Venn in his anxiety to rectify matters, had placed in Thomasin’s hands not only the fifty guineas which rightly belonged to her, but also the fifty intended for her cousin Clym. His mistake had been based upon Wildeve’s words at the opening of the game, when he indignantly denied that the first guinea was not his own. It had not been heard by the reddleman that at halfway through the performance Thomasin’s money was exhausted, the continuation being with that of another person; and it was an error which afterwards helped to cause more misfortune than treble the loss in money value could have done.

THE CLOSED DOOR

They were like those double stars which revolve round and round each other, and from a distance appear to be one.

and he recoiled at the thought that the quality of finiteness was not foreign to Eden.

She had calculated to such a degree on the probability of success that she had represented Paris, and not Budmouth, to her grandfather as in all likelihood their future home.

“And if I had known then what I know now, that I should be living in this wild heath a month after my marriage I—I should have thought twice before agreeing.”

he perceived that Venn’s grim countermoves had begun again.

Had Wildeve known how thoroughly in earnest Venn had become he might have been still more alarmed. The reddleman had been almost exasperated by the sight of Wildeve outside Clym’s house, and he was prepared to go to any lengths short of absolutely shooting him, to terrify the young innkeeper out of his recalcitrant impulses. The doubtful legitimacy of such rough coercion did not disturb the mind of Venn. It troubles few such minds in such cases, and sometimes this is not to be regretted. From the impeachment of Strafford to Farmer Lynch’s short way with the scamps of Virginia there have been many triumphs of justice which are mockeries of law.

As for Thomasin I never expected much from her; and she has not disappointed me.

“If you had never returned to your native place, Clym, what a blessing it would have been for you. ... It has altered the destinies of—” “Three people.” “Five,” Eustacia thought; but she kept that in.

when people are living upon their capital they must keep down current expenses by turning a penny where they can.”

the soft eastern portion of the sky was as great a relief to her eyes as the thyme was to her head. While she looked a heron arose on that side of the sky, and flew on with his face towards the sun. He had come dripping wet from some pool in the valleys, and as he flew the edges and lining of his wings, his thighs, and his breast, were so caught by the bright sunbeams that he appeared as if formed of burnished silver.

ONE evening about three weeks after the funeral of Mrs Yeobright, when the silver face of the moon sent a bundle of beams directly upon the door of Clym’s house at Alderworth, a woman came forth from within.

“You had better not talk any more now, Clym,” said Eustacia faintly from the other part of the room, for the scene was growing intolerable to her.

On inclining into the latter path Yeobright felt a creeping chilliness, familiar enough to most people, and probably caused by the unsunned morning air. In after days he thought of it as a thing of singular significance.

hoping that Eustacia would return to him.

He feels no need to apologize for his cruelly-spoken words?

to preserve in good condition all that had lapsed from his mother’s hands to his own.

Up to this time he had persevered in his resolve not to invite her back. At the same time the severity with which he had treated her lulled the sharpness of his regret for his mother,

“I will do this: I will wait a day or two longer, not longer than two days certainly, and if she does not send to me in that time I will indeed send to her.

If she does not come before to-morrow night I will send it to her.”

“They say—they say you used to go to Alderworth in the evenings, and it puts into my mind what I have heard about—

Thomasin just couldn't let it go! Not a word to Wildeve in an entire year, but now, on the verge of them moving to Southerton, she has to bring it up!

The scene without grew darker; mud-coloured clouds bellied downwards from the sky like vast hammocks slung across it,

Mr Yeobright asked me to leave this here on my way; but faith, I put it in the lining of my hat, and thought no more about it till I got back and was hasping my gate before going to bed. So I have run back with it at once.”

He handed in a letter, and went his way. The girl brought it to the Captain, who found that it was directed to Eustacia. He turned it over and over, and fancied that the writing was her husband’s, though he could not be sure. However, he decided to let her have it at once if possible, and took it upstairs for that purpose; but on reaching the door of her room and looking in at the keyhole he found there was no light within, the fact being that Eustacia, without undressing, had flung herself upon the bed to rest and gather a little strength for her coming journey. Her grandfather concluded from what he saw that he ought not to disturb her, and descending again to the parlour he placed the letter on the mantelpiece to give it to her in the morning.

Ah! If only he had gone inside Eustacia's room to place the letter upon her pillow.

Wondering what had aroused her, he remained undecided at the window, and was thinking of fetching the letter to slip it under her door, when he heard a slight brushing of garments on the partition dividing his room from the passage.

And there was his second opportunity

He arose, threw his boat-cloak round him, opened the door and said, “Eustacia?” There was no answer. “Eustacia,” he repeated louder, “there is a letter on the mantelpiece for you.”