第116章

`But I have.Though I don't believe in anything supernatural.' D'Urberville looked at her with misgiving.

`Then do you think that the line I take is all wrong?'

`A good deal of it.'

`H'm - and yet I've felt so sure about it,' he said uneasily.

`I believe in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, and so did my dear husband....But I don't believe------'

Here she gave her negations.

`The fact is,' said d'Urberville drily, `whatever your dear husband believed you accept, and whatever he rejected you reject, without the least inquiry or reasoning on your own part.That's just like you women.Your mind is enslaved to his.'

`Ah, because he knew everything!' said she, with a triumphant simplicity of faith in Angel Clare that the most perfect man could hardly have deserved, much less her husband.

`Yes, but you should not take negative opinions wholesale from another person like that.A pretty fellow he must be to teach you such scepticism!'

`He never forced my judgment! He would never argue on the subject with me! But I looked at it in this way; what he believed, after inquiring deep into doctrines, was much more likely to be right than what I might believe, who hadn't looked into doctrines at all.'

`What used he to say? He must have said something?'

She reflected; and with her acute memory for the letter of Angel Clare's remarks, even when she did not comprehend their spirit, she recalled a merciless polemical syllogism that she had heard him use when, as it occasionally happened, he indulged in a species of thinking aloud with her at his side.

In delivering it she gave also Clare's accent and manner with reverential faithfulness.

`Say that again,' asked d'Urberville, who had listened with the greatest attention.

She repeated the argument, and d'Urberville thoughtfully murmured the words after her.

`Anything else?' he presently asked.

`He said at another time something like this'; and she gave another, which might possibly have been paralleled in many a work of the pedigree ranging from the Dictionnaire Philosophique to Huxley's Essays.

`Ah - ha! How do you remember them?'

`I wanted to believe what he believed, though he didn't wish me to;and I managed to coax him to tell me a few of his thoughts.I can't say I quite understand that one; but I know it is right.'

`H'm.Fancy your being able to teach me what you don't know yourself!'

He fell into thought.

`And so I threw in my spiritual lot with his,' she resumed.`I didn't wish it to be different.What's good enough for him is good enough for me.'

`Does he know that you are as big an infidel as he?'

`No - I never told him - if I am an infidel.'

`Well - you are better off to-day than I am, Tess, after all! You don't believe that you ought to preach my doctrine, and, therefore, do no despite to your conscience in abstaining.I do believe I ought to preach it, but like the devils I believe and tremble, for I suddenly leave off preaching it, and give way to my passion for you.'

`How?'

`Why,' he said aridly; `I have come all the way here to see you to-day!

But I started from home to go to Casterbridge Fair, where I have undertaken to preach the Word from a waggon at half-past two this afternoon, and where all the brethren are expecting me this minute.Here's the announcement.'

He drew from his breast-pocket a poster whereon was printed the day, hour, and place of meeting, at which he, d'Urberville, would preach the Gospel as aforesaid.

`But how can you get there?' said Tess, looking at the clock.

`I cannot get there! I have come here.'

`What, you have really arranged to preach, and------'

`I have arranged to preach, and I shall not be there - by reason of my burning desire to see a woman whom I once despised! - No, by my word and truth, I never despised you; if I had I should not love you now! Why I did not despise you was on account of your being unsmirched in spite of all; you withdrew yourself from me so quickly and resolutely when you saw the situation; you did not remain at my pleasure; so there was one petticoat in the world for whom I had no contempt, and you are she.But you may well despise me now! I thought I worshipped on the mountains, but I find I still serve in the groves! Ha! ha!'

`O Alec d'Urberville! What does this mean? What have I done!'

`Done?' he said, with a soulless sneer in the word.`Nothing intentionally.

But you have been the means - the innocent means - of my backsliding, as they call it.I ask myself, am I, indeed, one of those "servants of corruption"who, "after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, are again entangled therein and overcome" - whose latter end is worse than their beginning?'

He laid his hand on her shoulder.`Tess, my girl, I was on the way to, at least, social salvation till I saw you again!' he said freakishly shaking her, as if she were a child.`And why then have you tempted me? I was firm as a man could be till I saw those eyes and that mouth again - surely there never was such a maddening mouth since Eve's!' His voice sank, and a hot archness shot from his own black eyes.`You temptress, Tess; you dear damned witch of Babylon, - I could not resist you as soon as I met you again!'

I couldn't help your seeing me again!' said Tess, recoiling.

`I know it - I repeat that I do not blame you.But the fact remains.

When I saw you ill-used on the farm that day I was nearly mad to think that I had no legal right to protect you - that I could not have it; whilst he who has it seems to neglect you utterly!'

`Don't speak against him - he is absent!' she cried in much excitement.

`Treat him honourably - he has never wronged you! O leave his wife before any scandal spreads that may do harm to bis honest name!'

`I will - I will,' he said, like a man awakening from a luring dream.

`I have broken my engagement to preach to those poor drunken boobies at the fair - it is the first time I have played such a practical joke.Amonth ago I should have been horrified at such a possibility.I'll go away - to swear - and - ah, can I! to keep away.' Then, suddenly: `One clasp, Tessy - one! Only for old friendship------'