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Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Book by Thomas Hardy · 36 quotes · Thomas Hardy, Tess Dei D Urberville, Amore

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Tess of the D’Urbervilles Quotes

“So the baby was carried in a small deal box, under an ancient woman's shawl, to the churchyard that night, and buried by lantern-light, at the cost of a shilling and a pint of beer to the sexton, in that shabby corner of God's allotment where He lets the nettles grow, and where all unbaptized infants, notorious drunkards, suicides, and others of the conjecturally damned are laid.”

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“[She] soon perceived that as she walked in the flock, sometimes with this one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too freely; some of the more careless women were also wandering in their gait. . . . Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance just now to the mean unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was different. They followed the road with a sensation that they were soaring along in a supporting medium, possessed of original and profound thoughts, themselves and surrounding nature forming an organism of which all the parts harmoniously and joyously interpenetrated each other. They were as sublime as the moon and stars above them, and the moon and stars were as ardent as they.”

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“Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order. One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d'Urberville's mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it therefore does not mend the matter. As Tess's own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way: "It was to be." There lay the pity of it. An immeasurable social chasm was to divide our heroine's personality thereafter from that previous self of hers who stepped from her mother's door to try her fortune at Trantridge poultry-farm.”

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“She might have seen that what had bowed her head so profoundly - the thought of the world's concern at her situation - was founded on an illusion. She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself. To all humankind besides Tess was only a passing thought. Even to friends she was no more than a frequently passing thought. If she made herself miserable the livelong night and day it was only this much to them - 'Ah,she makes herself unhappy.' If she tried to be cheerful, to dismiss all care, to take pleasure in the daylight, the flowers, the baby, she could only be this idea to them - 'Ah, she bears it very well.' Moreover, alone in a desert island would she have been wretched at what had happened to her? Not greatly. If she could but have been just created, to discover herself as a spouseless mother, with no experience of life except as the parent of a nameless child, would the position have caused her to despair? No, she would have taken it calmly, and found pleasures therein. Most of the misery had been generated by her conventional aspect, and not by her innate sensations.”

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“Tess's feminine hope - shall we confess it - had been so obstinately recuperative as to revive in her surreptitious visions of a domiciliary intimacy continued long enough to break down his coldness even against his judgement. Though unsophisticated in the usual sense, she was not incomplete; and it would have denoted deficiency of womanhood if she had not instinctively known what an argument lies in propinquity. Nothing else would save her, she knew, if this failed. It was wrong to hope in what was of the nature of strategy, she said to herself; yet that sort of hope she could not extinguish. His last representation had now been made, and it was, as she said, a new view. She had truly never though so far as that, and his lucid picture of possible offspring who would scorn her was one that brought deadly conviction to an honest heart which was humanitarian to its centre. Sheer experience had already taught her that, in some circumstances, there was one thing better than to lead a good life, and that was to be saved from leading any life whatever. Like all who have been previsioned by suffering, she could, in the words of M. Sully-Prudhomme, hear a penal sentence in the fiat, 'You shall be born,' particularly if addressed to potential issue or hers.”

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“How very lovable her face was to him. Yet there was nothing ethereal about it; all was real vitality, real warmth, real incarnation. And it was in her mouth that this culminated. Eyes almost as deep and speaking he had seen before, and cheeks perhaps as fair; brows as arched, a chin and throat almost as shapely; her mouth he had seen nothing to equal on the face of the earth. To a young man with the least fire in him that little upward lift in the middle of her red top lip was distracting, infatuating, maddening. He had never before seen a woman’s lips and teeth which forced upon his mind with such persistent iteration the old Elizabethan simile of roses filled with snow. Perfect, he, as a lover, might have called them off-hand. But no — they were not perfect. And it was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity.”

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“There was hardly a touch of earth in her love for Clare. To her sublime trustfulness he was all that goodness could be—knew all that a guide, philosopher, and friend should know. She thought every line in the contour of his person the perfection of masculine beauty, his soul the soul of a saint, his intellect that of a seer. The wisdom of her love for him, as love, sustained her dignity; she seemed to be wearing a crown. The compassion of his love for her, as she saw it, made her lift up her heart to him in devotion. He would sometimes catch her large, worshipful eyes, that had no bottom to them looking at him from their depths, as if she saw something immortal before her.”

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“She suddenly thought one afternoon, when looking in the glass at her fairness, that there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death, when all these charms would have disappeared; a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it? Why did she not feel the chill of each yearly encounter with such a cold relation? She had Jeremy Taylor's thought that some time in the future those who had known her would say, 'It is the -th, the day that poor Tess Durbeyfield died'; and there would be nothing singular to their minds in the statement. Of that day, doomed to be her terminus in time through all the ages, she did not know the place in month, week, season, or year.”

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“L'amava moltissimo, anche se forse il suo sentimento era più ideale e fantastico di quello di Tess, profondo e appassionato. Angel non supponeva, quando fu condannato, così credette, ad una vita bucolica anziché intellettuale, di trovare dietro le quinte un fascino come quello osservato in quest'idillica creatura. Si parla spesso di naturalezza; ma lui non sapeva in che modo questa veramente colpisse, sino a che non era venuto lì.”

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“L'affetto per lui era il respiro e la vita per l'anima di Tess, l'avviluppava come una fotosfera, la illuminava facendole dimenticare le pene passate, tenendole lontani gli oscuri spettri che tentavano insistentemente di turbarla: il dubbio, il timore, il malumore, l'affanno, la vergogna. Sapeva che la stavano aspettando come lupi rapaci, fuori da quel cerchio di luce, tuttavia disponeva di poteri magici per tenerli là, in affamata sottomissione. L'oblio dello spirito coesisteva con la memoria della mente. Camminava nella luce, ma sapeva che sullo sfondo quelle sagome buie stavano sempre in agguato; potevano retrocedere o avvicinarsi, un po' l'una un po' l'altra cosa, ogni giorno.”

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“Vi era ben poco di terreno nel suo amore per Clare. In quella sublime realtà vedeva in lui tutta la bontà esistente, lui sapeva tutto quello che una guida, un filosofo, un amico doveva sapere: ogni linea che tratteggiava il suo viso e la sua figura era simbolo di perfezione e di mascolina bellezza; la sua anima era quella di un santo, la sua intelligenza quella di un profeta. La serietà dell'amore che provava per lui aumentava la sua dignità dandole la sensazione di portare un diadema. La superiorità del suo amore per lui, così lo vedeva, le faceva battere il cuore di devozione. Qualche volta lui coglieva i suoi grandi bellissimi insondabili occhi che lo guardavano dalle loro profondità, quasi contemplassero qualcosa d'immortale. Dimenticò il passato, lo calpestò e lo spense come si fa con un tizzone che cova sotto la cenere, pericoloso. Non aveva mai saputo che gli uomini potessero essere così disinteressati, cavalieri, protettivi nel proprio amore verso una donna, com'era lui. Angel Clare invece era ben lontano dall'essere come lei lo pensava, assolutamente lontano; tuttavia era più spirito che carne, aveva molto autocontrollo ed era alieno da volgarità. Non era un passionale, era più brillante che ardente, più vicino a uno Shelley che a un Byron, poteva amare disperatamente, ma di un amore fantasioso, spirituale, una complicata emozione che poteva gelosamente proteggere l'amata dal suo vero io. Tutto ciò sgomentava e incantava Tess, le cui fragili esperienze erano state sino a quel momento così sfortunate; e reagendo all'indignazione contro il sesso maschile si abbandonò ad una stima eccessiva di Clare.”

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“Ma tale è la volpina astuzia della Natura che, fino a quel momento, l'amore per Angel le aveva bendato gli occhi, facendole dimenticare che da questo potevano risultare altre vite, condannate a quella sfortuna che aveva pianto solo per se stessa. Cosi non poté più opporsi ai suoi argomenti. Ma per la tendenza a combattere se stessi propria degli ipersensibili, una risposta si affacciò alla mente dello stesso Clare, che ne ebbe quasi paura. Si fondava sulla eccezionale natura di Tess, che avrebbe potuto usare come promettente argomento. Avrebbe per di più potuto aggiungere: "Su un altopiano dell'Australia, o in una pianura del Texas, chi vuoi che sappia o si interessi delle mie sventure? Chi vuoi che rimproveri me o te?" Ma lei, come la maggior parte delle donne, accettava quella momentanea dichiarazione come se fosse inevitabile. Forse aveva ragione. L'intuitivo cuore della donna conosce non soltanto la sua amarezza, ma anche quella del marito, ed anche se questi presunti rimproveri non fossero indirizzati a lui o ai suoi da estranei, avrebbero potuto raggiungere le sue orecchie partendo dalla sua stessa mente ipersensibile. Era il terzo giorno del loro distacco. Qualcuno potrebbe arrischiare lo strano paradosso che se fosse stato più sensuale, sarebbe stato il più nobile degli uomini. Non diciamo questo, ma l'amore di Clare era senza dubbio etereo all'eccesso, fantasioso sino all'inattuabilità. Per simili nature la presenza corporea è qualcosa di meno attraente dell'assenza corporea; quest'ultima crea una presenza ideale che convenientemente omette i difetti della reale. Tess si rese conto che la propria persona non perorava la sua causa con l'energia che s'era aspettata. Quella frase metaforica era vera: era un'altra donna, diversa da quella che aveva suscitato la sua passione.”

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“«Credevo, Angel, che tu mi amassi... amassi me, per quello che sono. Se sono io che tu ami, come puoi guardarmi e parlare così? Tutto ciò mi fa paura! Ho cominciato ad amarti e ti amo, ti amerò per sempre... qualsiasi disgrazia dovesse accadere, qualsiasi cambiamento, perché tu sei proprio tu; non chiedo altro. E allora tu, che sei mio marito, come puoi cessare d'amarmi?»”

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“Si sdraiò sul suo giaciglio nel soggiorno e spense la luce. La notte entrò e vi prese il suo posto, noncurante e indifferente; quella stessa notte che si era già ingoiata la sua felicità e che ora stava distrattamente digerendosela; ed era pronta a ingoiare la felicità di migliaia d'altre persone, con la stessa noncuranza e impassibilità.”

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“The past was past; whatever it had been, it was no more at hand. Whatever its consequences, time would close over them; they would all in a few years be as if they had never been, and she herself grassed down and forgotten. Meanwhile the trees were just as green as before; the birds sang and the sun shone as clearly now as ever. The familiar surroundings had not darkened because of her grief, no sickened because of her pain.”

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“She had not heard him enter, and hardly realized his presence there. She was yawning, and he saw the red interior of her mouth as if it had been a snake's. She had stretched one arm so high above her coiled-up cable of hair that he could see its satin delicacy above the sunburn; her face was flushed with sleep, and her eyelids hung heavy over their pupils. The brim-fulness of her nature breathed from her. It was a moment when a woman's soul is more incarnate than at any other time; when the most spiritual beauty bespeaks itself flesh; and sex takes the outside place in the presentation.”

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