Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy (best books for 20 year olds .TXT) đ
- Author: Thomas Hardy
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âBut is it right? Some rash acts of my past life have taught me that a watched woman must have very much circumspection to retain only a very little credit, and I do want and long to be discreet in this! And six yearsâ âwhy we may all be in our graves by that time, even if Mr. Troy does not come back again, which he may not impossibly do! Such thoughts give a sort of absurdity to the scheme. Now, isnât it preposterous, Gabriel? However he came to dream of it, I cannot think. But is it wrong? You knowâ âyou are older than I.â
âEight years older, maâam.â
âYes, eight yearsâ âand is it wrong?â
âPerhaps it would be an uncommon agreement for a man and woman to make: I donât see anything really wrong about it,â said Oak, slowly. âIn fact the very thing that makes it doubtful if you ought to marry en under any condition, that is, your not caring about himâ âfor I may supposeâ ââ
âYes, you may suppose that love is wanting,â she said shortly. âLove is an utterly bygone, sorry, worn-out, miserable thing with meâ âfor him or any one else.â
âWell, your want of love seems to me the one thing that takes away harm from such an agreement with him. If wild heat had to do wiâ it, making ye long to over-come the awkwardness about your husbandâs vanishing, it mid be wrong; but a cold-hearted agreement to oblige a man seems different, somehow. The real sin, maâam in my mind, lies in thinking of ever wedding wiâ a man you donât love honest and true.â
âThat Iâm willing to pay the penalty of,â said Bathsheba, firmly. âYou know, Gabriel, this is what I cannot get off my conscienceâ âthat I once seriously injured him in sheer idleness. If I had never played a trick upon him, he would never have wanted to marry me. Oh if I could only pay some heavy damages in money to him for the harm I did, and so get the sin off my soul that way!â ââ ⊠Well, thereâs the debt, which can only be discharged in one way, and I believe I am bound to do it if it honestly lies in my power, without any consideration of my own future at all. When a rake gambles away his expectations, the fact that it is an inconvenient debt doesnât make him the less liable. Iâve been a rake, and the single point I ask you is, considering that my own scruples, and the fact that in the eye of the law my husband is only missing, will keep any man from marrying me until seven years have passedâ âam I free to entertain such an idea, even though âtis a sort of penanceâ âfor it will be that? I hate the act of marriage under such circumstances, and the class of women I should seem to belong to by doing it!â
âIt seems to me that all depends upon wheâr you think, as everybody else do, that your husband is dead.â
âYesâ âIâve long ceased to doubt that. I well know what would have brought him back long before this time if he had lived.â
âWell, then, in a religious sense you will be as free to think oâ marrying again as any real widow of one yearâs standing. But why donât ye ask Mr. Thirdlyâs advice on how to treat Mr. Boldwood?â
âNo. When I want a broad-minded opinion for general enlightenment, distinct from special advice, I never go to a man who deals in the subject professionally. So I like the parsonâs opinion on law, the lawyerâs on doctoring, the doctorâs on business, and my business-manâsâ âthat is, yoursâ âon morals.â
âAnd on loveâ ââ
âMy own.â
âIâm afraid thereâs a hitch in that argument,â said Oak, with a grave smile.
She did not reply at once, and then saying, âGood evening, Mr. Oak.â went away.
She had spoken frankly, and neither asked nor expected any reply from Gabriel more satisfactory than that she had obtained. Yet in the centremost parts of her complicated heart there existed at this minute a little pang of disappointment, for a reason she would not allow herself to recognize. Oak had not once wished her free that he might marry her himselfâ âhad not once said, âI could wait for you as well as he.â That was the insect sting. Not that she would have listened to any such hypothesis. O noâ âfor wasnât she saying all the time that such thoughts of the future were improper, and wasnât Gabriel far too poor a man to speak sentiment to her? Yet he might have just hinted about that old love of his, and asked, in a playful off-hand way, if he might speak of it. It would have seemed pretty and sweet, if no more; and then she would have shown how kind and inoffensive a womanâs âNoâ can sometimes be. But to give such cool adviceâ âthe very advice she had asked forâ âit ruffled our heroine all the afternoon.
LII Converging CoursesChristmas-eve came, and a party that Boldwood was to give in the evening was the great subject of talk in Weatherbury. It was not that the rarity of Christmas parties in the parish made this one a wonder, but that Boldwood should be the giver. The announcement had had an abnormal and incongruous sound, as if one should hear of croquet-playing in a cathedral aisle, or that some much-respected judge was going upon the stage. That the party was intended to be a truly jovial one there was no room for doubt. A large bough of mistletoe had been brought from the woods that day, and suspended in the hall of the bachelorâs home. Holly and ivy had followed in armfuls. From six that morning till past noon the huge wood fire in the kitchen roared and sparkled at its highest, the kettle, the saucepan, and the three-legged pot appearing in the midst of the flames
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