Datasets:
mrfakename
/
libritts-texts

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
Community
1
text
stringlengths
35
463
Her mother could not repress her consciousness of the nuptial vision conjured up by the girl's consent.
Meanwhile Tess was walking thoughtfully among the gooseberry-bushes in the garden, and over Prince's grave.
They that be born in a business always know more about it than any 'prentice.
John Durbeyfield had more conceit than energy or health, and this supposition was pleasant to him.
When she entered the house she perceived in a moment from her mother's triumphant manner that something had occurred in the interim.
"I'd rather not tell you why, mother; indeed, I don't quite know why."
But this is only her artful way of getting 'ee there without raising your hopes.
One among her fellow-travellers addressed her more pointedly than any had spoken before: "Why, you be quite a posy!
Thus it was arranged; and the young girl wrote, agreeing to be ready to set out on any day on which she might be required.
"Well, there's your chance, whether or no; and I'm sure he wears a beautiful diamond ring!"
The letter was in the third person, and briefly informed Mrs Durbeyfield that her daughter's services would be useful to that lady in the management of her poultry-farm, that a comfortable room would be provided for her if she could come, and that the wages would be on a liberal scale if they liked her.
Recovering her reserve, she sat without replying, and thus they reached the summit of another declivity.
"Now, damn it--I'll break both our necks!" swore her capriciously passionate companion.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself for using such wicked words!" cried Tess with spirit, from the top of the hedge into which she had scrambled.
Tib has to be considered, and she has a very queer temper."
I fancy she looked round at me in a very grim way just then.
This dressing her up so prettily by her mother had apparently been to lamentable purpose.
Her resolve, however, had been taken, and it seemed vacillating even to childishness to abandon it now, unless for graver reasons.
And then, take my word for it, I nearly killed her.
Tess, surprised beyond measure, slid farther back still on her seat, at which he urged the horse anew, and rocked her the more.
How could she face her parents, get back her box, and disconcert the whole scheme for the rehabilitation of her family on such sentimental grounds?
"No, sir," she said, revealing the red and ivory of her mouth as her eye lit in defiant triumph; "not again, if I know it!"
The aspect of the straight road enlarged with their advance, the two banks dividing like a splitting stick; one rushing past at each shoulder.
"Never!" said Tess independently, holding on as well as she could without touching him.
She might in truth have safely trusted him now; but he had forfeited her confidence for the time, and she kept on the ground progressing thoughtfully, as if wondering whether it would be wiser to return home.
Down, down, they sped, the wheels humming like a top, the dog-cart rocking right and left, its axis acquiring a slightly oblique set in relation to the line of progress; the figure of the horse rising and falling in undulations before them.
His ardour was nettled at the sight, for the act on her part had been unconsciously done.
"So you can go from your word like that, you young witch, can you?"
Ever since the accident with her father's horse Tess Durbeyfield, courageous as she naturally was, had been exceedingly timid on wheels; the least irregularity of motion startled her.
But she's touchy still, very touchy; and one's life is hardly safe behind her sometimes."
D'Urberville looked round upon her, nipped his cigar with the tips of his large white centre-teeth, and allowed his lips to smile slowly of themselves.
His arms being occupied with the reins there was left him no power to prevent her manoeuvre.
He was inexorable, and she sat still, and d'Urberville gave her the kiss of mastery.
D'Urberville pulled up, and said he would get it for her, but Tess was down on the other side.
At the moment of speaking her hat had blown off into the road, their present speed on the upland being by no means slow.
From time to time d'Urberville exhibited a sort of fierce distress at the sight of the tramping he had driven her to undertake by his misdemeanour.
No sooner had he done so than she flushed with shame, took out her handkerchief, and wiped the spot on her cheek that had been touched by his lips.
Now, tell me--didn't you make that hat blow off on purpose?
The wind blew through Tess's white muslin to her very skin, and her washed hair flew out behind.
She began to get uneasy at a certain recklessness in her conductor's driving.
Tib has killed one chap; and just after I bought her she nearly killed me.
Then d'Urberville cursed and swore at her, and called her everything he could think of for the trick.
She had, in fact, undone the kiss, as far as such a thing was physically possible.
Tess made no reply to this remark, of which, indeed, she did not quite comprehend the drift, unheeding the snub she had administered by her instinctive rub upon her cheek.
"Why, Tess," he answered, after another whiff or two, "it isn't a brave bouncing girl like you who asks that?
"Will nothing else do?" she cried at length, in desperation, her large eyes staring at him like those of a wild animal.
She had not considered what she had been doing; whether he were man or woman, stick or stone, in her involuntary hold on him.
If any living man can manage this horse I can: I won't say any living man can do it--but if such has the power, I am he."
She was determined to show no open fear, but she clutched d'Urberville's rein-arm.
"Let me put one little kiss on those holmberry lips, Tess, or even on that warmed cheek, and I'll stop--on my honour, I will!"
"You shall be made sorry for that!" he resumed, his injured tone still remaining, as he flourished the whip anew.
"Safe, thank God, in spite of your fooling!" said she, her face on fire.
"You look prettier with it off, upon my soul, if that's possible," he said, contemplating her over the back of the vehicle.
Thus they reached the verge of an incline down which the road stretched in a long straight descent of nearly a mile.
Rising still, an immense landscape stretched around them on every side; behind, the green valley of her birth, before, a gray country of which she knew nothing except from her first brief visit to Trantridge.
"Unless, that is, you agree willingly to let me do it again, and no handkerchief."
With a dim sense that he was vexed she looked steadily ahead as they trotted on near Melbury Down and Wingreen, till she saw, to her consternation, that there was yet another descent to be undergone.
The hat was in place and tied, but Tess had not stepped forward.
D'Urberville turned his face to her as they rocked, and said, in playful raillery: "Now then, put your arms round my waist again, as you did before, my Beauty."
"Oh, I don't know--very well; I don't mind!" she panted miserably.
Seeing their mother put on her bonnet, the younger children clamoured to go with her.
Far away behind the first hills the cliff-like dwellings of Shaston broke the line of the ridge.
However, as the moment for the girl's setting out drew nigh, when the first excitement of the dressing had passed off, a slight misgiving found place in Joan Durbeyfield's mind.
Nobody was visible in the elevated road which skirted the ascent save the lad whom they had sent on before them, sitting on the handle of the barrow that contained all Tess's worldly possessions.
"You will never set out to see your folks without dressing up more the dand than that?"
"Well, I hope my young friend will like such a comely sample of his own blood.
Her mother perceived, for the first time, that the second vehicle was not a humble conveyance like the first, but a spick-and-span gig or dog-cart, highly varnished and equipped.
But I won't stand upon trifles--tell'n he shall hae it for fifty--for twenty pound!
Mother, how could you ever put such stuff into their heads?"
She remained upstairs packing till breakfast-time, and then came down in her ordinary week-day clothes, her Sunday apparel being carefully folded in her box.
"Goodbye, my maid," said Sir John, raising his head from his breast as he suspended his nap, induced by a slight excess this morning in honour of the occasion.
After this she went downstairs to her husband, who was sitting in the lower room.
There were tears also in Joan Durbeyfield's eyes as she turned to go home.
It had come--appearing suddenly from behind the forehead of the nearest upland, and stopping beside the boy with the barrow.
The driver was a young man of three- or four-and-twenty, with a cigar between his teeth; wearing a dandy cap, drab jacket, breeches of the same hue, white neckcloth, stick-up collar, and brown driving-gloves--in short, he was the handsome, horsey young buck who had visited Joan a week or two before to get her answer about Tess.
She suddenly stepped up; he mounted beside her, and immediately whipped on the horse.
Her mother and the children thereupon decided to go no farther, and bidding them a hasty goodbye, Tess bent her steps up the hill.
But by the time she had got back to the village she was passively trusting to the favour of accident.
In a moment they had passed the slow cart with the box, and disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill.
Meanwhile the muslined form of Tess could be seen standing still, undecided, beside this turn-out, whose owner was talking to her. Her seeming indecision was, in fact, more than indecision: it was misgiving.
The youngest child said, "I wish poor, poor Tess wasn't gone away to be a lady!" and, lowering the corners of his lips, burst out crying.
He'll adorn it better than a poor lammicken feller like myself can.
The young man dismounted, and appeared to urge her to ascend.
However, in bed that night she sighed, and her husband asked her what was the matter.
"Very well; I suppose you know best," replied Tess with calm abandonment.
Mrs Durbeyfield was only too delighted at this tractability. First she fetched a great basin, and washed Tess's hair with such thoroughness that when dried and brushed it looked twice as much as at other times.
The new point of view was infectious, and the next child did likewise, and then the next, till the whole three of them wailed loud.
Her mother's pride in the girl's appearance led her to step back, like a painter from his easel, and survey her work as a whole.
But before she had quite reached it another vehicle shot out from a clump of trees on the summit, came round the bend of the road there, passed the luggage-cart, and halted beside Tess, who looked up as if in great surprise.
She turned her face down the hill to her relatives, and regarded the little group. Something seemed to quicken her to a determination; possibly the thought that she had killed Prince.
They saw her white shape draw near to the spring-cart, on which her box was already placed.
On the morning appointed for her departure Tess was awake before dawn--at the marginal minute of the dark when the grove is still mute, save for one prophetic bird who sings with a clear-voiced conviction that he at least knows the correct time of day, the rest preserving silence as if equally convinced that he is mistaken.
Burke was making the most frightful sounds and quite obviously was being asphyxiated before my eyes!
This accomplished, I stood the candle upon the little chest-of-drawers and returned to Burke's side.
Without the slightest heralding sound--a black silhouette crept up against the pane... the silhouette of a small, malformed head, a dog-like head, deep-set in square shoulders.
Burke lay crosswise on the bed, his head thrown back and sagging; one rigid hand he held in the air, and with the other grasped the hairy forearm which I had severed with the ax; for, in a death-grip, the dead fingers were still fastened, vise-like, at his throat.
Despite the confusion of my mind I became aware of sounds outside and below me.
There was every probability that another attempt would be made to-night.
Twice the thing at the window coughed; there was an incessant, lash-like cracking, then some shouted words which I was unable to make out; and finally the staccato report of a pistol.
Desisting in my vain endeavor to pit my strength against that of the nameless thing, I sprang back across the room and took up the weapon which had been left in my charge earlier in the night, but which I had been unable to believe it would be necessary to employ.