الفصل الفصل 11 · Chapter XI

The Ring at Casterbridge was merely the local name of one of the finest

Roman Amphitheatres, if not the very finest, remaining in Britain.

Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley, and precinct.

It looked Roman, bespoke the art of Rome, concealed dead men of Rome.

It was impossible to dig more than a foot or two deep about the town

fields and gardens without coming upon some tall soldier or other of

the Empire, who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a

space of fifteen hundred years. He was mostly found lying on his side,

in an oval scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell; his knees

drawn up to his chest; sometimes with the remains of his spear against

his arm, a fibula or brooch of bronze on his breast or forehead, an urn

at his knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified

conjecture pouring down upon him from the eyes of Casterbridge street

boys and men, who had turned a moment to gaze at the familiar spectacle

as they passed by.

Imaginative inhabitants, who would have felt an unpleasantness at the

discovery of a comparatively modern skeleton in their gardens, were

quite unmoved by these hoary shapes. They had lived so long ago, their

time was so unlike the present, their hopes and motives were so widely

removed from ours, that between them and the living there seemed to

stretch a gulf too wide for even a spirit to pass.

The Amphitheatre was a huge circular enclosure, with a notch at

opposite extremities of its diameter north and south. From its sloping

internal form it might have been called the spittoon of the Jötuns. It

was to Casterbridge what the ruined Coliseum is to modern Rome, and was

nearly of the same magnitude. The dusk of evening was the proper hour

at which a true impression of this suggestive place could be received.

Standing in the middle of the arena at that time there by degrees

became apparent its real vastness, which a cursory view from the summit

at noon-day was apt to obscure. Melancholy, impressive, lonely, yet

accessible from every part of the town, the historic circle was the

frequent spot for appointments of a furtive kind. Intrigues were

arranged there; tentative meetings were there experimented after

divisions and feuds. But one kind of appointment—in itself the most

common of any—seldom had place in the Amphitheatre: that of happy

lovers.

Why, seeing that it was pre-eminently an airy, accessible, and

sequestered spot for interviews, the cheerfullest form of those

occurrences never took kindly to the soil of the ruin, would be a

curious inquiry. Perhaps it was because its associations had about them

something sinister. Its history proved that. Apart from the sanguinary

nature of the games originally played therein, such incidents attached

to its past as these: that for scores of years the town-gallows had

stood at one corner; that in 1705 a woman who had murdered her husband

was half-strangled and then burnt there in the presence of ten thousand

spectators. Tradition reports that at a certain stage of the burning

her heart burst and leapt out of her body, to the terror of them all,

and that not one of those ten thousand people ever cared particularly

for hot roast after that. In addition to these old tragedies,

pugilistic encounters almost to the death had come off down to recent

dates in that secluded arena, entirely invisible to the outside world

save by climbing to the top of the enclosure, which few townspeople in

the daily round of their lives ever took the trouble to do. So that,

though close to the turnpike-road, crimes might be perpetrated there

unseen at mid-day.

Some boys had latterly tried to impart gaiety to the ruin by using the

central arena as a cricket-ground. But the game usually languished for

the aforesaid reason—the dismal privacy which the earthen circle

enforced, shutting out every appreciative passer’s vision, every

commendatory remark from outsiders—everything, except the sky; and to

play at games in such circumstances was like acting to an empty house.

Possibly, too, the boys were timid, for some old people said that at

certain moments in the summer time, in broad daylight, persons sitting

with a book or dozing in the arena had, on lifting their eyes, beheld

the slopes lined with a gazing legion of Hadrian’s soldiery as if

watching the gladiatorial combat; and had heard the roar of their

excited voices, that the scene would remain but a moment, like a

lightning flash, and then disappear.

It was related that there still remained under the south entrance

excavated cells for the reception of the wild animals and athletes who

took part in the games. The arena was still smooth and circular, as if

used for its original purpose not so very long ago. The sloping

pathways by which spectators had ascended to their seats were pathways

yet. But the whole was grown over with grass, which now, at the end of

summer, was bearded with withered bents that formed waves under the

brush of the wind, returning to the attentive ear Æolian modulations,

and detaining for moments the flying globes of thistledown.

Henchard had chosen this spot as being the safest from observation

which he could think of for meeting his long-lost wife, and at the same

time as one easily to be found by a stranger after nightfall. As Mayor

of the town, with a reputation to keep up, he could not invite her to

come to his house till some definite course had been decided on.

Just before eight he approached the deserted earth-work and entered by

the south path which descended over the _débris_ of the former dens. In

a few moments he could discern a female figure creeping in by the great

north gap, or public gateway. They met in the middle of the arena.

Neither spoke just at first—there was no necessity for speech—and the

poor woman leant against Henchard, who supported her in his arms.

“I don’t drink,” he said in a low, halting, apologetic voice. “You

hear, Susan?—I don’t drink now—I haven’t since that night.” Those were

his first words.

He felt her bow her head in acknowledgment that she understood. After a

minute or two he again began:

“If I had known you were living, Susan! But there was every reason to

suppose you and the child were dead and gone. I took every possible

step to find you—travelled—advertised. My opinion at last was that you

had started for some colony with that man, and had been drowned on your

voyage. Why did you keep silent like this?”

“O Michael! because of him—what other reason could there be? I thought

I owed him faithfulness to the end of one of our lives—foolishly I

believed there was something solemn and binding in the bargain; I

thought that even in honour I dared not desert him when he had paid so

much for me in good faith. I meet you now only as his widow—I consider

myself that, and that I have no claim upon you. Had he not died I

should never have come—never! Of that you may be sure.”

“Tut-tut! How could you be so simple?”

“I don’t know. Yet it would have been very wicked—if I had not thought

like that!” said Susan, almost crying.

“Yes—yes—so it would. It is only that which makes me feel ’ee an

innocent woman. But—to lead me into this!”

“What, Michael?” she asked, alarmed.

“Why, this difficulty about our living together again, and

Elizabeth-Jane. She cannot be told all—she would so despise us both

that—I could not bear it!”

“That was why she was brought up in ignorance of you. I could not bear

it either.”

“Well—we must talk of a plan for keeping her in her present belief, and

getting matters straight in spite of it. You have heard I am in a large

way of business here—that I am Mayor of the town, and churchwarden, and

I don’t know what all?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“These things, as well as the dread of the girl discovering our

disgrace, makes it necessary to act with extreme caution. So that I

don’t see how you two can return openly to my house as the wife and

daughter I once treated badly, and banished from me; and there’s the

rub o’t.”

“We’ll go away at once. I only came to see—”

“No, no, Susan; you are not to go—you mistake me!” he said with kindly

severity. “I have thought of this plan: that you and Elizabeth take a

cottage in the town as the widow Mrs. Newson and her daughter; that I

meet you, court you, and marry you. Elizabeth-Jane coming to my house

as my stepdaughter. The thing is so natural and easy that it is half

done in thinking o’t. This would leave my shady, headstrong,

disgraceful life as a young man absolutely unopened; the secret would

be yours and mine only; and I should have the pleasure of seeing my own

only child under my roof, as well as my wife.”

“I am quite in your hands, Michael,” she said meekly. “I came here for

the sake of Elizabeth; for myself, if you tell me to leave again

to-morrow morning, and never come near you more, I am content to go.”

“Now, now; we don’t want to hear that,” said Henchard gently. “Of

course you won’t leave again. Think over the plan I have proposed for a

few hours; and if you can’t hit upon a better one we’ll adopt it. I

have to be away for a day or two on business, unfortunately; but during

that time you can get lodgings—the only ones in the town fit for you

are those over the china-shop in High Street—and you can also look for

a cottage.”

“If the lodgings are in High Street they are dear, I suppose?”

“Never mind—you _must_ start genteel if our plan is to be carried out.

Look to me for money. Have you enough till I come back?”

“Quite,” said she.

“And are you comfortable at the inn?”

“O yes.”

“And the girl is quite safe from learning the shame of her case and

ours?—that’s what makes me most anxious of all.”

“You would be surprised to find how unlikely she is to dream of the

truth. How could she ever suppose such a thing?”

“True!”

“I like the idea of repeating our marriage,” said Mrs. Henchard, after

a pause. “It seems the only right course, after all this. Now I think I

must go back to Elizabeth-Jane, and tell her that our kinsman, Mr.

Henchard, kindly wishes us to stay in the town.”

“Very well—arrange that yourself. I’ll go some way with you.”

“No, no. Don’t run any risk!” said his wife anxiously. “I can find my

way back—it is not late. Please let me go alone.”

“Right,” said Henchard. “But just one word. Do you forgive me, Susan?”

She murmured something; but seemed to find it difficult to frame her

answer.

“Never mind—all in good time,” said he. “Judge me by my future

works—good-bye!”

He retreated, and stood at the upper side of the Amphitheatre while his

wife passed out through the lower way, and descended under the trees to

the town. Then Henchard himself went homeward, going so fast that by

the time he reached his door he was almost upon the heels of the

unconscious woman from whom he had just parted. He watched her up the

street, and turned into his house.