第 五十九 章 · Chapter LIX Chapter LIX

. Chapter LIX Chapter LIX

The city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime capital of

Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave downlands in all the

brightness and warmth of a July morning. The gabled brick, tile, and

freestone houses had almost dried off for the season their integument

of lichen, the streams in the meadows were low, and in the sloping High

Street, from the West Gateway to the mediæval cross, and from the

mediæval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping was

in progress which usually ushers in an old-fashioned market-day.

From the western gate aforesaid the highway, as every Wintoncestrian

knows, ascends a long and regular incline of the exact length of a

measured mile, leaving the houses gradually behind. Up this road from

the precincts of the city two persons were walking rapidly, as if

unconscious of the trying ascent—unconscious through preoccupation and

not through buoyancy. They had emerged upon this road through a narrow,

barred wicket in a high wall a little lower down. They seemed anxious

to get out of the sight of the houses and of their kind, and this road

appeared to offer the quickest means of doing so. Though they were

young, they walked with bowed heads, which gait of grief the sun’s rays

smiled on pitilessly.

One of the pair was Angel Clare, the other a tall budding creature—half

girl, half woman—a spiritualized image of Tess, slighter than she, but

with the same beautiful eyes—Clare’s sister-in-law, ’Liza-Lu. Their

pale faces seemed to have shrunk to half their natural size. They moved

on hand in hand, and never spoke a word, the drooping of their heads

being that of Giotto’s “Two Apostles”.

When they had nearly reached the top of the great West Hill the clocks

in the town struck eight. Each gave a start at the notes, and, walking

onward yet a few steps, they reached the first milestone, standing

whitely on the green margin of the grass, and backed by the down, which

here was open to the road. They entered upon the turf, and, impelled by

a force that seemed to overrule their will, suddenly stood still,

turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense beside the stone.

The prospect from this summit was almost unlimited. In the valley

beneath lay the city they had just left, its more prominent buildings

showing as in an isometric drawing—among them the broad cathedral

tower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave,

the spires of St Thomas’s, the pinnacled tower of the College, and,

more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice, where

to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale. Behind

the city swept the rotund upland of St Catherine’s Hill; further off,

landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was lost in the radiance

of the sun hanging above it.

Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other city

edifices, a large red-brick building, with level gray roofs, and rows

of short barred windows bespeaking captivity, the whole contrasting

greatly by its formalism with the quaint irregularities of the Gothic

erections. It was somewhat disguised from the road in passing it by

yews and evergreen oaks, but it was visible enough up here. The wicket

from which the pair had lately emerged was in the wall of this

structure. From the middle of the building an ugly flat-topped

octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and viewed from this

spot, on its shady side and against the light, it seemed the one blot

on the city’s beauty. Yet it was with this blot, and not with the

beauty, that the two gazers were concerned.

Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes were

riveted on it. A few minutes after the hour had struck something moved

slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a

black flag.

“Justice” was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Æschylean

phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. And the d’Urberville knights and

dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent

themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long

time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As

soon as they had strength, they arose, joined hands again, and went on.