thought better of it, and let her go.
Thus the thing began. Had she perceived this meeting's import she
might have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day
by the wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and desired
one in all respects--as nearly as humanity can supply the right
and desired; yet to him who amongst her acquaintance might have
approximated to this kind, she was but a transient impression, half
forgotten.
In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the
call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with
the hour for loving. Nature does not often say 'See!' to her poor
creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing; or reply
'Here!' to a body's cry of 'Where?' till the hide-and-seek has become
an irksome, outworn game. We may wonder whether at the acme and
summit of the human progress these anachronisms will be corrected by
a finer intuition, a closer interaction of the social machinery than
that which now jolts us round and along; but such completeness is not
to be prophesied, or even conceived as possible. Enough that in the
present case, as in millions, it was not the two halves of a perfect
whole that confronted each other at the perfect moment; a missing
counterpart wandered independently about the earth waiting in
crass obtuseness till the late time came. Out of which maladroit
delay sprang anxieties, disappointments, shocks, catastrophes, and
passing-strange destinies.
When d'Urberville got back to the tent he sat down astride on a
chair, reflecting, with a pleased gleam in his face. Then he broke
into a loud laugh.
'Well, I'm damned! What a funny thing! Ha-ha-ha! And what a crumby
girl!'
VI
Tess went down the hill to Trantridge Cross, and inattentively waited
to take her seat in the van returning from Chaseborough to Shaston.
She did not know what the other occupants said to her as she entered,
though she answered them; and when they had started anew she rode
along with an inward and not an outward eye.
One among her fellow-travellers addressed her more pointedly than
any had spoken before: 'Why, you be quite a posy! And such roses in
early June!'
Then she became aware of the spectacle she presented to their
surprised vision: roses at her breasts; roses in her hat; roses
and strawberries in her basket to the brim. She blushed, and
said confusedly that the flowers had been given to her. When the
passengers were not looking she stealthily removed the more prominent
blooms from her hat and placed them in the basket, where she covered
them with her handkerchief. Then she fell to reflecting again, and
in looking downwards a thorn of the rose remaining in her breast
accidentally pricked her chin. Like all the cottagers in Blackmoor
Vale, Tess was steeped in fancies and prefigurative superstitions;
she thought this an ill omen--the first she had noticed that day.
The van travelled only so far as Shaston, and there were several
