"You were one person; now you are another"

Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'urbervilles: Reading Notes, Part Five

The scene of Tess's confession strange, with ancient portraits of past D'urbervilles to whom she has a more than passing resemblance. Angel gives her family diamonds to wear and adjusts her dress so it approximates a ball dress. He is, it is clear, more fascinated by her romantic family heritage than he admits.

Tess forgives Angel his indiscretion and begs desperately that he, in turn, forgive hers. To which the stunned Angel replies: "O Tess, forgiveness does not apply in this case! You were one person; now you are another. My God -- can forgiveness meet such a grotesque -- prestidigitation as that!"

As with the obvious fascination with the D'urbervilles despite his professed contempt for noble families, Angel's response to Tess's heartfelt plea shows he is far more conventional than he styles himself.

As Tess pleads her case, the increasingly sardonic Angel says she is thinking like "an unappreciative peasant girl who has never been initiated into the proportions of things." [So much for the simple milkmaid of his romantic dreams].

Hardy notes that Angel's sarcasm has the same impact on Tess that it would on a cat or dog -- it is the tone of anger that she hears.

Angel reverts to his radical pose in denouncing Tess for not living up to his sentimental view of nature: "Here I was thinking you a new-sprung child of Nature; there were you, the exhausted seed of an effete aristocracy."

Angel determines they must part, but comes to Tess in the night as a sleepwalker and carrys her to a stone tomb where he lays her beside him.

The next day, when they part, Hardy advises is that Angel "did not know that he loved her still."


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