Thomas Hardy (20 page)

In June 1894, in an article published by the
New Review
, Hardy was prompted to ask whether young women should be informed of the facts of life
prior
to marriage, instead of being left to discover them afterwards. The inference here is that had Emma been apprised of precisely what the act of sexual intercourse entailed, she would not have consented to marry Hardy, which would have saved them both much anguish. And Hardy is scarcely able to contain his sense of bitterness and disillusionment when he goes on to enquire whether marriage was ‘such a desirable goal for all women as it is assumed to be’. Or was it the truth that that particular institution had ‘never succeeded in creating that homely thing: a satisfactory scheme for the conjunction of the sexes’.
¹¹

The ‘earthquake’ which followed the publication of
Jude the Obscure
was of an even greater magnitude than that which had followed
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
. In January 1896 Hardy complained that the novel had been misinterpreted, in that the theme of ‘the doom of hereditary temperament and unsuitable mating in marriage’ had been taken as an attack on that institution in general. He also denied that the book was in any way immoral.
¹²
The following month he complained of ‘fearful depression’ and a ‘slight headache’.
¹³

That section of the press which greeted
Jude the Obscure
with outrage and disgust now chose to ignore Hardy and his works. As for the Bishop of Wakefield, he announced that he had thrown the novel into the fire. Hardy reacted to this news by remarking, dryly, that ‘theology and burning’ had been associated for many centuries, and supposed that ‘they will continue to be allies to the end’.
¹⁴

(In a postscript to
Jude the Obscure
, written some years later, Hardy made further comments on the novel and on its reception by the public and the critics: an experience which, he declared, completely cured him of any further interest in novel writing.)

Despite everything, Hardy and Emma continued with their routine of travelling up to London, where during the 1896 season they met with such people as Susan, Countess of Malmesbury (a writer); the Duchess of Montrose; Theresa, Lady Londonderry, and the author Henry James. August found the couple at Stratford-upon-Avon, where they visited places associated with William Shakespeare. September saw them in France and in Belgium where Emma, who had by now given up horse riding, purchased a bicycle which she imported into England. When Hardy revisited the site of the Battle of Waterloo, he doubtless had in mind the epic drama
The Dynasts
, which he was about to write. It was based on the mighty struggle between the French army, commanded by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and the British army, commanded by the Duke of Wellington. In June he wrote from London to his sister Katharine, offering to obtain for her ‘pianoforte pieces’, or ‘dance music’, from the music publisher Chappell.
¹⁵

In October 1896 Hardy once more vented his spleen against the critics:

To cry out in a passionate poem that the Supreme Mover … [which he believed controlled all earthly happenings, and which he would shortly allude to in
The Dynasts
] must be either limited in power, unknowing, or cruel – which is obvious enough, and has been for centuries … [would] set all the literary contortionists jumping upon me, a harmless agnostic, as if I were a clamorous atheist.
¹⁶

In his characters, plots and locations, Hardy was the master of disguise. But for once he is found out. In the words of Emma’s nephew, Gordon Gifford, she ‘strongly objected to this book [
Jude the Obscure
], and, I think, the outlook of some of the characters depicted therein’.
¹⁷
Clearly, Emma had recognised herself in the novel, and felt that she had been portrayed in a poor light. Consequently, after its publication, the rift between herself and Hardy grew wider than ever.

By now, because his marriage was defunct in all but name, Hardy felt that in having
Jude the Obscure
published he had nothing to lose as far as Emma was concerned. He therefore forged ahead regardless, and having remained silent for so long, vented all his pent-up frustrations, bemusement, bitterness and anguish, which, no doubt, was to some extent a catharsis for him.

Just prior to his death, Jude uttered these words from the Book of Job:

Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly? … For now should I have lain still and been quiet. I should have slept: then had I been at rest.

Was this how Hardy himself felt? Did he now regret that at his birth, when he was thought to be dead, the vigilant nurse, realising that he was still alive, had intervened to save his life? It is a possibility which has to be faced and, if true, it is impossible to read the above lines from Job without feeling unutterably sorry for Hardy.

Why, in view of the trauma that he had suffered, did Hardy not simply walk away from Emma and petition for a divorce? There were several possible reasons: one was pride – in that he wished to avoid a scandal, which may have led to him being ostracised by society and shunned by his publisher; also, he still felt responsible for Emma’s welfare, and he could not bear the thought of the upheaval which this would entail, including the disruption to his writing. The over-riding reason, however, may have been that, as will be seen, the vision of Emma as he had once perceived her – the beautiful woman who had transfixed him, perhaps at first sight – had not left him, and it never would. And he would spend the remainder of his days in bewilderment, searching for his lost Emma, and hoping against hope that the vision would return.

The meaning of the two previously mentioned poems, which Hardy wrote in the year 1875, now becomes all too painfully obvious, for it is clear that the words ‘Wasted were two souls in their prime’ (from
We Sat at the Window
), and ‘Between them lay a sword’ (from
To a Sea Cliff
), clearly apply to himself and Emma. The poems also confirm that Emma’s failure to respond to his sexual advances was a problem for Hardy, right from the very onset of their married life.

Although
The Well-Beloved
(originally entitled
The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved)
was published by Osgood, McIlvaine & Co. in March 1897, the bulk of it was written before the publication of
Jude the Obscure
. This is a novel which stretches both imagination and credulity, but is successful in that it introduces the reader to a concept which he or she may be subconsciously aware of, but may not have hitherto heard articulated. That is, the idea that a person may fall in love, and continue to do so throughout his or her life, not with a particular being, but with a notion of perfect beauty: what Hardy called ‘The Well-Beloved’, which may temporarily reside in an actual person, but is fleeting and soon transmigrates to inhabit somebody else.

The story is set on the Isle of Slingers (Portland Island in Dorset), and its hero is the 20-year-old Jocelyn Pierston, who is a sculptor. Pierston’s ‘wellbeloved’ was:

perhaps of no tangible substance, [but rather] a spirit, a dream, a frenzy, a conception, an aroma, an epitomised sex, a light of the eye, a parting of the lips. He [Pierston] loved the masquerading creature wherever he found her, whether with blue eyes, black, or brown.
¹

For Pierston, the ‘well-beloved’ is first ‘embodied’ in Avice Caro, a boyhood sweetheart. The couple become engaged, but by this time the embodiment has transferred itself to Marcia Bencomb, a local beauty. However, before he can propose to her she leaves him, and he finds a new incarnation of the ‘well-beloved’ in high-society widow Nichola Pine-Avon. Twenty years later, Avice dies and Pierston returns to the island for her funeral. Here he meets her daughter, Ann Avice (Avice II), and realises that the embodiment has transferred itself to her. Avice II has had her own experience of ‘well-beloveds’, having already experienced no less than fifteen male embodiments herself. Unfortunately for Pierston, it transpires that she is already married.

Another twenty years pass and Pierston duly falls in love with Avice II’s daughter, Avice III. She, On learning of his former attachments not only to her own mother, but also to her grandmother, leaves him for a younger man, who is the stepson of Pierston’s former ‘well-beloved’ Marcia Bencomb. Pierston admits that whenever he grapples with the reality of the ‘wellbeloved’, ‘she’s no longer in it’, so he is unable to ‘stick to one incarnation’ even if he wishes to.
²
Finally, Pierston marries his second ‘well-beloved’ Marcia Bencomb, who by this time is an invalid.

The theme of
The Well-Beloved
is that a person’s preconceived idea of the perfect partner may locate itself in one real-life person, before transferring to another, and then another, and so forth: also, that ‘all men are pursuing a shadow, the Unattainable’ (and here he was no doubt thinking of himself). This, he hoped, Might ‘redeem the tragi-comedy from the charge of frivolity’. In other words, Hardy did not wish to appear irresponsible by condoning flirtation and infidelity.
³

Hardy, when he wrote this particular novel, clearly had in mind Portland Island: a long peninsula in South Dorset stretching several miles out into the sea, where stone is to be found of the finest quality for building and sculpting. But what he was principally concerned with, as a romantic person who since his youth had been easily prone to falling in love, was the concept of the passion a person feels for someone being able to migrate to somebody else.

It is not difficult to visualise how Hardy himself may have had the same experiences as Jocelyn Pierston. During his courtship to Emma, Hardy’s ‘well-beloved’ would undoubtedly have found its embodiment in her. However, when severe and intractable problems arose in their relationship, such as have already been alluded to, Hardy’s ‘well-beloved’ may have migrated, perhaps to one of the beautiful society women with whom he was constantly encountering when in London, whether at dinner parties, the theatre or music halls. Given his marital problems, it was only natural that he should look longingly at such women and think to himself, ‘if only’ and ‘what if?’ He may also have thought wistfully of the attractive young ladies whom he had known prior to meeting Emma.