Summary
In October, Bathsheba and Troy are driving home from town, while Troy discusses the money he has recently lost by betting on horse races. He is unconcerned and thinks it is merely bad luck, but Bathsheba is troubled by how much money her husband is spending wastefully. The couple are approached by a woman who asks them for directions. The woman has a very intense reaction to recognizing Troy and collapses; Troy sends Bathsheba a distance off before helping the woman, giving him an opportunity to speak to her alone.
Troy gives Fanny some money, and tells her to continue to town, but meet him on Monday on Casterbridge bridge. When Troy rejoins Bathsheba, he admits that he knows the woman but refuses to give any details or answer any questions. Left alone, Fanny begins her slow and laborious walk towards Casterbridge. She gets more and more weak and exhausted as she walks through the night. Helped by a large dog, she manages to drag herself to a building on the edge of town where she is taken inside.
Meanwhile, back at the farmhouse, Troy asks Bathsheba for money. She assumes it is for an upcoming horserace, and complains about his spending, but gives him the money. She then catches sight of a lock of hair in the case of Troy’s watch, and asks who it belongs to. Troy explains that it is the hair of a woman he was engaged to before he married Bathsheba. Bathsheba becomes jealous, and the couple have an argument.
The next morning, Bathsheba learns that Troy has gone off to Casterbridge. As she walks around the farm, she sees Boldwood and Gabriel conversing, and sends a servant to find out what they talking about. From him, she learns that Fanny has died at the workhouse in town, and that Boldwood is planning to send a wagon to fetch her body. Bathsheba decides that since Fanny was a former employee of the farm, she will send for the body herself. When Bathsheba asks how long Fanny was at the workhouse, the servant explains that Fanny arrived there only on the day she died, having walked there from Melchester where she had been working before. Bathsheba becomes agitated, and asks questions about the route Fanny took, when she walked, and what color her hair was. Before Joseph sets off with the wagon, she questions him as well, trying to find out if anyone knows what Fanny died of. She is able to learn from Liddy that Fanny did indeed have blonde hair.
Joseph goes to the workhouse, where the coffin is loaded into the wagon. As he drives home, he becomes depressed and stops at the pub for a drink, where he lingers longer than he intended to. Gabriel runs into him and is angry about this delay, driving the wagon with the corpse the rest of the way home himself. When he arrives at the farmhouse, the parson tells him it is too late and the funeral will have to take place the following day. Although Gabriel is uncomfortable with the idea, Bathsheba instructs that the coffin remain in the farmhouse until the funeral takes place on the subsequent morning. Before he leaves, Gabriel rubs out the words that have been written on the coffin: “Fanny Robbins and child.”
Later that night, Bathsheba explains that she will sit up and wait for Troy, who still has not returned home. She continues to question Liddy about Fanny’s health, unsatisfied with the answers she receives. A short time later, Liddy shares that she has heard a rumor that Fanny gave birth shortly before she died, and that the baby is also in the coffin. After Liddy goes to bed, Bathsheba becomes more and more agitated, wondering about what the truth is.
In desperation for someone to help her, Bathsheba goes to Gabriel’s cottage where she watches him through the window but finds herself unable to approach him. She returns to her house, and opens the coffin, where she finds Fanny and the corpse of a tiny baby. She realizes that Fanny must have been Troy’s lover, and that this is their illegitimate child. While Bathsheba is trying to make sense of her emotions, Troy returns home, comes into the room, and sees what is lying in the coffin.
When Troy gently kisses Fanny’s corpse, Bathsheba flies into a jealous rage, and the two argue, leading Troy to say that he loves Fanny more than he ever loved Bathsheba and considers Fanny to be is true wife. Bathsheba flees from the house and spends the night wandering outdoors, until Liddy finds her in the early morning. Liddy explains that Troy also left the house early in the morning, and that people will soon be coming to take Fanny’s body for the funeral. Bathsheba says she can’t return to the house until the corpse has been taken away, so she and Liddy walk around until Fanny’s coffin has been removed. Once they return to the house, Bathsheba explains that she is going to move into the attic for the time being, and has Liddy set it up for her.
The narrative shifts to describe events from Troy’s point of view. On Monday morning, he had gone to keep his meeting with Fanny with as much money as he had been able to put together. When she did not arrive, he got angry and went to spend the day at the horse races, returning late at night to the scene with the coffin. After Bathsheba fled, he waited miserably until it was morning and then hurried to town where he spent the money he had hoped to give to Fanny on a fancy marble tombstone. He set up an elaborate display of flowers and then fell asleep in a corner of the churchyard. When he awakened, there had been heavy rain and the arrangement was ruined. Frustrated, he left the churchyard and left the town a short time later.
That same morning, Bathsheba decides to visit the grave since she has learned that Troy was seen leaving town and therefore does not have to worry about meeting him. When she arrives, she finds Gabriel there as well, and observes the marble tombstone, as well as the disarray. Bathsheba and Gabriel work together to tidy up the grave site and leave it in good condition.
Analysis
Earlier in the novel, Bathsheba illustrated her resistance to the idea of a husband who would try and tell her what to do, or who would annoy her with his presence. Ironically, she is now confronted with the challenges of a husband who neglects her, refuses to play the active role that she needs, and often leaves her abandoned when she most needs his help. The challenges in their relationship are part of why she feels such suspicion when Troy engages in a mysterious conversation with an unknown woman, but Bathsheba also clings vainly to the hope that Troy is actually telling her the truth. Even though she is probably smart enough to know better on some level, Bathsheba is reduced to living in denial and refusing to confront the reality of the kind of man she has married.
Fanny’s agonizing walk to the village shows Hardy’s talent for evoking sympathy for those who suffer, especially through circumstances beyond their control. Not unlike Bathsheba, Fanny has fallen victim to believing Troy and his empty promises but she hardly deserves the wretched poverty, physical pain, and deep fear she is now experiencing. The presence of the dog who finally helps her to endure the last stage of her journey reflects the themes of the natural world that are present throughout the novel. While human beings would be likely to judge Fanny, animals can sense her goodness and innocence because they also embody those qualities. Nonetheless, Fanny’s death reveals the harsh reality of what it has meant for her to live in poverty and isolation. Presumably the suffering and ill-health she endured before going in to labor played a significant part in her death and the death of her baby. It is also very possible that dying in the workhouse meant she had limited access to medical care which might have helped her.
When news of Fanny’s death spreads, Gabriel again shows his instinct to protect Bathsheba. At no other moment in the novel has he lied or tried to conceal anything; in fact, he has been honest in situations where it may not even have served him. Nonetheless, Gabriel shows that he is capable of responding to ethically complex situations, and it seems to him that the greater good is served by Bathsheba remaining ignorant of what actually happened to Fanny. In a moment that echoes Gabriel by chance helping put out the fire, or Bathsheba impulsively opting to send Boldwood the valentine, fate intervenes. The chance event of Joseph being delayed at the pub sets in motion a train of events that means the coffin will stay in Bathsheba’s house overnight. Had everything gone according to plan and Fanny been buried that afternoon, her secret would likely have been safe.
However, almost as soon as news of Fanny’s death reaches her, Bathsheba feels a mixture of sympathy and suspicion. Her suspicions torment her; she does fleetingly consider reaching out to Gabriel. Her attempt to go to his cottage to ask his advice reveals how much trust she places in him, and her awareness that he has her best interests at heart. Nonetheless, the shame that she would have to depend on another man when her own husband might be betraying her is too much for Bathsheba’s pride. Left to make the decision alone, she opts to open the coffin and know the truth, only to have her worst fears confirmed.
Hardy masterfully captures the complex and shifting emotions of Bathsheba when she realizes the secret Troy has been hiding: rage, betrayal, jealousy, grief, empathy, and shame. Especially when she realizes Troy genuinely cared for Fanny, she feels an almost grotesque need to assert her emotional dominance over him by insisting that he kiss her to balance out the kiss he gave to Fanny. Fixated on his own grief, Troy renounces the emotional and spiritual aspects of his marriage, even though he cannot dispute the legal ones. By telling Bathsheba that he considers Fanny to have been his true wife, he in effect turns Bathsheba into the fallen woman so many others have been afraid she would become.
Troy’s attempts to embellish Fanny’s grave signal his impulsiveness and lack of forethought. He acts based on his emotions, but without planning to think about what will be sustainable. His lack of regard for the weather mirrors his reckless ignorance on the night of the harvest-supper, and leads to destruction again. Troy assumes his own will is the dominant force without acknowledging and respecting how the natural world will always be stronger than human endeavors. His lack of foresight that rainfall would ruin the way he had set up the grave mirrors the way he recklessly created the conditions that led to Fanny’s death: he followed his own impulses by engaging in a sexual relationship with her, and did not consider the natural consequences of pregnancy that would follow. What is most telling about the episode is Troy’s response when he awakens to find his work ruined: he simply gives up, making no effort to fix it. This is characteristic of his inability to take responsibility for situations he has created, and his unwillingness to work hard. The messy gravesite does however create an opportunity for redemption for Bathsheba. By tenderly fixing up the area, she is able to atone for her ambivalent feelings towards Fanny and experience forgiveness for the innocent woman and child.
