Her binding proceeds with clock-like monotony. From the sheaf last
finished she draws a handful of ears, patting their tips with her
left palm to bring them even. Then, stooping low, she moves forward,
gathering the corn with both hands against her knees, and pushing
her left gloved hand under the bundle to meet the right on the other
side, holding the corn in an embrace like that of a lover. She
brings the ends of the bond together, and kneels on the sheaf while
she ties it, beating back her skirts now and then when lifted by the
breeze. A bit of her naked arm is visible between the buff leather
of the gauntlet and the sleeve of her gown; and as the day wears on
its feminine smoothness becomes scarified by the stubble and bleeds.
At intervals she stands up to rest, and to retie her disarranged
apron, or to pull her bonnet straight. Then one can see the oval
face of a handsome young woman with deep dark eyes and long heavy
clinging tresses, which seem to clasp in a beseeching way anything
they fall against. The cheeks are paler, the teeth more regular,
the red lips thinner than is usual in a country-bred girl.
It is Tess Durbeyfield, otherwise d'Urberville, somewhat changed--the
same, but not the same; at the present stage of her existence living
as a stranger and an alien here, though it was no strange land that
she was in.
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