She also, by a felicitous thought,
took a handkerchief from her bundle and tied it round her face under
her bonnet, covering her chin and half her cheeks and temples, as if
she were suffering from toothache. Then with her little scissors,
by the aid of a pocket looking-glass, she mercilessly nipped her
eyebrows off, and thus insured against aggressive admiration, she
went on her uneven way.
"What a mommet of a maid!" said the next man who met her to a
companion.
Tears came into her eyes for very pity of herself as she heard him.
"But I don't care!" she said. "O no--I don't care! I'll always be
ugly now, because Angel is not here, and I have nobody to take care
of me. My husband that was is gone away, and never will love me any
more; but I love him just the same, and hate all other men, and like
to make 'em think scornfully of me!"
Thus Tess walks on; a figure which is part of the landscape; a
fieldwoman pure and simple, in winter guise; a gray serge cape, a
red woollen cravat, a stuff skirt covered by a whitey-brown rough
wrapper, and buff-leather gloves. Every thread of that old attire
has become faded and thin under the stroke of raindrops, the burn of
sunbeams, and the stress of winds.
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