Tess Of The D'Urbervilles: Episode 4 - Catalog (2024)

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Summary

Through a cruelly bitter winter, Tess continues to work on the farm. Alec, who seems to have replaced any religious fervour he once had with a passion for Tess alone, continues to plague her with h...

Through a cruelly bitter winter, Tess continues to work on the farm. Alec, who seems to have replaced any religious fervour he once had with a passion for Tess alone, continues to plague her with his relentless attention. Tess’s younger sister Liza-Lu arrives at the farm to report that their father is dying. Tess and her sister hurry home. John Durbeyfield dies and is buried. The family are turned out of their house. They travel to the village once owned by the blighted d’Ubervilles with all the possessions they can carry. Tess writes an angry letter to Angel. She cannot forgive him now for ignoring her as he has. But for all we know, Angel is dead. Alec follows the Durbeyfields. Unable to find lodgings, they have encamped in the local churchyard. Alec finds Tess in the church, looking at the crypt of her ancestors, wishing she were dead like them. He tells her that he has offered the family support; he will give them a home. She now has no choice but to go with him and be his. In Mr Clare’s church, a ghostly frail young man turns up. It is Angel Clare… Angel’s parents show him letters. The first is the angry one. The next is one from Izzy at the farm, begging him to find Tess before it is too late. Angel sets out to find her, to save her. He goes to the farm. He visits her former home. Finally he arrives at the house still owned by Alec d’Urberville, where Alec is allowing the Durbeyfields to work and stay. But there is no sign of Alec, or Tess. Liza-Lu lets Angel know that Tess is in Sandbourne, a seaside town. There he sees her at last, in a boarding house. She is still staggeringly beautiful, but a changed woman, in rich clothes. She says that Alec has won her back. He leaves in a daze. Wildly distraught now, Tess stabs Alec with a bread knife and kills him. She runs in search of Angel and finds him at the station, where she confesses to what she has done. Knowing that they will now be pursued, they escape across the countryside. For a short happy time in an empty lodging house, they enjoy what could have been, reminiscing and making love. But they are discovered and have to keep running. Their journey finishes at Stonehenge. Somehow Tess knows it is all over. She has one last instruction for Angel: he must marry her sister, Liza-Lu. They sleep overnight, and at dawn the police arrive. Tess goes willingly, knowing she has known happiness. As Tess faces execution, she remembers the May Dance and how it might have been so different – she and Angel dancing and falling in love there and then. From a distance Angel and Liza-Lu watch the black flag flying over the prison, a sign that Tess has been hanged for murder.