Here's the passage from Tess of the d'Urbervilles she found for me. It can be found in either chapter 14 or 15 of the novel, and reads as follows:
She philosophically noted dates as they came past in the revolution of the year; the disastrous night of her undoing at Trantridge with its dark background of The Chase; also the dates of the baby's birth and death; also her own birthday; and every other day individualized by incidents in which she had taken some share. She suddenly thought one afternoon, when looking in the glass at her fairness, that there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death, when all these charms would had disappeared; a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it? Why did she not feel the chill of each yearly encounter with such a cold relation? She had Jeremy Taylor's thought that some time in the future those who had known her would say: "It is the--th, the day that poor Tess Durbeyfield died"; and there would be nothing singular to their minds in the statement. Of that day, doomed to be her terminus in time through all the ages, she did not know the place in month, week, season or year.**
The idea struck a chord with me, as it echoes a thought that's been with me for years. It would be nice to have it articulated, as I've stumbled with it time and again, but I agree the full passage is far too unwieldy for a good axiom. So let me try again, borrowing from Hardy:
Each year we pass the anniversary of our own death, and are given no sign or thought of its importance; but it is there, sly and unseen, waiting for our introduction.
A few days ago was the anniversary of my Grandpa's death. Did September 3rd mean anything to him in the years before his life ended? His wife, my Grandmother died on July 4th. She celebrated the holiday 84 times before that day; did she ever feel the tug of fate on those happy days?
Hardy and I can't be the only people who've thought of this, right?
1 comment:
Nope, I think of it all the time. I think most folks don't like to dwell on their eventual demise, and therefore don't talk much about the fact that they live through their 'death day' every single year.
I'm sort of hoping I go in the height of autumn, when the leaves are in their full colorful splendor. That wouldn't be such a bad final view.
XOXO
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