Far From the Madding Crowd: Chapter 31 Summary & Analysis

To avoid Boldwood upon his return, Bathsheba decides to visit Liddy at her sister’s, as the girl has been granted a week’s holiday to spend there. She’s walked three miles when suddenly she sees Boldwood over the hill. He doesn’t look up until they’re almost face to face. Bathsheba falters and blushes, and he asks if she’s afraid of him—her demeanor so contrasts with his own feelings. He’s accepted that she won’t marry him, he says. Confusedly, Bathsheba bids him goodbye, but as she withdraws, he asks heavily if it’s really final: he asks her for pity, though he’s ashamed to beg her not to throw him off. She says that’s impossible, since she never had him, though he reminds her of her encouragement. That was a childish game of which she now repents, Bathsheba says.

Boldwood regrets how her jest has now turned to earnestness, and he bemoans how much torture that trick has caused him—she’s the only love he’s ever had. He asks her not to pity him, though again asks what happened to her conviction that she would grow to care for him. Bathsheba repeats that she never promised him anything, and asks him to think more kindly of her, and to forgive her. Still, he claims she must be heartless, though he wavers between renouncing her and begging her to change her mind.

Bathsheba repeats that she’s colder than he thinks, a result of an unprotected childhood in a cold world: resentfully, Boldwood says that’s no reason—she does have the ability to love, and he knows where it’s turned. He begins to rage about Troy, who stole her in Boldwood’s absence: now people laugh at him. He has no further claim on her, Boldwood says, though he’s ashamed. This is all woman’s folly, he adds, but she replies that it’s unmanly to attack a woman this way: there’s no one who can fight her battles for her. But she won’t care if everyone sneers at her. He dares her to deny that Troy has kissed her, and she cannot. Boldwood curses him, while Bathsheba asks him not to, as she loves Troy: but Boldwood continues to rage, telling her to keep Troy away from him. He turns his face and leaves her.

Bathsheba knows that Troy is about to return to Weatherbury, and fears a quarrel between him and Boldwood. She paces up and down and then sits down on some rocks to think, the dark earth and clouds contrasting with the sparkling stars to the east.