Tess of the d'Urbervilles: Chapter 38 Summary & Analysis

Tess returns again to her home valley and asks the turnpike-keeper for news. The only news he has is of Tess herself and how proud her parents were of her wedding. Tess feels ashamed and decides to return home as secretly as she can. She meets one old friend but diverts her inquiries.

Tess enters through the back door and her mother is shocked to see her. Joan interrogates her about Angel, and Tess breaks down weeping and admits that he left her because she told him her past. Joan calls Tess a fool and says it was already a sin to marry him, so she might as well have carried on silently. Joan almost immediately comforts herself with “what's done can't be undone,” but she worries her husband will be upset, as he has been boasting of the wedding.

John Durbeyfield returns. Joan has quickly taken the news in stride as if it were no more than a rainy day. Tess goes upstairs and sees that her bed belongs to other siblings now. She overhears her father hoping that Angel would take Tess's superior name instead of vice versa. Joan tells him the news and he is crushed, mostly thinking of how he will be made fun of at the bar. He implies that maybe Tess never married at all, and Tess is so upset she decides not to stay long.

Tess gets a letter from Angel saying he is in North England, and she pretends she is going to meet him. She also gives some of his money to her mother to imply that she is living well now. Once she is gone Joan reassures herself that the couple will surely reunite through their strong passion.