The Return of The Native: Book 5, Chapter 7 - Summary & Analysis

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CHAPTER VII: The Night of the Sixth of November

Summary

      Eustacia finally decides to accept Wildeve's help in going to Paris. But Clym's goodness and virtue haunted her mind. She longed for a reconciliation with him and expected him to come and make up the quarrel but she had no hopes about it.

      She finally decides the escape on sixth of November. In the afternoon, she decides to take a walk. In the course, she finds Susan Nunsuch's cottage. For a moment Eustacia is illuminated in the light cast from a fire within the house. To Susan Nnnsuch, she appears to be a supernatural creature of light surrounded by darkness.

      At eight, she gives the signal to Wildeve and goes back to her bed until it is time. At this time Fairway delivers a letter which he had forgotten to deliver in the morning. The captain thinks that she is asleep and decides to give it to her in the morning. After a while, he hears Eustracia walking down the passage way and weeping. He goes after her but only to find that she is gone.

      It begins to rain heavily. The world around her and her mind are equally in turbulence. Suddenly, she realizes that she does not have enough money for a long trip. She has not thought much about the money factor. Now, she has to face the reality. Uncertainty grabs her. Her body seems to crouch towards the earth almost as though she is being pulled forcibly into the heath. She rocks to and fro like a person in pain. She cries out, "I do not deserve my lot", revolting against the cruelty of the gods.

      At that same time of night in her cottage, Susan Nunsuch is making a wax image of the girl on the heath. Her aim is to destroy Eustacia's power over her son. She inserts long pins into the doll, and throws it into the fire and she mumbles an incarnation of the Lord's prayer repeated backward. The figure is almost destroyed after the third repetition of the words.

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