Peter Firth credited as playing...
Angel Clare
- [last lines]
- Angel Clare: She's sleeping. Just a little longer?
- Tess: Have they come for me?
- Angel Clare: Yes.
- Tess: Oh, I am ready.
- Angel Clare: I forgive you. But, forgiveness isn't all.
- Tess: Nor love me.
- Angel Clare: I can't help associating your lack of firmness with the decline of your family. Decrepit families imply deficient will power and decadent conduct. I thought you were a child of nature; but, you were the last in a line of degenerate aristocrats.
- Angel Clare: Tess! Why run away like that? Are you afraid?
- Tess: No, sir. Not of outdoor things, no.
- Angel Clare: But, you have your indoor fears, eh?
- Tess: I have, yes.
- Angel Clare: At what?
- Tess: I couldn't rightly say.
- Angel Clare: Of the milk turning sour? Fear of life in general?
- Tess: Yes, sir.
- Angel Clare: So have I. Very often. Life's a puzzle. Don't you think?
- Tess: Perhaps. Now, you've put it that way.
- Tess: You don't forgive me?
- Angel Clare: You were one person, now you're another. Have mercy.
- [laughs]
- Angel Clare: Have Mercy.
- Tess: What do you mean by that laugh? How can you speak to me like this? It frightens me. How can you?
- Angel Clare: You are not the woman I love.
- Tess: Well, who am I then?
- Angel Clare: Another woman in her shape.
- Angel Clare: Leave that! You're my wife, not my servant!
- Tess: I'm your wife? You don't want to live with me. You want to go, don't you?
- Angel Clare: I couldn't stay without despising myself. What is worse, without despising you. How can we live together while that man exists? He is your natural husband. Not I.
- Angel Clare: It's absolutely necessary that one of us remain here - to avoid a scandal. We must at least keep up appearances.
- Tess: Oh, yes. We must.
- Angel Clare: I should like to see Mrs. Clare.
- Mrs. Durbeyfield: Mrs. Clare?
- Angel Clare: Tess.
- Mrs. Durbeyfield: Yes, I know. She's not here.
- Angel Clare: You are Mrs. Durbeyfield?
- Mrs. Durbeyfield: Yes.
- Angel Clare: Where is she living?
- Mrs. Durbeyfield: I don't know.
- Angel Clare: I'm her husband.
- Mrs. Durbeyfield: I guessed as much.
- Tess: Did they sacrifice to God here?
- Angel Clare: No. To the Sun, I believe. It was a pagan temple.
- Tess: Older than the ages. Older than the d'Urbervilles.