Bathsheba Talks With Her Outrider: Advice
- Gabriel Oak turns out to be too busy with fair business to escort Bathsheba home as planned, so she decides to drive alone in her cart. Unfortunately, she gets caught leaving by Boldwood, and the man insists on escorting her the whole way home… alone. Hurray.
- Boldwood is tired of beating around the bush, so he flat out asks Bathsheba if she would ever consider marrying him again. She says she's not really interested, but Boldwood isn't one to take no for an answer.
- She tells him that the only reason she'd ever marry him would be out of a sense that she owed him something, but she'll never love him.
- Finally, he gets her to promise him that by Christmas, she'll be able to commit to marrying him, even if it's a six or seven year engagement.
- As the next few weeks go by, Bathsheba decides that she needs to confide in someone about her dilemma. She talks to Gabriel Oak about it and admits that she'll never love Boldwood.
- She's afraid that if she refuses him, though, she'll be responsible for driving him literally insane.
- Oak simply says that it's not fair to marry someone you don't love, but Bathsheba keeps insisting that it's more complicated than that.
- Bathsheba says she likes talking to Oak about love because it's something he's not an expert in. He tells her, however, that she shouldn't be so sure about this.
- As she walks away, Bathsheba resents the fact that for all of her romance with Troy and Boldwood, Oak has never once tried to throw his hat back into the ring. Not that she would have accepted him. She just wished she had the opportunity to say no to him.
- Oh, jeez. Bathsheba is such a diva.