# XLIV explained — Tess of the d’Urbervilles > Chapter companion for Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. ## What happens Tess, spurred by Izz Huett's tale of Angel's near-infidelity, decides to walk fifteen miles to the Emminster Vicarage to seek news of her absent husband. She sets out on a Sunday morning, dressed in her finest remaining clothes, but upon arriving finds no one home. While resting on a hill, she overhears Angel's brothers and Mercy Chant mock a pair of old boots they find—her own walking boots—and, humiliated, she abandons her plan and returns to Flintcomb-Ash, feeling hopeless and rejected. ## Themes in this chapter ### Social Class and Inequality Tess's humiliation by the Clare brothers and Mercy Chant over her worn boots highlights the class divide and her perceived unworthiness as a poor country girl. ### Suffering and Resilience Tess endures the physical hardship of the long walk and the emotional blow of the boot incident, yet continues on with a conviction that a crisis is approaching. ### Love and Marriage Tess's journey is motivated by her desire to reconnect with Angel and salvage her marriage, despite his year-long silence and abandonment. ## Character check-ins ### Tess Durbeyfield Tess walks to Emminster Vicarage to seek news of Angel, but is humiliated by the discovery of her boots and returns without making contact. ### Angel Clare Angel is absent, having not written to Tess for nearly a year; his silence and his family's attitudes drive Tess's actions. ### Izz Huett Izz helps Tess dress for her journey and expresses magnanimous hope that Tess will win back Angel's affections. ### Marian Marian assists Tess in preparing for her walk to Emminster. ### Mercy Chant Mercy Chant accompanies Angel's brothers and participates in the discovery and appropriation of Tess's boots. ### Felix Clare Felix Clare, one of Angel's brothers, is part of the group that finds Tess's boots and dismisses them as tramp's belongings. ### Cuthbert Clare Cuthbert Clare, the other brother, picks up Tess's boots with his stick for Mercy Chant to take home. ## Key lines > By the disclosure in the barn her thoughts were led anew in the direction which they had taken more than once of late⁠—to the distant Emminster Vicarage. After hearing Izz's story in the barn, Tess again thought about visiting Angel's family at the Emminster Vicarage. _Tess is motivated by Izz's revelation to seek out Angel's parents._ > She had set herself to stand or fall by her qualities, and to waive such merely technical claims upon a strange family as had been established for her by the flimsy fact of a member of that family, in a season of impulse, writing his name in a church-book beside hers. Tess resolved to rely on her own merits rather than on the technicality of being married to Angel. _Tess's independent character is emphasized; she does not want to impose on the Clare family._ > Here's a pair of old boots... Thrown away, I suppose, by some tramp or other. Felix Clare finds Tess's boots and assumes they were discarded by a tramp. _The boots are misidentified, leading to Tess's humiliation._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/chapters/xliv - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/tess_of_the_d_urbervilles_se/chapters