The Hollow Amid the Ferns
- Bathsheba and Troy meet out in the forest. Without delay, Troy takes out his sword and starts showing her some super-sexy sword exercises.
- Then he turns toward her and tells her not to move. He proceeds to stab his sword all around her, chopping off a lock her hair but never actually touching her body.
- In other words, he's showing her how skilled he is. But the narrator's language in this scene makes the whole thing pretty sexual. Of course, you kind of had to talk about sex in metaphorical ways back in Hardy's time. Anything more direct would have been considered pornographic.
- Toward the end of the demonstration, Troy draws close to Bathsheba and kisses her on the mouth. Troy pockets the lock of her hair.
- Then he turns and darts back into the forest.
- Bathsheba cries from a combination of shame and excitement, and probably also because some dude was stabbing the air around her with a sword.