Heartbreaking. Even though you sense the tragedy from the very first pages of the story. Perhaps that makes it even more heartbreaking. A typical, clichéd romantic story that ends in tragedy. But Galsworthy, through his way of storytelling and by introducing paranormal folkloric elements, makes it special and makes it stand out from other stories of this kind.
“When a man is as young as Ashurst, pity is not a powerful emotion.”
This line sums up the entire essence of the story. The protagonist, a young man freshly out of school and without life experience, becomes accidentally involved in an environment so natural and so far removed from his own reality that it makes everything around him seem fairytale-like and supernatural. Influenced by this setting and intoxicated by its magic, the thoughtless boy lets lustful impulses guide him toward the discovery of true love in an innocent girl. He realizes the crude mistake he has made when he returns to his own environment and his own world and is tempted by another woman, reaching the conclusion that he could neither love nor be loved by someone who does not belong to his world.
Or at least, that is how he tries to justify himself.
In truth, in Stella’s character he sees himself reflected in a mirror. He is not drawn to Stella because of Stella herself, but because she represents everything he has grown up with and been educated to believe constitutes the essence of his life. It could have been anyone other than Stella once he left the farm setting. It just so happened that Stella showed interest in him. In the end, it was not the choice of a greater love over a lesser one, but the sacrifice of a great, genuine, yet unpredictable love for a manageable life without surprises. This becomes impossible to miss when you return to the opening pages and to the way he describes Stella after all those years of marriage:
“The beauty of her blue eyes, the freshness and delicacy of her face, the grace of her body and the sweet colors that recalled apple blossoms had strangely charmed Ashurst twenty-six years earlier, but by now those virtues had long since faded. Despite the passage of time, even at the age of forty-three she remained an attractive and lovable woman, with slightly hollowed cheeks and eyes of a grayish blue, which showed her to be a confident and wise woman.”
Stella retains the same features and characteristics that once captivated the protagonist, yet now he sees them as faded. Throughout, he is consumed by regret for the lost love—a love he was reckless enough to claim in a moment of impulse, and cowardly enough not to hold on to, abandoning it in the most unworthy and cruel ways.