Fanny Robin’s lock of hair

Fanny Robin’s lock of hair is a private relic kept inside Sergeant Troy’s watch, but its hidden place does not keep it hidden for long. When Bathsheba glimpses it, Troy’s evasions and eventual admission identify the hair as Fanny’s; later, Fanny’s yellow hair frames her face in the coffin, confirming the connection visually. The curl turns an intimate keepsake into material evidence of a past relationship and a source of painful recognition for Bathsheba.

Appearance and keeping

The lock is small enough to be stowed inside the back of Troy’s watch. Bathsheba sees it when he opens the watch during their conversation about money and his impending departure. He closes the case at once and initially claims the hair is hers, then says he had forgotten it was there. The object’s brief appearance interrupts his attempt to manage the conversation and gives Bathsheba something concrete to question.

Identification and concealment

Under Bathsheba’s questioning, Troy first describes the hair as belonging to a young woman he had intended to marry before he knew Bathsheba. He refuses to give the woman’s name, but answers that she is alive, unmarried, and pretty. When Bathsheba presses him about the woman they had met, Troy admits that the hair is hers and says their encounter had reminded him of it. He also claims that he had not looked at the curl for several months before taking it from a drawer that day. His successive explanations make the keepsake a measure of what he withholds as well as what he eventually admits.

Meaning for Bathsheba

The curl sharpens Bathsheba’s suspicion that Troy’s affections and obligations extend beyond their marriage. She asks him to burn it, but he does not agree to do so. His reference to other considerations and reparations intensifies her fear that he loves another woman more than he loves her; when he dismisses those ties as a jest, his account offers no reassurance. Bathsheba’s request to destroy the hair therefore becomes a plea to make his past attachment legible and relinquished, not merely to dispose of an unwanted object.

Recognition beside Fanny

After opening the coffin, Bathsheba sees Fanny’s face framed by the same yellow hair. The sight leaves little room for doubt about the curl in Troy’s watch and retrospectively gives the earlier exchange its full significance. The object links Troy’s private possession to Fanny’s dead body, transforming an evasive domestic argument into a confrontation with the consequences of his past. Bathsheba’s response is divided between resentment toward Fanny and remorse at directing vindictiveness toward a dead woman; she kneels, prays, and places flowers around Fanny’s head. The lock thus connects concealed attachment, marital injury, and the belated knowledge that arrives through Fanny’s death.