Hardy - our most operatic writer as well

Have noted in a few previous posts that Thomas Hardy is our most geographic of writers and now let me add, at least in re The Return of the Native, he also our most operatic writer (we, in this case, is English-language readers) - the end of the fourth "book" of Return is as melodramatic and over the top and just plain weird as Rigoletto or anything from Verdi - Clym's mother takes a long trek on a hot day to visit estranged son and despised daughter-in-law in hopes of some kind of reconciliation - but as she arrives Eustacia is in the house with her former lover, Damon, whom she ushers out the back door - a really bad decision, obviously. Stupidly, she hopes her sleeping husband will hear his mother knocking at the door; he doesn't - Eustacia goes back in the house, looks out the window; Mrs. Y sees her looking out and believes neither son nor d-in-law will let her in. She begins the long walk home, meets a little boy who accompanies her part of the way - a Shakespearean touch, I think, as she babbles to him about ingratitude (reminds of Lear?). Later, Clym sets off to her house - completely unaware of her attempted visit - comes upon her near death (on top of all else, she's been bitten by an "adder") - villagers go off in search of doc and others to work on a folk remedy - catching three adders, frying them in oil, rubbing the fat on the site of the puncture! - and eventually Mrs. Y dies - and then the little boy shows up and tells what she has said: She died because her own son had spurned her. This is like the great "maledicto" - the curse - in so many Italian operas. How will Clym go on living? Will he learn of his wife's role in this - and that her former lover (and now his cousin-in-law) had also come to visit and been ushered away?