Jude the Obscure

by Thomas Hardy

  Christmas had come and passed, and Sue had gone to the MelchesterNormal School. The time was just the worst in the year for Jude toget into new employment, and he had written suggesting to her thathe should postpone his arrival for a month or so, till the days hadlengthened. She had acquiesced so readily that he wished he had notproposed it--she evidently did not much care about him, though shehad never once reproached him for his strange conduct in coming toher that night, and his silent disappearance. Neither had she eversaid a word about her relations with Mr. Phillotson.

  Suddenly, however, quite a passionate letter arrived from Sue.She was quite lonely and miserable, she told him. She hated theplace she was in; it was worse than the ecclesiastical designer's;worse than anywhere. She felt utterly friendless; could he comeimmediately?--though when he did come she would only be able tosee him at limited times, the rules of the establishment she foundherself in being strict to a degree. It was Mr. Phillotson who hadadvised her to come there, and she wished she had never listened tohim.

  Phillotson's suit was not exactly prospering, evidently; and Judefelt unreasonably glad. He packed up his things and went toMelchester with a lighter heart than he had known for months.

  This being the turning over a new leaf he duly looked about fora temperance hotel, and found a little establishment of thatdescription in the street leading from the station. When he hadhad something to eat he walked out into the dull winter light overthe town bridge, and turned the corner towards the Close. Theday was foggy, and standing under the walls of the most gracefularchitectural pile in England he paused and looked up. The loftybuilding was visible as far as the roofridge; above, the dwindlingspire rose more and more remotely, till its apex was quite lost inthe mist drifting across it.

  The lamps now began to be lighted, and turning to the west fronthe walked round. He took it as a good omen that numerous blocksof stone were lying about, which signified that the cathedral wasundergoing restoration or repair to a considerable extent. It seemedto him, full of the superstitions of his beliefs, that this was anexercise of forethought on the part of a ruling Power, that he mightfind plenty to do in the art he practised while waiting for a call tohigher labours.

  Then a wave of warmth came over him as he thought how near he nowstood to the bright-eyed vivacious girl with the broad foreheadand pile of dark hair above it; the girl with the kindling glance,daringly soft at times--something like that of the girls he hadseen in engravings from paintings of the Spanish school. She washere--actually in this Close--in one of the houses confronting thisvery west facade.

  He went down the broad gravel path towards the building. It wasan ancient edifice of the fifteenth century, once a palace, nowa training-school, with mullioned and transomed windows, and acourtyard in front shut in from the road by a wall. Jude opened thegate and went up to the door through which, on inquiring for hiscousin, he was gingerly admitted to a waiting-room, and in a fewminutes she came.

  Though she had been here such a short while, she was not as he hadseen her last. All her bounding manner was gone; her curves ofmotion had become subdued lines. The screens and subtleties ofconvention had likewise disappeared. Yet neither was she quite thewoman who had written the letter that summoned him. That had plainlybeen dashed off in an impulse which second thoughts had somewhatregretted; thoughts that were possibly of his recent self-disgrace.Jude was quite overcome with emotion.

  "You don't--think me a demoralized wretch--for coming to you as Iwas--and going so shamefully, Sue?"

  "Oh, I have tried not to! You said enough to let me know what hadcaused it. I hope I shall never have any doubt of your worthiness,my poor Jude! And I am glad you have come!"

  She wore a murrey-coloured gown with a little lace collar. It wasmade quite plain, and hung about her slight figure with clinginggracefulness. Her hair, which formerly she had worn according to thecustom of the day was now twisted up tightly, and she had altogetherthe air of a woman clipped and pruned by severe discipline,an under-brightness shining through from the depths which thatdiscipline had not yet been able to reach.

  She had come forward prettily, but Jude felt that she had hardlyexpected him to kiss her, as he was burning to do, under othercolours than those of cousinship. He could not perceive the leastsign that Sue regarded him as a lover, or ever would do so, now thatshe knew the worst of him, even if he had the right to behave as one;and this helped on his growing resolve to tell her of his matrimonialentanglement, which he had put off doing from time to time in sheerdread of losing the bliss of her company.

  Sue came out into the town with him, and they walked and talked withtongues centred only on the passing moments. Jude said he would liketo buy her a little present of some sort, and then she confessed,with something of shame, that she was dreadfully hungry. They werekept on very short allowances in the college, and a dinner, tea, andsupper all in one was the present she most desired in the world.Jude thereupon took her to an inn and ordered whatever the houseafforded, which was not much. The place, however, gave them adelightful opportunity for a _tete-a-tete_, nobody else being in theroom, and they talked freely.

  She told him about the school as it was at that date, and the roughliving, and the mixed character of her fellow-students, gatheredtogether from all parts of the diocese, and how she had to get up andwork by gas-light in the early morning, with all the bitterness ofa young person to whom restraint was new. To all this he listened;but it was not what he wanted especially to know--her relations withPhillotson. That was what she did not tell. When they had sat andeaten, Jude impulsively placed his hand upon hers; she looked upand smiled, and took his quite freely into her own little soft one,dividing his fingers and coolly examining them, as if they were thefingers of a glove she was purchasing.

  "Your hands are rather rough, Jude, aren't they?" she said.

  "Yes. So would yours be if they held a mallet and chisel all day."

  "I don't dislike it, you know. I think it is noble to see a man'shands subdued to what he works in... Well, I'm rather glad I cameto this training-school, after all. See how independent I shall beafter the two years' training! I shall pass pretty high, I expect,and Mr. Phillotson will use his influence to get me a big school."

  She had touched the subject at last. "I had a suspicion, a fear,"said Jude, "that he--cared about you rather warmly, and perhapswanted to marry you."

  "Now don't be such a silly boy!"

  "He has said something about it, I expect."

  "If he had, what would it matter? An old man like him!"

  "Oh, come, Sue; he's not so very old. And I know what I saw himdoing--"

  "Not kissing me--that I'm certain!"

  "No. But putting his arm round your waist."

  "Ah--I remember. But I didn't know he was going to."

  "You are wriggling out if it, Sue, and it isn't quite kind!"

  Her ever-sensitive lip began to quiver, and her eye to blink, atsomething this reproof was deciding her to say.

  "I know you'll be angry if I tell you everything, and that's why Idon't want to!"

  "Very well, then, dear," he said soothingly. "I have no real rightto ask you, and I don't wish to know."

  "I shall tell you!" said she, with the perverseness that waspart of her. "This is what I have done: I have promised--Ihave promised--that I will marry him when I come out of thetraining-school two years hence, and have got my certificate; hisplan being that we shall then take a large double school in a greattown--he the boys' and I the girls'--as married school-teachers oftendo, and make a good income between us."

  "Oh, Sue! ... But of course it is right--you couldn't have donebetter!"

  He glanced at her and their eyes met, the reproach in his own belyinghis words. Then he drew his hand quite away from hers, and turnedhis face in estrangement from her to the window. Sue regarded himpassively without moving.

  "I knew you would be angry!" she said with an air of no emotionwhatever. "Very well--I am wrong, I sup
pose! I ought not to havelet you come to see me! We had better not meet again; and we'll onlycorrespond at long intervals, on purely business matters!"

  This was just the one thing he would not be able to bear, as sheprobably knew, and it brought him round at once. "Oh yes, we will,"he said quickly. "Your being engaged can make no difference to mewhatever. I have a perfect right to see you when I want to; and Ishall!"

  "Then don't let us talk of it any more. It is quite spoiling ourevening together. What does it matter about what one is going to dotwo years hence!"

  She was something of a riddle to him, and he let the subject driftaway. "Shall we go and sit in the cathedral?" he asked, when theirmeal was finished.

  "Cathedral? Yes. Though I think I'd rather sit in the railwaystation," she answered, a remnant of vexation still in her voice."That's the centre of the town life now. The cathedral has had itsday!"

  "How modern you are!"

  "So would you be if you had lived so much in the Middle Ages as Ihave done these last few years! The cathedral was a very good placefour or five centuries ago; but it is played out now... I am notmodern, either. I am more ancient than mediaevalism, if you onlyknew."

  Jude looked distressed.

  "There--I won't say any more of that!" she cried. "Only you don'tknow how bad I am, from your point of view, or you wouldn't think somuch of me, or care whether I was engaged or not. Now there's justtime for us to walk round the Close, then I must go in, or I shall belocked out for the night."

  He took her to the gate and they parted. Jude had a conviction thathis unhappy visit to her on that sad night had precipitated thismarriage engagement, and it did anything but add to his happiness.Her reproach had taken that shape, then, and not the shape of words.However, next day he set about seeking employment, which it was notso easy to get as at Christminster, there being, as a rule, lessstone-cutting in progress in this quiet city, and hands being mostlypermanent. But he edged himself in by degrees. His first work wassome carving at the cemetery on the hill; and ultimately he becameengaged on the labour he most desired--the cathedral repairs, whichwere very extensive, the whole interior stonework having beenoverhauled, to be largely replaced by new. It might be a labour ofyears to get it all done, and he had confidence enough in his ownskill with the mallet and chisel to feel that it would be a matter ofchoice with himself how long he would stay.

  The lodgings he took near the Close Gate would not have disgraced acurate, the rent representing a higher percentage on his wages thanmechanics of any sort usually care to pay. His combined bed andsitting-room was furnished with framed photographs of the rectoriesand deaneries at which his landlady had lived as trusted servant inher time, and the parlour downstairs bore a clock on the mantelpieceinscribed to the effect that it was presented to the sameserious-minded woman by her fellow-servants on the occasion of hermarriage. Jude added to the furniture of his room by unpackingphotographs of the ecclesiastical carvings and monuments that hehad executed with his own hands; and he was deemed a satisfactoryacquisition as tenant of the vacant apartment.

  He found an ample supply of theological books in the city book-shops,and with these his studies were recommenced in a different spirit anddirection from his former course. As a relaxation from the Fathers,and such stock works as Paley and Butler, he read Newman, Pusey, andmany other modern lights. He hired a harmonium, set it up in hislodging, and practised chants thereon, single and double.