Jude the Obscure
“Well—don’t you forget to try it next time, old man.”
“I cannot answer you, madam. I have never known much of womankind.”
They had now reached the low levels bordering Alfredston, and passing
through the outskirts approached a mill, to which Phillotson said his
errand led him; whereupon they drew up, and he alighted, bidding them
good-night in a preoccupied mood.
In the meantime Sue, though remarkably successful in her cake-selling
experiment at Kennetbridge fair, had lost the temporary brightness
which had begun to sit upon her sadness on account of that success.
When all her “Christminster” cakes had been disposed of she took upon
her arm the empty basket, and the cloth which had covered the standing
she had hired, and giving the other things to the boy left the street
with him. They followed a lane to a distance of half a mile, till they
met an old woman carrying a child in short clothes, and leading a
toddler in the other hand.
Sue kissed the children, and said, “How is he now?”
“Still better!” returned Mrs. Edlin cheerfully. “Before you are
upstairs again your husband will be well enough—don’t ’ee trouble.”
They turned, and came to some old, dun-tiled cottages with gardens and
fruit-trees. Into one of these they entered by lifting the latch
without knocking, and were at once in the general living-room. Here
they greeted Jude, who was sitting in an arm-chair, the increased
delicacy of his normally delicate features, and the childishly
expectant look in his eyes, being alone sufficient to show that he had
been passing through a severe illness.
“What—you have sold them all?” he said, a gleam of interest lighting up
his face.
“Yes. Arcades, gables, east windows and all.” She told him the
pecuniary results, and then hesitated. At last, when they were left
alone, she informed him of the unexpected meeting with Arabella, and
the latter’s widowhood.
Jude was discomposed. “What—is she living here?” he said.
“No; at Alfredston,” said Sue.
Jude’s countenance remained clouded. “I thought I had better tell you?”
she continued, kissing him anxiously.
“Yes… Dear me! Arabella not in the depths of London, but down here! It
is only a little over a dozen miles across the country to Alfredston.
What is she doing there?”
She told him all she knew. “She has taken to chapel-going,” Sue added;
“and talks accordingly.”
“Well,” said Jude, “perhaps it is for the best that we have almost
decided to move on. I feel much better to-day, and shall be well enough
to leave in a week or two. Then Mrs. Edlin can go home again—dear
faithful old soul—the only friend we have in the world!”
“Where do you think to go to?” Sue asked, a troublousness in her tones.
Then Jude confessed what was in his mind. He said it would surprise
her, perhaps, after his having resolutely avoided all the old places
for so long. But one thing and another had made him think a great deal
of Christminster lately, and, if she didn’t mind, he would like to go
back there. Why should they care if they were known? It was
oversensitive of them to mind so much. They could go on selling cakes
there, for that matter, if he couldn’t work. He had no sense of shame
at mere poverty; and perhaps he would be as strong as ever soon, and
able to set up stone-cutting for himself there.
“Why should you care so much for Christminster?” she said pensively.
“Christminster cares nothing for you, poor dear!”
“Well, I do, I can’t help it. I love the place—although I know how it
hates all men like me—the so-called self-taught—how it scorns our
laboured acquisitions, when it should be the first to respect them; how
it sneers at our false quantities and mispronunciations, when it should
say, I see you want help, my poor friend! … Nevertheless, it is the
centre of the universe to me, because of my early dream: and nothing
can alter it. Perhaps it will soon wake up, and be generous. I pray so!
… I should like to go back to live there—perhaps to die there! In two
or three weeks I might, I think. It will then be June, and I should
like to be there by a particular day.”
His hope that he was recovering proved so far well grounded that in
three weeks they had arrived in the city of many memories; were
actually treading its pavements, receiving the reflection of the
sunshine from its wasting walls.
Part Sixth AT CHRISTMINSTER AGAIN
_“… And she humbled her body greatly, and all the places of her joy she
filled with her torn hair.”_—ESTHER (Apoc.).
_“There are two who decline, a woman and I,_
_And enjoy our death in the darkness here.”_
—R. BROWNING.
I
On their arrival the station was lively with straw-hatted young men,
welcoming young girls who bore a remarkable family likeness to their
welcomers, and who were dressed up in the brightest and lightest of
raiment.
“The place seems gay,” said Sue. “Why—it is Remembrance Day!—Jude—how
sly of you—you came to-day on purpose!”
“Yes,” said Jude quietly, as he took charge of the small child, and
told Arabella’s boy to keep close to them, Sue attending to their own
eldest. “I thought we might as well come to-day as on any other.”
“But I am afraid it will depress you!” she said, looking anxiously at
him up and down.
“Oh, I mustn’t let it interfere with our business; and we have a good
deal to do before we shall be settled here. The first thing is
lodgings.”
Having left their luggage and his tools at the station they proceeded
on foot up the familiar street, the holiday people all drifting in the
same direction. Reaching the Fourways they were about to turn off to
where accommodation was likely to be found when, looking at the clock
and the hurrying crowd, Jude said: “Let us go and see the procession,
and never mind the lodgings just now. We can get them afterwards.”
“Oughtn’t we to get a house over our heads first?” she asked.
But his soul seemed full of the anniversary, and together they went
down Chief Street, their smallest child in Jude’s arms, Sue leading her
little girl, and Arabella’s boy walking thoughtfully and silently
beside them. Crowds of pretty sisters in airy costumes, and meekly
ignorant parents who had known no college in their youth, were under
convoy in the same direction by brothers and sons bearing the opinion
written large on them that no properly qualified human beings had lived
on earth till they came to grace it here and now.
“My failure is reflected on me by every one of those young fellows,”
said Jude. “A lesson on presumption is awaiting me to-day!—Humiliation
Day for me! … If you, my dear darling, hadn’t come to my rescue, I
should have gone to the dogs with despair!”
She saw from his face that he was getting into one of his tempestuous,
self-harrowing moods. “It would have been better if we had gone at once
about our own affairs, dear,” she answered. “I am sure this sight will
awaken old sorrows in you, and do no good!”
“Well—we are near; we will see it now,” said he.
They turned in on the left by the church with the Italian porch, whose
helical columns were heavily draped with creepers, and pursued the lane
till there arose on Jude’s sight the circular theatre with that
well-known lantern above it, which stood in his mind as the sad symbol
of his abandoned hopes, for it was from that outlook that he had
finally surveyed the City of Colleges on the afternoon of his great
meditation, which convinced him at last of the futility of his attempt
to be a son of the university.
To-day, in the open space stretching between this building and the
nearest college, stood a crowd of expectant people. A passage was kept
clear through their midst by two barriers of timber, extending from the
door of the college to the door of the large building between it and
the theatre.
“Here is the place—they are just going to pass!” cried Jude in sudden
excitement. And pushing his way to the front he took up a position
close to the barrier, still hugging the youngest child in his arms,
while Sue and the others kept immediately behind him. The crowd filled
in at their back, and fell to talking, joking, and laughing as carriage
after carriage drew up at the lower door of the college, and solemn
stately figures in blood-red robes began to alight. The sky had grown
overcast and livid, and thunder rumbled now and then.
Father Time shuddered. “It do seem like the Judgment Day!” he
whispered.
“They are only learned Doctors,” said Sue.
While they waited big drops of rain fell on their heads and shoulders,
and the delay grew tedious. Sue again wished not to stay.
“They won’t be long now,” said Jude, without turning his head.
But the procession did not come forth, and somebody in the crowd, to
pass the time, looked at the façade of the nearest college, and said he
wondered what was meant by the Latin inscription in its midst. Jude,
who stood near the inquirer, explained it, and finding that the people
all round him were listening with interest, went on to describe the
carving of the frieze (which he had studied years before), and to
criticize some details of masonry in other college fronts about the
city.
The idle crowd, including the two policemen at the doors, stared like
the Lycaonians at Paul, for Jude was apt to get too enthusiastic over
any subject in hand, and they seemed to wonder how the stranger should
know more about the buildings of their town than they themselves did;
till one of them said: “Why, I know that man; he used to work here
years ago—Jude Fawley, that’s his name! Don’t you mind he used to be
nicknamed Tutor of St. Slums, d’ye mind?—because he aimed at that line
o’ business? He’s married, I suppose, then, and that’s his child he’s
carrying. Taylor would know him, as he knows everybody.”
The speaker was a man named Jack Stagg, with whom Jude had formerly
worked in repairing the college masonries; Tinker Taylor was seen to be
standing near. Having his attention called the latter cried across the
barriers to Jude: “You’ve honoured us by coming back again, my friend!”
Jude nodded.
“An’ you don’t seem to have done any great things for yourself by going
away?”
Jude assented to this also.
“Except found more mouths to fill!” This came in a new voice, and Jude
recognized its owner to be Uncle Joe, another mason whom he had known.
Jude replied good-humouredly that he could not dispute it; and from
remark to remark something like a general conversation arose between
him and the crowd of idlers, during which Tinker Taylor asked Jude if
he remembered the Apostles’ Creed in Latin still, and the night of the
challenge in the public house.
“But Fortune didn’t lie that way?” threw in Joe. “Yer powers wasn’t
enough to carry ’ee through?”
“Don’t answer them any more!” entreated Sue.
“I don’t think I like Christminster!” murmured little Time mournfully,
as he stood submerged and invisible in the crowd.
But finding himself the centre of curiosity, quizzing, and comment,
Jude was not inclined to shrink from open declarations of what he had
no great reason to be ashamed of; and in a little while was stimulated
to say in a loud voice to the listening throng generally:
“It is a difficult question, my friends, for any young man—that
question I had to grapple with, and which thousands are weighing at the
present moment in these uprising times—whether to follow uncritically
the track he finds himself in, without considering his aptness for it,
or to consider what his aptness or bent may be, and re-shape his course
accordingly. I tried to do the latter, and I failed. But I don’t admit
that my failure proved my view to be a wrong one, or that my success
would have made it a right one; though that’s how we appraise such
attempts nowadays—I mean, not by their essential soundness, but by