Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

Jude the Obscure
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‘You see, Jude, it is lonely here in the week-day mornings, when
you are at work, and I think and think of––of my––’ She stopped till
she could control the lumpiness of her throat. ‘And I have taken to
go in there, as it is so near.’
‘O well––of course, I say nothing against it. Only it is odd, for
you. They little think what sort of chiel is amang them!’
‘What do you mean, Jude?’
‘Well––a sceptic, to be plain.’
‘How can you pain me so, dear Jude, in my trouble! Yet I know you
didn’t mean it. But you ought not to say that.’
‘I won’t. But I am much surprised!’
‘Well––I want to tell you something else, Jude. You won’t be
angry, will you? I have thought of it a good deal since my babies
died. I don’t think I ought to be your wife––or as your wife––any
longer.’
‘What? . . . But you are!’
‘From your point of view; but——’
‘Of course we were afraid of the ceremony, and a good many
others would have been in our places, with such strong reasons for
fears. But experience has proved how we misjudged ourselves, and
overrated our in
firmities; and if you are beginning to respect rites
and ceremonies, as you seem to be, I wonder you don’t say it shall be
carried out instantly? You certainly are my wife, Sue, in all but law.
What do you mean by what you said?’
‘I don’t think I am!’
‘Not? But suppose we had gone through the ceremony? Would
you feel that you were then?’
‘No. I should not feel even then that I was. I should feel worse
than I do now.’
‘Why so––in the name of all that’s perverse, my dear?’
‘Because I am Richard’s.’
‘Ah––you hinted that absurd fancy to me before!’
‘It was only an impression with me then; I feel more and more
convinced as time goes on that––I belong to him, or to nobody.’
‘My good heavens––how we are changing places!’
‘Yes. Perhaps so.’
Some few days later, in the dusk of the summer evening, they were
sitting in the same small room downstairs, when a knock came to the
front door of the carpenter’s house where they were lodging, and in a
At Christminster Again
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few moments there was a tap at the door of their room. Before they
could open it the comer did so, and a woman’s form appeared.
‘Is Mr. Fawley here?’
Jude and Sue started as he mechanically replied in the a
ffirmative,
for the voice was Arabella’s.
He formally requested her to come in, and she sat down in the
window bench, where they could distinctly see her outline against
the light; but no characteristic that enabled them to estimate her
general aspect and air. Yet something seemed to denote that she was
not quite so comfortably circumstanced, nor so bouncingly attired,
as she had been during Cartlett’s lifetime.
The three attempted an awkward conversation about the tragedy,
of which Jude had felt it to be his duty to inform her immediately,
though she had never replied to his letter.
‘I have just come from the cemetery,’ she said. ‘I inquired and
found the child’s grave. I couldn’t come to the funeral––thank you
for inviting me all the same. I read all about it in the papers, and I felt
I wasn’t wanted. . . . No––I couldn’t come to the funeral,’ repeated
Arabella who, seeming utterly unable to reach the ideal of a cata-
strophic manner, fumbled with iterations. ‘But I am glad I found the
grave. As ’tis your trade, Jude, you’ll be able to put up a handsome
stone to ’em.’
‘I shall put up a headstone,’ said Jude drearily.
‘He was my child, and naturally I feel for him.’
‘I hope so. We all did.’
‘The others that weren’t mine I didn’t feel so much for, as was
natural.’
‘Of course.’
A sigh came from the dark corner where Sue sat.
‘I had often wished I had mine with me,’ continued Mrs. Cartlett.
‘Perhaps ’twouldn’t have happened then! But of course I didn’t wish
to take him away from your wife.’
‘I am not his wife,’ came from Sue.
The unexpectedness of her words struck Jude silent.
‘O I beg your pardon, I’m sure,’ said Arabella. ‘I thought you
were!’
Jude had known from the quality of Sue’s tone that her new and
transcendental views lurked in her words; but all except their obvi-
ous meaning was, naturally, missed by Arabella. The latter, after