Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

Jude the Obscure
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first in the old-fashioned way, we ought to have parted. Perhaps the
world is not illuminated enough for such experiments as ours! Who
were we, to think we could act as pioneers!’
‘I am so glad you see that much, at any rate. I never deliberately
meant to do as I did. I slipped into my false position through jealousy
and agitation!’
‘But surely through love––you loved me?’
‘Yes. But I wanted to let it stop there, and go on always as mere
lovers; until——’
‘But people in love couldn’t live for ever like that!’
‘Women could: men can’t, because they––won’t. An average
woman is in this superior to an average man––that she never insti-
gates, only responds. We ought to have lived in mental communion,
and no more.’
‘I was the unhappy cause of the change, as I have said before! . . .
Well, as you will! . . . But human nature can’t help being itself.’
‘O yes––that’s just what it has to learn––self-mastery.’
‘I repeat––if either were to blame it was not you, but I.’
‘No––it was I. Your wickedness was only the natural man’s desire
to possess the woman. Mine was not the reciprocal wish till envy
stimulated me to oust Arabella. I had thought I ought in charity to
let you approach me––that it was damnably sel
fish to torture you as I
did my other friend. But I shouldn’t have given way if you hadn’t
broken me down by making me fear you would go back to her. . . .
But don’t let us say any more about it! Jude, will you leave me to
myself now?’
‘Yes. . . . But Sue––my wife, as you are!’ he burst out; ‘my old
reproach to you was, after all, a true one. You have never loved me as
I love you––never––never! Yours is not a passionate heart––your
heart does not burn in a 
flame! You are, upon the whole,* a sort of fay,
or sprite––not a woman!’
‘At 
first I did not love you, Jude; that I own. When I first knew
you I merely wanted you to love me. I did not exactly 
flirt with you;
but that inborn craving which undermines some women’s morals
almost more than unbridled passion––the craving to attract and cap-
tivate, regardless of the injury it may do the man––was in me; and
when I found I had caught you, I was frightened. And then––I don’t
how it was––I couldn’t bear to let you go––possibly to Arabella
again––and so I got to love you, Jude. But you see, however fondly it
At Christminster Again
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ended, it began in the sel
fish and cruel wish to make your heart ache
for me without letting mine ache for you.’
‘And now you add to your cruelty by leaving me!’
‘Ah––yes! The further I 
flounder, the more harm I do!’
‘O Sue!’ said he with a sudden sense of his own danger. ‘Do not do
an immoral thing for moral reasons! You have been my social salva-
tion. Stay with me for humanity’s sake! You know what a weak fellow
I am. My two Arch Enemies you know––my weakness for woman-
kind, and my impulse to strong liquor. Don’t abandon me to them,
Sue, to save your own soul only! They have been kept entirely at a
distance since you became my guardian-angel! Since I have had you I
have been able to go into any temptations of the sort, without risk.
Isn’t my safety worth a little sacri
fice of dogmatic principle? I am in
terror lest, if you leave me, it will be with me another case of the pig
that was washed turning back to his wallowing in the mire!’
Sue burst out weeping. ‘O but you must not. Jude! You won’t! I’ll
pray for you night and day!’
‘Well––never mind; don’t grieve,’ said Jude generously. ‘I did suf-
fer, God knows, about you at that time; and now I su
ffer again. But
perhaps not so much as you. The woman mostly gets the worst of it
in the long run!’
‘She does.’
‘Unless she is absolutely worthless and contemptible. And this
one is not that, anyhow!’
Sue drew a nervous breath or two. ‘She is––I fear! . . . Now
Jude––good-night,––please!’
‘I mustn’t stay?––Not just once more? As it has been so many
times––O Sue, my wife, why not!’
‘No––no––not wife! . . . I am in your hands, Jude––don’t tempt
me back now I have advanced so far!’
‘Very well. I do your bidding. I owe that to you, darling, in pen-
ance for how I over-ruled it at the 
first time. My God, how selfish I
was! Perhaps––perhaps I spoilt one of the highest and purest loves
that ever existed between man and woman! . . . Then let the veil of
our temple be rent in two from this hour!’*
He went to the bed, removed one of the pair of pillows thereon,
and 
flung it to the floor.
Sue looked at him, and bending over the bed-rail wept silently.
‘You don’t see that it is a matter of conscience with me, and not of