Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

particular by candlelight. To be sure, halfpence that have been in
circulation can’t be expected to look like new ones from the mint.
But for a woman that’s been knocking about the four hemispheres
for some time, she’s passable enough. A little bit thick in the 
flitch
perhaps; but I like a woman that a pu
ff o’ wind won’t blow down.’
Their eyes followed the movements of the little girl as she spread
the breakfast cloth on the table they had been using, without wiping
up the slops of the liquor. The curtains were undrawn, and
the expression of the house made to look like morning. Some of the
guests, however, fell asleep in their chairs. One or two went to the
door, and gazed along the street more than once. Tinker Taylor was
the chief of these, and after a time he came in with a leer on his face.
‘By Gad, they are coming. I think the deed’s done!’
‘No,’ said Uncle Joe, following him in. ‘Take my word, he turned
rusty at the last minute. They are walking in a very onusual way; and
that’s the meaning of it!’
They waited in silence till the wedding party could be heard enter-
ing the house. First into the room came Arabella boisterously; and
her face was enough to show that her strategy had succeeded.
At Christminster Again


---

‘Mrs. Fawley, I presume?’ said Tinker Taylor with mock courtesy.
‘Certainly. Mrs. Fawley again,’ replied Arabella blandly, pulling
o
ff her glove and holding out her left hand. ‘There’s the padlock,
see. . . . Well, he was a very nice gentlemanly man indeed. I mean the
clergyman. He said to me as gentle as a babe when all was done:
“Mrs. Fawley, I congratulate you heartily,” he says. “For having
heard your history, and that of your husband, I think you have both
done the right and proper thing. And for your past errors as a wife,
and his as a husband, I think you ought now to be forgiven by the
world, as you have forgiven each other,” says he. Yes: he was a very
nice gentlemanly man. “The Church don’t recognize divorce in her
dogma, strictly speaking” he says: “and bear in mind the words of
the Service in your goings out and your comings in: What God hath
joined together let no man put asunder.” Yes: he was a very nice
gentlemanly man. . . . But Jude, my dear, you were enough to make a
cat laugh! You walked that straight, and held yourself that steady,
that one would have thought you were going ’prentice to a judge;
though I knew you were seeing double all the time, from the way you
fumbled with my 
finger.’
‘I said I’d do anything to––save a woman’s honour,’ muttered
Jude. ‘And I’ve done it!’
‘Well now old deary, come along and have some breakfast.’
‘I want––some––more whisky,’ said Jude stolidly.
‘Nonsense dear. Not now. There’s no more left. The tea will take
the muddle out of our heads, and we shall be as fresh as larks.’
‘All right. I’ve––married you. She said I ought to marry you
again, and I have straightaway. It is true religion! Ha––ha––ha!’
Jude the Obscure


---

VI.–viii.
M
 came and passed, and Jude and his wife, who had
lived but a short time in her father’s house after their re-marriage,
were in lodgings on the top 
floor of a dwelling nearer to the centre of
the city.
He had done a few days’ work during the two or three months
since the event, but his health had been indi
fferent, and it was now
precarious. He was sitting in an arm-chair before the 
fire, and
coughed a good deal.
‘I’ve got a bargain for my trouble in marrying thee over again!’
Arabella was saying to him. ‘I shall have to keep ’ee entirely,––that’s
what ’twill come to! I shall have to make black-pot and sausages, and
hawk ’em about the street, all to support an invalid husband I’d no
business to be saddled with at all. Why didn’t you keep your health,
deceiving one like this? You were well enough when the wedding
was!’
‘Ah, yes!’ said he laughing acridly. ‘I have been thinking of my
foolish feeling about the pig you and I killed during our 
first mar-
riage. I feel now that the greatest mercy that could be vouchsafed to me
would be that something should serve me as I served that animal.’
This was the sort of discourse that went on between them every
day now. The landlord of the lodging, who had heard that they were
a queer couple, had doubted if they were married at all, especially as
he had seen Arabella kiss Jude one evening when she had taken a
little cordial; and he was about to give them notice to quit, till by
chance overhearing her one night haranguing Jude in rattling terms,
and ultimately 
flinging a shoe at his head, he recognized the note of
genuine wedlock; and concluding that they must be respectable, said
no more.
Jude did not get any better, and one day he requested Arabella,
with considerable hesitation, to execute a commission for him. She
asked him indi
fferently what it was.
‘To write to Sue.’
‘What in the name––do you want me to write to her for?’
‘To ask how she is, and if she’ll come to see me, because I’m ill,
and should like to see her––once again.’

---

‘It is like you to insult a lawful wife by asking such a thing.’
‘It is just in order not to insult you that I ask you to do it. You
know I love Sue. I don’t wish to mince the matter––there stands the
fact: I love her. I could 
find a dozen ways of sending a letter to her
without your knowledge. But I wish to be quite above-board with
you, and with her husband. A message through you asking her to
come is at least free from any odour of intrigue. If she retains any of
her old nature at all, she’ll come.’
‘You’ve no respect for marriage whatever, or its rights and duties!’
‘What does it matter what my opinions are––a wretch like me! Can
it matter to anybody in the world who comes to see me for half-an-
hour––here with one foot in the grave? . . . Come, please write,
Arabella,’ he pleaded. ‘Repay my candour by a little generosity!’
‘I should think not!’
‘Not just once?––O do!’ He felt that his physical weakness had
taken away all his dignity.
‘What do you want her to know how you are for? She don’t want to
see ’ee. She’s the rat that forsook the sinking ship!’
‘Don’t, don’t!’
‘And I stuck to un––the more fool I. Have that strumpet in the
house indeed!’
Almost as soon as the words were spoken Jude sprang from the
chair, and before Arabella knew where she was he had her on her
back upon a little couch which stood there, he kneeling above her.
‘Say another word of that sort,’ he whispered, ‘and I’ll kill you––
here and now. I’ve everything to gain by it––my own death not being
the least part. So don’t think there’s no meaning in what I say!’
‘What do you want me to do?’ gasped Arabella.
‘Promise never to speak of her.’
‘Very well. I do.’
‘I take your word,’ he said scornfully as he loosened her. ‘But what
it is worth I can’t say.’
‘You couldn’t kill the pig, but you could kill me!’
‘Ah––there you have me! No––I couldn’t kill you––even in a
passion. Taunt away!’
He then began coughing very much, and she estimated his life
with an appraiser’s eye as he sank back ghastly pale. ‘I’ll send for
her,’ Arabella murmured, ‘if you’ll agree to my being in the room
with you all the time she’s here.’