Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

Jude the Obscure
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He took her to the gate and they parted. Jude had a conviction that
his unhappy visit to her on that sad night had precipitated this
marriage 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
not so easy to get as at Christminster, there being, as a rule, less
stone-cutting in progress in this quiet city, and hands being mostly
permanent. But he edged himself in by degrees. His 
first work was
some carving at the cemetery on the hill; and ultimately he became
engaged on the labour he most desired––the Cathedral repairs,
which were very extensive, the whole interior stonework having been
overhauled, to be largely replaced by new.
It might be a labour of years to get it all done, and he had con-
fidence enough in his own skill with the mallet and chisel to feel that
it would be a matter of choice with himself how long he would stay.
The lodgings he took near the Close Gate would not have dis-
graced a curate, the rent representing a higher percentage on his
wages than mechanics of any sort usually care to pay. His combined
bed and sitting room was furnished with framed photographs of the
rectories and deaneries at which his landlady had lived as trusted
servant in her time, and the parlour downstairs bore a clock on the
mantelpiece inscribed to the e
ffect that it was presented to the same
serious-minded woman by her fellow-servants on the occasion of her
marriage. Jude added to the furniture of his room by unpacking
photographs of the ecclesiastical carvings and monuments that he
had executed with his own hands; and he was deemed a satisfactory
acquisition 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 di
fferent
spirit and direction from his former course. As a relaxation from the
Fathers, and such stock works as Paley and Butler,* he read Newman,
Pusey, and many other modern lights. He hired a harmonium, set it
up in his lodging, and practised chants thereon, single and double.
At Melchester
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III.–ii.
‘T
- is our grand day, you know. Where shall we go?’
‘I have leave from three till nine. Wherever we can get to and come
back from in that time. Not ruins, Jude––I don’t care for them.’
‘Well–– Wardour Castle. And then we can do Fonthill* if we like––
all in the same afternoon.’
‘Wardour is Gothic ruins––and I hate Gothic!’
‘No. Quite otherwise. It is a classic building––Corinthian, I think;
with a lot of pictures.’
‘Ah––that will do. I like the sound of Corinthian. We’ll go.’
Their conversation had run thus some few weeks later, and next
morning they prepared to start. Every detail of the outing was a facet
re
flecting a sparkle to Jude, and he did not venture to meditate on the
life of inconsistency he was leading. His Sue’s conduct was one
lovely conundrum to him; he could say no more.
There duly came the charm of calling at the College door for her;
her emergence in a nunlike simplicity of costume that was rather
enforced than desired; the traipsing along to the station, the porter’s
‘B’your leave!’, the screaming of the trains, everything formed the
basis of a beautiful crystallization. Nobody stared at Sue because she
was so plainly dressed; which comforted Jude in the thought that
only himself knew the charms those habiliments subdued. A matter
of ten pounds spent in a drapery-shop which had no connection with
her real life or her real self, would have set all Melchester staring.
The guard of the train thought they were lovers, and put them into a
compartment all by themselves.
‘That’s a good intention wasted!’ said she.
Jude did not respond. He thought the remark unnecessarily cruel,
and partly untrue.
They reached the Park and Castle, and wandered through the
picture-galleries, Jude stopping by preference in front of the devo-
tional pictures by Del Sarto, Guido Reni, Spagnoletto, Sassoferrato,
Carlo Dolci,* and others. Sue paused patiently beside him, and stole
critical looks into his face as, regarding the Virgins, Holy Families,
and Saints, it grew reverent and abstracted. When she had thor-
oughly estimated him at this she would move on and wait for him

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before a Lely or Reynolds.* It was evident that her cousin deeply
interested her, as one might be interested in a man puzzling out his
way along a labyrinth from which one had one’s self escaped.
When they came out a long time still remained to them, and Jude
proposed that as soon as they had had something to eat they
should walk across the high country to the north of their present
position, and intercept the train of another railway leading back to
Melchester, at a station about seven miles o
ff. Sue, who was inclined
for any adventure that would intensify the sense of her day’s
freedom, readily agreed; and away they went, leaving the adjoining
station behind them.
It was indeed open country, wide and high. They talked and
bounded on, Jude cutting from a little covert a long walking-stick for
Sue, as tall as herself, with a great crook, which made her look like a
shepherdess. About half-way on their journey they crossed a main
road running due east and west––the old road from London to
Land’s End. They paused, and looked up and down it for a moment,
and remarked upon the desolation which had come over this once
lively thoroughfare, while the wind dipped to earth, and scooped
straws and hay-stems from the ground.
They crossed the road and passed on, but during the next half-
mile Sue seemed to grow tired, and Jude began to be distressed for
her. They had walked a good distance altogether, and if they could
not reach the other station it would be rather awkward. For a long
time there was no cottage visible on the wide expanse of down and
turnip-land; but presently they came to a sheepfold, and next to the
shepherd, pitching hurdles. He told them that the only house near
was his mother’s and his, pointing to a little dip ahead from which a
faint blue smoke arose, and recommended them to go on and rest
there.
This they did, and entered the house, admitted by an old woman
without a single tooth, to whom they were as civil as strangers can be
when their only chance of rest and shelter lies in the favour of the
householder.
‘A nice little cottage,’ said Jude.
‘O, I don’t know about the niceness. I shall have to thatch it soon,
and where the thatch is to come from I can’t tell, for straw do get that
dear that ’twill soon be cheaper to cover your house wi’ chainey
plates than thatch.’