Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

parts they were! He unlatched the door of his room, heard a stealthy
rustle on the dark stairs, and in a moment she appeared in the light
of his lamp. He went up to seize her hand, and found she was
At Melchester


---

clammy as a marine deity* and that her clothes clung to her like the
robes upon the 
figures in the Parthenon frieze.
‘I’m so cold!’ she said through her chattering teeth. ‘Can I come
by your 
fire, Jude?’
She crossed to his little grate and very little 
fire, but as the water
dripped from her as she moved, the idea of drying herself was
absurd. ‘Whatever have you done, darling?’ he asked, with alarm, the
tender epithet slipping out unawares.
‘Walked through the largest river in the county––that’s what
I’ve done! They locked me up for being out with you; and it
seemed so unjust that I couldn’t bear it, so I got out of the win-
dow and escaped across the stream.’ She had begun the explan-
ation in her usual slightly independent tones, but before she had
finished the thin pink lips trembled, and she could hardly refrain
from crying.
‘Dear Sue!’ he said. ‘You must take o
ff all your things! And let me
see––you must borrow some from the landlady. I’ll ask her.’
‘No, no! Don’t let her know, for God’s sake! We are so near the
school that they’ll come after me!’
‘Then you must put on mine. You don’t mind?’
‘O no.’
‘My Sunday suit, you know. It is close here.’ In fact, everything
was close and handy in Jude’s single chamber, because there was not
room for it to be otherwise. He opened a drawer, took out his best
dark suit, and giving the garments a shake, said, ‘Now, how long
shall I give you?’
‘Ten minutes.’
Jude left the room and went into the street, where he walked up
and down. A clock struck half-past seven, and he returned. Sitting in
his only arm-chair he saw a slim and fragile being masquerading as
himself on a Sunday, so pathetic in her defencelessness that his heart
felt big with the sense of it. On two other chairs before the 
fire were
her wet garments. She blushed as he sat down beside her, but only
for a moment.
‘I suppose, Jude, it is odd that you should see me like this and all
my things hanging there? Yet what nonsense! They are only a wom-
an’s clothes––sexless cloth and linen. . . . I wish I didn’t feel so ill
and sick! Will you dry my clothes now? Please do, Jude, and I’ll get a
lodging by and by. It is not late yet.’
Jude the Obscure


---

‘No, you shan’t, if you are ill. You must stay here. Dear, dear Sue,
what can I get for you?’
‘I don’t know! I can’t help shivering. I wish I could get warm.’
Jude put on her his great-coat in addition, and then ran out to the
nearest public-house, whence he returned with a little bottle in his
hand. ‘Here’s six of best brandy,’ he said. ‘Now you drink it, dear; all
of it.’
‘I can’t out of the bottle, can I?’ Jude fetched the glass from the
dressing-table, and administered the spirit in some water. She
gasped a little; but gulped it down, and lay back in the arm-chair.
She then began to relate circumstantially her experiences since
they had parted, but in the middle of her story her voice faltered, her
head nodded, and she ceased. She was in a sound sleep. Jude, dying
of anxiety lest she should have caught a chill which might perman-
ently injure her, was glad to hear the regular breathing. He softly
went nearer to her, and observed that a warm 
flush now rosed her
hitherto blue cheeks, and felt that her hanging hand was no longer
cold. Then he stood with his back to the 
fire regarding her* and saw
in her almost a divinity.