Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

Jude the Obscure
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of dismissal arrived, the managers having remained behind to write
it after Phillotson’s withdrawal. The latter replied that he should not
accept dismissal; and called a public meeting, which he attended,
although he looked so weak and ill that his friend implored him to
stay at home. When he stood up to give his reasons for contesting the
decision of the managers he advanced them 
firmly, as he had done to
his friend, and contended, moreover, that the matter was a domestic
theory which did not concern them. This they overruled, insisting
that the private eccentricities of a teacher came quite within their
sphere of control, as it touched the morals of those he taught.
Phillotson replied that he did not see how an act of natural charity
could injure morals.
All the respectable inhabitants and well-to-do fellow-natives of
the town were against Phillotson to a man. But, somewhat to his
surprise, some dozen or more champions rose up in his defence as
from the ground.
It has been stated that Shaston was the anchorage of a curious and
interesting group of itinerants, who frequented the numerous fairs
and markets held up and down Wessex during the summer and
autumn months. Although Phillotson had never spoken to one of
these gentlemen they now nobly led the forlorn hope in his defence.
The body included two cheap-jacks, a shooting-gallery proprietor
and the ladies who loaded the guns, a pair of boxing-masters, a
steam-roundabout manager, two travelling broom-makers, who
called themselves widows, a gingerbread-stall keeper, a swing-boat
owner, and a ‘test-your-strength’ man.
This generous phalanx of supporters and a few others of
independent judgment whose own domestic experiences had been
not without vicissitude came up and warmly shook hands with
Phillotson; after which they expressed their thoughts so strongly to
the meeting that issue was joined, the result being a general scu
ffle,
wherein a blackboard was split, three panes of the school-windows
were broken, an inkbottle was spilled over a town-councillor’s shirt-
front, a church-warden was dealt such a topper with the map of
Palestine that his head went right through Samaria, and many black
eyes and bleeding noses were given, one of which, to everybody’s
horror, was the venerable incumbent’s, owing to the zeal of an eman-
cipated chimney-sweep, who took the side of Phillotson’s party.
When Phillotson saw the blood running down the rector’s face he
At Shaston
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deplored almost in groans the untoward and degrading circum-
stances, regretted that he had not resigned when called upon, and
went home so ill that next morning he could not leave his bed.
The farcical yet melancholy event was the beginning of a serious
illness for him; and he lay in his lonely bed in the pathetic state of
mind of a middle-aged man who perceives at length that his life,
intellectual and domestic, is tending to failure and gloom. Gillingham
came to see him in the evenings, and on one occasion mentioned
Sue’s name.
‘She doesn’t care anything about me!’ said Phillotson. ‘Why
should she?’
‘She doesn’t know you are ill.’
‘So much the better for both of us.’
‘Where are her lover and she living?’
‘At Melchester––I suppose; at least he was living there some time
ago.’
When Gillingham reached home he sat and re
flected, and at last
wrote an anonymous line to Sue, on the bare chance of its reaching
her, the letter being enclosed in an envelope addressed to Jude at the
diocesan capital. Arriving at that place it was forwarded to Mary-
green in North Wessex, and thence to Aldbrickham by the only
person who knew his present address––the widow who had nursed
his aunt.
Three days later, in the evening, when the sun was going down in
splendour over the lowlands of Blackmoor and making the Shaston
windows like tongues of 
fire to the eyes of the rustics in that Vale, the
sick man fancied that he heard somebody come to the house, and a
few minutes after there was a tap at the bedroom door. Phillotson did
not speak; the door was hesitatingly opened, and there entered––Sue.
She was in light spring clothing, and her advent seemed ghostly––
like the 
flitting in of a moth. He turned his eyes upon her, and
flushed; but appeared to check his primary impulse to speak.
‘I have no business here,’ she said, bending her frightened face to
him. ‘But I heard you were ill––very ill; and––and as I know that you
recognize other feelings between man and woman than physical love,
I have come.’
‘I am not very ill, my dear friend. Only unwell.’
‘I didn’t know that; and I am afraid that only a severe illness
would have justi
fied my coming.’