Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

At Aldbrickham and Elsewhere
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Well––you’ll come straight back, after a few minutes, won’t you,
dear? She is too low, too coarse for you to talk to long, Jude, and was
always!’
‘Perhaps I am coarse too, worse luck! I have the germs of every
human in
firmity in me, I verily believe––that was why I saw it was so
preposterous of me to think of being a curate. I have cured myself of
drunkenness I think; but I never know in what new form a sup-
pressed vice will break out in me! I do love you, Sue, though I have
danced attendance on you so long for such poor returns. All that’s
best and noblest in me loves you, and your freedom from everything
that’s gross has elevated me, and enabled me to do what I should
never have dreamt myself capable of, or any man, a year or two ago. It
is all very well to preach about self-control, and the wickedness of
coercing a woman. But I should just like a few virtuous people who
have condemned me in the past, about Arabella and other things, to
have been in my tantalizing position with you through these late
weeks!––they’d believe, I think, that I have exercised some little
restraint in always giving in to your wishes––living here in one
house, and not a soul between us.’
‘Yes, you have been good to me, Jude; I know you have, my dear
protector.’
‘Well––Arabella has appealed to me for help. I must go out and
speak to her, Sue, at least!’
‘I can’t say any more!––O, if you must, you must!’ she said, burst-
ing out into sobs that seemed to tear her heart. ‘I have nobody but
you, Jude, and you are deserting me! I didn’t know you were like
this––I can’t bear it, I can’t! If she were yours it would be di
fferent!’
‘Or if you were.’
‘Very well then––if I must I must. Since you will have it so, I
agree! I will be. Only I didn’t mean to! And I didn’t want to marry
again, either! . . . But, yes––I agree, I agree! I do love you.* I ought to
have known that you would conquer in the long run, living like this!’
She ran across and 
flung her arms round his neck. ‘I am not a
cold-natured, sexless creature, am I, for keeping you at such a dis-
tance? I am sure you don’t think so! Wait and see! I do belong to you,
don’t I? I give in!’
‘And I’ll arrange for our marriage to-morrow, or as soon as ever
you wish.’
‘Yes, Jude.’
Jude the Obscure
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‘Then I’ll let her go,’ said he, embracing Sue softly. ‘I do feel that
it would be unfair to you to see her, and perhaps unfair to her. She is
not like you, my darling, and never was: it is only bare justice to say
that. Don’t cry any more. There; and there; and there!’ He kissed her
on one side, and on the other, and in the middle, and rebolted the
front door.
The next morning it was wet.
‘Now, dear,’ said Jude gaily at breakfast; ‘as this is Saturday I mean
to call about the banns at once, so as to get the 
first publishing done
to-morrow, or we shall lose a week. Banns will do? We shall save a
pound or two.’
Sue absently agreed to banns. But her mind for the moment was
running on something else. A glow had passed away from her, and
depression sat upon her features.
‘I feel I was wickedly sel
fish last night!’ she murmured. ‘It was
sheer unkindness in me––or worse––to treat Arabella as I did. I
didn’t care about her being in trouble, and what she wished to tell
you! Perhaps it was really something she was justi
fied in telling you.
That’s some more of my badness, I suppose! Love has its own dark
morality when rivalry enters in––at least mine has, if other people’s
hasn’t. . . . I wonder how she got on? I hope she reached the inn all
right, poor woman.’
‘O yes: she got on all right,’ said Jude placidly.
‘I hope she wasn’t shut out, and that she hadn’t to walk the streets
in the rain. Do you mind my putting on my waterproof and going to
see if she got in? I’ve been thinking of her all the morning.’
‘Well––is it necessary? You haven’t the least idea how Arabella is
able to shift for herself. Still, darling, if you want to go and inquire
you can.’
There was no limit to the strange and unnecessary penances
which Sue would meekly undertake when in a contrite mood; and
this going to see all sorts of extraordinary persons whose relation to
her was precisely of a kind that would have made other people shun
them, was her instinct ever, so that the request did not surprise him.
‘And when you come back,’ he added, ‘I’ll be ready to go about the
banns. You’ll come with me?’
Sue agreed, and went o
ff under cloak and umbrella, letting Jude
kiss her freely, and returning his kisses in a way she had never done