Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

At Aldbrickham and Elsewhere


---

natural marriage a legal one,’ said Sue, with yet more dignity. ‘It was
quite by my wish that he didn’t the moment I was free.’
‘Ah, yes––you are a oneyer* too, like myself,’ said Arabella, eyeing
her visitor with humorous criticism. ‘Bolted from your 
first, didn’t
you, like me?’
‘Good morning!––I must go,’ said Sue hastily.
‘And I, too, must up and o
ff!’ replied the other, springing out of
bed so suddenly that the soft parts of her person shook. Sue jumped
aside in trepidation. ‘Lord, I am only a woman––not a six-foot sojer!
. . . Just a moment, dear,’ she continued, putting her hand on Sue’s
arm. ‘I really did want to consult Jude on a little matter of business,
as I told him. I came about that more than anything else. Would he
run up to speak to me at the station as I am going? You think not.
Well, I’ll write to him about it. I didn’t want to write it, but never
mind––I will.’
Jude the Obscure


---

V.–iii.
W
 Sue reached home Jude was awaiting her at the door to take
the initial step towards their marriage. She clasped his arm, and they
went along silently together, as true comrades ofttimes do. He saw
that she was preoccupied, and forbore to question her.
‘O Jude––I’ve been talking to her,’ she said at last. ‘I wish I hadn’t!
And yet it is best to be reminded of things.’
‘I hope she was civil.’
‘Yes. I––I can’t help liking her––just a little bit! She’s not an
ungenerous nature; and I am so glad her di
fficulties have all sud-
denly ended.’ She explained how Arabella had been summoned
back, and would be enabled to retrieve her position. ‘I was referring
to our old question. What Arabella had been saying to me has made
me feel more than ever how hopelessly vulgar an institution legal
marriage is––a sort of trap to catch a man––I can’t bear to think of
it. I wish I hadn’t promised to let you put up the banns this
morning!’
‘O, don’t mind me. Any time will do for me. I thought you might
like to get it over quickly, now.’
‘Indeed, I don’t feel any more anxious now than I did before.
Perhaps with any other man I might be a little anxious; but among
the very few virtues possessed by your family and mine, dear, I think
I may set staunchness. So I am not a bit frightened about losing you,
now I really am yours and you really are mine. In fact, I am easier in
my mind than I was, for my conscience is clear about Richard, who
now has a right to his freedom. I felt we were deceiving him before.’
‘Sue, you seem when you are like this to be one of the women of
some grand old civilization, whom I used to read about in my
bygone, wasted, classical days, rather than a denizen of a mere
Christian country. I almost expect you to say at these times that you
have just been talking to some friend whom you met in the Via Sacra
about the latest news of Octavia or Livia, or have been listening to
Aspasia’s eloquence, or have been watching Praxiteles chiselling
away at his latest Venus while Phryne* made complaint that she was
tired of posing.’
They had now reached the house of the parish-clerk. Sue stood

---

back, while her lover went up to the door. His hand was raised to
knock when she said: ‘Jude.’
He looked round.
‘Wait a minute, would you mind?’
He came back to her.
‘Just let us think,’ she said timidly. ‘I had such a horrid dream one
night! . . . And Arabella . . . ’
‘What did Arabella say to you?’ he asked.
‘O, she said that when people were tied up you could get the law of
a man better if he beat you––and how when couples quarrelled. . . .
Jude, do you think that when you must have me with you by law, we
shall be so happy as we are now? The men and women of our family
are very generous when everything depends upon their good-will,
but they always kick against compulsion. Don’t you dread the atti-
tude that insensibly arises out of legal obligation? Don’t you think it
is destructive to a passion whose essence is its gratuitousness?’
‘Upon my word, love, you are beginning to frighten me, too, with
all this foreboding! Well, let’s go back and think it over.’
Her face brightened. ‘Yes––so we will!’ said she. And they turned
from the clerk’s door, Sue taking his arm and murmuring as they
walked on homeward:
‘Can you keep the bee from ranging,
Or the ring-dove’s neck from changing?
No. Nor fetter’d love . . .’*
They thought it over, or postponed thinking. Certainly they post-
poned action, and seemed to live on in a dreamy paradise. At the end
of a fortnight or three weeks matters remained unadvanced, and no
banns were announced to the ears of any Aldbrickham congregation.
Whilst they were postponing and postponing thus a letter and a
newspaper arrived before breakfast one morning from Arabella. See-
ing the handwriting Jude went up to Sue’s room and told her, and as
soon as she was dressed she hastened down. Sue opened the news-
paper; Jude the letter. After glancing at the paper she held across the
first page to him with her finger on a paragraph; but he was so
absorbed in his letter that he did not turn awhile.
‘Look!’ said she.
He looked and read. The paper was one that circulated in South
London only, and the marked advertisement was simply the