Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

said, There is a man child conceived
.’
(‘Hurrah!’)
‘Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let
the light shine upon it. Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice
come therein
.’
(‘Hurrah!’)
‘Why died I not from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when
I came out of the belly? . . . For now should I have lain still and been
quiet
. I should have slept: then had I been at rest!’
(‘Hurrah!’)
‘There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppres-
sor. . . . The small and the great are there; and the servant is free from his
Jude the Obscure


---

master. Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the
bitter in soul?
’*
Meanwhile Arabella, in her journey to discover what was going on,
took a short cut down a narrow street and through an obscure nook
into the quad of Cardinal. It was full of bustle, and brilliant in the
sunlight with 
flowers and other preparations for a ball here also. A
carpenter nodded to her, one who had formerly been a fellow-
workman of Jude’s. A corridor was in course of erection from the
entrance to the Hall staircase, of gay red and bu
ff bunting. Waggon-
loads of boxes containing bright plants in full bloom were being
placed about, and the great staircase was covered with red cloth. She
nodded to one workman and another, and ascended to the Hall on
the strength of their acquaintance, where they were putting down a
new 
floor and decorating for the dance. The cathedral bell close at
hand was sounding for 
five o’clock service.
‘I should not mind having a spin there with a fellow’s arm round
my waist,’ she said to one of the men. ‘But Lord, I must be getting
home again––there’s a lot to do. No dancing for me!’
When she reached home she was met at the door by Stagg, and
one or two other of Jude’s fellow stone-workers. ‘We are just going
down to the river,’ said the former, ‘to see the boat-bumping. But
we’ve called round on our way to ask how your husband is.’
‘He’s sleeping nicely, thank you,’ said Arabella.
‘That’s right. Well now, can’t you give yourself half-an-hour’s
relaxation, Mrs. Fawley, and come along with us? ’Twould do you
good.’
‘I should like to go,’ said she. ‘I’ve never seen the boat-racing, and
I hear it is good fun.’
‘Come along!’
‘How I wish I could!’ She looked longingly down the street. ‘Wait
a minute, then. I’ll just run up and see how he is now. Father is with
him, I believe; so I can most likely come.’
They waited, and she entered. Downstairs the inmates were
absent as before, having, in fact, gone in a body to the river where the
procession of boats was to pass. When she reached the bedroom she
found that her father had not even now come.
‘Why couldn’t he have been here!’ she said impatiently. ‘He wants
to see the boats himself––that’s what it is!’
At Christminster Again


---

However, on looking round to the bed she brightened, for she saw
that Jude was apparently sleeping, though he was not in the usual
half-elevated posture necessitated by his cough. He had slipped
down, and lay 
flat. A second glance caused her to start, and she went
to the bed. His face was quite white, and gradually becoming rigid.
She touched his 
fingers; they were cold, though his body was still
warm. She listened at his chest. All was still within. The bumping of
near thirty years had ceased.
After her 
first appalled sense of what had happened the faint notes
of a military or other brass band from the river reached her ears; and
in a provoked tone she exclaimed, ‘To think he should die just now!
Why did he die just now!’ Then meditating another moment or two
she went to the door, softly closed it as before, and again descended
the stairs.
‘Here she is!’ said one of the workmen. ‘We wondered if you were
coming after all. Come along: we must be quick to get a good
place. . . . Well, how is he? Sleeping well still? Of course, we don’t
want to drag ’ee away if——’
‘O yes––sleeping quite sound. He won’t wake yet,’ she said
hurriedly.
They went with the crowd down Cardinal Street, where they
presently reached the bridge, and the gay barges burst upon their
view. Thence they passed by a narrow slit down to the riverside
path––now dusty, hot, and thronged. Almost as soon as they had
arrived the grand procession of boats began; the oars smacking with
a loud kiss on the face of the stream, as they were lowered from the
perpendicular.
‘O, I say––how jolly! I’m glad I’ve come!’ said Arabella. ‘And––it
can’t hurt my husband––my being away.’
On the opposite side of the river, on the crowded barges, were
gorgeous nosegays of feminine beauty, fashionably arrayed in green,
pink, blue, and white. The blue 
flag of the Boat Club denoted the
centre of interest, beneath which a band in red uniform gave out the
notes she had already heard in the death-chamber. Collegians of all
sorts, in canoes with ladies, watching keenly for ‘our’ boat, darted up
and down. While she regarded the lively scene somebody touched
Arabella in the ribs, and looking round she saw Vilbert.
‘That philter is operating, you know!’ he said with a leer. ‘Shame
on ’ee to wreck a heart so!’
Jude the Obscure


---

‘I shan’t talk of love to-day.’
‘Why not? It is a general holiday.’
She did not reply. Vilbert’s arm stole round her waist, which act
could be performed unobserved in the crowd. An arch expression
overspread Arabella’s face at the feel of the arm, but she kept her
eyes on the river as if she did not know of the embrace.
The crowd surged, pushing Arabella and her friends sometimes
nearly into the river, and she would have laughed heartily at the
horse-play that succeeded if the imprint on her mind’s eye of a pale,
statuesque countenance she had lately gazed upon had not sobered
her a little.
The fun on the water reached the acme of excitement, there were
immersions, there were shouts: the race was lost and won, the pink
and blue and yellow ladies retired from the barges, and the people
who had watched began to move.
‘Well––it’s been awfully good!’ cried Arabella. ‘But I think I must
get back to my poor man. Father is there, so far as I know; but I had
better get back.’
‘What’s your hurry?’
‘Well, I must go. . . . Dear, dear, this is awkward!’
At the narrow gangway where the people ascended from the river-
side path to the bridge the crowd was literally jammed into one hot
mass––Arabella and Vilbert with the rest; and here they remained
motionless, Arabella exclaiming ‘Dear, dear!’ more and more
impatiently; for it had just occurred to her mind that if Jude were
discovered to have died alone an inquest might be deemed necessary.
‘What a 
fidget you are, my love,’ said the physician, who, being
pressed close against her by the throng, had no need of personal
e
ffort for contact. ‘Just as well have patience: there’s no getting away
yet!’
It was nearly ten minutes before the wedged multitude moved
su
fficiently to let them pass through. As soon as she got up into the
street Arabella hastened on, forbidding the physician to accompany
her further that day. She did not go straight to her house; but to the
abode of a woman who performed the last necessary o
ffices for the
poorer dead; where she knocked.
‘My husband has just gone, poor soul,’ she said. ‘Can you come
and lay him out?’
Arabella waited a few minutes; and the two women went along,
At Christminster Again


---

elbowing their way through the stream of fashionable people pouring
out of Cardinal meadow, and being nearly knocked down by the
carriages.
‘I must call at the sexton’s about the bell, too,’ said Arabella. ‘It is
just round here, isn’t it? I’ll meet you at my door.’
By ten o’clock that night Jude was lying on the bedstead at his
lodging covered with a sheet, and straight as an arrow. Through the