Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

At Melchester


---

‘Is your friendship broken o
ff?’
‘O yes. He died, poor fellow, two or three years after he had taken
his degree and left Christminster.’
‘You saw a good deal of him, I suppose?’
‘Yes. We used to go about together––on walking tours, reading
tours, and things of that sort––like two men almost. He asked me to
live with him, and I agreed to by letter. But when I joined him in
London I found he meant a di
fferent thing from what I meant. He
wanted me to be his mistress, in fact, but I wasn’t in love with him––
and on my saying I should go away if he didn’t agree to my plan, he
did so. We shared a sitting-room for 
fifteen months; and he became a
leader-writer for one of the great London dailies; till he was taken ill,
and had to go abroad. He said I was breaking his heart by holding out
against him so long at such close quarters; he could never have
believed it of woman. I might play that game once too often, he said.
He came home merely to die. His death caused a terrible remorse in
me for my cruelty––though I hope he died of consumption and not
of me entirely. I went down to Sandbourne to his funeral, and was
his only mourner. He left me a little money––because I broke his
heart, I suppose. That’s how men are––so much better than women!’
‘Good heavens!––what did you do then?’
‘Ah––now you are angry with me!’ she said, a contralto note of
tragedy coming suddenly into her silvery voice. ‘I wouldn’t have told
you if I had known!’
‘No, I am not. Tell me all.’
‘Well, I invested his money, poor fellow, in a bubble scheme, and
lost it. I lived about London by myself for some time, and then I
returned to Christminster, as my father––who was also in London,
and had started as an art metal-worker near Long-Acre––wouldn’t
have me back; and I got that occupation in the artist-shop where you
found me. . . . I said you didn’t know how bad I was!’
Jude looked round upon the arm-chair and its occupant, as if to
read more carefully the creature he had given shelter to. His voice
trembled as he said: ‘However you have lived, Sue, I believe you are
as innocent as you are unconventional!’
‘I am not particularly innocent, as you see, now that I have
“twitched the robe
From that blank lay-
figure your fancy draped,”’*
Jude the Obscure


---

said she, with an ostensible sneer, though he could hear that she was
brimming with tears. ‘But I have never yielded myself to any lover, if
that’s what you mean. I have remained as I began.’
‘I quite believe you. But some women would not have remained as
they began.’
‘Perhaps not. Better women would not. People say I must be cold-
natured,––sexless––on account of it. But I won’t have it! Some of
the most passionately erotic poets have been the most self-contained
in their daily lives.’
‘Have you told Mr. Phillotson about this University-scholar-
friend?’
‘Yes––long ago. I have never made any secret of it to anybody.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He did not pass any criticism––only said I was everything to him,
whatever I did; and things like that.’
Jude felt much depressed: she seemed to get further and further
away from him with her strange ways and curious unconsciousness
of gender.
‘Aren’t you really vexed with me, dear Jude?’ she suddenly asked,
in a voice of such extraordinary tenderness that it hardly seemed to
come from the same woman who had just told her story so lightly. ‘I
would rather o
ffend anybody in the world than you, I think!’
‘I don’t know whether I am vexed or not. I know I care very much
about you!’
‘I care as much for you as for anybody I ever met.’
‘You don’t care more! There, I ought not to say that. Don’t answer
it!’
There was another long silence. He felt that she was treating him
cruelly, though he could not quite say in what way. Her very help-
lessness seemed to make her so much stronger than he.
‘I am awfully ignorant on general matters, although I have worked
so hard,’ he said, to turn the subject, ‘I am absorbed in Theology,
you know. And what do you think I should be doing just about now,
if you weren’t here? I should be saying my evening prayers. I sup-
pose you wouldn’t like——’
‘O no, no,’ she answered, ‘I would rather not, if you don’t mind. I
should seem so––such a hypocrite.’
‘I thought you wouldn’t join, so I didn’t propose it. You must
remember that I hope to be a useful minister some day.’