Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

parting in the morning at Christminster, she had been surprised by
an a
ffectionate letter from her Australian husband, formerly man-
ager of the hotel in Sydney. He had come to England on purpose to
find her; and had taken a free, fully-licensed public, in Lambeth,
where he wished her to join him in conducting the business, which
was likely to be a very thriving one, the house being situated in an
excellent, densely populated, gin-drinking neighbourhood, and
already doing a trade of £
 a month, which could be easily
doubled.
As he had said that he loved her very much still, and implored her
to tell him where she was, and as they had only parted in a slight ti
ff,
and as her engagement in Christminster was only temporary, she had
just gone to join him as he urged. She could not help feeling that she
belonged to him more than to Jude, since she had properly married
him, and had lived with him much longer than with her 
first hus-
band. In thus wishing Jude good-bye she bore him no ill-will, and
trusted he would not turn upon her, a weak woman, and inform
against her, and bring her to ruin now that she had a chance of
improving her circumstances and leading a genteel life.
Jude the Obscure


---

III.–x.
J
 returned to Melchester, which had the questionable recom-
mendation of being only a dozen and a half miles from his Sue’s
now permanent residence. At 
first he felt that this nearness was a
distinct reason for not going southward at all; but Christminster was
too sad a place to bear, while the proximity of Shaston to Melchester
might a
fford him the glory of worsting the Enemy in a close
engagement, such as was deliberately sought by the priests and
virgins of the early church, who, disdaining an ignominious 
flight
from temptation, became even chamber-partners with impunity.
Jude did not pause to remember that, in the laconic words of the
historian, ‘insulted Nature sometimes vindicated her rights’* in such
circumstances.
He now returned with feverish desperation to his study for the
priesthood––in the recognition that the single-mindedness of his
aims, and his 
fidelity to the cause, had been more than questionable
of late. His passion for Sue troubled his soul; yet his lawful aban-
donment to the society of Arabella for twelve hours seemed instinct-
ively a worse thing––even though she had not told him of her
Sydney husband till afterwards. He had, he verily believed, over-
come all tendency to 
fly to liquor––which, indeed, he had never done
from taste, but merely as an escape from intolerable misery of mind.
Yet he perceived with despondency that, taken all round, he was a
man of too many passions to make a good clergyman; the utmost he
could hope for was that in a life of constant internal warfare between
flesh and spirit the former might not always be victorious.
As a hobby, auxiliary to his readings in Divinity he developed his
slight skill in church-music and thorough-bass, till he could join in