Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

part-singing from notation with some accuracy. A mile or two from
Melchester there was a restored village church, to which Jude had
originally gone to 
fix the new columns and capitals. By this means he
had become acquainted with the organist, and the ultimate result
was that he joined the choir as a bass voice.
He walked out to this parish twice every Sunday, and sometimes
in the week. One evening about Easter the choir met for practice, and
a new hymn which Jude had heard of as being by a Wessex composer,

---

was to be tried and prepared for the following week. It turned out to
be a strangely emotional composition. As they all sang it over and
over again its harmonies grew upon Jude, and moved him
exceedingly.
When they had 
finished he went round to the organist to make
inquiries. The score was in manuscript, the name of the composer
being at the head, together with the title of the hymn:––‘The Foot of
the Cross.’
‘Yes,’ said the organist. ‘He is a local man. He is a professional
musician at Kennetbridge––between here and Christminster. The
vicar knows him. He was brought up and educated in Christminster
traditions, which accounts for the quality of the piece. I think he
plays in the large church there, and has a surpliced choir. He comes
to Melchester sometimes, and once tried to get the Cathedral organ
when the post was vacant. The hymn is getting about everywhere
this Easter.’
As he walked, humming the air, on his way home, Jude fell to
musing on its composer, and the reasons why he composed it. What a
man of sympathies he must be! Perplexed and harassed as he himself
was about Sue and Arabella, and troubled as was his conscience by
the complication of his position, how he would like to know that
man! ‘He of all men would understand my di
fficulties,’ said the
impulsive Jude. If there were any person in the world to choose as
a con
fidant, this composer would be the one, for he must have
su
ffered, and throbbed, and yearned!
In brief, ill as he could a
fford the time and money for the journey,
Fawley resolved, like the child that he was, to go to Kennetbridge the
very next Sunday. He duly started, early in the morning, for it was
only by a series of crooked railways that he could get to the town.
About mid-day he reached it, and crossing the bridge into the quaint
old borough he inquired for the house of the composer.
They told him it was a red brick building some little way further
on. Also that the gentleman himself had just passed along the street
not 
five minutes before.
‘Which way?’ asked Jude with alacrity.
‘Straight along homeward from church.’
Jude hastened on, and soon had the pleasure of observing a man in
a black coat and a black slouched felt hat no considerable distance
ahead. Stretching out his legs yet more widely he stalked after. ‘A
Jude the Obscure


---

hungry soul in pursuit of a full soul!’ he said. ‘I must speak to that
man!’
He could not, however, overtake the musician before he had
entered his own house, and then arose the question if this were an
expedient time to call. Whether or not he decided to do so there and
then, now that he had got here, the distance home being too great for
him to wait till late in the afternoon. This man of soul would under-
stand scant ceremony, and might be quite a perfect adviser in a case
in which an earthly and illegitimate passion had cunningly obtained
entrance into his heart through the opening a
fforded for religion.
Jude accordingly rang the bell, and was admitted.
The musician came to him in a moment, and being respectably
dressed, good-looking, and frank in manner Jude obtained a favour-
able reception. He was nevertheless conscious that there would be a
certain awkwardness in explaining his errand.
‘I have been singing in the choir of a little church near Melches-
ter,’ he said. ‘And we have this week practised “The Foot of the
Cross,” which I understand, sir, that you composed?’
‘I did––a year or so ago.’
‘I––like it. I think it supremely beautiful.’
‘Ah well––other people have said so too. Yes, there’s money in it,
if I could only see about getting it published. I have other composi-
tions to go with it, too; I wish I could bring them out; for I haven’t
made a 
five-pound note out of any of them yet. These publishing
people––they want the copyright of an obscure composer’s work,
such as mine is, for almost less than I should have to pay a person for
making a fair manuscript copy of the score. The one you speak of I
have lent to various friends about here and Melchester, and so it has
got to be sung a little. But music is a poor sta
ff to lean on––I am
giving it up entirely. You must go into trade if you want to make
money nowadays. The wine business is what I am thinking of. This
is my forthcoming list––it is not issued yet––but you can take one.’
He handed Jude an advertisement list of several pages in booklet
shape, ornamentally margined with a red line, in which were set
forth the various clarets, champagnes, ports, sherries, and other
wines with which he purposed to initiate his new venture. It took
Jude more than by surprise that the man with the soul was thus and
thus; and he felt that he could not open up his con
fidences.
They talked a little longer, but constrainedly, for when the
At Melchester


---

musician found that Jude was a poor man his manner changed from
what it had been while Jude’s appearance and address deceived him
as to his position and pursuits. Jude stammered out something about
his feelings in wishing to congratulate the author on such an exalted
composition, and took an embarrassed leave.
All the way home by the slow Sunday train, sitting in the 
fireless
waiting-rooms on this cold spring day, he was depressed enough at
his simplicity in taking such a journey. But no sooner did he reach
his Melchester lodging than he found awaiting him a letter which
had arrived that morning a few minutes after he had left the house. It
was a contrite little note from Sue, in which she said with sweet
humility that she felt she had been horrid in telling him he was not to
come to see her, that she despised herself for having been so con-
ventional, and that he was to be sure to come by the eleven-forty-
five
train that very Sunday, and have dinner with them at half-past one.
Jude almost tore his hair at having missed this letter till it was too
late to act upon its contents, but he had chastened himself consider-
ably of late, and at last his chimerical expedition to Kennetbridge
really did seem to have been another special intervention of Provi-
dence to keep him away from temptation. But a growing impatience
of faith which he had noticed in himself more than once of late made
him pass over in ridicule the idea that God sent people on fools’
errands. He longed to see her; he was angry at having missed her;
and he wrote instantly, telling her what had happened, and saying he
had not enough patience to wait till the following Sunday, but would
come any day in the week that she liked to name.
Since he wrote a little over-ardently Sue, as her manner was,
delayed her reply till Thursday before Good Friday, when she said
he might come that afternoon if he wished, this being the earliest day
on which she could welcome him, for she was now assistant-teacher
in her husband’s school. Jude therefore got leave from the Cathedral
works at the tri
fling expense of a stoppage of pay, and went.
Jude the Obscure


---