Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

Jude the Obscure
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The kettle of his gift sang with some satire in its note, to his mind;
and to change the subject he said, ‘Do you know of any good read-
able edition of the uncanonical books of the New Testament? You
don’t read them in the school, I suppose?’
‘O dear no!––’twould alarm the neighbourhood. . . . Yes, there is
one. I am not familiar with it now, though I was interested in it when
my former friend was alive. Cowper’s Apocryphal Gospels.’*
‘That sounds like what I want.’ His thoughts, however, reverted
with a twinge to the ‘former friend’––by whom she meant, as he
knew, the University comrade of her earlier days. He wondered if
she talked of him to Phillotson.
‘The Gospel of Nicodemus* is very nice,’ she went on, to keep him
from his jealous thoughts, which she read clearly, as she always did.
Indeed when they talked on an indi
fferent subject, as now, there was
ever a second silent conversation passing between their emotions, so
perfect was the reciprocity between them. ‘It is quite like the genuine
article. All cut up into verses, too; so that it is like one of the other
evangelists read in a dream, when things are the same, yet not the
same. But Jude, do you take an interest in those questions still? Are
you getting up Apologetica?’*
‘Yes. I am reading Divinity harder than ever.’
She regarded him curiously.
‘Why do you look at me like that?’ said Jude.
‘Oh––why do you want to know?’
‘I am sure you can tell me anything I may be ignorant of in that
subject. You must have learnt a lot of everything from your dear dead
friend.’
‘We won’t get on to that now,’ she coaxed. ‘Will you be carving out
at that church again next week, where you learnt the pretty hymn?’
‘Yes, perhaps.’
‘That will be very nice. Shall I come and see you there? It is in this
direction, and I could come any afternoon by train for half-an-hour?’
‘No. Don’t come!’
‘What––aren’t we going to be friends, then, any longer, as we used
to be?’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t know that. I thought you were always going to be––kind
to me!’
‘No I am not.’
At Shaston
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‘What have I done, then? I am sure I thought we two——’ The
tremolo
in her voice caused her to break o
ff.
‘Sue, I sometimes think you are a 
flirt,’ said he abruptly.
There was a momentary pause, till she suddenly jumped up; and
to his surprise he saw by the kettle-
flame that her face was flushed. ‘I
can’t talk to you any longer, Jude,’ she said, the tragic contralto note
having come back as of old.* ‘It is getting too dark to stay together like
this, after playing morbid Good Friday tunes that make one feel
what one shouldn’t! . . . We mustn’t sit and talk in this way any
more! Yes––you must go away, for you mistake me! I am very much
the reverse of what you say so cruelly––O Jude, it was cruel to say
that! Yet I can’t tell you the truth*––I should shock you by letting you
know how I give way to my impulses, and how much I feel that I
shouldn’t have been provided with attractiveness unless it were
meant to be exercised. Some women’s love of being loved is insati-
able; and so, often, is their love of loving; and in the last case they
may 
find that they can’t give it continuously to the chamber-officer
appointed by the bishop’s licence to receive it. But you are so
straightforward, Jude, that you can’t understand me. . . . Now you
must go. I am sorry my husband is not at home.’
‘Are you?’
‘I perceive I have said that in mere convention. Honestly I don’t
think I am sorry. It does not matter, either way, sad to say!’
As they had overdone the grasp of hands some time sooner, she
touched his 
fingers but lightly when he went out now. He had hardly
gone from the door when, with a dissatis
fied look, she jumped on a
form and opened the iron casement of a window beneath which he
was passing in the path without. ‘When do you leave here to catch
your train, Jude?’ she asked.
He looked up in some surprise. ‘The coach that runs to meet it
goes in three-quarters of an hour or so.’
‘What will you do with yourself for the time?’
‘O––wander about, I suppose. Perhaps I shall go and sit in the old
church.’
‘It does seem hard of me to pack you o
ff so! You have thought
enough of churches, heaven knows, without going into one in the
dark. Stay there.’
‘Where?’
‘Where you are. I can talk to you better like this than when you