Jude the Obsure

"What are you doing in there?" he asked.

"Not to disturb you I came here, as it was so late."

"But there's no bed, is there? And no ventilation! Why, you'll be

suffocated if you stay all night!"

"Oh no, I think not. Don't trouble about me."

"But--" Phillotson seized the knob and pulled at the door. She had

fastened it inside with a piece of string, which broke at his pull.

There being no bedstead she had flung down some rugs and made a

little nest for herself in the very cramped quarters the closet

afforded.

When he looked in upon her she sprang out of her lair, great-eyed and

trembling.

"You ought not to have pulled open the door!" she cried excitedly.

"It is not becoming in you! Oh, will you go away; please will you!"

She looked so pitiful and pleading in her white nightgown against the

shadowy lumber-hole that he was quite worried. She continued to

beseech him not to disturb her.

He said: "I've been kind to you, and given you every liberty; and it

is monstrous that you should feel in this way!"

"Yes," said she, weeping. "I know that! It is wrong and wicked of

me, I suppose! I am very sorry. But it is not I altogether that am

to blame!"

"Who is then? Am I?"

"No--I don't know! The universe, I suppose--things in general,

because they are so horrid and cruel!"

"Well, it is no use talking like that. Making a man's house so

unseemly at this time o' night! Eliza will hear if we don't mind."

(He meant the servant.) "Just think if either of the parsons in this

town was to see us now! I hate such eccentricities, Sue. There's no

order or regularity in your sentiments! ... But I won't intrude on

you further; only I would advise you not to shut the door too tight,

or I shall find you stifled to-morrow."

On rising the next morning he immediately looked into the closet, but

Sue had already gone downstairs. There was a little nest where she

had lain, and spiders' webs hung overhead. "What must a woman's

aversion be when it is stronger than her fear of spiders!" he said

bitterly.

He found her sitting at the breakfast-table, and the meal began

almost in silence, the burghers walking past upon the pavement--or

rather roadway, pavements being scarce here--which was two or three

feet above the level of the parlour floor. They nodded down to the

happy couple their morning greetings, as they went on.