Jude the Obsure

"Sit down. You don't mean--anything wrong between you and Mrs.

Phillotson?"

"I do... My wretched state is that I've a wife I love who not

only does not love me, but--but-- Well, I won't say. I know her

feeling! I should prefer hatred from her!"

"Ssh!"

"And the sad part of it is that she is not so much to blame as I. She

was a pupil-teacher under me, as you know, and I took advantage of

her inexperience, and toled her out for walks, and got her to agree

to a long engagement before she well knew her own mind. Afterwards

she saw somebody else, but she blindly fulfilled her engagement."

"Loving the other?"

"Yes; with a curious tender solicitude seemingly; though her exact

feeling for him is a riddle to me--and to him too, I think--possibly

to herself. She is one of the oddest creatures I ever met. However,

I have been struck with these two facts; the extraordinary sympathy,

or similarity, between the pair. He is her cousin, which perhaps

accounts for some of it. They seem to be one person split in two!

And with her unconquerable aversion to myself as a husband, even

though she may like me as a friend, 'tis too much to bear longer.

She has conscientiously struggled against it, but to no purpose.

I cannot bear it--I cannot! I can't answer her arguments--she has

read ten times as much as I. Her intellect sparkles like diamonds,

while mine smoulders like brown paper... She's one too many for me!"

"She'll get over it, good-now?"

"Never! It is--but I won't go into it--there are reasons why she

never will. At last she calmly and firmly asked if she might leave

me and go to him. The climax came last night, when, owing to my

entering her room by accident, she jumped out of window--so strong

was her dread of me! She pretended it was a dream, but that was

to soothe me. Now when a woman jumps out of window without caring

whether she breaks her neck or no, she's not to be mistaken; and this

being the case I have come to a conclusion: that it is wrong to so

torture a fellow-creature any longer; and I won't be the inhuman

wretch to do it, cost what it may!"

"What--you'll let her go? And with her lover?"

"Whom with is her matter. I shall let her go; with him certainly,

if she wishes. I know I may be wrong--I know I can't logically,

or religiously, defend my concession to such a wish of hers, or

harmonize it with the doctrines I was brought up in. Only I know one

thing: something within me tells me I am doing wrong in refusing

her. I, like other men, profess to hold that if a husband gets such

a so-called preposterous request from his wife, the only course that

can possibly be regarded as right and proper and honourable in him is

to refuse it, and put her virtuously under lock and key, and murder

her lover perhaps. But is that essentially right, and proper, and

honourable, or is it contemptibly mean and selfish? I don't profess

to decide. I simply am going to act by instinct, and let principles

take care of themselves. If a person who has blindly walked into a

quagmire cries for help, I am inclined to give it, if possible."