Jude the Obsure

Sue's look was one of dismay. "What will you do, dear?" she asked

faintly.

Jude did not reply, and Sue watched him anxiously, with heavy

breaths.

"It hits me hard!" said he in an under-voice. "It MAY be true!

I can't make it out. Certainly, if his birth was exactly when

she says, he's mine. I cannot think why she didn't tell me when

I met her at Christminster, and came on here that evening with

her! ... Ah--I do remember now that she said something about having

a thing on her mind that she would like me to know, if ever we lived

together again."

"The poor child seems to be wanted by nobody!" Sue replied, and her

eyes filled.

Jude had by this time come to himself. "What a view of life he

must have, mine or not mine!" he said. "I must say that, if I were

better off, I should not stop for a moment to think whose he might

be. I would take him and bring him up. The beggarly question of

parentage--what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come

to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the

little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of

the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of

parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's,

is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and other

virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom."

Sue jumped up and kissed Jude with passionate devotion. "Yes--so

it is, dearest! And we'll have him here! And if he isn't yours it

makes it all the better. I do hope he isn't--though perhaps I ought

not to feel quite that! If he isn't, I should like so much for us

to have him as an adopted child!"

"Well, you must assume about him what is most pleasing to you, my

curious little comrade!" he said. "I feel that, anyhow, I don't like

to leave the unfortunate little fellow to neglect. Just think of

his life in a Lambeth pothouse, and all its evil influences, with a

parent who doesn't want him, and has, indeed, hardly seen him, and

a stepfather who doesn't know him. 'Let the day perish wherein I

was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child

conceived!' That's what the boy--MY boy, perhaps, will find himself

saying before long!"

"Oh no!"

"As I was the petitioner, I am really entitled to his custody, I

suppose."