Jude the Obsure

"The flowers in the bride's hand are sadly like the garland which

decked the heifers of sacrifice in old times!"

"Still, Sue, it is no worse for the woman than for the man. That's

what some women fail to see, and instead of protesting against the

conditions they protest against the man, the other victim; just as a

woman in a crowd will abuse the man who crushes against her, when he

is only the helpless transmitter of the pressure put upon him."

"Yes--some are like that, instead of uniting with the man against

the common enemy, coercion." The bride and bridegroom had by this

time driven off, and the two moved away with the rest of the idlers.

"No--don't let's do it," she continued. "At least just now."

They reached home, and passing the window arm in arm saw the widow

looking out at them. "Well," cried their guest when they entered, "I

said to myself when I zeed ye coming so loving up to the door, 'They

made up their minds at last, then!'"

They briefly hinted that they had not.

"What--and ha'n't ye really done it? Chok' it all, that I should

have lived to see a good old saying like 'marry in haste and repent

at leisure' spoiled like this by you two! 'Tis time I got back again

to Marygreen--sakes if tidden--if this is what the new notions be

leading us to! Nobody thought o' being afeard o' matrimony in my

time, nor of much else but a cannon-ball or empty cupboard! Why when

I and my poor man were married we thought no more o't than of a game

o' dibs!"

"Don't tell the child when he comes in," whispered Sue nervously.

"He'll think it has all gone on right, and it will be better that he

should not be surprised and puzzled. Of course it is only put off

for reconsideration. If we are happy as we are, what does it matter

to anybody?"

V

The purpose of a chronicler of moods and deeds does not require him

to express his personal views upon the grave controversy above given.

That the twain were happy--between their times of sadness--was

indubitable. And when the unexpected apparition of Jude's child

in the house had shown itself to be no such disturbing event as it

had looked, but one that brought into their lives a new and tender

interest of an ennobling and unselfish kind, it rather helped than

injured their happiness.

To be sure, with such pleasing anxious beings as they were, the boy's

coming also brought with it much thought for the future, particularly

as he seemed at present to be singularly deficient in all the usual

hopes of childhood. But the pair tried to dismiss, for a while at

least, a too strenuously forward view.