Jude the Obsure

He waited till a small boy came from the school--one evidently

allowed out before hours for some reason or other. Jude held up his

hand, and the child came.

"Please call at the schoolhouse and ask Mrs. Phillotson if she will

be kind enough to come to the church for a few minutes."

The child departed, and Jude heard him knock at the door of the

dwelling. He himself went further into the church. Everything

was new, except a few pieces of carving preserved from the wrecked

old fabric, now fixed against the new walls. He stood by these:

they seemed akin to the perished people of that place who were his

ancestors and Sue's.

A light footstep, which might have been accounted no more than an

added drip to the rainfall, sounded in the porch, and he looked

round.

"Oh--I didn't think it was you! I didn't--Oh, Jude!" A hysterical

catch in her breath ended in a succession of them. He advanced, but

she quickly recovered and went back.

"Don't go--don't go!" he implored. "This is my last time! I thought

it would be less intrusive than to enter your house. And I shall

never come again. Don't then be unmerciful. Sue, Sue! We are

acting by the letter; and 'the letter killeth'!"

"I'll stay--I won't be unkind!" she said, her mouth quivering and her

tears flowing as she allowed him to come closer. "But why did you

come, and do this wrong thing, after doing such a right thing as you

have done?"

"What right thing?"

"Marrying Arabella again. It was in the Alfredston paper. She has

never been other than yours, Jude--in a proper sense. And therefore

you did so well--Oh so well!--in recognizing it--and taking her to

you again."

"God above--and is that all I've come to hear? If there is anything

more degrading, immoral, unnatural, than another in my life, it is

this meretricious contract with Arabella which has been called doing

the right thing! And you too--you call yourself Phillotson's wife!

HIS wife! You are mine."

"Don't make me rush away from you--I can't bear much! But on this

point I am decided."

"I cannot understand how you did it--how you think it--I cannot!"

"Never mind that. He is a kind husband to me--And I--I've wrestled

and struggled, and fasted, and prayed. I have nearly brought my body

into complete subjection. And you mustn't--will you--wake--"

"Oh you darling little fool; where is your reason? You seem to have

suffered the loss of your faculties! I would argue with you if I

didn't know that a woman in your state of feeling is quite beyond all

appeals to her brains. Or is it that you are humbugging yourself, as

so many women do about these things; and don't actually believe what

you pretend to, and only are indulging in the luxury of the emotion

raised by an affected belief?"