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Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy
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Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy
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About This Book
In 1895 Hardy's final novel, the great tale of Jude the Obscure sent shockwaves of indignation rolling across Victorian England. Hardy had dared to write frankly about sexuality and to indict the institutions of marriage, education, and religion. But he had, in fact, created a deeply moral work...
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AltertumswissenschaftenPART SIXTH
~
AT CHRISTMINSTER AGAIN
āā¦ AND SHE HUMBLED HER body greatly, and all the places of her joy she filled with her torn hair.āāEsther (Apoc.).
āThere are two who decline, a woman and I,
And enjoy our death in the darkness here.ā
āR. Browning.
I
On their arrival the station was lively with straw-hatted young men, welcoming young girls who bore a remarkable family likeness to their welcomers, and who were dressed up in the brightest and lightest of raiment.
āThe place seems gay,ā said Sue. āWhyāit is Remembrance Day!āJudeāhow sly of youāyou came to-day on purpose!ā
āYes,ā said Jude quietly, as he took charge of the small child, and told Arabellaās boy to keep close to them, Sue attending to their own eldest. āI thought we might as well come to-day as on any other.ā
āBut I am afraid it will depress you!ā she said, looking anxiously at him up and down.
āOh, I mustnāt let it interfere with our business; and we have a good deal to do before we shall be settled here. The first thing is lodgings.ā
Having left their luggage and his tools at the station they proceeded on foot up the familiar street, the holiday people all drifting in the same direction. Reaching the Fourways they were about to turn off to where accommodation was likely to be found when, looking at the clock and the hurrying crowd, Jude said: āLet us go and see the procession, and never mind the lodgings just now. We can get them afterwards.ā
āOughtnāt we to get a house over our heads first?ā she asked.
But his soul seemed full of the anniversary, and together they went down Chief Street, their smallest child in Judeās arms, Sue leading her little girl, and Arabellaās boy walking thoughtfully and silently beside them. Crowds of pretty sisters in airy costumes, and meekly ignorant parents who had known no college in their youth, were under convoy in the same direction by brothers and sons bearing the opinion written large on them that no properly qualified human beings had lived on earth till they came to grace it here and now.
āMy failure is reflected on me by every one of those young fellows,ā said Jude. āA lesson on presumption is awaiting me to-day!āHumiliation Day for me! ā¦ If you, my dear darling, hadnāt come to my rescue, I should have gone to the dogs with despair!ā
She saw from his face that he was getting into one of his tempestuous, self-harrowing moods. āIt would have been better if we had gone at once about our own affairs, dear,ā she answered. āI am sure this sight will awaken old sorrows in you, and do no good!ā
āWellāwe are near; we will see it now,ā said he.
They turned in on the left by the church with the Italian porch, whose helical columns were heavily draped with creepers, and pursued the lane till there arose on Judeās sight the circular theatre with that well-known lantern above it, which stood in his mind as the sad symbol of his abandoned hopes, for it was from that outlook that he had finally surveyed the City of Colleges on the afternoon of his great meditation, which convinced him at last of the futility of his attempt to be a son of the university.
To-day, in the open space stretching between this building and the nearest college, stood a crowd of expectant people. A passage was kept clear through their midst by two barriers of timber, extending from the door of the college to the door of the large building between it and the theatre.
āHere is the placeāthey are just going to pass!ā cried Jude in sudden excitement. And pushing his way to the front he took up a position close to the barrier, still hugging the youngest child in his arms, while Sue and the others kept immediately behind him. The crowd filled in at their back, and fell to talking, joking, and laughing as carriage after carriage drew up at the lower door of the college, and solemn stately figures in blood-red robes began to alight. The sky had grown overcast and livid, and thunder rumbled now and then.
Father Time shuddered. āIt do seem like the Judgment Day!ā he whispered.
āThey are only learned Doctors,ā said Sue.
While they waited big drops of rain fell on their heads and shoulders, and the delay grew tedious. Sue again wished not to stay.
āThey wonāt be long now,ā said Jude, without turning his head.
But the procession did not come forth, and somebody in the crowd, to pass the time, looked at the faƧade of the nearest college, and said he wondered what was meant by the Latin inscription in its midst. Jude, who stood near the inquirer, explained it, and finding that the people all round him were listening with interest, went on to describe the carving of the frieze (which he had studied years before), and to criticize some details of masonry in other college fronts about the city.
The idle crowd, including the two policemen at the doors, stared like the Lycaonians at Paul, for Jude was apt to get too enthusiastic over any subject in hand, and they seemed to wonder how the stranger should know more about the buildings of their town than they themselves did; till one of them said: āWhy, I know that man; he used to work here years agoāJude Fawley, thatās his name! Donāt you mind he used to be nicknamed Tutor of St. Slums, dāye mind?ābecause he aimed at that line oā business? Heās married, I suppose, then, and thatās his child heās carrying. Taylor would know him, as he knows everybody.ā
The speaker was a man named Jack Stagg, with whom Jude had formerly worked in repairing the college masonries; Tinker Taylor was seen to be standing near. Having his attention called the latter cried across the barriers to Jude: āYouāve honoured us by coming back again, my friend!ā
Jude nodded.
āAnā you donāt seem to have done any great things for yourself by going away?ā
Jude assented to this also.
āExcept found more mouths to fill!ā This came in a new voice, and Jude recognized its owner to be Uncle Joe, another mason whom he had known.
Jude replied good-humouredly that he could not dispute it; and from remark to remark something like a general conversation arose between him and the crowd of idlers, during which Tinker Taylor asked Jude if he remembered the Apostlesā Creed in Latin still, and the night of the challenge in the public house.
āBut Fortune didnāt lie that way?ā threw in Joe. āYer powers wasnāt enough to carry āee through?ā
āDonāt answer them any more!ā entreated Sue.
āI donāt think I like Christminster!ā murmured little Time mournfully, as he stood submerged and invisible in the crowd.
But finding himself the centre of curiosity, quizzing, and comment, Jude was not inclined to shrink from open declarations of what he had no great reason to be ashamed of; and in a little while was stimulated to say in a loud voice to the listening throng generally:
āIt is a difficult question, my friends, for any young manāthat question I had to grapple with, and which thousands are weighing at the present moment in these uprising timesāwhether to follow uncritically the track he finds himself in, without considering his aptness for it, or to consider what his aptness or bent may be, and re-shape his course accordingly. I tried to do the latter, and I failed. But I donāt admit that my failure proved my view to be a wrong one, or that my success would have made it a right one; though thatās how we appraise such attempts nowadaysāI mean, not by their essential soundness, but by their accidental outcomes. If I had ended by becoming like one of these gentlemen in red and black that we saw dropping in here by now, everybody would have said: āSee how wise that young man was, to follow the bent of his nature!ā But having ended no better than I began they say: āSee what a fool that fellow was in following a freak of his fancy!ā
āHowever it was my poverty and not my will that consented to be beaten. It takes two or three generations to do what I tried to do in one; and my impulsesāaffectionsāvices perhaps they should be calledāwere too strong not to hamper a man without advantages; who should be as cold-blooded as a fish and as selfish as a pig to have a really good chance of being one of his countryās worthies. You may ridicule meāI am quite willing that you shouldāI am a fit subject, no doubt. But I think if you knew what I have gone through these last few years you would rather pity me. And if they knew"āhe nodded towards the college at which the dons were severally arrivingā"it is just possible they would do the same.ā
āHe do look ill and worn-out, it is true!ā said a woman.
Sueās face grew more emotional; but though she stood close to Jude she was screened.
āI may do some good before I am deadābe a sort of success as a frightful example of what not to do; and so illustrate a moral story,ā continued Jude, beginning to grow bitter, though he had opened serenely enough. āI was, perhaps, after all, a paltry victim to the spirit of mental and social restlessness that makes so many unhappy in these days!ā
āDonāt tell them that!ā whispered Sue with tears, at perceiving Judeās state of mind. āYou werenāt that. You struggled nobly to acquire knowledge, and only the meanest souls in the world would blame you!ā
Jude shifted the child into a more easy position on his arm, and concluded: āAnd what I appear, a sick and poor man, is not the worst of me. I am in a chaos of principlesāgroping in the darkāacting by instinct and not after example. Eight or nine years ago when I came here first, I had a neat stock of fixed opinions, but they dropped away one by one; and the further I get the less sure I am. I doubt if I have anything more for my present rule of life than following inclinations which do me and nobody else any harm, and actually give pleasure to those I love best. There, gentlemen, since you wanted to know how I was getting on, I have told you. Much good may it do you! I cannot explain further here. I perceive there is something wrong somewhere in our social formulas: what it is can only be discovered by men or women with greater insight than mineāif, indeed, they ever discover itāat least in our time. āFor who knoweth what is good for man in this life?āand who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?āā
āHear, hear,ā said the populace.
āWell preached!ā said Tinker Taylor. And privately to his neighbours: āWhy, one of them jobbing paāsons swarming about here, that takes the services when our head reverends want a holiday, wouldnāt haā discoursed such doctrine for less than a guinea down. Hey? Iāll take my oath not one oā āem would! And then he must have had it wrote down for ān. And this only a working-man!ā
As a sort of objective commentary on Judeās remarks there drove up at this moment with a belated Doctor, robed and panting, a cab whose horse failed to stop at the exact point required for setting down the hirer, who jumped out and entered the door. The driver, alighting, began to kick the animal in the belly.
āIf that can be done,ā said Jude, āat college gates in the most religious and educational city in the world, what shall we say as to how far weāve got?ā
āOrder!ā said one of the policemen, who had been engaged with a comrade in opening the large doors opposite the college. āKeep yer tongue quiet, my man, while the procession passes.ā The rain came on more heavily, and all who had umbrellas opened them. Jude was not one of these, and Sue only possessed a small one, half sunshade. She had grown pale, t...