E-text prepared by John Hamm E-text revised and HTML version prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. [Illustration] JUDE THE OBSCURE by Thomas Hardy CONTENTS PREFACE PART FIRSTâAt Marygreen Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI PART SECONDâAt Christminster Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII PART THIRDâAt Melchester Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X PART FOURTHâAt Shaston Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI PART FIFTHâAt Aldbrickham and Elsewhere Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII PART SIXTHâAt Christminster Again Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI PREFACE The history of this novel (whose birth in its present shape has been much retarded by the necessities of periodical publication) is briefly as follows. The scheme was jotted down in 1890, from notes made in 1887 and onward, some of the circumstances being suggested by the death of a woman in the former year. The scenes were revisited in October, 1892; the narrative was written in outline in 1892 and the spring of 1893, and at full length, as it now appears, from August, 1893, onward into the next year; the whole, with the exception of a few chapters, being in the hands of the publisher by the end of 1894. It was begun as a serial story in HARPERâS MAGAZINE at the end of November, 1894, and was continued in monthly parts. But, as in the case of _Tess of the DâUrbervilles_, the magazine version was, for various reasons, abridged and modified in some degree, the present edition being the first in which the whole appears as originally written. And in the difficulty of coming to an early decision in the matter of a title, the tale was issued under a provisional nameâtwo such titles having, in fact, been successively adopted. The present and final title, deemed on the whole the best, was one of the earliest thought of. For a novel addressed by a man to men and women of full age, which attempts to deal unaffectedly with the fret and fever, derision and disaster, that may press in the wake of the strongest passion known to humanity, and to point, without a mincing of words, the tragedy of unfulfilled aims, I am not aware that there is anything in the handling to which exception can be taken. Like former productions of this pen, _Jude the Obscure_ is simply an endeavor to give shape and coherence to a series of seemings, or personal impressions, the question of their consistency or their discordance, of their permanence or their transitoriness, being regarded as not of the first moment. T.H. _August_, 1895. Part First AT MARYGREEN _âYea, many there be that have run out of their wits for women, and become servants for their sakes. Many also have perished, have erred, and sinned, for womenâ¦ O ye men, how can it be but women should be strong, seeing they do thus?â_âESDRAS. I The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry. The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the departing teacherâs effects. For the schoolhouse had been partly furnished by the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed by the master, in addition to the packing-case of books, was a cottage piano that he had bought at an auction during the year in which he thought of learning instrumental music. But the enthusiasm having waned he had never acquired any skill in playing, and the purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him ever since in moving house. The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the sight of changes. He did not mean to return till the evening, when the new school-teacher would have arrived and settled in, and everything would be smooth again. The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were standing in perplexed attitudes in the parlour before the instrument. The master had remarked that even if he got it into the cart he should not know what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster, the city he was bound for, since he was only going into temporary lodgings just at first. A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbed their chins he spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: âAunt have got a great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, till youâve found a place to settle in, sir.â âA proper good notion,â said the blacksmith. It was decided that a deputation should wait on the boyâs auntâan old maiden residentâand ask her if she would house the piano till Mr. Phillotson should send for it. The smith and the bailiff started to see about the practicability of the suggested shelter, and the boy and the schoolmaster were left standing alone. âSorry I am going, Jude?â asked the latter kindly. Tears rose into the boyâs eyes, for he was not among the regular day scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmasterâs life, but one who had attended the night school only during the present teacherâs term of office. The regular scholars, if the truth must be told, stood at the present moment afar off, like certain historic disciples, indisposed to any enthusiastic volunteering of aid. The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr. Phillotson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, and admitted that he was sorry. âSo am I,â said Mr. Phillotson. âWhy do you go, sir?â asked the boy. âAhâthat would be a long story. You wouldnât understand my reasons, Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older.â âI think I should now, sir.â âWellâdonât speak of this everywhere. You know what a university is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak, and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should have elsewhere.â The smith and his companion returned. Old Miss Fawleyâs fuel-house was dry, and eminently practicable; and she seemed willing to give the instrument standing-room there. It was accordingly left in the school till the evening, when more hands would be available for removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance round. The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine oâclock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other _impedimenta_, and bade his friends good-bye. âI shanât forget you, Jude,â he said, smiling, as the cart moved off. âBe a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt me out for old acquaintanceâ sake.â The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner by the rectory-house. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip now and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the framework, his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful childâs who has felt the pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down. There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the hartâs-tongue fern. He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy, that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a morning like this, and would never draw there any more. âIâve seen him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home! But he was too clever to bide here any longerâa small sleepy place like this!â A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning was a little foggy, and the boyâs breathing unfurled itself as a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden outcry: âBring on that water, will ye, you idle young harlican!â It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off. The boy quickly waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort for one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment for breath, started with them across the patch of clammy greensward whereon the well stoodânearly in the centre of the little village, or rather hamlet of Marygreen. It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessex downs. Old as it was, however, the well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local history that remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down of late years, and many trees felled on the green. Above all, the original church, hump-backed, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken down, and either cracked up into heaps of road-metal in the lane, or utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard-stones to fences, and rockeries in the flower-beds of the neighbourhood. In place of it a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain obliterator of historic records who had run down from London and back in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancient temple to the Christian divinities was not even recorded on the green and level grass-plot that had immemorially been the churchyard, the obliterated graves being commemorated by eighteen-penny cast-iron crosses warranted to last five years. II Slender as was Jude Fawleyâs frame he bore the two brimming house-buckets of water to the cottage without resting. Over the door was a little rectangular piece of blue board, on which was painted in yellow letters, âDrusilla Fawley, Baker.â Within the little lead panes of the windowâthis being one of the few old houses leftâwere five bottles of sweets, and three buns on a plate of the willow pattern. While emptying the buckets at the back of the house he could hear an animated conversation in progress within-doors between his great-aunt, the Drusilla of the sign-board, and some other villagers. Having seen the school-master depart, they were summing up particulars of the event, and indulging in predictions of his future. âAnd whoâs he?â asked one, comparatively a stranger, when the boy entered. âWell ye med ask it, Mrs. Williams. Heâs my great-nephewâcome since you was last this way.â The old inhabitant who answered was a tall, gaunt woman, who spoke tragically on the most trivial subject, and gave a phrase of her conversation to each auditor in turn. âHe come from Mellstock, down in South Wessex, about a year agoâworse luck for ân, Belindaâ (turning to the right) âwhere his father was living, and was took wiâ the shakings for death, and died in two days, as you know, Carolineâ (turning to the left). âIt would haâ been a blessing if Goddy-mighty had took thee too, wiâ thy mother and father, poor useless boy! But Iâve got him here to stay with me till I can see whatâs to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn any penny he can. Just now heâs a-scaring of birds for Farmer Troutham. It keeps him out of mischty. Why do ye turn away, Jude?â she continued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slaps upon his face, moved aside. The local washerwoman replied that it was perhaps a very good plan of Miss or Mrs. Fawleyâs (as they called her indifferently) to have him with herââto kip âee company in your loneliness, fetch water, shet the winder-shetters oâ nights, and help in the bit oâ baking.â Miss Fawley doubted it. â¦ âWhy didnât ye get the schoolmaster to take âee to Christminster wiâ un, and make a scholar of âee,â she continued, in frowning pleasantry. âIâm sure he couldnât haâ took a better one. The boy is crazy for books, that he is. It runs in our family rather. His cousin Sue is just the sameâso Iâve heard; but I have not seen the child for years, though she was born in this place, within these four walls, as it happened. My niece and her husband, after they were married, didnâ get a house of their own for some year or more; and then they only had one tillâWell, I wonât go into that. Jude, my child, donât you ever marry. âTisnât for the Fawleys to take that step any more. She, their only one, was like a child oâ my own, Belinda, till the split come! Ah, that a little maid should know such changes!â Jude, finding the general attention again centering on himself, went out to the bakehouse, where he ate the cake provided for his breakfast. The end of his spare time had now arrived, and emerging from the garden by getting over the hedge at the back he pursued a path northward, till he came to a wide and lonely depression in the general level of the upland, which was sown as a corn-field. This vast concave was the scene of his labours for Mr. Troutham the farmer, and he descended into the midst of it. The brown surface of the field went right up towards the sky all round, where it was lost by degrees in the mist that shut out the actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The only marks on the uniformity of the scene were a rick of last yearâs produce standing in the midst of the arable, the rooks that rose at his approach, and the path athwart the fallow by which he had come, trodden now by he hardly knew whom, though once by many of his own dead family. âHow ugly it is here!â he murmured. The fresh harrow-lines seemed to stretch like the channellings in a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly utilitarian air to the expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it of all history beyond that of the few recent months, though to every clod and stone there really attached associations enough and to spareâechoes of songs from ancient harvest-days, of spoken words, and of sturdy deeds. Every inch of ground had been the site, first or last, of energy, gaiety, horse-play, bickerings, weariness. Groups of gleaners had squatted in the sun on every square yard. Love-matches that had populated the adjoining hamlet had been made up there between reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the field from a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers who would not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest; and in that ancient cornfield many a man had made love-promises to a woman at whose voice he had trembled by the next seed-time after fulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jude nor the rooks around him considered. For them it was a lonely place, possessing, in the one view, only the quality of a work-ground, and in the other that of a granary good to feed in. The boy stood under the rick before mentioned, and every few seconds used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clack the rooks left off pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him warily, and descending to feed at a more respectful distance. He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart grew sympathetic with the birdsâ thwarted desires. They seemed, like himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should he frighten them away? They took upon more and more the aspect of gentle friends and pensionersâthe only friends he could claim as being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, and they alighted anew. âPoor little dears!â said Jude, aloud. âYou _shall_ have some dinnerâyou shall. There is enough for us all. Farmer Troutham can afford to let you have some. Eat, then my dear little birdies, and make a good meal!â They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much resembled his own. His clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean and sordid instrument, offensive both to the birds and to himself as their friend. All at once he became conscious of a smart blow upon his buttocks, followed by a loud clack, which announced to his surprised senses that the clacker had been the instrument of offence used. The birds and Jude started up simultaneously, and the dazed eyes of the latter beheld the farmer in person, the great Troutham himself, his red face glaring down upon Judeâs cowering frame, the clacker swinging in his hand. âSo itâs âEat my dear birdies,â is it, young man? âEat, dear birdies,â indeed! Iâll tickle your breeches, and see if you say, âEat, dear birdies,â again in a hurry! And youâve been idling at the schoolmasterâs too, instead of coming here, haânât ye, hey? Thatâs how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooks off my corn!â Whilst saluting Judeâs ears with this impassioned rhetoric, Troutham had seized his left hand with his own left, and swinging his slim frame round him at armâs-length, again struck Jude on the hind parts with the flat side of Judeâs own rattle, till the field echoed with the blows, which were delivered once or twice at each revolution. âDonât âee, sirâplease donât âee!â cried the whirling child, as helpless under the centrifugal tendency of his person as a hooked fish swinging to land, and beholding the hill, the rick, the plantation, the path, and the rooks going round and round him in an amazing circular race. âIâI sirâonly meant thatâthere was a good crop in the groundâI saw âem sow itâand the rooks could have a little bit for dinnerâand you wouldnât miss it, sirâand Mr. Phillotson said I was to be kind to âemâoh, oh, oh!â This truthful explanation seemed to exasperate the farmer even more than if Jude had stoutly denied saying anything at all, and he still smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of the instrument continuing to resound all across the field and as far as the ears of distant workersâwho gathered thereupon that Jude was pursuing his business of clacking with great assiduityâand echoing from the brand-new church tower just behind the mist, towards the building of which structure the farmer had largely subscribed, to testify his love for God and man. Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitive task, and depositing the quivering boy on his legs, took a sixpence from his pocket and gave it him in payment for his dayâs work, telling him to go home and never let him see him in one of those fields again. Jude leaped out of armâs reach, and walked along the trackway weepingânot from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was good for Godâs birds was bad for Godâs gardener; but with the awful sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for life. With this shadow on his mind he did not care to show himself in the village, and went homeward by a roundabout track behind a high hedge and across a pasture. Here he beheld scores of coupled earthworms lying half their length on the surface of the damp ground, as they always did in such weather at that time of the year. It was impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing some of them at each tread. Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was a boy who could not himself bear to hurt anything. He had never brought home a nest of young birds without lying awake in misery half the night after, and often reinstating them and the nest in their original place the next morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or lopped, from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that all was well with him again. He carefully picked his way on tiptoe among the earthworms, without killing a single one. On entering the cottage he found his aunt selling a penny loaf to a little girl, and when the customer was gone she said, âWell, how do you come to be back here in the middle of the morning like this?â âIâm turned away.â âWhat?â âMr. Troutham have turned me away because I let the rooks have a few peckings of corn. And thereâs my wagesâthe last I shall ever hae!â He threw the sixpence tragically on the table. âAh!â said his aunt, suspending her breath. And she opened upon him a lecture on how she would now have him all the spring upon her hands doing nothing. âIf you canât skeer birds, what can ye do? There! donât ye look so deedy! Farmer Troutham is not so much better than myself, come to that. But âtis as Job said, âNow they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.â His father was my fatherâs journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been a fool to let âee go to work for ân, which I shouldnât haâ done but to keep âee out of mischty.â More angry with Jude for demeaning her by coming there than for dereliction of duty, she rated him primarily from that point of view, and only secondarily from a moral one. âNot that you should have let the birds eat what Farmer Troutham planted. Of course you was wrong in that. Jude, Jude, why didstnât go off with that schoolmaster of thine to Christminster or somewhere? But, oh noâpoor orânary childâthere never was any sprawl on thy side of the family, and never will be!â âWhere is this beautiful city, Auntâthis place where Mr. Phillotson is gone to?â asked the boy, after meditating in silence. âLord! you ought to know where the city of Christminster is. Near a score of miles from here. It is a place much too good for you ever to have much to do with, poor boy, Iâm a-thinking.â âAnd will Mr. Phillotson always be there?â âHow can I tell?â âCould I go to see him?â âLord, no! You didnât grow up hereabout, or you wouldnât ask such as that. Weâve never had anything to do with folk in Christminster, nor folk in Christminster with we.â Jude went out, and, feeling more than ever his existence to be an undemanded one, he lay down upon his back on a heap of litter near the pig-sty. The fog had by this time become more translucent, and the position of the sun could be seen through it. He pulled his straw hat over his face, and peered through the interstices of the plaiting at the white brightness, vaguely reflecting. Growing up brought responsibilities, he found. Events did not rhyme quite as he had thought. Natureâs logic was too horrid for him to care for. That mercy towards one set of creatures was cruelty towards another sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, and felt yourself to be at the centre of your time, and not at a point in its circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you were seized with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and warped it. If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a man. Then, like the natural boy, he forgot his despondency, and sprang up. During the remainder of the morning he helped his aunt, and in the afternoon, when there was nothing more to be done, he went into the village. Here he asked a man whereabouts Christminster lay. âChristminster? Oh, well, out by there yonder; though Iâve never bin thereânot I. Iâve never had any business at such a place.â The man pointed north-eastward, in the very direction where lay that field in which Jude had so disgraced himself. There was something unpleasant about the coincidence for the moment, but the fearsomeness of this fact rather increased his curiosity about the city. The farmer had said he was never to be seen in that field again; yet Christminster lay across it, and the path was a public one. So, stealing out of the hamlet, he descended into the same hollow which had witnessed his punishment in the morning, never swerving an inch from the path, and climbing up the long and tedious ascent on the other side till the track joined the highway by a little clump of trees. Here the ploughed land ended, and all before him was bleak open down. III Not a soul was visible on the hedgeless highway, or on either side of it, and the white road seemed to ascend and diminish till it joined the sky. At the very top it was crossed at right angles by a green âridgewayââthe Ickneild Street and original Roman road through the district. This ancient track ran east and west for many miles, and down almost to within living memory had been used for driving flocks and herds to fairs and markets. But it was now neglected and overgrown. The boy had never before strayed so far north as this from the nestling hamlet in which he had been deposited by the carrier from a railway station southward, one dark evening some few months earlier, and till now he had had no suspicion that such a wide, flat, low-lying country lay so near at hand, under the very verge of his upland world. The whole northern semicircle between east and west, to a distance of forty or fifty miles, spread itself before him; a bluer, moister atmosphere, evidently, than that he breathed up here. Not far from the road stood a weather-beaten old barn of reddish-grey brick and tile. It was known as the Brown House by the people of the locality. He was about to pass it when he perceived a ladder against the eaves; and the reflection that the higher he got, the further he could see, led Jude to stand and regard it. On the slope of the roof two men were repairing the tiling. He turned into the ridgeway and drew towards the barn. When he had wistfully watched the workmen for some time he took courage, and ascended the ladder till he stood beside them. âWell, my lad, and what may you want up here?â âI wanted to know where the city of Christminster is, if you please.â âChristminster is out across there, by that clump. You can see itâat least you can on a clear day. Ah, no, you canât now.â The other tiler, glad of any kind of diversion from the monotony of his labour, had also turned to look towards the quarter designated. âYou canât often see it in weather like this,â he said. âThe time Iâve noticed it is when the sun is going down in a blaze of flame, and it looks likeâI donât know what.â âThe heavenly Jerusalem,â suggested the serious urchin. âAyâthough I should never haâ thought of it myself. â¦ But I canât see no Christminster to-day.â The boy strained his eyes also; yet neither could he see the far-off city. He descended from the barn, and abandoning Christminster with the versatility of his age he walked along the ridge-track, looking for any natural objects of interest that might lie in the banks thereabout. When he repassed the barn to go back to Marygreen he observed that the ladder was still in its place, but that the men had finished their dayâs work and gone away. It was waning towards evening; there was still a faint mist, but it had cleared a little except in the damper tracts of subjacent country and along the river-courses. He thought again of Christminster, and wished, since he had come two or three miles from his auntâs house on purpose, that he could have seen for once this attractive city of which he had been told. But even if he waited here it was hardly likely that the air would clear before night. Yet he was loth to leave the spot, for the northern expanse became lost to view on retreating towards the village only a few hundred yards. He ascended the ladder to have one more look at the point the men had designated, and perched himself on the highest rung, overlying the tiles. He might not be able to come so far as this for many days. Perhaps if he prayed, the wish to see Christminster might be forwarded. People said that, if you prayed, things sometimes came to you, even though they sometimes did not. He had read in a tract that a man who had begun to build a church, and had no money to finish it, knelt down and prayed, and the money came in by the next post. Another man tried the same experiment, and the money did not come; but he found afterwards that the breeches he knelt in were made by a wicked Jew. This was not discouraging, and turning on the ladder Jude knelt on the third rung, where, resting against those above it, he prayed that the mist might rise. He then seated himself again, and waited. In the course of ten or fifteen minutes the thinning mist dissolved altogether from the northern horizon, as it had already done elsewhere, and about a quarter of an hour before the time of sunset the westward clouds parted, the sunâs position being partially uncovered, and the beams streaming out in visible lines between two bars of slaty cloud. The boy immediately looked back in the old direction. Some way within the limits of the stretch of landscape, points of light like the topaz gleamed. The air increased in transparency with the lapse of minutes, till the topaz points showed themselves to be the vanes, windows, wet roof slates, and other shining spots upon the spires, domes, freestone-work, and varied outlines that were faintly revealed. It was Christminster, unquestionably; either directly seen, or miraged in the peculiar atmosphere. The spectator gazed on and on till the windows and vanes lost their shine, going out almost suddenly like extinguished candles. The vague city became veiled in mist. Turning to the west, he saw that the sun had disappeared. The foreground of the scene had grown funereally dark, and near objects put on the hues and shapes of chimaeras. He anxiously descended the ladder, and started homewards at a run, trying not to think of giants, Herne the Hunter, Apollyon lying in wait for Christian, or of the captain with the bleeding hole in his forehead and the corpses round him that remutinied every night on board the bewitched ship. He knew that he had grown out of belief in these horrors, yet he was glad when he saw the church tower and the lights in the cottage windows, even though this was not the home of his birth, and his great-aunt did not care much about him. Inside and round about that old womanâs âshopâ window, with its twenty-four little panes set in lead-work, the glass of some of them oxidized with age, so that you could hardly see the poor penny articles exhibited within, and forming part of a stock which a strong man could have carried, Jude had his outer being for some long tideless time. But his dreams were as gigantic as his surroundings were small. Through the solid barrier of cold cretaceous upland to the northward he was always beholding a gorgeous cityâthe fancied place he had likened to the new Jerusalem, though there was perhaps more of the painterâs imagination and less of the diamond merchantâs in his dreams thereof than in those of the Apocalyptic writer. And the city acquired a tangibility, a permanence, a hold on his life, mainly from the one nucleus of fact that the man for whose knowledge and purposes he had so much reverence was actually living there; not only so, but living among the more thoughtful and mentally shining ones therein. In sad wet seasons, though he knew it must rain at Christminster too, he could hardly believe that it rained so drearily there. Whenever he could get away from the confines of the hamlet for an hour or two, which was not often, he would steal off to the Brown House on the hill and strain his eyes persistently; sometimes to be rewarded by the sight of a dome or spire, at other times by a little smoke, which in his estimate had some of the mysticism of incense. Then the day came when it suddenly occurred to him that if he ascended to the point of view after dark, or possibly went a mile or two further, he would see the night lights of the city. It would be necessary to come back alone, but even that consideration did not deter him, for he could throw a little manliness into his mood, no doubt. The project was duly executed. It was not late when he arrived at the place of outlook, only just after dusk, but a black north-east sky, accompanied by a wind from the same quarter, made the occasion dark enough. He was rewarded; but what he saw was not the lamps in rows, as he had half expected. No individual light was visible, only a halo or glow-fog over-arching the place against the black heavens behind it, making the light and the city seem distant but a mile or so. He set himself to wonder on the exact point in the glow where the schoolmaster might beâhe who never communicated with anybody at Marygreen now; who was as if dead to them here. In the glow he seemed to see Phillotson promenading at ease, like one of the forms in Nebuchadnezzarâs furnace. He had heard that breezes travelled at the rate of ten miles an hour, and the fact now came into his mind. He parted his lips as he faced the north-east, and drew in the wind as if it were a sweet liquor. âYou,â he said, addressing the breeze caressingly âwere in Christminster city between one and two hours ago, floating along the streets, pulling round the weather-cocks, touching Mr. Phillotsonâs face, being breathed by him; and now you are here, breathed by meâyou, the very same.â Suddenly there came along this wind something towards himâa message from the placeâfrom some soul residing there, it seemed. Surely it was the sound of bells, the voice of the city, faint and musical, calling to him, âWe are happy here!â He had become entirely lost to his bodily situation during this mental leap, and only got back to it by a rough recalling. A few yards below the brow of the hill on which he paused a team of horses made its appearance, having reached the place by dint of half an hourâs serpentine progress from the bottom of the immense declivity. They had a load of coals behind themâa fuel that could only be got into the upland by this particular route. They were accompanied by a carter, a second man, and a boy, who now kicked a large stone behind one of the wheels, and allowed the panting animals to have a long rest, while those in charge took a flagon off the load and indulged in a drink round. They were elderly men, and had genial voices. Jude addressed them, inquiring if they had come from Christminster. âHeaven forbid, with this load!â said they. âThe place I mean is that one yonder.â He was getting so romantically attached to Christminster that, like a young lover alluding to his mistress, he felt bashful at mentioning its name again. He pointed to the light in the skyâhardly perceptible to their older eyes. âYes. There do seem a spot a bit brighter in the norâ-east than elsewhere, though I shouldnât haâ noticed it myself, and no doubt it med be Christminster.â Here a little book of tales which Jude had tucked up under his arm, having brought them to read on his way hither before it grew dark, slipped and fell into the road. The carter eyed him while he picked it up and straightened the leaves. âAh, young man,â he observed, âyouâd have to get your head screwed on tâother way before you could read what they read there.â âWhy?â asked the boy. âOh, they never look at anything that folks like we can understand,â the carter continued, by way of passing the time. âOnây foreign tongues used in the days of the Tower of Babel, when no two families spoke alike. They read that sort of thing as fast as a night-hawk will whir. âTis all learning thereânothing but learning, except religion. And thatâs learning too, for I never could understand it. Yes, âtis a serious-minded place. Not but thereâs wenches in the streets oâ nightsâ¦ You know, I suppose, that they raise paâsons there like radishes in a bed? And though it do takeâhow many years, Bob?âfive years to turn a lirruping hobble-de-hoy chap into a solemn preaching man with no corrupt passions, theyâll do it, if it can be done, and polish un off like the workmen they be, and turn un out wiâ a long face, and a long black coat and waistcoat, and a religious collar and hat, same as they used to wear in the Scriptures, so that his own mother wouldnât know un sometimes. â¦ There, âtis their business, like anybody elseâs.â âBut how should you knowâ âNow donât you interrupt, my boy. Never interrupt your senyers. Move the fore hoss aside, Bobby; hereâs somâat comingâ¦ You must mind that I be a-talking of the college life. âEm lives on a lofty level; thereâs no gainsaying it, though I myself med not think much of âem. As we be here in our bodies on this high ground, so be they in their mindsânoble-minded men enough, no doubtâsome on âemâable to earn hundreds by thinking out loud. And some on âem be strong young fellows that can earn aâmost as much in silver cups. As for music, thereâs beautiful music everywhere in Christminster. You med be religious, or you med not, but you canât help striking in your homely note with the rest. And thereâs a street in the placeâthe main streetâthat haânât another like it in the world. I should think I did know a little about Christminster!â By this time the horses had recovered breath and bent to their collars again. Jude, throwing a last adoring look at the distant halo, turned and walked beside his remarkably well-informed friend, who had no objection to telling him as they moved on more yet of the cityâits towers and halls and churches. The waggon turned into a cross-road, whereupon Jude thanked the carter warmly for his information, and said he only wished he could talk half as well about Christminster as he. âWell, âtis oonly what has come in my way,â said the carter unboastfully. âIâve never been there, no more than you; but Iâve picked up the knowledge here and there, and you be welcome to it. A-getting about the world as I do, and mixing with all classes of society, one canât help hearing of things. A friend oâ mine, that used to clane the boots at the Crozier Hotel in Christminster when he was in his prime, why, I knowed un as well as my own brother in his later years.â Jude continued his walk homeward alone, pondering so deeply that he forgot to feel timid. He suddenly grew older. It had been the yearning of his heart to find something to anchor on, to cling toâfor some place which he could call admirable. Should he find that place in this city if he could get there? Would it be a spot in which, without fear of farmers, or hindrance, or ridicule, he could watch and wait, and set himself to some mighty undertaking like the men of old of whom he had heard? As the halo had been to his eyes when gazing at it a quarter of an hour earlier, so was the spot mentally to him as he pursued his dark way. âIt is a city of light,â he said to himself. âThe tree of knowledge grows there,â he added a few steps further on. âIt is a place that teachers of men spring from and go to.â âIt is what you may call a castle, manned by scholarship and religion.â After this figure he was silent a long while, till he added: âIt would just suit me.â IV Walking somewhat slowly by reason of his concentration, the boyâan ancient man in some phases of thought, much younger than his years in othersâwas overtaken by a light-footed pedestrian, whom, notwithstanding the gloom, he could perceive to be wearing an extraordinarily tall hat, a swallow-tailed coat, and a watch-chain that danced madly and threw around scintillations of sky-light as its owner swung along upon a pair of thin legs and noiseless boots. Jude, beginning to feel lonely, endeavoured to keep up with him. âWell, my man! Iâm in a hurry, so youâll have to walk pretty fast if you keep alongside of me. Do you know who I am?â âYes, I think. Physician Vilbert?â âAhâIâm known everywhere, I see! That comes of being a public benefactor.â Vilbert was an itinerant quack-doctor, well known to the rustic population, and absolutely unknown to anybody else, as he, indeed, took care to be, to avoid inconvenient investigations. Cottagers formed his only patients, and his Wessex-wide repute was among them alone. His position was humbler and his field more obscure than those of the quacks with capital and an organized system of advertising. He was, in fact, a survival. The distances he traversed on foot were enormous, and extended nearly the whole length and breadth of Wessex. Jude had one day seen him selling a pot of coloured lard to an old woman as a certain cure for a bad leg, the woman arranging to pay a guinea, in instalments of a shilling a fortnight, for the precious salve, which, according to the physician, could only be obtained from a particular animal which grazed on Mount Sinai, and was to be captured only at great risk to life and limb. Jude, though he already had his doubts about this gentlemanâs medicines, felt him to be unquestionably a travelled personage, and one who might be a trustworthy source of information on matters not strictly professional. âI sâpose youâve been to Christminster, Physician?â âI haveâmany times,â replied the long thin man. âThatâs one of my centres.â âItâs a wonderful city for scholarship and religion?â âYouâd say so, my boy, if youâd seen it. Why, the very sons of the old women who do the washing of the colleges can talk in Latinânot good Latin, that I admit, as a critic: dog-Latinâcat-Latin, as we used to call it in my undergraduate days.â âAnd Greek?â âWellâthatâs more for the men who are in training for bishops, that they may be able to read the New Testament in the original.â âI want to learn Latin and Greek myself.â âA lofty desire. You must get a grammar of each tongue.â âI mean to go to Christminster some day.â âWhenever you do, you say that Physician Vilbert is the only proprietor of those celebrated pills that infallibly cure all disorders of the alimentary system, as well as asthma and shortness of breath. Two and threepence a boxâspecially licensed by the government stamp.â âCan you get me the grammars if I promise to say it hereabout?â âIâll sell you mine with pleasureâthose I used as a student.â âOh, thank you, sir!â said Jude gratefully, but in gasps, for the amazing speed of the physicianâs walk kept him in a dog-trot which was giving him a stitch in the side. âI think youâd better drop behind, my young man. Now Iâll tell you what Iâll do. Iâll get you the grammars, and give you a first lesson, if youâll remember, at every house in the village, to recommend Physician Vilbertâs golden ointment, life-drops, and female pills.â âWhere will you be with the grammars?â âI shall be passing here this day fortnight at precisely this hour of five-and-twenty minutes past seven. My movements are as truly timed as those of the planets in their courses.â âHere Iâll be to meet you,â said Jude. âWith orders for my medicines?â âYes, Physician.â Jude then dropped behind, waited a few minutes to recover breath, and went home with a consciousness of having struck a blow for Christminster. Through the intervening fortnight he ran about and smiled outwardly at his inward thoughts, as if they were people meeting and nodding to himâsmiled with that singularly beautiful irradiation which is seen to spread on young faces at the inception of some glorious idea, as if a supernatural lamp were held inside their transparent natures, giving rise to the flattering fancy that heaven lies about them then. He honestly performed his promise to the man of many cures, in whom he now sincerely believed, walking miles hither and thither among the surrounding hamlets as the Physicianâs agent in advance. On the evening appointed he stood motionless on the plateau, at the place where he had parted from Vilbert, and there awaited his approach. The road-physician was fairly up to time; but, to the surprise of Jude on striking into his pace, which the pedestrian did not diminish by a single unit of force, the latter seemed hardly to recognize his young companion, though with the lapse of the fortnight the evenings had grown light. Jude thought it might perhaps be owing to his wearing another hat, and he saluted the physician with dignity. âWell, my boy?â said the latter abstractedly. âIâve come,â said Jude. âYou? who are you? Oh yesâto be sure! Got any orders, lad?â âYes.â And Jude told him the names and addresses of the cottagers who were willing to test the virtues of the world-renowned pills and salve. The quack mentally registered these with great care. âAnd the Latin and Greek grammars?â Judeâs voice trembled with anxiety. âWhat about them?â âYou were to bring me yours, that you used before you took your degree.â âAh, yes, yes! Forgot all about itâall! So many lives depending on my attention, you see, my man, that I canât give so much thought as I would like to other things.â Jude controlled himself sufficiently long to make sure of the truth; and he repeated, in a voice
{'title': 'Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}