III
Sue was convalescent, though she had hoped for death, and Jude hadagain obtained work at his old trade. They were in other lodgingsnow, in the direction of Beersheba, and not far from the Church ofCeremonies--Saint Silas.
They would sit silent, more bodeful of the direct antagonism ofthings than of their insensate and stolid obstructiveness. Vagueand quaint imaginings had haunted Sue in the days when her intellectscintillated like a star, that the world resembled a stanza or melodycomposed in a dream; it was wonderfully excellent to the half-arousedintelligence, but hopelessly absurd at the full waking; that theFirst Cause worked automatically like a somnambulist, and notreflectively like a sage; that at the framing of the terrestrialconditions there seemed never to have been contemplated sucha development of emotional perceptiveness among the creaturessubject to those conditions as that reached by thinking andeducated humanity. But affliction makes opposing forces loomanthropomorphous; and those ideas were now exchanged for a sense ofJude and herself fleeing from a persecutor.
We must conform! she said mournfully. All the ancient wrath ofthe Power above us has been vented upon us, His poor creatures, andwe must submit. There is no choice. We must. It is no use fightingagainst God!
It is only against man and senseless circumstance, said Jude.
True! she murmured. What have I been thinking of! I am gettingas superstitious as a savage! ... But whoever or whatever our foemay be, I am cowed into submission. I have no more fighting strengthleft; no more enterprise. I am beaten, beaten! ... 'We are made aspectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men!' I am alwayssaying that now.
I feel the same!
What shall we do? You are in work now; but remember, it mayonly be because our history and relations are not absolutelyknown... Possibly, if they knew our marriage had not been formalized theywould turn you out of your job as they did at Aldbrickham!
I hardly know. Perhaps they would hardly do that. However, I thinkthat we ought to make it legal now--as soon as you are able to goout.
You think we ought?
Certainly.
And Jude fell into thought. I have seemed to myself lately,he said, to belong to that vast band of men shunned by thevirtuous--the men called seducers. It amazes me when I think of it!I have not been conscious of it, or of any wrongdoing towards you,whom I love more than myself. Yet I am one of those men! I wonderif any other of them are the same purblind, simple creatures asI? ... Yes, Sue--that's what I am. I seduced you... You were adistinct type--a refined creature, intended by Nature to be leftintact. But I couldn't leave you alone!
No, no, Jude! she said quickly. Don't reproach yourself withbeing what you are not. If anybody is to blame it is I.
I supported you in your resolve to leave Phillotson; and without meperhaps you wouldn't have urged him to let you go.
I should have, just the same. As to ourselves, the fact of our nothaving entered into a legal contract is the saving feature in ourunion. We have thereby avoided insulting, as it were, the solemnityof our first marriages.
Solemnity? Jude looked at her with some surprise, and grewconscious that she was not the Sue of their earlier time.
Yes, she said, with a little quiver in her words, I have haddreadful fears, a dreadful sense of my own insolence of action.I have thought--that I am still his wife!
Whose?
Richard's.
Good God, dearest!--why?
Oh I can't explain! Only the thought comes to me.
It is your weakness--a sick fancy, without reason or meaning!Don't let it trouble you.
Sue sighed uneasily.
As a set-off against such discussions as these there had comean improvement in their pecuniary position, which earlier intheir experience would have made them cheerful. Jude had quiteunexpectedly found good employment at his old trade almost directlyhe arrived, the summer weather suiting his fragile constitution; andoutwardly his days went on with that monotonous uniformity whichis in itself so grateful after vicissitude. People seemed to haveforgotten that he had ever shown any awkward aberrancies, and hedaily mounted to the parapets and copings of colleges he could neverenter, and renewed the crumbling freestones of mullioned windows hewould never look from, as if he had known no wish to do otherwise.
There was this change in him; that he did not often go to any serviceat the churches now. One thing troubled him more than any other;that Sue and himself had mentally travelled in opposite directionssince the tragedy: events which had enlarged his own views of life,laws, customs, and dogmas, had not operated in the same manner onSue's. She was no longer the same as in the independent days, whenher intellect played like lambent lightning over conventions andformalities which he at that time respected, though he did not now.
On a particular Sunday evening he came in rather late. She wasnot at home, but she soon returned, when he found her silent andmeditative.
What are you thinking of, little woman? he asked curiously.
Oh I can't tell clearly! I have thought that we have been selfish,careless, even impious, in our courses, you and I. Our life has beena vain attempt at self-delight. But self-abnegation is the higherroad. We should mortify the flesh--the terrible flesh--the curse ofAdam!
Sue! he murmured. What has come over you?
We ought to be continually sacrificing ourselves on the altar ofduty! But I have always striven to do what has pleased me. I welldeserved the scourging I have got! I wish something would take theevil right out of me, and all my monstrous errors, and all my sinfulways!
Sue--my own too suffering dear!--there's no evil woman in you. Yournatural instincts are perfectly healthy; not quite so impassioned,perhaps, as I could wish; but good, and dear, and pure. And as Ihave often said, you are absolutely the most ethereal, least sensualwoman I ever knew to exist without inhuman sexlessness. Why do youtalk in such a changed way? We have not been selfish, except when noone could profit by our being otherwise. You used to say that humannature was noble and long-suffering, not vile and corrupt, and atlast I thought you spoke truly. And now you seem to take such a muchlower view!
I want a humble heart; and a chastened mind; and I have never hadthem yet!
You have been fearless, both as a thinker and as a feeler, and youdeserved more admiration than I gave. I was too full of narrowdogmas at that time to see it.
Don't say that, Jude! I wish my every fearless word and thoughtcould be rooted out of my history. Self-renunciation--that'severything! I cannot humiliate myself too much. I should like toprick myself all over with pins and bleed out the badness that's inme!
Hush! he said, pressing her little face against his breast as ifshe were an infant. It is bereavement that has brought you to this!Such remorse is not for you, my sensitive plant, but for the wickedones of the earth--who never feel it!
I ought not to stay like this, she murmured, when she had remainedin the position a long while.
Why not?
It is indulgence.
Still on the same tack! But is there anything better on earth thanthat we should love one another?
Yes. It depends on the sort of love; and yours--ours--is thewrong.
I won't have it, Sue! Come, when do you wish our marriage to besigned in a vestry?
She paused, and looked up uneasily. Never, she whispered.
Not knowing the whole of her meaning he took the objection serenely,and said nothing. Several minutes elapsed, and he thought she hadfallen asleep; but he spoke softly, and found that she was wide awakeall the time. She sat upright and sighed.
There is a strange, indescribable perfume or atmosphere about youto-night, Sue, he said. I mean not only mentally, but about yourclothes, also. A sort of vegetable scent, which I seem to know, yetcannot remember.
It is incense.
Incense?
I have been to the service at St. Silas', and I was in the fumes ofit.
Oh--St. Silas.
Yes. I go there sometimes.
Indeed. You go there!
You see, Jude, it is lonely here in the weekday mornings, when youare at work, and I think and think of--of my-- She stopped till shecould control the lumpiness of her throat. And I have taken to goin there, as it is so near.
Oh well--of course, I say nothing against it. Only it is odd, foryou. They little think what sort of chiel is amang them!
What do you mean, Jude?
Well--a sceptic, to be plain.
How can you pain me so, dear Jude, in my trouble! Yet I know youdidn't mean it. But you ought not to say that.
I won't. But I am much surprised!
Well--I want to tell you something else, Jude. You won't be angry,will you? I have thought of it a good deal since my babies died.I don't think I ought to be your wife--or as your wife--any longer.
What? ... But you ARE!
From your point of view; but--
Of course we were afraid of the ceremony, and a good many otherswould have been in our places, with such strong reasons for fears.But experience has proved how we misjudged ourselves, and overratedour infirmities; and if you are beginning to respect rites andceremonies, as you seem to be, I wonder you don't say it shall becarried out instantly? You certainly ARE my wife, Sue, in all butlaw. What do you mean by what you said?
I don't think I am!
Not? But suppose we HAD gone through the ceremony? Would you feelthat you were then?
No. I should not feel even then that I was. I should feel worsethan I do now.
Why so--in the name of all that's perverse, my dear?
Because I am Richard's.
Ah--you hinted that absurd fancy to me before!
It was only an impression with me then; I feel more and moreconvinced as time goes on that--I belong to him, or to nobody.
My good heavens--how we are changing places!
Yes. Perhaps so.
Some few days later, in the dusk of the summer evening, they weresitting in the same small room downstairs, when a knock came to thefront door of the carpenter's house where they were lodging, and in afew moments there was a tap at the door of their room. Before theycould open it the comer did so, and a woman's form appeared.
Is Mr. Fawley here?
Jude and Sue started as he mechanically replied in the affirmative,for the voice was Arabella's.
He formally requested her to come in, and she sat down in the windowbench, where they could distinctly see her outline against the light;but no characteristic that enabled them to estimate her generalaspect and air. Yet something seemed to denote that she was notquite so comfortably circumstanced, nor so bouncingly attired, as shehad been during Cartlett's lifetime.
The three attempted an awkward conversation about the tragedy, ofwhich Jude had felt it to be his duty to inform her immediately,though she had never replied to his letter.
I have just come from the cemetery, she said. I inquired andfound the child's grave. I couldn't come to the funeral--thank youfor inviting me all the same. I read all about it in the papers,and I felt I wasn't wanted... No--I couldn't come to the funeral,repeated Arabella, who, seeming utterly unable to reach the ideal ofa catastrophic manner, fumbled with iterations. But I am glad Ifound the grave. As 'tis your trade, Jude, you'll be able to put upa handsome stone to 'em.
I shall put up a headstone, said Jude drearily.
He was my child, and naturally I feel for him.
I hope so. We all did.
The others that weren't mine I didn't feel so much for, as wasnatural.
Of course.
A sigh came from the dark corner where Sue sat.
I had often wished I had mine with me, continued Mrs. Cartlett.Perhaps 'twouldn't have happened then! But of course I didn't wishto take him away from your wife.
I am not his wife, came from Sue.
The unexpectedness of her words struck Jude silent.
Oh, I beg your pardon, I'm sure, said Arabella. I thought youwere!
Jude had known from the quality of Sue's tone that her new andtranscendental views lurked in her words; but all except theirobvious meaning was, naturally, missed by Arabella. The latter,after evincing that she was struck by Sue's avowal, recoveredherself, and went on to talk with placid bluntness about her boy,for whom, though in his lifetime she had shown no care at all,she now exhibited a ceremonial mournfulness that was apparentlysustaining to the conscience. She alluded to the past, and in makingsome remark appealed again to Sue. There was no answer: Sue hadinvisibly left the room.
She said she was not your wife? resumed Arabella in another voice.Why should she do that?
I cannot inform you, said Jude shortly.
She is, isn't she? She once told me so.
I don't criticize what she says.
Ah--I see! Well, my time is up. I am staying here to-night, andthought I could do no less than call, after our mutual affliction.I am sleeping at the place where I used to be barmaid, and to-morrowI go back to Alfredston. Father is come home again, and I am livingwith him.
He has returned from Australia? said Jude with languid curiosity.
Yes. Couldn't get on there. Had a rough time of it. Mother diedof dys--what do you call it--in the hot weather, and Father and twoof the young ones have just got back. He has got a cottage near theold place, and for the present I am keeping house for him.
Jude's former wife had maintained a stereotyped manner of strict goodbreeding even now that Sue was gone, and limited her stay to a numberof minutes that should accord with the highest respectability. Whenshe had departed Jude, much relieved, went to the stairs and calledSue--feeling anxious as to what had become of her.
There was no answer, and the carpenter who kept the lodgings said shehad not come in. Jude was puzzled, and became quite alarmed at herabsence, for the hour was growing late. The carpenter called hiswife, who conjectured that Sue might have gone to St. Silas' church,as she often went there.
Surely not at this time o' night? said Jude. It is shut.
She knows somebody who keeps the key, and she has it whenever shewants it.
How long has she been going on with this?
Oh, some few weeks, I think.
Jude went vaguely in the direction of the church, which he had neveronce approached since he lived out that way years before, when hisyoung opinions were more mystical than they were now. The spot wasdeserted, but the door was certainly unfastened; he lifted the latchwithout noise, and pushing to the door behind him, stood absolutelystill inside. The prevalent silence seemed to contain a faint sound,explicable as a breathing, or a sobbing, which came from the otherend of the building. The floor-cloth deadened his footsteps as hemoved in that direction through the obscurity, which was broken onlyby the faintest reflected night-light from without.
High overhead, above the chancel steps, Jude could discern a huge,solidly constructed Latin cross--as large, probably, as the originalit was designed to commemorate. It seemed to be suspended in theair by invisible wires; it was set with large jewels, which faintlyglimmered in some weak ray caught from outside, as the cross swayedto and fro in a silent and scarcely perceptible motion. Underneath,upon the floor, lay what appeared to be a heap of black clothes, andfrom this was repeated the sobbing that he had heard before. It washis Sue's form, prostrate on the paving.
Sue! he whispered.
Something white disclosed itself; she had turned up her face.
What--do you want with me here, Jude? she said almost sharply.You shouldn't come! I wanted to be alone! Why did you intrudehere?
How can you ask! he retorted in quick reproach, for his full heartwas wounded to its centre at this attitude of hers towards him.Why do I come? Who has a right to come, I should like to know, ifI have not! I, who love you better than my own self--better--farbetter--than you have loved me! What made you leave me to come herealone?
Don't criticize me, Jude--I can't bear it!--I have often toldyou so. You must take me as I am. I am a wretch--broken by mydistractions! I couldn't BEAR it when Arabella came--I felt soutterly miserable I had to come away. She seems to be your wifestill, and Richard to be my husband!
But they are nothing to us!
Yes, dear friend, they are. I see marriage differently now. Mybabies have been taken from me to show me this! Arabella's childkilling mine was a judgement--the right slaying the wrong. What,WHAT shall I do! I am such a vile creature--too worthless to mixwith ordinary human beings!
This is terrible! said Jude, verging on tears. It is monstrousand unnatural for you to be so remorseful when you have done nowrong!
Ah--you don't know my badness!
He returned vehemently: I do! Every atom and dreg of it! You makeme hate Christianity, or mysticism, or Sacerdotalism, or whatever itmay be called, if it's that which has caused this deterioration inyou. That a woman-poet, a woman-seer, a woman whose soul shone likea diamond--whom all the wise of the world would have been proud of,if they could have known you--should degrade herself like this! I amglad I had nothing to do with Divinity--damn glad--if it's going toruin you in this way!
You are angry, Jude, and unkind to me, and don't see how thingsare.
Then come along home with me, dearest, and perhaps I shall. I amoverburdened--and you, too, are unhinged just now. He put his armround her and lifted her; but though she came, she preferred to walkwithout his support.
I don't dislike you, Jude, she said in a sweet and imploring voice.I love you as much as ever! Only--I ought not to love you--anymore. Oh I must not any more!
I can't own it.
But I have made up my mind that I am not your wife! I belong tohim--I sacramentally joined myself to him for life. Nothing canalter it!
But surely we are man and wife, if ever two people were in thisworld? Nature's own marriage it is, unquestionably!
But not Heaven's. Another was made for me there, and ratifiedeternally in the church at Melchester.
Sue, Sue--affliction has brought you to this unreasonable state!After converting me to your views on so many things, to find yousuddenly turn to the right-about like this--for no reason whatever,confounding all you have formerly said through sentiment merely!You root out of me what little affection and reverence I had left inme for the Church as an old acquaintance... What I can't understandin you is your extraordinary blindness now to your old logic. Is itpeculiar to you, or is it common to woman? Is a woman a thinkingunit at all, or a fraction always wanting its integer? How youargued that marriage was only a clumsy contract--which it is--how youshowed all the objections to it--all the absurdities! If two and twomade four when we were happy together, surely they make four now? Ican't understand it, I repeat!
Ah, dear Jude; that's because you are like a totally deaf manobserving people listening to music. You say 'What are theyregarding? Nothing is there.' But something is.
That is a hard saying from you; and not a true parallel! You threwoff old husks of prejudices, and taught me to do it; and now you goback upon yourself. I confess I am utterly stultified in my estimateof you.
Dear friend, my only friend, don't be hard with me! I can't helpbeing as I am, I am convinced I am right--that I see the light atlast. But oh, how to profit by it!
They walked along a few more steps till they were outside thebuilding and she had returned the key. Can this be the girl, saidJude when she came back, feeling a slight renewal of elasticity nowthat he was in the open street; can this be the girl who broughtthe pagan deities into this most Christian city?--who mimicked MissFontover when she crushed them with her heel?--quoted Gibbon, andShelley, and Mill? Where are dear Apollo, and dear Venus now!
Oh don't, don't be so cruel to me, Jude, and I so unhappy! shesobbed. I can't bear it! I was in error--I cannot reason with you.I was wrong--proud in my own conceit! Arabella's coming was thefinish. Don't satirize me: it cuts like a knife!
He flung his arms round her and kissed her passionately there in thesilent street, before she could hinder him. They went on till theycame to a little coffee-house. Jude, she said with suppressedtears, would you mind getting a lodging here?
I will--if, if you really wish? But do you? Let me go to our doorand understand you.
He went and conducted her in. She said she wanted no supper, andwent in the dark upstairs and struck a light. Turning she found thatJude had followed her, and was standing at the chamber door. Shewent to him, put her hand in his, and said Good-night.
But Sue! Don't we live here?
You said you would do as I wished!
Yes. Very well! ... Perhaps it was wrong of me to arguedistastefully as I have done! Perhaps as we couldn't conscientiouslymarry at first in the old-fashioned way, we ought to have parted.Perhaps the world is not illuminated enough for such experiments asours! Who were we, to think we could act as pioneers!
I am so glad you see that much, at any rate. I never deliberatelymeant to do as I did. I slipped into my false position throughjealousy and agitation!
But surely through love--you loved me?
Yes. But I wanted to let it stop there, and go on always as merelovers; until--
But people in love couldn't live for ever like that!
Women could: men can't, because they--won't. An average woman isin this superior to an average man--that she never instigates, onlyresponds. We ought to have lived in mental communion, and no more.
I was the unhappy cause of the change, as I have saidbefore! ... Well, as you will! ... But human nature can't helpbeing itself.
Oh yes--that's just what it has to learn--self-mastery.
I repeat--if either were to blame it was not you but I.
No--it was I. Your wickedness was only the natural man's desireto possess the woman. Mine was not the reciprocal wish till envystimulated me to oust Arabella. I had thought I ought in charity tolet you approach me--that it was damnably selfish to torture you asI did my other friend. But I shouldn't have given way if you hadn'tbroken me down by making me fear you would go back to her... Butdon't let us say any more about it! Jude, will you leave me tomyself now?
Yes... But Sue--my wife, as you are! he burst out; my oldreproach to you was, after all, a true one. You have never loved meas I love you--never--never! Yours is not a passionate heart--yourheart does not burn in a flame! You are, upon the whole, a sort offay, or sprite--not a woman!
At first I did not love you, Jude; that I own. When I first knewyou I merely wanted you to love me. I did not exactly flirt withyou; but that inborn craving which undermines some women's moralsalmost more than unbridled passion--the craving to attract andcaptivate, regardless of the injury it may do the man--was in me; andwhen I found I had caught you, I was frightened. And then--I don'tknow how it was--I couldn't bear to let you go--possibly to Arabellaagain--and so I got to love you, Jude. But you see, however fondlyit ended, it began in the selfish and cruel wish to make your heartache for me without letting mine ache for you.
And now you add to your cruelty by leaving me!
Ah--yes! The further I flounder, the more harm I do!
O Sue! said he with a sudden sense of his own danger. Do notdo an immoral thing for moral reasons! You have been my socialsalvation. Stay with me for humanity's sake! You know what a weakfellow I am. My two arch-enemies you know--my weakness for womankindand my impulse to strong liquor. Don't abandon me to them, Sue, tosave your own soul only! They have been kept entirely at a distancesince you became my guardian-angel! Since I have had you I have beenable to go into any temptations of the sort, without risk. Isn'tmy safety worth a little sacrifice of dogmatic principle? I am interror lest, if you leave me, it will be with me another case of thepig that was washed turning back to his wallowing in the mire!
Sue burst out weeping. Oh, but you must not, Jude! You won't!I'll pray for you night and day!
Well--never mind; don't grieve, said Jude generously. I didsuffer, God knows, about you at that time; and now I suffer again.But perhaps not so much as you. The woman mostly gets the worst ofit in the long run!
She does.
Unless she is absolutely worthless and contemptible. And this oneis not that, anyhow!
Sue drew a nervous breath or two. She is--I fear! ... NowJude--good-night,--please!
I mustn't stay?--Not just once more? As it has been so manytimes--O Sue, my wife, why not?
No--no--not wife! ... I am in your hands, Jude--don't tempt me backnow I have advanced so far!
Very well. I do your bidding. I owe that to you, darling, inpenance for how I overruled it at the first time. My God, howselfish I was! Perhaps--perhaps I spoilt one of the highest andpurest loves that ever existed between man and woman! ... Then letthe veil of our temple be rent in two from this hour!
He went to the bed, removed one of the pair of pillows thereon, andflung it to the floor.
Sue looked at him, and bending over the bed-rail wept silently.You don't see that it is a matter of conscience with me, and notof dislike to you! she brokenly murmured. Dislike to you! But Ican't say any more--it breaks my heart--it will be undoing all Ihave begun! Jude--good-night!
Good-night, he said, and turned to go.
Oh but you shall kiss me! said she, starting up. Ican't--bear--!
He clasped her, and kissed her weeping face as he had scarcely everdone before, and they remained in silence till she said, Good-bye,good-bye! And then gently pressing him away she got free, trying tomitigate the sadness by saying: We'll be dear friends just the same,Jude, won't we? And we'll see each other sometimes--yes!--and forgetall this, and try to be as we were long ago?
Jude did not permit himself to speak, but turned and descended thestairs.