Chapter: It was a new idea--the ecclesiastical and altruistic life as distinct
from the intellectual and emulative life.  A man could preach and
do good to his fellow-creatures without taking double-firsts in the
schools of Christminster, or having anything but ordinary knowledge.
The old fancy which had led on to the culminating vision of the
bishopric had not been an ethical or theological enthusiasm at all,
but a mundane ambition masquerading in a surplice.  He feared that
his whole scheme had degenerated to, even though it might not have
originated in, a social unrest which had no foundation in the nobler
instincts; which was purely an artificial product of civilization.
There were thousands of young men on the same self-seeking track
at the present moment.  The sensual hind who ate, drank, and lived
carelessly with his wife through the days of his vanity was a more
likable being than he.

But to enter the Church in such an unscholarly way that he could not
in any probability rise to a higher grade through all his career than
that of the humble curate wearing his life out in an obscure village
or city slum--that might have a touch of goodness and greatness in
it; that might be true religion, and a purgatorial course worthy of
being followed by a remorseful man.

The favourable light in which this new thought showed itself by
contrast with his foregone intentions cheered Jude, as he sat there,
shabby and lonely; and it may be said to have given, during the next
few days, the _coup de grace_ to his intellectual career--a career
which had extended over the greater part of a dozen years.  He did
nothing, however, for some long stagnant time to advance his new
desire, occupying himself with little local jobs in putting up and
lettering headstones about the neighbouring villages, and submitting
to be regarded as a social failure, a returned purchase, by the
half-dozen or so of farmers and other country-people who condescended
to nod to him.

The human interest of the new intention--and a human interest is
indispensable to the most spiritual and self-sacrificing--was created
by a letter from Sue, bearing a fresh postmark.  She evidently
wrote with anxiety, and told very little about her own doings, more
than that she had passed some sort of examination for a Queen's
Scholarship, and was going to enter a training college at Melchester
to complete herself for the vocation she had chosen, partly by his
influence.  There was a theological college at Melchester; Melchester
was a quiet and soothing place, almost entirely ecclesiastical in its
tone; a spot where worldly learning and intellectual smartness had no
establishment; where the altruistic feeling that he did possess would
perhaps be more highly estimated than a brilliancy which he did not.

As it would be necessary that he should continue for a time to work
at his trade while reading up Divinity, which he had neglected at
Christminster for the ordinary classical grind, what better course
for him than to get employment at the further city, and pursue this
plan of reading?  That his excessive human interest in the new place
was entirely of Sue's making, while at the same time Sue was to be
regarded even less than formerly as proper to create it, had an
ethical contradictoriness to which he was not blind.  But that much
he conceded to human frailty, and hoped to learn to love her only as
a friend and kinswoman.

He considered that he might so mark out his coming years as to begin
his ministry at the age of thirty--an age which much attracted him as
being that of his exemplar when he first began to teach in Galilee.
This would allow him plenty of time for deliberate study, and for
acquiring capital by his trade to help his aftercourse of keeping the
necessary terms at a theological college.



Christmas had come and passed, and Sue had gone to the Melchester
Normal School.  The time was just the worst in the year for Jude to
get into new employment, and he had written suggesting to her that
he should postpone his arrival for a month or so, till the days had
lengthened.  She had acquiesced so readily that he wished he had not
proposed it--she evidently did not much care about him, though she
had never once reproached him for his strange conduct in coming to
her that night, and his silent disappearance.  Neither had she ever
said a word about her relations with Mr. Phillotson.

Suddenly, however, quite a passionate letter arrived from Sue.
She was quite lonely and miserable, she told him.  She hated the
place she was in; it was worse than the ecclesiastical designer's;
worse than anywhere.  She felt utterly friendless; could he come
immediately?--though when he did come she would only be able to
see him at limited times, the rules of the establishment she found
herself in being strict to a degree.  It was Mr. Phillotson who had
advised her to come there, and she wished she had never listened to
him.

Phillotson's suit was not exactly prospering, evidently; and Jude
felt unreasonably glad.  He packed up his things and went to
Melchester with a lighter heart than he had known for months.

This being the turning over a new leaf he duly looked about for
a temperance hotel, and found a little establishment of that
description in the street leading from the station.  When he had
had something to eat he walked out into the dull winter light over
the town bridge, and turned the corner towards the Close.  The
day was foggy, and standing under the walls of the most graceful
architectural pile in England he paused and looked up.  The lofty
building was visible as far as the roofridge; above, the dwindling
spire rose more and more remotely, till its apex was quite lost in
the mist drifting across it.

The lamps now began to be lighted, and turning to the west front
he walked round.  He took it as a good omen that numerous blocks
of stone were lying about, which signified that the cathedral was
undergoing restoration or repair to a considerable extent.  It seemed
to him, full of the superstitions of his beliefs, that this was an
exercise of forethought on the part of a ruling Power, that he might
find plenty to do in the art he practised while waiting for a call to
higher labours.

Then a wave of warmth came over him as he thought how near he now
stood to the bright-eyed vivacious girl with the broad forehead
and pile of dark hair above it; the girl with the kindling glance,
daringly soft at times--something like that of the girls he had
seen in engravings from paintings of the Spanish school.  She was
here--actually in this Close--in one of the houses confronting this
very west facade.

He went down the broad gravel path towards the building.  It was
an ancient edifice of the fifteenth century, once a palace, now
a training-school, with mullioned and transomed windows, and a
courtyard in front shut in from the road by a wall.  Jude opened the
gate and went up to the door through which, on inquiring for his
cousin, he was gingerly admitted to a waiting-room, and in a few
minutes she came.

Though she had been here such a short while, she was not as he had
seen her last.  All her bounding manner was gone; her curves of
motion had become subdued lines.  The screens and subtleties of
convention had likewise disappeared.  Yet neither was she quite the
woman who had written the letter that summoned him.  That had plainly
been dashed off in an impulse which second thoughts had somewhat
regretted; thoughts that were possibly of his recent self-disgrace.
Jude was quite overcome with emotion.

"You don't--think me a demoralized wretch--for coming to you as I
was--and going so shamefully, Sue?"

"Oh, I have tried not to!  You said enough to let me know what had
caused it.  I hope I shall never have any doubt of your worthiness,
my poor Jude!  And I am glad you have come!"

She wore a murrey-coloured gown with a little lace collar.  It was
made quite plain, and hung about her slight figure with clinging
gracefulness.  Her hair, which formerly she had worn according to the
custom of the day was now twisted up tightly, and she had altogether
the air of a woman clipped and pruned by severe discipline,
an under-brightness shining through from the depths which that
discipline had not yet been able to reach.

She had come forward prettily, but Jude felt that she had hardly
expected him to kiss her, as he was burning to do, under other
colours than those of cousinship.  He could not perceive the least
sign that Sue regarded him as a lover, or ever would do so, now that
she knew the worst of him, even if he had the right to behave as one;
and this helped on his growing resolve to tell her of his matrimonial
entanglement, which he had put off doing from time to time in sheer
dread of losing the bliss of her company.

Sue came out into the town with him, and they walked and talked with
tongues centred only on the passing moments.  Jude said he would like
to buy her a little present of some sort, and then she confessed,
with something of shame, that she was dreadfully hungry.  They were
kept on very short allowances in the college, and a dinner, tea, and
supper all in one was the present she most desired in the world.
Jude thereupon took her to an inn and ordered whatever the house
afforded, which was not much.  The place, however, gave them a
delightful opportunity for a _tete-a-tete_, nobody else being in the
room, and they talked freely.

She told him about the school as it was at that date, and the rough
living, and the mixed character of her fellow-students, gathered
together from all parts of the diocese, and how she had to get up and
work by gas-light in the early morning, with all the bitterness of
a young person to whom restraint was new.  To all this he listened;
but it was not what he wanted especially to know--her relations with
Phillotson.  That was what she did not tell.  When they had sat and
eaten, Jude impulsively placed his hand upon hers; she looked up
and smiled, and took his quite freely into her own little soft one,
dividing his fingers and coolly examining them, as if they were the
fingers of a glove she was purchasing.

"Your hands are rather rough, Jude, aren't they?" she said.

"Yes.  So would yours be if they held a mallet and chisel all day."

"I don't dislike it, you know.  I think it is noble to see a man's
hands subdued to what he works in...  Well, I'm rather glad I came
to this training-school, after all.  See how independent I shall be
after the two years' training!  I shall pass pretty high, I expect,
and Mr. Phillotson will use his influence to get me a big school."

She had touched the subject at last.  "I had a suspicion, a fear,"
said Jude, "that he--cared about you rather warmly, and perhaps
wanted to marry you."

"Now don't be such a silly boy!"

"He has said something about it, I expect."

"If he had, what would it matter?  An old man like him!"

"Oh, come, Sue; he's not so very old.  And I know what I saw him
doing--"

"Not kissing me--that I'm certain!"

"No. But putting his arm round your waist."

"Ah--I remember.  But I didn't know he was going to."

"You are wriggling out if it, Sue, and it isn't quite kind!"

Her ever-sensitive lip began to quiver, and her eye to blink, at
something this reproof was deciding her to say.

"I know you'll be angry if I tell you everything, and that's why I
don't want to!"

"Very well, then, dear," he said soothingly.  "I have no real right
to ask you, and I don't wish to know."

"I shall tell you!" said she, with the perverseness that was
part of her.  "This is what I have done: I have promised--I
have promised--that I will marry him when I come out of the
training-school two years hence, and have got my certificate; his
plan being that we shall then take a large double school in a great
town--he the boys' and I the girls'--as married school-teachers often
do, and make a good income between us."

"Oh, Sue! ...  But of course it is right--you couldn't have done
better!"

He glanced at her and their eyes met, the reproach in his own belying
his words.  Then he drew his hand quite away from hers, and turned
his face in estrangement from her to the window.  Sue regarded him
passively without moving.

"I knew you would be angry!" she said with an air of no emotion
whatever.  "Very well--I am wrong, I suppose!  I ought not to have
let you come to see me!  We had better not meet again; and we'll only
correspond at long intervals, on purely business matters!"

This was just the one thing he would not be able to bear, as she
probably knew, and it brought him round at once.  "Oh yes, we will,"
he said quickly.  "Your being engaged can make no difference to me
whatever.  I have a perfect right to see you when I want to; and I
shall!"

"Then don't let us talk of it any more.  It is quite spoiling our
evening together.  What does it matter about what one is going to do
two years hence!"

She was something of a riddle to him, and he let the subject drift
away.  "Shall we go and sit in the cathedral?" he asked, when their
meal was finished.

"Cathedral?  Yes.  Though I think I'd rather sit in the railway
station," she answered, a remnant of vexation still in her voice.
"That's the centre of the town life now.  The cathedral has had its
day!"

"How modern you are!"

"So would you be if you had lived so much in the Middle Ages as I
have done these last few years!  The cathedral was a very good place
four or five centuries ago; but it is played out now...  I am not
modern, either.  I am more ancient than mediaevalism, if you only
knew."

Jude looked distressed.

"There--I won't say any more of that!" she cried.  "Only you don't
know how bad I am, from your point of view, or you wouldn't think so
much of me, or care whether I was engaged or not.  Now there's just
time for us to walk round the Close, then I must go in, or I shall be
locked out for the night."

He took her to the gate and they parted.  Jude had a conviction that
his unhappy visit to her on that sad night had precipitated this
marriage engagement, and it did anything but add to his happiness.
Her reproach had taken that shape, then, and not the shape of words.
However, next day he set about seeking employment, which it was not
so easy to get as at Christminster, there being, as a rule, less
stone-cutting in progress in this quiet city, and hands being mostly
permanent.  But he edged himself in by degrees.  His first work was
some carving at the cemetery on the hill; and ultimately he became
engaged on the labour he most desired--the cathedral repairs, which
were very extensive, the whole interior stonework having been
overhauled, to be largely replaced by new.  It might be a labour of
years to get it all done, and he had confidence enough in his own
skill with the mallet and chisel to feel that it would be a matter of
choice with himself how long he would stay.

The lodgings he took near the Close Gate would not have disgraced a
curate, the rent representing a higher percentage on his wages than
mechanics of any sort usually care to pay.  His combined bed and
sitting-room was furnished with framed photographs of the rectories
and deaneries at which his landlady had lived as trusted servant in
her time, and the parlour downstairs bore a clock on the mantelpiece
inscribed to the effect that it was presented to the same
serious-minded woman by her fellow-servants on the occasion of her
marriage.  Jude added to the furniture of his room by unpacking
photographs of the ecclesiastical carvings and monuments that he
had executed with his own hands; and he was deemed a satisfactory
acquisition as tenant of the vacant apartment.

He found an ample supply of theological books in the city book-shops,
and with these his studies were recommenced in a different spirit and
direction from his former course.  As a relaxation from the Fathers,
and such stock works as Paley and Butler, he read Newman, Pusey, and
many other modern lights.  He hired a harmonium, set it up in his
lodging, and practised chants thereon, single and double.




"To-morrow is our grand day, you know.  Where shall we go?"

"I have leave from three till nine.  Wherever we can get to and come
back from in that time.  Not ruins, Jude--I don't care for them."

"Well--Wardour Castle.  And then we can do Fonthill if we like--all
in the same afternoon."

"Wardour is Gothic ruins--and I hate Gothic!"

"No.  Quite otherwise.  It is a classic building--Corinthian, I
think; with a lot of pictures."

"Ah--that will do.  I like the sound of Corinthian.  We'll go."

Their conversation had run thus some few weeks later, and next
morning they prepared to start.  Every detail of the outing was
a facet reflecting a sparkle to Jude, and he did not venture to
meditate on the life of inconsistency he was leading.  His Sue's
conduct was one lovely conundrum to him; he could say no more.

There duly came the charm of calling at the college door for her; her
emergence in a nunlike simplicity of costume that was rather enforced
than desired; the traipsing along to the station, the porters'
"B'your leave!," the screaming of the trains--everything formed the
basis of a beautiful crystallization.  Nobody stared at Sue, because
she was so plainly dressed, which comforted Jude in the thought that
only himself knew the charms those habiliments subdued.  A matter
of ten pounds spent in a drapery-shop, which had no connection
with her real life or her real self, would have set all Melchester
staring.  The guard of the train thought they were lovers, and put
them into a compartment all by themselves.

"That's a good intention wasted!" said she.

Jude did not respond.  He thought the remark unnecessarily cruel,
and partly untrue.

They reached the park and castle and wandered through the
picture-galleries, Jude stopping by preference in front of the
devotional pictures by Del Sarto, Guido Reni, Spagnoletto,
Sassoferrato, Carlo Dolci, and others.  Sue paused patiently beside
him, and stole critical looks into his face as, regarding the
Virgins, Holy Families, and Saints, it grew reverent and abstracted.
When she had thoroughly estimated him at this, she would move on and
wait for him before a Lely or Reynolds.  It was evident that her
cousin deeply interested her, as one might be interested in a man
puzzling out his way along a labyrinth from which one had one's self
escaped.

When they came out a long time still remained to them and Jude
proposed that as soon as they had had something to eat they should
walk across the high country to the north of their present position,
and intercept the train of another railway leading back to
Melchester, at a station about seven miles off.  Sue, who was
inclined for any adventure that would intensify the sense of her
day's freedom, readily agreed; and away they went, leaving the
adjoining station behind them.

It was indeed open country, wide and high.  They talked and bounded
on, Jude cutting from a little covert a long walking-stick for Sue
as tall as herself, with a great crook, which made her look like a
shepherdess.  About half-way on their journey they crossed a main
road running due east and west--the old road from London to Land's
End.  They paused, and looked up and down it for a moment, and
remarked upon the desolation which had come over this once lively
thoroughfare, while the wind dipped to earth and scooped straws and
hay-stems from the ground.

They crossed the road and passed on, but during the next half-mile
Sue seemed to grow tired, and Jude began to be distressed for her.
They had walked a good distance altogether, and if they could not
reach the other station it would be rather awkward.  For a long
time there was no cottage visible on the wide expanse of down and
turnip-land; but presently they came to a sheepfold, and next to the
shepherd, pitching hurdles.  He told them that the only house near
was his mother's and his, pointing to a little dip ahead from which a
faint blue smoke arose, and recommended them to go on and rest there.

This they did, and entered the house, admitted by an old woman
without a single tooth, to whom they were as civil as strangers can
be when their only chance of rest and shelter lies in the favour of
the householder.

"A nice little cottage," said Jude.

"Oh, I don't know about the niceness.  I shall have to thatch it
soon, and where the thatch is to come from I can't tell, for straw do
get that dear, that 'twill soon be cheaper to cover your house wi'
chainey plates than thatch."

They sat resting, and the shepherd came in.  "Don't 'ee mind I," he
said with a deprecating wave of the hand; "bide here as long as ye
will.  But mid you be thinking o' getting back to Melchester to-night
by train?  Because you'll never do it in this world, since you don't
know the lie of the country.  I don't mind going with ye some o' the
ways, but even then the train mid be gone."

They started up.

"You can bide here, you know, over the night--can't 'em, Mother?
The place is welcome to ye.  'Tis hard lying, rather, but volk may do
worse."  He turned to Jude and asked privately: "Be you a married
couple?"

"Hsh--no!" said Jude.

"Oh--I meant nothing ba'dy--not I!  Well then, she can go into
Mother's room, and you and I can lie in the outer chimmer after
they've gone through.  I can call ye soon enough to catch the first
train back.  You've lost this one now."

On consideration they decided to close with this offer, and drew up
and shared with the shepherd and his mother the boiled bacon and
greens for supper.

"I rather like this," said Sue, while their entertainers were
clearing away the dishes.  "Outside all laws except gravitation and
germination."

"You only think you like it; you don't: you are quite a product of
civilization," said Jude, a recollection of her engagement reviving
his soreness a little.

"Indeed I am not, Jude.  I like reading and all that, but I crave to
get back to the life of my infancy and its freedom."

"Do you remember it so well?  You seem to me to have nothing
unconventional at all about you."

"Oh, haven't I!  You don't know what's inside me."

"What?"

"The Ishmaelite."

"An urban miss is what you are."

She looked severe disagreement, and turned away.

The shepherd aroused them the next morning, as he had said.  It was
bright and clear, and the four miles to the train were accomplished
pleasantly.  When they had reached Melchester, and walked to the
Close, and the gables of the old building in which she was again to
be immured rose before Sue's eyes, she looked a little scared.  "I
expect I shall catch it!" she murmured.

They rang the great bell and waited.

"Oh, I bought something for you, which I had nearly forgotten," she
said quickly, searching her pocket.  "It is a new little photograph
of me.  Would you like it?"

"WOULD I!"  He took it gladly, and the porter came.  There seemed to
be an ominous glance on his face when he opened the gate.  She passed
in, looking back at Jude, and waving her hand.

 Jude believes that his original plan may have come more from ambition than a desire to serve and that his entering the church as a licentiate will enable him both to do good and to purge himself of sin. He does nothing about his new idea until he hears from Sue that she is going to Melchester to a training college, and he decides to go there, work and study, and eventually enter the theological college. He will be near Sue, whom he will learn to love as a friend, and will be realizing his new plan. Upon an urgent letter from Sue, now at Melchester and lonely and sorry that she let Phillotson persuade her to come, Jude leaves Marygreen for Melchester. When Jude calls on Sue at the college, he finds her changed in appearance and manner but not in any other way. Determined finally to tell her of his marriage to Arabella, Jude is equally determined to discover the nature of her relationship to Phillotson. After talking about everything else, Sue finally tells Jude she has promised to marry Phillotson at the end of her two years of training. Jude is upset but resolute in his desire to keep seeing her no matter what, certain that his late night visit to her at Lumsdon precipitated her engagement. Jude finds work and lodgings and sets out on his theological study. During an afternoon together, Jude and Sue visit an old castle, an example of Corinthian rather than Gothic architecture, at Sue's insistence. And they look at the paintings there, Jude preferring religious pictures, Sue secular. At Jude's suggestion they go for a long walk, planning to take a different train back to Melchester; but they discover too late they will not be able to make it. Forced to stay overnight with a shepherd, they disagree over Sue's remark that she likes such a rustic life, Jude insisting she is really a city person. They return the next day, and of course Sue has overstayed her leave. Before she leaves him at the college she gives him a new photograph of herself.

