Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy [top 100 novels of all time TXT] 📗

promised to call at a flour-mill near Cresscombe to execute a commission for his aunt.

He was in an enthusiastic mood. He seemed to see his way to living comfortably in Christminster in the course of a year or two, and knocking at the doors of one of those strongholds of learning of which he had dreamed so much. He might, of course, have gone there now, in some capacity or other, but he preferred to enter the city with a little more assurance as to means than he could be said to feel at present. A warm self-content suffused him when he considered what he had already done. Now and then as he went along he turned to face the peeps of country on either side of him. But he hardly saw them; the act was an automatic repetition of what he had been accustomed to do when less occupied; and the one matter which really engaged him was the mental estimate of his progress thus far.

“I have acquired quite an average student’s power to read the common ancient classics, Latin in particular.” This was true, Jude possessing a facility in that language which enabled him with great ease to himself to beguile his lonely walks by imaginary conversations therein.

“I have read two books of the Iliad, besides being pretty familiar with passages such as the speech of Phoenix in the ninth book, the fight of Hector and Ajax in the fourteenth, the appearance of Achilles unarmed and his heavenly armour in the eighteenth, and the funeral games in the twenty-third. I have also done some Hesiod, a little scrap of Thucydides, and a lot of the Greek Testament.⁠ ⁠… I wish there was only one dialect, all the same.

“I have done some mathematics, including the first six and the eleventh and twelfth books of Euclid; and algebra as far as simple equations.

“I know something of the Fathers, and something of Roman and English history.

“These things are only a beginning. But I shall not make much further advance here, from the difficulty of getting books. Hence I must next concentrate all my energies on settling in Christminster. Once there I shall so advance, with the assistance I shall there get, that my present knowledge will appear to me but as childish ignorance. I must save money, and I will; and one of those colleges shall open its doors to me⁠—shall welcome whom now it would spurn, if I wait twenty years for the welcome.

“I’ll be D.D. before I have done!”

And then he continued to dream, and thought he might become even a bishop by leading a pure, energetic, wise, Christian life. And what an example he would set! If his income were £5,000 a year, he would give away £4,500 in one form and another, and live sumptuously (for him) on the remainder. Well, on second thoughts, a bishop was absurd. He would draw the line at an archdeacon. Perhaps a man could be as good and as learned and as useful in the capacity of archdeacon as in that of bishop. Yet he thought of the bishop again.

“Meanwhile I will read, as soon as I am settled in Christminster, the books I have not been able to get hold of here: Livy, Tacitus, Herodotus, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes⁠—”

“Ha, ha, ha! Hoity-toity!” The sounds were expressed in light voices on the other side of the hedge, but he did not notice them. His thoughts went on:

“⁠—Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Epictetus, Seneca, Antoninus. Then I must master other things: the Fathers thoroughly; Bede and ecclesiastical history generally; a smattering of Hebrew⁠—I only know the letters as yet⁠—”

“Hoity-toity!”

“⁠—but I can work hard. I have staying power in abundance, thank God! and it is that which tells.⁠ ⁠… Yes, Christminster shall be my Alma Mater; and I’ll be her beloved son, in whom she shall be well pleased.”

In his deep concentration on these transactions of the future Jude’s walk had slackened, and he was now standing quite still, looking at the ground as though the future were thrown thereon by a magic lantern. On a sudden something smacked him sharply in the ear, and he became aware that a soft cold substance had been flung at him, and had fallen at his feet.

A glance told him what it was⁠—a piece of flesh, the characteristic part of a barrow-pig, which the countrymen used for greasing their boots, as it was useless for any other purpose. Pigs were rather plentiful hereabout, being bred and fattened in large numbers in certain parts of North Wessex.

On the other side of the hedge was a stream, whence, as he now for the first time realized, had come the slight sounds of voices and laughter that had mingled with his dreams. He mounted the bank and looked over the fence. On the further side of the stream stood a small homestead, having a garden and pigsties attached; in front of it, beside the brook, three young women were kneeling, with buckets and platters beside them containing heaps of pigs’ chitterlings, which they were washing in the running water. One or two pairs of eyes slyly glanced up, and perceiving that his attention had at last been attracted, and that he was watching them, they braced themselves for inspection by putting their mouths demurely into shape and recommencing their rinsing operations with assiduity.

“Thank you!” said Jude severely.

“I didn’t throw it, I tell you!” asserted one girl to her neighbour, as if unconscious of the young man’s presence.

“Nor I,” the second answered.

“O, Anny, how can you!” said the third.

“If I had thrown anything at all, it shouldn’t have been that!”

“Pooh! I don’t care for him!” And they laughed and continued their work, without looking up, still ostentatiously accusing each other.

Jude grew sarcastic as he wiped his face, and caught their remarks.

“You didn’t do it⁠—O no!” he said to the upstream one of the three.

She whom he addressed was a fine dark-eyed girl, not exactly handsome, but capable of passing as such at