Jude the Obsure - Page 111/318

said she, with an ostensible sneer, though he could hear that she was

brimming with tears. "But I have never yielded myself to any lover,

if that's what you mean! I have remained as I began."

"I quite believe you. But some women would not have remained as they

began."

"Perhaps not. Better women would not. People say I must be

cold-natured--sexless--on account of it. But I won't have it!

Some of the most passionately erotic poets have been the most

self-contained in their daily lives."

"Have you told Mr. Phillotson about this university scholar friend?"

"Yes--long ago. I have never made any secret of it to anybody."

"What did he say?"

"He did not pass any criticism--only said I was everything to him,

whatever I did; and things like that."

Jude felt much depressed; she seemed to get further and further away

from him with her strange ways and curious unconsciousness of gender.

"Aren't you REALLY vexed with me, dear Jude?" she suddenly asked, in

a voice of such extraordinary tenderness that it hardly seemed to

come from the same woman who had just told her story so lightly. "I

would rather offend anybody in the world than you, I think!"

"I don't know whether I am vexed or not. I know I care very much

about you!"

"I care as much for you as for anybody I ever met."

"You don't care MORE! There, I ought not to say that. Don't answer

it!"

There was another long silence. He felt that she was treating

him cruelly, though he could not quite say in what way. Her very

helplessness seemed to make her so much stronger than he.

"I am awfully ignorant on general matters, although I have worked so

hard," he said, to turn the subject. "I am absorbed in theology, you

know. And what do you think I should be doing just about now, if you

weren't here? I should be saying my evening prayers. I suppose you

wouldn't like--"

"Oh no, no," she answered, "I would rather not, if you don't mind.

I should seem so--such a hypocrite."

"I thought you wouldn't join, so I didn't propose it. You must

remember that I hope to be a useful minister some day."

"To be ordained, I think you said?"

"Yes."

"Then you haven't given up the idea?--I thought that perhaps you had

by this time."