Jude the Obscure

Chapter 3

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.

"Well, my lad, and what may you want up here?"

"I wanted to know where the city of Christminster is, if you please."

"Christminster is out across there, by that clump. You can see

it--at least you can on a clear day. Ah, no, you can't now."

The other tiler, glad of any kind of diversion from the monotony of

his labour, had also turned to look towards the quarter designated.

"You can't often see it in weather like this," he said. "The time

I've noticed it is when the sun is going down in a blaze of flame,

and it looks like--I don't know what."

"The heavenly Jerusalem," suggested the serious urchin.

"Ay--though I should never ha' thought of it myself.... But I can't

see no Christminster to-day."

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 day's 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 aunt's 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 sun's 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 woman's "shop" 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 city--the fancied place he had

likened to the new Jerusalem, though there was perhaps more of the

painter's imagination and less of the diamond merchant's 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 be--he 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 Nebuchadnezzar's 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.

"You," he said, addressing the breeze caressingly "were in

Christminster city between one and two hours ago, floating along the

streets, pulling round the weather-c***s, touching Mr. Phillotson's

face, being breathed by him; and now you are here, breathed by

me--you, the very same."

Suddenly there came along this wind something towards him--a message

from the place--from some soul residing there, it seemed. Surely it

was the sound of bells, the voice of the city, faint and musical,

calling to him, "We are happy here!"

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

hour's serpentine progress from the bottom of the immense declivity.

They had a load of coals behind them--a 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.

"Heaven forbid, with this load!" said they.

"The place I mean is that one yonder." 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 sky--hardly perceptible to

their older eyes.

"Yes. There do seem a spot a bit brighter in the nor'-east than

elsewhere, though I shouldn't ha' noticed it myself, and no doubt it

med be Christminster."

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.

"Ah, young man," he observed, "you'd have to get your head screwed on

t'other way before you could read what they read there."

"Why?" asked the boy.

"Oh, they never look at anything that folks like we can understand,"

the carter continued, by way of passing the time. "On'y 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. 'Tis all learning there--nothing but learning, except

religion. And that's learning too, for I never could understand it.

Yes, 'tis a serious-minded place. Not but there's wenches in the

streets o' nights... You know, I suppose, that they raise pa'sons

there like radishes in a bed? And though it do take--how many years,

Bob?--five years to turn a lirruping hobble-de-hoy chap into a solemn

preaching man with no corrupt passions, they'll do it, if it can be

done, and polish un off like the workmen they be, and turn un out wi'

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 wouldn't know un sometimes.... There, 'tis their

business, like anybody else's."

"But how should you know"

"Now don't you interrupt, my boy. Never interrupt your senyers.

Move the fore hoss aside, Bobby; here's som'at coming... You must

mind that I be a-talking of the college life. 'Em lives on a lofty

level; there's no gainsaying it, though I myself med not think much

of 'em. As we be here in our bodies on this high ground, so be they

in their minds--noble-minded men enough, no doubt--some on 'em--able

to earn hundreds by thinking out loud. And some on 'em be strong

young fellows that can earn a'most as much in silver cups. As for

music, there's beautiful music everywhere in Christminster. You med

be religious, or you med not, but you can't help striking in your

homely note with the rest. And there's a street in the place--the

main street--that ha'n't another like it in the world. I should

think I did know a little about Christminster!"

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 city--its 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.

"Well, 'tis oonly what has come in my way," said the carter

unboastfully. "I've never been there, no more than you; but I've

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 can't help hearing of things. A friend o' 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."

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

to--for 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.

"It is a city of light," he said to himself.

"The tree of knowledge grows there," he added a few steps further on.

"It is a place that teachers of men spring from and go to."

"It is what you may call a castle, manned by scholarship and

religion."

After this figure he was silent a long while, till he added:

"It would just suit me."