Jude replied good-humouredly that he could not dispute it;and from remark to remark something like a general conversation arose between him and the crowd of idlers,during which Tinker Taylor asked Jude if he remembered the Apostles'Creed in Latin still,and the night of the challenge in the public house.
'But Fortune didn't lie that way?'threw in Joe.'Yer powers wasn't enough to carry 'ee through?'
'Don't answer them any more!'entreated Sue.
'I don't think I like Christminster!'murmured little Time mournfully,as he stood submerged and invisible in the crowd.
But finding himself the centre of curiosity,quizzing,and comment,Jude was not inclined to shrink from open declarations of what he had no great reason to be ashamed of;and in a little while was stimulated to say in a loud voice to the listening throng generally:
'It is a difficult question,my friends,for any young man -that question I had to grapple with,and which thousands are weighing at the present moment in these uprising times -whether to follow uncritically the track he finds himself in,without considering his aptness for it,or to consider what his aptness or bent may be,and re-shape his course accordingly.I tried to do the latter,and I failed.But I don't admit that my failure proved my view to be a wrong one,or that my success would have made it a right one;though that's how we appraise such attempts nowadays -I mean,not by their essential soundness,but by their accidental outcomes.
If I had ended by becoming like one of these gentlemen in red and black that we saw dropping in here by now,everybody would have said:'See how wise that young man was,to follow the bent of his nature!'But having ended no better than I began they say:'See what a fool that fellow was in following a freak of his fancy!'
'However it was my poverty and not my will that consented to be beaten.It takes two or three generations to do what I tried to do in one;and my impulses -affections -vices perhaps they should be called -were too strong not to hamper a man without advantages;who should be as cold-blooded as a fish and as selfish as a pig to have a really good chance of being one of his country's worthies.You may ridicule me -I am quite willing that you should -I am a fit subject,no doubt.But I think if you knew what I have gone through these last few years you would rather pity me.
And if they knew'-he nodded towards the college at which the dons were severally arriving -'it is just possible they would do the same.'
'He do look ill and worn-out,it is true!'said a woman.
Sue's face grew more emotional;but though she stood close to Jude she was screened.
'I may do some good before I am dead -be a sort of success as a frightful example of what not to do;and so illustrate a moral story,'
continued Jude,beginning to grow bitter,though he had opened serenely enough.'I was,perhaps,after all,a paltry victim to the spirit of mental and social restlessness that makes so many unhappy in these days!'
'Don't tell them that!'whispered Sue with tears,at perceiving Jude's state of mind.'You weren't that.You struggled nobly to acquire knowledge,and only the meanest souls in the world would blame you!'
Jude shifted the child into a more easy position on his arm,and concluded:'And what I appear,a sick and poor man,is not the worst of me.I am in a chaos of principles -groping in the dark -acting by instinct and not after example.Eight or nine years ago when I came here first,I had a neat stock of fixed opinions,but they dropped away one by one;and the further I get the less sure I am.I doubt if I have anything more for my present rule of life than following inclinations which do me and nobody else any harm,and actually give pleasure to those I love best.
There,gentlemen,since you wanted to know how I was getting on,I have told you.Much good may it do you!I cannot explain further here.I perceive there is something wrong somewhere in our social formulas:what it is can only be discovered by men or women with greater insight than mine -if,indeed,they ever discover it -at least in our time.'For who knoweth what is good for man in this life?-and who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?''
'Hear,hear,'said the populace.
'Well preached!'said Tinker Taylor.And privately to his neighbours:
'Why,one of them jobbing pa'sons swarming about here,that takes the services when our head reverends want a holiday,wouldn't ha'discoursed such doctrine for less than a guinea down?Hey?I'll take my oath not one o''em would!
And then he must have had it wrote down for 'n.And this only a working-man!'
As a sort of objective commentary on Jude's remarks there drove up at this moment with a belated doctor,robed and panting,a cab whose horse failed to stop at the exact point required for setting down the hirer,who jumped out and entered the door.The driver,alighting,began to kick the animal in the belly.
'If that can be done,'said Jude,'at college gates in the most religious and educational city in the world,what shall we say as to how far we've got?'
'Order!'said one of the policemen,who had been engaged with a comrade in opening the large doors opposite the college.'Keep yer tongue quiet,my man,while the procession passes.'The rain came on more heavily,and all who had umbrellas opened them.Jude was not one of these,and Sue only possessed a small one,half sunshade.She had grown pale,though Jude did not notice it then.
'Let us go on,dear,'she whispered,endeavouring to shelter him.
'We haven't any lodgings yet,remember,and all our things are at the station;and you are by no means well yet.I am afraid this wet will hurt you!'
'They are coming now.Just a moment,and I'll go!'said he.
A peal of six bells struck out,human faces began to crowd the windows around,and the procession of heads of houses and new doctors emerged,their red and black gowned forms passing across the field of Jude's vision like inaccessible planets across an object glass.