第27章 At Christminster(4)

Moreover he perceived that at best only copying,patching and imitating went on here;which he fancied to be owing to some temporary and local cause.He did not at that time see that mediaevalism was as dead as a fern-leaf in a lump of coal;that other developments were shaping in the world around him,in which Gothic architecture and its associations had no place.The deadly animosity of contemporary logic and vision towards so much of what he held in reverence was not yet revealed to him.

Having failed to obtain work here as yet he went away,and thought again of his cousin,whose presence somewhere at hand he seemed to feel in wavelets of interest,if not of emotion.How he wished he had that pretty portrait of her!At last he wrote to his aunt to send it.She did so,with a request,however,that he was not to bring disturbance into the family by going to see the girl or her relations.Jude,a ridiculously affectionate fellow,promised nothing,put the photograph on the mantel-piece,kissed it -he did not know why -and felt more at home.She seemed to look down and preside over his tea.It was cheering -the one thing uniting him to the emotions of the living city.

There remained the schoolmaster -probably now a reverend parson.

But he could not possibly hunt up such a respectable man just yet;so raw and unpolished was his condition,so precarious were his fortunes.Thus he still remained in loneliness.Although people moved round him he virtually saw none.Not as yet having mingled with the active life of the place it was largely non-existent to him.But the saints and prophets in the window-tracery,the paintings in the galleries,the statues,the busts,the gargoyles,the corbel-heads -these seemed to breathe his atmosphere.Like all new comers to a spot on which the past is deeply graven he heard that past announcing itself with an emphasis altogether unsuspected by,and even incredible to,the habitual residents.

For many days he haunted the cloisters and quadrangles of the colleges at odd minutes in passing them,surprised by impish echoes of his own footsteps,smart as the blows of a mallet.The Christminster 'sentiment,'as it had been called,ate further and further into him;till he probably knew more about those buildings materially,artistically,and historically,than any one of their inmates.

It was not till now,when he found himself actually on the spot of his enthusiasm,that Jude perceived how far away from the object of that enthusiasm he really was.Only a wall divided him from those happy young contemporaries of his with whom he shared a common mental life;men who had nothing to do from morning till night but to read,mark,learn,and inwardly digest.Only a wall -but what a wall!

Every day,every hour,as he went in search of labour,he saw them going and coming also,rubbed shoulders with them,heard their voices,marked their movements.The conversation of some of the more thoughtful among them seemed oftentimes,owing to his long and persistent preparation for this place,to be peculiarly akin to his own thoughts.Yet he was as far from them as if he had been at the antipodes.Of course he was.He was a young workman in a white blouse,and with stone-dust in the creases of his clothes;and in passing him they did not even see him,or hear him,rather saw through him as through a pane of glass at their familiars beyond.

Whatever they were to him,he to them was not on the spot at all;and yet he had fancied he would be close to their lives by coming there.

But the future lay ahead after all;and if he could only be so fortunate as to get into good employment he would put up with the inevitable.

So he thanked God for his health and strength,and took courage.For the present he was outside the gates of everything,colleges included:perhaps some day he would be inside.Those palaces of light and leading;he might some day look down on the world through their panes.

At length he did receive a message from the stone-mason's yard -that a job was waiting for him.It was his first encouragement,and he closed with the offer promptly.

He was young and strong,or he never could have executed with such zest the undertakings to which he now applied himself,since they involved reading most of the night after working all the day.First he bought a shaded lamp for four and six-pence,and obtained a good light.

Then he got pens,paper,and such other necessary books as he had been unable to obtain elsewhere.Then,to the consternation of his landlady,he shifted all the furniture of his room -a single one for living and sleeping -rigged up a curtain on a rope across the middle,to make a double chamber out of one,hung up a thick blind that no-body should know how he was curtailing the hours of sleep,laid out his books,and sat down.

Having been deeply encumbered by marrying,getting a cottage,and buying the furniture which had disappeared in the wake of his wife,he had never been able to save any money since the time of those disastrous ventures,and till his wages began to come in he was obliged to live in the narrowest way.After buying a book or two he could not even afford himself a fire;and when the nights reeked with the raw and cold air from the Meadows he sat over his lamp in a great-coat,hat,and woollen gloves.

From his window he could perceive the spire of the cathedral,and the ogee dome under which resounded the great bell of the city.The tall tower,tall belfry windows,and tall pinnacles of the college by the bridge he could also get a glimpse of by going to the staircase.These objects he used as stimulants when his faith in the future was dim.

Like enthusiasts in general he made no inquiries into details of procedure.Picking up general notions from casual acquaintance,he never dwelt upon them.For the present,he said to himself,the one thing necessary was to get ready by accumulating money and knowledge,and await whatever chances were afforded to such an one of becoming a son of the University.