He always remembered the appearance of the afternoon on which he
awoke from his dream. Not quite knowing what to do with himself, he
went up to an octagonal chamber in the lantern of a singularly built
theatre that was set amidst this quaint and singular city. It had
windows all round, from which an outlook over the whole town and
its edifices could be gained. Jude's eyes swept all the views in
succession, meditatively, mournfully, yet sturdily. Those buildings
and their associations and privileges were not for him. From the
looming roof of the great library, into which he hardly ever had time
to enter, his gaze travelled on to the varied spires, halls, gables,
streets, chapels, gardens, quadrangles, which composed the ensemble
of this unrivalled panorama. He saw that his destiny lay not with
these, but among the manual toilers in the shabby purlieu which he
himself occupied, unrecognized as part of the city at all by its
visitors and panegyrists, yet without whose denizens the hard readers
could not read nor the high thinkers live.
He looked over the town into the country beyond, to the trees which
screened her whose presence had at first been the support of his
heart, and whose loss was now a maddening torture. But for this blow
he might have borne with his fate. With Sue as companion he could
have renounced his ambitions with a smile. Without her it was
inevitable that the reaction from the long strain to which he had
subjected himself should affect him disastrously. Phillotson had
no doubt passed through a similar intellectual disappointment to
that which now enveloped him. But the schoolmaster had been since
blest with the consolation of sweet Sue, while for him there was no
consoler.
Descending to the streets, he went listlessly along till he arrived
at an inn, and entered it. Here he drank several glasses of beer in
rapid succession, and when he came out it was night. By the light of
the flickering lamps he rambled home to supper, and had not long been
sitting at table when his landlady brought up a letter that had just
arrived for him. She laid it down as if impressed with a sense of
its possible importance, and on looking at it Jude perceived that it
bore the embossed stamp of one of the colleges whose heads he had
addressed. "ONE--at last!" cried Jude.
The communication was brief, and not exactly what he had expected;
though it really was from the master in person. It ran thus:
BIBLIOLL COLLEGE.
SIR,--I have read your letter with interest; and, judging
from your description of yourself as a working-man, I
venture to think that you will have a much better chance
of success in life by remaining in your own sphere and
sticking to your trade than by adopting any other course.
That, therefore, is what I advise you to do. Yours
faithfully, T. TETUPHENAY.