The Rabbit in the Gin — Jude the Obscure

Two mornings later a note signed Susanna Florence Mary tells him not to come: they were too free under the morbid hymn and the twilight. He acquiesces on Easter Eve. On Easter Monday Widow Edlin telegraphs that his aunt is sinking. A labourer at the gate is enough. I can see in his face that she is dead, Jude says. He writes Sue the briefest terms: funeral Friday.

She comes at the last moment so he will not attend alone. They put Drusilla in new ground, away from her ancestors, and sit to tea in the familiar house. Sue asks whether a wife may say a marriage hurts if it is only a sordid contract. She puts a case about physical objection. He says she is not happy. Of course I am, she answers, then stays the night because the train will not take her to Shaston. He says he ought to have stopped the wedding. She lets him hold her hand if she may tell Richard. He claims he has no love left: he has seen Arabella. The hit lands. Then she is equally honest: she likes Phillotson as a friend and it is a torture to live with him as a husband. She has been pretending. She wants him to do some open wrong so she could justify the feeling. He puts his face to her ear. She walks to the grave and sleeps at Mrs. Edlin's.

Near two a rabbit cries in a gin. Jude dresses, finds the hedge, and kills it with the side of his palm. Sue is at the low casement, awake, glad he got there first. She wishes she had not made him the confidant. His doctrines and he begin to part company. He kisses her hand: there is a stronger tie left than the dead aunt. She will not admit so much. She calls the marriage an artificial tragedy for people who in a natural state would part, then bends and leaves a scarcely perceptible kiss on his hair, and shuts the window.