The Nots Left Out — Jude the Obscure

From the day of the suspended wedding, Spring Street translates three facts into one story: a child who says Father and Mother, a hitch at the registrar, and two undefended divorces. Time comes home repeating what the other boys have asked. The pair go away, it is believed to London, and come back letting it be understood they are legally married. Sue adopts Mrs. Fawley. The baker's lad no longer lifts his hat. Headstone orders fall off. Jude says they must break it up and go where they are unknown. She will not let the boy be taken from her.

Biles and Willis send a man: the Ten Commandments in a country church need relettering, and the old-fashioned clergyman will not have them carted off as old materials. In the empty chancel Sue paints the first Table while Jude mends the second. Time arrives crying from school. The charwoman who has friends in Spring Street lifts her hands. Two ladies watch Sue's person against the white wall. Some say Yes, some say No. A strange pair to be painting the Two Tables. The churchwarden tells, so everyone can hear, of workmen who left the nots out of the Commandments a hundred years ago. Willis arrives breathless and asks them to leave off. He will pay the week.

A few evenings later Jude walks into the Artizans' Mutual Improvement committee and is barely greeted. Subscriptions have fallen off. A well-meaning member speaks in enigmas about a common standard of conduct. Jude writes his resignation at the table. Bills come in. The great-aunt's furniture must go to auction. On a wet day Sue, unwell, sits with the child in an upper room marked Private. Downstairs the bidders discuss their histories and the quaint personality of Father Time more than the lots. They hear each familiar article knocked down. London, she says, is where Arabella is. He is sickened of ecclesiastical work. She says he must fall back on railway stations and hotels, everything that has no connection with conduct.

The last trying suspense is two pairs of pigeons, Sue's pets. A neighbouring poulterer buys them for next Sunday's pie. Jude goes ahead to the lodging. Passing the shop in the dusk, she pulls out the peg that fastens the hamper. The cover lifts from within and the birds fly with a clatter. At the lodging she asks if buyers pay before they take the things. Then she has done a wicked thing. Time asks where they go. They must sail under sealed orders. Not Alfredston, Melchester, Shaston, or Christminster. Because of a cloud, though they have wronged no man. Though perhaps they have done that which was right in their own eyes.