Page:Hardy - Jude the Obscure, 1896.djvu/516

 XI

last pages to which the chronicler of these lives would ask the reader's attention are concerned with the scene in and out of Jude's bedroom when leafy summer came round again.

His face was now so thin that his old friends would hardly have known him. It was afternoon, and Arabella was at the looking-glass curling her hair, which operation she performed by heating an umbrella-stay in the flame of a candle she had lighted, and using it upon the flowing lock. When she had finished this, practised a dimple, and put on her things, she cast her eyes round upon Jude. He seemed to be sleeping, though his position was an elevated one, his malady preventing him lying down.

Arabella, hatted, gloved, and ready, sat down and waited, as if expecting some one to come and take her place as nurse.

Certain sounds from without revealed that the town was in festivity, though little of the festival, whatever it might have been, could be seen here. Bells began to ring, and the notes came into the room through the open window, and travelled round Jude's head in a hum. They made her restless, and at last she said to herself, "Why ever doesn't father come?"

She looked again at Jude, critically gauged his ebbing life, as she had done so many times during the late months, and, glancing at his watch, which was hung up by way of timepiece, rose impatiently. Still he slept, and, coming to a resolution, she slipped from the room, closed the door noiselessly, and descended the stairs. The