The winter passed. Now and then Philip went to the hospital, slinking in when it was late and there was little chance of meeting anyone he knew, to see whether there were letters for him. At Easter he received one from his uncle. He was surprised to hear from him, for the Vicar of Blackstable had never written him more than half a dozen letters in his whole life, and they were on business matters.
If you are thinking of taking a holiday soon and care to come down here I shall be pleased to see you. I was very ill with my bronchitis in the winter and Doctor Wigram never expected me to pull through. I have a wonderful constitution and I made, thank God, a marvellous recovery.
The letter made Philip angry. How did his uncle think he was living? He did not even trouble to inquire. He might have starved for all the old man cared. But as he walked home something struck him; he stopped under a lamp-post and read the letter again; the handwriting had no longer the business-like firmness which had characterised it; it was larger and wavering: perhaps the illness had shaken him more than he was willing to confess, and he sought in that formal note to express a yearning to see the only relation he had in the world.
Philip wrote back that he could come down to Blackstable for a fortnight in July. The invitation was convenient, for he had not known what to do, with his brief holiday. The Athelnys went hopping in September, but he could not then be spared, since during that month the autumn models were prepared. The rule of Lynn’s was that everyone must take a fortnight whether he wanted it or not; and during that time, if he had nowhere to go, the assistant might sleep in his room, but he was not allowed food.
A number had no friends within reasonable distance of London, and to these the holiday was an awkward interval when they had to provide food out of their small wages and, with the whole day on their hands, had nothing to spend. Philip had not been out of London since his visit to Brighton with Mildred, now two years before, and he longed for fresh air and the silence of the sea. He thought of it with such a passionate desire, all through May and June, that, when at length the time came for him to go, he was listless.
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8
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离伦敦前最后一个夜晚,菲利普向桑普森先生交代了留下来的一两件活计。突然间,桑普森先生对他说:
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8
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On his last evening, when he talked with the buyer of one or two jobs he had to leave over, Mr. Sampson suddenly said to him:
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9
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"你一身拿多少工资?"
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9
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‘What wages have you been getting?’
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10
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"六先令。"
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10
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‘Six shillings.’
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11
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"我想六先令太少了。等你度假回来,我去要求给你增加到十二先令。"
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11
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‘I don’t think it’s enough. I’ll see that you’re put up to twelve when you come back.’
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12
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"那太谢谢了,"菲利普笑吟吟地说,"我正非常需要添置几件衣服呢。"
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12
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‘Thank you very much,’ smiled Philip. ‘I’m beginning to want some new clothes badly.’
‘If you stick to your work and don’t go larking about with the girls like what some of them do, I’ll look after you, Carey. Mind you, you’ve got a lot to learn, but you’re promising , I’ll say that for you, you’re promising, and I’ll see that you get a pound a week as soon as you deserve it.’
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14
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菲利普心中暗自纳闷,不知还得等多久才能拿到每周一镑的工资呢?还得等上两年?
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Philip wondered how long he would have to wait for that. Two years?
He was startled at the change in his uncle. When last he had seen him he was a stout man, who held himself upright, clean-shaven, with a round, sensual face; but he had fallen in strangely, his skin was yellow; there were great bags under the eyes, and he was bent and old. He had grown a beard during his last illness, and he walked very slowly.
Philip, asking after the affairs of the parish, looked at him and wondered how much longer he could last. A hot summer would finish him; Philip noticed how thin his hands were; they trembled. It meant so much to Philip. If he died that summer he could go back to the hospital at the beginning of the winter session; his heart leaped at the thought of returning no more to Lynn’s. At dinner the Vicar sat humped up on his chair, and the housekeeper who had been with him since his wife’s death said:
‘Oh yes, I always eat well. But I’m thinner than when you were here last. I’m glad to be thinner, I didn’t like being so fat. Dr. Wigram thinks I’m all the better for being thinner than I was.’
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22
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饭后,管家给牧师大伯送来了药。
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When dinner was over the housekeeper brought him some medicine.
‘Show the prescription to Master Philip,’ he said. ‘He’s a doctor too. I’d like him to see that he thinks it’s all right. I told Dr. Wigram that now you’re studying to be a doctor he ought to make a reduction in his charges. It’s dreadful the bills I’ve had to pay. He came every day for two months, and he charges five shillings a visit. It’s a lot of money, isn’t it? He comes twice a week still. I’m going to tell him he needn’t come any more. I’ll send for him if I want him.’
He looked at Philip eagerly while he read the prescriptions . They were narcotics . There were two of them, and one was a medicine which the Vicar explained he was to use only if his neuritis grew unendurable.
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25
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"我用药时很当心,"他说,"我可不想染上吸鸦片的恶习。"
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25
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‘I’m very careful,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to get into the opium habit.’
He did not mention his nephew’s affairs. Philip fancied that it was by way of precaution, in case he asked for money, that his uncle kept dwelling on the financial calls upon him. He had spent so much on the doctor and so much more on the chemist, while he was ill they had had to have a fire every day in his bed-room, and now on Sunday he needed a carriage to go to church in the evening as well as in the morning. Philip felt angrily inclined to say he need not be afraid, he was not going to borrow from him, but he held his tongue. It seemed to him that everything had left the old man now but two things, pleasure in his food and a grasping desire for money. It was a hideous old age.
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27
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下午,威格拉姆大夫来了。看完病以后,菲利普陪他走到花园门口。
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In the afternoon Dr. Wigram came, and after the visit Philip walked with him to the garden gate.
Dr. Wigram was more anxious not to do wrong than to do right, and he never hazarded a definite opinion if he could help it. He had practised at Blackstable for five-and-thirty years. He had the reputation of being very safe, and many of his patients thought it much better that a doctor should be safe than clever. There was a new man at Blackstable—he had been settled there for ten years, but they still looked upon him as an interloper—and he was said to be very clever; but he had not much practice among the better people, because no one really knew anything about him.
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30
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"喔,他比意料的要好得多,"威格拉姆回答菲利普的询问时说。
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‘Oh, he’s as well as can be expected,’ said Dr. Wigram in answer to Philip’s inquiry .
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"他身上有没有要紧的毛病呀?"
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‘Has he got anything seriously the matter with him?’
‘Well, Philip, your uncle is no longer a young man,’ said the doctor with a cautious little smile, which suggested that after all the Vicar of Blackstable was not an old man either.
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33
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"他似乎认为他的心脏不怎么好。"
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33
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‘He seems to think his heart’s in a bad way.’
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34
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"对他的心脏,我倒是不大满意的,"那位大夫竟妄加猜测起来,"我认为他应该小心才是,要多加小心啊。"
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‘I’m not satisfied with his heart,’ hazarded the doctor, ‘I think he should be careful, very careful.’
On the tip of Philip’s tongue was the question: how much longer can he live? He was afraid it would shock. In these matters a periphrase was demanded by the decorum of life, but, as he asked another question instead, it flashed through him that the doctor must be accustomed to the impatience of a sick man’s relatives. He must see through their sympathetic expressions. Philip, with a faint smile at his own hypocrisy , cast down his eyes.
This was the kind of question the doctor hated. If you said a patient couldn’t live another month the family prepared itself for a bereavement , and if then the patient lived on they visited the medical attendant with the resentment they felt at having tormented themselves before it was necessary. On the other hand, if you said the patient might live a year and he died in a week the family said you did not know your business. They thought of all the affection they would have lavished on the defunct if they had known the end was so near. Dr. Wigram made the gesture of washing his hands.
‘I don’t think there’s any grave risk so long as he—remains as he is,’ he ventured at last. ‘But on the other hand, we mustn’t forget that he’s no longer a young man, and well, the machine is wearing out. If he gets over the hot weather I don’t see why he shouldn’t get on very comfortably till the winter, and then if the winter does not bother him too much, well, I don’t see why anything should happen.’
Philip went back to the dining-room where his uncle was sitting. With his skull-cap and a crochetshawl over his shoulders he looked grotesque . His eyes had been fixed on the door, and they rested on Philip’s face as he entered. Philip saw that his uncle had been waiting anxiously for his return.