Philip did not surrender himself willingly to the passion that consumed him. He knew that all things human are transitory and therefore that it must cease one day or another. He looked forward to that day with eager longing . Love was like a parasite in his heart, nourishing a hateful existence on his life’s blood; it absorbed his existence so intensely that he could take pleasure in nothing else.
He had been used to delight in the grace of St. James’ Park, and often he sat and looked at the branches of a tree silhouetted against the sky, it was like a Japanese print; and he found a continual magic in the beautiful Thames with its barges and its wharfs ; the changing sky of London had filled his soul with pleasant fancies. But now beauty meant nothing to him.
He was bored and restless when he was not with Mildred. Sometimes he thought he would console his sorrow by looking at pictures, but he walked through the National Gallery like a sight-seer; and no picture called up in him a thrill of emotion.
He wondered if he could ever care again for all the things he had loved. He had been devoted to reading, but now books were meaningless; and he spent his spare hours in the smoking-room of the hospital club, turning over innumerable periodicals. This love was a torment , and he resented bitterly the subjugation in which it held him; he was a prisoner and he longed for freedom.
Sometimes he awoke in the morning and felt nothing; his soul leaped, for he thought he was free; he loved no longer; but in a little while, as he grew wide awake, the pain settled in his heart, and he knew that he was not cured yet. Though he yearned for Mildred so madly he despised her. He thought to himself that there could be no greater torture in the world than at the same time to love and to contemn .
Philip, burrowing as was his habit into the state of his feelings, discussing with himself continually his condition, came to the conclusion that he could only cure himself of his degrading passion by making Mildred his mistress. It was sexual hunger that he suffered from, and if he could satisfy this he might free himself from the intolerable chains that bound him.
He knew that Mildred did not care for him at all in that way. When he kissed her passionately she withdrew herself from him with instinctive distaste. She had no sensuality. Sometimes he had tried to make her jealous by talking of adventures in Paris, but they did not interest her; once or twice he had sat at other tables in the tea-shop and affected to flirt with the waitress who attended them, but she was entirely indifferent. He could see that it was no pretence on her part.
‘You didn’t mind my not sitting at one of your tables this afternoon?’ he asked once, when he was walking to the station with her. ‘Yours seemed to be all full.’
This was not a fact, but she did not contradict him. Even if his desertion meant nothing to her he would have been grateful if she had pretended it did. A reproach would have been balm to his soul.
读书笔记
是否公开
10
-
"我觉得你天天老钉着一张餐桌坐,够傻的。你是该光顾光顾其他姑娘的座儿嘛。"
读书笔记
是否公开
10
-
‘I think it’s silly of you to sit at the same table every day. You ought to give the other girls a turn now and again.’
But the more he thought of it the more he was convinced that complete surrender on her part was his only way to freedom. He was like a knight of old, metamorphosed by magic spells, who sought the potions which should restore him to his fair and proper form. Philip had only one hope.
Mildred greatly desired to go to Paris. To her, as to most English people, it was the centre of gaiety and fashion: she had heard of the Magasin du Louvre, where you could get the very latest thing for about half the price you had to pay in London; a friend of hers had passed her honeymoon in Paris and had spent all day at the Louvre; and she and her husband, my dear, they never went to bed till six in the morning all the time they were there; the Moulin Rouge and I don’t know what all.
Philip did not care that if she yielded to his desires it would only be the unwilling price she paid for the gratification of her wish. He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even had a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her. He had plied her with liquor in the hope of exciting her, but she had no taste for wine; and though she liked him to order champagne because it looked well, she never drank more than half a glass. She liked to leave untouched a large glass filled to the brim.
Philip chose an opportunity when she seemed more than usually friendly. He had an examination in anatomy at the end of March. Easter, which came a week later, would give Mildred three whole days holiday.
读书笔记
是否公开
16
-
"听我说,假期里你干吗不去跑一趟巴黎?"他提议说,"我们可以痛痛快快地玩它几天嘛。"
读书笔记
是否公开
16
-
‘I say, why don’t you come over to Paris then?’ he suggested. ‘We’d have such a ripping time.’
He enlarged on the glories of the Rue de la Paix and the garish splendour of the Folies Bergeres. He described the Louvre and the Bon Marche. He told her about the Cabaret du Neant, the Abbaye, and the various haunts to which foreigners go. He painted in glowing colours the side of Paris which he despised. He pressed her to come with him.
读书笔记
是否公开
23
-
"听我说,你老是讲你爱我,爱我,要是你果真爱我,就该要我嫁给你。可你从来也没向我求过婚。"
读书笔记
是否公开
23
-
‘You know, you say you love me, but if you really loved me you’d want to marry me. You’ve never asked me to marry you.’
读书笔记
是否公开
24
-
"你知道我结不起婚啊。说到底,我还刚进大学读一年级。今后六年里我赚不到一个子儿。"
读书笔记
是否公开
24
-
‘You know I can’t afford it. After all, I’m in my first year, I shan’t earn a penny for six years.’
读书笔记
是否公开
25
-
"噢,我只是说说罢了,没有责怪你的意思。即使你跪在我面前向我求婚,我也不会答应嫁给你的。"
读书笔记
是否公开
25
-
‘Oh, I’m not blaming you. I wouldn’t marry you if you went down on your bended knees to me.’
He had thought of marriage more than once, but it was a step from which he shrank. In Paris he had come by the opinion that marriage was a ridiculous institution of the philistines . He knew also that a permanent tie would ruin him. He had middle-class instincts, and it seemed a dreadful thing to him to marry a waitress. A common wife would prevent him from getting a decent practice. Besides, he had only just enough money to last him till he was qualified ; he could not keep a wife even if they arranged not to have children.
He thought of Cronshaw bound to a vulgar slattern, and he shuddered with dismay . He foresaw what Mildred, with her genteel ideas and her mean mind, would become: it was impossible for him to marry her. But he decided only with his reason; he felt that he must have her whatever happened; and if he could not get her without marrying her he would do that; the future could look after itself. It might end in disaster; he did not care.
When he got hold of an idea it obsessed him, he could think of nothing else, and he had a more than common power to persuade himself of the reasonableness of what he wished to do. He found himself overthrowing all the sensible arguments which had occurred to him against marriage. Each day he found that he was more passionately devoted to her; and his unsatisfied love became angry and resentful.
读书笔记
是否公开
29
-
"老天在上,要是哪天她当真做了我老婆,非得和她清算这笔帐,让她也来受受这份活罪,"他自言自语说。
读书笔记
是否公开
29
-
‘By George, if I marry her I’ll make her pay for all the suffering I’ve endured,’ he said to himself.