About a fortnight after this Philip, going home one evening after his day’s work at the hospital, knocked at the door of Cronshaw’s room. He got no answer and walked in. Cronshaw was lying huddled up on one side, and Philip went up to the bed. He did not know whether Cronshaw was asleep or merely lay there in one of his uncontrollable fits of irritability . He was surprised to see that his mouth was open.
He touched his shoulder. Philip gave a cry of dismay. He slipped his hand under Cronshaw’s shirt and felt his heart; he did not know what to do; helplessly, because he had heard of this being done, he held a looking-glass in front of his mouth. It startled him to be alone with Cronshaw. He had his hat and coat still on, and he ran down the stairs into the street; he hailed a cab and drove to Harley Street. Dr. Tyrell was in.
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3
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"嘿,请你立即跟我走一趟好吧?我想克朗肖已经死了。"
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3
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‘I say, would you mind coming at once? I think Cronshaw’s dead.’
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4
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"他死了,我去也没多大用处,对不?"
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4
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‘If he is it’s not much good my coming, is it?’
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5
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"你能陪我走一趟,我将感激不尽。我已叫了辆马车,就停在门口。只消半个小时,你就可以回来的。"
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5
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‘I should be awfully grateful if you would. I’ve got a cab at the door. It’ll only take half an hour.’
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6
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蒂勒尔戴上了帽子。在马车里,他问了菲利普一两个问题。
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6
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Tyrell put on his hat. In the cab he asked him one or two questions.
‘He seemed no worse than usual when I left this morning,’ said Philip. ‘It gave me an awful shock when I went in just now. And the thought of his dying all alone.... D’you think he knew he was going to die?’
Philip remembered what Cronshaw had said. He wondered whether at that last moment he had been seized with the terror of death. Philip imagined himself in such a plight , knowing it was inevitable and with no one, not a soul, to give an encouraging word when the fear seized him.
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9
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"你的心情很不好,"蒂勒尔大夫说。
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9
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‘You’re rather upset,’ said Dr. Tyrell.
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10
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蒂勒尔大夫睁着晶莹闪烁的蓝眼睛凝视着菲利普,目光中流露出同情的神色。
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10
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He looked at him with his bright blue eyes. They were not unsympathetic.
The body looked shrunk and ignoble . It was not like anything human. Dr. Tyrell looked at it dispassionately. With a mechanical gesture he took out his watch.
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13
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"嗯,我得走了。待会儿我派人给你送死亡证明书来。我想你该给他的亲属报丧。"
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13
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‘Well, I must be getting along. I’ll send the certificate round. I suppose you’ll communicate with the relatives.’
Dr. Tyrell gave Philip a glance. He wondered whether he ought to offer a couple of sovereigns towards it. He knew nothing of Philip’s circumstances; perhaps he could well afford the expense; Philip might think it impertinent if he made any suggestion.
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18
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"唔,有什么要我帮忙的,尽管说好了,"他最后说了这么一句。
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18
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‘Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do,’ he said.
Philip and he went out together, parting on the doorstep, and Philip went to a telegraph office in order to send a message to Leonard Upjohn. Then he went to an undertaker whose shop he passed every day on his way to the hospital. His attention had been drawn to it often by the three words in silver lettering on a black cloth, which, with two model coffins , adorned the window: Economy, Celerity, Propriety . They had always diverted him.
The undertaker was a little fat Jew with curly black hair, long and greasy , in black, with a large diamond ring on a podgy finger. He received Philip with a peculiar manner formed by the mingling of his natural blatancy with the subdued air proper to his calling. He quickly saw that Philip was very helpless and promised to send round a woman at once to perform the needful offices.
His suggestions for the funeral were very magnificent; and Philip felt ashamed of himself when the undertaker seemed to think his objections mean. It was horrible to haggle on such a matter, and finally Philip consented to an expensiveness which he could ill afford.
‘I quite understand, sir,’ said the undertaker, ‘you don’t want any show and that—I’m not a believer in ostentation myself, mind you—but you want it done gentlemanly-like. You leave it to me, I’ll do it as cheap as it can be done, ‘aving regard to what’s right and proper. I can’t say more than that, can I?’
She gave the body a glance of satisfaction. She had performed her job, and now she rolled down her sleeves, took off her apron , and put on her bonnet . Philip asked her how much he owed her.
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31
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"嗯,先生,有给两先令六便士的,也有给五先令的。"
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31
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‘Well, sir, some give me two and sixpence and some give me five shillings.’
Philip was ashamed to give her less than the larger sum. She thanked him with just so much effusiveness as was seemly in presence of the grief he might be supposed to feel, and left him. Philip went back into his sitting-room, cleared away the remains of his supper, and sat down to read Walsham’s Surgery. He found it difficult. He felt singularly nervous. When there was a sound on the stairs he jumped, and his heart beat violently.
That thing in the adjoining room, which had been a man and now was nothing, frightened him. The silence seemed alive, as if some mysterious movement were taking place within it; the presence of death weighed upon these rooms, unearthly and terrifying: Philip felt a sudden horror for what had once been his friend. He tried to force himself to read, but presently pushed away his book in despair. What troubled him was the absolute futility of the life which had just ended.
It did not matter if Cronshaw was alive or dead. It would have been just as well if he had never lived. Philip thought of Cronshaw young; and it needed an effort of imagination to picture him slender, with a springing step, and with hair on his head, buoyant and hopeful. Philip’s rule of life, to follow one’s instincts with due regard to the policeman round the corner, had not acted very well there: it was because Cronshaw had done this that he had made such a lamentable failure of existence.
It seemed that the instincts could not be trusted. Philip was puzzled, and he asked himself what rule of life was there, if that one was useless, and why people acted in one way rather than in another. They acted according to their emotions, but their emotions might be good or bad; it seemed just a chance whether they led to triumph or disaster. Life seemed an inextricable confusion. Men hurried hither and thither , urged by forces they knew not; and the purpose of it all escaped them; they seemed to hurry just for hurrying’s sake.
Next morning Leonard Upjohn appeared with a small wreath of laurel. He was pleased with his idea of crowning the dead poet with this; and attempted, notwithstanding Philip’s disapproving silence, to fix it on the bald head; but the wreath fitted grotesquely . It looked like the brim of a hat worn by a low comedian in a music-hall.
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37
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"我去把它拿下来,重新放在他的心口,"厄普姜说。
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37
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‘I’ll put it over his heart instead,’ said Upjohn.
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38
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"可你却把花圈放到他的肚子上去了,"菲利普说。
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38
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‘You’ve put it on his stomach,’ remarked Philip.
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39
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厄普姜听后淡然一笑。
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39
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Upjohn gave a thin smile.
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40
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"只有诗人才知道诗人的心在哪里,"他接着回答道。
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40
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‘Only a poet knows where lies a poet’s heart,’ he answered.
‘But, my dear fellow, in that case, why didn’t you get him a pauper ’s funeral? There would have been something poetic in that. You have an unerring instinct for mediocrity.’
Philip flushed a little, but did not answer; and next day he and Upjohn followed the hearse in the one carriage which Philip had ordered. Lawson, unable to come, had sent a wreath; and Philip, so that the coffin should not seem too neglected, had bought a couple. On the way back the coachman whipped up his horses. Philip was dog-tired and presently went to sleep. He was awakened by Upjohn’s voice.