第五十五章
菲利普对医科学生生活的看法，也就像他对一般公众的看法一样，其源盖出于查尔斯·狄更斯在十九世纪中期所描绘的社会生活画面。没有多久他就发现，狄更斯笔下的那个鲍勃·沙耶，就算实有其人的话，也同眼下的医科学生无半点相似之处。
就投身医界的人员来说，真可谓鱼龙混杂，良萎不齐，其中自然也不乏懒散成性的冒失鬼。他们以为学医最省劲儿，可以在学校里吊儿郎当地混上几年，然而到头来，或是囊空钱尽，或是盛怒难消的父母不愿再供养他们，没奈何只得夹着尾巴悄悄离开医学院。也有一些人觉得考试实在难以应付，接二连三的考场失利，使他们心中的余勇丧失殆尽。他们一跨进那令人望而生畏的联合课程委员会的大楼，就吓得魂不附体，先前背得滚瓜烂熟的书本内容，顷刻之间全忘光了。年复一年，他们始终是年轻后生们的打趣对象。最后，他们中间有些人总算勉勉强强地通过了药剂师考堂的考试；有些人则什么资格也没混到手，只好充当个医生助手，寄人篱下，苟且度日，一举一动都得看雇主的眼色。他们的命运就是贫困加酗酒。天知道他们到头来会有个什么样的结局。但是就大多数而言，医科学生都是些好学不倦的小伙于。他们出身于中产阶级家庭，父母给他们的月规钱，足可使他们维持原已习惯了的体面的生活方式。有许多学生，父辈就是行医的，他们已经俨然是一副行家里手的派头。他们的事业蓝图也早规划好了：资格一旦混到手，便申请个医院的职位（也说不定先当一名随船医生，去远东跑一趟），然后就回家乡同父亲合伙挂牌行医，安度其一生。至于那少数几个被标榜为"出类拔萃"的高才生，他们每年理所当然地领取各种奖品和奖学金，到时候受聘于院方，担任这样那样的职务，成为医院里的头面人物，最后在哈里街开设一家私人诊所，成为某个科目的专家。他们功成名就，出人头地，享尽人世之荣华。
各行各业之中，唯有行医这一行没有年龄限制，谁都可以来试试身手，到时候说不定也能靠它混口饭吃。就拿菲利普那个年级来说吧，有三四个人青春韶华已逝。有一个人当过海军，据说是因酗酒而被开除了军籍，他今年三十岁，红扑扑的脸，举止唐突，说话时粗声大气的。另一位已经成家，有两个孩子，他上了一个不负责任的律师的当，把家产赔光了；他腰弯背驼，仿佛生活的重担已把他给压垮了；他整天不声不响地埋头苦读，显然知道自己到了这把年纪，要死背硬记点东西很吃力，况且脑筋也不灵活了。看着他这么死用功，真叫人觉得可怜。
菲利普住在那套小房间里自在得很。他把书籍排得整整齐齐，再把自己手头的一些画和速写都挂在墙上。他的楼上，即有客厅的那一层，住着个名叫格里菲思的五年级学生。菲利普很少同他照面，一来是因为他大部分时间呆在医院病房里，二来是因为他上过牛津大学。凡是过去在大学里混过的学生，经常聚在一块儿。他们采用了年轻人所惯于采用的那一套办法，故意冷落那些时运欠佳者，让他们自知低人一等；他们那副拒人于千里之外的超然姿态，其余的学生都觉得受不了。格里菲思高高的个儿，长着一头浓密的红色鬈发，蓝眼睛，白皮肤，嘴唇则是鲜红欲滴。他是属于那种谁见了都喜欢的幸运儿，整天兴高采烈，嘻嘻哈哈。钢琴他能胡乱摆弄几下，还可以兴致勃勃地拉开嗓门唱几首滑稽歌曲。差不多每天晚上，当菲利普呆在屋里独自看书的时候，都能听到格里菲思那伙朋友们在楼上嚷呀，笑呀，闹个不停。菲利普回想起自己在巴黎度过的那些令人愉快的夜晚：他同劳森、弗拉纳根和克拉顿坐在画室里，一道谈论艺术与道德，讲述眼下所遇到的风流韵事，展望将来如何扬名天下。菲利普心里好不懊丧。他觉得凭一时之勇作出某种壮烈的姿态，那是很容易的，难倒难在要承担由此而引起的后果。最糟糕的是，他对目前所学的东西似乎已感到腻烦。解剖示范教师的提问使他头痛；听课时思想老开小差。解剖学是一门枯燥乏味的学科，尽叫人死记硬背那些数不清的条条框框，解剖实验也使他觉着讨厌。吃辛吃苦地解剖那些个神经和动脉又有何用，从书本上的图表或是病理学陈列馆的标本了解神经和动脉的位置，岂不省事得多。
菲利普偶尔也交几个朋友，但都是些泛泛之交，因为他觉得在同伴面前似乎没有什么特别的话好说。有时他对他们所关心的事情，也尽量表示感兴趣，可又觉得他们认为自己是在曲意迁就。菲利普也不是那种人，一讲起使自己感兴趣的话题来，就根本不管听者是否感到厌烦。有个同学听说菲利普曾在巴黎学过绘画，自以为他俩情趣相投，便想同菲利普探讨艺术。但是，菲利普容忍不了别人的不同观点。没谈上几句他就发现对方所说的不过是些老生常谈，便嗯嗯噢噢地懒得多开口了。菲利普想讨大家的喜欢，可又不肯主动接近别人。他由于怕受到冷遇而不敢向人献殷勤。就他的气质来说，他还是相当腼腆怕羞的，但又不愿让人家看出来，所以就靠冷若冰霜的沉默来加以掩饰。他在皇家公学的那一段经历似乎现在又要重演了，幸好这儿的医科学生生活挺自由，他尽可以独来独往，少同别人接触。
菲利普渐渐地同邓斯福德热乎起来，这倒并非出于菲利普的主动努力。邓斯福德就是他在开学时认识的那个气色好、身子壮实的小伙子。邓斯福德之所以爱同菲利普接近，只因为菲利普是他在圣路加医学院里结识的第一个朋友。邓斯福德在伦敦无亲无友，每到星期六晚上总要同菲利普一块上杂耍剧场，坐在正厅后座看杂耍，再不就是去戏院，站在顶层楼座上看戏。邓斯福德生性愚笨，但脾气温和，从来也不发火。他总讲此大可不必多说的事情，即便菲利普有时笑话他几句，他也只是微微一笑--而且笑得真甜。别看菲利普爱拿他打哈哈，可心里还是挺喜欢他的。他觉得邓斯福德直率得有趣，而且也喜欢他随和的脾性：邓斯福德身上的迷人之处，恰恰是菲利普痛感缺少的。
他们常常去国会街上的一家点心店用茶点，因为邓斯福德倾心于店里的一个年轻女招待。菲利普看不出那女人有什么诱人之处--瘦长的个子，狭窄的臀部，胸部平坦坦的像个男孩。
"要在巴黎，谁也不会瞧她一眼，"菲利普鄙夷地说。
"她那张脸蛋挺帅！"邓斯福德说。
"脸蛋又有什么大不了的？"
她五官生得小巧端正，蓝蓝的眼睛，低而宽阔的前额（莱顿勋爵、阿尔马·泰德默以及其他不计其数的维多利亚女王时代的画家，都硬要世人相信这种低而宽阔的前额乃是一种典型的希腊美），头发看上去长得很密，经过精心疏理，有意让一缕缕青丝耷拉在前额上。这就是所谓的"亚历山大刘海"。她患有严重的贫血症，薄薄的嘴唇显得很苍白，细嫩的皮肤微微发青，就连脸颊上也不见一丝儿血色，一口洁白的细牙倒挺漂亮。不论干什么，她都小心翼翼的，唯恐糟踏了那双又瘦又白的纤手。伺候客人时，总挂着一脸不耐烦的神色。
邓斯福德在女人面前显得很腼腆，直到现在他还未能同她搭讪上。他央求菲利普帮他牵线搭桥。
"你只要替我引个头，"他说，"以后我自个儿就能对付了。"
为了不让邓斯福德扫兴，菲利普就主动同她拉话，可她嗯嗯噢噢地硬是不接话茬。她已经暗暗打量过，他们不过是些毛孩子，估计还在念书。她对他们不感兴趣。邓斯福德注意到，有个长着淡茶色头发、蓄一撮浓密小胡子的男人，看上去像是德国人，颇得她的青睐。他每次进店来，她总是殷勤相待；而菲利普他们想要点什么，非得招呼个两三次她才勉强答应。对于那些素不相识的顾客，她冷若冰霜，傲慢无礼；要是她在同朋友讲话，有急事的顾客不论唤她多少遍，她也不予理睬。至于对那些来店里用点心的女客，她更有一套独到的应付本事：态度傲慢，却不失分寸，既惹她们恼火，又不让她们抓到什么好向经理告状的把柄。有一天，邓斯福德告诉菲利普，她的名字叫米尔德丽德。他听到店里另外一个女招待这么称呼她来着。
"多难听的名字，"菲利普说。
"有啥难听？"邓斯福德反问道，"我倒挺喜欢呐。"
"这名字好别扭。"
碰巧那天德国客人没来。她送茶点来的时候，菲利普朝她笑笑，说：
"你那位朋友今天没来呢。"
"我可不明白你这话的意思，"她冷冷地说。
"我是指那个留胡子的老爷。他扔下你找别人去了？"
"奉劝某些人还是少管闲事的好，"她反唇相讥。
米尔德丽德丢下他们走了。有一阵于，店堂里没有别的顾客要伺候，她就坐下来，翻看一份顾客忘了带走的晚报。
"瞧你有多傻，把她给惹火了。"
"谁叫她摆什么臭架子，我才不吃这一套呢。"
菲利普嘴上这么说，心里却着实有点气恼。他原想取悦于一个女人，谁知弄巧成拙，反倒把她惹火了，好不叫人懊恼。他索取帐单时，又壮着胆子同她搭腔，想借此打开局面。
"咱们就此翻脸，连话也不讲了吗？"菲利普微笑着。
"我在这儿的差使，是上茶送点心，伺候顾客。我对他们没什么要说的，也不想听他们对我说些什么。"
她把一张标明应付款数的纸条往餐桌上一放，就朝刚才她坐的那张餐桌走回去。菲利普气得满脸通红。
"她是存心给你点颜色看呢，凯里，"他们来到店外面，邓斯福德这么说道。
"一个没教养的臭婊于，"菲利普说，"我以后再也不上那儿去了。"
邓斯福德对菲利普言听计从，乖乖地跟他到其他地方去吃茶点了。过了不久，邓斯福德又找到了另一个追逐的对象。可菲利普受到那女招待的冷遇之后，始终耿耿于怀。假如她当初待他彬彬有礼，那他根本不会把这样的女人放在心上的。然而，她显然很讨厌他，这就伤害了他的自尊心。菲利普忿忿不平，觉得非要报复她一下不可。他因自己存这样的小心眼而生自己的气。他一连熬过三四天，赌气不再上那家点心店，可结果也没把那个报复念头压下去。最后他对自己说，算了吧，还是去见她一面最省事，因为再见上她一面，他肯定不会再想她了。一天下午，菲利普推说要去赴约，丢下了邓斯福德，直奔那家他发誓一辈子再也不去光顾的点心店，心里倒一点也不为自己的软弱感到羞愧。菲利普一进店门，就看到那个女招待，于是在一张属于她照管的餐桌边坐下。他巴望她会开口问自己为什么有一个星期不上这儿来了，谁知她走过来之后就等他点茶点，什么话也没说。刚才他还明明听到她这么招呼别的顾客来着：
"您还是第一次光顾小店呢！"
从她的神情上，一点也看不出他俩以前曾打过交道。为了试探一下她是否真的把自己给忘了，菲利普等她来上茶点的时候问了一句：
"今儿晚上见到我的朋友了吗？"
"没。他已经有好几天没来这儿了。"
菲利普本想利用这作为话茬，和她好好交谈几句，不知怎地心里一慌，什么词儿也没了。对方也不给他一个机会，扭身就走。菲利普一直等到索取帐单时，才又抓着谈话的机会。
"天气够糟的，是吗？"他说。
说来也真气死人，他斟酌了好半天，临到头竟挤出这么一句话来。他百思不得其解，在这个女招待面前，自己怎么会感到如此困窘。
"我从早到晚都得呆在这儿，天气好坏同我有什么关系。"
她口气里含带的那股傲劲，特别叫菲利普受不了。他真恨不得冲着她挖苦一句，可话到了嘴边，还是强咽了回去。
"我还真巴不得这女人说出句把不成体统的话来呢！"菲利普气冲冲地对自己说，"这样我就可以到老板那儿告她一状，把她的饭碗砸掉。那时就活该她倒霉罗。"
philip’s ideas of the life of medical students, like those of the public at large, were founded on the pictures which charles dickens drew in the middle of the nineteenth century. he soon discovered that bob sawyer, if he ever existed, was no longer at all like the medical student of the present.
it is a mixed lot which enters upon the medical profession, and naturally there are some who are lazy and reckless. they think it is an easy life, idle away a couple of years; and then, because their funds come to an end or because angry parents refuse any longer to support them, drift away from the hospital. others find the examinations too hard for them; one failure after another robs them of their nerve; and, panic-stricken, they forget as soon as they come into the forbidding buildings of the conjoint board the knowledge which before they had so pat. they remain year after year, objects of good-humoured scorn to younger men: some of them crawl through the examination of the apothecaries hall; others become non-qualified assistants, a precarious position in which they are at the mercy of their employer; their lot is poverty, drunkenness, and heaven only knows their end. but for the most part medical students are industrious young men of the middle-class with a sufficient allowance to live in the respectable fashion they have been used to; many are the sons of doctors who have already something of the professional manner; their career is mapped out: as soon as they are qualified they propose to apply for a hospital appointment, after holding which (and perhaps a trip to the far east as a ship’s doctor), they will join their father and spend the rest of their days in a country practice. one or two are marked out as exceptionally brilliant: they will take the various prizes and scholarships which are open each year to the deserving, get one appointment after another at the hospital, go on the staff, take a consulting-room in harley street, and, specialising in one subject or another, become prosperous, eminent, and titled.
the medical profession is the only one which a man may enter at any age with some chance of making a living. among the men of philip’s year were three or four who were past their first youth: one had been in the navy, from which according to report he had been dismissed for drunkenness; he was a man of thirty, with a red face, a brusque manner, and a loud voice. another was a married man with two children, who had lost money through a defaulting solicitor; he had a bowed look as if the world were too much for him; he went about his work silently, and it was plain that he found it difficult at his age to commit facts to memory. his mind worked slowly. his effort at application was painful to see.
philip made himself at home in his tiny rooms. he arranged his books and hung on the walls such pictures and sketches as he possessed. above him, on the drawing-room floor, lived a fifth-year man called griffiths; but philip saw little of him, partly because he was occupied chiefly in the wards and partly because he had been to oxford. such of the students as had been to a university kept a good deal together: they used a variety of means natural to the young in order to impress upon the less fortunate a proper sense of their inferiority; the rest of the students found their olympian serenity rather hard to bear. griffiths was a tall fellow, with a quantity of curly red hair and blue eyes, a white skin and a very red mouth; he was one of those fortunate people whom everybody liked, for he had high spirits and a constant gaiety. he strummed a little on the piano and sang comic songs with gusto; and evening after evening, while philip was reading in his solitary room, he heard the shouts and the uproarious laughter of griffiths’ friends above him. he thought of those delightful evenings in paris when they would sit in the studio, lawson and he, flanagan and clutton, and talk of art and morals, the love-affairs of the present, and the fame of the future. he felt sick at heart. he found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results. the worst of it was that the work seemed to him very tedious. he had got out of the habit of being asked questions by demonstrators. his attention wandered at lectures. anatomy was a dreary science, a mere matter of learning by heart an enormous number of facts; dissection bored him; he did not see the use of dissecting out laboriously nerves and arteries when with much less trouble you could see in the diagrams of a book or in the specimens of the pathological museum exactly where they were.
he made friends by chance, but not intimate friends, for he seemed to have nothing in particular to say to his companions. when he tried to interest himself in their concerns, he felt that they found him patronising. he was not of those who can talk of what moves them without caring whether it bores or not the people they talk to. one man, hearing that he had studied art in paris, and fancying himself on his taste, tried to discuss art with him; but philip was impatient of views which did not agree with his own; and, finding quickly that the other’s ideas were conventional, grew monosyllabic. philip desired popularity but could bring himself to make no advances to others. a fear of rebuff prevented him from affability, and he concealed his shyness, which was still intense, under a frigid taciturnity. he was going through the same experience as he had done at school, but here the freedom of the medical students’ life made it possible for him to live a good deal by himself.
it was through no effort of his that he became friendly with dunsford, the fresh-complexioned, heavy lad whose acquaintance he had made at the beginning of the session. dunsford attached himself to philip merely because he was the first person he had known at st. luke’s. he had no friends in london, and on saturday nights he and philip got into the habit of going together to the pit of a music-hall or the gallery of a theatre. he was stupid, but he was good-humoured and never took offence; he always said the obvious thing, but when philip laughed at him merely smiled. he had a very sweet smile. though philip made him his butt, he liked him; he was amused by his candour and delighted with his agreeable nature: dunsford had the charm which himself was acutely conscious of not possessing.
they often went to have tea at a shop in parliament street, because dunsford admired one of the young women who waited. philip did not find anything attractive in her. she was tall and thin, with narrow hips and the chest of a boy.
‘no one would look at her in paris,’ said philip scornfully.
‘she’s got a ripping face,’ said dunsford.
‘what does the face matter?’
she had the small regular features, the blue eyes, and the broad low brow, which the victorian painters, lord leighton, alma tadema, and a hundred others, induced the world they lived in to accept as a type of greek beauty. she seemed to have a great deal of hair: it was arranged with peculiar elaboration and done over the forehead in what she called an alexandra fringe. she was very anaemic. her thin lips were pale, and her skin was delicate, of a faint green colour, without a touch of red even in the cheeks. she had very good teeth. she took great pains to prevent her work from spoiling her hands, and they were small, thin, and white. she went about her duties with a bored look.
dunsford, very shy with women, had never succeeded in getting into conversation with her; and he urged philip to help him.
‘all i want is a lead,’ he said, ‘and then i can manage for myself.’
philip, to please him, made one or two remarks, but she answered with monosyllables. she had taken their measure. they were boys, and she surmised they were students. she had no use for them. dunsford noticed that a man with sandy hair and a bristly moustache, who looked like a german, was favoured with her attention whenever he came into the shop; and then it was only by calling her two or three times that they could induce her to take their order. she used the clients whom she did not know with frigid insolence, and when she was talking to a friend was perfectly indifferent to the calls of the hurried. she had the art of treating women who desired refreshment with just that degree of impertinence which irritated them without affording them an opportunity of complaining to the management. one day dunsford told him her name was mildred. he had heard one of the other girls in the shop address her.
‘what an odious name,’ said philip.
‘why?’ asked dunsford.
‘i like it.’
‘it’s so pretentious.’
it chanced that on this day the german was not there, and, when she brought the tea, philip, smiling, remarked:
‘your friend’s not here today.’
‘i don’t know what you mean,’ she said coldly.
‘i was referring to the nobleman with the sandy moustache. has he left you for another?’ ‘i’m awfully sorry, old man, but we’re all in the same boat. no one thought the war was going to hang on this way. i put you into them, but i was in myself too.’
‘some people would do better to mind their own business,’ she retorted. ‘it doesn’t matter at all,’ said philip. ‘one has to take one’s chance.’
she left them, and, since for a minute or two there was no one to attend to, sat down and looked at the evening paper which a customer had left behind him. he moved back to the table from which he had got up to talk to macalister. he was dumfounded; his head suddenly began to ache furiously; but he did not want them to think him unmanly. he sat on for an hour. he laughed feverishly at everything they said. at last he got up to go.
‘you are a fool to put her back up,’ said dunsford. ‘you take it pretty coolly,’ said macalister, shaking hands with him. ‘i don’t suppose anyone likes losing between three and four hundred pounds.’
‘i’m really quite indifferent to the attitude of her vertebrae,’ replied philip. when philip got back to his shabby little room he flung himself on his bed, and gave himself over to his despair. he kept on regretting his folly bitterly; and though he told himself that it was absurd to regret for what had happened was inevitable just because it had happened, he could not help himself. he was utterly miserable. he could not sleep. he remembered all the ways he had wasted money during the last few years. his head ached dreadfully.
but he was piqued. it irritated him that when he tried to be agreeable with a woman she should take offence. when he asked for the bill, he hazarded a remark which he meant to lead further. the following evening there came by the last post the statement of his account. he examined his pass-book. he found that when he had paid everything he would have seven pounds left. seven pounds! he was thankful he had been able to pay. it would have been horrible to be obliged to confess to macalister that he had not the money. he was dressing in the eye-department during the summer session, and he had bought an ophthalmoscope off a student who had one to sell. he had not paid for this, but he lacked the courage to tell the student that he wanted to go back on his bargain. also he had to buy certain books. he had about five pounds to go on with. it lasted him six weeks; then he wrote to his uncle a letter which he thought very business-like; he said that owing to the war he had had grave losses and could not go on with his studies unless his uncle came to his help. he suggested that the vicar should lend him a hundred and fifty pounds paid over the next eighteen months in monthly instalments; he would pay interest on this and promised to refund the capital by degrees when he began to earn money. he would be qualified in a year and a half at the latest, and he could be pretty sure then of getting an assistantship at three pounds a week. his uncle wrote back that he could do nothing. it was not fair to ask him to sell out when everything was at its worst, and the little he had he felt that his duty to himself made it necessary for him to keep in case of illness. he ended the letter with a little homily. he had warned philip time after time, and philip had never paid any attention to him; he could not honestly say he was surprised; he had long expected that this would be the end of philip’s extravagance and want of balance. philip grew hot and cold when he read this. it had never occurred to him that his uncle would refuse, and he burst into furious anger; but this was succeeded by utter blankness: if his uncle would not help him he could not go on at the hospital. panic seized him and, putting aside his pride, he wrote again to the vicar of blackstable, placing the case before him more urgently; but perhaps he did not explain himself properly and his uncle did not realise in what desperate straits he was, for he answered that he could not change his mind; philip was twenty-five and really ought to be earning his living. when he died philip would come into a little, but till then he refused to give him a penny. philip felt in the letter the satisfaction of a man who for many years had disapproved of his courses and now saw himself justified.
‘are we no longer on speaking terms?’ he smiled.
‘i’m here to take orders and to wait on customers. i’ve got nothing to say to them, and i don’t want them to say anything to me.’ philip began to pawn his clothes. he reduced his expenses by eating only one meal a day beside his breakfast; and he ate it, bread and butter and cocoa, at four so that it should last him till next morning. he was so hungry by nine o’clock that he had to go to bed. he thought of borrowing money from lawson, but the fear of a refusal held him back; at last he asked him for five pounds. lawson lent it with pleasure, but, as he did so, said:
she put down the slip of paper on which she had marked the sum they had to pay, and walked back to the table at which she had been sitting. philip flushed with anger. ‘you’ll let me have it back in a week or so, won’t you? i’ve got to pay my framer, and i’m awfully broke just now.’
‘that’s one in the eye for you, carey,’ said dunsford, when they got outside. philip knew he would not be able to return it, and the thought of what lawson would think made him so ashamed that in a couple of days he took the money back untouched. lawson was just going out to luncheon and asked philip to come too. philip could hardly eat, he was so glad to get some solid food. on sunday he was sure of a good dinner from athelny. he hesitated to tell the athelnys what had happened to him: they had always looked upon him as comparatively well-to-do, and he had a dread that they would think less well of him if they knew he was penniless.
‘ill-mannered slut,’ said philip. ‘i shan’t go there again.’ though he had always been poor, the possibility of not having enough to eat had never occurred to him; it was not the sort of thing that happened to the people among whom he lived; and he was as ashamed as if he had some disgraceful disease. the situation in which he found himself was quite outside the range of his experience. he was so taken aback that he did not know what else to do than to go on at the hospital; he had a vague hope that something would turn up; he could not quite believe that what was happening to him was true; and he remembered how during his first term at school he had often thought his life was a dream from which he would awake to find himself once more at home. but very soon he foresaw that in a week or so he would have no money at all. he must set about trying to earn something at once. if he had been qualified, even with a club-foot, he could have gone out to the cape, since the demand for medical men was now great. except for his deformity he might have enlisted in one of the yeomanry regiments which were constantly being sent out. he went to the secretary of the medical school and asked if he could give him the coaching of some backward student; but the secretary held out no hope of getting him anything of the sort. philip read the advertisement columns of the medical papers, and he applied for the post of unqualified assistant to a man who had a dispensary in the fulham road. when he went to see him, he saw the doctor glance at his club-foot; and on hearing that philip was only in his fourth year at the hospital he said at once that his experience was insufficient: philip understood that this was only an excuse; the man would not have an assistant who might not be as active as he wanted. philip turned his attention to other means of earning money. he knew french and german and thought there might be some chance of finding a job as correspondence clerk; it made his heart sink, but he set his teeth; there was nothing else to do. though too shy to answer the advertisements which demanded a personal application, he replied to those which asked for letters; but he had no experience to state and no recommendations: he was conscious that neither his german nor his french was commercial; he was ignorant of the terms used in business; he knew neither shorthand nor typewriting. he could not help recognising that his case was hopeless. he thought of writing to the solicitor who had been his father’s executor, but he could not bring himself to, for it was contrary to his express advice that he had sold the mortgages in which his money had been invested. he knew from his uncle that mr. nixon thoroughly disapproved of him. he had gathered from philip’s year in the accountant’s office that he was idle and incompetent.
his influence with dunsford was strong enough to get him to take their tea elsewhere, and dunsford soon found another young woman to flirt with. but the snub which the waitress had inflicted on him rankled. if she had treated him with civility he would have been perfectly indifferent to her; but it was obvious that she disliked him rather than otherwise, and his pride was wounded. he could not suppress a desire to be even with her. he was impatient with himself because he had so petty a feeling, but three or four days’ firmness, during which he would not go to the shop, did not help him to surmount it; and he came to the conclusion that it would be least trouble to see her. having done so he would certainly cease to think of her. pretexting an appointment one afternoon, for he was not a little ashamed of his weakness, he left dunsford and went straight to the shop which he had vowed never again to enter. he saw the waitress the moment he came in and sat down at one of her tables. he expected her to make some reference to the fact that he had not been there for a week, but when she came up for his order she said nothing. he had heard her say to other customers: ‘i’d sooner starve,’ philip muttered to himself.
‘you’re quite a stranger.’ once or twice the possibility of suicide presented itself to him; it would be easy to get something from the hospital dispensary, and it was a comfort to think that if the worst came to the worst he had at hand means of making a painless end of himself; but it was not a course that he considered seriously. when mildred had left him to go with griffiths his anguish had been so great that he wanted to die in order to get rid of the pain. he did not feel like that now. he remembered that the casualty sister had told him how people oftener did away with themselves for want of money than for want of love; and he chuckled when he thought that he was an exception. he wished only that he could talk his worries over with somebody, but he could not bring himself to confess them. he was ashamed. he went on looking for work. he left his rent unpaid for three weeks, explaining to his landlady that he would get money at the end of the month; she did not say anything, but pursed her lips and looked grim. when the end of the month came and she asked if it would be convenient for him to pay something on account, it made him feel very sick to say that he could not; he told her he would write to his uncle and was sure to be able to settle his bill on the following saturday.
she gave no sign that she had ever seen him before. in order to see whether she had really forgotten him, when she brought his tea, he asked: ‘well, i ‘ope you will, mr. carey, because i ‘ave my rent to pay, and i can’t afford to let accounts run on.’ she did not speak with anger, but with determination that was rather frightening. she paused for a moment and then said: ‘if you don’t pay next saturday, i shall ‘ave to complain to the secretary of the ‘ospital.’
‘have you seen my friend tonight?’ ‘oh yes, that’ll be all right.’
‘no, he’s not been in here for some days.’ she looked at him for a little and glanced round the bare room. when she spoke it was without any emphasis, as though it were quite a natural thing to say.
he wanted to use this as the beginning of a conversation, but he was strangely nervous and could think of nothing to say. she gave him no opportunity, but at once went away. he had no chance of saying anything till he asked for his bill. ‘i’ve got a nice ‘ot joint downstairs, and if you like to come down to the kitchen you’re welcome to a bit of dinner.’
‘filthy weather, isn’t it?’ he said. philip felt himself redden to the soles of his feet, and a sob caught at his throat.
it was mortifying that he had been forced to prepare such a phrase as that. he could not make out why she filled him with such embarrassment. ‘thank you very much, mrs. higgins, but i’m not at all hungry.’
‘it don’t make much difference to me what the weather is, having to be in here all day.’ ‘very good, sir.’
there was an insolence in her tone that peculiarly irritated him. a sarcasm rose to his lips, but he forced himself to be silent. when she left the room philip threw himself on his bed. he had to clench his fists in order to prevent himself from crying.
‘i wish to god she’d say something really cheeky,’ he raged to himself, ‘so that i could report her and get her sacked. it would serve her damned well right.’