At first Philip had been too grateful for Rose’s friendship to make any demands on him. He took things as they came and enjoyed life. But presently he began to resent Rose’s universal amiability ; he wanted a more exclusive attachment , and he claimed as a right what before he had accepted as a favour. He watched jealously Rose’s companionship with others; and though he knew it was unreasonable could not help sometimes saying bitter things to him.
If Rose spent an hour playing the fool in another study, Philip would receive him when he returned to his own with a sullen frown. He would sulk for a day, and he suffered more because Rose either did not notice his ill-humour or deliberately ignored it. Not seldom Philip, knowing all the time how stupid he was, would force a quarrel, and they would not speak to one another for a couple of days.
But Philip could not bear to be angry with him long, and even when convinced that he was in the right, would apologise humbly . Then for a week they would be as great friends as ever. But the best was over, and Philip could see that Rose often walked with him merely from old habit or from fear of his anger; they had not so much to say to one another as at first, and Rose was often bored. Philip felt that his lameness began to irritate him.
Towards the end of the term two or three boys caught scarlet fever, and there was much talk of sending them all home in order to escape an epidemic ; but the sufferers were isolated , and since no more were attacked it was supposed that the outbreak was stopped. One of the stricken was Philip. He remained in hospital through the Easter holidays, and at the beginning of the summer term was sent home to the vicarage to get a little fresh air.
The Vicar, notwithstanding medical assurance that the boy was no longer infectious, received him with suspicion; he thought it very inconsiderate of the doctor to suggest that his nephew’s convalescence should be spent by the seaside, and consented to have him in the house only because there was nowhere else he could go.
Philip went back to school at half-term. He had forgotten the quarrels he had had with Rose, but remembered only that he was his greatest friend. He knew that he had been silly. He made up his mind to be more reasonable. During his illness Rose had sent him in a couple of little notes, and he had ended each with the words: ‘Hurry up and come back.’ Philip thought Rose must be looking forward as much to his return as he was himself to seeing Rose.
He found that owing to the death from scarlet fever of one of the boys in the Sixth there had been some shifting in the studies and Rose was no longer in his. It was a bitter disappointment. But as soon as he arrived he burst into Rose’s study. Rose was sitting at his desk, working with a boy called Hunter, and turned round crossly as Philip came in.
读书笔记
是否公开
8
-
"是哪个冒失鬼?"他大喝一声,然后定睛一看,"哟,原来是你啊。"
读书笔记
是否公开
8
-
‘Who the devil’s that?’ he cried. And then, seeing Philip: ‘Oh, it’s you.’
读书笔记
是否公开
9
-
菲利普尴尬地收住脚步。
读书笔记
是否公开
9
-
Philip stopped in embarrassment .
读书笔记
是否公开
10
-
"我想进来瞧瞧你身体可好。"
读书笔记
是否公开
10
-
‘I thought I’d come in and see how you were.’
读书笔记
是否公开
11
-
"我们正在做功课哪。"
读书笔记
是否公开
11
-
‘We were just working.’
读书笔记
是否公开
12
-
亨特从旁插了一句。
读书笔记
是否公开
12
-
Hunter broke into the conversation.
读书笔记
是否公开
13
-
"你什么时候回来的?"
读书笔记
是否公开
13
-
‘When did you get back?’
读书笔记
是否公开
14
-
"才一回来五分钟。"
读书笔记
是否公开
14
-
‘Five minutes ago.’
读书笔记
是否公开
15
-
他们端坐不动,只是盯着他望,似乎嫌他来得不是时候。显然,他们巴不得菲利普快点走开。菲利普飞红了脸。
读书笔记
是否公开
15
-
They sat and looked at him as though he was disturbing them. They evidently expected him to go quickly. Philip reddened.
读书笔记
是否公开
16
-
"我这就走。你做完了功课,是不是请到我房问来坐坐,"他朝罗斯说。
读书笔记
是否公开
16
-
‘I’ll be off. You might look in when you’ve done,’ he said to Rose.
Philip closed the door behind him and limped back to his own study. He felt frightfully hurt. Rose, far from seeming glad to see him, had looked almost put out. They might never have been more than acquaintances. Though he waited in his study, not leaving it for a moment in case just then Rose should come, his friend never appeared; and next morning when he went in to prayers he saw Rose and Hunter singing along arm in arm. What he could not see for himself others told him.
He had forgotten that three months is a long time in a schoolboy’s life, and though he had passed them in solitude Rose had lived in the world. Hunter had stepped into the vacant place. Philip found that Rose was quietly avoiding him. But he was not the boy to accept a situation without putting it into words; he waited till he was sure Rose was alone in his study and went in.
读书笔记
是否公开
20
-
"可以进来吗?"他问。
读书笔记
是否公开
20
-
‘May I come in?’ he asked.
读书笔记
是否公开
21
-
罗斯瞪着眼,尴尬之余不禁迁怒于菲利普。
读书笔记
是否公开
21
-
Rose looked at him with an embarrassment that made him angry with Philip.
读书笔记
是否公开
22
-
"嗯,随你的便。"
读书笔记
是否公开
22
-
‘Yes, if you want to.’
读书笔记
是否公开
23
-
"那就多谢您罗!"菲利普语中带刺地说。
读书笔记
是否公开
23
-
‘It’s very kind of you,’ said Philip sarcastically .
读书笔记
是否公开
24
-
"你来有何贵于?"
读书笔记
是否公开
24
-
‘What d’you want?’
读书笔记
是否公开
25
-
"听我说,打我回来后,你干吗变得这么窝囊?"
读书笔记
是否公开
25
-
‘I say, why have you been so rotten since I came back?’
读书笔记
是否公开
26
-
"噢,别说蠢话了,"罗斯说。
读书笔记
是否公开
26
-
‘Oh, don’t be an ass ,’ said Rose.
读书笔记
是否公开
27
-
"真不懂你看上了亨特哪一点。"
读书笔记
是否公开
27
-
‘I don’t know what you see in Hunter.’
读书笔记
是否公开
28
-
"这你可管不着。"
读书笔记
是否公开
28
-
‘That’s my business.’
读书笔记
是否公开
29
-
菲利普垂下眼睑,满肚子的话却不知从何说起。他怕失言丢丑。罗斯站起身来。
读书笔记
是否公开
29
-
Philip looked down. He could not bring himself to say what was in his heart. He was afraid of humiliating himself. Rose got up.
读书笔记
是否公开
30
-
"飞得上健身房去了,"他说。
读书笔记
是否公开
30
-
‘I’ve got to go to the Gym,’ he said.
读书笔记
是否公开
31
-
他昂首阔步走到门口时,菲利普硬从喉咙日挤出一句话来:
读书笔记
是否公开
31
-
When he was at the door Philip forced himself to speak.
Rose slammed the door behind him and left Philip alone. Philip shivered with rage. He went back to his study and turned the conversation over in his mind. He hated Rose now, he wanted to hurt him, he thought of biting things he might have said to him. He brooded over the end to their friendship and fancied that others were talking of it. In his sensitiveness he saw sneers and wonderings in other fellows’ manner when they were not bothering their heads with him at all. He imagined to himself what they were saying.
读书笔记
是否公开
35
-
"毕竟是好景不长嘛。真不知道他怎么会和凯里好上的,那么个讨厌家伙!"
读书笔记
是否公开
35
-
‘After all, it wasn’t likely to last long. I wonder he ever stuck Carey at all. Blighter!’
To show his indifference he struck up a violent friendship with a boy called Sharp whom he hated and despised. He was a London boy, with a loutish air, a heavy fellow with the beginnings of a moustache on his lip and bushy eyebrows that joined one another across the bridge of his nose. He had soft hands and manners too suave for his years. He spoke with the suspicion of a cockney accent.
He was one of those boys who are too slack to play games, and he exercised great ingenuity in making excuses to avoid such as were compulsory . He was regarded by boys and masters with a vague dislike, and it was from arrogance that Philip now sought his society. Sharp in a couple of terms was going to Germany for a year. He hated school, which he looked upon as an indignity to be endured till he was old enough to go out into the world. London was all he cared for, and he had many stories to tell of his doings there during the holidays.
From his conversation—he spoke in a soft, deep-toned voice—there emerged the vague rumour of the London streets by night. Philip listened to him at once fascinated and repelled . With his vivid fancy he seemed to see the surging throng round the pit-door of theatres, and the glitter of cheap restaurants, bars where men, half drunk, sat on high stools talking with barmaids; and under the street lamps the mysterious passing of dark crowds bent upon pleasure. Sharp lent him cheap novels from Holywell Row, which Philip read in his cubicle with a sort of wonderful fear.
读书笔记
是否公开
39
-
有一回,罗斯试图同菲利普言归于好。他性情温和,不喜欢结冤树敌。
读书笔记
是否公开
39
-
Once Rose tried to effect a reconciliation . He was a good-natured fellow, who did not like having enemies.
读书笔记
是否公开
40
-
"我说,凯里,你发这么大的傻劲,何苦来着?你不理睬我,对你自己又有什么好处呢?"
读书笔记
是否公开
40
-
‘I say, Carey, why are you being such a silly ass? It doesn’t do you any good cutting me and all that.’
Rose shrugged his shoulders and left him. Philip was very white, as he always became when he was moved, and his heart beat violently. When Rose went away he felt suddenly sick with misery . He did not know why he had answered in that fashion. He would have given anything to be friends with Rose. He hated to have quarrelled with him, and now that he saw he had given him pain he was very sorry.