Three weeks later Philip saw Mildred and her baby off to Brighton. She had made a quick recovery and looked better than he had ever seen her. She was going to a boarding-house where she had spent a couple of weekends with Emil Miller , and had written to say that her husband was obliged to go to Germany on business and she was coming down with her baby. She got pleasure out of the stories she invented, and she showed a certain fertility of invention in the working out of the details.
Mildred proposed to find in Brighton some woman who would be willing to take charge of the baby. Philip was startled at the callousness with which she insisted on getting rid of it so soon, but she argued with common sense that the poor child had much better be put somewhere before it grew used to her. Philip had expected the maternal instinct to make itself felt when she had had the baby two or three weeks and had counted on this to help him persuade her to keep it; but nothing of the sort occurred.
Mildred was not unkind to her baby; she did all that was necessary; it amused her sometimes, and she talked about it a good deal; but at heart she was indifferent to it. She could not look upon it as part of herself. She fancied it resembled its father already. She was continually wondering how she would manage when it grew older; and she was exasperated with herself for being such a fool as to have it at all.
读书笔记
是否公开
4
-
"要是我当初像现在这么清醒就好了,"她嘟哝了一句。
读书笔记
是否公开
4
-
‘If I’d only known then all I do now,’ she said.
读书笔记
是否公开
5
-
她嘲笑菲利普,因为他为了那孩子的幸福而操心,简直到了忧心如焚的地步。
读书笔记
是否公开
5
-
She laughed at Philip, because he was anxious about its welfare.
Philip’s mind was full of the stories he had heard of baby-farming and the ghouls who ill-treat the wretched children that selfish, cruel parents have put in their charge.
‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Mildred. ‘That’s when you give a woman a sum down to look after a baby. But when you’re going to pay so much a week it’s to their interest to look after it well.’
读书笔记
是否公开
9
-
菲利普坚持要米尔德丽德把孩子交给自己没有生养过孩子的妇人抚养,并要她保证不再领别的孩子。
读书笔记
是否公开
9
-
Philip insisted that Mildred should place the child with people who had no children of their own and would promise to take no other.
读书笔记
是否公开
10
-
"别计较工钱,"他接着说,"我宁愿一周出半个畿厄,也不愿让这孩子去遭受饥饿或毒打。"
读书笔记
是否公开
10
-
‘Don’t haggle about the price,’ he said. ‘I’d rather pay half a guinea a week than run any risk of the kid being starved or beaten.’
To him there was something very touching in the child’s helplessness. It was small, ugly, and querulous. Its birth had been looked forward to with shame and anguish . Nobody wanted it. It was dependent on him, a stranger, for food, shelter, and clothes to cover its nakedness.
读书笔记
是否公开
13
-
火车启动时,他吻了吻米尔德丽德。他本想也亲亲那个小家伙,可生怕米尔德丽德因此而讥笑他。
读书笔记
是否公开
13
-
As the train started he kissed Mildred. He would have kissed the baby too, but he was afraid she would laugh at him.
读书笔记
是否公开
14
-
"你会给我来信的,亲爱的,是不?我盼望着你快点回来,哦,我简直都等不及了!"
读书笔记
是否公开
14
-
‘You will write to me, darling, won’t you? And I shall look forward to your coming back with oh! such impatience .’
He had been working for it industriously , and now with only ten days before him he made a final effort. He was very anxious to pass, first to save himself time and expense, for money had been slipping through his fingers during the last four months with incredible speed; and then because this examination marked the end of the drudgery : after that the student had to do with medicine, midwifery, and surgery, the interest of which was more vivid than the anatomy and physiology with which he had been hitherto concerned.
Philip looked forward with interest to the rest of the curriculum. Nor did he want to have to confess to Mildred that he had failed: though the examination was difficult and the majority of candidates were ploughed at the first attempt, he knew that she would think less well of him if he did not succeed; she had a peculiarly humiliating way of showing what she thought.
Mildred sent him a postcard to announce her safe arrival, and he snatched half an hour every day to write a long letter to her. He had always a certain shyness in expressing himself by word of mouth, but he found he could tell her, pen in hand, all sorts of things which it would have made him feel ridiculous to say. Profiting by the discovery he poured out to her his whole heart. He had never been able to tell her before how his adoration filled every part of him so that all his actions, all his thoughts, were touched with it.
He wrote to her of the future, the happiness that lay before him, and the gratitude which he owed her. He asked himself (he had often asked himself before but had never put it into words) what it was in her that filled him with such extravagant delight; he did not know; he knew only that when she was with him he was happy, and when she was away from him the world was on a sudden cold and gray; he knew only that when he thought of her his heart seemed to grow big in his body so that it was difficult to breathe (as if it pressed against his lungs) and it throbbed , so that the delight of her presence was almost pain; his knees shook, and he felt strangely weak as though, not having eaten, he were tremulous from want of food.
He looked forward eagerly to her answers. He did not expect her to write often, for he knew that letter-writing came difficultly to her; and he was quite content with the clumsy little note that arrived in reply to four of his. She spoke of the boarding-house in which she had taken a room, of the weather and the baby, told him she had been for a walk on the front with a lady-friend whom she had met in the boarding-house and who had taken such a fancy to baby, she was going to the theatre on Saturday night, and Brighton was filling up. It touched Philip because it was so matter-of-fact. The crabbed style, the formality of the matter, gave him a queer desire to laugh and to take her in his arms and kiss her.
He went into the examination with happy confidence. There was nothing in either of the papers that gave him trouble. He knew that he had done well, and though the second part of the examination was viva voce and he was more nervous, he managed to answer the questions adequately. He sent a triumphant telegram to Mildred when the result was announced.
When he got back to his rooms Philip found a letter from her, saying that she thought it would be better for her to stay another week in Brighton. She had found a woman who would be glad to take the baby for seven shillings a week, but she wanted to make inquiries about her, and she was herself benefiting so much by the sea-air that she was sure a few days more would do her no end of good. She hated asking Philip for money, but would he send some by return, as she had had to buy herself a new hat, she couldn’t go about with her lady-friend always in the same hat, and her lady-friend was so dressy. Philip had a moment of bitter disappointment. It took away all his pleasure at getting through his examination.
读书笔记
是否公开
23
-
"要足她对我怀有的情意有我对她的那份情意的四分之一,那她也就决不忍心在外多呆一大的。"
读书笔记
是否公开
23
-
‘If she loved me one quarter as much as I love her she couldn’t bear to stay away a day longer than necessary.’
He put the thought away from him quickly; it was pure selfishness; of course her health was more important than anything else. But he had nothing to do now; he might spend the week with her in Brighton, and they could be together all day. His heart leaped at the thought. It would be amusing to appear before Mildred suddenly with the information that he had taken a room in the boarding-house. He looked out trains. But he paused.
He was not certain that she would be pleased to see him; she had made friends in Brighton; he was quiet, and she liked boisterousjoviality ; he realised that she amused herself more with other people than with him. It would torture him if he felt for an instant that he was in the way. He was afraid to risk it. He dared not even write and suggest that, with nothing to keep him in town, he would like to spend the week where he could see her every day. She knew he had nothing to do; if she wanted him to come she would have asked him to. He dared not risk the anguish he would suffer if he proposed to come and she made excuses to prevent him.
He wrote to her next day, sent her a five-pound note, and at the end of his letter said that if she were very nice and cared to see him for the week-end he would be glad to run down; but she was by no means to alter any plans she had made. He awaited her answer with impatience. In it she said that if she had only known before she could have arranged it, but she had promised to go to a music-hall on the Saturday night; besides, it would make the people at the boarding-house talk if he stayed there. Why did he not come on Sunday morning and spend the day? They could lunch at the Metropole, and she would take him afterwards to see the very superior lady-like person who was going to take the baby.
Sunday. He blessed the day because it was fine. As the train approached Brighton the sun poured through the carriage window. Mildred was waiting for him on the platform.
读书笔记
是否公开
28
-
"你跑来接我真好极了!"菲利普一边嚷道,一边紧紧地攥住她的手。
读书笔记
是否公开
28
-
‘How jolly of you to come and meet me!’ he cried, as he seized her hands.
读书笔记
是否公开
29
-
"你也真希望我来嘛,不是这样吗?"
读书笔记
是否公开
29
-
‘You expected me, didn’t you?’
读书笔记
是否公开
30
-
"我想你一定会来的。啃,你的气色挺好的哩!"
读书笔记
是否公开
30
-
‘I hoped you would. I say, how well you’re looking.’
‘It’s done me a rare lot of good, but I think I’m wise to stay here as long as I can. And there are a very nice class of people at the boarding-house. I wanted cheering up after seeing nobody all these months. It was dull sometimes.’
She looked very smart in her new hat, a large black straw with a great many inexpensive flowers on it; and round her neck floated a long boa of imitation swansdown. She was still very thin, and she stooped a little when she walked (she had always done that,) but her eyes did not seem so large; and though she never had any colour, her skin had lost the earthy look it had. They walked down to the sea. Philip, remembering he had not walked with her for months, grew suddenly conscious of his limp and walked stiffly in the attempt to conceal it.
读书笔记
是否公开
33
-
"看到我你高兴吗?"他问米尔德丽德。此时此刻,他心里激荡着狂热的爱。
读书笔记
是否公开
33
-
‘Are you glad to see me?’ he asked, love dancing madly in his heart.
He had talked to her a great deal of Griffiths. He had told her how flirtatious he was and had amused her often with the narration of some adventure which Griffiths under the seal of secrecy had imparted to him. Mildred had listened, with some pretence of disgust sometimes, but generally with curiosity; and Philip, admiringly, had enlarged upon his friend’s good looks and charm.
读书笔记
是否公开
38
-
"你肯定会跟我一样地喜欢他的。他那个人生性欢快、有趣,是个很好的好人。"
读书笔记
是否公开
38
-
‘I’m sure you’ll like him just as much as I do. He’s so jolly and amusing, and he’s such an awfully good sort.’
Philip told her how, when they were perfect strangers, Griffiths had nursed him through an illness; and in the telling Griffiths’ self-sacrifice lost nothing.
Philip had no one but Griffiths to talk to of his love for Mildred, and little by little had told him the whole story of his connection with her. He described her to him fifty times. He dwelt amorously on every detail of her appearance, and Griffiths knew exactly how her thin hands were shaped and how white her face was, and he laughed at Philip when he talked of the charm of her pale, thin lips.
读书笔记
是否公开
45
-
"啊!我高兴的是我可不像你那样拙劣地对待事物,"他说。"否则,人活在世上就没有意思了。"
读书笔记
是否公开
45
-
‘By Jove, I’m glad I don’t take things so badly as that,’ he said. ‘Life wouldn’t be worth living.’