Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham (epub e reader txt) 📖

“Have you?”

“If you still want me to go away with you on Saturday, Philip, I’ll come.”

A quick thrill of triumph shot through his heart, but it was a sensation that only lasted an instant; it was followed by a suspicion.

“Because of the money?” he asked.

“Partly,” she answered simply. “Harry can’t do anything. He owes five weeks here, and he owes you seven pounds, and his tailor’s pressing him for money. He’d pawn anything he could, but he’s pawned everything already. I had a job to put the woman off about my new dress, and on Saturday there’s the book at my lodgings, and I can’t get work in five minutes. It always means waiting some little time till there’s a vacancy.”

She said all this in an even, querulous tone, as though she were recounting the injustices of fate, which had to be borne as part of the natural order of things. Philip did not answer. He knew what she told him well enough.

“You said partly,” he observed at last.

“Well, Harry says you’ve been a brick to both of us. You’ve been a real good friend to him, he says, and you’ve done for me what p’raps no other man would have done. We must do the straight thing, he says. And he said what you said about him, that he’s fickle by nature, he’s not like you, and I should be a fool to throw you away for him. He won’t last and you will, he says so himself.”

“D’you want to come away with me?” asked Philip.

“I don’t mind.”

He looked at her, and the corners of his mouth turned down in an expression of misery. He had triumphed indeed, and he was going to have his way. He gave a little laugh of derision at his own humiliation. She looked at him quickly, but did not speak.

“I’ve looked forward with all my soul to going away with you, and I thought at last, after all that wretchedness, I was going to be happy⁠ ⁠…”

He did not finish what he was going to say. And then on a sudden, without warning, Mildred broke into a storm of tears. She was sitting in the chair in which Norah had sat and wept, and like her she hid her face on the back of it, towards the side where there was a little bump formed by the sagging in the middle, where the head had rested.

“I’m not lucky with women,” thought Philip.

Her thin body was shaken with sobs. Philip had never seen a woman cry with such an utter abandonment. It was horribly painful, and his heart was torn. Without realising what he did, he went up to her and put his arms round her; she did not resist, but in her wretchedness surrendered herself to his comforting. He whispered to her little words of solace. He scarcely knew what he was saying, he bent over her and kissed her repeatedly.

“Are you awfully unhappy?” he said at last.

“I wish I was dead,” she moaned. “I wish I’d died when the baby come.”

Her hat was in her way, and Philip took it off for her. He placed her head more comfortably in the chair, and then he went and sat down at the table and looked at her.

“It is awful, love, isn’t it?” he said. “Fancy anyone wanting to be in love.”

Presently the violence of her sobbing diminished and she sat in the chair, exhausted, with her head thrown back and her arms hanging by her side. She had the grotesque look of one of those painters’ dummies used to hang draperies on.

“I didn’t know you loved him so much as all that,” said Philip.

He understood Griffiths’ love well enough, for he put himself in Griffiths’ place and saw with his eyes, touched with his hands; he was able to think himself in Griffiths’ body, and he kissed her with his lips, smiled at her with his smiling blue eyes. It was her emotion that surprised him. He had never thought her capable of passion, and this was passion: there was no mistaking it. Something seemed to give way in his heart; it really felt to him as though something were breaking, and he felt strangely weak.

“I don’t want to make you unhappy. You needn’t come away with me if you don’t want to. I’ll give you the money all the same.”

She shook her head.

“No, I said I’d come, and I’ll come.”

“What’s the good, if you’re sick with love for him?”

“Yes, that’s the word. I’m sick with love. I know it won’t last, just as well as he does, but just now⁠ ⁠…”

She paused and shut her eyes as though she were going to faint. A strange idea came to Philip, and he spoke it as it came, without stopping to think it out.

“Why don’t you go away with him?”

“How can I? You know we haven’t got the money.”

“I’ll give you the money.”

“You?”

She sat up and looked at him. Her eyes began to shine, and the colour came into her cheeks.

“Perhaps the best thing would be to get it over, and then you’d come back to me.”

Now that he had made the suggestion he was sick with anguish, and yet the torture of it gave him a strange, subtle sensation. She stared at him with open eyes.

“Oh, how could we, on your money? Harry wouldn’t think of it.”

“Oh yes, he would, if you persuaded him.”

Her objections made him insist, and yet he wanted her with all his heart to refuse vehemently.

“I’ll give you a fiver, and you can go away from Saturday to Monday. You could easily do that. On Monday he’s going home till he takes up his appointment at the North London.”

“Oh, Philip, do you mean that?” she cried, clasping her hands. “If you could only let us go⁠—I would love you so much afterwards, I’d do anything for you. I’m sure I shall get over it if you’ll only do that. Would you really give us the money?”

“Yes,” he said.

She was