Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham (best novels to read txt) 📗

the hospital and was tired out. Leonard Upjohn came to him, while he was making himself a cup of tea in the kitchen, and said that Cronshaw was complaining of Philip’s insistence that he should have a doctor.

“Don’t you realise that you’re enjoying a very rare, a very exquisite privilege? You ought to do everything in your power, surely, to show your sense of the greatness of your trust.”

“It’s a rare and exquisite privilege which I can ill afford,” said Philip.

Whenever there was any question of money, Leonard Upjohn assumed a slightly disdainful expression. His sensitive temperament was offended by the reference.

“There’s something fine in Cronshaw’s attitude, and you disturb it by your importunity. You should make allowances for the delicate imaginings which you cannot feel.”

Philip’s face darkened.

“Let us go in to Cronshaw,” he said frigidly.

The poet was lying on his back, reading a book, with a pipe in his mouth. The air was musty; and the room, notwithstanding Philip’s tidying up, had the bedraggled look which seemed to accompany Cronshaw wherever he went. He took off his spectacles as they came in. Philip was in a towering rage.

“Upjohn tells me you’ve been complaining to him because I’ve urged you to have a doctor,” he said. “I want you to have a doctor, because you may die any day, and if you hadn’t been seen by anyone I shouldn’t be able to get a certificate. There’d have to be an inquest and I should be blamed for not calling a doctor in.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. I thought you wanted me to see a doctor for my sake and not for your own. I’ll see a doctor whenever you like.”

Philip did not answer, but gave an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders. Cronshaw, watching him, gave a little chuckle.

“Don’t look so angry, my dear. I know very well you want to do everything you can for me. Let’s see your doctor, perhaps he can do something for me, and at any rate it’ll comfort you.” He turned his eyes to Upjohn. “You’re a damned fool, Leonard. Why d’you want to worry the boy? He has quite enough to do to put up with me. You’ll do nothing more for me than write a pretty article about me after my death. I know you.”

Next day Philip went to Dr. Tyrell. He felt that he was the sort of man to be interested by the story, and as soon as Tyrell was free of his day’s work he accompanied Philip to Kennington. He could only agree with what Philip had told him. The case was hopeless.

“I’ll take him into the hospital if you like,” he said. “He can have a small ward.”

“Nothing would induce him to come.”

“You know, he may die any minute, or else he may get another attack of pneumonia.”

Philip nodded. Dr. Tyrell made one or two suggestions, and promised to come again whenever Philip wanted him to. He left his address. When Philip went back to Cronshaw he found him quietly reading. He did not trouble to inquire what the doctor had said.

“Are you satisfied now, dear boy?” he asked.

“I suppose nothing will induce you to do any of the things Tyrell advised?”

“Nothing,” smiled Cronshaw.

LXXXV

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.

“I say, would you mind coming at once? I think Cronshaw’s dead.”

“If he is it’s not much good my coming, is it?”

“I should be awfully grateful if you would. I’ve got a cab at the door. It’ll only take half an hour.”

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.

“You’re rather upset,” said Dr. Tyrell.

He looked at him with his bright blue eyes. They were not unsympathetic. When he saw Cronshaw, he said:

“He must have been dead for some hours. I should think he died in his sleep. They do sometimes.”

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.

“Well, I must be getting along. I’ll send the certificate round. I suppose you’ll communicate with the relatives.”

“I don’t think there are any,” said Philip.

“How about the funeral?”

“Oh, I’ll see to that.”

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.

“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?”

Philip went home to eat his supper, and while he ate the woman came along to lay out the corpse. Presently a telegram arrived from Leonard Upjohn.

 

Shocked and grieved beyond measure. Regret cannot come tonight. Dining out. With you early tomorrow. Deepest sympathy. Upjohn.

 

In a little while the woman knocked at the door of the sitting-room.

“I’ve done now, sir. Will you come and look at ‘im and see it’s all right?”

Philip followed her. Cronshaw was lying on his back, with his eyes closed and his hands folded piously across his chest.

“You ought by rights to ‘ave a few flowers, sir.”

“I’ll get some tomorrow.”

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.

“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.

“I’ll put it over his heart instead,” said Upjohn.

“You’ve put it on his stomach,” remarked Philip.

Upjohn gave a thin smile.

“Only a poet knows where lies a poet’s heart,” he answered.

They went back into the sitting-room, and Philip told him what arrangements he had made for the funeral.

“I hoped you’ve spared no expense. I should like the hearse to be followed by a long string of empty coaches, and I should like the horses to wear tall nodding plumes, and there should be a vast number of mutes with long streamers on their hats. I like the thought of all those empty coaches.”

“As the cost of the funeral will apparently fall on me and I’m not over flush just now, I’ve tried to make it as moderate as possible.”

“But, my dear fellow, in that case, why didn’t you get him a pauper’s funeral? There would have been