Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

at the recollection, and Mildred laughed too. She was pretty sure he had drunk more than was good for him. That was exactly what she had expected. She knew men.

“Can I sit down?” she said.

Before he could answer she settled herself on his knees.

“If you’re not going to bed you’d better go and put on a dressing-gown.”

“Oh, I’m all right as I am.” Then putting her arms round his neck, she placed her face against his and said: “Why are you so horrid to me, Phil?”

He tried to get up, but she would not let him.

“I do love you, Philip,” she said.

“Don’t talk damned rot.”

“It isn’t, it’s true. I can’t live without you. I want you.”

He released himself from her arms.

“Please get up. You’re making a fool of yourself and you’re making me feel a perfect idiot.”

“I love you, Philip. I want to make up for all the harm I did you. I can’t go on like this, it’s not in human nature.”

He slipped out of the chair and left her in it.

“I’m very sorry, but it’s too late.”

She gave a heartrending sob.

“But why? How can you be so cruel?”

“I suppose it’s because I loved you too much. I wore the passion out. The thought of anything of that sort horrifies me. I can’t look at you now without thinking of Emil and Griffiths. One can’t help those things, I suppose it’s just nerves.”

She seized his hand and covered it with kisses.

“Don’t,” he cried.

She sank back into the chair.

“I can’t go on like this. If you won’t love me, I’d rather go away.”

“Don’t be foolish, you haven’t anywhere to go. You can stay here as long as you like, but it must be on the definite understanding that we’re friends and nothing more.”

Then she dropped suddenly the vehemence of passion and gave a soft, insinuating laugh. She sidled up to Philip and put her arms round him. She made her voice low and wheedling.

“Don’t be such an old silly. I believe you’re nervous. You don’t know how nice I can be.”

She put her face against his and rubbed his cheek with hers. To Philip her smile was an abominable leer, and the suggestive glitter of her eyes filled him with horror. He drew back instinctively.

“I won’t,” he said.

But she would not let him go. She sought his mouth with her lips. He took her hands and tore them roughly apart and pushed her away.

“You disgust me,” he said.

“Me?”

She steadied herself with one hand on the chimneypiece. She looked at him for an instant, and two red spots suddenly appeared on her cheeks. She gave a shrill, angry laugh.

“I disgust you.”

She paused and drew in her breath sharply. Then she burst into a furious torrent of abuse. She shouted at the top of her voice. She called him every foul name she could think of. She used language so obscene that Philip was astounded; she was always so anxious to be refined, so shocked by coarseness, that it had never occurred to him that she knew the words she used now. She came up to him and thrust her face in his. It was distorted with passion, and in her tumultuous speech the spittle dribbled over her lips.

“I never cared for you, not once, I was making a fool of you always, you bored me, you bored me stiff, and I hated you, I would never have let you touch me only for the money, and it used to make me sick when I had to let you kiss me. We laughed at you, Griffiths and me, we laughed because you was such a mug. A mug! A mug!”

Then she burst again into abominable invective. She accused him of every mean fault; she said he was stingy, she said he was dull, she said he was vain, selfish; she cast virulent ridicule on everything upon which he was most sensitive. And at last she turned to go. She kept on, with hysterical violence, shouting at him an opprobrious, filthy epithet. She seized the handle of the door and flung it open. Then she turned round and hurled at him the injury which she knew was the only one that really touched him. She threw into the word all the malice and all the venom of which she was capable. She flung it at him as though it were a blow.

“Cripple!”

XCVII

Philip awoke with a start next morning, conscious that it was late, and looking at his watch found it was nine o’clock. He jumped out of bed and went into the kitchen to get himself some hot water to shave with. There was no sign of Mildred, and the things which she had used for her supper the night before still lay in the sink unwashed. He knocked at her door.

“Wake up, Mildred. It’s awfully late.”

She did not answer, even after a second louder knocking, and he concluded that she was sulking. He was in too great a hurry to bother about that. He put some water on to boil and jumped into his bath which was always poured out the night before in order to take the chill off. He presumed that Mildred would cook his breakfast while he was dressing and leave it in the sitting-room. She had done that two or three times when she was out of temper. But he heard no sound of her moving, and realised that if he wanted anything to eat he would have to get it himself. He was irritated that she should play him such a trick on a morning when he had overslept himself. There was still no sign of her when he was ready, but he heard her moving about her room. She was evidently getting up. He made himself some tea and cut himself a couple of pieces of bread and butter, which he ate while he was putting on his boots, then bolted downstairs and along the street into the main road