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

deal longer than at one time he would have thought possible. He was too stout and no artful arrangement of his fair hair could conceal the fact that he was bald. His blue eyes were dull and pale. It was not hard to guess that he drank too much.

“What on earth made you think of going out to the Cape?” asked Philip.

“Oh, I don’t know, I thought I ought to.”

Philip was silent. He felt rather silly. He understood that Hayward was being driven by an uneasiness in his soul which he could not account for. Some power within him made it seem necessary to go and fight for his country. It was strange, since he considered patriotism no more than a prejudice, and, flattering himself on his cosmopolitanism, he had looked upon England as a place of exile. His countrymen in the mass wounded his susceptibilities. Philip wondered what it was that made people do things which were so contrary to all their theories of life. It would have been reasonable for Hayward to stand aside and watch with a smile while the barbarians slaughtered one another. It looked as though men were puppets in the hands of an unknown force, which drove them to do this and that; and sometimes they used their reason to justify their actions; and when this was impossible they did the actions in despite of reason.

“People are very extraordinary,” said Philip. “I should never have expected you to go out as a trooper.”

Hayward smiled, slightly embarrassed, and said nothing.

“I was examined yesterday,” he remarked at last. “It was worth while undergoing the gêne of it to know that one was perfectly fit.”

Philip noticed that he still used a French word in an affected way when an English one would have served. But just then Macalister came in.

“I wanted to see you, Carey,” he said. “My people don’t feel inclined to hold those shares any more, the market’s in such an awful state, and they want you to take them up.”

Philip’s heart sank. He knew that was impossible. It meant that he must accept the loss. His pride made him answer calmly.

“I don’t know that I think that’s worth while. You’d better sell them.”

“It’s all very fine to say that, I’m not sure if I can. The market’s stagnant, there are no buyers.”

“But they’re marked down at one and an eighth.”

“Oh yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. You can’t get that for them.”

Philip did not say anything for a moment. He was trying to collect himself.

“D’you mean to say they’re worth nothing at all?”

“Oh, I don’t say that. Of course they’re worth something, but you see, nobody’s buying them now.”

“Then you must just sell them for what you can get.”

Macalister looked at Philip narrowly. He wondered whether he was very hard hit.

“I’m awfully sorry, old man, but we’re all in the same boat. No one thought the war was going to hang on this way. I put you into them, but I was in myself too.”

“It doesn’t matter at all,” said Philip. “One has to take one’s chance.”

He moved back to the table from which he had got up to talk to Macalister. He was dumbfounded; his head suddenly began to ache furiously; but he did not want them to think him unmanly. He sat on for an hour. He laughed feverishly at everything they said. At last he got up to go.

“You take it pretty coolly,” said Macalister, shaking hands with him. “I don’t suppose anyone likes losing between three and four hundred pounds.”

When Philip got back to his shabby little room he flung himself on his bed, and gave himself over to his despair. He kept on regretting his folly bitterly; and though he told himself that it was absurd to regret for what had happened was inevitable just because it had happened, he could not help himself. He was utterly miserable. He could not sleep. He remembered all the ways he had wasted money during the last few years. His head ached dreadfully.

The following evening there came by the last post the statement of his account. He examined his passbook. He found that when he had paid everything he would have seven pounds left. Seven pounds! He was thankful he had been able to pay. It would have been horrible to be obliged to confess to Macalister that he had not the money. He was dressing in the eye-department during the summer session, and he had bought an ophthalmoscope off a student who had one to sell. He had not paid for this, but he lacked the courage to tell the student that he wanted to go back on his bargain. Also he had to buy certain books. He had about five pounds to go on with. It lasted him six weeks; then he wrote to his uncle a letter which he thought very businesslike; he said that owing to the war he had had grave losses and could not go on with his studies unless his uncle came to his help. He suggested that the Vicar should lend him a hundred and fifty pounds paid over the next eighteen months in monthly instalments; he would pay interest on this and promised to refund the capital by degrees when he began to earn money. He would be qualified in a year and a half at the latest, and he could be pretty sure then of getting an assistantship at three pounds a week. His uncle wrote back that he could do nothing. It was not fair to ask him to sell out when everything was at its worst, and the little he had he felt that his duty to himself made it necessary for him to keep in case of illness. He ended the letter with a little homily. He had warned Philip time after time, and Philip had never paid any attention to him; he could not honestly say he was surprised; he had long expected that this would