Of Human Bondage 人性的枷锁 Chapter 79

Philip went up to London a couple of days before the session began in order to find himself rooms. He hunted about the streets that led out of the Westminster Bridge Road, but their dinginess ¹ was distasteful to him; and at last he found one in Kennington which had a quiet and old-world air. It reminded one a little of the London which Thackeray knew on that side of the river, and in the Kennington Road, through which the great barouche of the Newcomes must have passed as it drove the family to the West of London, the plane-trees were bursting into leaf. The houses in the street which Philip fixed ² upon were two-storied, and in most of the windows was a notice to state that lodgings ³ were to let. He knocked at one which announced that the lodgings were unfurnished, and was shown by an austere ⁴, silent woman four very small rooms, in one of which there was a kitchen range and a sink. The rent was nine shillings a week. Philip did not want so many rooms, but the rent was low and he wished to settle down at once. He asked the landlady ⁵ if she could keep the place clean for him and cook his breakfast, but she replied that she had enough work to do without that; and he was pleased rather than otherwise because she intimated that she wished to have nothing more to do with him than to receive his rent. She told him that, if he inquired at the grocer's round the corner, which was also a post office, he might hear of a woman who would 'do' for him., ,Philip had a little furniture which he had gathered as he went along, an arm-chair that he had bought in Paris, and a table, a few drawings, and the small Persian rug which Cronshaw had given him. His uncle had offered a fold-up bed for which, now that he no longer let his house in August, he had no further use; and by spending another ten pounds Philip bought himself whatever else was essential. He spent ten shillings on putting a corn-coloured paper in the room he was making his parlour; and he hung on the walls a sketch ⁶ which Lawson had given him of the Quai des Grands Augustins, and the photograph of the Odalisque by Ingres and Manet's Olympia which in Paris had been the objects of his contemplation while he shaved. To remind himself that he too had once been engaged in the practice of art, he put up a charcoal ⁷ drawing of the young Spaniard Miguel Ajuria: it was the best thing he had ever done, a nude ⁸ standing ⁹ with clenched ¹⁰ hands, his feet gripping the floor with a peculiar ¹¹ force, and on his face that air of determination which had been so impressive; and though Philip after the long interval ¹² saw very well the defects of his work its associations made him look upon it with tolerance ¹³. He wondered what had happened to Miguel. There is nothing so terrible as the pursuit of art by those who have no talent. Perhaps, worn out by exposure, starvation, disease, he had found an end in some hospital, or in an access of despair had sought death in the turbid ¹⁴ Seine; but perhaps with his Southern instability he had given up the struggle of his own accord, and now, a clerk in some office in Madrid, turned his fervent ¹⁵ rhetoric ¹⁶ to politics and bull-fighting., ,Philip asked Lawson and Hayward to come and see his new rooms, and they came, one with a bottle of whiskey, the other with a pate ¹⁷ de foie gras; and he was delighted when they praised his taste. He would have invited the Scotch ¹⁸ stockbroker ¹⁹ too, but he had only three chairs, and thus could entertain only a definite number of guests. Lawson was aware that through him Philip had become very friendly with Norah Nesbit and now remarked that he had run across her a few days before., , ,Philip flushed at the mention of her name (he could not get himself out of the awkward habit of reddening when he was embarrassed), and Lawson looked at him quizzically. Lawson, who now spent most of the year in London, had so far surrendered to his environment as to wear his hair short and to dress himself in a neat serge suit and a bowler ²⁰ hat., ,'I gather that all is over between you,' he said., ,She hated dinginess as much as her mother had hated it. 她同母亲一样 ，对贫困寒酸的日子深恶痛绝。 来自辞典例句,Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？