Of Human Bondage. Уильям Сомерсет Моэм

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      Mr. Carey told him to put the bricks away at once, and stood over him while Philip did so.

      “You’re a very naughty boy,” he repeated. “Think of the grief you’re causing your poor mother in heaven.”

      Philip felt inclined to cry, but he had an instinctive disinclination to letting other people see his tears, and he clenched his teeth to prevent the sobs from escaping. Mr. Carey sat down in his arm-chair and began to turn over the pages of a book. Philip stood at the window. The vicarage was set back from the highroad to Tercanbury, and from the dining-room one saw a semicircular strip of lawn and then as far as the horizon green fields. Sheep were grazing in them. The sky was forlorn and gray. Philip felt infinitely unhappy.

      Presently Mary Ann came in to lay the tea, and Aunt Louisa descended the stairs.

      “Have you had a nice little nap, William?” she asked.

      “No,” he answered. “Philip made so much noise that I couldn’t sleep a wink.”

      This was not quite accurate, for he had been kept awake by his own thoughts; and Philip, listening sullenly, reflected that he had only made a noise once, and there was no reason why his uncle should not have slept before or after. When Mrs. Carey asked for an explanation the Vicar narrated the facts.

      “He hasn’t even said he was sorry,” he finished.

      “Oh, Philip, I’m sure you’re sorry,” said Mrs. Carey, anxious that the child should not seem wickeder to his uncle than need be.

      Philip did not reply. He went on munching his bread and butter. He did not know what power it was in him that prevented him from making any expression of regret. He felt his ears tingling, he was a little inclined to cry, but no word would issue from his lips.

      “You needn’t make it worse by sulking,” said Mr. Carey.

      Tea was finished in silence. Mrs. Carey looked at Philip surreptitiously now and then, but the Vicar elaborately ignored him. When Philip saw his uncle go upstairs to get ready for church he went into the hall and got his hat and coat, but when the Vicar came downstairs and saw him, he said:

      “I don’t wish you to go to church tonight, Philip. I don’t think you’re in a proper frame of mind to enter the House of God.”

      Philip did not say a word. He felt it was a deep humiliation that was placed upon him, and his cheeks reddened. He stood silently watching his uncle put on his broad hat and his voluminous cloak. Mrs. Carey as usual went to the door to see him off. Then she turned to Philip.

      “Never mind, Philip, you won’t be a naughty boy next Sunday, will you, and then your uncle will take you to church with him in the evening.”

      She took off his hat and coat, and led him into the dining-room.

      “Shall you and I read the service together, Philip, and we’ll sing the hymns at the harmonium. Would you like that?”

      Philip shook his head decidedly. Mrs. Carey was taken aback. If he would not read the evening service with her she did not know what to do with him.

      “Then what would you like to do until your uncle comes back?” she asked helplessly.

      Philip broke his silence at last.

      “I want to be left alone,” he said.

      “Philip, how can you say anything so unkind? Don’t you know that your uncle and I only want your good? Don’t you love me at all?”

      “I hate you. I wish you was dead.”

      Mrs. Carey gasped. He said the words so savagely that it gave her quite a start. She had nothing to say. She sat down in her husband’s chair; and as she thought of her desire to love the friendless, crippled boy and her eager wish that he should love her–she was a barren woman and, even though it was clearly God’s will that she should be childless, she could scarcely bear to look at little children sometimes, her heart ached so–the tears rose to her eyes and one by one, slowly, rolled down her cheeks. Philip watched her in amazement. She took out her handkerchief, and now she cried without restraint. Suddenly Philip realised that she was crying because of what he had said, and he was sorry. He went up to her silently and kissed her. It was the first kiss he had ever given her without being asked. And the poor lady, so small in her black satin, shrivelled up and sallow, with her funny corkscrew curls, took the little boy on her lap and put her arms around him and wept as though her heart would break. But her tears were partly tears of happiness, for she felt that the strangeness between them was gone. She loved him now with a new love because he had made her suffer.

      IX

      On the following Sunday, when the Vicar was making his preparations to go into the drawing-room for his nap–all the actions of his life were conducted with ceremony–and Mrs. Carey was about to go upstairs, Philip asked:

      “What shall I do if I’m not allowed to play?”

      “Can’t you sit still for once and be quiet?”

      “I can’t sit still till tea-time.”

      Mr. Carey looked out of the window, but it was cold and raw, and he could not suggest that Philip should go into the garden.

      “I know what you can do. You can learn by heart the collect for the day.”

      He took the prayer-book which was used for prayers from the harmonium, and turned the pages till he came to the place he wanted.

      “It’s not a long one. If you can say it without a mistake when I come in to tea you shall have the top of my egg.”

      Mrs. Carey drew up Philip’s chair to the dining-room table–they had bought him a high chair by now–and placed the book in front of him.

      “The devil finds work for idle hands to do,” said Mr. Carey.

      He put some more coals on the fire so that there should be a cheerful blaze when he came in to tea, and went into the drawing-room. He loosened his collar, arranged the cushions, and settled himself comfortably on the sofa. But thinking the drawing-room a little chilly, Mrs. Carey brought him a rug from the hall; she put it over his legs and tucked it round his feet. She drew the blinds so that the light should not offend his eyes, and since he had closed them already went out of the room on tiptoe. The Vicar was at peace with himself today, and in ten minutes he was asleep. He snored softly.

      It was the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, and the collect began with the words: O God, whose blessed Son was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, and make us the sons of God, and heirs of Eternal life. Philip read it through. He could make no sense of it. He began saying the words aloud to himself, but many of them were unknown to him, and the construction of the sentence was strange. He could not get more than two lines in his head. And his attention was constantly wandering: there were fruit trees trained on the walls of the vicarage, and a long twig beat now and then against the windowpane; sheep grazed stolidly in the field beyond the garden. It seemed as though there were knots inside his brain. Then panic seized him that he would not know the words by tea-time, and he kept on whispering them to himself quickly; he did not try to understand, but merely to get them parrot-like into his memory.

      Mrs. Carey could not sleep that afternoon, and by four o’clock СКАЧАТЬ