Chapter 23 Chapter Twenty-Three

Philip thought of Royal Canterbury College occasionally, and could not help laughing to himself when he thought of what they had been doing at such and such a time before.He often dreamed that he was still there, and when he woke up and realized that he was lying in the small room in the turret, he felt an extraordinary satisfaction in his heart.From the head of his bed he could see the great cumulus clouds floating in the blue sky.He enjoyed the joy of freedom to the fullest.He went to bed when he liked, and got up when he liked.No one is giving orders in front of him anymore, asking him to do this or that.It suddenly occurred to him that he would no longer need to lie against his will in the future.

According to the arrangement, Professor Olin taught Philip Latin and German, and a Frenchman came to give him French lessons every day; in addition, the professor's wife also recommended an Englishman to teach him mathematics.The man's name is Wharton, and he is currently studying linguistics at Heidelberg University, planning to get a degree.Philip went to him every morning.He lived on the top floor of a dilapidated house. The room was dirty and messy, full of pungent and strange smells, and all kinds of filth gave off all kinds of stench.When Philip came here at ten o'clock, he was often still not up, and then he jumped up, put on a sloppy pajamas, felt slippers, and began to teach while eating a simple breakfast. .He was short and potbellied from drinking beer.A thick, black mustache, and shaggy hair.He has been in Germany for five years, and he has become completely Teutonic.He had a degree from Cambridge, but he always spoke of that university with irony; after taking his doctorate at Heidelberg, he would have to return to England to start his career as a schoolteacher; , and terrified.He likes the life of a German university very much, it is unrestrained and leisurely, and he is accompanied by good friends day and night.He was a member of the Burschenschft and had promised to take Philip to Kneip whenever.He was very poor, and he told Philip frankly that his lessons were directly related to whether he had meat for his lunch, or bread and cheese.Sometimes, he drank heavily overnight, and the next day he had a splitting headache and couldn't even drink a cup of coffee. When he was teaching, he was naturally groggy and unable to cheer up.For such occasions, he stashed a few bottles of beer under his bed; a drink and a cigarette would help him bear the burdens of life.

"You need something in the glass to hangover," he often said while carefully pouring the wine for himself, so as not to let the foam on the surface of the wine delay his drinking time. Then he talked to Philip about things at Heidelberg University, about the disputes between the two factions in the Student Union, about the duels, about the merits and demerits of this and that professor, and so on.Philip learned more of the world from him than he learned of mathematics.Sometimes Wharton leaned back in his chair and said with a chuckle: "Look, we didn't do anything today, and you don't have to pay for my lessons."

"Oh, never mind," said Philip. Wharton's story was fresh and very interesting, and Philip felt that it was more important than trigonometry, a subject which, indeed, he could never understand.Now it was as if a window of life had been opened before him, and he had the opportunity to peek in through the window, and while peeking, his heart was still pounding. "No, keep your shitty money," Wharton said. "And what are you having for lunch?" said Philip, smiling, for he knew the teacher's financial situation like the back of his hand. Wharton even asked Philip to change his two shillings per lesson from a monthly payment to a weekly payment, so that it would be less troublesome to calculate the money.

"Oh, don't worry about what I eat. It's not the first time I've had a bottle of beer for dinner. As a result, my mind is clearer than ever." After that, he quickly got under the bed (the sheets on the bed were already dark gray due to not changing them frequently), and brought out another bottle of beer.Philip, being young and ignorant of the magic of life, refused to share his glass with him, so he went on drinking to himself. "How long are you going to be here?" Wharton asked. He and Philip simply put aside the pretense of mathematics and talked more and more freely.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe a year. My family wants me to go to Oxford after a year." Wharton shrugged, his face full of disdain.For the first time in Philip's life he had seen so much disrespect for such a great institution. "What do you go there for? It's all about hanging out there and getting a coat of gold. Why don't you go to college here? One year doesn't work, it takes five years. You know, there are two treasures in life: Freedom of thought and freedom of action. In France, you have freedom of action, you can do what you like, no one will interfere, but you must think with others. In Germany, you must act with others, but you love Think what you want. Both things are very valuable. Personally, I prefer freedom of thought. In England, however, there is no freedom of any kind: stifled by stereotypes, neither Thoughts, and you can't act as you want. That's because it's a democracy. I think it's worse in America."

He leaned back cautiously, because one leg of the chair he was sitting on was already a little wobbly. If he suddenly fell to the ground while he was talking loudly and witty words, it would be a disaster. "I'll have to go back to England within the year, but if I can save up enough money to get by, I'll stay here another year. Then I'll have to go back anyway, and I'll have to part with everything here. ' He waved one arm about the filthy attic.In the room, the bedding was messy, the clothes were scattered all over the floor, there was a row of empty beer bottles against the wall, and torn books with broken backs and faces were piled up in every corner. "Go to a certain university in another province and try to get a professorship of linguistics. Then I will play tennis and attend tea parties." He stopped talking suddenly and looked at Philip suspiciously.Philip was neatly dressed, his collar was spotless, and his hair was neatly combed. "Yo my god, I need to wash my face."

Philip felt himself being reproached intolerably for being well dressed, and flushed.He has also recently begun to pay attention to dressing up, and has brought a few carefully selected beautiful ties from England. Xia Tian accidentally came to the world as a conqueror.Every day is sunny and sunny.The blue sky reveals an arrogance, which pricks people's nerves like kicking a spur.The lush green in the garden in the middle of the street is thick, rough, and aggressive; and the rows of houses, under the sun, reflect dazzling white light, which stimulates your senses and finally makes you unbearable.Sometimes, when Philip came out from Wharton, he would find a bench to sit down in the shade of the trees in the garden in the middle of the street to rest on the way, watching the golden patterns intertwined on the ground by the bright sunlight through the luxuriant branches and leaves. .His soul danced with joy like sunshine.He was intoxicated in the joy of taking a break from his busy schedule.Sometimes Philip wandered the streets of the ancient city.He gazed with admiration at the students who belonged to the University Union, their faces scratched and bloodstained, wearing colorful hats, strutting in the street.In the afternoon, he often wandered along the foothills with the girls in the professor's wife's apartment.Sometimes they walked up the river bank and had tea in the shaded beer gardens.In the evening, they wandered around the Stadtgarten, listening to small bands.

Philip soon learned the concerns of the people in the house.The professor's eldest daughter, Mademoiselle Tekla, was engaged to an Englishman who had spent a year at the apartment, studying German, and then returned home.The wedding was supposed to take place at the end of the year, but the young man wrote to say that his father, a rubber merchant in Slough, disapproved of the marriage, and Miss Tekla often shed tears of lovesickness.Sometimes, mother and daughter can be seen with wide-eyed eyes and tightly pursed mouths, chewing and swallowing a letter from the reluctant lover.Tekla was good at painting watercolours, and occasionally she and Philip, accompanied by another girl, went out to paint from life.Pretty Miss Hedwig also has love troubles.She is the daughter of a merchant in Berlin.A suave hussar officer fell in love with her.He is still a "Feng".But the parents of the hussar officer objected to their son marrying a woman of her stature, and she was sent to Heidelberg to make her forget him.But she, even if the sea was dry and the stones were rotten, could not forget him; she kept writing to him, and the lover did all he could to persuade his angry father to change his mind.Blushing, she told Philip all this, sighing charmingly as she went along, and showed him the picture of the Merry Lieutenant.Philip liked her best of all the girls at Mrs. Professor's flat, and always tried to be by her side when he went out for walks.He blushed to the ears when someone joked that he shouldn't be so overtly favoring one another.In front of Miss Hedwig, Philip confided his heart to the opposite sex for the first time, but it was purely by accident.What happened was like this: if the girls didn't go out, they would sing ditties in the living room covered with green velvet, and Miss Anna, who was always happy to help others, played the piano and sang for them hard.One of Miss Hedwig's favorite songs is called "Ich Liebe dieh" ("I Love You").One evening, after she had sung the song, she came out on the balcony, and Philip was standing beside her, looking up at the stars, when it occurred to him to say something about it.He opened his mouth and said:

"Ich Liebe dieh." He stuttered in German and searched for the words he needed.He really only paused for an instant, but just as he was about to go on, Miss Hedwig took up the conversation: "Ach, Hers Carey Sle mussen mlr nlehtdu sagen" (you are not allowed to speak to me like that in the second person singular). Philip felt hot all over. In fact, he didn't have the courage to be so intimate and presumptuous in front of the girl, but he couldn't think of words to justify for a while.It would be less chivalrous to explain to her that he was not expressing his own thoughts, but merely casually mentioning the title of a song.

"Entschnldipen Sie," (forgive your pardon) he said. "It's okay," she whispered. She smiled sweetly, quietly grabbed Philip's hand, squeezed it tightly, and then turned back into the living room. The next day Philip was so embarrassed in front of her that he could not speak a word.Out of shame Philip avoided her as much as possible.The girls invited him out for a walk as usual, but he politely declined, pleading that he had something to do.But Miss Hedwig saw an opportunity, and said to Philip in the absence of anyone else: "Why do you want that?" she said pleasantly. "I'm not mad at you for what you said last night, you know. There's nothing you can do if you love me. I'm glad." .But, though I am not officially engaged to Hermann, I will never love anyone else, and I consider myself his bride." Philip blushed again, but this time he looked as if his courtship had been rejected. "I hope you are very happy," said he.