Chapter 30 Chapter Thirty

Philip was restless and unsatisfied physically and mentally.Hayward's poetic quotations made him dream, and his soul yearned for romance, at least, so he told himself. Just at this time an incident happened in Mrs. Erlin's apartment which made Philip's attention more and more on the sex question.Two or three times Philip, on his walks in the hills, came across Mademoiselle Cacilie wandering there by herself.Philip passed her, bowed to her, and went on; he had not gone far before he saw the Chinese again.At the time, he didn't think it was a problem; but one evening, when the night was already low, he passed two passers-by on his way home.The two men were close together, but they moved away as soon as they heard Philip's step.Philip could not see clearly in the dimness of the night, but it was almost certain that it was Cacilie and Monsieur Sung.The two of them separated in such a hurry, which shows that they walked away holding hands just now.Philip was surprised and a little confused.He never paid much attention to Cacilie.This girl is very ordinary, with a square face and not very delicate features.Since she braided her blond hair into long braids, she was under sixteen.Philip looked at her curiously at dinner that evening, and although she had been very quiet at table of late, she took the initiative to strike up a conversation with him.

"Where did you walk today, Mr. Carey?" she asked. "Oh, I walked a little way towards the throne hill." "I stayed in the house," she volunteered, "and my head hurts." The Chinese sitting next to her turned to her and said: "I'm sorry," he said, "I hope you're better now. Mademoiselle Cacilie was evidently troubled, for she asked Philip again: "Did you meet a lot of people on the way?" Philip told a big lie to his face, and couldn't help blushing. "No, I don't think I saw anyone." Philip felt a look of relief in her eyes.

Soon, however, it was impossible to have any doubts about their ambiguity.Other people in Mrs. Professor's apartment also saw them hiding in the dark and not knowing what they were doing.The old ladies sitting at the table now began to talk about it as a scandal.The Professor's wife was defiant and annoyed, but she did her best to pretend she didn't notice.It was almost midwinter now, not like summer, and it was not so easy to fill the apartment with tenants.Mr. Song is a no.A rare and good customer: he rented two rooms on the ground floor, and he drank a bottle of Moselle wine with every meal. The professor's wife charged him two marks for each bottle, which made him a good profit.However, her other lodgers did not drink alcohol, and some did not even drink beer.Nor did she want to lose a lodger like Miss Cacilie.Her parents, who were in business in South America, had paid handsomely for the motherly care of the professor's wife.The Frau Professor knew that if she wrote to Miss Cacilie's uncle, who lived in Berlin, he would take her away at once.So the Madame Professor contented herself with glares at them both at the dinner table; she dared not offend the Chinese, but she could vent her hatred by speaking ill at Mademoiselle Cacilie.But the three old ladies refused to stop there.There were three of them, two were widows, and one was a Dutch spinster who looked like a man.They paid as little as possible for board and lodging, and they were a constant nuisance, but they were permanent tenants, so they had to make do with it.They went to the professor's wife and said that it must be done decisively, that it was so indecent, and that the reputation of the whole apartment would be ruined.The professor's wife tried her best to fight, sometimes confronting the bull head-on, sometimes bursting into rage, and sometimes crying bitterly, but she was still no match for the three old ladies.In the end, she suddenly put on an attitude of hatred and hatred, and angrily expressed that she would close this public case.

After lunch, the Professor's wife took Cacilie to her bedroom and began to talk to her sharply.What surprised the Professor's wife was that Cacilie's attitude was so brazen, she openly offered to let her have her own way, if she was happy to walk with the Chinese gentleman, she could not see how it was different from others, it was her It's my own business.The professor's wife threatened to write to her uncle. "Then Uncle Heinrich will send me to spend the winter with someone in Berlin. Wouldn't it be better for me! Mr. Song will go to Berlin too." The Professor's wife began to wail, tears streaming down her red, thick, fat cheeks, while Cacilie continued to tease her.

"That's three rooms empty all winter," she said. Then, the professor's wife changed her strategy, trying to impress Cacilie's tenderness with soft skills: she was kind, sensible, and tolerant; she should not be treated like a girl anymore, she was already an adult.The professor's wife said, if it wasn't for the surname Song, things wouldn't have been so bad. Yellow skin, a snub nose, and a pair of small pig eyes are the crux of the panic.To think of that countenance is disgusting. "Bitte, Bitte!" said Cacilie, panting, "I don't want to hear a word of what he says."

"You're just saying that, aren't you?" Mrs. Erlin gasped. "I love him! I love him! I love him!" "Gott in Himmel!" The professor's wife stared at Mademoiselle Cacilie with a terrified expression.She thought all this was nothing more than girlish naughtiness, an ignorant nonsense.However, the intensity of emotion in her voice betrayed the whole truth.Cacilie looked at the professor's wife with her burning eyes, then shrugged her shoulders and walked away. Mrs. Erlin never said anything about the conversation.After a day or two, she changed the seats at the table.She asked Mr. Song if he would sit on her side, and Mr. Song, who has always been so gentle and elegant, readily agreed.Cacilie was indifferent to the change.It seemed that because their relationship was well known in the apartment anyway, they were all the more unscrupulous.Now, they no longer go out for a walk secretly together, but every afternoon they stroll down the hill and there.Obviously, they no longer care what other people say.At the end of the quarrel, even the mild-mannered Professor Olin could not hold back, and he insisted that his wife have a talk with that Song.The professor's wife pulled Mr. Song aside this time and advised him well: he shouldn't ruin the girl's reputation; he is endangering the reputation of the entire apartment; he must understand how absurd and evil his actions are.But what she got was flat, smiling denials; Mr. Sung didn't know what she was talking about, he was not interested in Miss Cacilie, he had never walked with her.All of this is pure fiction and speculation.

"Oh, Mr. Song, how can you say that? You two have been seen together more than once." "No, you're mistaken. There's no such thing." He always looked at the professor's wife with a smile, showing a set of neat, white fine teeth.He was poised and unrepentant.He boldly and gracefully denied it in every possible way.Finally, the Professor's wife got angry and said that the girl herself admitted that she was in love with him.But Mr. Song remained calm, with a smile on his face. "Bullshit! Bullshit! There's no such thing." Mrs. Professor couldn't get a word of truth out of his mouth.The weather gradually became very bad, with snow and frost.Then the ice thawed and the snow melted for several days, making people feel listless and walking outside became dull.One night, Philip had just finished his German class with the professor, and he was standing in the living room talking to Mrs. Orlin. Before he could say a few words, Anna rushed in.

"Mother, where's Cacilie?" she said. "Probably in her own room." "There is no light in her room." The professor let out a loud cry and looked at his daughter in dismay.The thoughts in Anna's head also flashed through her mind. "Ring the bell for Emil to come up here," she said hoarsely. Emil was a clumsy boy who waited at the table at mealtimes and left most of the housework to him alone.He responded and walked in. "Emile, go downstairs to Mr. Song's room, and don't knock on the door when you go in. If there is anyone in there, say you are here to look after the stove."

There was no sign of surprise on Emil's dull face. He walked slowly downstairs.The professor's wife, mother and daughter left the door open and paid attention to the movement downstairs.After a while, they heard Emil coming upstairs again, and they greeted him hurriedly. "Is anyone in the room?" asked Mrs. Professor. "Mr. Song is over there." "Is he alone?" He pursed his lips and a sly smile appeared on his face. "No, Miss Cacilie is there too." "Oh, what a disgrace," exclaimed Mrs. Professor. Now Emile grinned. "Miss Cacilie is there every evening. Hours at a time."

Mrs. Professor began to wring her hands. "Yo, that's horrible! Why didn't you tell me sooner?" "It's none of my business," he replied, shrugging slowly. "I think they must have rewarded you a lot of money, go away! Go away!" He faltered toward the door. "They must be turned away, mother," said Anna. "Then who's going to pay the rent? The tax bill is coming. How easy it is to put them out! But when they're gone, how am I going to pay the bill?" She turned to Philip, with a serious look on her face. Two strings of tears. "Well, Mr. Carey, you won't tell what you've heard. If Miss Foster found out,"--the Dutch spinster--"if Miss Foster found out, she would Get out of here at once. If everybody runs away, we'll have to close up. I just can't keep up."

"Of course I won't say anything." "If she stays here any longer, I don't want to talk to her anymore," Anna said. At dinner that evening Miss Cacilie was punctually at the table.Her face was redder than usual, with a stubborn look on her face.But Mr. Song didn't show up. Philip thought to himself that he was deliberately avoiding this embarrassing situation today.Unexpectedly, in the end Mr. Song still came, smiling all over his face, rolling his eyes flickeringly, apologizing repeatedly for his late arrival.As usual, he insisted on pouring out a glass of the Moselle he had ordered for the Professor's wife, and another glass for Miss Foster.It was hot in the house because the stove burned all day and the windows were rarely opened.Emil ran around in a panic, but his hands and feet were quite nimble, and he managed to deal with the people at the table one by one.The three old ladies sat there silently, with a look of disapproval; the professor's wife cried a lot and seemed to have not recovered; her husband was silent and sullen.Everyone was too lazy to speak.Philip felt in a daze that there seemed to be something frightening about the group of people who sat with him for three meals a day. Under the light of the two chandeliers in the dining room, they looked different as usual, Philip Feeling faintly uneasy.Once, by chance, his eyes met Mademoiselle Cacilie's, and he felt that hatred and contempt radiated from her eyes.The air in the room was stuffy and oppressive, as if everyone was disturbed by the lovers' animal desires; there was a peculiar atmosphere of oriental depravity around: incense sticks, fragrance bursts, and stealing jade. The mysterious smell of incense seems to make people gasp.Philip could feel the pulse of the veins in his forehead.He himself did not understand what strange emotion was driving him so flustered. He seemed to feel that something was attracting him so strongly and at the same time arousing revulsion and fear in him. This situation lasted for several days, and the whole atmosphere was disgusting. People felt that unreasonable lust was flooding around them, and everyone's nerves in the small guest house were tense, as if they would collapse at the touch of a touch.Only Mr. Song's demeanor remained the same, and he was as smiling, so amiable, and so courteous as before when he met everyone.No one could tell whether his air was a triumph of civilization, or an expression of Oriental contempt for the Western world that was falling beneath their feet.Cacilie flaunted a cynical air about her.At last, even the Professor's wife found the situation intolerable.A sense of horror seized her suddenly, as Professor Olin pointed out to her, with the most stern candor, this well-known affair.What consequences might it cause.The scandal might turn the city into a storm, and she would have to see her reputation in Heidelberg, along with that of the boarding house she had managed so poorly all her life, be ruined.For some reason, she may have been fascinated by some petty gains, but she never thought of this kind of thing.possibility.And now, thrown out of her grip by terrified terror, she could hardly resist throwing the girl out of the house at once.Anna was wise enough to write a carefully worded letter to the uncle in Berlin, suggesting that Cacilie should be taken away. However, after the Mrs. Professor made up her mind to sacrifice the two tenants, she could no longer hold back the resentment in her heart, and she insisted on venting it - she had restrained it for a long time.Now she could say what she liked in front of Cacilie. "I have written to your uncle, Cacilie, to come and take you away. I cannot have you in my room any longer." The professor's wife noticed that the girl's face was pale, and her small round eyes couldn't help twinkling. "You're shameless, shameless," she continued. She scolded Cacilie. "What did you say to my Uncle Heinrich, Mrs. Professor?" asked the girl, suddenly disappearing from her former self-satisfied and rebellious air. "Oh, he'll tell you in person. Expect to hear from him tomorrow." The next day, in order to embarrass Cacilie in public, the professor's wife deliberately raised her voice at dinner and yelled at the girl sitting at the bottom of the table. "I've had a letter from your uncle, Cacilie. You pack my luggage tonight, and we'll take you to the train tomorrow morning. He'll meet you at Central Station himself." "Excellent, Mrs. Professor." The professor's wife saw that Mr. Song was still smiling, and despite her repeated refusals, he still poured her a glass of wine.The professor's wife ate the meal with great relish.Although she had the upper hand for a while, she still miscalculated in the end.Just before going to bed, she called the servant to her. "Emile, if Mademoiselle Cacilie's trunk is packed, you'd better take it downstairs to-night. The porter will come to fetch it before breakfast tomorrow." The servant went away for a while and came back again. "Miss Cacilie was not in her room, and her handbag was missing." With a cry, the Frau Professor ran to Cacilie's room: the box was on the floor, strapped and locked, but the handbag was gone, and neither was the hat or the cloak.The dresser was empty.Panting heavily, the professor's wife flew downstairs and went straight to the room surnamed Song.She hadn't walked so fast in twenty years.Emil yelled behind her repeatedly, telling her to be careful not to fall.She didn't even bother to knock on the door, and went straight inside.The room was empty, the luggage had disappeared, and the door to the garden was flung open, indicating that the luggage had been taken from there.There was an envelope on the table, which contained some banknotes, which were used to pay for this month's board and lodging and an additional tip.The professor's wife suddenly couldn't support herself due to the rapid running just now. She moaned, and her chubby body slumped down on the sofa.It couldn't be more clear: the lovers had both eloped.Emile still had the same blank, indifferent demeanor.