Chapter 49 Chapter Forty-Nine

Fanny Price's situation was dire enough, from what Philip learned from various sources.Usually, the female students in the studio often go to the restaurant together for dinner, but she, Fanny Price, has never been there.This excitement made them inevitably mutter behind their backs.In fact, the reason is very clear: she is so poor that she has no money to go to restaurants.Philip remembered that he had lunched with her when he first came to Paris, and he was disgusted by the way she devoured her food, and he realized now that she was not a glutton, but a real glutton. starving.What did she eat on weekdays? The porter told Philip: leave her a bottle of milk every day, and buy the bread by herself. eat at night.This is the case every day of the year.It made Philip feel sad to think that she must have had enough of starving.She never let it be known that she was poorer than anyone else; she was evidently at the end of her rope, and in the end she couldn't even afford her studio tuition.In her small room, there was almost no furniture.As for her clothes, there was nothing but a worn brown skirt that she wore all year round.Philip looked through her belongings, trying to find the address of some relative or friend, so that he could contact him.He found a note with his name, Philip, written on it dozens of times.He froze as if he had been hit on the head with a stick.Presumably she must have fallen in love with herself.The bony body hanging from the beam and wrapped in brown clothes suddenly appeared in front of his eyes, and he couldn't help shivering.If she really had him in her heart, why didn't she ask him for help?Surely he'd be happy to do what he could.At the beginning, I shouldn't have known that she had special feelings for me, but I pretended to be deaf and dumb, and ignored it. Now that I think about it, I feel regretful in my heart.The message in her suicide note contained much sorrow: I can't bear the thought of letting others touch my body.She was starved to death.

Philip finally found a letter signed "Brother Albert".The letter, sent two or three weeks ago from a certain street in Sabbiton, flatly rejected the request for a loan of five pounds.The person who wrote the letter said that he had a family and had to think about his wife and children; he didn't think he had any reason to lend money to others at will.He asked Fanny to go back to London and try to get an errand.Philip sent a telegram to Albert Price.Soon, the call back came: "Deeply saddened. Too busy to get out. Must come, Price." Another brief telegram from Philip begging him to come at some time.The next morning, a stranger came to the studio looking for him.

"My name is Price," Philip said as he opened the door and introduced himself. The visitor was somewhat vulgar, dressed in black, with a bowler hat with a thin ribbon.He looked a little like Fanny in his clumsy way.He has a short beard and a London accent.Philip invited him into the house.He looked sideways now and then while Philip told him what had happened and how he had managed it. "I don't have to see her body, do I?" Albert Price asked. "My nerves are relatively fragile, and I can't stand a little stimulation." He gradually opened up the conversation box.He is a rubber merchant with a wife and three children.Fanny had been a governess, and he could not understand why she had to come to Paris instead of a well-appointed job.

"My wife and I told her that Paris isn't a girl's place. You can't make money in painting--it always has been." It is not difficult to see that the relationship between the two brothers and sisters is not very harmonious.He complained that she shouldn't have committed suicide and caused him trouble after she died.He did not want it to be said that his sister had been driven to this end by poverty, for it seemed an insult to the family.It suddenly occurred to him whether she might have taken this step from some more respectable motive. "I don't think she'd have anything to do with any man. You know what I mean, Paris is full of wonders, and she probably had to do it to save her reputation."

Philip felt his cheeks burn, and secretly cursed his softness.Price's piercing little eyes seemed to suspect that Philip was having an affair with his sister. "I believe your sister's virginity is beyond reproach," he replied in a firm tone, "and she killed herself because she was dying of starvation." "Well, you're going to embarrass her family by saying that, Mr. Carey. All she needs is a letter for me. I'm not going to see my sister need food and clothing." Philip knew the brother's address just because he read the letter refusing to borrow money, but Philip just shrugged his shoulders: why expose his lies to his face.He hated the little man so much, he just wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible.Albert Price, too, hoped to get things over with and get back to London as soon as possible.They came to the little room where poor Fanny had lived.Albert Price looked at the pictures and furniture in the room.

"I don't want to be an expert in art," said he. "I think these pictures will sell for a few bucks, won't they?" "It's worthless," said Philip. "The furniture is not worth ten shillings." Albert Price knew nothing of French, and Philip had to take care of everything.It seems that there are endless procedures to go through before the poor body can be safe.To get the documents from here, you have to go there to get your seals stamped, and you have to ask to see many blind masters.For three days Philip was so busy from morning to night that he hardly had time to catch his breath.At last he and Albert Price followed the hearse towards the Montparnasse cemetery.

"I'd like to have a decent funeral, too," said Albert Price, "but it's no fun thinking about throwing money in the water for nothing." In the gray morning, chilly, the hastily held funeral looked particularly bleak.There were half a dozen other people at the funeral, who had been fellow-students with Fanny Price in the studio: Mrs. Otter--because, as treasurer, she felt it was her duty to attend: Ruth Chalice—for her kindness; and Lawson, Clutton, and Flanagan.She had never been favored by these people during her lifetime.Looking around, Philip saw that there were many steles, some of which were simple and rough, and some of which were flashy and vulgar, which was unsightly.Philip watched and shuddered.The scene in front of me was really chilling and desolate.When they left the cemetery Albert Price asked Philip to accompany him to lunch.Philip, on the one hand, was very disgusted with him, and on the other hand, he felt very sleepy (he had been restless these days, and he kept dreaming of Fanny Price hanging from the beam in a shabby brown dress), and he was very tempted to refuse. , but for a while I couldn't think of anything to say to evade.

"You take me to a nice restaurant and let us have a decent lunch. It's a terrible thing. It's driving my nerves." "Raff's is the best place around here," Philip answered. Albert Price settled himself in a velvet armchair and breathed a sigh of relief.He ordered a big lunch with a bottle of wine. "Hey, I'm so glad it's finally done." He asked a few cunning questions, and Philip knew that he wanted to know the private life of the painter in Paris.Although he kept saying that the painters' private lives were terrible, he was actually eager to hear the details of the sensual and dissolute lives he imagined the painters led.He blinked slyly from time to time, and sometimes snickered a few times, which clearly meant that Philip couldn't hide it from him, and he had to do it honestly.He was a man of the world, and not ignorant of the inner workings of such matters.He asked Philip if he had ever been to Montmartre, the paradise of adventurers of renown, from the Temple Bar to the Royal Exchange.How he wanted to make up some words, say that he had been to the "Moulin Rouge"!Their lunch was exquisite and the wine was delicious.Albert Price's spirits were even higher when he was full of wine and food.

"Have some more brandy," he said, when the coffee was brought to the table, "and make a fortune!" He rubbed his hands together. "Let me tell you, I really want to spend the night here and go back tomorrow. How would you like me, my brother, to spend the night together?" "You want me to accompany you to Montmartre tonight? To hell with you!" said Philip. "I guess I didn't mean that." He answered so solemnly that Philip was amused. "Besides, I'm afraid your nerves can't take it," said Philip gravely. Albert Price at last decided to take the four o'clock train back to London, and soon after he parted with Philip.

"Goodbye, brother," he said. "I tell you, I will come to Paris in a few days, and then I will visit you again, and let us have a good time." Philip was so restless that afternoon that he jumped on a bus and crossed the river to see if there were any new pictures on view at Durand-Ruel's.Then he strolled along the main street.The cold wind blows hard and passes by.Pedestrians wrapped their coats tightly and curled up, trying to block the bone-invading cold.They frown, hurry, and look preoccupied.Underneath the white tombstones of Montparnasse Cemetery, it must be as cold as an ice cellar.Philip felt that he was so lonely in this vast world, and he couldn't help feeling an indescribable homesickness in his heart.He wants a companion.But at this moment, Cronshaw was working, Clutton never welcomed visitors, and Lawson was busy painting another portrait of Ruth Chalice, and naturally did not want to be disturbed.So he decided to go to Flanagan.Philip found him painting, but was dying to leave it and talk.The studio was cozy and warm, and the American student was richer than most of them.Flanagan was busy making tea.Philip looked at the two portraits of Flanagan that were going to be presented at the Paris Art Exhibition.

"It's a bit thick-skinned for me to send the painting on display," Flanagan said. "Never mind, I'm just going to send it. You think those two pictures are bad enough, don't you?" "It's not as bad as I thought it would be," Philip said. In fact, the ingenious technique of these two paintings is astounding.All the difficult places were avoided by the painter skillfully; the colors used in the palette are very bold, exuding a forceful spirit, which amazes people and makes them feel endless aftertaste.Although Flanagan doesn't know the knowledge or technique of painting, he is like a painter who has devoted his life to the art of painting. "If you set a limit to viewing each picture for more than thirty seconds, you, Flanagan, are sure to be a great painter," said Philip, laughing. There is no such atmosphere of flattery and patting among these young people. "In America, we're so pressed for time that no one has thirty seconds to look at a painting," Flanagan said, laughing. Although Flanagan can be regarded as the most impetuous person in the world, his kindness is not only surprising, but also cute.He volunteered to nurse anyone who was sick.His talking and laughing nature is really better than taking medicine and injections for patients.He was born with an American temper, and did not control his emotions so tightly as the English, lest it be said to be sentimental.On the contrary, he believes that the expression of emotion is human nature.His overflowing sympathy often made some friends in distress grateful.Philip was depressed after a long day of trouble, and Flanagan, out of good intentions, talked and laughed and made a fuss, trying to cheer him up.He accentuated his American accent--he knew it was a way to make the English laugh--and spouted off-handed bullshit, and he was high-spirited and dreamy, not to mention jovial.At that time, they went out to eat together, and then went to the Montparnasse Fairgrounds, which was Flanagan's favorite entertainment place.As dusk passed, his enthusiasm increased.He was well fed, but his mad drunkenness had less to do with the strength of the drink than with his natural vivacity.He suggested going to the Ballroom Billiere, and Philip, too tired to go to bed, was more than happy to go there.They found a table on the terrace near the dance floor.Here the ground is slightly higher, and they can drink beer and watch others dance.Not long after sitting down, Flanagan caught sight of a friend.With a wild cry he leaped over the fence and onto the dance floor.Philip looked around at the crowd.The Billiere Ballroom is not a playground for the upper class.It was a Thursday night, and the ballroom was full of people, some of whom were college students from various colleges, but the clerks and shop assistants made up the majority of the male customers.They wore everyday clothes: off-the-shelf tweed jackets or odd tailcoats—and they all wore top hats, because they took them into the ballroom and had nowhere to put them when they danced but on their heads.Some of the women looked like servants, some were lightly made-up women, but most of them were sales girls who wore, if cheap, imitations of the fashions on the other side of the river.The frivolous girls were decked out like vaudevillians, or trying to imitate famous dancers; they had thick black make-up around their eyes and bright red on their cheeks.I really don't know what it means to be ashamed.The white headlights in the ballroom hung low, making the shadows on people's faces even darker.In such strong light all the lines seemed steely and rigid, and the surrounding tones seemed crude.There was a pandemonium in the whole ballroom.Philip leaned against the railing and looked down, the music no longer in his ears.The people on the dance floor danced with enthusiasm.They circled slowly on the dance floor, all of them focused, and few of them spoke.It was hot and cold in the ballroom, and beads of sweat glistened on people's faces.It seemed to Philip that the sanctimonious masks they usually put on in order to guard against others were all peeled off at this moment, revealing their true colors.Strange to say, at this moment of wild revelry, they all showed the features of beasts: some were like foxes, some were like wolves, and some had long faces like foolish goats.Their faces are sallow because of the harmful lives they lead and the food they eat that is not nutritious.The vulgar taste of life makes their faces look dull and dull, only a pair of cunning little eyes are turning around.They are short-sighted and have no ambitions.You can feel that, for all these people, life is nothing more than a long series of trivialities and evil thoughts.The air in the ballroom was stale, filled with the smell of sweat from people.But they danced wildly, as if driven by some force within them, and it seemed to Philip that they were driven forward by an urge for enjoyment.They are desperate to escape this real world full of horrors. ...the god of fate is above their heads.They danced and danced, as if beneath their feet lay an endless dark abyss.They were silent because they were vaguely frightened.They seem to be scared out of their wits by life, and even their right to speak is taken away, so their inner voice reaches their throats and is swallowed back.Their eyes are fierce and cruel; although their animal desire makes them out of human form, although their faces appear vile and fierce, although the worst thing is their stupidity and ignorance, however, those eyes cannot hide the extremeness in their hearts. The pain made this group of ignorant people look terrible and pitiful.Philip loathed them, felt sorry for them, and felt infinitely sympathetic for them. He took out his coat from the cloakroom, stepped out the door, and stepped into the bitter cold night.