Chapter 65 Chapter 65

Hayward's visit brought great benefits to Philip and dilutes his longing for Mildred.Looking back on the past, Philip couldn't help but be disgusted.He himself couldn't understand why he fell into that kind of unseemly love in the past.Philip could not help thinking of Mildred with resentment for having caused him such a great shame.At this time, what appeared in his imagination was the exaggerated flaws in her body and manner.He shuddered at the thought that he had had an affair with a woman like Mildred. "It all shows how weak my will is," murmured Philip.The previous experience is like a social fault committed by a person. The fault is so serious that no matter what is done, it cannot be forgiven. The only remedy is to erase it from memory.He loathes his previous depravity.It helped him.Like a snake that has shed its skin, he looked at his past body with disgust and disdain.He was ecstatic that he had regained his self-control.Philip realized how many other pleasures in the world he had lost in giving himself up to that infatuation which is called love.He had had enough of that taste.If it was called love, then he would never fall into that love net again.Philip told Hayward some of his experiences.

"Didn't Sophocles pray that he would someday be freed from the beast of lust that devoured his truest love?" he asked. Philip seemed to have gained a new life.He sucked in the air around him greedily, as if he had never breathed before.He looked at everything in the world with surprise like a child.He regarded that period of insanity as half a year's servitude. A few days after Hayward's arrival in London Philip received an invitation from Blackstable to see an exhibition of pictures in an art gallery.He took Heyward with him.While browsing the exhibition catalogue, they discovered that Lawson also had a painting in this preview.

"I think it was he who sent the invitation," said Philip; "we'll go find him, and he must be standing in front of his picture." The portrait of Ruth Chalice was in a corner, and Lawson was standing near it.He wore a large light hat and a loose light-coloured suit.Among the fashionable people swarming to watch the preview, he showed a bewildered expression.He greeted Philip warmly, and then, as usual, told Philip eloquently that he had moved to London and that Ruth Chalice, a frivolous woman, had hired a studio a commission for the portrait, etc.He proposed that they dine together and take the opportunity to have a good talk.Philip reminded him of his acquaintance Hayward.Philip watched with interest Lawson's admiration for Hayward's fine dress and grandeur.

They taunted and ridiculed Lawson more than they had in the little studio that Lawson and Philip shared. During dinner Lawson continued with his news.Flanagan has returned to the United States.Clutton was gone.Clutton came to the conclusion that once a person is connected with art and artists, it is impossible to make a difference, and the only way is to disengage immediately.In order to make the departure smooth, Flanagan and his friends in Paris quarreled every time.He had developed a talent for telling them embarrassing truths, and compelled them to listen with great patience to his announcement that he had had enough of Paris and was going to settle in Girona.This small town in the north of Spain, which deeply attracted him, was discovered by accident on his way to Barcelona by car.He lives there alone now.

"I doubt he's going to get anywhere," said Philip. Clutton just made an artificial effort to express the murky problems in people's minds, so being perverted and irritable was perfectly befitting of him.Philip felt vaguely that he was the same, but it was his morality that got him into trouble as far as he was concerned.That was his way of self-expression. As for what to do about it, he had no idea.But he had no time to pursue his thoughts, for Lawson was frankly pouring out his affair with Ruth Chalice.She abandoned him, and turned to a young student who had just arrived from England, making a fuss.Lawson thought someone should step in and save the young man, or she would destroy him.Philip reflected to himself that what hurt Lawson most was the break-up episode which broke into him in the middle of a picture.

"Women lack real sensibility for art," he said. "They're just pretending they have it." However, his last few words were quite eloquent: "After all, I have painted her four pictures after all. As for the last picture I am doing, I can't I’m sure it’s still possible to draw successfully.” Philip envied the carelessness with which the painter handled his love entanglements.Lawson spent a year and a half quite happily, acquiring a pretty model for nothing, and parting from her at last without a deep scar on his soul. "How is Cronshaw now?" asked Philip.

"Oh, he's done," replied Lawson with a half-smile. "He was going to die in six months. Last winter he had pneumonia and spent seven weeks in an English hospital. When he came out they told him his only chance of recovery was to stop drinking." "Poor thing," Philip smiled.He has always been on a diet. "For a while he didn't drink at all. He used to go to Liras's too, and he couldn't stand it. Often he just had a cup of hot milk, or orange juice, though. It was no fun, either." "I suppose you haven't kept the truth from him?"

"Oh, he knows it himself. Not long ago he was drinking whiskey again. He said he was too old to change his mind. He was going to live happily for the first half of the year, and then death would be better than death." Better to live on for five years. I reckon he's down on his last buck. You see, he didn't even get a single bill while he was sick, and that slut he lived with made him suffer." "I remember, the first time I met him, I was in total admiration for him," Philippe said. "I thought he was a marvel at the time. It's disgusting that vulgar middle-class virtues should have this payoff."

"Of course he's a bum. He's going to end up in that slum sooner or later," said Lawson. Philip was sad because Lawson showed no mercy.Of course, this incident is karma, where there is an antecedent, there must be an aftermath, and the whole tragedy of life lies in this natural law that governs human life and behavior. "Oh, I forgot one thing," said Lawson. "Not long after you left, Cronshaw sent for you a present. I thought you would come back, and I did not send it to you, and I did not think it worthwhile at the time. But the present will Come to London with the rest of my luggage, and if you want it you can come to my studio for it."

"You haven't told me what it is." "Oh, that's a battered rug. I don't think it's worth much. I asked him one day how he'd come up with the idea of ​​giving away such junk. He told me he had a shop on Ruderrain Street. I saw this rug in my office and bought it for fifteen francs. It still looks like a Persian rug. He said you asked him what the meaning of life was, and that rug was the answer. But that He was dead drunk." Philip laughed. "Oh, yes, I see. I'm coming to fetch this rug. It's his brilliant idea. He said I'd have to figure it out myself, or it wouldn't make any sense."