Chapter 77 Chapter Seventy-Seven

At noon, the landlady was cleaning the stairs. "Is Mr. Griffiths there?" Philip asked the landlady. "No, sir. He left shortly after you this morning." "Is he back yet?" "I don't think I'll be back, sir. He's got all his stuff out." Philip could not guess what Griffiths meant by that.He casually picked up a book and read it.It was Burton's A Journey to Mecca, which he had just borrowed from the Westminster Public Library.After finishing reading the first chapter, he didn't know what to say, because his mind was not on the book at all, but he kept his ears up, listening attentively to see if someone came to ring the doorbell.He dared not have the extravagant hope that Griffiths would leave Mildred in London and go back to Cumberland alone to visit her relatives.After a while, Mildred would come to him and ask for money.He bit the bullet and continued reading, trying to keep his attention on the book.In this way, the sentences in the book came to his mind, but the pain in his heart caused him to misinterpret the exact meaning of these sentences.He wished he hadn't mentioned the bad idea of ​​financing their trip out of his own pocket, but he didn't have the guts to take it back.Not for Mildred's sake, but for his own.There was a morbid obstinacy about him that drove him to do what he set his mind to do.He found that three pages had been read, but his mind was still empty, leaving no impression at all.So he turned the book over again and started reading from the beginning.He found himself looking at the same sentence over and over again, and suddenly, the sentences in the book were intertwined with his own thoughts, like a terrifying pattern in a nightmare.There is one thing he can do, that is, hide outside from Li Khan and come back after midnight.In this way, Griffith and Mildred will not be able to leave.He seemed to see them both coming up every hour to ask the landlady if he was in.Thinking of the disappointment and disappointment of the two of them, he felt happy in his heart. When he was excited, he subconsciously re-read the sentence in the book again.However, he couldn't do that.Let them take the money!That way, he could see how unscrupulous people might be.At this moment, he couldn't read any more, and the words on the book could hardly be read clearly.He fell into the chair, closed his eyes tightly, and there was a trace of misery in his dull expression.He was waiting for Mildred to arrive.

The landlady entered the room quietly and asked: "Sir, have you seen Mrs. Miller?" "Call her in." Philip cheered up and received Mildred calmly.For a moment he couldn't help but want to fall at her feet, take her hands, and beg her not to leave him, but he knew that there was nothing he could ask to move her heart.She would tell Griffiths everything he said and what he did.He felt ashamed. "How's your preparations for the excursion going?" he asked cheerfully. "We'll be leaving in a minute. Harry's just outside the door. I told him you didn't want to see him, so he didn't come in. He wondered, though, if he could come in for a minute and say good-bye to you. "

"No, I don't want to see him," Philip returned. He could see that Mildred didn't care whether he saw Griffiths or not.Since she came, he wanted to send her away as soon as possible. "Here, here is a five-pound note. I wish you to get out of here at once." She took the banknote, thanked her, then turned around and left the room with thud. "When will you be back?" he asked. "Well, be back on Monday, because big Harry must go home." He knew that what he wanted to say would inevitably be ugly and detrimental to his decency.But helplessly, the flames of love and jealousy were burning in his chest, and he couldn't care less about being decent, so he blurted out:

"Can I visit you when I get there?" He couldn't help himself for a while, and there was still a pleading tone when he spoke. "Of course. I'll call you as soon as I get back to London." After they shook hands and said good-bye, Philip watched eagerly through the curtains as Mildred jumped into the cab which was parked at the door.The carriage hurried away.At this moment, he slumped down on the bed, covered his face with his hands, and felt tears welling up in his eyes.For this, he was angry with himself.He twisted Xiangji's body tightly with both hands, trying his best not to let himself cry, but he couldn't hold it back, he couldn't help crying, crying very sadly.

Philip suddenly felt limp and weak all over, and felt ashamed in his heart.He got out of bed anyway, went to wash his face, and made himself a strong whiskey and soda.After drinking it, he felt a little better.Suddenly he caught sight of two tickets for Paris lying on the fireplace, and in a moment of rage he seized the tickets and threw them into the fire.He knew that he could get some money by returning the tickets, but he could only relieve his hatred by burning them.Then, he left the apartment and went out to find someone to talk with to relieve his inner depression.However, the school club was empty.He was so bored that he would go mad unless he had someone to talk to.But Lawson was still abroad.He strolled to Hayward's lodgings, and the maid who answered the door told him that Hayward had gone to Brighton for the weekend.Then Philip came to an art gallery, which, as luck would have it, had just closed again.Now he became distraught and didn't know what to do.He could not help thinking of the arrival of Griffiths and Mildred: sitting face to face in a carriage on the way to Oxford, and enjoying themselves.He went back to his lodgings again, but everything here filled him with terror, for it was in this ghostly place that of late he had been beset by great misfortunes one after another.He tried to hold up the book by Sir Burton again.But, as he read, he kept muttering to himself that he was a complete fool, because he was the one who got them traveling together, offered them the money, and forced it on them.When he had introduced Griffiths to Mildred, he had fully foreseen the consequences, for his own irresistible passion was sufficient to arouse the lust of the other.By this time they would have arrived in Oxford, probably living in a boarding house in John Street.Philip had not yet been to Oxford.But Griffiths often talked about the place in his presence, and he knew exactly where the two of them would be visiting.They could dine at Clarendon's: Griffiths always went to this restaurant when he was looking for a good time.Philip ate something indiscriminately in a restaurant near Charlene Cross.Because he had made up his mind long ago to go to an opera, he fought his way through the crowded crowd to the back seat of the theater as soon as he finished his meal.The theater was playing a play by Oscar Wilde.He wondered to himself if Mildred and Griffiths would both be going to the theater that evening, for they had to do something to pass the time anyway.They're a pair of fools, both content to grind their teeth and talk bullshit together.He recalled that the two of them were vulgar and vulgar, and that they were a match made in heaven. At this moment, he felt an indescribable joy in his heart.He watched the show absent-mindedly, taking a few sips of whiskey between each act to sharpen his spirits.He was not used to drinking strong alcohol, and after a while, the alcohol attack hit his forehead, and the more he drank, the more irritable and depressed he felt.At the end of the show, he had another drink.He couldn't go to bed, and he knew in his heart that even if he went to bed, he wouldn't be able to fall asleep. He was just afraid of seeing all kinds of pictures that appeared in front of his eyes because of his active imagination.He tried to restrain himself from thinking of Griffiths and Mildred.He knew he had drunk too much.A desire to do something dreadful, vile and indecent took hold of him now.He wants to drink it to get drunk.He was full of animal desire, anxious to vent.He really wanted to get down on the ground.

He staggered toward Piccadilly, dragging his lame leg.He was drunk, with grief and anger in his heart, as uncomfortable as a cat's claws scratching his heart.Suddenly, a prostitute with a face covered in makeup stopped him and took his arm.He cursed and pushed the prostitute away.He moved forward a few steps, and then stopped, thinking that she was different from other women.He felt guilty for being rude just now.So he walked up to her again. "Hey," he greeted. "To hell with it," she retorted. Philip laughed when he heard this. "I just wanted to ask if you could do me a favor tonight and have a cup of tea with me."

The prostitute looked at Philip with interest, hesitated, and said nothing for a while.She noticed that Philip was drunk. "I have no objection." He had heard this sentence from Mildred countless times, and Philip was always surprised that this prostitute would say that.He took the prostitute to a restaurant that he and Mildred frequented.As he walked Philip noticed that she kept looking down at his legs. "I have a lame leg," he said, "do you have a problem?" "You're a weird person," she said with a smile. When he returned to his residence, his bones were in pain, and his skull seemed to be beating continuously with a hammer. The pain was so painful that he almost cried out for help.He drank another whiskey and soda to calm himself, and climbed into bed.After a while, he fell into a sound sleep and didn't wake up until noon the next day.