Chapter 85 Chapter 85

Half a month later, one evening, Philip returned to his apartment from get off work in the hospital and knocked on the door of Cronshaw's room. Seeing no movement, he opened the door and walked in.Cronshaw was curled up on his side, and Philip came to the head of the bed.He wondered whether Cronshaw was asleep, or just lying in bed sulking as usual.Philip was startled to see his mouth open.He touched Cronshaw's shoulder and couldn't help screaming. He quickly put his hand under Cronshaw's shirt to test his heartbeat, and he froze for a moment, bewildered.In desperation he took out the mirror and put it over Cronshaw's mouth, for he had heard it was done in the past.Philip was terrified and disturbed to see himself alone with Cronshaw's body.Fully clothed and hatted, he thumped downstairs into the street, jumped into a carriage, and drove straight to Harley Street.Fortunately Dr. Tyrrell was at home.

"Hey, will you come with me at once, will you? I think Cronshaw is dead." "He's dead, and it ain't much use if I go, is there?" "I would be most obliged if you would go with me. I have ordered a carriage, and it is at the door. You will be back in half an hour." Tyrell put on his hat.In the carriage he asked Philip a question or two. "He wasn't any worse than usual when I left this morning," Philip told Dr. Tyrrell. "But I was taken aback when I walked into his room just now. Come to think of it, he died with no one around... Do you think he knew he was going to die then?"

At this time, what Cronshaw had said before echoed in Philip's ears, and he wondered whether Cronshaw was frightened by the fear of death at the moment when his life was about to end.Philip imagined that he was in the same situation. Facing the threat of death, Philip would definitely turn pale with panic. What's more, when Cronshaw was dying, there was not even a comforter around him. "You're in a bad mood," said Dr. Tyrell. Dr. Tyrrell gazed at Philip with sympathetic blue eyes. He said to Philip after seeing Cronshaw's body: "He's been dead for hours. I think he died in his sleep. That's how patients die sometimes."

Cronshaw's body was huddled, unrecognizable, and inhuman.Dr. Tyrrell stared at the corpse calmly, then subconsciously took out his pocket watch and glanced at it. "Well, I have to go. I'll send you the death certificate later. I think you should report the death to his relatives." "I don't think he has any relations," replied Philip. "What about the funeral?" "Oh, that's up to me." Dr Tyrrell glanced at Philip, wondering if he should pay a few pounds for the funeral.He knew nothing of Philip's financial situation, and Philip might well have been able to afford the expense, and Philip would have thought it impolite if he had offered to pay.

"Well, if there's anything I can do for you, just say yes," he said finally. Philip accompanied him to the door, and they parted.Philip went straight to the telegraph office and sent a telegram to Leonard Upjung.Philip then went to the undertaker.Every day when he went to the hospital, Philip had to pass by the undertaker's store. In the window, there were six big silver characters "economical, prompt, and decent" written on a black cloth. The two coffin models displayed in the window often Get his attention.The undertaker was a squat Jew with curly black hair, long and greasy, and a diamond ring on one thick finger.He received Philip who came to him with a manner that was both bossy and gentle.He soon found that Philip was at a loss, and promised to send a woman at once to arrange the necessary matters.The funeral he proposed was rather grand; and Philip felt ashamed when he saw that the undertaker seemed to think his dissent was stingy.It would be disrespectful to haggle with him over such a trivial matter.So Philip finally agreed to bear the expense which he simply could not afford.

"I understand how you feel, sir," said the undertaker, "you don't want ostentation--and I don't like ostentation myself--but you want it to be done decently. You may as well Don't worry, leave the matter to me. I will try my best to save you money, and to do things in a proper and decent way. That's all I have to say, and I have nothing more to say." Philip went home for supper.At this moment the woman came to lay Cronshaw's body.A short while later, a telegram from Leonard Upjung arrived. Shocked by the sad news, I mourn endlessly.It's a pity that I can't go out for dinner tonight.See you tomorrow morning.My deepest sympathy.Up ginger.

Not long after, the woman knocked on the living room door. "I'm done, sir. Will you go in and have a look at him, to see if I'm doing right?" Philip followed her in.Cronshaw lay upright on his back, with his eyes shut, and his hands folded reverently on his breast. "It stands to reason that you should put some flowers around him, sir." "I'll go get some tomorrow." The woman cast a satisfied glance at the rigid body.Having done her duty, she rolled down her sleeves, undid her apron, and put on her bonnet.Philip asked how much she wanted. "Well, sir, there's two and sixpence, and there's five."

Philip blushed and handed the woman less than five shillings' wages, and she thanked him with a feeling commensurate with the great grief he was now feeling, and took her leave.Philip went back to the living room anyway, cleaned up the leftovers from dinner, and sat down to read "Surgery" by Walsham.He found the book difficult to understand.He felt extremely nervous in his heart, and when there was a sound on the stairs, he would startle from his seat, his heart beating violently.The thing in the next room was still a person before, but now it turned into nothing, which filled him with fear.The silent atmosphere covering the room seemed to be alive, and there seemed to be a mysterious object moving quietly inside; the shadow of death oppressed the room heavily, making it incredible and terrifying.Philip felt a sudden dread for the man who had been his friend.He tried to force himself to concentrate on reading, but after a while, he pushed the book away in despair.The worthlessness of the life he had just ended upset him.The question was not whether Cronshaw was dead or alive, even if there had never been such a person as Cronshaw in the world.Philip thought of Cronshaw in his youth, but it took some imagination to picture in his mind Cronshaw, slender, brisk, with hair on his head, vigorous and confident.Here, Philip's mantra of life -- to act on instinct like the neighborhood policeman -- doesn't work.This is because Cronshaw lived by the same set of principles, but he failed lamentably in the end.It seems that human instinct is unreliable.Philip could not help feeling accidental.He asked himself, if that rule of life didn't work, what other rule of life was there?Why do people tend to behave in one way and not in another?People act according to their emotions, but sometimes their emotions can be good or bad.Whether their emotions lead them to success or ruin, it seems, is pure chance.Life is like an inescapable turmoil.Driven by this invisible force, people are running around, but they can't answer a single one about the purpose of doing so, it seems that they are only running for the sake of running.

The next morning, Leonard Upjung arrived at Philip's apartment with a small wreath of laurel branches.He was quite pleased with his way of presenting such a wreath to the dead poet, and, despite Philip's silent distaste, tried to put it on Cronshaw's bald head, but it was so indecent it looked like a ballroom The brim of the hat worn by the mean clown. "I'm going to take it off and put it back on his heart," Upjohn said. "But you put the wreath on his belly," said Philip. Upjang smiled lightly after hearing this. "Only a poet knows where a poet's heart is," he went on to reply.

They both went back to the living room together.Philip told Upjung about the funeral preparations. "I hope you don't feel bad about spending money. I like to have a long procession of empty carriages following the coffin, and to have all the horses adorned with long, blowing feathers. The funeral procession should include a lot of mutes, They wear hats with long streamers. I appreciate the idea of ​​an empty carriage." "Obviously all the expenses of the funeral will fall on my shoulders, but at the moment I don't have a lot of money, so I want to keep the funeral as small as possible."

"But then, my dear fellow, why don't you make your funeral like that of a beggar? There might be something poetic in that. Faulty instinct." Philip blushed, but made no reply.The next day he and Upjan rode behind the coffin in a carriage he had paid for.Lawson, unable to come in person, sent a wreath of condolences.In order not to make the coffin look too deserted, Philip bought a pair of wreaths at his own expense.On the way back, the coachman whipped the horse and galloped from time to time.Philip was exhausted physically and mentally, and fell into a sound sleep at once.He was later awakened by Upjung's voice. "It's a good thing he hasn't got a book of poems out yet. I think we'd better put it off a little bit. That way I can write a preface to it. I started thinking about it on the way to the cemetery. I'm sure I can do a very Good thing. Anyway, to start with an article for the Saturday Review." Philip did not answer him.There was silence in the carriage.At last Upjohn spoke up and said: "Perhaps it would be wiser for me to make the most of the articles I have written. I would like to write an article for one of several review magazines and have it reprinted as a preface to a collection of poems." Philip watched all the magazines closely, and after a few weeks Upjung's article finally appeared.That article seems to have caused a wave of volatility, and many newspapers are competing to publish abstracts.It is indeed a fine piece of writing, and somewhat biographical, for little is known about Cronshaw's early life.The article is well-conceived, the tone is friendly and moving, and the language is very vivid.Leonard Upjane took several shots of Cronshaw talking with people and reciting poems in the Latin Quarter, and described them vividly, elegantly and uniquely with his winding and complicated style; Immediately, the image came to life, jumping off the paper, and turned into Van Lane of England.He describes the dismal end of Cronshaw, and the little garret of Cold Lance in Soho; In all the endeavors of the cottage in the shade of the honeysuckle, his exactness is so captivating that one is reminded that he was not merely humble but simply generous.As he writes this, Leonard Upjane adds embellishment and flamboyance, his diction is dignified yet trembling, exaggerated yet eloquent.And yet someone lacking in sympathy, well-intentioned but untactful, brought the poet down the vulgar but respectable Kennington High Street!Leonard Upjung writes about Kennington High Street with the restrained wit that is necessary to adhere to Sir Thomas Shearan's style of diction and sentence.He also relates, with skillful sarcasm, the last three weeks of Cronshaw's life, how with great patience Cronshaw endured the young student who professed to be his nurse Done the ring.It also describes the miserable situation of the talented vagabond in that hopeless middle-class atmosphere.He also quoted Isaiah's famous saying "Beauty comes from ashes" as a metaphor for Cronshaw.The irony of the outcast poet dying in such an atmosphere of vulgar decency is so well employed that it reminds Leonard Upjung of Jesus Christ in the Pharisees The scene among people came, and this association gave him a chance to write a paragraph of excellent essays with a little literary talent.He then told the reader that a friend of the deceased placed a wreath of laurel branches on the heart of the deceased poet.In relating this refined vision, his refined taste was such that he tolerated a mere allusion without directly identifying the friend.It is also said that the beautiful hands of the dead rested on Apollo's laurel branches in a seductive and erotic gesture.These laurel sticks exude the delicate fragrance of art.It was greener than the emeralds that shrewd sailors brought back from the incredible bounty of China.Compared with the above, the ending of the article is more wonderful.He recounted at length the prosaic, unpoetry-less bourgeois funeral which should have been given to a poet like Cronshaw, either as a prince or a beggar. For a funeral.It was the crowning blow, the final triumph of the Philistines over art, beauty, and immaterial things. Leonard Upjung has never written so well.This essay is a marvel of charm, refinement, and compassion.In the middle of the essay, he quoted from time to time the best lines of Cronshaw's poems, so that when the collection of Cronshaw's poems was published, the soul of the poems had already been sucked out, but he developed his views to the fullest.In this way, he became a notable critic.He seemed a little arrogant before, but this article is full of heart-warming human touch, which makes people read it interestingly and can't put it down.