Chapter 106 Chapter 106

Philip avoided the places he had been when he was well off.The little party at the tavern on Peak Street had broken up.That Macalister had betrayed his friend and never appeared again.Hayward went up the Cape of Good Hope.Only Lawson remained in London, but Philip, feeling that he had no common language with the painter, did not wish to see him.But one Sunday afternoon Philip changed after lunch and walked down Regent Avenue to the Free Library in St. Martin's Lane, intending to spend the afternoon there.Suddenly, he found Lawson walking towards him.His intuition drove him to keep walking, but Lawson didn't give him the chance.

"Where have you been?" Lawson asked aloud. "Me?" said Philip. "I wrote you a letter, asking you to come to my studio for a feast, but you haven't replied." "I didn't get your letter." "You didn't receive it, I know that. I went to the hospital to see you, and the letter was still on the file rack. You don't want to study medicine?" Philip hesitated for a long time.He was ashamed to tell the truth, but the feeling of shabbiness made him not feel resentful.He forced himself to answer Lawson's words, and blushed involuntarily at the moment.

"Yes. The little money I had was spent and I couldn't afford to continue my studies." "Oh, I'm so sorry for you. So what are you doing now?" "I work as a waiter in a shop." Philip's words stuck in his throat, which was unpleasant, but he was still determined not to hide the truth.Philip looked intently at Lawson, and noticing the embarrassment on his face, he gave a sneer. "If you would deign to come to Ryan Sedley's and go into the ready-to-wear department, you'd see me loitering about in frock coats, giving directions to ladies who came to buy petticoats and tunics. Second turn on the right, ma'am. Second turn on the left."

Seeing Philip's cynical attitude towards his position, Lawson smiled unnaturally, not knowing what to say.Lawson was astonished by Philip's picture of the work, but he dared not sympathize. "It's a change for you," said Lawson. He felt that it was too inappropriate for him to say such a thing, and he immediately regretted it.After hearing this, Philip blushed and his face was gloomy. "It's a change," Philip said. "By the way, I owe you five shillings." He reached into his pocket and pulled out some silver coins. "Oh, it's nothing. I forgot."

"Don't talk nonsense, here, take it quickly." Lawson silently took the money and went.The two of them stood in the middle of the sidewalk, being jostled by passers-by.There was a sneer in Philip's eyes that gave the painter a thorn in his back.How did Lawson know that at this moment, Philip was in a heavy heart and distraught.Lawson wanted to do something for Philip, but he was at a loss. "Hey, come to my studio, can't we have a good chat?" "I'm not going," Philip answered. "why?" "There's nothing to talk about."

Philip was sorry to see the pain in Lawson's eyes, but he thought there was nothing to be done about it, and he had to think of himself.He couldn't bear to talk about his current predicament with others, and only by ruthlessly not thinking about it could he feel a little peace in his heart.He was afraid that once he revealed his feelings, his spirit would completely collapse.What was more, he had an irrepressible distaste for places where he had suffered misfortune before.He still remembered the humiliation of standing in the studio on an empty stomach, waiting for Lawson to hand him a meal; and it seemed like yesterday that he had last borrowed five shillings from Lawson.The last thing he wanted was to see Lawson, because when he saw Lawson, he would think of his down and out days.

"Well, you come to my studio one night, and we have a meal together. You decide which day you come." The painter's kindness touched Philip's heartstrings.It was incredible, he thought to himself, that all sorts of people had shown him kindness. "It's too kind of you, man, but I don't want to come." He held out a hand to Lawson and said "Goodbye!" Bewildered by this seemingly inexplicable gesture, Lawson shook hands bewilderedly with Philip, who turned hastily and limped away.Philip's heart was heavy, and, as usual, he reproached himself for his behaviour.He himself couldn't figure out what kind of blind pride it was, which made him block the hand of friendship that was extended to him.There were footsteps chasing him behind him.Presently he heard Lawson calling him.He stopped his steps, and a nameless fire rose in his heart.He straightened his face and faced Lawson coldly.

"what is the matter?" "I suppose you've heard about Hayward?" "All I know is that he's gone to the Cape of Good Hope." "You know, he died not long after he got to the Cape of Good Hope!" Philip pondered for a while, and couldn't believe his ears. "What's going on?" he asked. "Oh, died of typhoid fever. That's unfortunate, isn't it? I thought maybe you didn't know it. When I first heard the news, I gave a little thud." Lawson nodded hastily and walked away.Philip felt only a tremor go through his heart.He never lost a friend his own age.As for Cronshaw, he was much older than Philip, and his death seemed a reasonable and normal death.The bad news hit him particularly hard.At this time, he thought that he would eventually die.Philip knew, as anyone, that mortals are mortal, but deep down he was not aware that the same law applied to him.Although he had long since lost his intimate affection for Hayward, the sudden death of Hayward still struck violently at his heart.In the blink of an eye, the interesting and meaningful conversation between the two of them in the past echoed in his ears again.He felt very distressed when he thought that they would never be able to sit together and talk together again.The first meeting of the two of them and the happy months they had spent in Heidelberg were vividly vivid.Philip could not help feeling sad when he recalled the days gone by.He swayed his legs subconsciously and walked forward without paying attention to where he was going.Suddenly, looking up, he saw that he had not turned into Haymarket Street, but was walking straight along Shaftesbury Avenue.Turning back, he was not happy again.Besides, after hearing the news, he had no desire to read, but to sit alone and think.He decided to go to the British Museum.Sitting alone in a quiet place was his only enjoyment at the moment.Since joining Lane, he had often gone to the British Museum, sitting in front of the group sculptures from the Parthenon, not thinking of himself, but allowing them to soothe his bewildered soul.But this afternoon, they revealed nothing to him, and after sitting for a few minutes, he couldn't bear it anymore, and walked out in a daze.There are a lot of tourists outside, among them there are countrymen with stupid faces, and there are also foreign tourists who are concentrating on reading the travel guidebook.Their ghastly ugliness defiled the eternal treasures of art here; their inability to sit or stand disturbed the peace of the immortal gods.So Philip turned and went into another room, where there were few tourists.He sat down tiredly, but his nerves were very excited, and nothing he said could drive those tourists out of his mind.Sometimes, in Lane's store, he felt the same way, staring in horror as people filed past him.All of them are extremely ugly, and all of them have a look of despicableness on their faces, which is really terrible for people to see.Their faces are distorted by base desires, and it seems that they are incomprehensible to any good thought.They were born with sly eyes and vulnerable chins, and although they were harmless, they were all vulgar, narrow-minded and vulgar.Their sense of humor is sleazy and comical.Sometimes Philip found himself looking at them, and wondering what kind of animal they were like (he tried not to let himself think of this, for soon he would be fascinated), and he found them It's like a herd of sheep, horses, foxes and goats.The thought of human beings filled him with disgust.

However, after a while, the atmosphere in the room infected him strongly and gradually calmed down his mood.He absentmindedly scanned the rows of headstones in the room.These tombstones are all from the work of Athenian stonemasons in the fourth and fifth centuries BC.Although they are unremarkable and not works of genius, they all sparkle with the spirit of simple and elegant Athens.With the passage of time, the edges and corners of the tombstones have been smoothed, and they are all the color of honey, which reminds people of the bees on Mount Hymitas.Some tombstones depict a naked man sitting on a chair; some depict tragic scenes of a dying man saying goodbye to those who loved him; hand scene.The picture is simple, but its simplicity is particularly touching.How tragic is the parting between friends, between mother and child!And the restraint of the dead made the inner sorrow of the living deeper.well!That was a long, long time ago. Since then, there have been many vicissitudes, and I don’t know how many centuries have passed!For two thousand years, those who mourn the dead have become like the mourned into a cup of loess.But that sorrow was still alive, and Philip felt it now.A feeling of pity suddenly arose in his heart, and he couldn't help singing and sighing:

"Poor man! Poor man!" Philip thought suddenly of the gaping-mouthed tourists, of the paunchy foreigner with a guidebook in his hand, of the mediocrity who crowded the shops to gratify trivial desires and vulgar tastes, People are bound to die in the end.They also have love, but in the end, they have to be separated from their beloved forever. Sons have to say goodbye to their mothers, and wives have to say goodbye to their husbands. Maybe the scene of their parting will be even more tragic, because they have lived an ugly life. Yes, mean day.They don't even know what it is that makes the world beautiful.A bas-relief statue of two young people holding hands is engraved on a beautiful tombstone. The quiet lines and simple picture make people feel that the sculptor was creating with a sincere emotion.This bas-relief is a monument not to friendship but to the fact that the world has bestowed on man yet another treasure.Philip was looking up at the statue intently, and then he felt tears welling up in his eyes.He thought of Hayward.When they first met he had had a passionate admiration for Hayward, but then the disillusionment followed, and then mutual indifference, until at last nothing but habit and old friendship held them together.All these scenes passed through Philip's mind one by one.It's like this in life: you meet someone every day for months, and you become so close to him that you even think you don't know how to live without this person.Then the two separated, but everything is still going on according to the previous pattern.The partner you thought you couldn't live without for a moment now becomes dispensable, day after day, and over time, you don't even think about him anymore.Philip thought back to the early days in Heidelberg.Heyward was then fully capable of a great career and full of enthusiasm for the future, but then, as time passed, he somehow failed to achieve anything, and finally gave up on himself and became a loser.Now he is dead.He lived meaninglessly and died worthlessly.He died in disgrace of a disease of ignorance, and at the end of his life he was unfulfilled, unrecognized, and accomplished, as if he had never existed in the world.

Philip kept asking himself: what is the meaning of life?Everything in the world is empty.In the case of Cronshaw, this was not the case.When he lived, he was just a mediocre person, silent; when he died, he was completely forgotten.The few remaining volumes of his poems are only sold on second-hand bookstalls.His life seemed to offer nothing more than an opportunity to write an opinion piece.So Philip couldn't help shouting in his heart: "What's the point of that?" How disproportionate the efforts of a man's life seem to his end.But people have to pay a heavy price of disillusionment for the beautiful vision of the future when they were young.Pain, disease, and misfortune weigh heavily on one side of the scale of life, tilting it.What does all this mean?Philip thought of his own life, of the lofty aspirations with which he had begun it, of the limitations imposed by his handicap, of being alone and alone, The youthful years spent in a loving, neglected environment.He wondered if he had ever done anything other than what seemed the best thing to do.Even so, he fell headlong and fell into deep misfortune.Some people are not much stronger than him, Philip, but all of them are thriving; there are some people who are many times stronger than Philip, but they are just depressed.Everything seemed to be purely by chance.Whether people are upright or not, the rain falls on them without prejudice.There is no reason to talk about it. In thinking of Cronshaw Philip remembered the Persian rug he had given him.Cronshaw had said at the time that the rug would reveal to him the mysteries of life.Suddenly, Philip realized the truth, and burst out laughing unconsciously.Ah, finally found the answer.It's like guessing a riddle, you can't figure it out, but once you figure out the answer, you can't imagine how you will be stumped by this riddle all at once.The answer could not be more obvious: life is meaningless.The earth is but a satellite of a star traveling through space.Living things arose on Earth under certain conditions that formed part of the planet Earth.Since under the action of these conditions, the earth began to have living things, then, under the action of other conditions, the life of all things will come to an end.Man is no more meaningful than other living things; the appearance of man is not the culmination of creation, but a natural response to the environment.Philip remembered the story about the king of the Eastern Roman Empire.The king was eager to understand the history of mankind.One day, a philosopher sent him 500 volumes of books, but the country was too busy with government affairs and had no time to wrap up the volumes, so he asked the philosopher to bring the books back, compress and synthesize them.Twenty years later, when the philosopher came back, the book was compressed to only fifty volumes. But at this time, the king was almost seventy years old and was unable to read these troublesome ancient books, so he ordered the philosopher to shorten the book again.Twenty years later, an old, gray-haired philosopher came to the king, holding a book in his hand that contained the knowledge that the king was looking for. A book, he has no time to read.At this time, the philosopher summed up the history of mankind into one line, and after writing it, he submitted it, which read: When a person is born into this world, he suffers and suffers, and finally he closes his eyes and passes away.Life has no meaning, and people live without purpose.To be born or not to be born, to live or to die, is irrelevant.Life is insignificant and death is insignificant.The ecstasy that passed over Philip's mind at this thought was the same as the one he had felt in childhood when he was freed from the weight of his belief in God.It seemed to him that the last burden of life had been lifted from his shoulders, and for the first time in his life he felt completely free.At first, he thought that he was insignificant and insignificant, but now he felt that he was indomitable and powerful.Suddenly it seemed to him that he was on a par with the cruel fate that had been persecuting him.Since life is meaningless, there is no cruelty in the world.It doesn't matter what you did or didn't get to do.Failure is not surprising, and success is equal to zero.He is but the most inconspicuous animal among the mortal beings who temporarily occupy the surface of the earth; yet he is omnipotent, for he can wring out the mysteries of the chaos.Philip's mind was active and his mind was full of thoughts; he was so happy and content that he could not help taking several deep breaths.He really wanted to dance and sing.He hadn't felt so at ease in months. "Oh, life," he sighed inwardly, "oh, life, what is your interest?". This sudden thought, with its irrefutable force, showed Philip unmistakably that life was meaningless.At the same time, another idea came to Philip's mind.He thought that Cronshaw had given him the Persian rug just to illustrate this point to him.Carpet weavers weave intricate patterns for no purpose other than the pleasure of gratifying their beauty.Like a rug-weaver, so a man goes through his life.If a man has to believe that his actions are involuntary, then he can look at his life in the same way, that life is just a pattern, that life is neither meaningful nor necessary, that it is only to satisfy a It's just for people's pleasure.Clipping material from the multifarious incidents of life, deeds, feelings, and thoughts, it is quite possible for him to devise a pattern that follows a certain pattern, an intricate pattern, or a colorful and beautiful pattern.And though it might at best be an illusion he thought he had free choice, and though it might always be a juggling of grotesque phantasms and wisps of moonlight, it didn't matter, life seemed to be So it was, and that was how life seemed to Philip.For the moment Philip thought life was meaningless, that everything was insignificant.Against this background of thinking, he believed that a person could pick up a few different drops of water from the vast and endless river of life (this is a river without a source, which rushes on without stopping, but does not flow into the sea), and piece together the kind of pattern, so as to satisfy oneself.There is one pattern that is the most obvious, the most perfect, and at the same time the most beautiful.This pattern is that a person comes into the world from birth, grows up gradually, falls in love, gets married, has children, works hard to earn a piece of bread, and finally passes away.But there are other patterns of life, these patterns are chaotic, but wonderful, in which happiness has never been involved, and people do not pursue fame, but we can feel a more disturbing elegance from them.There are men whose lives, and Hayward's among them, are cut short by blind, indifferent chance, before their pattern is perfect.Then there are comforting words, which are heartwarming but useless, and the lives of others, like Cronshaw's, provide a pattern that is difficult to follow: people have not had time to realize who they are The life itself justifies the life, the point of view will change, and the traditional standard will have to be revised again.Philip thought that in abandoning his desire for happiness he had thrown away his last unrealistic fancy.Measured by the yardstick of happiness, his life seemed terrible; but when he realized that there was another yardstick to measure his life, he suddenly felt full of strength.Happiness is as insignificant as pain, and their arrival, like other details in life, only makes the pattern of life more complex.For a moment, he seemed detached, feeling that the accidents and accidents of life could no longer shake his emotions as they used to.Whatever happened now was only complicating the pattern of life, and when the last days came he would be delighted to have it completed.It would be a work of art, undiminished in its splendor, for only he knew of its existence, and with his death it vanished. Thinking of this, Philip felt indescribably happy.