Of Human Bondage
their gowns. Gordon was dead, he had died of apoplexy two years before,
but all the rest were there. Philip knew now what a poor lot they were,
except Turner perhaps, there was something of a man in him; and he
writhed at the thought of the subjection in which they had held him. In
six months they would not matter either. Their praise would mean
nothing to him, and he would shrug his shoulders at their censure.
Philip had learned not to express his emotions by outward signs, and
shyness still tormented him, but he had often very high spirits; and
then, though he limped about demurely, silent and reserved, it seemed
to be hallooing in his heart. He seemed to himself to walk more
lightly. All sorts of ideas danced through his head, fancies chased one
another so furiously that he could not catch them; but their coming and
their going filled him with exhilaration. Now, being happy, he was able
to work, and during the remaining weeks of the term set himself to make
up for his long neglect. His brain worked easily, and he took a keen
pleasure in the activity of his intellect. He did very well in the
examinations that closed the term. Mr. Perkins made only one remark: he
was talking to him about an essay he had written, and, after the usual
criticisms, said:
“So you’ve made up your mind to stop playing the fool for a bit, have
you?”
He smiled at him with his shining teeth, and Philip, looking down, gave
an embarrassed smile.
The half dozen boys who expected to divide between them the various
prizes which were given at the end of the summer term had ceased to
look upon Philip as a serious rival, but now they began to regard him
with some uneasiness. He told no one that he was leaving at Easter and
so was in no sense a competitor, but left them to their anxieties. He
knew that Rose flattered himself on his French, for he had spent two or
three holidays in France; and he expected to get the Dean’s Prize for
English essay; Philip got a good deal of satisfaction in watching his
dismay when he saw how much better Philip was doing in these subjects
than himself. Another fellow, Norton, could not go to Oxford unless he
got one of the scholarships at the disposal of the school. He asked
Philip if he was going in for them.
“Have you any objection?” asked Philip.
It entertained him to think that he held someone else’s future in his
hand. There was something romantic in getting these various rewards
actually in his grasp, and then leaving them to others because he
disdained them. At last the breaking-up day came, and he went to Mr.
Perkins to bid him good-bye.
“You don’t mean to say you really want to leave?”
Philip’s face fell at the headmaster’s evident surprise.
“You said you wouldn’t put any objection in the way, sir,” he answered.
“I thought it was only a whim that I’d better humour. I know you’re
obstinate and headstrong. What on earth d’you want to leave for now?
You’ve only got another term in any case. You can get the Magdalen
scholarship easily; you’ll get half the prizes we’ve got to give.”
Philip looked at him sullenly. He felt that he had been tricked; but he
had the promise, and Perkins would have to stand by it.
“You’ll have a very pleasant time at Oxford. You needn’t decide at once
what you’re going to do afterwards. I wonder if you realise how
delightful the life is up there for anyone who has brains.”
“I’ve made all my arrangements now to go to Germany, sir,” said Philip.
“Are they arrangements that couldn’t possibly be altered?” asked Mr.
Perkins, with his quizzical smile. “I shall be very sorry to lose you.
In schools the rather stupid boys who work always do better than the
clever boy who’s idle, but when the clever boy works—why then, he does
what you’ve done this term.”
Philip flushed darkly. He was unused to compliments, and no one had
ever told him he was clever. The headmaster put his hand on Philip’s
shoulder.
“You know, driving things into the heads of thick-witted boys is dull
work, but when now and then you have the chance of teaching a boy who
comes half-way towards you, who understands almost before you’ve got
the words out of your mouth, why, then teaching is the most
exhilarating thing in the world.” Philip was melted by kindness; it had
never occurred to him that it mattered really to Mr. Perkins whether he
went or stayed. He was touched and immensely flattered. It would be
pleasant to end up his school-days with glory and then go to Oxford: in
a flash there appeared before him the life which he had heard described
from boys who came back to play in the O.K.S. match or in letters from
the University read out in one of the studies. But he was ashamed; he
would look such a fool in his own eyes if he gave in now; his uncle
would chuckle at the success of the headmaster’s ruse. It was rather a
come-down from the dramatic surrender of all these prizes which were in
his reach, because he disdained to take them, to the plain, ordinary
winning of them. It only required a little more persuasion, just enough
to save his self-respect, and Philip would have done anything that Mr.
Perkins wished; but his face showed nothing of his conflicting
emotions. It was placid and sullen.
“I think I’d rather go, sir,” he said.
Mr. Perkins, like many men who manage things by their personal
influence, grew a little impatient when his power was not immediately
manifest. He had a great deal of work to do, and could not waste more
time on a boy who seemed to him insanely obstinate.
“Very well, I promised to let you if you really wanted it, and I keep
my promise. When do you go to Germany?”
Philip’s heart beat violently. The battle was won, and he did not know
whether he had not rather lost it.
“At the beginning of May, sir,” he answered.
“Well, you must come and see us when you get back.”
He held out his hand. If he had given him one more chance Philip would
have changed his mind, but he seemed to look upon the matter as
settled. Philip walked out of the house. His school-days were over, and
he was free; but the wild exultation to which he had looked forward at
that moment was not there. He walked round the precincts slowly, and a
profound depression seized him. He wished now that he had not been
foolish. He did not want to go, but he knew he could never bring
himself to go to the headmaster and tell him he would stay. That was a
humiliation he could never put upon himself. He wondered whether he had
done right. He was dissatisfied with himself and with all his
circumstances. He asked himself dully whether whenever you got your way
you wished afterwards that you hadn’t.
XXII
Philip’s uncle had an old friend, called Miss Wilkinson, who lived in
Berlin. She was the daughter of a clergyman, and it was with her
father, the rector of a village in Lincolnshire, that Mr. Carey had
spent his last curacy; on his death, forced to earn her living, she had
taken various situations as a governess in France and Germany. She had
kept up a correspondence with Mrs. Carey, and two or three times had
spent her holidays at Blackstable Vicarage, paying as was usual with
the Careys’ unfrequent guests a small sum for her keep. When it became
clear that it was less trouble to yield to Philip’s wishes than to
resist them, Mrs. Carey wrote to ask her for advice. Miss Wilkinson
recommended Heidelberg as an excellent place to learn German in and the
house of Frau Professor Erlin as a comfortable home. Philip might live
there for thirty marks a week, and the Professor himself, a teacher at
the local high school, would instruct him.
Philip arrived in Heidelberg one morning in May. His things were put on
a barrow and he followed the porter out of the station. The sky was
bright blue, and the trees in the avenue through which they passed were
thick with leaves; there was something in the air fresh to Philip, and
mingled with the timidity he felt at entering on a new life, among
strangers, was a great exhilaration. He was a little disconsolate that
no one had come to meet him, and felt very shy when the porter left him
at the front door of a big white house. An untidy lad let him in and
took him into a drawing-room. It was filled with a large suite covered
in green velvet, and in the middle was a round table. On this in water
stood a bouquet of flowers tightly packed together in a paper frill
like the bone of a mutton chop, and carefully spaced round it were
books in leather bindings. There was a musty smell.
Presently, with an odour of cooking, the Frau Professor came in, a
short, very stout woman with tightly dressed hair and a red face; she
had little eyes, sparkling like beads, and an effusive manner. She took
both Philip’s hands and asked him about Miss Wilkinson, who had twice
spent a few weeks with her. She spoke in German and in broken English.
Philip could not make her understand that he did not know Miss
Wilkinson. Then her two daughters appeared. They seemed hardly young to
Philip, but perhaps they were not more than twenty-five: the elder,
Thekla, was as short as her mother, with the same, rather shifty air,
but with a pretty face and abundant dark hair; Anna, her younger
sister, was tall and plain, but since she had a pleasant smile Philip
immediately preferred her. After a few minutes of polite conversation
the Frau Professor took Philip to his room and left him. It was in a
turret, looking over the tops of the trees in the Anlage; and the bed
was in an alcove, so that when you sat at the desk it had not the look
of a bed-room at all. Philip unpacked his things and set out all his
books. He was his own master at last.
A bell summoned him to dinner at one o’clock, and he found the Frau
Professor’s guests assembled in the drawing-room. He was introduced to
her husband, a tall man of middle age with a large fair head, turning
now to gray, and mild blue eyes. He spoke to Philip in correct, rather
archaic English, having learned it from a study of the English
classics, not from conversation; and it was odd to hear him use words
colloquially which Philip had only met in the plays of Shakespeare.
Frau Professor Erlin called her establishment a family and not a
pension; but it would have required the subtlety of a metaphysician to
find out exactly where the difference lay. When they sat down to dinner
in a long dark apartment that led out of the drawing-room, Philip,
feeling very shy, saw that there were sixteen people. The Frau
Professor sat at one end and carved. The service was conducted, with a
great clattering of plates, by the same clumsy lout who had opened the
door for him; and though he was quick it happened that the first
persons to be served had finished before the last had received their
appointed portions. The Frau Professor insisted that nothing but German
should be spoken, so that Philip, even if his bashfulness had permitted
him to be talkative, was forced to hold his tongue. He looked at the
people among whom he was to live. By the Frau Professor sat several old
ladies, but Philip did not give them much of his attention. There were
two young girls, both fair and one of them very pretty, whom Philip
heard addressed as Fraulein Hedwig and Fraulein Cacilie. Fraulein
Cacilie had a long pig-tail hanging down her back. They sat side by
side and chattered to one another, with smothered laughter: now and
then they glanced at Philip and one of them said something in an
undertone; they both giggled, and Philip blushed awkwardly, feeling
that they were making fun of him. Near them sat a Chinaman, with a
yellow face and an expansive smile, who was studying Western conditions
at the University. He spoke so quickly, with a queer accent, that the
girls could not always understand him, and then they burst out