Somerset Maugham's book "The Burden of Human Passion" is one of the best works I have read recently. Somerset describes our passions so beautifully and poetically that it even makes us feel uneasy. For the lazy, a video with my review of the book “Burden of Passions”:
I read it electronically. It was given to me on the Litres website. I don’t think it will be difficult for you to find where you can download it.
Maugham himself believed that the novel was overloaded with excessive details, that many scenes were added to the novel simply to increase volume or due to fashion - the novel was published in 1915 - ideas about novels at that time differed from modern ones. Therefore, in the 60s, Maugham significantly shortened the novel “... a lot of time passed before writers realized: a one-line description often gives more than full page" In the Russian translation, this version of the novel was called “Burden of Passions” - so that it would be possible to distinguish it from the original version.
Summary of the novel (don't read it if you're planning on picking up the book!)
The first chapters are devoted to Philip's life in Blackstable with his uncle and aunt and his studies at the royal school in Terkenbury, where Philip endures a lot of bullying because of his lame leg. Relatives expect that after graduating from school, Philip will enter Oxford and take holy orders, but the young man feels that he has no real calling for this. Instead, he goes to Heidelberg (Germany), where he studies Latin, German and French.
During his stay in Germany, Philip meets the Englishman Hayward. Philip immediately takes a liking to his new acquaintance; he cannot help but be admired by Hayward's extensive knowledge of literature and art. However, Hayward's ardent idealism does not suit Philip: “He always passionately loved life and experience told him that idealism is most often a cowardly flight from life. The idealist withdraws into himself because he is afraid of the pressure of the human crowd; he does not have enough strength to fight, and therefore he considers it an activity for the mob; he is vain, and since his neighbors do not agree with his assessment of himself, he consoles himself with the fact that he pays them contempt.” Another of Philip’s friends, Weeks, characterizes people like Hayward this way: “They always admire what is usually admired - whatever it is - and one of these days they are going to write a great work. Just think - one hundred and forty-seven great works rest in the soul of one hundred and forty-seven great men, but the tragedy is that not one of these one hundred and forty-seven great works will ever be written. And nothing in the world changes because of this.”
In Heidelberg, Philip ceases to believe in God, experiences an extraordinary elation and realizes that he has thereby thrown off the heavy burden of responsibility that gave significance to his every action. Philip feels mature, fearless, free and decides to start a new life.
After this, Philip makes an attempt to become a chartered accountant in London, but it turns out that this profession is not for him. Then the young man decides to go to Paris and take up painting. New acquaintances studying with him at the Amitrino art studio introduce him to the poet Cronshaw, who leads a bohemian lifestyle. Cronshaw is the opposite of Hayward, a cynic and a materialist. He ridicules Philip for abandoning the Christian faith without abandoning Christian morality along with it. “People strive for only one thing in life - pleasure,” he says. - A person performs this or that act because it makes him feel good, and if it makes other people feel good, the person is considered virtuous; if he is pleased to give alms, he is considered merciful; if he enjoys helping others, he is a philanthropist; if he enjoys giving his strength to society, he is a useful member of it; but you give twopence to a beggar for your own personal satisfaction, just as I drink whiskey and soda for my personal satisfaction.” Desperate Philip asks what, then, according to Cronshaw, is the meaning of life, and the poet advises him to look at Persian carpets and refuses further explanation.
Philip is not ready to accept Cronshaw’s philosophy, but he agrees with the poet that abstract morality does not exist, and refuses it: “Down with legalized ideas about virtue and vice, about good and evil - he will set the rules of life for himself.” Philip gives himself advice: “Follow your natural inclinations, but with due regard for the policeman around the corner.” (To those who have not read the book, this may seem wild, but it should be borne in mind that Philip’s natural inclinations are quite consistent with generally accepted norms).
Philip soon realizes that he will not make a great artist, and enters the medical school at St. Luke's Hospital in London. He meets the waitress Mildred and falls in love with her, despite the fact that he sees all her shortcomings: she is ugly, vulgar and stupid. Passion forces Philip to undergo incredible humiliations, waste money and become delighted with the slightest sign of attention from Mildred. Soon, as one would expect, she leaves for another person, but after a while she returns to Philip: it turns out that her husband is married. Philip immediately breaks off contact with the kind, noble and resilient girl Nora Nesbitt, whom he met shortly after breaking up with Mildred, and repeats all his mistakes a second time. In the end, Mildred unexpectedly falls in love with his college friend Griffiths and leaves the unfortunate Philip.
Philip is at a loss: the philosophy that he invented for himself has shown its complete failure. Philip becomes convinced that the intellect cannot seriously help people at a critical moment in life; his mind is only a contemplator, recording facts, but powerless to intervene. When the time comes to act, a person bows helplessly under the burden of his instincts and passions. This gradually leads Philip to fatalism: “When you take off your head, you don’t cry over your hair, because all your strength was aimed at removing this head.”
Some time later, Philip meets Mildred for the third time. He no longer feels the same passion for her, but still experiences some kind of harmful attraction to this woman and spends a lot of money on her. To top it all off, he goes broke on the stock exchange, loses all his savings, quits medical school and gets a job in a dry goods store. But it was then that Philip solves Cronshaw’s riddle and finds the strength to abandon the last illusion, throw off the last burden. He admits that “life has no meaning and human existence is purposeless. […] Knowing that nothing makes sense and nothing matters, a person can still find satisfaction in choosing the various threads that he weaves into the endless fabric of life: after all, it is a river that has no source and flows endlessly without falling into any to which seas? There is one pattern - the simplest and most beautiful: a person is born, matures, gets married, gives birth to children, works for a piece of bread and dies; but there are other, more intricate and amazing patterns, where there is no place for happiness or the desire for success - perhaps some kind of alarming beauty is hidden in them.”
The awareness of the purposelessness of life does not lead Philip to despair, as one might think, but on the contrary makes him happy: “Failure changes nothing, and success is zero. Man is only the smallest grain of sand in a huge human whirlpool that has swept over the earth’s surface for a short moment; but he becomes omnipotent as soon as he unravels the secret that chaos is nothing.”
Philip's uncle dies and leaves his nephew an inheritance. This money allows Philip to return to medical school. While studying, he cherishes the dream of going on a trip, visiting Spain (at one time he was greatly impressed by the paintings of El Greco) and the countries of the East. However, Philip's new girlfriend, nineteen-year-old Sally, is his daughter. former patient Thorpa Athelni announces that she is expecting a child. Philip, as a noble man, decides to marry her, despite the fact that this will not allow his dreams of travel to come true. It soon turns out that Sally was mistaken, but Philip does not feel relieved - on the contrary, he is disappointed. Philip understands that you need to live for today, not tomorrow, the simplest pattern human life and is the most perfect. That's why he proposes to Sally after all. He doesn’t love this girl, but he feels great sympathy for her, he feels good with her, and besides, no matter how funny it sounds, he has respect for her, and passionate love, as the story with Mildred showed, often brings nothing but grief.
In the end, Philip even comes to terms with his lame leg, because “without it he could not have felt beauty so keenly, passionately loved art and literature, excitedly followed the complex drama of life. The mockery and contempt to which he was subjected forced him to go deeper into himself and grew flowers - now they will never lose their aroma.” Eternal dissatisfaction is replaced by peace of mind.
Review with quotes about the novel “The Burden of Human Passions” from the site irecommend.ru
Thanks to good reviews The book “The Burden of Human Passions”, written by the British prose writer Somerset Maugham, at one time ended up in my reader and remained unclaimed there for a long time.
When you start looking for something to read, you look through titles and authors. And every time I came across the title of this book, it seemed terribly outdated to me, and, frankly, I imagined a certain boredom inside. That's why for a long time I avoided the book. But it stubbornly caught my eye, because the title starts with the letter “b,” which means the book is always practically at the top of the list.
And finally I decided to read it. Now I understand that the book was simply waiting in the wings, waiting for my mood to match.
The novel “The Burden of Human Passions” was by no means archaic. In my opinion, it is very modern, although the author wrote it in 1915, and the action in it takes place starting in 1885.
The main character of the novel is Philip Carey. We get to know him from the time he is 9 years old, when his mother dies and he is left an orphan, and we track him life path, his becoming a man.
A boy with a crippled fate and a wounded soul. In addition to the deepest childhood trauma, the death of his parents, he had to carry his otherness throughout his life, because he was born with a serious physical illness - a mutilated leg. He had a limp since childhood, and this lameness constantly became the subject of ridicule from his peers, and in adulthood, an unpleasant object of excessive attention from others.
This developed in him a huge complex with which he had to somehow live, study, work, love.
The work “The Burden of Human Passions” is very atmospheric. We are immersed in the life of Europe at that time. The openness of the borders is surprising. For us, today's Russians, the borders became open only recently, and for the most part we cross them as tourists. And here the opportunity to live, study, and work in any country is amazing. In general, the mobility of people of that time is amazing. Yes and main character: born in England, studied at a closed school, then decided to study in Berlin, then work in London, then study again in Paris, return to his homeland to start studying in London again. But that's it, notes in the margins. This is not the main thing in the book “The Burden of Human Passions”.
The main thing is the passions themselves that consume a person. And it doesn’t matter whether this person lived in the 19th century or lives in the 21st. Nothing in this world changes.
Belief in God or disbelief.
Finding your place in life.
Human relationships. Loneliness.
The eternal struggle of the heart with the mind, and very often the heart turns out to be stronger. Pride, common sense, position in society, and one’s own well-being go into the shadows when Her Majesty Passion appears on the stage.
The emotional experiences of the main character of the book “The Burden of Human Passions” are written very powerfully. Sometimes an association involuntarily arises with the torment of Rodion Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. The same power of suffering.
And all these passions are timeless. Their depth, of course, depends on the sensitivity of nature. But at all times, people have done stupid things under the influence of their passions, stepped on a rake, ruined their lives. And it will always be like this.
I want to warn you that the book “The Burden of Human Passions” by Somerset Maugham. long. But don’t let this scare you: it’s easy to read. I just lived for several days in some kind of parallel life - the life of this boy, young man, man, and empathized with him.
Another review from the website bookmix.ru. And yes, I wanted to go to London again :)
I fundamentally decided to learn this weighty brick in an electronic version, if only because the phone always weighs the same, and you can’t really carry a heavy book with you on the subway.
But still, it’s better to read these kinds of novels in paper, turn the pages, looking, well, how far there is to the end, stroke the binding, choose a bookmark from whatever comes to hand, and inhale the smell of book pages. Especially when it comes to books.
This is that old (well, still not quite old, but pretty close) good England, about which the definition “ English literature" sounds like a sign of quality.
This is a novel whose plot should not be retold. A man was born, studied, married and died. And I solved the riddle of the Persian carpet somewhere in between the stages.
More precisely not so. We do not catch the birth of the main character, and we will leave him at the age of thirty, when he is still far from “died”. But we will go through all the stages of growing up, self-realization and indulging our own passions.
When Philip understood with his mind that he needed to do one thing, but his heart practically forced him to do something else, I wanted to throw “The Burden” far, far away. “Rag!” I got angry, stopped reading the book, but still came back. This is a romance, it can end well. Maybe, but not required. And why I love such works is that you can’t guess how it will all end, because it lasts endlessly and one thing smoothly flows into the other.
The main character is not particularly likable. He is an ordinary person. Spontaneous, frivolous, addicted. He didn't like sitting and sorting through columns of accounting numbers - and who would like that? He wanted a beautiful bohemian life in Paris. Montmartre, artists, inspiration, muses, recognition.
And he can be understood. Such desires are not uncommon. It’s just that not everyone decides to implement them.
And wanting your uncle to die in the name of inheritance is cruel, but also completely understandable.
I repeat, the main character of the work is an ordinary person. I mean, not a superhero. And nothing human is alien to him. And the main thing here is to understand where it is, your happiness, far or close.
Maugham is wonderful. His works are lightweight, but at the same time beautiful and elegant. A pleasant pastime: living day by day the life of one fictional character, the prototype of which could be any lame person. And not lame either.
Although I deceived you. Philip is not so simple. He has enough brains. The only thing missing was character. From time to time.
And Maugham, in turn, lost his parents early, was raised by his priest uncle, studied literature and philosophy in Heidelberg and medicine in London. In the novel, all reality is probably pre-embellished - that’s why it’s a novel. But it is also true that if you want to know a little about the author himself, look for him in Philip.
The day turned dull and gray. The clouds hung low, the air was chilly - snow was about to fall. A maid entered the room where the child was sleeping and opened the curtains. Out of habit, she glanced at the facade of the house opposite - plastered, with a portico - and walked up to the crib.
“Get up, Philip,” she said.
Throwing back the blanket, she picked him up and carried him downstairs. He's not quite awake yet.
- Mom is calling you.
Opening the door to the room on the first floor, the nanny brought the child to the bed on which the woman lay. It was his mother. She held out her arms to the boy, and he curled up next to her, not asking why he was woken. The woman kissed his closed eyes and with her thin hands felt his warm little body through his white flannel nightgown. She hugged the child close to her.
-Are you sleepy, baby? – she asked.
Her voice was so weak that it seemed to be coming from somewhere far away. The boy did not answer and just stretched sweetly. He felt good in a warm, spacious bed, in gentle hugs. He tried to become even smaller, curled up into a ball and kissed her in his sleep. His eyes closed and he fell fast asleep. The doctor silently approached the bed.
“Let him stay with me for a little while,” she moaned.
The doctor did not answer and only looked at her sternly. Knowing that she would not be allowed to keep the child, the woman kissed him again, ran her hand over his body; Taking the right leg, she touched all five toes, and then reluctantly touched the left leg. She began to cry.
- What's wrong with you? - asked the doctor. - Are you tired.
She shook her head and tears rolled down her cheeks. The doctor leaned towards her.
- Give it to me.
She was too weak to protest. The doctor handed the child into the arms of the nanny.
“Put him back in bed.”
- Now.
The sleeping boy was carried away. The mother sobbed, no longer holding back.
- Poor thing! What will happen to him now!
The nurse tried to calm her down; exhausted, the woman stopped crying. The doctor approached the table at the other end of the room, where the corpse of a newborn baby lay covered with a napkin. Lifting the napkin, the doctor looked at the lifeless body. And, although the bed was fenced off with a screen, the woman guessed what he was doing.
- Boy or girl? – she asked the nurse in a whisper.
- Also a boy.
The woman didn't say anything. The nanny returned to the room. She approached the patient.
“Philip never woke up,” she said.
Silence reigned. The doctor again felt the patient’s pulse.
“I’ll accompany you,” the nurse offered.
They silently went down the stairs to the hallway. The doctor stopped.
-Have you sent for Mrs. Carey's brother-in-law?
– When do you think he will arrive?
– I don’t know, I’m waiting for a telegram.
- What to do with the boy? Wouldn't it be better to send him somewhere for now?
“Miss Watkin agreed to take him in.”
-Who is she?
- His godmother. Do you think Mrs. Carey will get better?
The doctor shook his head.
2
A week later, Philip was sitting on the floor of Miss Watkin's drawing room in Onslow Gardens. He grew up as an only child and was used to playing alone. The room was filled with bulky furniture, and each ottoman had three large poufs. There were also pillows in the chairs. Philip pulled them down to the floor and, moving the light gilded ceremonial chairs, built an intricate cave where he could hide from the redskins hiding behind the curtains. Putting his ear to the floor, he listened to the distant tramp of a herd of bison rushing across the prairie. The door opened and he held his breath so as not to be found, but angry hands pushed the chair back and the pillows fell to the floor.
- Oh, you naughty one! Miss Watkin will be angry.
- Ku-ku, Emma! - he said.
The nanny leaned over, kissed him, and then began to brush off and put away the pillows.
- Shall we go home? - he asked.
- Yes, I came for you.
-You have a new dress.
The year was 1885, and women were putting bustles under their skirts. The dress was made of black velvet, with narrow sleeves and sloping shoulders; the skirt was decorated with three wide frills. The bonnet was also black and tied with velvet. The nanny didn't know what to do. The question she had been waiting for was not asked, and she had no prepared answer to give.
- Why don’t you ask how your mother is doing? – she finally couldn’t stand it.
- I forgot. How is mom doing?
Now she could answer:
- Your mother is fine. She is very happy.
- Mom left. You won't see her again.
Philip didn't understand anything.
- Why?
– Your mother is in heaven.
She began to cry, and Philip, although he did not know what was wrong, began to cry too. Emma, a tall, bony woman with blond hair and rough features, was from Devonshire and, despite many years of service in London, had never unlearned her harsh accent. She was completely moved by her tears and hugged the boy tightly to her chest. She understood what misfortune befell the child, deprived of that only love, in which there was not even a shadow of self-interest. It seemed terrible to her that he would end up with strangers. But after a while she pulled herself together.
“Uncle William is waiting for you,” she said. “Go say goodbye to Miss Watkin and we’ll go home.”
“I don’t want to say goodbye to her,” he answered, for some reason ashamed of his tears.
“Okay, then run upstairs and put on your hat.”
He brought a hat. Emma was waiting for him in the hallway. Voices came from the office behind the living room. Philip stopped hesitantly. He knew that Miss Watkin and her sister were talking with friends, and he thought - the boy was only nine years old - that if he came to see them, they would feel sorry for him.
“I’ll still go and say goodbye to Miss Watkin.”
“Well done, go,” Emma praised him.
- First, tell them that I will come now.
He wanted to arrange his farewell better. Emma knocked on the door and entered. He heard her say:
“Philip wants to say goodbye to you.”
The conversation immediately fell silent, and Philip, limping, entered the office. Henrietta Watkin was a red-faced, plump lady with dyed hair. In those days, dyed hair was rare and attracted everyone's attention; Philip heard a lot of gossip about this at home when his godmother suddenly changed her color. She lived alone with older sister, who resignedly resigned herself to her advanced years. Their guests were two ladies unknown to Philip; they looked at the boy with curiosity.
“My poor child,” said Miss Watkin and opened her arms wide to Philip.
She began to cry. Philip understood why she didn't come out for dinner and put on black dress. She found it difficult to speak.
“I need to go home,” the boy finally broke the silence.
He pulled away from Miss Watkin's embrace and she kissed him goodbye. Then Philip went up to her sister and said goodbye to her. One of the unfamiliar ladies asked if she could kiss him too, and he sedately allowed it. Although his tears flowed, he really liked that he was the cause of such a commotion; He would have gladly stayed longer to be caressed again, but he felt that he was in the way and said that Emma was probably waiting for him. The boy left the room. Emma went down to the servants' quarters to talk to her friend, and he remained waiting for her on the landing. Henrietta Watkin's voice reached him:
“His mother was my closest friend. I just can’t come to terms with the idea that she died.
“You shouldn’t have gone to the funeral, Henrietta!” - said the sister. “I knew you’d be completely upset.”
One of the unfamiliar ladies intervened in the conversation:
- Poor baby! Left an orphan - what a horror! Is he also lame?
- Yes, from birth. Poor mother always grieved so much!
Emma arrived. They got into a cab and Emma told the driver where to go.
3
When they arrived at the house where Mrs. Carey died—it stood in a bleak, sedate street between Notting Hill Gate and the High Street in Kensington—Emma led Philip straight into the drawing room. Uncle wrote Thanksgiving letters for the wreaths sent to the funeral. One of them, brought too late, lay in cardboard box on the table in the hallway.
“Here’s Philip,” said Emma.
Mr. Carey slowly stood up and shook hands with the boy. Then he thought, bent down and kissed the child on the forehead. He was a short man, prone to being overweight. He wore his hair long and combed to the side to hide his baldness, and shaved his face. The features were regular, and in his youth Mr. Carey was probably considered handsome. He wore a gold cross on his watch chain.
“Well, Philip, you will live with me now,” said Mr. Carey. -Are you happy?
Two years ago, when Philip suffered from smallpox, he was sent to the village to stay with his uncle the priest, but all he remembered was the attic and the large garden; He didn’t remember his uncle and aunt.
“Now Aunt Louise and I will be your father and mother.”
The boy's lips trembled, he blushed, but did not answer.
“Your dear mother left you in my care.”
Mr. Carey had a hard time talking to children. When the news came that his brother's wife was dying, he immediately went to London, but on the way he only thought about what a burden he would take on if he was forced to take care of his nephew. He was well over fifty, he had lived with his wife for thirty years, but they had no children; the thought of a boy appearing in the house who might turn out to be a tomboy did not please him at all. And he never particularly liked his brother’s wife.
“I’ll take you to Blackstable tomorrow,” he said.
- And Emma too?
The child put his little hand in the nanny's hand, and Emma squeezed it.
“I'm afraid Emma will have to part with us,” said Mr. Carey.
“And I want Emma to come with me.”
Philip began to cry, and the nanny also could not stop crying. Mr. Carey looked at them both helplessly.
“I’ll ask you to leave Philip and me alone for a moment.”
- Please, sir.
Philip clung to her, but she gently pulled his hands away. Mr. Carey pulled the boy onto his lap and hugged him.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “You’re already big—it’s a shame to have a nanny look after you.” We'll have to send you to school soon anyway.
– And I want Emma to come with me! - the child repeated.
- It costs a lot of money. And your father left very little. I don't know where everything went. You'll have to count every penny.
The day before, Mr. Carey had gone to see the attorney who handled all of their family's affairs. Philip's father was a well-established surgeon, and his work in the clinic seemed likely to give him a secure position. But after his sudden death from blood poisoning, to everyone's surprise, it turned out that he had left his widow nothing except an insurance premium and a house on Bruthen Street. He died six months ago, and Mrs. Carey, in poor health and pregnant, completely lost her head, rented the house for the first price offered to her. She sent her furniture to a warehouse, and in order not to endure inconvenience during pregnancy, she rented an entire furnished house for a year, paying for it, according to the priest, a lot of money. True, she had never been able to save money and was unable to reduce expenses in accordance with her new position. She squandered the little that her husband left her, and now, when all expenses are covered, there will be no more than two thousand pounds left to support the boy until he comes of age. But all this was difficult to explain to Philip, who continued to sob bitterly.
“You better go to Emma,” said Mr. Carey, realizing that it would be easier for the nanny to console the child.
Philip silently climbed down from his uncle's lap, but Mr. Carey held him back.
“We have to go tomorrow, on Saturday I have to prepare for the Sunday sermon.” Tell Emma to pack your things today. You can take all your toys. And, if you want, choose some little thing each in memory of your father and mother. Everything else will be sold.
The boy slipped out of the room. Mr. Carey was not used to working; he returned to his epistolary studies with obvious displeasure. On the side of the table lay a stack of bills, which made him very angry. One of them seemed especially outrageous to him. Immediately after Mrs. Carey's death, Emma ordered a forest of white flowers from a flower shop to decorate the deceased's room. What a waste of money! Emma allowed herself too much. Even if it wasn't necessary, he would still fire her.
And Philip came up to her, buried his head in her chest and sobbed as if his heart was breaking. She, feeling that she loved him almost like her own son - Emma was hired when he was not even a month old - consoled him with kind words. She promised to visit him often, said that she would never forget him; told him about the places where he was going, and about her home in Devonshire - her father collected tolls on the road leading to Exeter, they had their own pigs and a cow, and the cow had just calved... Philip's tears dried up, and Tomorrow's journey began to seem tempting to him. Emma put the boy on the floor - there was still a lot to do - and Philip helped her take out the clothes and lay them out on the bed. Emma sent him to the nursery to collect toys; Soon he was playing happily.
But then he got tired of playing alone, and he ran into the bedroom, where Emma was putting his things in a large chest covered with tin. Philip remembered that his uncle allowed him to take something to remember his dad and mom. He told Emma about this and asked what he should take.
- Go to the living room and see what you like best.
- Uncle William is there.
- So what? The things are yours.
Philip hesitantly went down the stairs and saw that the door to the living room was open. Mr. Carey went out somewhere. Philip walked slowly around the room. They lived in this house for such a short time that there were few things in it that he managed to become attached to. The room seemed alien to him, and Philip did not like anything about it. He remembered what things were left from his mother and what belonged to the owner of the house. Finally he chose a small watch - his mother said she liked it. Taking the watch, Philip dejectedly went upstairs again. He walked to his mother's bedroom door and listened. No one forbade him to enter there, but for some reason he felt that it was not good. The boy felt terrified, and his heart began to beat in fear; however, he still turned the handle. He did it quietly, as if afraid that someone would hear him, and slowly opened the door. Before entering, he gathered his courage and stood on the threshold for a while. The fear had passed, but he still felt uneasy. Philip quietly closed the door behind him. The curtains were drawn, and in the cold light of the January afternoon the room seemed very gloomy. On the toilet lay Mrs. Carey's brush and hand mirror, and on the tray were hairpins. On the mantelpiece were photographs of Philip's father and himself. The boy often visited this room when his mother was not here, but now everything here looked somehow different. Even the chairs – and those had some kind of unusual appearance. The bed was made as if someone was about to go to bed, and on the pillow there was a nightgown in an envelope.
Philip opened a large wardrobe full of dresses, climbed into it, grabbed as many dresses as he could, and buried his face in them. The dresses smelled of their mother's perfume. Then Philip began to open the drawers with her things; the laundry was arranged in bags of dry lavender, the smell was fresh and very pleasant. The room was no longer inhabitable, and it seemed to him that his mother had simply gone for a walk. She will come soon and go up to his nursery to have tea with him. It even seemed to him that she had just kissed him.
Philip could not forget Miss Wilkinson's story. True, she cut him off halfway, but what she did not say was already clear, and Philip felt that he was shocked. I could afford it married woman“Philip had read a lot of French novels and knew that in France such behavior seemed commonplace,” but Miss Wilkinson was unmarried, an Englishwoman, and also the daughter of a priest. Then the thought struck him that the young artist was apparently not her first and not her last lover, and it even took his breath away; he had never before tried to look at Miss Wilkinson from this side; he had no idea that he could have an affair with her. In his naivety, he had as little doubt about the verisimilitude of her story as he did about everything he had read in books; he was angry that such amazing adventures had never happened to him. It was a shame to think that if Miss Wilkinson again demanded an account of his adventures in Heidelberg, he would have nothing to tell her. True, Philip had some imagination, but still he did not hope to convince her that he was mired in vices: women had such devilish intuition - he had read about that too! - and she will easily discover that he is lying. He blushed like a lobster at the thought that she would laugh at him on the sly.
Miss Wilkinson played the piano and sang in a slightly cracked voice the romances of Massenet, Benjamin Godard and Auguste Olmes; Philip heard them for the first time; the two of them spent time at the piano long hours. One day she asked if he had a voice and wanted to check it out. Saying that he had a pleasant baritone voice, she offered to give him lessons. At first, being shy, he refused, but she insisted on her own and began to study with him every morning after breakfast. Miss Wilkinson was a natural teacher, and he felt what an excellent governess she was. There was system and perseverance in her teaching. Although she was so used to speaking with a French accent that she never forgot about it, all her sweetness disappeared from her as soon as the lesson began. She had no time for nonsense here. She developed a commanding tone, she suppressed the slightest inattention and reproached for sloppiness. She knew her stuff and made Philip sing scales and vocalises.
When the lesson ended, without any effort she again began to smile invitingly, her voice again became soft and insinuating, but it was not so easy for Philip to stop feeling like a student, like she did as a teacher. Miss Wilkinson's new appearance did not coincide with the image created by her stories. He began to look at her more closely. He liked her much better in the evenings. In the morning, wrinkles were clearly visible on her face, and the skin on her neck seemed flabby. He wished she wouldn't show off her neck, but the weather was hot and she wore low-cut blouses. She liked to dress in white dresses, but in the morning this color did not suit her. In the evening, wearing an elegant dress and a garnet necklace around her neck, she seemed almost pretty, the lace on her chest and at the elbow gave her a soft femininity, and the smell of perfume was exciting and reminiscent of distant lands (in Blackstable no one wore anything other than cologne, and then only on Sundays or perhaps because of a headache). Miss Wilkinson looked quite young then indeed.
Philip was very interested in her age. He added up twenty and seventeen, and could not be satisfied with the result. More than once he interrogated Aunt Louise why she thought that Miss Wilkinson was already thirty-seven years old: she looked no more than thirty; besides, foreign women are known to age faster than English women, and Miss Wilkinson has lived abroad so long that she can pass for a foreigner. Personally, he wouldn't give her more than twenty-six.
“No, she has much more,” answered Aunt Louise.
Philip did not believe his uncle and aunt. All they remembered clearly was that Miss Wilkinson wore a braid when they lived in Lincolnshire. But she could have been twelve years old then: it was so long ago, and the priest’s memory could not be relied upon at all. They claim that twenty years have passed since then, but people like to round up; maybe only eighteen or even seventeen years have passed. Seventeen plus twelve is just twenty-nine, and, damn it, that’s not old age. Cleopatra was forty-eight when Antony renounced power over the world for her sake.
The summer was wonderful. Day after day the weather was hot, cloudless, but the heat was mitigated by the proximity of the sea; he gave off an invigorating freshness, and the August sun did not tire him at all. There was a pool in the garden, a fountain gurgled in it and lilies grew, and goldfish basked in the sun near the surface of the water. After dinner, Philip and Miss Wilkinson, having taken blankets and pillows from the house, settled down on the lawn in the shade of a high hedge of roses. There they read, chatted and smoked - the priest could not stand tobacco smoke; he considered smoking a disgusting habit and often repeated, appropriately and inappropriately, that it was a shame to be a slave to your habits. At the same time, he forgot that he himself was a slave to his addiction to tea.
One day Miss Wilkinson gave Philip "La vie de Bohème." She found the book by chance, rummaging through the priest's closet: Mr. Carey bought it from a second-hand bookseller along with other books and did not open it for ten years.
Philip began to read Murget's fascinating, poorly written and absurd masterpiece and immediately felt its charm. He was captivated by the motley picture of carefree malnutrition, picturesque need, not too chaste, but such romantic love and a touching mixture of high feelings and the everyday. Rodolphe and Mimi, Musetta and Schaunard! Dressed in fancy costumes from the time of Louis Philippe, they wander through the narrow streets of the Latin Quarter, taking refuge in one attic or another, smiling and shedding tears, careless and reckless. Who can resist them? Only after reading this book in adulthood will you see how rude their entertainment is and the vulgarity of their souls, then you will feel how worthless this whole thing is. merry round dance, you will understand how insignificant they are as artists and as people.
Philip raved about this book.
– Wouldn’t you like to live in Paris instead of London? asked Miss Wilkinson, chuckling at his admiration.
“It’s too late now, even if I wanted to,” he replied.
For two whole weeks after he returned from Germany, he and his uncle discussed his future. He finally refused to go to Oxford, and now that all scholarships had disappeared, even Mr. Carey came to the conclusion that Philip could not afford it. He inherited only two thousand pounds from his parents, and although they were placed in mortgages that yielded five per cent a year, he could not make ends meet without touching the capital. Now his condition has decreased a little. It would be foolish to spend two hundred pounds each for three years - university life at Oxford would have cost him no less - and still not have a lucrative profession. He was eager to go to London. Mrs. Carey believed that only four professions were possible for a gentleman: the army, the navy, the court and the church. To this list she agreed to add medicine, since her son-in-law was a doctor, but she could not forget that in her youth no one considered a doctor a gentleman. The first two professions were closed to Philip, and he himself flatly refused to become a priest. The profession of lawyer remained. The local doctor noticed that many gentlemen were now becoming engineers, but Mrs. Carey strongly opposed it.
“I wouldn’t like Philip to become a craftsman,” she said.
- No, he must get real profession, - the priest also responded.
“Why doesn’t he become a doctor, like his father?”
“No way,” said Philip.
Mrs. Carey was not upset by this refusal. The Bar also seemed to be out of the question, since he had no intention of going to Oxford and the Carey family were convinced that success in that field required a degree. In the end, the idea arose to apprentice him to a lawyer. A letter was sent to Albert Nixon, the attorney who handled their family's affairs; with the vicar of Blackstable he was executor of the late Henry Carey; the letter asked if he would take Philip as an apprentice. A few days later the answer came that Mr. Nixon had no vacancies and he strongly objected to the whole idea: there were already too many lawyers, and without capital or connections in this profession it was impossible to get above the position of senior clerk; It makes sense for Philip to become a chartered accountant. Neither the priest nor his wife had any idea what it was, and Philip had never heard of chartered accountants. But in a subsequent letter their attorney explained that the growth of modern trade and industry and the development joint stock companies led to the creation of numerous accounting firms to audit books of accounts and bring order to clients' financial affairs that was absent in the old days. A few years ago, accountants received royal privileges, and every year since then the profession has become more respected, prosperous and influential. The accounting firm that had been handling Albert Nixon's financial affairs for thirty years had just opened up a position for an apprentice, and they were ready to give it to Philip for a fee of three hundred pounds sterling. Half of this amount was returned to him during his five years of study in the form of a salary. The future was not God knows how bright, but Philip knew that he needed to decide on something, and the passionate desire to live in London conquered all his doubts. The priest asked Mr. Nixon if this was a suitable profession for a gentleman; Mr. Nixon replied that after receiving privileges, people who studied in closed schools became accountants educational institutions and even at the university; Moreover, if Philip does not like the work and after a year he wants to leave, Herbert Carter - that was the name of the owner of the accounting firm - is ready to return half of the money paid for the teaching. This settled the issue; It was agreed that Philip would begin work on the fifteenth of September.
“I have a whole month ahead of me,” said Philip.
“And then you will be free, and I will return to my slavery,” said Miss Wilkinson.
She had a month and a half's leave and was due to leave Blackstable a day or two before Philip's departure.
– Will we ever meet again or not? – she added.
- Why don’t we meet?
– Oh, don’t talk about it so matter-of-factly. I have never seen a more insensitive person.
Philip blushed: he was afraid to look like a milksucker to Miss Wilkinson. After all, she is a young woman, sometimes even pretty, and he is almost twenty years old; It’s stupid to do nothing but talk about art and literature. He needs to look after her. They talked so much about love. She told him about a young artist from the Street of Breda and about a portrait painter with whose family she had lived for so long in Paris: he asked her to pose, but from the very first session he began to pester her so annoyingly that she had to come up with all sorts of excuses so as not to stay with him alone. Miss Wilkinson seemed accustomed to male attention. Now she looked very cute in a straw hat with a large brim: it was a hot day - the hottest of the whole summer - and on upper lip Beads of sweat appeared on her face. He remembered Fraulein Cecilia and Herr Sun. Philip never liked Cecilia as a woman - she was very ugly; but in hindsight this story seemed very romantic. Now he has an opportunity to have an affair. Miss Wilkinson was almost French, and this gave flirting with her a special piquancy. Thinking about Miss Wilkinson at night in bed or in the garden reading a book, Philip felt some kind of excitement, but as soon as Miss Wilkinson appeared, an affair with her no longer seemed so tempting to him.
In any case, after what she told him, she would hardly be surprised if he began to court her. He suspected that she thought he was just a weirdo and didn't understand why he didn't try; perhaps it only seems to him, but twice a day last days he read contempt in her eyes.
-What are you thinking about? – Miss Wilkinson asked with a smile.
“I won’t tell,” he replied.
He thought that he needed to kiss her right there, right away! I wonder if she wants it or not; and yet he could not imagine how he could even kiss a woman - just like that, without any preamble. She will still think that he is furious, will slap him in the face or complain to his uncle. It is interesting how Herr Song began to court Fraulein Cecilia. Here will be the number if she tells her uncle; he knew his uncle and had no doubt that he would immediately share the news with the doctor and with Josiah Graves - well, then Philip would look like a fool! Aunt Louisa kept insisting that Miss Wilkinson was at least thirty-seven years old; he trembled at the thought that he would become the laughing stock of the whole neighborhood - what good, they will also say that she is fit to be his mother!
– But what are you thinking about? – Miss Wilkinson smiled.
“About you,” he answered bravely.
In any case, these words did not oblige him to anything.
- What did you think about me?
- I won’t tell you.
- Oh, wretch! - Miss Wilkinson exclaimed.
It's always like this! As soon as he gathers his courage, she utters a word that immediately reminds him that she is a governess. When he sings scales out of tune, she, too, jokingly calls him a scoundrel.
This time he even pouted.
“Please,” he said, “don’t treat me like a child.”
- You are angry?
“I didn’t mean to offend you at all.”
She extended her hand and he shook it. Several times over Lately when they said goodbye before going to bed, it seemed to him that she lightly shook his hand; there could be no doubt about it now.
He didn't know what to do next. Finally, an opportunity came his way; he will the last fool, if he does not use it; but everything was not as he had imagined - simpler, more prosaic. In books he often encountered descriptions of love scenes, but in himself he did not feel anything similar to the flood of feelings depicted by the authors of novels; passion did not turn his head, and Miss Wilkinson was not his ideal; he often imagined huge blue eyes and the snow-white skin of an unknown beauty; imagined burying his face in the thick, wavy strands of her brown hair. But was it really possible to bury his face in Miss Wilkinson's hair - it always seemed somehow sticky to him. Still, it would be nice to have an affair; he already felt in advance the legitimate pride that this victory would bring him. He was obliged to seduce her. And he decided to kiss Miss Wilkinson without fail, though not now, but in the evening: it would be easier in the dark; Well, then everything will go like clockwork. It is decided: he will kiss her today. Philip swore to himself that he would kiss her.
Philip developed a campaign plan. After dinner, he invited her to walk around the garden. Miss Wilkinson agreed and they began to walk. Philip was nervous. It is not known why, the conversation did not take the desired turn; he decided first of all to hug her waist; but how to do this if she is talking about sailing competitions scheduled for next week? He cunningly led her to the darkest corner of the garden, but when they found themselves there, his courage left him. Then they sat down on a bench, and just as he convinced himself that the decisive moment had come, Miss Wilkinson declared that there were earwigs here, and they moved on. They walked around the whole garden again, and Philip promised himself that he would go on the attack before they reached the far bench, but near the house Mrs. Carey called to them from the threshold:
“Wouldn’t it be better for you young people to go back?” It's cool at night and you might catch a cold.
“Maybe it’s really better to go home?” - said Philip. “I don’t want you to catch a cold at all.”
He involuntarily let out a sigh of relief. Nothing will come of it today anyway. But later, in his room, he became terribly angry with himself. What a fool! He had no doubt that Miss Wilkinson was waiting for his kiss - why would she go into the garden with him? No wonder she always repeated that only the French know how to look after women. Philip read French novels. If he had been French, he would have grabbed her in his arms, passionately declared his love and pressed his lips to the back of her head. It is not clear why the French always kiss ladies on the back of the head? Personally, he did not see anything attractive in the backs of heads. Of course, it is much easier for the French to behave this way - one French what is it worth! Philip could not get rid of the feeling that English language love confessions sound somehow ridiculous. Now he already regretted that he had started a siege against Miss Wilkinson and her virtue; They spent the first two weeks so much fun, but now this whole story oppresses him. But he does not intend to give up, otherwise he will lose all respect for himself; Philip irrevocably decided that tomorrow evening he would kiss her no matter what.
Waking up the next morning, he saw that it was raining; His first thought was that they would not be able to go to the garden in the evening. At breakfast he was in a great mood. Miss Wilkinson sent word through Mary Ann that she had a headache and would stay in bed. She came down only for evening tea - pale, in a pretty bonnet; but by dinner she had completely recovered, and there was a lot of fun at the table. After the prayer, Miss Wilkinson said she would go straight to bed and kissed Mrs. Carey as she said goodbye. Then she turned to Philip.
- My God! - she cried. “I almost kissed you too.”
- Why didn’t you do this? - he asked.
She laughed and extended her hand to him. He quite clearly felt her squeeze.
The next day there was not a cloud in the sky, and the garden after the rain was full of fragrance and coolness. Philip went to the beach, and when he returned home after swimming, he had lunch for two. After dinner guests were expected to play tennis, and Miss Wilkinson put on her best dress. She really knew how to dress, and Philip could not help but notice how elegant she looked next to the wife of an assistant priest and the married daughter of a doctor. She had pinned two roses to her bodice and was sitting in a wicker chair near the court, with her red umbrella open, her face illuminated very favorably. Philip loved to play tennis. Despite his good serve, he had to play close to the net, as he ran clumsily; but there the lameness did not hinder him, and he rarely missed the ball. This time he was very pleased that he won all the games. When the tea arrived, Philip, hot from the game, still barely able to catch his breath, stretched out at Miss Wilkinson's feet.
“A tracksuit suits you,” she said. – You look very cute today.
Philip blushed with pleasure.
– I can return the compliment to you from the bottom of my heart. You look absolutely adorable.
She smiled and gave him a long look.
After dinner, Philip insisted on an evening walk.
– Haven’t you done enough running during the day? – she asked.
- It’s so wonderful in the garden at night. The whole sky is filled with stars.
He was in excellent spirits.
“You know, Mrs. Carey scolded me because of you,” said Miss Wilkinson as they walked through the garden. “She says I shouldn’t flirt with you.”
– Are you flirting with me? I didn't even notice.
- She was joking.
“It was cruel of you not to kiss me last night.”
“If only you had seen the way your uncle looked at me!”
- Is that the only thing that bothered you?
– I prefer to kiss without witnesses.
- Nobody's here.
Philip put his arm around her waist and kissed her on the lips. She laughed quietly and made no attempt to escape. Everything turned out completely naturally. Philip was very proud. He said he would kiss her, and he did. It turned out to be quite simple - simpler than anything in the world. It's a shame he didn't do this sooner. He kissed her again.
“Don’t,” said Miss Wilkinson.
- Why?
“Because I like it,” she laughed.
Year of writing:
1915
Reading time:
Description of the work:
The Burden of Man is a novel written in 1915 by the English writer William Somerset Maugham. Most famous work at Maugham's. The main character of the novel is Philip Carey. He is an orphan, and also lame. The book traces the events of his life from childhood to his student days.
The main character, Philip Carey, thinks a lot and rushes from side to side to understand the meaning of his life. Disappointments and lost illusions await him, but it is worth answering the most important question in life. Read summary novel "The Burden of Human Passions".
Summary of the novel
The burden of human passions
The action takes place at the beginning of the 20th century.
Nine-year-old Philip Carey is left an orphan and sent to be raised by his priest uncle in Blackstable. The priest does not have tender feelings for his nephew, but in his house Philip finds many books that help him forget about loneliness.
At the school where the boy was sent, his classmates mock him (Philip is lame from birth), causing him to become painfully timid and shy - it seems to him that suffering is the lot of his whole life. Philip prays to God to make him healthy, and for the fact that a miracle does not happen, he blames only himself - he thinks that he lacks faith.
He hates school and doesn't want to go to Oxford. Contrary to his uncle’s wishes, he strives to study in Germany, and he manages to insist on his own.
In Berlin, Philip falls under the influence of one of his fellow students, the Englishman Hayward, who seems extraordinary and talented to him, not noticing that his deliberate unusualness is just a pose, behind which there is nothing. But the debates between Hayward and his interlocutors about literature and religion leave a huge mark on Philip’s soul: he suddenly realizes that he no longer believes in God, is not afraid of hell, and that a person is responsible for his actions only to himself.
After completing a course in Berlin, Philip returns to Blackstable and meets Miss Wilkinson, the daughter of Mr. Carey's former assistant. She is about thirty, she is cutesy and flirtatious, at first Philip does not like her, but nevertheless soon becomes his mistress. Philip is very proud, in a letter to Hayward he composes a beautiful romantic story. But when the real Miss Wilkinson leaves, she feels great relief and sadness that reality is so different from her dreams.
His uncle, having come to terms with Philip's reluctance to enter Oxford, sends him to London to study as a chartered accountant. Philip feels bad in London: he has no friends, and his work brings unbearable melancholy. And when a letter arrives from Hayward with an offer to go to Paris and take up painting, it seems to Philip that this desire has long been ripening in his soul. After studying for only a year, he, despite his uncle’s objections, left for Paris.
In Paris, Philip entered the Amitrino art studio; Fanny Price helps him get used to the new place - she is very ugly and unkempt, they can’t stand her for her rudeness and huge conceit when complete absence ability to draw, but Philip is still grateful to her.
The life of a Parisian bohemian changes Philip's worldview: he no longer considers ethical tasks to be fundamental to art, although he still sees the meaning of life in Christian virtue. The poet Cronshaw, who does not agree with this position, suggests that Philip look at the pattern of a Persian carpet to understand the true purpose of human existence.
When Fanny, having learned that Philip and his friends were leaving Paris in the summer, made an ugly scene, Philip realized that she was in love with him. And upon his return, he did not see Fanny in the studio and, absorbed in his studies, forgot about her. A few months later, a letter arrives from Fanny asking him to visit her: she has not eaten anything for three days. When Philip arrives, he discovers that Fanny has committed suicide. This shocked Philip. He is tormented by a feeling of guilt, but most of all by the meaninglessness of Fanny’s asceticism. He begins to doubt his painting abilities and turns to one of his teachers with these doubts. And indeed, he advises him to start life again, because he can only become a mediocre artist.
The news of his aunt's death forces Philip to go to Blackstable, and he will never return to Paris. Having parted with painting, he wants to study medicine and enters the institute at St. Luke in London. In his philosophical reflections, Philip comes to the conclusion that conscience is the main enemy of the individual in the struggle for freedom, and creates a new life rule for himself: one must follow one’s natural inclinations, but with due regard for the policeman around the corner.
One day in a cafe he started talking to a waitress named Mildred; she refused to continue the conversation, hurting his pride. Soon Philip realizes that he is in love, although he perfectly sees all her shortcomings: she is ugly, vulgar, her manners are full of disgusting affectation, her rude speech speaks of poverty of thought. Nevertheless, Philip wants to get her at any cost, including marriage, although he realizes that this will be his death. But Mildred declares that she is marrying someone else, and Philip, realizing that main reason His torment is wounded vanity, despising himself no less than Mildred. But we need to move on with our lives: pass exams, meet friends...
Meeting a young, pretty woman named Nora Nesbit - she is very sweet, witty, and knows how to take life's troubles lightly - restores his faith in himself and heals his emotional wounds. Philip finds another friend after falling ill with the flu: his neighbor, doctor Griffiths, carefully looks after him.
But Mildred returns - having learned that she is pregnant, her betrothed confessed that he was married. Philip leaves Nora and begins to help Mildred - his love is so strong. Mildred gives up the newborn girl to be raised, not having any feelings for her daughter, but she falls in love with Griffiths and enters into a relationship with him. The offended Philip nevertheless secretly hopes that Mildred will return to him again. Now he often remembers Hope: she loved him, and he acted vilely to her. He wants to return to her, but finds out that she is engaged. Soon word reaches him that Griffiths has broken up with Mildred: he quickly grew tired of her.
Philip continues to study and work as an assistant in an outpatient clinic. Communicating with many of the most different people, seeing their laughter and tears, grief and joy, happiness and despair, he understands that life is more complex than abstract concepts of good and evil.
Cronshaw arrives in London, finally getting ready to publish his poems. He is very sick: he suffered from pneumonia, but, not wanting to listen to the doctors, he continues to drink, because only after drinking does he become himself. Seeing the plight of his old friend, Philip takes him to his place; he soon dies. And again Philip is depressed by the thought of the meaninglessness of his life, and the life rule invented under similar circumstances now seems stupid to him.
Philip becomes close to one of his patients, Thorpe Athelney, and becomes very attached to him and his family: his hospitable wife, healthy, cheerful children. Philip likes to visit their house, warm himself by their cozy hearth. Athelny introduces him to the paintings of El Greco. Philip is shocked: it was revealed to him that self-denial is no less passionate and decisive than submission to passions.
Having met Mildred again, who now makes a living as a prostitute, Philip, out of pity, no longer having the same feelings for her, invites her to live with him as a servant. But she doesn’t know how to run a house and doesn’t want to look for work. In search of money, Philip begins to play on the stock exchange, and his first experience is so successful that he can afford to operate on his sore leg and go with Mildred to the sea.
In Brighton they live in separate rooms. Mildred is angry about this: she wants to convince everyone that Philip is her husband, and upon returning to London she tries to seduce him. But she does not succeed - now Philip feels physical disgust for her, and she leaves in a rage, causing a pogrom in his house and taking away the child, to whom Philip had become attached.
All of Philip's savings were spent on moving out of an apartment that brings back painful memories for him and is also too big for him alone. In order to somehow improve the situation, he again tries to play on the stock exchange and goes bankrupt. His uncle refuses to help him, and Philip is forced to leave his studies, move out of his apartment, spend the night on the street and starve. Upon learning of Philip's plight, Athelney gets him a job in the store.
The news of Hayward's death makes Philip think again about the meaning of human life. He recalls the words of the now deceased Cronshaw about the Persian carpet. Now he interprets them as follows: although a person weaves the pattern of his life aimlessly, but, weaving various threads and creating a pattern at his own discretion, he must be satisfied with this. The uniqueness of the drawing is its meaning.
Then the last meeting with Mildred takes place. She writes that she is sick, that her child has died; In addition, when Philip comes to her, he finds out that she has returned to her previous activities. After a painful scene, he leaves forever - this darkness of his life finally dissipates.
Having received an inheritance after the death of his uncle, Philip returns to college and, after graduating, works as an assistant to Dr. South, and so successfully that he invites Philip to become his partner. But Philip wants to go traveling “to find the promised land and to know himself.”
Meanwhile, Athelney's eldest daughter, Sally, really likes Philip, and one day, while picking hops, he gives in to his feelings... Sally reveals that she is pregnant, and Philip decides to sacrifice himself and marry her. Then it turns out that Sally was mistaken, but for some reason Philip does not feel relieved. Suddenly he realizes that marriage is not self-sacrifice, that giving up fictitious ideals for the sake of family happiness, even if it is a defeat, is better than all victories... Philip asks Sally to become his wife. She agrees, and Philip Carey finally finds the promised land to which his soul has longed for so long.
Please note that the summary of the novel “The Burden of Human Passions” does not reflect the full picture of events and characteristics of the characters. We recommend you read it full version works.
The day turned dull and gray. The clouds hung low, the air was chilly - snow was about to fall. A maid entered the room where the child was sleeping and
She opened the curtains. Out of habit, she glanced at the facade of the house opposite - plastered, with a portico - and walked up to the crib.
“Get up, Philip,” she said.
Throwing back the blanket, she picked him up and carried him downstairs. He's not quite awake yet.
- Mom is calling you.
Opening the door to the room on the first floor, the nanny brought the child to the bed on which the woman lay. It was his mother. She reached out to
The boy held his hands and curled up next to her, not asking why he was woken. The woman kissed his closed eyes and thin
With her hands she felt the warm body through the white flannel nightgown. She hugged the child close to her.
-Are you sleepy, baby? she asked.
Her voice was so weak that it seemed to be coming from somewhere far away. The boy did not answer and just stretched sweetly. He felt good in
A warm, spacious bed, in a gentle embrace. He tried to become even smaller, curled up into a ball and kissed her in his sleep. His eyes closed and
He fell fast asleep. The doctor silently approached the bed.
“Let him stay with me for a little while,” she moaned.
The doctor did not answer and only looked at her sternly. Knowing that she would not be allowed to keep the child, the woman kissed him again, ran her hand over
His body; Taking the right leg, she touched all five toes, and then reluctantly touched the left leg. She began to cry.
- What's wrong with you? - asked the doctor. - Are you tired.
She shook her head and tears rolled down her cheeks. The doctor leaned towards her.
- Give it to me.
She was too weak to protest. The doctor handed the child into the arms of the nanny.
- Put him back in bed.
- Now.
The sleeping boy was carried away. The mother sobbed, no longer holding back.
- Poor thing! What will happen to him now!
The nurse tried to calm her down; exhausted, the woman stopped crying. The doctor walked over to the table at the other end of the room where he was lying
The corpse of a newborn baby covered with a napkin. Lifting the napkin, the doctor looked at the lifeless body. And although the bed was fenced off
With a screen, the woman guessed what he was doing.
- Boy or girl? - she asked the nurse in a whisper.
- Also a boy.
The woman didn't say anything. The nanny returned to the room. She approached the patient.
“Philip never woke up,” she said.
Silence reigned. The doctor again felt the patient’s pulse.
“I guess I’m no longer needed here for now,” he said. - I'll come by after breakfast.
“I’ll accompany you,” the nurse offered.
They silently went down the stairs to the hallway. The doctor stopped.
-Have you sent for Mrs. Carey's brother-in-law?
- Yes.
- When do you think he will arrive?
- I don’t know, I’m waiting for a telegram.
- What to do with the boy? Wouldn't it be better to send him somewhere for now?
“Miss Watkin agreed to take him in.”
-Who is she?
- His godmother.
