Chapter LXXXV

by William Somerset Maugham

　　About a fortnight after this Philip, going home one evening after hisday's work at the hospital, knocked at the door of Cronshaw's room. He gotno answer and walked in. Cronshaw was lying huddled up on one side, andPhilip went up to the bed. He did not know whether Cronshaw was asleep ormerely lay there in one of his uncontrollable fits of irritability. He wassurprised to see that his mouth was open. He touched his shoulder. Philipgave a cry of dismay. He slipped his hand under Cronshaw's shirt and felthis heart; he did not know what to do; helplessly, because he had heard ofthis being done, he held a looking-glass in front of his mouth. Itstartled him to be alone with Cronshaw. He had his hat and coat still on,and he ran down the stairs into the street; he hailed a cab and drove toHarley Street. Dr. Tyrell was in."I say, would you mind coming at once? I think Cronshaw's dead.""If he is it's not much good my coming, is it?""I should be awfully grateful if you would. I've got a cab at the door.It'll only take half an hour."Tyrell put on his hat. In the cab he asked him one or two questions."He seemed no worse than usual when I left this morning," said Philip. "Itgave me an awful shock when I went in just now. And the thought of hisdying all alone.... D'you think he knew he was going to die?"Philip remembered what Cronshaw had said. He wondered whether at that lastmoment he had been seized with the terror of death. Philip imaginedhimself in such a plight, knowing it was inevitable and with no one, nota soul, to give an encouraging word when the fear seized him."You're rather upset," said Dr. Tyrell.He looked at him with his bright blue eyes. They were not unsympathetic.When he saw Cronshaw, he said:"He must have been dead for some hours. I should think he died in hissleep. They do sometimes."The body looked shrunk and ignoble. It was not like anything human. Dr.Tyrell looked at it dispassionately. With a mechanical gesture he took outhis watch."Well, I must be getting along. I'll send the certificate round. I supposeyou'll communicate with the relatives.""I don't think there are any," said Philip."How about the funeral?""Oh, I'll see to that."Dr. Tyrell gave Philip a glance. He wondered whether he ought to offer acouple of sovereigns towards it. He knew nothing of Philip'scircumstances; perhaps he could well afford the expense; Philip mightthink it impertinent if he made any suggestion."Well, let me know if there's anything I can do," he said.Philip and he went out together, parting on the doorstep, and Philip wentto a telegraph office in order to send a message to Leonard Upjohn. Thenhe went to an undertaker whose shop he passed every day on his way to thehospital. His attention had been drawn to it often by the three words insilver lettering on a black cloth, which, with two model coffins, adornedthe window: Economy, Celerity, Propriety. They had always diverted him.The undertaker was a little fat Jew with curly black hair, long andgreasy, in black, with a large diamond ring on a podgy finger. He receivedPhilip with a peculiar manner formed by the mingling of his naturalblatancy with the subdued air proper to his calling. He quickly saw thatPhilip was very helpless and promised to send round a woman at once toperform the needful offices. His suggestions for the funeral were verymagnificent; and Philip felt ashamed of himself when the undertaker seemedto think his objections mean. It was horrible to haggle on such a matter,and finally Philip consented to an expensiveness which he could illafford."I quite understand, sir," said the undertaker, "you don't want any showand that--I'm not a believer in ostentation myself, mind you--but you wantit done gentlemanly-like. You leave it to me, I'll do it as cheap as itcan be done, 'aving regard to what's right and proper. I can't say morethan that, can I?"Philip went home to eat his supper, and while he ate the woman came alongto lay out the corpse. Presently a telegram arrived from Leonard Upjohn.Shocked and grieved beyond measure. Regret cannot come tonight. Diningout. With you early tomorrow. Deepest sympathy. Upjohn.In a little while the woman knocked at the door of the sitting-room."I've done now, sir. Will you come and look at 'im and see it's allright?"Philip followed her. Cronshaw was lying on his back, with his eyes closedand his hands folded piously across his chest."You ought by rights to 'ave a few flowers, sir.""I'll get some tomorrow."She gave the body a glance of satisfaction. She had performed her job, andnow she rolled down her sleeves, took off her apron, and put on herbonnet. Philip asked her how much he owed her."Well, sir, some give me two and sixpence and some give me fiveshillings."Philip was ashamed to give her less than the larger sum. She thanked himwith just so much effusiveness as was seemly in presence of the grief hemight be supposed to feel, and left him. Philip went back into hissitting-room, cleared away the remains of his supper, and sat down to readWalsham's Surgery. He found it difficult. He felt singularly nervous.When there was a sound on the stairs he jumped, and his heart beatviolently. That thing in the adjoining room, which had been a man and nowwas nothing, frightened him. The silence seemed alive, as if somemysterious movement were taking place within it; the presence of deathweighed upon these rooms, unearthly and terrifying: Philip felt a suddenhorror for what had once been his friend. He tried to force himself toread, but presently pushed away his book in despair. What troubled him wasthe absolute futility of the life which had just ended. It did not matterif Cronshaw was alive or dead. It would have been just as well if he hadnever lived. Philip thought of Cronshaw young; and it needed an effort ofimagination to picture him slender, with a springing step, and with hairon his head, buoyant and hopeful. Philip's rule of life, to follow one'sinstincts with due regard to the policeman round the corner, had not actedvery well there: it was because Cronshaw had done this that he had madesuch a lamentable failure of existence. It seemed that the instincts couldnot be trusted. Philip was puzzled, and he asked himself what rule of lifewas there, if that one was useless, and why people acted in one way ratherthan in another. They acted according to their emotions, but theiremotions might be good or bad; it seemed just a chance whether they led totriumph or disaster. Life seemed an inextricable confusion. Men hurriedhither and thither, urged by forces they knew not; and the purpose of itall escaped them; they seemed to hurry just for hurrying's sake.Next morning Leonard Upjohn appeared with a small wreath of laurel. He waspleased with his idea of crowning the dead poet with this; and attempted,notwithstanding Philip's disapproving silence, to fix it on the bald head;but the wreath fitted grotesquely. It looked like the brim of a hat wornby a low comedian in a music-hall."I'll put it over his heart instead," said Upjohn."You've put it on his stomach," remarked Philip.Upjohn gave a thin smile."Only a poet knows where lies a poet's heart," he answered.They went back into the sitting-room, and Philip told him whatarrangements he had made for the funeral."I hoped you've spared no expense. I should like the hearse to be followedby a long string of empty coaches, and I should like the horses to weartall nodding plumes, and there should be a vast number of mutes with longstreamers on their hats. I like the thought of all those empty coaches.""As the cost of the funeral will apparently fall on me and I'm not overflush just now, I've tried to make it as moderate as possible.""But, my dear fellow, in that case, why didn't you get him a pauper'sfuneral? There would have been something poetic in that. You have anunerring instinct for mediocrity."Philip flushed a little, but did not answer; and next day he and Upjohnfollowed the hearse in the one carriage which Philip had ordered. Lawson,unable to come, had sent a wreath; and Philip, so that the coffin shouldnot seem too neglected, had bought a couple. On the way back the coachmanwhipped up his horses. Philip was dog-tired and presently went to sleep.He was awakened by Upjohn's voice."It's rather lucky the poems haven't come out yet. I think we'd betterhold them back a bit and I'll write a preface. I began thinking of itduring the drive to the cemetery. I believe I can do something rathergood. Anyhow I'll start with an article in The Saturday."Philip did not reply, and there was silence between them. At last Upjohnsaid:"I daresay I'd be wiser not to whittle away my copy. I think I'll do anarticle for one of the reviews, and then I can just print it afterwards asa preface."Philip kept his eye on the monthlies, and a few weeks later it appeared.The article made something of a stir, and extracts from it were printed inmany of the papers. It was a very good article, vaguely biographical, forno one knew much of Cronshaw's early life, but delicate, tender, andpicturesque. Leonard Upjohn in his intricate style drew graceful littlepictures of Cronshaw in the Latin Quarter, talking, writing poetry:Cronshaw became a picturesque figure, an English Verlaine; and LeonardUpjohn's coloured phrases took on a tremulous dignity, a more patheticgrandiloquence, as he described the sordid end, the shabby little room inSoho; and, with a reticence which was wholly charming and suggested a muchgreater generosity than modesty allowed him to state, the efforts he madeto transport the Poet to some cottage embowered with honeysuckle amid aflowering orchard. And the lack of sympathy, well-meaning but so tactless,which had taken the poet instead to the vulgar respectability ofKennington! Leonard Upjohn described Kennington with that restrainedhumour which a strict adherence to the vocabulary of Sir Thomas Brownenecessitated. With delicate sarcasm he narrated the last weeks, thepatience with which Cronshaw bore the well-meaning clumsiness of the youngstudent who had appointed himself his nurse, and the pitifulness of thatdivine vagabond in those hopelessly middle-class surroundings. Beauty fromashes, he quoted from Isaiah. It was a triumph of irony for that outcastpoet to die amid the trappings of vulgar respectability; it remindedLeonard Upjohn of Christ among the Pharisees, and the analogy gave himopportunity for an exquisite passage. And then he told how a friend--hisgood taste did not suffer him more than to hint subtly who the friend waswith such gracious fancies--had laid a laurel wreath on the dead poet'sheart; and the beautiful dead hands had seemed to rest with a voluptuouspassion upon Apollo's leaves, fragrant with the fragrance of art, and moregreen than jade brought by swart mariners from the manifold, inexplicableChina. And, an admirable contrast, the article ended with a description ofthe middle-class, ordinary, prosaic funeral of him who should have beenburied like a prince or like a pauper. It was the crowning buffet, thefinal victory of Philistia over art, beauty, and immaterial things.Leonard Upjohn had never written anything better. It was a miracle ofcharm, grace, and pity. He printed all Cronshaw's best poems in the courseof the article, so that when the volume appeared much of its point wasgone; but he advanced his own position a good deal. He was thenceforth acritic to be reckoned with. He had seemed before a little aloof; but therewas a warm humanity about this article which was infinitely attractive.