Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham.mobi [222]
“It’s only for the looks of the thing, you know,” he said to Philip. “I don’t find it no trouble.”
“Be quiet, Ernie,” said his father. “There’s too much gas about you.”
Philip examined the foot and passed his hand slowly over the shapelessness of it. He could not understand why the boy felt none of the humiliation which always oppressed himself. He wondered why he could not take his deformity with that philosophic indifference. Presently Mr. Jacobs came up to him. The boy was sitting on the edge of a couch, the surgeon and Philip stood on each side of him; and in a semi-circle, crowding round, were students. With accustomed brilliancy Jacobs gave a graphic little discourse upon the club-foot: he spoke of its varieties and of the forms which followed upon different anatomical conditions.
“I suppose you’ve got talipes equinus?” he said, turning suddenly to Philip.
“Yes.”
Philip felt the eyes of his fellow-students rest on him, and he cursed himself because he could not help blushing. He felt the sweat start up in the palms of his hands. The surgeon spoke with the fluency due to long practice and with the admirable perspicacity which distinguished him. He was tremendously interested in his profession. But Philip did not listen. He was only wishing that the fellow would get done quickly. Suddenly he realized that Jacobs was addressing him.
“You don’t mind taking off your sock for a moment, Carey?”
Philip felt a shudder pass through him. He had an impulse to tell the surgeon to go to hell, but he had not the courage to make a scene. He feared his brutal ridicule. He forced himself to appear indifferent.
“Not a bit,” he said.
He sat down and unlaced his boot. His fingers were trembling, and he thought he should never untie the knot. He remembered how they had forced him at school to show his foot, and the misery which had eaten into his soul.
“He keeps his feet nice and clean, doesn’t he?” said Jacobs, in his rasping, cockney voice.
The attendant students giggled. Philips noticed that the boy whom they were examining looked down at his foot with eager curiosity. Jacobs took the foot in his hands and said:
“Yes, that’s what I thought. I see you’ve had an operation. When you were a child, I suppose?”
He went on with his fluent explanations. The students leaned over and looked at the foot. Two or three examined it minutely when Jacobs let it go.
“When you’ve quite done,” said Philip, with a smile, ironically.
He could have killed them all. He thought how jolly it would be to jab a chisel (he didn’t know why that particular instrument came into his mind) into their necks. What beasts men were! He wished he could believe in hell so as to comfort himself with the thought of the horrible tortures which would be theirs. Mr. Jacobs turned his attention to treatment. He talked partly to the boy’s father and partly to the students. Philip put on his sock and laced his boot. At last the surgeon finished. But he seemed to have an afterthought and turned to Philip.
“You know, I think it might be worth your while to have an operation. Of course I couldn’t give you a normal foot, but I think I can do something. You might think about it, and when you want a holiday you can just come into the hospital for a bit.”
Philip had often asked himself whether anything could be done, but his distaste for any reference to the subject had prevented him from consulting any of the surgeons at the hospital. His reading told him that, whatever might have been done when he was a small boy-and then treatment of talipes was not as skillful as in the present day-there was small chance now of any great benefit. Still it would be worthwhile if an operation made it possible for him to wear a more ordinary boot and to limp less. He remembered how passionately he had prayed for the miracle which his uncle had assured him was possible to omnipotence. He smiled ruefully.
“I was rather a simple soul in those days,” he thought.
Toward the end of February it was clear that Cronshaw was growing much worse. He was no longer able to get up. He lay in bed, insisting that the window should be closed always, and refused to see a doctor; he would take little nourishment, but demanded whisky and cigarettes: Philip knew that he should have neither, but Cronshaw