# XLIX explained — Of Human Bondage > Chapter companion for Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. ## What happens Philip investigates Fanny Price's suicide and uncovers the dire poverty that drove her to it. He deals with her unsympathetic brother Albert Price, who is more concerned with appearances and his own convenience. After the funeral, Philip reflects on the sordidness of life and observes a dance hall crowd with a sense of pity and horror. ## Themes in this chapter ### Suffering and Disillusionment Fanny Price's starvation and suicide, along with Philip's grim observations of the dance hall crowd, highlight the pervasive suffering and disillusionment in life. ### Class and Social Mobility Albert Price's petty concerns and the sordid lives of the dancers illustrate the constraints of class and the struggle for dignity. ### Isolation and Belonging Fanny's extreme isolation, her unrequited love for Philip, and the impersonal crowd at the dance hall underscore themes of loneliness and the search for connection. ## Character check-ins ### Philip Carey Investigates Fanny Price's suicide, handles arrangements with her brother, and reflects on the sordidness of life. ### Miss Price Fanny Price's suicide from starvation is discovered; Philip learns of her extreme poverty and unrequited love for him. ### Albert Price Fanny's brother, a rubber-merchant, who refuses a loan before her death and later attends the funeral, more concerned with his nerves and a good lunch. ### Frederick Lawson Attends Fanny Price's funeral. ### Clutton Attends Fanny Price's funeral. ### Ruth Chalice Attends Fanny Price's funeral out of kindness. ## Key lines > The story which Philip made out in one way and another was terrible. One of the grievances of the women-students was that Fanny Price would never share their gay meals in restaurants, and the reason was obvious: she had been oppressed by dire poverty. Philip pieced together a horrifying account: Fanny Price never joined the other women for meals because she was desperately poor. _Reveals the extent of Fanny's poverty and her isolation from peers._ > He remembered the luncheon they had eaten together when first he came to Paris and the ghoulish appetite which had disgusted him: he realised now that she ate in that manner because she was ravenous. Philip recalled the lunch they shared early in his Paris days, when her voracious eating repulsed him; he now understood she was starving. _Philip's retrospective realization of Fanny's hunger and his earlier misjudgment._ > Philip thought with anguish of what she must have endured. She had never given anyone to understand that she was poorer than the rest, but it was clear that her money had been coming to an end, and at last she could not afford to come any more to the studio. Philip anguished over her suffering; she hid her poverty, but eventually her funds ran out and she could no longer attend the studio. _Highlights Fanny's pride and the tragic consequences of her silence._ > He found a piece of paper on which his own name was written a score of times. It gave him a peculiar shock. He supposed it was true that she had loved him; he thought of the emaciated body, in the brown dress, hanging from the nail in the ceiling; and he shuddered. Philip discovered a paper with his name written many times, shocking him into realizing she loved him; he shuddered at the memory of her emaciated body hanging from the ceiling. _Reveals Fanny's obsessive love for Philip and the horror of her suicide._ > But if she had cared for him why did she not let him help her? He would so gladly have done all he could. He felt remorseful because he had refused to see that she looked upon him with any particular feeling, and now these words in her letter were infinitely pathetic: I can’t bear the thought that anyone else should touch me. Philip wondered why she didn't seek his help, feeling remorse for not recognizing her feelings; her letter's plea that no one else touch her struck him as deeply pathetic. _Philip's guilt and the pathos of Fanny's unspoken love._ > Philip found at length a letter signed: your loving brother, Albert. It was two or three weeks old, dated from some road in Surbiton, and refused a loan of five pounds. The writer had his wife and family to think of, he didn’t feel justified in lending money, and his advice was that Fanny should come back to London and try to get a situation. Philip found a letter from Fanny's brother Albert, dated weeks earlier, refusing a five-pound loan and advising her to return to London for work. _Illustrates the family's neglect and the brother's cold practicality._ > Philip telegraphed to Albert Price, and in a little while an answer came: “Deeply distressed. Very awkward to leave my business. Is presence essential? Price.” Philip wired Albert Price, who replied asking if his presence was necessary, citing business difficulties. _Shows Albert's reluctance and self-interest even in the face of his sister's death._ > “I needn’t see her, need I?” asked Albert Price. “My nerves aren’t very strong, and it takes very little to upset me.” Albert Price asked if he had to view the body, claiming weak nerves. _Albert's cowardice and lack of genuine grief._ > “I suppose she ’adn’t any trouble with a man, ’ad she? You know what I mean, Paris and all that. She might ’ave done it so as not to disgrace herself.” Albert insinuated that Fanny might have killed herself due to a sexual scandal, hinting at Paris's immoral reputation. _Albert's suspicion and the stigma of female sexuality in the era._ > Philip felt himself reddening and cursed his weakness. Price’s keen little eyes seemed to suspect him of an intrigue. “I believe your sister to have been perfectly virtuous,” he answered acidly. “She killed herself because she was starving.” Philip blushed and angrily asserted Fanny's virtue, insisting she died of starvation. _Philip's defensive reaction and the truth of Fanny's death._ > “Well, it’s very ’ard on her family, Mr. Carey. She only ’ad to write to me. I wouldn’t have let my sister want.” Philip had found the brother’s address only by reading the letter in which he refused a loan; but he shrugged his shoulders: there was no use in recrimination. Albert claimed he would have helped if asked, but Philip knew he had refused a loan; Philip shrugged off the hypocrisy. _The irony of Albert's self-serving denial of responsibility._ > “I want to do the thing decent,” said Albert Price, “but there’s no use wasting money.” Albert wanted a decent funeral but without unnecessary expense. _Albert's stinginess and concern for appearances._ > The short ceremony was infinitely dreadful in the cold gray morning. Half a dozen people who had worked with Fanny Price at the studio came to the funeral, Mrs. Otter because she was massière and thought it her duty, Ruth Chalice because she had a kind heart, Lawson, Clutton, and Flanagan. They had all disliked her during her life. The bleak funeral was attended by a few studio acquaintances who had disliked Fanny, attending out of duty or kindness. _The irony and pathos of the funeral: those who disliked her were the only mourners._ > Philip, looking across the cemetery crowded on all sides with monuments, some poor and simple, others vulgar, pretentious, and ugly, shuddered. It was horribly sordid. Philip shuddered at the cemetery's mix of cheap and pretentious monuments, finding the whole scene sordid. _Philip's perception of the vulgarity and sordidness of death and memorials._ > Albert Price settled himself on a velvet seat with a sigh of relief. He ordered a substantial luncheon and a bottle of wine. “Well, I’m glad that’s over,” he said. Albert Price relaxed over a lavish lunch, relieved the funeral was done. _Albert's callousness and self-indulgence after his sister's burial._ > He threw out a few artful questions, and Philip discovered that he was eager to hear about the painter’s life in Paris. He represented it to himself as deplorable, but he was anxious for details of the orgies which his fancy suggested to him. Albert probed for scandalous details about Parisian artist life, imagining orgies despite his disapproval. _Albert's hypocrisy and prurient curiosity._ > “Let’s ’ave a little brandy,” he said when the coffee was brought, “and blow the expense.” He rubbed his hands. “You know, I’ve got ’alf a mind to stay over tonight and go back tomorrow. What d’you say to spending the evening together?” Albert suggested brandy and proposed staying the night to go out together, rubbing his hands with anticipation. _Albert's shift from grief to seeking pleasure._ > “If you mean you want me to take you round Montmartre tonight, I’ll see you damned,” said Philip. “I suppose it wouldn’t be quite the thing.” The answer was made so seriously that Philip was tickled. Philip refused to take Albert to Montmartre, and Albert's serious, prudish response amused Philip. _Philip's contempt and the comic contrast between Albert's desires and his propriety._ > Philip was too restless to work that afternoon, so he jumped on a bus and crossed the river to see whether there were any pictures on view at Durand-Ruel’s. After that he strolled along the boulevard. It was cold and windswept. People hurried by wrapped up in their coats, shrunk together in an effort to keep out of the cold, and their faces were pinched and careworn. Restless, Philip visited an art gallery and then walked the cold boulevard, observing the pinched, careworn faces of passersby. _Philip's restlessness and the bleak atmosphere reflecting his mood._ > It was a sordid scene. Philip leaned over the rail, staring down, and he ceased to hear the music. They danced furiously. They danced round the room, slowly, talking very little, with all their attention given to the dance. The room was hot, and their faces shone with sweat. It seemed to Philip that they had thrown off the guard which people wear on their expression, the homage to convention, and he saw them now as they really were. In that moment of abandon they were strangely animal: some were foxy and some were wolf-like; and others had the long, foolish face of sheep. Philip observed a sordid dance hall scene where dancers, sweating and silent, revealed their animalistic natures—fox-like, wolf-like, or sheepish—stripped of social pretense. _Philip's perception of the raw, animalistic reality beneath social conventions._ > Their skins were sallow from the unhealthy life they led and the poor food they ate. Their features were blunted by mean interests, and their little eyes were shifty and cunning. There was nothing of nobility in their bearing, and you felt that for all of them life was a long succession of petty concerns and sordid thoughts. The dancers' sallow skin and cunning eyes reflected their unhealthy, petty lives, devoid of nobility. _Philip's harsh judgment of the crowd's degraded existence._ > But they danced furiously as though impelled by some strange power within them, and it seemed to Philip that they were driven forward by a rage for enjoyment. They were seeking desperately to escape from a world of horror. The desire for pleasure which Cronshaw said was the only motive of human action urged them blindly on, and the very vehemence of the desire seemed to rob it of all pleasure. Philip saw the dancers as driven by a desperate rage for enjoyment, seeking escape from horror, but their frantic desire negated any pleasure. _Philip's reflection on Cronshaw's philosophy and the futility of hedonistic escape._ > They were hurried on by a great wind, helplessly, they knew not why and they knew not whither. Fate seemed to tower above them, and they danced as though everlasting darkness were beneath their feet. The dancers seemed helplessly driven by fate, dancing as if over an abyss of darkness. _The imagery of fate and existential dread._ > Their silence was vaguely alarming. It was as if life terrified them and robbed them of power of speech so that the shriek which was in their hearts died at their throats. Their eyes were haggard and grim; and notwithstanding the beastly lust that disfigured them, and the meanness of their faces, and the cruelty, notwithstanding the stupidness which was worst of all, the anguish of those fixed eyes made all that crowd terrible and pathetic. The dancers' silence was alarming, as if terror silenced their inner screams; their haggard eyes revealed anguish beneath lust, meanness, and stupidity, making them both terrible and pathetic. _Philip's profound pity mixed with revulsion for the human condition._ > Philip loathed them, and yet his heart ached with the infinite pity which filled him. He took his coat from the cloakroom and went out into the bitter coldness of the night. Philip felt both loathing and infinite pity for the crowd, then left into the bitter cold night. _Philip's conflicted emotions and the bleak conclusion of the chapter._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/of_human_bondage_se/chapters/xlix - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/of_human_bondage_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/of_human_bondage_se/chapters