The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham - II - The World Over

by W. Somerset Maugham

  The merits of the combination were obvious. The elegant, exquisite Campbell had the subtle brain, the knowledge of character, and the deft hands; but the hazards of the card-sharper’s life are many, and when it came to a scrap Peterson’s ready fist must often have proved invaluable. I do not know how it spread through the ship so quickly that a blow of Peterson’s would stretch any man out. But during the short voyage from Hong-Kong to Shanghai they never even suggested a game of cards. Perhaps they had done well during the race-week and felt entitled to a holiday. They were certainly enjoying the advantages of not living for the time in a dry country and I do not think I do them an injustice if I say that for the most part they were far from sober. Each one talked little of himself but willingly of the other. Campbell informed me that Peterson was one of the most distinguished mining engineers in New York and Peterson assured me that Campbell was an eminent banker. He said that his wealth was fabulous. And who was I not to accept ingenuously all that was told me? But I thought it negligent of Campbell not to wear jewellery of a more expensive character. It seemed to me that to use a silver cigarette case was rather careless.

  I stayed but a day in Shanghai, and though I met the pair again in Peking I was then so much engaged that I saw little of them. I thought it a little odd that Campbell should spend his entire time in the hotel. I do not think he even went to see the Temple of Heaven. But I could quite understand that from his point of view Peking was unsatisfactory and I was not surprised when the pair returned to Shanghai, where, I knew, the wealthy merchants played for big money. I met them again in the ship that was to take us across the Pacific and I could not but sympathize with my friends when I saw that the passengers were little inclined to gamble. There were no rich people among them. It was a dull crowd. Campbell indeed suggested a game of poker, but no one would play more than twenty-dollar table stakes, and Peterson, evidently not thinking it worth while, would not join. Although we played afternoon and evening through the journey he sat down with us only on the last day. I suppose he thought he might just as well make his bar chits, and this he did very satisfactorily in a single sitting. But Campbell evidently loved the game for itself. Of course it is only if you have a passion for the business by which you earn your living that you can make a success of it. The stakes were nothing to him and he played all day and every day. It fascinated me to see the way in which he dealt the cards, very slowly, with his delicate hands. His eyes seemed to bore through the back of each one. He drank heavily, but remained quiet and self-controlled. His face was expressionless. I judged him to be a perfect card-player and I wished that I could see him at work. It increased my esteem for him to see that he could take what was only a relaxation so seriously.

  I parted with the pair at Victoria and concluded that I should never see them again. I set about sorting my impressions and made notes of the various points that I thought would prove useful.

  When I arrived in New York I found an invitation to luncheon at the Ritz with an old friend of mine. When I went she said to me:

  “It’s quite a small party. A man is coming whom I think you’ll like. He’s a prominent banker; he’s bringing a friend with him.”

  The words were hardly out of her mouth when I saw coming up to us Campbell and Peterson. The truth flashed across me: Campbell really was an opulent banker; Peterson really was a distinguished engineer; they were not card-sharpers at all. I flatter myself I kept my face, but as I blandly shook hands with them I muttered under my breath furiously:

  “Impostors!”

  A FRIEND IN NEED

  FOR THIRTY YEARS now I have been studying my fellow-men. I do not know very much about them. I should certainly hesitate to engage a servant on his face, and yet I suppose it is on the face that for the most part we judge the persons we meet. We draw our conclusions from the shape of the jaw, the look in the eyes, the contour of the mouth. I wonder if we are more often right than wrong. Why novels and plays are so often untrue to life is because their authors, perhaps of necessity, make their characters all of a piece. They cannot afford to make them self-contradictory, for then they become incomprehensible, and yet self-contradictory is what most of us are. We are a haphazard bundle of inconsistent qualities. In books on logic they will tell you that it is absurd to say that yellow is tubular or gratitude heavier than air; but in that mixture of incongruities that makes up the self yellow may very well be a horse and cart and gratitude the middle of next week. I shrug my shoulders when people tell me that their first impressions of a person are always right. I think they must have small insight or great vanity. For my own part I find that the longer I know people the more they puzzle me: my oldest friends are just those of whom I can say that I don’t know the first thing about them.

  These reflections have occurred to me because I read in this morning’s paper that Edward Hyde Burton had died at Kobe. He was a merchant and he had been in business in Japan for many years. I knew him very little, but he interested me because once he gave me a great surprise. Unless I had heard the story from his own lips I should never have believed that he was capable of such an action. It was more startling because both in appearance and manner he suggested a very definite type. Here if ever was a man all of a piece. He was a tiny little fellow, not much more than five feet four in height, and very slender, with white hair, a red face much wrinkled, and blue eyes. I suppose he was about sixty when I knew him. He was always neatly and quietly dressed in accordance with his age and station.

  Though his offices were in Kobe, Burton often came down to Yokohama. I happened on one occasion to be spending a few days there, waiting for a ship, and I was introduced to him at the British Club. We played bridge together. He played a good game and a generous one. He did not talk very much, either then or later when we were having drinks, but what he said was sensible. He had a quiet, dry humour. He seemed to be popular at the club and afterwards, when he had gone, they described him as one of the best. It happened that we were both staying at the Grand Hotel and next day he asked me to dine with him. I met his wife, fat, elderly, and smiling, and his two daughters. It was evidently a united and affectionate family. I think the chief thing that struck me about Burton was his kindliness. There was something very pleasing in his mild blue eyes. His voice was gentle; you could not imagine that he could possibly raise it in anger; his smile was benign. Here was a man who attracted you because you felt in him a real love for his fellows. He had charm. But there was nothing mawkish in him: he liked his game of cards and his cocktail, he could tell with point a good and spicy story, and in his youth he had been something of an athlete. He was a rich man and he had made every penny himself. I suppose one thing that made you like him was that he was so small and frail; he aroused your instincts of protection. You felt that he could not bear to hurt a fly.

  One afternoon I was sitting in the lounge of the Grand Hotel. This was before the earthquake and they had leather arm-chairs there. From the windows you had a spacious view of the harbour with its crowded traffic. There were great liners on their way to Vancouver and San Francisco or to Europe by way of Shanghai, Hong-Kong, and Singapore; there were tramps of all nations, battered and sea-worn, junks with their high sterns and great coloured sails, and innumerable sampans. It was a busy, exhilarating scene, and yet, I know not why, restful to the spirit. Here was romance and it seemed that you had but to stretch out your hand to touch it.

  Burton came into the lounge presently and caught sight of me. He seated himself in the chair next to mine.

  “What do you say to a little drink?”

  He clapped his hands for a boy and ordered two gin fizzes. As the boy brought them a man passed along the street outside and seeing me waved his hand.

  “Do you know Turner?” said Burton as I nodded a greeting.

  “I’ve met him at the club. I’m told he’s a remittance man.”

  “Yes, I believe he is. We have a good many here.”

  “He plays bridge well.”

  “They gene
rally do. There was a fellow here last year, oddly enough a namesake of mine, who was the best bridge player I ever met. I suppose you never came across him in London. Lenny Burton he called himself. I believe he’d belonged to some very good clubs.”

  “No, I don’t believe I remember the name.”

  “He was quite a remarkable player. He seemed to have an instinct about the cards. It was uncanny. I used to play with him a lot. He was in Kobe for some time.”

  Burton sipped his gin fizz.

  “It’s rather a funny story,” he said. “He wasn’t a bad chap. I liked him. He was always well-dressed and smart-looking. He was handsome in a way with curly hair and pink-and-white cheeks. Women thought a lot of him. There was no harm in him, you know, he was only wild. Of course he drank too much.

  Those sort of fellows always do. A bit of money used to come in for him once a quarter and he made a bit more by card-playing. He won a good deal of mine, I know that.”

  Burton gave a kindly chuckle. I knew from my own experience that he could lose money at bridge with a good grace. He stroked his shaven chin with his thin hand; the veins stood out on it and it was almost transparent.

  “I suppose that is why he came to me when he went broke, that and the fact that he was a namesake of mine. He came to see me in my office one day and asked me for a job. I was rather surprised. He told me that there was no more money coming from home and he wanted to work. I asked him how old he was.

  “‘Thirty-five,’ he said.

  “‘And what have you been doing hitherto?’ I asked him.

  “‘Well, nothing very much,’ he said.

  “I couldn’t help laughing.

  “‘I’m afraid I can’t do anything for you just yet,’ I said. ‘Come back and see me in another thirty-five years, and I’ll see what I can do.’

  “He didn’t move. He went rather pale. He hesitated for a moment and then he told me that he had had bad luck at cards for some time. He hadn’t been willing to stick to bridge, he’d been playing poker, and he’d got trimmed. He hadn’t a penny. He’d pawned everything he had. He couldn’t pay his hotel bill and they wouldn’t give him any more credit. He was down and out. If he couldn’t get something to do he’d have to commit suicide.

  “I looked at him for a bit. I could see now that he was all to pieces. He’d been drinking more than usual and he looked fifty. The girls wouldn’t have thought so much of him if they’d seen him then.

  “‘Well, isn’t there anything you can do except play cards?’ I asked him.

  “‘I can swim,’ he said.

  “‘Swim!’

  “I could hardly believe my ears; it seemed such an insane answer to give.

  “‘I swam for my university.’

  “I got some glimmering of what he was driving at, I’ve known too many men who were little tin gods at their university to be impressed by it.

  “‘I was a pretty good swimmer myself when I was a young man,’ I said.

  “Suddenly I had an idea.”

  Pausing in his story, Burton turned to me.

  “Do you know Kobe?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, “I passed through it once, but I only spent a night there.”

  “Then you don’t know the Shioya Club. When I was a young man I swam from there round the beacon and landed at the creek of Tarumi. It’s over three miles and it’s rather difficult on account of the currents round the beacon. Well, I told my young namesake about it and I said to him that if he’d do it I’d give him a job.

  “I could see he was rather taken aback.

  “‘You say you’re a swimmer,’ I said.

  “‘I’m not in very good condition,’ he answered.

  “I didn’t say anything. I shrugged my shoulders. He looked at me for a moment and then he nodded.

  “‘All right,’ he said. ‘When do you want me to do it?’

  “I looked at my watch. It was just after ten.

  “‘The swim shouldn’t take you much over an hour and a quarter. I’ll drive round to the creek at half past twelve and meet you. I’ll take you back to the club to dress and then we’ll have lunch together.’

  “‘Done,’ he said.

  “We shook hands. I wished him good luck and he left me. I had a lot of work to do that morning and I only just managed to get to the creek at Tarumi at half past twelve. But I needn’t have hurried; he never turned up.”

  “Did he funk it at the last moment?” I asked.

  “No, he didn’t funk it. He started all right. But of course he’d ruined his

  constitution by drink and dissipation. The currents round the beacon were more than he could manage. We didn’t get the body for about three days.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment or two. I was a trifle shocked. Then I asked Burton a question.

  “When you made him that offer of a job, did you know he’d be drowned?”

  He gave a little mild chuckle and he looked at me with those kind and candid

  blue eyes of his. He rubbed his chin with his hand.

  “Well, I hadn’t got a vacancy in my office at the moment.”

  THE DREAM

  IT CHANCED that in August 1917 the work upon which I was then engaged obliged me to go from New York to Petrograd, and I was instructed for safety’s sake to travel by way of Vladivostok. I landed there in the morning and passed an idle day as best I could. The trans-Siberian train was due to start, so far as I remember, at about nine in the evening. I dined at the station restaurant by myself. It was crowded and I shared a small table with a man whose appearance entertained me. He was a Russian, a tall fellow, but amazingly stout, and he had so vast a paunch that he was obliged to sit well away from the table. His hands, small for his size, were buried in rolls of fat. His hair, long, dark, and thin, was brushed carefully across his crown in order to conceal his baldness, and his huge sallow face, with its enormous double chin, clean-shaven, gave you an impression of indecent nakedness. His nose was small, a funny little button upon that mass of flesh, and his black shining eyes were small too. But he had a large, red, and sensual mouth. He was dressed neatly enough in a black suit. It was not worn but shabby; it looked as if it had been neither pressed nor brushed since he had had it.

  The service was bad and it was almost impossible to attract the attention of a waiter. We soon got into conversation. The Russian spoke good and fluent English. His accent was marked but not tiresome. He asked me many questions about myself and my plans, which-my occupation at the time making caution necessary-I answered with a show of frankness but with dissimulation. I told him I was a journalist. He asked me whether I wrote fiction and when I confessed that in my leisure moments I did, he began to talk of the later Russian novelists. He spoke intelligently. It was plain that he was a man of education.

  By this time we had persuaded the waiter to bring us some cabbage soup, and my acquaintance pulled a small bottle of vodka from his pocket which he invited me to share. I do not know whether it was the vodka or the natural loquaciousness of his race that made him communicative, but presently he told me, unasked, a good deal about himself. He was of noble birth, it appeared, a lawyer by profession, and a radical. Some trouble with the authorities had made it necessary for him to be much abroad, but now he was on his way home. Business had detained him at Vladivostok, but he expected to start for Moscow in a week and if I went there he would be charmed to see me.

  “Are you married?” he asked me.

  I did not see what business it was of his, but I told him that I was. He sighed a little.

  “I am a widower,” he said. “My wife was a Swiss, a native of Geneva. She was a very cultivated woman. She spoke English, German, and Italian perfectly. French, of course, was her native tongue. Her Russian was much above the average for a foreigner. She had scarcely the trace of an accent.”

  He called a waiter who was passing with a tray full of dishes and asked him, I suppose-for then I knew hardly any Russian-how much longer we were going to wait for
the next course. The waiter, with a rapid but presumably reassuring exclamation, hurried on, and my friend sighed.

  “Since the revolution the waiting in restaurants has become abominable.”

  He lighted his twentieth cigarette and I, looking at my watch, wondered whether I should get a square meal before it was time for me to start.

  “My wife was a very remarkable woman,” he continued. “She taught languages at one of the best schools for the daughters of noblemen in Petrograd. For a good many years we lived together on perfectly friendly terms. She was, however, of a jealous temperament and unfortunately she loved me to distraction.”

  It was difficult for me to keep a straight face. He was one of the ugliest men I had ever seen. There is sometimes a certain charm in the rubicund and jovial fat man, but this saturnine obesity was repulsive.

  “I do not pretend that I was faithful to her. She was not young when I married her and we had been married for ten years. She was small and thin, and she had a bad complexion. She had a bitter tongue. She was a woman who suffered from a fury of possession, and she could not bear me to be attracted to anyone but her. She was jealous not only of the women I knew, but of my friends, my cat, and my books. On one occasion in my absence she gave away a coat of mine merely because I liked none of my coats so well. But I am of an equable temperament. I will not deny that she bored me, but I accepted her acrimonious disposition as an act of God and no more thought of rebelling against it than I would against bad weather or a cold in the head. I denied her accusations as long as it was possible to deny them, and when it was impossible I shrugged my shoulders and smoked a cigarette.

  “The constant scenes she made me did not very much affect me. I led my own life. Sometimes, indeed, I wondered whether it was passionate love she felt for me or passionate hate. It seemed to me that love and hate were very near allied.