I told him my name. I tried my best to assume an airy manner.
‘You don’t remember me. I had the pleasure of dining with you last July.’
‘Come in’, he said cheerily. ‘I’m delighted to see you. Take a pew.’
I entered. It was a very small room, overcrowded with furniture of the style which the French know as Louis Philippe. There was a large wooden bedstead on which was a billowing red eiderdown, and there was a large wardrobe, a round table, a very small washstand, and two stuffed chairs covered with red rep. Everything was dirty and shabby. There was no sign of the abandoned luxury that Colonel MacAndrew had so confidently described. Strickland threw on the floor the clothes that burdened one of the chairs, and I sat down on it.
‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.
In that small room he seemed even bigger than I remembered him. He wore an old Norfolk jacket, and he had not shaved for several days. When last I saw him he was spruce enough, but he looked ill at ease: now, untidy and ill-kempt, he looked perfectly at home. I did not know how he would take the remark I had prepared.
‘I’ve come to see you on behalf of your wife.’
‘I was just going out to have a drink before dinner. You’d better come too. Do you like absinthe?’
‘I can drink it.’
‘Come on, then.’
He put on a bowler hat much in need of brushing.
‘We might dine together. You owe me a dinner, you know.’
‘Certainly. Are you alone?’
I flattered myself that I had got in that important question very naturally.
‘Oh yes. In point of fact I’ve not spoken to a soul for three days. My French isn’t exactly brilliant.’
I wondered as I preceded him downstairs what had happened to the little lady in the tea-shop. Had they quarrelled already, or was his infatuation passed? It seemed hardly likely if, as appeared, he had been taking steps for a year to make his desperate plunge. We walked to the Avenue de Clichy, and sat down at one of the tables on the pavement of a large café.
XII
The Avenue de Clichy was crowded at that hour, and a lively fancy might see in the passers-by the personages of many a sordid romance. There were clerks and shopgirls; old fellows who might have stepped out of the pages of Honoré de Balzac; members, male and female, of the professions which make their profit of the frailties of mankind. There is in the streets of the poorer quarters of Paris a thronging vitality which excites the blood and prepares the soul for the unexpected.
‘Do you know Paris well?’ I asked.
‘No. We came on our honeymoon. I haven’t been since.’
‘How on earth did you find out your hotel?’
‘It was recommended to me. I wanted something cheap.’
The absinthe came, and with due solemnity we dropped water over the melting sugar.
‘I thought I’d better tell you at once why I had come to see you’, I said, not without embarrassment.
His eyes twinkled.
‘I thought somebody would come along sooner or later. I’ve had a lot of letters from Amy.’
‘Then you know pretty well what I’ve got to say.’
‘I’ve not read them.’
I lit a cigarette to give myself a moment’s time. I did not quite know now how to set about my mission. The eloquent phrases I had arranged, pathetic or indignant, seemed out of place on the Avenue de Clichy. Suddenly he gave a chuckle.
‘Beastly job for you this, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, I don’t know’, I answered.
‘Well, look here, you get it over, and then we’ll have a jolly evening.’
I hesitated.
‘Has it occurred to you that your wife is frightfully unhappy?’
‘She’ll get over it.’
I cannot describe the extraordinary callousness with which he made this reply. It disconcerted me, but I did my best not to show it. I adopted the tone used by my Uncle Henry, a clergyman, when he was asking one of his relatives for a subscription to the Additional Curates Society.
‘You don’t mind my talking to you frankly?’
He shook his head, smiling.
‘Has she deserved that you should treat her like this?’
‘No.’
‘Have you any complaint to make against her?’
‘None.’
‘Then, isn’t it monstrous to leave her in this fashion, after seventeen years of married life, without a fault to find with her?’
‘Monstrous.’
I glanced at him with surprise. His cordial agreement with all I said cut the ground from under my feet. It made my position complicated, not to say ludicrous. I was prepared to be persuasive, touching, and hortatory, admonitory and expostulating, if need be vituperative even, indignant and sarcastic; but what the devil does a mentor do when the sinner makes no bones about confessing his sin? I had no experience, since my own practice has always been to deny everything.
‘What, then?’ asked Strickland.
I tried to curl my lip.
‘Well, if you acknowledge that, there doesn’t seem much more to be said.’
‘I don’t think there is.’
I felt that I was not carrying out my embassy with any great skill. I was distinctly nettled.
‘Hang it all, one can’t leave a woman without a bob.’
‘Why not?’
‘How is she going to live?’
‘I’ve supported her for seventeen years. Why shouldn’t she support herself for a change?’
‘She can’t.’
‘Let her try.’
Of course there were many things I might have answered to this. I might have spoken of the economic position of woman, of the contract, tacit and overt, which a man accepts by his marriage, and of much else; but I felt that there was only one point which really signified.
‘Don’t you care for her any more?’
‘Not a bit’, he replied.
The matter was immensely serious for all the parties concerned, but there was in the manner of his answers such a cheerful effrontery that I had to bite my lips in order not to laugh. I reminded myself that his behaviour was abominable. I worked myself up into a state of moral indignation.
‘Damn it all, there are your children to think of. They’ve never done you any harm. They didn’t ask to be brought into the world. If you chuck everything like this, they’ll be thrown on the streets.’
‘They’ve had a good many years of comfort. It’s much more than the majority of children have. Besides, somebody will look after them. When it comes to the point, the MacAndrews will pay for their schooling.’
‘But aren’t you fond of them? They’re such awfully nice kids. Do you mean to say you don’t want to have anything more to do with them?’
‘I liked them all right when they were kids, but now they’re growing up I haven’t got any particular feeling for them.’
‘It’s just inhuman.’
‘I dare say.’
‘You don’t seem in the least ashamed.’
‘I’m not.’
I tried another tack.
‘Everyone will think you a perfect swine.’
‘Let them.’
‘Won’t it mean anything to you to know that people loathe and despise you?’
‘No.’
His brief answer was so scornful that it made my question, natural though it was, seem absurd. I reflected for a minute or two.
‘I wonder if one can live quite comfortably when one’s conscious of the disapproval of one’s fellows? Are you sure it won’t begin to worry you? Everyone has some sort of a conscience, and sooner or later it will find you out. Supposing your wife died, wouldn’t you be tortured by remorse?’
He did not answer, and I waited for some time for him to speak. At last I had to break the silence myself.
‘What have you to say to that?’
‘Only that you’re a damned fool.’
‘At all events, you can be forced
to support your wife and children’, I retorted, somewhat piqued. ‘I suppose the law has some protection to offer them.’
‘Can the law get blood out of a stone? I haven’t any money. I’ve got about a hundred pounds.’
I began to be more puzzled than before. It was true that his hotel pointed to the most straitened circumstances.
‘What are you going to do when you’ve spent that?’
‘Earn some.’
He was perfectly cool, and his eyes kept that mocking smile which made all I said seem rather foolish. I paused for a little while to consider what I had better say next. But it was he who spoke first.
‘Why doesn’t Amy marry again? She’s comparatively young, and she’s not unattractive. I can recommend her as an excellent wife. If she wants to divorce me I don’t mind giving her the necessary grounds.’
Now it was my turn to smile. He was very cunning, but it was evidently this that he was aiming at. He had some reason to conceal the fact that he had run away with a woman, and he was using every precaution to hide her whereabouts. I answered with decision.
‘Your wife says that nothing you can do will ever induce her to divorce you. She’s quite made up her mind. You can put any possibility of that definitely out of your head.’
He looked at me with astonishment that was certainly not feigned. The smile abandoned his lips, and he spoke quite seriously.
‘But, my dear fellow, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter a twopenny damn to me one way or the other.’
I laughed.
‘Oh, come now; you mustn’t think us such fools as all that. We happen to know that you came away with a woman.’
He gave a little start, and then suddenly burst into a shout of laughter. He laughed so uproariously that the people sitting near us looked round, and some of them began to laugh too.
‘I don’t see anything very amusing in that.’
‘Poor Amy’, he grinned.
Then his face grew bitterly scornful.
‘What poor minds women have got! Love. It’s always love. They think a man leaves them only because he wants others. Do you think I should be such a fool as to do what I’ve done for a woman?’
‘Do you mean to say you didn’t leave your wife for another woman?’
‘Of course not.’
‘On your word of honour?’
I don’t know why I asked for that. It was very ingenuous of me.
‘On my word of honour.’
‘Then, what in God’s name have you left her for?’
‘I want to paint.’
I looked at him for quite a long time. I did not understand. I thought he was mad. It must be remembered that I was very young, and I looked upon him as a middle-aged man. I forgot everything but my own amazement.
‘But you’re forty.’
‘That’s what made me think it was high time to begin.’
‘Have you ever painted?’
‘I rather wanted to be a painter when I was a boy, but my father made me go into business because he said there was no money in art. I began to paint a bit a year ago. For the last year I’ve been going to some classes at night.’
‘Was that where you went when Mrs Strickland thought you were playing bridge at your club?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Why didn’t you tell her?’
‘I preferred to keep it to myself.’
‘Can you paint?’
‘Not yet. But I shall. That’s why I’ve come over here. I couldn’t get what I wanted in London. Perhaps I can here.’
‘Do you think it’s likely that a man will do any good when he starts at your age? Most men begin painting at eighteen.’
‘I can learn quicker than I could when I was eighteen.’
‘What makes you think you have any talent?’
He did not answer for a minute. His gaze rested on the passing throng, but I do not think he saw it. His answer was no answer.
‘I’ve got to paint.’
‘Aren’t you taking an awful chance?’
He looked at me then. His eyes had something strange in them, so that I felt rather uncomfortable.
‘How old are you? Twenty-three?’
It seemed to me that the question was beside the point. It was natural that I should take chances; but he was a man whose youth was past, a stockbroker with a position of respectability, a wife and two children. A course that would have been natural for me was absurd for him. I wished to be quite fair.
‘Of course a miracle may happen, and you may be a great painter, but you must confess the chances are a million to one against it. It’ll be an awful sell if at the end you have to acknowledge you’ve made a hash of it.’
‘I’ve got to paint’, he repeated.
‘Supposing you’re never anything more than third-rate, do you think it will have been worth while to give up everything? After all, in any other walk in life it doesn’t matter if you’re not very good; you can get along quite comfortably if you’re just adequate; but it’s different with an artist.’
‘You blasted fool’, he said.
‘I don’t see why, unless it’s folly to say the obvious.’
‘I tell you I’ve got to paint. I can’t help myself. When a man falls into the water it doesn’t matter how he swims, well or badly: he’s got to get out or else he’ll drown.’
There was real passion in his voice, and in spite of myself I was impressed. I seemed to feel in him some vehement power that was struggling within him; it gave me the sensation of something very strong, overmastering, that held him, as it were, against his will. I could not understand. He seemed really to be possessed of a devil, and I felt that it might suddenly turn and rend him. Yet he looked ordinary enough. My eyes, resting on him curiously, caused him no embarrassment. I wondered what a stranger would have taken him to be, sitting there in his old Norfolk jacket and his unbrushed bowler; his trousers were baggy, his hands were not clean; and his face, with the red stubble of the unshaved chin, the little eyes, and the large, aggressive nose, was uncouth and coarse. His mouth was large, his lips were heavy and sensual. No; I could not have placed him.
‘You won’t go back to your wife?’ I said at last.
‘Never.’
‘She’s willing to forget everything that’s happened and start afresh. She’ll never make you a single reproach.’
‘She can go to hell.’
‘You don’t care if people think you an utter blackguard? You don’t care if she and your children have to beg their bread?’
‘Not a damn.’
I was silent for a moment in order to give greater force to my next remark. I spoke as deliberately as I could.
‘You are a most unmitigated cad.’
‘Now that you’ve got that off your chest, let’s go and have dinner.’
XIII
I dare say it would have been more seemly to decline this proposal. I think perhaps I should have made a show of the indignation I really felt, and I am sure that Colonel MacAndrew at least would have thought well of me if I had been able to report my stout refusal to sit at the same table with a man of such character. But the fear of not being able to carry it through effectively has always made me shy of assuming the moral attitude; and in this case the certainty that my sentiments would be lost on Strickland made it peculiarly embarrassing to utter them. Only the poet or the saint can water an asphalt pavement in the confident anticipation that lilies will reward his labour.
I paid for what we had drunk, and we made our way to a cheap restaurant, crowded and gay, where we dined with pleasure. I had the appetite of youth and he of a hardened conscience. Then we went to a tavern to have coffee and liqueurs.
I had said all I had to say on the subject that had brought me to Paris, and though I felt it in a manner treacherous to Mrs Strickland not to pursue it, I could not struggle against his indifference. It requires the feminine temperament to repeat the same thing three times with unabated zest. I solaced myself by thinking that it
would be useful for me to find out what I could about Strickland’s state of mind. It also interested me much more. But this was not an easy thing to do, for Strickland was not a fluent talker. He seemed to express himself with difficulty, as though words were not the medium with which his mind worked; and you had to guess the intentions of his soul by hackneyed phrases, slang, and vague, unfinished gestures. But though he said nothing of any consequence, there was something in his personality which prevented him from being dull. Perhaps it was sincerity. He did not seem to care much about the Paris he was now seeing for the first time (I did not count the visit with his wife), and he accepted sights which must have been strange to him without any sense of astonishment. I have been to Paris a hundred times, and it never fails to give me a thrill of excitement; I can never walk its streets without feeling myself on the verge of adventure. Strickland remained placid. Looking back, I think now that he was blind to everything but to some disturbing vision in his soul.
One rather absurd incident took place. There were a number of harlots in the tavern: some were sitting with men, others by themselves; and presently I noticed that one of these was looking at us. When she caught Strickland’s eye she smiled. I do not think he saw her. In a little while she went out, but in a minute returned and, passing our table, very politely asked us to buy her something to drink. She sat down and I began to chat with her; but it was plain that her interest was in Strickland. I explained that he knew no more than two words of French. She tried to talk to him, partly by signs, partly in pidgin French, which, for some reason, she thought would be more comprehensible to him, and she had half a dozen phrases of English. She made me translate what she could only express in her own tongue, and eagerly asked for the meaning of his replies. He was quite good-tempered, a little amused, but his indifference was obvious.
The Moon and Sixpence Page 8
