Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated)

by William Somerset Maugham

  “Why shouldn’t you?”

  Philip hesitated for an instant.

  “I suppose I like the life.”

  A change came over Cronshaw’s placid, round face. The corners of the mouth were suddenly depressed, the eyes sunk dully in their orbits; he seemed to become strangely bowed and old.

  “This?” he cried, looking round the cafe in which they sat. His voice really trembled a little.

  “If you can get out of it, do while there’s time.”

  Philip stared at him with astonishment, but the sight of emotion always made him feel shy, and he dropped his eyes. He knew that he was looking upon the tragedy of failure. There was silence. Philip thought that Cronshaw was looking upon his own life; and perhaps he considered his youth with its bright hopes and the disappointments which wore out the radiancy; the wretched monotony of pleasure, and the black future. Philip’s eyes rested on the little pile of saucers, and he knew that Cronshaw’s were on them too.

  LI

  Two months passed.

  It seemed to Philip, brooding over these matters, that in the true painters, writers, musicians, there was a power which drove them to such complete absorption in their work as to make it inevitable for them to subordinate life to art. Succumbing to an influence they never realised, they were merely dupes of the instinct that possessed them, and life slipped through their fingers unlived. But he had a feeling that life was to be lived rather than portrayed, and he wanted to search out the various experiences of it and wring from each moment all the emotion that it offered. He made up his mind at length to take a certain step and abide by the result, and, having made up his mind, he determined to take the step at once. Luckily enough the next morning was one of Foinet’s days, and he resolved to ask him point-blank whether it was worth his while to go on with the study of art. He had never forgotten the master’s brutal advice to Fanny Price. It had been sound. Philip could never get Fanny entirely out of his head. The studio seemed strange without her, and now and then the gesture of one of the women working there or the tone of a voice would give him a sudden start, reminding him of her: her presence was more noticable now she was dead than it had ever been during her life; and he often dreamed of her at night, waking with a cry of terror. It was horrible to think of all the suffering she must have endured.

  Philip knew that on the days Foinet came to the studio he lunched at a little restaurant in the Rue d’Odessa, and he hurried his own meal so that he could go and wait outside till the painter came out. Philip walked up and down the crowded street and at last saw Monsieur Foinet walking, with bent head, towards him; Philip was very nervous, but he forced himself to go up to him.

  “Pardon, monsieur, I should like to speak to you for one moment.”

  Foinet gave him a rapid glance, recognised him, but did not smile a greeting.

  “Speak,” he said.

  “I’ve been working here nearly two years now under you. I wanted to ask you to tell me frankly if you think it worth while for me to continue.”

  Philip’s voice was trembling a little. Foinet walked on without looking up. Philip, watching his face, saw no trace of expression upon it.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m very poor. If I have no talent I would sooner do something else.”

  “Don’t you know if you have talent?”

  “All my friends know they have talent, but I am aware some of them are mistaken.”

  Foinet’s bitter mouth outlined the shadow of a smile, and he asked:

  “Do you live near here?”

  Philip told him where his studio was. Foinet turned round.

  “Let us go there? You shall show me your work.”

  “Now?” cried Philip.

  “Why not?”

  Philip had nothing to say. He walked silently by the master’s side. He felt horribly sick. It had never struck him that Foinet would wish to see his things there and then; he meant, so that he might have time to prepare himself, to ask him if he would mind coming at some future date or whether he might bring them to Foinet’s studio. He was trembling with anxiety. In his heart he hoped that Foinet would look at his picture, and that rare smile would come into his face, and he would shake Philip’s hand and say: “Pas mal. Go on, my lad. You have talent, real talent.” Philip’s heart swelled at the thought. It was such a relief, such a joy! Now he could go on with courage; and what did hardship matter, privation, and disappointment, if he arrived at last? He had worked very hard, it would be too cruel if all that industry were futile. And then with a start he remembered that he had heard Fanny Price say just that. They arrived at the house, and Philip was seized with fear. If he had dared he would have asked Foinet to go away. He did not want to know the truth. They went in and the concierge handed him a letter as they passed. He glanced at the envelope and recognised his uncle’s handwriting. Foinet followed him up the stairs. Philip could think of nothing to say; Foinet was mute, and the silence got on his nerves. The professor sat down; and Philip without a word placed before him the picture which the Salon had rejected; Foinet nodded but did not speak; then Philip showed him the two portraits he had made of Ruth Chalice, two or three landscapes which he had painted at Moret, and a number of sketches.

  “That’s all,” he said presently, with a nervous laugh.

  Monsieur Foinet rolled himself a cigarette and lit it.

  “You have very little private means?” he asked at last.

  “Very little,” answered Philip, with a sudden feeling of cold at his heart. “Not enough to live on.”

  “There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one’s means of livelihood. I have nothing but contempt for the people who despise money. They are hypocrites or fools. Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. Without an adequate income half the possibilities of life are shut off. The only thing to be careful about is that you do not pay more than a shilling for the shilling you earn. You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it in their flesh. They do not know how mean it makes you. It exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats into your soul like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent. I pity with all my heart the artist, whether he writes or paints, who is entirely dependent for subsistence upon his art.”

  Philip quietly put away the various things which he had shown.

  “I’m afraid that sounds as if you didn’t think I had much chance.”

  Monsieur Foinet slightly shrugged his shoulders.

  “You have a certain manual dexterity. With hard work and perseverance there is no reason why you should not become a careful, not incompetent painter. You would find hundreds who painted worse than you, hundreds who painted as well. I see no talent in anything you have shown me. I see industry and intelligence. You will never be anything but mediocre.”

  Philip obliged himself to answer quite steadily.

  “I’m very grateful to you for having taken so much trouble. I can’t thank you enough.”

  Monsieur Foinet got up and made as if to go, but he changed his mind and, stopping, put his hand on Philip’s shoulder.

  “But if you were to ask me my advice, I should say: take your courage in both hands and try your luck at something else. It sounds very hard, but let me tell you this: I would give all I have in the world if someone had given me that advice when I was your age and I had taken it.”

  Philip looked up at him with surprise. The master forced his lips into a smile, but his eyes remained grave and sad.

  “It is cruel to discover one’s mediocrity only when it is too late. It does not improve the temper.”

  He gave a little laugh as he said the last words and quickly walked out of the room.

  Philip mechanically took up the letter from his uncle. The sight of his handwriting made him anxious, for it was his a
unt who always wrote to him. She had been ill for the last three months, and he had offered to go over to England and see her; but she, fearing it would interfere with his work, had refused. She did not want him to put himself to inconvenience; she said she would wait till August and then she hoped he would come and stay at the vicarage for two or three weeks. If by any chance she grew worse she would let him know, since she did not wish to die without seeing him again. If his uncle wrote to him it must be because she was too ill to hold a pen. Philip opened the letter. It ran as follows:

  My dear Philip,

  I regret to inform you that your dear Aunt departed this life early this morning. She died very suddenly, but quite peacefully. The change for the worse was so rapid that we had no time to send for you. She was fully prepared for the end and entered into rest with the complete assurance of a blessed resurrection and with resignation to the divine will of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Your Aunt would have liked you to be present at the funeral so I trust you will come as soon as you can. There is naturally a great deal of work thrown upon my shoulders and I am very much upset. I trust that you will be able to do everything for me. Your affectionate uncle, William Carey.

  LII

  Next day Philip arrived at Blackstable. Since the death of his mother he had never lost anyone closely connected with him; his aunt’s death shocked him and filled him also with a curious fear; he felt for the first time his own mortality. He could not realise what life would be for his uncle without the constant companionship of the woman who had loved and tended him for forty years. He expected to find him broken down with hopeless grief. He dreaded the first meeting; he knew that he could say nothing which would be of use. He rehearsed to himself a number of apposite speeches.

  He entered the vicarage by the side-door and went into the dining-room.

  Uncle William was reading the paper.

  “Your train was late,” he said, looking up.

  Philip was prepared to give way to his emotion, but the matter-of-fact reception startled him. His uncle, subdued but calm, handed him the paper.

  “There’s a very nice little paragraph about her in The Blackstable

  Times,” he said.

  Philip read it mechanically.

  “Would you like to come up and see her?”

  Philip nodded and together they walked upstairs. Aunt Louisa was lying in the middle of the large bed, with flowers all round her.

  “Would you like to say a short prayer?” said the Vicar.

  He sank on his knees, and because it was expected of him Philip followed his example. He looked at the little shrivelled face. He was only conscious of one emotion: what a wasted life! In a minute Mr. Carey gave a cough, and stood up. He pointed to a wreath at the foot of the bed.

  “That’s from the Squire,” he said. He spoke in a low voice as though he were in church, but one felt that, as a clergyman, he found himself quite at home. “I expect tea is ready.”

  They went down again to the dining-room. The drawn blinds gave a lugubrious aspect. The Vicar sat at the end of the table at which his wife had always sat and poured out the tea with ceremony. Philip could not help feeling that neither of them should have been able to eat anything, but when he saw that his uncle’s appetite was unimpaired he fell to with his usual heartiness. They did not speak for a while. Philip set himself to eat an excellent cake with the air of grief which he felt was decent.

  “Things have changed a great deal since I was a curate,” said the Vicar presently. “In my young days the mourners used always to be given a pair of black gloves and a piece of black silk for their hats. Poor Louisa used to make the silk into dresses. She always said that twelve funerals gave her a new dress.”

  Then he told Philip who had sent wreaths; there were twenty-four of them already; when Mrs. Rawlingson, wife of the Vicar at Ferne, had died she had had thirty-two; but probably a good many more would come the next day; the funeral would start at eleven o’clock from the vicarage, and they should beat Mrs. Rawlingson easily. Louisa never liked Mrs. Rawlingson.

  “I shall take the funeral myself. I promised Louisa I would never let anyone else bury her.”

  Philip looked at his uncle with disapproval when he took a second piece of cake. Under the circumstances he could not help thinking it greedy.

  “Mary Ann certainly makes capital cakes. I’m afraid no one else will make such good ones.”

  “She’s not going?” cried Philip, with astonishment.

  Mary Ann had been at the vicarage ever since he could remember. She never forgot his birthday, but made a point always of sending him a trifle, absurd but touching. He had a real affection for her.

  “Yes,” answered Mr. Carey. “I didn’t think it would do to have a single woman in the house.”

  “But, good heavens, she must be over forty.”

  “Yes, I think she is. But she’s been rather troublesome lately, she’s been inclined to take too much on herself, and I thought this was a very good opportunity to give her notice.”

  “It’s certainly one which isn’t likely to recur,” said Philip.

  He took out a cigarette, but his uncle prevented him from lighting it.

  “Not till after the funeral, Philip,” he said gently.

  “All right,” said Philip.

  “It wouldn’t be quite respectful to smoke in the house so long as your poor Aunt Louisa is upstairs.”

  Josiah Graves, churchwarden and manager of the bank, came back to dinner at the vicarage after the funeral. The blinds had been drawn up, and Philip, against his will, felt a curious sensation of relief. The body in the house had made him uncomfortable: in life the poor woman had been all that was kind and gentle; and yet, when she lay upstairs in her bed-room, cold and stark, it seemed as though she cast upon the survivors a baleful influence. The thought horrified Philip.

  He found himself alone for a minute or two in the dining-room with the churchwarden.

  “I hope you’ll be able to stay with your uncle a while,” he said. “I don’t think he ought to be left alone just yet.”

  “I haven’t made any plans,” answered Philip. “If he wants me I shall be very pleased to stay.”

  By way of cheering the bereaved husband the churchwarden during dinner talked of a recent fire at Blackstable which had partly destroyed the Wesleyan chapel.

  “I hear they weren’t insured,” he said, with a little smile.

  “That won’t make any difference,” said the Vicar. “They’ll get as much money as they want to rebuild. Chapel people are always ready to give money.”

  “I see that Holden sent a wreath.”

  Holden was the dissenting minister, and, though for Christ’s sake who died for both of them, Mr. Carey nodded to him in the street, he did not speak to him.

  “I think it was very pushing,” he remarked. “There were forty-one wreaths.

  Yours was beautiful. Philip and I admired it very much.”

  “Don’t mention it,” said the banker.

  He had noticed with satisfaction that it was larger than anyone’s else. It had looked very well. They began to discuss the people who attended the funeral. Shops had been closed for it, and the churchwarden took out of his pocket the notice which had been printed: “Owing to the funeral of Mrs. Carey this establishment will not be opened till one o’clock.”

  “It was my idea,” he said.

  “I think it was very nice of them to close,” said the Vicar. “Poor Louisa would have appreciated that.”

  Philip ate his dinner. Mary Ann had treated the day as Sunday, and they had roast chicken and a gooseberry tart.

  “I suppose you haven’t thought about a tombstone yet?” said the churchwarden.

  “Yes, I have. I thought of a plain stone cross. Louisa was always against ostentation.”

  “I don’t think one can do much better than a cross. If you’re thinking of a text, what do you say to: With Christ, which is far better?”

  The Vicar pursed his lips. It w
as just like Bismarck to try and settle everything himself. He did not like that text; it seemed to cast an aspersion on himself.

  “I don’t think I should put that. I much prefer: The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away.”

  “Oh, do you? That always seems to me a little indifferent.”

  The Vicar answered with some acidity, and Mr. Graves replied in a tone which the widower thought too authoritative for the occasion. Things were going rather far if he could not choose his own text for his own wife’s tombstone. There was a pause, and then the conversation drifted to parish matters. Philip went into the garden to smoke his pipe. He sat on a bench, and suddenly began to laugh hysterically.

  A few days later his uncle expressed the hope that he would spend the next few weeks at Blackstable.

  “Yes, that will suit me very well,” said Philip.

  “I suppose it’ll do if you go back to Paris in September.”

  Philip did not reply. He had thought much of what Foinet said to him, but he was still so undecided that he did not wish to speak of the future. There would be something fine in giving up art because he was convinced that he could not excel; but unfortunately it would seem so only to himself: to others it would be an admission of defeat, and he did not want to confess that he was beaten. He was an obstinate fellow, and the suspicion that his talent did not lie in one direction made him inclined to force circumstances and aim notwithstanding precisely in that direction. He could not bear that his friends should laugh at him. This might have prevented him from ever taking the definite step of abandoning the study of painting, but the different environment made him on a sudden see things differently. Like many another he discovered that crossing the Channel makes things which had seemed important singularly futile. The life which had been so charming that he could not bear to leave it now seemed inept; he was seized with a distaste for the cafes, the restaurants with their ill-cooked food, the shabby way in which they all lived. He did not care any more what his friends thought about him: Cronshaw with his rhetoric, Mrs. Otter with her respectability, Ruth Chalice with her affectations, Lawson and Clutton with their quarrels; he felt a revulsion from them all. He wrote to Lawson and asked him to send over all his belongings. A week later they arrived. When he unpacked his canvases he found himself able to examine his work without emotion. He noticed the fact with interest. His uncle was anxious to see his pictures. Though he had so greatly disapproved of Philip’s desire to go to Paris, he accepted the situation now with equanimity. He was interested in the life of students and constantly put Philip questions about it. He was in fact a little proud of him because he was a painter, and when people were present made attempts to draw him out. He looked eagerly at the studies of models which Philip showed him. Philip set before him his portrait of Miguel Ajuria.