Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated)

by William Somerset Maugham

  “What is she like?”

  I hesitated a little. I knew that I had a bombshell.

  “There isn’t a woman.”

  Colonel MacAndrew and his wife uttered expressions of incredulity, and Mrs. Strickland sprang to her feet.

  “Do you mean to say you never saw her?”

  “There’s no one to see. He’s quite alone.”

  “That’s preposterous,” cried Mrs. MacAndrew.

  “I knew I ought to have gone over myself,” said the Colonel. “You can bet your boots I’d have routed her out fast enough.”

  “I wish you had gone over,” I replied, somewhat tartly. “You’d have seen that every one of your suppositions was wrong. He’s not at a smart hotel. He’s living in one tiny room in the most squalid way. If he’s left his home, it’s not to live a gay life. He’s got hardly any money.”

  “Do you think he’s done something that we don’t know about, and is lying doggo on account of the police?”

  The suggestion sent a ray of hope in all their breasts, but I would have nothing to do with it.

  “If that were so, he would hardly have been such a fool as to give his partner his address,” I retorted acidly. “Anyhow, there’s one thing I’m positive of, he didn’t go away with anyone. He’s not in love. Nothing is farther from his thoughts.”

  There was a pause while they reflected over my words.

  “Well, if what you say is true,” said Mrs. MacAndrew at last, “things aren’t so bad as I thought.”

  Mrs. Strickland glanced at her, but said nothing.

  She was very pale now, and her fine brow was dark and lowering. I could not understand the expression of her face. Mrs. MacAndrew continued:

  “If it’s just a whim, he’ll get over it.”

  “Why don’t you go over to him, Amy?” hazarded the Colonel. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t live with him in Paris for a year. We’ll look after the children. I dare say he’d got stale. Sooner or later he’ll be quite ready to come back to London, and no great harm will have been done.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” said Mrs. MacAndrew. “I’d give him all the rope he wants. He’ll come back with his tail between his legs and settle down again quite comfortably.” Mrs. MacAndrew looked at her sister coolly. “Perhaps you weren’t very wise with him sometimes. Men are queer creatures, and one has to know how to manage them.”

  Mrs. MacAndrew shared the common opinion of her sex that a man is always a brute to leave a woman who is attached to him, but that a woman is much to blame if he does. Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas.

  Mrs. Strickland looked slowly from one to another of us.

  “He’ll never come back,” she said.

  “Oh, my dear, remember what we’ve just heard. He’s been used to comfort and to having someone to look after him. How long do you think it’ll be before he gets tired of a scrubby room in a scrubby hotel? Besides, he hasn’t any money. He must come back.”

  “As long as I thought he’d run away with some woman I thought there was a chance. I don’t believe that sort of thing ever answers. He’d have got sick to death of her in three months. But if he hasn’t gone because he’s in love, then it’s finished.”

  “Oh, I think that’s awfully subtle,” said the Colonel, putting into the word all the contempt he felt for a quality so alien to the traditions of his calling. “Don’t you believe it. He’ll come back, and, as Dorothy says, I dare say he’ll be none the worse for having had a bit of a fling.”

  “But I don’t want him back,” she said.

  “Amy!”

  It was anger that had seized Mrs. Strickland, and her pallor was the pallor of a cold and sudden rage. She spoke quickly now, with little gasps.

  “I could have forgiven it if he’d fallen desperately in love with someone and gone off with her. I should have thought that natural. I shouldn’t really have blamed him. I should have thought he was led away. Men are so weak, and women are so unscrupulous. But this is different. I hate him. I’ll never forgive him now.”

  Colonel MacAndrew and his wife began to talk to her together. They were astonished. They told her she was mad. They could not understand. Mrs. Strickland turned desperately to me.

  “Don’t you see?” she cried.

  “I’m not sure. Do you mean that you could have forgiven him if he’d left you for a woman, but not if he’s left you for an idea? You think you’re a match for the one, but against the other you’re helpless?”

  Mrs. Strickland gave me a look in which I read no great friendliness, but did not answer. Perhaps I had struck home. She went on in a low and trembling voice:

  “I never knew it was possible to hate anyone as much as I hate him. Do you know, I’ve been comforting myself by thinking that however long it lasted he’d want me at the end? I knew when he was dying he’d send for me, and I was ready to go; I’d have nursed him like a mother, and at the last I’d have told him that it didn’t matter, I’d loved him always, and I forgave him everything.”

  I have always been a little disconcerted by the passion women have for behaving beautifully at the death-bed of those they love. Sometimes it seems as if they grudge the longevity which postpones their chance of an effective scene.

  “But now — now it’s finished. I’m as indifferent to him as if he were a stranger. I should like him to die miserable, poor, and starving, without a friend. I hope he’ll rot with some loathsome disease. I’ve done with him.”

  I thought it as well then to say what Strickland had suggested.

  “If you want to divorce him, he’s quite willing to do whatever is necessary to make it possible.”

  “Why should I give him his freedom?”

  “I don’t think he wants it. He merely thought it might be more convenient to you.”

  Mrs. Strickland shrugged her shoulders impatiently. I think I was a little disappointed in her. I expected then people to be more of a piece than I do now, and I was distressed to find so much vindictiveness in so charming a creature. I did not realise how motley are the qualities that go to make up a human being. Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandeur, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in the same human heart.

  I wondered if there was anything I could say that would ease the sense of bitter humiliation which at present tormented Mrs. Strickland. I thought I would try.

  “You know, I’m not sure that your husband is quite responsible for his actions. I do not think he is himself. He seems to me to be possessed by some power which is using him for its own ends, and in whose hold he is as helpless as a fly in a spider’s web. It’s as though someone had cast a spell over him. I’m reminded of those strange stories one sometimes hears of another personality entering into a man and driving out the old one. The soul lives unstably in the body, and is capable of mysterious transformations. In the old days they would say Charles Strickland had a devil.”

  Mrs. MacAndrew smoothed down the lap of her gown, and gold bangles fell over her wrists.

  “All that seems to me very far-fetched,” she said acidly. “I don’t deny that perhaps Amy took her husband a little too much for granted. If she hadn’t been so busy with her own affairs, I can’t believe that she wouldn’t have suspected something was the matter. I don’t think that Alec could have something on his mind for a year or more without my having a pretty shrewd idea of it.”

  The Colonel stared into vacancy, and I wondered whether anyone could be quite so innocent of guile as he looked.

  “But that doesn’t prevent the fact that Charles Strickland is a heartless beast.” She looked at me severely. “I can tell you why he left his wife — from pure selfishness and nothing else whatever.”

  “That is certainly the simplest explanation,” I said. But I thought it explained nothing. When, saying I was tired, I rose to go, Mrs. Strickland made no attempt to detain me.

  Chapter XVI

  What followed showed that Mrs. Strickland was a woman of c
haracter. Whatever anguish she suffered she concealed. She saw shrewdly that the world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willingly avoids the sight of distress. Whenever she went out — and compassion for her misadventure made her friends eager to entertain her — she bore a demeanour that was perfect. She was brave, but not too obviously; cheerful, but not brazenly; and she seemed more anxious to listen to the troubles of others than to discuss her own. Whenever she spoke of her husband it was with pity. Her attitude towards him at first perplexed me. One day she said to me:

  “You know, I’m convinced you were mistaken about Charles being alone. From what I’ve been able to gather from certain sources that I can’t tell you, I know that he didn’t leave England by himself.”

  “In that case he has a positive genius for covering up his tracks.”

  She looked away and slightly coloured.

  “What I mean is, if anyone talks to you about it, please don’t contradict it if they say he eloped with somebody.”

  “Of course not.”

  She changed the conversation as though it were a matter to which she attached no importance. I discovered presently that a peculiar story was circulating among her friends. They said that Charles Strickland had become infatuated with a French dancer, whom he had first seen in the ballet at the Empire, and had accompanied her to Paris. I could not find out how this had arisen, but, singularly enough, it created much sympathy for Mrs. Strickland, and at the same time gave her not a little prestige. This was not without its use in the calling which she had decided to follow. Colonel MacAndrew had not exaggerated when he said she would be penniless, and it was necessary for her to earn her own living as quickly as she could. She made up her mind to profit by her acquaintance with so many writers, and without loss of time began to learn shorthand and typewriting. Her education made it likely that she would be a typist more efficient than the average, and her story made her claims appealing. Her friends promised to send her work, and took care to recommend her to all theirs.

  The MacAndrews, who were childless and in easy circumstances, arranged to undertake the care of the children, and Mrs. Strickland had only herself to provide for. She let her flat and sold her furniture. She settled in two tiny rooms in Westminster, and faced the world anew. She was so efficient that it was certain she would make a success of the adventure.

  Chapter XVII

  It was about five years after this that I decided to live in Paris for a while. I was growing stale in London. I was tired of doing much the same thing every day. My friends pursued their course with uneventfulness; they had no longer any surprises for me, and when I met them I knew pretty well what they would say; even their love-affairs had a tedious banality. We were like tram-cars running on their lines from terminus to terminus, and it was possible to calculate within small limits the number of passengers they would carry. Life was ordered too pleasantly. I was seized with panic. I gave up my small apartment, sold my few belongings, and resolved to start afresh.

  I called on Mrs. Strickland before I left. I had not seen her for some time, and I noticed changes in her; it was not only that she was older, thinner, and more lined; I think her character had altered. She had made a success of her business, and now had an office in Chancery Lane; she did little typing herself, but spent her time correcting the work of the four girls she employed. She had had the idea of giving it a certain daintiness, and she made much use of blue and red inks; she bound the copy in coarse paper, that looked vaguely like watered silk, in various pale colours; and she had acquired a reputation for neatness and accuracy. She was making money. But she could not get over the idea that to earn her living was somewhat undignified, and she was inclined to remind you that she was a lady by birth. She could not help bringing into her conversation the names of people she knew which would satisfy you that she had not sunk in the social scale. She was a little ashamed of her courage and business capacity, but delighted that she was going to dine the next night with a K.C. who lived in South Kensington. She was pleased to be able to tell you that her son was at Cambridge, and it was with a little laugh that she spoke of the rush of dances to which her daughter, just out, was invited. I suppose I said a very stupid thing.

  “Is she going into your business?” I asked.

  “Oh no; I wouldn’t let her do that,” Mrs. Strickland answered. “She’s so pretty. I’m sure she’ll marry well.”

  “I should have thought it would be a help to you.”

  “Several people have suggested that she should go on the stage, but of course I couldn’t consent to that, I know all the chief dramatists, and I could get her a part to-morrow, but I shouldn’t like her to mix with all sorts of people.”

  I was a little chilled by Mrs. Strickland’s exclusiveness.

  “Do you ever hear of your husband?”

  “No; I haven’t heard a word. He may be dead for all I know.”

  “I may run across him in Paris. Would you like me to let you know about him?”

  She hesitated a minute.

  “If he’s in any real want I’m prepared to help him a little. I’d send you a certain sum of money, and you could give it him gradually, as he needed it.”

  “That’s very good of you,” I said.

  But I knew it was not kindness that prompted the offer. It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.

  Chapter XVIII

  In point of fact, I met Strickland before I had been a fortnight in Paris.

  I quickly found myself a tiny apartment on the fifth floor of a house in the Rue des Dames, and for a couple of hundred francs bought at a second-hand dealer’s enough furniture to make it habitable. I arranged with the concierge to make my coffee in the morning and to keep the place clean. Then I went to see my friend Dirk Stroeve.

  Dirk Stroeve was one of those persons whom, according to your character, you cannot think of without derisive laughter or an embarrassed shrug of the shoulders. Nature had made him a buffoon. He was a painter, but a very bad one, whom I had met in Rome, and I still remembered his pictures. He had a genuine enthusiasm for the commonplace. His soul palpitating with love of art, he painted the models who hung about the stairway of Bernini in the Piazza de Spagna, undaunted by their obvious picturesqueness; and his studio was full of canvases on which were portrayed moustachioed, large-eyed peasants in peaked hats, urchins in becoming rags, and women in bright petticoats. Sometimes they lounged at the steps of a church, and sometimes dallied among cypresses against a cloudless sky; sometimes they made love by a Renaissance well-head, and sometimes they wandered through the Campagna by the side of an ox-waggon. They were carefully drawn and carefully painted. A photograph could not have been more exact. One of the painters at the Villa Medici had called him Le Maitre de la Boite a Chocoloats. To look at his pictures you would have thought that Monet, Manet, and the rest of the Impressionists had never been.

  “I don’t pretend to be a great painter,” he said, “I’m not a Michael Angelo, no, but I have something. I sell. I bring romance into the homes of all sorts of people. Do you know, they buy my pictures not only in Holland, but in Norway and Sweden and Denmark? It’s mostly merchants who buy them, and rich tradesmen. You can’t imagine what the winters are like in those countries, so long and dark and cold. They like to think that Italy is like my pictures. That’s what they expect. That’s what I expected Italy to be before I came here.”

  And I think that was the vision that had remained with him always, dazzling his eyes so that he could not see the truth; and notwithstanding the brutality of fact, he continued to see with the eyes of the spirit an Italy of romantic brigands and picturesque ruins. It was an ideal that he painted — a poor one, common and shop-soiled, but still it was an ideal; and it gave his character a peculiar charm.

  It was because I felt this that Dirk Stroeve was not to me, as to others, merely an object of ridicule. His fellow-painters made
no secret of their contempt for his work, but he earned a fair amount of money, and they did not hesitate to make free use of his purse. He was generous, and the needy, laughing at him because he believed so naively their stories of distress, borrowed from him with effrontery. He was very emotional, yet his feeling, so easily aroused, had in it something absurd, so that you accepted his kindness, but felt no gratitude. To take money from him was like robbing a child, and you despised him because he was so foolish. I imagine that a pickpocket, proud of his light fingers, must feel a sort of indignation with the careless woman who leaves in a cab a vanity-bag with all her jewels in it. Nature had made him a butt, but had denied him insensibility. He writhed under the jokes, practical and otherwise, which were perpetually made at his expense, and yet never ceased, it seemed wilfully, to expose himself to them. He was constantly wounded, and yet his good-nature was such that he could not bear malice: the viper might sting him, but he never learned by experience, and had no sooner recovered from his pain than he tenderly placed it once more in his bosom. His life was a tragedy written in the terms of knockabout farce. Because I did not laugh at him he was grateful to me, and he used to pour into my sympathetic ear the long list of his troubles. The saddest thing about them was that they were grotesque, and the more pathetic they were, the more you wanted to laugh.

  But though so bad a painter, he had a very delicate feeling for art, and to go with him to picture-galleries was a rare treat. His enthusiasm was sincere and his criticism acute. He was catholic. He had not only a true appreciation of the old masters, but sympathy with the moderns. He was quick to discover talent, and his praise was generous. I think I have never known a man whose judgment was surer. And he was better educated than most painters. He was not, like most of them, ignorant of kindred arts, and his taste for music and literature gave depth and variety to his comprehension of painting. To a young man like myself his advice and guidance were of incomparable value.