Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated)

by William Somerset Maugham

  “I asked him if he was happy with Ata.

  “‘She leaves me alone,’ he said. ‘She cooks my food and looks after her babies. She does what I tell her. She gives me what I want from a woman.’

  “‘And do you never regret Europe? Do you not yearn sometimes for the light of the streets in Paris or London, the companionship of your friends, and equals, que sais-je? for theatres and newspapers, and the rumble of omnibuses on the cobbled pavements?’

  “For a long time he was silent. Then he said:

  “‘I shall stay here till I die.’

  “‘But are you never bored or lonely?’ I asked.

  “He chuckled.

  “‘Mon pauvre ami,’ he said. ‘It is evident that you do not know what it is to be an artist.’”

  Capitaine Brunot turned to me with a gentle smile, and there was a wonderful look in his dark, kind eyes.

  “He did me an injustice, for I too know what it is to have dreams. I have my visions too. In my way I also am an artist.”

  We were all silent for a while, and Tiare fished out of her capacious pocket a handful of cigarettes. She handed one to each of us, and we all three smoked. At last she said:

  “Since ce monsieur is interested in Strickland, why do you not take him to see Dr. Coutras? He can tell him something about his illness and death.”

  “Volontiers,” said the Captain, looking at me.

  I thanked him, and he looked at his watch.

  “It is past six o’clock. We should find him at home if you care to come now.”

  I got up without further ado, and we walked along the road that led to the doctor’s house. He lived out of the town, but the Hotel de la Fleur was on the edge of it, and we were quickly in the country. The broad road was shaded by pepper-trees, and on each side were the plantations, cocoa-nut and vanilla. The pirate birds were screeching among the leaves of the palms. We came to a stone bridge over a shallow river, and we stopped for a few minutes to see the native boys bathing. They chased one another with shrill cries and laughter, and their bodies, brown and wet, gleamed in the sunlight.

  Chapter LIV

  As we walked along I reflected on a circumstance which all that I had lately heard about Strickland forced on my attention. Here, on this remote island, he seemed to have aroused none of the detestation with which he was regarded at home, but compassion rather; and his vagaries were accepted with tolerance. To these people, native and European, he was a queer fish, but they were used to queer fish, and they took him for granted; the world was full of odd persons, who did odd things; and perhaps they knew that a man is not what he wants to be, but what he must be. In England and France he was the square peg in the round hole, but here the holes were any sort of shape, and no sort of peg was quite amiss. I do not think he was any gentler here, less selfish or less brutal, but the circumstances were more favourable. If he had spent his life amid these surroundings he might have passed for no worse a man than another. He received here what he neither expected nor wanted among his own people — sympathy.

  I tried to tell Captain Brunot something of the astonishment with which this filled me, and for a little while he did not answer.

  “It is not strange that I, at all events, should have had sympathy for him,” he said at last, “for, though perhaps neither of us knew it, we were both aiming at the same thing.”

  “What on earth can it be that two people so dissimilar as you and Strickland could aim at?” I asked, smiling.

  “Beauty.”

  “A large order,” I murmured.

  “Do you know how men can be so obsessed by love that they are deaf and blind to everything else in the world? They are as little their own masters as the slaves chained to the benches of a galley. The passion that held Strickland in bondage was no less tyrannical than love.”

  “How strange that you should say that!” I answered. “For long ago I had the idea that he was possessed of a devil.”

  “And the passion that held Strickland was a passion to create beauty. It gave him no peace. It urged him hither and thither. He was eternally a pilgrim, haunted by a divine nostalgia, and the demon within him was ruthless. There are men whose desire for truth is so great that to attain it they will shatter the very foundation of their world. Of such was Strickland, only beauty with him took the place of truth. I could only feel for him a profound compassion.”

  “That is strange also. A man whom he had deeply wronged told me that he felt a great pity for him.” I was silent for a moment. “I wonder if there you have found the explanation of a character which has always seemed to me inexplicable. How did you hit on it?”

  He turned to me with a smile.

  “Did I not tell you that I, too, in my way was an artist? I realised in myself the same desire as animated him. But whereas his medium was paint, mine has been life.”

  Then Captain Brunot told me a story which I must repeat, since, if only by way of contrast, it adds something to my impression of Strickland. It has also to my mind a beauty of its own.

  Captain Brunot was a Breton, and had been in the French Navy. He left it on his marriage, and settled down on a small property he had near Quimper to live for the rest of his days in peace; but the failure of an attorney left him suddenly penniless, and neither he nor his wife was willing to live in penury where they had enjoyed consideration. During his sea faring days he had cruised the South Seas, and he determined now to seek his fortune there. He spent some months in Papeete to make his plans and gain experience; then, on money borrowed from a friend in France, he bought an island in the Paumotus. It was a ring of land round a deep lagoon, uninhabited, and covered only with scrub and wild guava. With the intrepid woman who was his wife, and a few natives, he landed there, and set about building a house, and clearing the scrub so that he could plant cocoa-nuts. That was twenty years before, and now what had been a barren island was a garden.

  “It was hard and anxious work at first, and we worked strenuously, both of us. Every day I was up at dawn, clearing, planting, working on my house, and at night when I threw myself on my bed it was to sleep like a log till morning. My wife worked as hard as I did. Then children were born to us, first a son and then a daughter. My wife and I have taught them all they know. We had a piano sent out from France, and she has taught them to play and to speak English, and I have taught them Latin and mathematics, and we read history together. They can sail a boat. They can swim as well as the natives. There is nothing about the land of which they are ignorant. Our trees have prospered, and there is shell on my reef. I have come to Tahiti now to buy a schooner. I can get enough shell to make it worth while to fish for it, and, who knows? I may find pearls. I have made something where there was nothing. I too have made beauty. Ah, you do not know what it is to look at those tall, healthy trees and think that every one I planted myself.”

  “Let me ask you the question that you asked Strickland. Do you never regret France and your old home in Brittany?”

  “Some day, when my daughter is married and my son has a wife and is able to take my place on the island, we shall go back and finish our days in the old house in which I was born.”

  “You will look back on a happy life,” I said.

  “Evidemment, it is not exciting on my island, and we are very far from the world — imagine, it takes me four days to come to Tahiti — but we are happy there. It is given to few men to attempt a work and to achieve it. Our life is simple and innocent. We are untouched by ambition, and what pride we have is due only to our contemplation of the work of our hands. Malice cannot touch us, nor envy attack. Ah, mon cher monsieur, they talk of the blessedness of labour, and it is a meaningless phrase, but to me it has the most intense significance. I am a happy man.”

  “I am sure you deserve to be,” I smiled.

  “I wish I could think so. I do not know how I have deserved to have a wife who was the perfect friend and helpmate, the perfect mistress and the perfect mother.”

  I reflected for a while
on the life that the Captain suggested to my imagination.

  “It is obvious that to lead such an existence and make so great a success of it, you must both have needed a strong will and a determined character.”

  “Perhaps; but without one other factor we could have achieved nothing.”

  “And what was that?”

  He stopped, somewhat dramatically, and stretched out his arm.

  “Belief in God. Without that we should have been lost.”

  Then we arrived at the house of Dr. Coutras.

  Chapter LV

  Mr. Coutras was an old Frenchman of great stature and exceeding bulk. His body was shaped like a huge duck’s egg; and his eyes, sharp, blue, and good-natured, rested now and then with self-satisfaction on his enormous paunch. His complexion was florid and his hair white. He was a man to attract immediate sympathy. He received us in a room that might have been in a house in a provincial town in France, and the one or two Polynesian curios had an odd look. He took my hand in both of his — they were huge — and gave me a hearty look, in which, however, was great shrewdness. When he shook hands with Capitaine Brunot he enquired politely after Madame et les enfants. For some minutes there was an exchange of courtesies and some local gossip about the island, the prospects of copra and the vanilla crop; then we came to the object of my visit.

  I shall not tell what Dr. Coutras related to me in his words, but in my own, for I cannot hope to give at second hand any impression of his vivacious delivery. He had a deep, resonant voice, fitted to his massive frame, and a keen sense of the dramatic. To listen to him was, as the phrase goes, as good as a play; and much better than most.

  It appears that Dr. Coutras had gone one day to Taravao in order to see an old chiefess who was ill, and he gave a vivid picture of the obese old lady, lying in a huge bed, smoking cigarettes, and surrounded by a crowd of dark-skinned retainers. When he had seen her he was taken into another room and given dinner — raw fish, fried bananas, and chicken — que sais-je, the typical dinner of the indigene — and while he was eating it he saw a young girl being driven away from the door in tears. He thought nothing of it, but when he went out to get into his trap and drive home, he saw her again, standing a little way off; she looked at him with a woebegone air, and tears streamed down her cheeks. He asked someone what was wrong with her, and was told that she had come down from the hills to ask him to visit a white man who was sick. They had told her that the doctor could not be disturbed. He called her, and himself asked what she wanted. She told him that Ata had sent her, she who used to be at the Hotel de la Fleur, and that the Red One was ill. She thrust into his hand a crumpled piece of newspaper, and when he opened it he found in it a hundred-franc note.

  “Who is the Red One?” he asked of one of the bystanders.

  He was told that that was what they called the Englishman, a painter, who lived with Ata up in the valley seven kilometres from where they were. He recognised Strickland by the description. But it was necessary to walk. It was impossible for him to go; that was why they had sent the girl away.

  “I confess,” said the doctor, turning to me, “that I hesitated. I did not relish fourteen kilometres over a bad pathway, and there was no chance that I could get back to Papeete that night. Besides, Strickland was not sympathetic to me. He was an idle, useless scoundrel, who preferred to live with a native woman rather than work for his living like the rest of us. Mon Dieu, how was I to know that one day the world would come to the conclusion that he had genius? I asked the girl if he was not well enough to have come down to see me. I asked her what she thought was the matter with him. She would not answer. I pressed her, angrily perhaps, but she looked down on the ground and began to cry. Then I shrugged my shoulders; after all, perhaps it was my duty to go, and in a very bad temper I bade her lead the way.”

  His temper was certainly no better when he arrived, perspiring freely and thirsty. Ata was on the look-out for him, and came a little way along the path to meet him.

  “Before I see anyone give me something to drink or I shall die of thirst,” he cried out. “Pour l’amour de Dieu, get me a cocoa-nut.”

  She called out, and a boy came running along. He swarmed up a tree, and presently threw down a ripe nut. Ata pierced a hole in it, and the doctor took a long, refreshing draught. Then he rolled himself a cigarette and felt in a better humour.

  “Now, where is the Red One?” he asked.

  “He is in the house, painting. I have not told him you were coming. Go in and see him.”

  “But what does he complain of? If he is well enough to paint, he is well enough to have come down to Taravao and save me this confounded walk. I presume my time is no less valuable than his.”

  Ata did not speak, but with the boy followed him to the house. The girl who had brought him was by this time sitting on the verandah, and here was lying an old woman, with her back to the wall, making native cigarettes. Ata pointed to the door. The doctor, wondering irritably why they behaved so strangely, entered, and there found Strickland cleaning his palette. There was a picture on the easel. Strickland, clad only in a pareo, was standing with his back to the door, but he turned round when he heard the sound of boots. He gave the doctor a look of vexation. He was surprised to see him, and resented the intrusion. But the doctor gave a gasp, he was rooted to the floor, and he stared with all his eyes. This was not what he expected. He was seized with horror.

  “You enter without ceremony,” said Strickland. “What can I do for you?”

  The doctor recovered himself, but it required quite an effort for him to find his voice. All his irritation was gone, and he felt — eh bien, oui, je ne le nie pas — he felt an overwhelming pity.

  “I am Dr. Coutras. I was down at Taravao to see the chiefess, and Ata sent for me to see you.”

  “She’s a damned fool. I have had a few aches and pains lately and a little fever, but that’s nothing; it will pass off. Next time anyone went to Papeete I was going to send for some quinine.”

  “Look at yourself in the glass.”

  Strickland gave him a glance, smiled, and went over to a cheap mirror in a little wooden frame, that hung on the wall.

  “Well?”

  “Do you not see a strange change in your face? Do you not see the thickening of your features and a look — how shall I describe it? — the books call it lion-faced. Mon pauvre ami, must I tell you that you have a terrible disease?”

  “I?”

  “When you look at yourself in the glass you see the typical appearance of the leper.”

  “You are jesting,” said Strickland.

  “I wish to God I were.”

  “Do you intend to tell me that I have leprosy?”

  “Unfortunately, there can be no doubt of it.”

  Dr. Coutras had delivered sentence of death on many men, and he could never overcome the horror with which it filled him. He felt always the furious hatred that must seize a man condemned when he compared himself with the doctor, sane and healthy, who had the inestimable privilege of life. Strickland looked at him in silence. Nothing of emotion could be seen on his face, disfigured already by the loathsome disease.

  “Do they know?” he asked at last, pointing to the persons on the verandah, now sitting in unusual, unaccountable silence.

  “These natives know the signs so well,” said the doctor. “They were afraid to tell you.”

  Strickland stepped to the door and looked out. There must have been something terrible in his face, for suddenly they all burst out into loud cries and lamentation. They lifted up their voices and they wept. Strickland did not speak. After looking at them for a moment, he came back into the room.

  “How long do you think I can last?”

  “Who knows? Sometimes the disease continues for twenty years. It is a mercy when it runs its course quickly.”

  Strickland went to his easel and looked reflectively at the picture that stood on it.

  “You have had a long journey. It is fitting that the bearer o
f important tidings should be rewarded. Take this picture. It means nothing to you now, but it may be that one day you will be glad to have it.”

  Dr. Coutras protested that he needed no payment for his journey; he had already given back to Ata the hundred-franc note, but Strickland insisted that he should take the picture. Then together they went out on the verandah. The natives were sobbing violently. “Be quiet, woman. Dry thy tears,” said Strickland, addressing Ata. “There is no great harm. I shall leave thee very soon.”

  “They are not going to take thee away?” she cried.

  At that time there was no rigid sequestration on the islands, and lepers, if they chose, were allowed to go free.

  “I shall go up into the mountain,” said Strickland.

  Then Ata stood up and faced him.

  “Let the others go if they choose, but I will not leave thee. Thou art my man and I am thy woman. If thou leavest me I shall hang myself on the tree that is behind the house. I swear it by God.”

  There was something immensely forcible in the way she spoke. She was no longer the meek, soft native girl, but a determined woman. She was extraordinarily transformed.

  “Why shouldst thou stay with me? Thou canst go back to Papeete, and thou wilt soon find another white man. The old woman can take care of thy children, and Tiare will be glad to have thee back.”

  “Thou art my man and I am thy woman. Whither thou goest I will go, too.”

  For a moment Strickland’s fortitude was shaken, and a tear filled each of his eyes and trickled slowly down his cheeks. Then he gave the sardonic smile which was usual with him.

  “Women are strange little beasts,” he said to Dr. Coutras. “You can treat them like dogs, you can beat them till your arm aches, and still they love you.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Of course, it is one of the most absurd illusions of Christianity that they have souls.”

  “What is it that thou art saying to the doctor?” asked Ata suspiciously. “Thou wilt not go?”