Moon and Sixpence, by Somerset Maugham

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"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 answer 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 an 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 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 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. 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."

Chapter 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.

"I think you've made a conquest," I laughed.

"I'm not flattered."

In his place I should have been more embarrassed and less calm.
She had laughing eyes and a most charming mouth.
She was young. I wondered what she found so attractive in
Strickland. She made no secret of her desires, and I was
bidden to translate.

"She wants you to go home with her."

"I'm not taking any," he replied.

I put his answer as pleasantly as I could. It seemed to me a
little ungracious to decline an invitation of that sort,
and I ascribed his refusal to lack of money.

"But I like him," she said. "Tell him it's for love."

When I translated this, Strickland shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

"Tell her to go to hell," he said.

His manner made his answer quite plain, and the girl threw
back her head with a sudden gesture. Perhaps she reddened
under her paint. She rose to her feet.

she said.

She walked out of the inn. I was slightly vexed.

"There wasn't any need to insult her that I can see," I said.
"After all, it was rather a compliment she was paying you."

"That sort of thing makes me sick," he said roughly.

I looked at him curiously. There was a real distaste in his
face, and yet it was the face of a coarse and sensual man.
I suppose the girl had been attracted by a certain brutality in it.

I could have got all the women I wanted in London. I didn't
come here for that."

Chapter XIV

During the journey back to England I thought much of
Strickland. I tried to set in order what I had to tell his wife.
It was unsatisfactory, and I could not imagine that she
would be content with me; I was not content with myself.
Strickland perplexed me. I could not understand his motives.
When I had asked him what first gave him the idea of being a
painter, he was unable or unwilling to tell me. I could make
nothing of it. I tried to persuade myself than an obscure
feeling of revolt had been gradually coming to a head in his
slow mind, but to challenge this was the undoubted fact that
he had never shown any impatience with the monotony of his life.
If, seized by an intolerable boredom, he had determined
to be a painter merely to break with irksome ties, it would
have been comprehensible, and commonplace; but commonplace is
precisely what I felt he was not. At last, because I was
romantic, I devised an explanation which I acknowledged to be
far-fetched, but which was the only one that in any way
satisfied me. It was this: I asked myself whether there was
not in his soul some deep-rooted instinct of creation, which
the circumstances of his life had obscured, but which grew
relentlessly, as a cancer may grow in the living tissues,
till at last it took possession of his whole being and forced
him irresistibly to action. The cuckoo lays its egg in the
strange bird's nest, and when the young one is hatched it
shoulders its foster-brothers out and breaks at last the nest
that has sheltered it.

But how strange it was that the creative instinct should seize
upon this dull stockbroker, to his own ruin, perhaps, and to
the misfortune of such as were dependent on him; and yet no
stranger than the way in which the spirit of God has seized men,
powerful and rich, pursuing them with stubborn vigilance
till at last, conquered, they have abandoned the joy of the
world and the love of women for the painful austerities of
the cloister. Conversion may come under many shapes, and it may
be brought about in many ways. With some men it needs a
cataclysm, as a stone may be broken to fragments by the fury
of a torrent; but with some it comes gradually, as a stone may
be worn away by the ceaseless fall of a drop of water.
Strickland had the directness of the fanatic and the ferocity
of the apostle.

But to my practical mind it remained to be seen whether the
passion which obsessed him would be justified of its works.
When I asked him what his brother-students at the night
classes he had attended in London thought of his painting,
he answered with a grin:

"They thought it a joke."

"Have you begun to go to a studio here?"

"Yes. The blighter came round this morning -- the master,
you know; when he saw my drawing he just raised his eyebrows
and walked on."

Strickland chuckled. He did not seem discouraged.
He was independent of the opinion of his fellows.

And it was just that which had most disconcerted me in my
dealings with him. When people say they do not care what
others think of them, for the most part they deceive themselves.
Generally they mean only that they will do as
they choose, in the confidence that no one will know their
vagaries; and at the utmost only that they are willing to act
contrary to the opinion of the majority because they are
supported by the approval of their neighbours. It is not
difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when
your unconventionality is but the convention of your set.
It affords you then an inordinate amount of self-esteem.
You have the self-satisfaction of courage without the
inconvenience of danger. But the desire for approbation is
perhaps the most deeply seated instinct of civilised man.
No one runs so hurriedly to the cover of respectability as the
unconventional woman who has exposed herself to the slings and
arrows of outraged propriety. I do not believe the people who
tell me they do not care a row of pins for the opinion of
their fellows. It is the bravado of ignorance. They mean
only that they do not fear reproaches for peccadillos which
they are convinced none will discover.

But here was a man who sincerely did not mind what people
thought of him, and so convention had no hold on him; he was
like a wrestler whose body is oiled; you could not get a grip
on him; it gave him a freedom which was an outrage.
I remember saying to him:

"Look here, if everyone acted like you, the world couldn't go on."

"That's a damned silly thing to say. Everyone doesn't want to
act like me. The great majority are perfectly content to do
the ordinary thing."

And once I sought to be satirical.

"You evidently don't believe in the maxim: Act so that every
one of your actions is capable of being made into a universal rule."

"I never heard it before, but it's rotten nonsense."

"Well, it was Kant who said it."

"I don't care; it's rotten nonsense."

Nor with such a man could you expect the appeal to conscience
to be effective. You might as well ask for a reflection
without a mirror. I take it that conscience is the guardian
in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved
for its own preservation. It is the policeman in all our
hearts, set there to watch that we do not break its laws.
It is the spy seated in the central stronghold of the ego.
Man's desire for the approval of his fellows is so strong, his dread
of their censure so violent, that he himself has brought his
enemy within his gates; and it keeps watch over him, vigilant
always in the interests of its master to crush any half-formed
desire to break away from the herd. It will force him to
place the good of society before his own. It is the very
strong link that attaches the individual to the whole.
And man, subservient to interests he has persuaded himself are
greater than his own, makes himself a slave to his taskmaster.
He sits him in a seat of honour. At last, like a courtier
fawning on the royal stick that is laid about his shoulders,
he prides himself on the sensitiveness of his conscience.
Then he has no words hard enough for the man who does not
recognise its sway; for, a member of society now, he realises
accurately enough that against him he is powerless. When I
saw that Strickland was really indifferent to the blame his
conduct must excite, I could only draw back in horror as from
a monster of hardly human shape.

The last words he said to me when I bade him good-night were:

"Tell Amy it's no good coming after me. Anyhow, I shall
change my hotel, so she wouldn't be able to find me."

"My own impression is that she's well rid of you," I said.

"My dear fellow, I only hope you'll be able to make her see it.
But women are very unintelligent."

Chapter XV

When I reached London I found waiting for me an urgent request
that I should go to Mrs. Strickland's as soon after dinner as
I could. I found her with Colonel MacAndrew and his wife.
Mrs. Strickland's sister was older than she, not unlike her,
but more faded; and she had the efficient air, as though she
carried the British Empire in her pocket, which the wives of
senior officers acquire from the consciousness of belonging to
a superior caste. Her manner was brisk, and her good-breeding
scarcely concealed her conviction that if you were not a
soldier you might as well be a counter-jumper. She hated the
Guards, whom she thought conceited, and she could not trust
herself to speak of their ladies, who were so remiss in calling.
Her gown was dowdy and expensive.

Mrs. Strickland was plainly nervous.

"Well, tell us your news," she said.

"I saw your husband. I'm afraid he's quite made up his mind
not to return." I paused a little. "He wants to paint."

"What do you mean?" cried Mrs. Strickland, with the utmost
astonishment.

"Did you never know that he was keen on that sort of thing."

"He must be as mad as a hatter," exclaimed the Colonel.

Mrs. Strickland frowned a little. She was searching among her
recollections.

"I remember before we were married he used to potter about
with a paint-box. But you never saw such daubs. We used to
chaff him. He had absolutely no gift for anything like that."

"Of course it's only an excuse," said Mrs. MacAndrew.

Mrs. Strickland pondered deeply for some time. It was quite
clear that she could not make head or tail of my announcement.
She had put some order into the drawing-room by now,
her housewifely instincts having got the better of her dismay;
and it no longer bore that deserted look, like a furnished house
long to let, which I had noticed on my first visit after the
catastrophe. But now that I had seen Strickland in Paris it
was difficult to imagine him in those surroundings. I thought
it could hardly have failed to strike them that there was
something incongruous in him.

"But if he wanted to be an artist, why didn't he say so?"
asked Mrs. Strickland at last. "I should have thought I was
the last person to be unsympathetic to -- to aspirations of
that kind."

Mrs. MacAndrew tightened her lips. I imagine that she had
never looked with approval on her sister's leaning towards
persons who cultivated the arts. She spoke of "culchaw"
derisively.

Mrs. Strickland continued:

"After all, if he had any talent I should be the first to
encourage it. I wouldn't have minded sacrifices. I'd much
rather be married to a painter than to a stockbroker. If it
weren't for the children, I wouldn't mind anything. I could
be just as happy in a shabby studio in Chelsea as in this flat."

"My dear, I have no patience with you," cried Mrs. MacAndrew.
"You don't mean to say you believe a word of this nonsense?"

"But I think it's true," I put in mildly.

She looked at me with good-humoured contempt.

"A man doesn't throw up his business and leave his wife and
children at the age of forty to become a painter unless
there's a woman in it. I suppose he met one of your --
artistic friends, and she's turned his head."

A spot of colour rose suddenly to Mrs. Strickland's pale cheeks.

"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."

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