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Robert Louis Stevenson - "Island Nights' Entertainments"

Alfred Tennyson - "The Princess"

Lafcadio Hearn - "Stories and Studies of Strange Things"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre Buch 5"

Moon and Sixpence, by Somerset Maugham

S >> Somerset Maugham >> Moon and Sixpence, by Somerset Maugham




But I suppose that everyone's conception of the passion is
formed on his own idiosyncrasies, and it is different with
every different person. A man like Strickland would love in a
manner peculiar to himself. It was vain to seek the analysis
of his emotion.



Chapter XXXI


Next day, though I pressed him to remain, Stroeve left me.
I offered to fetch his things from the studio, but he insisted
on going himself; I think he hoped they had not thought of
getting them together, so that he would have an opportunity of
seeing his wife again and perhaps inducing her to come back to him.
But he found his traps waiting for him in the porter's
lodge, and the concierge told him that Blanche had gone out.
I do not think he resisted the temptation of giving her an
account of his troubles. I found that he was telling them to
everyone he knew; he expected sympathy, but only excited
ridicule.

He bore himself most unbecomingly. Knowing at what time his
wife did her shopping, one day, unable any longer to bear not
seeing her, he waylaid her in the street. She would not speak
to him, but he insisted on speaking to her. He spluttered out
words of apology for any wrong he had committed towards her;
he told her he loved her devotedly and begged her to return to him.
She would not answer; she walked hurriedly, with averted
face. I imagined him with his fat little legs trying to keep
up with her. Panting a little in his haste, he told her how
miserable he was; he besought her to have mercy on him;
he promised, if she would forgive him, to do everything she
wanted. He offered to take her for a journey. He told her
that Strickland would soon tire of her. When he repeated to
me the whole sordid little scene I was outraged. He had shown
neither sense nor dignity. He had omitted nothing that could
make his wife despise him. There is no cruelty greater than a
woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love;
she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an
insane irritation. Blanche Stroeve stopped suddenly, and as
hard as she could slapped her husband's face. She took
advantage of his confusion to escape, and ran up the stairs to
the studio. No word had passed her lips.

When he told me this he put his hand to his cheek as though he
still felt the smart of the blow, and in his eyes was a pain
that was heartrending and an amazement that was ludicrous.
He looked like an overblown schoolboy, and though I felt so sorry
for him, I could hardly help laughing.

Then he took to walking along the street which she must pass
through to get to the shops, and he would stand at the corner,
on the other side, as she went along. He dared not speak to
her again, but sought to put into his round eyes the appeal
that was in his heart. I suppose he had some idea that the
sight of his misery would touch her. She never made the
smallest sign that she saw him. She never even changed the
hour of her errands or sought an alternative route. I have an
idea that there was some cruelty in her indifference. Perhaps
she got enjoyment out of the torture she inflicted.
I wondered why she hated him so much.

I begged Stroeve to behave more wisely. His want of spirit
was exasperating.

"You're doing no good at all by going on like this," I said.
"I think you'd have been wiser if you'd hit her over the head
with a stick. She wouldn't have despised you as she does now."

I suggested that he should go home for a while. He had often
spoken to me of the silent town, somewhere up in the north of
Holland, where his parents still lived. They were poor
people. His father was a carpenter, and they dwelt in a
little old red-brick house, neat and clean, by the side of a
sluggish canal. The streets were wide and empty; for two
hundred years the place had been dying, but the houses had the
homely stateliness of their time. Rich merchants, sending
their wares to the distant Indies, had lived in them calm and
prosperous lives, and in their decent decay they kept still an
aroma of their splendid past. You could wander along the
canal till you came to broad green fields, with windmills here
and there, in which cattle, black and white, grazed lazily.
I thought that among those surroundings, with their
recollections of his boyhood, Dirk Stroeve would forget his
unhappiness. But he would not go.

"I must be here when she needs me," he repeated. "It would be
dreadful if something terrible happened and I were not at hand."

"What do you think is going to happen?" I asked.

"I don't know. But I'm afraid."

I shrugged my shoulders.

For all his pain, Dirk Stroeve remained a ridiculous object.
He might have excited sympathy if he had grown worn and thin.
He did nothing of the kind. He remained fat, and his round,
red cheeks shone like ripe apples. He had great neatness of
person, and he continued to wear his spruce black coat and his
bowler hat, always a little too small for him, in a dapper,
jaunty manner. He was getting something of a paunch, and
sorrow had no effect on it. He looked more than ever like a
prosperous bagman. It is hard that a man's exterior should
tally so little sometimes with his soul. Dirk Stroeve had the
passion of Romeo in the body of Sir Toby Belch. He had a
sweet and generous nature, and yet was always blundering;
a real feeling for what was beautiful and the capacity to create
only what was commonplace; a peculiar delicacy of sentiment
and gross manners. He could exercise tact when dealing with
the affairs of others, but none when dealing with his own.
What a cruel practical joke old Nature played when she flung
so many contradictory elements together, and left the man face
to face with the perplexing callousness of the universe.



Chapter XXXII


I did not see Strickland for several weeks. I was disgusted
with him, and if I had had an opportunity should have been
glad to tell him so, but I saw no object in seeking him out
for the purpose. I am a little shy of any assumption of moral
indignation; there is always in it an element of self-satisfaction
which makes it awkward to anyone who has a sense of humour.
It requires a very lively passion to steel me to
my own ridicule. There was a sardonic sincerity in Strickland
which made me sensitive to anything that might suggest a pose.

But one evening when I was passing along the Avenue de Clichy
in front of the cafe which Strickland frequented and which I
now avoided, I ran straight into him. He was accompanied by
Blanche Stroeve, and they were just going to Strickland's
favourite corner.

"Where the devil have you been all this time?" said he.
"I thought you must be away."

His cordiality was proof that he knew I had no wish to speak
to him. He was not a man with whom it was worth while wasting
politeness.

"No," I said; "I haven't been away."

"Why haven't you been here?"

"There are more cafes in Paris than one, at which to trifle
away an idle hour."

Blanche then held out her hand and bade me good-evening.
I do not know why I had expected her to be somehow changed;
she wore the same gray dress that she wore so often, neat and
becoming, and her brow was as candid, her eyes as untroubled,
as when I had been used to see her occupied with her household
duties in the studio.

"Come and have a game of chess," said Strickland.

I do not know why at the moment I could think of no excuse.
I followed them rather sulkily to the table at which Strickland
always sat, and he called for the board and the chessmen.
They both took the situation so much as a matter of course
that I felt it absurd to do otherwise. Mrs. Stroeve watched
the game with inscrutable face. She was silent, but she had
always been silent. I looked at her mouth for an expression
that could give me a clue to what she felt; I watched her eyes
for some tell-tale flash, some hint of dismay or bitterness;
I scanned her brow for any passing line that might indicate a
settling emotion. Her face was a mask that told nothing.
Her hands lay on her lap motionless, one in the other loosely clasped.
I knew from what I had heard that she was a woman of
violent passions; and that injurious blow that she had given
Dirk, the man who had loved her so devotedly, betrayed a
sudden temper and a horrid cruelty. She had abandoned the
safe shelter of her husband's protection and the comfortable
ease of a well-provided establishment for what she could not
but see was an extreme hazard. It showed an eagerness for
adventure, a readiness for the hand-to-mouth, which the care
she took of her home and her love of good housewifery made not
a little remarkable. She must be a woman of complicated
character, and there was something dramatic in the contrast of
that with her demure appearance.

I was excited by the encounter, and my fancy worked busily
while I sought to concentrate myself on the game I was playing.
I always tried my best to beat Strickland, because
he was a player who despised the opponent he vanquished;
his exultation in victory made defeat more difficult to bear.
On the other hand, if he was beaten he took it with complete
good-humour. He was a bad winner and a good loser. Those who
think that a man betrays his character nowhere more clearly
than when he is playing a game might on this draw subtle
inferences.

When he had finished I called the waiter to pay for the
drinks, and left them. The meeting had been devoid of
incident. No word had been said to give me anything to think
about, and any surmises I might make were unwarranted.
I was intrigued. I could not tell how they were getting on.
I would have given much to be a disembodied spirit so that I
could see them in the privacy of the studio and hear what they
talked about. I had not the smallest indication on which to
let my imagination work.



Chapter XXXIII


Two or three days later Dirk Stroeve called on me.

"I hear you've seen Blanche," he said.

"How on earth did you find out?"

"I was told by someone who saw you sitting with them.
Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought it would only pain you."

"What do I care if it does? You must know that I want to hear
the smallest thing about her."

I waited for him to ask me questions.

"What does she look like?" he said.

"Absolutely unchanged."

"Does she seem happy?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"How can I tell? We were in a cafe; we were playing chess;
I had no opportunity to speak to her."

"Oh, but couldn't you tell by her face?"

I shook my head. I could only repeat that by no word, by no
hinted gesture, had she given an indication of her feelings.
He must know better than I how great were her powers of
self-control. He clasped his hands emotionally.

"Oh, I'm so frightened. I know something is going to happen,
something terrible, and I can do nothing to stop it."

"What sort of thing?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know," he moaned, seizing his head with his
hands. "I foresee some terrible catastrophe."

Stroeve had always been excitable, but now he was beside
himself; there was no reasoning with him. I thought it
probable enough that Blanche Stroeve would not continue to
find life with Strickland tolerable, but one of the falsest of
proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you have made.
The experience of life shows that people are constantly doing
things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance
manage to evade the result of their folly. When Blanche
quarrelled with Strickland she had only to leave him, and her
husband was waiting humbly to forgive and forget. I was not
prepared to feel any great sympathy for her.

"You see, you don't love her," said Stroeve.

"After all, there's nothing to prove that she is unhappy.
For all we know they may have settled down into a most
domestic couple."

Stroeve gave me a look with his woeful eyes.

"Of course it doesn't much matter to you, but to me it's so
serious, so intensely serious."

I was sorry if I had seemed impatient or flippant.

"Will you do something for me?" asked Stroeve.

"Willingly."

"Will you write to Blanche for me?"

"Why can't you write yourself?"

"I've written over and over again. I didn't expect her to answer.
I don't think she reads the letters."

"You make no account of feminine curiosity. Do you think she
could resist?"

"She could -- mine."

I looked at him quickly. He lowered his eyes. That answer of
his seemed to me strangely humiliating. He was conscious that
she regarded him with an indifference so profound that the
sight of his handwriting would have not the slightest effect
on her.

"Do you really believe that she'll ever come back to you?" I asked.

"I want her to know that if the worst comes to the worst she
can count on me. That's what I want you to tell her."

I took a sheet of paper.

"What is it exactly you wish me to say?"

This is what I wrote:


DEAR MRS. STROEVE, any time you want him he will be grateful for the opportunity
of being of service to you. He has no ill-feeling towards you
on account of anything that has happened. His love for you is
unaltered. You will always find him at the following
address:>



Chapter XXXIV


But though I was no less convinced than Stroeve that the
connection between Strickland and Blanche would end
disastrously, I did not expect the issue to take the tragic
form it did. The summer came, breathless and sultry, and even
at night there was no coolness to rest one's jaded nerves.
The sun-baked streets seemed to give back the heat that had
beat down on them during the day, and the passers-by dragged
their feet along them wearily. I had not seen Strickland for weeks.
Occupied with other things, I had ceased to think of
him and his affairs. Dirk, with his vain lamentations, had
begun to bore me, and I avoided his society. It was a sordid
business, and I was not inclined to trouble myself with it further.

One morning I was working. I sat in my Pyjamas. My thoughts
wandered, and I thought of the sunny beaches of Brittany and
the freshness of the sea. By my side was the empty bowl in
which the concierge had brought me my and the
fragment of croissant which I had not had appetite enough to eat.
I heard the concierge in the next room emptying my bath.
There was a tinkle at my bell, and I left her to open the door.
In a moment I heard Stroeve's voice asking if I was in.
Without moving, I shouted to him to come. He entered the room
quickly, and came up to the table at which I sat.

"She's killed herself," he said hoarsely.

"What do you mean?" I cried, startled.

He made movements with his lips as though he were speaking,
but no sound issued from them. He gibbered like an idiot.
My heart thumped against my ribs, and, I do not know why,
I flew into a temper.

"For God's sake, collect yourself, man," I said. "What on
earth are you talking about?"

He made despairing gestures with his hands, but still no words
came from his mouth. He might have been struck dumb. I do
not know what came over me; I took him by the shoulders and
shook him. Looking back, I am vexed that I made such a fool
of myself; I suppose the last restless nights had shaken my
nerves more than I knew.

"Let me sit down," he gasped at length.

I filled a glass with St. Galmier, and gave it to him
to drink. I held it to his mouth as though he were a child.
He gulped down a mouthful, and some of it was spilt on
his shirt-front.

"Who's killed herself?"

I do not know why I asked, for I knew whom he meant. He made
an effort to collect himself.

"They had a row last night. He went away."

"Is she dead?"

"No; they've taken her to the hospital."

"Then what are you talking about?" I cried impatiently. "Why
did you say she'd killed herself?"

"Don't be cross with me. I can't tell you anything if you
talk to me like that."

I clenched my hands, seeking to control my irritation.
I attempted a smile.

"I'm sorry. Take your time. Don't hurry, there's a good
fellow."

His round blue eyes behind the spectacles were ghastly with
terror. The magnifying-glasses he wore distorted them.

"When the concierge went up this morning to take a letter she
could get no answer to her ring. She heard someone groaning.
The door wasn't locked, and she went in. Blanche was lying on
the bed. She'd been frightfully sick. There was a bottle of
oxalic acid on the table."

Stroeve hid his face in his hands and swayed backwards and
forwards, groaning.

"Was she conscious?"

"Yes. Oh, if you knew how she's suffering! I can't bear it.
I can't bear it."

His voice rose to a shriek.

"Damn it all, you haven't got to bear it," I cried impatiently.
"She's got to bear it."

"How can you be so cruel?"

"What have you done?"

"They sent for a doctor and for me, and they told the police.
I'd given the concierge twenty francs, and told her to send
for me if anything happened."

He paused a minute, and I saw that what he had to tell me was
very hard to say.

"When I went she wouldn't speak to me. She told them to send
me away. I swore that I forgave her everything, but she
wouldn't listen. She tried to beat her head against the wall.
The doctor told me that I mustn't remain with her. She kept
on saying, `Send him away!' I went, and waited in the studio.
And when the ambulance came and they put her on a stretcher,
they made me go in the kitchen so that she shouldn't know I
was there."

While I dressed -- for Stroeve wished me to go at once with
him to the hospital -- he told me that he had arranged for his
wife to have a private room, so that she might at least be
spared the sordid promiscuity of a ward. On our way he
explained to me why he desired my presence; if she still
refused to see him, perhaps she would see me. He begged me to
repeat to her that he loved her still; he would reproach her
for nothing, but desired only to help her; he made no claim on
her, and on her recovery would not seek to induce her to
return to him; she would be perfectly free.

But when we arrived at the hospital, a gaunt, cheerless
building, the mere sight of which was enough to make one's
heart sick, and after being directed from this official to
that, up endless stairs and through long, bare corridors,
found the doctor in charge of the case, we were told that the
patient was too ill to see anyone that day. The doctor was a
little bearded man in white, with an offhand manner.
He evidently looked upon a case as a case, and anxious relatives
as a nuisance which must be treated with firmness. Moreover,
to him the affair was commonplace; it was just an hysterical
woman who had quarrelled with her lover and taken poison;
it was constantly happening. At first he thought that Dirk was
the cause of the disaster, and he was needlessly brusque with him.
When I explained that he was the husband, anxious to
forgive, the doctor looked at him suddenly, with curious,
searching eyes. I seemed to see in them a hint of mockery;
it was true that Stroeve had the head of the husband who is deceived.
The doctor faintly shrugged his shoulders.

"There is no immediate danger," he said, in answer to our
questioning. "One doesn't know how much she took. It may be
that she will get off with a fright. Women are constantly
trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take
care not to succeed. It's generally a gesture to arouse pity
or terror in their lover."

There was in his tone a frigid contempt. It was obvious that
to him Blanche Stroeve was only a unit to be added to the
statistical list of attempted suicides in the city of Paris
during the current year. He was busy, and could waste no more
time on us. He told us that if we came at a certain hour next
day, should Blanche be better, it might be possible for her
husband to see her.



Chapter XXXV


I scarcely know how we got through that day. Stroeve could
not bear to be alone, and I exhausted myself in efforts to
distract him. I took him to the Louvre, and he pretended to
look at pictures, but I saw that his thoughts were constantly
with his wife. I forced him to eat, and after luncheon I
induced him to lie down, but he could not sleep. He accepted
willingly my invitation to remain for a few days in my apartment.
I gave him books to read, but after a page or two
he would put the book down and stare miserably into space.
During the evening we played innumerable games of piquet,
and bravely, not to disappoint my efforts, he tried to appear
interested. Finally I gave him a draught, and he sank into
uneasy slumber.

When we went again to the hospital we saw a nursing sister.
She told us that Blanche seemed a little better, and she went
in to ask if she would see her husband. We heard voices in
the room in which she lay, and presently the nurse returned to
say that the patient refused to see anyone. We had told her
that if she refused to see Dirk the nurse was to ask if she
would see me, but this she refused also. Dirk's lips
trembled.

"I dare not insist," said the nurse. "She is too ill.
Perhaps in a day or two she may change her mind."

"Is there anyone else she wants to see?" asked Dirk,
in a voice so low it was almost a whisper.

"She says she only wants to be left in peace."

Dirk's hands moved strangely, as though they had nothing to do
with his body, with a movement of their own.

"Will you tell her that if there is anyone else she wishes to
see I will bring him? I only want her to be happy."

The nurse looked at him with her calm, kind eyes, which had
seen all the horror and pain of the world, and yet, filled
with the vision of a world without sin, remained serene.

"I will tell her when she is a little calmer."

Dirk, filled with compassion, begged her to take the message
at once.

"It may cure her. I beseech you to ask her now."

With a faint smile of pity, the nurse went back into the room.
We heard her low voice, and then, in a voice I did not
recognise the answer:

"No. No. No."

The nurse came out again and shook her head.

"Was that she who spoke then?" I asked. "Her voice sounded
so strange."

"It appears that her vocal cords have been burnt by the acid."

Dirk gave a low cry of distress. I asked him to go on and
wait for me at the entrance, for I wanted to say something to
the nurse. He did not ask what it was, but went silently. He
seemed to have lost all power of will; he was like an obedient child.

"Has she told you why she did it?" I asked.

"No. She won't speak. She lies on her back quite quietly.
She doesn't move for hours at a time. But she cries always.
Her pillow is all wet. She's too weak to use a handkerchief,
and the tears just run down her face."

It gave me a sudden wrench of the heart-strings. I could have
killed Strickland then, and I knew that my voice was trembling
when I bade the nurse goodbye.

I found Dirk waiting for me on the steps. He seemed to see
nothing, and did not notice that I had joined him till I
touched him on the arm. We walked along in silence. I tried
to imagine what had happened to drive the poor creature to
that dreadful step. I presumed that Strickland knew what had
happened, for someone must have been to see him from the police,
and he must have made his statement. I did not know
where he was. I supposed he had gone back to the shabby attic
which served him as a studio. It was curious that she should
not wish to see him. Perhaps she refused to have him sent for
because she knew he would refuse to come. I wondered what an
abyss of cruelty she must have looked into that in horror she
refused to live.



Chapter XXXVI


The next week was dreadful. Stroeve went twice a day to the
hospital to enquire after his wife, who still declined to see
him; and came away at first relieved and hopeful because he
was told that she seemed to be growing better, and then in
despair because, the complication which the doctor had feared
having ensued, recovery was impossible. The nurse was pitiful
to his distress, but she had little to say that could console
him. The poor woman lay quite still, refusing to speak, with
her eyes intent, as though she watched for the coming of death.
It could now be only the question of a day or two;
and when, late one evening, Stroeve came to see me I knew it was
to tell me she was dead. He was absolutely exhausted.
His volubility had left him at last, and he sank down wearily
on my sofa. I felt that no words of condolence availed, and I
let him lie there quietly. I feared he would think it
heartless if I read, so I sat by the window, smoking a pipe,
till he felt inclined to speak.

"You've been very kind to me," he said at last. "Everyone's
been very kind."

"Nonsense," I said, a little embarrassed.

"At the hospital they told me I might wait. They gave me a
chair, and I sat outside the door. When she became
unconscious they said I might go in. Her mouth and chin were
all burnt by the acid. It was awful to see her lovely skin
all wounded. She died very peacefully, so that I didn't know
she was dead till the sister told me."

He was too tired to weep. He lay on his back limply, as
though all the strength had gone out of his limbs, and
presently I saw that he had fallen asleep. It was the first
natural sleep he had had for a week. Nature, sometimes so
cruel, is sometimes merciful. I covered him and turned down
the light. In the morning when I awoke he was still asleep.
He had not moved. His gold-rimmed spectacles were still on
his nose.

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