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19 - Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham · Moon and Sixpence

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Speaker 1: Chapters fifty two, fifty three, and fifty four of The
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Speaker 1: Moon and Sixpence. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Barry Eads.
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Speaker 1: The Moon and Sixpence by William Somerset MAUM, Chapter fifty two.
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Speaker 1: I suppose the next three years were the happiest of
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Speaker 1: Strickland's life. Ada's house stood about eight kilometers from the
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Speaker 1: road that runs round the island, and you went to
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Speaker 1: it along a winding pathway shaded by the luxuriant trees
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Speaker 1: of the tropics. It was a bungalow of unpainted wood,
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Speaker 1: consisting of two small rooms, and outside was a small
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Speaker 1: shed that served as a kitchen. There was no furniture
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Speaker 1: except the mats they used as beds and a rocking chair,
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Speaker 1: which stood on the veranda. Bananas, with their great ragged leaves,
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Speaker 1: like the tattered habiliments of an empress in adversity, grew
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Speaker 1: close up to the house. There was a tree just
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Speaker 1: behind which bore alligator pears, and all about were the cocoanuts,
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Speaker 1: which gave the land its revenue. Ata's father had planted
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Speaker 1: crotons round his property, and they grew in colored profusion,
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Speaker 1: gay and brilliant. They fenced the land with flame. A
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Speaker 1: mango grew in front of the house, and at the
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Speaker 1: edge of the clearing were two flamboyants, twin trees that
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Speaker 1: challenged the gold of the cocoanuts with their scarlet flowers.
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Speaker 1: Here Strickland lived, coming seldom to Papyeti on the produce
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Speaker 1: of the land. There was a little stream that ran
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Speaker 1: not far away, in which he bathed, and down this
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Speaker 1: on occasion would come a shoal of fish. Then the
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Speaker 1: natives would assemble with spears, and with much shouting, would
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Speaker 1: transfix the great startled things as they hurried down to
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Speaker 1: the sea. Sometimes Strickland would go down to the reef
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Speaker 1: and come back with a basket of small colored fish
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Speaker 1: that Ata would fry in cocoanut oil or with a lobster,
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Speaker 1: And sometimes she would make a savory dish of the
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Speaker 1: great land crabs that scuttled away under your feet. Up
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Speaker 1: the mountain were wild orange trees, and now and then
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Speaker 1: Ada would go with two or three women from the
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Speaker 1: village and return laden with the green, sweet, luscious fruit
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Speaker 1: then the cocoanuts would be ripe for picking, and her cousins,
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Speaker 1: like all the natives, Ada had, a host of relatives,
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Speaker 1: would swarm up the trees and throw down the big
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Speaker 1: ripe nuts. They split them open and put them in
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Speaker 1: the sun to dry. Then they cut out the copra
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Speaker 1: and put it into sacks. The women would carry it
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Speaker 1: down to the trader at the village by the lagoon,
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Speaker 1: and he would give an exchange for it, rice and
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Speaker 1: soap and tinned meat and a little money. Sometimes there
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Speaker 1: would be a feast in the neighborhood and a pig
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Speaker 1: would be killed. Then they would go and eat themselves sick,
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Speaker 1: and dance and sing hymns. But the house was a
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Speaker 1: long way from the village, and the Tahitians are lazy.
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Speaker 1: They loved to travel, and they loved to gossip, but
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Speaker 1: they do not care to walk. And for weeks at
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Speaker 1: a time Strickland and Ada lived alone. He painted and
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Speaker 1: he read, and in the evening, when it was dark,
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Speaker 1: they sat together on the verandah, smoking and looking at
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Speaker 1: the night. Then Aida had a baby, and the old
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Speaker 1: woman who came up to help her through her trouble
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Speaker 1: stayed on Presently the grand daughter of the old woman
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Speaker 1: came to stay with her, and then a youth appeared.
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Speaker 1: No one quite knew where from or to whom he belonged,
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Speaker 1: but he settled down with them in a happy, go
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Speaker 1: lucky way, and they all lived together. So ends chapter
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Speaker 1: fifty two. Chapter fifty three to nay Voila le Capitan
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Speaker 1: Bruno said Tierre one day, when I was fitting together,
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Speaker 1: what she could tell me of Strickland. He knew Strickland well.
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Speaker 1: He visited him at his house. I saw a middle
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Speaker 1: aged Frenchman with a big black beard streaked with gray,
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Speaker 1: a sunburned face, and large eyes. He was dressed in
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Speaker 1: a neat suit of ducks. I had noticed him at
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Speaker 1: luncheon and a lin the Chinese boy told me he
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Speaker 1: had come from the promotess on the boat that had
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Speaker 1: that day arrived. Tierre introduced me to him, and he
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Speaker 1: handed me his card, a large card on which was
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Speaker 1: printed Rene Bruno and underneath Capitan alng Cours. We were
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Speaker 1: sitting on a little veranda outside the kitchen, and Tierre
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Speaker 1: was cutting out a dress that she was making for
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Speaker 1: one of the girls about the house. He sat down
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Speaker 1: with us. Yes, I knew Strickland. Well, he said, I
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Speaker 1: am very fond of chess, and he was always glad
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Speaker 1: of a game. I came to Tahiti three or four
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Speaker 1: times a year from my business, and when he was
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Speaker 1: at papy eighty, he would come here and we would play.
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Speaker 1: When he married, Captain Bruneau smiled and shrugged his shoulders
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Speaker 1: and fenn. When he went to live with the girl
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Speaker 1: that Tierre gave him, he asked me to go and
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Speaker 1: see him. I was one of the guests at the
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Speaker 1: wedding feast. He looked at Tierre and they both laughed.
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Speaker 1: He did not come much to Papyetti after that, and
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Speaker 1: about a year later it chanced that I had to
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Speaker 1: go to that part of the island for I forgot
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Speaker 1: what business. And when I finished it, I said to myself, vollons,
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Speaker 1: why should I not go and see that poor Strickland.
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Speaker 1: I asked one or two natives if they knew anything
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Speaker 1: about him, and I discovered that he lived not more
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Speaker 1: than five kilometers from where I was, so I went.
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Speaker 1: I shall never forget the impression my visit made on me.
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Speaker 1: I live on anatoll, a low island. It is a
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Speaker 1: strip of land surrounding a lagoon and its beauty is
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Speaker 1: the beauty of the sea and sky, and the varied
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Speaker 1: color of the lagoon, and the grace of the cocoanut trees.
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Speaker 1: But the place where Strickland lived had the beauty of
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Speaker 1: the garden of eden Ah. I wish I could make
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Speaker 1: you see the enchantment of that spot, a corner hidden
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Speaker 1: away from all the world, with the blue sky overhead
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Speaker 1: and the rich luxury trees. It was a feast of color,
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Speaker 1: and it was fragrant and cool. Words cannot describe that paradise.
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Speaker 1: And here he lived, unmindful of the world, and by
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Speaker 1: the world forgotten. I suppose to European eyes it would
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Speaker 1: have seemed astonishingly sordid. The house was dilapidated and none
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Speaker 1: too clean. Three or four natives were lying on the veranda,
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Speaker 1: you know how natives loved to herd together. There was
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Speaker 1: a young man laying full length, smoking a cigarette, and
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Speaker 1: he wore nothing but a paio. The pario is a
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Speaker 1: long strip of trade cotton red or blue, stamped with
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Speaker 1: a white pattern. It is worn round the waist and
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Speaker 1: hangs to the knees. A girl of fifteen, perhaps was
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Speaker 1: plaiting pandinous leaf to make a hat, and an old
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Speaker 1: woman was sitting on her haunches smoking a pipe. Then
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Speaker 1: I saw Ata. She was suckling a new born child,
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Speaker 1: and another child, stark naked, was playing at her feet.
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Speaker 1: When she saw me, she called out to Strickland, and
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Speaker 1: he came to the door. He too, wore nothing but
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Speaker 1: a pario. He was an extraordinary figure, with his red
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Speaker 1: beard and matted hair and his great hairy chest. His
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Speaker 1: feet were horny and scarred, so that I knew he
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Speaker 1: went always barefoot. He had gone native with a vengeance.
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Speaker 1: He seemed pleased to see me and told Ada to
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Speaker 1: kill a chicken for our dinner. He took me into
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Speaker 1: the house to show me the picture he was at
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Speaker 1: work on when I came in. In one corner of
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Speaker 1: the room was the bed, and in the middle was
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Speaker 1: an easel with the canvas upon it. Because I was
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Speaker 1: sorry for him, I had bought a couple of his
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Speaker 1: pictures for small sums, and I had sent others to
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Speaker 1: friends of mine in France. And though I had bought
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Speaker 1: them out of compassion, after living with them, I began
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Speaker 1: to like them. Indeed, I found a strange beauty in them.
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Speaker 1: Everyone thought I was mad, but it turns out that
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Speaker 1: I was right. I was his first admirer in the islands.
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Speaker 1: He smiled maliciously at Tierre and with lamentations. She told
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Speaker 1: us again the story of how at the sale of
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Speaker 1: Strickland's effects, she had neglected the pictures but bought an
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Speaker 1: American stove for twenty seven francs. Have you the pictures still,
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Speaker 1: I asked, yes. I am keeping them till my daughter
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Speaker 1: is of marriageable age, and then I shall sell them.
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Speaker 1: They will be her dot. Then he went on with
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Speaker 1: the account of his visit to Strickland. I shall never
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Speaker 1: forget the evening I spent with him. I had not
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Speaker 1: intended to stay more than an hour, but he insisted
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Speaker 1: that I should spend the night. I hesitated, for I
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Speaker 1: confess I did not much like the look of the
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Speaker 1: mats on which he proposed that I should sleep. But
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Speaker 1: I shrugged my shoulders. When I was building my house
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Speaker 1: in the Palmodis, I had slept out for weeks on
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Speaker 1: a harder bed than that, with nothing to shelter me
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Speaker 1: but wild shrubs. And as for vermin, my tough skin
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Speaker 1: should be proof against their malice. We went down to
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Speaker 1: the stream to bathe while Ada was preparing the dinner,
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Speaker 1: and after we had eaten it, we sat on the verandah.
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Speaker 1: We smoked and chatted. The young man had a certina,
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Speaker 1: and he played the tunes popular on the music halls
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Speaker 1: a dozen years before. They sounded strangely in the tropical night,
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Speaker 1: thousands of miles from civilization. I asked Rickland if it
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Speaker 1: did not irk him to live in that promiscuity. No,
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Speaker 1: he said, he liked to have his models under his hand. Presently,
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Speaker 1: after loud yawning, the natives went away to sleep, and
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Speaker 1: Strickland and I were left alone. I could not describe
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Speaker 1: to you the intense silence of the night on my island,
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Speaker 1: in the Pomotus. There is never at night the complete
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Speaker 1: stillness that there was here. There is the rustle of
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Speaker 1: the myriad animals on the beach, all the little shelled
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Speaker 1: things that crawl about ceaselessly. And there is the noisy
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Speaker 1: scurrying of the land crabs. Now and then in the
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Speaker 1: lagoon you hear the leaping of a fish, and sometimes
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Speaker 1: a hurried noisy splashing as a brown shark sends all
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Speaker 1: the other fish scampering for their lives. And above all
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Speaker 1: ceaseless like time, is the dull roar of the breakers
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Speaker 1: on the reef. But here there was not a sound,
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Speaker 1: and the air was scented with the white flowers of
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Speaker 1: the night. It was a night so beautiful that your
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Speaker 1: soul seemed hardly able to bear the prison of the body.
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Speaker 1: You felt that it was ready to be wafted away
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Speaker 1: on the immaterial air. And death bore all the aspect
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Speaker 1: of a beloved friend. Tierre sighed, Ah, I wish I
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Speaker 1: were fifteen again. Then she caught sight of a cat
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Speaker 1: trying to get at a dish of prawns on the
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Speaker 1: kitchen table, and with a dexterous gesture and a lively
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Speaker 1: volley of abuse, flung a book at its scampering tale.
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Speaker 1: I asked him if he was happy with Ada. She
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Speaker 1: leaves me alone, he said. She cooks my food and
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Speaker 1: looks after her babies. She does what I tell her.
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Speaker 1: She gives me what I want from a woman. And
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Speaker 1: you never regret Europe. Do you not yearn sometimes for
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Speaker 1: the light of the streets in Paris or London, the
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Speaker 1: companionship of your friends and equals, cossage her theaters and newspapers,
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Speaker 1: and the rumble of omnibuses on the cobbled pavements. For
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Speaker 1: a long time he was silent. Then he said, I
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Speaker 1: shall stay here till I die. But are you never
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Speaker 1: bored or lonely? I asked. He chuckled mon pro vami,
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Speaker 1: He said, it is evident that you do not know
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Speaker 1: what it is to be an artist. Capitan Bruno turned
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Speaker 1: to me with a gentle smile, and there was a
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Speaker 1: wonderful look in his dark, kind eyes. He did me
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Speaker 1: an injustice, for I too know what it is to
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Speaker 1: have dreams. I have my visions too. In my way,
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Speaker 1: I also am an artist. We were all silent for
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Speaker 1: a while, and Tierre fished out of her capacious pocket
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Speaker 1: a handful of cigarettes. She handed one to each of us,
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Speaker 1: and we all three smoked. At last, she said, since say,
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Speaker 1: monsieur is interested in Strickland, why do you not take
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Speaker 1: him to see doctor Cutrasse. He can tell him something
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Speaker 1: about his illness and death, Volontier, said the captain, looking
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Speaker 1: at me. I thanked him, and he looked at his watch.
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Speaker 1: It is past six o'clock. We should find him at home,
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Speaker 1: if you care to come now. I got up without
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Speaker 1: further ado, and we walked along the road that led
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Speaker 1: to the doctor's house. He lived out of the town,
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Speaker 1: but the Hotel de la Fleur was on the edge
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Speaker 1: of it, and we were quickly in the country. The
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Speaker 1: broad road was shaded by pepper trees, and on each
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Speaker 1: side were the plantations cocoanut and vanilla. The pirate birds
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Speaker 1: were screeching among the leaves of the palms. We came
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Speaker 1: to a stone bridge over a shallow river, and we
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Speaker 1: stopped for a few minutes to see the native boys bathing.
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Speaker 1: They chased one another with shrill cries and laughter, and
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Speaker 1: their bodies, brown and wet, gleamed in the sunlight. So
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Speaker 1: ends Chapter fifty three, Chapter fifty four. As we walked along,
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Speaker 1: I reflected on a circumstance which all that I had
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Speaker 1: lately heard about Strickland forced on my attention. On this
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Speaker 1: remote island. He seemed to have aroused none of the
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Speaker 1: detestation with which he was regarded at home, but compassion rather,
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Speaker 1: and his vagaries were accepted with tolerance to these people,
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Speaker 1: Native and European. He was a queer fish, but they
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Speaker 1: were used to queer fish, and they took him for granted.
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Speaker 1: The world was full of odd persons who did odd things,
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Speaker 1: and perhaps they knew that a man is not what
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Speaker 1: he wants to be, but what he must be. In
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Speaker 1: England and France, he was the square peg in the
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Speaker 1: round hole. But here the holes were any sort of shape,
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Speaker 1: and no sort of peg was quite amiss. I do
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Speaker 1: not think he was any gentler here, less selfish, or
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Speaker 1: less brutal. But the circumstances were more favorable. If he
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Speaker 1: had spent his life amid these surroundings, he might have
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Speaker 1: passed for no worse a man than another. He received
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Speaker 1: here what he neither expected nor wanted among his own people, sympathy.
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Speaker 1: I tried to tell Captain Bruneau something of the astonishment
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Speaker 1: with which this filled me, and for a little while
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Speaker 1: he did not answer. It is not strange that I,
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Speaker 1: at all events, should have had sympathy for him, he
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Speaker 1: said at last, for though perhaps neither of us knew it,
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Speaker 1: we were both aiming at the same thing. What on
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Speaker 1: earth can it be that two people so dissimilar as
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Speaker 1: you and Strickland could aim at? I asked, smiling, beauty
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Speaker 1: a large order, I murmured, do you know how men
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Speaker 1: can be so obsessed by love that they are deaf
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Speaker 1: and blind to everything else in the world? They are
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Speaker 1: as little their own masters as the slaves chained to
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Speaker 1: the benches of a galley. The passion that held Strickland
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Speaker 1: in bondage was no less tyrannical than love. How strange
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Speaker 1: that you should say that, I answered for long ago
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Speaker 1: I had the idea that he was possessed of a devil,
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Speaker 1: and the passion that held Strickland was a passion to
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Speaker 1: create beauty. It gave him no peace, urged him hither
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Speaker 1: and thither. He was eternally a pilgrim, haunted by a
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Speaker 1: divine nostalgia, and the demon within him was ruthless. There
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Speaker 1: are men whose desire for truth is so great that
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Speaker 1: to attain it they will shatter the very foundation of
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Speaker 1: their world. Of such was Strickland. Only beauty with him
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Speaker 1: took the place of truth. I could only feel for
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Speaker 1: him a profound compassion. That is strange. Also, a man
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Speaker 1: whom he had deeply wronged told me that he felt
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Speaker 1: a great pity for him. I was silent for a moment.
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Speaker 1: I wonder if there you have found the explanation of
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Speaker 1: a character which has always seemed to me inexplicable. How
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Speaker 1: did you hit on it? He turned to me with
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Speaker 1: a smile. Did I not tell you that I, too,
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Speaker 1: in my way, was an artist. I realized in myself
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Speaker 1: the same desire as animated him. But whereas his medium
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Speaker 1: was paint, mine has been life. Then Captain Bruna told
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Speaker 1: me a story which I must repeat, since, if only
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Speaker 1: by way of contrast, it adds something to my impression
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Speaker 1: of Strickland. It has also, to my mind a beauty
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Speaker 1: of its own. Captain Brunault was a Breton and had
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Speaker 1: been in the French Navy. He left it on his
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Speaker 1: marriage and settled down on a small property he had
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Speaker 1: near Quimper to live for the rest of his days
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Speaker 1: in peace. But the failure of an attorney left him
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Speaker 1: suddenly penniless, and neither he nor his wife was willing
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Speaker 1: to live in Penury, where they had enjoyed consideration. During
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Speaker 1: his seafaring days. He had cruised the South seas, and
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Speaker 1: he determined now to seek his fortune there. He spent
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Speaker 1: some months in Popyetti to make his plans and gain experience. Then,
16:44
Speaker 1: on money borrowed from a friend in France, he bought
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Speaker 1: an island in the Pomotas. It was a ring of
16:50
Speaker 1: land round a deep lagoon, uninhabited and covered only with
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Speaker 1: scrub and wild uava. With the intrepid woman who was
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Speaker 1: his wife, and a few natives, he landed there and
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Speaker 1: set about building a house and clearing the scrub so
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Speaker 1: that he could plant cocoanuts. That was twenty years before,
17:08
Speaker 1: and now what had been a barren island was a garden.
17:11
Speaker 1: It was hard and anxious work at first, and we
17:14
Speaker 1: worked strenuously, both of us. Every day. I was up
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Speaker 1: at dawn clearing planting, working on my house, and at night,
17:21
Speaker 1: when I threw myself on my bed, it was to
17:23
Speaker 1: sleep like a log till morning. My wife worked as
17:27
Speaker 1: hard as I did. Then children were born to us,
17:30
Speaker 1: first a son and then a daughter. My wife and
17:33
Speaker 1: I have taught them all they know. We had a
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Speaker 1: piano sent out from France, and she has taught them
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Speaker 1: to play and to speak English. And I have taught
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Speaker 1: them Latin and mathematics, and we read history together. They
17:45
Speaker 1: can sail a boat, they can swim as well as
17:47
Speaker 1: the natives. There is nothing about the land of which
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Speaker 1: they are ignorant. Our trees have prospered, and there is
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Speaker 1: shell on my reef. I have come to Tahiti now
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Speaker 1: to buy a schooner I can get enough shell to
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Speaker 1: make it worth while to fish for it, and who
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Speaker 1: knows I may find pearls. I have made something where
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Speaker 1: there was nothing. I too have made beauty. Ah, you
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Speaker 1: do not know what it is to look at those tall,
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Speaker 1: healthy trees and think that every one I planted myself.
18:17
Speaker 1: Let me ask you the question that you asked Strickland.
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Speaker 1: Do you never regret France and your home in Brittany.
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Speaker 1: Some day, when my daughter is married, and my son
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Speaker 1: has a wife and is able to take my place
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Speaker 1: on the island, we shall go back and finish our
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Speaker 1: days in the old house in which I was born.
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Speaker 1: You will look back on a happy life, I said,
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Speaker 1: e a dement. It is not exciting on my island,
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Speaker 1: and we are very far from the world. Imagine it
18:44
Speaker 1: takes me four days to come to Tahiti, but we
18:47
Speaker 1: are happy there. It is given to few men to
18:50
Speaker 1: attempt a work and to achieve it. Our life is
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Speaker 1: simple and innocent. We are untouched by ambition, and what
18:56
Speaker 1: pride we have is due only to our contemplation of
19:00
Speaker 1: the work of our hands. Malice cannot touch us, nor
19:03
Speaker 1: envy attack Ah mancheer monsieur. They talk of the blessedness
19:08
Speaker 1: of labor. And it is a meaningless phrase, but to
19:12
Speaker 1: me it has the most intense significance. I am a
19:15
Speaker 1: happy man. I am sure you deserve to be. I smiled.
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Speaker 1: I wish I could think so. I do not know
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Speaker 1: how I have deserved to have a wife who was
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Speaker 1: the perfect friend and helpmate, the perfect mistress, and the
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Speaker 1: perfect mother. I reflected for a while on the life
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Speaker 1: that the captain suggested to my imagination. It is obvious
19:35
Speaker 1: that to lead such an existence and make so great
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Speaker 1: a success of it, you must both have needed a
19:41
Speaker 1: strong will and a determined character. Perhaps, but without one
19:46
Speaker 1: other factor we could have achieved nothing. And what was that?
19:51
Speaker 1: He stopped somewhat dramatically and stretched out his arm belief
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Speaker 1: in God. Without that we should have been lost. Then
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Speaker 1: we arrived lived at the house of doctor Coutrasse. So
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Speaker 1: ends Chapter fifty four.