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

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  Speaker 1: Chapters forty three, forty four, and forty five of The
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  Speaker 1: Moon and Sixpence. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
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  Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Barryeades.
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  Speaker 1: The Moon and Sixpence by William Somerset, Mam. Chapter forty three.
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  Speaker 1: Looking back, I realize that what I have written about
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  Speaker 1: Charles Strickland must seem very unsatisfactory. I have given incidents
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  Speaker 1: that came to my knowledge, but they remain obscure because
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  Speaker 1: I do not know the reasons that led to them.
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  Speaker 1: The strangest Strickland's determination to become a painter seems to
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  Speaker 1: be arbitrary, and though it must have had causes in
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  Speaker 1: the circumstances of his life, I am ignorant of them.
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  Speaker 1: From his own conversation, I was able to glean nothing.
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  Speaker 1: If I were writing a novel, rather than narrating such
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  Speaker 1: fact as I know of a curious personality, I should
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  Speaker 1: have invented much to account for this change of heart.
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  Speaker 1: I think I should have shown a strong vocation in boyhood,
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  Speaker 1: crushed by the will of his father, or sacrificed to
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  Speaker 1: the necessity of earning a living. I should have pictured
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  Speaker 1: him impatient of the restraints of life, and in the
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  Speaker 1: struggle between his passion for art and the duties of
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  Speaker 1: his station. I could have aroused sympathy for him. I
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  Speaker 1: should so have made him a more imposing figure. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: it would have been possible to see in him a
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  Speaker 1: new Prometheus. There was here, maybe the opportunity for a
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  Speaker 1: modern version of the hero who, for the good of
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  Speaker 1: mankind exposes himself to the agonies of the damn. It
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  Speaker 1: is always a moving subject. On the other hand, I
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  Speaker 1: might have found his motives in the influence of the
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  Speaker 1: married relation. There are a dozen ways in which this
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  Speaker 1: might be managed. A latent gift might reveal itself on
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  Speaker 1: acquaintance with the painters and writers whose society his wife sought.
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  Speaker 1: Or domestic incompatibility might turn him upon himself. A love
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  Speaker 1: affair might fan into bright flame, a fire which I
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  Speaker 1: could have shown smoldering dimly in his heart. I think
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  Speaker 1: then I should have drawn missus Strickland quite differently. I
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  Speaker 1: should have abandoned the facts and made her a nagging,
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  Speaker 1: tiresome woman, or else a bigoted one with no sympathy
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  Speaker 1: for the claims of the spirit. I should have made
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  Speaker 1: Strickland's marriage a long torment from which escape was the
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  Speaker 1: only possible issue. I think I should have emphasized his
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  Speaker 1: patience with the unsuitable mate, and the compassion which made
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  Speaker 1: him unwilling to throw off the yoke that oppressed him.
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  Speaker 1: I should certainly have eliminated the children. An effective story
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  Speaker 1: might also have been made by bringing him into contact
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  Speaker 1: with some old painter whom the pressure of want and
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  Speaker 1: the desire for commercial success had made faults to the
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  Speaker 1: genius of his youth, and who, seeing in Strickland the
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  Speaker 1: possibilities which himself had wasted, influenced him to forsake all
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  Speaker 1: and follow the divine tyranny of art. I think there
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  Speaker 1: would have been something ironic in the picture of the
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  Speaker 1: successful old man, rich and honored, living in another the
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  Speaker 1: life which he, though knowing it was the better part,
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  Speaker 1: had not had the strength to pursue. The facts are
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  Speaker 1: much duller. Strickland, a boy fresh from school, went into
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  Speaker 1: a broker's office without any feeling of distaste. Until he married.
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  Speaker 1: He led the ordinary life of his fellows, gambling mildly
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  Speaker 1: on the exchange, interested to the extent of a sovereign
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  Speaker 1: or two on the result of the Derby or the
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  Speaker 1: Oxford and Cambridge Race. I think he boxed a little
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  Speaker 1: in his spare time. On his chimney piece. He had
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  Speaker 1: photographs of Missus Langtree and Mary Anderson. He read Punch
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  Speaker 1: and the Sporting Times. He went to dances in Hampstead.
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  Speaker 1: It matters less that for so long I should have
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  Speaker 1: lost sight of him. The years during which he was
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  Speaker 1: struggling to acquire proficiency in a difficult art were monotonous,
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  Speaker 1: and I do not know that there was anything significant
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  Speaker 1: in the shifts to which he was put to earn
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  Speaker 1: enough money to keep him. An account of them would
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  Speaker 1: be an account of the things he had seen happen
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  Speaker 1: to other people. I do not think they had any
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  Speaker 1: effect on his own character. He must have acquired experiences
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  Speaker 1: which would form abundant material for a picuresque novel of
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  Speaker 1: modern Paris, but he remained aloof and judging from his conversation,
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  Speaker 1: there was nothing in those years that had made a
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  Speaker 1: particular impression on him. Perhaps when he went to Paris
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  Speaker 1: he was too old to fall a victim to the
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  Speaker 1: glamor of his environment. Strange as it may seem, he
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  Speaker 1: always appeared to me not only practical, but immensely mass
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  Speaker 1: of fact. I suppose his life during this period was romantic,
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  Speaker 1: but he certainly saw no romance in it. It may
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  Speaker 1: be that in order to realize the romance of life,
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  Speaker 1: you must have something of the actor in you, and
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  Speaker 1: capable of standing outside yourself. You must be able to
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  Speaker 1: watch your actions with an interest at once detached and absorbed.
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  Speaker 1: But no one was more single minded than Strickland. I
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  Speaker 1: never knew any one who was less self conscious. But
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  Speaker 1: it is unfortunate that I can give no description of
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  Speaker 1: the arduous steps by which he reached such mastery over
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  Speaker 1: his art as he ever acquired. For if I could
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  Speaker 1: show him undaunted by failure, by an unceasing effort of courage,
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  Speaker 1: holding despair at bay, doggedly persistent in the face of
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  Speaker 1: self doubt, which is the artist's bitterest enemy, I might
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  Speaker 1: excite some sympathy for a personality which I am all
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  Speaker 1: too conscious must appear singularly devoid of charm. But I
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  Speaker 1: have nothing to go on. I never once saw Strickland
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  Speaker 1: at work, nor do I know that any one else did.
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  Speaker 1: He kept the secret of his struggles to himself. If
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  Speaker 1: in the loneliness of his studio, he rustled desperately with
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  Speaker 1: the angel of the Lord. He never allowed a soul
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  Speaker 1: to divine his anguish. When I come to his connection
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  Speaker 1: with Blanche Strove, I am exasperated by the fragmentariness of
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  Speaker 1: the facts at my disposal. To give my story coherence,
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  Speaker 1: I should describe the progress of their tragic union. But
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  Speaker 1: I know nothing of the three months during which they
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  Speaker 1: lived together. I do not know how they got on
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  Speaker 1: or what they talked about. After all, there are twenty
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  Speaker 1: four hours in the day, and the summits of emotion
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  Speaker 1: can only be reached at rare intervals. I can only
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  Speaker 1: imagine how they passed the rest of the time, while
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  Speaker 1: the light lasted, and so long as Blanche's strength endured.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose that Strickland painted, and it must have irritated
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  Speaker 1: her when she saw him absorbed in his work as
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  Speaker 1: a mistress. She did not then exist for him, but
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  Speaker 1: only as a model. And then there were long hours
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  Speaker 1: in which they lived side by side in silence. It
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  Speaker 1: must have frightened her when Strickland suggested that in her
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  Speaker 1: surrender to him, there was a sense of triumph over
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  Speaker 1: Dirk Strove because he had come to her help. In
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  Speaker 1: her extremity, he opened the door to many a dark conjecture.
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  Speaker 1: I hope it was not true. It seems to me
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  Speaker 1: rather horrible. But who can fathom the subtleties of the
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  Speaker 1: human heart, certainly not those who expect from it only
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  Speaker 1: decorous sentiments and normal emotions. When Blanche saw that, notwithstanding
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  Speaker 1: his moments of passion, Strickland remained aloof she must have
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  Speaker 1: been filled with dismay. And even in those moments, I
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  Speaker 1: surmised that she realized that to him she was not
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  Speaker 1: an individual, but an instrument of pleasure. He was a
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  Speaker 1: stranger still, and she tried to bind him to herself
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  Speaker 1: with pathetic arts. She strove to ensnare him with comfort,
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  Speaker 1: and would not see that comfort meant nothing to him.
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  Speaker 1: She was at pains to get him the things to
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  Speaker 1: eat that he liked, and would not see that he
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  Speaker 1: was indifferent to food. She was afraid to leave him alone.
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  Speaker 1: She pursued him with attentions, and when his passion was dormant,
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  Speaker 1: sought to excite it, for then at least she had
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  Speaker 1: the illusion of holding him. Perhaps she knew with her
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  Speaker 1: intelligence that the change she forged only aroused his instinct
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  Speaker 1: of destruction, as the plate glass window makes your fingers
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  Speaker 1: itched for half a brick. But her heart, incapable of reason,
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  Speaker 1: made her continue on a course she knew was fatal.
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  Speaker 1: She must have been very unhappy, But the blindness of
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  Speaker 1: love led her to believe what she wanted to be true.
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  Speaker 1: And her love was so great that it seemed impossible
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  Speaker 1: to her that it should not in return awake an
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  Speaker 1: equal love. But my study of Strickland's character suffers from
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  Speaker 1: a greater defect than my ignorance of many facts, because
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  Speaker 1: they were obvious and striking. I have written of his
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  Speaker 1: relations to women, and yet they were but an insignificant
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  Speaker 1: part of his life. It is an irony that they
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  Speaker 1: should so tragically have affected others. His real life consisted
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  Speaker 1: of dreams and of tremendously hard work. Here lies the
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  Speaker 1: unreality of fiction. For in men, as a rule, love
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  Speaker 1: is but an episode which takes its place among the
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  Speaker 1: other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid on
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  Speaker 1: it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue
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  Speaker 1: to life. There are few men to whom it is
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  Speaker 1: the most important thing in the world, and they are
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  Speaker 1: not very interesting. Ones. Even women with whom the subject
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  Speaker 1: is of paramount interest have a contempt for them. They
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  Speaker 1: are flattered and excited by them, but have an uneasy
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  Speaker 1: feeling that they are poor creatures. But even during the
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  Speaker 1: brief intervals in which they are in love, men do
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  Speaker 1: other things which distract their mind. The trades by which
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  Speaker 1: they earn their living engage their attention. They are absorbed
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  Speaker 1: in sport. They can interest themselves in art. For the
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  Speaker 1: most part. They keep their various activities in various compartments,
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  Speaker 1: and they can pursue one to the temporary exclusion of
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  Speaker 1: the other. They have a faculty of concentration on that
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  Speaker 1: which occupies them at the moment, and it irks them
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  Speaker 1: if one encroaches on the other. As lovers, the difference
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  Speaker 1: between men and women is that women can love all
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  Speaker 1: day long, but men only at times. With Strickland, the
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  Speaker 1: sexual appetite took a very small place. It was unimportant.
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  Speaker 1: It was irksome. His soul aimed elsewhether he had violent passions,
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  Speaker 1: and on occasion desire seized his body so that he
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  Speaker 1: was driven to an orgy of lust. But he hated
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  Speaker 1: the instincts that robbed him of his self possession. I
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  Speaker 1: think even he hated the inevitable partner in his debauchery.
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  Speaker 1: When he had regained command over himself, he shuddered at
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  Speaker 1: the sight of the woman he had enjoyed. His thoughts
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  Speaker 1: floated then serenely in the Empyrean, and he felt towards
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  Speaker 1: her the horror that perhaps the painted butterfly hovering about
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  Speaker 1: the flowers feels to the filthy chrysalis from which it
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  Speaker 1: has triumphantly emerged. I suppose that art is a manifestation
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  Speaker 1: of the sexual instinct. It is the same emotion which
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  Speaker 1: is excited in the human heart by the sight of
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  Speaker 1: a lovely woman, the Bay of Naples under the yellow moon,
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  Speaker 1: and the entombment of Titian. It is possible that Strickland
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  Speaker 1: hated the normal release of sex because it seemed to
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  Speaker 1: him brutal by comparison with the satisfaction of artistic creation.
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  Speaker 1: It seems strange, even to myself, when I have described
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  Speaker 1: a man who was cruel, selfish, brutal and sensual, to
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  Speaker 1: say that he was a great idealist. The fact remains
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  Speaker 1: he lived more poorly than an artisan, He worked harder,
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  Speaker 1: He cared nothing for those things which with most people
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  Speaker 1: make life gracious and beautiful. He was indifferent to money.
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  Speaker 1: He cared nothing about fame. You cannot praise him because
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  Speaker 1: he resisted the temptation to make any of those compromises
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  Speaker 1: with the world which most of us yield to. He
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  Speaker 1: had no such temptation. It never entered his head that
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  Speaker 1: compromise was possible. He lived in Paris more lonely than
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  Speaker 1: an anchorite in the desert of Thebes. He asked nothing
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  Speaker 1: his fellows except that they should leave him alone. He
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  Speaker 1: was single hearted in his aim, and to pursue it
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  Speaker 1: he was willing to sacrifice not only himself many can
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  Speaker 1: do that, but others. He had a vision. Strickland was
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  Speaker 1: an odious man, but I still think he was a
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  Speaker 1: great one. So ends Chapter forty three, Chapter forty four.
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  Speaker 1: A certain importance attaches to the views on art of painters,
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  Speaker 1: and this is the natural place for me to set
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  Speaker 1: down what I know of Strickland's opinions of the great
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  Speaker 1: artists of the past. I am afraid I have very
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  Speaker 1: little worth noting. Strickland was not a conversationalist, and he
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  Speaker 1: had no gift for putting what he had to say.
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  Speaker 1: In the striking phrase that the listener remembers he had
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  Speaker 1: no wit. His humor, as will be seen if I
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  Speaker 1: have in any way succeeded in reproducing the manners of
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  Speaker 1: his conversation, was sardonic. His repartee was rude. He made
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  Speaker 1: one laugh sometimes by speaking the truth. But this is
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  Speaker 1: a form of humor which gains its force only by
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  Speaker 1: its unusualness. It would cease to amuse if it were
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  Speaker 1: commonly practiced. Strickland was not, I should say, a man
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  Speaker 1: of great intelligence, and his views on painting were by
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  Speaker 1: no means out of the ordinary. I never heard him
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  Speaker 1: speak of those whose work had a certain analogy with
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  Speaker 1: his own. Of Seshon, for instance, or of van Go,
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  Speaker 1: and I doubt very much if he had ever seen
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  Speaker 1: their pictures. He was not greatly interested in the impressionist.
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  Speaker 1: Their technique impressed him, but I fancy that he thought
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  Speaker 1: their attitude commonplace. When Struve was holding forth at length
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  Speaker 1: on the excellence of Monet, he said, I prefer winter Halter.
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  Speaker 1: But I dare say he said it to annoy, and
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  Speaker 1: if he did, he certainly succeeded. I am disappointed that
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  Speaker 1: I cannot report any extravagances in his opinions on the
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  Speaker 1: old masters. There is so much in his character which
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  Speaker 1: is strange that I feel it would complete the picture
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  Speaker 1: if his views were outrageous. I feel the need to
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: ascribe to him fantastic theories about his predecessors, And it
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  Speaker 1: is with a certain sense of disillusion that I confess
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  Speaker 1: he thought about them pretty much as does ever anybody else.
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  Speaker 1: I do not believe he knew el Brecco. He had
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  Speaker 1: a great but somewhat impatient admiration for Valasquez. Chardin delighted him,
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  Speaker 1: and Rembrandt moved him to ecstasy. He described the impression
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  Speaker 1: that Rembrandt made on him with a coarseness I cannot repeat.
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  Speaker 1: The only painter that interested him who was at all
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  Speaker 1: unexpected was Bragal the Elder. I knew very little about
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  Speaker 1: him at that time, and Strickland had no power to
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  Speaker 1: explain himself. I remember what he said about him, because
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  Speaker 1: it was so unsatisfactory. He's all right, said Strickland. I
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  Speaker 1: bet he found it held a paint. When later in
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  Speaker 1: Vienna I saw several of Peter Brogel's pictures, I thought
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  Speaker 1: I understood why he had attracted Strickland's attention. Here too
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: was a man with a vision of the world peculiar
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  Speaker 1: to himself. I made somewhat copious notes at the time,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: intending to write something about him, but I have lost
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  Speaker 1: them and have now owned only the recollection of an emotion.
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  Speaker 1: He seemed to see his fellow creatures grotesquely, and he
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  Speaker 1: was angry with them because they were grotesque. Life was
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  Speaker 1: a confusion of ridiculous, sordid happenings, a fit subject for laughter,
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  Speaker 1: and yet it made him sorrowful to laugh. Bruguel gave
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  Speaker 1: me the impression of a man striving to express in
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  Speaker 1: one medium feelings more appropriate to expression in another. And
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  Speaker 1: it may be that it was the obscure consciousness of
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  Speaker 1: this that excited Strickland's sympathy. Perhaps both were trying to
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  Speaker 1: put down in paint ideas which were more suitable to literature.
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  Speaker 1: Strickland at this time must have been nearly forty seven,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: so ends chapter forty four, Chapter forty five. I have
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  Speaker 1: said already that but for the hazard of a journey
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  Speaker 1: to Tahiti, I should doubtless never have written this book.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: It is thither that, after many wanderings turned ARLs Strickland came,
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  Speaker 1: and it is there that he painted the pictures on
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  Speaker 1: which his fame most securely rests. I suppose no artist
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  Speaker 1: achieves completely the realization of the dream that obsesses him,
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  Speaker 1: and Strickland, harassed incessantly by his struggle with technique, managed
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  Speaker 1: perhaps less than others to express the vision that he
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  Speaker 1: saw with his mind's eye. But in Tahiti the circumstances
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: were favorable to him. He found in his surroundings the
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: accidents necessary for his inspiration to become effective, and his
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: later pictures gave at least a suggestion of what he sought.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: They offered the imagination something new and strange. It is
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  Speaker 1: as though in this far country his spirit that had
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: wandered disembodied, seeking a tenement, at last was able to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: clothe itself in flesh. To use the hackneyed phrase, here
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  Speaker 1: he found himself. It would seem that my visit to
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  Speaker 1: this remote island should immediately revive my interest into But
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the work I was engaged in occupied my attention to
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the exclusion of something that was irrelevant, and it was
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: not till I had been there for some days that
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I even remembered his connection with it. After all, I
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: had not seen him for fifteen years, and it was
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: nine since he died, but I think my arrival at
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Tahiti would have driven out of my head matters of
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: much more immediate importance to me. And even after a
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: week I found it not easy to order myself soberly.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: I remember that on my first morning I awoke early,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: and when I came on to the terrace of the hotel,
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  Speaker 1: no one was stirring. I wandered round to the kitchen,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: but it was locked, and on a bench outside it
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: a native boy was sleeping. There seemed no chance of
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: breakfast for some time, so I sauntered down to the waterfront.
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  Speaker 1: The Chinamen were already busy in their shops. The sky
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: had still the pallor of dawn, and there was a
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  Speaker 1: ghostly silence on the lagoon ten miles of the island
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: of Morea, like some high fastness of the Holy Grail
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  Speaker 1: guarded its mystery. I did not altogether believe my eyes.
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  Speaker 1: The days it had passed since I left Wellington seemed
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  Speaker 1: extraordinary and unusual. Wellington is trim and neat and English.
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  Speaker 1: It reminds you of a seaport town on the south coast.
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  Speaker 1: And for three days afterwards the sea was stormy. Gray
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: clouds chased one another across the sky. Then the wind dropped,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: and the sea was calm and blue. The Pacific is
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: more desolate than other seas. Its spaces seem more vast,
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  Speaker 1: and the most ordinary journey upon it has somehow the
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  Speaker 1: feeling of an adventure. The air you breathe is an
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: elixure which prepares you for the unexpected. Nor is it
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: vouchsafed to man in the flesh to know aught that
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: more nearly suggests the approach to the golden realms of
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: fancy than the approach to Tahiti. Morea the Sister Isle
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: comes into view in rocky splendor, rising from the desert sea,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: mysteriously like the unsubstantial fabric of a magic wand with
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: its shagged outline, it is like a monserrat of the Pacific,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: And you may imagine that there Polynesian knights guard with
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  Speaker 1: strange rights, mysteries unholy for men to know. The beauty
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  Speaker 1: of the island is unveiled, as diminishing distance shows you
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  Speaker 1: in distinct or shape its lovely peaks, But it keeps
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: its secret as you sail by, and darkly inviolable seems
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: to fold itself together in a stony, inaccessible grimness. It
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: would not surprise you if, as you came near, seeking
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: for an opening in the reef, it vanished suddenly from
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: your view, and nothing met your gaze but the blue
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: loneliness of the Pacific. Tahiti is a lofty, green island
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: with deep folds of a darker green, in which you
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: divine silent valleys. There is mystery in their somber depths,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: down which murmur and plaiush cool streams, and you feel
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: that in those umbracious places, life from immemorial times has
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: been led according to immemorial ways. Even here is something
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: sad and terrible, but the impression is fleeting and serves
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: only to give a greater acuteness to the enjoyment of
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the moment. It is like the sadness which you may
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: see in the jester's eyes when a merry company is
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: laughing at his sallies. His lips smile, and his jokes
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: are gayer, because in the communion of laughter he finds
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: himself more intolerably alone. For Tahiti is smiling and friendly.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: It is like a lovely woman graciously prodigal of her
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: charm and beauty. And nothing can be more conciliatory than
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the entrance into the harbor at Papietti. The schooners moored
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: to the quay are trim and neat. The little town
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: along the bay is white and urbane, and the flamboyants,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: scarlet against the blue sky, flaunt their color like a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: cry of passion. They are sensual, with an unashamed violence
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: that leaves you breathless. And the crowd that throngs the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: wharf as the steamer draws alongside is gay and debonair.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: It is a noisy, cheerful, gesticulating crowd. It is a
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: sea of brown faces. You have an impression of colored
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: movement against the flaming blue of the sky. Everything is
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: done with a great deal of bustle, the unloading of
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the baggage, the examination of the customs, and everyone seems
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: to smile at you. It is very hot. The color
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: dazzles you. So ends Chapter forty five.