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

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Speaker 1: Chapters fifty seven and fifty eight of The Moon and Sixpence.
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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Barryeades. The Moon and
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Speaker 1: Sixpence by William Somerset, Mam, Chapter fifty seven. At that
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Speaker 1: moment we were interrupted by the appearance of Madame Coutrace,
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Speaker 1: who had been paying visits. She came in like a
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Speaker 1: ship in full sail, an imposing creature, tall and stout,
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Speaker 1: with an ample bust and an obesity, girthed in alarmingly
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Speaker 1: by straight fronted corsets. She had a bold, hooked nose
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Speaker 1: and three chins. She held herself upright. She had not
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Speaker 1: yet yielded for an instant to the enervating charm of
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Speaker 1: the tropics. But contrariwise was more active, more worldly, more
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Speaker 1: decided than any one in a temperate climb would have
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Speaker 1: thought it possible to be. She was evidently a copious talker,
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Speaker 1: and now poured forth a breathless stream of antidote and comment.
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Speaker 1: She made The conversation we just had seemed far away
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Speaker 1: and unreal presently, Doctor Cutrace turned to me, I still
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Speaker 1: have in my bureau the picture that Strickland gave me,
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Speaker 1: he said, would you like to see it? Willingly, we
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Speaker 1: got up, and he led me on to the verandah
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Speaker 1: which surrounded his house. We paused to look at the
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Speaker 1: gay flowers that rioted in his garden. For a long time.
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Speaker 1: I could not get out of my head the recollection
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Speaker 1: of the extraordinary decoration with which Strickland had covered the
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Speaker 1: walls of his house. He said reflectively, I had been
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Speaker 1: thinking of it too. It seemed to me that here
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Speaker 1: Strickland had finally put the whole expression of himself, working silently,
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Speaker 1: knowing that it was his last chance. I fancied that
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Speaker 1: here he must have said all that he knew of
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Speaker 1: life and all that he divined. And I fancied that
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Speaker 1: perhaps here he had at last found peace. The demon
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Speaker 1: which possessed him was exercised at last, and with the
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Speaker 1: completion of the work for which all his life had
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Speaker 1: been a painful preparation, rest descended on his remote and
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Speaker 1: tortured soul. He was willing to die for he had
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Speaker 1: fulfilled his purpose. What was the subject, I asked, I
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Speaker 1: scarcely know It was strange and fantastic. It was a
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Speaker 1: vision of the beginnings of the world, the garden of
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Speaker 1: Eden with Adam and Eve Kiseige. It was a hymn
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Speaker 1: to the beauty of the human form, male and female,
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Speaker 1: and the praise of nature, sublime, indifferent, lovely and cruel.
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Speaker 1: It gave you an awful sense of the infinity of
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Speaker 1: space and of the endlessness of time. Because he painted
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Speaker 1: the trees I see about me every day, the cocoanuts,
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Speaker 1: the banions, the flamboyants, the alligator pears. I have seen
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Speaker 1: them ever since, differently, as though there were in them
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Speaker 1: a spirit and a mystery which I am ever on
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Speaker 1: the point of seizing, and which forever escapes me. The
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Speaker 1: colors were the colors familiar to me, and yet they
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Speaker 1: were different. They had a significance which was all their own.
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Speaker 1: And those nude men and women, they were of the earth,
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Speaker 1: and yet apart from it, they seemed to possess something
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Speaker 1: of the clay of which they were created, and at
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Speaker 1: the same time something divine. You saw a man in
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Speaker 1: the nakedness of his primeval instincts, and you were afraid,
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Speaker 1: for you saw yourself. Doctor Cutrace shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
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Speaker 1: You will laugh at me. I am a materialist and
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Speaker 1: I am a gross fat man falstaff. Eh, the lyrical
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Speaker 1: mode does not become me. I make myself ridiculous. But
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Speaker 1: I have never seen painting which made so deep an
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Speaker 1: impression on me. To Nes, I had just the same
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Speaker 1: feeling as when I went to the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
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Speaker 1: There too I was awed by the greatness of the
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Speaker 1: man who had painted that ceiling. It was genius, and
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Speaker 1: it was stupendous and overwhelming. I felt small and insigns magnificant.
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Speaker 1: But you are prepared for the greatness of michael Angelo.
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Speaker 1: Nothing had prepared me for the immense surprise of these
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Speaker 1: pictures in a native hut far away from civilization, in
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Speaker 1: a fold of the mountain above terra Vo. And michael
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Speaker 1: Angelo is sane and healthy. Those great works of his
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Speaker 1: have the calm of the sublime. But here, notwithstanding beauty,
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Speaker 1: was something troubling. I do not know what it was.
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Speaker 1: It made me uneasy. It gave me the impression you
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Speaker 1: get when you are sitting next door to a room
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Speaker 1: that you know is empty, but in which you know
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Speaker 1: not why you have a dreadful consciousness that notwithstanding there
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Speaker 1: is some one you scold yourself. You know it is
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Speaker 1: only your nerves. And yet, and yet, in a little
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Speaker 1: while it is impossible to resist the terror that seizes you,
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Speaker 1: and you are helpless in the clutch of an unseen whore. Yes,
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Speaker 1: I confess I was not altogether sorry when I heard
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Speaker 1: that those strange masterpieces had been destroyed, destroyed, I cried,
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Speaker 1: may we did you not know? How should I know?
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Speaker 1: It is true I had never heard of this work,
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Speaker 1: but I thought perhaps it had fallen into the hands
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Speaker 1: of a private owner. Even now, there is no certain
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Speaker 1: list of Strickland's paintings. When he grew blind, he would
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Speaker 1: sit hour after hour in those two rooms that he
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Speaker 1: had painted, looking at his works with sightless eyes, and
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Speaker 1: seeing perhaps more than he had ever seen in his
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Speaker 1: life before. Ada told me that he never complained of
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Speaker 1: his fate, he never lost courage. To the end, his
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Speaker 1: mind remained serene and undisturbed. But he made her promise
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Speaker 1: that when she had buried him, did I tell you
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Speaker 1: that I dug his grave with my own hands, for
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Speaker 1: none of the natives would approach the infected house, and
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Speaker 1: we buried him. She and I sewn up and three
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Speaker 1: parios joined together under the mango tree. He made her
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Speaker 1: promise that she would set fire to the house and
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Speaker 1: not leave it till it was burned to the ground,
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Speaker 1: and not a stick remained. I did not speak for
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Speaker 1: a while, for I was thinking. Then I said, he
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Speaker 1: remained the same to the end. Then do you understand
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Speaker 1: I must tell you that I thought it my duty
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Speaker 1: to dissuade her, even after what you have just said. Yes,
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Speaker 1: for I knew that here was a work of genius,
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Speaker 1: and I did not think we had the right to
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Speaker 1: deprive the world of it. But Ada would not listen
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Speaker 1: to me. She had promised I would not stay to
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Speaker 1: witness the barbarous deed. And it was only afterwards that
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Speaker 1: I heard what she had done. She poured paraffin on
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Speaker 1: the dry floors and on the panditos mats, and then
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Speaker 1: she set fire. In a little while, nothing remained but
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Speaker 1: smoldering embers, and a great masterpiece existed no longer. I
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Speaker 1: think Strickland knew it was a masterpiece. He had achieved
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Speaker 1: what he wanted. His life was complete. He had made
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Speaker 1: a world and saw that it was good. Then, in
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Speaker 1: pride and contempt, he destroyed it. But I must show
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Speaker 1: you my picture, said doctor cutrace, Moving on what happened
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Speaker 1: to Ada and the child? They went to the marquess's
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Speaker 1: she had really there. I have heard that the boy
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Speaker 1: works on one of Cameron's schooners. They say he is
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Speaker 1: very like his father. In appearance. At the door that
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Speaker 1: led from the veranda to the doctor's consulting room, he
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Speaker 1: paused and smiled. It is a fruit piece. You would
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Speaker 1: think it not a very suitable picture for a doctor's
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Speaker 1: consulting room. But my wife will not have it in
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Speaker 1: the drawing room, she says, it is frankly obscene. A
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Speaker 1: fruit piece, I exclaimed, in surprise. We entered the room,
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Speaker 1: and my eyes fell at once on the picture. I
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Speaker 1: looked at it for a long time. It was a
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Speaker 1: pile of mangoes, bananas, oranges, and I know not what.
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Speaker 1: And at first sight it was an innocent picture. Enough
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Speaker 1: it would have been passed in an exhibition of the
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Speaker 1: post Impressionist by a careless person as an excellent but
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Speaker 1: not very remarkable example of the school. But perhaps afterwards
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Speaker 1: it would come back to his recollection and he would
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Speaker 1: wonder why. I do not think then he could ever
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Speaker 1: entirely forget it. The colors were so strange that words
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Speaker 1: can hardly tell what a troubling emotion they gave. They
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Speaker 1: were somber blues, opaque like a delicately carved bull, and
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Speaker 1: lapis lazoli, and yet with a quivering luster that suggested
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Speaker 1: the palpitation of mysterious life. There were purples horrible, like
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Speaker 1: raw and putrid flesh, and yet with a glowing, sensual
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Speaker 1: passion that called up vague memories of the Roman Empire
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Speaker 1: of Heliogabalis. There were reds, shrill like the berries of holly.
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Speaker 1: One thought of Christmas in England, and the snow, the
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Speaker 1: good cheer, and the pleasure of children. And yet by
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Speaker 1: some magic softened till they had the swooning tenderness of
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Speaker 1: a dove's breast. There were deep yellows that dyed with
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Speaker 1: an unnatural passion into a green as fragrant as the
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Speaker 1: spring and as pure as the sparkling water of a
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Speaker 1: mountain brook. Who can tell what anguished fancy made these fruits.
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Speaker 1: They belonged to a Polynesian garden of the Hesperides. There
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Speaker 1: was something strangely alive in them, as though they were
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Speaker 1: created in a stage of the earth's dark history, when
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Speaker 1: things were not irrevocably fixed to their forms. They were
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Speaker 1: extravagantly luxurious. They were heavy with tropical odors. They seemed
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Speaker 1: to possess a somber passion of their own. It was
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Speaker 1: enchanted fruit to taste, which might open the gateway to
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Speaker 1: God knows what secrets of the soul and to mysterious
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Speaker 1: palaces of the imagination. They were sullen with unawaited dangers,
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Speaker 1: and to eat them might turn a man to beast
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Speaker 1: or God. All that was healthy and natural, all that
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Speaker 1: clung to happy relationships, and the simple joys of simple men,
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Speaker 1: shrunk from them in dismay. And yet a fearful attraction
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Speaker 1: was in them. And like the fruit on the tree
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Speaker 1: of the knowledge of good and evil, they were terrible
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Speaker 1: with the possibilities of the unknown. At last I turned away.
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Speaker 1: I felt that Strickland had kept his secret to the grave.
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Speaker 1: Voyone renee mon ami came the loud, cheerful voice of
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Speaker 1: Madame Coutras, What are you doing all this time? Here
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Speaker 1: are the appretifes, ask monsieur if he will not drink
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Speaker 1: a little glass of Quinquinnat Dubonnet, volunteers Madame, I said,
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Speaker 1: going out onto the veranda. The spell was broken, So
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Speaker 1: ends chapter fifty seven. Chapter fifty eight. The time came
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Speaker 1: from my departure from Tahiti. According to the gracious custom
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Speaker 1: of the island, presents were given me by the persons
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Speaker 1: with whom I had been thrown in contact. Baskets made
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Speaker 1: of the leaves of the cocoanut tree, mats of pandanus fans,
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Speaker 1: and Tierre gave me three little pearls, and three jars
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Speaker 1: of guava jelly made with her own plump hands. When
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Speaker 1: the mail boat, stopping for twenty four hours on its
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Speaker 1: way from Wellington to San Francisco, blew the whistle that
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Speaker 1: warned the passengers to get on board, Tierre clasped me
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Speaker 1: to her vast bosom, so that I seemed to sink
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Speaker 1: into a billowy sea, and pressed her red lips to mine.
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Speaker 1: Tears glistened in her eyes. And when we steamed slowly
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Speaker 1: out of the lagoon, making our way gingerly through the
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Speaker 1: opening in the reef, and then steered for the open sea,
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Speaker 1: a certain melancholy fell upon me. The breeze was laden
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Speaker 1: still with the pleasant odors of the land. Tahiti is
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Speaker 1: very far away, and I knew that I should never
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Speaker 1: see it again. A chapter of my life was closed,
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Speaker 1: and I felt a little nearer to inevitable death. Not
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Speaker 1: much more than a month later I was in London,
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Speaker 1: and after I had arranged certain matters which claimed my
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Speaker 1: immediate attention. Thinking Missus Strickland might like to hear what
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Speaker 1: I knew of her husband's last years, I wrote to her.
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Speaker 1: I had not seen her since long before the war,
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Speaker 1: and I had to look out her address in the
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Speaker 1: telephone book. She made an appointment, and I went to
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Speaker 1: the trim little house on Campden Hill, which she now inhabited.
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Speaker 1: She was by this time a woman of hard on sixty,
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Speaker 1: but she bore her years well, and no one would
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Speaker 1: have taken her for more than fifty. Her face, thin
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Speaker 1: and not much lined, was the sort that ages gracefully,
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Speaker 1: so that you thought in youth she must have been
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Speaker 1: a much handsomer woman than in fact she was. Her hair,
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Speaker 1: not yet very gray, was becomingly arranged, and her black
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Speaker 1: gown was modish. I remembered having heard that her sister,
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Speaker 1: Missus Mac andrew outliving her husband, but a couple of
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Speaker 1: years had left money to Missus Strickland, and by the
12:18
Speaker 1: look of the house and the trim maid who opened
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Speaker 1: the door, I judged that it was a sum adequate
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Speaker 1: to keep the will in modest comfort. When I was
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Speaker 1: ushered into the drawing room, I found that Missus Strickland
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Speaker 1: had a visitor, and when I discovered who he was,
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Speaker 1: I guessed that I had been asked to come at
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Speaker 1: just that time, not without intention. The caller was mister
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Speaker 1: van Bushy Taylor, an American, and Missus Strickland gave me
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Speaker 1: particulars with a charming smile of apology to him. You know,
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Speaker 1: we English are so dreadfully ignorant. You must forgive me
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Speaker 1: if it's necessary to explain. Then she turned to me,
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Speaker 1: Mister van Bushy Taylor is the distinguished American critic. If
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Speaker 1: you haven't read his book, your education had has been
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Speaker 1: shamefully neglected, and you must repair the omission at once.
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Speaker 1: He's writing something about dear Charley, and he's come to
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Speaker 1: ask me if I can help him. Mister van Bushy
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Speaker 1: Taylor was a very thin man, with a large bald head,
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Speaker 1: bony and shining, and under the great dome of his skull,
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Speaker 1: his face yellow with deep lines in it. Looked very small.
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Speaker 1: He was quiet and exceedingly polite. He spoke with the
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Speaker 1: accent of New England, and there was about his demeanor
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Speaker 1: a bloodless frigidity which made me ask myself why on
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Speaker 1: earth he was busying himself with Charles Strickland. I had
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Speaker 1: been slightly tickled at the gentleness which Missus Strickland put
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Speaker 1: into her mention of her husband's name. And while the
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Speaker 1: pair conversed, I took stock of the room in which
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Speaker 1: we sat. Missus Strickland had moved with the times. Gone
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Speaker 1: were the Morris papers, and gone the severe cretons. Gone
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Speaker 1: were the Arundel prints that had adorned the walls of
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Speaker 1: her drawing room in Ashley Gardens. The room blazed with
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Speaker 1: fantastic color, and I wondered if she knew that those
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Speaker 1: varied hues which fashion had imposed upon her were due
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Speaker 1: to the dreams of a poor painter in a south
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Speaker 1: Sea island. She gave me the answer herself. What wonderful
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Speaker 1: cushions you have, said, mister van Bushy tailor. Do you
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Speaker 1: like them? She said, smiling, basque you know? And yet
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Speaker 1: on the walls were colored reproductions of several of Strickland's
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Speaker 1: best pictures due to the enterprise of a publisher in Berlin.
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Speaker 1: You're looking at my pictures, she said, following my eyes.
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Speaker 1: Of course, the originals are out of my reach, but
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Speaker 1: it's a comfort to have these. The publishers sent them
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Speaker 1: to me himself. They're a great consolation to me. They
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Speaker 1: must be very pleasant to live with, said mister van
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Speaker 1: Bushy Tailor. Yes, they're so essentially decorative. That is one
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Speaker 1: of my profoundest convictions, said mister van Bushytailor. Great art
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Speaker 1: is always decorative. Their eyes rested on a nude woman
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Speaker 1: suckling a baby, while a girl was kneeling by their side,
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Speaker 1: holding out a flower to the in different child. Looking
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Speaker 1: over them was a wrinkled, scraggy hag. It was Strickland's
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Speaker 1: version of the Holy Family. I suspected that for the
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Speaker 1: figures had sat his household above terra Vo, and the
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Speaker 1: woman and the baby were Ada and his first son.
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Speaker 1: I asked myself if missus Strickland had any inkling of
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Speaker 1: the facts. The conversation proceeded, and I marveled at the
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Speaker 1: tact with which mister Van Bushy Taylor avoided all subjects
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Speaker 1: that might have been in the least embarrassing, and at
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Speaker 1: the ingenuity with which Missus Strickland, without saying a word
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Speaker 1: that was untrue, insinuated that her relations with her husband
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Speaker 1: had always been perfect. At last, mister van Bushy Taylor
15:41
Speaker 1: rose to go, holding his hostess's hand. He made her
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Speaker 1: a graceful, though perhaps too elaborate, speech of thanks, and
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Speaker 1: left us. I hope he didn't bore you, she said,
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Speaker 1: when the door closed behind him. Of course it's a
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Speaker 1: nuisance sometimes, but I feel it's only right to give
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Speaker 1: people any information I can about. There's a certain responsibility
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Speaker 1: about having been the wife of a genius. She looked
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Speaker 1: at me with those pleasant eyes of hers, which had
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Speaker 1: remained as candid and as sympathetic as they had been
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Speaker 1: more than twenty years before. I wondered if she was
16:14
Speaker 1: making a fool of me. Of course, you've given up
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Speaker 1: your business, I said, Oh yes, she answered airily. I
16:21
Speaker 1: ran it more by way of a hobby than for
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Speaker 1: any other reason, and my children persuaded me to sell it.
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Speaker 1: They thought I was overtaxing my strength. I saw that
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Speaker 1: Missus Strickland had forgotten that she had ever done anything
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Speaker 1: so disgraceful as to work for her living. She had
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Speaker 1: the true instinct of the nice woman that it is
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Speaker 1: only really decent for her to live on other people's money.
16:42
Speaker 1: They're here now, she said, I thought they'd like to
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Speaker 1: hear what you had to say about their father. You
16:47
Speaker 1: remember Robert, don't you. I'm glad to say he's been
16:50
Speaker 1: recommended for the military Cross. She went to the door
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Speaker 1: and called them. There entered a tall man in khaki
16:58
Speaker 1: with the parson's collar, handsome in a somewhat heavy fashion,
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Speaker 1: but with the frank eyes that I remembered in him
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Speaker 1: as a boy. He was followed by his sister. She
17:07
Speaker 1: must have been the same age as was her mother
17:09
Speaker 1: when first I knew her, and she was very like her.
17:13
Speaker 1: She too gave one the impression that as a girl
17:15
Speaker 1: she must have been prettier than indeed she was. I
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Speaker 1: suppose you don't remember them in the least, said Missus Strickland,
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Speaker 1: proud and smiling. My daughter is now, Missus Ronaldson. Her
17:25
Speaker 1: husband's a major in the gunners. He's by way of
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Speaker 1: being a Puka soldier, you know, said Missus Ronaldson gaily.
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Speaker 1: That's why he's only a major. I remembered my anticipation
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Speaker 1: long ago that she would marry a soldier. It was inevitable.
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Speaker 1: She had all the graces of the soldier's wife. She
17:43
Speaker 1: was civil and affable, but she could hardly conceal her
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Speaker 1: intimate conviction that she was not quite as others were.
17:50
Speaker 1: Robert was breezy. It's a bit of luck that I
17:52
Speaker 1: should be in London when you turned up. He said,
17:55
Speaker 1: I've only got three days leave. He's dying to get back,
17:58
Speaker 1: said his mother. Well, I don't mind confessing it. I
18:02
Speaker 1: have a rattling good time at the front. I've made
18:04
Speaker 1: a lot of good pals. It's a first rate life.
18:07
Speaker 1: Of course, war's terrible and all that sort of thing,
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Speaker 1: but it does bring out the best qualities in a man.
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Speaker 1: There's no denying that. Then I told them what I
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Speaker 1: had learned about Charles Strickland in Tahiti. I thought it
18:19
Speaker 1: unnecessary to say anything of Ada and her boy, but
18:22
Speaker 1: for the rest I was as accurate as I could be.
18:25
Speaker 1: When I had narrated his lamentable death, I ceased for
18:28
Speaker 1: a minute or two. We were all silent. Then Robert
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Speaker 1: Strickland struck a match and lit a cigarette. The mills
18:34
Speaker 1: of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small, he said,
18:38
Speaker 1: somewhat impressively. Missus Strickland and Missus Ronaldson looked down with
18:43
Speaker 1: a slightly pious expression, which indicated I felt sure that
18:47
Speaker 1: they thought the quotation was from Holy writ. Indeed, I
18:50
Speaker 1: was unconvinced that Robert Strickland did not share their illusion.
18:54
Speaker 1: I do not know why I suddenly thought of Strickland's son,
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Speaker 1: by Ada. They had told me he was a merry,
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Speaker 1: light hearted youth. I saw him with my mind's eye
19:03
Speaker 1: on the schooner on which he worked, wearing nothing but
19:06
Speaker 1: a pair of dungarees. And at night, when the boats
19:09
Speaker 1: sailed along easily before a light breeze, and the sailors
19:12
Speaker 1: were gathered on the upper deck, while the captain and
19:14
Speaker 1: the supercargo lolled in deck chairs smoking their pipes, I
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Speaker 1: saw him dance with another lad, dance wildly to the
19:21
Speaker 1: wheezy music of the concertina. Above was the blue sky
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Speaker 1: and the stars, and all about the desert of the
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Speaker 1: Pacific Ocean. A quotation from the Bible came to my lips,
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Speaker 1: but I held my tongue, for I know that clergymen
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Speaker 1: think it a little blasphemous when the laity poach upon
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Speaker 1: their preserves. My uncle Henry, for twenty seven years vicar
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Speaker 1: of Whitstable, was on these occasions in the habit of
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Speaker 1: saying that the devil could always quote scripture to his purpose.
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Speaker 1: He remembered the days when you could get thirteen royal
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Speaker 1: natives for his shilling. So ends Chapter fifty eight. So
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Speaker 1: ends The Moon and six pence by William Somerset maum