W. Somerset Maugham

“ Miss Ley attempted to reason with him, but no good came; he was by turns obstinate and imploring.
“She can’t leave me now, Polly,” he said. “Can’t she see how old I am, and how much I want her? Let her wait a little. I don’t want to die alone with strange hands to close my eyes.”
“But you’re not going to die, my dear Algernon. Our family to its uttermost branches has two marked characteristics, pig-headedness and longevity; and you’ll live for another twenty years. After all, Bella has done a great deal for you. Don’t you realize that she wants to live her own life for a little? ”

“ When you wish to tell Paul what you have done, you think only of your own peace of mind, and you disregard entirely your husband’s. It may be only an illusion that you are a beautiful woman of virtuous temper, but all things are illusion, and why on earth should you insist on destroying that of all others which Paul holds dearest? Haven’t you done him harm enough already? When I see a madman wearing a paper crown under the impression that it is fine gold, I haven’t the brutality to undeceive him; let no one shake our belief in the fancies which are the very breath of our nostrils. ”

“ You won’t abandon me, Miss Ley, will you?”
“Of course not?” she answered, smiling gently. “I think you’re a fool, but then most people are. They never realize that they have only one life, and mistakes are irreparable. They play with it as though it were a game of chess in which they could try this move and that, and when they get in a muddle, sweep the board clear and begin again.”
“But life is a game of chess in which one is always beaten. Death sits on the other side of the board, and for every move he has a counter-move, for all your deep-laid schemes a parry.” ”

“ Coming home in the evenings, Basil’s heart sank when he entered the street in which was his house; he felt sick with the sordid regularity of all those little dwellings exactly like one another. Miss Ley, perhaps ironically, had once remarked that life in a suburb must be quite idyllic; and Basil laughed savagely when he thought that only the milk-cart and the barrel-organ disturbed the romantic seclusion. He loathed his neighbours, with whom he knew Jenny discussed him, and shuddered with horror at their narrow lives, from which was excluded firmly all that made existence comely and urbane. ”

“ I like something stronger myself.”
“That’s Jimmie all over,” cried his sister, amused.
“I have some whisky, Mr. Bush,” said Basil, raising his eyebrows.
“Oh, blow the Mister and blow the Bush. Call me Jimmie. I can’t stand ceremony. We’re both of us gentlemen. Now mind you, I’m not a feller to praise myself, but I will say this—I am a gentleman. That’s not self-praise, is it?”
“Dear me, no. Mere statement of fact.”
“It’s a thing you can’t ’elp, so what’s the good of being proud about it? If I meet a chap in a pub, and he wants to stand me a drink, I don’t ask ’im if he’s a lord.” ”

“ Oh, Miss Ley, when I look at all the misery of the world I am so thankful I don’t believe in God.”
As though seeking to break through the iron bars of the flesh, like a wild beast unquietly he paced the room.
“For years I’ve toiled night and day to distinguish truth from falsehood; I want to be clear about my actions, I want to walk with sure feet; but I find myself in a labyrinth of quicksands. I can see no meaning in the world, and sometimes I despair; it seems as senseless as a madman’s dream. ”

“ Passion and anguish and exultation, rising and falling in perpetual harmony, sometimes the beauty was hardly sufferable, (as though was reached at length the heart’s limit of endurance,) so that one could have cried out with the sorrow of it. The music was poured upon the listening air,—trembling and throbbing with pain; joyous, triumphant, and conscious of might; it hesitated like a lover who knows that his love is hopeless; it was like the voice of a dying child lamenting the loveliness it would never know; it was the mocking laughter of a courtesan for whose sake a man has died ”

“ Basil married me from pity. Oh, God, I wish he hadn’t! I can’t stand the unhappiness.”
“You know, Jenny, he’s a man of honour, and he’d never do anything that wasn’t straight.”
“Oh, I know he’s a man of honour,” she cried bitterly. “I wish he had a little less of it; one doesn’t want a lot at fine sentiments in married life—they don’t work.” She stood up and beat her breast. “Oh, why couldn’t I fall in love with a man of my own class? I should have been so much happier. I used to be so proud that Basil wasn’t a clerk or something in the City. He’s right—we shall never be happy. ”

“ Except that I must leave Bella, I am not sorry to die, for I know at last well enough that I should never have been a great poet; and Bella will join me soon. I have loved the world passionately, and I thank God for all the beautiful things I have seen. I thank God for the green meadows round Tercanbury, and the elm-trees, and the gray monotonous sea. I thank Him for the loveliness of the cathedral on rainy afternoons in winter, and for the jewelled glass of its painted windows, and for the great clouds that sway across the sky. ”

“ By marrying this man you dishonour yourself and you dishonour me. How can you suffer to change the glorious name you bear for that of a miserable little counter-jumper! I have no right to ask you to refrain from marriage because I’m old and helpless, and you’ve made me utterly dependent on you, but I have a right to ask you not to disgrace the name of my family.”
Miss Ley had never before seen such severity in the gentle Dean; an unwonted fire had driven away the delightful sweetness which was his most charming trait, and two red spots burned on his cheeks. ”

“ Having reached Barnes at length, Jenny felt no relief, but if possible, a greater wretchedness, for she remembered how often in summer, under soft blue skies, she had wandered across the common, clinging to Basil’s arm; and now it was dark and ugly, and the broom, all charred and bedraggled, even under cover of night had a dismal, squalid look. She came to the little pokey villa, let herself in, and went upstairs, vaguely hoping that Basil, after all, had come back, for it seemed impossible that she would never see him again. ”

“ It’s only eighteen months since I signed my name for Basil’s first marriage in a dingy registry office. You don’t know how beautiful the girl was on that day, full of love and gratitude and happiness. She looked forward to the future with such eager longing! And now she’s rotting underground, and the woman she hated and the man she adored are married, and they haven’t a thought for all her misery. I hated Basil in his new frock-coat, and Hilda Murray, and you. I can’t imagine why a sensible woman like you should overdress ridiculously for such a function. ”

“ Basil Kent was much changed from the light-hearted youth whom Frank had known at Oxford, for at that time he gave himself carelessly, like a leaf to the wind, to every emotion; and a quick depression at the failure of something in which he was interested would be soon followed by a boisterous joy. Life seemed very good then, and without after-thought he could rejoice in its various colour, in its ceaseless changing beauty ”

“ I ought to go on posing decently to the end—in this world, we’re made to act and think things because others have thought them good; we never have a chance of going our own way; we’re bound down by the prejudices and the morals of all and sundry. For God’s sake let us be free. Let us do this and that because we want to and because we must, not because other people think we ought. And d’you know the worst of the whole thing? If I’d acted like a blackguard and let Jenny go to the dogs, I should have remained happy and contented and prosperous, and she, I daresay, wouldn’t have died. ”

“ Bella Langton could not have told Miss Ley the whole story of her acquaintance with Herbert Field, for the point of it lay to some extent in her own state of mind, and that she but vaguely understood. She had arrived at that embarrassment which comes to most unmarried women, when youth is already passed and the monotonous length of middle age looms drearily before them. For some time her round of duties had lost its savour, and she seemed to have done everything too often: the days exasperated her in their similarity. ”

“ Although her eyes were turned away, she knew that he blushed deeply, and hopelessly, full of shame, she dropped her hands. It seemed an intolerable time before he answered.
“I’m not so selfish as all that,” he whispered, his voice trembling.
“Yes, I was afraid the thought would disgust you,” she said, with a sob.
“Bella, how can you say that! Don’t you know that I should have been proud? Don’t you know that you’re the only woman I’ve ever liked? But I won’t let you sacrifice yourself for me. I’ve seen people die of consumption, and I know the ghastliness of it. ”

“ When the wind, marching through the country, sang to himself like a strong-limbed ploughboy, Death, whistling in his ears, would mock the tune softly; when he looked at the rising sun which coloured the mist like a chalcedony, purple and rosy and green, Death would snigger at his delight in the sad world’s beauty. An icy hand gripped his heart so that he felt sick with dread and anguish; he could not repress the sob torn from him by bitter agony. Frank was ashamed to look at that boyish face, so frank and fair, distraught with terror, and he cast down his eyes. ”

“ This point of view was new to Basil, but it seemed unreasonable. He put it hastily aside.
“All this time you’ve not thought of the child, Miss Ley,” he said slowly. “I can’t let the child skulk into the world like a thief. Let him go through life with an honest name; it’s hard enough without marking him with a hideous stigma. And, after all, I’m proud to be the father of a living child. Whatever I suffer, whatever we both suffer, it will be worth it for that.” ”

“ Oh, Miss Ley, I know you won’t believe me, but I am going to try to turn over a new leaf. During these last months I’ve seen Paul so differently. Of course, he’s absurd and pompous and dull—I know that better than anyone—but he is so kind; even now he loves me with all his heart. And he’s honest. You don’t know what it means to be with a man who’s straight to the very bottom of his soul. It’s such a relief and such a comfort!”
“My dear, it surely requires no excuses to find good qualities in one’s husband. ”

“ Sometimes towards the west bevies of cloud, dazzling in the sunshine, were piled upon one another, and at sundown, all rosy and golden, would fill the street with their effulgence, so that the smoky vapours took a gorgeous opalescence, and the heart beat with sheer delight of this goodly London town.
One balmy night in May, when the air was suave and fragrant, so that the heavy step was lightened and the tired mind eased by a strange sad gaiety, Jenny dined with Basil at the little restaurant in Soho where now they were well known. ”

“ Basil wished to describe Italian society at that time, its profound disenchantment after the vigorous glow with which it had welcomed the freedom of mind when the fall of Constantinople threw open to the human intellect a new horizon; and devised a man who waged life as though it were a battle, vehemently, seeking to enjoy every moment, and now, finding all things vain, looked back with despair because the world had nothing more to offer. ”

“ Any woman would have served his purpose as well, for she saw with bitter clearness that he was merely dazzled by her wealth and her diamonds. He liked to dine at her house, and it pleased his vanity to embrace a woman in expensive clothes. But she had not the temperament to make a fight for freedom, and gave herself up to this love weakly, careless into what abyss of shame and misery it led. Going to her room, she wrote a pitiful letter to Reggie, and those with whom in time past she had cruelly played, seeing this utter abasement, might have felt abundantly revenged. ”

“ Miss Ley stood up and touched Frank’s arm.
“Come,” she whispered; “you and I can do no more good. Let us leave them.”
He rose silently, and following her, they stole very gently from the room.
I want to walk in the garden,” she said, her voice trembling. But once in the open air, her nerves, taut till then by a great effort of will, gave way on a sudden, and the strong, collected woman burst into a flood of tears. Sinking on a bench, she hid her face and wept uncontrollably. “Oh, it’s too awful,” she cried. “It seems so horribly stupid that people should ever die.” ”

“ Miss Ley meditated, slowly drawing her initials with the point of her parasol in the gravel, and Basil stared at her anxiously.
“Are you sure you’re not making a fool of yourself!” she asked finally. “You’re not in love with her, are you?”
“No.”
“Then you have no right to marry her. Oh, my dear boy, you don’t know how tiresome marriage is sometimes, even with persons of the same class and inclinations. I’ve known so many people in my life, and I’m convinced that marriage is the most terrible thing in the world unless passion makes it absolutely inevitable. ”

“ But I was just a virtuous prig. I’ve worked too much, I’ve been altogether too exemplary, and now my youth is going, and I’ve known none of its follies; my blood burns for the hot, mad riot of the devil-may-cares. And this medical life isn’t as I thought once, broad and catholic; it’s warped and very narrow. We only see one side of things; to us the world is a vast hospital of sick people, and we come to look upon mankind from the exclusive standpoint of disease; but the wise man occupies himself, not with death, but with life—not with illness, but with radiant health. ”

“ On a turn of the road Miss Ley gave a quick cry of delight, for she saw the hedge suddenly ablaze with wild roses.
“Have you a knife?” she said. “Do cut some.”
And she stood while he gathered a great bunch of the simple fresh flowers. He gave them to her, and she held them with both hands.
“I love them because they’re the same roses as grow in Rome from the sarcophagi in the gardens. They grow out of those old coffins to show us that life always triumphs over death. What do I care for illness and old age and disease! ”

“ For then vice and squalor and ugliness vanished away, and men stood before one another in primeval strength, the blood burning in their veins, and Death walked between contending hosts; and where Death is there can be nothing petty, sordid, nor mean.
But finally the idea came to Basil that it was not brave to remain there in concealment. For such talents as he had the Cape offered no scope, and he made up his mind to return to London, holding up his head proudly, and there show what stuff he was made of. He felt more self-reliant because he knew he could withstand cheerfully fatigue and want ”

“ When Reggie, chuckling slily because he had circumvented her, went to his bedroom, he found Grace quietly seated, waiting for him.
“Good Lord! what are you doing here?” he cried, for once startled from his self-possession. “Frank might very well have come in with me.”
She did not answer his question, but stood up and faced him, more haggard and pale for the magnificence of her gown and the brilliancy of her diamonds. She sought to compose herself and to talk deliberately.
“Why have you been avoiding me all these days?” she asked. “I want an explanation. What are you up to?” ”

“ Miss Ley observed her for some while calmly.
“How selfish you are!” she murmured at length in an even, frigid voice. “I had an idea you were beginning to care for your husband.”
“But I do care for him,” answered Mrs. Castillyon, with astonishment.
“Surely not, or you wouldn’t wish to cause him such great unhappiness. You know very well that he dotes upon you; you are the only light and brightness in his life; if he loses his faith in you, he loses everything.” ”