The Great Novels and Short Stories of Somerset Maugham Page 19

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said at last.

  Arnold Jackson stood staring in front of him, and in his eyes was a dreamy softness. His thin, thoughtful face was very grave. Bateman, glancing at it, was once more conscious of its intense spirituality.

  “Beauty,” murmured Arnold Jackson. “You seldom see beauty face to face. Look at it well, Mr Hunter, for what you see now you will never see again, since the moment is transitory, but it will be an imperishable memory in your heart. You touch eternity.”

  His voice was deep and resonant. He seemed to breathe forth the purest idealism, and Bateman had to urge himself to remember that the man who spoke was a criminal and a cruel cheat. But Edward, as though he heard a sound, turned round quickly.

  “Here is my daughter, Mr Hunter.”

  Bateman shook hands with her. She had dark, splendid eyes and a red mouth tremulous with laughter; but her skin was brown, and her curling hair, rippling down her-shoulders, was coal black. She wore but one garment, a Mother Hubbard of pink cotton, her feet were bare, and she was crowned with a wreath of white scented flowers. She was a lovely creature. She was like a goddess of the Polynesian spring.

  She was a little shy, but not more shy than Bateman, to whom the whole situation was highly embarrassing, and it did not put him at his ease to see this sylph-like thing take a shaker and with a practised hand mix three cocktails.

  “Let us have a kick in them, child,” said Jackson.

  She poured them out and smiling delightfully handed one to each of the men. Bateman flattered himself on his skill in the subtle art of shaking cocktails and he was not a little astonished, on tasting this one, to find that it was excellent. Jackson laughed proudly when he saw his guest’s involuntary look of appreciation.

  “Not bad, is it? I taught the child myself, and in the old days in Chicago I considered that there wasn’t a bar-tender in the city that could hold a candle to me. When I had nothing better to do in the penitentiary I used to amuse myself by thinking out new cocktails, but when you come down to brass-tacks there’s nothing to beat a dry Martini.”

  Bateman felt as though someone had given him a violent blow on the funny-bone and he was conscious that he turned red and then white. But before he could think of anything to say a native boy brought in a great bowl of soup and the whole party sat down to dinner. Arnold Jackson’s remark seemed to have aroused in him a train of recollections, for he began to talk of his prison days. He talked quite naturally, without malice, as though he were relating his experiences at a foreign university. He addressed himself to Bateman and Bateman was confused and then confounded. He saw Edward’s eyes fixed on him and there was in them a flicker of amusement. He blushed scarlet, for it struck him that Jackson was making a fool of him, and then because he felt absurd—and knew there was no reason why he should—he grew angry. Arnold Jackson was impudent—there was no other word for it—and his callousness, whether assumed or not, was outrageous. The dinner proceeded. Bateman was asked to eat sundry messes, raw fish and he knew not what, which only his civility induced him to swallow, but which he was amazed to find very good eating. Then an incident happened which to Bateman was the most mortifying experience of the evening. There was a little circlet of flowers in front of him, and for the sake of conversation he hazarded a remark about it.

  “It’s a wreath that Eva made for you,” said Jackson, “but I guess she was too shy to give it you.”

  Bateman took it up in his hand and made a polite little speech of thanks to the girl.

  “You must put it on,” she said, with a smile and a blush.

  “I? I don’t think I’ll do that.”

  “It’s the charming custom of the country,” said Arnold Jackson.

  There was one in front of him and he placed it on his hair. Edward did the same.

  “I guess I’m not dressed for the part,” said Bateman, uneasily.

  “Would you like a pareo?” said Eva quickly. “I’ll get you one in a minute.”

  “No, thank you. I’m quite comfortable as I am.”

  “Show him how to put it on, Eva,” said Edward.

  At that moment Bateman hated his greatest friend. Eva got up from the table and with much laughter placed the wreath on his black hair.

  “It suits you very well,” said Mrs Jackson. “Don’t it suit him, Arnold?”

  “Of course it does.”

  Bateman sweated at every pore.

  “Isn’t it a pity it’s dark?” said Eva. “We could photograph you all three together.”

  Bateman thanked his stars it was. He felt that he must look prodigiously foolish in his blue serge suit and high collar—very neat and gentlemanly—with that ridiculous wreath of flowers on his head. He was seething with indignation, and he had never in his life exercised more self-control than now when he presented an affable exterior. He was furious with that old man, sitting at the head of the table, half-naked, with his saintly face and the flowers on his handsome white locks. The whole position was monstrous.

  Then dinner came to an end, and Eva and her mother remained to clear away while the three men sat on the verandah. It was very warm and the air was scented with the white flowers of the night. The full moon, sailing across an unclouded sky, made a pathway on the broad sea that led to the boundless realms of Forever. Arnold Jackson began to talk. His voice was rich and musical. He talked now of the natives and of the old legends of the country. He told strange stories of the past, stories of hazardous expeditions into the unknown, of love and death, of hatred and revenge. He told of the adventurers who had discovered those distant islands, of the sailors who, settling in them, had married the daughters of great chieftains, and of the beach-combers who had led their varied lives on those silvery shores. Bateman, mortified and exasperated, at first listened sullenly, but presently some magic in the words possessed him and he sat entranced. The mirage of romance obscured the light of common day. Had he forgotten that Arnold Jackson had a tongue of silver, a tongue by which he had charmed vast sums out of the credulous public, a tongue which very nearly enabled him to escape the penalty of his crimes? No one had a sweeter eloquence, and no one had a more acute sense of climax. Suddenly he rose.

  “Well, you two boys haven’t seen one another for a long time. I shall leave you to have a yarn. Teddie will show you your quarters when you want to go to bed.”

  “Oh, but I wasn’t thinking of spending the night, Mr Jackson,” said Bateman.

  “You’ll find it more comfortable. We’ll see that you’re called in good time.”

  Then with a courteous shake of the hand, stately as though he were a bishop in canonicals, Arnold Jackson took leave of his guest.

  “Of course I’ll drive you back to Papeete if you like,” said Edward, “but I advise you to stay. It’s bully driving in the early morning.”

  For a few minutes neither of them spoke. Bateman wondered how he should begin on the conversation which all the events of the day made him think more urgent.

  “When are you coming back to Chicago?” he asked, suddenly.

  For a moment Edward did not answer. Then he turned rather lazily to look at his friend and smiled.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps never.”

  “What in heaven’s name do you mean?” cried Bateman.

  “I’m very happy here. Wouldn’t it be folly to make a change?”

  “Man alive, you can’t live here all your life. This is no life for a man. It’s a living death. Oh, Edward, come away at once, before it’s too late. I’ve felt that something was wrong. You’re infatuated with the place, you’ve succumbed to evil influences, but it only requires a wrench, and when you’re free from these surroundings you’ll thank all the gods there be. You’ll be like a dope-fiend when he’s broken from his drug. You’ll see then that for two years you’ve been breathing poisoned air. You can’t imagine what a relief it will be when you fill your lungs once more with the fresh, pure air of your native country.”

  He spoke q
uickly, the words tumbling over one another in his excitement, and there was in his voice sincere and affectionate emotion. Edward was touched.

  “It is good of you to care so much, old friend.”

  “Come with me to-morrow, Edward. It was a mistake that you ever came to this place. This is no life for you.”

  “You talk of this sort of life and that. How do you think a man gets the best out of life?”

  “Why, I should have thought there could be no two answers to that. By doing his duty, by hard work, by meeting all the obligations of his state and station.”

  “And what is his reward?”

  “His reward is the consciousness of having achieved what he set out to do.”

  “It all sounds a little portentous to me,” said Edward, and in the lightness of the night Bateman could see that he was smiling. “I’m afraid you’ll think I’ve degenerated sadly. There are several things I think now which I daresay would have seemed outrageous to me three years ago.”

  “Have you learnt them from Arnold Jackson?” asked Bateman, scornfully.

  “You don’t like him? Perhaps you couldn’t be expected to. I didn’t when I first came. I had just the same prejudice as you. He’s a very extraordinary man. You saw for yourself that he makes no secret of the fact that he was in a penitentiary. I do not know that he regrets it or the crimes that led him there. The only complaint he ever made in my hearing was that when he came out his health was impaired. I think he does not know what remorse is. He is completely unmoral. He accepts everything and he accepts himself as well. He’s generous and kind.”

  “He always was,” interrupted Bateman, “on other people’s money.”

  “I’ve found him a very good friend. Is it unnatural that I should take a man as I find him?”

  “The result is that you lose the distinction between right and wrong.”

  “No, they remain just as clearly divided in my mind as before, but what has become a little confused in me is the distinction between the bad man and the good one. Is Arnold Jackson a bad man who does good things or a good man who does bad things? It’s a difficult question to answer. Perhaps we make too much of the difference between one man and another. Perhaps even the best of us are sinners and the worst of us are saints. Who knows?”

  “You will never persuade me that white is black and that black is white,” said Bateman.

  “I’m sure I shan’t, Bateman.”

  Bateman could not understand why the flicker of a smile crossed Edward’s lips when he thus agreed with him. Edward was silent for a minute.

  “When I saw you this morning, Bateman,” he said then, “I seemed to see myself as I was two years ago. The same collar, and the same shoes, the same blue suit, the same energy. The same determination. By God, I was energetic. The sleepy methods of this place made my blood tingle. I went about and everywhere I saw possibilities for development and enterprise. There were fortunes to be made here. It seemed to me absurd that the copra should be taken away from here in sacks and the oil extracted in America. It would be far more economical to do all that on the spot, with cheap labour, and save freight, and I saw already the vast factories springing up on the island. Then the way they extracted it from the coconut seemed to me hopelessly inadequate, and I invented a machine which divided the nut and scooped out the meat at the rate of two hundred and forty an hour. The harbour was not large enough. I made plans to enlarge it, then to form a syndicate to buy land, put up two or three large hotels, and bungalows for occasional residents; I had a scheme for improving the steamer service in order to attract visitors from California. In twenty years, instead of this half French, lazy little town of Papeete I saw a great American city with ten-story buildings and street-cars, a theatre and an opera house, a stock exchange and a mayor.”

  “But go ahead, Edward,” cried Bateman, springing up from the chair in excitement. “You’ve got the ideas and the capacity. Why, you’ll become the richest man between Australia and the States.”

  Edward chuckled softly.

  “But I don’t want to,” he said.

  “Do you mean to say you don’t want money, big money, money running into millions? Do you know what you can do with it? Do you know the power it brings? And if you don’t care about it for yourself think what you can do, opening new channels for human enterprise, giving occupation to thousands. My brain reels at the visions your words have conjured up.”

  “Sit down, then, my dear Bateman,” laughed Edward. “My machine for cutting the coconuts will always remain unused, and so far as I’m concerned street-cars shall never run in the idle streets of Papeete.”

  Bateman sank heavily into his chair.

  “I don’t understand you,” he said.

  “It came upon me little by little. I came to like the life here, with its ease and its leisure, and the people, with their good-nature and their happy smiling faces. I began to think. I’d never had time to do that before. I began to read.”

  “You always read.”

  “I read for examinations. I read in order to be able to hold my own in conversation. I read for instruction. Here I learned to read for pleasure. I learned to talk. Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure. I’d always been too busy before. And gradually all the life that had seemed so important to me began to seem rather trivial and vulgar. What is the use of all this hustle and this constant striving? I think of Chicago now and I see a dark, grey city, all stone—it is like a prison—and a ceaseless turmoil. And what does all that activity amount to? Does one get there the best out of life? Is that what we come into the world for, to hurry to an office, and work hour after hour till night, then hurry home and dine and go to a theatre? Is that how I must spend my youth? Youth lasts so short a time, Bateman. And when I am old, what have I to look forward to? To hurry from my home in the morning to my office and work hour after hour till night, and then hurry home again, and dine and go to a theatre? That may be worth while if you make a fortune; I don’t know, it depends on your nature; but if you don’t, is it worth while then? I want to make more out of my life than that, Bateman.”

  “What do you value in life then?”

  “I’m afraid you’ll laugh at me. Beauty, truth, and goodness.”

  “Don’t you think you can have those in Chicago?”

  “Some men can, perhaps, but not I.” Edward sprang up now. “I tell you when I think of the life I led in the old days I am filled with horror,” he cried violently. “I tremble with fear when I think of the danger I have escaped. I never knew I had a soul till I found it here. If I had remained a rich man I might have lost it for good and all.”

  “I don’t know how you can say that,” cried Bateman indignantly. “We often used to have discussions about it.”

  “Yes, I know. They were about as effectual as the discussions of deaf mutes about harmony. I shall never come back to Chicago, Bateman.”

  “And what about Isabel?”

  Edward walked to the edge of the verandah and leaning over looked intently at the blue magic of the night. There was a slight smile on his face when he turned back to Bateman.

  “Isabel is infinitely too good for me. I admire her more than any woman I have ever known. She has a wonderful brain and she’s as good as she’s beautiful. I respect her energy and her ambition. She was born to make a success of life. I am entirely unworthy of her.”

  “She doesn’t think so.”

  “But you must tell her so, Bateman.”

  “I?” cried Bateman. “I’m the last person who could ever do that.”

  Edward had his back to the vivid light of the moon and his face could not be seen. Is it possible that he smiled again?

  “It’s no good your trying to conceal anything from her, Bateman. With her quick intelligence she’ll turn you inside out in five minutes. You’d better make a clean breast of it right away.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. Of course I shall tell her I’ve seen you.” B
ateman spoke in some agitation. “Honestly I don’t know what to say to her.”

  “Tell her that I haven’t made good. Tell her that I’m not only poor, but that I’m content to be poor. Tell her I was fired from my job because I was idle and inattentive. Tell her all you’ve seen to-night and all I’ve told you.”

  The idea which on a sudden flashed through Bateman’s brain brought him to his feet and in uncontrollable perturbation he faced Edward.

  “Man alive, don’t you want to marry her?”

  Edward looked at him gravely.

  “I can never ask her to release me. If she wishes to hold me to my word I will do my best to make her a good and loving husband.”

  “Do you wish me to give her that message, Edward? Oh, I can’t. It’s terrible. It’s never dawned on her for a moment that you don’t want to marry her. She loves you. How can I inflict such a mortification on her?”

  Edward smiled again.

  “Why don’t you marry her yourself, Bateman? You’ve been in love with her for ages. You’re perfectly suited to one another. You’ll make her very happy.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that. I can’t bear it.”

  “I resign in your favour, Bateman. You are the better man.”

  There was something in Edward’s tone that made Bateman look up quickly, but Edward’s eyes were grave and unsmiling. Bateman did not know what to say. He was disconcerted. He wondered whether Edward could possibly suspect that he had come to Tahiti on a special errand. And though he knew it was horrible he could not prevent the exultation in his heart.

  “What will you do if Isabel writes and puts an end to her engagement with you?” he said, slowly.

  “Survive,” said Edward.

  Bateman was so agitated that he did not hear the answer.

  “I wish you had ordinary clothes on,” he said, somewhat irritably. “It’s such a tremendously serious decision you’re taking. That fantastic costume of yours makes it seem terribly casual.”