Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated)

by William Somerset Maugham

  George. Never.

  Daisy. [With a smile.] You’d hardly know me. I’ll be a little Chinese girl living in the foreigner’s house. Have you ever smoked opium?

  George. No. [Daisy takes the Amah’s long pipe in her hands.] Who does that belong to?

  Daisy. It’s amah’s. One day you shall try and I’ll make your pipes for you. Lee Tai used to say that no one could make them better than I.

  George. However low down the ladder you go there’s apparently always a rung lower.

  Daisy. After you’ve smoked a pipe or two your mind grows extraordinarily clear. You have a strange facility of speech and yet no desire to speak. All the puzzles of this puzzling world grow plain to you. You are tranquil and free. Your soul is gently released from the bondage of your body, and it plays, happy and careless, like a child with flowers. Death cannot frighten you, and want and misery are like blue mountains far away. You feel a heavenly power possess you and you can venture all things because suffering cannot touch you. Your spirit has wings and you fly like a bird through the starry wastes of the night. You hold space and time in the hollow of your hand. Then you come upon the dawn, all pearly and gray and silent, and there in the distance, like a dreamless sleep, is the sea.

  George. You are showing me a side of you I never knew.

  Daisy. Do you think you know me yet? I don’t know myself. In my heart there are secrets that are strange even to me, and spells to bind you to me, and enchantments so that you will never weary.

  [A pause.

  George. [Standing up.] I’ll go and get myself a drink. After all these alarums and excursions I really think I deserve it.

  Daisy. Amah will bring it to you.

  George. Oh, it doesn’t matter! I can easily fetch it myself. The whisky’s in the dining-room, isn’t it?

  Daisy. I expect so.

  [He goes out. Daisy goes over to a chest which stands in the room and throws it open. She takes out the Manchu dress which Harry once gave her and handles it smilingly. She holds up in both her hands the sumptuous headdress. There is the sound of a door being locked. Daisy puts down the headdress and looks at the door enquiringly.

  Daisy. [With a little smile.] What are you locking the door for, George? [The words are hardly out of her mouth before there is the report of a pistol shot. Daisy gives a shriek and rushes towards the door.] George! George! What have you done? [She beats frantically on the door.] Let me in! Let me in! George!

  [The Amah comes in running from the courtyard.

  Amah. What’s the matter? I hear shot.

  Daisy. Send the boys, quick. We must break down this door.

  Amah. I send the boys away. I no want them here when Harry come.

  Daisy. George! George! Speak to me. [She beats violently on the door.] Oh, what shall I do?

  Amah. Daisy, what’s the matter?

  Daisy. He’s killed himself sooner — sooner than....

  Amah. [Aghast.] Oh!

  [Daisy staggers back into the room.

  Daisy. Oh, my God!

  [She sinks down on the floor. She beats it with her fist. The Amah looks at her for an instant, then with quick determination seizes her shoulder.

  Amah. Daisy, Harry come soon.

  Daisy. [With a violent gesture.] Leave me alone. What do I care if Harry comes?

  Amah. You no can stay here. Come with me quick.

  Daisy. Go away. Damn you!

  Amah. [Stern and decided.] Don’t you talk foolish now. You come. Lee Tai waiting for you.

  Daisy. [With a sudden suspicion.] Did you know this was going to happen? George! George!

  Amah. Harry will kill you if he find you here. Come with me. [There is a knocking at the outer gate.] There he is. Daisy! Daisy!

  Daisy. Don’t torture me.

  Amah. I bolt that door. He no get in that way. He must come round through temple. You come quick and I hide you. We slip out when he safe.

  Daisy. [With scornful rage.] Do you think I’m frightened of Harry?

  Amah. He come velly soon now.

  [Daisy raises herself to her feet. A strange look comes over her face.

  Daisy. Lee Tai has made a mistake again. Bolt that door.

  [The Amah runs to it and slips the bolt. While she does this Daisy takes the tin of opium and quickly swallows some of the contents. The Amah turns round and sees her. She gives a gasp. She runs forward and snatches the tin from Daisy’s hand.

  Amah. What you do, Daisy? Daisy, you die!

  Daisy. Yes, I die. The day has come. The jungle takes back its own.

  Amah. [Distraught.] Oh, Daisy! Daisy! My little flower.

  Daisy. How long will it take? [The Amah sobs desperately. Daisy goes to the Manchu clothes and takes them up.] Help me to put these on.

  Amah. [Dumbfounded.] What you mean, Daisy?

  Daisy. Curse you, do as I tell you!

  Amah. I think you crazy. [Daisy slips into the long skirt and the Amah with trembling hands helps her into the coat. In the middle of her dressing Daisy staggers.] Daisy.

  Daisy. [Recovering herself.] Don’t be a fool. I’m all right.

  Amah. [In a terrified whisper.] There’s Harry.

  Daisy. Give me the headdress.

  Harry. [Outside.] Open the door.

  Daisy. Be quick.

  Amah. I no understand. You die, Daisy. You die.

  [The knocking is repeated more violently.

  Harry. [Shouting.] Daisy! Amah! Open the door. If you don’t open I’ll break it down.

  [Daisy is ready. She steps on to the pallet and sits in the Chinese fashion.

  Daisy. Go to the door. Open when I tell you.

  [There is by Daisy’s side a box in which are the paints and pencils the Chinese lady uses to make up her face. Daisy opens it. She takes out a hand mirror.

  Harry. Who’s there? Open, I tell you! Open!

  [Daisy puts rouge on her cheeks. She takes a black pencil and touches her eyebrows. She gives them a slight slant so that she looks on a sudden absolutely Chinese.

  Daisy. Open!

  [The Amah draws the bolt and Harry bursts in.

  Harry. Daisy! [He comes forward impetuously and then on a sudden stops. He is taken aback. Something, he knows not what, comes over him and he feels helpless and strangely weak.] Daisy, what does it mean? These letters. [He takes them out of his pocket and thrusts them towards her. She takes no notice of him.] Daisy, speak to me. I don’t understand. [He staggers towards her with outstretched hands.] For God’s sake, say it isn’t true.

  [Motionless she contemplates in the mirror the Chinese woman of the reflection.

  THE END

  Selected Non-Fiction

  Saint Thomas’ Hospital, London — for five years Maugham studied medicine here in Lambeth. The school was then independent, but is now part of King’s College London.

  THE LAND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN

  SKETCHES AND IMPRESSIONS IN ANDALUSIA

  CONTENTS

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  XXXVII

  XXXVIII

  XXXIX

  TO

  VIOLET HUNT

  I

  The Spirit of Andalusia

  After one has left a country it is interesting to collect together the emotions it has given in an effort to define its
particular character. And with Andalusia the attempt is especially fascinating, for it is a land of contrasts in which work upon one another, diversely, a hundred influences.

  In London now, as I write, the rain of an English April pours down; the sky is leaden and cold, the houses in front of me are almost terrible in their monotonous greyness, the slate roofs are shining with the wet. Now and again people pass: a woman of the slums in a dirty apron, her head wrapped in a grey shawl; two girls in waterproofs, trim and alert notwithstanding the inclement weather, one with a music-case under her arm. A train arrives at an underground station and a score of city folk cross my window, sheltered behind their umbrellas; and two or three groups of workmen, silently, smoking short pipes: they walk with a dull, heavy tramp, with the gait of strong men who are very tired. Still the rain pours down unceasing.

  And I think of Andalusia. My mind is suddenly ablaze with its sunshine, with its opulent colour, luminous and soft; I think of the cities, the white cities bathed in light; of the desolate wastes of sand, with their dwarf palms, the broom in flower. And in my ears I hear the twang of the guitar, the rhythmical clapping of hands and the castanets, as two girls dance in the sunlight on a holiday. I see the crowds going to the bull-fight, intensely living, many-coloured. And a thousand scents are wafted across my memory; I remember the cloudless nights, the silence of sleeping towns, and the silence of desert country; I remember old whitewashed taverns, and the perfumed wines of Malaga, of Jerez, and of Manzanilla. (The rain pours down without stay in oblique long lines, the light is quickly failing, the street is sad and very cheerless.) I feel on my shoulder the touch of dainty hands, of little hands with tapering fingers, and on my mouth the kisses of red lips, and I hear a joyous laugh. I remember the voice that bade me farewell that last night in Seville, and the gleam of dark eyes and dark hair at the foot of the stairs, as I looked back from the gate. ‘Feliz viage, mi Inglesito.’

  It was not love I felt for you, Rosarito; I wish it had been; but now far away, in the rain, I fancy, (oh no, not that I am at last in love,) but perhaps that I am just faintly enamoured — of your recollection.

  But these are all Spanish things, and more than half one’s impressions of Andalusia are connected with the Moors. Not only did they make exquisite buildings, they moulded a whole people to their likeness; the Andalusian character is rich with Oriental traits; the houses, the mode of life, the very atmosphere is Moorish rather than Christian; to this day the peasant at his plough sings the same quavering lament that sang the Moor. And it is to the invaders that Spain as a country owes the magnificence of its golden age: it was contact with them that gave the Spaniards cultivation; it was the conflict of seven hundred years that made them the best soldiers in Europe, and masters of half the world. The long struggle caused that tension of spirit which led to the adventurous descent upon America, teaching recklessness of life and the fascination of unknown dangers; and it caused their downfall as it had caused their rise, for the religious element in the racial war occasioned the most cruel bigotry that has existed on the face of the earth, so that the victors suffered as terribly as the vanquished. The Moors, hounded out of Spain, took with them their arts and handicrafts — as the Huguenots from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes — and though for a while the light of Spain burnt very brightly, the light borrowed from Moordom, the oil jar was broken and the lamp flickered out.

  In most countries there is one person in particular who seems to typify the race, whose works are the synthesis, as it were, of an entire people. Bernini expressed in this manner a whole age of Italian society; and even now his spirit haunts you as you read the gorgeous sins of Roman noblemen in the pages of Gabriele d’Annunzio. And Murillo, though the expert not unjustly from their special point of view, see in him but a mediocre artist, in the same way is the very quintessence of Southern Spain. Wielders of the brush, occupied chiefly with technique, are apt to discern little in an old master, save the craftsman; yet art is no more than a link in the chain of life and cannot be sharply sundered from the civilisation of which it is an outcome: even Velasquez, sans peer, sans parallel, throws a curious light on the world of his day, and the cleverest painters would find their knowledge and understanding of that great genius the fuller if they were acquainted with the plays of Lope de la Vega and the satires of Quevedo. Notwithstanding Murillo’s obvious faults, as you walk through the museum at Seville all Andalusia appears before you. Nothing could be more characteristic than the religious feeling of the many pictures, than the exuberant fancy and utter lack of idealisation: in the contrast between a Holy Family by Murillo and one by Perugino is all the difference between Spain and Italy. Murillo’s Virgin is a peasant girl such as you may see in any village round Seville on a feast-day; her emotions are purely human, and in her face is nothing more than the intense love of a mother for her child. But the Italian shows a creature not of earth, an angelic maid with almond eyes, oval of face: she has a strange air of unrealness, for her body is not of human flesh and blood, and she is linked with mankind only by an infinite sadness; she seems to see already the Dolorous Way, and her eyes are heavy with countless unwept tears.

  One picture especially, that which the painter himself thought his best work, Saint Thomas of Villanueva distributing Alms, to my mind offers the entire impression of that full life of Andalusia. In the splendour of mitre and of pastoral staff, in the sober magnificence of architecture, is all the opulence of the Catholic Church; in the worn, patient, ascetic face of the saint is the mystic, fervid piety which distinguished so wonderfully the warlike and barbarous Spain of the sixteenth century; and lastly, in the beggars covered with sores, pale, starving, with their malodorous rags, you feel strangely the swarming poverty of the vast population, downtrodden and vivacious, which you read of in the picaresque novels of a later day. And these same characteristics, the deep religious feeling, the splendour, the poverty, the extreme sense of vigorous life, the discerning may find even now among the Andalusians for all the modern modes with which, as with coats of London and bonnets of Paris, they have sought to liken themselves to the rest of Europe.

  And the colours of Murillo’s palette are the typical colours of Andalusia, rich, hot, and deep — again contrasting with the enamelled brilliance of the Umbrians. He seems to have charged his brush with the very light and atmosphere of Seville; the country bathed in the splendour of an August sun has just the luminous character, the haziness of contour, which characterise the paintings of Murillo’s latest manner. They say he adopted the style termed vaporoso for greater rapidity of execution, but he cannot have lived all his life in that radiant atmosphere without being impregnated with it. In Andalusia there is a quality of the air which gives all things a limpid, brilliant softness, the sea of gold poured out upon them voluptuously rounds away their outlines; and one can well imagine that the master deemed it the culmination of his art when he painted with the same aureate effulgence, when he put on canvas those gorgeous tints and that exquisite mellowness.

  II

  The Churches of Ronda

  That necessity of realism which is, perhaps, the most conspicuous of Spanish traits, shows itself nowhere more obviously than in matters religious. It is a very listless emotion that is satisfied with the shadow of the ideal; and the belief of the Andaluz is an intensely living thing, into which he throws himself with a vehemence that requires the nude and brutal fact. His saints must be fashioned after his own likeness, for he has small power of make-believe, and needs all manner of substantial accessories to establish his faith. But then he treats the images as living persons, and it never occurs to him to pray to the Saint in Paradise while kneeling before his presentment upon earth. The Spanish girl at the altar of Mater Dolorosa prays to a veritable woman, able to speak if so she wills, able to descend from the golden shrine to comfort the devout worshipper. To her nothing is more real than these Madonnas, with their dark eyes and their abundant hair: Maria del Pilar, who is Mary of the Fountain, Maria del R
osario, who is Mary of the Rosary, Maria de los Dolores, Maria del Carmen, Maria de los Angeles. And they wear magnificent gowns of brocade and of cloth-of-gold, mantles heavily embroidered, shoes, rings on their fingers, rich jewels about their necks.

  In a little town like Ronda, so entirely apart from the world, poverty-stricken, this desire for realism makes a curiously strong impression. The churches, coated with whitewash, are squalid, cold and depressing; and at first sight the row of images looks nothing more than a somewhat vulgar exhibition of wax-work. But presently, as I lingered, the very poverty of it all touched me; and forgetting the grotesqueness, I perceived that some of the saints in their elaborate dresses were quite charming and graceful. In the church of Santa Maria la Mayor was a Saint Catherine in rich habiliments of red brocade, with a white mantilla arranged as only a Spanish woman could arrange it. She might have been a young gentlewoman of fifty years back when costume was gayer than nowadays, arrayed for a fashionable wedding or for a bull-fight. And in another church I saw a youthful Saint in priest’s robes, a cassock of black silk and a short surplice of exquisite lace; he held a bunch of lilies in his hand and looked very gently, his lips almost trembling to a smile. One can imagine that not to them would come the suppliant with a heavy despair, they would be merely pained at their helplessness before the tears of the grief that kills and the woe of mothers sorrowing for their sons. But when the black-eyed maiden knelt before the priest, courtly and debonair, begging him to send a husband quickly, his lips surely would control themselves no longer, and his smile would set the damsel’s cheek a-blushing. And if a youth knelt before Saint Catherine in her dainty mantilla, and vowed his heart was breaking because his love gave him stony glances, she would look very graciously upon him, so that his courage was restored, and he promised her a silver heart as lovers in Greece made votive offerings to Aphrodite.