The Moon and Sixpence, W. Somerset Maugham [beach books .txt] 📗

in with him. When he was appointed Registrar at Thomas’s I hadn’t a chance of getting on the staff. I should have had to become a G.P., and you know what likelihood there is for a G.P. ever to get out of the common rut. But Abraham fell out, and I got the job. That gave me my opportunity.”

“I dare say that’s true.”

“It was just luck. I suppose there was some kink in Abraham. Poor devil, he’s gone to the dogs altogether. He’s got some twopenny-halfpenny job in the medical at Alexandria⁠—sanitary officer or something like that. I’m told he lives with an ugly old Greek woman and has half a dozen scrofulous kids. The fact is, I suppose, that it’s not enough to have brains. The thing that counts is character. Abraham hadn’t got character.”

Character? I should have thought it needed a good deal of character to throw up a career after half an hour’s meditation, because you saw in another way of living a more intense significance. And it required still more character never to regret the sudden step. But I said nothing, and Alec Carmichael proceeded reflectively:

“Of course it would be hypocritical for me to pretend that I regret what Abraham did. After all, I’ve scored by it.” He puffed luxuriously at the long Corona he was smoking. “But if I weren’t personally concerned I should be sorry at the waste. It seems a rotten thing that a man should make such a hash of life.”

I wondered if Abraham really had made a hash of life. Is to do what you most want, to live under the conditions that please you, in peace with yourself, to make a hash of life; and is it success to be an eminent surgeon with ten thousand a year and a beautiful wife? I suppose it depends on what meaning you attach to life, the claim which you acknowledge to society, and the claim of the individual. But again I held my tongue, for who am I to argue with a knight?

LI

Tiaré, when I told her this story, praised my prudence, and for a few minutes we worked in silence, for we were shelling peas. Then her eyes, always alert for the affairs of her kitchen, fell on some action of the Chinese cook which aroused her violent disapproval. She turned on him with a torrent of abuse. The Chink was not backward to defend himself, and a very lively quarrel ensued. They spoke in the native language, of which I had learnt but half a dozen words, and it sounded as though the world would shortly come to an end; but presently peace was restored and Tiaré gave the cook a cigarette. They both smoked comfortably.

“Do you know, it was I who found him his wife?” said Tiaré suddenly, with a smile that spread all over her immense face.

“The cook?”

“No, Strickland.”

“But he had one already.”

“That is what he said, but I told him she was in England, and England is at the other end of the world.”

“True,” I replied.

“He would come to Papeete every two or three months, when he wanted paints or tobacco or money, and then he would wander about like a lost dog. I was sorry for him. I had a girl here then called Ata to do the rooms; she was some sort of a relation of mine, and her father and mother were dead, so I had her to live with me. Strickland used to come here now and then to have a square meal or to play chess with one of the boys. I noticed that she looked at him when he came, and I asked her if she liked him. She said she liked him well enough. You know what these girls are; they’re always pleased to go with a white man.”

“Was she a native?” I asked.

“Yes; she hadn’t a drop of white blood in her. Well, after I’d talked to her I sent for Strickland, and I said to him: ‘Strickland, it’s time for you to settle down. A man of your age shouldn’t go playing about with the girls down at the front. They’re bad lots, and you’ll come to no good with them. You’ve got no money, and you can never keep a job for more than a month or two. No one will employ you now. You say you can always live in the bush with one or other of the natives, and they’re glad to have you because you’re a white man, but it’s not decent for a white man. Now, listen to me, Strickland.’ ”

Tiaré mingled French with English in her conversation, for she used both languages with equal facility. She spoke them with a singing accent which was not unpleasing. You felt that a bird would speak in these tones if it could speak English.

“ ‘Now, what do you say to marrying Ata? She’s a good girl and she’s only seventeen. She’s never been promiscuous like some of these girls⁠—a captain or a first mate, yes, but she’s never been touched by a native. Elle se respecte, vois-tu. The purser of the Oahu told me last journey that he hadn’t met a nicer girl in the islands. It’s time she settled down too, and besides, the captains and the first mates like a change now and then. I don’t keep my girls too long. She has a bit of property down by Taravao, just before you come to the peninsula, and with copra at the price it is now you could live quite comfortably. There’s a house, and you’d have all the time you wanted for your painting. What do you say to it?”

Tiaré paused to take breath.

“It was then he told me of his wife in England. ‘My poor Strickland,’ I said to him, ‘they’ve all got a wife somewhere; that is generally why they come to the islands. Ata is a sensible girl, and she doesn’t