Chapter LIV

by William Somerset Maugham

　　As we walked along I reflected on a circumstance which allthat I had lately heard about Strickland forced on my attention.Here, on this remote island, he seemed to have arousednone of the detestation with which he was regarded at home,but compassion rather; and his vagaries were acceptedwith tolerance. To these people, native and European, he wasa queer fish, but they were used to queer fish, and they tookhim for granted; the world was full of odd persons, who didodd things; and perhaps they knew that a man is not what hewants to be, but what he must be. In England and France hewas the square peg in the round hole, but here the holes wereany sort of shape, and no sort of peg was quite amiss.I do not think he was any gentler here, less selfish or lessbrutal, but the circumstances were more favourable. If he hadspent his life amid these surroundings he might have passedfor no worse a man than another. He received here what heneither expected nor wanted among his own people -- sympathy.I tried to tell Captain Brunot something of the astonishmentwith which this filled me, and for a little while he did notanswer."It is not strange that I, at all events, should have hadsympathy for him," he said at last, "for, though perhapsneither of us knew it, we were both aiming at the same thing.""What on earth can it be that two people so dissimilar as youand Strickland could aim at?" I asked, smiling."Beauty.""A large order," I murmured."Do you know how men can be so obsessed by love that they aredeaf and blind to everything else in the world? They are aslittle their own masters as the slaves chained to the benchesof a galley. The passion that held Strickland in bondage wasno less tyrannical than love.""How strange that you should say that!" I answered. "For longago I had the idea that he was possessed of a devil.""And the passion that held Strickland was a passion tocreate beauty. It gave him no peace. It urged him hitherand thither. He was eternally a pilgrim, haunted by a divinenostalgia, and the demon within him was ruthless. There aremen whose desire for truth is so great that to attain it theywill shatter the very foundation of their world. Of such wasStrickland, only beauty with him took the place of truth.I could only feel for him a profound compassion.""That is strange also. A man whom he had deeply wronged toldme that he felt a great pity for him." I was silent for a moment."I wonder if there you have found the explanation ofa character which has always seemed to me inexplicable.How did you hit on it?"He turned to me with a smile."Did I not tell you that I, too, in my way was an artist?I realised in myself the same desire as animated him.But whereas his medium was paint, mine has been life."Then Captain Brunot told me a story which I must repeat,since, if only by way of contrast, it adds something to myimpression of Strickland. It has also to my mind a beauty ofits own.Captain Brunot was a Breton, and had been in the French Navy.He left it on his marriage, and settled down on a smallproperty he had near Quimper to live for the rest of his daysin peace; but the failure of an attorney left him suddenlypenniless, and neither he nor his wife was willing to live inpenury where they had enjoyed consideration. During his seafaring days he had cruised the South Seas, and he determinednow to seek his fortune there. He spent some months in Papeeteto make his plans and gain experience; then, on money borrowedfrom a friend in France, he bought an island in the Paumotus.It was a ring of land round a deep lagoon, uninhabited,and covered only with scrub and wild guava. With theintrepid woman who was his wife, and a few natives,he landed there, and set about building a house, and clearingthe scrub so that he could plant cocoa-nuts. That was twentyyears before, and now what had been a barren island was a garden."It was hard and anxious work at first, and we workedstrenuously, both of us. Every day I was up at dawn,clearing, planting, working on my house, and at night when Ithrew myself on my bed it was to sleep like a log tillmorning. My wife worked as hard as I did. Then children wereborn to us, first a son and then a daughter. My wife and Ihave taught them all they know. We had a piano sent out fromFrance, and she has taught them to play and to speak English,and I have taught them Latin and mathematics, and we readhistory together. They can sail a boat. They can swim aswell as the natives. There is nothing about the land of whichthey are ignorant. Our trees have prospered, and there isshell on my reef. I have come to Tahiti now to buy aschooner. I can get enough shell to make it worth while tofish for it, and, who knows? I may find pearls. I have madesomething where there was nothing. I too have made beauty.Ah, you do not know what it is to look at those tall, healthytrees and think that every one I planted myself.""Let me ask you the question that you asked Strickland.Do you never regret France and your old home in Brittany?""Some day, when my daughter is married and my son has a wifeand is able to take my place on the island, we shall go backand finish our days in the old house in which I was born.""You will look back on a happy life," I said."Evidemment, it is not exciting on my island, and we arevery far from the world -- imagine, it takes me four days tocome to Tahiti -- but we are happy there. It is given to fewmen to attempt a work and to achieve it. Our life is simpleand innocent. We are untouched by ambition, and what pride wehave is due only to our contemplation of the work of ourhands. Malice cannot touch us, nor envy attack. Ah, moncher monsieur, they talk of the blessedness of labour, and itis a meaningless phrase, but to me it has the most intensesignificance. I am a happy man.""I am sure you deserve to be," I smiled."I wish I could think so. I do not know how I have deservedto have a wife who was the perfect friend and helpmate,the perfect mistress and the perfect mother."I reflected for a while on the life that the Captain suggestedto my imagination."It is obvious that to lead such an existence and make sogreat a success of it, you must both have needed a strong willand a determined character.""Perhaps; but without one other factor we could have achieved nothing.""And what was that?"He stopped, somewhat dramatically, and stretched out his arm."Belief in God. Without that we should have been lost."Then we arrived at the house of Dr. Coutras.