Chapter LVII

by William Somerset Maugham

　　At that moment we were interrupted by the appearance ofMadame Coutras, who had been paying visits. She came in,like a ship in full sail, an imposing creature, tall and stout,with an ample bust and an obesity girthed in alarmingly bystraight-fronted corsets. She had a bold hooked nose and three chins.She held herself upright. She had not yielded for an instantto the enervating charm of the tropics, but contrariwise wasmore active, more worldly, more decided than anyone in atemperate clime would have thought it possible to be. She wasevidently a copious talker, and now poured forth a breathlessstream of anecdote and comment. She made the conversation wehad just had seem far away and unreal.Presently Dr. Coutras turned to me."I still have in my bureau the picture that Stricklandgave me," he said. "Would you like to see it?""Willingly."We got up, and he led me on to the verandah which surroundedhis house. We paused to look at the gay flowers that riotedin his garden."For a long time I could not get out of my head therecollection of the extraordinary decoration with whichStrickland had covered the walls of his house," he saidreflectively.I had been thinking of it, too. It seemed to me that hereStrickland had finally put the whole expression of himself.Working silently, knowing that it was his last chance, Ifancied that here he must have said all that he knew of lifeand all that he divined. And I fancied that perhaps here hehad at last found peace. The demon which possessed him wasexorcised at last, and with the completion of the work, forwhich all his life had been a painful preparation, restdescended on his remote and tortured soul. He was willing todie, for he had fulfilled his purpose."What was the subject?" I asked."I scarcely know. It was strange and fantastic. It was avision of the beginnings of the world, the Garden of Eden,with Adam and Eve -- que sais-je? -- it was a hymn to thebeauty of the human form, male and female, and the praise ofNature, sublime, indifferent, lovely, and cruel. It gave youan awful sense of the infinity of space and of the endlessnessof time. Because he painted the trees I see about me everyday, the cocoa-nuts, the banyans, the flamboyants, thealligator-pears, I have seen them ever since differently, asthough there were in them a spirit and a mystery which I amever on the point of seizing and which forever escapes me.The colours were the colours familiar to me, and yet theywere different. They had a significance which was all their own.And those nude men and women. They were of the earth, and yetapart from it. They seemed to possess something of the clayof which they were created, and at the same time something divine.You saw man in the nakedness of his primeval instincts,and you were afraid, for you saw yourself."Dr. Coutras shrugged his shoulders and smiled."You will laugh at me. I am a materialist, and I am a gross,fat man -- Falstaff, eh? -- the lyrical mode does not become me.I make myself ridiculous. But I have never seen paintingwhich made so deep an impression upon me. Tenez, I had justthe same feeling as when I went to the Sistine Chapel in Rome.There too I was awed by the greatness of the man whohad painted that ceiling. It was genius, and it wasstupendous and overwhelming. I felt small and insignificant.But you are prepared for the greatness of Michael Angelo.Nothing had prepared me for the immense surprise of thesepictures in a native hut, far away from civilisation, in afold of the mountain above Taravao. And Michael Angelo issane and healthy. Those great works of his have the calm ofthe sublime; but here, notwithstanding beauty, was somethingtroubling. I do not know what it was. It made me uneasy.It gave me the impression you get when you are sitting next doorto a room that you know is empty, but in which, you know notwhy, you have a dreadful consciousness that notwithstandingthere is someone. You scold yourself; you know it is onlyyour nerves -- and yet, and yet... In a little while it isimpossible to resist the terror that seizes you, and you arehelpless in the clutch of an unseen horror. Yes; I confess Iwas not altogether sorry when I heard that those strangemasterpieces had been destroyed.""Destroyed?" I cried."Mais oui; did you not know?""How should I know? It is true I had never heard of this work;but I thought perhaps it had fallen into the hands of aprivate owner. Even now there is no certain list ofStrickland's paintings.""When he grew blind he would sit hour after hour in those tworooms that he had painted, looking at his works with sightlesseyes, and seeing, perhaps, more than he had ever seen in hislife before. Ata told me that he never complained of hisfate, he never lost courage. To the end his mind remainedserene and undisturbed. But he made her promise that when shehad buried him -- did I tell you that I dug his grave with myown hands, for none of the natives would approach the infectedhouse, and we buried him, she and I, sewn up in threepareos joined together, under the mango-tree -- he made herpromise that she would set fire to the house and not leave ittill it was burned to the ground and not a stick remained."I did not speak for a while, for I was thinking. Then I said:"He remained the same to the end, then.""Do you understand? I must tell you that I thought it my dutyto dissuade her.""Even after what you have just said?""Yes; for I knew that here was a work of genius, and I did notthink we had the right to deprive the world of it. But Atawould not listen to me. She had promised. I would not stayto witness the barbarous deed, and it was only afterwards thatI heard what she had done. She poured paraffin on the dryfloors and on the pandanus-mats, and then she set fire. In alittle while nothing remained but smouldering embers, and agreat masterpiece existed no longer."I think Strickland knew it was a masterpiece. He hadachieved what he wanted. His life was complete. He had madea world and saw that it was good. Then, in pride andcontempt, he destroyed, it.""But I must show you my picture," said Dr. Coutras, moving on."What happened to Ata and the child?"They went to the Marquesas. She had relations there. I haveheard that the boy works on one of Cameron's schooners.They say he is very like his father in appearance."At the door that led from the verandah to the doctor'sconsulting-room, he paused and smiled."It is a fruit-piece. You would think it not a very suitablepicture for a doctor's consulting-room, but my wife will nothave it in the drawing-room. She says it is frankly obscene.""A fruit-piece!" I exclaimed in surprise.We entered the room, and my eyes fell at once on the picture.I looked at it for a long time.It was a pile of mangoes, bananas, oranges, and I know notwhat. and at first sight it was an innocent picture enough.It would have been passed in an exhibition of the Post-Impressionists by a careless person as an excellent but notvery remarkable example of the school; but perhaps afterwardsit would come back to his recollection, and he would wonderwhy. I do not think then he could ever entirely forget it.The colours were so strange that words can hardly tell what atroubling emotion they gave. They were sombre blues, opaquelike a delicately carved bowl in lapis lazuli, and yet with aquivering lustre that suggested the palpitation of mysteriouslife; there were purples, horrible like raw and putrid flesh,and yet with a glowing, sensual passion that called up vaguememories of the Roman Empire of Heliogabalus; there were reds,shrill like the berries of holly -- one thought of Christmasin England, and the snow, the good cheer, and the pleasure ofchildren -- and yet by some magic softened till they had theswooning tenderness of a dove's breast; there were deepyellows that died with an unnatural passion into a green asfragrant as the spring and as pure as the sparkling water of amountain brook. Who can tell what anguished fancy made thesefruits? They belonged to a Polynesian garden of the Hesperides.There was something strangely alive in them, as thoughthey were created in a stage of the earth's dark historywhen things were not irrevocably fixed to their forms.They were extravagantly luxurious. They were heavy withtropical odours. They seemed to possess a sombre passion oftheir own. It was enchanted fruit, to taste which might openthe gateway to God knows what secrets of the soul and tomysterious palaces of the imagination. They were sullen withunawaited dangers, and to eat them might turn a man to beastor god. All that was healthy and natural, all that clung tohappy relationships and the simple joys of simple men, shrunkfrom them in dismay; and yet a fearful attraction was in them,and, like the fruit on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good andEvil they were terrible with the possibilities of the Unknown.At last I turned away. I felt that Strickland had kept hissecret to the grave."Voyons, Rene, mon ami," came the loud, cheerful voice ofMadame Coutras, "what are you doing all this time? Here arethe aperitifs. Ask Monsieur if he will not drink alittle glass of Quinquina Dubonnet.""Volontiers, Madame," I said, going out on to the verandah.The spell was broken.