Chapter XXXVIII

by William Somerset Maugham

　　I did not see him again for nearly a week. Then he fetched mesoon after seven one evening and took me out to dinner.He was dressed in the deepest mourning, and on his bowler was abroad black band. He had even a black border to his handkerchief.His garb of woe suggested that he had lost in onecatastrophe every relation he had in the world, even tocousins by marriage twice removed. His plumpness and his red,fat cheeks made his mourning not a little incongruous. It wascruel that his extreme unhappiness should have in it somethingof buffoonery.He told me he had made up his mind to go away, though not toItaly, as I had suggested, but to Holland."I'm starting to-morrow. This is perhaps the last time weshall ever meet."I made an appropriate rejoinder, and he smiled wanly."I haven't been home for five years. I think I'd forgotten it all;I seemed to have come so far away from my father's housethat I was shy at the idea of revisiting it; but now I feelit's my only refuge."He was sore and bruised, and his thoughts went back to thetenderness of his mother's love. The ridicule he had enduredfor years seemed now to weigh him down, and the final blow ofBlanche's treachery had robbed him of the resiliency which hadmade him take it so gaily. He could no longer laugh withthose who laughed at him. He was an outcast. He told me ofhis childhood in the tidy brick house, and of his mother'spassionate orderliness. Her kitchen was a miracle of cleanbrightness. Everything was always in its place, and no wherecould you see a speck of dust. Cleanliness, indeed, was amania with her. I saw a neat little old woman, with cheekslike apples, toiling away from morning to night, through thelong years, to keep her house trim and spruce. His father wasa spare old man, his hands gnarled after the work of alifetime, silent and upright; in the evening he read the paperaloud, while his wife and daughter (now married to the captainof a fishing smack), unwilling to lose a moment, bent overtheir sewing. Nothing ever happened in that little town, leftbehind by the advance of civilisation, and one year followedthe next till death came, like a friend, to give rest to thosewho had laboured so diligently."My father wished me to become a carpenter like himself.For five generations we've carried on the same trade, from fatherto son. Perhaps that is the wisdom of life, to tread in yourfather's steps, and look neither to the right nor to the left.When I was a little boy I said I would marry the daughter ofthe harness-maker who lived next door. She was a little girlwith blue eyes and a flaxen pigtail. She would have kept myhouse like a new pin, and I should have had a son to carry onthe business after me."Stroeve sighed a little and was silent. His thoughts dweltamong pictures of what might have been, and the safety of thelife he had refused filled him with longing."The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why,and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We mustsee the beauty of quietness. We must go through life soinconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seekthe love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance isbetter than all our knowledge. Let us be silent, content inour little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is thewisdom of life."To me it was his broken spirit that expressed itself, and Irebelled against his renunciation. But I kept my own counsel."What made you think of being a painter?" I asked.He shrugged his shoulders."It happened that I had a knack for drawing. I got prizes forit at school. My poor mother was very proud of my gift,and she gave me a box of water-colours as a present. She showedmy sketches to the pastor and the doctor and the judge.And they sent me to Amsterdam to try for a scholarship, and I wonit. Poor soul, she was so proud; and though it nearly brokeher heart to part from me, she smiled, and would not show meher grief. She was pleased that her son should be an artist.They pinched and saved so that I should have enough to live on,and when my first picture was exhibited they came toAmsterdam to see it, my father and mother and my sister,and my mother cried when she looked at it." His kind eyes glistened."And now on every wall of the old house there is one of mypictures in a beautiful gold frame."He glowed with happy pride. I thought of those cold scenes ofhis, with their picturesque peasants and cypresses and olive-trees.They must look queer in their garish frames on the walls ofthe peasant house."The dear soul thought she was doing a wonderful thing for mewhen she made me an artist, but perhaps, after all, it wouldhave been better for me if my father's will had prevailed andI were now but an honest carpenter.""Now that you know what art can offer, would you change yourlife? Would you have missed all the delight it has given you?""Art is the greatest thing in the world," he answered, after a pause.He looked at me for a minute reflectively; he seemed to hesitate;then he said:"Did you know that I had been to see Strickland?""You?"I was astonished. I should have thought he could not bear toset eyes on him. Stroeve smiled faintly."You know already that I have no proper pride.""What do you mean by that?"He told me a singular story.