The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
They started early in order to arrive before the heat of the day and were carried along a narrow causeway between rice-fields. Now and then they passed comfortable farm-houses nestling with friendly intimacy in a grove of bamboos. Kitty enjoyed the idleness; it was pleasant after being cooped up in the city to see about her the wide country. They came to the monastery, straggling low buildings by the side of the river, agreeably shaded by trees, and were led by smiling monks throughout courtyards, empty with a solemn emptiness, and shown temples with grimacing gods. In the sanctuary sat the Buddha, remote and sad, wistful, abstracted and faintly smiling. There was about everything a sense of dejection; the magnificence was shoddy and ruined; the gods were dusty and the faith that had made them was dying. The monks seemed to stay on sufferance, as though they awaited a notice to quit; and in the smile of the abbot, with his beautiful politeness, was the irony of resignation. One of these days the monks would wander away from the shady, pleasant wood, and the buildings, crumbling and neglected, would be battered by fierce storms and besieged by the surrounding nature. Wild creepers would twine themselves about the dead images and the trees would grow in the courtyards. Then the gods would dwell there no longer, but evil spirits of darkness.
54
They sat on the steps of a little building (four lacquered columns and a high, tiled roof under which stood a great bronze bell) and watched the river flow sluggish and with many a bend towards the stricken city. They could see its crenellated walls. The heat hung over it like a pall. But the river, though it flowed so slowly, had still a sense of movement and it gave one a melancholy feeling of the transitoriness of things. Everything passed, and what trace of its passage remained? It seemed to Kitty that they were all, the human race, like the drops of water in that river and they flowed on, each so close to the other and yet so far apart, a nameless flood, to the sea. When all things lasted so short a time and nothing mattered very much, it seemed pitiful that men, attaching an absurd importance to trivial objects, should make themselves and one another so unhappy.
‘Do you know Harrington Gardens?’ she asked Waddington, with a smile in her beautiful eyes.
‘No. Why?’
‘Nothing; only it’s a long way from here. It’s where my people live.’
‘Are you thinking of going home?’
‘No.’
‘I suppose you’ll be leaving here in a couple of months. The epidemic seems to be abating and the cool weather should see the end of it.’
‘I almost think I shall be sorry to go.’
For a moment she thought of the future. She did not know what plans Walter had in mind. He told her nothing. He was cool, polite, silent and inscrutable. Two little drops in that river that flowed silently towards the unknown; two little drops that to themselves had so much individuality and to the onlooker were but an undistinguishable part of the water.
‘Take care the nuns don’t start converting you,’ said Waddington, with his malicious little smile.
‘They’re much too busy. Nor do they care. They’re wonderful and so kind; and yet – I hardly know how to explain it – there is a wall between them and me. I don’t know what it is. It is as though they possessed a secret which made all the difference in their lives and which I was unworthy to share. It is not faith; it is something deeper and more – more significant: they walk in a different world from ours and we shall always be strangers to them. Each day when the convent door closes behind me I feel that for them I have ceased to exist.’
‘I can understand that it is something of a blow to your vanity,’ he returned mockingly.
‘My vanity.’
Kitty shrugged her shoulders. Then, smiling once more, she turned to him lazily.
‘Why did you never tell me that you lived with a Manchu princess?’
‘What have those gossiping old women been telling you? I am sure that it is a sin for nuns to discuss the private affairs of the Customs officials.’
‘Why should you be so sensitive?’
Waddington glanced down, sideways, so that it gave him an air of slyness. He faintly shrugged his shoulders.
‘It’s not a thing to advertise. I do not know that it would greatly add to my chances of promotion in the service.’
‘Are you very fond of her?’
He looked up now and his ugly little face had the look of a naughty schoolboy’s.
‘She’s abandoned everything for my sake, home, family, security and self-respect. It’s a good many years now since she threw everything to the winds to be with me. I’ve sent her away two or three times, but she’s always come back; I’ve run away from her myself, but she’s always followed me. And now I’ve given it up as a bad job; I think I’ve got to put up with her for the rest of my life.’
‘She must really love you to distraction.’
‘It’s a rather funny sensation, you know,’ he answered, wrinkling a perplexed forehead. ‘I haven’t the smallest doubt that if I really left her, definitely, she would commit suicide. Not with any ill-feeling towards me, but quite naturally, because she was unwilling to live without me. It is a curious feeling it gives one to know that. It can’t help meaning something to you.’
‘But it’s loving that’s the important thing, not being loved. One’s not even grateful to the people who love one; if one doesn’t love them, they only bore one.’
‘I have no experience of the plural,’ he replied. ‘Mine is only in the singular.’
‘Is she really an Imperial Princess?’
‘No, that is a romantic exaggeration of the nuns. She belongs to one of the great families of the Manchus, but they have, of course, been ruined by the revolution. She is all the same a very great lady.’
He said it in a tone of pride, so that a smile flickered in Kitty’s eyes.
‘Are you going to stay here for the rest of your life then?’
‘In China? Yes. What would she do elsewhere? When I retire I shall take a little Chinese house in Peking and spend the rest of my days there.’
‘Have you any children?’
‘No.’
She looked at him curiously. It was strange that this little bald-headed man with his monkey face should have aroused in the alien woman so devastating a passion. She could not tell why the way he spoke of her, notwithstanding his casual manner and his flippant phrases, gave her the impression so strongly of the woman’s intense and unique devotion. It troubled her a little.
‘It does seem a long way to Harrington Gardens,’ she smiled.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I don’t understand anything. Life is so strange. I feel like some one who’s lived all his life by a duck-pond and suddenly is shown the sea. It makes me a little breathless, and yet it fills me with elation. I don’t want to die, I want to live. I’m beginning to feel a new courage. I feel like one of those old sailors who set sail for undiscovered seas and I think my soul hankers for the unknown.’
Waddington looked at her reflectively. Her abstracted gaze rested on the smoothness of the river. Two little drops that flowed silently, silently towards the dark, eternal sea.
‘May I come and see the Manchu lady?’ asked Kitty, suddenly raising her head.
‘She can’t speak a word of English.’
‘You’ve been very kind to me, you’ve done a great deal for me, perhaps I could show her by my manner that I had a friendly feeling towards her.’
Waddington gave a thin, mocking little smile, but he answered with good-humour.
‘I will come and fetch you one day and she shall give you a cup of jasmine tea.’
She would not tell him that this story of an alien love had from the first moment strangely intrigued her fancy, and the Manchu Princess stood now as the symbol of something that vaguely, but insistently, beckoned to her. She pointed enigmatically to a mystic land of the spirit.
55
But a day or two later Kitty made an unforeseen discovery.
She went to the convent as usual an
When she opened her eyes she did not at first know where she was. She seemed to be lying on the floor and, moving her head slightly, she thought that there was a pillow under it. She could not remember. The Mother Superior was kneeling by her side, holding smelling salts to her nose, and Sister St. Joseph stood looking at her. Then it came back. Cholera! She saw the consternation on the nuns’ faces. Sister St. Joseph looked huge and her outline was blurred. Once more terror overwhelmed her.
‘Oh, Mother, Mother,’ she sobbed. ‘Am I going to die? I don’t want to die.’
‘Of course you’re not going to die,’ said the Mother Superior.
She was quite composed and there was even amusement in her eyes.
‘But it’s cholera. Where’s Walter? Has he been sent for? Oh, Mother, Mother.’
She burst into a flood of tears. The Mother Superior gave her hand and Kitty seized it as though it were a hold upon the life she feared to lose.
‘Come, come, my dear child, you mustn’t be so silly. It’s not cholera or anything bf the kind.’
‘Where’s Walter?’
‘Your husband is much too busy to be troubled. In five minutes you’ll be perfectly well.’
Kitty looked at her with staring, harassed eyes. Why did she take it so calmly? It was cruel.
‘Keep perfectly quiet for a minute,’ said the Mother Superior. ‘There is nothing to alarm yourself about.’
Kitty felt her heart beat madly. She had grown so used to the thought of cholera that it had ceased to seem possible that she could catch it. Oh, the fool she had been! She knew she was going to die. She was frightened. The girls brought in a long rattan chair and placed it by the window.
‘Come, let us lift you,’ said the Mother Superior. ‘You will be more comfortable on the chaise longue. Do you think you can stand?’
She put her hands under Kitty’s arms and Sister St. Joseph helped her to her feet. She sank exhausted into the chair.
‘I had better shut the window,’ said Sister St. Joseph. ‘The early morning air cannot be good for her.’
‘No, no,’ said Kitty. ‘Please leave it open.’
It gave her confidence to see the blue sky. She was shaken, but certainly she began to feel better. The two nuns looked at her for a moment in silence, and Sister St. Joseph said something to the Mother Superior which she could not understand. Then the Mother Superior sat on the side of the chair and took her hand.
‘Listen, ma chère enfant ...’
She asked her one or two questions. Kitty answered them without knowing what they meant. Her lips were trembling so that she could hardly frame the words.
‘There is no doubt about it,’ said Sister St. Joseph. ‘I am not one to be deceived in such a matter.’
She gave a little laugh in which Kitty seemed to discern a certain excitement and not a little affection. The Mother Superior, still holding Kitty’s hand, smiled with soft tenderness.
‘Sister St. Joseph has more experience of these things than I have, dear child, and she said at once what was the matter with you. She was evidently quite right.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Kitty anxiously.
‘It is quite evident. Did the possibility of such a thing never occur to you? You are with child, my dear.’
The start that Kitty gave shook her from head to foot, and she put her feet to the ground as though to spring up.
‘Lie still, lie still,’ said the Mother Superior.
Kitty felt herself blush furiously and she put her hands to her breasts.
‘It’s impossible. It isn’t true.’
‘Qu’est ce qu’elle dit?’ asked Sister St. Joseph.
The Mother Superior translated. Sister St. Joseph’s broad simple face, with its red cheeks, was beaming.
‘No mistakes is possible. I give you my word of honour.’
‘How long have you been married, my child?’ asked the Mother Superior. ‘Why, when my sister-in-law had been married as long as you she had already two babies.’
Kitty sank back into the chair. There was death in her heart.
‘I’m so ashamed,’ she whispered.
‘Because you are going to have a baby? Why, what can be more natural?’
‘Quelle joie pour le docteur,’ said Sister St. Joseph.
‘Yes, think what a happiness for your husband. He will be overwhelmed with joy. You have only to see him with babies, and the look on his face when he plays with them, to see how enchanted he will be to have one of his own.’
For a little while Kitty was silent. The two nuns looked at her with tender interest and the Mother Superior stroked her hand.
‘It was silly of me not to have suspected it before,’ said Kitty. ‘At all events I’m glad it’s not cholera. I feel very much better. I will get back to my work.’
‘Not to-day, my dear child. You have had a shock, you had much better go home and rest yourself.’
‘No, no, I would much rather stay and work.’
‘I insist. What would our good doctor say if I let you be imprudent? Come to-morrow, if you like, or the day after, but to-day you must be quiet. I will send for a chair. Would you like me to let one of our young girls go with you?’
‘Oh, no, I shall be all right alone.’
56
Kitty was lying on her bed and the shutters were closed. It was after luncheon and the servants slept. What she had learnt that morning (and now she was certain that it was true) filled her with consternation. Ever since she came home she had been trying to think; but her mind was a blank, and she could not collect her thoughts. Suddenly she heard a step, the feet were booted so that it could not be one of the boys; with a gasp of apprehension she realised that it could only be her husband. He was in the sitting-room and she heard herself called. She did not reply. There was a moment’s silence and then a knock on her door.
‘Yes?’
‘May I come in?’
Kitty rose from her bed and slipped into a dressing-gown.
‘Yes.’
He entered. She was glad that the closed shutters shadowed her face.
‘I hope I didn’t wake you. I knocked very, very gently.’
‘I haven’t been asleep.’
He went to one of the windows and threw open the shutter. A flood of warm light streamed into the room.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Why are you back so early?’
‘The Sisters said that you weren’t very well. I thought I had better come and see what was the matter.’
A flash of anger passed through her.
‘What would you have said if it had been cholera?’
‘If it had been you certainly couldn’t have made your way home this morning.’
She went to the dressing-table and passed the comb through her shingled hair. She wanted to gain time. Then, sitting down, she lit a cigarette.
‘I wasn’t very well this morning and the Mother Superior thought I’d better come back here. But I’m perfectly all right again. I shall go to the convent as usual to-morrow.’
‘What was the matter with you?’
‘Didn’t they tell you?’
<
He did now what he did seldom; he looked her full in the face; his professional instincts were stronger than his personal. She hesitated. Then she forced herself to meet his eyes.
‘I’m going to have a baby,’ she said.
She was accustomed to his habit of meeting with silence a statement which you would naturally expect to evoke an exclamation, but never had it seemed to her more devastating. He said nothing; he made no gesture; no movement on his face nor change of expression in his dark eyes indicated that he had heard. She felt suddenly inclined to cry. If a man loved his wife and his wife loved him, at such a moment they were drawn together by a poignant emotion. The silence was intolerable and she broke it.
‘I don’t know why it never occurred to me before. It was stupid of me, but... what with one thing and another ...’
‘How long have you ... when do you expect to be confined?’
The words seemed to issue from his lips with difficulty. She felt that his throat was as dry as hers. It was a nuisance that her lips trembled so when she spoke; if he was not of stone it must excite his pity.
‘I suppose I’ve been like this between two and three months.’
‘Am I the father?’
She gave a little gasp. There was just a shadow of a tremor in his voice; it was dreadful that cold self-control of his which made the smallest token of emotion so shattering. She did not know why she thought suddenly of an instrument she had been shown in Hong-Kong upon which a needle oscillated a little and she had been told that this represented an earthquake a thousand miles away in which perhaps a thousand persons had lost their lives. She looked at him. He was ghastly pale. She had seen that pallor on him once, twice before. He was looking down, a little sideways.
‘Well?’
She clasped her hands. She knew that if she could say yes it would mean everything in the world to him. He would believe her, of course he would believe her, because he wanted to; and then he would forgive. She knew how deep was his tenderness and how ready he was, for all his shyness, to expend it. She knew that he was not vindictive; he would forgive her if she could but give him an excuse to, an excuse that touched his heart, and he would forgive completely. She could count on him never to throw the past in her teeth. Cruel he might be, cold and morbid, but he was neither mean nor petty. It would alter everything if she said yes.