Handout: the painted veil (1925)

0 About Maugham

(1) WHO is Maugham (please wiki)
(2) TIMING of when this novel finished (1925)

1 About Preface: how Maugham came up with the idea

(1) Background of Dante (please wiki)
(2) Context & Meaning of the lines
"‘Pray, when you are returned to the world, and rested from the long journey; followed the third spirit on the second, ‘remember me, who am Pia. Siena made me, Maremma unmade me: this he knows who after betrothal espoused me with his ring."

...

“When we came to the passage I have quoted above she told me that Pia was a gentlewoman of Siena whose husband, suspecting her of adultery and afraid on account of her family to put her to death, took her down to his castle in the Maremma the noxious vapours of which he was confident would do the trick; but she took so long to die that he grew impatient and had her thrown out of the window.”

2 How the story goes

Part I: in Hongkong

[Beginning]

“She gave a startled cry.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

Notwithstanding the darkness of the shuttered room he saw her face on a sudden distraught with terror.

‘Some one just tried the door.”

“They saw the white china knob of the handle slowly turn. They had heard no one walk along the verandah. It was terrifying to see that silent motion. A minute passed and there was no sound. Then, with the ghastliness of the supernatural, in the same stealthy, noiseless and horrifying manner, they saw the white china knob of the handle at the other window turn also. It was so frightening that Kitty, her nerves failing her, opened her mouth to scream; but, seeing what she was going to do, he swiftly put his hand over it and her cry was smothered in his fingers.”

[Kitty & her lover Charles]

“But he took her wrist on which was a little gold watch and looked at the time.

‘Do you know what I must do now?’

‘Bolt?’ she smiled.

He nodded. For one instant she clung to him more closely, but she felt his desire to go, and she released him.

‘It’s shameful the way you neglect your work. Be off with you.’

He could never resist the temptation to flirt.

‘You seem in a devil of a hurry to get rid of me,’ he said lightly.

‘You know that I hate to let you go.’

Her answer was low and deep and serious. He gave a flattered laugh.”

[About Charles: in Chapter 3]

“She went out on to the verandah and watched him leave the house. He waved his hand to her. It gave her a little thrill as she looked at him; he was forty-one, but he had the lithe figure and the springing step of a boy.”

[Kitty's attitude on cheating: in part I]

“Of course it was stupid to behave as they had done that afternoon, but if he wanted her how could she be prudent?”

“It was very difficult at Hong-Kong. She hated the Chinese city and it made her nervous to go into the filthy little house off the Victoria Road in which they were in the habit of meeting.”

“Her heart beat a little faster as she remembered the way in which that white china knob slowly turned. They mustn’t take risks like that again. It was better to go to the curio shop. No one who saw her go in would think anything of it, and they were absolutely safe there. The owner of the shop knew who Charlie was and he was not such a fool as to put up the back of the Assistant Colonial Secretary. What did anything matter really but that Charlie loved her?”

“She sat down again, at a desk, and resting her face in her hands sought to think out the situation. Of course Walter might merely have thought she was sleeping: there was no reason why she should not lock herself in. She tried to remember if they had been talking. Certainly they had not been talking loud. And there was the hat. It was maddening of Charlie to have left it downstairs. But it was no use blaming him for that, it was natural enough, and there was nothing to tell that Walter had noticed it. He was probably in a hurry and had just left the book and note on his way to some appointment connected with his work. The strange thing was that he should have tried the door and then the two windows. If he thought she was asleep it was unlike him to disturb her. What a fool she had been!” (think over and over and over)

[Kitty's unsatisfaction with current position]

“'Of course it doesn’t matter, it only shows how stupid they are, but it is rather funny when you think of all the people who used to come to our house at home that here we should be treated like dirt.’

‘From a social standpoint the man of science does not exist,’ he smiled.

She knew that now, but she had not known it when she married him.”

[Description of Kitty's mother: Mrs. Garstin]

“Her fine black eyes were never still and this was the most noticeable thing about her; for when she was talking to you it was disconcerting to see those restless eyes in that impassive, unlined and yellow face. They moved from one part of you to another, to other persons in the room, and then back to you; you felt that she was criticising you, summing you up, watchful meanwhile of all that went on around her, and that the words she spoke had no connection with her thoughts.”

“Mrs. Garstin despised him. But she recognised, though with bitterness, that she could only achieve success through him, and she set herself to drive him on the way she desired to go. She nagged him without mercy. She discovered that if she wanted him to do something which his sensitiveness revolted against she had only to give him no peace and eventually, exhausted, he would yield. ”

“But there was a quality of courage in Mrs. Garstin which in itself was admirable. She let no one in her immediate circle, which to her was the world, see how mortified she was by the frustration of her hopes. ”

“Meanwhile she had the satisfaction of seeing him appointed Recorder of a Welsh town. But it was on her daughters that she set her hopes. By arranging good marriages for them she expected to make up for all the disappointments of her career."

[Description of Kitty's father: Bernard Garstin]

“He had seemed then a young man of promise and her father said he would go far. He hadn’t. ”

“Bernard Garstin had a fair, though not a large practice. ”

“It never occurred to them to ask themselves what were the feelings of the subdued little man who went out early in the morning and came home at night only in time to dress for dinner. He was a stranger to them, but because he was their father they took it for granted that he should love and cherish them.”

[Kitty & Mother: Marriage]

1- “When she (Kitty) came out she was dazzling: her skin was still her greatest beauty, but her eyes with their long lashes were so starry and yet so melting that it gave you a catch at the heart to look into them...

Mrs. Garstin bestowed upon her all the affection, a harsh, competent, calculating affection, of which she was capable; she dreamed ambitious dreams; it was not a good marriage she aimed at for her daughter, but a brilliant one.”

2- “Mrs. Garstin did not mince her words in the domestic circle and she warned her daughter tartly that she would miss her market.”

“Kitty shrugged her shoulders. She thought herself as pretty as ever, prettier perhaps, for she had learnt how to dress in the last four years, and she had plenty of time. If she wanted to marry just to be married there were a dozen boys who would jump at the chance. Surely the right man would come along sooner or later. 

//But Mrs. Garstin judged the situation more shrewdly: with anger in her heart for the beautiful daughter who had missed her chances she set her standard a little lower. She turned back to the professional class at which she had sneered in her pride and looked about for a young lawyer or a business man whose future inspired her with confidence.”

“Then Doris came out. She had a long nose still, and a poor figure, and she danced badly. In her first season she became engaged to Geoffrey Dennison. He was the only son of a prosperous surgeon who had been given a baronetcy during the war. Geoffrey would inherit a title– it is not very grand to be a medical baronet, but a title, thank God, is still a title – and a very comfortable fortune.

Kitty in a panic married Walter Fane.”

3- “I wouldn’t marry him if he were,’ said Kitty lightly.

Mrs. Garstin did not answer. Her silence was heavy with displeasure. Kitty flushed: she knew that her mother did not care now whom she married so long as somehow she got her off her hands.”

[Kitty & father: Marriage]

“It’s not often you like any of my young men, father,’ she said.

His kind, tired eyes rested upon her.

‘Are you going to marry him by any chance?’

‘Certainly not.”

[Kitty & her husband Walter: while dating]

1- “You know, I’ve danced with you at least a dozen times now and you must tell me your name,’ she said to him at last in her laughing way.

He was obviously taken aback.

‘Do you mean to say you don’t know it? I was introduced to you.’

‘Oh, but people always mumble. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if you hadn’t the ghost of an idea what mine was.’

He smiled at her. His face was grave and a trifle stern, but his smile was very sweet.

‘Of course I know it.’ He was silent for a moment or two. ‘Have you no curiosity?’ he asked then.

‘As much as most women.’

‘It didn’t occur to you to ask somebody or other what my name was?’

She Was faintly amused; she wondered why he thought it could in the least interest her; but she liked to please, so she looked at him with that dazzling smile of hers and her beautiful eyes, dewy ponds under forest trees, held an enchanting kindness.

‘Well, what is it?’

‘Walter Fane.”

2- “She wondered whether he told her these things with a motive. He seemed to like her society, but never by a pressure of the hand, by a glance or by a word, did he give the smallest indication that he looked upon her as anything but a girl whom you met and danced with. ”

3- “he asked her where she was going for the summer.

‘Oh, we always bury ourselves in the country. You see, father is exhausted after the term’s work and we just go to the quietest place we can find.’

Kitty spoke with her tongue in her cheek, for she knew quite well that her father had not nearly enough work to tire him and even if he had his convenience would never have been consulted in the choice of a holiday. But a quiet place was a cheap place.

”

[Kitty & her husband Walter: Propose - Chapter 11]

“Don’t you think those chairs look rather inviting?’ said Walter suddenly.

She followed his eyes and saw two green chairs by themselves under a tree on the grass.

‘Let us sit in them,’ she said.

But when they were seated he seemed to grow strangely abstracted. He was an odd creature.

...

...

'I want to say something to you.’

She looked at him quickly and she saw that his eyes were filled with a painful anxiety. His voice was strained, low and not quite steady. But before she could ask herself what this agitation meant he spoke again.

‘I want to ask you if you’ll marry me.’

‘You could knock me down with a feather,’ she answered so surprised that she looked at him blankly.

‘Didn’t you know I was awfully in love with you?’

‘You never showed it.’

‘I’m very awkward and clumsy. I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don’t.’

Her heart began to beat a little more quickly. She had been proposed to often before, but gaily or sentimentally, and she had answered in the same fashion. No one had ever asked her to marry him in a manner which was so abrupt and yet strangely tragic.

“It’s very kind of you,’ she said, doubtfully.

‘I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. I wanted to ask you before, but I could never bring myself to it.’

‘I’m not sure if that’s very well put,’ she chuckled.

She was glad to have an opportunity to laugh a little, for on that fine, sunny day the air about them seemed on a sudden heavy with foreboding. He frowned darkly.

“Oh, you know what I mean. I didn’t want to lose hope. But now you’re going away and in the autumn I have to go back to China.’

‘I’ve never thought of you in that way,’ she said helplessly.

He said nothing more. He looked down on the grass sullenly. He was a very odd creature. But now that he had told her she felt in some mysterious way that his love was something she had never met before. She was a little frightened, but she was elated also. His impassivity was vaguely impressive.

‘You must give me time to think.’

Still he did not say anything. He did not stir. Did he mean to keep her there till she had decided? That was absurd. She must talk it over with her mother. She ought to have got up when she spoke, she had waited thinking he would answer, and now, she did not know why, she found it difficult to make a movement. She did not look at him, but she was conscious of his appearance; she had never seen herself marrying a man so little taller than herself. When you sat close to him you saw how good his features were, and how cold his face. It was strange when you couldn’t help being conscious of the devastating passion which was in his heart.

‘I don’t know you, I don’t know you at all,’ she said tremulously.

He gave her a look and she felt her eyes drawn to his. They had a tenderness which she had never seen in them before, but there was something beseeching in them, like a dog’s that has been whipped, which slightly exasperated her.

‘I think I improve on acquaintance,’ he said.

‘Of course you’re shy, aren’t you?”

It was certainly the oddest proposal she had ever had. And even now it seemed to her that they were saying to one another the last things you would have expected on such an occasion. She was not in the least in love with him. She did not know why she hesitated to refuse him at once.

‘I’m awfully stupid,’ he said, ‘I want to tell you that I love you more than anything in the world, but I find it so awfully difficult to say.’

Now that was odd too, for inexplicably enough it touched her; he wasn’t really cold, of course, it was his manner that was unfortunate: she liked him at that moment better than she had ever liked him before. Doris was to be married in November. 

...

...

She turned to him with a smile which she well knew the effect of.

‘If I were so rash as to say I’d marry you, when would you want to marry me?’

He gave a sudden gasp of delight, and his white cheeks flushed.

‘Now. At once. As soon as possible. We’d go to Italy for our honeymoon. August and September.”

That would save her from spending the summer in a country vicarage, hired at five guineas a week, with her father and mother. In a flash she saw in her mind’s eye the announcement in the Morning Post that, the bridegroom having to return to the East, the wedding would take place at once. She knew her mother well enough, she could be counted on to make a splash; for the moment at least Doris would be in the background and when Doris’s much grander wedding took place she would be far away.

She stretched out her hand.

‘I think I like you very much. You must give me time to get used to you.’

‘Then it’s yes?’ he interrupted.

‘I suppose so.”

[Kitty & Walter: Couple life]

1- “She knew him very little then, and now, though they had been married for nearly two years, she knew him but little more.”

2- “he never came into her bedroom or her boudoir without a knock. He treated her not as Kitty had seen most men treat their wives, but as though she were a fellow-guest in a country house. ”

3- “Nor did their conjugal relations draw her closer to him. He was passionate then, fierce, oddly hysterical too, and sentimental.”

4- “It disconcerted her to realise how emotional he really was. His self-control was due to shyness or to long training, she did not know which”

5- “She had discovered very soon that he had an unhappy disability to lose himself. He was self-conscious. When there was a party and every one started singing Walter could never bring himself to join in. He sat there smiling to show that he was pleased and amused, but his smile was forced; it was more like a sarcastic smirk, and you could not help feeling that he thought all those people enjoying themselves a pack of fools. ”

6- “Kitty was lively; she was willing to chatter all day long and she laughed easily. His silence disconcerted her. He had a way which exasperated her of returning no answer to some casual remark of hers. It was true that it needed no answer, but an answer all the same would have been pleasant. If it was raining and she said: ‘It’s raining cats and dogs.’ she would have liked him to say: ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ He remained silent. Sometimes she would have liked to shake him.

‘I said it was raining cats and dogs,’ she repeated.

‘I heard you,’ he answered, with his affectionate smile.

It showed that he had not meant to be offensive. He did not speak because he had nothing to say. But if nobody spoke unless he had something to say, Kitty reflected, with a smile, the human race would very soon lose the use of speech.”

7- “He was very reserved. ”

8- “She wondered why he had ever fallen in love with her. She could not imagine any one less suited than herself to this restrained, cold and self-possessed man. And yet it was quite certain that he loved her madly. He would do anything in the world to please her. He was like wax in her hands. When she thought of one side he showed her, a side which only she had seen, she a little despised him. She wondered whether his sarcastic manner, with its contemptuous tolerance for so many persons and things she admired, was merely a façade to conceal a profound weakness. She supposed he was clever, every one seemed to think he was, but except very occasionally when he was with two or three people he liked and was in the mood, she had never found him entertaining. He did not precisely bore her, he left her indifferent.”

[Kiity and lover Charles: how they meet]

1- “Kitty was on the defensive. Charles Townsend was Assistant Colonial Secretary and she had no mind to allow him to use her with the condescension which, notwithstanding her good manners she discerned in Mrs. Townsend.”

2- “Kitty saw a tall and very handsome man bear down on them.

‘This is my husband.’

‘I am to have the privilege of sitting next to you,’ he said.

She immediately felt at ease and the sense of hostility vanished from her bosom. ”

...

...

“I shan’t be able to eat any dinner,’ he said, ‘and if I know Dorothy the dinner’s damned good.’

‘Why not?’

‘I ought to have been told. Some one really ought to have warned me.’

‘What about?’

‘No one said a word. How was I to know that I was going to meet a raging beauty?’

‘Now what am I to say to that?’

‘Nothing. Leave me to do the talking. And I’ll say it over and over again.”

3- “ there was a caressing sound in his deep, rich voice, a delightful expression in his kind, shining blue eyes, which made you feel very much at home with him. Of course he had charm. That was what made him so pleasant.”

4- “Kitty was at home in these circumstances and she admired the way in which amid the banter which was the staple of their conversation he insinuated every now and then a pretty, flattering speech. When she shook hands with him on leaving he gave her hand a pressure that she could not mistake.

‘I hope we shall see you again soon,’ he said casually, but his eyes gave his words a meaning which she could not fail to see.

‘Hong-Kong is very small, isn’t it?’ she said.”

5- “She had never been in love before. It was wonderful. And now that she knew what love was she felt a sudden sympathy for the love that Walter bore her.”

6- “She had hesitated some time before the final step, not because she did not want to yield to Charlie’s passion, her own was equal to his, but because her upbringing and all the conventions of her life intimidated her. She was amazed afterwards (and the final act was due to accident; neither of them had seen the opportunity till it was face to face with them) to discover that she felt in no way different from what she had before. She had expected that it would cause some, she hardly knew what, fantastic change in her so that she would feel like somebody else; and when she had a chance to look at herself in the glass she was bewildered to see the same woman she had seen the day before.

‘Are you angry with me?’ he asked her.

‘I adore you,’ she whispered.

‘Don’t you think you were very silly to waste so much time?’

‘A perfect fool.”

7- “They managed their intrigue with skill. He had a broad back, he told her (‘I will not have you swank about your figure,’ she interrupted lightly), and it did not matter about him; but for her sake they mustn’t take the smallest risk. They could not meet often alone, not half often enough for him, but he had to think of her first”

8- “You’ll be adorable when you’re a hundred.’

She liked his black, bushy eyebrows. She wondered whether it was they that gave his blue eyes their disturbing expression.

He was full of accomplishments. He could play the piano quite well, rag-time, of course, and he could sing a comic song with a rich voice and good humour. She did not believe there was anything he could not do: He was very clever at his work too and she shared his pleasure when he told her that the Governor had particularly congratulated him on the way he had done some difficult job.

“Although it’s I as says it,’ he laughed, his eyes charming with the love he bore her, ‘there’s not a fellow in the Service who could have done it better.’

Oh, how she wished that she were his wife rather than Walter’s!”

[Kitty's thoughts for "if Walter knew the truth"]

1- “Charlie would feel as great a relief as she that what they both desired more than anything in the world should be thus forced upon them.”

2- “They had made a mistake and the lucky thing was that they had found it out before it was too late. She made up her mind exactly what she was going to say to him and how she would treat him. She would be kind, smiling, and firm. There was no need for them to quarrel. Later on she would always be glad to see him. She hoped honestly that the two years they had spent together would remain with him as a priceless memory.”(for divorce)

3- “It was all very simple and everything could be managed without scandal or ill-feeling. And then she and Charlie could marry. Kitty drew a long sigh. They would be very happy.”

4- “It was strange that he had gone away that afternoon without saying a word to her. Of course she was not frightened of him; after all what could he do, she repeated to herself; but she could not quite allay her uneasiness. Once more she repeated what she would say to him. 

...

But even as she said this to herself a sudden gust of fear made the sweat start out in the palms of her hands. And because she was frightened she grew angry with him.

...

Kitty worked herself up into a towering passion. Let him dare to reproach her. All that had happened was his own fault. She was thankful that he knew the truth at last. She hated him and wished never to see him again. Yes, she was thankful that it was all over. Why couldn’t he leave her alone? He had pestered her into marrying him and now she was fed up.

‘Fed up,’ she repeated aloud, trembling with anger. ‘Fed up! Fed up!’

She heard the car draw up to the gate of their garden. He was coming up the stairs.”

[Walter knew the truth]

1- “He came into the room: Her heart was beating wildly and her hands were shaking; it was lucky that she lay on the sofa. She was holding an open book as though she had been reading. He stood for an instant on the threshold and their eyes met. Her heart sank; she felt on a sudden a cold chill pass through her limbs and she shivered. She had that feeling which you describe by saying that some one was walking over your grave. His face was deathly pale; she had seen it like that once before, when they sat together in the Park and he asked her to marry him. His dark eyes, immobile and inscrutable, seemed pretematurally large. He knew everything.”

2- “She looked at him now and saw that his eyes were fixed on his plate. He made another observation, equally trivial, about a tennis tournament that was about to be played, and he spoke at length. His voice as a rule was agreeable, with a variety of tone, but now he spoke on one note. It was strangely unnatural. It gave Kitty the impression that he was speaking from a long way off. And all the time his eyes were directed to his plate, or the table, or to a picture on the wall. He would not meet hers. She realised that he could not bear to look at her.”

3- “They sat in silence for an hour. She gave up the pretence of reading, and letting her novel fall on her lap, gazed into space. She was afraid to make the smallest gesture or the smallest sound. He sat quite still, in that same easy attitude, and stared with those wide, immobile eyes of his at the picture. His stillness was strangely menacing. It gave Kitty the feeling of a wild beast prepared to spring.

When suddenly he stood up she started. She clenched her hands and she felt herself grow pale. Now!

‘I have some work to do,’ he said in that quiet, toneless voice, his eyes averted. ‘If you don’t mind I’ll go into my study. I daresay you’ll have gone to bed by the time I’ve finished.’

‘I am rather tired to-night.’

‘Well, good-night.’

‘Good-night.’

He left the room.”

[Townsend's real reaction]

1- “I want to see you.’

‘My dear, I’m awfully busy. I’m a working man.’

‘It’s very important. Can I come down to the office?’

‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

2- “I can’t tell you over the telephone.’

There was another silence before he spoke again.

‘Well, look here, I can manager to see you for ten minutes at one if that’ll do. You’d better go to Ku-Chou’s and I’ll come along as soon as I can.’

‘The curio shop?’ she asked in dismay.

‘Well, we can’t meet in the lounge at the Hong-Kong Hotel very well,’ he answered.

She noticed a trace of irritation in his voice.”

3- “In a moment she heard a heavy step on the creaking stairs. Townsend came in and shut the door behind him. His face bore a sullen look, as he saw her it vanished, and he smiled in that charming way of his. He took her quickly in his arms and kissed her lips.”

4- “You look rather washed out this morning.’

‘I don’t wonder,’ she answered. ‘I don’t think I closed my eyes all night.’

He gave her a look. He was smiling still, but his smile was a little set and unnatural. She thought there was a shade of anxiety in his eyes.”

5- “Why do you imagine he didn’t say anything?’

‘I don’t know.’

There was a pause. Kitty sat very still on the sandal-wood box and looked with anxious attention at Townsend. His face once more was sullen and there was a frown between his brows. His mouth dropped a little at the corners. But all at once he looked up and a gleam of malicious amusement came into his eyes.

‘I wonder if he is going to say anything.’

She did not answer. She did not know what he meant.

‘After all, he wouldn’t be the first man who’s shut his eyes in a case of this sort. What has he to gain by making a row? If he’d wanted to make a row he would have insisted on coming into your room.’ His eyes twinkled and his lips broke into a broad smile. ‘We should have looked a pair of damned fools.”

...

Heavens knows, I don’t want to say anything disagreeable about him, but when you come down to brass tacks a bacteriologist is no great shakes. The chances are that I shall be Colonial Secretary when Simmons goes home, and it’s to Walter’s interest to keep on the right side of me. He’s got his bread and butter to think of, like the rest of us: do you think the Colonial Office are going to do much for a fellow who makes a scandal? Believe me, he’s got everything to gain by holding his tongue and everything to lose by kicking up a row.”

6- “Has it occurred to you that he’s madly in love with me?’

He did not answer, but he smiled at her with roguish eyes. She knew and loved that charming look of his.

‘Well, what is it? I know you’re going to say something awful.’

‘Well, you know, women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are.’

For the first time she laughed. His confidence was catching.

‘What a monstrous thing to say.’

‘I put it to you that you haven’t been bothering much about your husband lately. Perhaps he isn’t quite so much in love with you as he was.’

‘At all events I shall never delude myself that you are madly in love with me,’ she retorted.

‘That’s where you’re wrong.’

Ah, how good it was to hear him say that! She knew it and her belief in his passion warmed her heart. ”

7- “She put away her fears, but for an instant unreasonably she regretted that her plans for the future were shattered. Now that all danger was past she almost wished that Walter were going to insist on a divorce.”

[Notification from Walter to go to Meitan-fu]

1- “Suddenly he looked full at her; and because he had held his eyes so long averted, his direct gaze gave her such a fright that she smothered a cry.”

2- “(Walter saying) The French nuns are doing what they can. They’ve turned the orphanage into a hospital. But the people are dying like flies. I’ve offered to go and take charge.”

3(his smile)- “Is that necessary?’ she faltered.

‘There’s not a foreign doctor in the place.’

‘But you’re not a doctor, you’re a bacteriologist.’

‘I am an M.D., you know, and before I specialised I did a good deal of general work in a hospital. The fact that I’m first and foremost a bacteriologist is all to the good. It will be an admirable chance for research work.’

He spoke almost flippantly and when she glanced at him she was surprised to see in his eyes a gleam of mockery. She could not understand.

“But won’t it be awfully dangerous?’

‘Awfully.’

He smiled. It was a derisive grimace. She leaned her forehead on her hand. Suicide. It was nothing short of that. Dreadful! She had not thought he would take it like that. She couldn’t let him do that. It was cruel. It was not his fault if she did not love him. She couldn’t bear the thought that he should kill himself for her sake. Tears flowed softly down her cheeks.

‘What are you crying for?’

His voice was cold.

‘You’re not obliged to go, are you?’

‘No, I go of my own free will.’

‘Please don’t, Walter. It would be too awful if something happened. Supposing you died?'

Though his face remained impassive the shadow of a smile once more crossed his eyes. He did not answer.

‘Where is this place?’ she asked after a pause.

‘Meitan-fu? It’s on a tributary of the Western River. We should go up the Western River and then by chair.’

‘Who is we?’

‘You and I.’

She looked at him quickly. She thought she had heard amiss. But now the smile in his eyes had travelled to his lips. His dark eyes were fixed on her.

‘Are you expecting me to come too?’

‘I thought you’d like to.’

Her breath began to come very fast. A shudder passed through her.

‘But surely it’s no place for a woman. The missionary sent his wife and children down weeks ago and the A.P.C. man and his wife came down. I met her at a tea-party. I’ve just remembered that she said they left some place on account of cholera.’

‘There are five French nuns there.’

Panic seized her.”

“I don’t know what you mean. It would be madness for me to go. You know how delicate I am. Dr. Hayward said I must get out of Hong-Kong on account of the heat. I could never stand the heat up there. And cholera: I should be frightened out of my wits. It’s just asking for trouble. There’s no reason for me to go. I should die.’

He did not answer. She looked at him in her desperation and she could hardly restrain a cry. His face had a sort of black pallor which suddenly terrified her. She saw in it a look of hatred. Was it possible that he wanted her to die? She answered her own outrageous thought.

‘It’s absurd. If you think you ought to go it’s your own lookout. But really you can’t expect me to. I hate illness. A cholera epidemic. I don’t pretend to be very brave and I don’t mind telling you that I haven’t pluck for that. I shall stay here until it’s time for me to go to Japan.'

'I should have thought that you would want to accompany me when I am about to set out on a dangerous expedition.’

He was openly mocking her now. She was confused. She did not quite know whether he meant what he said or was merely trying to frighten her.

‘I don’t think any one could reasonably blame me for refusing to go to a dangerous place where I had no business or where I could be of no use.’

‘You could be of the greatest use; you could cheer and comfort me.’

She grew even a little paler.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

‘I shouldn’t have thought it needed more than average intelligence.’

‘I’m not going, Walter. It’s monstrous to ask me.’

‘Then I shall not go either. I shall immediately file my petition.'

She looked at him blankly. What he said was so unexpected that at the first moment she could hardly gather its sense.

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ she faltered.

Even to herself her reply rang false, and she saw the look of disdain which it called forth on Walter’s stern face.

‘I’m afraid you’ve thought me a bigger fool than I am.’ She did not quite know what to say. She was undecided whether indignantly to assert her innocence or to break out into angry reproaches. He seemed to read her thoughts.

‘I’ve got all the proof necessary.’

She began to cry. The tears flowed from her eyes without any particular anguish and she did not dry them: to weep gave her a little time to collect herself. But her mind was blank. He watched her without concern, and his calmness frightened her. He grew impatient.”

4- (about divorce)“I have much too great a regard for your welfare.’

She sat up now and dried her eyes.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked him.

‘Townsend will marry you only if he is corespondent and the case is so shameless that his wife is forced to divorce him.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she cried.

‘You stupid fool.'

His tone was so contemptuous that she flushed with anger. And perhaps her anger was greater because she had never before heard him say to her any but sweet, flattering and delightful things. She had been accustomed to find him subservient to all her whims.

‘If you want the truth you can have it. He’s only too anxious to marry me. Dorothy Townsend is perfectly willing to divorce him and we shall be married the moment we’re free.’

‘Did he tell you that in so many words or is that the impression you have gained from his manner?’

Walter’s eyes shone with bitter mockery. They made Kitty a trifle uneasy. She was not quite sure that Charlie had ever said exactly that in so many words.”

5- (about marriage)“Do you know why I married you?’

‘Because you wanted to be married before your sister Doris.’

It was true, but it gave her a funny little turn to realise that he knew it. Oddly enough, even in that moment of fear and anger, it excited her compassion. He faintly smiled.

“I had no illusions about you,’ he said. ‘I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you. I knew that your aims and ideals were vulgar and common-place. But I loved you. I knew that you were second-rate. But I loved you. It’s comic when I think how hard I tried to be amused by the things that amused you and how anxious I was to hide from you that I wasn’t ignorant and vulgar and scandal-mongering and stupid. I knew how frightened you were of intelligence and I did everything I could to make you think me as big a fool as the rest of the men you knew. I knew that you’d only married me for convenience. I loved you so much, I didn’t care. Most people, as far as I can see, when they’re in love with some one and the love isn’t returned feel that they have a grievance. They grow angry and bitter. I wasn’t like that. I never expected you to love me, I didn’t see any reason that you should, I never thought myself very lovable. I was thankful to be allowed to love you and I was enraptured when now and then I thought you were pleased with me or when I noticed in your eyes a gleam of good-humoured affection. I tried not to bore you with my love; I knew I couldn’t afford to do that and I was always on the lookout for the first sign that you were impatient with my affection. What most husbands expect as a right I was prepared to receive as a favour.”

6- “If a man hasn’t what’s necessary to make a woman love him, it’s his fault, not hers.’

‘Evidently.’

His derisive tone increased her irritation. She felt that she could wound him more by maintaining her calm.

'I’m not very well-educated and I’m not very clever. I’m just a perfectly ordinary young woman. I like the things that the people like among whom I’ve lived all my life. I like dancing and tennis and theatres and I like the men who play games. It’s quite true that I’ve always been bored by you and by the things you like. They mean nothing to me and I don’t want them to. You dragged me round those interminable galleries in Venice: I should have enjoyed myself much more playing golf at Sandwich.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m sorry if I haven’t been all that you expected me to be. Unfortunately I always found you physically repulsive. You can hardly blame me for that.’

‘I don’t.'

Kitty could more easily have coped with the situation if he had raved and stormed. She could have met violence with violence. His self-control was inhuman and she hated him now as she had never hated him before.”

7- “'If Mrs. Townsend will give me her assurance that she will divorce her husband and if he will give me his written promise to marry you within a week of the two decrees being made absolute, I will do that.'

...

...

'You had better look sharp if you want to catch Townsend at his office. If you decide to come with me to Meitan-fu it would be necessary to start the day after tomorrow.’

‘Do you want me to tell him to-day?’

‘They say there is no time like the present.”

Her heart began to beat a little faster. It was not uneasiness that she felt, it was, she didn’t quite know what it was. She wished she could have had a little longer; she would have liked to prepare Charlie. But she had the fullest confidence in him, he loved her as much as she loved him, and it was treacherous even to let the thought cross her mind that he would not welcome the necessity that was forced upon them. She turned to Walter gravely.

'I don’t think you know what love is. You have no conception how desperately in love Charlie and I are with one another. It really is the only thing that matters and every sacrifice that our love calls for will be as easy as falling off a log.’

He gave a little bow, but said nothing, and his eyes followed her as she walked with measured step from the room.”

[Kitty & Charlie: Divorce and reality]

1- “She had never seen him in spectacles before; she did not know that he used them. When he noticed that her eyes were on them he took them off.”

2- “Her tears came easily and now, she hardly knew why, she began to cry. She had no deliberate intention of deceiving, but rather an instinctive desire to excite his sympathy. He looked at her blankly.

‘Is anything the matter? Oh, my dear, don’t cry.’

She took out her handkerchief and tried to check her sobs. He rang the bell and when the boy came to the door went to it.

‘If any one asks for me say I’m out.’

‘Very good, sir.”

3- “Walter wants a divorce,’ she said.

She felt the pressure of his arm on her shoulder cease. His body stiffened. There was a moment’s silence, then Townsend rose from her chair and sat down once more in his.

‘What exactly do you mean?’ he said.

She looked at him quickly, for his voice was hoarse, and she saw that his face was dully red.

'I’ve had a talk with him. I’ve come straight from the house now. He says he has all the proof he wants.’

‘You didn’t commit yourself, did you? You didn’t acknowledge anything?’

Her heart sank.

‘No,’ she answered.

‘Are you quite sure?’ he asked, looking at her sharply.

‘Quite sure,’ she lied again.

...

...

“This is a bloody mess we’ve got into,’ he said at length. ‘But it’s no good losing our heads. Crying isn’t going to do us any good, you know.’

She noticed the irritation in his voice and dried her eyes.

‘It’s not my fault, Charlie. I couldn’t help it.’

‘Of course you couldn’t. It was just damned bad luck. I was just as much to blame as you were. The thing to do now is to see how we’re going to get out of it. I don’t suppose you want to be divorced any more than I do.’

She smothered a gasp. She gave him a searching look. He was not thinking of her at all.”

...

...

'I couldn’t go into court, Charlie.’

‘Why on earth not? I’m afraid you’ll have to. God knows, I don’t want a row, but we can’t take it lying down.’

‘Why need we defend it?'

'What a question to ask. After all, it’s not only you that are concerned, I’m concerned too. But as a matter of fact I don’t think you need be afraid of that. We shall be able to square your husband somehow. The only thing that worries me is the best way to set about it.”

4-(about their relationship and love) “'Don’t you think it would have been better to leave me alone then?’

She found it strange that with terror catching her breath she could speak so calmly.

‘You were the loveliest little thing I’d seen for years. I just fell madly in love with you. You can’t blame me for that.'

...

...

'My dear, you must be reasonable. We’d much better face the situation frankly. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but really I must tell you the truth. I’m very keen on my career. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be a Governor one of these days, and it’s a damned soft job to be a Colonial Governor. Unless we can hush this up I don’t stand a dog’s chance. I may not have to leave the service, but there’ll always be a black mark against me. If I do have to leave the service then I must go into business in China where I know people. In either case my only chance is for Dorothy to stick to me.”

'Was it necessary to tell me that you wanted nothing in the world but me?’

The corners of his mouth drooped peevishly.

‘Oh, my dear, it’s rather hard to take quite literally the things a man says when he’s in love with you.’

‘Didn’t you mean them?’

‘At the moment.”

...

...

'Of course it wasn’t an episode. But you know, when you ask me to get my wife, to whom I’m very much attached, to divorce me, and ruin my career by marrying you, you’re asking a good deal.’

‘No more than I’m willing to do for you.’

‘The circumstances are rather different.’

‘The only difference is that you don’t love me.’

‘One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one’s life with her.’

She gave him a quick look and despair seized her. Heavy tears rolled down her cheeks.”

...

'It’s the ruin of my whole life. Why couldn’t you leave me alone? What harm had I ever done you?’

‘Of course if it does you any good to put all the blame on me you may.’

Kitty blazed with sudden anger.

‘I suppose I threw myself at your head. I suppose I gave you no peace till you yielded to my entreaties.’

‘I don’t say that. But I certainly should never have thought of making love to you if you hadn’t made it perfectly clear that you were ready to be made love to.'

Oh, the shame of it! She knew that what he said was true.”

5-(about Meitan-fu)“It must have seemed an age to him before she answered. She rose slowly to her feet.

‘I don’t think that my husband ever thought of bringing an action.’

‘Then why in God’s name have you been frightening me out of my wits?’ he asked.

She looked at him coolly.

‘He knew that you’d let me down.'

She was silent. Vaguely, as when you are studying a foreign language and read a page which at first you can make nothing of, till a word or a sentence gives you a clue; and on a sudden a suspicion, as it were, of the sense flashes across your troubled wits, vaguely she gained an inkling into the workings of Walter’s mind. It was like a dark and ominous landscape seen by a flash of lightning and in a moment hidden again by the night. She shuddered at what she saw.

...

...

'And now I know all that he knew. I know that you’re callous and heartless, I know that you’re selfish, selfish beyond words, and I know that you haven’t the nerve of a rabbit, I know you’re a liar and a humbug, I know that you’re utterly contemptible. And the tragic part is’ – her face was on a sudden distraught with pain – ‘the tragic part is that notwithstanding I love you with all my heart.”

6- “She felt that she could not hold on to her self-control for another moment. She walked swiftly to the door and let herself out before he had time to move from his chair. Townsend gave a long sigh of relief. He badly wanted a brandy and soda.”

Part II: in Meitan-fu, Kitty's growth

[Archway: real world]

1- “she knew by now that it was a memorial in compliment of a fortunate scholar or a virtuous widow, she had passed many of them since they left the river; but this one, silhouetted against the westering sun, was more fantastic and beautiful than any she had seen. Yet, she knew not why, it made her uneasy; it had a significance which she felt but could not put into words”

2- “But suddenly from that white cloud a tall, grim and massive bastion emerged. It seemed not merely to be made visible by the all-discovering sun but rather to rise out of nothing at the touch of a magic wand. It towered, the stronghold of a cruel and barbaric race, over the river. But the magician who built worked swiftly and now a fragment of coloured wall crowned the bastion; in a moment, out of the mist, looming vastly and touched here and there by a yellow ray of sun, there was seen a cluster of green and yellow roofs. Huge they seemed and you could make out no pattern; the order, if order there was, escaped you; wayward and extravagant, but of an unimaginable richness. This was no fortress, nor a temple, but the magic palace of some emperor of the gods where no man might enter. It was too airy, fantastic and unsubstantial to be the work of human hands; it was the fabric of a dream.

The tears ran down Kitty’s face and she gazed, her hands clasped to her breast and her mouth, for she was breathless, open a little. She had never felt so light of heart and it seemed to her as though her body were a shell that lay at her feet and she pure spirit. Here was Beauty. She took it as the believer takes in his mouth the wafer which is God.”

3- “Kitty had never heard the Chinese spoken of as anything but decadent, dirty and unspeakable. It was as though the corner of a curtain were lifted for a moment, and she caught a glimpse of a world rich with a colour and significance she had not dreamt of.”

4- “Meitan-fu with its crenellated walls was like the painted canvas placed on the stage in an old play to represent a city. The nuns, Waddington, and the Manchu woman who loved him, were fantastic characters in a masque; and the rest, the people sidling along the tortuous streets and those who died, were nameless supers. Of course it had, they all had, a significance of some sort, but what was it? It was as though they performed a ritual dance, elaborate and ancient, and you knew that those complicated measures had a meaning which it was important for you to know; and yet you could see no clue, no clue.

...

it seemed incredible to Kitty that she and Walter had taken part in that strange and unreal dance. They had played important parts too. She might easily have lost her life: he had. Was it a joke? Perhaps it was nothing but a dream from which she would suddenly awake with a sigh of relief. It seemed to have taken place a long time ago and in a far-off place. It was singular how shadowy the persons of that play seemed against the sunny background of real life. And now it seemed to Kitty like a story that she was reading; it was a little startling that it seemed to concern her so little. She found already that she could not recall with distinctness Waddington’s face which had been so familiar to her.”

[Death]

1-“In a moment she knew what had startled them, for as they stood there, chattering to one another, four peasants passed, quick and silent, bearing a new coffin, unpainted, and its fresh wood gleamed white in the approaching darkness. Kitty felt her heart beat in terror against her ribs. The coffin passed, but the bearers stood still; it seemed as though they could not summon up the will to go on. But there was a shout from behind and they started. They did not speak now.”

2- “A faint smile lingered on his lips. But Kitty, she knew not why, was filled with awe. In the house of that dead missionary, over against the stricken city, they seemed immeasurably apart from all the world. Three solitary creatures and strangers to each other.”

3- (her dream)“she heard the echo of mocking laughter. But then Charlie Townsend came towards her and took her in his arms, lifting her out of the chair, and said it was all a mistake, he had never meant to treat her as he had, for he loved her and he couldn’t live without her. She felt his kisses on her mouth and she wept with joy, asking him why he had been so cruel, but though she asked she knew it did not matter. And then there was a hoarse, abrupt cry and they were separated, and between, hurrying silently, coolies passed in their ragged blue and they bore a coffin.

She awoke with a start.”

4- “She began to eat it coolly. She was seized with she knew not what spirit of bravado. She watched Walter with mocking eyes. She thought that he grew a trifle pale, but when the salad was handed to him he helped himself. The cook, finding they did not refuse it, sent them some in every day and every day, courting death, they ate it. It was grotesque to take such a risk. Kitty, in terror of the disease, took it with the feeling not only that she was thus maliciously avenging herself on Walter, but that she was flouting her own desperate fears.”

5-(the dead beggar) “They passed under the flamboyant archway and walked down the hill. When they came to the compound they saw the body of the dead beggar. He took her arm, but she released herself. She stood still.

‘It’s dreadful, isn’t it?’

‘What? Death?’

‘Yes. It makes everything else seem so horribly trivial. He doesn’t look human. When you look at him you can hardly persuade yourself that he’s ever been alive. It’s hard to think that not so very many years ago he was just a little boy tearing down the hill and flying a kite.’

She could not hold back the sob that choked her.”

6- “it was difficult to imagine, on that blithe, fresh and smiling morn, that the city lay gasping, like a man whose life is being throttled out of him by a maniac’s hands, in the dark clutch of the pestilence. It was incredible that nature (the blue of the sky was clear like a child’s heart) should be so indifferent when men were writhing in agony and going to their death in fear.”

7-(about Walter)“'Just now, when they’d washed Walter, before they put him into the coffin I looked at him. He looked very young. Too young to die. Do you remember that beggar that we saw the first time you took me for a walk? I was frightened not because he was dead, but because he looked as though he’d never been a human being. He was just a dead animal. And now again, with Walter, it looked so like a machine that has run down. That’s what is so frightening. And if it is only a machine how futile is all this suffering and the heart pains and the misery.'”

[Her loneliness]

1-“It was out of the question. If she went, where could she go? Not to her mother; her mother would make her see very plainly that, having married her off, she counted on being rid of her; and besides she did not want to go to her mother. She wanted to go to Charlie, and he did not want her. ”

2- “I’m sorry I can’t give you the opportunity of being magnanimous.’ She found it strangely hard to be quite serious with him. ‘As a matter of fact you’re quite right, it’s not only for the orphans that I’m staying: you see, I’m in the peculiar position that I haven’t got a soul in the world that I can go to. I know no one who wouldn’t think me a nuisance. I know no one who cares a row of pins if I’m alive or dead.’

3- “Kitty’s lips tightened. She thought that they might at least have consulted her in a matter which only concerned herself. She had to exercise some self-control in order not to answer sharply.

‘And when am I to start?’

The Mother Superior remained quite placid.

'The sooner you can get back to Hong-Kong and then sail to England the better, my dear child. We thought you would like to start at dawn the day after to-morrow.’

‘So soon.’

Kitty felt a little inclined to cry. But it was true enough; she had no place there.

‘You all seem in a great hurry to be rid of me,’ she said ruefully.

...

Kitty stared straight in front of her. She faintly shrugged her shoulders. She knew that she could ascribe to herself no such exalted virtues. She wanted to stay because she had nowhere else to go. It was a curious sensation this, that nobody in the world cared two straws whether she was alive or dead.”

...

“and yet Kitty was deeply conscious that for Sister St. Joseph (her gaze intent on eternity) she was but a wraith without body or substance. She had a wild impulse to seize the stout, good-natured nun by the shoulders and shake her, crying: ‘Don’t you know that I’m a human being, unhappy and alone, and I want comfort and sympathy and encouragement; oh, can’t you turn a minute away from God and give me a little compassion; not the Christian compassion that you have for all suffering things, but just human compassion for me?’ ”

[Love and life's meaning]

1-(various life meanings)“You see, you and I are the only people here who walk quite quietly and peaceably on solid ground. The nuns walk in heaven and your husband – in darkness.”

2-(The Mother Superior) “Kitty flushed. She did not know what to say. The Mother Superior held out her hand and while she held it Kitty was conscious of those cool, thoughtful eyes which rested on her with detachment and yet with something that looked like a profound understanding.

Sister St. Joseph closed the door behind them and Kitty got into her chair. They went back through the narrow, winding streets. Waddington made a casual remark: Kitty did not answer. He looked round, but the side curtains of the chair were drawn and he could not see her. He walked on in silence. But when they reached the river and she stepped out to his surprise he saw that her eyes were streaming with tears.

‘What is the matter?’ he asked, his face puckered into an expression of dismay.

‘Nothing.’ She tried to smile. ‘Only foolishness.”

...

“There was a barrier between her and them. They spoke a different language not only of the tongue but of the heart. And when the door was closed upon her she felt that they had put her out of their minds so completely, going about their neglected work again without delay, that for them she might never have existed. She felt shut out not only from that poor little convent, but from some mysterious garden of the spirit after which with all her soul she hankered. She felt on a sudden alone as she had never felt alone before. That was why she had wept.”

...

...

“You know, my dear child, that one cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul.’

Kitty gave a little start, but the Mother Superior passed swiftly out.”

...

...

“After I had received the Holy Communion I asked Our Lord to give me peace of mind: Thou shalt have it only, the answer seemed to come to me, when thou hast ceased to desire it.”

...

...

“The Mother Superior gave once more her aloof and yet beautiful smile.

‘There is only one way to win hearts and that is to make oneself like unto those of whom one would be loved.”

...

...

(comment from Kitty)"'To all of them this world is really and truly a place of exile. Life is a cross which they willingly bear, but in their hearts all the time is the desire – oh, it’s so much stronger than desire, it’s a longing, an eager, passionate longing for the death which shall lead them to life everlasting.'”

...

...

“'Good-bye, God bless you, my dear child.’ She held her for a moment in her arms. ‘Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.’

The convent door closed for the last time behind her.”

4-(idiot child)“But there was one child that she could not grow used to. It was a little girl of six, an idiot with a huge hydrocephalic head that swayed top-heavily on a small, squat body, large vacant eyes and a drooling mouth; the creature spoke hoarsely a few mumbled words; it was revolting and horrible; and for some reason it conceived an idiot attachment for Kitty so that it followed her about as she changed her place from one part of the large room to another. It clung to her skirt and rubbed its face against her knees. It sought to fondle her hands. She shivered with disgust. She knew it yearned for caresses and she could not bring herself to touch it.

...

...

And next day when the idiot child came to her and touched her hand Kitty nerved herself to place it in a caress on the great bare skull. She forced her lips into a smile. But suddenly the child, with an idiot perversity, left her; it seemed to lose interest in her, and that day and the following days paid her no attention. Kitty did not know what she had done and tried to lure it to her with smiles and gestures, but it turned away and pretended not to see her.”

5-(life, little drops) “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.

...

...

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.

...

'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.”

6-(about TAO) 

“Why did you want to see her?’

Kitty hesitated for a moment before answering.

‘I’m looking for something and I don’t quite know what it is. But I know that it’s very important for me to know it, and if I did it would make all the difference. Perhaps the nuns know it; when I’m with them I feel that they hold a secret which they will not share with me. I don’t know why it came into my head that if I saw this Manchu woman I should have an inkling of what I am looking for. Perhaps she would tell me if she could.”

...

'Do you know it?’

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

‘Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whisky and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads nowhither.”

...

...

“'Supposing there is no life everlasting? Think what it means if death is really the end of all things. They’ve given up all for nothing. They’ve been cheated. They’re dupes.’

Waddington reflected for a little while.

‘I wonder. I wonder if it matters that what they have aimed at is illusion. Their lives are in themselves beautiful. I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”

...

“Have you ever been to a symphony concert?’ he continued.

‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘I know nothing of music, but I’m rather fond of it.’

‘Each member of the orchestra plays his own little instrument, and what do you think he knows of the complicated harmonies which unroll themselves on the indifferent air? He is concerned only with his own small share. But he knows that the symphony is lovely, and though there’s none to hear it, it is lovely still, and he is content to play his part.’

...

...

“It(TAO) is the Way and the Waygoer. It is the eternal road along which walk all beings, but no being made it, for itself is being. It is everything and nothing. From it all things spring, all things conform to it, and to it at last all things return. It is a square without angles, a sound which ears cannot hear, and an image without form. It is a vast net and though its meshes are as wide as the sea it lets nothing through. It is the sanctuary where all things find refuge. It is nowhere, but without looking out of the window you may see it. Desire not to desire, it teaches, and leave all things to take their course. He that humbles himself shall be preserved entire. He that bends shall be made straight. Failure is the foundation of success and success is the lurking-place of failure; but who can tell when the turning point will come? He who strives after tenderness can become even as a little child. Gentleness brings victory to him who attacks and safety to him who defends. Mighty is he who conquers himself.’

‘Does it mean anything?’

‘Sometimes, when I’ve had half a dozen whiskies and look at the stars, I think perhaps it does.”

[kitty & Walter]

1- “I have wondered if the nuns would allow me to go and work at the convent. They are very shorthanded and if I could be of any help I should be grateful to them.’

‘It is not easy work or pleasant work. I doubt if it would amuse you long.’

‘Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?’

‘No.’ He hesitated and his voice was strange. ‘I despise myself.”

...

“Why do you despise yourself?’ she asked, hardly knowing that she spoke, as though she were continuing without a break the earlier conversation.

He put down his book and observed her reflectively. He seemed to gather his thoughts from a remote distance.

‘Because I loved you.'

“She flushed and looked away. She could not bear his cold, steady and appraising gaze. She understood what he meant. It was a little while before she answered.

‘I think you do me an injustice,’ she said. ‘It’s not fair to blame me because I was silly and frivolous and vulgar. I was brought up like that. All the girls I know are like that . . . It’s like reproaching some one who has no ear for music because he’s bored at a symphony concert. Is it fair to blame me because you ascribed to me qualities I hadn’t got? I never tried to deceive you by pretending I was anything I wasn’t. I was just pretty and gay. You don’t ask for a pearl necklace or a sable coat at a booth in a fair; you ask for a tin trumpet and a toy balloon.’

‘I don’t blame you.'

“His voice was weary. She was beginning to feel a trifle impatient with him. Why could he not realise, what suddenly had become so clear to her, that beside all the terror of death under whose shadow they lay and beside the awe of the beauty which she had caught a glimpse of that day, their own affairs were trivial? What did it really matter if a silly woman had committed adultery and why should her husband, face to face with the sublime, give it a thought? It was strange that Walter with all his cleverness should have so little sense of proportion. Because he had dressed a doll in gorgeous robes and set her in a sanctuary to worship her, and then discovered that the doll was filled with sawdust he could neither forgive himself nor her. His soul was lacerated. It was all make-believe that he had lived on, and when the truth shattered it he thought reality itself was shattered. It was true enough, he would not forgive her because he could not forgive himself.

She thought that she heard him give a faint sigh and she shot a rapid glance at him. A sudden thought struck her and it took her breath away. She only just refrained from giving a cry.

Was it what they called – a broken heart – that he suffered from?”

2- “Was it possible that, whereas he now existed so ominously for her, she had entirely ceased to exist for him?”

3- “And one day it occurred to her that she had neither thought of Charles Townsend nor dreamt of him for a week. Her heart gave a sudden thud against her ribs: she was cured.

...

She was free, free at last, free! She could hardly prevent herself from laughing aloud.”

4-(pregenant)“If I were you, I wouldn’t try to do anything to-day. You’d better take it easy. Is there anything you want before I go?’

‘No, thanks. I shall be quite all right.’

He paused for an instant, as though he were undecided, and then, abruptly and without looking at her, took his hat and walked out of the room. She heard him go through the compound. She felt terribly alone. There was no need for self-restraint now and gave herself up to a passion of tears.”

5-(forgiveness)“Kitty smiled and in her heart sighed. There was only one thing she could do for Walter now and that she could not think how to. She wanted him to forgive her, not for her sake any more, but for his own; for she felt that this alone could give him peace of mind. 

...

Was it not pitiful that men, tarrying so short a space in a world where there was so much pain, should thus torture themselves?”

6-(Walter's death)

(1) “Here in the city was deep night. It was a city of the dead. They hastened along a narrow lane, turned a corner, and then at a run took a flight of steps; the bearers were beginning to blow hard; they walked with long, rapid strides, in silence; one took out a ragged handkerchief and as he walked wiped from his forehead the sweat that ran down into his eyes; they wound this way and that so that it might have been a maze through which they sped; in the shadow of the shuttered shops sometimes a form seemed to be lying, but you did not know whether it was a man who slept to awake at dawn or a man who slept to awake never; the narrow streets were ghostly in their silent emptiness and when on a sudden a dog barked loudly it sent a shock of terror through Kitty’s tortured nerves. She did not know where they went. The way seemed endless. Could they not go faster? Faster. Faster. The time was going and any moment it might be too late.”

...

...

“Walter, Walter,’ she gasped, in a low, terrified tone.

There was a slight movement in the body, or the shadow of a movement,; it was so slight it was like a breath of air which you cannot feel and yet for an instant ruffles the surface of still water.

‘Walter, Walter, speak to me.’

The eyes were opened slowly, as though it were an infinite effort to raise those heavy lids, but he did not look, he stared at the wall a few inches from his face. He spoke; his voice, low and weak, had the hint of a smile in it.

‘This is a pretty kettle of fish,’ he said.

Kitty dared not breathe. He made no further sound, no beginning of a gesture, but his eyes, those dark, cold eyes of his (seeing now what mysteries?) stared at the whitewashed wall.”

...

...

“'No, that is Colonel Yü. He’s never left your husband’s side.'

Distracted, Kitty gave him a glance. He was a tallish man, but stockily built, and he seemed ill at ease in his khaki uniform. He was looking at Walter and she saw that his eyes were wet with tears. It gave her a pang. Why should that man with his yellow, flat face have tears in his eyes? It exasperated her.”

...

...

“Walter, isn’t there something we can do?”

She thought that there must be some drug they could give him which would stay the dreadful ebbing of his life. Now that her eyes were more accustomed to the dimness she saw with horror that his face had fallen. She would hardly have recognised him. It was unthinkable that in a few short hours he should look like another man; he hardly looked like a man at all; he looked like death.

She thought that he was making an effort to speak. She put her ear close.

‘Don’t fuss. I’ve had a rough passage, but I’m all right now.’

Kitty waited for a moment, but he was silent. ”

...

...

“she realised that Walter was going to die she had but one thought, and that was to make his end easier for him by dragging from his soul the rancour which poisoned it. If he could die at peace with her it seemed to her that he would die at peace with himself. She thought now not of herself at all but only of him.

'Walter, I beseech you to forgive me,’ she said, leaning over him. For fear that he could not bear the pressure she took care not to touch him. ‘I’m so desperately sorry for the wrong I did you. I so bitterly regret it.’

He said nothing. He did not seem to hear. She was obliged to insist. It seemed to her strangely that his soul was a fluttering moth and its wings were heavy with hatred.

‘Darling.'

A shadow passed over his wan and sunken face. It was less than a movement, and yet it gave all the effect of a terrifying convulsion. She had never used that word to him before. Perhaps in his dying brain there passed the thought, confused and difficultly grasped, that he had only heard her use it, a commonplace of her vocabulary, to dogs and babies and motor-cars. Then something horrible occurred. She clenched her hands, trying with all her might to control herself, for she saw two tears run slowly down his wasted cheeks.

...

“His lips moved. He did not look at her. His eyes stared unseeing at the white-washed wall. She leaned over him so that she might hear. But he spoke quite clearly.

‘The dog it was that died.’

She stayed as still as though she were turned to stone. She could not understand and gazed at him in terrified perplexity. It was meaningless. Delirium. He had not understood a word she said."

...

...

“The officers saluted as she passed and she gravely bowed. They walked back across the courtyard and got into their chairs. She saw Waddington light a cigarette. A little smoke lost in the air, that was the life of man.”

...

...

“She had not wept, but when the first shovelful of earth rattled on the coffin she felt a dreadful pang at her heart.”

...

...

“'Forgive me for talking about this again,’ he said gently, ‘but I thought it might comfort you – I know how frightfully difficult it is on these occasions to say anything that is of the least use – I thought it might mean something to you that Walter died a martyr to science and to his duty.’

Kitty shrugged her shoulders with a suspicion of impatience.

‘Walter died of a broken heart,’ she said.”

(2) “Of course, Walter’s death had been a shock to her. She didn’t want him to die. But after all she didn’t love him, she had never loved him; it was decent to bear herself with becoming sorrow; it would be ugly and vulgar even to let any one see in her heart; but she had gone through too much to make pretences to herself. It seemed to her that this at least the last few weeks had taught her, that if it is necessary sometimes to lie to others it is always despicable to lie to oneself. She was sorry that Walter had died in that tragic manner, but she was sorry with a purely human sorrow such as she might have felt if it had been an acquaintance. She would acknowledge that Walter had admirable qualities; it just happened that she did not like him; he had always bored her. She would not admit that his death was a relief to her, she could say honestly that if by a word of hers she could bring him back to life she would say it, but she could not resist the feeling that his death made her way to some extent a trifle easier. They would never have been happy together and yet to part would have been terribly difficult. She was startled at herself for feeling as she did; she supposed that people would think her heartless and cruel if they knew. Well, they shouldn’t know. She wondered if all her fellows had in their hearts shameful secrets which they spent their time guarding from curious glances.”

[Kitty & Charlie: image changed]

1- “She shuddered as she thought of Charlie with his large frame too well covered, the vagueness of his jaw and the way he had of standing with his chest thrown out so that he might not seem to have a paunch. His sanguine temperament showed itself in the little red veins which soon would form a network on his ruddy cheeks. She had liked his bushy eyebrows: there was to her in them now something animal and repulsive.”

Part III: back in/ leave Hongkong

[Freedom]

(1)“(after Walter's death) Freedom! That was the thought that sung in her heart so that even though the future was so dim, it was iridescent like the mist over the river where the morning sun fell upon it. Freedom! Not only freedom from a bond that irked, and a companionship which depressed her; freedom, not only from the death which had threatened, but freedom from the love that had degraded her; freedom from all spiritual ties, the freedom of a disembodied spirit; and with freedom, courage and a valiant unconcern for whatever was to come.”

[Change and unchanged humanity]

(1) “Following the luxurious custom of the foreigners in China two boys in uniform came into the room with savouries and cocktails. Kitty refused.

‘Oh, you must have one,’ insisted Townsend in his breezy, cordial way. ‘It’ll do you good and I’m sure you haven’t had such a thing as a cocktail since you left Hong-Kong. Unless I’m very much mistaken you couldn’t get ice at Meitan-fu.’

‘You’re not mistaken,’ said Kitty.

For a moment she had a picture before her mind’s eye of that beggar with the tousled head in the blue rags through which you saw the emaciated limbs, who had lain dead against the compound wall.”

(2) “It was not till Kitty was fairly settled at the Townsends that she discovered that she was weary. The comfort and the unaccustomed amenity of this life broke up the strain under which she had been living. She had forgotten how pleasant it was to take one’s ease, how lulling to be surrounded by pretty things, and how agreeable it was to receive attention.”

(3)(with Charlie again) “She almost laughed.

‘You hardly expect me to forget that you sent me to almost certain death without a shadow of compunction?’

‘Oh, what nonsense! I told you there was no risk if you took reasonable precautions. Do you think I’d have let you go for a moment if I hadn’t been perfectly convinced of that?’

‘You were convinced because you wanted to be. You’re one of those cowards who only think what it’s profitable for them to think.’

‘Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. You have come back, and if you don’t mind my saying anything so objectionable you’ve come back prettier than ever.’

‘And Walter?’

He could not resist the facetious answer which came to his mind. Charlie smiled.

‘Nothing suits you so well as black.’

She stared at him for a moment. Tears filled her eyes and she began to cry. ”

...

...

“She looked at herself with horror. It was the same face. She had expected in it she knew not what change of degradation.

‘Swine,’ she flung at her reflection. ‘Swine.”

...

...

“Everything was gone now. She had thought herself changed, she had thought herself strong, she thought she had returned to Hong-Kong a woman who possessed herself; new ideas flitted about her heart like little yellow butterflies in the sunshine and she had hoped to be so much better in the future; freedom like a spirit of light had beckoned her on, and the world was like a spacious plain through which she could walk light of foot and with head erect. She had thought herself free from lust and vile passions, free to live the clean and healthy life of the spirit; she had likened herself to the white egrets that fly with leisurely flight across the rice-fields at dusk and they are like the soaring thoughts of a mind at rest with itself; and she was a slave. Weak, weak! It was hopeless, it was no good to try, she was a slut.”

[left behind(being cut off) to leave behind(cut off)]

(1) (physically cut-off) “She thanked him. She left him with an elated heart. Flight: that was her only thought. Flight!”

...

“Kitty, indifferent to everything and anxious to cut herself off completely from the past, realised that it would outrage the susceptibilities of the Colony if she allowed these things to go with the rest to an auction-room. They must be packed and sent to her. So after tiffin she prepared to go to the house.”

...

“the book which Kitty had laid face downwards she did not remember when still lay face downwards. It was as though the house had been left empty but a minute before and yet that minute was fraught with eternity so that you could not imagine that ever again that house would echo with talk and resound with laughter. On the piano the open music of a foxtrot seemed to wait to be played, but you had a feeling that if you struck the keys no sound would come.”

(2) (spiritually cut-off, but failed in reality) “I don’t feel human. I feel like an animal. A pig or a rabbit or a dog. Oh, I don’t blame you, I was just as bad. I yielded to you because I wanted you. But it wasn’t the real me. I’m not that hateful, beastly, lustful woman. I disown her. It wasn’t me that lay on that bed panting for you when my husband was hardly cold in his grave and your wife had been so kind to me, so indescribably kind. It was only the animal in me, dark and fearful like an evil spirit, and I disown, and hate, and despise it. And ever since, when I’ve thought of it, my gorge rises and I feel that I must vomit.”

...

...

“I would rather kill myself than have a child of yours.’

‘Oh, come now, that’s nonsense. I should be awfully pleased and proud. I’d like it to be a girl, you know. I’ve only had boys with Dorothy.'

'You won’t be able to be in doubt very long, you know: my three kiddies are absolutely the living image of me.’

He had regained his good humour and she knew why. If the child was his, though she might never see him again, she could never entirely escape him. His power over her would reach out and he would still, obscurely but definitely, influence every day of her life.

‘You really are the most vain and fatuous ass that it’s ever been my bad luck to run across,’ she said.”

(3) “Rage filled her and disgust of herself obsessed her. She felt that she could never forget her humiliation. She wept. But as the distance from Hong-Kong increased she found that she was insensibly losing the vividness of her resentment. What had happened seemed to have happened in another world.”

....

The vast spaces and the tragic and beautiful sunsets of the Indian Ocean rested her. She seemed borne then to some country where she might in freedom possess her soul. If she could only regain her self-respect at the cost of a bitter conflict, well, she must find the courage to affront it.

The future was lonely and difficult. ”

(4) (family problem, being left behind)“Kitty, lost in reflection, stood for a little while on the deck. She could not imagine her mother ill. She never remembered to have seen her other than active and resolute; she had always been impatient of other people’s ailments. Then a steward came up to her with a telegram.

Deeply regret to inform you that your mother died this morning. Father.”

...

...

“He gave her his cheek to kiss in the manner she so well remembered.

‘I was just having a look at the paper,’ he said. ‘I haven’t read the paper for the last two days.’

She saw that he thought it needed some explanation if he occupied himself with the ordinary affairs of life.”

...

“There was something in her father’s tone that made her look at him quickly. His face was slightly turned from her; he did not want her to catch his eye. Kitty had acquired of late a singular proficiency at reading the thoughts of others. After all, day after day she had applied all her sensibilities to divine from a casual word or an unguarded gesture the hidden thoughts of her husband. She guessed at once what her father was trying to hide from her. It was relief he felt, an infinite relief, and he was frightened of himself. For hard on thirty years he had been a good and faithful husband, he had never uttered a single word in dispraise of his wife, and now he should grieve for her. He had always done the things that were expected of him. It would have been shocking to him by the flicker of an eyelid or by the smallest hint to betray that he did not feel what under the circumstances a bereaved husband should feel.”

...

....

“Grief she could not feel, for there had been too much bitterness between her mother and herself to leave in her heart any deep feeling of affection; and looking back on the girl she had been she knew that it was her mother who had made her what she was. But when she looked at that hard, domineering and ambitious woman who lay there so still and silent with all her petty aims frustrated by death, she was aware of a vague pathos. She had schemed and intrigued all her life and never had she desired anything but what was base and unworthy. Kitty wondered whether perhaps in some other sphere she looked upon her earthly course with consternation.”

....

....

“He mechanically took from the chimney-piece his pipe and began to fill it, but he gave his daughter a doubtful look and put it down.

‘Aren’t you going to smoke?’ she asked.

‘Your mother didn’t very much like the smell of a pipe after dinner and since the war I’ve given up cigars.’

His answer gave Kitty a little pang. It seemed dreadful that a man of sixty should hesitate to smoke what he wanted in his own study.

‘I like the smell of a pipe,’ she smiled.

A faint look of relief crossed his face and taking his pipe once more he lit it. They sat opposite one another on each side of the fire. He felt that he must talk to Kitty of her own troubles.”

...

“They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been he would have been interested in her just because of that, and curious, but their common past was a wall of indifference between them.”

...

“but she had taken for granted that he loved her just because he was her father, and it was a shock to discover that his heart was empty of feeling for her. She had known that they were all bored by him, but it had never occurred to her that he was equally bored by them.”

...

“Kitty looked into the fire. Her heart beat quickly; it was curious that on a sudden she should be so nervous. But at last she forced herself to speak. In her voice was a little tremor.

‘Couldn’t I come with you, father?’

‘You? Oh, my dear Kitty.’ His face fell. She had often heard the expression, but thought it only a phrase, and now for the first time in her life she saw the movement that it described. It was so marked that it startled her. ‘But all your friends are here and Doris is here. I should have thought you’d be much happier if you took a flat in London. I don’t exactly know what your circumstances are, but I shall be very glad to pay the rent of it.’

‘I have enough money to live on.’

‘I’m going to a strange place. I know nothing of the conditions.’

‘I’m used to strange places. London means nothing to me any more. I couldn’t breathe here.’

He closed his eyes for a moment and she thought he was going to cry. His face bore an expression of utter misery. It wrung her heart. She had been right; the death of his wife had filled him with relief and now this chance to break entirely with the past had offered him freedom. He had seen a new life spread before him and at last after all these years rest and the mirage of happiness. She saw dimly all the suffering that had preyed on his heart for thirty years. At last he opened his eyes. He could not prevent the sigh that escaped him.

‘Of course if you wish to come I shall be very pleased.’

It was pitiful. The struggle had been short and he had surrendered to his sense of duty. With those few words he abandoned all his hopes.”

[ENDING: mending and hope, begin again]

“You haven’t forgotten that you’re going to have a baby.’

‘I’m glad she’ll be born out there within sound of the sea and under a wide blue sky.'

'Have you already made up your mind about the sex?’ he murmured, with his thin, dry smile.

‘I want a girl because I want to bring her up so that she shan’t make the mistakes I’ve made. When I look back upon the girl I was I hate myself. But I never had a chance. I’m going to bring up my daughter so that she’s free and can stand on her own feet. I’m not going to bring a child into the world, and love her, and bring her up, just so that some man may want to sleep with her so much that he’s willing to provide her with board and lodging for the rest of her life.'

She felt her father stiffen. He had never spoken of such things and it shocked him to hear these words in his daughter’s mouth.

‘Let me be frank just this once, father. I’ve been foolish and wicked and hateful. I’ve been terribly punished. I’m determined to save my daughter from all that. I want her to be fearless and frank. I want her to be a person, independent of others because she is possessed of herself, and I want her to take life like a free man and make a better job of it than I have.’

‘Why, my love, you talk as though you were fifty. You’ve got all your life before you. You mustn’t be downhearted.’

Kitty shook her head and slowly smiled.

‘I’m not. I have hope and courage.”

“The past was finished; let the dead bury their dead. Was that dreadfully callous? She hoped with all her heart that she had learnt compassion and charity. She could not know what the future had in store for her, but she felt in herself the strength to accept whatever was to come with a light and buoyant spirit. Then, on a sudden, for no reason that she knew of, from the depths of her unconscious arose a reminiscence of the journey they had taken, she and poor Walter, to the plague-ridden city where he had met his death: one morning they set out in their chairs while it was still dark, and as the day broke she divined rather than saw a scene of such breath-taking loveliness that for a brief period the anguish of her heart was assuaged. It reduced to insignificance all human tribulation. The sun rose, dispelling the mist, and she saw winding onwards as far as the eye could reach, among the rice-fields, across a little river and through undulating country the path they were to follow: perhaps her faults and follies, the unhappiness she had suffered, were not entirely vain if she could follow the path that now she dimly discerned before her, not the path that kind funny old Waddington had spoken of that led nowhither, but the path those dear nuns at the convent followed so humbly, the path that led to peace.”