 Chapter 55 Dr. Kutra was an old Frenchman of great stature and exceeding bulk. His body was shaped like a huge duck's egg, and his eyes, sharp, blue and good-natured rested now and then with self-satisfaction on his enormous paunch. His complexion was florid and his hair white. He was a man to attract immediate sympathy. He received us in a room that might have been in a house in a provincial town in France, and the one or two Polynesian curios had an odd look. He took my hand in both of his, they were huge, and gave me a hearty look, in which, however, was great shrewdness. When he shook hands with Capitaine Bruno, he inquired politely after, Madame, il est enfant. For some minutes there was an exchange of courtesies and some local gossip about the island, the prospects of copper and the vanilla crop, then we came to the object of my visit. I shall not tell what Dr. Kutra related to me in his words, but in my own, for I cannot hope to give at second hand any impression of his vivacious delivery. He had a deep, resonant voice fitted to his massive frame and a keen sense of the dramatic. To listen to him was, as the phrase goes, as good as a play, and much better than most. It appears that Dr. Kutra had gone one day to Tarevau in order to see an old chiefess who was ill, and he gave a vivid picture of the obese old lady lying in a huge bed, smoking cigarettes, and surrounded by a crowd of dark-skinned retainers. When he had seen her, he was taken into another room and given dinner, raw fish, fried bananas, and chicken, caissure, the typical dinner of the Andigéne. And while he was eating it, he saw a young girl being driven away from the door in tears. He thought nothing of it, but when he went out to get into his trap and drive home, he saw her again, standing a little way off. She looked at him with a woby-gone air, and tears streamed down her cheeks. He asked some on what was wrong with her, and was told that she had come down from the hills to ask him to visit a white man who was sick. They had told her that the doctor could not be disturbed. He called her, and himself asked what she wanted. She told him that Atta had sent her, she who used to be at the Hotel de la Fleur, and that the red one was ill. She thrust into his hand a crumpled piece of newspaper, and when he opened it, he found in it a hundred-franc note. "'Who is the red one?' he asked of one of the bystanders. He was told that that's what they call the Englishman, a painter, who lived with Atta up in the valley seven kilometres from where they were. He recognized Strickland by the description, but it was necessary to walk. It was impossible for him to go. That's why they had sent the girl away. "'I confess,' said the doctor, turning to me, that I hesitated. I did not relish fourteen kilometres over a bad pathway, and there was no chance that I could get back to Papite that night. Besides, Strickland was not sympathetic to me. He was an idle, useless scoundrel, who preferred to live with a native woman rather than work for his living like the rest of us. "'Auntie, how was I to know that one day the world would come to the conclusion that he had genius? I asked the girl if he was not well enough to come down to see me. I asked her what she thought was the matter with him. She would not answer. I pressed her, angrily, perhaps, but she looked down on the ground and began to cry. Then I shrugged my shoulders. After all, perhaps it was my duty to go, and in a very bad temper I bade her lead the way. His temper was certainly no better when he arrived, perspiring freely and thirsty. Atta was on the lookout for him, and came a little way along the path to meet him. "'Before I see any one give me something to drink, or I shall die of thirst,' he cried out. "'Bourlamour de Dieu! Give me a coconut!' She called out, and a boy came running along. He swarmed up a tree, and presently threw down a right nut. Atta pierced a hole in it, and the doctor took a long refreshing draught. Then he rolled himself a cigarette, and felt in a better humour. "'Now, where is the red one?' he asked. "'He is in the house, painting. I have not told him you were coming. Go in and see him.' "'But what does he complain of? If he is well enough to paint, he is well enough to have come down to Taravar, and save me this confounded walk. I presume my time is no less valuable than his?' Atta did not speak, but with the boy followed him to the house. The girl who had brought him was by this time sitting on the veranda, and here was lying an old woman with her back to the wall making native cigarettes. Atta pointed to the door. The doctor, wondering irritably why they behaved so strangely, entered, and there found Strickland cleaning his palate. There was a picture on the easel. Strickland, glad only in a pareo, was standing with his back to the door, but he turned round when he heard the sound of boots. He gave the doctor a look of vexation. He was surprised to see him, and resented the intrusion. But the doctor gave a gasp. He was rooted to the floor, and he stared with all his eyes. This was not what he had expected. He was seized with horror. You enter without ceremony, said Strickland. What can I do for you? The doctor recovered himself, but it required quite an effort for him to find his voice. All his irritation was gone, and he felt he felt an overwhelming pity. I am Dr. Kutra. I was down at Taravau to see the chiefess, and Atta sent for me to see you. She's a damn fool. I have had a few aches and pains lately and a little fever, but that's nothing. It'll pass off. Next time anyone went to Papitae, I was going to send for some quinine. Look at yourself in the glass. Strickland gave him a glance, smiled, and went over to a cheap mirror in a little wooden frame that hung on the wall. Well, do you not see a strange change in your face? Do you not see the thickening of your features and a look? How shall I describe it? The books call it lion-faced. Mon pauvre ami, must I tell you that you have a terrible disease? I? When you look at yourself in the glass, you see the typical appearance of the leper. Your jesting, said Strickland. I wished a God I were. Do you intend to tell me that I have leprosy? Unfortunately, there can be no doubt of it. Dr. Kutra had delivered sentence of death on many men, and he could never overcome the horror with which it filled him. He felt always the furious hatred that must seize a man condemned when he compared himself with the doctor, sane and healthy, who had the inestimal privilege of life. Strickland looked at him in silence. Nothing of emotion could be seen on his face, disfigured already by the loathsome disease. Do they know? He asked at last, pointing to the persons on the veranda, now sitting in unusual, unaccountable silence. The natives know the signs so well, said the doctor. They were afraid to tell you. Strickland stepped to the door and looked out. There must have been something terrible in his face, for suddenly they all burst out into loud cries and lamentation. They lifted up their voices, and they wept. Strickland did not speak. After looking at them for a moment, he came back into the room. How long do you think I can last? Who knows? Sometimes the disease continues for twenty years. It is a mercy when it runs its course quickly. Strickland went to his easel and looked reflectively at the picture that stood on it. You have had a long journey. It is fitting that the bearer of important tidings should be rewarded. Take this picture. It means nothing to you now. But it may be that one day you will be glad to have it. Dr. Kutra protested that he needed no payment for his journey. He had already given back to Atta the hundred-franc note. But Strickland insisted that he should take the picture. Then together they went out on the veranda. The natives were sobbing violently. Be quiet, woman! dry thy tears! said Strickland, addressing Atta. There is no great harm. I shall leave thee very soon. They are not going to take thee away, she cried. At that time there was no rigid sequestration on the islands, and lepers, if they chose, were allowed to go free. I shall go up the mountain, said Strickland. Then Atta stood up and faced him. Let the others go if they choose, but I will not leave thee. Thou art my man and I am thy woman. If thou leaveest me, I shall hang myself on the tree that is behind the house. I swear it by God. There was something immensely forcible in the way she spoke. She was no longer the meek native girl, but a determined woman. She was extraordinarily transformed. Why shouldst thou stay with me? Thou canst go back to Pappite, and thou wilt soon find another white man. The old woman can take care of thy children, and Tiare will be glad to have thee back. Thou art my man and I am thy woman. Wither thou goest, I will go too. For a moment Strickland's fortitude was shaken, and Atta filled each of his eyes and trickled slowly down his cheeks. Then he gave the sardonic smile which was usual with him. Women, the strange little beasts, he said to Dr. Kutra, you can treat them like dogs, you can beat them till your arm aches, and still they love you. He shrugged his shoulders. Of course it is one of the most absurd illusions of Christianity that they have souls. What is it that thou art saying to the doctor? Asked Atta suspiciously. Thou wilt not go? If it please thee, I will stay, poor child. Atta flung herself on her knees before him. And clasped his legs with her arms and kissed them. Strickland looked at Dr. Kutra with a faint smile. In the end they get you, and you are helpless in their hands. White or brown, they're all the same. Dr. Kutra felt that it would be absurd to offer expressions of regret in so terrible a disaster, and he took his leave. Strickland told Tane the boy to lead him to the village. Dr. Kutra paused for a moment. And then he addressed himself to me. I did not like him. I have told you he was not sympathetic to me. But as I walked slowly down to Taravau, I could not prevent an unwilling admiration for the stoical courage which enabled him to bear perhaps the most dreadful of human afflictions. When Tane left me, I told him I would send some medicine that might be of service. But my hope was small that Strickland would consent to take it, and even smaller that if he did it would do him good. I gave the boy a message for Ata that I would come whenever she sent for me. Life is hard, and nature takes sometimes a terrible delight in torturing her children. It was with a heavy heart that I drove back to my comfortable home in Papite. For a long time none of us spoke. But Ata did not send for me, the doctor went on at last, and it chanced that I did not go to that part of the island for a long time. I had no news of Strickland. Once or twice I heard that Ata had been to Papite to buy painting materials, but I did not happen to see her. More than two years passed before I went to Taravau again, and then it was once more to see the old chiefess. I asked them whether they had heard anything of Strickland. By now it was known everywhere that he had leprosy. First Tane the boy had left the house, and then a little time afterwards the old woman and her grandchild. Strickland and Ata were left alone with their babies. No one went near the plantation for, as you know, the natives have a very lively horror of the disease, and in the old days when it was discovered the sufferer was killed. But sometimes when the village boys were scrambling about the hills they would catch sight of the white man and his great red beard wandering about. They fled in terror. Sometimes Ata would come down to the village at night and arouse the trader so that he might sell her the various things of which she stood in need. She knew that the natives looked upon her with the same horrified aversion as they looked upon Strickland, and she kept out of their way. Wands, some women, venturing nearer than usual to the plantation, saw her washing clothes in the brook, and they threw stones at her. After that the trader was told to give her the message that if she used the brook again men would come and burn down her house. Brutes, I said. Men all know sure, monsieur. Men are always the same. Fear makes them crawl. I decided to see Strickland, and when I had finished with the chiefess asked for a boy to show me the way, but none would accompany me, and I was forced to find it alone. When Dr. Kutryer arrived at the plantation he was seized with a feeling of uneasiness. Though he was hot from walking he shivered. There was something hostile in the air which made him hesitate, and he felt that invisible forces barred his way. Unseen hands seemed to draw him back. No one would go near now to gather the coconuts, and they lay rotting on the ground. Everywhere was desolation. The bush was encroaching, and it looked as though very soon the primeval forest would regain possession of that strip of land which had been snatched from it at the cost of so much labour. He had the sensation that here was the abode of pain. As he approached the house he was struck by the unearthly silence, and at first he thought it was deserted. Then he saw Atta. She was sitting on her haunches in the lean-to that served her as a kitchen, watching some mess cooking in a pot. Near her a small boy was playing silently in the dirt. She did not smile when she saw him. I have come to see Strickland, he said. I will go and tell him. She went to the house, ascended the few steps that led to the veranda, and entered. Dr. Kutraw followed her, but waited outside in obedience to her gesture. As she opened the door he smelt the sickly sweet smell which makes the neighbourhood of the leper nauseous. He heard her speak, and then he heard Strickland's answer, but he did not recognise the voice. It had become hoarse and indistinct. Dr. Kutraw raised his eyebrows. He judged that the disease had already attacked the vocal cords. Then Atta came out again. He will not see you. You must go away. Dr. Kutraw insisted, but she would not let him pass. Dr. Kutraw shrugged his shoulders, and after a moment's rejection turned away. She walked with him. He felt that she too wanted to be rid of him. Is there nothing I can do at all? He asked. You can send him some paints, she said. There is nothing else he wants. Can he paint still? He is painting the walls of the house. This is a terrible life for you, my poor child. Then at last she smiled, and there was in her eyes a look of superhuman love. Dr. Kutraw was startled by it and amazed, and he was awed. He found nothing to say. He is my man, she said. Where is your other child? He asked. When I was here last you had too. Yes, it died. We buried it under the mango. When Atta had gone with him a little way, she said she must turn back. Dr. Kutraw surmised she was afraid to go farther in case she met any of the people from the village. He told her again that if she wanted him she had only to send and he would come at once. End of Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Then two years more went by, or perhaps three, for time passes imperceptibly in Tahiti, and it is hard to keep count of it. But at last a message was brought to Dr. Kutraw that Strickland was dying. Atta had waylaid the cart that took the mail into Papite and besought the man who drove it to go at once to the doctor. But the doctor was out when the summons came, and it was evening when he received it. It was impossible to start at so late an hour, and so it was not until next day, soon after dawn, that he set out. He arrived at Taravau, and for the last time tramped the seven kilometres that led to Atta's house. The path was overgrown, and it was clear that for years now it had remained all but untrodden. It was not easy to find the way. Sometimes he had to stumble along the bed of the stream, and sometimes he had to push through shrubs, dense and thorny. Often he was obliged to climb over rocks in order to avoid the hornet's nests that hung on the trees over his head. The silence was intense. It was with a sigh of relief that at last he came upon the little unpainted house, extraordinarily bedraggled now and unkempt, but here too was the same intolerable silence. He walked up, and a little boy playing unconcernedly in the sunshine started at his approach, and fled quickly away. To him the stranger was the enemy. Dr. Kutra had a sense that the child was stealthily watching him from behind a tree. The door was wide open. He called out, but no one answered. He stepped in. He knocked at a door, but again there was no answer. He turned the handle and entered. The stench that assailed him turned him horribly sick. He put his handkerchief to his nose, and forced himself to go in. The light was dim, and after the brilliant sunshine for a while he could see nothing. Then he gave a start. He could not make out where he was. He seemed on a sudden to have entered a magic world. He had a vague impression of a great primeval forest, and of naked people walking beneath the trees. Then he saw that there were paintings on the walls. No, dear, I hope the sun hasn't affected me, he muttered. A slight movement attracted his attention, and he saw that Atta was lying on the floor sobbing quietly. Atta? He called? Atta! She took no notice. Again the beastly stench almost made him faint, and he littered her root. His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and now he was seized by an overwhelming sensation as he stared at the painted walls. He knew nothing of pictures, but there was something about these that extraordinarily affected him. From floor to ceiling the walls were covered with a strange and elaborate composition. It was indescribably wonderful and mysterious. It took his breath away, and it filled him with an emotion which he could not understand or analyse. He felt the awe and the delight which a man might feel who had watched the beginning of a world. It was tremendous, sensual, passionate, and yet there was something horrible there too, something which made him afraid. It was the work of a man who had delved into the hidden depths of nature, and had discovered secrets which were beautiful and fearful too. It was the work of a man who knew things which it is unholy for men to know. There was something primeval there and terrible. It was not human. It brought to his mind vague recollections of black magic. It was beautiful and obscene. Mon Dieu! This is genius! The words were rung from him, and he did not know he had spoken. Then his eyes fell on the bed of mats in the corner, and he went up and saw the dreadful, mutilated, ghastly object which had been strickland. He was dead. Dr. Kutra made an effort of will, and bent over that battered horror. Then he started violently and terror blazed in his heart, for he felt that someone was behind him. It was Atta. He had not heard her get up. She was standing at his elbow, looking at what he looked at. Oh! good heavens! My nerves are all distraught! He said, you nearly frighten me out of my wits. He looked again at the poor dead thing that had been man, and then he started back in dismay. But he was blind! Yes! He had been blind for nearly a year. End of Chapter 56 Chapters 57 and 58 Of The Moon and Sixpence This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Termin Diane The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset-Morm Chapter 57 At that moment we were interrupted by the appearance of Madame Coutre, who had been paying visits. She came in like a ship in full sail, an imposing creature tall and stout with an ample bust, and an obesity girthed in alarmingly by straight-fronted corsets. She had a bold hooked nose and three chins. She held herself upright. She had not yielded for an instant to the innovating charm of the tropics, but, contrary-wise, was more active, more worldly, more decided than any one in a temperate climb would have thought it possible to be. She was evidently a copious talker, and now poured forth a breathless stream of anecdote and comment. She made the conversation we had just had seem far away and unreal. Presently Dr. Coutre turned to me. I still have in my bureau the picture Strickland gave me, he said. Would you like to see it? Willingly. We got up, and he led me on to the veranda which surrounded his house. We paused to look at the gay flowers that rioted in his garden. For a long time I could not get out of my head the recollection of the extraordinary decoration with which Strickland had covered the walls of his house, he said, reflectively. I had been thinking of it too. It seemed to me that here Strickland had finally put the whole expression of himself. Working silently, knowing that it was his last chance, I fancied that here he must have said all that he knew of life and all that he divined. And I fancied that perhaps here he had at last found peace. The demon which possessed him was exercised at last, and with the completion of the work for which all his life had been a painful preparation, rest descended on his remote and tortured soul. He was willing to die, for he had fulfilled his purpose. What was the subject? I asked. I scarcely know. It was strange and fantastic. It was a vision of the beginnings of the world, the garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve, Casesia. It was a hymn to the beauty of the human form, male and female, and the praise of nature, sublime, indifferent, lovely and cruel. It gave you an awful sense of the infinity of space and of the endlessness of time. Because he painted the trees I see about me every day, the coconuts, the banyans, the flamboyants, the alligator pairs, I have seen them ever since differently, as though there were in them a spirit and a mystery, which I am ever on the point of seizing, and which forever escapes me. The colours were the colours familiar to me, and yet they were different. They had a significance which was all their own, and those nude men and women, they were of the earth, and yet apart from it, they seemed to possess something of the clay of which they were created, and at the same time something divine. You saw man in the nakedness of his primeval instincts, and you were afraid, for you saw yourself. Dr. Kutral shrugged his shoulders and smiled. You will laugh at me. I am a materialist, and I am a gross, fat man. False stuff, eh? The lyrical mode does not become me. I make myself ridiculous. But I have never seen painting, which made so deep an impression upon me. Tine, I had just the same feeling as when I went to the Sistine Chapel in Rome. There, too, I was awed by the greatness of the man who had painted that ceiling. It was genius, and it was stupendous and overwhelming. I felt small and insignificant. But you are prepared for the greatness of Michelangelo. Nothing had prepared me for the immense surprise of these pictures in a native hut, far away from civilisation, in the fold of the mountain, above Turraval. And Michelangelo is sane and healthy. Those great works of his have the calm of the sublime. But here, notwithstanding beauty was something troubling. I do not know what it was. It made me uneasy. It gave me the impression you get when you are sitting next door to a room that you know is empty, but in which you know not why you have a dreadful consciousness that notwithstanding there is someone. You scold yourself. You know it is only your nerves, and yet and yet. In a little while it is impossible to resist the terror that seizes you, and you are helpless in the clutch of an unseen horror. Yes, I confess I was not altogether sorry when I heard that those strange masterpieces had been destroyed. Destroyed, I cried. May we did you not know? How should I know? It is true, I had never heard of this work, but I thought perhaps it had fallen into the hands of a private owner. Even now there is no certain list of Strickland's paintings. When he grew blind he would sit hour after hour in those two rooms that he had painted, looking at his works with sightless eyes and seeing, perhaps, more than he had ever seen in his life before. Atta told me that he never complained of his fate. He never lost courage. To the end his mind remained serene and undisturbed. But he made her promise that when she had buried him, did I tell you that I dug his grave with my own hands, when none of the natives would approach the infected house, and we buried him, she and I, sewn up in three pareos joined together under the mango tree. He made her promise that she would set fire to the house, and not leave it till it was burnt to the ground and not a stick remained. I did not speak for a while, for I was thinking. Then I said, He remained the same to the end then. Do you understand? I must tell you that I thought it my duty to dissuade her, even after what you have just said. Yes, for I knew that here was a work of genius, and I did not think we had the right to deprive the world of it. But Atta would not listen to me, she had promised. I would not stay to witness the Barbara's deed, and it was only afterwards that I heard what she had done. She poured paraffin on the dry floors and on the pandanus mats, and then she set fire. In a little while nothing remained but smouldering embers, and a great masterpiece existed no longer. I think Strickland knew it was a masterpiece. He had achieved what he wanted. His life was complete. He had made a world and saw that it was good. Then in pride and contempt he destroyed it. But I must show you my picture, said Dr. Kutra, moving on. What happened to Atta and the child? They went to the Marquesas. She had relations there. I have heard that the boy works on one of Cameron's schooners. They say he is very like his father in appearance. At the door that led from the veranda to the doctor's consulting room, he paused and smiled. It is a fruit-piece. You would think it not a very suitable picture for a doctor's consulting room, but my wife will not have it in the drawing room. She says it is frankly obscene. A fruit-piece, I exclaimed in surprise. We entered the room and my eyes fell at once upon the picture. I looked at it for a long time. It was a pile of mangoes, bananas, oranges, and I know not what. And at first sight it was an innocent picture enough. It would have been passed in an exhibition of the post-impressionists, by a careless person, as an excellent, but not very remarkable, example of the school. But perhaps afterwards it would come back to his recollection, and he would wonder why. I do not think then he could ever entirely forget it. The colours were so strange that words can hardly tell what a troubling emotion they gave. They were somber blues, opaque like a delicately carved bowl in lapis lazuli, and yet with a quivering luster that suggested the palpitation of mysterious life. There were purples, horrible like raw and putrid flesh, and yet with a glowing sensual passion that called up vague memories of the Roman Empire of Heliogobalus. There were reds, shrill like the berries of Holly, one thought of Christmas in England, and the snow, the good cheer, and the pleasure of children. And yet by some magic softened till they had the swooning tenderness of a dove's breast. There were deep yellows that died with an unnatural passion into a green, as fragrant as the spring, and as pure as the sparkling water of a mountain brook. Who can tell what anguished fancy made these fruits? They belonged to a Polynesian garden of the Hesperides. There was something strangely alive in them, as though they were created in a stage of the earth's dark history, when things were not irrevocably fixed to their forms. They were extravagantly luxurious. They were heavy with tropical odours. They seemed to possess a somber passion of their own. It was enchanted fruit, to taste which might open the gateway to, God knows what, secrets of the soul, and to mysterious palaces of the imagination. They were sullen with unawaited dangers, and to eat them might turn a man to beast or god. All that was healthy and natural, all that clung to happy relationships, and the simple joys of simple men, shrunk from them in dismay. And yet a fearful attraction was in them, unlike the fruit on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were terrible with the possibilities of the unknown. At last I turned away. I felt that Strickland had kept his secret to the grave. At one young homey mon ami came the loud cheerful voice of Madame Kutra. What are you doing all this time? Here are the aperitif. Ask Monsieur if he will not drink a little glass of cancina doubonne. Voluntier, Madame, I said, going out onto the veranda. The spell was broken. The time came for my departure from Tahiti. According to the gracious customer of the island, presents were given me by the persons with whom I had been thrown in contact, baskets made of the leaves of the coconut tree, mats of pandanas, fans, and Tiare gave me three little pearls and three jars of guava jelly made with her own plump hands. When the mail-boat, stopping for twenty-four hours on its way from Wellington to San Francisco, blew the whistle that warned the passengers to get on board, Tiare clasped me to her vast bosom so that I seemed to sink into a billowy sea, and pressed her red lips to mine. Tears glistened in her eyes, and when we steamed slowly out of the lagoon, making our way gingerly through the opening in the reef, and then steered for the open sea, a certain melancholy fell upon me. The breeze was laden still with the pleasant odours of the land. Tahiti is very far away, and I knew that I should never see it again. A chapter of my life was closed, and I felt a little nearer to inevitable death. Not much more than a month later I was in London, and after I had arranged certain matters which claimed my immediate attention, thinking Mrs. Strickland might like to hear what I knew of her husband's last years, I wrote to her. I had not seen her since long before the war, and I had to look out her address in the telephone-book. She made an appointment, and I went to the trim little house on Camden Hill, which she now inhabited. She was, by this time, a woman of hard on sixty, but she bore her years well, and no one would have taken her for more than fifty. Her face, thin and not much lined, was of the sort that ages gracefully, so that you thought in youth she must have been a much handsomer woman than, in fact, she was. Her hair, not yet very grey, was becomingly arranged, and her black gown was modish. I remembered having heard that her sister, Mrs. McAndrew, out living her husband but a couple of years, had left money to Mrs. Strickland, and by the look of the house and the trim maid who opened the door, I judged that it was a sum adequate to keep the widow in modest comfort. When I was ushered into the drawing-room, I found that Mrs. Strickland had a visitor, and when I discovered who he was, I guessed that I had been asked to come at just that time, not without intention. The caller was Mr. Van Bush Taylor, an American, and Mrs. Strickland gave me particulars with a charming smile of apology to him. You know, we English are so dreadfully ignorant, you must forgive me if it's necessary to explain. Then she turned to me, Mr. Van Bush Taylor is the distinguished American critic. If you haven't read his book, your education has been shamefully neglected, and you must repair the real mission at once. He's writing something about dear Charlie, and he's come to ask me if I can help him. Mr. Van Bush Taylor was a very thin man with a large bald head, bony and shining, and under the great dome of his skull, his face yellow with deep lines in it looked very small. He was quiet and exceedingly polite. He spoke with the accent of New England, and there was about his demeanour a bloodless fragility which made me ask myself why at earth he was busying himself with Charles Strickland. I had been slightly tickled at the gentleness which Mrs. Strickland put into her mention of her husband's name, and while the pair conversed, I took stock of the room in which we sat. Mrs. Strickland had moved with the times. Gone were the Morris papers, and gone the Sevier Cretons. Gone were the Arendelle prints that had adorned the walls of her drawing-room in Ashley Gardens. The room blazed with fantastic colour, and I wondered if she knew that those varied hues which fashion had imposed upon her were due to the dreams of a poor painter in the South Sea Island. She gave me the answer herself. What wonderful cushions you have! said Mr. Van Bush Taylor. Do you like them? she said, smiling. Baxed, you know. And yet on the walls were coloured reproductions of several of Strickland's best pictures due to the enterprise of a publisher in Berlin. You're looking at my pictures, she said, following my eyes. Of course the originals are out of my reach, but it's a comfort to have these. The publisher sent them to me himself. They're a great consolation to me. They must be very pleasant to live with, said Mr. Van Bush Taylor. Yes, they're so sensually decorative. That is one of my profoundest convictions, said Mr. Van Bush Taylor. Great art is always decorative. Their eyes rested on a nude woman suckling a baby, while a girl was kneeling by their side, holding out a flower to the indifferent child. Looking over them was a wrinkled, scraggy hag. It was Strickland's version of the Holy Family. I suspected that for the figures had sat his household above Taravow, and the woman and the baby were Atta and his first son. I asked myself if Mrs. Strickland had any inkling of the facts. The conversation proceeded, and I marveled at the tact with which Mr. Van Bush Taylor avoided all subjects that might have been in the least embarrassing, and that the ingenuity with which Mrs. Strickland, without saying a word that was untrue, insinuated that her relations with her husband had always been perfect. At last Mr. Van Bush Taylor rose to go. Holding his hostess's hand, he made her a graceful, though perhaps too elaborate, speech of thanks, and left us. I hoped he didn't bore you, she said, when the door closed behind him. Of course it's a nuisance sometimes, but I feel it's only right to give people any information I can about Charlie. There's a certain responsibility about having been the wife of a genius. She looked at me with those pleasant eyes of hers, which had remained as candid and as sympathetic as they had been more than twenty years before. I wondered if she was making a fool of me. Uh, of course, you've given up your business, I said. Oh, yes, she answered eerily. I ran it more by way of a hobby than for any other reason, and my children persuaded me to sell it. They thought I was overtaxing my strength. I saw that Mrs. Strickland had forgotten that she had ever done anything so disgraceful as to work for her living. She had the true instinct of the nice woman, that it is only really decent for her to live on other people's money. They're here now, she said. I thought they'd like to hear what you had to say about their father. You remember Robert, don't you? I'm glad to say he's been recommended for the military cross. She went to the door and called them. There entered a tall man in khaki with the parson's collar, handsome in a somewhat heavy fashion, but with the frank eyes that I remembered in him as a boy. He was followed by his sister. She must have been the same age as was her mother when first I knew her, and she was very like her. She, too, gave one the impression that as a girl she must have been prettier than indeed she was. I don't suppose you remember them in the least, said Mrs. Strickland, proud and smiling. My daughter is now Mrs. Ronaldson. Her husband's a major in the gunners. He's my way of being a pucker, soldier, you know, said Mrs. Ronaldson Gailey. That's why he's only a major. I remembered my anticipation long ago that she would marry a soldier. It was inevitable. She had all the graces of the soldier's wife. She was civil and affable, but she could hardly conceal her intimate conviction that she was not quite as others were. Robert was breezy. It's a bit of luck that I should be in London when you turned up, he said. I've only got three days leave. He's dying to get back, said his mother. Well, I don't mind confessing it. I have a rattling good time at the front. I've made a lot of good pals to first rate life. Of course, war's terrible and all that sort of thing, but it does bring out the best qualities in a man. There's no denying that. Then I told them what I had learned about Charles Strickland in Tahiti. I thought it unnecessary to say anything of utter and her boy, but for the rest I was as accurate as I could be. When I had narrated his lamentable death I ceased. For a minute or two we were all silent. Then Robert Strickland struck a match and lit a cigarette. The mills of God grinded slowly, but they grinded exceeding small. He said, somewhat impressively. Mrs. Strickland and Mrs. Ronaldson looked down with a slightly pious expression, which indicated I felt sure that they thought the quotation was from Holy Ritt. Indeed, I was unconvinced that Robert Strickland did not share their illusion. I don't know why I suddenly thought of Strickland's son by atta. They had told me he was a merry, light-hearted youth. I saw him with my mind's eye on the schooner on which he worked, wearing nothing but a pair of dungarees, and at night when the boat sailed along easily before a light breeze and the sailors were gathered on the upper deck, while the captain and the super-cargo lulled in detures, smoking their pipes. I saw him dance with another lad, dance wildly to the wheezy music of the concertina. Above was the blue sky and the stars, and all about the desert of the Pacific Ocean. A quotation from the Bible came to my lips, but I held my tongue, for I know that clergymen think it a little blasphemous when the laity poach upon their preserves. My uncle Henry, for twenty-seven years, vicar of Whitstable, was on these occasions in the habit of saying that the devil could always quote scripture to his purpose. He remembered the days when you could get thirteen royal natives for a shilling. End of Chapter fifty-eight and End of The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Morne Read for LibriVox by Turmin Diane in November two-thousand-and-nine