Of Human Bondage (116 page)

  He had arranged to meet Sally on Saturday in the
National Gallery. She was to come there as soon as she was released
from the shop and had agreed to lunch with him. Two days had passed
since he had seen her, and his exultation had not left him for a
moment. It was because he rejoiced in the feeling that he had not
attempted to see her. He had repeated to himself exactly what he
would say to her and how he should say it. Now his impatience was
unbearable. He had written to Doctor South and had in his pocket a
telegram from him received that morning: "Sacking the mumpish fool.
When will you come?" Philip walked along Parliament Street. It was
a fine day, and there was a bright, frosty sun which made the light
dance in the street. It was crowded. There was a tenuous mist in
the distance, and it softened exquisitely the noble lines of the
buildings. He crossed Trafalgar Square. Suddenly his heart gave a
sort of twist in his body; he saw a woman in front of him who he
thought was Mildred. She had the same figure, and she walked with
that slight dragging of the feet which was so characteristic of
her. Without thinking, but with a beating heart, he hurried till he
came alongside, and then, when the woman turned, he saw it was
someone unknown to him. It was the face of a much older person,
with a lined, yellow skin. He slackened his pace. He was infinitely
relieved, but it was not only relief that he felt; it was
disappointment too; he was seized with horror of himself. Would he
never be free from that passion? At the bottom of his heart,
notwithstanding everything, he felt that a strange, desperate
thirst for that vile woman would always linger. That love had
caused him so much suffering that he knew he would never, never
quite be free of it. Only death could finally assuage his
desire.

  But he wrenched the pang from his heart. He thought
of Sally, with her kind blue eyes; and his lips unconsciously
formed themselves into a smile. He walked up the steps of the
National Gallery and sat down in the first room, so that he should
see her the moment she came in. It always comforted him to get
among pictures. He looked at none in particular, but allowed the
magnificence of their colour, the beauty of their lines, to work
upon his soul. His imagination was busy with Sally. It would be
pleasant to take her away from that London in which she seemed an
unusual figure, like a cornflower in a shop among orchids and
azaleas; he had learned in the Kentish hop-field that she did not
belong to the town; and he was sure that she would blossom under
the soft skies of Dorset to a rarer beauty. She came in, and he got
up to meet her. She was in black, with white cuffs at her wrists
and a lawn collar round her neck. They shook hands.

  "Have you been waiting long?"

  "No. Ten minutes. Are you hungry?"

  "Not very."

  "Let's sit here for a bit, shall we?"

  "If you like."

  They sat quietly, side by side, without speaking.
Philip enjoyed having her near him. He was warmed by her radiant
health. A glow of life seemed like an aureole to shine about
her.

  "Well, how have you been?" he said at last, with a
little smile.

  "Oh, it's all right. It was a false alarm."

  "Was it?"

  "Aren't you glad?"

  An extraordinary sensation filled him. He had felt
certain that Sally's suspicion was well-founded; it had never
occurred to him for an instant that there was a possibility of
error. All his plans were suddenly overthrown, and the existence,
so elaborately pictured, was no more than a dream which would never
be realised. He was free once more. Free! He need give up none of
his projects, and life still was in his hands for him to do what he
liked with. He felt no exhilaration, but only dismay. His heart
sank. The future stretched out before him in desolate emptiness. It
was as though he had sailed for many years over a great waste of
waters, with peril and privation, and at last had come upon a fair
haven, but as he was about to enter, some contrary wind had arisen
and drove him out again into the open sea; and because he had let
his mind dwell on these soft meads and pleasant woods of the land,
the vast deserts of the ocean filled him with anguish. He could not
confront again the loneliness and the tempest. Sally looked at him
with her clear eyes.

  "Aren't you glad?" she asked again. "I thought you'd
be as pleased as Punch."

  He met her gaze haggardly. "I'm not sure," he
muttered.

  "You are funny. Most men would."

  He realised that he had deceived himself; it was no
self-sacrifice that had driven him to think of marrying, but the
desire for a wife and a home and love; and now that it all seemed
to slip through his fingers he was seized with despair. He wanted
all that more than anything in the world. What did he care for
Spain and its cities, Cordova, Toledo, Leon; what to him were the
pagodas of Burmah and the lagoons of South Sea Islands? America was
here and now. It seemed to him that all his life he had followed
the ideals that other people, by their words or their writings, had
instilled into him, and never the desires of his own heart. Always
his course had been swayed by what he thought he should do and
never by what he wanted with his whole soul to do. He put all that
aside now with a gesture of impatience. He had lived always in the
future, and the present always, always had slipped through his
fingers. His ideals? He thought of his desire to make a design,
intricate and beautiful, out of the myriad, meaningless facts of
life: had he not seen also that the simplest pattern, that in which
a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died, was
likewise the most perfect? It might be that to surrender to
happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than
many victories.

  He glanced quickly at Sally, he wondered what she
was thinking, and then looked away again.

  "I was going to ask you to marry me," he said.

  "I thought p'raps you might, but I shouldn't have
liked to stand in your way."

  "You wouldn't have done that."

  "How about your travels, Spain and all that?"

  "How d'you know I want to travel?"

  "I ought to know something about it. I've heard you
and Dad talk about it till you were blue in the face."

  "I don't care a damn about all that." He paused for
an instant and then spoke in a low, hoarse whisper. "I don't want
to leave you! I can't leave you."

  She did not answer. He could not tell what she
thought.

  "I wonder if you'll marry me, Sally."

  She did not move and there was no flicker of emotion
on her face, but she did not look at him when she answered.

  "If you like."

  "Don't you want to?"

  "Oh, of course I'd like to have a house of my own,
and it's about time I was settling down."

  He smiled a little. He knew her pretty well by now,
and her manner did not surprise him.

  "But don't you want to marry ME?"

  "There's no one else I would marry."

  "Then that settles it."

  "Mother and Dad will be surprised, won't they?"

  "I'm so happy."

  "I want my lunch," she said.

  "Dear!"

  He smiled and took her hand and pressed it. They got
up and walked out of the gallery. They stood for a moment at the
balustrade and looked at Trafalgar Square. Cabs and omnibuses
hurried to and fro, and crowds passed, hastening in every
direction, and the sun was shining.

  by W. Somerset Maugham

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