Chapter 58 fifty eight

The day has come for me to leave Tahiti.According to the hospitable habits of the island, all the people I met by chance and I knew a little bit gave me some gifts when they parted-baskets woven from coconut leaves, mats woven from pandanus leaves, fans... .What Tiare gave me were three little pearls and three jars of guava jam, which she made herself with her fat hands.Finally, when the cruise ship from Wellington to San Francisco was moored at the wharf for twenty-four hours, and its whistle blew to welcome the passengers on board, Tiare hugged me in her big chest feeling in the sea), with tears in her eyes, pressing her red lips to mine.As the ship sailed slowly out of the lagoon, and cautiously sailed through a passage in the coral reef to the open sea, a burst of sadness suddenly hit my heart.The air is still filled with heady aromas from the land, but Tahiti is far away.I know I'll never see it again.Another page in the history of my life was turned; I felt that I was one step closer to the death from which no one can escape.

A month and a few days later, I was back in London.Having settled some urgent matters, I wrote to Mrs. Strickland, thinking that she might wish to know what had become of her husband's last years.We hadn't seen each other for a long time before the war. I didn't know where she lived at this time, so I had to look in the phone book to find her address.In her reply she appointed a day on which I would pay her a visit at her new house in Campden Hill--a neat little house.Mrs. Strickland was at this time nearly sixty years old, but she did not look old at all, and no one would believe that she was over fifty.Her face was thinner and less wrinkled, the kind of face that age hardly marks, and you would think she must have been a beauty when she was young, much more beautiful than she really was.Her hair was not completely gray, but it was combed to suit her status, and the black gown on her body looked very fashionable.I seem to have heard it said that her sister, Mrs. MacAndrew, died a few years after her husband's, leaving Mrs. Strickland some money.From the neat appearance of her present lodgings and the maid who opened the door for us, I guessed that this sum was sufficient to keep the widow in a comfortable life.

I did not realize until I was shown into the living room that there was another guest in the room.When I learned the identity of this visitor, I guessed that Mrs. Strickland's invitation to come at this time was not without purpose.The visitor was Mr. Van Busch Taylor, an American; Mrs. Strickland, smiling apologetically and charmingly at him, gave me a detailed account of him. "You know, we English people are terribly narrow-minded. You'll have to forgive me if I have to explain." Then she turned to me and said, "Mr. Famous critic. If you haven't read him, your education is lacking; you must start to make up for it at once. Mr. Taylor is writing something now, about dear Charles. He has come to me specially Here to see if I can help him."

Mr. Van Busch Taylor was very thin, with a large bald head with bony bony gleaming scalp; beneath the broad brow was a yellowed, wrinkled, dry and thin face.His demeanor was quiet and courteous, and he spoke with a New England accent.The man strikes me as very rigid and unenthusiastic; I wonder how he ever thought of studying Charles Strickland.Mrs. Strickland spoke of her dead husband with such tenderness that I amused myself.While the two were talking, I surveyed the living room in which we were sitting.Mrs. Strickland was a fashionista.Gone were the interiors of her former home in Ashley Gardens, Morris wallpaper no longer pasted on the walls, no plain calico covers over the furniture, the Arundel that used to adorn the walls of the drawing room. The pictures were also removed.Now this drawing-room is full of wild colors, and I doubt whether she knows that her fashion of adorning the house is the result of the dreams of a poor painter on an island in the South Sea.She answered my question herself.

"These cushions of yours are marvelous," said Mr. Van Busch Taylor. "Do you like it?" she laughed. "Baxter designed it, you know." But there are also several colored reproductions of Strickland's best paintings hanging on the walls; this is attributed to an ambitious printer in Berlin. "You're looking at my drawing," she said, seeing where I was looking. "Of course, I can't get his original drawing, but that's enough. It was offered to me by the publisher." .It was a great comfort to me.” "It's a great pleasure to look at these paintings every day," said Mr. Van Busch Taylor.

"Exactly. These pictures are very decorative." "This is also one of my most basic views," Mr. van Busch Taylor said, "great art has always been the most decorative value." Their eyes fell on a naked woman nursing a child, and beside her a young girl knelt and handed a flower to a child, who paid no attention.A wrinkled, skinny old woman watched them.This is Strickland's painting of the Holy Family.I guessed that the people in the painting were his sojourners in the house near the village of Tarawa, and that the nursing woman and the baby in her arms were Ata and their first child.I wondered if Mrs. Strickland knew a thing or two about these things.

The conversation goes on.I greatly admire Mr. Van Busch Taylor's tact; he avoids embarrassing subjects entirely.I was also very much struck by Mrs. Strickland's tact; though she said nothing untrue, she gave ample hints that she and her husband were on very good terms, and never had any quarrels.At last Mr. Van Busch Taylor rose to take his leave, shook the hand of his hostess, and left us after a long, beautiful, if not too artificial, thank you. "I hope this man has not bored you," said Mrs. Strickland, when the door closed behind Van Busch Taylor. "Of course, sometimes it's really annoying, but I always feel that if someone comes to know about Charles' situation, I should try to provide them with what I know. As a widow of a great genius, this should be a kind of Obligation."

She looked at me with her lovely eyes, which were very sincere and kind, exactly the same as they were more than twenty years ago.I kind of wondered if she was playing tricks on me. "Your typing office must have closed down long ago, right?" I said. "Ah, of course," she said carelessly, "I opened that typing office mainly for fun, and for no other reason. Later, my two children persuaded me to sell it to others. They thought it was too wasteful. I'm out of spirit." I found that Mrs. Strickland had forgotten the disgraceful history of having to support herself.Like any decent woman, she genuinely believed that the only proper behavior was to depend on others for support.

"They're all at home," she said, "and I think they'd love to hear you tell them about their father. You remember Robert? I'm glad to tell you that his name is on the list. Soon to receive the Army Cross." She went to the door to greet them.In came a tall man in khakis with a priest's collar around his neck.The man was tall, with a robust beauty, and his eyes were still as sincere and bright as in his childhood.Behind him came his sister; she must have been about the same age as when I first saw her mother.She looked very much like her mother, and gave the impression that she must have looked more beautiful than she really was when she was a child.

"I suppose you don't remember them at all," said Mrs. Strickland, smiling proudly. "My daughter is now Mrs. Donaldson, and her husband is a major in the artillery regiment." "He's a real soldier," said Mrs. Donaldson cheerfully, "so he's just now a major." I remembered my prophecy a long time ago: she will definitely marry a soldier in the future.It seems that this matter has long been doomed.She had the demeanor of a soldier's wife.She is genial and gracious, but on the other hand she makes little secret of her inner conviction that she is different from other people.Robert's spirits were running high.

"What a coincidence that you are here just as I am in London," said he. "I have only three days off." "He wanted to go back as soon as possible," his mother said. "Oh, I admit it, I had a lot of fun at the front. I made a lot of friends. It was a real life there. Of course, the war was terrible, and everyone knew that. But the war It can indeed show the excellent nature of a person, which no one can deny." After this I told them what I had heard of Charles Strickland in Tahiti.I did not think it necessary to mention Ata and her child, but the rest I have told the truth.After I finished talking about the circumstances of his tragic death, I didn't say any more.No one spoke for a minute or two.Then Robert Strickland struck a match and lit a cigarette. "God's mill turns slowly, but grinds very finely," said Robert, rather sanctimoniously. Mrs. Strickland and Mrs. Donaldson bowed their heads reverently.I have no doubt at all that the mother and daughter acted so piously because they both thought Robert had just quoted a sentence from the Bible.To be honest, I am not sure whether even Robert himself is absolutely free from this delusion.For some reason I suddenly thought of the child Ata had borne to Strickland.According to others, this is a lively, cheerful, happy young man.In my imagination, I seem to see a brig, and this young man is working on board, naked, except for a piece of coarse blue cloth around his waist; Gliding briskly on the sea, the sailors gathered on the upper deck, and the captain and a cargo officer sat on canvas chairs and smoked their pipes freely.The Strickland boy danced with another lad, and they danced wildly to the muffled accordion.Above the head is a blue sky, the stars are shining, and the Pacific Ocean is vast and vast. Another sentence from the Bible came to my lips, but I restrained myself from uttering it, because I knew that priests did not like laity encroaching on their domain, which they considered blasphemy.My Uncle Henry, who was vicar for twenty-seven years in the parish of Witterstable, would say at such occasions that the devil always quotes the Bible when he wants to do evil.He never forgot the time when he could buy thirteen oysters for a shilling.