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Unit Five

TEXT

From “A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE”

By W. S. Maugham

William Somerset Maugham, playwright, novelist and short-story writer was born of British parents in Paris in 1874. He studied medicine for a time before turning to writing, eventually releasing well-known works like “Of Human Bondage”, “Cakes and Ale” and “The Razor's Edge”. W. S. Maugham became a witty satirist of the post-colonial world and wrote over thirty plays, mainly light satiric comedies. He is probably best known as a short story writer. His clear, lucid and economical style makes easy reading and his short stories have been reprinted frequently in collected editions.

I left Bangkok on a shabby little ship. I had gone on board early in the morning and soon discovered that I was thrown amid the oddest collection of persons I had ever encountered. There were two French traders and a Belgian colonel, an Italian tenor, the American proprietor of a circus with his wife, and a retired French official with his.

The French official had been accompanied on board by the French minister at Bangkok, one or two secretaries and a prince of a royal family. He was evidently a person of consequence. I had heard the captain address him as Monsieur Le Governor.

Monsieur Le Governor was a little man, well below the average height, with a very ugly little face; he had a bushy grey head, bushy grey eyebrows, and a bushy grey moustache. He did look a little like a poodle and he had the poodle's soft, intelligent and shining eyes.

The Governor's wife was a large woman, tall and of a robust build. She towered over her diminutive husband like a skyscraper over a shack. He talked incessantly, with vivacity and wit, and when he said anything amusing her heavy features relaxed into a large fond smile.

In such a small ship having once made the acquaintance of my fellow passengers, it would have been impossible, even had I wished it, not to pass with them every moment of the day that I was not in my cabin.

Talking of one thing and another we watched the day decline, we dined, and then we sat out again on deck under the stars. Soon, influenced perhaps by the night, the Italian tenor, accompanying himself on his guitar began to sing first in a low tone, and then a little louder, till presently, his music captivating him, he sang with all his might. He had the real Italian voice, and he sang the Neapolitan songs that I had heard in my youth.

I saw that the little French Governor had been holding the hand of his large wife and the sight was absurd and touching.

“Do you know that this is the anniversary of the day on which I first saw my wife?” he said, suddenly breaking the silence which had certainly weighed on him, for I had never met a more loquacious creature.

“It is also the anniversary of the day on which she promised to be my wife. And, which will surprise you, they were one and the same.”

“Mon ami”, said the lady, “you are not going to bore our friends with that old story. You are really quite unsupportable”. But she spoke with a smile on her large, firm face, and a tone that suggested that she was quite willing to hear it again.

“But it will interest them, mon petit chou”. It was in this way that he always addressed his wife and it was funny to hear this imposing and even majestic lady thus addressed by her small husband.

“Will it not, monsieur?” he asked me. “It is a romance, and who does not like a romance, especially on such a night like this?” I assured the governor that we were all anxious to hear and the Belgian colonel took the opportunity once more to be polite.

“You see, ours was a marriage of convenience pure and simple. ”

“C'est vrai” said the lady. “It would be stupid to deny it. But sometimes love comes after marriage and not before, and then it is better. It lasts longer.” I could not but notice that the Governor gave her an affectionate little squeeze.

“You see, I had been in the navy, and when I retired I was forty-nine. I was strong and active and I was very anxious to find an occupation. I looked about; I pulled all the strings I could. And presently I was sent for by the minister to the Colonies and offered the post of Governor in a certain colony. The minister told me that I must be ready to start in a month. I told him that would be easy for an old bachelor.'

“You are a bachelor?” he cried.

“Certainly,” I answered. “And I have every intention of remaining one”

“In that case I am afraid I must withdraw my offer. For this position it is essential that you should be married.”

“It is too long a story to tell you, but the gist of it was that owing to the scandal my predecessor had caused, it had been decided that the next Governor must be a model of respectability. I expostulated. I argued. Nothing would serve. The minister was adamant.”

“But what can I do?” I cried in dismay.

“You can marry,” said the minister.

“I do not know any women, I am not a lady’s man. I am forty-nine. How do you expect me to find a wife?”

“Nothing is more simple. Put an advertisement in the paper.” I was confounded. I did not know what to say.

“Well, think it over,” said the minister. “If you can find a wife in a month you can go, but no wife no job. That is my last word”. He smiled a little; to him the situation was not without humor.

“And if you think of advertising I recommend the Figaro.”

I walked away from the ministry with death in my heart. Suddenly I made up my mind. I walked to the offices of the Figaro, composed an advertisement, and handed it in for insertion. You will never believe it, but there were four thousand three hundred and seventy-two women willing to share my solitude and be a Governor’s lady. It was staggering. They were of all ages from seventeen to seventy. There were maidens of irreproachable ancestry and the highest culture. There were unmarried ladies who had made a little slip at one period of their career and now desired to regularize their situation; there were widows whose husbands had died in the most harrowing circumstances; and there were widows whose children would be a solace to my old age. They were blonde and dark, tall and short, fat and thin; some could speak five languages and others could play the piano. Some offered me love and some craved for it; some could give me only solid friendship but mingled with esteem; some had a fortune and others good prospects. I was overwhelmed, I was bewildered. At last I lost my temper, for I am a passionate man, and I got up and I stamped on all those letters and all those photographs and I cried: I will marry none of you. I felt if I did not see them all, I should be tortured to the rest of my life by the thought that I had missed the one woman the fates had destined to make me happy. I gave it up as a bad job.

I went out of my room hideous with all those photographs and littered papers and to drive care away went on to the boulevard and sat down at the Cafe de la Paix. After a time I saw a friend passing. My friend stopped and coming up to me sat down.

“What is making you look so glum?” he asked me.

I was glad to have someone in whom I could confide my troubles and told him the whole story. He laughed consumedly. Controlling his mirth as best he could, he said to me:

“But, my dear fellow, do you really want to marry?” At this I entirely lost my temper.

“You are completely idiotic,” I said. “If I did not want to marry, do you imagine that I should have spent three days reading love letters from women I have never set eyes on?”

“Calm yourself and listen to me,” he replied. “I have a cousin who lives in Geneva. She is Swiss. Her morals are without reproach, she is of a suitable age, a spinster, for she has spent the last fifteen years nursing an invalid mother who has lately died, she is well educated and she is not ugly.”

“It sound as though she were a paragon,” I said.

“I do not say that, but she has been well brought up and become a position you have to offer her.”

“There is one thing you forget. What inducement would there be for her to give up her accustomed life to accompany in exile a man of forty-nine who is by no means a beauty?”

When I made this remark to my friend he replied: “One can never tell with women. There is something about marriage that wonderfully attracts them. There would be no harm in asking her.”

“But I do not know your cousin and I don't see how I am to make her acquaintance. I cannot go to her house, ask to see her, and when I am shown into the drawing room say: Voila, I have come to ask you to marry me. She would think I was a lunatic and scream for help. Besides I am a man of extreme timidity, and I could never take such a step.”

“I will tell you what to do,” said my friend. “Go to Geneva and take her a box of chocolates from me. You can have a little talk and then if you do not like the look of her you take your leave and no harm is done.”

That night I took the train to Geneva. No sooner had I arrived than I sent her a letter to say that I was the bearer of a gift from her cousin. Within an hour I received her reply to the effect that she would be pleased to receive me at four o'clock in the afternoon. As the clock struck four I presented myself at the door of her house. She was waiting for me. Imagine my surprise to see a young woman with the dignity of Juno, the features of Venus, and in her expression the intelligence of Minerva. I was so taken aback that I nearly dropped the box of chocolates. We talked for a quarter of an hour. And then I said to her:

“Mademoiselle, I must tell you that I did not come here merely to give you a box of chocolates. I came to ask you to do me the honour of marrying me.”

She gave a start.

“But, monsieur, you are mad,” she said.

Then I repeated my offer.

“I will not deny that your offer has come as a surprise. I had not thought of marrying, I have passed the age. I must consult my friends and my family.”

“What have they got to do with it? You are of full age. The matter is pressing. I cannot wait. “

“You are not asking me to say yes or no this very minute? That is outrageous.”

“That is exactly what I am asking.'”

“You are quite evidently a lunatic.”

“Well, which is it to be? “ I said. “Yes or no?”

She shrugged her shoulders. She waited a minute and I was on tenterhooks.

”Yes.”

And there she is. We were married in a fortnight and I became Governor of a colony. “I married a jewel, my dear sirs, one in a thousand, a woman of the most charming character, a woman of masculine intelligence and a feminine sensibility, an admirable woman.”

He turned to the Belgian colonel.

“Are you a bachelor? If so I strongly recommend you to go to Geneva. It is a nest of the most adorable young women.”

It was she who summed up the story.

“The fact is that in a marriage of convenience you expect less and so you are less likely to be disappointed. As you do not make senseless claims on one another there is no reason for exasperation. You do not look for perfection and so you are tolerant to one another’s faults. Passion is all very well, but it is not a proper foundation for marriage. For two people to be happy in marriage they must be able to respect one another, and their interests must be alike; then if they are decent people and are willing to give and take, to live and let live, there is no reason why their union should not be as happy as ours.” She paused.

“But, of course, my husband is a very, very remarkable man.”

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