The Moon and Sixpence - Penn State University

Somerset Maugham
“ Your appearance doesn’t suggest the anchoing in the mud. And you want to roll yourself in
rite.”
it. And you find some woman, coarse and low
“All that business fills me with disgust.” and vulgar, some beastly creature in whom all
“Human nature is a nuisance, isn’t it?” I said. the horror of sex is blatant, and you fall upon
“Why are you sniggering at me?”
her like a wild animal. You drink till you’re blind
“Because I don’t believe you.”
with rage.”
“Then you’re a damned fool.”
He stared at me without the slightest move-
I paused, and I looked at him searchingly. ment. I held his eyes with mine. I spoke very
“What’s the good of trying to humbug me?” I slowly.
said.
“I’ll tell you what must seem strange, that
“I don’t know what you mean.”
when it’s over you feel so extraordinarily pure.
I smiled.
You feel like a disembodied spirit, immaterial;
“Let me tell you. I imagine that for months and you seem to be able to touch beauty as
the matter never comes into your head, and though it were a palpable thing; and you feel an
you’re able to persuade yourself that you’ve intimate communion with the breeze, and with
finished with it for good and all. You rejoice in the trees breaking into leaf, and with the irides-
your freedom, and you feel that at last you can cence of the river. You feel like God. Can you ex-
call your soul your own. You seem to walk with plain that to me?”
your head among the stars. And then, all of a He kept his eyes fixed on mine till I had fin-
sudden you can’t stand it any more, and you ished, and then he turned away. There was on
notice that all the time your feet have been walk- his face a strange look, and I thought that so
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