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An Official Position
227
he could do with that. Then he would have a good sleep; after a
night on his feet, the anxiety of an inexperienced assistant, and the
clearing away of all the mess, God knew he would deserve it.
In front of him was spread the bay in a noble sweep, and in the
distance was a little island green with trees. The afternoon was
exquisitely still. Peace descended on the fisherman's soul. He
watched his float idly. When you came to think of it, he reflected,
he might be a great deal worse off; some of them, the convicts he
meant, the convicts who swarmed in the prison a few hundred
yards away from him, some of them had such a nostalgia for
France that they went mad with melancholy; but he was a bit of a
philosopher, so long as he could fish he was content; and did it
really matter if he watched his float on the southern sea or in the
Rhone? His thoughts wandered back to the past. His wife was an
intolerable woman and he did not regret that he had killed her. He
had never meant to marry her. She was a dressmaker, and he had
taken a fancy to her because she was always neatly and smartly
dressed. She seemed respectable and ladylike. He would not have
been surprised if she had looked upon herself as a cut above a po-
liceman. But he had a way with him. She soon gave him to under-
stand that she was no snob, and when he made the customary
advances he discovered to his relief, for he was not a man who
considered that resistance added a flavour to conquest, that she
was no prude. He liked to be seen with her when he took her out
to dinner. She talked intelligently, and she was economical. She
knew where they could dine well at the cheapest price. His situa-
tion was enviable. It added to his satisfaction that he could gratify
the sexual desires natural to his healthy temperament at so moder-
ate an expense. When she came to him and said she was going to
have a baby it seemed natural enough that they should get married.
He was earning good wages, and it was time that he should settle
down. He often grew tired of eating,
en pension,
at a restaurant,
and he looked forward to having his own home and home cooking.
Well, it turned out that it had been a mistake about the baby, but
Louis Remire was a good-natured fellow, and he didn't hold it up
against Adele. But he found, as many men have found before, that
the wife was a very different woman from the mistress. She was
jealous and possessive. She seemed to think that on a Sunday after-
noon he ought to take her for a walk instead of going out fishing,
and she made it a grievance that, on coming off duty, he would go
228
W. Somerset Maugham
to the cafe. There was one cafe he frequented where other fisher-
men went and where he met men with whom he had a lot in com-
mon. He found it much pleasanter to spend his free evenings there
over a glass or two of beer, whiling away the time with a game of
cards, than to sit at home with his wife. She began to make scenes.
Though sociable and jovial by nature he had a quick temper. There
was a rough crowd at Lyons, and sometimes you could not manage
them unless you were prepared to show a certain amount of firm-
ness. When his wife began to make a nuisance of herself it never
occurred to him that there was any other way of dealing with her
than that he adopted. He let her know the strength of his hand. If
she had been a sensible woman she would have learnt her lesson,
but she was not a sensible woman. He found occasion more and
more often to apply a necessary correction; she revenged herself by
screaming the place down and by telling the neighbours — they lived
in a two-roomed apartment on the fifth floor of a big house - what
a brute he was. She told them that she was sure he would kill her
one day. And yet never was there a more good-natured man than
Louis Remire; she blamed him for the money he spent at the cafe,
she accused him of wasting it on other women; well, in his position
he had opportunities now and then, and as any man would he took
them, and he was easy with his money, he never minded paying a
round of drinks for his friends, and when a girl who had been nice
to him wanted a new hat or a pair of silk stockings he wasn't the
man to say no. His wife looked upon money that he did not spend
on her as money stolen from her; she tried to make him account
for every penny he spent, and when in his jovial way he told her he
had thrown it out of the window, she was infuriated. Her tongue
grew bitter and her voice was rasping. She was in a sullen rage with
him all the time. She could not speak without saying something
disagreeable. They led a cat-and-dog life. Louis Remire used to tell
his friends what a harridan she was, he used to tell them that he
wished ten times a day that he had never married her, and some-
times he would add that if an epidemic of influenza did not carry
her off he would really have to kill her.
It was these remarks, made merely in jest, and the fact that she
had so often told the neighbours that she knew he would murder
her, that had sent him to St Laurent de Maroni with a twelve-year
sentence. Otherwise he might very well have got off with three or
four years in a French prison. The end had come one hot summer's
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