William Somerset Maugham

Le jeune homme était assis dans une alcôve aménagée dans le rayonnage de la bibliothèque;un fauteuil se trouvait près du sien. Il posa la main sur le bras du sien. ne voulez vous pas vous assoir un instant?
Très volontiers.
Il me tendit le livre qu’il tenait.
Voilà ce que je lisais.
Je pris le volume:les principes de psychologie,de William james.c’est évidement un ouvrage classique et qui fait date en la matière;il est,de plus, d’une lecture,mais ce n’est pas le genre de livre que je me serais attendu à trouver entre les mains d’un tout jeune garçon,un aviateur,ayant dansé jusqu’a Cinq heures du matin.
✈️ Très intéressant qui reçussite un l’aviateur

Le principe de suivre ses instincts dans la limite du respect dû aux gendarmes ne l'avait pas mené à grand chose.

[....] ... [Mr Davidson] vint jusqu'à la table et se tint devant elle comme en face d'un lutrin.

- "Sachez que la dépravation venait si naturellement [aux indigènes] qu'on ne parvenait pas à leur faire connaître leur iniquité. Il fallait leur faire comprendre que des conduites qu'ils croyaient naturelles constituaient des péchés : non seulement l'adultère, le mensonge et le vol, mais encore l'exhibition de leur corps, la danse, le manque d'assiduité au culte. Je leur ai fait admettre que c'était un péché pour une jeune fille de montrer sa poitrine et pour un homme de ne pas porter de pantalon.

- Comment y êtes-vous parvenu ?" s'étonna le docteur.

- "En instituant des amendes. De toute évidence, le seul moyen de faire comprendre aux gens que leur conduite est coupable, c'est de les en punir. Je les mettais à l'amende quand ils manquaient les offices , et je faisais de même quand ils dansaient ; ou encore quand leur costume était indécent. J'avais un barème qui prévoyait, en outre, pour chaque péché commis, le choix entre un paiement en espèces ou sous forme de travail. J'ai enfin réussi à me faire comprendre d'eux.

- N'y en avaient-ils pas qui refusaient de payer ?

- Comment auraient-ils pu le faire ?

- Il faudrait un courage hors du commun pour tenter de tenir tête à Mr. Davidson," ajouta son épouse en serrant les mâchoires.

Le docteur McPhail regardait Davidson d'un air embarrassé. Ce qu'il venait d'entendre le révoltait sans qu'il pût se résoudre à dire son désaccord.

- "N'oubliez pas qu'en dernier ressort, je pouvais les exclure de la communauté religieuse.

- Cette menace était-elle d'un grand poids ?"

Davidson eut un petit sourire et frotta avec onction ses mains l'une contre l'autre.

- "Plus moyen en ce cas de vendre leur coprah, ni de recevoir une part de la pêche collective. Autant dire : pratiquement mourir de faim. Oui, cette menace était d'un très grand poids !

- Racontez donc l'histoire de Fred Ohlson," suggéra Mrs Davidson.

Le missionnaire fixa le docteur McPhail de ses yeux de braise.

- "Fred Ohlson était un marchand danois établi dans l'archipel depuis pas mal d'années. Pour un marchand de ce genre, il était assez riche et nous a vus arriver sans enthousiasme. Il faut savoir que, jusque là, il agissait pratiquement à sa guise. Il fixait à son gré le prix du coprah qu'il achetait aux indigènes et le réglait sous forme de marchandises et de whisky. Il avait épousé une indigène, mais lui était notoirement infidèle et s'adonnait à la boisson. Je lui ai laissé une chance de s'amender, mais il s'est refusé à la saisir et m'a ri au nez."

En prononçant ces derniers mots, la voix de Davidson passa au diapason d'une basse profonde. Puis il s'interrompit une minute ou deux, laissant planer un silence lourd de menaces.

- "Deux ans plus tard, cet homme était ruiné. Il avait tout perdu de ce qu'il avait mis un quart de siècle à épargner. Je lui avais brisé les reins. Il dut enfin venir en mendiant m'implorer de le faire rapatrier à Sydney.

- Si vous l'aviez vu le jour de cette visite !" dit la femme du missionnaire. "Ce bel homme, plein de vigueur, bien en chair, avec une voix de stentor, avait à présent rétréci de moitié et tremblait de tous ses membres : il était, d'un seul coup, devenu un vieillard." ... [...]

Then he saw that the normal was the rarest thing in the world. Everyone had some defect, of body or of mind: he thought of all the people he had known (the whole world was like a sick-house, and there was no rhyme or reason in it), he saw a long procession, deformed in body and warped in mind, some with illness of the flesh, weak hearts or weak lungs, and some with illness of the spirit, languor of will, or a craving for liquor. At this moment he could feel a holy compassion for them all. They were the helpless instruments of blind chance. He could pardon Griffiths for his treachery and Mildred for the pain she had caused him. They could not help themselves. The only reasonable thing was to accept the good of men and be patient with their faults. The words of the dying God crossed his memory:
Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
(p. 604)

It looked as though you did not act in a certain way because you thought in a certain way, but rather you thought in a certain way because you were made in a certain way. Truth had nothing to do with it. (p. 258)

But on the whole the impression was neither of tragedy nor of comedy. There was no describing it. It was manifold and various; there were tears and laughter, happiness and woe; it was tedious and interesting and indifferent; it was as you saw it: it was tumultuous and passionate; it was grave; it was sad and comic; it was trivial; it was simple and complex; joy was there and despair; the love of mothers for their children, and of men for women; lust trailed itself through the rooms with leaden feet, punishing the guilty and the innocent, helpless wives and wretched children; drink seized men and women and cost its inevitable price; death sighed in these rooms; and the beginning of life, filling some poor girl with terror and shame, was diagnosed there. There was neither good nor bad there. There were just facts. It was life.

What I can do is the only limit of what I may do. Because we are gregarious we live in society, and society holds together by means of force, force of arms (that is the policeman) and force of public opinion. You have society on one hand and the individual on the other: each is an organism striving for self-preservation. It is might against might. I stand alone, bound to accept society and not unwilling, since in return for the taxes I pay it protects me, a weakling, against the tyranny of another stronger than I am; but I submit to its laws because I must; I do not acknowledge their justice; I do not know justice, I only know power. And when I have paid for the policeman who protects me and, if I live in a country where conscription is in force, served in the army which guards my house and land from the invader, I am quits with society: for the rest I counter its might with my wiliness. It makes laws for its self-preservation, and if I break them it imprisons or kills me: it has the might to do so and therefore the right. If I break the laws I will accept the vengeance of the state, but I will not regard it as punishment nor shall I feel myself convicted of wrong-doing. Society tempts me to its service by honours and riches and the good opinion of my fellows; but I am indifferent to their opinion, I despise honours and I can do very well without riches. (p. 210)

He put off the faith of his childhood quite simply, like a cloak that he no longer needed. At first life seemed strange and lonely without the belief which, though he never realized it, had been an unfailing support. He felt like a man who has leaned on a stick and finds himself forced suddenly to walk without assistance. It really seemed as though the days were colder and the nights more solitary. But he was upheld by the excitement; it seemed to make life a more thrilling adventure; and in a little while the stick which he had throw aside, the cloak which had fallen from his shoulders, seemed an intolerable burden of which he had been eased. (p. 117)

You have a hierarchy of values; pleasure is at the bottom of the ladder, and you speak with a little thrill of self-satisfaction, of duty, charity, and truthfulness. You think pleasure is only of the senses; the wretched slaves who manufactured your morality despised a satisfaction which they had small means of enjoying. You would not be so frightened if I had spoken of happiness instead of pleasure: it sounds less shocking, and your mind wonders from the sty of Epicurus to his garden. But I will speak of pleasure, for I see that men aim at that, and I do not know that they aim at happiness. It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in giving alms he is charitable; if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand your admiration. (p. 210)

You will find as you grow older that the first thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in is to recognize the inevitable selfishness of humanity. You demand unselfishness from others, which is a preposterous claim that they should sacrifice their desires to yours. Why should they? When you are reconciled to the fact that each is for himself in the world you will ask less from your fellows. They will not disappoint you, and you will look upon them more charitably. Men seek but one thing in life -- their pleasure. (p. 210-211)

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life. (p. 121)

There was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or not born, whether he lived or ceased to live. Life was insignificant and death without consequence. Philip exulted, as he had exulted in his boyhood when the weight of a belief in God was lifted from his shoulders: it seemed to him that the last burden of responsibility was taken from him; and for the first time he was utterly free. His insignificance was turned to power, and he felt himself suddenly equal with the cruel fate which had seemed to persecute him; for, if life was meaningless, the world was robbed of its cruelty. What he did or left undone did not matter. Failure was unimportant and success amounted to nothing. He was the most inconsiderate creature in that swarming mass of mankind which for a brief space occupied the surface of the earth; and he was almighty because he had wrenched from chaos the secret of its nothingness. Thoughts came tumbling over one another in Philip's eager fancy, and he took long breaths of joyous satisfaction. He felt inclined to leap and sing. He had not been so happy for months.

'Oh, life,' he cried in his heart, 'Oh life, where is thy sting?' (p. 524)

Pas question de mêler les sentiments aux affaires.

 Enfin, l’amour n’est pas tout. À son heure, à sa place, c’est très bien. On s’en est payé pendant la lune de miel. Mais, à présent, au travail.

C’est trop fort d’en être à mendier de l’amour. Ah ! misère de ma vie !

 De l’amour. Je croyais avoir épousé le plus bel homme d’Angleterre et j’ai épousé un mannequin.

 Évidemment, c’est risqué quand on n’a pas de pain sur la planche, mais c’est un risque qu’il faut parfois savoir courir.

Pour réussir, il ne faut pas se produire toujours avec un gandin à la flan.

Ce n’est pas parce que je suis actrice qu’il faut se croire tout permis.