The Gentleman In the Parlour by W. Somerset Maugham Page B

green floor, until all sunny I saw the plain and the village for which I was bound that day.
    It was called Mong Pying and I had made up my mind to rest there for a little. It was very warm and in the afternoon I sat in shirt sleeves on the verandah of the bungalow. I was surprised to see approaching me a white man. I had not seen one since I left Taunggyi. Then I remembered that before leaving they had told me that somewhere along the road I should meet an Italian priest. I rose to meet him. He was a thin man, tall for an Italian, with regular features and large handsome eyes. His face, sallow from malaria, was covered almost to the eyes witha luxuriant black beard that curled as boldly as the beard of an Assyrian king. And his hair was abundant, black and curling. I guessed him to be somewhere between thirty-five and forty. He was dressed in a shabby black cassock, stained and threadbare, a battered khaki helmet, white trousers and white shoes.
    â€˜I heard you were coming,’ he said to me. ‘Just think, I haven’t seen a white man for eighteen months.’
    He spoke fluent English.
    â€˜What will you have?’ I asked him. ‘I can offer you whisky, or gin and bitters, or tea or coffee.’
    He smiled.
    â€˜I haven’t had a cup of coffee for two years. I ran out of it, and I found I could do without it very well. It was an extravagance and we have so little money for this mission. But it is a deprivation.’
    I told the Ghurka boy to make him a cup and when he tasted it his eyes glistened.
    â€˜Nectar,’ he cried. ‘It is real nectar. People should do without things more. It is only then that you really enjoy them.’
    â€˜You must let me give you two or three tins.’ ‘
    Can you spare them? I will send you some lettuces from my garden.’
    â€˜But how long have you been here then?’ I asked.
    â€˜Twelve years.’
    He was silent for a moment.
    â€˜My brother, who is a priest in Milan, offered to send me the money to go back to Italy so that I might see my mother before she died. She is an old woman and she cannot live much longer. They used to say I was her favourite son and indeed when I was a child she used to spoil me. I should have liked to see her once more, but to tell you the truth I was afraid to go; I thought that if I did I should not have the courage to come back here to my people. Human nature is very weak, do you not think so? I could not trust myself.’ He smiled and gavea gesture that was oddly pathetic. ‘Never mind, we shall meet again in Paradise.’
    Then he asked me if I had a camera. He was very anxious to send a photograph of his new church to the lady in Lombardy through whose pious generosity he had been able to build it. He took me to it, a great wooden barn, severe and bare; the reredos was decorated with an execrable picture of Jesus Christ painted by one of the nuns at Keng Tung, and he begged me to take a photograph of this also so that when I went there and visited the convent I could show the nun how her work looked in place. There were two little pews for the scanty congregation. He was proud, as well he might be, because the church, the altar and the pews had been built by himself and his converts. He took me to his compound and showed me the modest building which served as school-room and as sleeping-quarters for the children in his charge. I think he told me that there were six and thirty of them. He led me into his own little bungalow. The living-room was fairly spacious and this till the church was built he had used also as a chapel. At the back was a tiny bedroom no larger than a monk’s cell, in which was nothing but a small wooden bed, a washing-stand and a book-shelf. Alongside of this was a tiny, rather dirty and untidy kitchen. There were two women in it.
    â€˜You see I am very grand now, I have a cook and a kitchen-maid,’ he said.
    The younger woman had a hare-lip and, giggling, took