William Maugham: Theatre

He looked at her for so long, with that queer, reflective air of his, that Julia had some difficulty in holding her light, playful and yet affectionate expression.

‘If I believed in God I’d be a priest,’ he said at last.

‘A priest?’

Julia could hardly believe her ears. She had a feeling of acute discomfort. But his answer sank into her mind and in a flash she saw him as a cardinal, inhabiting a beautiful palazzo in Rome, filled with wonderful pictures, and surrounded by obsequious prelates; and then again as a saint, in a mitre and vestments heavily embroidered with gold, with benevolent gestures distributing bread to the poor. She saw herself in a brocaded dress and string of pearls. The mother of the Borgias.

‘That was all right in the sixteenth century,’ she said. ‘It’s too late in the day for that.’

‘Much.’

‘I can’t think what put such an idea in your head.’ He did not answer, so that she had to speak again. ‘Aren’t you happy?’

‘Quite,’ he smiled.

‘What is it you want?’

Once again he gave her his disconcerting stare. It was hard to know if he was serious, for his eyes faintly shimmered with amusement.

‘Reality.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You see, I’ve lived all my life in an atmosphere of make-believe. I want to get down to brass tacks. You and father are all right breathing this air, it’s the only air you know and you think it’s the air of heaven. It stifles me.’

Julia listened to him attentively, trying to understand what he meant.

‘We’re actors, and successful ones. That’s why we’ve been able to surround you with every luxury since you were born. You could count on the fingers of one hand the actors who’ve sent their son to Eton.’

‘I’m very grateful for all you’ve done for me.’

‘Then what are you reproaching us for?’

‘I’m not reproaching you. You’ve done everything you could for me. Unfortunately for me you’ve taken away my belief in everything.’

‘We’ve never interfered with your beliefs. I know we’re not religious people, we’re actors, and after eight performances a week one wants one’s Sundays to oneself. I naturally expected they’d see to all that at school.’

He hesitated a little before he spoke again. One might have thought that he had to make a slight effort over himself to continue.

‘When I was just a kid, I was fourteen, I was standing one night in the wings watching you act. It must have been a pretty good scene, you said the things you had to say so sincerely, and what you were saying was so moving, I couldn’t help crying. I was all worked up. I don’t know how to say it quite, I was uplifted; I felt terribly sorry for you, I felt a bloody little hero; I felt I’d never do anything again that was beastly or underhand. And then you had to come to the back of the stage, near where I was standing, the tears were streaming down your face; you stood with your back to the audience and in your ordinary voice you said to the stage manager: what the bloody hell is that electrician doing with the lights? I told him to leave out the blue. And then in the same breath you turned round and faced the audience with a great cry of anguish and went on with the scene.’

‘But, darling, that was acting. If an actress felt the emotions she represented she’d tear herself to pieces. I remember the scene well. It used to bring down the house. I’ve never heard such applause in my life.’

‘I suppose I was a fool to be taken in by it. I believed you meant what you said. When I saw that it was all pretence it smashed something. I’ve never believed in you since. I’d been made a fool of once; I made up my mind that I wouldn’t ever be made a fool of again.’

She gave him her delightful and disarming smile.

‘Darling, I think you’re talking nonsense.’

‘Of course you do. You don’t know the difference between truth and make-believe. You never stop acting. It’s second nature to you. You act when there’s a party here. You act to the servants, you act to father, you act to me. To me you act the part of the fond, indulgent, celebrated mother. You don’t exist, you’re only the innumerable parts you’ve played. I’ve often wondered if there was ever a you or if you were never anything more than a vehicle for all these other people that you’ve pretended to be. When I’ve seen you go into an empty room I’ve sometimes wanted to open the door suddenly, but I’ve been afraid to in case I found nobody there.’

She looked up at him quickly. She shivered, for what he said gave her an eerie sensation. She listened to him attentively, with a certain anxiety, for he was so serious that she felt he was expressing something that had burdened him for years. She had never in his whole life heard him talk so much.

‘D’you think I’m only sham?’

‘Not quite. Because sham is all you are. Sham is your truth. Just as margarine is butter to people who don’t know what butter is.’

She had a vague feeling of guilt. The Queen in Hamlet: ‘ And let me wring your heart; for so I shall, if be made of penetrable stuff.’ Her thoughts wandered.

(‘I wonder if I’m too old to play Hamlet. Siddons and Sarah Bernhardt played him. I’ve got better legs than any of the men I’ve seen in the part. I’ll ask Charles what he thinks. Of course there’s that bloody blank verse. Stupid of him not to write it in prose. Of course I might do it in French at the Française. God, what a stunt that would be.’)

She saw herself in a black doublet, with long silk hose. ‘Alas, poor Yorick.’ But she bethought herself.

‘You can hardly say that your father doesn’t exist. Why, he’s been playing himself for the last twenty years.’ (‘Michael could play the King, not in French, of course, but if we decided to have a shot at it in London.’)

‘Poor father, I suppose he’s good at his job, but he’s not very intelligent, is he? He’s so busy being the handsomest man in England.’

‘I don’t think it’s very nice of you to speak of your father like that.’

‘Have I told you anything you don’t know?’ he asked coolly.

Julia wanted to smile, but would not allow the look of somewhat pained dignity to leave her face.

‘It’s our weakness, not our strength, that endears us to those who love us,’ she replied.

‘In what play did you say that?’

She repressed a gesture of annoyance. The words had come naturally to her lips, but as she said them she remembered that they were out of a play. Little brute! But they came in very appositely.

‘You’re hard,’ she said plaintively. She was beginning to feel more and more like Hamlet’s mother. ‘Don’t you love me?’

‘I might if I could find you. But where are you? If one stripped you of your exhibitionism, if one took your technique away from you, if one peeled you as one peels an onion of skin after skin of pretence and insincerity, of tags of old parts and shreds of faked emotions, would one come upon a soul at last?’ He looked at her with his grave sad eyes and then he smiled a little, ‘I like you all right.’

‘Do you believe I love you?’

‘In your way.’

Julia’s face was suddenly discomposed.

‘If you only knew the agony I suffered when you were ill! I don’t know what I should have done if you’d died!’

‘You would have given a beautiful performance of a bereaved mother at the bier of her only child.’

‘Not nearly such a good performance as if I’d had the opportunity of rehearsing it a few times,’ Julia answered tartly. ‘You see, what you don’t understand is that acting isn’t nature; it’s art, and art is something you create. Real grief is ugly; the business of the actor is to represent it not only with truth but with beauty. If I were really dying as I’ve died in half a dozen plays, d’you think I’d care whether my gestures were graceful and my faltering words distinct enough to carry to the last row of the gallery? If it’s a sham it’s no more a sham than a sonata of Beethoven’s, and I’m no more of a sham than the pianist who plays it. It’s cruel to say that I’m not fond of you. I’m devoted to you. You’ve been the only thing in my life.’