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JANE

W. Somerset Maugham

I remember very well the occasion on which I first saw Jane
Fowler. It is indeed only because the details of the glimpse I had of
her then are so clear that I trust my recollection at all, for, looking
back, I must confess that I find it hard to believe that it has not played
me a fantastic trick. I had lately returned to London from China and
was drinking a dish of tea with Mrs. Tower. Mrs. Tower had been
seized with the prevailing passion for decoration; and with the
ruthlessness of her sex had sacrificed chairs in which she had
comfortably sat for years, tables, cabinets, ornaments, on which her
eyes had dwelt in peace since she was married, pictures that had been
familiar to her for a generation; and delivered herself into the hands
of an expert. Nothing remained in her drawing-room with which she
had any association, or to which any sentiment was attached; and she
had invited me that day to see the fashionable glory in which she now
lived. Everything that could be pickled was pickled and what couldn’t
be pickled was painted. Nothing matched, but everything
harmonized.
“Do you remember that ridiculous drawing-room suite that I
used to have?” asked Mrs. Tower.
The curtains were sumptuous yet severe; the sofa was covered
with Italian brocade; the chair on which I sat was in petit point. The
room was beautiful, opulent without garishness and original without
affectation; yet to me it lacked something; and while I praised with
my lips I asked myself why I so much preferred the rather shabby
chintz of the despised suite, the Victorian water-colours that I had
known so long, and the ridiculous Dresden china that had adorned the
chimney-piece. I wondered what it was that I missed in all these
rooms that the decorators were turning out with a profitable industry.
Was it heart? But Mrs. Tower looked about her happily.
“Don’t you like my alabaster lamps?” she said. 'They give such
a soft light.”
“Personally I have a weakness for a light that you can see by,” I
smiled.