A great story beautifully read by a gorgeous English voice. I liked the picture too which added to the atmosphere. Thank you for this great collection of one of our best story-tellers.

Those evocative illustrations always add a special flavour to all the recordings.

Thanks for this vintage Maugham !

East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.....etc. I love Maugham's stories of The White Man's Burden😊

There was an inevitability about this story, one event, one circumstance leading into another. I never thought Doris would or should be capable of forgiving him. Stunningly crafted story and likewise narrated.

Very nicely narrated.

Rings true. Heartbreaking

Having grown up and lived in East Africa a third of my life, I can relate to this story.

Well it's no good crying now! He should have kept his pants on from the beginning! Who did he think was going to be responsible for his children?

Similar things happened to peasant women and servant girls in Europe. "Funny" how they were also accused of lacking feelings and considered fully disposable. I guess the British Empire didn't invent the wheel.

I sobbed hearing this but was ultimately delighted.

***Spoilers*** This is a S. Maugham I hadn’t read before….What a pity, as it is truly a **master class** in characterization…Maugham sketches each with a deft hand, gradually building storylines and adding plot twists-until he just sits back, and lets his characters speak… The newlywed wife-born into a world of class- and race-consciousness, suddenly confronted with a fait accomplis : her new husband’s 3 mixed-race children and his ex-partner…It’s a situation with which she simply has no tools to cope … The husband is revealed to be a rather weak, selfish and morally ambiguous man : unable to tolerate solitude, he explained his decision to take a native mistress ( “Everyone does it”), while simultaneously, dehumanizing them, describing them as “unfeeling,” and content to be discarded, once they became inconvenient…He ends the 10-year relationship by announcing his intention of “finding a wife” in England. His native family is now an embarrassment & and inconvenience to him, so they are expected to “disappear.” His focus on what can only be called “wife-shopping,” during an extremely truncated leave, left me wondering what he would have done if she had said “no?” ….I have my hunches. He doesn’t tell his soon-to-be fiancé about his (very) recent ex-partner. Or about their 3 children (later explaining to her that he was “afraid” of losing her).… While the “fear” was undoubtedly real, by now, we’ve seen enough of our guy to know that he puts a premium on HIS feelings & desires ( the ethical implications in concealing the existence of 3 biological children & an ex-partner seemed never to have occurred to him ). As for his children, he sees them almost as alien beings-completely detached from himself, admitting that he feels no paternal affection toward them ( going so far as to say, “…I mean, I wouldn’t be HAPPY if something bad happened to them”)… …And as for the woman he lived with for 10 years? We first hear him “snarling” at her, out of sight, before he issues a threat, and “slams the bolt in the door with uncommon fury.” …He is, apparently, perfectly content with her being brutalized by his staff, in order to keep her away ( not even bothering to ask what was done to her, after his wife complained to him of their “brutality”) As for the newlywed wife, we are taken on her journey, from joy in her new husband and life-to despair. We see through her eyes : how alien the natives appear to her, the shock over her husband’s past and his secrecy….Her inability to view her husband as anything other than “damaged goods,” and as belonging to the other woman (it brings to mind Nellie Forbush’s reaction to her lover’s confession of a deceased native wife & children in the musical, “South Pacific”)…Shocked as she is, Maugham shows us a woman who doesn’t act on impulse : she requests 6 mos. to decide what she will do ( I found it telling how Maugham chose to emphasize just how long the husband’s former relationship had lasted, by having her confess to him: “If you had had just ONE child with her, I might have been able to bear it”)… She does, in the end, the only thing that she can do-sail for “home”….In a final character reveal, we see the husband (whose past-and concealment of that past -have caused such heartache) surrender, and invite the “past” back into his life-on the very day his wife leaves him…. **My impressions: Girl dodged a bullet 🤣 ….While I have sympathy for the isolation and loneliness of an ex-pat in his former position, he’s just a wee bit too slick & self-pitying. By far the most common relationship for such men was casual (one-night stands & short term relationships)….For those men (less than 10%) who lived in long-term relationships with a particular woman, most eventually married the woman (particularly if children were involved)… The thought of this guy living a DECADE with a woman who bore him 3 children ( which he presumably saw and interacted with on some level, on a daily basis) just flipping some internal “switch,” and mentally “disappearing” them all is beyond creepy. Throwing them all out of their home-because he wants it vacated for the “new wife?” Again, Level I “Creepy.” ….He’s great at self-pity, but there is something seriously broken in this man….SHE sees it, and the enormity of his actions & their repercussions. He’s just incapable of doing so…. ( I like to think that she returned to her position as Private Secretary to a Member of Parliament-and to an overjoyed Mum )

@Edo9River

5 күн бұрын

To write as much as you did shows a mark of respect. However for elders all you did was rehearse, nothing added nothing gained. Maybe you wrote for yourself and not for us. You’ve processed their actions. So what does it mean. to you.? There’s interviews with Maugham on KZread. Non judgemental. However ever deed iis a judgement. And here we are now, how many years later. Probably global warming will be like race relations. The saving grace is that with each generation the antipathy is a little less. What with another century, this might be quaint for the ones who survive.😂😂😂

@Shineon83

5 күн бұрын

@@Edo9River Old habits, I fear (I’m an editor)…Lacking the creative spark, I often process works by writing a synopsis (for myself). I couldn’t tell you why I posted this 😂….Being under-40, I suppose I wouldn’t qualify for “elder” status, however, I do appreciate, and yes, respect, Mr. Maugham …. As for what this story “meant” to me? Like most of SM’s works, I found no deeper “meaning”-only characters that almost leapt off of the page with authenticity.…Although a raging misogynist, SM’s lifelong, near-pathological study of people allowed him to realistically capture & portray the emotional angst of a 1920s-era, middle class woman, confronted with a situation beyond her ability to rationalize, or cope with….I found it compelling. And realistic. ( That’s really about it :)

@Edo9River

5 күн бұрын

@@Shineon83 I appreciate the kindness of your lengthy reply. I applied the evaluation procedure of ToastMasters Club, which I’ve been active in since moving here to Japan. Still here, by the Grace of God, despite a reasonable effort to move on…..This reply is like continuing to rub 2 sticks together….lol…Maugham is a bit worrying for me, making me restless…..I signed up for a journal encouragement newsletter.

@stellaburnell7947

5 күн бұрын

I also thought of Nellie Forbush !

@Shineon83

5 күн бұрын

@@stellaburnell7947 😘

well there will be some censure I am sure...from those who have never been lonely ex-pats away from everyone and everything from their own culture..I have been an ex-pat luckily not in a situation like this..but with a husband and family however I can relate to the lonely young man lost in translation...His 'crime' if there was one was to pretend it never happened and ruin two women's lives..but that was then

@johng4093

Күн бұрын

The first woman and children did move back in with him, so the disruption of her life was short-lived, as far as we know. But I agree about people dealing with loneliness in a foreign country

Such a nice little story to make me feel miserable. And the ending music is like a. Nice little nail i stepped on, to make me think of tetanus infection. Maugham had me until the very last word.

In his mind he was a divorced man with children. He just didn't tell his new wife that he had been married before. If you bring it up to date, that's what he was. He always knew that he could leave his wife and children and that it wasn't permanent. It was an arrangement. The "arrangements" are still being made to this day.

This is the first one when I felt like I knew the ending right from the start. But it was still well told story.

Most of his work is a little reserved or abstract or something for me, but this was a great work. I had never heard or read it, thank you!

Interesting

What a very sad story.

I rather enjoyed the ending …. Doris’ intransigence was killing me……

Reminds me of my return to home, after a year separation from husband. He had brought his “friend” and her children into our home, soon after I moved out of town. His friend was the daughter of another friend’s wife. When her mother discovered their living together, she disowned him and disowned her daughter. They had their time there, then left. I found her goodbye note! She had slept in our bed, smoked pot on our deck, but I was lambasted for having a cigarette in the den. I was expected to pick up where we left off! Not me! I took over the den, nd stayed there a long while. When I finally took a chance with him, he started his same old abuse and demands. Eventually We divorces, and I moved on. We had no children. I took my cats and left him with his cats! He’s passed on, now. Does that make me a widowed divorce’ or a divorced widow?! Just punning, dears. At 73, I’m glad to be alone! 🙏🦋🌺😊✌️

kazowaaa

Sad, but predictable. One option not explored was for the couple to return to England to live and restart their life together.

@vlera8447

6 күн бұрын

Perhaps it's better not to post spoilers

@mattneillninasmom

6 күн бұрын

@@vlera8447 Vague enough a comment not to give away the plot.

@michaelynedwards1043

5 күн бұрын

Knew ending 15 mins in.

@Shineon83

5 күн бұрын

It would have made no difference. The husband was “damaged goods” in the wife’s eyes, forever the lover of the other woman, and father to 3 mixed-race children….She couldn’t bear even the touch of him, and knew it was over, telling him (or attempting to make him understand) that, “THEY (the woman & children) are your family.”…. Not revealing to his fiancé that he had had a 10-year relationship and 3 children was unconscionable; not giving her a choice to decide for herself before she married him, despicable.

@AS-ji2wc

5 күн бұрын

@@Shineon83And throwing your children out like trash is even more despicable

🙏💕

Wow. She won.

@wlj344

4 күн бұрын

You mean the mother of his 3 abandoned children or his wife Doris? Doris "won" (as you put it) fair and square.

@evinnra2779

4 күн бұрын

Won what? If you meant the native girl, she won a loveless relationship with a coward who uses her as sp..m container.

@johng4093

2 күн бұрын

He won. 😊

@wlj344

2 күн бұрын

@@johng4093 provocative so & so: a man missing the point as usual!

Doris could have given a master class in passive aggressive behavior. Are you angry? Oh no, not at all, everything is fine, BTW don't touch me and I'll be be leaving on soonest ship outta here, forever.

Jungle loins lol

White colonialists, so sophisticated

I never realized Maugham was so racist. Dorris saying " I can't imagine those thin black arms around you and your black children" The emphasis was on the other woman being black. The irony is Malays as he calls them are not even black. But to a white racist any other race is just black..

@pamelapacific943

3 күн бұрын

It was the time.

@shaziawaseem9584

3 күн бұрын

I understand but never expected this from Maugham 😢

@johng4093

2 күн бұрын

His character says that, and she wasn't portrayed in a favorable light IMO.

This hasn’t aged well

@Riklott1111

6 күн бұрын

That’s a matter of opinion

@artandminisbyvilma8116

6 күн бұрын

The racism is thick all over the place 😄

@roberthuff3122

5 күн бұрын

@@artandminisbyvilma8116And your stupidity is timeless.

@BeverlyM52

5 күн бұрын

Great story, but yes... I've been thinking of this. I love "Huck Finn, and was able to view it as being true to history...loving Jim as he was. Thinking of that, I've tried to apply the same consideration here. I've also tried to equate it to stories with extreme sexism. Those don't bother me because I see them for the art of the story telling AND as proof that we have all grown wiser...and just "BETTER." So...maybe they've aged beautifully for that reason.

@roberthuff3122

5 күн бұрын

@@BeverlyM52 All fictional stories are read in a multi-dimensional context. To do otherwise is to pursue pseudo-anthropology. And the notion that we have grown wiser is a bit of speculative fiction in itself.