The Merry-go-round

by W. Somerset Maugham

“Don’t be absurd. We’re married, and we must make the best of it. You may be quite sure that I’ll give you no cause for reproach.”

“You’re always after your fine friends that I’m not good enough for.”

“Good heavens!” he cried bitterly, “you can’t grudge me a little relaxation. It surely does you no harm if sometimes I go and see the people I knew intimately before my marriage?”

Jenny did not answer, but pretended to order anew flowers in a vase; then she smoothed down cushions on the sofa and set a picture straight.

“If you’ve done preaching at me, I’ll go and take off my hat,” she said at length viciously.

“You may do exactly as you choose,” he answered, with cold indifference.

Shortly after this Basil’s novel was published. Knowing that it could not interest her, and conscious of her small sympathy, he gave a copy to Jenny somewhat shyly, but said no more than the truth when he wrote to Mrs. Murray that great part of his pleasure in the book’s appearance lay in the fact that he was able to send it to her. He waited for her letter of thanks with as much anxiety as for the first reviews. She wrote twice, first to acknowledge the receipt and say that she had already read a chapter; then, having finished, to bestow enthusiastic praise. Her appreciation lifted him to a very heaven of delight. When Jenny, after an obvious struggle, reached the last page, he waited for some criticism, but since none came, was forced to ask what she thought.

“I liked it very much,” she said.

But there was in her tone an unconcern which not a little incensed him, and though he knew this indifference pointed to no particular fault in his book, he was none the less profoundly humiliated. Yet a bitterer disappointment awaited him in the reviews which now began to come in. For the most part they were short, somewhat scornful, somewhat patronizing, and it appeared that this book, which he had imagined would raise him at once to a literary position of some eminence, was no more than prentice work, showing more promise than performance. Its merits, indeed, were not few, but scarcely such as to excite any sudden admiration; his construction was faulty, and in parts his attention to the environment suggested rather the essay or the treatise. The result, notwithstanding many qualities, was neither very good romance nor very good history. Two literary papers at length offered salve to his wounded vanity in long and appreciative notices, doing full justice to his passion for beauty, his measured and careful style, the clear-cut perfection of his portraits. The first of these was sent him with a note of congratulation by Mrs. Murray, and he read it with leaping heart. It gave him new confidence, and a firmer resolution to do better in future. But though careful to hand over to Jenny all unfavourable criticisms, these, which from a literary standpoint were more important than all the others put together, with a kind of inverted pride he forbore to show.

The consequence of this was that Jenny gained a rather false impression of the book’s failure, and the idea came that Basil, after all, was perhaps not such a wonderful person as once she fancied. She sought not to analyze her feelings, but had she done so would have found in them a strange medley. She adored Basil passionately, jealously, but at the same time felt against him a sort of confused irritation which made her welcome the published sneers that wounded him so keenly; they seemed to draw him down to her, for if he was less clever than at first she thought it lessened the distance between them. Yet the gulf which separated them grew daily greater, and quarrels were of more frequent occurrence. Basil, hating his life at Barnes, wrapped himself in a reserve which he strove to make impenetrable; he was very silent, going about his work methodically, and doing his best to avoid the acrimonious discussions which Jenny forced upon him. He tried to relieve his unhappiness with unceasing toil, and to counter his wife’s ill-temper with philosophic indifference. It drove her to furious anger that, however she taunted, he seldom replied, and then only with cold sarcasm. But sometimes remorse seized her. Then she went to her husband in tears, begging him to forgive and asserting again her great love; and this for some days would be followed by a measure of peace.