Jeffrey Keeten's Reviews > The Painted Veil

”They saw the white china knob of the handle slowly turn. They had heard no one walk along the verandah. It was terrifying to see that silent motion. A minute passed and there was no sound. Then, with the ghastliness of the supernatural, in the same stealthy, noiseless, and horrifying manner, they saw the white china knob of the handle at the window turn also. Kitty, her nerves failing her, opened her mouth to scream; but, seeing what she was going to do, he swiftly put his hand over it and her cry was smothered in his fingers.”

When Kitty accepts the marriage proposal of Dr. Walter Fane, it sets off a chain of events that land them both in the middle of a cholera epidemic in Mei-Tan-Fu, China. Kitty is quickly leaving behind her debuttante years and is fast approaching an old maid status. It isn’t for lack of marriage proposals. She has plenty. She just enjoys being the center of attention for all men, rather than being confined to the servitude of one. When her younger sister, the much less attractive sister, lands a baronet, the pressure on her to be married becomes very real.

Dr. Walter Fane is not a fool, but he is a complete fool when it comes to his love of this beautiful bobble of girl who has never had to have a serious thought in her life. Even intelligent people can be blind in the ways of love. He knows Kitty doesn’t love him. He knows why she is desperately marrying him, and yet he must have believed that, given time, he can convince her that he is worth loving.

Kitty can not respect his love for her. Infatuation has always come easily for her. She has smoldering eyes and a lithe figure that drives men to distraction. ”What was it in the human heart that made you despise a man because he loved you?” That has been a question that has been asked for hundreds of years, if not thousands. What I have ascertained from the minefield of women that I’ve known is that a woman must not like herself very much to despise a man who loves her. It is sad that she considers him to be a fool to marry such a woman as she.

Kitty accepts his proposal impulsively. She despises his fawning attentions. She has therefore never invested any emotion or even thought into the relationship. He takes her to Hong Kong where he works as a bacteriologist. There she meets Charlie Townsend, who intuitively senses the vulnerability in their relationship. He is charming, fit, and knows the right string of words to whisper in a silly, unhappy girl’s ear. Kitty is a fool, and she can’t for the life of her understand why Walter can’t see it.

The resulting scandal, which starts with the turning of the white china knob on the door, turns out to be an embarrassing affair for all parties involved, as these things tend to do. Walter gives Kitty a choice, but as it turns out, she has only one choice, which is to follow him to Mei-Tan-Fu. ”It means death. Absolutely certain death.”

Whenever I pick up a W. Somerset Maugham book, I know I am in for a whirlwind ride fraught with betrayal, emotional upheaval, human frailty, selfishness, and aspects of malice. He explores the dark corners of our lives that are whispered about in alcoves at parties, and in shadowed doorways off of street corners. Those things about us that we hope no one knows, but we have a fearful inclination, spurred by our own guilt that everyone knows. The best solution to any scandal, in my opinion, is to brazen it out and wait for another scandal to come along to move your problems from the front page to the back page of the gossip mill. One must screw up occasionally so that everyone else feels better about themselves. It would be rather rude to be perfectly good all the time.

A masterpiece exploring the frivolous ways in which lives can be ruined.

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