THE EXPLORER
BY
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
AUTHOR OF "THE MOON AND SIXPENCE,"
"OF HUMAN BONDAGE," ETC.
NEW 
YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1907, by
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
———
Copyright, 1909, by
THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
MY DEAR MRS. G. W. STEEVENS
THE EXPLORER
| I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI |
I
The sea was very calm. There was no ship in sight, and the sea-gullswere motionless upon its even greyness. The sky was dark with loweringclouds, but there was no wind. The line of the horizon was clear anddelicate. The shingly beach, no less deserted, was thick with tangledseaweed, and the innumerable shells crumbled under the feet that trodthem. The breakwaters, which sought to prevent the unceasingencroachment of the waves, were rotten with age and green with thesea-slime. It was a desolate scene, but there was a restfulness in itsmelancholy; and the great silence, the suave monotony of colour, mighthave given peace to a heart that was troubled. They could not assuagethe torment of the woman who stood alone upon that spot. She did notstir; and, though her gaze was steadfast, she saw nothing. Nature hasneither love nor hate, and with indifference smiles upon the light atheart and to the heavy brings a deeper sorrow. It is a great irony thatthe old Greek, so wise and prudent, who fancied that the gods livedutterly apart from human passions, divinely unconscious in their highpalaces of the grief and joy, the hope and despair, of the turbulentcrowd of men, should have gone down to posterity as the apostle ofbrutish pleasure.
But the silent woman did not look for solace. She had a vehement pridewhich caused her to seek comfort only in her own heart; and when,against her will, heavy tears rolled down her cheeks, she shook her headimpatiently. She drew a long breath and set herself resolutely to changeher thoughts.
But they were too compelling, and she could not drive from her mind thememories that absorbed it. Her fancy, like a homing bird, hovered withlight wings about another coast; and the sea she looked upon remindedher of another sea. The Solent. From her earliest years that sheet ofwater had seemed an essential part of her life, an