German Harry

by William Somerset Maugham

William Somerset Maugham was an outstanding British novelist, playwright and short-story writer. Somerset Maugham was born in Paris and he spoke French as his mother tongue. In 1897 he graduated from St. Thomas’ medical school but abandoned medicine after the success of his first novels and plays. His first novel was Liza of Lambeth, which drew on his experiences of attending women in childbirth. His first play, A Man of Honour, was produced in 1903. Maugham’s breakthrough novel was the semi-autobiographical Of Human Bondage (1915), which is usually considered his outstanding achievement. During World War I Maugham was in the British Intelligence Service. His work there is described in a collection of short stories under the title of Ashenden, or the British Agent, published in 1928. Maugham’s other works include the plays Rain, The Circle, Our Betters, The Constant Wife, novels The Moon and the Sixpence, Cakes and Ale, The Razor’s Edge and many others. Maugham collected his literary experiences in The Summing Up (1938), which has been used as a guidebook for creative writing. Maugham’s skill in handling plot has been compared by critics in the manner of Guy de Maupassant. In many novels the surroundings are international and the stories are told in clear, economical, exact and expressive style with cynical or resigned undertone. In his literary works Maugham gave a realistic picture of the English bourgeois society – its egoism and false democracy. Yet he never tried to tackle a root problem, to look into the very heart of the matter, of the situation that he could describe so skillfully. Maugham once said, “Most people cannot see anything, but I can see what is in front of my nose with extreme clearness; the greatest writers can see through a brick wall. My vision is not so penetrating.” Maugham died in Nice on December 16, 1965.

GERMAN HARRY

I was in Thursday Island and I wanted very much to go to New Guinea. Now the only way in which I could do this was by getting a pearling lugger to take me across the Arafura Sea. The pearl fishery at that time was in a bad way and a flock of neat little craft lay anchored in the harbour. I found a skipper with nothing much to do (the journey to Merauke and back could hardly take him less than a month) and with him I made the necessary arrangements. He engaged four Torres Straits islanders as crew (the boat was but nineteen tons) and we ransacked the local store for canned goods. A day or two before I sailed a man who owned a number of pearlers came to me and asked whether on my way I would stop at the island of Trebucket and leave a sack of flour, another of rice, and some magazines for the hermit who lived there.

I pricked up my ears. It appeared that the hermit had lived by himself on this remote and tiny island for thirty years, and when opportunity occurred provisions were sent to him by kindly souls. He said that he was a Dane, but in the Torres Straits he was known as German Harry. His history went back a long way. Thirty years before, he had been an able seaman on a sailing vessel that was wrecked in those treacherous waters. Two boats managed to get away and eventually hit upon the desert island of Trebucket. This is well out of the line of traffic and it was three years before any ship sighted the castaways. Sixteen men had landed on the island, but when at last a schooner, driven from her course by stress of weather, put in for shelter, no more than five were left. When the storm abated the skipper took four of these on board and eventually landed them at Sydney. German Harry refused to go with them. He said that during those three years he had seen such terrible things that he had a horror of his fellow-men and wished never to live with them again. He would say no more. He was absolutely fixed in his determination to stay, entirely by himself, in that lonely place. Though now and then opportunity had been given him to leave he had never taken it.

A strange man and a strange story. I learned more about him as we sailed across the desolate sea. The Torres Straits are peppered with islands and at night we anchored on the lee of one or other of them. Of late new pearling grounds have been discovered near Trebucket and in the autumn pearlers, visiting it now and then, have given German Harry various necessities so that he has been able to make himself sufficiently comfortable. They bring him papers, bags of flour and rice, and canned meats. He has a whale boat and used to go fishing in it, but now he is no longer strong enough to manage its unwieldy bulk. There is abundant pearl shell on the reef that surrounds his island and this he used to collect and sell to the pearlers for tobacco, and sometimes he found a good pearl for which he got a considerable sum. It is believed that he has, hidden away somewhere, a collection of magnificent pearls. During the war no pearlers came out and for years he never saw a living soul. For all he knew, a terrible epidemic had killed off the entire human race and he was the only man alive. He was asked later what he thought.

“I thought something had happened,” he said.

He ran out of matches and was afraid that his fire would go out, so he only slept in snatches, putting wood on his fire from time to time all day and all night. He came to the end of his provisions and lived on chickens, fish and coconuts. Sometimes he got a turtle.

During the last four months of the year there may be two or three pearlers about and not infrequently after the day’s work they will row in and spend an evening with him. They try to make him drunk and then they ask him what happened during those three years after the two boat-loads came to the island. How was it that sixteen landed and at the end of that time only five were left? He never says a word. Drunk or sober he is equally silent on that subject and if they insist grows angry and leaves them.

I forget if it was four or five days before we sighted the hermit’s little kingdom. We had been driven by bad weather to take shelter and had spent a couple of days at an island on the way. Trebucket is a low island, perhaps a mile round, covered with coconuts, just raised above the level of the sea and surrounded by a reef so that it can be approached only on one side. There is no opening in the reef and the lugger had to anchor a mile from the shore. We got into a dinghy with the provisions. It was a stiff pull and even within the reef the sea was choppy. I saw the little hut, sheltered by trees, in which German Harry lived, and as we approached he sauntered down slowly to the water’s edge. We shouted a greeting, but he did not answer. He was a man of over seventy, very bald, hatchet-faced, with a grey beard, and he walked with a roll so that you could never have taken him for anything but a sea-faring man. His sunburn made his blue eyes look very pale and they were surrounded by wrinkles as though for long years he had spent interminable hours scanning the vacant sea. He wore dungarees and a singlet, patched, but neat and clean. The house to which he presently led us consisted of a single room with a roof of corrugated iron. There was a bed in it, some rough stools which he himself had made, a table, and his various household utensils. Under a tree in front of it was a table and a bench. Behind was an enclosed run for his chickens.

I cannot say that he was pleased to see us. He accepted our gifts as a right, without thanks, and grumbled a little because something or other he needed had not been brought. He was silent and morose. He was not interested in the news we had to give him, for the outside world was no concern of his: the only thing he cared about was his island. He looked upon it with a jealous, proprietary right; he called it “my health resort” and he feared that the coconuts that covered it would tempt some enterprising trader. He looked at me with suspicion. He was sombrely curious to know what I was doing in these seas. He used words with difficulty, talking to himself rather than to us, and it was a little uncanny to hear him mumble away as though we were not there. But he was moved when my skipper told him that an old man of his own age whom he had known for a long time was dead.

“Old Charlie dead – that’s too bad. Old Charlie dead.”

He repeated it over and over again. I asked him if he read.

“Not much,” – he answered indifferently.

He seemed to be occupied with nothing but his food, his dogs and his chickens. If what they tell us in books were true his long communion with nature and the sea should have taught him many subtle secrets. It hadn’t. He was a savage. He was nothing but a narrow, ignorant and cantankerous seafaring man. As I looked at the wrinkled, mean old face I wondered what was the story of those three dreadful years that had made him welcome this long imprisonment. I sought to see behind those pale blue eyes of his what secrets they were that he would carry to his grave. And then I foresaw the end. One day a pearl fisher would land on the island and German Harry would not be waiting for him, silent and suspicious, at the water’s edge. He would go up to the hut and there, lying on the bed, unrecognisable, he would see all that remained of what had once been a man. Perhaps then he would hunt high and low for the great mass of pearls that has haunted the fancy of so many adventurers. But I do not believe he would find it: German Harry would have seen to it that none should discover the treasure, and the pearls would rot in their hiding place. Then the pearl fisher would go back into his dinghy and the island once more be deserted of man.

ALLUSIONS

Papua New Guinea – a country in the southwest Pacific Ocean, north of Australia, which includes the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and various small islands.

Sydney – the largest city in Australia, which is the capital of the state of New South Wales and an important financial, industrial and educational centre.

ACTIVITIES AND EXERCISES

1. Translate the following word combinations into Russian. Describe the situations in which they were used.

• pearl fishery

• unwieldy bulk

• to lie anchored

• to get a considerable sum

• to make the necessary arrangements

• to run out of matches

• to ransack the local store

• to sleep in snatches

• to prick up one’s ears

• the sea was choppy

• to be well out of the line of traffic

• to saunter down slowly

• to sight the castaways

• hatchet-faced

• to put in for shelter

• to walk with a roll

• the storm abated

• sea-faring man

• to be fixed in one’s determination to do smth

• household utensils

• to be peppered with islands

• long communion with nature

• to anchor on the lee

• to foresee the end

• pearling grounds

• to haunt the fancy

2. Study the following:

1. lugger – a small boat with one or more sails, e.g. Ingram looked doubtfully at the long table, rocking up and down like a lugger in a gale.

2. skipper – the person in charge of a ship [= captain], e.g. The little boy dreamed of becoming a skipper.

3. hermit – someone who lives alone and has a simple way of life, usually for religious reasons, e.g. Emperor Constantine was said to visit the wise hermit for counsel.

4. able – clever or good at doing something, e.g. She was widely regarded as one of the most able members of the president’s staff.

5. treacherous – particularly dangerous because you cannot see the dangers very easily, e.g. There are treacherous underwater currents along this stretch of coast.

6. schooner – a fast sailing ship with two sails, e.g. William was given command of a schooner and spent the next 6 years trading on Lake Erie.

7. reef – a line of sharp rocks, often made of coral, or a raised area of sand near the surface of the sea, e.g. Have you ever seen an ocean wave pass over a submerged reef?

8. epidemic – a large number of cases of a disease that happen at the same time, e.g. Over 500 people died during last year’s flu epidemic.

9. sober – not drunk, e.g. He’s a nice guy when he’s sober.

10. dinghy – a small open boat used for pleasure, or for taking people between a ship and the shore, e.g. I steered the dinghy powerfully to the right.

11. hut – a small simple building with only one or two rooms, e.g. The old man lived alone in a wooden hut.

12. wrinkles – lines on your face and skin that you get when you are old, e.g. Her face was old and covered in wrinkles.

13. interminable – very long and boring, e.g. What’s the reason for all these interminable delays?

14. to scan – to examine an area carefully but quickly, often because you are looking for a particular person or thing, e.g. He scanned the horizon, but there was no sign of the ship.

15. dungarees – loose trousers that have a square piece of cloth that covers your chest, and long thin pieces that fasten over your shoulders [= overalls American English], e.g. He wore brown dungarees and a brown shirt, both in strong material.

16. singlet – a piece of clothing that you wear for sport which covers the top part of your body but not your arms, e.g. I put on a singlet and a pair of nylon running shorts.

17. corrugated – in the shape of waves or folds, or made like this in order to give something strength, e.g. We saw a shack with a corrugated metal roof in the distance.

18. morose – bad-tempered, unhappy, and silent, e.g. Daniel seems very morose and gloomy.

19. uncanny – very strange and difficult to explain, e.g. He has an uncanny ability to guess what you’re thinking.

20. cantankerous – bad-tempered and complaining a lot, e.g. As Ethel grew older, she became more cantankerous.

3. Make up as many sentences as you can using the words from exercise 2.

4. Say if these statements are true or false.

1. The hermit had lived by himself on the remote and tiny island for ten years. T / F

2. Sixteen men had landed on the island, but when at last a schooner put in for shelter no more than five were left. T / F

3. German Harry never had an opportunity to leave the island. T / F

4. It was believed that German Harry had, hidden away somewhere, a chest full of gold coins. T / F

5. When German Harry was drunk, he always told interesting stories about his life on the island. T / F

6. German Harry was pleased to see the visitors and to learn the latest news. T / F

7. German Harry was moved when the skipper told him that an old man of his own age whom he had known for a long time was dead. T / F

8. German Harry seemed to be occupied with nothing but his food, his dogs and his chickens. T / F

5. Describe German Harry. Pick up all words, word combinations and quotations where his character becomes most revealed. Prove that he was a savage.

6. Say why:

1. The owner of a number of pearlers asked the narrator to stop at the island of Trebucket.

2. German Harry found himself on the desert island of Trebucket.

3. German Harry refused to leave the island.

4. Pearlers sometimes visited Trebucket.

5. Pearlers tried to make German Harry drunk.

6. German Harry was not interested in the news the visitors had to give him.

7. The narrator believed that German Harry’s end would be tragic.

7. Make up your own title of the story. Prove that it is suitable.

8. Fill in the table.

Living on a Deserted Island
For	Against
1. You have a unique opportunity to live in harmony with nature. 2. ...	1. If you fall ill, there is nobody to help you. 2. ...

9. Imagine that you are German Harry. Speak about your life on the island. Explain why you live in such a lonely place. Say what happened during those three years after sixteen men came to the island.

10. Read and translate the quotations below. Choose one of them and say if you agree or disagree with the author’s point of view. Expand his idea.

• ‘Loneliness is the most terrible poverty.’ (Mother Teresa)

• ‘Man’s loneliness is but his fear of life.’ (Eugene O’Neill)

• ‘Solitude is pleasant. Loneliness is not.’ (Anna Neagle)