THE TREMBLING
OF A LEAF
Little Stories of the South Sea Islands
BY
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
AUTHOR OF "THE MOON AND SIXPENCE,"
"OF HUMAN BONDAGE," ETC.
NEW 
YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1921,
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
BERTRAM ALANSON
L'extrême félicité à peine séparée par
une feuille tremblante del'extrême
désespoir, n'est-ce pas la vie?
Sainte-Beuve.
CONTENTS
| I | The Pacific |
| II | Mackintosh |
| III | The Fall of Edward Barnard |
| IV | Red |
| V | The Pool |
| VI | Honolulu |
| VII | Rain |
| VIII | Envoi |
THE TREMBLING
OF A LEAF
I
The Pacific
THE Pacific is inconstant and uncertain like the soul of man. Sometimesit is grey like the English Channel off Beachy Head, with a heavy swell,and sometimes it is rough, capped with white crests, and boisterous. Itis not so often that it is calm and blue. Then, indeed, the blue isarrogant. The sun shines fiercely from an unclouded sky. The trade windgets into your blood and you are filled with an impatience for theunknown. The billows, magnificently rolling, stretch widely on all sidesof you, and you forget your vanished youth, with its memories, cruel andsweet, in a restless, intolerable desire for life. On such a sea as thisUlysses sailed when he sought the Happy Isles. But there are days alsowhen the Pacific is like a lake. The sea is flat and shining. The flyingfish, a gleam of shadow on the brightness of a mirror, make littlefountains of sparkling drops when they dip. There are fleecy clouds onthe horizon, and at sunset they take strange shapes so that it isimpossible not to believe that you see a range of lofty mountains. Theyare the mountains of the country of your dreams. You sail through anunimaginable silence upon a magic sea. Now and then a few gulls suggestthat land is not far off, a forgotten island hidden in a wilderness ofwaters; but the gulls, the melancholy gulls, are the only sign you haveof it. You see never a tramp, with its friendly smoke, no stately barkor trim schooner, not a fishing boat even: it is an empty desert; andpresently the emptiness fills you with a vague foreboding.
II
Mackintosh
HEsplashed about for a few minutes in the sea; it was to