无意中看到毛姆的《月亮和六便士》，一口气读完。故事情节非常吸引人，而里面对于艺术的一些观点也让对艺术是门外汉的读者大开眼界。但是我看了第一遍之后就不想看第二遍了，原由是：1、小说的前段花了很多笔墨渲染画家死后的盛名，铺垫太用力；2、结构太圆熟了。这两点使得这部小说类似快餐，一览无余，没有后味。又找到《人性的枷锁》，这部自传体小说写得很真诚，相对来说，味道深厚，值得反复咀嚼。有个中篇《面罩》，写偷情的妻子和忠实的丈夫，情节老套。有名的《刀锋》，没看出好处来。《剧院风情》，看了一半，无法继续下去；情节的推动是紧凑而又快速的，但是这种推动似乎仅仅为推动而推动，变成了情节的堆砌，某种意义上索然无味。又无意中看到这篇《万事通先生》，精悍有趣，虽然故事简单，却让人欢喜不置。
毛姆本身经历复杂，学过艺术、数学、医学，本身就是一个“Mr Know-It-All”，从这篇小说中，也可以看出毛姆的喜爱和自得、

Mr Know-It-All
by W.S.Maugham

I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him. The war had just
finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean–going liners was heavy.
Accommodation was very hard to get and you had to put up with whatever the
agents chose to offer you. You could not hope for a cabin to yourself and I was
thankful to be given one in which there were only two berths. But when I was
told the name of my companion my heart sank. It suggested closed port–holes
and the night air rigidly excluded. It was bad enough to share a cabin for
fourteen days with anyone (I was going from San Francisco to Yokohama), but
I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow–passenger’s name
had been Smith or Brown.
When I went on board I found Mr Kelada’s luggage already below. I did not
like the look of it; there were too many labels on the suitcases, and the
wardrobe trunk was too big. He had unpacked his toilet things, and I observed
that he was a patron of the excellent Monsieur Coty; for I saw on the
washing–stand his scent, his hair–wash, and his brilliantine. Mr Kelada’s
brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would have been all the better for a
scrub. I did not at all like Mr Kelada. I made my way into the smoking–room.
I called for a pack of cards and began to play patience. I had scarcely started
before a man came up to me and asked me if he was right in thinking my name
was so–and–so.
‘I am Mr Kelada,’ he added, with a smile that showed a row of flashing teeth,
and sat down.
‘Oh, yes, we’re sharing a cabin, I think.’
‘Bit of luck, I call it. You never know who you’re going to be put in with. I was
jolly glad when I heard you were English. I’m all for us English sticking
together when we’re abroad, if you understand what I mean.’
I blinked.
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‘Are you English?’ I asked, perhaps tactlessly.
‘Rather. You don’t think I look an American, do you? British to the backbone,
that’s what I am.’
To prove it, Mr Kelada took out of his pocket a passport and airily waved it
under my nose.
King George has many strange subjects. Mr Kelada was short and of a sturdy
build, clean–shaven and dark–skinned, with a fleshy, hooked nose and very
large, lustrous and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and curly. He
spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing English and his gestures were
exuberant. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British passport
would have betrayed the fact that Mr Kelada was born under a bluer sky than is
generally seen in England.
‘What will you have?’ he asked me.
I looked at him doubtfully. Prohibition was in force and to all appearances the
ship was bone–dry. When I am not thirsty I do not know which I dislike more,
ginger–ale or lemon–squash. But Mr Kelada flashed an oriental smile at me.
‘Whisky and soda or a dry Martini, you have only to say the word.’
From each of his hip–pockets he fished a flask and laid them on the table
before me. I chose the Martini, and calling the steward he ordered a tumbler of
ice and a couple of glasses.
‘A very good cocktail,’ I said.
‘Well, there are plenty more where that came from, and if you’ve got any
friends on board, you tell them you’ve got a pal who’s got all the liquor in the
world.’
Mr Kelada was chatty. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He
discussed plays, pictures, and politics. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an
impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from
Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity. Mr
Kelada was familiar. I do not wish to put on airs, but I cannot help feeling that it
is seemly in a total stranger to put mister before my name when he addresses
me. Mr Kelada, doubtless to set me at my ease, used no such formality. I did not
like Mr Kelada. I had put aside the cards when he sat down, but now, thinking
that for this first occasion our conversation had lasted long enough, I went on
with my game.
‘The three on the four,’ said Mr Kelada.
There is nothing more exasperating when you are playing patience than to be
told where to put the card you have turned up before you have had a chance to
look for yourself.
‘It’s coming out, it’s coming out,’ he cried. ‘The ten on the knave.’
With rage and hatred in my heart I finished. Then he seized the pack.
‘Do you like card tricks?’
‘No, I hate card tricks,’ I answered.
‘Well, I’ll just show you this one.’
He showed me three. Then I said I would go down to the dining–room and
get my seat at table.
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ve already taken a seat for you. I thought that as
we were in the same state–room we might just as well sit at the same table.’
I did not like Mr Kelada.
I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same
table, but I could not walk round the deck without his joining me. It was
impossible to snub him. It never occurred to him that he was not wanted.
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He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was to see you. In your
own house you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the door in
his face without the suspicion dawning on him that he was not a welcome
visitor. He was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board. He
ran everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected
money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the
concert, and arranged the fancy–dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He
was certainly the best–hated man in the ship. We called him Mr Know–All,
even to his face. He took it as a compliment. But it was at meal times that he
was most intolerable. For the better part of an hour then he had us at his mercy.
He was hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative. He knew everything
better than anybody else, and it was an affront to his overweening vanity that
you should disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however
unimportant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The
possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him. He was the chap
who knew. We sat at the doctor’s table. Mr Kelada would certainly have had it
all his own way, for the doctor was lazy and I was frigidly indifferent, except for
a man called Ramsay who sat there also. He was as dogmatic as Mr Kelada and
resented bitterly the Levantine’s cocksureness. The discussions they had were
acrimonious and interminable.
Ramsay was in the American Consular Service, and was stationed at Kobe. He
was a great heavy fellow from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight
skin, and he bulged out of his ready–made clothes. He was on his way back to
resume his post, having been on a flying visit to New York to fetch his wife,
who had been spending a year at home. Mrs Ramsay was a very pretty little
thing, with pleasant manners and a sense of humour. The Consular Service is
ill paid, and she was dressed always very simply; but she knew how to wear her
clothes. She achieved an effect of quiet distinction. I should not have paid any
particular attention to her but that she possessed a quality that may be
common enough in women, but nowadays is not obvious in their demeanour.
You could not look at her without being struck by her modesty. It shone in her
like a flower on a coat.
One evening at dinner the conversation by chance drifted to the subject of
pearls. There had been in the papers a good deal of talk about the culture
pearls which the cunning Japanese were making, and the doctor remarked that
they must inevitably diminish the value of real ones. They were very good
already; they would soon be perfect. Mr Kelada, as was his habit, rushed the
new topic. He told us all that was to be known about pearls. I do not believe
Ramsay knew anything about them at all, but he could not resist the
opportunity to have a fling at the Levantine, and in five minutes we were in the
middle of a heated argument. I had seen Mr Kelada vehement and voluble
before, but never so voluble and vehement as now. At last something that
Ramsay said stung him, for he thumped the table and shouted:
‘Well, I ought to know what I am talking about. I’m going to Japan just to look
into this Japanese pearl business. I’m in the trade and there’s not a man in it
who won’t tell you that what I say about pearls goes. I know all the best pearls
in the world, and what I don’t know about pearls isn’t worth knowing.’
Here was news for us, for Mr Kelada, with all his loquacity, had never told
anyone what his business was. We only knew vaguely that he was going to
Japan on some commercial errand. He looked round the table triumphantly.
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‘They’ll never be able to get a culture pearl that an expert like me can’t tell
with half an eye.’ He pointed to a chain that Mrs Ramsay wore. ‘You take my
word for it, Mrs Ramsay, that chain you’re wearing will never be worth a cent
less than it is now.’
Mrs Ramsay in her modest way flushed a little and slipped the chain inside
her dress. Ramsay leaned forward. He gave us all a look and a smile flickered in
his eyes.
‘That’s a pretty chain of Mrs Ramsay’s, isn’t it?’
‘I noticed it at once,’ answered Mr Kelada. ‘Gee, I said to myself, those are
pearls all right.’
‘I didn’t buy it myself, of course. I’d be interested to know how much you
think it cost.’
‘Oh, in the trade somewhere round fifteen thousand dollars. But if it was
bought on Fifth Avenue I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that anything up to
thirty thousand was paid for it.’
Ramsay smiled grimly.
‘You’ll be surprised to hear that Mrs Ramsay bought that string at a
department store the day before we left New York, for eighteen dollars.’ Mr
Kelada flushed.
‘Rot. It’s not only real, but it’s as fine a string for its size as I’ve ever seen.’
‘Will you bet on it? I’ll bet you a hundred dollars it’s imitation.’
‘Done.’
‘Oh, Elmer, you can’t bet on a certainty,’ said Mrs Ramsay.
She had a little smile on her lips and her tone was gently deprecating.
‘Can’t I? If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a fool
not to take it.’
‘But how can it be proved?’ she continued. ‘It’s only my word against Mr
Kelada’s.’
‘Let me look at the chain, and if it’s imitation I’ll tell you quickly enough. I can
afford to lose a hundred dollars,’ said Mr Kelada.
‘Take it off, dear. Let the gentleman look at it as much as he wants.’
Mrs Ramsay hesitated a moment. She put her hands to the clasp.
‘I can’t undo it,’ she said. ‘Mr Kelada will just have to take my word for it.’
I had a sudden suspicion that something unfortunate was about to occur, but
I could think of nothing to say.
Ramsay jumped up.
‘I’ll undo it.’
He handed the chain to Mr Kelada. The Levantine took a magnifying glass
from his pocket and closely examined it. A smile of triumph spread over his
smooth and swarthy face. He handed back the chain. He was about to speak.
Suddenly he caught sight of Mrs Ramsay’s face. It was so white that she looked
as though she were about to faint. She was staring at him with wide and
terrified eyes. They held a desperate appeal; it was so clear that I wondered why
her husband did not see it.
Mr Kelada stopped with his mouth open. He flushed deeply. You could
almost see the effort he was making over himself.
‘I was mistaken,’ he said.’ It’s a very good imitation, but of course as soon as I
looked through my glass I saw that it wasn’t real. I think eighteen dollars is just
about as much as the damned thing’s worth.’
He took out his pocket–book and from it a hundred–dollar note. He handed
it to Ramsay without a word.
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‘Perhaps that’ll teach you not to be so cocksure another time, my young
friend,’ said Ramsay as he took the note.
I noticed that Mr Kelada’s hands were trembling.
The story spread over the ship as stories do, and he had to put up with a good
deal of chaff that evening. It was a fine joke that Mr Know–All had been caught
out. But Mrs Ramsay retired to her state–room with a headache.
Next morning I got up and began to shave. Mr Kelada lay on his bed smoking
a cigarette. Suddenly there was a small scraping sound and I saw a letter
pushed under the door. I opened the door and looked out. There was nobody
there. I picked up the letter and saw that it was addressed to Max Kelada. The
name was written in block letters. I handed it to him.
‘Who’s this from?’ He opened it. ‘Oh!’
He took out of the envelope, not a letter, but a hundred–dollar note. He
looked at me and again he reddened. He tore the envelope into little bits and
gave them to me.
‘Do you mind just throwing them out of the port–hole?’
I did as he asked, and then I looked at him with a smile.
‘No one likes being made to look a perfect damned fool,’ he said.
‘Were the pearls real?’
‘If I had a pretty little wife I shouldn’t let her spend a year in New York while
I stayed at Kobe,’ said he.
At that moment I did not entirely dislike Mr Kelada. He reached out for his
pocket–book and carefully put in it the hundred–dollar note.