I’m so pleased to find that I was wrong! The Painted Veil is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year. I think I must have formed a preconceived idea that I wouldn’t like Somerset Maugham without ever having tried any of his books or knowing anything about him, because I really didn’t expect to love this as much as I did. Kitty is convinced that Walter is taking her there in the hope that she will die, but it’s here in this remote cholera-ridden city that Kitty finally begins to grow as a person and to make some discoveries about both herself and her husband. When Kitty goes to discuss the situation with Charles, she is cruelly disillusioned by her lover and is left with no other option than to travel to Mei-tan-fu with Walter.
She can either accompany him into the interior of China where he has volunteered to deal with a cholera epidemic, or he will allow her to divorce him – but only if Charles agrees to divorce his wife and immediately marry Kitty. Although he is in love with her, she doesn’t love him in return and soon begins an affair with the charming, charismatic Assistant Colonial Secretary, Charles Townsend.Įventually Walter learns the truth about Kitty and Charles and confronts Kitty with an ultimatum. Walter is shy, clever and serious and to the pretty, frivolous Kitty, he seems very cold and aloof. She agrees to marry Walter Fane, a bacteriologist, and moves to Hong Kong with him. She’s too busy enjoying herself at parties and dances, and it’s only when she’s still unmarried at the age of twenty-five and discovers that her younger sister has become engaged to a baronet that she begins to panic. Despite the attempts of her mother to arrange a good marriage for her, Kitty Garstin is in no hurry to find a husband.
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