The Painted Veil

A little over a year ago I remember reading Maugham's The Painted Veil and, soon after, saw the stunning movie with Edward Norton and Naomi Watts. I saw the movie with my husband - I was pregnant with Pavel at the time - and we decided to just spend an evening together. We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant before and then walked up to the movie theater. It was cold, the ground was icy, but I felt warm walking beside him. When the movie ended, I looked over at his profile, so thankful that we were together, that we had no betrayals to overcome like the couple we saw in the film.

To this day, I have no idea what Maugham meant by the title. I imagine I am missing some very obvious literary or mythological reference, perhaps even Biblical - that somehow it refers to Jacob, Leah and Rachel - that Walter, like Jacob, was tricked into marrying one woman believing her to be another, and then had to labor to finally be able to call his wife the woman he really loved.

I think about how we, as humans, are constantly covering ourselves with veils, deceiving those around us. We have a picture in our mind of who we want the world to see us as. We hide our true thoughts and desires. We let those closest to us believe us to be something, someone else. When the veil is lifted, we either love more or are sickened. And then we ask -was there indeed a veil, or did we deceive ourselves? Were we the ones who placed the veil over our loved ones -that they were true to us, but we were not true to them?

I do not know how many veils I have put on and taken off in my life. The veil of holiness, which is hypocrisy, the veil of sophistication, which really is self-doubt, or the veil of nonchalance, which becomes self-destruction. Many times I have tried to veil myself and could not. I have tried to make my emotions opaque, and yet everyone around me saw right through me. Only once, I would like to be hidden, for people to not know what I am feeling. But God didn't make me that way, and my closest friends have thanked me for my honesty. Many times, though, I end up getting very, very hurt. At this point I am not sure what God wants from me. Certainly He does not want me to wear a veil before Him. What is the point anyway - God sees and knows all. He is the one who we aim to be unveiled before.

But how can I be unveiled before God, and veiled before society? How can I be vulnerable and protect myself at the same time? Perhaps it is more that I need to be more Christ-like, more humble, that when people see me, hopefully they see something good, and not the forced illusion of something that is good.

"Preserve me, O God, for in thee I take refuge. I say to the Lord, 'Thou art my Lord; I have no good apart from thee.'" - from Psalm 16:1-2