Salvatore story explained
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Salvatore Story Summary by W. Somerset Maugham
The story begins in Salvatore’s boyhood days in the island of Ischia. The writer shows how the thin and agile fifteen-year-old boy spent his carefree days of youth swimming in the sea and climbing rocks to dive into the water. From a young age, Salvatore showed the loving responsibility of a caretaker as he looked after his two younger brothers, dressing and feeding them and taking care of their safety. As he grew older, he fell in passionate love with a beautiful girl from Grande Marina “who had eyes like forest pools and held herself like a daughter of the Caesars”. They were soon betrothed, however, military service came in the way of the consummation of their love. Salvatore had to depart from his island, which he had never left before, estranged from his home and the woman he loved madly, to serve as a sailor in the army of King Victor Emmanuel.
Draft duty presented terrible challenges in Salvatore’s life. From being a carefree young lad who lived amongst the vines, he now found himself in a life where his freedom was curbed by the ones in authority. He had to spend his days among strangers in battleships; and when on land, the lack of warmth and friendliness in the crowded and noisy unfamiliar cities frightened him. And through this period of intense homesickness, he realized that the islands of Ischia and Vesuvius, where he had grown up, had become an intimate part of him. Above all, he missed his beloved deeply, and as an estranged anxious lover, he wrote long love letters telling her how much he longed to be with her.
Draft duty took Salvatore to a host of places such as Spezzia, Venice, Bari, and when finally in China, he was struck by a dreadful illness that quarantined him to the hospital bed for days. He endured his ailment with tremendous patience. And when the doctors informed him that he had been diagnosed with a form of rheumatism that would render him incapacitated for the rest of his life, instead of being disheartened by the news of possible lifelong disability, Salvatore’s heart exalted because his illness meant that he was unfit to serve in the army and could finally be home to be united with his family and the love of his life.
Upon landing home, he was met with the emotional greetings of his family, but his beloved was nowhere to be seen. His mother had not seen her for days, and so, unable to wait a day longer, he went over to her house in Grande Marina. But instead of a passionate reunion and the happy ending he had hoped for, Salvatore was handed a rude heartbreak. The woman he loved coolly stated that she did not wish to marry him anymore, for his illness meant that he would never be a strong enough man who could provide for her. The news crushed Salvatore and he cried terribly on his mother’s bosom. But he soon took this misfortune in his stride with amicable understanding. Despite feeling awfully dejected, he did not grow bitter towards the girl or his life. Instead he made peace with the fact that a woman needs a strong man, and that he could not be that strong man for his girl because of his illness.
Life moved on for Salvatore, and he began working in his father’s vineyard and fishing business. From being a thin boy, he had grown into a well-built man with big strong hands and legs. One fine day, his mother told him about a woman named Assunta, whose fiancé had been killed in service. She had fallen in love with him after seeing him at the fiesta and wished to marry him. As a first reaction, he said, “She’s as ugly as the devil”, but then after seeing her at the Sunday church, he decided to settle down with her. With the little money that Assunta had, the couple bought a boat and assumed the tenancy of a vineyard. And with two children, they spent their days as a happy married couple in a tiny white-washed cottage. Assunta was devoted to Salvatore and his “most beautiful manners” and “gentle sweetness” and Salvatore was an ever-loving husband to her and a great father to his two children.
Salvatore lived the hard life of a fisherman, spending his evening and nights catching fish in the fishing season and his mornings in the vineyard. There were days when his rheumatism took a heavy toll on him. On these days, he would calmly endure the debilitating pain by lying about on the beach and exchanging a pleasant word with everyone he met.
Maugham ends his narration of Salvatore’s life story with a moving picture of the middle-aged fisherman bathing his sons in the sea. The ending scene shows Salvatore as a doting father who loved his children with so much tender love, care, and affection that they seemed like little flowers in his coarse hands. His laughter of an angel and the child-like happiness in his eyes as he played with his kids on the beach after drying them, touches the reader’s heart.