# IX: The Inn explained — On a Chinese Screen

> Chapter companion for On a Chinese Screen by W. Somerset Maugham.

## What happens

The narrator describes the final leg of a journey to an inn, passing through a city gate and crowded streets. Upon arrival, the inn is depicted as a bustling, dimly lit yard with rooms, tables, and a stove. The narrator settles into a guest chamber, reflecting on the value of long books for passing time, and observes the arrival of more travelers. The night is marked by noise, a coughing man, and the sounds of morning.

## Themes in this chapter

### Colonial Ennui and Isolation

The narrator's solitary wait in the inn, reading to pass time, reflects a sense of ennui and isolation in a foreign setting.

### Beauty and Art as Escape or Illusion

The narrator finds solace in the intricate design of the transom and the pleasure of reading, using art and beauty as an escape from the mundane.

## Character check-ins

### The Taipan

The narrator, traveling in a sedan chair, arrives at the inn and settles in the guest chamber.

## Key lines

> It throws a thin circle of light in front of you, and as you pass you catch a pale glimpse (like a thing of beauty emerging vaguely from the ceaseless flux of common life) of a bamboo thicket, a flash of water in a rice field, or the heavy darkness of a banyan.

The lantern casts a small pool of light ahead, briefly revealing beautiful scenes like bamboo, water in rice fields, or a dark banyan tree, as if beauty emerges from ordinary life.

_Describes the fleeting, aesthetic glimpses during the night journey._

> How precious then is the inordinate length of your book (for you are travelling light and you have limited yourself to three) and how jealously you read every word of every page so that you may delay as long as possible the dreaded moment when you must reach the end!

The narrator values long books because they last longer, reading slowly to postpone finishing them.

_Reflects the narrator's desire to prolong the reading experience during the wait at the inn._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters/ix-the-inn
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/on_a_chinese_screen_se/chapters