Скачать или смотреть THE LION'S SKIN, Somerset Maugham

The Lion’s Skin by Somerset Maugham:

What does it mean to be a gentleman—bloodline, wealth, or simply the conviction to live as one?

Captain Robert Forestier seemed to embody the ideal: handsome, honorable, the very picture of the English officer. His devoted wife Eleanor believed him flawless, and society admired his charm, his cellar, his sporting laugh. Yet when Sir Frederick Hardy, a charming rogue with a long memory, arrives on the Riviera, cracks begin to show in Forestier’s immaculate veneer. Beneath the tailored tweeds and hearty laugh may lie a past of grease-stained overalls and half-crown tips.

Maugham’s tale is not just about deception but about the strange tyranny of ideals. For what begins as a bluff becomes a destiny: Forestier has played the role of a gentleman so long that, when fire rages and life hangs in the balance, he dies proving himself one. The Lion’s Skin is at once ironic, tragic, and piercing—a study of class, self-invention, and the dangerous power of believing one’s own lie.