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X
The Moon and Sixpence
by W. Somerset Maugham
Chapter XVI
What followed showed that Mrs. Strickland was a woman
of character. Whatever anguish she suffered she concealed.
She saw shrewdly that the world is quickly bored by the
recital of misfortune, and willingly avoids the sight of distress.
Whenever she went out — and compassion for her misadventure
made her friends eager to entertain her — she bore a
demeanour that was perfect. She was brave, but not too obviously;
cheerful, but not brazenly; and she seemed more
anxious to listen to the troubles of others than to discuss
her own. Whenever she spoke of her husband it was with pity.
Her attitude towards him at first perplexed me. One day she
said to me:
"You know, I'm convinced you were mistaken about Charles being alone.
From what I've been able to gather from certain sources that I can't tell you, I know that
he didn't leave England by himself."
"In that case he has a positive genius for covering up his tracks."
She looked away and slightly coloured.
"What I mean is, if anyone talks to you about it, please don't
contradict it if they say he eloped with somebody."
"Of course not."
She changed the conversation as though it were a matter to
which she attached no importance. I discovered presently that
a peculiar story was circulating among her friends. They said
that Charles Strickland had become infatuated with a French
dancer, whom he had first seen in the ballet at the Empire,
and had accompanied her to Paris. I could not find out how
this had arisen, but, singularly enough, it created much
sympathy for Mrs. Strickland, and at the same time gave her
not a little prestige. This was not without its use in the
calling which she had decided to follow. Colonel MacAndrew
had not exaggerated when he said she would be penniless, and
it was necessary for her to earn her own living as quickly as
she could. She made up her mind to profit by her acquaintance
with so many writers, and without loss of time began to learn
shorthand and typewriting. Her education made it likely that
she would be a typist more efficient than the average, and her
story made her claims appealing. Her friends promised to send
her work, and took care to recommend her to all theirs.
The MacAndrews, who were childless and in easy circumstances,
arranged to undertake the care of the children, and Mrs.
Strickland had only herself to provide for. She let her flat
and sold her furniture. She settled in two tiny rooms in
Westminster, and faced the world anew. She was so efficient
that it was certain she would make a success of the adventure.
Chapter XVII
It was about five years after this that I decided to live in
Paris for a while. I was growing stale in London. I was
tired of doing much the same thing every day. My friends
pursued their course with uneventfulness; they had no longer
any surprises for me, and when I met them I knew pretty well
what they would say; even their love-affairs had a tedious banality.
We were like tram-cars running on their lines from terminus
to terminus, and it was possible to calculate within small
limits the number of passengers they would carry. Life was
ordered too pleasantly. I was seized with panic. I gave
up my small apartment, sold my few belongings, and resolved to
start afresh.
I called on Mrs. Strickland before I left. I had not seen her
for some time, and I noticed changes in her; it was not only
that she was older, thinner, and more lined; I think her
character had altered. She had made a success of her
business, and now had an office in Chancery Lane; she did
little typing herself, but spent her time correcting the work
of the four girls she employed. She had had the idea of
giving it a certain daintiness, and she made much use of blue
and red inks; she bound the copy in coarse paper, that looked
vaguely like watered silk, in various pale colours; and she
had acquired a reputation for neatness and accuracy. She was
making money. But she could not get over the idea that to
earn her living was somewhat undignified, and she was inclined
to remind you that she was a lady by birth. She could not
help bringing into her conversation the names of people she
knew which would satisfy you that she had not sunk in the
social scale. She was a little ashamed of her courage and
business capacity, but delighted that she was going to dine
the next night with a K.C. who lived in South Kensington.
She was pleased to be able to tell you that her son was at Cambridge,
and it was with a little laugh that she spoke of the rush
of dances to which her daughter, just out, was invited.
I suppose I said a very stupid thing.
"Is she going into your business?" I asked.
"Oh no; I wouldn't let her do that," Mrs. Strickland answered.
"She's so pretty. I'm sure she'll marry well."
"I should have thought it would be a help to you."
"Several people have suggested that she should go on the
stage, but of course I couldn't consent to that, I know all
the chief dramatists, and I could get her a part to-morrow,
but I shouldn't like her to mix with all sorts of people."
I was a little chilled by Mrs. Strickland's exclusiveness.
"Do you ever hear of your husband?"
"No; I haven't heard a word. He may be dead for all I know."
"I may run across him in Paris. Would you like me to let you
know about him?"
She hesitated a minute.
"If he's in any real want I'm prepared to help him a little.
I'd send you a certain sum of money, and you could give it him
gradually, as he needed it."
"That's very good of you," I said.
But I knew it was not kindness that prompted the offer. It is
not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does
that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men
petty and vindictive.
Chapter XVIII
In point of fact, I met Strickland before I had been a
fortnight in Paris.
I quickly found myself a tiny apartment on the fifth floor of
a house in the Rue des Dames, and for a couple of hundred
francs bought at a second-hand dealer's enough furniture to
make it habitable. I arranged with the concierge to make my
coffee in the morning and to keep the place clean. Then I
went to see my friend Dirk Stroeve.
Dirk Stroeve was one of those persons whom, according to your
character, you cannot think of without derisive laughter or an
embarrassed shrug of the shoulders. Nature had made him a buffoon.
He was a painter, but a very bad one, whom I had met
in Rome, and I still remembered his pictures. He had a
genuine enthusiasm for the commonplace. His soul palpitating
with love of art, he painted the models who hung about the
stairway of Bernini in the Piazza de Spagna, undaunted by
their obvious picturesqueness; and his studio was full of
canvases on which were portrayed moustachioed, large-eyed
peasants in peaked hats, urchins in becoming rags, and women
in bright petticoats. Sometimes they lounged at the steps of
a church, and sometimes dallied among cypresses against a
cloudless sky; sometimes they made love by a Renaissance well-head,
and sometimes they wandered through the Campagna by the side
of an ox-waggon. They were carefully drawn and carefully painted.
A photograph could not have been more exact. One of
the painters at the Villa Medici had called him To look at his pictures you would
have thought that Monet, Manet, and the rest of the
Impressionists had never been.
"I don't pretend to be a great painter," he said, "I'm not a
Michael Angelo, no, but I have something. I sell. I bring
romance into the homes of all sorts of people. Do you know,
they buy my pictures not only in Holland, but in Norway and
Sweden and Denmark? It's mostly merchants who buy them, and
rich tradesmen. You can't imagine what the winters are like
in those countries, so long and dark and cold. They like to
think that Italy is like my pictures. That's what they
expect. That's what I expected Italy to be before I came
here."
And I think that was the vision that had remained with him
always, dazzling his eyes so that he could not see the truth;
and notwithstanding the brutality of fact, he continued to see
with the eyes of the spirit an Italy of romantic brigands and
picturesque ruins. It was an ideal that he painted — a poor one,
common and shop-soiled, but still it was an ideal; and it
gave his character a peculiar charm.
It was because I felt this that Dirk Stroeve was not to me, as to
others, merely an object of ridicule. His fellow-painters made no
secret of their contempt for his work, but he earned a fair amount of
money, and they did not hesitate to make free use of his purse. He was
generous, and the needy, laughing at him because he believed so
naively their stories of distress, borrowed from him with effrontery.
He was very emotional, yet his feeling, so easily aroused, had in it
something absurd, so that you accepted his kindness, but felt no
gratitude. To take money from him was like robbing a child, and you
despised him because he was so foolish. I imagine that a pickpocket,
proud of his light fingers, must feel a sort of indignation with the
careless woman who leaves in a cab a vanity-bag with all her jewels in
it. Nature had made him a butt, but had denied him insensibility. He
writhed under the jokes, practical and otherwise, which were
perpetually made at his expense, and yet never ceased, it seemed
wilfully, to expose himself to them. He was constantly wounded, and
yet his good-nature was such that he could not bear malice: the viper
might sting him, but he never learned by experience, and had no sooner
recovered from his pain than he tenderly placed it once more in his
***. His life was a tragedy written in the terms of knockabout
farce. Because I did not laugh at him he was grateful to me, and he
used to pour into my sympathetic ear the long list of his troubles.
The saddest thing about them was that they were grotesque, and the
more pathetic they were, the more you wanted to laugh.
But though so bad a painter, he had a very delicate feeling
for art, and to go with him to picture-galleries was a rare treat.
His enthusiasm was sincere and his criticism acute.
He was catholic. He had not only a true appreciation of the
old masters, but sympathy with the moderns. He was quick to
discover talent, and his praise was generous. I think I have
never known a man whose judgment was surer. And he was better
educated than most painters. He was not, like most of them,
ignorant of kindred arts, and his taste for music and
literature gave depth and variety to his comprehension of painting.
To a young man like myself his advice and guidance were
of incomparable value.
When I left Rome I corresponded with him, and about once in
two months received from him long letters in *** English,
which brought before me vividly his spluttering, enthusiastic,
gesticulating conversation. Some time before I went to Paris
he had married an Englishwoman, and was now settled in a
studio in Montmartre. I had not seen him for four years,
and had never met his wife.
Chapter XIX
I had not announced my arrival to Stroeve, and when I rang the
bell of his studio, on opening the door himself, for a moment
he did not know me. Then he gave a cry of delighted surprise
and drew me in. It was charming to be welcomed with so much
eagerness. His wife was seated near the stove at her sewing,
and she rose as I came in. He introduced me.
"Don't you remember?" he said to her. "I've talked to you
about him often." And then to me: "But why didn't you let me
know you were coming? How long have you been here? How long
are you going to stay? Why didn't you come an hour earlier,
and we would have dined together?"
He bombarded me with questions. He sat me down in a chair,
patting me as though I were a cushion, pressed cigars upon me,
cakes, wine. He could not let me alone. He was heart-broken
because he had no whisky, wanted to make coffee for me,
racked his brain for something he could possibly do for me,
and beamed and laughed, and in the exuberance of his delight
sweated at every pore.
"You haven't changed," I said, smiling, as I looked at him.
He had the same absurd appearance that I remembered. He was a
fat little man, with short legs, young still — he could not
have been more than thirty — but prematurely bald. His face
was perfectly round, and he had a very high colour, a white
skin, red cheeks, and red lips. His eyes were blue and round
too, he wore large gold-rimmed spectacles, and his eyebrows
were so fair that you could not see them. He reminded you of
those jolly, fat merchants that Rubens painted.
When I told him that I meant to live in Paris for a while, and
had taken an apartment, he reproached me bitterly for not
having let him know. He would have found me an apartment
himself, and lent me furniture — did I really mean that I had
gone to the expense of buying it? — and he would have helped
me to move in. He really looked upon it as unfriendly that I
had not given him the opportunity of making himself useful to me.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Stroeve sat quietly mending her stockings,
without talking, and she listened to all he said with a quiet
smile on her lips.
"So, you see, I'm married," he said suddenly; "what do you
think of my wife?"
He beamed at her, and settled his spectacles on the bridge of
his nose. The sweat made them constantly slip down.
"What on earth do you expect me to say to that?" I laughed.
"Really, Dirk," put in Mrs. Stroeve, smiling.
"But isn't she wonderful? I tell you, my boy, lose no time;
get married as soon as ever you can. I'm the happiest man alive.
Look at her sitting there. Doesn't she make a picture?
Chardin, eh? I've seen all the most beautiful women
in the world; I've never seen anyone more beautiful than
Madame Dirk Stroeve."
"If you don't be quiet, Dirk, I shall go away."
, he said.
She flushed a little, embarrassed by the passion in his tone.
His letters had told me that he was very much in love with his
wife, and I saw that he could hardly take his eyes off her.
I could not tell if she loved him. Poor pantaloon, he was not
an object to excite love, but the smile in her eyes was
affectionate, and it was possible that her reserve concealed a
very deep feeling. She was not the ravishing creature that
his love-sick fancy saw, but she had a grave comeliness.
She was rather tall, and her gray dress, simple and quite
well-cut, did not hide the fact that her figure was beautiful.
It was a figure that might have appealed more to the sculptor
than to the costumier. Her hair, brown and abundant, was
plainly done, her face was very pale, and her features were
good without being distinguished. She had quiet gray eyes.
She just missed being beautiful, and in missing it was not
even pretty. But when Stroeve spoke of Chardin it was not
without reason, and she reminded me curiously of that pleasant
housewife in her mob-cap and apron whom the great painter has
immortalised. I could imagine her sedately busy among her
pots and pans, making a ritual of her household duties, so
that they acquired a moral significance; I did not suppose
that she was clever or could ever be amusing, but there was
something in her grave intentness which excited my interest.
Her reserve was not without mystery. I wondered why she had
married Dirk Stroeve. Though she was English, I could not
exactly place her, and it was not obvious from what rank in
society she sprang, what had been her upbringing, or how she
had lived before her marriage. She was very silent, but when
she spoke it was with a pleasant voice, and her manners
were natural.
I asked Stroeve if he was working.
"Working? I'm painting better than I've ever painted before."
We sat in the studio, and he waved his hand to an unfinished
picture on an easel. I gave a little start. He was painting
a group of Italian peasants, in the costume of the Campagna,
lounging on the steps of a Roman church.
"Is that what you're doing now?" I asked.
"Yes. I can get my models here just as well as in Rome."
"Don't you think it's very beautiful?" said Mrs. Stroeve.
"This foolish wife of mine thinks I'm a great artist," said he.
His apologetic laugh did not disguise the pleasure that he felt.
His eyes lingered on his picture. It was strange that
his critical sense, so accurate and unconventional when he
dealt with the work of others, should be satisfied in himself
with what was hackneyed and vulgar beyond belief.
"Show him some more of your pictures," she said.
"Shall I?"
Though he had suffered so much from the ridicule of his friends,
Dirk Stroeve, eager for praise and naively self-satisfied,
could never resist displaying his work. He brought out
a picture of two curly-headed Italian urchins playing marbles.
"Aren't they sweet?" said Mrs. Stroeve.
And then he showed me more. I discovered that in Paris he had
been painting just the same stale, obviously picturesque
things that he had painted for years in Rome. It was all
false, insincere, shoddy; and yet no one was more honest,
sincere, and frank than Dirk Stroeve. Who could resolve
the contradiction?
I do not know what put it into my head to ask:
"I say, have you by any chance run across a painter called
Charles Strickland?"
"You don't mean to say you know him?" cried Stroeve.
"Beast," said his wife.
Stroeve laughed.
He went over to her and kissed both
her hands. "She doesn't like him. How strange that you
should know Strickland!"
"I don't like bad manners," said Mrs. Stroeve.
Dirk, laughing still, turned to me to explain.
"You see, I asked him to come here one day and look at my
pictures. Well, he came, and I showed him everything I had."
Stroeve hesitated a moment with embarrassment. I do not know
why he had begun the story against himself; he felt an
awkwardness at finishing it. "He looked at — at my pictures,
and he didn't say anything. I thought he was reserving his
judgment till the end. And at last I said: 'There, that's
the lot!' He said: 'I came to ask you to lend me twenty francs.'"
"And Dirk actually gave it him," said his wife indignantly.
"I was so taken aback. I didn't like to refuse. He put the
money in his pocket, just nodded, said 'Thanks,' and walked out."
Dirk Stroeve, telling the story, had such a look of blank
astonishment on his round, foolish face that it was almost
impossible not to laugh.
"I shouldn't have minded if he'd said my pictures were bad,
but he said nothing — nothing."
"And you tell the story, Dirk," Said his wife.
It was lamentable that one was more amused by the ridiculous
figure cut by the Dutchman than outraged by Strickland's
brutal treatment of him.
"I hope I shall never see him again," said Mrs. Stroeve.
Stroeve smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He had already
recovered his good-humour.
"The fact remains that he's a great artist, a very great artist."
"Strickland?" I exclaimed. "It can't be the same man."
"A big fellow with a red beard. Charles Strickland. An Englishman."
"He had no beard when I knew him, but if he has grown one it
might well be red. The man I'm thinking of only began
painting five years ago."
"That's it. He's a great artist."
"Impossible."
"Have I ever been mistaken?" Dirk asked me. "I tell you he
has genius. I'm convinced of it. In a hundred years, if you
and I are remembered at all, it will be because we knew
Charles Strickland."
I was astonished, and at the same time I was very much excited.
I remembered suddenly my last talk with him.
"Where can one see his work?" I asked. "Is he having any success?
Where is he living?"
"No; he has no success. I don't think he's ever sold a picture.
When you speak to men about him they only laugh.
But I he's a great artist. After all, they laughed
at Manet. Corot never sold a picture. I don't know where he
lives, but I can take you to see him. He goes to a cafe in
the Avenue de Clichy at seven o'clock every evening. If you
like we'll go there to-morrow."
"I'm not sure if he'll wish to see me. I think I may remind
him of a time he prefers to forget. But I'll come all the same.
Is there any chance of seeing any of his pictures?"
"Not from him. He won't show you a thing. There's a little
dealer I know who has two or three. But you mustn't go without me;
you wouldn't understand. I must show them to you myself."
"Dirk, you make me impatient," said Mrs. Stroeve. "How can
you talk like that about his pictures when he treated you as
he did?" She turned to me. "Do you know, when some Dutch
people came here to buy Dirk's pictures he tried to persuade
them to buy Strickland's? He insisted on bringing them here
to show."
"What did think of them?" I asked her, smiling.
"They were awful."
"Ah, sweetheart, you don't understand."
"Well, your Dutch people were furious with you. They thought
you were having a joke with them."
Dirk Stroeve took off his spectacles and wiped them. His
flushed face was shining with excitement.
"Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious
thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the
careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something
wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the
chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he
has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize
it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a
melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own
heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination."
"Why did I always think your pictures beautiful, Dirk?
I admired them the very first time I saw them."
Stroeve's lips trembled a little.
"Go to bed, my precious. I will walk a few steps with our
friend, and then I will come back."
Chapter XX
Dirk Stroeve agreed to fetch me on the following evening and
take me to the cafe at which Strickland was most likely to be found.
I was interested to learn that it was the same as that
at which Strickland and I had drunk absinthe when I had gone
over to Paris to see him. The fact that he had never changed
suggested a sluggishness of habit which seemed to me characteristic.
"There he is," said Stroeve, as we reached the cafe.
Though it was October, the evening was warm, and the tables on
the pavement were crowded. I ran my eyes over them, but did
not see Strickland.
"Look. Over there, in the corner. He's playing chess."
I noticed a man bending over a chess-board, but could see only
a large felt hat and a red beard. We threaded our way among
the tables till we came to him.
"Strickland."
He looked up.
"Hulloa, fatty. What do you want?"
"I've brought an old friend to see you."
Strickland gave me a glance, and evidently did not recognise me.
He resumed his scrutiny of the chess-board.
"Sit down, and don't make a noise," he said.
He moved a piece and straightway became absorbed in the game.
Poor Stroeve gave me a troubled look, but I was not
disconcerted by so little. I ordered something to drink,
and waited quietly till Strickland had finished. I welcomed the
opportunity to examine him at my ease. I certainly should
never have known him. In the first place his red beard,
ragged and untrimmed, hid much of his face, and his hair was long;
but the most surprising change in him was his extreme thinness.
It made his great nose protrude more arrogantly; it emphasized his cheekbones; it made his
eyes seem larger. There were deep hollows at his temples. His
body was cadaverous. He wore the same suit that I had seen him
in five years before; it was torn and stained, threadbare,
and it hung upon him loosely, as though it had been made
for someone else. I noticed his hands, dirty, with long nails;
they were merely bone and sinew, large and strong; but I had
forgotten that they were so shapely. He gave me an extraordinary
impression as he sat there, his attention riveted on
his game — an impression of great strength; and I could
not understand why it was that his emaciation somehow made it
more striking.
Presently, after moving, he leaned back and gazed with a
curious abstraction at his antagonist. This was a fat,
bearded Frenchman. The Frenchman considered the position,
then broke suddenly into jovial expletives, and with an
impatient gesture, gathering up the pieces, flung them into
their box. He cursed Strickland freely, then, calling for the
waiter, paid for the drinks, and left. Stroeve drew his chair
closer to the table.
"Now I suppose we can talk," he said.
Strickland's eyes rested on him, and there was in them a
malicious expression. I felt sure he was seeking for some gibe,
could think of none, and so was forced to silence.
"I've brought an old friend to see you," repeated Stroeve,
beaming cheerfully.
Strickland looked at me thoughtfully for nearly a minute.
I did not speak.
"I've never seen him in my life," he said.
I do not know why he said this, for I felt certain I had
caught a gleam of recognition in his eyes. I was not so
easily abashed as I had been some years earlier.
"I saw your wife the other day," I said. "I felt sure you'd
like to have the latest news of her."
He gave a short laugh. His eyes twinkled.
"We had a jolly evening together," he said. "How long ago is it?"
"Five years."
He called for another absinthe. Stroeve, with voluble tongue,
explained how he and I had met, and by what an accident we
discovered that we both knew Strickland. I do not know if
Strickland listened. He glanced at me once or twice
reflectively, but for the most part seemed occupied with his
own thoughts; and certainly without Stroeve's babble the
conversation would have been difficult. In half an hour the
Dutchman, looking at his watch, announced that he must go.
He asked whether I would come too. I thought, alone, I might get
something out of Strickland, and so answered that I would stay.
When the fat man had left I said:
"Dirk Stroeve thinks you're a great artist."
"What the hell do you suppose I care?"
"Will you let me see your pictures?"
"Why should I?"
"I might feel inclined to buy one."
"I might not feel inclined to sell one."
"Are you making a good living?" I asked, smiling.
He chuckled.
"Do I look it?"
"You look half starved."
"I am half starved."
"Then come and let's have a bit of dinner."
"Why do you ask me?"
"Not out of charity," I answered coolly. "I don't really care
a twopenny damn if you starve or not."
His eyes lit up again.
"Come on, then," he said, getting up. "I'd like a decent meal."
Chapter XXI
I let him take me to a restaurant of his choice, but on the
way I bought a paper. When we had ordered our dinner,
I propped it against a bottle of St. Galmier and began to read.
We ate in silence. I felt him looking at me now and again,
but I took no notice. I meant to force him to conversation.
"Is there anything in the paper?" he said, as we approached
the end of our silent meal.
I fancied there was in his tone a slight note of exasperation.
"I always like to read the on the drama," I said.
I folded the paper and put it down beside me.
"I've enjoyed my dinner," he remarked.
"I think we might have our coffee here, don't you?"
"Yes."
We lit our cigars. I smoked in silence. I noticed that now
and then his eyes rested on me with a faint smile of amusement.
I waited patiently.
"What have you been up to since I saw you last?" he asked at
length.
I had not very much to say. It was a record of hard work and of
little adventure; of experiments in this direction and in that;
of the gradual acquisition of the knowledge of books and of men.
I took care to ask Strickland nothing about his own doings.
I showed not the least interest in him, and at last I
was rewarded. He began to talk of himself. But with his poor
gift of expression he gave but indications of what he had gone
through, and I had to fill up the gaps with my own imagination.
It was tantalising to get no more than hints into a character that interested me so much.
It was like making one's way through a mutilated manuscript.
I received the impression of a life which was a bitter
struggle against every sort of difficulty; but I realised that
much which would have seemed horrible to most people did not
in the least affect him. Strickland was distinguished from
most Englishmen by his perfect indifference to comfort; it
did not irk him to live always in one shabby room; he had no
need to be surrounded by beautiful things. I do not suppose
he had ever noticed how dingy was the paper on the wall
of the room in which on my first visit I found him. He did
not want arm-chairs to sit in; he really felt more at his ease
on a kitchen chair. He ate with appetite, but was indifferent
to what he ate; to him it was only food that he devoured to
still the pangs of hunger; and when no food was to be
had he seemed capable of doing without. I learned that for
six months he had lived on a loaf of bread and a bottle
of milk a day. He was a sensual man, and yet was indifferent
to sensual things. He looked upon privation as no hardship. There
was something impressive in the manner in which he lived
a life wholly of the spirit.
When the small sum of money which he brought with him from
London came to an end he suffered from no dismay. He sold no
pictures; I think he made little attempt to sell any; he set
about finding some way to make a bit of money. He told me
with grim humour of the time he had spent acting as guide to
Cockneys who wanted to see the night side of life in Paris;
it was an occupation that appealed to his sardonic temper and
somehow or other he had acquired a wide acquaintance with the
more disreputable quarters of the city. He told me of the
long hours he spent walking about the Boulevard de la
Madeleine on the look-out for Englishmen, preferably the worse
for liquor, who desired to see things which the law forbade.
When in luck he was able to make a tidy sum; but the
shabbiness of his clothes at last frightened the sight-seers,
and he could not find people adventurous enough to trust
themselves to him. Then he happened on a job to translate the
advertisements of patent medicines which were sent broadcast
to the medical profession in England. During a strike he had
been employed as a house-painter.
Meanwhile he had never ceased to work at his art; but, soon
tiring of the studios, entirely by himself. He had never been
so poor that he could not buy canvas and paint, and really he
needed nothing else. So far as I could make out, he painted
with great difficulty, and in his unwillingness to accept help
from anyone lost much time in finding out for himself the
solution of technical problems which preceding generations had
already worked out one by one. He was aiming at something,
I knew not what, and perhaps he hardly knew himself; and I got
again more strongly the impression of a man possessed. He did
not seem quite sane. It seemed to me that he would not show
his pictures because he was really not interested in them.
He lived in a dream, and the reality meant nothing to him.
I had the feeling that he worked on a canvas with all the force
of his violent personality, oblivious of everything in his effort
to get what he saw with the mind's eye; and then, having
finished, not the picture perhaps, for I had an idea that he
seldom brought anything to completion, but the passion that
fired him, he lost all care for it. He was never satisfied
with what he had done; it seemed to him of no consequence
compared with the vision that obsessed his mind.
"Why don't you ever send your work to exhibitions?" I asked.
"I should have thought you'd like to know what people thought
about it."
"Would you?"
I cannot describe the unmeasurable contempt he put into the
two words.
"Don't you want fame? It's something that most artists
haven't been indifferent to."
"Children. How can you care for the opinion of the crowd,
when you don't care twopence for the opinion of the individual?"
"We're not all reasonable beings," I laughed.
"Who makes fame? Critics, writers, stockbrokers, women."
"Wouldn't it give you a rather pleasing sensation to think of
people you didn't know and had never seen receiving emotions,
subtle and passionate, from the work of your hands? Everyone
likes power. I can't imagine a more wonderful exercise of it
than to move the souls of men to pity or terror."
"Melodrama."
"Why do you mind if you paint well or badly?"
"I don't. I only want to paint what I see."
"I wonder if I could write on a desert island, with the
certainty that no eyes but mine would ever see what I had
written."
Strickland did not speak for a long time, but his eyes shone
strangely, as though he saw something that kindled his soul to
ecstasy.
"Sometimes I've thought of an island lost in a boundless sea,
where I could live in some hidden valley, among strange trees,
in silence. There I think I could find what I want."
He did not express himself quite like this. He used gestures
instead of adjectives, and he halted. I have put into my own
words what I think he wanted to say.
"Looking back on the last five years, do you think it was
worth it?" I asked.
He looked at me, and I saw that he did not know what I meant.
I explained.
"You gave up a comfortable home and a life as happy as the
average. You were fairly prosperous. You seem to have had a
rotten time in Paris. If you had your time over again would
you do what you did?"
"Rather."
"Do you know that you haven't asked anything about your wife
and children? Do you never think of them?"
"No."
"I wish you weren't so damned monosyllabic. Have you never
had a moment's regret for all the unhappiness you caused them?"
His lips broke into a smile, and he shook his head.
"I should have thought sometimes you couldn't help thinking of
the past. I don't mean the past of seven or eight years ago,
but further back still, when you first met your wife, and
loved her, and married her. Don't you remember the joy with
which you first took her in your arms?"
"I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is
the everlasting present."
I thought for a moment over this reply. It was obscure,
perhaps, but I thought that I saw dimly his meaning.
"Are you happy?" I asked.
"Yes."
I was silent. I looked at him reflectively. He held my
stare, and presently a sardonic twinkle lit up his eyes.
"I'm afraid you disapprove of me?"
"Nonsense," I answered promptly; "I don't disapprove of the
boa-constrictor; on the contrary, I'm interested in his mental
processes."
"It's a purely professional interest you take in me?"
"Purely."
"It's only right that you shouldn't disapprove of me.
You have a despicable character."
"Perhaps that's why you feel at home with me," I retorted.
He smiled dryly, but said nothing. I wish I knew how to
describe his smile. I do not know that it was attractive,
but it lit up his face, changing the expression, which was
generally sombre, and gave it a look of not ill-natured malice.
It was a slow smile, starting and sometimes ending in
the eyes; it was very sensual, neither cruel nor kindly,
but suggested rather the inhuman glee of the satyr. It was his
smile that made me ask him:
"Haven't you been in love since you came to Paris?"
"I haven't got time for that sort of nonsense. Life isn't
long enough for love and art."
"Your appearance doesn't suggest the anchorite."
"All that business fills me with disgust."
"Human nature is a nuisance, isn't it?" I said.
"Why are you sniggering at me?"
"Because I don't believe you."
"Then you're a damned fool."
I paused, and I looked at him searchingly.
"What's the good of trying to humbug me?" I said.
"I don't know what you mean."
I smiled.
"Let me tell you. I imagine that for months the matter never
comes into your head, and you're able to persuade yourself
that you've finished with it for good and all. You rejoice in
your freedom, and you feel that at last you can call your soul
your own. You seem to walk with your head among the stars.
And then, all of a sudden you can't stand it any more, and you
notice that all the time your feet have been walking in the mud.
And you want to roll yourself in it. And you find some
woman, coarse and low and vulgar, some beastly creature in
whom all the horror of sex is blatant, and you fall upon her
like a wild animal. You drink till you're blind with rage."
He stared at me without the slightest movement. I held his
eyes with mine. I spoke very slowly.
"I'll tell you what must seem strange, that when it's over you
feel so extraordinarily pure. You feel like a disembodied
spirit, immaterial; and you seem to be able to touch beauty as
though it were a palpable thing; and you feel an intimate
communion with the breeze, and with the trees breaking into leaf,
and with the iridescence of the river. You feel like God.
Can you explain that to me?"
He kept his eyes fixed on mine till I had finished, and then
he turned away. There was on his face a strange look, and
I thought that so might a man look when he had died under
the torture. He was silent. I knew that our conversation
was ended.
Chapter XXII
I settled down in Paris and began to write a play. I led a
very regular life, working in the morning, and in the
afternoon lounging about the gardens of the Luxembourg or
sauntering through the streets. I spent long hours in the
Louvre, the most friendly of all galleries and the most
convenient for meditation; or idled on the quays, fingering
second-hand books that I never meant to buy. I read a page
here and there, and made acquaintance with a great many
authors whom I was content to know thus desultorily. In the
evenings I went to see my friends. I looked in often on the
Stroeves, and sometimes shared their modest fare. Dirk
Stroeve flattered himself on his skill in cooking Italian
dishes, and I confess that his were very much
better than his pictures. It was a dinner for a King when he
brought in a huge dish of it, succulent with tomatoes, and we
ate it together with the good household bread and a bottle of
red wine. I grew more intimate with Blanche Stroeve, and I
think, because I was English and she knew few English people,
she was glad to see me. She was pleasant and simple, but she
remained always rather silent, and I knew not why, gave me the
impression that she was concealing something. But I thought that
was perhaps no more than a natural reserve accentuated by the
verbose frankness of her husband. Dirk never concealed anything.
He discussed the most intimate matters with a complete
lack of self-consciousness. Sometimes he embarrassed his wife, and the only time I saw her put
out of countenance was when he insisted on telling me that he
had taken a purge, and went into somewhat realistic details on
the subject. The perfect seriousness with which he narrated
his misfortunes convulsed me with laughter, and
this added to Mrs. Stroeve's irritation.
"You seem to like making a fool of yourself," she said.
His round eyes grew rounder still, and his brow puckered in
dismay as he saw that she was angry.
"Sweetheart, have I vexed you? I'll never take another.
It was only because I was bilious. I lead a sedentary life.
I don't take enough exercise. For three days I hadn't ..."
"For goodness sake, hold your tongue," she interrupted, tears
of annoyance in her eyes.
His face fell, and he pouted his lips like a scolded child.
He gave me a look of appeal, so that I might put things right,
but, unable to control myself, I shook with helpless laughter.
We went one day to the picture-dealer in whose shop Stroeve
thought he could show me at least two or three of Strickland's
pictures, but when we arrived were told that Strickland
himself had taken them away. The dealer did not know why.
"But don't imagine to yourself that I make myself bad blood on
that account. I took them to oblige Monsieur Stroeve, and I
said I would sell them if I could. But really —" He
shrugged his shoulders. "I'm interested in the young men, but
, you yourself, Monsieur Stroeve, you don't think
there's any talent there."
"I give you my word of honour, there's no one painting to-day
in whose talent I am more convinced. Take my word for it,
you are missing a good affair. Some day those pictures will be
worth more than all you have in your shop. Remember Monet,
who could not get anyone to buy his pictures for a hundred francs.
What are they worth now?"
"True. But there were a hundred as good painters as Monet who
couldn't sell their pictures at that time, and their pictures
are worth nothing still. How can one tell? Is merit enough to
bring success? Don't believe it. , it has still
to be proved that this friend of yours has merit. No one
claims it for him but Monsieur Stroeve."
"And how, then, will you recognise merit?" asked Dirk, red in
the face with anger.
"There is only one way — by success."
"Philistine," cried Dirk.
"But think of the great artists of the past — Raphael,
Michael Angelo, Ingres, Delacroix — they were all successful."
"Let us go," said Stroeve to me, "or I shall kill this man."
Chapter XXIII
I saw Strickland not infrequently, and now and then played
chess with him. He was of uncertain temper. Sometimes he
would sit silent and abstracted, taking no notice of anyone;
and at others, when he was in a good humour, he would talk in
his own halting way. He never said a clever thing, but he had
a vein of brutal sarcasm which was not ineffective, and he
always said exactly what he thought. He was indifferent to
the susceptibilities of others, and when he wounded them was amused.
He was constantly offending Dirk Stroeve so bitterly
that he flung away, vowing he would never speak to him again;
but there was a solid force in Strickland that attracted the
fat Dutchman against his will, so that he came back, fawning
like a clumsy dog, though he knew that his only greeting would
be the blow he dreaded.
I do not know why Strickland put up with me. Our relations
were peculiar. One day he asked me to lend him fifty francs.
"I wouldn't dream of it," I replied.
"Why not?"
"It wouldn't amuse me."
"I'm frightfully hard up, you know."
"I don't care."
"You don't care if I starve?"
"Why on earth should I?" I asked in my turn.
He looked at me for a minute or two, pulling his untidy beard.
I smiled at him.
"What are you amused at?" he said, with a gleam of anger in
his eyes.
"You're so simple. You recognise no obligations. No one is
under any obligation to you."
"Wouldn't it make you uncomfortable if I went and hanged
myself because I'd been turned out of my room as I couldn't
pay the rent?"
"Not a bit."
He chuckled.
"You're bragging. If I really did you'd be overwhelmed with
remorse."
"Try it, and we'll see," I retorted.
A smile flickered in his eyes, and he stirred his absinthe in
silence.
"Would you like to play chess?" I asked.
"I don't mind."
We set up the pieces, and when the board was ready he
considered it with a comfortable eye. There is a sense of
satisfaction in looking at your men all ready for the fray.
"Did you really think I'd lend you money?" I asked.
"I didn't see why you shouldn't."
"You surprise me."
"Why?"
"It's disappointing to find that at heart you are sentimental.
I should have liked you better if you hadn't made that
ingenuous appeal to my sympathies."
"I should have despised you if you'd been moved by it," he answered.
"That's better," I laughed.
We began to play. We were both absorbed in the game. When it
was finished I said to him:
"Look here, if you're hard up, let me see your pictures.
If there's anything I like I'll buy it."
"Go to hell," he answered.
He got up and was about to go away. I stopped him.
"You haven't paid for your absinthe," I said, smiling.
He cursed me, flung down the money and left.
I did not see him for several days after that, but one
evening, when I was sitting in the cafe, reading a paper,
he came up and sat beside me.
"You haven't hanged yourself after all," I remarked.
"No. I've got a commission. I'm painting the portrait of a
retired plumber for two hundred francs."[5]
[5] This picture, formerly in the possession of a wealthy
manufacturer at Lille, who fled from that city on the approach
of the Germans, is now in the National Gallery at Stockholm.
The Swede is adept at the gentle pastime of fishing in
troubled waters.
"How did you manage that?"
"The woman where I get my bread recommended me. He'd told her
he was looking out for someone to paint him. I've got to give
her twenty francs."
"What's he like?"
"Splendid. He's got a great red face like a leg of mutton,
and on his right cheek there's an enormous mole with long
hairs growing out of it."
Strickland was in a good humour, and when Dirk Stroeve came
up and sat down with us he attacked him with ferocious banter.
He showed a skill I should never have credited him with in
finding the places where the unhappy Dutchman was most
sensitive. Strickland employed not the rapier of sarcasm but
the bludgeon of invective. The attack was so unprovoked that
Stroeve, taken unawares, was defenceless. He reminded you of
a frightened sheep running aimlessly hither and thither.
He was startled and amazed. At last the tears ran from his eyes.
And the worst of it was that, though you hated Strickland,
and the exhibition was horrible, it was impossible not to laugh.
Dirk Stroeve was one of those unlucky persons whose most
sincere emotions are ridiculous.
But after all when I look back upon that winter in Paris,
my pleasantest recollection is of Dirk Stroeve. There was
something very charming in his little household. He and his
wife made a picture which the imagination gratefully dwelt
upon, and the simplicity of his love for her had a deliberate grace.
He remained absurd, but the sincerity of his passion
excited one's sympathy. I could understand how his wife must
feel for him, and I was glad that her affection was so tender.
If she had any sense of humour, it must amuse her that he
should place her on a pedestal and worship her with such an
honest idolatry, but even while she laughed she must have been
pleased and touched. He was the constant lover, and though
she grew old, losing her rounded lines and her fair
comeliness, to him she would certainly never alter.
To him she would always be the loveliest woman in the world.
There was a pleasing grace in the orderliness of their lives.
They had but the studio, a bedroom, and a tiny kitchen.
Mrs. Stroeve did all the housework herself; and while Dirk painted
bad pictures, she went marketing, cooked the luncheon, sewed,
occupied herself like a busy ant all the day; and in the
evening sat in the studio, sewing again, while Dirk played
music which I am sure was far beyond her comprehension. He played with taste, but with more feeling
than was always justified, and into his music poured all his
honest, sentimental, exuberant soul.
Their life in its own way was an idyl, and it managed to
achieve a singular beauty. The absurdity that clung to
everything connected with Dirk Stroeve gave it a curious note,
like an unresolved discord, but made it somehow more modern,
more human; like a rough joke thrown into a serious scene,
it heightened the poignancy which all beauty has.
Chapter XXIV
Shortly before Christmas Dirk Stroeve came to ask me to spend
the holiday with him. He had a characteristic sentimentality
about the day and wanted to pass it among his friends with
suitable ceremonies. Neither of us had seen Strickland for
two or three weeks — I because I had been busy with friends
who were spending a little while in Paris, and Stroeve
because, having quarreled with him more violently than usual,
he had made up his mind to have nothing more to do with him.
Strickland was impossible, and he swore never to speak to him again.
But the season touched him with gentle feeling, and he hated
the thought of Strickland spending Christmas Day by himself;
he ascribed his own emotions to him, and could not
bear that on an occasion given up to good-fellowship the
lonely painter should be abandoned to his own melancholy.
Stroeve had set up a Christmas-tree in his studio, and I
suspected that we should both find absurd little presents
hanging on its festive branches; but he was shy about seeing
Strickland again; it was a little humiliating to forgive so
easily insults so outrageous, and he wished me to be present
at the reconciliation on which he was determined.
We walked together down the Avenue de Clichy, but Strickland
was not in the cafe. It was too cold to sit outside, and we
took our places on leather benches within. It was hot and
stuffy, and the air was gray with smoke. Strickland did not come,
but presently we saw the French painter who occasionally
played chess with him. I had formed a casual acquaintance
with him, and he sat down at our table. Stroeve asked him if
he had seen Strickland.
"He's ill," he said. "Didn't you know?"
"Seriously?"
"Very, I understand."
Stroeve's face grew white.
"Why didn't he write and tell me? How stupid of me to quarrel
with him. We must go to him at once. He can have no one to
look after him. Where does he live?"
"I have no idea," said the Frenchman.
We discovered that none of us knew how to find him.
Stroeve grew more and more distressed.
"He might die, and not a soul would know anything about it.
It's dreadful. I can't bear the thought. We must find him at once."
I tried to make Stroeve understand that it was absurd to hunt
vaguely about Paris. We must first think of some plan.
"Yes; but all this time he may be dying, and when we get there
it may be too late to do anything."
"Sit still and let us think," I said impatiently.
The only address I knew was the Hotel des Belges, but
Strickland had long left that, and they would have no
recollection of him. With that *** idea of his to keep his
whereabouts secret, it was unlikely that, on leaving, he had
said where he was going. Besides, it was more than five years ago.
I felt pretty sure that he had not moved far. If he
continued to frequent the same cafe as when he had stayed at
the hotel, it was probably because it was the most convenient.
Suddenly I remembered that he had got his commission to paint
a portrait through the baker from whom he bought his bread,
and it struck me that there one might find his address.
I called for a directory and looked out the bakers. There were
five in the immediate neighbourhood, and the only thing was to
go to all of them. Stroeve accompanied me unwillingly.
His own plan was to run up and down the streets that led out
of the Avenue de Clichy and ask at every house if Strickland
lived there. My commonplace scheme was, after all, effective,
for in the second shop we asked at the woman behind the
counter acknowledged that she knew him. She was not certain
where he lived, but it was in one of the three houses
opposite. Luck favoured us, and in the first we tried the
concierge told us that we should find him on the top floor.
"It appears that he's ill," said Stroeve.
"It may be," answered the concierge indifferently. ", I have not seen him for several days."
Stroeve ran up the stairs ahead of me, and when I reached the
top floor I found him talking to a workman in his shirt-sleeves
who had opened a door at which Stroeve had knocked. He pointed
to another door. He believed that the person who lived there
was a painter. He had not seen him for a week. Stroeve made
as though he were about to knock, and then turned to me with
a gesture of helplessness. I saw that he was panic-stricken.
"Supposing he's dead?"
"Not he," I said.
I knocked. There was no answer. I tried the handle, and
found the door unlocked. I walked in, and Stroeve followed me.
The room was in darkness. I could only see that it was
an attic, with a sloping roof; and a faint glimmer, no more
than a less profound obscurity, came from a skylight.
"Strickland," I called.
There was no answer. It was really rather mysterious, and it
seemed to me that Stroeve, standing just behind, was trembling
in his shoes. For a moment I hesitated to strike a light.
I dimly perceived a bed in the corner, and I wondered whether
the light would disclose lying on it a dead body.
"Haven't you got a match, you fool?"
Strickland's voice, coming out of the darkness, harshly,
made me start.
Stroeve cried out.
"Oh, my God, I thought you were dead."
I struck a match, and looked about for a candle. I had a
rapid glimpse of a tiny apartment, half room, half studio, in
which was nothing but a bed, canvases with their faces to the
wall, an easel, a table, and a chair. There was no carpet on
the floor. There was no fireplace. On the table, crowded
with paints, palette-knives, and litter of all kinds, was the
end of a candle. I lit it. Strickland was lying in the bed,
uncomfortably because it was too small for him, and he had put
all his clothes over him for warmth. It was obvious at a
glance that he was in a high fever. Stroeve, his voice
cracking with emotion, went up to him.
"Oh, my poor friend, what is the matter with you? I had no
idea you were ill. Why didn't you let me know? You must know
I'd have done anything in the world for you. Were you
thinking of what I said? I didn't mean it. I was wrong.
It was stupid of me to take offence."
"Go to hell," said Strickland.
"Now, be reasonable. Let me make you comfortable. Haven't you anyone to look after you?"
He looked round the squalid attic in dismay. He tried to
arrange the bed-clothes. Strickland, breathing laboriously,
kept an angry silence. He gave me a resentful glance.
I stood quite quietly, looking at him.
"If you want to do something for me, you can get me some
milk," he said at last. "I haven't been able to get out for
two days." There was an empty bottle by the side of the bed,
which had contained milk, and in a piece of newspaper a few crumbs.
"What have you been having?" I asked.
"Nothing."
"For how long?" cried Stroeve. "Do you mean to say you've had
nothing to eat or drink for two days? It's horrible."
"I've had water."
His eyes dwelt for a moment on a large can within reach of an
outstretched arm.
"I'll go immediately," said Stroeve. "Is there anything you fancy?"
I suggested that he should get a thermometer, and a few
grapes, and some bread. Stroeve, glad to make himself useful,
clattered down the stairs.
"Damned fool," muttered Strickland.
I felt his pulse. It was beating quickly and feebly. I asked
him one or two questions, but he would not answer, and when I
pressed him he turned his face irritably to the wall.
The only thing was to wait in silence. In ten minutes Stroeve,
panting, came back. Besides what I had suggested, he brought
candles, and meat-juice, and a spirit-lamp. He was a
practical little fellow, and without delay set about making
bread-and-milk. I took Strickland's temperature. It was a
hundred and four. He was obviously very ill.
Chapter XXV
Presently we left him. Dirk was going home to dinner, and I
proposed to find a doctor and bring him to see Strickland;
but when we got down into the street, fresh after the stuffy
attic, the Dutchman begged me to go immediately to his studio.
He had something in mind which he would not tell me, but he
insisted that it was very necessary for me to accompany him.
Since I did not think a doctor could at the moment do any more
than we had done, I consented. We found Blanche Stroeve
laying the table for dinner. Dirk went up to her, and took
both her hands.
"Dear one, I want you to do something for me," he said.
She looked at him with the grave cheerfulness which was one of
her charms. His red face was shining with sweat, and he had a
look of comic agitation, but there was in his round, surprised
eyes an eager light.
"Strickland is very ill. He may be dying. He is alone in a
filthy attic, and there is not a soul to look after him.
I want you to let me bring him here."
She withdrew her hands quickly, I had never seen her make so
rapid a movement; and her cheeks flushed.
"Oh no."
"Oh, my dear one, don't refuse. I couldn't bear to leave him
where he is. I shouldn't sleep a wink for thinking of him."
"I have no objection to your nursing him."
Her voice was cold and distant.
"But he'll die."
"Let him."
Stroeve gave a little gasp. He wiped his face. He turned to
me for support, but I did not know what to say.
"He's a great artist."
"What do I care? I hate him."
"Oh, my love, my precious, you don't mean that. I beseech you
to let me bring him here. We can make him comfortable.
Perhaps we can save him. He shall be no trouble to you.
I will do everything. We'll make him up a bed in the studio.
We can't let him die like a dog. It would be inhuman."
"Why can't he go to a hospital?"
"A hospital! He needs the care of loving hands. He must be
treated with infinite tact."
I was surprised to see how moved she was. She went on laying
the table, but her hands trembled.
"I have no patience with you. Do you think if you were ill he
would stir a finger to help you?"
"But what does that matter? I should have you to nurse me.
It wouldn't be necessary. And besides, I'm different;
I'm not of any importance."
"You have no more spirit than a mongrel cur. You lie down on
the ground and ask people to trample on you."
Stroeve gave a little laugh. He thought he understood the
reason of his wife's attitude.
"Oh, my poor dear, you're thinking of that day he came here to
look at my pictures. What does it matter if he didn't think
them any good? It was stupid of me to show them to him.
I dare say they're not very good."
He looked round the studio ruefully. On the easel was a
half-finished picture of a smiling Italian peasant, holding a
bunch of grapes over the head of a dark-eyed girl.
"Even if he didn't like them he should have been civil.
He needn't have insulted you. He showed that he despised you,
and you lick his hand. Oh, I hate him."
"Dear child, he has genius. You don't think I believe that I
have it. I wish I had; but I know it when I see it, and I
honour it with all my heart. It's the most wonderful thing in
the world. It's a great burden to its possessors. We should
be very tolerant with them, and very patient."
I stood apart, somewhat embarrassed by the domestic scene,
and wondered why Stroeve had insisted on my coming with him.
I saw that his wife was on the verge of tears.
"But it's not only because he's a genius that I ask you to let
me bring him here; it's because he's a human being, and he is
ill and poor."
"I will never have him in my house — never."
Stroeve turned to me.
"Tell her that it's a matter of life and death. It's impossible to leave him in that wretched
hole."
"It's quite obvious that it would be much easier to nurse him
here," I said, "but of course it would be very inconvenient.
I have an idea that someone will have to be with him day and night."
"My love, it's not you who would shirk a little trouble."
"If he comes here, I shall go," said Mrs. Stroeve violently.
"I don't recognize you. You're so good and kind."
"Oh, for goodness sake, let me be. You drive me to distraction."
Then at last the tears came. She sank into a chair,
and buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook
convulsively. In a moment Dirk was on his knees beside her,
with his arms round her, kissing her, calling her all sorts of
pet names, and the facile tears ran down his own cheeks.
Presently she released herself and dried her eyes.
"Leave me alone," she said, not unkindly; and then to me,
trying to smile: "What must you think of me?"
Stroeve, looking at her with perplexity, hesitated. His forehead was all puckered, and his red
mouth set in a pout. He reminded me oddly of an agitated guinea-pig.
"Then it's No, darling?" he said at last.
She gave a gesture of lassitude. She was exhausted.
"The studio is yours. Everything belongs to you. If you want
to bring him here, how can I prevent you?"
A sudden smile flashed across his round face.
"Then you consent? I knew you would. Oh, my precious."
Suddenly she pulled herself together. She looked at him with
haggard eyes. She clasped her hands over her heart as though
its beating were intolerable.
"Oh, Dirk, I've never since we met asked you to do anything for me."
"You know there's nothing in the world that I wouldn't do for
you."
"I beg you not to let Strickland come here. Anyone else you like.
Bring a thief, a drunkard, any outcast off the streets,
and I promise you I'll do everything I can for them gladly.
But I beseech you not to bring Strickland here."
"But why?"
"I'm frightened of him. I don't know why, but there's something
in him that terrifies me. He'll do us some great harm.
I know it. I feel it. If you bring him here it can only end badly."
"But how unreasonable!"
"No, no. I know I'm right. Something terrible will happen to us."
"Because we do a good action?"
She was panting now, and in her face was a terror which was
inexplicable. I do not know what she thought. I felt that
she was possessed by some shapeless dread which robbed her of
all self-control. As a rule she was so calm; her agitation
now was amazing. Stroeve looked at her for a while with
puzzled consternation.
"You are my wife; you are dearer to me than anyone in the world.
No one shall come here without your entire consent."
She closed her eyes for a moment, and I thought she was going
to faint. I was a little impatient with her; I had not
suspected that she was so neurotic a woman. Then I heard
Stroeve's voice again. It seemed to break oddly on the
silence.
"Haven't you been in bitter distress once when a helping hand
was held out to you? You know how much it means. Couldn't you
like to do someone a good turn when you have the chance?"
The words were ordinary enough, and to my mind there was in
them something so hortatory that I almost smiled. I was
astonished at the effect they had on Blanche Stroeve.
She started a little, and gave her husband a long look.
His eyes were fixed on the ground. I did not know why he
seemed embarrassed. A faint colour came into her cheeks,
and then her face became white — more than white, ghastly;
you felt that the blood had shrunk away from the whole surface
of her body; and even her hands were pale. A shiver passed
through her. The silence of the studio seemed to gather body,
so that it became an almost palpable presence. I was bewildered.
"Bring Strickland here, Dirk. I'll do my best for him."
"My precious," he smiled.
He wanted to take her in his arms, but she avoided him.
"Don't be affectionate before strangers, Dirk," she said.
"It makes me feel such a fool."
Her manner was quite normal again, and no one could have told
that so shortly before she had been shaken by such a great
emotion.
Chapter XXVI
Next day we moved Strickland. It needed a good deal of
firmness and still more patience to induce him to come, but he
was really too ill to offer any effective resistance to
Stroeve's entreaties and to my determination. We dressed him,
while he feebly cursed us, got him downstairs, into a cab, and
eventually to Stroeve's studio. He was so exhausted by the
time we arrived that he allowed us to put him to bed without a word.
He was ill for six weeks. At one time it looked as
though he could not live more than a few hours, and I am
convinced that it was only through the Dutchman's doggedness
that he pulled through. I have never known a more difficult
patient. It was not that he was exacting and querulous;
on the contrary, he never complained, he asked for nothing,
he was perfectly silent; but he seemed to resent the care that
was taken of him; he received all inquiries about his feelings
or his needs with a jibe, a sneer, or an oath. I found him
detestable, and as soon as he was out of danger I had no
hesitation in telling him so.
"Go to hell," he answered briefly.
Dirk Stroeve, giving up his work entirely, nursed Strickland
with tenderness and sympathy. He was dexterous to make him
comfortable, and he exercised a cunning of which I should
never have thought him capable to induce him to take the
medicines prescribed by the doctor. Nothing was too much
trouble for him. Though his means were adequate to the needs
of himself and his wife, he certainly had no money to waste;
but now he was wantonly extravagant in the purchase of
delicacies, out of season and dear, which might tempt
Strickland's capricious appetite. I shall never forget the
tactful patience with which he persuaded him to take nourishment.
He was never put out by Strickland's rudeness; if it was merely sullen, he appeared not to
notice it; if it was aggressive, he only chuckled. When Strickland,
recovering somewhat, was in a good humour and amused
himself by laughing at him, he deliberately did absurd things
to excite his ridicule. Then he would give me little happy glances,
so that I might notice in how much better form the
patient was. Stroeve was sublime.
But it was Blanche who most surprised me. She proved herself
not only a capable, but a devoted nurse. There was nothing in
her to remind you that she had so vehemently struggled against
her husband's wish to bring Strickland to the studio.
She insisted on doing her share of the offices needful to the sick.
She arranged his bed so that it was possible to change the
sheet without disturbing him. She washed him. When I
remarked on her competence, she told me with that pleasant
little smile of hers that for a while she had worked in a hospital.
She gave no sign that she hated Strickland so desperately.
She did not speak to him much, but she was quick to
forestall his wants. For a fortnight it was necessary that
someone should stay with him all night, and she took turns at
watching with her husband. I wondered what she thought during
the long darkness as she sat by the bedside. Strickland was a
weird figure as he lay there, thinner than ever, with his
ragged red beard and his eyes staring feverishly into vacancy;
his illness seemed to have made them larger, and they had an
unnatural brightness.
"Does he ever talk to you in the night?" I asked her once.
"Never."
"Do you dislike him as much as you did?"
"More, if anything."
She looked at me with her calm gray eyes. Her expression was
so placid, it was hard to believe that she was capable of the
violent emotion I had witnessed.
"Has he ever thanked you for what you do for him?"
"No," she smiled.
"He's inhuman."
"He's abominable."
Stroeve was, of course, delighted with her. He could not do
enough to show his gratitude for the whole-hearted devotion
with which she had accepted the burden he laid on her.
But he was a little puzzled by the behaviour of Blanche and
Strickland towards one another.
"Do you know, I've seen them sit there for hours together
without saying a word?"
On one occasion, when Strickland was so much better that in a
day or two he was to get up, I sat with them in the studio.
Dirk and I were talking. Mrs. Stroeve sewed, and I thought I
recognised the shirt she was mending as Strickland's. He lay
on his back; he did not speak. Once I saw that his eyes were
fixed on Blanche Stroeve, and there was in them a curious irony.
Feeling their gaze, she raised her own, and for a moment
they stared at one another. I could not quite understand
her expression. Her eyes had in them a strange perplexity,
and perhaps — but why? — alarm. In a moment Strickland
looked away and idly surveyed the ceiling, but she continued
to stare at him, and now her look was quite inexplicable.
In a few days Strickland began to get up. He was nothing but
skin and bone. His clothes hung upon him like rags on a
scarecrow. With his untidy beard and long hair, his features,
always a little larger than life, now emphasised by illness,
he had an extraordinary aspect; but it was so odd that it was
not quite ugly. There was something monumental in his
ungainliness. I do not know how to express precisely the
impression he made upon me. It was not exactly spirituality
that was obvious, though the screen of the flesh seemed almost
transparent, because there was in his face an outrageous
sensuality; but, though it sounds nonsense, it seemed as
though his sensuality were curiously spiritual. There was in
him something primitive. He seemed to partake of those
obscure forces of nature which the Greeks personified in
shapes part human and part beast, the satyr and the faun.
I thought of Marsyas, whom the god flayed because he had dared
to rival him in song. Strickland seemed to bear in his heart
strange harmonies and unadventured patterns, and I foresaw for
him an end of torture and despair. I had again the feeling
that he was possessed of a devil; but you could not say that
it was a devil of evil, for it was a primitive force that
existed before good and ill.
He was still too weak to paint, and he sat in the studio,
silent, occupied with God knows what dreams, or reading.
The books he liked were ***; sometimes I would find him poring
over the poems of Mallarme, and he read them as a child reads,
forming the words with his lips, and I wondered what strange
emotion he got from those subtle cadences and obscure phrases;
and again I found him absorbed in the detective novels of Gaboriau.
I amused myself by thinking that in his choice of books
he showed pleasantly the irreconcilable sides of his
fantastic nature. It was singular to notice that even in the
weak state of his body he had no thought for its comfort.
Stroeve liked his ease, and in his studio were a couple of
heavily upholstered arm-chairs and a large divan.
Strickland would not go near them, not from any affectation
of stoicism, for I found him seated on a three-legged stool
when I went into the studio one day and he was alone,
but because he did not like them. For choice he sat on a
kitchen chair without arms. It often exasperated me to see him.
I never knew a man so entirely indifferent to his surroundings.
Chapter XXVII
Two or three weeks passed. One morning, having come to a
pause in my work, I thought I would give myself a holiday,
and I went to the Louvre. I wandered about looking at the
pictures I knew so well, and let my fancy play idly with the
emotions they suggested. I sauntered into the long gallery,
and there suddenly saw Stroeve. I smiled, for his appearance,
so rotund and yet so startled, could never fail to excite a
smile, and then as I came nearer I noticed that he seemed
singularly disconsolate. He looked woebegone and yet
ridiculous, like a man who has fallen into the water with all
his clothes on, and, being rescued from death, frightened still,
feels that he only looks a fool. Turning round, he
stared at me, but I perceived that he did not see me. His
round blue eyes looked harassed behind his glasses.
"Stroeve," I said.
He gave a little start, and then smiled, but his smile was rueful.
"Why are you idling in this disgraceful fashion?" I asked gaily.
"It's a long time since I was at the Louvre. I thought I'd
come and see if they had anything new."
"But you told me you had to get a picture finished this week."
"Strickland's painting in my studio."
"Well?"
"I suggested it myself. He's not strong enough to go back to
his own place yet. I thought we could both paint there.
Lots of fellows in the Quarter share a studio. I thought it
would be fun. I've always thought it would be jolly to have
someone to talk to when one was tired of work."
He said all this slowly, detaching statement from statement
with a little awkward silence, and he kept his kind, foolish
eyes fixed on mine. They were full of tears.
"I don't think I understand," I said.
"Strickland can't work with anyone else in the studio."
"Damn it all, it's your studio. That's his lookout."
He looked at me pitifully. His lips were trembling.
"What happened?" I asked, rather sharply.
He hesitated and flushed. He glanced unhappily at one of the
pictures on the wall.
"He wouldn't let me go on painting. He told me to get out."
"But why didn't you tell him to go to hell?"
"He turned me out. I couldn't very well struggle with him.
He threw my hat after me, and locked the door."
I was furious with Strickland, and was indignant with myself,
because Dirk Stroeve cut such an absurd figure that I felt
inclined to laugh.
"But what did your wife say?"
"She'd gone out to do the marketing."
"Is he going to let her in?"
"I don't know."
I gazed at Stroeve with perplexity. He stood like a schoolboy
with whom a master is finding fault.
"Shall I get rid of Strickland for you?" I asked.
He gave a little start, and his shining face grew very red.
"No. You'd better not do anything."
He nodded to me and walked away. It was clear that for some
reason he did not want to discuss the matter. I did not understand.
Chapter XXVIII
The explanation came a week later. It was about ten o' clock
at night; I had been dining by myself at a restaurant, and
having returned to my small apartment, was sitting in my
parlour, reading I heard the cracked tinkling of the bell,
and, going into the corridor, opened the door. Stroeve stood
before me.
"Can I come in?" he asked.
In the dimness of the landing I could not see him very well,
but there was something in his voice that surprised me. I
knew he was of abstemious habit or I should have thought he
had been drinking. I led the way into my sitting room and
asked him to sit down.
"Thank God I've found you," he said.
"What's the matter?" I asked in astonishment at his vehemence.
I was able now to see him well. As a rule he was neat in his
person, but now his clothes were in disorder. He looked
suddenly bedraggled. I was convinced he had been drinking,
and I smiled. I was on the point of chaffing him on his state.
"I didn't know where to go," he burst out. "I came here
earlier, but you weren't in."
"I dined late," I said.
I changed my mind: it was not liquor that had driven him to
this obvious desperation. His face, usually so rosy, was now
strangely mottled. His hands trembled.
"Has anything happened?" I asked.
"My wife has left me."
He could hardly get the words out. He gave a little gasp, and
the tears began to trickle down his round cheeks. I did not
know what to say. My first thought was that she had come to
the end of her forbearance with his infatuation for
Strickland, and, goaded by the latter's cynical behaviour, had
insisted that he should be turned out. I knew her capable of
temper, for all the calmness of her manner; and if Stroeve
still refused, she might easily have flung out of the studio
with vows never to return. But the little man was so
distressed that I could not smile.
"My dear fellow, don't be unhappy. She'll come back.
You mustn't take very seriously what women say when they're
in a passion."
"You don't understand. She's in love with Strickland."
"What!" I was startled at this, but the idea had no sooner
taken possession of me than I saw it was absurd. "How can you
be so silly? You don't mean to say you're jealous of Strickland?"
I almost laughed. "You know very well that she
can't bear the sight of him."
"You don't understand," he moaned.
"You're an hysterical ***," I said a little impatiently.
"Let me give you a whisky-and-soda, and you'll feel better."
I supposed that for some reason or other — and Heaven knows
what ingenuity men exercise to torment themselves — Dirk had
got it into his head that his wife cared for Strickland, and
with his genius for blundering he might quite well have
offended her so that, to anger him, perhaps, she had taken
pains to foster his suspicion.
"Look here," I said, "let's go back to your studio. If you've
made a fool of yourself you must eat humble pie. Your wife
doesn't strike me as the sort of woman to bear malice."
"How can I go back to the studio?" he said wearily.
"They're there. I've left it to them."
"Then it's not your wife who's left you; it's you who've left
your wife."
"For God's sake don't talk to me like that."
Still I could not take him seriously. I did not for a moment
believe what he had told me. But he was in very real distress.
"Well, you've come here to talk to me about it. You'd better
tell me the whole story."
"This afternoon I couldn't stand it any more. I went to
Strickland and told him I thought he was quite well enough to
go back to his own place. I wanted the studio myself."
"No one but Strickland would have needed telling," I said.
"What did he say?"
"He laughed a little; you know how he laughs, not as though he
were amused, but as though you were a damned fool, and said
he'd go at once. He began to put his things together.
You remember I fetched from his room what I thought he needed,
and he asked Blanche for a piece of paper and some string to
make a parcel."
Stroeve stopped, gasping, and I thought he was going to faint.
This was not at all the story I had expected him to tell me.
"She was very pale, but she brought the paper and the string.
He didn't say anything. He made the parcel and he whistled a tune.
He took no notice of either of us. His eyes had an
ironic smile in them. My heart was like lead. I was afraid
something was going to happen, and I wished I hadn't spoken.
He looked round for his hat. Then she spoke:
"'I'm going with Strickland, Dirk,' she said. 'I can't live
with you any more.'
"I tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come. Strickland
didn't say anything. He went on whistling as though it had
nothing to do with him."
Stroeve stopped again and mopped his face. I kept quite
still. I believed him now, and I was astounded. But all the
same I could not understand.
Then he told me, in a trembling voice, with the tears pouring
down his cheeks, how he had gone up to her, trying to take her
in his arms, but she had drawn away and begged him not to
touch her. He implored her not to leave him. He told her how
passionately he loved her, and reminded her of all the
devotion he had lavished upon her. He spoke to her of the
happiness of their life. He was not angry with her. He did
not reproach her.
"Please let me go quietly, Dirk," she said at last. "Don't
you understand that I love Strickland? Where he goes I shall go."
"But you must know that he'll never make you happy. For your
own sake don't go. You don't know what you've got to look
forward to."
"It's your fault. You insisted on his coming here."
He turned to Strickland.
"Have mercy on her," he implored him. "You can't let her do
anything so mad."
"She can do as she chooses," said Strickland. "She's not
forced to come."
"My choice is made," she said, in a dull voice.
Strickland's injurious calm robbed Stroeve of the rest of his
self-control. Blind rage seized him, and without knowing what
he was doing he flung himself on Strickland. Strickland was
taken by surprise and he staggered, but he was very strong,
even after his illness, and in a moment, he did not exactly
know how, Stroeve found himself on the floor.
"You funny little man," said Strickland.
Stroeve picked himself up. He noticed that his wife had
remained perfectly still, and to be made ridiculous before her
increased his humiliation. His spectacles had tumbled off in
the struggle, and he could not immediately see them.
She picked them up and silently handed them to him. He seemed
suddenly to realise his unhappiness, and though he knew he was
making himself still more absurd, he began to cry. He hid his
face in his hands. The others watched him without a word.
They did not move from where they stood.
"Oh, my dear," he groaned at last, "how can you be so cruel?"
"I can't help myself, Dirk," she answered.
"I've worshipped you as no woman was ever worshipped before.
If in anything I did I displeased you, why didn't you tell me,
and I'd have changed. I've done everything I could for you."
She did not answer. Her face was set, and he saw that he was
only boring her. She put on a coat and her hat. She moved
towards the door, and he saw that in a moment she would be
gone. He went up to her quickly and fell on his knees before
her, seizing her hands: he abandoned all self-respect.
"Oh, don't go, my darling. I can't live without you; I shall
kill myself. If I've done anything to offend you I beg you to
forgive me. Give me another chance. I'll try harder still to
make you happy."
"Get up, Dirk. You're making yourself a perfect fool."
He staggered to his feet, but still he would not let her go.
"Where are you going?" he said hastily. "You don't know what
Strickland's place is like. You can't live there. It would
be awful."
"If I don't care, I don't see why you should."
"Stay a minute longer. I must speak. After all, you can't
grudge me that."
"What is the good? I've made up my mind. Nothing that you can
say will make me alter it."
He gulped, and put his hand to his heart to ease its painful beating.
"I'm not going to ask you to change your mind, but I want you
to listen to me for a minute. It's the last thing I shall
ever ask you. Don't refuse me that."
She paused, looking at him with those reflective eyes of hers,
which now were so different to him. She came back into the
studio and leaned against the table.
"Well?"
Stroeve made a great effort to collect himself.
"You must be a little reasonable. You can't live on air,
you know. Strickland hasn't got a penny."
"I know."
"You'll suffer the most awful privations. You know why he
took so long to get well. He was half starved."
"I can earn money for him."
"How?"
"I don't know. I shall find a way."
A horrible thought passed through the Dutchman's mind,
and he shuddered.
"I think you must be mad. I don't know what has come over you."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Now may I go?"
"Wait one second longer."
He looked round his studio wearily; he had loved it because
her presence had made it gay and homelike; he shut his eyes
for an instant; then he gave her a long look as though to
impress on his mind the picture of her. He got up and took
his hat.
"No; I'll go."
"You?"
She was startled. She did not know what he meant.
"I can't bear to think of you living in that horrible, filthy
attic. After all, this is your home just as much as mine.
You'll be comfortable here. You'll be spared at least the
worst privations."
He went to the drawer in which he kept his money and took out
several bank-notes.
"I would like to give you half what I've got here."
He put them on the table. Neither Strickland nor his wife spoke.
Then he recollected something else.
"Will you pack up my clothes and leave them with the concierge? I'll
come and fetch them to-morrow." He tried to smile. "Good-bye, my dear.
I'm grateful for all the happiness you gave me in the past."
He walked out and closed the door behind him. With my mind's
eye I saw Strickland throw his hat on a table, and, sitting down,
begin to smoke a cigarette.
Chapter XXIX
I kept silence for a little while, thinking of what Stroeve
had told me. I could not stomach his weakness, and he saw
my disapproval. "You know as well as I do how Strickland lived,"
he said tremulously. "I couldn't let her live in those
circumstances — I simply couldn't."
"That's your business," I answered.
"What would have done?" he asked.
"She went with her eyes open. If she had to put up with
certain inconveniences it was her own lookout."
"Yes; but, you see, you don't love her."
"Do you love her still?"
"Oh, more than ever. Strickland isn't the man to make a woman happy.
It can't last. I want her to know that I shall never fail her."
"Does that mean that you're prepared to take her back?"
"I shouldn't hesitate. Why, she'll want me more than ever then.
When she's alone and humiliated and broken it would be
dreadful if she had nowhere to go."
He seemed to bear no resentment. I suppose it was commonplace
in me that I felt slightly outraged at his lack of spirit.
Perhaps he guessed what was in my mind, for he said:
"I couldn't expect her to love me as I loved her.
I'm a buffoon. I'm not the sort of man that women love.
I've always known that. I can't blame her if she's fallen
in love with Strickland."
"You certainly have less vanity than any man I've ever known,"
I said.
"I love her so much better than myself. It seems to me that
when vanity comes into love it can only be because really you
love yourself best. After all, it constantly happens that a
man when he's married falls in love with somebody else;
when he gets over it he returns to his wife, and she takes him
back, and everyone thinks it very natural. Why should it be
different with women?"
"I dare say that's logical," I smiled, "but most men are made
differently, and they can't."
But while I talked to Stroeve I was puzzling over the
suddenness of the whole affair. I could not imagine that he
had had no warning. I remembered the curious look I had seen
in Blanche Stroeve's eyes; perhaps its explanation was that
she was growing dimly conscious of a feeling in her heart that
surprised and alarmed her.
"Did you have no suspicion before to-day that there was
anything between them?" I asked.
He did not answer for a while. There was a pencil on the table,
and unconsciously he drew a head on the blotting-paper.
"Please say so, if you hate my asking you questions," I said.
"It eases me to talk. Oh, if you knew the frightful anguish
in my heart." He threw the pencil down. "Yes, I've known it
for a fortnight. I knew it before she did."
"Why on earth didn't you send Strickland packing?"
"I couldn't believe it. It seemed so improbable. She couldn't bear the sight of him. It was
more than improbable; it was incredible. I thought it was merely
jealousy. You see, I've always been jealous, but I trained
myself never to show it; I was jealous of every man she
knew; I was jealous of you. I knew she didn't love me
as I loved her. That was only natural, wasn't it? But she
allowed me to love her, and that was enough to make me happy.
I forced myself to go out for hours together in order
to leave them by themselves; I wanted to punish myself for
suspicions which were unworthy of me; and when I came
back I found they didn't want me — not Strickland, he didn't
care if I was there or not, but Blanche. She shuddered when
I went to kiss her. When at last I was certain I didn't know what
to do; I knew they'd only laugh at me if I made a
scene. I thought if I held my tongue and pretended
not to see, everything would come right. I made up my
mind to get him away quietly, without quarrelling. Oh,
if you only knew what I've suffered!"
Then he told me again of his asking Strickland to go.
He chose his moment carefully, and tried to make his request
sound casual; but he could not master the trembling of his voice;
and he felt himself that into words that he wished to
seem jovial and friendly there crept the bitterness of his
jealousy. He had not expected Strickland to take him up on
the spot and make his preparations to go there and then;
above all, he had not expected his wife's decision to go with him.
I saw that now he wished with all his heart that he had held
his tongue. He preferred the anguish of jealousy to the
anguish of separation.
"I wanted to kill him, and I only made a fool of myself."
He was silent for a long time, and then he said what I knew
was in his mind.
"If I'd only waited, perhaps it would have gone all right.
I shouldn't have been so impatient. Oh, poor child,
what have I driven her to?"
I shrugged my shoulders, but did not speak. I had no sympathy
for Blanche Stroeve, but knew that it would only pain poor
Dirk if I told him exactly what I thought of her.
He had reached that stage of exhaustion when he could not stop
talking. He went over again every word of the scene.
Now something occurred to him that he had not told me before;
now he discussed what he ought to have said instead of what he
did say; then he lamented his blindness. He regretted that he had
done this, and blamed himself that he had omitted the other.
It grew later and later, and at last I was as tired as he.
"What are you going to do now?" I said finally.
"What can I do? I shall wait till she sends for me."
"Why don't you go away for a bit?"
"No, no; I must be at hand when she wants me."
For the present he seemed quite lost. He had made no plans.
When I suggested that he should go to bed he said he could not
sleep; he wanted to go out and walk about the streets till day.
He was evidently in no state to be left alone. I persuaded him to stay the night with me,
and I put him into my own bed. I had a divan in my sitting-room,
and could very well sleep on that. He was by now so worn
out that he could not resist my firmness. I gave him a sufficient
dose of veronal to insure his unconsciousness for
several hours. I thought that was the best service I could
render him.
Chapter ***
But the bed I made up for myself was sufficiently uncomfortable to give me a wakeful night,
and I thought a good deal of what the unlucky Dutchman had told
me. I was not so much puzzled by Blanche Stroeve's action,
for I saw in that merely the result of a physical appeal. I
do not suppose she had ever really cared for her husband, and
what I had taken for love was no more than the feminine response
to caresses and comfort which in the minds of most women
passes for it. It is a passive feeling capable of being roused
for any object, as the vine can grow on any tree; and the
wisdom of the world recognises its strength when it
urges a girl to marry the man who wants her with the assurance
that love will follow. It is an emotion made up of the satisfaction
in security, pride of property, the pleasure of being desired,
the gratification of a household, and it is only by an amiable
vanity that women ascribe to it spiritual value. It is an
emotion which is defenceless against passion. I suspected
that Blanche Stroeve's violent dislike of Strickland had in it
from the beginning a vague element of *** attraction.
Who am I that I should seek to unravel the mysterious intricacies
of sex? Perhaps Stroeve's passion excited without satisfying
that part of her nature, and she hated Strickland because she
felt in him the power to give her what she needed. I think
she was quite sincere when she struggled against her husband's
desire to bring him into the studio; I think she was
frightened of him, though she knew not why; and I remembered
how she had foreseen disaster. I think in some curious way
the horror which she felt for him was a transference of the
horror which she felt for herself because he so strangely
troubled her. His appearance was wild and uncouth; there was
aloofness in his eyes and sensuality in his mouth; he was big
and strong; he gave the impression of untamed passion; and
perhaps she felt in him, too, that sinister element which had
made me think of those wild beings of the world's early
history when matter, retaining its early connection with the
earth, seemed to possess yet a spirit of its own. If he
affected her at all, it was inevitable that she should love or
hate him. She hated him.
And then I fancy that the daily intimacy with the sick man
moved her strangely. She raised his head to give him food,
and it was heavy against her hand; when she had fed him she
wiped his sensual mouth and his red beard. She washed his limbs;
they were covered with thick hair; and when she dried
his hands, even in his weakness they were strong and sinewy.
His fingers were long; they were the capable, fashioning
fingers of the artist; and I know not what troubling thoughts
they excited in her. He slept very quietly, without a
movement, so that he might have been dead, and he was like
some wild creature of the woods, resting after a long chase;
and she wondered what fancies passed through his dreams.
Did he dream of the nymph flying through the woods of Greece with
the satyr in hot pursuit? She fled, swift of foot and
desperate, but he gained on her step by step, till she felt
his hot breath on her neck; and still she fled silently, and
silently he pursued, and when at last he seized her was it
terror that thrilled her heart or was it ecstasy?
Blanche Stroeve was in the cruel grip of appetite. Perhaps she hated Strickland still, but she
hungered for him, and everything that had made up her life till
then became of no account. She ceased to be a woman, complex,
kind and petulant, considerate and thoughtless; she
was a Maenad. She was desire.
But perhaps this is very fanciful; and it may be that she was
merely bored with her husband and went to Strickland out of a
callous curiosity. She may have had no particular feeling for
him, but succumbed to his wish from propinquity or idleness,
to find then that she was powerless in a snare of her own
contriving. How did I know what were the thoughts and
emotions behind that placid brow and those cool gray eyes?
But if one could be certain of nothing in dealing with
creatures so incalculable as human beings, there were
explanations of Blanche Stroeve's behaviour which were at all
events plausible. On the other hand, I did not understand
Strickland at all. I racked my brain, but could in no way
account for an action so contrary to my conception of him.
It was not strange that he should so heartlessly have betrayed
his friends' confidence, nor that he hesitated not at all to
gratify a whim at the cost of another's misery. That was in
his character. He was a man without any conception of
gratitude. He had no compassion. The emotions common to most
of us simply did not exist in him, and it was as absurd to
blame him for not feeling them as for blaming the tiger
because he is fierce and cruel. But it was the whim I could
not understand.
I could not believe that Strickland had fallen in love with
Blanche Stroeve. I did not believe him capable of love.
That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part,
but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others;
there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect,
an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure — if not
unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously
conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence. These were not traits which I could imagine
in Strickland. Love is absorbing; it takes the lover out
of himself; the most clear-sighted, though he may know, cannot
realise that his love will cease; it gives body to what he knows
is illusion, and, knowing it is nothing else, he loves it better
than reality. It makes a man a little more than himself,
and at the same time a little less. He ceases to be himself.
He is no longer an individual, but a thing, an instrument
to some purpose foreign to his ego. Love is never quite devoid
of sentimentality, and Strickland was the least
inclined to that infirmity of any man I have known. I could
not believe that he would ever suffer that possession of himself
which love is; he could never endure a foreign yoke. I believed
him capable of uprooting from his heart, though it might
be with agony, so that he was left battered and ensanguined,
anything that came between himself and that uncomprehended craving
that urged him constantly to he knew not what. If I have
succeeded at all in giving the complicated impression that Strickland
made on me, it will not seem outrageous to say that I
felt he was at once too great and too small for love.
But I suppose that everyone's conception of the passion is
formed on his own idiosyncrasies, and it is different with
every different person. A man like Strickland would love in a
manner peculiar to himself. It was vain to seek the analysis
of his emotion.
End of Chapter *** �