Chapter XXI

by William Somerset Maugham

　　I let him take me to a restaurant of his choice, but on theway 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 approachedthe end of our silent meal.I fancied there was in his tone a slight note of exasperation."I always like to read the feuilleton 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 nowand 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 atlength.I had not very much to say. It was a record of hard work and oflittle 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 Iwas rewarded. He began to talk of himself. But with his poorgift of expression he gave but indications of what he had gonethrough, and I had to fill up the gaps with my own imagination.It was tantalising to get no more than hintsinto a character that interested me so much. It was likemaking one's way through a mutilated manuscript. I receivedthe impression of a life which was a bitter struggle againstevery sort of difficulty; but I realised that much which wouldhave seemed horrible to most people did not in the leastaffect him. Strickland was distinguished from most Englishmenby his perfect indifference to comfort; it did not irk him tolive always in one shabby room; he had no need to besurrounded by beautiful things. I do not suppose he had evernoticed how dingy was the paper on the wall of the room inwhich on my first visit I found him. He did not want arm-chairsto 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 thepangs of hunger; and when no food was to be had he seemedcapable of doing without. I learned that for six months hehad 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 somethingimpressive in the manner in which he lived a life wholly ofthe spirit.When the small sum of money which he brought with him fromLondon came to an end he suffered from no dismay. He sold nopictures; I think he made little attempt to sell any; he setabout finding some way to make a bit of money. He told mewith grim humour of the time he had spent acting as guide toCockneys who wanted to see the night side of life in Paris;it was an occupation that appealed to his sardonic temper andsomehow or other he had acquired a wide acquaintance with themore disreputable quarters of the city. He told me of thelong hours he spent walking about the Boulevard de laMadeleine on the look-out for Englishmen, preferably the worsefor liquor, who desired to see things which the law forbade.When in luck he was able to make a tidy sum; but theshabbiness of his clothes at last frightened the sight-seers,and he could not find people adventurous enough to trustthemselves to him. Then he happened on a job to translate theadvertisements of patent medicines which were sent broadcastto the medical profession in England. During a strike he hadbeen employed as a house-painter.Meanwhile he had never ceased to work at his art; but, soontiring of the studios, entirely by himself. He had never beenso poor that he could not buy canvas and paint, and really heneeded nothing else. So far as I could make out, he paintedwith great difficulty, and in his unwillingness to accept helpfrom anyone lost much time in finding out for himself thesolution of technical problems which preceding generations hadalready worked out one by one. He was aiming at something,I knew not what, and perhaps he hardly knew himself; and I gotagain more strongly the impression of a man possessed. He didnot seem quite sane. It seemed to me that he would not showhis 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 forceof his violent personality, oblivious of everything in his effortto get what he saw with the mind's eye; and then, havingfinished, not the picture perhaps, for I had an idea that heseldom brought anything to completion, but the passion thatfired him, he lost all care for it. He was never satisfiedwith what he had done; it seemed to him of no consequencecompared 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 thoughtabout it.""Would you?"I cannot describe the unmeasurable contempt he put into thetwo words."Don't you want fame? It's something that most artistshaven'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 ofpeople you didn't know and had never seen receiving emotions,subtle and passionate, from the work of your hands? Everyonelikes power. I can't imagine a more wonderful exercise of itthan 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 thecertainty that no eyes but mine would ever see what I hadwritten."Strickland did not speak for a long time, but his eyes shonestrangely, as though he saw something that kindled his soul toecstasy."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 gesturesinstead of adjectives, and he halted. I have put into my ownwords what I think he wanted to say."Looking back on the last five years, do you think it wasworth 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 theaverage. You were fairly prosperous. You seem to have had arotten time in Paris. If you had your time over again wouldyou do what you did?""Rather.""Do you know that you haven't asked anything about your wifeand children? Do you never think of them?""No.""I wish you weren't so damned monosyllabic. Have you neverhad 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 ofthe past. I don't mean the past of seven or eight years ago,but further back still, when you first met your wife, andloved her, and married her. Don't you remember the joy withwhich you first took her in your arms?""I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters isthe 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 mystare, 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 theboa-constrictor; on the contrary, I'm interested in his mentalprocesses.""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 todescribe his smile. I do not know that it was attractive,but it lit up his face, changing the expression, which wasgenerally sombre, and gave it a look of not ill-natured malice.It was a slow smile, starting and sometimes ending inthe eyes; it was very sensual, neither cruel nor kindly,but suggested rather the inhuman glee of the satyr. It was hissmile 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'tlong 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 nevercomes into your head, and you're able to persuade yourselfthat you've finished with it for good and all. You rejoice inyour freedom, and you feel that at last you can call your soulyour 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 younotice that all the time your feet have been walking in the mud.And you want to roll yourself in it. And you find somewoman, coarse and low and vulgar, some beastly creature inwhom all the horror of sex is blatant, and you fall upon herlike a wild animal. You drink till you're blind with rage."He stared at me without the slightest movement. I held hiseyes with mine. I spoke very slowly."I'll tell you what must seem strange, that when it's over youfeel so extraordinarily pure. You feel like a disembodiedspirit, immaterial; and you seem to be able to touch beauty asthough it were a palpable thing; and you feel an intimatecommunion 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 thenhe turned away. There was on his face a strange look, andI thought that so might a man look when he had died underthe torture. He was silent. I knew that our conversationwas ended.