Chapter XXVI

by William Somerset Maugham

　　Next day we moved Strickland. It needed a good deal offirmness and still more patience to induce him to come, but hewas really too ill to offer any effective resistance toStroeve's entreaties and to my determination. We dressed him,while he feebly cursed us, got him downstairs, into a cab, andeventually to Stroeve's studio. He was so exhausted by thetime 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 asthough he could not live more than a few hours, and I amconvinced that it was only through the Dutchman's doggednessthat he pulled through. I have never known a more difficultpatient. 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 thatwas taken of him; he received all inquiries about his feelingsor his needs with a jibe, a sneer, or an oath. I found himdetestable, and as soon as he was out of danger I had nohesitation in telling him so."Go to hell," he answered briefly.Dirk Stroeve, giving up his work entirely, nursed Stricklandwith tenderness and sympathy. He was dexterous to make himcomfortable, and he exercised a cunning of which I shouldnever have thought him capable to induce him to take themedicines prescribed by the doctor. Nothing was too muchtrouble for him. Though his means were adequate to the needsof himself and his wife, he certainly had no money to waste;but now he was wantonly extravagant in the purchase ofdelicacies, out of season and dear, which might temptStrickland's capricious appetite. I shall never forget thetactful 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 itwas aggressive, he only chuckled. When Strickland, recoveringsomewhat, was in a good humour and amused himself by laughingat him, he deliberately did absurd things to excite his ridicule.Then he would give me little happy glances, so thatI might notice in how much better form the patient was.Stroeve was sublime.But it was Blanche who most surprised me. She proved herselfnot only a capable, but a devoted nurse. There was nothing inher to remind you that she had so vehemently struggled againsther 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 thesheet without disturbing him. She washed him. When Iremarked on her competence, she told me with that pleasantlittle 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 toforestall his wants. For a fortnight it was necessary thatsomeone should stay with him all night, and she took turns atwatching with her husband. I wondered what she thought duringthe long darkness as she sat by the bedside. Strickland was aweird figure as he lay there, thinner than ever, with hisragged red beard and his eyes staring feverishly into vacancy;his illness seemed to have made them larger, and they had anunnatural 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 wasso placid, it was hard to believe that she was capable of theviolent 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 doenough to show his gratitude for the whole-hearted devotionwith which she had accepted the burden he laid on her.But he was a little puzzled by the behaviour of Blanche andStrickland towards one another."Do you know, I've seen them sit there for hours togetherwithout saying a word?"On one occasion, when Strickland was so much better that in aday 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 Irecognised the shirt she was mending as Strickland's. He layon his back; he did not speak. Once I saw that his eyes werefixed on Blanche Stroeve, and there was in them a curious irony.Feeling their gaze, she raised her own, and for a momentthey stared at one another. I could not quite understandher expression. Her eyes had in them a strange perplexity,and perhaps -- but why? -- alarm. In a moment Stricklandlooked away and idly surveyed the ceiling, but she continuedto stare at him, and now her look was quite inexplicable.In a few days Strickland began to get up. He was nothing butskin and bone. His clothes hung upon him like rags on ascarecrow. 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 wasnot quite ugly. There was something monumental in hisungainliness. I do not know how to express precisely theimpression he made upon me. It was not exactly spiritualitythat was obvious, though the screen of the flesh seemed almosttransparent, because there was in his face an outrageoussensuality; but, though it sounds nonsense, it seemed asthough his sensuality were curiously spiritual. There was inhim something primitive. He seemed to partake of thoseobscure forces of nature which the Greeks personified inshapes part human and part beast, the satyr and the faun.I thought of Marsyas, whom the god flayed because he had daredto rival him in song. Strickland seemed to bear in his heartstrange harmonies and unadventured patterns, and I foresaw forhim an end of torture and despair. I had again the feelingthat he was possessed of a devil; but you could not say thatit was a devil of evil, for it was a primitive force thatexisted 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 queer; sometimes I would find him poringover the poems of Mallarme, and he read them as a child reads,forming the words with his lips, and I wondered what strangeemotion 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 bookshe showed pleasantly the irreconcilable sides of hisfantastic nature. It was singular to notice that even in theweak state of his body he had no thought for its comfort.Stroeve liked his ease, and in his studio were a couple ofheavily upholstered arm-chairs and a large divan.Strickland would not go near them, not from any affectationof stoicism, for I found him seated on a three-legged stoolwhen I went into the studio one day and he was alone,but because he did not like them. For choice he sat on akitchen chair without arms. It often exasperated me to see him.I never knew a man so entirely indifferent to his surroundings.