Chapter XXXI

by William Somerset Maugham

　　Next day, though I pressed him to remain, Stroeve left me.I offered to fetch his things from the studio, but he insistedon going himself; I think he hoped they had not thought ofgetting them together, so that he would have an opportunity ofseeing his wife again and perhaps inducing her to come back to him.But he found his traps waiting for him in the porter'slodge, and the concierge told him that Blanche had gone out.I do not think he resisted the temptation of giving her anaccount of his troubles. I found that he was telling them toeveryone he knew; he expected sympathy, but only excitedridicule.He bore himself most unbecomingly. Knowing at what time hiswife did her shopping, one day, unable any longer to bear notseeing her, he waylaid her in the street. She would not speakto him, but he insisted on speaking to her. He spluttered outwords of apology for any wrong he had committed towards her;he told her he loved her devotedly and begged her to return to him.She would not answer; she walked hurriedly, with avertedface. I imagined him with his fat little legs trying to keepup with her. Panting a little in his haste, he told her howmiserable he was; he besought her to have mercy on him;he promised, if she would forgive him, to do everything shewanted. He offered to take her for a journey. He told herthat Strickland would soon tire of her. When he repeated tome the whole sordid little scene I was outraged. He had shownneither sense nor dignity. He had omitted nothing that couldmake his wife despise him. There is no cruelty greater than awoman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love;she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only aninsane irritation. Blanche Stroeve stopped suddenly, and ashard as she could slapped her husband's face. She tookadvantage of his confusion to escape, and ran up the stairs tothe studio. No word had passed her lips.When he told me this he put his hand to his cheek as though hestill felt the smart of the blow, and in his eyes was a painthat was heartrending and an amazement that was ludicrous.He looked like an overblown schoolboy, and though I felt so sorryfor him, I could hardly help laughing.Then he took to walking along the street which she must passthrough to get to the shops, and he would stand at the corner,on the other side, as she went along. He dared not speak toher again, but sought to put into his round eyes the appealthat was in his heart. I suppose he had some idea that thesight of his misery would touch her. She never made thesmallest sign that she saw him. She never even changed thehour of her errands or sought an alternative route. I have anidea that there was some cruelty in her indifference. Perhapsshe got enjoyment out of the torture she inflicted.I wondered why she hated him so much.I begged Stroeve to behave more wisely. His want of spiritwas exasperating."You're doing no good at all by going on like this," I said."I think you'd have been wiser if you'd hit her over the headwith a stick. She wouldn't have despised you as she does now."I suggested that he should go home for a while. He had oftenspoken to me of the silent town, somewhere up in the north ofHolland, where his parents still lived. They were poorpeople. His father was a carpenter, and they dwelt in alittle old red-brick house, neat and clean, by the side of asluggish canal. The streets were wide and empty; for twohundred years the place had been dying, but the houses had thehomely stateliness of their time. Rich merchants, sendingtheir wares to the distant Indies, had lived in them calm andprosperous lives, and in their decent decay they kept still anaroma of their splendid past. You could wander along thecanal till you came to broad green fields, with windmills hereand there, in which cattle, black and white, grazed lazily.I thought that among those surroundings, with theirrecollections of his boyhood, Dirk Stroeve would forget hisunhappiness. But he would not go."I must be here when she needs me," he repeated. "It would bedreadful if something terrible happened and I were not at hand.""What do you think is going to happen?" I asked."I don't know. But I'm afraid."I shrugged my shoulders.For all his pain, Dirk Stroeve remained a ridiculous object.He might have excited sympathy if he had grown worn and thin.He did nothing of the kind. He remained fat, and his round,red cheeks shone like ripe apples. He had great neatness ofperson, and he continued to wear his spruce black coat and hisbowler hat, always a little too small for him, in a dapper,jaunty manner. He was getting something of a paunch, andsorrow had no effect on it. He looked more than ever like aprosperous bagman. It is hard that a man's exterior shouldtally so little sometimes with his soul. Dirk Stroeve had thepassion of Romeo in the body of Sir Toby Belch. He had asweet and generous nature, and yet was always blundering;a real feeling for what was beautiful and the capacity to createonly what was commonplace; a peculiar delicacy of sentimentand gross manners. He could exercise tact when dealing withthe affairs of others, but none when dealing with his own.What a cruel practical joke old Nature played when she flungso many contradictory elements together, and left the man faceto face with the perplexing callousness of the universe.