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.”
_“Mon petit chou”_, 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.
_“Ma pauvre chèrie.”_ 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 _will_ 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 _know_ 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
café 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 _you_ 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.”