It is here that I purposed to end my book. My first idea was to begin
it with the account of Strickland’s last years in Tahiti and with his
horrible death, and then to go back and relate what I knew of his
beginnings. This I meant to do, not from wilfulness, but because I
wished to leave Strickland setting out with I know not what fancies in
his lonely soul for the unknown islands which fired his imagination. I
liked the picture of him starting at the age of forty-seven, when most
men have already settled comfortably in a groove, for a new world. I
saw him, the sea gray under the mistral and foam-flecked, watching the
vanishing coast of France, which he was destined never to see again;
and I thought there was something gallant in his bearing and dauntless
in his soul. I wished so to end on a note of hope. It seemed to
emphasise the unconquerable spirit of man. But I could not manage it.
Somehow I could not get into my story, and after trying once or twice I
had to give it up; I started from the beginning in the usual way, and
made up my mind I could only tell what I knew of Strickland’s life in
the order in which I learnt the facts.
Those that I have now are fragmentary. I am in the position of a
biologist who from a single bone must reconstruct not only the
appearance of an extinct animal, but its habits. Strickland made no
particular impression on the people who came in contact with him in
Tahiti. To them he was no more than a beach-comber in constant need of
money, remarkable only for the peculiarity that he painted pictures
which seemed to them absurd; and it was not till he had been dead for
some years and agents came from the dealers in Paris and Berlin to look
for any pictures which might still remain on the island, that they had
any idea that among them had dwelt a man of consequence. They
remembered then that they could have bought for a song canvases which
now were worth large sums, and they could not forgive themselves for
the opportunity which had escaped them. There was a Jewish trader
called Cohen, who had come by one of Strickland’s pictures in a
singular way. He was a little old Frenchman, with soft kind eyes and a
pleasant smile, half trader and half seaman, who owned a cutter in
which he wandered boldly among the Paumotus and the Marquesas, taking
out trade goods and bringing back copra, shell, and pearls. I went to
see him because I was told he had a large black pearl which he was
willing to sell cheaply, and when I discovered that it was beyond my
means I began to talk to him about Strickland. He had known him well.
“You see, I was interested in him because he was a painter,” he told
me. “We don’t get many painters in the islands, and I was sorry for him
because he was such a bad one. I gave him his first job. I had a
plantation on the peninsula, and I wanted a white overseer. You never
get any work out of the natives unless you have a white man over them.
I said to him: ‘You’ll have plenty of time for painting, and you can
earn a bit of money.’ I knew he was starving, but I offered him good
wages.”
“I can’t imagine that he was a very satisfactory overseer,” I said,
smiling.
“I made allowances. I have always had a sympathy for artists. It is in
our blood, you know. But he only remained a few months. When he had
enough money to buy paints and canvases he left me. The place had got
hold of him by then, and he wanted to get away into the bush. But I
continued to see him now and then. He would turn up in Papeete every
few months and stay a little while; he’d get money out of someone or
other and then disappear again. It was on one of these visits that he
came to me and asked for the loan of two hundred francs. He looked as
if he hadn’t had a meal for a week, and I hadn’t the heart to refuse
him. Of course, I never expected to see my money again. Well, a year
later he came to see me once more, and he brought a picture with him.
He did not mention the money he owed me, but he said: ‘Here is a
picture of your plantation that I’ve painted for you.’ I looked at it.
I did not know what to say, but of course I thanked him, and when he
had gone away I showed it to my wife.”
“What was it like?” I asked.
“Do not ask me. I could not make head or tail of it. I never saw such a
thing in my life. ‘What shall we do with it?’ I said to my wife. ‘We
can never hang it up,’ she said. ‘People would laugh at us.’ So she
took it into an attic and put it away with all sorts of rubbish, for my
wife can never throw anything away. It is her mania. Then, imagine to
yourself, just before the war my brother wrote to me from Paris, and
said: ‘Do you know anything about an English painter who lived in
Tahiti? It appears that he was a genius, and his pictures fetch large
prices. See if you can lay your hands on anything and send it to me.
There’s money to be made.’ So I said to my wife. ‘What about that
picture that Strickland gave me?’ Is it possible that it is still in
the attic?’ ‘Without doubt,’ she answered, ‘for you know that I never
throw anything away. It is my mania.’ We went up to the attic, and
there, among I know not what rubbish that had been gathered during the
thirty years we have inhabited that house, was the picture. I looked at
it again, and I said: ‘Who would have thought that the overseer of my
plantation on the peninsula, to whom I lent two hundred francs, had
genius? Do you see anything in the picture?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘it does
not resemble the plantation and I have never seen cocoa-nuts with blue
leaves; but they are mad in Paris, and it may be that your brother will
be able to sell it for the two hundred francs you lent Strickland.’
Well, we packed it up and we sent it to my brother. And at last I
received a letter from him. What do you think he said? ‘I received your
picture,’ he said, ‘and I confess I thought it was a joke that you had
played on me. I would not have given the cost of postage for the
picture. I was half afraid to show it to the gentleman who had spoken
to me about it. Imagine my surprise when he said it was a masterpiece,
and offered me thirty thousand francs. I dare say he would have paid
more, but frankly I was so taken aback that I lost my head; I accepted
the offer before I was able to collect myself.’”
Then Monsieur Cohen said an admirable thing.
“I wish that poor Strickland had been still alive. I wonder what he
would have said when I gave him twenty-nine thousand eight hundred
francs for his picture.”