Moon and Sixpence, by Somerset Maugham
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Somerset Maugham >> Moon and Sixpence, by Somerset Maugham
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"How did you manage that?"
"The woman where I get my bread recommended me. He'd told her
he was looking out for someone to paint him. I've got to give
her twenty francs."
"What's he like?"
"Splendid. He's got a great red face like a leg of mutton,
and on his right cheek there's an enormous mole with long
hairs growing out of it."
Strickland was in a good humour, and when Dirk Stroeve came
up and sat down with us he attacked him with ferocious banter.
He showed a skill I should never have credited him with in
finding the places where the unhappy Dutchman was most
sensitive. Strickland employed not the rapier of sarcasm but
the bludgeon of invective. The attack was so unprovoked that
Stroeve, taken unawares, was defenceless. He reminded you of
a frightened sheep running aimlessly hither and thither.
He was startled and amazed. At last the tears ran from his eyes.
And the worst of it was that, though you hated Strickland,
and the exhibition was horrible, it was impossible not to laugh.
Dirk Stroeve was one of those unlucky persons whose most
sincere emotions are ridiculous.
But after all when I look back upon that winter in Paris,
my pleasantest recollection is of Dirk Stroeve. There was
something very charming in his little household. He and his
wife made a picture which the imagination gratefully dwelt
upon, and the simplicity of his love for her had a deliberate grace.
He remained absurd, but the sincerity of his passion
excited one's sympathy. I could understand how his wife must
feel for him, and I was glad that her affection was so tender.
If she had any sense of humour, it must amuse her that he
should place her on a pedestal and worship her with such an
honest idolatry, but even while she laughed she must have been
pleased and touched. He was the constant lover, and though
she grew old, losing her rounded lines and her fair
comeliness, to him she would certainly never alter.
To him she would always be the loveliest woman in the world.
There was a pleasing grace in the orderliness of their lives.
They had but the studio, a bedroom, and a tiny kitchen.
Mrs. Stroeve did all the housework herself; and while Dirk painted
bad pictures, she went marketing, cooked the luncheon, sewed,
occupied herself like a busy ant all the day; and in the
evening sat in the studio, sewing again, while Dirk played
music which I am sure was far beyond her comprehension.
He played with taste, but with more feeling than was always
justified, and into his music poured all his honest,
sentimental, exuberant soul.
Their life in its own way was an idyl, and it managed to
achieve a singular beauty. The absurdity that clung to
everything connected with Dirk Stroeve gave it a curious note,
like an unresolved discord, but made it somehow more modern,
more human; like a rough joke thrown into a serious scene,
it heightened the poignancy which all beauty has.
Chapter XXIV
Shortly before Christmas Dirk Stroeve came to ask me to spend
the holiday with him. He had a characteristic sentimentality
about the day and wanted to pass it among his friends with
suitable ceremonies. Neither of us had seen Strickland for
two or three weeks -- I because I had been busy with friends
who were spending a little while in Paris, and Stroeve
because, having quarreled with him more violently than usual,
he had made up his mind to have nothing more to do with him.
Strickland was impossible, and he swore never to speak to him again.
But the season touched him with gentle feeling, and he hated
the thought of Strickland spending Christmas Day by himself;
he ascribed his own emotions to him, and could not
bear that on an occasion given up to good-fellowship the
lonely painter should be abandoned to his own melancholy.
Stroeve had set up a Christmas-tree in his studio, and I
suspected that we should both find absurd little presents
hanging on its festive branches; but he was shy about seeing
Strickland again; it was a little humiliating to forgive so
easily insults so outrageous, and he wished me to be present
at the reconciliation on which he was determined.
We walked together down the Avenue de Clichy, but Strickland
was not in the cafe. It was too cold to sit outside, and we
took our places on leather benches within. It was hot and
stuffy, and the air was gray with smoke. Strickland did not come,
but presently we saw the French painter who occasionally
played chess with him. I had formed a casual acquaintance
with him, and he sat down at our table. Stroeve asked him if
he had seen Strickland.
"He's ill," he said. "Didn't you know?"
"Seriously?"
"Very, I understand."
Stroeve's face grew white.
"Why didn't he write and tell me? How stupid of me to quarrel
with him. We must go to him at once. He can have no one to
look after him. Where does he live?"
"I have no idea," said the Frenchman.
We discovered that none of us knew how to find him.
Stroeve grew more and more distressed.
"He might die, and not a soul would know anything about it.
It's dreadful. I can't bear the thought. We must find him at once."
I tried to make Stroeve understand that it was absurd to hunt
vaguely about Paris. We must first think of some plan.
"Yes; but all this time he may be dying, and when we get there
it may be too late to do anything."
"Sit still and let us think," I said impatiently.
The only address I knew was the Hotel des Belges, but
Strickland had long left that, and they would have no
recollection of him. With that queer idea of his to keep his
whereabouts secret, it was unlikely that, on leaving, he had
said where he was going. Besides, it was more than five years ago.
I felt pretty sure that he had not moved far. If he
continued to frequent the same cafe as when he had stayed at
the hotel, it was probably because it was the most convenient.
Suddenly I remembered that he had got his commission to paint
a portrait through the baker from whom he bought his bread,
and it struck me that there one might find his address.
I called for a directory and looked out the bakers. There were
five in the immediate neighbourhood, and the only thing was to
go to all of them. Stroeve accompanied me unwillingly.
His own plan was to run up and down the streets that led out
of the Avenue de Clichy and ask at every house if Strickland
lived there. My commonplace scheme was, after all, effective,
for in the second shop we asked at the woman behind the
counter acknowledged that she knew him. She was not certain
where he lived, but it was in one of the three houses
opposite. Luck favoured us, and in the first we tried the
concierge told us that we should find him on the top floor.
"It appears that he's ill," said Stroeve.
"It may be," answered the concierge indifferently. "
effet>, I have not seen him for several days."
Stroeve ran up the stairs ahead of me, and when I reached the
top floor I found him talking to a workman in his shirt-sleeves
who had opened a door at which Stroeve had knocked. He pointed
to another door. He believed that the person who lived there
was a painter. He had not seen him for a week. Stroeve made
as though he were about to knock, and then turned to me with
a gesture of helplessness. I saw that he was panic-stricken.
"Supposing he's dead?"
"Not he," I said.
I knocked. There was no answer. I tried the handle, and
found the door unlocked. I walked in, and Stroeve followed me.
The room was in darkness. I could only see that it was
an attic, with a sloping roof; and a faint glimmer, no more
than a less profound obscurity, came from a skylight.
"Strickland," I called.
There was no answer. It was really rather mysterious, and it
seemed to me that Stroeve, standing just behind, was trembling
in his shoes. For a moment I hesitated to strike a light.
I dimly perceived a bed in the corner, and I wondered whether
the light would disclose lying on it a dead body.
"Haven't you got a match, you fool?"
Strickland's voice, coming out of the darkness, harshly,
made me start.
Stroeve cried out.
"Oh, my God, I thought you were dead."
I struck a match, and looked about for a candle. I had a
rapid glimpse of a tiny apartment, half room, half studio, in
which was nothing but a bed, canvases with their faces to the
wall, an easel, a table, and a chair. There was no carpet on
the floor. There was no fire-place. On the table, crowded
with paints, palette-knives, and litter of all kinds, was the
end of a candle. I lit it. Strickland was lying in the bed,
uncomfortably because it was too small for him, and he had put
all his clothes over him for warmth. It was obvious at a
glance that he was in a high fever. Stroeve, his voice
cracking with emotion, went up to him.
"Oh, my poor friend, what is the matter with you? I had no
idea you were ill. Why didn't you let me know? You must know
I'd have done anything in the world for you. Were you
thinking of what I said? I didn't mean it. I was wrong.
It was stupid of me to take offence."
"Go to hell," said Strickland.
"Now, be reasonable. Let me make you comfortable.
Haven't you anyone to look after you?"
He looked round the squalid attic in dismay. He tried to
arrange the bed-clothes. Strickland, breathing laboriously,
kept an angry silence. He gave me a resentful glance.
I stood quite quietly, looking at him.
"If you want to do something for me, you can get me some
milk," he said at last. "I haven't been able to get out for
two days." There was an empty bottle by the side of the bed,
which had contained milk, and in a piece of newspaper a few crumbs.
"What have you been having?" I asked.
"Nothing."
"For how long?" cried Stroeve. "Do you mean to say you've had
nothing to eat or drink for two days? It's horrible."
"I've had water."
His eyes dwelt for a moment on a large can within reach of an
outstretched arm.
"I'll go immediately," said Stroeve. "Is there anything you fancy?"
I suggested that he should get a thermometer, and a few
grapes, and some bread. Stroeve, glad to make himself useful,
clattered down the stairs.
"Damned fool," muttered Strickland.
I felt his pulse. It was beating quickly and feebly. I asked
him one or two questions, but he would not answer, and when I
pressed him he turned his face irritably to the wall.
The only thing was to wait in silence. In ten minutes Stroeve,
panting, came back. Besides what I had suggested, he brought
candles, and meat-juice, and a spirit-lamp. He was a
practical little fellow, and without delay set about making
bread-and-milk. I took Strickland's temperature. It was a
hundred and four. He was obviously very ill.
Chapter XXV
Presently we left him. Dirk was going home to dinner, and I
proposed to find a doctor and bring him to see Strickland;
but when we got down into the street, fresh after the stuffy
attic, the Dutchman begged me to go immediately to his studio.
He had something in mind which he would not tell me, but he
insisted that it was very necessary for me to accompany him.
Since I did not think a doctor could at the moment do any more
than we had done, I consented. We found Blanche Stroeve
laying the table for dinner. Dirk went up to her, and took
both her hands.
"Dear one, I want you to do something for me," he said.
She looked at him with the grave cheerfulness which was one of
her charms. His red face was shining with sweat, and he had a
look of comic agitation, but there was in his round, surprised
eyes an eager light.
"Strickland is very ill. He may be dying. He is alone in a
filthy attic, and there is not a soul to look after him.
I want you to let me bring him here."
She withdrew her hands quickly, I had never seen her make so
rapid a movement; and her cheeks flushed.
"Oh no."
"Oh, my dear one, don't refuse. I couldn't bear to leave him
where he is. I shouldn't sleep a wink for thinking of him."
"I have no objection to your nursing him."
Her voice was cold and distant.
"But he'll die."
"Let him."
Stroeve gave a little gasp. He wiped his face. He turned to
me for support, but I did not know what to say.
"He's a great artist."
"What do I care? I hate him."
"Oh, my love, my precious, you don't mean that. I beseech you
to let me bring him here. We can make him comfortable.
Perhaps we can save him. He shall be no trouble to you.
I will do everything. We'll make him up a bed in the studio.
We can't let him die like a dog. It would be inhuman."
"Why can't he go to a hospital?"
"A hospital! He needs the care of loving hands. He must be
treated with infinite tact."
I was surprised to see how moved she was. She went on laying
the table, but her hands trembled.
"I have no patience with you. Do you think if you were ill he
would stir a finger to help you?"
"But what does that matter? I should have you to nurse me.
It wouldn't be necessary. And besides, I'm different;
I'm not of any importance."
"You have no more spirit than a mongrel cur. You lie down on
the ground and ask people to trample on you."
Stroeve gave a little laugh. He thought he understood the
reason of his wife's attitude.
"Oh, my poor dear, you're thinking of that day he came here to
look at my pictures. What does it matter if he didn't think
them any good? It was stupid of me to show them to him.
I dare say they're not very good."
He looked round the studio ruefully. On the easel was a
half-finished picture of a smiling Italian peasant, holding a
bunch of grapes over the head of a dark-eyed girl.
"Even if he didn't like them he should have been civil.
He needn't have insulted you. He showed that he despised you,
and you lick his hand. Oh, I hate him."
"Dear child, he has genius. You don't think I believe that I
have it. I wish I had; but I know it when I see it, and I
honour it with all my heart. It's the most wonderful thing in
the world. It's a great burden to its possessors. We should
be very tolerant with them, and very patient."
I stood apart, somewhat embarrassed by the domestic scene,
and wondered why Stroeve had insisted on my coming with him.
I saw that his wife was on the verge of tears.
"But it's not only because he's a genius that I ask you to let
me bring him here; it's because he's a human being, and he is
ill and poor."
"I will never have him in my house -- never."
Stroeve turned to me.
"Tell her that it's a matter of life and death.
It's impossible to leave him in that wretched hole."
"It's quite obvious that it would be much easier to nurse him
here," I said, "but of course it would be very inconvenient.
I have an idea that someone will have to be with him day and night."
"My love, it's not you who would shirk a little trouble."
"If he comes here, I shall go," said Mrs. Stroeve violently.
"I don't recognize you. You're so good and kind."
"Oh, for goodness sake, let me be. You drive me to distraction."
Then at last the tears came. She sank into a chair,
and buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook
convulsively. In a moment Dirk was on his knees beside her,
with his arms round her, kissing her, calling her all sorts of
pet names, and the facile tears ran down his own cheeks.
Presently she released herself and dried her eyes.
"Leave me alone," she said, not unkindly; and then to me,
trying to smile: "What must you think of me?"
Stroeve, looking at her with perplexity, hesitated.
His forehead was all puckered, and his red mouth set in a pout.
He reminded me oddly of an agitated guinea-pig.
"Then it's No, darling?" he said at last.
She gave a gesture of lassitude. She was exhausted.
"The studio is yours. Everything belongs to you. If you want
to bring him here, how can I prevent you?"
A sudden smile flashed across his round face.
"Then you consent? I knew you would. Oh, my precious."
Suddenly she pulled herself together. She looked at him with
haggard eyes. She clasped her hands over her heart as though
its beating were intolerable.
"Oh, Dirk, I've never since we met asked you to do anything for me."
"You know there's nothing in the world that I wouldn't do for
you."
"I beg you not to let Strickland come here. Anyone else you like.
Bring a thief, a drunkard, any outcast off the streets,
and I promise you I'll do everything I can for them gladly.
But I beseech you not to bring Strickland here."
"But why?"
"I'm frightened of him. I don't know why, but there's something
in him that terrifies me. He'll do us some great harm.
I know it. I feel it. If you bring him here it can only end badly."
"But how unreasonable!"
"No, no. I know I'm right. Something terrible will happen to us."
"Because we do a good action?"
She was panting now, and in her face was a terror which was
inexplicable. I do not know what she thought. I felt that
she was possessed by some shapeless dread which robbed her of
all self-control. As a rule she was so calm; her agitation
now was amazing. Stroeve looked at her for a while with
puzzled consternation.
"You are my wife; you are dearer to me than anyone in the world.
No one shall come here without your entire consent."
She closed her eyes for a moment, and I thought she was going
to faint. I was a little impatient with her; I had not
suspected that she was so neurotic a woman. Then I heard
Stroeve's voice again. It seemed to break oddly on the
silence.
"Haven't you been in bitter distress once when a helping hand
was held out to you? You know how much it means. Couldn't you
like to do someone a good turn when you have the chance?"
The words were ordinary enough, and to my mind there was in
them something so hortatory that I almost smiled. I was
astonished at the effect they had on Blanche Stroeve.
She started a little, and gave her husband a long look.
His eyes were fixed on the ground. I did not know why he
seemed embarrassed. A faint colour came into her cheeks,
and then her face became white -- more than white, ghastly;
you felt that the blood had shrunk away from the whole surface
of her body; and even her hands were pale. A shiver passed
through her. The silence of the studio seemed to gather body,
so that it became an almost palpable presence. I was bewildered.
"Bring Strickland here, Dirk. I'll do my best for him."
"My precious," he smiled.
He wanted to take her in his arms, but she avoided him.
"Don't be affectionate before strangers, Dirk," she said.
"It makes me feel such a fool."
Her manner was quite normal again, and no one could have told
that so shortly before she had been shaken by such a great
emotion.
Chapter XXVI
Next day we moved Strickland. It needed a good deal of
firmness and still more patience to induce him to come, but he
was really too ill to offer any effective resistance to
Stroeve's entreaties and to my determination. We dressed him,
while he feebly cursed us, got him downstairs, into a cab, and
eventually to Stroeve's studio. He was so exhausted by the
time 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 as
though he could not live more than a few hours, and I am
convinced that it was only through the Dutchman's doggedness
that he pulled through. I have never known a more difficult
patient. 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 that
was taken of him; he received all inquiries about his feelings
or his needs with a jibe, a sneer, or an oath. I found him
detestable, and as soon as he was out of danger I had no
hesitation in telling him so.
"Go to hell," he answered briefly.
Dirk Stroeve, giving up his work entirely, nursed Strickland
with tenderness and sympathy. He was dexterous to make him
comfortable, and he exercised a cunning of which I should
never have thought him capable to induce him to take the
medicines prescribed by the doctor. Nothing was too much
trouble for him. Though his means were adequate to the needs
of himself and his wife, he certainly had no money to waste;
but now he was wantonly extravagant in the purchase of
delicacies, out of season and dear, which might tempt
Strickland's capricious appetite. I shall never forget the
tactful 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 it
was aggressive, he only chuckled. When Strickland, recovering
somewhat, was in a good humour and amused himself by laughing
at him, he deliberately did absurd things to excite his ridicule.
Then he would give me little happy glances, so that
I might notice in how much better form the patient was.
Stroeve was sublime.
But it was Blanche who most surprised me. She proved herself
not only a capable, but a devoted nurse. There was nothing in
her to remind you that she had so vehemently struggled against
her 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 the
sheet without disturbing him. She washed him. When I
remarked on her competence, she told me with that pleasant
little 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 to
forestall his wants. For a fortnight it was necessary that
someone should stay with him all night, and she took turns at
watching with her husband. I wondered what she thought during
the long darkness as she sat by the bedside. Strickland was a
weird figure as he lay there, thinner than ever, with his
ragged red beard and his eyes staring feverishly into vacancy;
his illness seemed to have made them larger, and they had an
unnatural 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 was
so placid, it was hard to believe that she was capable of the
violent 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 do
enough to show his gratitude for the whole-hearted devotion
with which she had accepted the burden he laid on her.
But he was a little puzzled by the behaviour of Blanche and
Strickland towards one another.
"Do you know, I've seen them sit there for hours together
without saying a word?"
On one occasion, when Strickland was so much better that in a
day 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 I
recognised the shirt she was mending as Strickland's. He lay
on his back; he did not speak. Once I saw that his eyes were
fixed on Blanche Stroeve, and there was in them a curious irony.
Feeling their gaze, she raised her own, and for a moment
they stared at one another. I could not quite understand
her expression. Her eyes had in them a strange perplexity,
and perhaps -- but why? -- alarm. In a moment Strickland
looked away and idly surveyed the ceiling, but she continued
to stare at him, and now her look was quite inexplicable.
In a few days Strickland began to get up. He was nothing but
skin and bone. His clothes hung upon him like rags on a
scarecrow. 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 was
not quite ugly. There was something monumental in his
ungainliness. I do not know how to express precisely the
impression he made upon me. It was not exactly spirituality
that was obvious, though the screen of the flesh seemed almost
transparent, because there was in his face an outrageous
sensuality; but, though it sounds nonsense, it seemed as
though his sensuality were curiously spiritual. There was in
him something primitive. He seemed to partake of those
obscure forces of nature which the Greeks personified in
shapes part human and part beast, the satyr and the faun.
I thought of Marsyas, whom the god flayed because he had dared
to rival him in song. Strickland seemed to bear in his heart
strange harmonies and unadventured patterns, and I foresaw for
him an end of torture and despair. I had again the feeling
that he was possessed of a devil; but you could not say that
it was a devil of evil, for it was a primitive force that
existed 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 poring
over the poems of Mallarme, and he read them as a child reads,
forming the words with his lips, and I wondered what strange
emotion 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 books
he showed pleasantly the irreconcilable sides of his
fantastic nature. It was singular to notice that even in the
weak state of his body he had no thought for its comfort.
Stroeve liked his ease, and in his studio were a couple of
heavily upholstered arm-chairs and a large divan.
Strickland would not go near them, not from any affectation
of stoicism, for I found him seated on a three-legged stool
when I went into the studio one day and he was alone,
but because he did not like them. For choice he sat on a
kitchen chair without arms. It often exasperated me to see him.
I never knew a man so entirely indifferent to his surroundings.
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