I did not speak.
"I"ve never seen him in my life," he said.
I do not know why he said this, for I felt certain I had caught a gleam of recognition in his eyes. I was not so easily abashed as I had been some years earlier.
"I saw your wife the other day," I said. "I felt sure you"d like to have the latest news of her."
He gave a short laugh. His eyes twinkled.
"We had a jolly evening together," he said. "How long ago is it?"
"Five years."
He called for another absinthe. Stroeve, with voluble tongue, explained how he and I had met, and by what an accident we discovered that we both knew Strickland. I do not know if Strickland listened. He glanced at me once or twice reflectively, but for the most part seemed occupied with his own thoughts; and certainly without Stroeve"s babble the conversation would have been difficult. In half an hour the Dutchman, looking at his watch, announced that he must go.
He asked whether I would come too. I thought, alone, I might get something out of Strickland, and so answered that I would stay.
When the fat man had left I said:
"Dirk Stroeve thinks you"re a great artist."
"What the h.e.l.l do you suppose I care?"
"Will you let me see your pictures?"
"Why should I?"
"I might feel inclined to buy one."
"I might not feel inclined to sell one."
"Are you making a good living?" I asked, smiling.
He chuckled.
"Do I look it?"
"You look half starved."
"I am half starved."
"Then come and let"s have a bit of dinner."
"Why do you ask me?"
"Not out of charity," I answered coolly. "I don"t really care a twopenny d.a.m.n if you starve or not."
His eyes lit up again.
"Come on, then," he said, getting up. "I"d like a decent meal."
Chapter XXI
I let him take me to a restaurant of his choice, but on the way I bought a paper. When we had ordered our dinner, I propped it against a bottle of St. Galmier and began to read.
We ate in silence. I felt him looking at me now and again, but I took no notice. I meant to force him to conversation.
"Is there anything in the paper?" he said, as we approached the end of our silent meal.
I fancied there was in his tone a slight note of exasperation.
"I always like to read the on the drama," I said.
I folded the paper and put it down beside me.
"I"ve enjoyed my dinner," he remarked.
"I think we might have our coffee here, don"t you?"
"Yes."
We lit our cigars. I smoked in silence. I noticed that now and then his eyes rested on me with a faint smile of amus.e.m.e.nt.
I waited patiently.
"What have you been up to since I saw you last?" he asked at length.
I had not very much to say. It was a record of hard work and of little adventure; of experiments in this direction and in that; of the gradual acquisition of the knowledge of books and of men.
I took care to ask Strickland nothing about his own doings.
I showed not the least interest in him, and at last I was rewarded. He began to talk of himself. But with his poor gift of expression he gave but indications of what he had gone through, and I had to fill up the gaps with my own imagination.
It was tantalising to get no more than hints into a character that interested me so much. It was like making one"s way through a mutilated ma.n.u.script. I received the impression of a life which was a bitter struggle against every sort of difficulty; but I realised that much which would have seemed horrible to most people did not in the least affect him. Strickland was distinguished from most Englishmen by his perfect indifference to comfort; it did not irk him to live always in one shabby room; he had no need to be surrounded by beautiful things. I do not suppose he had ever noticed how dingy was the paper on the wall of the room in which on my first visit I found him. He did not want arm-chairs to sit in; he really felt more at his ease on a kitchen chair.
He ate with appet.i.te, but was indifferent to what he ate; to him it was only food that he devoured to still the pangs of hunger; and when no food was to be had he seemed capable of doing without. I learned that for six months he had lived on a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk a day.
He was a sensual man, and yet was indifferent to sensual things.
He looked upon privation as no hardship. There was something impressive in the manner in which he lived a life wholly of the spirit.
When the small sum of money which he brought with him from London came to an end he suffered from no dismay. He sold no pictures; I think he made little attempt to sell any; he set about finding some way to make a bit of money. He told me with grim humour of the time he had spent acting as guide to c.o.c.kneys who wanted to see the night side of life in Paris; it was an occupation that appealed to his sardonic temper and somehow or other he had acquired a wide acquaintance with the more disreputable quarters of the city. He told me of the long hours he spent walking about the Boulevard de la Madeleine on the look-out for Englishmen, preferably the worse for liquor, who desired to see things which the law forbade.
When in luck he was able to make a tidy sum; but the shabbiness of his clothes at last frightened the sight-seers, and he could not find people adventurous enough to trust themselves to him. Then he happened on a job to translate the advertis.e.m.e.nts of patent medicines which were sent broadcast to the medical profession in England. During a strike he had been employed as a house-painter.
Meanwhile he had never ceased to work at his art; but, soon tiring of the studios, entirely by himself. He had never been so poor that he could not buy canvas and paint, and really he needed nothing else. So far as I could make out, he painted with great difficulty, and in his unwillingness to accept help from anyone lost much time in finding out for himself the solution of technical problems which preceding generations had already worked out one by one. He was aiming at something, I knew not what, and perhaps he hardly knew himself; and I got again more strongly the impression of a man possessed. He did not seem quite sane. It seemed to me that he would not show his pictures because he was really not interested in them.
He lived in a dream, and the reality meant nothing to him.
I had the feeling that he worked on a canvas with all the force of his violent personality, oblivious of everything in his effort to get what he saw with the mind"s eye; and then, having finished, not the picture perhaps, for I had an idea that he seldom brought anything to completion, but the pa.s.sion that fired him, he lost all care for it. He was never satisfied with what he had done; it seemed to him of no consequence compared with the vision that obsessed his mind.
"Why don"t you ever send your work to exhibitions?" I asked.
"I should have thought you"d like to know what people thought about it."
"Would you?"
I cannot describe the unmeasurable contempt he put into the two words.