Chapter 21 Chapter 21

I asked him to take me to a restaurant of his choice, and on the way I bought a newspaper.While he was ordering dinner, I propped the newspaper on a bottle of St. Calmil and began to read.We were relatively silent, and I could feel him looking at me now and then, but I ignored it, trying to force him to speak first. "What's in the papers?" he began, towards the end of the silent dinner. I felt like I could hear annoyance in his tone. "I always like to read reviews of plays," I said. I folded the newspaper and put it to my side. "I've had my dinner, it's good," he said.

"I think we'll just have coffee here, how about?" "OK." We lit our cigars and I smoked in silence.I noticed that his eyes fell on me from time to time, and there was an imperceptible, amused smile on his face.I waited patiently for him to speak. "Since the last time we met, what have you been doing?" He finally couldn't help asking. I don't have much to say, it's nothing more than hard writing, monotonous life, and sometimes I do some experiments in certain aspects, or make some attempts in a certain direction, and gradually acquire knowledge about books and human nature.I was careful not to ask Strickland a word how he was doing, I showed no interest in him, and at last my strategy worked.He started to talk about his own situation, but he really has no language talent. In his intermittent statements, I have a general understanding of what he has experienced, and I need to fill in the gaps with my imagination.For a person I am very interested in, I can only hear the content so far. This thing is really a bit tantalizing. It is like reading an incomplete manuscript and trying to sort out various relationships and events.The overall impression I got was that this person's life seemed to be a struggle against all sorts of more hardships, and I realized more deeply that these hardships are terrible and difficult for most people. It was unbearable, but it didn't affect him in the slightest.Strickland was unlike most Englishmen in that he was so indifferent to a comfortable life that it would not bother him to live all his life in a shabby little room where he had absolutely no need of all the people around him. It is gorgeous thing.I suppose he never noticed how dirty the wallpaper was in his room when I first went to see him.He didn't even want to sit in an easy chair; he was more at ease in one without arms.He has a good appetite, but he doesn't care what he eats at all, as long as he eats it, he can eat as much as he can.Sometimes there is a pause, and he seems to have the ability to starve.I learned that for about half a year, he lived on a piece of bread and a bottle of milk every day.He was originally a person who indulged in sensuality, but he could not be tempted at all in the face of various temptations.He does not see the hardships of life as hardships.There was something memorable about his attitude to life, and his life was entirely spiritual.

Nor did he become discouraged and panicked when he spent the small sum of money he had brought from London.He couldn't sell a single painting, and I don't think he even wanted to.He started making a little money somehow.He told me, self-deprecatingly, that for a time he had been a tour guide for Londoners who wanted to see the nightlife in Paris, a job that suited his cynical temper.On the other hand, he had extensive knowledge and familiarity with the unseemly neighborhoods of the city.He told me he would spend hours walking up and down the Rue de la Madeleine, hoping to be hired by Brits, preferably slightly drunk, who wanted to see what the law forbade.With luck, he can earn a handsome tip.But later, his tattered clothes scared away tourists, and he couldn't find any guests who were adventurous enough to take themselves into his hands.He then happened to also work in translating advertisements for proprietary pharmaceuticals to be advertised and marketed in England.He was also employed as a house painter during a strike.

At the same time, he never stopped his artistic creation.But before long, he got tired of going to various studios to paint, and completely shut himself in the room to create.He had never been so poor that he had no money to buy canvases and paints, and he really didn't need anything else.As far as I can tell, he had great difficulty drawing, for he was unwilling to accept help from anyone, and so wasted much of his time figuring out how to solve technical problems that a few generations ago The seniors have already solved it one by one.His aim was something I didn't know, maybe he couldn't even articulate it himself.I had had this impression of him in the past, and it was stronger now: he was obsessed with something.He seemed rather out of order, reluctant to show his paintings, it seemed to me, as if he wasn't really interested in them himself.He lives in a dream, and reality is ignored by him.I have the feeling that he has put all the power of his violent personality onto the canvas, and that everything is evidently endowed by his efforts with what Strickland's thinking eye sees, and the final finished It may not even be a painting anymore.I know that he can seldom finish one thing, and painting is the same. After a burst of passion is burned, he may leave everything there.He was never satisfied with what he did: his paintings were nothing compared to the visions that haunted his mind.

"Why don't you ever send your work to exhibitions?" I asked. "I guess you'd like to hear what people have to say." "Will you listen?" I cannot describe it with the contempt with which he said this. "Don't you want to be famous? That's what most artists are passionate about." "A woman's point of view, if you don't care what individual people think of your work, how can you care what a group of people think of you?" "Not all of us are rational animals," I said with a smile. "Who made the fame? The critic, the writer, the stockbroker, or the woman?"

“When you think about people you don’t know, people you’ve never met, and feel all the emotions, nuanced and passionate, in your paintings, don’t you feel exhilarated and fulfilled? Individuals like to show strength, to touch people's souls, to make them pity or fear, and I can't think of a more sublime way to show strength." "A farce." "Then why do you still care whether the painting is good or not?" "I don't mind, I just want to draw what I see." "If I was writing on a desert island, the only thing I could be sure of was that only I could see what I wrote, and I doubt I'd be able to keep writing."

Strickland did not speak for a long time, but his eyes shone strangely, as if he saw something that kindled his soul and captivated him. "Sometimes I also imagine a deserted island lost in the endless sea, where I can live in hidden valleys, among strange and towering trees, all around is silent. There, I think, I can find myself something you want." In fact, he didn't really express it like this, he used various gestures instead of adjectives, and he stuttered without a complete sentence.I was paraphrasing what I thought he was trying to say in my own words. "Looking back at the past five years, do you think it was worth it?" I asked.

He looks at me.I knew he didn't understand me, so I explained: "You gave up the comfort of your home and the happiness of being an ordinary person. You were doing pretty well, and you seemed to be dying in Paris. If you could go back in time, would you still do that? ?” "Of course it will." "You know you haven't asked anything about your wife and kids yet? You never miss them?" "In no mood." "I wish you wouldn't be jumping out the fucking word. Don't you have a moment's remorse for all the misfortune you've caused them?"

He grinned and shook his head. "I thought you couldn't help thinking about the past sometimes, I don't mean the past seven or eight years ago, it was earlier, like when you first met your wife and you fell in love with her , and later married her. Don't you remember the joy you had when you held her tightly in your arms?" "I never recall the past, the only thing that matters to me is the eternal present." I thought about this answer for a while, maybe it was vague, but I vaguely understood what he meant. "Are you happy?" I asked. "yes."

I was silent again.I looked at him in thought, and he looked at me intently, and after a while, the mocking light flashed in his eyes again. "I'm afraid you have some opinion of me?" "Nonsense," I replied quickly, "I don't have any idea about boa constrictors, but I'm interested in its psychological activities instead." "Is your interest in me purely professional?" "Purely." "It's only natural that you don't object to me, because your character is also very mean." "Maybe that's why you feel so comfortable with me," I countered.

He smiled dryly and said nothing.I wish I knew how to describe his smile, I don't find his smile attractive at all, but it brightens up his face, changes his usually dark expression on his face, makes him look less full Malicious and mean.It was a slow smile that started and sometimes ended in the corner of the eye.It was a sensual smile, neither cruel nor friendly, but one could not help but think of the bestial joy of a satyr god.It was this smile that prompted me to ask him: "Since you came to Paris, have you ever been in love again?" "I don't have time for this nonsense. Life's too short to be both romantic and artistic." "You don't look like a hermit with pure six senses." "All that sort of thing makes me sick." "Humanity is a liability, isn't it?" I said. "Why are you smirking at me?" "Because I can't believe what you say." "Then you're a bloody fool." I didn't speak, and looked at him carefully. "What's the use of you trying to lie to me?" I said. "I don't understand you." I laughed. "Let me tell you. I can imagine, for months, that kind of thing really didn't enter your head, and then you can convince yourself that you're cut off from it forever, and you cheer yourself free , you feel that you can control your soul. You seem to be able to walk among the stars with your head held high. But then, you suddenly feel that you can't take it anymore, and you notice that your feet have been walking in the mud, and you even Still wanting to roll in it, you go for a woman, a rough, low, vulgar woman, she's a beast, a horrible sexual display, you throw her down like a beast, you get drunk till you're pissed off .” He stared at me without moving, and I looked into his eyes, and very slowly I said: "I'll also tell you that it all seems absurd, and when you're done, you feel extraordinarily pure. You feel like you're out of your body, out of form. You can touch beauty as if it were a palpable object. You feel like you can whisper to the breeze, the trees with their leaves, and the sparkling river. You feel like God. Can you explain this feeling to me?" He stared into my eyes until I had finished speaking, then turned away.There was a strange expression on his face, which, I suppose, is that of a man who is about to die after suffering.He was silent and I knew our conversation was over.