Chapter 41 Chapter Forty-One

We got to the house where I was staying and I didn't want him to come in with me, but went up the stairs silently.He followed me, following my footsteps into the room.He hadn't been here before, but he didn't even glance at my room, which I had painstakingly furnished to be considered pleasing.Seeing a tin box of tobacco on the table, he took out his pipe and filled it himself.He sat in the only armless chair and leaned back, crossing the front legs of the chair. "If you want to make yourself comfortable, why don't you sit in an armchair?" I said gruffly. "Why do you care about my comfort?"

"I don't care," I shot back, "I just care about how I feel, and seeing someone in an uncomfortable chair makes me feel uncomfortable." He giggled, but didn't move, smoking quietly, not paying attention to me, as if lost in his own meditation.I'd love to know why he came to my apartment. There is something puzzling about the writer, the writer's instinct makes him interested in the eccentricities of human nature, and the interest is so strong that the moral sense is powerless to resist this concentration, until long-term habits become natural, it should be All sensibilities for moral judgment are blunted.He himself was aware of the artistic satisfaction of observing and contemplating an evil that surprised him a little.But the sincerity of the writer will lead him to admit that he is far less critical of certain actions than his curiosity about them and the motive of inquiring into their causes.Creating a villain, logical and well-rounded, is appealing to a writer but antithetical to law and order.I imagine that when Shakespeare created Iago with great care, he might have been more passionate about imagining the character of Desdemona in the moonlight.Perhaps it is in creating these villains that the writer satisfies a wicked instinct rooted in him.This instinct in a civilized world is forced to hide in the most mysterious corners of the subconscious by manners and customs.A writer can make the characters in his works vivid and lifelike, that is to integrate some instincts that he cannot express into the characterization.It is from this feeling of natural liberation that the writer's contentment comes.

Writers are more concerned with knowing than judging. In my heart there was an unadulterated, unadulterated horror of Strickland, accompanied by a cold curiosity to discover his motives.He confuses me, and I'm eager to find out what he thinks about a tragedy he's caused, involving someone who was so kind to him.I boldly use the "scalpel" to start dissecting. "Stroeve told me that your painting of his wife is the best you have ever done." Strickland took his pipe from his mouth and smiled with gleam in his eyes. "I drew that picture just for fun." "Why did you give the painting to Stroeve?"

"When I finish painting it, it doesn't mean anything to me anymore." "Did you know that Stroeve almost destroyed it?" "The painting is totally unsatisfactory." He was silent for a moment, then took the pipe out of his mouth again and giggled. "Did you know that little man came to see me?" "The things he said didn't move you at all?" "No, I think it's all fucking stupid and mother-in-law talk." "I guess you've forgotten that you ruined his life, haven't you?" I demanded. He rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully.

"He's a bad painter." "But he's a nice guy." "An excellent cook, too," added Strickland, not without irony. His ruthlessness has reached the point of inhumanity, and under the anger, I am not going to say my words politely. "Just out of curiosity, I hope you can tell me, do you really feel no guilt about Blanche Stroeve's death?" I watched his face for signs of a change of expression, but found no change at all. "Why should I feel guilty?" he asked. "Let me lay the facts for you, when you were dying it was Dirk Stroeve who took you into his own home and nursed you like a mother, sacrificing his time, his comforts for you and money, dragged you back from the clutches of death."

Strickland shrugged. "This ridiculous little guy likes to do stuff like that for other people, that's his way of life." "Even if you don't have to thank him a thousand times, can you snatch his wife from him? Before you appeared, they lived happily. Why can't you let him live a good life?" "Why do you think they live happily?" "That's obvious." "You're a sharp-eyed guy. Do you think she can forgive him after what he did for her?" "What do you mean by that?" "You really don't know why he married her?"

I shook my head. "She was governess to some little Roman prince whose son seduced her. She thought he would marry her, but they kicked her out of the house and just ignored her. She was about to give birth. , desperately trying to kill herself, Stroeve found her and married her." "That's really like him. I don't know anyone who is more sympathetic." I used to wonder how such a mismatched couple could become a family, but for reasons I never dreamed of.Perhaps this is why Dirk's love for his wife is so special, and I have noticed in it something that goes far beyond passion.I also remember how I used to imagine that in her introversion there were things I didn't understand.But now it dawned on me that she wished to hide more than just a shameful secret.Her tranquility was like a sullen cloud conceived over some island, which would soon be broken by a hurricane that swept across everything.Her gaiety was the gaiety of despair.I was interrupted by Strickland, who surprised me with a cynical but profound remark, evidently derived from observation.

"A woman can forgive a man for hurting her," he said, "but she will never forgive a man for sacrificing for her sake." "Of course you won't take the risk of being resented by the woman you're related to. You can rest assured on this point." I retorted. There was a slight smile on the corner of his mouth. "You're always ready to sacrifice your principles for a witty retort," he also shot back. "What happened to that child?" "Oh, it was born three or four months after they got married, and it was stillborn." Next, I asked the question that seemed to bother me the most.

"Can you tell me why you even bothered with Blanche Stroeve?" He didn't say anything for a long time, and I almost repeated my question again. "How do I know?" he finally said. "She can't bear to look at me, and it amuses me." "I see." He was suddenly furious. "Fuck, I just want her." But soon he calmed down again, looked at me and smiled. "At first, she was just terrified." "You told her you wanted her?" "Not at all, she knows. I didn't tell her a word, she was scared to death, but I got her in the end."

I don't know if there was anything in the way he told me that surprised me, but it was something that suggested the intensity of his desire in a different way.This stuff is disturbing and pretty scary.His life is unusual, as if separated from material things, but it seems that his body will take revenge on the spirit from time to time, and the satyr in him will suddenly gain the upper hand, and he becomes completely helpless in the clutches of instinct. Powerless to resist, to the primal forces of his nature to conquer, there was no place in his soul for prudence or gratitude. "But why did you abduct her?" I pressed.

"I didn't," he said, frowning. "I was almost as surprised as Stroeve when she said she was going to go with me. I told her she had to go when I didn't want her any more. Yes. She said she was willing to take the risk." He paused again, "She has a perfect body and I wanted to paint her nude, and when I finished the painting, I lost interest in her .” "But she loves you with all her heart." He jumped up and walked up and down my little room. "I don't want love, I don't have time for love. It's a human weakness. I'm a man, and sometimes I want a woman. When I've fulfilled my passion, I'm ready for other things. I can't Overcoming desire, but I hate it. Desire has imprisoned my spirit, and I look forward to the day when I will be free from all desire and let me go to work without hindrance. Because women can't do anything but love, so they put love To ludicrous importance, they try to convince us that love is all there is to life. Love is an insignificant part of life. I know lust, which is normal and healthy. Love is a disease. Women are the tools of my enjoyment, and I don't have the patience to be the helper, partner, companion they ask for." I had never heard Strickland talk so much at once before, and he spoke with justice.But, neither here nor elsewhere, I can't pretend that these are his exact words; he doesn't have a large vocabulary and no talent for framing sentences, so I'm forced to guess, Use the exclamations he utters, the look on his face, gestures, and clichés to piece together what he means. "You should live in a time when women are slaves and men are masters," I said. "I just happen to be a perfectly normal man." I couldn't help but laugh out loud after hearing him say this seriously.But he went on, walking up and down the room like a caged animal, trying to express what he felt, but finding it difficult to coherently say what he said. "When a woman loves you, she cannot be satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she is weak, she has a strong desire to dominate. She will not be reconciled until she completely possesses and dominates you. Her narrow mind, So abhorring the abstract that cannot be grasped, full of material things, and jealous of the man's ideal. While the man's soul wanders in the highest place of the universe, she seeks to imprison him in the daily life with the balance sheet Do you remember my wife? I see that Blanche is using all her tricks little by little, with infinite patience, and she is going to entrap me and imprison me. She wants to bring me down until On her level, she doesn't care about me except to make me her prey. She would do anything in the world for me except one thing I really want: to be left alone on." I was silent for a while. "What did you expect her to do when you left her?" "She can go back to Stroeve," he said gruffly, "and he's always ready to receive her." "You're so inhuman," I replied, "that it's like describing colors to someone born blind." He stopped by my chair, stood in front of me and looked down at me with a look of contempt and amazement, and I could see what was behind his look. "Do you really fucking care that much about Blanche Stroeve's life?" I gave his question some serious thought, because I wanted to answer it truthfully, at any rate from my soul. "If I say her death didn't affect me, it's just that I don't have much empathy. Life gave her so much and I think her life was taken in such a cruel way. It's a terrible thing. I'm ashamed to say it, because I really don't care too much." "You don't have the courage to say what you really want to say. Life is worthless, and Blanche Stroeve killed herself not because I left her, but because she was a stupid, unbalanced Woman. But we've talked enough about her, she's a totally insignificant woman, come on, I'll show you my drawing." He talks like I'm a kid who needs a little distraction.I was annoyed, not so much with him as with myself.I thought again of the Stroeves.They had lived a happy life in that warm studio in Montmartre, a couple so simple, kind and hospitable, but this happiness was broken to pieces by cruel fate. I think it is a cruel thing. things.And the cruelest thing is that this tragedy did not actually have much impact on people's lives. Sunrise and sunset, life went on as usual, and no one lived worse because of this tragic event.I also thought that even Dierke, a man with a lot of emotional fluctuations and insufficient emotional depth, would quickly forget things.However, Blanche's life, when she came into life with bright hopes and beautiful dreams, now it seems that she has never existed, and everything looks so empty and stupid. Strickland had taken up his hat, stood looking at me, and said: "are you coming?" "Why do you try to get on with me?" I asked him. "You know I hate and despise you." He laughed happily. "You're the only one who fights with me and I don't give a damn what you think of me." I felt my cheeks turn red from the sudden anger.But there is no way to make him understand that, with his ruthless selfishness, he can make others burn with anger.I wanted to pierce his armor of indifference, but I also knew that, after all, he had a point.Perhaps, without realizing it, we actually value our influence over others, judging our influence by assessing how they would perceive our opinion of them.In the same way, hating those we can't influence is the most painful wound in human self-esteem, I think, but I won't let him see it, because of his words and actions, I am very angry. "Is it possible for a man to be completely indifferent to others?" I said, speaking not so much to him as to myself, "you have to depend on others in order to exist. Want to live only for yourself, only by yourself The attempt is absurd. Sooner or later, you will be sick, tired and old, and then you will crawl back into the crowd. Aren't you ashamed when you long for comfort and sympathy in your heart? You are trying An impossibility, sooner or later the humanity in you will yearn for the common bond of humanity." "Come with me to see my paintings." "Have you thought about death?" "Why should I think? It doesn't matter if I die or not." I stare at him.He stood in front of me, motionless, with a hint of mockery in his eyes.But besides that, for a moment I seemed to see the beginnings of a hot, tormented soul aiming at something greater than anything bound to the body and capable of appreciating.What I glimpsed was an ardent pursuit of something indescribable.I looked at the ragged man in front of me, with his big nose and shining eyes, his red beard and tousled hair.I suddenly had a fantasy, the appearance is just a shell, and what is presented in front of me is a soul that has broken away from the body. "Let's go and see your paintings." I said.