Chapter 54 Chapter Fifty-Four

As we walked along, I pondered Strickland's condition.I've heard a lot about him lately, but it's the environment that has caught my attention the most.Here, on this remote island, he seemed to arouse not the slightest repugnance, but rather sympathy, as he had done at home.His eccentricities were tolerated and accepted.To the people here, native or European, he was an oddity, but they were used to all sorts of oddities, so they took him for granted.This world is full of weird people, and these people often do extraordinary things. Maybe people here can understand that a person is not what he wants to be, but what he has to be.Where in England and France he was a square wedge driven into a round hole, always out of place with the public, here, with holes of every shape, any wedge will find a suitable hole.I don't think he's softened here, less selfish or cruel, I can only say that the environment here is more suitable for him.If he had spent his life in such an environment in the first place, he would not have been such a bad person in the eyes of others. Here he received something that he neither expected nor would have expected from his own people—— That is compassion.

I tried to tell Captain Bruno that I was filled with something that surprised me.He didn't answer me for a moment. "It's not surprising that I should have sympathy for him anyway," he concluded, "because, while we may not both know exactly what it is, our goal is the same." "What the hell is this? You and Strickland, two completely different people, have the same goal?" I asked with a smile. "beautiful." "Too profound." I muttered. "You know what it's like to be in love? They're blind and deaf to everything in the world but love. They're no longer their own masters, but they're trapped like on the benches of a galleon." Slave in chains, rowing involuntarily. Strickland's passions are bound as fast as dogmatic love, and more than that."

"How strange to hear you say that!" I replied, "because long ago I thought he was possessed by the devil." "The passion in Strickland was precisely a passion for beauty that made him restless. It drove him from place to place. He was like an eternal pilgrim, haunted by the sacred place, and in his heart And so ruthless is the devil who takes possession. There are those whose desire for truth is so strong that they would turn the foundations of their world upside down in order to obtain it. Strickland was such a man, only But in him beauty takes the place of truth, and the only thing I feel for him is deep sympathy."

"That sounds strange, too. Someone who was deeply hurt by Strickland told me that he had a lot of sympathy for Strickland." I was silent for a while, "I'd love to know Have you found an explanation for a person that has always seemed inexplicable to me. How did you come up with these truths?" He turned to me with a smile and said: "Didn't I tell you that in my way, I am also an artist? I realize that the same desires as mine are also surging in him, but his medium is painting, while mine is life." Then Captain Bruno told me another story, which I shall repeat here.For it adds something to my impression of Strickland, even in terms of contrast.In my opinion, the story itself also has a beautiful connotation.

Captain Bruno was a Breton who had served in the French navy.He left the army after his marriage, and settled in a modest estate near Quimper, intending to live out the rest of his life in peace.But the agent business that handled all the investments for him failed, and suddenly he found himself penniless.Neither he nor his wife wanted to live a life of abject poverty in a place where they still enjoyed a certain status.When he was a soldier at sea, he had cruised the South Pacific in a warship, so he decided to try his luck there.He spent several months implementing plans and gaining experience in Papeete, and later, on a loan from a friend in France, he bought an island in the Baumotus archipelago. There is a ring-shaped land, and in the middle of the land is a deep lagoon.The island was uninhabited, only covered with bushes and wild guavas, and with a fearless woman, his wife, and a few locals, set foot on the land and began building houses, clearing the bushes, to plant coconut trees.Twenty years have passed, and now that deserted island has become a small garden.

"In the beginning, it was a huge and fraught project, with both of us working like hell. I got up at dawn every day, cleared the bushes, planted crops, repaired the house, and at night, as soon as I collapsed in the In bed, I slept till morning like a dead dog. My wife worked as hard as I did. Then we had another baby, first a son and then a daughter. My wife and I put Taught them all we knew. We had a piano consigned from France. She taught them to play the piano and speak English, and I taught them Latin and math, and we read history together. The children It's great to be able to paddle a boat, swim like a local, and know everything about the island. The various trees we planted thrived and the shellfish we raised on the reef thrived. My visit this time Tahiti came to buy a schooner. I could catch enough mussels in this boat to maybe make my money back, who knows? I might catch some pearls .I have built from nothing. I have also created beauty. Ah, you don't know, when you see these tall and straight trees, think about how I planted each of them, what kind of mood it is .”

"I ask the same question you once asked Strickland: do you not regret leaving France at all, and do you not miss your native Brittany at all?" "One day, when my daughter is married and my son is married and able to take my place on the island, my wife and I will return to our homeland and spend our last days in the old house where I was born. years." "You look back at that time and feel that life was very happy," I said. "That's for sure, life on my little island is pretty uneventful, and we're so far away from the outside world--think, I'd have to sail four days at sea to get to Tahiti--but there we Very happy. Only a few people can try a job and achieve extraordinary results. Our life is simple and simple. We will not be driven by ambition, and if we have any pride, it is only with our hands. so much can be achieved. We shall have neither malice nor envious lashes. Ah, my dear sir, some may think that 'work brings happiness' is a meaningless phrase, but to For me, this sentence has the most significant meaning, because I am such a happy person."

"I'm sure that's true for you, you deserve happiness," I said with a smile. "I wish I felt the same way. I don't know what I've done to get such a wonderful wife, a wonderful friend and helper, a wonderful lover and a perfect mother to my children." The captain's words created a new outlook on life in my mind, and I pondered for a while. "Obviously, you have succeeded under those living conditions, and there must have been a strong will and a strong will in both of you." "Maybe so, but if it wasn't for another factor, we might as well have gotten nowhere."

"What is that factor?" He stopped in his tracks and opened his arms in a somewhat theatrical way. "Trust in God, without which we would be lost." While we were talking, we came to Dr. Kutras's house.