Chapter 43 forty three

Looking back, I find that what I wrote about Charles Strickland seems unsatisfactory.I write down things that I know, but I don't write clearly because I don't know the real reason why they happened.Nothing is more puzzling than Strickland's determination to become a painter, for which there seems to be absolutely no reason.Although there must be a reason to be found from the circumstances of his life, I knew nothing of it.I didn't get any clues from his talk.If I were writing a novel instead of telling the real story of an odd man I know, I would invent reasons for this sudden change in his life.I will describe how he felt that painting was his vocation when he was a child, but this dream was shattered due to his father's strict orders or he had to run for a living; I could also describe how he hated the shackles of life and how he felt about art. The conflict between love and life's duties is used to arouse the reader's sympathy for him.That way I can make the man Strickland even more awesome.Maybe people can see another Prometheus in him.I may create a contemporary hero who is willing to endure pain and suffering for the benefit of mankind.This is always a touching subject.

In addition, I can also find Strickland's motivation for painting from his marriage relationship.I can handle this story in more than a dozen ways: because his wife likes to associate with people in the literary and artistic circles, he also had the chance to meet some literati and painters, thus awakening the hidden artistic talent in him; Turn the energy to yourself; otherwise, it can be attributed to love. For example, I can write that he has long buried the fire of loving art in his heart, and because he fell in love with a woman, he suddenly fanned the smoldering fire into a raging flame.I think that if I write it like this, Mrs. Strickland will appear in another form in my pen.I'm going to have to fiddle with the facts a bit and make her a nagging, annoying woman, or a narrow-minded person who doesn't understand the needs of the spirit.Strickland's married life is an endless torment, and running away from home will be his only way out.I thought I would dwell more on Strickland's condescension, his pity, and his reluctance to throw off the chains that tormented him.In this way, of course I will not mention their two children.

If I want to make the story realistic and touching, I can also make up an old painter and ask Strickland to have a relationship with him.The old painter, driven by hunger and cold, or perhaps in pursuit of fame, squandered the genius of his youth. He later saw his squandered talent in Strickland, and he influenced Strickland. Rand, tell him to abandon the glory of the world and devote himself to the sacred art.I will try to describe this successful old man, rich and famous, but he knows that this is not the real life, what he can't find himself, he wants to experience in this young man; Irony.

But the truth is far less touching than I imagined.Strickland had no aversion to a life in a broker's firm right out of school.Until he got married, he lived the ordinary and mediocre life of a person in this industry, engaged in a few small speculations on the stock exchange, followed the results of the Dalby horse race or the Oxford and Cambridge races, at best, only once or twice. Pound money bet.I imagined that Strickland probably practiced boxing when he wasn't working; there was a picture of Mrs. Longray with Mary Anderson on the mantelpiece; she read Punch and Sports Times; To the ball in Hampstead.

It didn't matter that I didn't see him again for a long time.During all these years he was striving to master a very difficult art, and his life was very monotonous; and he was sometimes obliged to resort to expedient means in order to earn his living, which I do not think is worth writing much about. place for books.Even if I were able to record this period of his life, it would be no more than a record of the events he saw happen to other people.I don't think his experiences during this period had any effect on his own character.If he were to write an adventure novel set in modern Paris, he might have amassed a wealth of material.But he always took a detached attitude towards his surroundings; and judging from his conversation, nothing happened during these years that made a special impression on him.It is likely that when he went to Paris, he was already too old, and the grotesque environment no longer attracted him.Strange as it may sound, I always felt that he was not only very practical, but almost stupid.I think this part of his life is very romantic, but he never sees any romantic color.Perhaps one must be something of an actor if one wants to feel the romance of life; .But Strickland was a man of two minds, and no one could equal him in that respect.I don't know anyone who is always so conscious of his own existence.Unfortunately, I cannot describe his diligent footsteps on the arduous journey of artistic achievement; because, if I could write how he failed repeatedly without being discouraged, how he struggled with courage, never pessimistic and disappointed, how The artist's arch-enemy--the moment when confidence falters, still struggles with indomitable struggle--maybe I can induce some sympathy in the reader for such a dull character (I know this very well).But I have no factual basis for one aspect of the description.I never saw Strickland at work, and I know that no one else, not just me, saw him paint.A history of his struggles is his personal secret.If he had ever wrestled violently with an angel of God in his solitude in his studio, he never made his suffering known to anyone.

When I began to describe his relationship with Blanche Stroeve, I also suffered from my lack of material.To complete my story I should describe how their tragic union developed, but I know nothing of their three months of living together.I don't know how they get along, or what they usually talk about.After all, there are twenty-four hours in a day, and emotional heights are only a phenomenon reached in rare moments.How the rest of the time passed I can only use my imagination.Until the light dimmed, and so long as Blanche's strength lasted, Strickland, I think, kept on painting.I think Blanche must have been very annoyed that he was so absorbed in his painting.All this time she was only his model, and the role of her mistress never occurred to him.Besides, even long moments of relative silence must have been a terrible thing to her.Strickland once confided to me that Blanche was dedicated to him with a certain feeling of vengeance against Dirk Stroeve for killing her when she had humiliated her. Rescued; and this secret revealed by Strickland opened the door to many abstruse conjectures.I hope Strickland's words aren't true; I think it's a little too horrible.But then again, who can understand the mysteries of the human heart?Those who only hope to find noble sentiments and normal feelings in the human heart will certainly not understand.It must have pained Blanche to discover that Strickland, save for occasional outbursts of enthusiasm, kept his distance from her; and I suspect that even in those brief moments she knew very well Strickland only regards her as a tool for his own amusement, not as a human being.He was always a stranger, and she tried desperately by all pitiful means to keep him close to her.She tried to snare him with a comfortable life, but she didn't know that he didn't mind the comfortable environment at all.She tried her best to get him something to eat, but she couldn't see that he didn't care what he ate.She was afraid to leave him alone, she was constantly showing him concern and attention, and when his passion fell asleep, she tried every means to wake it up, because then she could at least have a way to hold him in it. The illusion of hands.Perhaps her wit told her that the chains she had forged merely stimulated his instinct to break them, just as thick glass makes one's hand itch to pick up half a brick.But her heart, against the counsel of reason, always forced her to slide down a road she knew must lead to destruction.She must have been very painful, but the blindness of love convinced her that her pursuit was real, that her love was great, and it was impossible not to repay her by awakening the same love in him.

But my analysis of Strickland's character suffers from another, more serious defect, besides being ignorant of many facts.Because his relations with women were so obvious and truly shocking, I recorded them as they were, but they were actually a very insignificant part of his life.Although this relationship affects others tragically, it is just a mockery of fate.In fact, Strickland's real life was full of dreams as well as hard work. The reason why the novel is not true is here.Generally speaking, love is only an episode in a man, one of the many affairs of daily life, but novels exaggerate love and give it an important place that violates the reality of life.Although there are a small number of men who regard love as the most important thing in the world, these people are often dull people; even women who are infinitely interested in love do not think highly of such men.A woman is attracted to such men, she is flattered by them, but there is an uneasy feeling that these men are poor creatures.Men, even during the short spells of their love affairs, are constantly distracted by other things: the business of subsistence attracts their attention; they indulge in sports; they may also be interested in the arts.For the most part, they arrange their different activities in separate intervals, performing one activity to the complete exclusion of the other for a while.They have the ability to concentrate on the activity in which they are engaged; they are very annoyed if one activity is violated by another.As lovers, the difference between a man and a woman is that a woman can fall in love all day and all night, while a man can only do it sometimes and for a while.

Sexual hunger played a small, unimportant, or rather repulsive place in Strickland.His soul was after something else.His passions were so strong that lust sometimes seized him and drove him into wild orgies, but he resented the instinct that robbed him of his serenity.I think he even loathes his neces- sary companion in voluptuous debauchery; and, after he has regained his control, he even shudders at the sight of the woman with whom he has given vent to his passion.His thoughts would float peacefully in the nine heavens at this moment, and he would feel disgusted and terrible for that woman, perhaps like a butterfly fluttering among flowers, seeing her victoriously sloughed filthy body. Like the pupal shell.I think art is also an expression of sexual instinct.A beautiful woman, the Gulf of Naples under the golden moon, or Titian's famous painting "The Catacombs" evoke the same emotion in people's hearts.It is likely that Strickland hated expressing his feelings through sexual acts (which is quite normal), because he felt that it was crude compared with self-gratification through artistic creation.I myself find it strange that when I describe such a cruel, selfish, brutish, sensual man, I should write him as a man of great spirituality.But I think it's true.

As an artist, his life was more difficult than that of any other artist.He also worked harder than other artists.Strickland was scornful of what most people think would make life more elegant and beautiful.He is indifferent to fame and altruism.Most of us are overwhelmed by the temptations to make concessions to worldliness; but you can't praise Strickland for resisting them, because for him there was no such thing. of.No compromise or concession had ever entered his mind.He lived in Paris more solitary than a hermit in the desert of Thebes.He doesn't ask for anything from other people, he just asks them not to disturb him.He was single-minded in the pursuit of his purpose, and to that end he was willing to sacrifice not only himself--which many people still do--but the sacrifice of others.He has a vision of his own.

Strickland was a nuisance, but for all that I thought he was a great man.