"I don'tpretend to be a great painter, " he said, "I'm not a Michael Angelo,no, but I have something. I sell. I bring romance into the homes of all sortsof people. Do you know, they buy my pictures not only in Holland, but in Norwayand Sweden and Denmark? It's mostly merchants who buy them, and rich tradesmen.You can't imagine what the winters are like in those countries, so long anddark and cold. They like to think that Italy is like my pictures. That's whatthey expect. That's what I expected Italy to be before I came here. "

And I thinkthat was the vision that had remained with him always, dazzling his eyes sothat he could not see the truth; and notwithstanding the brutality of fact, hecontinued to see with the eyes of the spirit an Italy of romantic brigands andpicturesque ruins. It was an ideal that he painted -- a poor one, common andshop-soiled, but still it was an ideal; and it gave his character a peculiarcharm.

“我知道自己不是个伟大的画家，”他对我说，“我不是米开朗基罗，不是的，但是我有自己的东西。我的画有人要买。我把浪漫情调带进各种人的家庭里。你知道，不只在荷兰，就是在挪威、瑞典和丹麦也有人买我的画。买画的主要是商人，有钱的生意人。那些国家里冬天是什么样子你恐怕想象不到，阴沉、寒冷、长得没有尽头。他们喜欢看到我画中的意大利景象。那是他们所希望看到的意大利，也是我没来这里以前想象中的意大利。”

我觉得这是他永远也抛弃不掉的幻景，这种幻景闪得他眼花缭乱，叫他看不到真实情景。他不顾眼前严酷的事实，总用自己幻想的目光凝视着一个到处是浪漫主义的侠盗、美丽如画的废墟的意大利。他画的是他理想中的境界——尽管他的理想很幼稚、很庸俗、很陈旧，但终究是个理想；这就赋予了他的性格一种迷人的色彩。