It was not onlythe bold simplification of the drawing which showed so rich and so singular apersonality; it was not only the painting, though the flesh was painted with apassionate sensuality which had in it something miraculous; it was not only thesolidity, so that you felt extraordinarily the weight of the body; there wasalso a spirituality, troubling and new, which led the imagination alongunsuspected ways, and suggested dim empty spaces, lit only by the eternalstars, where the soul, all naked, adventured fearful to the discovery of newmysteries.

If I amrhetorical it is because Stroeve was rhetorical. (Do we not know that man inmoments of emotion expresses himself naturally in the terms of a novelette?)Stroeve was trying to express a feeling which he had never known before, and hedid not know how to put it into common terms. He was like the mystic seeking todescribe the ineffable. But one fact he made clear to me; people talk of beautylightly, and having no feeling for words, they use that one carelessly, so thatit loses its force; and the thing it stands for, sharing its name with ahundred trivial objects, is deprived of dignity. They call beautiful a dress, adog, a sermon; and when they are face to face with Beauty cannot recognise it.

这幅画之所以能显示出这样强烈、这样独特的个性，并不只是因为它那极为大胆的简单的线条，不只是因为它的处理方法（尽管那肉体被画得带有一种强烈的、几乎可以说是奇妙的欲情），也不只是因为它给人的实体感，使你几乎奇异地感觉到那肉体的重量，而且还因为它有一种纯精神的性质，一种使你感到不安、感到新奇的精神，把你的幻想引向前所未经的路途，把你带到一个朦胧空虚的境界，那里为探索新奇的神秘只有永恒的星辰在照耀，你感到自己的灵魂一无牵挂，正经历着各种恐怖和冒险。

如果我在这里有些舞文弄墨，使用了不少形象比喻，这是因为施特略夫当时就是这么表达他自己的。（估量大家都知道，一旦感情激动起来，一个人会很自然地玩弄起文学词藻来的。）施特略夫企图表达的是一种他过去从来没经历过的感觉，如果用一般的言语，他简直不知道该如何说出口来。他象是一个神秘主义者费力地宣讲一个无法言传的道理。但是有一件事我还是清楚的：人们动不动就谈美，实际上对这个词并不理解；这个词已经使用得太滥，失去了原有的力量；因为成千上万的琐屑事物都分享了“美”的称号，这个词已经被剥夺掉它的崇高的含义了。一件衣服，一只狗，一篇布道词，什么东西人们都用“美”来形容，当他们面对面地遇到真正的美时，反而认不出它来了。