I let him takeme to a restaurant of his choice, but on the way I bought a paper. When we hadordered our dinner, I propped it against a bottle of St. Galmier and began toread. We ate in silence. I felt him looking at me now and again, but I took nonotice. I meant to force him to conversation.

"Is thereanything in the paper?" he said, as we approached the end of our silentmeal.

I fancied therewas in his tone a slight note of exasperation.

"I alwayslike to read the feuilleton on the drama, " I said.

I folded thepaper and put it down beside me.

"I'veenjoyed my dinner, " he remarked.

"I thinkwe might have our coffee here, don't you?"

"Yes."

We lit our cigars.I smoked in silence. I noticed that now and then his eyes rested on me with afaint smile of amusement. I waited patiently.

"What haveyou been up to since I saw you last?" he asked at length.

I had not verymuch to say. It was a record of hard work and of little adventure; ofexperiments in this direction and in that; of the gradual acquisition of theknowledge of books and of men. I took care to ask Strickland nothing about hisown doings. I showed not the least interest in him, and at last I was rewarded.He began to talk of himself. But with his poor gift of expression he gave butindications of what he had gone through, and I had to fill up the gaps with myown imagination. It was tantalising to get no more than hints into a characterthat interested me so much. It was like making one's way through a mutilatedmanuscript. I received the impression of a life which was a bitter struggleagainst every sort of difficulty; but I realised that much which would haveseemed horrible to most people did not in the least affect him. Strickland wasdistinguished from most Englishmen by his perfect indifference to comfort; itdid not irk him to live always in one shabby room; he had no need to be surroundedby beautiful things. I do not suppose he had ever noticed how dingy was thepaper on the wall of the room in which on my first visit I found him. He didnot want arm-chairs to sit in; he really felt more at his ease on a kitchenchair. He ate with appetite, but was indifferent to what he ate; to him it wasonly food that he devoured to still the pangs of hunger; and when no food wasto be had he seemed capable of doing without. I learned that for six months hehad lived on a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk a day. He was a sensual man,and yet was indifferent to sensual things. He looked upon privation as nohardship. There was something impressive in the manner in which he lived a lifewholly of the spirit.

When the smallsum of money which he brought with him from London came to an end he sufferedfrom no dismay. He sold no pictures; I think he made little attempt to sellany; he set about finding some way to make a bit of money. He told me with grimhumour of the time he had spent acting as guide to Cockneys who wanted to seethe night side of life in Paris; it was an occupation that appealed to hissardonic temper and somehow or other he had acquired a wide acquaintance withthe more disreputable quarters of the city. He told me of the long hours hespent walking about the Boulevard de la Madeleine on the look-out forEnglishmen, preferably the worse for liquor, who desired to see things whichthe law forbade. When in luck he was able to make a tidy sum; but theshabbiness of his clothes at last frightened the sight-seers, and he could notfind people adventurous enough to trust themselves to him. Then he happened ona job to translate the advertisements of patent medicines which were sentbroadcast to the medical profession in England. During a strike he had beenemployed as a house-painter.

Meanwhile hehad never ceased to work at his art; but, soon tiring of the studios, entirelyby himself. He had never been so poor that he could not buy canvas and paint,and really he needed nothing else. So far as I could make out, he painted withgreat difficulty, and in his unwillingness to accept help from anyone lost muchtime in finding out for himself the solution of technical problems whichpreceding generations had already worked out one by one. He was aiming atsomething, I knew not what, and perhaps he hardly knew himself; and I got againmore strongly the impression of a man possessed. He did not seem quite sane. Itseemed to me that he would not show his pictures because he was really notinterested in them. He lived in a dream, and the reality meant nothing to him.I had the feeling that he worked on a canvas with all the force of his violentpersonality, oblivious of everything in his effort to get what he saw with themind's eye; and then, having finished, not the picture perhaps, for I had anidea that he seldom brought anything to completion, but the passion that firedhim, he lost all care for it. He was never satisfied with what he had done; itseemed to him of no consequence compared with the vision that obsessed hismind.

"Why don'tyou ever send your work to exhibitions?" I asked. "I should havethought you'd like to know what people thought about it. "

"Wouldyou?"

I cannotdescribe the unmeasurable contempt he put into the two words.

"Don't youwant fame? It's something that most artists haven't been indifferent to. "

"Children.How can you care for the opinion of the crowd, when you don't care twopence forthe opinion of the individual?"

"We're notall reasonable beings, " I laughed.

"Who makesfame? Critics, writers, stockbrokers, women. "

"Wouldn'tit give you a rather pleasing sensation to think of people you don’t know andhad never seen receiving emotions, subtle and passionate, from the work of yourhands? Everyone likes power. I can't imagine a more wonderful exercise of itthan to move the souls of men to pity or terror. "

"Melodrama."

"Why doyou mind if you paint well or badly?"

"I don't.I only want to paint what I see. "

"I wonderif I could write on a desert island, with the certainty that no eyes but minewould ever see what I had written. "

我让他带我到一家他选定的餐馆，但是在路上走的时候我买了一份报纸。叫了菜以后，我就把报纸支在一瓶圣·卡尔密酒上，开始读报。我们一言不发地吃着饭。我发现他不时地看我一眼，但是我根本不理睬他。我准备逼着他自己讲话。

“报纸上有什么消息？”在我们这顿沉默无语的晚餐将近尾声时，他开口说。

也许这只是我的幻觉吧，从他的声音里我好象听出来他已经有些沉不住气了。

“我喜欢读评论戏剧的杂文，”我说。

我把报纸叠起来，放在一边。

“这顿饭吃得很不错，”他说。

“我看咱们就在这里喝咖啡好不好？”

“好吧。”

我们点起了雪茄。我一言不发地抽着烟。我发现他的目光时不时地停在我身上，隐约闪现着笑意。我耐心地等待着。

“从上次见面以后你都做什么了？”最后他开口说。

我没有太多的事好说。我的生活只不过是每日辛勤工作，没有什么奇闻艳遇。我在不同方向进行了摸索试验；我逐渐积累了不少书本知识和人情世故。在谈话中，对他这几年的生活我有意闭口不问，装作丝毫也不感兴趣的样子。最后，我的这个策略生效了。他主动谈起他的生活来。但是由于他太无口才，对他自己这一段时间的经历讲得支离破碎，许多空白都需要我用自己的想象去填补。对于这样一个我深感兴趣的人只能了解个大概，这真是一件吊人胃口的事，简直象读一部残缺不全的稿本。我的总印象是，这个人一直在同各式各样的困难艰苦斗争；但是我发现对于大多数人说来似乎是根本无法忍受的事，他却丝毫不以为苦。思特里克兰德与多数英国人不同的地方在于他完全不关心生活上的安乐舒适。叫他一辈子住在一间破破烂烂的屋子里他也不会感到不舒服，他不需要身边有什么漂亮的陈设。我猜想他从来没有注意到我第一次拜访他时屋子的糊墙纸是多么肮脏。他不需要有一张安乐椅，坐在硬靠背椅上他倒觉得更舒服自在。他的胃口很好，但对于究竟吃什么却漠不关心。对他说来他吞咽下去的只是为了解饥果腹的食物，有的时候断了顿儿，他好象还有挨饿的本领。从他的谈话中我知道他有六个月之久每天只靠一顿面包、一瓶牛奶过活。他是一个耽于饮食声色的人，但对这些事物又毫不在意。他不把忍饥受冻当作什么苦难。他这样完完全全地过着一种精神生活，不由你不被感动。

当他把从伦敦带来的一点钱花完以后，他也没有沮丧气馁。他没有出卖自己的画作，我想他在这方面并没有怎么努力。他开始寻找一些挣钱的门径。他用自我解嘲的语气告诉我，有一段日子他曾经给那些想领略巴黎夜生活的伦敦人当向导。由于他惯爱嘲讽挖苦，这倒是一个投合他脾气的职业。他对这座城市的那些不体面的地区逐渐都熟悉起来。他告诉我他如何在马德莲大马路走来走去，希望遇到个想看看法律所不允许的事物的英国老乡，最好是个带有几分醉意的人。如果运气好他就能赚一笔钱。但是后来他那身破烂衣服把想观光的人都吓跑了，他找不到敢于把自己交到他手里的冒险家了。这时由于偶然的机会他找到了一个翻译专卖药广告的工作，这些药要在英国医药界推销，需要英语说明。有一次赶上罢工，他甚至还当过粉刷房屋的油漆匠。

在所有这些日子里，他的艺术活动一直没有停止过。但是不久他就没有兴致到画室去了；他只关在屋子里一个人埋头苦干。因为一文不名，有时他连画布和颜料都买不起，而这两样东西恰好是他最需要的。从他的谈话里我了解到，他在绘画上遇到的困难很大，因为他不愿意接受别人指点，不得不浪费许多时间摸索一些技巧上的问题，其实这些问题过去的画家早已逐一解决了。他在追求一种我不太清楚的东西，或许连他自己也知道得并不清楚。过去我有过的那种印象这一次变得更加强烈了：他象是一个被什么迷住了的人，他的心智好象不很正常。他不肯把自己的画拿给别人看，我觉得这是因为他对这些画实在不感兴趣。他生活在幻梦里，现实对他一点儿意义也没有。我有一种感觉，他好象把自己的强烈个性全部倾注在一张画布上，在奋力创造自己心灵所见到的景象时，他把周围的一切事物全都忘记了。而一旦绘画的过程结束——或许并不是画幅本身，因为据我猜想，他是很少把一张画画完的，我是说他把一阵燃烧着他心灵的激情发泄完毕以后，他对自己画出来的东西就再也不关心了。他对自己的画儿从来也不满意；同缠住他心灵的幻景相比，他觉得这些画实在太没有意义了。

“为什么你不把自己的画送到展览会上去呢？”我问他说，“我想你会愿意听听别人的意见的。”

“你愿意听吗？”

他说这句话时那种鄙夷不屑劲儿我简直无法形容。

“你不想成名吗？大多数画家对这一点还是不能无动于衷的。”

“真幼稚。如果你不在乎某一个人对你的看法，一群人对你有什么意见又有什么关系？”

“我们并不是人人都是理性动物啊！”我笑着说。

“成名的是哪些人？是评论家、作家、证券经纪人、女人。”

“想到那些你从来不认识、从来没见过的人被你的画笔打动，或者泛起种种遐思，或者感情激荡，难道你不感到欣慰吗？每个人都喜爱权力。如果你能打动人们的灵魂，或者叫他们凄怆哀悯，或者叫他们惊惧恐慌，这不也是一种奇妙的行使权力的方法吗？”

“滑稽戏。”

“那么你为什么对于画得好或不好还是很介意呢？”

“我并不介意。我只不过想把我所见到的画下来。”

“如果我置身于一个荒岛上，确切地知道除了我自己的眼睛以外再没有别人能看到我写出来的东西，我很怀疑我还能不能写作下去。”