________________________________________________
_ I saw Strickland not infrequently, and now and then played
chess with him. He was of uncertain temper. Sometimes he
would sit silent and abstracted, taking no notice of anyone;
and at others, when he was in a good humour, he would talk in
his own halting way. He never said a clever thing, but he had
a vein of brutal sarcasm which was not ineffective, and he
always said exactly what he thought. He was indifferent to
the susceptibilities of others, and when he wounded them was amused.
He was constantly offending Dirk Stroeve so bitterly
that he flung away, vowing he would never speak to him again;
but there was a solid force in Strickland that attracted the
fat Dutchman against his will, so that he came back, fawning
like a clumsy dog, though he knew that his only greeting would
be the blow he dreaded.
I do not know why Strickland put up with me. Our relations
were peculiar. One day he asked me to lend him fifty francs.
"I wouldn't dream of it," I replied.
"Why not?"
"It wouldn't amuse me."
"I'm frightfully hard up, you know."
"I don't care."
"You don't care if I starve?"
"Why on earth should I?" I asked in my turn.
He looked at me for a minute or two, pulling his untidy beard.
I smiled at him.
"What are you amused at?" he said, with a gleam of anger in
his eyes.
"You're so simple. You recognise no obligations. No one is
under any obligation to you."
"Wouldn't it make you uncomfortable if I went and hanged
myself because I'd been turned out of my room as I couldn't
pay the rent?"
"Not a bit."
He chuckled.
"You're bragging. If I really did you'd be overwhelmed with
remorse."
"Try it, and we'll see," I retorted.
A smile flickered in his eyes, and he stirred his absinthe in
silence.
"Would you like to play chess?" I asked.
"I don't mind."
We set up the pieces, and when the board was ready he
considered it with a comfortable eye. There is a sense of
satisfaction in looking at your men all ready for the fray.
"Did you really think I'd lend you money?" I asked.
"I didn't see why you shouldn't."
"You surprise me."
"Why?"
"It's disappointing to find that at heart you are sentimental.
I should have liked you better if you hadn't made that
ingenuous appeal to my sympathies."
"I should have despised you if you'd been moved by it," he answered.
"That's better," I laughed.
We began to play. We were both absorbed in the game. When it
was finished I said to him:
"Look here, if you're hard up, let me see your pictures.
If there's anything I like I'll buy it."
"Go to hell," he answered.
He got up and was about to go away. I stopped him.
"You haven't paid for your absinthe," I said, smiling.
He cursed me, flung down the money and left.
I did not see him for several days after that, but one
evening, when I was sitting in the cafe, reading a paper,
he came up and sat beside me.
"You haven't hanged yourself after all," I remarked.
"No. I've got a commission. I'm painting the portrait of a
retired plumber for two hundred francs."[5]
[5] This picture, formerly in the possession of a wealthy
manufacturer at Lille, who fled from that city on the approach
of the Germans, is now in the National Gallery at Stockholm.
The Swede is adept at the gentle pastime of fishing in
troubled waters.
"How did you manage that?"
"The woman where I get my bread recommended me. He'd told her
he was looking out for someone to paint him. I've got to give
her twenty francs."
"What's he like?"
"Splendid. He's got a great red face like a leg of mutton,
and on his right cheek there's an enormous mole with long
hairs growing out of it."
Strickland was in a good humour, and when Dirk Stroeve came
up and sat down with us he attacked him with ferocious banter.
He showed a skill I should never have credited him with in
finding the places where the unhappy Dutchman was most
sensitive. Strickland employed not the rapier of sarcasm but
the bludgeon of invective. The attack was so unprovoked that
Stroeve, taken unawares, was defenceless. He reminded you of
a frightened sheep running aimlessly hither and thither.
He was startled and amazed. At last the tears ran from his eyes.
And the worst of it was that, though you hated Strickland,
and the exhibition was horrible, it was impossible not to laugh.
Dirk Stroeve was one of those unlucky persons whose most
sincere emotions are ridiculous.
But after all when I look back upon that winter in Paris,
my pleasantest recollection is of Dirk Stroeve. There was
something very charming in his little household. He and his
wife made a picture which the imagination gratefully dwelt
upon, and the simplicity of his love for her had a deliberate grace.
He remained absurd, but the sincerity of his passion
excited one's sympathy. I could understand how his wife must
feel for him, and I was glad that her affection was so tender.
If she had any sense of humour, it must amuse her that he
should place her on a pedestal and worship her with such an
honest idolatry, but even while she laughed she must have been
pleased and touched. He was the constant lover, and though
she grew old, losing her rounded lines and her fair
comeliness, to him she would certainly never alter.
To him she would always be the loveliest woman in the world.
There was a pleasing grace in the orderliness of their lives.
They had but the studio, a bedroom, and a tiny kitchen.
Mrs. Stroeve did all the housework herself; and while Dirk painted
bad pictures, she went marketing, cooked the luncheon, sewed,
occupied herself like a busy ant all the day; and in the
evening sat in the studio, sewing again, while Dirk played
music which I am sure was far beyond her comprehension.
He played with taste, but with more feeling than was always
justified, and into his music poured all his honest,
sentimental, exuberant soul.
Their life in its own way was an idyl, and it managed to
achieve a singular beauty. The absurdity that clung to
everything connected with Dirk Stroeve gave it a curious note,
like an unresolved discord, but made it somehow more modern,
more human; like a rough joke thrown into a serious scene,
it heightened the poignancy which all beauty has. _
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