I asked Stroeve if he was working.
“Working? I’m painting better than I’ve ever painted before.”
We sat in the studio, and he waved his hand to an unfinished picture on an easel. I gave a little start. He was painting a group of Italian peasants, in the costume of the Campagna, lounging on the steps of a Roman church.
“Is that what you’re doing now?” I asked.
“Yes. I can get my models here just as well as in Rome.”
“Don’t you think it’s very beautiful?” said Mrs. Stroeve.
“This foolish wife of mine thinks I’m a great artist,” said he.
His apologetic laugh did not disguise the pleasure that he felt. His eyes lingered on his picture. It was strange that his critical sense, so accurate and unconventional when he dealt with the work of others, should be satisfied in himself with what was hackneyed and vulgar beyond belief.
“Show him some more of your pictures,” she said.
“Shall I?”
Though he had suffered so much from the ridicule of his friends, Dirk Stroeve, eager for praise and naively self-satisfied, could never resist displaying his work. He brought out a picture of two curly-headed Italian urchins playing marbles.
“Aren’t they sweet?” said Mrs. Stroeve.
And then he showed me more. I discovered that in Paris he had been painting just the same stale, obviously picturesque things that he had painted for years in Rome. It was all false, insincere, shoddy; and yet no one was more honest, sincere, and frank than Dirk Stroeve. Who could resolve the contradiction?
I do not know what put it into my head to ask:
“I say, have you by any chance run across a painter called Charles Strickland?”
“You don’t mean to say you know him?” cried Stroeve.
“Beast,” said his wife.
Stroeve laughed.
“Ma pauvre chérie.” He went over to her and kissed both her hands. “She doesn’t like him. How strange that you should know Strickland!”
“I don’t like bad manners,” said Mrs. Stroeve.
Dirk, laughing still, turned to me to explain.
“You see, I asked him to come here one day and look at my pictures. Well, he came, and I showed him everything I had.” Stroeve hesitated a moment with embarrassment. I do not know why he had begun the story against himself; he felt an awkwardness at finishing it. “He looked at—at my pictures, and he didn’t say anything. I thought he was reserving his judgment till the end. And at last I said: ‘There, that’s the lot!’ He said: ‘I came to ask you to lend me twenty francs.’ ”
“And Dirk actually gave it him,” said his wife indignantly.
“I was so taken aback. I didn’t like to refuse. He put the money in his pocket, just nodded, said ‘Thanks,’ and walked out.”
Dirk Stroeve, telling the story, had such a look of blank astonishment on his round, foolish face that it was almost impossible not to laugh.
“I shouldn’t have minded if he’d said my pictures were bad, but he said nothing.”
“And you will tell the story, Dirk,” Said his wife.
It was lamentable that one was more amused by the ridiculous figure cut by the Dutchman than outraged by Strickland’s brutal treatment of him.
“I hope I shall never see him again,” said Mrs. Stroeve.
Stroeve smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He had already recovered his good-humour.
“The fact remains that he’s a great artist, a very great artist.”
“Strickland?” I exclaimed. “It can’t be the same man.”
“A big fellow with a red beard. Charles Strickland. An Englishman.”
“He had no beard when I knew him, but if he has grown one it might well be red. The man I’m thinking of only began painting five years ago.”
“That’s it. He’s a great artist.”
“Impossible.”
“Have I ever been mistaken?” Dirk asked me. “I tell you he has genius. I’m convinced of it. In a hundred years, if you and I are remembered at all, it will be because we knew Charles Strickland.”
I was astonished, and at the same time I was very much excited. I remembered suddenly my last talk with him.
“Where can one see his work?” I asked. “Is he having any success? Where is he living?”
“No; he has no success. I don’t think he’s ever sold a picture. When you speak to men about him they only laugh. But I know he’s a great artist. After all, they laughed at Manet. Corot never sold a picture. I don’t know where he lives, but I can take you to see him. He goes to a café in the Avenue de Clichy at seven o’clock every evening. If you like we’ll go there tomorrow.”
“I’m not sure if he’ll wish to see me. I think I may remind him of a time he prefers to forget. But I’ll come all the same. Is there any chance of seeing any of his pictures?”
“Not from him. He won’t show you a thing. There’s a little dealer I know who has two or three. But you mustn’t go without me; you wouldn’t understand. I must show them to you myself.”
“Dirk, you make me impatient,” said Mrs. Stroeve. “How can you talk like that about his pictures when he treated you as he did?” She turned to me. “Do you know, when some Dutch people came here to buy Dirk’s pictures he tried to persuade them to buy Strickland’s? He insisted on bringing them here to show.”
“What did you think of them?” I asked her, smiling.
“They were awful.”
“Ah, sweetheart, you don’t understand.”
“Well, your Dutch people were furious with you. They thought you were having a joke with them.”
Dirk Stroeve took off his spectacles and wiped them. His flushed face was shining with excitement.
“Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious
