But it was Blanche who most surprised me. She proved herself not only a capable, but a devoted nurse. There was nothing in her to remind you that she had so vehemently struggled against her husband’s wish to bring Strickland to the studio. She insisted on doing her share of the offices needful to the sick. She arranged his bed so that it was possible to change the sheet without disturbing him. She washed him. When I remarked on her competence, she told me with that pleasant little smile of hers that for a while she had worked in a hospital. She gave no sign that she hated Strickland so desperately. She did not speak to him much, but she was quick to forestall his wants. For a fortnight it was necessary that someone should stay with him all night, and she took turns at watching with her husband. I wondered what she thought during the long darkness as she sat by the bedside. Strickland was a weird figure as he lay there, thinner than ever, with his ragged red beard and his eyes staring feverishly into vacancy; his illness seemed to have made them larger, and they had an unnatural brightness.
“Does he ever talk to you in the night?” I asked her once.
“Never.”
“Do you dislike him as much as you did?”
“More, if anything.”
She looked at me with her calm gray eyes. Her expression was so placid, it was hard to believe that she was capable of the violent emotion I had witnessed.
“Has he ever thanked you for what you do for him?”
“No,” she smiled.
“He’s inhuman.”
“He’s abominable.”
Stroeve was, of course, delighted with her. He could not do enough to show his gratitude for the whole-hearted devotion with which she had accepted the burden he laid on her. But he was a little puzzled by the behaviour of Blanche and Strickland towards one another.
“Do you know, I’ve seen them sit there for hours together without saying a word?”
On one occasion, when Strickland was so much better that in a day or two he was to get up, I sat with them in the studio. Dirk and I were talking. Mrs. Stroeve sewed, and I thought I recognised the shirt she was mending as Strickland’s. He lay on his back; he did not speak. Once I saw that his eyes were fixed on Blanche Stroeve, and there was in them a curious irony. Feeling their gaze, she raised her own, and for a moment they stared at one another. I could not quite understand her expression. Her eyes had in them a strange perplexity, and perhaps — but why? — alarm. In a moment Strickland looked away and idly surveyed the ceiling, but she continued to stare at him, and now her look was quite inexplicable.
In a few days Strickland began to get up. He was nothing but skin and bone. His clothes hung upon him like rags on a scarecrow. With his untidy beard and long hair, his features, always a little larger than life, now emphasised by illness, he had an extraordinary aspect; but it was so odd that it was not quite ugly. There was something monumental in his ungainliness. I do not know how to express precisely the impression he made upon me. It was not exactly spirituality that was obvious, though the screen of the flesh seemed almost transparent, because there was in his face an outrageous sensuality; but, though it sounds nonsense, it seemed as though his sensuality were curiously spiritual. There was in him something primitive. He seemed to partake of those obscure forces of nature which the Greeks personified in shapes part human and part beast, the satyr and the faun. I thought of Marsyas, whom the god flayed because he had dared to rival him in song. Strickland seemed to bear in his heart strange harmonies and unadventured patterns, and I foresaw for him an end of torture and despair. I had again the feeling that he was possessed of a devil; but you could not say that it was a devil of evil, for it was a primitive force that existed before good and ill.
He was still too weak to paint, and he sat in the studio, silent, occupied with God knows what dreams, or reading. The books he liked were queer; sometimes I would find him poring over the poems of Mallarme, and he read them as a child reads, forming the words with his lips, and I wondered what strange emotion he got from those subtle cadences and obscure phrases; and again I found him absorbed in the detective novels of Gaboriau. I amused myself by thinking that in his choice of books he showed pleasantly the irreconcilable sides of his fantastic nature. It was singular to notice that even in the weak state of his body he had no thought for its comfort. Stroeve liked his ease, and in his studio were a couple of heavily upholstered arm-chairs and a large divan. Strickland would not go near them, not from any affectation of stoicism, for I found him seated on a three-legged stool when I went into the studio one day and he was alone, but because he did not like them. For choice he sat on a kitchen chair without arms. It often exasperated me to see him. I never knew a man so entirely indifferent to his surroundings.
Chapter XXVII
Two or three weeks passed. One morning, having come to a pause in my work, I thought I would give myself a holiday, and I went to the Louvre. I wandered about looking at the pictures I knew so well, and let my fancy play idly with the emotions they suggested. I sauntered into the long gallery, and there suddenly saw Stroeve. I smiled, for his appearance, so rotund and yet so startled, could never fail to excite a smile, and then as I came nearer I noticed that he seemed singularly disconsolate. He looked woebegone and yet ridiculous, like a man who has fallen into the water with all his clothes on, and, being rescued from death, frightened still, feels that he only looks a fool. Turning round, he stared at me, but I perceived that he did not see me. His round blue eyes looked harassed behind his glasses.
“Stroeve,” I said.
He gave a little start, and then smiled, but his smile was rueful.
“Why are you idling in this disgraceful fashion?” I asked gaily.
“It’s a long time since I was at the Louvre. I thought I’d come and see if they had anything new.”
“But you told me you had to get a picture finished this week.”
“Strickland’s painting in my studio.”
“Well?”
“I suggested it myself. He’s not strong enough to go back to his own place yet. I thought we could both paint there. Lots of fellows in the Quarter share a studio. I thought it would be fun. I’ve always thought it would be jolly to have someone to talk to when one was tired of work.”
He said all this slowly, detaching statement from statement with a little awkward silence, and he kept his kind, foolish eyes fixed on mine. They were full of tears.
“I don’t think I understand,” I said.
“Strickland can’t work with anyone else in the studio.”
“Damn it all, it’s your studio. That’s his lookout.”
He looked at me pitifully. His lips were trembling.
“What happened?” I asked, rather sharply.
He hesitated and flushed. He glanced unhappily at one of the pictures on the wall.
“He wouldn’t let me go on painting. He told me to get out.”
“But why didn’t you tell him to go to hell?”
“He turned me out. I couldn’t very well struggle with him. He threw my hat after me, and locked the door.”
I was furious with Strickland, and was indignant with myself, because Dirk Stroeve cut such an absurd figure that I felt inclined to laugh.
“But what did your wife say?”
“She’d gone out to do the marketing.”
“Is he going to let her in?”
“I don’t know.”
I gazed at Stroeve with perplexity. He stood like a schoolboy with whom a master is finding fault.
“Shall I get rid of Strickland for you?” I asked.
He gave a little start, and his shining face grew very red.
“No. You’d better not do anything.”
He nodded to me and walked away. It was clear that for some reason he did not want to discuss the matter. I did not understand.
Chapter XXVIII
The explanation came a week later. It was about ten o’ clock at night; I had been dining by myself at a restaurant, and having returned to my small apartment,
was sitting in my parlour, reading I heard the cracked tinkling of the bell, and, going into the corridor, opened the door. Stroeve stood before me.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
In the dimness of the landing I could not see him very well, but there was something in his voice that surprised me. I knew he was of abstemious habit or I should have thought he had been drinking. I led the way into my sitting room and asked him to sit down.
“Thank God I’ve found you,” he said.
“What’s the matter?” I asked in astonishment at his vehemence.
I was able now to see him well. As a rule he was neat in his person, but now his clothes were in disorder. He looked suddenly bedraggled. I was convinced he had been drinking, and I smiled. I was on the point of chaffing him on his state.
“I didn’t know where to go,” he burst out. “I came here earlier, but you weren’t in.”
“I dined late,” I said.
I changed my mind: it was not liquor that had driven him to this obvious desperation. His face, usually so rosy, was now strangely mottled. His hands trembled.
“Has anything happened?” I asked.
“My wife has left me.”
He could hardly get the words out. He gave a little gasp, and the tears began to trickle down his round cheeks. I did not know what to say. My first thought was that she had come to the end of her forbearance with his infatuation for Strickland, and, goaded by the latter’s cynical behaviour, had insisted that he should be turned out. I knew her capable of temper, for all the calmness of her manner; and if Stroeve still refused, she might easily have flung out of the studio with vows never to return. But the little man was so distressed that I could not smile.
“My dear fellow, don’t be unhappy. She’ll come back. You mustn’t take very seriously what women say when they’re in a passion.”
“You don’t understand. She’s in love with Strickland.”
“What!” I was startled at this, but the idea had no sooner taken possession of me than I saw it was absurd. “How can you be so silly? You don’t mean to say you’re jealous of Strickland?” I almost laughed. “You know very well that she can’t bear the sight of him.”
“You don’t understand,” he moaned.
“You’re an hysterical ass,” I said a little impatiently. “Let me give you a whisky-and-soda, and you’ll feel better.”
I supposed that for some reason or other — and Heaven knows what ingenuity men exercise to torment themselves — Dirk had got it into his head that his wife cared for Strickland, and with his genius for blundering he might quite well have offended her so that, to anger him, perhaps, she had taken pains to foster his suspicion.
“Look here,” I said, “let’s go back to your studio. If you’ve made a fool of yourself you must eat humble pie. Your wife doesn’t strike me as the sort of woman to bear malice.”
“How can I go back to the studio?” he said wearily. “They’re there. I’ve left it to them.”
“Then it’s not your wife who’s left you; it’s you who’ve left your wife.”
“For God’s sake don’t talk to me like that.”
Still I could not take him seriously. I did not for a moment believe what he had told me. But he was in very real distress.
“Well, you’ve come here to talk to me about it. You’d better tell me the whole story.”
“This afternoon I couldn’t stand it any more. I went to Strickland and told him I thought he was quite well enough to go back to his own place. I wanted the studio myself.”
“No one but Strickland would have needed telling,” I said. “What did he say?”
“He laughed a little; you know how he laughs, not as though he were amused, but as though you were a damned fool, and said he’d go at once. He began to put his things together. You remember I fetched from his room what I thought he needed, and he asked Blanche for a piece of paper and some string to make a parcel.”
Stroeve stopped, gasping, and I thought he was going to faint. This was not at all the story I had expected him to tell me.
“She was very pale, but she brought the paper and the string. He didn’t say anything. He made the parcel and he whistled a tune. He took no notice of either of us. His eyes had an ironic smile in them. My heart was like lead. I was afraid something was going to happen, and I wished I hadn’t spoken. He looked round for his hat. Then she spoke:
“‘I’m going with Strickland, Dirk,’ she said. ‘I can’t live with you any more.’
“I tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Strickland didn’t say anything. He went on whistling as though it had nothing to do with him.”
Stroeve stopped again and mopped his face. I kept quite still. I believed him now, and I was astounded. But all the same I could not understand.
Then he told me, in a trembling voice, with the tears pouring down his cheeks, how he had gone up to her, trying to take her in his arms, but she had drawn away and begged him not to touch her. He implored her not to leave him. He told her how passionately he loved her, and reminded her of all the devotion he had lavished upon her. He spoke to her of the happiness of their life. He was not angry with her. He did not reproach her.
“Please let me go quietly, Dirk,” she said at last. “Don’t you understand that I love Strickland? Where he goes I shall go.”
“But you must know that he’ll never make you happy. For your own sake don’t go. You don’t know what you’ve got to look forward to.”
“It’s your fault. You insisted on his coming here.”
He turned to Strickland.
“Have mercy on her,” he implored him. “You can’t let her do anything so mad.”
“She can do as she chooses,” said Strickland. “She’s not forced to come.”
“My choice is made,” she said, in a dull voice.
Strickland’s injurious calm robbed Stroeve of the rest of his self-control. Blind rage seized him, and without knowing what he was doing he flung himself on Strickland. Strickland was taken by surprise and he staggered, but he was very strong, even after his illness, and in a moment, he did not exactly know how, Stroeve found himself on the floor.
“You funny little man,” said Strickland.
Stroeve picked himself up. He noticed that his wife had remained perfectly still, and to be made ridiculous before her increased his humiliation. His spectacles had tumbled off in the struggle, and he could not immediately see them. She picked them up and silently handed them to him. He seemed suddenly to realise his unhappiness, and though he knew he was making himself still more absurd, he began to cry. He hid his face in his hands. The others watched him without a word. They did not move from where they stood.
“Oh, my dear,” he groaned at last, “how can you be so cruel?”
“I can’t help myself, Dirk,” she answered.
“I’ve worshipped you as no woman was ever worshipped before. If in anything I did I displeased you, why didn’t you tell me, and I’d have changed. I’ve done everything I could for you.”
She did not answer. Her face was set, and he saw that he was only boring her. She put on a coat and her hat. She moved towards the door, and he saw that in a moment she would be gone. He went up to her quickly and fell on his knees before her, seizing her hands: he abandoned all self-respect.
“Oh, don’t go, my darling. I can’t live without you; I shall kill myself. If I’ve done anything to offend you I beg you to forgive me. Give me another chance. I’ll try harder still to make you happy.”
“Get up, Dirk. You’re making yourself a perfect fool.”
He staggered to his feet, but still he would not let her go.
“Where are you going?” he said hastily. “You don’t know what Strickland’s place is like. You can’t live there. It would be awful.”
“If I don’t care, I don’t see why you should.”
“Stay a minute longer. I must speak. After all, you can’t grudge me that.”
“What is the good? I’ve
made up my mind. Nothing that you can say will make me alter it.”
He gulped, and put his hand to his heart to ease its painful beating.
“I’m not going to ask you to change your mind, but I want you to listen to me for a minute. It’s the last thing I shall ever ask you. Don’t refuse me that.”
She paused, looking at him with those reflective eyes of hers, which now were so different to him. She came back into the studio and leaned against the table.
“Well?”
Stroeve made a great effort to collect himself.
“You must be a little reasonable. You can’t live on air, you know. Strickland hasn’t got a penny.”
“I know.”
“You’ll suffer the most awful privations. You know why he took so long to get well. He was half starved.”
“I can earn money for him.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I shall find a way.”
A horrible thought passed through the Dutchman’s mind, and he shuddered.
“I think you must be mad. I don’t know what has come over you.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Now may I go?”
“Wait one second longer.”
He looked round his studio wearily; he had loved it because her presence had made it gay and homelike; he shut his eyes for an instant; then he gave her a long look as though to impress on his mind the picture of her. He got up and took his hat.
Delphi Collected Works of W. Somerset Maugham (Illustrated) Page 243