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Moon and Sixpence, a novel by W. Somerset Maugham |
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CHAPTER 22 |
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_ I settled down in Paris and began to write a play. I led a very regular life, working in the morning, and in the afternoon lounging about the gardens of the Luxembourg or sauntering through the streets. I spent long hours in the Louvre, the most friendly of all galleries and the most convenient for meditation; or idled on the quays, fingering second-hand books that I never meant to buy. I read a page here and there, and made acquaintance with a great many authors whom I was content to know thus desultorily. In the evenings I went to see my friends. I looked in often on the Stroeves, and sometimes shared their modest fare. Dirk Stroeve flattered himself on his skill in cooking Italian dishes, and I confess that his spaghetti were very much better than his pictures. It was a dinner for a King when he brought in a huge dish of it, succulent with tomatoes, and we ate it together with the good household bread and a bottle of red wine. I grew more intimate with Blanche Stroeve, and I think, because I was English and she knew few English people, she was glad to see me. She was pleasant and simple, but she remained always rather silent, and I knew not why, gave me the impression that she was concealing something. But I thought that was perhaps no more than a natural reserve accentuated by the verbose frankness of her husband. Dirk never concealed anything. He discussed the most intimate matters with a complete lack of self-consciousness. Sometimes he embarrassed his wife, and the only time I saw her put out of countenance was when he insisted on telling me that he had taken a purge, and went into somewhat realistic details on the subject. The perfect seriousness with which he narrated his misfortunes convulsed me with laughter, and this added to Mrs. Stroeve's irritation. "You seem to like making a fool of yourself," she said. His round eyes grew rounder still, and his brow puckered in "Sweetheart, have I vexed you? I'll never take another. "For goodness sake, hold your tongue," she interrupted, tears His face fell, and he pouted his lips like a scolded child. We went one day to the picture-dealer in whose shop Stroeve "But don't imagine to yourself that I make myself bad blood on "I give you my word of honour, there's no one painting to-day "True. But there were a hundred as good painters as Monet who "And how, then, will you recognise merit?" asked Dirk, red in "There is only one way -- by success." "Philistine," cried Dirk. "But think of the great artists of the past -- Raphael, "Let us go," said Stroeve to me, "or I shall kill this man." _ |
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