Chapter 39 three nine

We buried poor Blanche that day, and after parting, Stroeve went into his house with a heavy heart.He was driven towards the studio by something, perhaps by some vague desire to torture himself, though he was terribly afraid of the severe pain he was bound to feel.He shuffled up the stairs with his feet that seemed reluctant to move there.He stood outside the studio for a long, long time, desperately mustering up the courage to push the door in.He felt nauseated and wanted to vomit.He could hardly restrain himself from running down the stairs to chase me back, begging me to go in with him.He had a feeling that someone was in the studio.He remembered going up the stairs out of breath, always standing at the top of the stairs for a minute or two to let his breath calm down before entering the house, but because he couldn't wait to see Blanche (how ridiculous his eagerness was!) his breath was always calm. not come down.Every time he saw Blanche, he was overjoyed, even if he had not been away for an hour, and the idea of ​​meeting her was as exciting as it had been for a month.Suddenly he couldn't believe she was dead.What happened should only be a dream, a nightmare; when he turned the key and opened the door, he would see her body leaning slightly on the table, similar to that of the woman in Chardin's famous painting "Praying Before Dinner". The figure is equally beautiful.Stroeve had always found the picture exquisite.He hurriedly took out the key from his pocket, opened the door, and walked in.

The room doesn't look like it's unoccupied.Blanche was tidy, and Stroeve liked her very much.His upbringing as a child had made him empathize with other people's habits of neatness.He felt a burning sensation in his heart when he saw Blanche's natural order of everything.The bedroom looked like it hadn't been long since she left: several brushes were neatly arranged on the dressing table, each next to a comb; the bed she slept in on the last night in the studio had been made by someone. , laid flat; her pajamas lay in a little box on top of the pillow.It was unbelievable that she would never come back to this room.

Feeling thirsty, he went into the kitchen to get himself some water.The kitchen is also neat and orderly.On the night of her quarrel with Strickland, the supper-ware had been set on the rack and cleaned.The knife and fork were put away in a drawer.The leftover piece of cheese was buckled up in a utensil, and a piece of bread was placed in a tin box.She always went shopping every day, buying only what she needed most that day, so she never saved anything for the next day.Stroeve learned from the investigating policeman that Strickland had left the house that night right after supper, and that Blanche, as usual, was washing the dishes, which was rather disturbing. shudder.Blanche was still doing housework in such an orderly manner before she died, which shows that her suicide was carefully planned.Her self-control is terrifying.Suddenly Stroeve felt his heart ache, his knees gave way, and he almost fell to the ground.He returned to the bedroom, threw himself on the bed, and called her name loudly:

Blanche!Blanche! Stroeve could hardly bear the thought of the guilt she had suffered.A vision of her suddenly flashed in his mind: she was standing in a kitchen not much larger than a cupboard, washing dishes, wiping knives and forks, flicking a few knives on the knife holder a few times, and then Put away the tableware one by one.Then she scrubbed the cesspool and hung up the rag where the frayed gray rag still hangs now.She looked around to see if everything was in order.He seemed to see her put down the rolled up cuffs, take off the apron and hang it on a wooden peg behind the door, then pick up the bottle of oxalic acid and walk into the bedroom.

The pain caused him to jump out of bed and rush out of the room.He went into the studio.It was dark in the room, for there were still curtains drawn over the large glass windows; he drew them aside quickly.but he sobbed as with a rapid glance he took in the place where he had been so happy.The house has not changed at all.Strickland was so indifferent to surroundings that it never occurred to him to relocate anything while he was living in this studio.This room has been carefully decorated by Stroeve and is full of artistic interest, showing the living environment that artists should have in Stroeve's mind.A few brocades hung on the walls, a beautiful but somewhat dull silk was spread over the piano, a reproduction of the Venus of Melos in one corner, and a Medici's in another. Venus [Note 2] replica.Here stands a small Italian cabinet with a Delft pottery on top; there hangs a bas-relief.In a handsome gold frame there is a copy of Velasquez's famous painting "Innocent X", which Stroeve traced while he was in Rome; besides, there are several pictures of his own. , inlaid with exquisite mirror frames, the display is full of decorative effects.Stroeve has always been very proud of his aesthetic sense, and he can't get enough of his romantic studio.Although at this moment the room seemed to stab him in the heart, he could not help moving a Louis XV table a little.This table is one of his most cherished possessions.Suddenly, he found a picture hanging on the wall facing inward.The size of the painting was much larger than he usually painted himself, and he wondered why there was such a painting in the room.He went over and turned it over to see what was painted on it.He found it was a portrait of a nude woman.His heart began to beat violently, for he guessed at once that it was Strickland's work.He threw it against the wall angrily. What was Strickland's purpose in leaving the picture here?Because of the excessive force, the painting fell off and fell face down on the ground.Whoever drew it could not have it thrown in the dust; he picked it up.At this moment his curiosity got the better of him, and he wanted to take a good look at it, so he took the picture and laid it on the easel, and stepped back two steps to take a closer look.

[Note 1] Aphrodite with Broken Arm, an ancient Greek marble statue discovered in Melos, Greece in 1820, is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. 【Note 2】The statue excavated in Italy in the 17th century was named after it was kept in the Medici Palace in Rome for a long time, and it is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. [Note 3] Delft: It is a small town in the west of the Netherlands, famous for its production of blue and white glazed pottery. He gasped.The picture shows a woman lying on a couch with one arm under her head and the other lying flat along her body, with one leg bent and the other straight.This is a classic pose.Stroeve's head suddenly swelled up.The woman in the picture is Blanche.Pain, jealousy, and anger seized him at once; he could not utter a complete sentence, but uttered a hoarse cry.He clenched his fist and shook it at the invisible enemy.He started screaming at the top of his throat.He was going crazy.He couldn't bear it; it was simply too much.He looked around for a piece of equipment to chop up the painting and not allow it to exist in this world for a moment.But he didn't have any suitable weapons around him. He searched through the painting supplies, but for some reason, he still couldn't find anything.He just went crazy.At last he found what he needed, a large spatula for scraping paint.He picked up the spatula, let out a cry of triumph, and ran towards the picture as if holding a dagger.

Stroeve told me this story with as much emotion as he did when it happened. He picked up a table knife that was lying on the table between us and swung it wildly.He raised one arm as if to tie it down.Then, suddenly, the handle was released, and the knife fell to the ground with a clang.He looked at me, smiled tremblingly, and said nothing. Say it!I urged him. I don't know what happened to me, but just as I was about to poke a big hole in the painting, when I had raised my arm and was about to pierce it, suddenly I seemed to see it. What do you see? that painting.A precious work of art.I can't touch it.I'm scared.

Stroeve paused again, staring straight at me, with his mouth open, a pair of blue, round eyes seemed to protrude. That's a great, wonderful painting.I was instantly taken aback by it.I almost committed a terrible crime.I shifted my body to get a better view, and kicked the scraper with my foot.I fought a cold war. I really felt the emotion that moved Stroeve; I was strangely moved by what he said.I seemed to be suddenly transported into a world where the value of all things had changed.I stood by, bewildered, like a stranger in a land where one's reactions to familiar things are different from those of the past.Stroeve tried his best to describe to me the picture he had seen, but he was so incoherent that I could only guess at many meanings.Strickland had broken the shackles that had held him down.He did not find himself, as the saying goes, but a new soul, a soul of unexpected and great power.It is not only the bold simplicity of the lines, the treatment of the painting (although the flesh is drawn with a strong, almost A wonderful lust, so to speak), not only because of its physicality, which makes you almost strangely feel the weight of the flesh, but also because it has a purely spiritual quality, a feeling that makes you uneasy and new. The spirit that leads your fantasies on paths never before, carries you to a realm of twilight emptiness, where only the eternal stars shine to explore new mysteries, and you feel that your soul has nothing to worry about, and is experiencing All kinds of horror and adventure.

If I've been a bit gaudy here, using a lot of figurative metaphors, it's because that's how Stroeve expressed himself at the time. (It is presumed that everyone knows that once the emotion is excited, a person will naturally play with literary words.) Stroeve was trying to express a feeling that he had never experienced before. In ordinary words, he almost I don't know how to say it.He is like a mystic struggling to preach an unspeakable truth.But one thing is clear to me: People talk about beauty so often that they don't actually understand the word; The title of beauty, the word has been stripped of its sublime meaning.A dress, a dog, a sermon, whatever, people call beautiful, and when they meet face to face with real beauty, they don't recognize it.The false exaggerations with which they cover their worthless thoughts dull their sensibility.Just as a fake adept sometimes feels that he is falsifying the spiritual value of an object out of thin air, so people have lost their overused appreciation.But Stroeve, the unchangeable clown, has a sincere love and understanding of beauty, just as his soul is honest and sincere.Beauty was to him the God of the pious; and when he saw something truly beautiful, he became horrified.

What did you say to Strickland when you saw him? I invited him to go to Holland with me. I froze there, unable to say a word, staring at him dumbfounded. We both love Blanche.There is also a place for him to live in my hometown.I thought it was good for his soul to keep him among poor, simple people.I thought he might be able to learn something useful to him from these people. what did he say? He smiled.I guess he must have thought me very stupid.He said he didn't have that much time to spare. I wish Strickland had declined Stroeve's invitation in other terms. He gave me this painting by Blanche.

I would like to know why Strickland did this, but I say nothing.For a long time, neither of us spoke. How did you dispose of those things?Finally I asked. I went to a Jewish junkie who bought it all and gave me some money.I'm going to take those pictures of mine home.Besides my pictures, I have a trunk of clothes, a few books, and besides, I have nothing else in this world. I'm glad you're going home.I said. I think there is still hope for him to let the past be the past.I hope that with the passage of time, the grief he now finds unbearable will gradually lessen and the memory will fade away; God is merciful!He will eventually pick up the burden of life again.He is still very young, and looking back on this tragic experience a few years later, there may be some joyful feeling in his grief.Sooner or later he will marry a simple Dutch woman, and I am sure he will live happily ever after.I can't help but smile at the thought of how many crappy drawings he'll draw in his lifetime. I sent him back to Amsterdam the next day.