暖冬cool夏
這裏一年四季溫暖如春，沒有酷暑沒有嚴寒......
七月中旬，讀完簡愛之後，對英國文學產生了興趣，遂拿起抽屜裏Jane Austin的小說Emma，讀了幾章，不覺得吸引人， 又拿起她的另一本《傲慢與偏見》讀了幾章，卻始終無法進入。不知道是自己的心境不對，還是她的文字太拗口，所以呢，就想起以文字簡單明了著稱的美國作家海明威的《老人與海》，花了一個周末(7/24)，讀了讀。讀完海明威的作品，又覺得不過癮，就像吃了一道清淡的沙拉後，又渴望來紅燒肉一樣，開始在腦子裏搜索英國作家的作品，不知為何就想到毛姆的《月亮與六便士》，從網上找來下載到Kindle上，花了不到一個星期讀完，算是結束了七月的閱讀。
言歸正傳
英國作家毛姆以法國名畫家高更為原型，於1919創作了他知名的小說《月亮和六便士》。小說向讀者描述了19世紀英國(法國)畫家Charles Strickland的傳奇一生。我想有太多的人讀過這本小說和相關的書評，而我隻想從他一生中有過的三個女人的這個側麵，來敘述主人公的經曆，人性和從中得到的一些感想。
主人公Strickland四十歲之前一直生活在英國，有著一份穩定的工作(股票經紀人)、舒適的生活和美滿的家庭。太太漂亮，賢惠，總是把家裏收拾得幹幹淨淨，家事安排得井井有條，還時常邀請一些文藝界的作家藝術家來家裏聚會, 是一個知性、高雅、有品位的女人。她和Strickland育有一男一女兩個孩子。世人眼裏的Strickland不善言辭，不合群，幾分木訥，但是誰也沒有想到他會在四十歲那年離家出走，不辭而別去了巴黎。臨走前，他給太太留下了一封十分簡短的信。信中說，他心意已決，要離開她，不會回來了，這個決定是不會更改的(irrevocable)。看到信，Strickland太太猶如晴天霹靂，不能理解查理的突然舉動，以為他一定是帶著某個女人私奔了。 故央求作者"我"去巴黎尋找丈夫的下落。作者在巴黎十分破舊的貧民區找到了畫家，此時的畫家身上隻有100英鎊。畫家告訴作者，他拋妻棄子並不是為了某一個女人，而隻是為了圓他的夢想--畫畫。作者在勸說無效時，斥責他不該分文不留，拋棄17年的妻子，讓她無法生活。 畫家回答道，我養了她17年，她現在應該自己想想辦法了。 當作者又進一步問他，難道你不為兩個孩子著想時，他的回答是，我曾經愛過孩子，已經給他們提供了超出普通孩子的舒適條件，他們現在已經長大了，自己對他們也已經沒有什麽特別的感情了。換句話說，他前麵的幾十年為家庭孩子而活，從四十歲開始他要拋開一切，為自己活著。這時的畫家已經對妻子不關心，對兒女沒有牽掛了，他甚至對作者指責他的冷血、不人道，也嗤之以鼻，沒有任何羞愧之心。為了夢想，他可以放棄一切世間的情感，置若罔聞世人對他的譴責; 為了夢想，他像朝聖者那樣匍匐前進，忍受孤獨，忍受貧窮，忍受饑餓。也就是說，為了天上的月亮，他可以舍棄腳下的六便士，在他眼裏，婚姻家庭是實現他摘取天上月亮的攔路虎，是他創作的桎梏。
流落巴黎街頭的畫家Strickland，十分窮困潦倒，饑不果腹，沒有錢買顏料和畫布。饑餓過度的他發燒生病，瀕臨死亡邊緣。一位十分好心的畫家Stroeve在懇求妻子Blanche的首肯後，接Strickland到自己家中，悉心照顧，把他從死神手裏奪了回來。而畫家回報這位朋友的卻是拐走了他的妻子，占據了他的巢穴(應該說是Stroeve出於對太太的愛自動讓給他們的)。這種恩將仇報，農夫與蛇的故事實在讓人不齒。更讓人掉眼球的是，三個月以後，在畫家Strickland完成了為Blanche裸體畫之後， 他愛的激情消失殆盡，又準備離開她。為此，女友Blanche喝草酸自殺身亡，而畫家對此卻無動於衷，沒有半點自責。 在作者問及理由時，他的回答是，他不需要愛，愛是一種羈絆，愛是一種疾病，女人把愛看得太重，以為愛是人生的一切，為愛可以做一切，而唯有做不到Leave him alone。因為女人對他而言隻是生理上的需求，抑或隻是模特。他不需要愛，他要的是擺脫任何欲望，全身心地創作。從這一個層麵上講，就如作者在書中所說的，畫家是冷漠，極端自私，無情無義，令人憎恨的一個人， 他的眼中隻有畫作，他不為名不為利，不顧世人的眼光和鄙視，專注(single-minded single-hearted)創作。 為了他的理想，他可以摒棄世間一切，不惜以犧牲自我或犧牲他人為代價。
47歲那一年，畫家離開了巴黎，去了馬塞爾，最後又漂洋過海到了當時法殖民地Tahiti。一樣窮困潦倒的他，卻因為是白人，白膚色沾了優勢。在老婦人的撮合下，他與一位年僅17歲的當地姑娘Ata結了婚。這位姑娘有父輩留給她的簡易樓房，位於茂密山林中。就這樣，在Tahiti碧水藍天、風光旖旎的世外桃源裏，在遮天蔽日的椰子林裏，畫家與Ata過起了伊甸園的生活。不幸的是，天才畫家後來得了麻風病。在病入膏肓，雙眼失明之際，還在牆上創作了他生命裏的最後一副巨作。讓人動容的是，他的妻子在遭受村民的唾棄時，依然選擇生死不離，一直守著畫家，直至屍體發臭發爛，將他埋入塵土。
與前麵兩位女子不同的是，這位妻子Ata不僅照顧他的生活起居，給他提供吃住的方便，更重要的是，在他不需要她的時候, leave him alone，讓他隨心所欲。這種Leave him alone正是畫家所要的。當有人問他，你懷念巴黎街頭的燈火嗎？你懷念那裏的劇院報紙嗎？你懷念車輪滾滾碾壓過石子路的聲音嗎？他的回答是，我會在Tahiti終其一生。因為隻有在這樣遠離塵囂，無拘無束的環境中，天才畫家的創造激情得到了迸發， 創作熱情如日中天，一幅幅曠世之作最終成就了他破落卻又輝煌的一生，奠定了他死後在歐洲藝術繪畫史上的地位。
或許我們可以說，這樣特立獨行的畫家是特殊的群體。眾所周知，曆史上有不少名畫家都是窮困潦倒一生的，有些最後還瘋瘋癲癲的。但是，他們追求靈魂深處的釋放，聽從自己內心，不為世俗所羈絆捆綁，超凡脫俗地生活著，這一點又是值得我們深思的。如果這個世界沒有道德法律的約束，人們會不會都像畫家一樣選擇自由，這種靈魂身軀最大程度的自由，不為情所困，不為利所動，真正做到，生命誠可貴，愛情價更高，若為自由故，二者皆可拋呢?
The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of his thought; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success.
They remember that they too trod down a sated generation, with just such clamor and with just such scorn, and they foresee that these brave torch-bearers will presently yield their place also. There is no last word. The new evangel was old when Nineveh reared her greatness to the sky. These gallant words which seem so novel to those that speak them were said in accents scarcely changed a hundred times before. The pendulum swings backwards and forwards. The circle is ever travelled anew.
When she came to know writers it was like adventuring upon a stage which till then she had known only from the other side of the footlights.
"Why do nice women marry dull men?"
"Because intelligent men won't marry nice women."
The subject was exhausted.
It gushes forth like an oil-well, and the sympathetic pour out their sympathy with an abandon that is sometimes embarrassing to their victims.
"They're both of them the image of you,"
I think he'd bore you to death
you will be bored to extinction.
The dining-room was inconveniently crowded.
But there was no general conversation. Each one talked to his neighbour; to his neighbour on the right during the soup, fish, and entree; to his neighbour on the left during the roast, sweet, and savoury. They talked of the political situation and of golf, of their children and the latest play, of the pictures at the Royal Academy, of the weather and their plans for the holidays. There was never a pause, and the noise grew louder. Mrs. Strickland might congratulate herself that her party was a success. Her husband played his part with decorum. Perhaps he did not talk very much, and I fancied there was towards the end a look of fatigue in the faces of the women on either side of him. They were finding him heavy. Once or twice Mrs. Strickland's eyes rested on him somewhat anxiously.
he was scarcely a credit to a woman who wanted to make herself a position in the world of art and letters. It was obvious that he had no social gifts, but these a man can do without; he had no eccentricity even, to take him out of the common run; he was just a good, dull, honest, plain man. One would admire his excellent qualities, but avoid his company. He was null. He was probably a worthy member of society, a good husband and father, an honest broker; but there was no reason to waste one's time over him.
she accepted my invitation with alacrity
Mrs. Strickland was a charming woman, and she loved him. I pictured their lives, troubled by no untoward adventure, honest, decent, and, by reason of those two upstanding, pleasant children, so obviously destined to carry on the normal traditions of their race and station, not without significance. They would grow old insensibly; they would see their son and daughter come to years of reason, marry in due course—the one a pretty girl, future mother of healthy children; the other a handsome, manly fellow, obviously a soldier; and at last, prosperous in their dignified retirement, beloved by their descendants, after a happy, not unuseful life, in the fullness of their age they would sink into the grave.
That must be the story of innumerable couples, and the pattern of life it offers has a homely grace. It reminds you of a placid rivulet, meandering smoothly through green pastures and shaded by pleasant trees, till at last it falls into the vasty sea; but the sea is so calm, so silent, so indifferent, that you are troubled suddenly by a vague uneasiness. Perhaps it is only by a kink in my nature, strong in me even in those days, that I felt in such an existence, the share of the great majority, something amiss. I recognised its social values, I saw its ordered happiness, but a fever in my blood asked for a wilder course. There seemed to me something alarming in such easy delights. In my heart was a desire to live more dangerously. I was not unprepared for jagged rocks and treacherous shoals if I could only have change—change and the excitement of the unforeseen.
"I don't know. I want him to come back. If he'll do that we'll let bygones be bygones. After all, we've been married for seventeen years. I'm a broadminded woman. I wouldn't have minded what he did as long as I knew nothing about it. He must know that his infatuation won't last. If he'll come back now everything can be smoothed over, and no one will know anything about it."
It chilled me a little that Mrs. Strickland should be concerned with gossip, for I did not know then how great a part is played in women's life by the opinion of others. It throws a shadow of insincerity over their most deeply felt emotions.
"It can't go on at his age," she said. "After all, he's forty. I could understand it in a young man, but I think it's horrible in a man of his years, with children who are nearly grown up. His health will never stand it."
"Tell him that our home cries out for him. Everything is just the same, and yet everything is different. I can't live without him. I'd sooner kill myself. Talk to him about the past, and all we've gone through together. What am I to say to the children when they ask for him? His room is exactly as it was when he left it. It's waiting for him. We're all waiting for him."
I admired her forethought, but in retrospect it made her tears perhaps less moving. I could not decide whether she desired the return of her husband because she loved him, or because she dreaded the tongue of scandal; and I was perturbed by the suspicion that the anguish of love contemned was alloyed in her broken heart with the pangs, sordid to my young mind, of wounded vanity. I had not yet learnt how contradictory is human nature; I did not know how much pose there is in the sincere, how much baseness in the noble, nor how much goodness in the reprobate.
I was pleased with my role of the trusted friend bringing back the errant husband to his forgiving wife.
There was a large wooden bedstead on which was a billowing red eiderdown.
I might have spoken of the economic position of woman, of the contract, tacit and overt, which a man accepts by his marriage, and of much else; but I felt that there was only one point which really signified.
"Damn it all, there are your children to think of. They've never done you any harm. They didn't ask to be brought into the world. If you chuck everything like this, they'll be thrown on the streets.
"Can the law get blood out of a stone?
"I tell you I've got to paint. I can't help myself. When a man falls into the water it doesn't matter how he swims, well or badly: he's got to get out or else he'll drown."
Blackguard
Only the poet or the saint can water an asphalt pavement in the confident anticipation that lilies will reward his labour.
Looking back, I think now that he was blind to everything but to some disturbing vision in his soul.
I asked myself whether there was not in his soul some deep-rooted instinct of creation, which the circumstances of his life had obscured, but which grew relentlessly, as a cancer may grow in the living tissues, till at last it took possession of his whole being and forced him irresistibly to action. The cuckoo lays its egg in the strange bird's nest, and when the young one is hatched it shoulders its foster-brothers out and breaks at last the nest that has sheltered it.
they have abandoned the joy of the world and the love of women for the painful austerities of the cloister. Conversion may come under many shapes, and it may be brought about in many ways. With some men it needs a cataclysm, as a stone may be broken to fragments by the fury of a torrent; but with some it comes gradually, as a stone may be worn away by the ceaseless fall of a drop of water. Strickland had the directness of the fanatic and the ferocity of the apostle.
But here was a man who sincerely did not mind what people thought of him, and so convention had no hold on him; he was like a wrestler whose body is oiled; you could not get a grip on him;
Nor with such a man could you expect the appeal to conscience to be effective.
"A man doesn't throw up his business and leave his wife and children at the age of forty to become a painter unless there's a woman in it.
Mrs. Strickland sprang to her feet.
He'll come back with his tail between his legs and settle down again quite comfortably.
Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandeur, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in the same human heart.
and in whose hold he is as helpless as a fly in a spider's web. It's as though someone had cast a spell over him. I'm reminded of those strange stories one sometimes hears of another personality entering into a man and driving out the old one. The soul lives unstably in the body, and is capable of mysterious transformations. In the old days they would say Charles Strickland had a devil."
and beamed and laughed, and in the exuberance of his delight sweated at every pore.
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.
"Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination."
We threaded our way among the tables till we came to him.
He ate with appetite, but was indifferent to what he ate; to him it was only food that he devoured to still the pangs of hunger; and when no food was to be had he seemed capable of doing without. I learned that for six months he had lived on a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk a day. He was a sensual man, and yet was indifferent to sensual things. He looked upon privation as no hardship. There was something impressive in the manner in which he lived a life wholly of the spirit.
and you feel an intimate communion with the breeze, and with the trees breaking into leaf, and with the iridescence of the river. You feel like God. Can you explain that to me?"
his brow puckered in dismay
He bore himself most unbecomingly.
He had omitted nothing that could make his wife despise him. There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.
in his eyes was a pain that was heartrending and an amazement that was ludicrous
What a cruel practical joke old Nature played when she flung so many contradictory elements together, and left the man face to face with the perplexing callousness of the universe.
to trifle away an idle hour
The summer came, breathless and sultry, and even at night there was no coolness to rest one's jaded nerves. The sun-baked streets seemed to give back the heat that had beat down on them during the day, and the passers-by dragged their feet along them wearily.
It gave me a sudden wrench of the heart-strings.
He was sore and bruised, and his thoughts went back to the tenderness of his mother's love. The ridicule he had endured for years seemed now to weigh him down, and the final blow of Blanche's treachery had robbed him of the resiliency which had made him take it so gaily. He could no longer laugh with those who laughed at him. He was an outcast. He told me of his childhood in the tidy brick house, and of his mother's passionate orderliness. Her kitchen was a miracle of clean brightness. Everything was always in its place, and no where could you see a speck of dust. Cleanliness, indeed, was a mania with her. I saw a neat little old woman, with cheeks like apples, toiling away from morning to night, through the long years, to keep her house trim and spruce. His father was a spare old man, his hands gnarled after the work of a lifetime, silent and upright; in the evening he read the paper aloud, while his wife and daughter (now married to the captain of a fishing smack), unwilling to lose a moment, bent over their sewing. Nothing ever happened in that little town, left behind by the advance of civilisation, and one year followed the next till death came, like a friend, to give rest to those who had laboured so diligently.
"My father wished me to become a carpenter like himself. For five generations we've carried on the same trade, from father to son. Perhaps that is the wisdom of life, to tread in your father's steps, and look neither to the right nor to the left. When I was a little boy I said I would marry the daughter of the harness-maker who lived next door. She was a little girl with blue eyes and a flaxen pigtail. She would have kept my house like a new pin, and I should have had a son to carry on the business after me."
Stroeve sighed a little and was silent. His thoughts dwelt among pictures of what might have been, and the safety of the life he had refused filled him with longing.
"The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. We must be very humble. We must see the beauty of quietness. We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. And let us seek the love of simple, ignorant people. Their ignorance is better than all our knowledge. Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the wisdom of life."
They pinched and saved so that I should have enough to live on,
though now the sight of it was like a stab in his heart
but then curiosity got the better of him
Tahiti is a lofty green island, with deep folds of a darker green, in which you divine silent valleys; there is mystery in their sombre depths, down which murmur and plash cool streams, and you feel that in those umbrageous places life from immemorial times has been led according to immemorial ways. Even here is something sad and terrible. But the impression is fleeting, and serves only to give a greater acuteness to the enjoyment of the moment. It is like the sadness which you may see in the jester's eyes when a merry company is laughing at his sallies; his lips smile and his jokes are gayer because in the communion of laughter he finds himself more intolerably alone.
Tiare smiled indulgently as she remembered the gaiety of a time long passed.
Ata's property was right away in a fold of the mountain.
Ata's father had planted crotons round his property, and they grew in coloured profusion, gay and brilliant; they fenced the land with flame. A mango grew in front of the house, and at the edge of the clearing were two flamboyants, twin trees, that challenged the gold of the cocoa-nuts with their scarlet flowers.
saw a middle-aged Frenchman with a big black beard, streaked with gray, a sunburned face, and large, shining eyes.
I live on an atoll, a low island, it is a strip of land surrounding a lagoon, and its beauty is the beauty of the sea and sky and the varied colour of the lagoon and the grace of the cocoa-nut trees; but the place where Strickland lived had the beauty of the Garden of Eden. Ah, I wish I could make you see the enchantment of that spot, a corner hidden away from all the world, with the blue sky overhead and the rich, luxuriant trees. It was a feast of colour. And it was fragrant and cool. Words cannot describe that paradise. And here he lived, unmindful of the world and by the world forgotten. I suppose to European eyes it would have seemed astonishingly sordid. The house was dilapidated and none too clean.
the intense silence of the night
There is the rustle of the myriad animals on the beach, all the little shelled things that crawl about ceaselessly, and there is the noisy scurrying of the land-crabs. Now and then in the lagoon you hear the leaping of a fish, and sometimes a hurried noisy splashing as a brown shark sends all the other fish scampering for their lives. And above all, ceaseless like time, is the dull roar of the breakers on the reef. But here there was not a sound, and the air was scented with the white flowers of the night. It was a night so beautiful that your soul seemed hardly able to bear the prison of the body. You felt that it was ready to be wafted away on the immaterial air, and death bore all the aspect of a beloved friend."
"'And do you never regret Europe? Do you not yearn sometimes for the light of the streets in Paris or London, the companionship of your friends, and equals, que sais-je? for theatres and newspapers, and the rumble of omnibuses on the cobbled pavements?'
"Do you know how men can be so obsessed by love that they are deaf and blind to everything else in the world? They are as little their own masters as the slaves chained to the benches of a galley. The passion that held Strickland in bondage was no less tyrannical than love."
"And the passion that held Strickland was a passion to create beauty. It gave him no peace. It urged him hither and thither. He was eternally a pilgrim, haunted by a divine nostalgia, and the demon within him was ruthless. There are men whose desire for truth is so great that to attain it they will shatter the very foundation of their world. Of such was Strickland, only beauty with him took the place of truth. I could only feel for him a profound compassion."
When Dr. Coutras arrived at the plantation he was seized with a feeling of uneasiness. Though he was hot from walking, he shivered. There was something hostile in the air which made him hesitate, and he felt that invisible forces barred his way. Unseen hands seemed to draw him back.
Strickland remained placid. Looking back, I think now that he was blind to everything but to some disturbing vision in his soul.
oblivious of everything in his effort to get what he saw with the mind's eye; and then, having finished, not the picture perhaps, for I had an idea that he seldom brought anything to completion, but the passion that fired him, he lost all care for it. He was never satisfied with what he had done;
"Who makes fame? Critics, writers, stockbrokers, women."
"Wouldn't it give you a rather pleasing sensation to think of people you didn't know and had never seen receiving emotions, subtle and passionate, from the work of your hands? Everyone likes power. I can't imagine a more wonderful exercise of it than to move the souls of men to pity or terror."
"I don't. I only want to paint what I see."
"I wonder if I could write on a desert island, with the certainty that no eyes but mine would ever see what I had written."
Strickland did not speak for a long time, but his eyes shone strangely, as though he saw something that kindled his soul to ecstasy.
"Sometimes I've thought of an island lost in a boundless sea, where I could live in some hidden valley, among strange trees, in silence. There I think I could find what I want."
"I should have thought sometimes you couldn't help thinking of the past. I don't mean the past of seven or eight years ago, but further back still, when you first met your wife, and loved her, and married her. Don't you remember the joy with which you first took her in your arms?"
I do not suppose she had ever really cared for her husband, and what I had taken for love was no more than the feminine response to caresses and comfort which in the minds of most women passes for it. It is a passive feeling capable of being roused for any object, as the vine can grow on any tree; and the wisdom of the world recognises its strength when it urges a girl to marry the man who wants her with the assurance that love will follow. It is an emotion made up of the satisfaction in security, pride of property, the pleasure of being desired, the gratification of a household, and it is only by an amiable vanity that women ascribe to it spiritual value.
But if one could be certain of nothing in dealing with creatures so incalculable as human beings, there were explanations of Blanche Stroeve's behaviour which were at all events plausible. On the other hand, I did not understand Strickland at all. I racked my brain, but could in no way account for an action so contrary to my conception of him. It was not strange that he should so heartlessly have betrayed his friends' confidence, nor that he hesitated not at all to gratify a whim at the cost of another's misery. That was in his character. He was a man without any conception of gratitude. He had no compassion. The emotions common to most of us simply did not exist in him, and it was as absurd to blame him for not feeling them as for blaming the tiger because he is fierce and cruel. But it was the whim I could not understand.
I could not believe that Strickland had fallen in love with Blanche Stroeve. I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others; there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure—if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence. These were not traits which I could imagine in Strickland. Love is absorbing; it takes the lover out of himself.
Love is never quite devoid of sentimentality.
But I suppose that everyone's conception of the passion is formed on his own idiosyncrasies, and it is different with every different person. A man like Strickland would love in a manner peculiar to himself. It was vain to seek the analysis of his emotion.
There is no cruelty greater than a woman's to a man who loves her and whom she does not love; she has no kindness then, no tolerance even, she has only an insane irritation.
The summer came, breathless and sultry, and even at night there was no coolness to rest one's jaded nerves. The sun-baked streets seemed to give back the heat that had beat down on them during the day, and the passers-by dragged their feet along them wearily.
I hoped that the grief which now seemed intolerable would be softened by the lapse of time, and a merciful forgetfulness would help him to take up once more the burden of life. He was young still, and in a few years he would look back on all his misery with a sadness in which there would be something not unpleasurable. Sooner or later he would marry some honest soul in Holland, and I felt sure he would be happy
"A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her," he said, "but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account."
The satyr in him suddenly took possession, and he was powerless in the grip of an instinct which had all the strength of the primitive forces of nature. It was an obsession so complete that there was no room in his soul for prudence or gratitude.
"I don't want love. I haven't time for it. It's weakness. I am a man, and sometimes I want a woman. When I've satisfied my passion I'm ready for other things. I can't overcome my desire, but I hate it; it imprisons my spirit; I look forward to the time when I shall be free from all desire and can give myself without hindrance to my work. Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance. They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life. It's an insignificant part. I know lust. That's normal and healthy. Love is a disease. Women are the instruments of my pleasure; I have no patience with their claim to be helpmates, partners, companions."
"When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul. Because she's weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her. She has a small mind, and she resents the abstract which she is unable to grasp. She is occupied with material things, and she is jealous of the ideal. The soul of man wanders through the uttermost regions of the universe, and she seeks to imprison it in the circle of her account-book. Do you remember my wife? I saw Blanche little by little trying all her tricks. With infinite patience she prepared to snare me and bind me. She wanted to bring me down to her level; she cared nothing for me, she only wanted me to be hers. She was willing to do everything in the world for me except the one thing I wanted: to leave me alone."
It's a preposterous attempt to try to live only for yourself and by yourself. Sooner or later you'll be ill and tired and old, and then you'll crawl back into the herd. Won't you be ashamed when you feel in your heart the desire for comfort and sympathy? You're trying an impossible thing. Sooner or later the human being in you will yearn for the common bonds of humanity."
Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them. We are like people living in a country whose language they know so little that, with all manner of beautiful and profound things to say, they are condemned to the banalities of the conversation manual.
I surmise that she realised that to him she was not an individual, but an instrument of pleasure; he was a stranger still, and she tried to bind him to herself with pathetic arts. She strove to ensnare him with comfort and would not see that comfort meant nothing to him. For in men, as a rule, love is but an episode which takes its place among the other affairs of the day, and the emphasis laid on it in novels gives it an importance which is untrue to life. There are few men to whom it is the most important thing in the world, and they are not very interesting ones; even women, with whom the subject is of paramount interest, have a contempt for them. They are flattered and excited by them, but have an uneasy feeling that they are poor creatures. But even during the brief intervals in which they are in love, men do other things which distract their mind; the trades by which they earn their living engage their attention; they are absorbed in sport; they can interest themselves in art. For the most part, they keep their various activities in various compartments, and they can pursue one to the temporary exclusion of the other. They have a faculty of concentration on that which occupies them at the moment, and it irks them if one encroaches on the other. As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.
With Strickland the sexual appetite took a very small place. It was unimportant. It was irksome. His soul aimed elsewhither. He had violent passions, and on occasion desire seized his body so that he was driven to an orgy of lust, but he hated the instincts that robbed him of his self-possession. I think, even, he hated the inevitable partner in his debauchery. When he had regained command over himself, he shuddered at the sight of the woman he had enjoyed. His thoughts floated then serenely in the empyrean, and he felt towards her the horror that perhaps the painted butterfly, hovering about the flowers, feels to the filthy chrysalis from which it has triumphantly emerged. I suppose that art is a manifestation of the sexual instinct. It is the same emotion which is excited in the human heart by the sight of a lovely woman, the Bay of Naples under the yellow moon, and the Entombment of Titian. It is possible that Strickland hated the normal release of sex because it seemed to him brutal by comparison with the satisfaction of artistic creation. It seems strange even to myself, when I have described a man who was cruel, selfish, brutal and sensual, to say that he was a great idealist. The fact remains.
He lived more poorly than an artisan. He worked harder. He cared nothing for those things which with most people make life gracious and beautiful. He was indifferent to money. He cared nothing about fame. You cannot praise him because he resisted the temptation to make any of those compromises with the world which most of us yield to. He had no such temptation. It never entered his head that compromise was possible. He lived in Paris more lonely than an anchorite in the deserts of Thebes. He asked nothing his fellows except that they should leave him alone. He was single-hearted in his aim, and to pursue it he was willing to sacrifice not only himself—many can do that—but others. He had a vision.
Personally, I want to have the cake and eat it, too, or staring at the moon while groping for the sixpence ;-)
周末快樂！
謝謝暖暖分享精彩書評：）
《傲慢與偏見》剛好相反，看到的是人性之美，男女主人公的反省及美德，也正如此，結局也是美的。
婚姻愛情是個永恒的話題，正因為千姿百態，這世界才繽紛多彩。正常穩定的婚姻是給人港灣、溫暖的地方，而像畫家這樣比較特殊的人群，把婚姻愛情當做枷鎖的人，一定也存在的。在這些人眼裏，婚姻愛情都有保鮮期的，過期了，就該扔了:))尤其是藝術家，需要不斷的靈感，刺激，注定他們的生活不會像常人一樣。
這篇小說給我的另一個感觸就是女人不能把愛情當做人生的全部，要獨立，要給人空間。
思韻妹妹周末快樂！
我可能更象迪兒，耐心出了"問題"。:) 我也同意樓下說的，這個畫家是被命運選中了，執著得超凡，所以能迸發出留世作品。有些人，更是屬於世界，而不是單一女人的。不好去太多地評判人家，生命對誰都是歎息。
畫家有點偏執狂，一根筋的人，他不為名不為利，眼裏隻有畫，這種執著成就了他。我對毛姆了解不多，但是我抄了不少他小說中關於愛情的觀點，好像是有點像你說的不屑一顧。等有空來搜一搜他，來讀讀。再次感謝你的補充和信息，祝周末快樂！
以暖冬這樣的個性，我想應能成就一個不平凡的人 ：）
不過呢，這是我讀完這篇小說的感想。你提到了你弟弟，讓我理解了，人在這個社會上其實就是矛盾體。普通人因為普通平凡，沒有這麽多煩惱，而那些天才型的，有時就會與世格格不入。讀小說可以解悶，現在有時覺得日子太平淡無奇了:)迪兒周末好！
其實我現在的文章寫得不如以前，一直在想這個問題。照理，文字應該越寫越順的。想起你的處女作小說，也是我最喜歡的那篇。有些作家也是如此，後麵的作品技術越來越嫻熟，為什麽反而不如以前的?
一個作家的一部作品，隻要有一兩處真正打動人心的，真正的經典哲理句子好像就可以流芳百世:)。毛姆這篇小說裏的金句很多，這些隻是在公司電腦word上highlight的，Kindle上的還沒有倒出來。等下了首頁，我再來貼。
謝謝mm,周末快樂！
謝謝你的精彩書評。我水平不夠，興趣不夠，耐心也不夠，這些名著和我一輩子無緣了。是你的描述，讓我知道了這個驚心動魄的故事，更深刻地認識了許多畫家的共性。對於他們，很難用對錯衡量。
之所以很理解，因為我有一個畫家弟弟，我也是漸漸理解了他的獨特和掙紮。好在隨著年齡增長閱曆增加，我弟弟世俗了許多，也快樂了許多。
相對來說，毛姆是較少慈悲心的作家，筆觸偏於尖刻不留情麵的，所以比較接近真實。不過，嗯，總是有不過的。一言難盡。
謝謝你，帶著我們重溫經典。
Strickland 在成為藝術的追求者之後，變得忘我，摒棄所有桎梏，隻是恣意地任愛流淌。
謝謝暖冬的介紹。
暖冬好文！
畫家自己成就了自己，而非他人。若每個人都能這樣義無反顧的追求自己的夢想，都會得到相應的幫助。但，人們沒有這樣的勇氣。他的妻兒沒有了他的照應，也能找到生存的路。過程中必定比一生受人照顧收獲大，雖說是被逼。
他的第三任妻子是真愛啊，愛一個人就是給人自由，讓他如他所是的樣子。