"
"Now that you know what art can offer, would you change your
life? Would you have missed all the delight it has given you?"
"Art is the greatest thing in the world," he answered, after a pause.
He looked at me for a minute reflectively; he seemed to hesitate;
then he said:
"Did you know that I had been to see Strickland?"
"You?"
I was astonished. I should have thought he could not bear to
set eyes on him. Stroeve smiled faintly.
"You know already that I have no proper pride."
"What do you mean by that?"
He told me a singular story.
Chapter XXXIX
When I left him, after we had buried poor Blanche, Stroeve
walked into the house with a heavy heart. Something impelled
him to go to the studio, some obscure desire for self-torture,
and yet he dreaded the anguish that he foresaw. He dragged
himself up the stairs; his feet seemed unwilling to carry him;
and outside the door he lingered for a long time, trying to
summon up courage to go in. He felt horribly sick. He had an
impulse to run down the stairs after me and beg me to go in
with him; he had a feeling that there was somebody in the
studio.
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