Ind. Reading "The Moon and The Sixpence". Part 3

5 years later, our narrator returned to France to live in where he met his old friend Dirk Stroeve and got acquainted with his wife. He found Mrs.  Stroeve to be very enigmatic and full of dignity and noticed how passionately Dirk loved and how greatly he cherished her. The Stroeves seemed to be a pretty and sweet family and the narrator enjoyed spending his free time in their studio-flat.

Once the narrator learned that Dirk knew Strickland and considered him to be a genius artist. Having been an artist too, and quite talented one, Dirk created only vulgar and tasteless canvas. Hу saw a real talent and identified a latent art but continued to paint his insipid and banal pictures.

When they met with Strickland the narrator noticed that this man didn’t changed a lot, maybe he was a bit emaciated but he hardly cared about poverty. They met sometimes to play chess or to drink absinth and after that the narrator and Dirk could the whole evening to discuss him and his talent. Blanche didn’t like these conversations and changed so much that it seemed even strange.  Dirk was good-natured, gentle and placable and very often he didn’t pay attention on Strickland’s wanton pranks but it hurt Blanche to the innermost of her heart.

There were several weeks that nobody saw Strickland, the narrator and Dirk got worried and went to look him for. They found out him on the edge of death or life and even in this condition he could be brute. Dirk insisted on moving Strickland to their studio-flat and Blanche who hated him with her whole heart was reluctant to cede.