Individual Reading №5

Chapters 41-49

Strickland was not invited in the narrator’s house but it seemed that he did not need to have permission. He behaved relaxed and usual in the house and even let himself sharpen jokes. The narrator did not hide his hate to him but at the same time he wanted to know specialities about his life and relation to recent events. Blanche Stroeve was only a model for him while the woman fell in love with him. During drawing the picture he was interested in her presence but then she began to remain him his former wife but it did not bring happiness. Charles showed his pictures to the narrator and they seemed awful and odd he could not imagine how popular they would after several years after Strickland’s death.

The narrator saw Charles in Paris and then the latter moved to Marcel. The idea of writing this book came to the author in Tahiti because there he had known again the artist. The captain told him how Charles arrived there. Strickland desired to go to East, in Australia or New Zealand, and he refused offers connecting with the USA. One day was successful for him because one ship needed a worker and Charles agreed because it let him escape anger of his enemy. In France his belongings were sold but his pictures were not successful and later people understood how wrong they had been: Strickland’s pictures became famous and expensive.