naively their stories of distress, borrowed from him with effrontery.
He was very emotional, yet his feeling, so easily aroused, had in it
something absurd, so that you accepted his kindness, but felt no
gratitude. To take money from him was like robbing a child, and you
despised him because he was so foolish. I imagine that a pickpocket,
proud of his light fingers, must feel a sort of indignation with the
careless woman who leaves in a cab a vanity-bag with all her jewels in
it. Nature had made him a butt, but had denied him insensibility. He
writhed under the jokes, practical and otherwise, which were
perpetually made at his expense, and yet never ceased, it seemed
wilfully, to expose himself to them. He was constantly wounded, and
yet his good-nature was such that he could not bear malice: the viper
might sting him, but he never learned by experience, and had no sooner
recovered from his pain than he tenderly placed it once more in his
bosom. His life was a tragedy written in the terms of knockabout
farce. Because I did not laugh at him he was grateful to me, and he
used to pour into my sympathetic ear the long list of his troubles.
The saddest thing about them was that they were grotesque, and the
more pathetic they were, the more you wanted to laugh.

But though so bad a painter, he had a very delicate feeling
for art, and to go with him to picture-galleries was a rare treat.
His enthusiasm was sincere and his criticism acute.
He was catholic. He had not only a true appreciation of the
old masters, but sympathy with the moderns. He was quick to
discover talent, and his praise was generous. I think I have
never known a man whose judgment was surer. And he was better
educated than most painters. He was not, like most of them,
ignorant of kindred arts, and his taste for music and
literature gave depth and variety to his comprehension of painting.
To a young man like myself his advice and guidance were
of incomparable value.

When I left Rome I corresponded with him, and about once in
two months received from him long letters in queer English,
which brought before me vividly his spluttering, enthusiastic,
gesticulating conversation. Some time before I went to Paris
he had married an Englishwoman, and was now settled in a
studio in Montmartre. I had not seen him for four years,
and had never met his wife.

Chapter XIX

I had not announced my arrival to Stroeve, and when I rang the
bell of his studi