The Moon And Sixpence 45.1

I have saidalready that but for the hazard of a journey to Tahiti I should doubtless neverhave written this book. It is thither that after many wanderings CharlesStrickland came, and it is there that he painted the pictures on which his famemost securely rests. I suppose no artist achieves completely the realisation ofthe dream that obsesses him, and Strickland, harassed incessantly by hisstruggle with technique, managed, perhaps, less than others to express thevision that he saw with his mind's eye; but in Tahiti the circumstances werefavourable to him; he found in his surroundings the accidents necessary for hisinspiration to become effective, and his later pictures give at least asuggestion of what he sought. They offer the imagination something new andstrange. It is as though in this far country his spirit, that had wandereddisembodied, seeking a tenement, at last was able to clothe itself in flesh. Touse the hackneyed phrase, here he found himself.It would seemthat my visit to this remote island should immediately revive my interest inStrickland, but the work I was engaged in occupied my attention to theexclusion of something that was irrelevant, and it was not till I had beenthere some days that I even remembered his connection with it. After all, I hadnot seen him for fifteen years, and it was nine since he died. But I think myarrival at Tahiti would have driven out of my head matters of much moreimmediate importance to me, and even after a week I found it not easy to ordermyself soberly. I remember that on my first morning I awoke early, and when Icame on to the terrace of the hotel no one was stirring. I wandered round tothe kitchen, but it was locked, and on a bench outside it a native boy wassleeping. There seemed no chance of breakfast for some time, so I sauntereddown to the water-front. The Chinamen were already busy in their shops. The skyhad still the pallor of dawn, and there was a ghostly silence on the lagoon.Ten miles away the island of Murea, like some high fastness of the Holy Grail,guarded its mystery.我在前面已经说过，如果不是由于偶然的机缘到了塔希提，我是肯定不会写这本书的。查理斯·思特里克兰德经过多年浪迹最后流落到的地方正是塔希提；也正是在这里他创作出使他永远名垂画史的画幅。我认为哪个艺术家也不可能把昼夜萦绕在他心头的梦境全部付诸实现，思特里克兰德为掌握绘画的技巧，艰苦奋斗、日夜处于痛苦的煎熬里，但同其他画家比较起来，他表现自己幻想中图景的能力可能更差，只有到了塔希提以后，思特里克兰德才找到顺利的环境。在这里，他在自己周围处处可以看到为使自己的灵感开花结果不可或缺的事物，他晚年的图画至少告诉了我们他终生追寻的是什么，让我们的幻想走入一个新鲜的、奇异的境界。仿佛是，思特里克兰德的精神一直脱离了他的躯体到处漫游，到处寻找寄宿，最后，在这个遥远的土地上，终于进入了一个躯壳。用一句陈腐的话说，他在这里可谓“得其所哉”。我一踏上这个偏远的岛屿，就应该立刻恢复对思特里克兰德的兴趣，这似乎是一件很自然的事；但事实是，我手头的工作却占据了我的全部精神，根本无暇顾及与此无关的事；直到在塔希提住了几天以后，我才想到这个地方同思特里克兰德的关系。我毕竟同他分手已经十五年了，他逝世也已有九年之久了。现在回想当时的情况，在我到塔希提之后，不论手头的事多么重要，我本来应该立刻把它抛诸脑后的；但事实却不是这样，甚至一周以后我仍然无法从冗杂的事务中脱身出来。我还记得头一天早上，我醒得很早。当我走到旅馆的露台上时，周围一点动静也没有。我围着厨房转了一圈，厨房的门还上着锁，门外一条长凳上，一个本地人，旅馆的一个侍者，睡得正酣，看来一时我还吃不上早饭。于是我漫步到滨海的街道上。侨居在这里的中国人已经在他们开的店铺里忙碌起来了。天空仍然呈现出黎明时分的苍白，环礁湖上笼罩着死一样的沉寂。十英里之外，莫里阿岛伫立在海面上，象是一座圣杯形状的巍峨要塞，深锁着自己的全部秘密。