“No; he has no success. I don’t think he’s ever sold a picture. When you speak to men about him they only laugh. But I _know_ he’s a great artist. After all, they laughed at Manet. Corot never sold a picture. I don’t know where he lives, but I can take you to see him. He goes to a café in the Avenue de Clichy at seven o’clock every evening. If you like we’ll go there to-morrow.” “I’m not sure if he’ll wish to see me. I think I may remind him of a time he prefers to forget. But I’ll come all the same. Is there any chance of seeing any of his pictures?” “Not from him. He won’t show you a thing. There’s a little dealer I know who has two or three. But you mustn’t go without me; you wouldn’t understand. I must show them to you myself.” “Dirk, you make me impatient,” said Mrs. Stroeve. “How can you talk like that about his pictures when he treated you as he did?” She turned to me. “Do you know, when some Dutch people came here to buy Dirk’s pictures he tried to persuade them to buy Strickland’s? He insisted on bringing them here to show.” “What did _you_ think of them?” I asked her, smiling. “They were awful.” “Ah, sweetheart, you don’t understand.” “Well, your Dutch people were furious with you. They thought you were having a joke with them.” Dirk Stroeve took off his spectacles and wiped them. His flushed face was shining with excitement. “Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.” “Why did I always think your pictures beautiful, Dirk? I admired them the very first time I saw them.” Stroeve’s lips trembled a little. “Go to bed, my precious. I will walk a few steps with our friend, and then I will come back.” Chapter XX Dirk Stroeve agreed to fetch me on the following evening and take me to the café at which Strickland was most likely to be found. I was interested to learn that it was the same as that at which Strickland and I had drunk absinthe when I had gone over to Paris to see him. The fact that he had never changed suggested a sluggishness of habit which seemed to me characteristic. “There he is,” said Stroeve, as we reached the café. Though it was October, the evening was warm, and the tables on the pavement were crowded. I ran my eyes over them, but did not see Strickland. “Look. Over there, in the corner. He’s playing chess.” I noticed a man bending over a chess-board, but could see only a large felt hat and a red beard. We threaded our way among the tables till we came to him. “Strickland.” He looked up.