Ind. Reading "The Moon and Sixpence". Part 4

Summary (39-48 chapters)

After Dirk had buried his wife, he found out the picture of a woman lying on the sofa in his studio. It was Blanche. He was going to make a great hole in the picture but he couldn’t touch it because he was seized with awe. He realized that Strickland found a new soul with unsuspected powers. When the narrator was walking alone, he passed Charles Strickland who followed him out. When the conversation turned to Blanch, Charles told that he could not stand the claims of women out to be his assistants or friends. As soon as he got tired of painting naked Blanche he left her. She couldn’t return to her husband because she was unable to forgive the victims he had brought. Dirk married her when she was pregnant from her owner’s son and tried to commit suicide. After visiting the narrator’s house, Charles suggested looking at his pictures and the author welcomed such an opportunity. Strickland placed a picture on the easel, let him look at it for several minutes, then took it down and put another in its place. It was the result of Charles’s six-year work, but he had never sold a picture. A week later Strickland had gone to Marseilles and the author never saw him again. When the narrator had a hazard journey to Tahiti where Charles spent the last years of his life, he asked about the famous artist Charles Strickland of all who knew him. It was revealed that the artist lived in a doss house in Marseilles without money and job. Having used false documents, Strickland was employed on a ship going to Australia. In Tahiti he worked as an overseer on a plantation and the inhabitants of the island were sorry that they missed the opportunity to buy Strickland’s paintings for pennies.