評論
打印
I don't pretend to be a great painter, he said, "I'm not a Michael Angelo, no, but I have something. I sell. I bring romance into the homes of all sorts of people. Do you know, they buy my pictures not only in Holland, but in Norway and Sweden and Denmark? It's mostly merchants who buy them, and rich tradesmen. You can't imagine what the winters are like in those countries, so long and dark and cold. They like to think that Italy is like my pictures. That's what they expect. That's what I expected Italy to be before I came here."
“我知道自己不是個偉大的畫家，”他對我說，“我不是米開朗基羅，不是的，但是我有自己的東西。我的畫有人要買。我把浪漫情調(diào)帶進各種人的家庭里。你知道，不只在荷蘭，就是在挪威、瑞典和丹麥也有人買我的畫。買畫的主要是商人，有錢的生意人。那些國家里冬天是什么樣子你恐怕想象不到，陰沉、寒冷、長得沒有盡頭。他們喜歡看到我畫中的意大利景象。那是他們所希望看到的意大利，也是我沒來這里以前想象中的意大利。”
And I think that was the vision that had remained with him always, dazzling his eyes so that he could not see the truth; and notwithstanding the brutality of fact, he continued to see with the eyes of the spirit an Italy of romantic brigands and picturesque ruins. It was an ideal that he painted—a poor one, common and shop-soiled, but still it was an ideal; and it gave his character a peculiar charm.
我覺得這是他永遠也拋棄不掉的幻景，這種幻景閃得他眼花繚亂，叫他看不到真實情景。他不顧眼前嚴(yán)酷的事實，總用自己幻想的目光凝視著一個到處是浪漫主義的俠盜、美麗如畫的廢墟的意大利。他畫的是他理想中的境界——盡管他的理想很幼稚、很庸俗、很陳舊，但終究是個理想；這就賦予了他的性格一種迷人的色彩。
It was because I felt this that Dirk Stroeve was not to me, as to others, merely an object of ridicule. His fellow-painters made no secret of their contempt for his work, but he earned a fair amount of money, and they did not hesitate to make free use of his purse. He was generous, and the needy, laughing at him because he believed so 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.
正因為我有這種感覺，所以戴爾克·施特略夫在我的眼睛里不象在別人眼睛里那樣，只是一個受人嘲弄挖苦的對象。他的一些同行毫不掩飾他們對他作品的鄙視，但是施特略夫卻很能賺錢，而這些人把他的錢包就看作是自己的一樣，動用時是從來沒有什么顧慮的。他很大方；那些手頭拮據(jù)的人一方面嘲笑他那么天真地輕信他們編造的不幸故事，一方面厚顏無恥地伸手向他借錢。他非常重感情，但是在他那很容易就被打動的感情里面卻含有某種愚蠢的東西，讓你接受了他好心腸的幫助卻絲毫沒有感激之情。向他借錢就好象從小孩兒手里搶東西一樣；因為他太好欺侮，你反而有點兒看不起他。我猜想，一個以手快自豪的扒手對一個把裝滿貴重首飾的皮包丟在車上的粗心大意的女人一定會感到有些惱火的。
