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Strickland seemed to bear in his heart strange harmonies and unadventured patterns, and I foresaw for him an end of torture and despair. I had again the feeling that he was possessed of a devil; but you could not say that it was a devil of evil, for it was a primitive force that existed before good and ill.
思特里克蘭德的心里好象懷著奇妙的和弦同未經探索過的畫面。我預見到他的結局將是遭受痛苦的折磨和絕望。我心里又產生了一種他被魔鬼附體的感覺；但你卻不能說這是邪惡的魔鬼，因為這是在宇宙混沌、善惡未分之前就存在的一種原始的力量。
He was still too weak to paint, and he sat in the studio, silent, occupied with God knows what dreams, or reading. The books he liked were queer; sometimes I would find him poring over the poems of Mallarme, and he read them as a child reads, forming the words with his lips, and I wondered what strange emotion he got from those subtle cadences and obscure phrases; and again I found him absorbed in the detective novels of Gaboriau. I amused myself by thinking that in his choice of books he showed pleasantly the irreconcilable sides of his fantastic nature. It was singular to notice that even in the weak state of his body he had no thought for its comfort. Stroeve liked his ease, and in his studio were a couple of heavily upholstered arm-chairs and a large divan. Strickland would not go near them, not from any affectation of stoicism, for I found him seated on a three-legged stool when I went into the studio one day and he was alone, but because he did not like them. For choice he sat on a kitchen chair without arms. It often exasperated me to see him. I never knew a man so entirely indifferent to his surroundings.
他身體仍然很弱，不能作畫。他沉默不語地坐在畫室里，天曉得腦子里在想什么。有時候他也看書。他喜歡看的書都很怪；有時候我發現他在閱讀馬拉美（斯臺凡·馬拉美（1842—1898），法國象征派詩人）的詩。他讀書的樣子就象小孩子一樣，動著嘴唇一個字一個字地拼讀。我很想知道那些精巧的韻律和晦澀的詩句給他一些什么奇怪的感情。另外一些時候我發現他浸沉在嘉包里奧（艾米爾·嘉包里奧（1835—1873），法國最早的偵探小說家）的偵探小說里。我想，他對書的選擇表現出組成他怪誕性格的不可調和的方面；我對自己的這個想法感到很有趣。盡管他的身體很弱，但是仍象往常一樣，從不講求舒適，這真是他奇怪的個性。施特略夫喜歡把起居環境弄得舒服一些，畫室里擺著一對非常柔軟的扶手椅和一張長沙發椅。思特里克蘭德從來不坐這些椅子；他并不是矯揉造作，故意表示甘于艱苦，而是因為不喜歡它們。有一次我來看他，畫室里只有他一個人，我發現他正坐在一只三腳凳上。如果叫他選擇的話，他會喜歡不帶扶手的硬背椅。他的這種習性常常叫我很惱火。我從來沒有見過哪個人這么不關心周圍的生活環境的。
