He gave a sudden flash of anger."Damn it all, I wanted her."But he recovered his temper immediately, and looked at me with a smile.
"At first she was horrified." "Did you tell her?""There wasn't any need.She knew.I never said a word.She was frightened. At last I took her."I do not know what there was in the way he told me this that extraordinarily suggested the violence of his desire.It was disconcerting and rather horrible.His life was strangely divorced from material things, and it was as though his body at times wreaked a fearful revenge on his spirit. The satyr in him suddenly took possession, and he was powerless in the grip of an instinct which had all the strength of the primitive forces of nature.It was an obsession so complete that there was no room in his soul for prudence or gratitude.
"But why did you want to take her away with you?" I asked.
"I didn't," he answered, frowning."When she said she was coming I was nearly as surprised as Stroeve.I told her that when I'd had enough of her she'd have to go, and she said she'd risk that." He paused a little."She had a wonderful body, and I wanted to paint a nude.When I'dfinished my picture I took no more interest in her." "And she loved you with all her heart."He sprang to his feet and walked up and down the small room.
"I don't want love.I haven't time for it.It's weakness.I am a man, and sometimes I want a woman.When I've satisfied my passion I'm ready for other things.I can't overcome my desire, but I hate it; it imprisons my spirit; I look forward to the time when I shall be free from all desire and can give myself without hindrance to my work.Because women can do nothing except love, they've given it a ridiculous importance.They want to persuade us that it's the whole of life.It's an insignificant part.I know lust.That's normal and healthy.Love is a disease.Women are the instruments of my pleasure; I have no patience with their claim to be helpmates, partners, companions."I had never heard Strickland speak so much at one time.He spoke with a passion of indignation.But neither here nor elsewhere do I pretend to give his exact words; his vocabulary was small, and he had no gift for framing sentences, so that one had to piece his meaning together out of interjections, the expression of his face, gestures and hackneyed phrases.
"You should have lived at a time when women were chattels and men the masters of slaves," I said.
"It just happens that I am a completely normal man."I could not help laughing at this remark, made in all seriousness; but he went on, walking up and down the room like a caged beast, intent on expressing what he felt, but found such difficulty in putting coherently.
"When a woman loves you she's not satisfied until she possesses your soul.Because she's weak, she has a rage for domination, and nothing less will satisfy her.She has a small mind, and she resents the abstract which she is unable to grasp.She is occupied with material things, and she is jealous of the ideal.The soul of man wanders through the uttermost regions of the universe, and she seeks to imprison it in the circle of her account-book.Do you remember my wife? I saw Blanche little by little trying all her tricks.With infinite patience she prepared to snare me and bind me.She wanted to bring me down to her level; she cared nothing for me, she only wanted me to be hers. She was willing to do everythingin the world for me except the one thing I wanted: to leave me alone." I was silent for a while.
