Ind. Reading. "The Moon and Sixpence". Part 1.

Summary (1-18 chapters)

The author, a young writer, after his first literary success was invited to breakfast with Mrs. Strickland because the bourgeois often had weakness for people of art and flattering themselves rotate in artistic circles. Her husband, a stockbroker, disliked such breakfasts. He was too ordinary, boring and unobtrusive. But breakfast tradition was suddenly interrupted as Charles Strickland left his wife and went to Paris to everyone's amazement. Mrs. Strickland was convinced that he ran away from her with a woman to spend money on luxury hotels and expensive restaurants. She asked the author to go after him and make him to return to his family. But in Paris, it turned out that Strickland lived alone in the cheapest room at the poorest hotel, there was no sign of the abandoned luxury that Colonel MacAndrew had so confidently described. He admitted that he had acted badly, but the fate of his wife and children as well as public opinion didn't not disturb him. The rest of his life he intended to devote not to his family but to himself: he wanted to become an artist. Strickland seemed to be owned by a powerful, unstoppable force that was impossible to resist. For Mrs. Strickland it seemed much more insulting that her husband left her for painting, she was ready to forgive him, and she continued to support the rumors of a romance of Strickland with French dancer. In his move to France Strikland became indifferent to people and their emotions. He showed no affection to those who entered his life or those who left it.