He had never been so poor that he could not buy canvas and paint, and really he needed nothing else.  因为一文不名，有时他连画布和颜料都买不起，而这两样东西恰好是他最需要的。

　　So far as I could make out, he painted with great difficulty,  从他的谈话里我了解到，他在绘画上遇到的困难很大，

　　and in his unwillingness to accept help from anyone lost much time in finding out for himself the solution of technical problems which preceding generations had already worked out one by one.  因为他不愿意接受别人指点，不得不浪费许多时间摸索一些技巧上的问题，其实这些问题过去的画家早已逐一解决了。

　　He was aiming at something, I knew not what, and perhaps he hardly knew himself; and I got again more strongly the impression of a man possessed.  他在追求一种我不太清楚的东西，或许连他自己也知道得并不清楚。过去我有过的那种印象这一次变得更加强烈了：他像是一个被什么迷住了的人，

　　He did not seem quite sane.  他的心智好像不很正常。

　　It seemed to me that he would not show his pictures because he was really not interested in them.  他不肯把自己的画拿给别人看，我觉得这是因为他对这些画实在不感兴趣。

　　He lived in a dream, and the reality meant nothing to him.  他生活在幻梦里，现实对他一点儿意义也没有。

　　I had the feeling that he worked on a canvas with all the force of his violent personality, oblivious of everything in his effort to get what he saw with the mind's eye;  我有一种感觉，他好像把自己的强烈个性全部倾注在一张画布上，在奋力创造自己心灵所见到的景像时，他把周围的一切事物全都忘记了。

　　and then, having finished, not the picture perhaps, for I had an idea that he seldom brought anything to completion, but the passion that fired him, he lost all care for it.  而一旦绘画的过程结束——或许并不是画幅本身，因为据我猜想，他是很少把一张画画完的，我是说他把一阵燃烧着他心灵的激情发泄完毕以后，他对自己画出来的东西就再也不关心了。

　　He was never satisfied with what he had done; it seemed to him of no consequence compared with the vision that obsessed his mind. 他对自己的画儿从来也不满意；同缠住他心灵的幻景相比，他觉得这些画实在太没有意义了。

　　Why don't you ever send your work to exhibitions? I asked. "I should have thought you'd like to know what people thought about it." “为什么你不把自己的画送到展览会上去呢？”我问他说，“我想你会愿意听听别人的意见的。”

　　Would you? “你愿意听吗？”

　　I cannot describe the unmeasurable contempt he put into the two words. 他说这句话时那种鄙夷不屑劲儿我简直无法形容。

　　Don't you want fame? It's something that most artists haven't been indifferent to. “你不想成名吗？大多数画家对这一点还是不能无动于衷的。”

　　Children. How can you care for the opinion of the crowd, when you don't care twopence for the opinion of the individual? “真幼稚。如果你不在乎某一个人对你的看法，一群人对你有什么意见又有什么关系？”

　　We're not all reasonable beings, I laughed. “我们并不是人人都是理性动物啊！”我笑着说。

　　Who makes fame? Critics, writers, stockbrokers, women. “成名的是哪些人？是评论家、作家、证券经纪人、女人。”