It may be that I wait a while before we start living together if our circumstances are particularly difficult, but even then I want to get married — without telling anyone, completely quietly. If anybody makes a fuss, I won’t take any notice. Since she’s a Catholic, the wedding will be all the simpler, for the church is naturally out of the question; neither she nor I want to have anything to do with it. You will say, that’s short and to the point. So be it. I want to be concerned with one thing only, drawing, and she too has one regular occupation, posing. I sincerely wish that it were possible for me to take the house next door. It’s exactly big enough, because the attic can be turned into a bedroom and the studio is a good size and light, much better than here. But would it be possible? But even if I had to live in a hovel, I would rather have a crust of bread beside my own hearth, however poor, than live without marrying her.
She knows what poverty is, so do I. Tersteeg doesn’t know a damned thing about it, and neither do you, Theo. Poverty has its advantages and disadvantages. Despite poverty, we’ll take the chance. The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm fearsome, but could never see that the dangers were a reason to continue strolling on the beach. They leave that wisdom to those to whom it appeals. When the storm comes — when night falls — what’s worse: the danger or the fear of danger? Give me reality, the danger itself. Adieu Theo, it’s late. Pardon me for this letter, I’m tired but wanted to write anyway. I wish you could understand and that I could put it in a clearer and friendlier way, but don’t take offence, and believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
I believe (or rather there’s a glimmer of beginning to believe) that there’s a possibility that the notion ‘Theo will withdraw his help if I argue with him’ &c. &c. may be utterly needless. But, Theo, I’ve seen things like that done so often that I wouldn’t respect you less and not be angry with you if you did likewise. Because I would think, he knows no better; they all behave like that, unthinkingly but not from malice. If I continue to receive your help, that will be something utterly new, a rare chance I haven’t counted on. Because for a considerable time I’ve gone around, so to speak, always with the prospect of the very worst before me, as has Christien, because I continually said to her ‘Lass, I fear a time will come when I’m completely penniless’. But I haven’t said that to you before it was necessary. If you continue your help it is a solution, a deliverance, so unexpected, so undreamt-of, that I would be utterly overwhelmed by joy. And now, I daren’t think about it and resolutely push the thought away, even while I write to you about it with a steady hand, so as not to weaken.
What I experienced this winter with Mauve has been a lesson to me, making me prepare myself since then for the worst … a death sentence from you, that is, the ending of your help.
You’ll say, but that help hasn’t stopped … but I received it with a certain reserve, thinking he doesn’t yet know everything he will know one day, and until the crisis comes I’ll have no rest and remain on guard, prepared for the worst.
Now the crisis is here and I still can’t decide, I don’t dare hope yet. I’ve told Christien: I’ll support you until Leiden. When you come back from Leiden, I don’t know how you’ll find me — with or without a penny — but what I have is as much yours and the child’s as mine. Christien doesn’t know the details — and doesn’t ask, knowing that I deal honestly with her and wanting to be with me come what may. The postscript in your last letter made me think … I thought, how does he mean that? … But up to now I’ve always thought of you as likely to turn away from me as soon as you knew everything.
So I lived by the day but with a sombre fear of the worst from which I dare not yet account myself freed. I also worked by the day, not daring to order more drawing or painting materials than I could pay for by the day, not daring to undertake anything in the way of painting, for example, not daring to tackle it as I would have done had I counted on relations with Mauve and H.G.T. being restored. Thinking that if their friendliness was superficial, their unfriendliness went deeper, and anyway, I took seriously what Mauve said, ‘it’s all over’, not when he said it to me (for then I took it coolly enough in a spirit of bravado like the Indians who say ‘it doesn’t hurt at all’ when they’re tortured), but since he wrote to me ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with you for two months’. Since I broke the plaster casts.
In short, I’ve always argued to myself: I can expect nothing more from Mauve and Tersteeg, and I’ll thank God if Theo carries on sending me the needful long enough for me to support Christien safely until Leiden, and then I’ll explain to him and say, stop, this is what I’ve done.
Do you understand any of this? …
So I’m writing to you now as I spoke to Mauve when he said, ‘it’s all over’ — almost as a challenge — prepared for the worst — cold-bloodedly — sarcastically — and yet deadly serious, not sparing you, criticizing you for your conventions, yet not frivolously but … IN DAMNED EARNEST.
Do you understand now? Having just gone through the dreadful suspense with Christien, but she having pulled through, I am now pleading, declaring, Gentlemen, here is my neck. I plead guilty in that I hid from all of you something that has cost money, but there was a human life to be saved and I wanted to save it come what may, not talk about it. But now … if you condemn me I’ll be guilty and shan’t protest. I supply work for your money, but if it isn’t enough then I’m in your debt and can’t repay you. I’m prepared for your displeasure but not for your mercy … I’ve never counted on that and I don’t know how I stand . . . . . . what is it to be??? I’ve prepared myself for the worst and not hoped for anything less bad. What’s the position? But speak clearly.
In short, I knew very well that I was compromising myself in the eyes of the world by helping Christien, and I did not, or rather still do not, count on your wanting to have anything to do with me after knowing that I compromised myself. But I couldn’t leave her to her fate. I wanted to save her, even though my head might be at stake. And now I still don’t know whether it’s to be ‘POLLICE VERSO’, yes or no??? If it’s yes: ‘Morituri te salutant’. I’ve seen the thumbs move, but don’t know whether they’re pointing up or down.
235 | The Hague, Saturday, 3 June 1882 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
My dear Theo,
Today, Saturday, I’m sending you the two drawings
Fish-drying barn in the dunes, Scheveningen
Carpenter’s yard and laundry (from the window of my studio).
I’ve thought of you so often these past few days, and also occasionally about the time long ago when, as you will remember, you visited me in The Hague and we walked along Trekweg to Rijswijk and drank milk at the mill there. It may be that this influenced me somewhat when I did these drawings, in which I have tried as naïvely as possible to draw things exactly as I saw them. At the time of the mill, however dear those days still are to me, it would have been impossible for me to put what I saw and felt on paper. So what I’m saying is that the changes brought about by time have not fundamentally altered my feelings; it’s just that I believe they have taken a different form. My life, and yours too perhaps, after all, is no longer as sunny as it was then, but I still wouldn’t want to go back, because it’s precisely through some trouble and adversity that I see something good emerging, namely the expression of those feelings.
Rappard was pleased with a similar drawing which C.M. has, and moreover with all the others C.M. has. Especially with the largest of the almshouse. And he is someone who understands what I want and appreciates how difficult it is. I believe you would find Rappard much changed since his first time in Paris when you knew him.
I have in front of me a volume of the Household edition of Dickens, with illustrations. They are excellent and are drawn by Barnard and Fildes. They show parts of Old London, which take on a very different appearance from the carpenter’s yard, for example, also because of the peculiarities of the wood engraving. Yet I still believe t
hat the way to get that boldness and daring later is to quietly carry on observing as faithfully as possible now. As you see, there are several planes in this drawing, and one can look around in it and peer into all sorts of nooks and crannies. It lacks that ruggedness as yet, at least doesn’t by any means have that quality to the same extent as the above illustrations, but that will come with practice.
I have heard from C.M. in the form of a postal order for 20 guilders but without a single word to go with it. So for the time being I haven’t the slightest idea whether he wants to order something new from me or whether the drawings are to his taste. But comparing it with the price paid for the previous ones, 30 guilders, and bearing in mind that this last batch (the first contained 12 small ones; this had 1 small one, 4 like the enclosed and 2 large ones — i.e. 7 items in all) was more substantial than the first, it seems to me that His Hon. had got out of the wrong side of the bed the day he received them, or that they failed to please for some reason or another. I readily admit that, to an eye used only to watercolours, drawings which have been scratched by pen or had lights scraped off or put back on in body-colour may seem a little harsh. But there are also people who, just as it is sometimes pleasant and invigorating for a healthy constitution to go for a walk when a strong wind is blowing, so there are also art lovers, I say, who aren’t afraid of the harsh.
Weissenbruch, for example, wouldn’t find these two drawings disagreeable or dull.
In the circumstances, should I learn that C.M. would rather not have any more, of course I cannot and will not force them on His Hon., but I hope that, for example when you come, you will be able to find out how things really stand.
Naturally, although I hadn’t expected him to give me 10 guilders less for this batch than for the previous one, I agree with the 20 guilders, all the more so because I left it to His Hon. to fix the price. And if he wants me to start on another 6 or 12, I’m ready to do that because I don’t want to miss any opportunity to sell something. I really want to do my best to accommodate His Hon., because I think that it’s worth the effort as long as I get my rent out of it and can make ends meet more easily. It’s just that His Hon. himself talked about giving more, not less, for more detailed drawings. I only raise the matter, after all, mainly to know what to do as regards a new order that is or is not to follow. It may also be that His Hon. will write to me himself later.
In a few days, or today if I have time, I’ll send you a brief list of what is in my collection of wood engravings. I’m so sure you will take pleasure in them. While I spent less on paint this winter than others did, I had more expenses in connection with the study of perspective and proportion for an instrument described in a work by Albrecht Dürer and used by the Dutchmen of old. It makes it possible to compare the proportions of objects close at hand with those on a plane further away, in cases where construction according to the rules of perspective isn’t feasible. Which, if you do it by eye, will always come out wrong, unless you’re very experienced and skilled.
I didn’t manage to make the thing the first time around, but I succeeded in the end after trying for a long time with the aid of the carpenter and the smith. And I think that with more work I can get much better results still.
It would please me greatly if perhaps in your wardrobe there was a jacket and trousers suitable for me which you no longer wear.
Because if I buy something I like it to be as practical as possible for working in the dunes or indoors, but my clothes for going out are getting rather threadbare. And while I am not ashamed to be seen in the streets in a cheap suit when I go out to work, I am decidedly ashamed by gentleman’s clothes that give the impression of a gentleman down on his luck. My everyday clothes, however, aren’t at all shoddy, because now I have Sien to keep check of them and make minor repairs.
I end this letter by saying to you again that I so dearly wish that the family should not view my relationship with Sien as something of which there isn’t the slightest question, namely an intrigue. Which I would find unspeakably offensive and would only widen the gulf. What I hope is that they don’t interfere, with some ill-timed wisdom, to prevent me from being with her. I mean of the same sort as when Pa wanted to pack me off to Geel. The speculating about inheritances that you mention is quite out of the question, if only because there are no inheritances for me as far as I know, and indeed there cannot be for there is nothing. I believe there is literally no money at home. The only person from whom, in very different circumstances, I might perhaps have inherited something because I share his name, Uncle Cent, is someone with whom I have been on bad terms for many years on account of numerous things, and in such a manner that by the nature of the matter it cannot be resolved as if I were his protégé, because I myself certainly wouldn’t want that, and of course he hasn’t the slightest thought of any such thing any more, although I hope that, just like last year, if I meet His Hon. we shall not make a public scene. And now with a handshake
Ever yours,
Vincent
Woodcuts
1 portfolio
Irish characters, miners, factories, fishermen &c. for the most part small pen sketches.
1 "
Landscapes and animals, Bodmer, Giacomelli, Lançon, also some landscapes
1 "
Labours of the fields by Millet, also Breton, Feyen-Perrin and English prints by Herkomer, Boughton, Clausen &c.
1 "
Lançon
1 "
Gavarni, supplemented with lithographs, but no rare ones
1 "
Ed. Morin
1 "
G. Doré
1 "
1 "
1 "
Missing here is John Leech, but this gap can easily be filled because there’s a reprint of his woodcuts that isn’t expensive.
1 "
Barnard
1 "
Fildes and Charles Green &c.
1 "
small French wood engravings, Album Boetzel &c.
1 "
Scenes on board English ships and military sketches.
1 "
Heads of the people by Herkomer, supplemented with drawings by others and by portraits
1 "
Scenes from everyday London life, from the opium smokers and Whitechapel and The Seven Dials to the most elegant ladies and Rotten Row or Westminster Park. Together with corresponding scenes from Paris and New York, the whole forms a curious ‘Tale of those cities’.
1 portfolio.
The large prints from The Graphic, London News, Harper’s Weekly, L’Illustration &c. including Frank Holl, Herkomer, Fred Walker, P. Renouard, Menzel, Howard Pyle.
1 portfolio.
The Graphic portfolio, being a separate publication of impressions of several woodcuts, not from the printing plates but the blocks themselves, among them the Homeless and hungry by Fildes.
Several illustrated books, including Dickens and the Frederick the Great by Menzel, small edition.
237 | The Hague, on or about Thursday, 8 June 1882 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Municipal hospital (4th class, Ward 6, no. 9)
Brouwersgracht.
My dear Theo,
Should you come here towards the end of June, I hope you’ll find me back at work, but at present I’m in hospital, although I’ll only be here for about a fortnight. For some 3 weeks I’d been suffering a good deal from sleeplessness and chronic fever, and felt pain on passing water. And now it turns out that I’ve got a very mild case of what’s known as ‘a dose of the clap’. So I have to stay quietly in bed, swallow a lot of quinine tablets and from time to time have instillations of pure water or alum water, thus as harmless as could be. There’s no reason for you to be in the least concerned about this, but as you know one has to take this sort of thing seriously and act immediately, because neglect can make it incurable or exacerbate matters. Take the case of Breitner, who’s still here, though in another ward, and will probably leave soon — he doesn’t know I
’m here.
I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention this, because people sometimes think it’s terribly serious or make it sound serious by telling exaggerated tales. Of course I’m telling you exactly what it is, and you needn’t keep silent if someone asks you directly, and in any event you needn’t worry. Naturally I had to pay for a fortnight in advance, 10.50 guilders for nursing costs. There’s no difference in food or treatment between those whose nursing is paid for by poor relief and those who pay the 10.50 guilders themselves. There are 10 beds in a ward, and I must say that the treatment is very good in every respect. I’m not bored, and the rest and proper, practical medical treatment are doing me good.
If it’s convenient, be so good as to send around 20 June to the above address, but NOT by registered letter, 50 francs without registering the letter. As you know, I received 100 francs on 1 June, so I’m taken care of in any event. If I have to stay longer, I’ll pay the extra and stay on, and otherwise I’ll have enough to carry on with.
I’d prefer to get back to work in a fortnight, of course, and I’ll be dying to go back to the dunes in a fortnight.
Sien comes to see me on visiting days and is keeping an eye on the studio. Now I must tell you that the day before I came here I received a letter from C.M. in which he writes a good deal about the ‘interest’ that he takes in me and which, he says, Mr Tersteeg has shown, but, he continues, he didn’t approve of how ungrateful I was for H.G.T.’s interest. So be it. I’m lying here completely calmly and quietly now, but I assure you, Theo, that I would be put in a very bad mood if someone again dished me up with the same sort of interest as H.G.T. on certain occasions. And when I think how His Hon. took that interest to the point of daring to compare me to an opium smoker, I’m still amazed that for my part I didn’t show my interest by telling him to go to hell.
Ever Yours Page 31