So don’t write any more to here in any event. And I would suggest you write a word to C.M. right away to inform him of my departure because, as you say yourself, there’s the possibility that he might write to me at this address. If he has already done so, it would be best if he asked at the post office for the letter to be returned for, not knowing exactly what my next address will be, I can only inform the post here or the landlord later on.
Friend Rappard is also travelling, and already has Drenthe behind him and is nearly on Terschelling. He wrote to me from Drenthe ‘the country here is very earnest in mood, the figures often made me think of studies by you. As for life here, one could certainly not live more cheaply anywhere else. And I think that the south-east corner (the area I have in mind) is the most original.’
Theo, I certainly have a feeling of melancholy on leaving, much more so than would have been the case had I been convinced that the woman would be energetic and that her good will wasn’t in doubt. Anyway, you know the gist from one thing and another. For my part I must press on or I myself will sink without getting her any further by that. Until she becomes more active of her own accord, namely more steadily instead of in short bursts, she’ll remain on the same inadequate spot, and even if she had 3 helpers in my place they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it unless she herself cooperated. But the children to whom one’s heart goes out? I couldn’t do everything for them, but if only the woman had been willing!
I shan’t go on moaning, though, for I must press on nonetheless.
Well, to be on the safe side I didn’t dare to take paint along, for over there I’ll soon have to pay for my things when they arrive, then lodgings and more travel expenses. But if we’re lucky enough to get something from C.M., I’ll have one or two things I’ve picked out sent there by parcel post. The sooner that can be done the better. So if you hear anything, write to me as soon as you know my address over there, and of course I agree with the proposed arrangement (regarding the partial reimbursement of the 100 francs); indeed, if you’re hard up, wait for a favourable moment before sending everything that might come from him.
I, for one, think that C.M. might just do nothing at all.
In any event, brother, it was firm and well advised of you to send this immediately. For now I’ll be over there and able to get my bearings, and we can certainly economize ourselves even if no help comes. So thanks for this, and I believe it’ll prove to be a good step. My plan is to stay there until you come to Holland next year, for instance. I wouldn’t want to miss you then. But in that way I would just see all the seasons go by and have a general view of the character of things in that region.
I’ve equipped myself with an internal passport, valid for 12 months. With which I have the right to go where I will and to stay in one place for as long or as short as I please.
So I’m very glad that I can make progress, for in this way we help ourselves; over there I reckon 50 francs for board and lodging and the rest on the work, and that’s a big difference from what I was able to do here in the circumstances. So even if others won’t help, we won’t be idle.
Regards, for I still have a lot to arrange today — write a short letter to C.M. — and in the next few days you’ll receive a message with my address, by tomorrow evening if all goes well. Adieu, with a handshake.
Ever yours,
Vincent
You wrote to me recently ‘perhaps your duty will induce you to behave differently or something’. That’s something I immediately thought about a great deal, and because my work so undoubtedly demands the step of going there, it’s my understanding that work is more directly duty than even the woman, and that the former mustn’t suffer for the sake of the latter. Which was different last year, since in my view I’m now exactly at the point of Drenthe. But one has divided feelings and would like to do both, which cannot be in the circumstances, both because of the money and, more than that, because she can’t be counted on.
Drenthe, c. 14 September–1 December 1883
386 | Hoogeveen, on or about Friday, 14 September 1883 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
My dear Theo,
Now that I’ve been here for a few days and have walked around a good deal in different directions, I can tell you more about the region I’ve fetched up in.
I enclose a scratch after my first painted study from this part of the world, a hut on the heath. A hut made of nothing but sods of turf and sticks. I’ve also seen inside about 6 of this type, and more studies of them will follow.
I can’t more accurately describe the way the exterior looks in the twilight or just after sunset than by reminding you of a particular painting by Jules Dupré which I think belongs to Mesdag, with two huts in it on which the mossy roofs stand out surprisingly deep in tone against a hazy, dusty evening sky.
That is here.
Well, it’s very beautiful inside these huts, dark as a cave. Drawings by certain English artists who have worked on the moors in Ireland most realistically convey what I observe. A. Neuhuys does the same with somewhat more poetry than strikes one at first, but he makes nothing that isn’t also fundamentally true.
I saw superb figures out in the country — striking in their expression of soberness. A woman’s breast, for example, has that heaving motion that is the exact opposite of voluptuousness, and sometimes, if the creature is old or sickly, arouses compassion or else respect. And the melancholy which things in general have is of a healthy kind, as in Millet’s drawings.
Happily, the men here wear breeches; it shows off the shape of the leg, makes the movements more expressive.
To mention one of the many things that gave me something new to see and to feel during my explorations, I’ll tell you how here one sees, for example, barges pulled by men, women, children, white or black horses, loaded with peat, in the middle of the heath, just like the ones in Holland, on the Trekweg at Rijswijk, for instance.
The heathland is rich. I saw sheepfolds and shepherds that were more attractive than those in Brabant.
The ovens are more or less like the ones in T. Rousseau’s Communal oven; stand in the gardens under old apple trees or among the celery and cabbages.
Beehives, too, in many places.
One can see that many of the people have something wrong with them — it isn’t exactly healthy here, I think — perhaps because of unclean drinking water. I’ve seen some girls of, I would say, 17 or younger who still had something very beautiful and youthful, in their features too, but generally it fades very early. Yet this doesn’t detract from the fine, noble bearing of the figure that some of them have, who prove to be very withered when seen close to.
There are 4 or 5 canals in the village, to Meppel, to Dedemsvaart, to Coevorden, to Hollandscheveld.
If you follow them, you see here and there a curious old mill, farmhouse, shipyard or lock. And always the peat barges coming and going.
To give you an example of the authentic character of this region: while I was sitting painting that hut, two sheep and a goat came up and started grazing on the roof of the house. The goat climbed onto the ridge and looked down the chimney.
The woman, who heard something on the roof, shot outside and threw her broom at the said goat, which leapt down like a chamois.
The two hamlets on the heath where I’ve been and where this incident took place are called Stuifzand and Zwartschaap. I’ve also been in various other places, and now you can imagine how unchanged it still is here, since Hoogeveen is a town after all, and yet nearby there are shepherds, those ovens, those turf huts &c.
I sometimes think with great melancholy about the woman and the children, if only they were looked after — oh, it’s the woman’s own fault, one could say, and it would be true, but I fear that her misfortune will be greater than her guilt. I knew from the outset that her character is a ruined character, but I had hopes of her finding her feet and now, precisely when I don’t see her any more and think about the things I saw in her, I increasingly come to realize that
she was already too far gone to find her feet.
And that just makes my feelings of pity even greater, and it’s a melancholy feeling because it isn’t in my power to do anything about it. Theo, when I see some poor woman on the heath with a child in her arms or at her breast my eyes become moist. I see her in them; her weakness and slovenliness, too, only serve to intensify the likeness. I know that she isn’t good, that I have every right to do what I’m doing, that to stay with her there WASN’T POSSIBLE, that bringing her with me really wasn’t possible either, that what I did was even sensible, wise, what you will, but that doesn’t alter the fact that it goes right through me when I see some poor little creature, feverish and miserable, and that then my heart melts. How much sadness there is in life. Well, one may not become melancholy, one must look elsewhere, and to work is the right thing, only there are moments when one only finds peace in the realization: misfortune won’t spare me either. Adieu, write soon, and believe me
Ever yours,
Vincent
390 | Hoogeveen, on or about Wednesday, 26 September 1883 | To Theo van Gogh (D)
Dear brother,
Because I have a need to speak frankly, I can’t hide from you that I’m overcome by a feeling of great anxiety, dejection, a je ne sais quoi of discouragement and even despair, too much to express. And that if I can find no consolation for it, it might all too easily overwhelm me unbearably.
It really bothers me that I have so little success with people in general, I’m very concerned about this, and all the more so because rising above it and getting on with the work is at stake here. The fate of the woman, moreover, the fate of my sweet, poor little lad and the other child, cut me to the quick. I’d still like to help and I can’t.
I’m at a point where I need credit, trust and some warmth, and you see there’s no trust in me. You’re an exception to this, but precisely because everything falls on you it makes it even more apparent how dismal everything is in my case.
And if I look at my things, they’re too poor, too inadequate, too much exhausted. We’re having gloomy, rainy days here, and when I come into the corner of the attic where I’ve installed myself it’s all remarkably melancholy there — with the light from one single glass roof tile that falls on an empty painting box, on a bundle of brushes with few decent bristles remaining, well it’s so curiously melancholy that luckily it also has a funny enough side not to weep over it but to regard it more cheerfully. But even so, it’s in a very strange relationship to my plans — in a very strange relationship to the seriousness of the work, and — this is where the laughing stops.
What else can I do? — last year ended with an even bigger deficit than I told you, for I’ve already paid off more than I mentioned to you, including Rappard, and still however owe Rappard above all, and that worries me the most because he’s a friend, and although at this moment I’ve paid off everything that was in the slightest bit urgent I’m faced with the problem that I still have to pay for other things before the paint that I would otherwise buy, or rather I don’t dare take it on credit, which would again cause me a considerable bill in time. You know yourself how we weren’t exactly in the mood to be able to say more during your visit, but I tell you now that The Hague has been too much for me, and I had already put off and put off the separation for one particular specific reason, even though the deficit was inevitable if I persisted.
This was that, rather than separating, I would have risked one more attempt by marrying her and going to live with her in the country, although not without telling you how things stood. But I believed one thing, that this was the right course, even despite the temporary financial drawbacks, and that not only could it have been her salvation but would also have put an end to great inner struggle for me, which has now, unhappily, doubled for me. And I would rather have seen it through to the bitter end.
If either Pa or you had been able to feel it thus, perhaps — I don’t say that I would have been happier or unhappier as a result, and if the roles had been reversed, you in my place, I in yours, I don’t know whether I would have been able to act other than as you did — but perhaps, I say, she would have been saved because of it. I therefore regard it as something where the decision depended not on you two, but on myself (except that I can’t give myself my father’s consent to marry, this single point is beyond me, and in response to a determined question Pa answered me in generalities in which, however, there was no hint of consent), and so I decided, because I already had debts and the future was dark. But this decision is not yet a renewal, and doesn’t take away the exhaustion that a year of too many cares brings in its train, while I’m also left with a wounded heart and a feeling of emptiness and disappointment and melancholy — not so easy to cure. I may be here now, and may almost have covered the financial deficit, and in a while it could be entirely covered, and nature is wonderful here and exceeds my expectations. Yet I’m far from being comfortably settled again and getting on, because the little glimpse of my attic I’m giving you is drawn from life.
If I’d known all these things in advance, I would have moved here with the woman last year when she came out of hospital, then there would have been no deficit and then we wouldn’t be separated now, for she’s less guilty of her wrongdoing than her family, who have intrigued very meanly, ostensibly for her but fundamentally against her. Meanwhile, I’ve sometimes wondered, for instance, whether the mother wasn’t also being backed in turn by a priest, because too much has been done on their part to influence the woman for me to explain. All the more so because I’ve still heard nothing from her, although before I left I told her that I would give the carpenter next door my address as soon as I knew it myself; I sent it to him and asked him to tell her, and I’ve still heard nothing, except just from this carpenter that she’s collected all her things (more than she brought with her, after all).
Now you understand that I’m concerned about her fate, although I believe that if she were simply in need she’d have written, but now there must be something wrong behind it. You will understand my feeling about it, I rather fear that the family is saying to her: he’ll surely write and then . . . we’ll have him under our thumb — in short they’re presuming on my weakness and I am not going to walk into that trap. And today I’m writing not to her but to the carpenter to tell him that he must make sure she knows my address, but I will not write to her first, and if she writes will see how things actually stand. When I would definitely try to help is if her family were to cast her off entirely, and if it’s the case that her family is helping her, I understand well enough that she’s too much in agreement with them, and has been for a long time, so that I may not or cannot have anything more to do with it. Or, I’ve thought, if there’s a priest behind it, she’s being helped but only on condition that she has nothing more to do with me, and that’s the reason for her silence.
But I’ll say that I haven’t yet got so far that I can resign myself to the idea of separation, at present I’m still very, very concerned about her fate, precisely because she’s leaving me in the dark about it.
And over and above all this, I’ve been overwhelmed these past few days by sombre feelings about the future, and also about the miserable state of my equipment as far as painting materials are concerned, the impossibility of doing the most essential, most useful things as they really should be done.
Since I can already see straightaway that there’s so much beauty here, if I could afford it I would send for my things that are still there in The Hague, and I would either fit up this same attic here as a studio (by letting a bit more light in) or look for another place. And then I’d like to renew and replenish all my equipment. I wish that for once I could do this really thoroughly, and if I could find someone who would trust me that far, my greatest concerns would be allayed. But either everything falls on you or I find no one who trusts me, this is the circle in which my thoughts revolve, and I see no way out.
A painter who has no means of his own can’t get by with
out sometimes rather large credit with people, credit that not only the profession of painter requires, but that the professions of cobbler, carpenter, smith would equally require, I believe no more nor less, if they had to set themselves up or re-establish themselves somewhere.
It’s above all in this rainy weather, of which we have months ahead of us, that my hands are really tied. And then, what else can I do? — sometimes my thoughts take on a form — I’ve worked and economized and still not been able to avoid debt, I’ve been faithful to the woman and yet lapsed into disloyalty, I’ve abhorred intrigues and yet I have virtually no credit or possessions. I don’t regard your trust in me lightly, on the contrary, but I rather wonder whether I shouldn’t say to you, forget about me for we won’t get there — it’s too much for one, and there’s no chance of getting any relief from another quarter — is this not proof enough that we should give up?
Oh, old chap, I’ve become so melancholy — I’m in magnificent countryside, I have a desire, indeed an absolute need to work — at the same time I’m absolutely at a loss as to how we’re going to get on top of it, when I think that my things are in the most miserable state and I’m here without a studio or anything, and will be embarrassed everywhere until I can improve matters. The models — they refuse to pose if there are bystanders around, and this is the greatest difficulty that makes a studio desirable. I have the same feeling now as I did when I set up the studio in The Hague — ‘if I don’t do it, I’ll certainly not be able to manage’. And even now, given The Hague, I don’t regret that I did as I did in those circumstances, only I wish I had come here 1½ years earlier and set up a studio here instead of there.
Pa wrote to me saying that he wanted to help me, but I didn’t let him know anything about my worries, and I hope that you won’t say anything to Pa on this subject either. Pa has his own worries, and would only have even more worries were he to find out that things aren’t going well. So I merely wrote to Pa that everything turned out much better than I expected, which is also perfectly true as far as nature is concerned. As long as the weather was good I wasn’t aware of things because I saw so much that was beautiful, but now that it’s been pouring with rain incessantly for several days I increasingly see how I’m actually stuck here, and I’m embarrassed. What’s to be done? Will things worsen or improve with time? I don’t know, but I feel really miserable and can’t shake it off.
Ever Yours Page 52