The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

by Vincent Van Gogh

  Unable for a moment to forget his feelings for Kee Vos and loving her still ’for a thousand reasons’, Van Gogh forced his way unannounced into her father’s house in Amsterdam, where she was living at the time. His embarrassing account of that vain attempt to win Kee over makes it clear how overwrought he had meanwhile become. The affair also spelled the end of his religious faith. The clerical world, personified both by his own father and by Kee’s father, the Reverend Mr Strieker, came in for some scathing remarks in his letters.

  164 [D]

  [c. 21 December 1881]

  Sometimes, I’m afraid, you cast a book aside because it is too realistic. Have pity on, and patience with, this letter, and in any case read it through, even though you may think it a bit much.

  My dear Theo,

  As I wrote to you from The Hague, I still have one or two things to discuss with you now that I am back here again. It is not without emotion that I think back on my short trip to The Hague. When I arrived at M[auve]’s, my heart was beating quite hard, because I was thinking to myself, is he going to try to fob me off with fair words too or am I going to find something different here?

  And well, what I found was that in all sorts of practical and friendly ways he helped and encouraged me. Mind you, not by approving of what I did or said all the time, on the contrary. But if he says to me, ’This or that is no good,’ he immediately adds, ’but just try it this way or that,’ which is a different matter altogether from criticizing for the sake of criticizing. If somebody says, ’You have this or that illness,’ that’s not a great deal of help, but if he says, ’Do this or that and you will get better,’ and his advice is reliable, then you see, he has told you the truth, and, and, it’s a help as well.

  Anyway, I came away from him with some painted studies and a few watercolours. They are not masterpieces, of course, yet I really believe that there is some soundness and truth in them, more at any rate than what I’ve done up to now. And so I reckon that I am now at the beginning of the beginning of doing something serious. And because I can now call on a couple of technical resources, that is to say, paint and brush, everything seems fresh again, as it were.

  But — now we have to put it all into practice. And so the first thing I must do is find a room large enough for me to keep at a proper distance.

  As soon as he saw my studies Mauve told me, ’You are sitting too close to your model.’ In many cases that means it’s virtually impossible to achieve the proper proportions, and so that is definitely one of the first things I must attend to. I simply must find a large place to rent somewhere, be it a room or a shed. And it won’t be all that terribly expensive. It costs 30 guilders a year to rent a workman’s cottage in these parts, so I reckon that a room twice as large as one in a workman’s cottage would come to, say, 60 guilders. And that is feasible.

  I have already seen a shed, but it may have too many drawbacks, especially in wintertime. But I could work there, at least when the weather is a bit milder. And then there are models to be found here in Brabant, I think, and not just in Etten but in other villages too, should objections be raised here.

  However, though I am very fond of Brabant I still have a feeling for figures other than the Brabant peasant type. Thus I still think Scheveningen is beautiful beyond words. But I happen to be here, and most probably it works out more cheaply here. In any case, I have promised M. to do my best to find a good studio, and besides, I must start using better paint and better paper now.

  For studies and sketches, though, the Ingres paper is excellent. And it works out much cheaper to make my own sketchbooks in various sizes from that than to buy the sketchbooks ready-made.

  I still have a small supply of Ingres paper, but if you could include some more of the same kind when you send those studies back to me, I should be greatly obliged to you. Not snow-white, but rather the colour of unbleached linen, no cold tones. Theo, what a great thing tone & colour are. And those who fail to learn to have feelings for them will remain far removed from real life. M. has taught me to see so many things that I used not to see and one day I shall try to tell you what he has told me, as there may well be one or two things you do not see properly either. Anyway, I hope we’ll have a good discussion about artistic matters some day.

  And you cannot imagine the feeling of liberation I am beginning to have when I remember the things M. has told me about earning money. Just think of how I have been muddling along for years, always in a kind of fausse position.1 And now there is a glimmering of real light.

  I wish you could see the two watercolours I have brought back with me, for you would realize that they are watercolours just like any other watercolours. They may still be full of imperfections, que soit,2 I am the first to say that I am still very dissatisfied with them, and yet they are quite different from what I have done before and look fresher and brighter. That doesn’t alter the fact, however, that they must get fresher and brighter still, but one can’t do everything one wants just like that. It will come little by little.

  However, I need those two drawings I did, for I must be able to compare them with the ones I am going to do here, in order to keep the standard at least up to what I did at M.’s. Now although M. tells me that if I muddle along here for another few months and then go back to him, say in March, I shall be producing saleable drawings on a regular basis, I am still passing through a fairly difficult period right now. The cost of model, studio, drawing & painting materials keeps going up and I’m not earning any money yet.

  To be sure, Father has said that I needn’t worry about any unavoidable expenses, and he is pleased with what M. himself has told him and also with the studies and drawings I brought back. But I still think it is quite dreadful that Father should be out of pocket as a result. Of course, we hope it will turn out all right later on, but still, it is a load on my mind. For since I have been here Father has made really nothing at all out of me, and more than once, for instance, he has bought me a coat or a pair of trousers that I would really rather not have had, although I needed them, but Father should not have to be out of pocket because of that. The more so as the coat or trousers in question don’t fit and are of little or no use. Well, here is yet another petite misère de la vie humaine.3

  Besides, as I told you earlier, I loathe not being completely independent. For though Father doesn’t expect me to account literally for every cent, he always knows exactly how much I spend and on what. And though as far as I am concerned I have no secrets, I still don’t like showing my hand to people. As far as I am concerned even my secrets are not secrets to those with whom I am in sympathy. But Father is not someone for whom I can feel what I feel for, say, you or Mauve. I really do love Father and Mother, but it is quite a different feeling from the one I have for you or M. Father can’t feel for or sympathize with me, and I can’t settle into Father and Mother’s system, it is too stifling and would suffocate me.

  Whenever I tell Father anything, it goes in one ear and out of the other, and that certainly applies no less to Mother, and similarly I find Father and Mother’s sermons and ideas about God, people, morality and virtue a lot of stuff and nonsense. I too read the Bible occasionally, just as I sometimes read Michelet or Balzac or Eliot, but I see quite different things in the Bible from what Father does, and what Father in his little academic way gleans from it I cannot find in it at all.

  Now that the Rev. Mr ten Kate has translated Goethe’s Faust, Father and Mother have read it, for since a clergyman has translated it, it cannot be all that immoral (???qu’est ce que ça?4). But they see it as no more than the disastrous consequence of an indelicate love.

  And they certainly understand the Bible no better. Take Mauve, for example. When he reads something profound, he doesn’t immediately come out with: that man means this or that. For poetry is so deep and intangible5 that one cannot define it systematically. But Mauve has a keen sensibility and, you see, I find that sensibility worth a great deal more than definitions and criticisms. And when I read,
and actually I don’t read all that much and then only a few writers, men whom I have discovered by accident, then I do so because they look at things more broadly and generously and with more love than I do and are acquainted better with reality, and because I can learn from them. But I really don’t much care for all that twaddle about good and evil, morality and immorality. For to be sure, I find it impossible always to tell what is good and what is bad, what is moral and what is immoral.

  Morality or immorality brings me back willy-nilly to K. V. Ah! I wrote to you at the time that it was beginning to seem less and less like eating strawberries in the spring. Well, that is indeed the case.

  Forgive me if I repeat myself, but I don’t know if I’ve already written to you exactly what happened to me in Amsterdam. I went there thinking, perhaps the no, never, ever will thaw, the weather is so mild.

  And so one fine evening I trudged along the Keizersgracht looking for the house, and indeed I found it. And naturally I rang the doorbell and was told that the family were still at dinner. But then I was told to come in all the same. And all of them were there, including Jan and that very learned professor — except for Kee. And there was a plate in front of each person, but no extra plate. This small detail struck me. They had wanted to make me think that Kee wasn’t there and had taken away her plate, but I knew that she was there, and I thought it all a bit of a farce or charade.

  After a while I asked (after the usual small talk and greetings), ’But where is Kee?’

  Then J. P. S. repeated my question to his wife, ’Mother, where is Kee?’

  And Mother, the wife, said, ’Kee is out’

  So for the moment I inquired no further, but chatted with the professor about the exhibition at Arti which he had just seen. Well, then the professor disappeared and little Jan disappeared and J. P. S. and his spouse and yours truly remained alone and squared up to each other.

  J. P. S. took the floor, as clergyman and father, and said that he had been on the point of sending yours truly a letter and that he would read that letter out.

  First, however, interrupting the Rev. or Very Rev. gentleman, I asked again, ’Where is Kee?’ (For I knew she was in town.)

  Then J. P. S. said, ’Kee left the house the moment she heard you were here.’ Now I know a few things about her and I must make clear to you that I did not know then nor do I know now with any certainty whether her coldness and rudeness are a good or a bad sign. This much I do know, that I have never seen her so apparently or actually cold and stern and rude to anyone else but me. So, staying perfectly calm, I did not say much.

  ’Let me hear the letter then,’ I said, ’or not, I don’t much care either way.’

  Then came the epistle. The document was Very Reverend and Most Learned and so did not really amount to anything, but it did seem to say that I was requested to cease my correspondence and advised to make energetic efforts to put the matter out of my mind. Finally the reading came to an end. I felt just as if I had been listening to the clergyman, after his voice had been doing a sing-song, saying amen in church. It left me as cold as any ordinary sermon.

  And then I began and said as calmly and civilly as I could, well, yes, I had heard this kind of argument very often before, but what now? - et après ça?6 J. P. S. looked up then ... indeed, he seemed faintly alarmed that I was not completely convinced that the utmost limit of the human capacity to think and feel had been reached. According to him, no ’et après ça’ was possible any longer.

  And so we continued, and every so often Aunt M. would add a peculiarly Jesuitical word, and I got a bit steamed up and for once I did not pull my punches. And J. P. S. did not pull his punches either, going as far as a clergyman could. And although he did not exactly say ’God damn you’, anyone other than a clergyman in J. P. S.’s mood would have expressed himself thus.

  But you know that I love both Father and J. P. S. in my way, despite really detesting their system, and I shifted my ground a bit, and gave and took a little, so that at the end of the evening they told me I could stay for the night if I wished.

  Then I said, ’Thank you very much, but if Kee walks out of the house as soon as I come calling, I don’t think this is the right moment to spend the night here. I’ll go to my lodgings.’

  And then they asked, ’Where are you staying?’

  I said, ? don’t know yet,’ and then Uncle & Aunt insisted on taking me themselves to a good cheap hotel.

  And my goodness, those two old people went with me through the cold, foggy, muddy streets and they did indeed show me a very good and very cheap hotel. I absolutely insisted on their not coming and they absolutely insisted on showing me. And, you see, I found something very human in that and it calmed me down a bit.

  I stayed in Amsterdam another two days and had another talk with J. P. S., but I didn’t see Kee, who spirited herself away every time. And I said that they ought to know that though they wanted me to consider the matter over and done with, I for my part was unable to do so. And to that they continually and steadily replied that I would learn to understand things better in time.

  I saw the professor, too, again a few times, and I have to say he improves upon acquaintance, but, but, but, what else can I say about the gentleman? I told him I wished he might fall in love one day. There you are. Can professors fall in love? Do clergymen know what love is?

  I read Michelet’s La femme, la religion et le prêtre the other day 7 Books like that are filled with reality, but what is more real than reality itself and where is there more life than in life itself? And we who are doing our best to live, if only we lived a great deal more!

  Time hung heavily on my hands those three days in Amsterdam. I felt thoroughly miserable and found all that grudging kindness of Uncle’s and Aunt’s and’ all those discussions very hard to take. Until in the end I began to find myself hard to take as well and said to myself, ’You don’t want to get melancholy again, do you?’ And then I said to myself, ’Don’t let yourself be browbeaten.’

  And so it was that on a Sunday morning I went to see J. P. S. for the last time, and said, ’Look here, dear Uncle, if Kee V. were an angel, then she would be too exalted for me and I don’t think I could stay in love with an angel. If she were a devil, I shouldn’t want to have anything to do with her. In the present case I see in her a real woman, with feminine passions and whims and I love her very much indeed and that is a fact and I’m glad of it. As long as she doesn’t become an angel or a devil, then the present case is not over.’

  And J. P. S. couldn’t add much to that and even said something about feminine passions, I don’t quite know what he said, and then J. P. S. went off to church. No wonder one grows hardened there and turns to stone, as I know from my own experience.

  And so, as far as the person in question, your brother, is concerned, he refused to allow himself to be browbeaten. But that didn’t alter the fact that he had a browbeaten feeling, as if he had been standing too long against a cold, hard, whitewashed church wall.

  And yes, if I may say so, my dear fellow, it is a little risky to remain a realist, but Theo, Theo, you are a realist yourself after all, well, please put up with my realism! I told you that as far as I am concerned even my secrets are no secrets, well, I am not taking that back, think of me what you will, and whether or not you approve of what I did does not really affect the issue.

  I continue — from Amsterdam I went to Haarlem and spent a very enjoyable time with our dear little sister Willemien and went for a walk with her and in the evening I left for The Hague and ended up at M.’s at about seven o’clock.

  And I said, ’Look here, M., you were supposed to come to Etten to try to initiate me, more or less, into the mysteries of the palette. But it occurred to me that that would take more than just a few days, so I have come to you, and if you agree I shall stay here for about four to six weeks, or for as long or as short a time as you like, and then we shall see what is to be done, It’s a bit impertinent of me to ask so much of you, but, well, j
’ai l’épée dans les reins.’8

  Anyway, then M. said, ’Have you brought anything with you?’

  ’Certainly, here are a few studies,’ and then he said many, far too many, kind things about them, but he also made a few, far too few, criticisms. Well, the next day we set up a still life and he started by saying, ’This is how you must hold your palette.’ And since then I have done a few painted studies and then later two watercolours.

  So that is the summary of the work, but working with one’s hands and head is not the whole of life.

  I still felt chilled to the marrow, that is, to the marrow of my soul, by the above-mentioned imaginary or non-imaginary church wall. And I said to myself, you don’t want to let that fatal feeling browbeat you. Then I thought to myself, I should like to be with a woman for a change, I cannot live without love, without a woman. I wouldn’t give two cents for life if there were not something infinite, something deep, something real.

  But, said I to myself then, you said ’she and no other’ and now you want to go to another woman? But that’s unreasonable, isn’t it, that’s illogical, isn’t it?

  And my answer to that was: who is the master, logic or I, does logic exist for me or do I exist for logic, and is there no reason or sense in my unreasonableness or my lack of sense? And whether I do right or wrong, I have no choice, that damned wall is too cold for me, I need a woman, I cannot, will not, may not, live without love. I am only a man and a man with passions, I must have a woman, otherwise I shall freeze or turn to stone or, in short, I shall have let things browbeat me.

  I had in the circumstances, however, fought a great battle with myself and in that battle some of the things I believe concerning one’s constitution and hygiene, that I nave come to know more or less through bitter experience, gained the upper hand. One cannot forgo a woman for too long with impunity. And I do not believe that what some call God and others the supreme being and others nature, is unreasonable and pitiless, in short I came to the conclusion: I want to see whether I can find a woman.