Leaving Van Gogh

by Carol Wallace

  “And is that all?”

  There was a pause. “No. At the asylum, he once tried to drink lamp oil. And ate paint. Dr. Peyron, the doctor at St.-Rémy, mentioned these attempts in his letters. He also mentioned it when Vincent stopped talking of suicide. As if that were cause for hope.” I had not heard this note of bitterness before in Theo’s conversation, but it did seem justified.

  The path turned a corner, wrapping now around what must be the chapel proper, a diminutive pedimented temple set upon a high terrace. There were still no visible allusions to the Christian faith or to the family that had once sat on France’s throne, just the expanse of smooth white marble. The effect was cold and dismal. “And Dr. Peyron, did he share his diagnosis with you?”

  “Yes,” Theo answered. “He thought Vincent’s attacks were caused by epilepsy. So did Dr. Rey, the young doctor who cared for him at Arles. Rey was not fully qualified, of course. What do you think, Doctor?”

  I paused. This was such important information Theo had just given me—information I should have had earlier. My mind was whirling as I tried to assimilate it. I had spent the week evaluating tentative diagnoses and combinations of diagnoses. I had looked through old notebooks, searching out symptoms that matched Vincent’s behavior. Mania would explain his furious energy, yet my last encounter with him, as he sat at Ravoux’s over an empty coffee cup, seemed to suggest melancholy. And now there were these attacks, whether or not they were epileptic, to take into account.

  In a way, the puzzle was exciting. What doctor would not be intrigued by such a patient? Could it be that Vincent’s illness was a new one? Perhaps the highly strained nervous system of the artist could not tolerate the speed and stimulation of the current age. Possibly his “spells” were a kind of accumulated nerve strain, released in a form of convulsion. This might be the new melancholy of the coming twentieth century. Gachet’s syndrome, they would name it …

  I recalled myself to the present. “I had better describe more fully what happened in Auvers last week.” I recounted Vincent’s alarming behavior with me and with Paul. “So I must tell you that I am concerned about these attacks. Has he ever tried to harm anyone besides himself?”

  Theo studied the point of the umbrella, and dug it so deep into the gravel that he reached the damp black dirt beneath it. Finally he sighed and spoke. “Yes. From what I understand. Vincent was out painting one day—they used to let him leave the asylum with an orderly—and he attacked the man. He didn’t hurt him, and there were no hard feelings afterward. The fellow readily forgave Vincent. Dr. Peyron said they were all quite fond of him there.”

  “Your brother … your brother attacked someone physically?” I repeated. “While he was having one of these spells? Monsieur van Gogh, you did not tell me this! That he has turned against people and injured them?”

  “The orderly wasn’t injured,” Theo began to protest.

  “And how often does he have these violent spells, or episodes, or whatever you want to call them? Do they follow a pattern?”

  “They seem to arrive every few months. I don’t know what brings them on. He had his last attack in April.”

  It was now early July. “Is Vincent aware of this periodic quality?”

  “Yes,” Theo answered. He drew a breath and went on. “He wanted to come north and be settled shortly after the last episode, so that he did not fall ill on the voyage.”

  It took me a moment to grasp the significance of this statement. Our feet struck the gravel in unison, once, twice, three times. I found myself listening to their steady pace rather than focusing on what Theo had just told me. We sounded as if we were old friends, pacing along as one. But it was Theo and Vincent who were in unison. Vincent wanted to leave the asylum and be settled before he had another attack, and Theo made this possible. The perfect brother, smoothing the way for his ailing sibling.

  “Do I understand you?” I asked, stopping abruptly. Theo, surprised, stumbled a little bit and I confess I was not sorry. “Is it correct that, when you approached me, you thought that Vincent was likely to have another attack? And you did not warn me?”

  That fair skin flushed. “Yes, Doctor. I must apologize. I should perhaps have—”

  I could not let him finish. The words were out of my mouth in a burst: “You most certainly should have warned me!” I shook his arm free and flung away from him, perhaps to allow space for my anger to blossom between us. “Leaving aside my safety, and the safety of my family, how could you expect me to treat your brother without telling me everything about him?” I felt myself standing taller, looming over Theo. “I cannot be expected to work miracles in the dark, you know! How could I help him without knowing this? And to think—I allowed him to paint Marguerite! Monsieur van Gogh, I am astonished! What if he had had a ‘spell’ in my daughter’s presence? You have been reckless with our safety!”

  Theo stood looking at me, hands folded on his umbrella handle. He had no answer. I walked away two steps, then turned on my heel, pivoting on the gravel and coming back to stand facing him. “He is practically living with my family!” I reached forward with my foot and kicked the umbrella aside, watching with satisfaction as Theo staggered, then recovered.

  “What did you think you were doing? Finding him a nursemaid? Your brother is profoundly ill. He has attempted to kill himself. He has threatened my son. The last time I saw him, he was deeply despondent. For the final time: I cannot do anything for him if I do not have all of the details!”

  I stalked away from him, to where the path turned. I rounded the corner, out of Theo’s sight, and halted, breathing hard. Ahead of me, an elderly man tottered on the arm of a much younger man, while a well-dressed lady spoke in his ear. They were too near me to ignore. I nodded to the group and turned around, just another old gentleman walking in a damp Paris park. Seething with rage. I drew a deep breath, trying to settle my spirits.

  Theo was standing exactly where I had left him, looking forlorn. I did not hurry as I returned to him.

  “Do you think we are safe around him? What will happen if the attack—which you apparently anticipate—occurs?”

  “But he is better with you, Doctor,” Theo said, astonished. “Why are you so angry?”

  “Because you did not tell me everything! Your mad brother is due to have another violent fit any moment. Did you not think it was necessary to warn me of this?”

  “I did not dream that I needed to, Doctor,” he explained. “Vincent seemed so happy, so productive, and I thought—I suppose he thought so as well—that the attacks came because he was in the asylum. Everything seemed to be going so well. You have no call to be so fierce,” he added, with a kind of dignified reproof. “You were confident that he would continue to improve. We thought the worst was over. Surely you can see that.”

  It is a deeply human impulse, the urge to hope. I had known it myself again and again, especially during poor Blanche’s illness. After a day without fever or an unbroken night’s sleep, I could not help believing she would get well. Of course Theo had felt the same way about Vincent. Theo must comprehend the gravity of the situation, however. “I understand,” I told him stiffly. “I apologize. Yet you should have told me about the rhythm of the attacks.”

  Now it was his turn to sigh. “Yes, Doctor, I should have. But you see, I was so afraid that you would not be willing to take him on. If I had said to you, here is my brother, he is subject to attacks when he is violent and tries to harm himself, we hope he will be steadier away from the asylum, but we cannot be certain, will you take care of him—” He looked at me. “You see my point.”

  “I do,” I said. “Nevertheless, you have seen your brother in the throes of a spell. You have described to me how he was raving, and restrained. Yet you sent him to me as if he were a mild little lamb! I must tell you, Monsieur van Gogh, that I wonder if your brother does not still belong in an asylum.”

  A raindrop hit my cheek, and another one my hand. Theo looked to the sky and held out his palm in the g
esture that said, “Is it raining?” He put up his umbrella.

  “Let us hope the trees will shelter us,” he said. “Or perhaps we can take cover in the chapel, grim though it is.”

  We hastened to the shelter of a pair of plane trees and stood side by side, watching the raindrops. My last words echoed in my mind. It was impossible that Theo should not still be hearing them: “in an asylum … in an asylum …” It was not a heavy rain, rather a spattering that blew across the park in front of us. Even the gravel around us stayed pale as the tiny pebbles beyond the trees’ shelter darkened slightly. We were very close together, shoulders touching beneath the double canopy of the leaves and the black silk dome of Theo’s umbrella. We did not look at each other but gazed outward at the rain while the drops tapped fitfully above our heads.

  “I can understand why you would have kept some of this information from me,” I said into our silence. “But you may have made a grave mistake. You hope your brother is better, and so do I, but I must review the options for treatment. The situation is much more complicated than I understood.” I fell silent for a moment, wondering if there were a way to administer water therapy to Vincent without the vast tubs and hoses of a madhouse. I had seen cold baths calm patients in the asylums, but I had not tried to use them since.

  “I have great respect for your brother, Monsieur van Gogh,” I resumed. “I admire him, of course: I do believe he is a genius. But I also honor his courage and his modesty and his devotion to his art, and his love of mankind. He wants so keenly to be useful, and he hopes so little for himself.”

  “Yes,” Theo said. I felt him take a deep breath. “You have understood him.”

  “I understand the lucid man,” I told him. “I do not understand …”

  “The madman?” Theo proposed in a very low voice. “When he is making sense, Doctor, no one is more convincing. Yet there are other times when, although he seems to be clear-minded, his ideas are utterly impractical. To give an example, after the first attack in Arles, he insisted he should join the Foreign Legion.”

  I could not suppress an undignified snort of amusement. Theo smiled wryly. “Yes, I know, it is laughable. Can you imagine Vincent with a rifle and a kepi, marching across the desert? Yet he was in earnest, and it was not entirely the daydream of a naïf.”

  I looked out at the sky beyond the tree, which seemed to be somewhat lighter. “I think the rain may have stopped,” I said, stepping forward from our shelter. Theo followed, collapsing the umbrella as he confirmed that we no longer needed it. We resumed our slow pacing around the vast marble monument to the Bourbons.

  “Here is my dilemma,” I suddenly addressed him. “First, I am not Vincent’s doctor, as you know. Dr. Mazery, who has not met Vincent, has authority over him in Auvers. He is a good man, but limited in his experience of mental maladies. Second, I cannot be sure of a diagnosis. There is too much that I do not know. I have no records, no useful observations of your brother’s vagaries. This makes it difficult for me to say conclusively what ails him. Finally, I am deeply concerned. I fear that he could be a danger to those around him. Or a danger to himself.”

  I drew a breath to continue, but Theo interrupted me. Ignoring my last statement, he said, “There are his letters. Vincent’s letters to me. The letters in which he proposes he become a legionnaire were very alarming. He had just had an attack, quite a long one. He was terribly discouraged. He was not mad, and yet the logic is so mysterious.” His hand tightened on my elbow. “I know you are busy, Doctor. I know that your other patients and your family take up your time. But if you were inclined, you could go up to Cité Pigalle. Jo could show you the letters. I can give you a note for her—”

  He was pleading, so I stopped him. “Monsieur van Gogh, please. Of course I will go to call on Madame van Gogh. As it happens, I can go now, if you think that would be convenient for her.” I went on, thinking aloud. “But do you think … Surely Monsieur Vincent wrote them for your eyes. I hesitate to intrude—”

  “No,” he broke in, dismissing my scruples. “If you believe they may be helpful, Doctor, you should read them. Vincent has just spent over a year in an asylum where he was watched all the time. There is no privacy for lunatics.” The term sounded awkward coming from him, old-fashioned and scornful. A thought flickered through my mind: what if Theo were not entirely, selflessly loyal? The man was only human, after all. What could be more natural than some resentment of the burdens his brother imposed on him?

  He stood before me now, framed by the arch of one of those marble tombs. “It may help,” he said quietly, nearly whispering. “We must do anything that may help Vincent, anything we can.”

  I was moved. I put my arm across his shoulder, turning him away from the grim symbols behind him. I began to walk him toward the street. It must have been past the time for him to open the gallery. “I will go. I will take a note to Madame van Gogh from you, and I will go to your apartment and read some of Vincent’s letters. They may help me to know what ails him. And then we will see.”

  I did not promise a cure because I could not, but Theo seemed content with this meager assurance. He scribbled a note to his wife on a slip of paper from his pocket book. I was relieved to see that his handwriting was quite firm.

  Ten

  MADAME VAN GOGH may have been surprised to see me on her doorstep, but she expressed only pleasure. The apartment was very appealing, bright and clean and cheerful, but the air of orderly Dutch housekeeping made Vincent’s pictures look especially remarkable. I might even say they appeared ferocious. My hostess saw my eyes rest on a strange, dark canvas of a group of peasants in a shadowy hut, sitting around a table. A platter of potatoes lay on the table, and the oldest woman in the picture was pouring coffee. Her hands were twisted with arthritis. The colors were mostly browns and umbers, as if it had been painted with earth. I could barely recognize it as Vincent’s, though in places I could see his characteristic heavy application of paint. “That was one of Vincent’s first ambitious pictures,” Jo told me. “He painted it in Holland, before he came here to live with Theo. Let me show you my favorite, the almond blossoms he sent after the baby was born.”

  She led me into the little alcove where the baby’s crib was set underneath what I think might be the loveliest picture Vincent ever painted. In format it was like the painting of chestnut blossoms that I still possess, but the colors were lighter and the brushwork more serene. Theo had described it as “tender,” which was right. The pink and white blossoms sprayed across a sky of an exquisite blue. “Vincent can be very difficult,” his sister-in-law said, “but this is part of him, too. He can be so gentle and sweet.” She guided me into the dining room and stood by a little cabinet beneath the window. “Theo’s note says you would like to read some of Vincent’s letters. Will that help you? Can you help him, I mean?” She opened a drawer and lifted out a loose sheaf of envelopes and folded pages. Her frank, open face seemed very hopeful.

  “Madame, I do not know,” I confessed, shaking my head. “Like you, I want very much to do so. I was explaining to Monsieur van Gogh that mental maladies are difficult to diagnose, especially since I do not know Monsieur Vincent very well. Your husband thought that these letters might help.”

  “Well, perhaps they may,” she said, shrugging. “Will you sit—at the table here, perhaps? Would you be comfortable there? You could lay the letters out, and I will bring you some coffee.”

  “Yes, of course, thank you,” I said, feeling somewhat helpless. Theo’s description of his wife’s quarrel with Vincent seemed less puzzling now that I saw her as mistress of her own home, with the effortless authority of the virtuous housewife.

  Settled at the polished table, with a gleaming blue and white coffeepot and a platter of bread and cheese to go with the coffee, I could not help thinking of Theo. This home, so cheerful and serene, seemed like an embodiment of all that was wholesome. Yet the man of the house was suffering from a malady that was born in shame. Many of the patients at both Bicêt
re and the Salpêtrière were syphilitic, so I was all too familiar with its outward signs. They were astoundingly varied: tumors and joint pains, gastric troubles and deafness, jaundice and paralysis could all be caused by syphilis. The timetable for the development of the illness was also variable. Every doctor knew that it began with a sore on the patient’s genitals, and that the secondary infection, which occurred a few months later, could include rashes, fevers, and loss of hair. Then came a period of calm, which might last years, or even decades. Many patients considered themselves cured at this point. I could not believe Theo van Gogh would have married Johanna knowing that he was syphilitic, for fear of passing along the disease. But he might have thought the disease had been vanquished. Syphilis and consumption were the two secret scourges—familiar to everyone but never mentioned, advancing and retreating, deadly but mysterious. I felt a moment of deep discouragement. I had been powerless to save my wife from consumption. What made me think that I could help the Van Gogh brothers?

  Yet I must make an effort. They were all counting on me. I turned my attention to the letters and was quickly absorbed. I became oblivious to the life of the apartment occurring around me. A maid was dusting in the sitting room. Madame van Gogh went out, with the baby in a carriage, and came back with a bunch of flowers. A delivery from the fishmonger was received angrily by the maid—the wrong fish, not enough fish, a bad fish.

  The very first letter I read made me question what I was doing, for it was dated from Auvers. In the third paragraph Vincent described meeting me: “I have seen Dr. Gachet, who gives me the impression of being quite eccentric, though his medical experience must maintain his equilibrium while he struggles with the nervous troubles that he clearly suffers from as badly as I do.” I scanned the rest of the letter quickly, stung by Vincent’s assessment. On what basis could he make such a judgment? I thought back to what I had said and done on that occasion; surely nothing outside the ordinary? I found it difficult to concentrate, as my memory of our first encounter kept coming between me and the page covered with Vincent’s tidy script.